Glenn Beck promo on WTVN

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!

Saturday, January 23, 2010 11:07
Carolyn Lanham


This Morning [610] WTVN radio carried a promo of  Glenn Beck - a soundbite - here is what he promoted in his own words:
 
"You want to add anything to the Constitution, then AMEND the Constitution."
Attention Glenn Beck- You are a traitor!!! There is nothing wrong with our Constitution. The only way to amend it is to have a constitutional convention, which is what Beck advocates- this would be the death of  our Constitution, and Beck knows this!!! Beck's paycheck is signed by Ruport Murdoch of the globalist "Council on Foreign Relations". He is bought and paid for! Glenn Beck has underminded and hijacked the legitimate Tea Party Grassroots movement. Sure, he sounds good, but it's that one ounce of poison!

Alex Jones is doing an expose` on Glenn Beck on Monday's Show Infowars.com  from 12pm to 3pm.

Carol.

Chinese economy soars by 10.7% in Q4; what’s next?



Uncommon Wisdom
by Tony Sagami on January 23, 2010 at 8:30 am




The Chinese economy expanded by an astonishing 10.7% rate in the fourth quarter and according to the World Bank is expected to grow by an additional 9% in 2010. Proof of prosperity is everywhere — retail sales up 17.5% and industrial production up 18.3% in December — that you couldn’t ask for more GREEN LIGHTS.



Nets Decry Campaign Finance Ruling, Fail to Hail Victory for Freedom of Speech


Media Research Center
By: Brent Baker
January 21, 2010 20:30 ET


The unencumbered ability to sway voters is great for the news media, but journalists are outraged others could re-acquire the same First Amendment rights. Instead of painting a victory for free speech in the Supreme Court's ruling that corporations, non-profit groups and unions can spend money to influence elections, the Thursday broadcast network evening newscasts feared a ruinous future:






“Opening floodgates” to “big money” with “corporate interests having even more of a say” by “attacking political candidates,” resulting in “the real danger...that the candidates are just going to get drowned out” as “special interests” may “take over political campaign advertising.”

Read the entire story

Pentagon chief regrets past 'mistakes' in Pakistan

by Dan De Luce Dan De Luce – 8 mins ago



ISLAMABAD (AFP) – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates took on his critics in Pakistan on Friday, apologising for past "grave" mistakes as he works to bolster ties with Washington's key ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda.



In his first visit to Islamabad in three years and first under US President Barack Obama, Gates tried to reassure a public and leadership sceptical of Washington's plan to tackle militancy and turn around the war in Afghanistan.



Pakistan has seen security drastically deteriorate since joining in Washington's "war on terror" in 2001 and balks at complaints from US officials that it is not doing enough to tackle militant groups.



US drone strikes targeting Islamist fighters in Pakistan also stir anger in the Muslim nation, while many Pakistanis voice bitterness over US abandonment of the region once the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.



Related article: US unveils civilian strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan



"I was in government in the early 1990s, when Russia left the region and the United States largely abandoned Afghanistan and cut off defence ties with Pakistan -- a grave strategic mistake driven by some well-intentioned but short-sighted US legislative and policy decisions," said Gates.

Read the entire story

Army-sponsored report suggests new 'police force'

WND.com
Domestic agents could be used in 'shaping an environment before a conflict'


Posted: January 20, 2010

9:16 pm Eastern

By Michael Carl
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

A newly released Rand Corporation report proposes the federal government create a rapid deployment "Stabilization Police Force" that would be tasked with "shaping an environment before a conflict" and restoring order in times of war, natural disaster or national emergency.




But civil libertarians are worried just exactly what the force would do, domestically or overseas.



Page 16 of the 213-page report says the new elite unit's purpose depends on where it is and who would be in command.



"The answer to this question (about its purpose) depends on the situation into which an SPF might be inserted. The SPF could be used for missions such as: shaping an environment before a conflict; law enforcement duties in an active conflict environment; or security, stability, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations after a conflict. It could operate as an independent entity under a U.S. ambassador or a U.N. Senior Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG), or as a force element reporting to a Joint Task Force (JTF) commander," the report states.



The purpose statement doesn't say where the new unit would be deployed. However, Rand Corporation report co-author Terry Kelly said the Army-commissioned study primarily focuses on a force that would be sent overseas.


Read the entire story

China teen seen as hero for killing local official

By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer Gillian Wong, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jan 20, 7:21 pm ET


AP – In this photo taken on Aug. 7, 2007, released
by Zhang Xuping's family, 19-year-old Zhang Xuping
 pose …

BEIJING – When Li Shiming was stabbed through the heart by a hired assassin, few of his fellow villagers mourned the local Communist Party official many say made their lives hell by seizing land, extorting money and bullying people for years.

Instead, villagers in the northern town of Xiashuixi have made Li's teenage killer something of a local hero. More than 20,000 people from the coal-mining area petitioned a court for a lenient sentence.

"I didn't feel surprised at all when I heard Li Shiming was killed, because people wanted to kill him a long time ago," said villager Xin Xiaomei, who says her husband was harassed for years by Li after the two men had a personal dispute. "I wanted to kill Li myself, but I was too weak."

The murder trial has again cast a harsh light on abuses of power by communist cadres and the frustration many ordinary Chinese feel with a one-party system that sometimes allows officials to run their districts like personal fiefdoms.

China's leaders have identified corruption as a threat to the country's progress, but an opaque political system dominated by the ruling Communist Party — which brooks no dissent — and the lack of an independent judiciary contribute to the problem.

In the case of party secretary Li, the young man who confessed to the stabbing — 19-year-old Zhang Xuping — has been sentenced to death for the September 2008 killing, his mother and lawyer said Wednesday. The sentence was quietly handed down last week and an appeal was filed this week, they said.


Zhang Xuping was paid 1,000 yuan ($146) by another villager, 35-year-old farmer Zhang Huping, to commit the murder after Li allegedly harassed the farmer for years, local newspaper reports said. The elder Zhang was reportedly routinely detained on trumped up charges ever since he led a group of farmers to seek the help of provincial authorities after Li razed 28 acres of trees belonging to them without permission or compensation in 2003.

The teenager entered a school where Li was attending a meeting, found the official alone and stabbed him through the heart. Li staggered out of the building and into his luxury sports utility vehicle but died before he could make it to a hospital, reports said.

The case quickly turned into an outpouring of sympathy for the young killer — and expressions of hatred for Li.

Zhang's trial, which was originally scheduled for August, had to be postponed to late November because thousands of people showed up outside the courthouse wanting to watch the proceedings, news reports said.

Nearly 21,000 people from the area around Xiashuixi petitioned the court for leniency for Zhang — to no avail.

In Xiashuixi, villagers contacted by the AP said that for years they had lived in fear of Li, who they say extorted money and used his influence to have those who resisted him detained or jailed.

Zhang Weixing, 58, said Li illegally seized his land of 3.3 acres and built houses on it three years ago, and he hired thugs to beat him, his wife and children when they tried to stop him.

"When we heard Li Shiming was dead, we felt happy because he did so many evil things and really made us villagers suffer," said Zhang Weixing, who is unrelated to the family of the accused, by phone. "We all hated him."

During his trial, the defendant apologized to Li's family, the state-owned Beijing Youth Daily newspaper said. But Li's eldest son rejected the apology in court and said he hoped judges would sentence his father's killer to "death by firing squad."

Li's death has dealt an immeasurable blow to the family, the son said, adding that his younger brother and sister were unable to focus on their studies and may stop going to school for the time being. Attempts to reach the Li family by phone were unsuccessful, and family members have not publicly addressed the allegations that he was corrupt.

Zhang's case echoes two other instances of ordinary Chinese who became anti-heroes after killing people in positions of power.

In June, a Chinese woman who fatally stabbed a party official to fend off his demands for sex was freed by a court in a decision that was likely made to avoid a storm of criticism.

But in 2008, Yang Jia, a man who confessed to killing six Shanghai police officers in revenge for allegedly being tortured while interrogated about a possibly stolen bicycle was executed despite an outpouring of sympathy.

Unlike those cases, China's state media after initially following Zhang's case did not report his conviction nor his death sentence — a likely indication the government ordered a media blackout.

A Beijing-based lawyer and legal blogger, Liu Xiaoyuan, said the court should have taken public opinion into account given the large number of people who had spoken out in Zhang's defense.

"If the village secretary had acted illegally and aroused the anger of the mass of villagers, then lenient punishment should have been considered by the court," Liu said. "It has become the will of people. The death sentence is too heavy."

The case reflects the desperation that China's rural poor are driven to when bullied by their leaders, wrote Chinese social commentator Yan Changhai on his blog.

"Zhang Xuping is guilty. His biggest crime is that he dared to resist a bandit-like official, and refused to be obedient and to be a slave," Yan wrote.

Yan blamed the murder on collusion between officials and local police and courts.

"If the authorities did not indulge Li Shiming's evil deeds, if even one of his evil deeds was punished by law, he would have avoided death under Zhang Xuping's knife," he wrote.



___



Associated Press researchers Xi Yue and Yu Bing contributed to this report.


Is The U.S. Economy Being Tanked By Mistake or By Intent?

LewRockwell.com
by Bill Sardi



The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions.




Should American bankers be let off the hook because they self-declare, before an investigational panel, that the failure of their newly invented risk swaps and other highly leveraged investment schemes was simply due to "mistakes"? Not malfeasance – just every-day mistakes? Bankers just fell asleep at the helm at a critical juncture in American history. Is that what we are being led to believe?



Oh well, it’s just 18 million American homes that now lay empty in the wake of unprecedented foreclosures, and the bankers have collected obscene bonuses for reckless lending of their depositors’ money. It’s like the captain and crew of a ship saying, not to worry, twenty-percent of the passengers were lost overboard, but this was due to unavoidable mistakes, and then being rewarded with bonuses when they reach port.



Are Americans to believe that the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to create a false bubble in the economy, at the same time the Securities Exchange Commission allowed investment banks risky reserve ratios and exerted lax control over investment tycoons like Bernie Madoff, and in lock step, the credit rating agencies (Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s) handed out sterling A+ credit ratings on risky mortgage-backed securities, while the US Treasury Department stood by and did nothing?


Read the entire story







In epic upset, GOP's Brown wins Mass. Senate race


MyFreeze.com
 (AP) By GLEN JOHNSON and LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press Writers


In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to win the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century, leaving President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marring the end of his first year in office.




Addressing an exuberant victory celebration Tuesday night, Brown declared he was "ready to go to Washington without delay" as the crowd chanted, "Seat him now." Democrats indicated they would, deflating a budding controversy over whether they would try to block Brown long enough to complete congressional passage of the health care plan he has promised to oppose.



"The people of Massachusetts have spoken. We welcome Scott Brown to the Senate and will move to seat him as soon as the proper paperwork has been received," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said he would notify the Senate on Wednesday that Brown had been elected.



The loss by the once-favored Democrat Martha Coakley in the Democratic stronghold was a stunning embarrassment for the White House after Obama rushed to Boston on Sunday to try to save the foundering candidate. Her defeat on Tuesday signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

Brown's victory was the third major loss for Democrats in statewide elections since Obama became president. Republicans won governors' seats in Virginia and New Jersey in November.




"I have no interest in sugarcoating what happened in Massachusetts," said Sen. Robert Menendez, the head of the Senate Democrats' campaign committee. "There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient."



Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters. The trouble may go deeper: Democratic lawmakers could read the results as a vote against Obama's broader agenda, weakening their support for the president. And the results could scare some Democrats from seeking office this fall.



The Republican will finish Kennedy's unexpired term, facing re-election in 2012.



Brown led by 52 per cent to 47 percent with all but 3 percent of precincts counted. Turnout was exceptional for a special election in January, with light snow reported in parts of the state. More voters showed up at the polls Tuesday than in any non-presidential general election in Massachusetts since 1990.



One day shy of the first anniversary of Obama's swearing-in, the election played out amid a backdrop of animosity and resentment from voters over persistently high unemployment, Wall Street bailouts, exploding federal budget deficits and partisan wrangling over health care.



"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.



He said his frustrations, including what he considered the too-quick pace of health care legislation, led him to vote for Brown.



For weeks considered a long shot, Brown seized on voter discontent to overtake Coakley in the campaign's final stretch. His candidacy energized Republicans, including backers of the "tea party" protest movement, while attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt the nation was heading.



A cornerstone of Brown's campaign was his promise to vote against the health care plan.



Though the president wasn't on the ballot, he was on many voters' minds.



Coakley called Brown conceding the race, and Obama talked to both Brown and Coakley, congratulating them on the race.



The Democrat said the president told her: "We can't win them all."



Brown will be the first Republican senator from Massachusetts in 30 years.



Even before the first results were announced, administration officials were privately accusing Coakley of a poorly run campaign and playing down the notion that Obama or a toxic political landscape had much to do with the outcome.



Coakley's supporters, in turn, blamed that very environment, saying her lead dropped significantly after the Senate passed health care reform shortly before Christmas and after the Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing that Obama himself said showed a failure of his administration.



Days before the polls closed, Democrats were fingerpointing and laying blame.



Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, head of the House Democrats' campaign effort, said Coakley's loss won't deter his colleagues from continuing to blame the previous administration.



"President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident," he said. "President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy."



At Boston's Park Plaza Hotel, giddy Republicans cheered, chanted "USA" and waved the "tea party" version of the American flag.



Even before Brown won, the grass-roots network fueled by antiestablishment frustrations, sought credit for the victory, much like the liberal MoveOn.org did in the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats rose to power.



GOP chairman Michael Steele said Brown's "message of lower taxes, smaller government and fiscal responsibility clearly resonated with independent-minded voters in Massachusetts who were looking for a solution to decades of failed Democrat leadership."



Wall Street watched the election closely. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 116 points, and analysts attributed the increase to hopes the election would make it harder for Obama to make his changes to health care. That eased investor concerns that profits at companies such as insurers and drug makers would suffer.



Across Massachusetts, voters who had been bombarded with phone calls and dizzied with nonstop campaign commercials for Coakley and Brown gave a fitting turnout despite intermittent snow and rain statewide.



Galvin, who discounted sporadic reports of voter irregularities throughout the day, predicted turnout ranging from 1.6 million to 2.2 million, 40 percent to 55 percent of registered voters. The Dec. 8 primary had a scant turnout of about 20 percent.



Voters considered national issues including health care and the federal budget deficits.



Fears about spending drove Karla Bunch, 49, to vote for Brown. "It's time for the country, for the taxpayers, to take back their money," she said. And Elizabeth Reddin, 65, voted for Brown because she said she was turned off by the Democrat's negative advertisements, saying: "The Coakley stuff was disgusting."



___



Liz Sidoti reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy, Bob Salsberg, Steve LeBlanc, Karen Testa, Kevin Vineys and Stephanie Reitz also contributed to this report.











Fed's balance sheet liabilities hit record

NEW YORK



Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:41pm EST




NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve's balance sheet rose to a record level in the latest week, boosted by its ongoing efforts to support the mortgage market, Fed data released on Thursday showed.

The Fed's balance sheet -- a broad gauge of its lending to the financial system -- rose to $2.274 trillion in the week ended January 13 from 2.216 trillion in the prior week.



After declining early last year, the balance sheet generally has been accumulating mass amid the Fed's asset-buying, or quantitative easing, program.


Given that this program has led the central bank's holdings of agency debt and mortgage-backed securities to grow to more than $1 trillion, the balance sheet rise reported on Thursday came as little surprise.


"It is probably expected," said William Larkin, fixed income portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Massachusetts.


The rise in the balance sheet came on the back of a jump in its holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities, which rose to $968.59 billion in the week ended January 13 from $908.74 billion in the previous week.


The Fed's holdings of agency debt totaled $160.83 billion in the week ended January 13 versus $159.88 billion the previous week.


By the end of March, the Fed plans to have bought $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities and about $175 billion worth of agency debt.


At that point the balance sheet growth would be expected to taper off, though some say the Fed will find it difficult to end by that deadline if the economy hasn't improved markedly.


"The quantitative easing component that's going to end in March is probably going to be phased out longer than that," said Larkin.


"With the data we're getting out of the housing market right now so poor, I don't see them ending it in March. I see them somehow phasing it out quietly without notice."


(Reporting by Burton Frierson; Editing by Andrew Hay)


Quake crushes Haiti’s economic revival

Nation was moving toward stability, growth when disaster struck

By John W. Schoen

Senior producer
msnbc.com
updated 12:27 p.m. PT, Fri., Jan. 15, 2010

This is an especially cruel moment for the people of Haiti.


Decades of political upheaval that thwarted economic development in Haiti began giving way last year to a semblance of stability. But a push to promote jobs in industries like garment manufacturing was dealt a serious blow by this week's devastating earthquake.




After decades of political corruption, civil unrest and massive unemployment, the tiny, impoverished country was just recently enjoying a small measure of stability. A series of public and private initiatives had spurred hope that economic development might finally end the misery of millions of people living on less than two dollars a day.


But the massive earthquake that flattened Haiti’s capital, left millions homeless and killed an estimated 50,000 also crushed hopes that the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation was beginning to dig itself out of abject poverty.




Read the entire article

Are America's Superpower Days Numbered?

The Good News A magazine of understanding

Great powers come and go. For more than six decades the United States has been the world's dominant power. Seventy years ago, Great Britain—with its vast empire—was the world's greatest power. Is the United States following Britain's path to decline, to be replaced by another power? Are we seeing the first stages?

by Melvin Rhodes


One of the consequences of the financial upheaval of the past 18 months is that Europe is now richer than North America. The accumulated national wealth of North Americans has dropped by 21.8 percent while Europe's fell by only 5.8 percent, "down to 22.2 trillion euros—a quarter of the globe's total wealth" ("Europe Now Richer Than North America," BusinessWeek, Sept. 16, 2009).
 

Since great wealth is necessary for global power, could Europe be on the verge of taking over from the United States?




Bible prophecy shows that a new, European centered superpower will exist immediately before Jesus Christ's return. It will be a great commercial system whose trade dominates the world.



It's no coincidence that all 27 member countries of the European Union have signed the Lisbon Treaty, uniting Europe more than ever before with its own president and foreign minister collectively representing all member nations.



Its currency, the euro, is now valued at 1½ times the U.S. dollar and is used by more people. With more than 500 million citizens, the EU is the world's biggest single market and by far the world's greatest trading power. Having now surpassed the United States in economic power, could it soon replace America as the world's foremost political and military power?

Lessons from a fallen empire


There's a lesson for the United States in the memory of some still living.



Few people alive today can remember a time when the world was dominated by the British, but that's the way things were before World War II. After fighting alone against the Third Reich for two years (assisted only by forces from Commonwealth countries), the British were joined by the Soviets when Germany attacked them in June 1941. Another six months would pass before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which brought America into the war.



Americans expected that their boys would all return home after the war, just as they had done after World War I. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that American troops would leave Europe two years after the war's end. No one expected U.S. forces to stay longer. But American troops still remain in Europe 65 years later!



What change led to American troops remaining in Europe? Quite simply, Britain was broke! London was not able to return to the role it had held for two centuries, the task of policing the world. Such a role requires great wealth. After fighting two world wars in just over three decades, the British did not have the funds for foreign commitments and could no longer support their allies around the globe.



This wasn't apparent immediately after the war ended in 1945. The British Empire remained intact. Some British possessions in the Far East had been conquered by Japan, but all voluntarily returned to British rule.



In his 2008 book Picking Up the Reins, which describes the transition of superpower status from Great Britain to the United States, historian Norman Moss states: "British atlases showed a quarter of the earth either ruled by Britain or linked to it in the Commonwealth. Britain ruled directly much of Asia and most of Africa and it was the dominant power in the Arab world" (p. 27).



Other European powers did not fare so well. The Dutch soon lost Indonesia, and the French had to fight a prolonged war in Indochina.



"A catastrophe scarcely thinkable"

One of America's most respected historians, James Truslow Adams, wrote a book titled The British Empire 1784-1939 in 1940—the crucial year of the Battle of Britain, an airborne struggle for survival, when the future of the world depended on Britain holding out against an attempted Nazi invasion.



At the end of the book, he wrote the following warning to his fellow Americans: "The possible overthrow of the British Empire would be a catastrophe scarcely thinkable. Not only would it leave a vacuum over a quarter of the globe into which all the wild winds of anarchy, despotism and spiritual oppression would rush, but the strongest bulwark outside ourselves for our own safety and freedom would have been destroyed" (p. 358).



It certainly seemed that the preservation of the Empire intact was in the best interests of the United States and other nations.



One year after the war, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff similarly advised: "The defeat or disintegration of the British Empire would eliminate from Eurasia the last bulwark of resistance between the US and Soviet expansion...Our present position as a world power is of necessity closely interwoven with that of Britain" (quoted by Moss, p. 64).



On top of financing their empire—which included a quarter of the world's people—the British were also soon embroiled in a war against communists in Greece, where Britain stationed 9,000 troops to support the anticommunist forces and had given 40 million pounds in financial assistance in the months following World War II.



But by February 1947, in the middle of the harshest winter on record, the British could no longer afford to support Greece. A cabinet meeting on Feb. 18 led to London asking Washington to take over, announcing that aid to Greece "would stop on March 31. It was accompanied by another note saying Turkey also needed help and Britain could not provide it" (p. 62).



Although few comprehended it at the time, this change was truly momentous. "For two centuries Britain had been the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean. Now it seemed to be surrendering that role in two key countries.



"It is often said that Americans lack a historical sense that Europeans have, but on this occasion it was the Americans who saw the historical significance of that moment. To British ministers, battling from day to day to keep the country's head above water, this seemed to be just a temporary retrenchment in one area. None of them appeared to see any larger implications in the decision.



"The American view was put in grandiloquent terms by Joseph M. Jones, who was in the State Department at the time: ‘Reading the messages, [it was] realized...that Great Britain had within the hour handed the job of world leadership, with all its burdens and all its glory, to the United States" (p. 64, emphasis added throughout).



The date was Feb. 21, 1947—the day the United States effectively replaced Great Britain as the world's global superpower.



Changing roles prophesied

"And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh," reads Genesis 48:20. In this passage of Scripture, the patriarch Jacob, whom God had renamed Israel, prophesied that the descendants of his two grandsons, the sons of Joseph, would "become a multitude of nations" and a great nation. This prophecy was fulfilled in the British Empire and Commonwealth (the multitude of nations) and in the United States (the great single nation), which broke away from the empire. Ephraim, the multitude of nations, was to be great before Manasseh.



Ephraim, the younger brother, was foretold to be greater than Manasseh (verse 19). Without any knowledge of the biblical significance of the moment, Dean Acheson, then undersecretary at the U.S. Department of State, said that "Britain was so weakened financially that there were now only two great powers in the world. Not since Rome and Carthage, he said, had there been such a polarization of power, and it was between democracy and dictatorship" (Moss, p. 68).



Rome and Carthage were major rivals before the time of Christ. Will Clayton, assistant secretary of State, in May 1947 summed up the situation with these words: "The reins of world leadership are slipping from Britain's competent but now very weak hands. These reins will be picked up either by the United States or Russia."



Both men realized that the United States already had a major rival in the Russian-dominated Soviet Union, something the British had not had to contend with.



Britain had enjoyed unrivalled global power during the time of the "Pax Britannica"— between the fall of Napoleon and World War I a century later. In relative terms, the United States was to be less dominant, as Bible prophecy had foretold.



It wasn't until the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist allies in Europe more than 40 years later that the United States would enjoy unrivalled power. But even then it was brief. Now facing mounting financial problems, Washington has to contend with the rising power of China and may soon have to deal with a resurgent Europe.



Just as global power passed from Britain to America, could power now pass from America to Europe?



God controls the rise and fall of nations

The Bible tells us that God intervenes to bring about the rise and fall of nations. In Daniel 2:21 we read that "He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings."



In the same chapter, Daniel asked God to help him interpret the cryptic dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. In verse 19 God revealed its meaning to him. Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon, the world's greatest power at the time, came to understand that after Babylon would come another great power, then another and another. Eventually, the last of these powers would be replaced by the Kingdom of God, a world government directly ruled by God that will put an end to the present misrule of man.



Daniel himself had a similar vision in chapter 7 giving more detail. Babylon, where Daniel lived for almost seven decades as a Jewish exile following the invasion of his own country, would lose its preeminence to Persia. In turn, Persia would lose its position to Greece, and then Greece would lose its to Rome. The prophecies revealed to Daniel in the sixth century before Christ were fulfilled in the centuries that followed.



The supremacy of Britain with its empire and then the United States of America was prophesied for "the last days" (Genesis 49:1). However, at the time immediately before the end, preceding the second coming of Jesus Christ, there is to rise a revived and renewed Roman Empire—the new world superpower mentioned earlier.



How could the United States lose its power?

British historian Paul Kennedy, who now lectures at Yale, wrote his monumental book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in 1987. In it, looking back to the year 1500, he showed that the qualities that lead to nations' rising to power and the reasons for their decline and fall have certain commonalities —debt and imperial overreach.



Just as the British Empire collapsed due to debt and an overstretched military, so the United States faces the same problems today. It cannot field enough troops for all its military commitments, and debt is a crucial and growing problem. No nation in the history of the world has ever accumulated debts as great as those of the United States—and certainly not in so short a time!



As The Economist recently observed: "For years America's fiscal problems had a surreal quality. No one disputed that an aging population and health-care inflation could bust the budget, but that prospect was decades away and procrastination seemed painless.



"No longer. A giant hole has opened in the budget because of stimulus, bailouts and a recession that has savaged economic growth and tax revenue. On current policies the publicly held federal debt, 41% of GDP last year, will double in the next decade. Total government debt will move well above the G20 average" ("Dealing With America's Fiscal Hole," Nov. 21, 2009).



Only a generation ago the United States was in such sound financial condition that it was the world's greatest lender. No longer. Due to its profligate spending, now it is the most indebted nation in history!



Massive problems loom in financing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as tens of millions of baby boomers retire in the coming years. Some economic experts estimate that, when these unfunded liabilities are factored in, America's true national debt is greater than $50 trillion—approximately half a million dollars for every U.S. household!



Inevitably, defense spending will be impacted by America's enormous debt load, just as it was with Great Britain six decades ago. As another Economist article titled "Stemming the Tide" reports, "Defence and discretionary items represent just a third of spending, and Mr Obama has already planned to shrink both in nominal dollars by 2014, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with luck) wind down and the stimulus expires" (Nov. 21, 2009).



Rising costs for health care

Interestingly, even the administration's plans for a government-run health-care system parallel the United Kingdom after World War II. At the very time when the country was exhausted and broke after fighting two global conflicts, "the British Government was determined to soldier on and not be deflected from its course by Britain's straitened [limited] economic circumstances. In April 1948 it introduced the National Health Service, despite Opposition arguments that the country could not afford it. This was at the center of its welfare program" (Moss, pp. 159-160).



The initial estimated cost was minor compared to the eventual (and still rising) cost. By 1956, a crucial year in the country's decline and fall from global power, "a new generation was finding its voice, people who were prouder of the National Health Service than of the British Empire" (p. 199).



The Economist article "Stemming the Tide" hints at the increased financial burden that will come on the United States as it, too, embraces universal health care. "Mr Obama had long planned that his health reform would not just cover the uninsured but also stop the long-term growth in health costs. In the bills currently in Congress, that second goal may be out of reach. Although Mr Obama insists that the reform will not raise the deficit, it will still absorb some of the revenue that could have been used to reduce it."



A Nov. 14, 2009, article in The New York Times reported China's concerns about U.S. government health-care plans. It's not that the Chinese are concerned about the medical care of Americans. Rather, they are concerned about the burgeoning U.S. deficit, as they are the ones financing most of it.



The article described Obama's visit to China as "assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker" and indicated that American domestic policies may have to first gain Chinese approval. "Like any banker," the article notes, the Chinese want "evidence that the United States [has] a plan to pay them back."



It reports that "in a July meeting, Chinese officials asked their American counterparts detailed questions about the health care legislation making its way through Congress...They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the deficit" (Helene Cooper, Michael Wines and David Sanger, "China's Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States").



Commenting on this trip, a Nov. 16, 2009, Canada Free Press article warned: "Obama's socialist spending spree does not simply come at the expense of America[n] freedoms, it explicitly puts China in charge of American policy. The price for universal health care will not simply be paid by Americans, it will be paid for by American allies in Asia" (Daniel Greenfield, "Obama in China and Twilight for America").



Just as Britain was unable to send any more financial and military support to Greece in 1947, so it appears the United States will be unable to help traditional allies around the world. And the American military empire will inevitably follow the British Empire into history.



Historian Niall Ferguson recently wrote: "This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Which is why voters are right to worry about America's debt crisis. According to a recent Rasmussen report, 42 percent of Americans now say that cutting the deficit in half by the end of the president's first term should be the administration's most important task—significantly more than the 24 percent who see health-care reform as the No. 1 priority.



"But cutting the deficit in half is simply not enough. If the United States doesn't come up soon with a credible plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis could lead to a major weakening of American power" ("An Empire at Risk," Newsweek, Nov. 28, 2009).



Why Europe and not Asia?

While many are warning that China will replace the United States as the world's dominant power, Bible prophecy shows otherwise—though it should be emphasized that the Scriptures strongly suggest that the revived European-centered Roman Empire will not last long.



Revelation 17:12 tells us that the leaders who will unite and surrender their national sovereignty to this new geopolitical force will "receive authority for one hour." An hour is symbolic of a short period of time.



The Bible also prophesies a great power rising in the Far East when it writes of massive military forces coming against the revived European power from beyond the Euphrates River (Revelation 9:14-16; 16:12). This could very well include China, perhaps in alliance with other regional powers.



China is a great power and is set to become even more powerful. However, its economy is closely tied to the United States and could be negatively affected by developments in America.



At the same time, there are serious concerns about its own banking system. "The current expansion in lending...risks creating China's own home grown banking crisis with a rise in non-performing bank loans...Chinese bank regulators are concerned that new lending is being used to finance real estate and stock market speculation rather than productive purposes" (Satyajit Das, "China: A Future That Was," eurointelligence.com, Nov. 20, 2009). Putting it simply, China is repeating America's mistakes!



In comparing the European Union and China, we should also note that, as an article in the Nov. 15, 2009, Sunday Times points out, the European Union's gross domestic product "is just behind that of the United States and China combined" (Matthew Campbell and Bojan Pancevski, "Europe Rises as the Modest Superpower").



The article continues: "Europe, however, also seems more secure and united than at any point in its blood-soaked history and the financial crisis may have served to strengthen that cohesion. The more regulated brand of capitalism favoured from France to Finland is now the preferred model for the rest of the world—including America—and countries are queuing up to gain admission to the protective fold of the EU.



"With 71,000 troops stationed beyond its borders, the EU can claim a military presence overseas second only to America's. It has led to Europe being hailed as ‘the modest superpower' by Newsweek magazine. Its rise can be seen in the increase in membership from 12 to 27 countries since 1989 and in the fading of tensions between old and young members. It is also evident in the way Europe has beaten America out of recession, led by the usual Franco-German motor."



Europe's long-term goal in sight

The European Union was formed by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Its six founding members pledged themselves to form "an ever closer union." The Lisbon Treaty is the latest phase, creating a single political entity that overnight rivals the United States and China.



Its first president is Herman van Rompuy, who was prime minister of Belgium. Its first foreign minister is British Baroness Catherine Ashton. According to Wolfgang Munchau, writing in the Nov. 23, 2009, Financial Times, these two are just what the EU needs as it deals with "three fundamental problems": "an inability to set precise policy goals; poor follow-through; and perhaps most importantly, poor co-ordination and crisis management" ("Van Rompuy Is the Right Man for the Job").



In other words, these two will streamline the EU, making it more efficient and more effective and thereby more powerful.



To be clear, however, the EU is not the prophesied end-time power in its final, biblical form. Bible prophecy clearly states that 10 "kings"—we might call them presidents, premiers or prime ministers—will give their power and authority to a final supreme leader who rules over them all. What the EU has achieved is a powerful commercial and political system that places Europe in a position of global leadership. The final European power will likely emerge from this. Exactly how remains to be seen.



But Europe has come a long way, even in the five-plus years since T.R. Reid, former Washington Post London bureau chief, wrote his book The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy.



"At the dawn of the twenty-first century," he wrote on the book's first page, "a geopolitical revolution of historic dimensions is under way across the Atlantic: the unification of Europe. Twenty-five nations [now 27] have joined together—with another dozen or so on the waiting list—to build a common economy, government, and culture. Europe is a more integrated place today than at any time since the Roman Empire" (2004).



Continuing, Mr. Reid wrote: "The new United States of Europe—to use Winston Churchill's phrase—has more people, more wealth, and more trade than the United States of America. The New Europe cannot match American military strength (and doesn't want to, for that matter). But it has more votes in every international organization than the United States, and it gives away far more money in development aid.



"The result is global economic and political clout that makes the European Union exactly what its leaders want it to be: a second superpower that can stand on equal footing with the United States."



Waiting to take the lead from Washington

Since Reid's book came out, we've gone through the early stages of the international financial crisis, a transitional period that has seen Europe become richer relative to the United States. Whereas America has accumulated a record debt burden, Europe is solvent!



There's a great irony here. Great Britain established the 13 colonies that eventually became the United States, which, less than two centuries later, took over London's leadership role in the world. In a similar way, America forced the creation of a united Europe in its early stages through the Marshall Plan, a U.S. government aid project to get Europe moving again after World War II.



"The Marshall Plan...was a joint European-American program for restructuring the economies of western European countries and joining them more closely together, to set them on their feet, give them social and political stability, and make them once again trading partners on equal terms with the rest of the world. It achieved all of this. It also, with American pressure, sowed the seeds of the European Union" (Moss, p. 100).



Washington did not want to have to deal with 16 individual European countries all needing help, so it encouraged them to cooperate and work together economically. This fledgling project led to "an ever closer union" and today's European Union, now set to rival the United States—and will, just as Washington took over from London, eventually lead to Europe taking over Washington's leadership role in the world. GN








Disasters - Who Benefits?

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! Exclusive
January 18, 2009
Carolyn Lanham


Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, - be they God-made spontaneous natural disasters, or man-made, preplanned and intentional, - benefit those forces out to destroy freedom and the sovereignty of nations for the goals of the self-appointed "gods" of internationalism and global governance. Since 1994 the U.S. has spent $3billion in developement assistance in Haiti - that is tax money forcibly lifted out of your wallets as government becomes an on wheels charity vehicle agent, continuing  to steal from you and future generations. It's not enough that citizens have given privately and willingly out of the goodness of their hearts over the years in the private sector, but government must force humanitarianism in order to benefit.

Disasters provide the excuse for Big Brother Government to grow, control, and lockdown

The excuse is given for the building of an infrastructure of government bureaucracy- a maze of government disaster relief agencies for preparedness- the excuse for more spending and melding local infrastructure to be wedded to Washington, thus, doing away with our traditional form of government.This Provides the excuse for using the military, not for defense, but to use them for humanitarian purposes thus establishing a foothold in other nations.


Disasters are followed with resultant breakdowns in law. Looting, rioting etc.- thus providing the excuse for government to step in to restore "order out of chaos" by using the police powers of the national government, thus destroying local authority. Remember Katrina and how it was used as the excuse to take guns away from the victims. (Paramilitarization of law enforcement and the destruction of the Posse Comitatus Act.)

Zero population agenda advocates benefit by culling the herd when natural or manufactured disasters are instigated.

In order to avoid sickness, disease, and plagues, forced inoculations provided by the benevolent 'government needle' are made available, laced with slow death immune system destroying additives.

Not only does "Big Brother Washington government" step in, but international organizations of Global Governance use the disaster as an excuse to enhance and polish their tarnished image as 'humanitarian' rather than the globalist-feeding Beast that the United Nations really is.

Politicians use disasters as a means to promote themselves, and even those of the 'different' parties ban together in this 'time of need' to further the agenda of the globalist brotherhood, locking arms and patting shoulders for the media cameras, even when they were of the same globalist ilk , and had the same agenda under their puppetmasters all along, -a 'BushObamaClinton' alliance in times of chaos for their Order.

So what's humanitarian about forcibly stealing from your wallet? That's the real disaster with the resultant globalist police state.

Carol Lanham.


Pope affirms great respect for Jews


news.yahoo.com
By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer Ariel David, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago


ROME – Pope Benedict XVI was welcomed with applause Sunday in a visit to a synagogue that he said would improve relations between Catholics and Jews, many of whom object to his moving World War II pontiff Pius XII toward sainthood.

Some critics contend Pius didn't do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust. The Vatican defends him, maintaining he used behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a bid to save Jewish lives.

Several prominent Jews said they would boycott the visit, but applause greeted the pope as he arrived at the temple in the Old Jewish Ghetto, where for hundreds of years Jews were confined under the orders of a 16th century pope.

Benedict warmly shook hands with the synagogue's retired chief rabbi, Elio Toaff, who welcomed John Paul II when the late pontiff visited the synagogue in a ground-breaking event in 1986.

Across the world, relations between Jews and the Vatican have at times been tense over the Vatican's sainthood efforts for Pius, who was pontiff from 1939 to 1958. Those tensions flared again after Benedict last month issued a decree hailing the "heroic virtues" of Pius, an important step before beatification, which is the last formal stage before possible sainthood.

Some Jews also have been angered by Benedict's reaching out to Catholic traditionalists, including his revival of a prayer for the conversion of Jews.

Another sore point is Benedict's decision to revoke the excommunication of a renegade bishop who had denied that millions of Jews died in the Holocaust. The Vatican has said it wasn't aware of the bishop's views when the excommunication was lifted.

In his weekly noon appearance to pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Square, Benedict predicted that his visit would be a "further step on the path of harmony and friendship" between Catholics and Jews.

He recalled the 1986 visit by John Paul II, who was widely credited with dramatically improving relations with Jews. The late pontiff, who lived under Nazi occupation in his Polish homeland, where Jews were largely annihilated, affectionately referred to Jews as "our elder brothers" in faith during that groundbreaking visit.

Hundreds of police on Saturday enforced strict security around the synagogue along the boulevard lining the Tiber. Officers guided dogs trained to sniff out explosives.

As part of security ahead of the visit, motorists and strollers were banned from passing near the synagogue and the cobblestone streets were cordoned off. The neighborhood is the sentimental heart for Rome's 12,000-strong Jewish community, although many of them live elsewhere in the capital.

Italy's Jews are a tiny minority: about 30,000 in a predominantly Roman Catholic country of some 60 million.

The German-born Benedict, ahead of his meeting with Rome's Jewish community, said that "despite the problems and difficulties, you can breathe in a climate of great respect and dialogue among the believers of the two religions, testimony to how matured the relations are and to the common commitment to value that which unites us."

Those unifying factors were: "faith in the one God, above all, but also safeguarding life and the family, the aspiration for social justice and peace," Benedict said.

An elderly Jewish man entering the synagogue shortly before the pope's scheduled arrival said he was glad the pope was coming despite recent problems.

"Dialogue is always important, and it sets a good example," said Natan Orvieto. "But there needs to be reciprocal respect and that hasn't happened a lot lately."

Under the leadership of John Paul and Benedict, the Vatican has been seeking common ground on such conservative agendas as traditional families while forging stronger relations with other religions, including Judaism and Islam.

Before entering the synagogue, the pope was scheduled to attend a wreath-laying ceremony in front of a plaque that recalls the Oct. 16, 1943, deportation of Jews in Rome during Nazi occupation. Another stop was planned at another memorial, which recalls the 1982 attack on the synagogue by Palestinian terrorists that killed a 2-year-old Jewish boy.

Benedict has visited synagogues in Cologne, Germany, and in New York during papal pilgrimages since he became pontiff in 2005.