"It is not enough to know that there is a shadow government pulling the strings of the visible government- we must also act to expose it, and defeat it!"-Mark Matheny
Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar and served as the associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1982 and as general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission. He is cofounder of theAmerican Freedom Agendaand writes weekly columns for The Washington Times and Politico.com. His forthcoming book American Empire, Before the Fall will be published by Campaign for Liberty.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE FEIN
ON BEHALF OF CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY
RE: THE USA PATRIOT ACT: DISPELLING THE MYTHS
BEFORE THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
MAY 11, 2011
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Campaign for Liberty about the USA Patriot Act. Provoked largely by the gruesome abominations of 9/11, the legislation was born of fear and uncertainty from abroad. Fear, however, is the fount of tyranny. James Madison, father of the Constitution, warned centuries ago in opposing the tyrannical Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger real or pretended from abroad." At the constitutional convention of 1787, Madison similarly recognized the inclination of government to wave a banner of foreign danger to excuse the destaruction of domestic liberties: "The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."
The 342-page USA Patriot Act passed without inquiry into whether arming the government with muscular investigatory tools justified the corresponding intrusions on the right to be left alone -- the right most valued by civilized people. The Patriot Act was portrayed as a necessary defense against foreign agents and international terrorists. Citizen liberties were relegated to extras in a Cecil B. De Mille cinematic extravaganza. Despite the good intentions of its architects, the Patriot Act betrays bedrock constitutional principles. The individual is the center of the Constitution's universe. Aggrandizing government is the center of the Patriot Act.
The Constitution salutes freedom and citizen sovereignty over absolute safety and citizen vassalage. The Patriot Act turns that hierarchy on its head. Where experience and facts are inconclusive as regards the need for government authority, the Constitution's default position is liberty. Under the Patriot Act, if a threat passes a microscopic threshold of danger, a Big Brother government is exalted, a descendant of the 1% doctrine. The authorization of "lone wolf"surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is exemplary. It has never been employed, yet it is defended as a cornerstone of the nation's defense against a second edition of 9/11.
Ron Paul's bid for 2012 is now breaking news with almost all the mainstream media. But back in 2008, there were only few places where one could see Ron Paul - RT among them. It seems people are looking at the GOP candidate seriously now and giving him a lot of authority. Brian Doherty, the senior editor of the Reason Magazine, says Paul is a strong potential candidate.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested Sunday in connection with the violent sexual assault of a hotel maid
FOXNews.com
Published May 15, 2011
NEW YORK -- The leader of the International Monetary Fund and a possible candidate for president of France was pulled from an airplane moments before he was to fly to Paris and was arrested Sunday in connection with the violent sexual assault of a hotel maid, police said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken off the Air France flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport by officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was turned over to police for questioning Saturday afternoon, said Paul J. Browne, New York Police Department spokesman.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested at 2:15 a.m. Sunday on charges of a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment, and was awaiting arraignment, police said. His lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, did not immediately respond to phone or email messages seeking comment from The Associated Press. "We have not yet been able to meet with our client and we may have more to say tomorrow," Brafman told The New York Times late Saturday.
The 32-year-old woman told authorities that she entered Strauss-Kahn's suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel not far from Manhattan's Times Square at about 1 p.m. Eastern time Saturday and he attacked her, Browne said. She said she had been told to clean the spacious $3000-a-night-suite suite, which she had been told was empty.
According to an account the woman provided to police, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he began to sexually assault her. She said she fought him off, then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.
A previously unexplained anomaly in the Obama long-form birth certificate released by the White House has now become even more suspicious, as WND has learned the document does not conform to Hawaii's standard practice for issuing certified copies of birth certificates.
While the governor's office maintains Obama was given a certified copy of his birth certificate, and while Hawaii – WND has learned – includes an embossed seal to complete the certification, the raised seal on the image posted by the White House … is missing.
Furthermore, an official with the Vital Statistics Section of Hawaii's Department of Health told WND, a document without the seal "may not be a certified copy."
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, host of the weekend show Fareed Zakaria GPS and editor-at-large for Time magazine, admitted on CNN Thursday that he has been advising President Obama on foreign policy matters.
Eliot Spitzer, host of CNN’s In the Arena, brought up the fact at the very end of a conversation with Zakaria about Pakistan and foreign policy. Zakaria affirmed it and clarified that “mostly it’s been face-to-face meetings…organized by Tom Donilon, the national security advisor.”
Spitzer brought up the subject by telling Zakaria that “I read something in the paper this week…It said the President of the United States calls you for wisdom and advice about issues around the world.”
After verifying that, Zakaria quickly changed the subject to praising Obama’s approach to foreign policy. “It’s been a very thoughtful conversation,” he mused. “You know, we’ll see where it goes." Read the entire article
Last October I wrote an article called "In Austerity We Trust", where I discussed the possibility of a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, and the possibility of austerity measures that may follow. S&P has now put the U.S. on a "negative Watch" status saying that unless the U.S. takes measures to decrease spending, the U.S. AAA credit rating may be downgraded.
Back on July 17, 2010, I reported on the fact that China-based Dagong International credit Rating Agency had announced its downgrading of the U.S. AAA status to to AA with a negative outlook.
The UNTHINKABLE has happened. U.S. government debt has lost its sterling AAA credit rating! Like Greece, Iceland, and Dubai, the runaway spending from our Washington, D.C., politicians has caught up with us.
The good news is that the downgrade has come from upstart rating agency China-based Dagong International Credit Rating. The bad news is that Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch are almost certain to follow, and that will mean disaster for the dollar as well as dollar-denominated assets.
The head of China’s largest credit rating agency has slammed his western counterparts for causing the global financial crisis and said that as the world’s largest creditor nation China should have a bigger say in how governments and their debt are rated.
“The western rating agencies are politicised and highly ideological and they do not adhere to objective standards,” Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told the Financial Times in an interview.
Only months before the announcement by the chinese agency, Timothy Geithner confidently stated that the U.S. Government "will never" lose its AAA credit rating, despite its increasing annual budgets, and a massive national debt of $14 trillion.The White House chose to ignore the announcement by Dagong International, while it sold the American Boob-tube watchers its "summer of recovery" propaganda.
Of course in April of this year, S&P came with the announcement that it was putting the U.S. AAA credit rating on "negative watch", giving the U.S. Government a warning to cut spending within the next two years, or face a possible downgrade in its credit rating.
To this announcement, geithner then came out once again to defend the monetary policy of the government and its partner in crime, the Federal Reserve.
When asked if the debt ceiling would be raised again, Geithner stated:
“That’s the judgment Congress has to make and it’s just about how often they want to vote for this. We are the only country in the world that does this; the debt limit that is authorized is just to give us the chance to borrow to finance commitments Congress has already made. There is no reason Congress won’t raise it, they always raise it. They have to decide how often they want to raise it. There is no reason why they have to put their members through the torture of having to do it frequently.”
We are the only country that does this because we are hold world reserve currency status. When geithner was asked how much the debt ceiling would be raised he stated:
“If it were up to me, knowing you want the world to know that our commitment will never be in question, you would do it for as long as possible. Even under Paul Ryan’s budget plan, you would have to raise the debt limit by 2 trillion dollars to get through this.”
My prediction on what the ceiling will be raised to was between $16 -20 trillion this time. I believe this will be done to put off the next raise until after the coming elections in 2012.
Well, with all of that said, will austerity measures come to America? You can almost assuredly count on it.
Once again Americans will be called upon by the criminal Banksters and co-conspirators in the White House to obediently surrender our paychecks, retirement savings, and our freedom and dignity in order to save the empire, (which really means becoming slaves to globalism and a global New World Order.)
In an article titled "IMF Austerity Is Headed to America – Watch Out!", it states that IMF style austerity measures will more than likely come to America. It states that America's future is "one of government-induced privation and societal misery". Financial Times stated that the move by S&P was purely a political move:
"S&P's aim plainly was political. US politicians must agree on a policy to reduce the deficit. This must involve cutting spending, reducing entitlements and raising taxes. Who exactly bears the brunt of these remedies is a political question, not an economic one. No politician wants to be responsible for such things, so it is no surprise that they avoid the problem."
Also noted in the article "IMF Austerity Is Headed to America – Watch Out!" is the fact that the western power elites are promoting a larger fear based form of hysteria among the American people in a 'problem- reaction - solution' scenerio saying:
One needs a problem in order to provide a solution. And the move is on, most obviously, to create ever-closer global governance and perhaps an alternative currency. Modern central banking has done its work, throwing Western economies into confusion and disarray. Europe is already suffering from IMF-style austerity tactics and Britain is implementing them now. The US is next on the list.
The article goes on to say:
IMF provisions featuring privatization, tax hikes and public sector "austerity" are designed in my view to provoke the very public anger that Western elites are counting on to fuel a conversation about yet MORE centralization and MORE governmental control – of a "transparent" and "disciplined" type. The conversation is constantly to be focused on "better" government, not less of it. We can see the problem coming into focus now for the US, and the solution shall not be far behind. Expect the same sort of civil unrest that is currently afflicting Europe to visit the US if this conversation continues to be pushed along its current track.
While our credit rating is being downgraded and our economy goes further into crisis mode, Obama and his administration have entertained the masses with a dubious copy of his recently found long form birth certificate, and the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. Both announcements of course have many holes and conflicts within themselves, but nevertheless achieve what the White House intended them for - distractions from the real crisis coming at us in the form of economic meltdown.
Peter schiff likens quantitative easing, not to a crutch as some would compare it, but to that more likely as a form of life support for the American phony Fiat economy. He states that if the Federal Reserve now decides end the quantitative easing, it's equivalent to pulling the plug on the life support of our economy .
Peter believes this is exactly why the Fed will continue to print more fiat currency.
