From usACTIONnews.com January, 2011:

How Dept. of Homeland Security identifies ‘right wing extremists’

The radical leftist group Southern Poverty Law Center has partnered with the Department of Homeland Security in a ‘Working Group’ called Countering Violent Extremism to paint conservatives as hate groups and extremists.

By Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com

The radical leftist group Southern Poverty Law Center has partnered with the Department of Homeland Security in a ‘Working Group’ called Countering Violent Extremism to paint conservatives as hate groups and extremists.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, also known as The Church of Morris Dees has recently labeled the Family Research Council,  American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, Coral Ridge Ministries, Family Research Institute, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Illinois Family Institute, Liberty Counsel, MassResistance, National Organization for Marriage and the Traditional Values Coalition as ‘hate groups’.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese says it is “despicable” for the Southern Poverty Law Center to classify the Family Research Council and a dozen other top conservative organizations as “hate groups” similar to the Ku Klux Klan.

The SPLC has a history of targeting conservatives and conservative groups as racist, homophobic, or extremist if they disagree with the radical left positions of the SPLC on any number of issues. An article at Discover the Networks.org says  “What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there’s a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this “the broad-brush smear.””

The SPLC has made a fortune exploiting the victims of bias crimes. “Together, SPLC’s three top executives – all white — took home just shy of three-quarters of a million dollars in 2005.” Morris Seligman Dees, the founder and chief trial lawyer of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has contributed money to the campaigns of a number of political candidates, all of them Democrats and Independents. Among the more notable recipients of his funding were John Edwards, John Kerry, Ralph Nader, Bill Clinton, Tom Harkin, Julian Bond, Ted Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter according to his profile at Discover the Networks.org.

The SPLC did a ‘report‘ in the spring of 2010 that claimed right wing extremists were on the rise an basically branded anyone worried about the economy, the debt, illegal immigration or any left wing agenda item as a a hate group or militia comparable to the Branch Dividians. The ‘research’ for the claim is a rise in web sites dedicated to these issues. Of course during the time they say the rise of right wing groups happened there is a rise in all types of web sites including left wing hate smearers like the SPLC.

The internet is continuing to grow so yes there will probably be even more of these ‘right wing extremists’ objecting to the liberal agenda as time goes on but there will be a corresponding increase in Soros funded and non Soros funded radical leftist groups also.

But the SPLC ‘report’ was picked up by media everywhere (even the UK Guardian ) and reported as factual news just as they planned. That is the real purpose of the SPLC, to promote leftist propaganda and attempt to paint anyone who disagrees with their agenda as ‘extremists’ and ‘haters’.

Writing at RenewAmerica, J. Matt Barber explains the corruption at SPLC:

Alas, “power corrupts,” as it goes, and the SPLC, having amassed tremendous power and wealth over the years, has regrettably become corrupt to its core. By way of an ever-escalating wave of “us-versus-them” money-grubbing schemes, Today’s SPLC has morphed into a far-left political activist outfit, famous for promoting a panoply of extreme liberal causes.

Ken Silverstein, writing for Harper’s Magazine, addressed this untoward metamorphosis in 2000: “Today’s SPLC spends most of its time — and money — on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit rider passing the collection plate. ‘He’s the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement,’ renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, ‘though I don’t mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye.’

“The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the Center one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors,” continued Silverstein. “Morris Dees doesn’t need your financial support. The SPLC is already the wealthiest civil rights group in America, though [its fundraising literature] quite naturally omits that fact. … ‘Morris and I…shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money,’ recalls Dees’s business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be confused with Millard Farmer). ‘We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich.’” (You say Fuller. I say Farmer. The two Millards say “call the whole thing off.”)

So, what happens when a dragon slayer — paid per dragon head — runs out of real dragons to slay? Well, he invents new ones, of course. Gotta keep those sprinklers-a-sprinklin.’ (According to Harper’s, “Dees bought a 200-acre estate appointed with tennis courts, a pool, and stables.” SPLC’s 2008 Form-990 shows net assets of over 219 million at the beginning of that year. Yup, there’s a spate to be made in the hate trade.)

The SPLC has joined the Department of Homeland Security in a ‘Working Group’ called Countering Violent Extremism. John Cohen, President and CEO of SPLC is listed as a member and Laurie Wood, Analyst, Southern Poverty Law Center/Instructor, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center is listed as an ‘expert in subject matter’.  The members of the group also include three from Muslim organizations but we don’t see any conservatives. (see the list at the end of the report)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which has been determined by the courts to be a terrorist support group proudly points out on their Facebook page that its Michigan members ‘participated a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group meeting with law enforcement officials and community advocates in Dearborn, Mich.’[ibid].

So we have the Southern Poverty Law Center, also known as The Church of Morris Dees, which calls groups and individuals like the Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, the Heritage Foundation, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) ‘right wing extremists’ and the Council on American-Islamic Relations which the FBI has proven to be linked to a terrorist organization teaming up with the US Department of Homeland Security to determine what groups in America should be categorized as ‘extremist’ and potentially violent.
Now you can see why the DHS came out with its Rightwing Extremism report in April of 2009  that warned of potential violence by people against illegal immigration and gun control, and returning military veterans. Now that’s change.

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By Matthew Spalding at Heritage Foundation

Across this great land, patriotic Americans are behaving subversively.

We’re quoting from our pocket Constitutions, starting reading groups to discuss our founding documents, even gathering together to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Uncle Sam is not amused.

As leaders of tea party groups have been painfully aware for years, the Internal Revenue Service has given “special” attention to conservative groups.

Heritage sounded the alarm on the Obama Administration’s hit list nearly a year ago. Idaho businessman Frank VanderSloot was singled out by the IRS and the Labor Department after making a sizable donation to Mitt Romney. Who ordered his investigation?

>>> Watch our video to hear his story 

The IRS admits that in recent years it has zeroed in on organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. Further, The Wall Street Journal reports the IRS has also targeted groups that say they are “worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to ‘make America a better place to live.’” Fox News adds that organizations interested in doing “education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights” made the list.

The goal was clearly to reduce the amount of anti-government speech by making it more difficult for these groups to achieve tax-exempt status. And it worked. Just look at these examples from four different states:

• ABC News reports that Jennifer Stefano of Pennsylvania wanted to start a tea party group, but dealing with the IRS “was frightening and that’s why I shut it down. I shut my group down.”

• The IRS ordered an Ohio group to answer 35 detailed questions, including to “provide a listing of all your past activities. Indicate the percentage of your time spent conducting the activity (total of all activities should equal 100%) and the percentage of your funds spent conducting the activity (total of all activities should equal 100%).”

• In Tennessee, Kevin Kookogey was trying to start an educational group called Linchpins of Liberty to teach the economic principles of Milton Friedman and Adam Smith. When he inquired with the IRS in 2011 about the delay in his tax-exempt status, he was told: “We have been waiting on guidance from our superiors as to your and similar organizations.” He is still waiting.

• In Virginia, it took Richmond Tea Party President Larry Nordvig two and a half years to get tax-exempt status. He tells The Washington Post the wait had “a very chilling effect” on how much money his group could raise, and thus on how much speech it could generate.

How many groups are under scrutiny? That remains to be seen. President Obama said yesterday that the IRS’s actions were “intolerable and inexcusable” and that “regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong.”

Our federal government was designed to be a neutral arbiter between competing private interests that would protect our liberties. Instead, it has morphed into a permanent interest group of its own.

In some ways, it’s almost as if we’ve disappointed our government by questioning it. As Bertolt Brecht quipped about the late, unlamented East Germany:

The people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.

So here’s a charge to all tea partiers, and indeed all “patriotic” Americans of any political bent: Let’s redouble our efforts—to limit government and promote freedom.

Doing so may anger Big Brother, but it will protect the liberty of all Americans.

Also please consider:

We’re all terrorists now! DHS continues to target conservatives and ignore Islamists

After the conviction of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell on murder charges, Operation Rescue has been repeatedly asked if there is any evidence that similar practices exist at abortion clinics elsewhere in the nation.

That documentation has now been released by Operation Rescue in a shocking new report that describes in detail the allegations of Gosnell-like practices that are still happening today at an abortion clinic in Houston, Texas owned and operated by late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen and the two-year effort to bring him to justice that has been ignored by the Texas Medical Board.

Allegations supported with photographic evidence include gruesome details of viable, late-term babies being aborted alive then intentionally killed by having their throats slashed, brains stabbed, and heads twisted off.

“This project will debunk any notion that Gosnell was an outlier in the abortion industry,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “It is as heart-wrenching and tragic as the Gosnell case, and demands a similar response. This time, we are giving the public an opportunity to help in bringing this Texas abortionist to justice.”

The three former abortion clinic workers, Deborah Edge, Gigi Aguliar, and Krystal Rodriguez, came to Operation Rescue as the result of our Abortion Whistleblowers Program, which offers a reward of $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of abortionists who are breaking the law. These brave women tell of their horrific experiences working for abortionist Douglas Karpen, at one of three of his Texas abortion clinics, the Aaron Women’s Clinic in Houston.

Operation Rescue arranged to have Life Dynamics, Inc. produce a video interview of these women, which was released yesterday. Additional video and other evidence has been produced by Operation Rescue and is including in the Special Report.

As shocking as their stories are, these women did more than just talk; they brought forward evidence of illegal late-term abortions in the form of photos and video taken on their cell phones at the Karpen’s clinic on Schumacher Lane in Houston.

Watch video evidence of apparent health violations, listen to the women describe their nightmarish experiences, and view the most shocking evidence of all, the photos that prove an criminal investigation into murder and illegal late-term abortions is not only warranted, but necessary, to protect viable babies from an merciless and painful death not much different from what earned Gosnell two life sentences in prison.

Photos of Babies 1 & 2

Read the Special Report: New Stunning Photos, Testimony Show Texas Abortionist Kills Babies Born Alive

Family Talk Action Corporation is a Christian ministry that was formed for the purpose of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ; of providing Christ-oriented advice and education to parents and children; and of speaking to cultural issues that affect the family. Well known psychologist, author, and family advocate, James C. Dobson, Ph.D., serves as Family Talk Action’s President and CEO.

On September 2, 2011, Family Talk Action filed a Form 1024 with the Internal Revenue Service requesting § 501(c)(4) status. The attorney completing this form had submitted scores of similar applications over his 26 year career with none being rejected.

In January and February 2013, Family Talk Action’s counsel called the IRS reviewing agent, R. Medley (ID no. 52402), to inquire regarding when there would be a determination of the application. Her voice mail box was full on each of these calls so no message could be left. On March 6, he called Ms. Medley again and got routed to her voice mail again. This time, he was able to leave a voice mail message and requested a return call.

Ms. Medley did not call back until March 19. Family Talk Action’s attorney asked her when the IRS would issue its determination letter. Ms. Medley responded saying, I don’t think your Form 1024 (application for exemption) will be granted because Family Talk Action is “not educational” because it does not present all views. She continued, saying that Family Talk Action sounded like a “partisan right-wing group” because, according to Ms. Medley, it only presents conservative viewpoints. She then added, “you’re political” because you “criticized President Obama, who was a candidate.”

Family Talk Action had submitted a couple of sample radio programs upon request from the IRS. None were aired during an election year. It was the opinion of Family Talk Action’s legal counsel that these samples were not only § 501(c)(4) qualified but § 501(c)(3) qualified. Family Talk Action’s legal counsel had never heard an IRS agent express biased statements like those he heard during the March 19 call.

He also felt that the this agent did not understand the difference between § 501(c)(3) and § 501(c)(4) entities and asked her to have the IRS issue its ruling. He then said, “if we have to litigate it, we will.” The IRS issued its determination letter nine days later granting the request for § 501(c)(4) status.

Family Talk Action’s President, Dr. James Dobson explained his release of this information stating: “The American people deserve better treatment from its government than this. Christian ministries and others supporting the family must not be silenced or intimidated by the IRS or other branches of the government.”

Christian Newswire

usACTIONnews posted the story over two years ago. The media ignored the illegal late term abortions and the murder of babies born alive.

Yet where is the outrage? Where is Obama crying out that we must “do something” like he did after the the deaths at Sandyhook Elementary. Where is the chorus from the left for immediate congressional action to “save the children” from these mass murderers? Where are the daily stories, photo ops, families of victims’ interviews and Air Force One rides? Where are the Democrat senators and congressmen railing for action and new more restrictive laws to end this violence?

Why has the left and its media been so silent?

We wrote earlier about the propaganda style suppression of the story:

Media Ignores Gruesome Serial Killer for 2 Years

“Fearing the damage it could do to the most sacred dogma of the leftist progressives, the left wing media and the party of (D)eath try to hide one of the most gruesome decade long killing sprees. We wrote about this serial killer of African Americans in Jan 2011 and posted the gruesome photos from the grand jury report. (See: “Gruesome photos included in abortion doctors grand jury report“) We also suggested that Gosnell was just doing what Obama spoke for as a senator. (See: “Abortion doctor charged with murder for doing what Obama defended“) Souvenir baby feet in jars, screaming infants with their jaws ripped off and near term babies born alive and then murdered and the Obamedia ignores it. Abortionist Gosnell killed more live kids than died at Sandy Hook yet where is the horrific outcry from the leftists and Obama who are so concerned about “the children?”

Even Fox News who claims to be the only network covering the “house of horrors” is two years late and refuses to the show the pictures. This is “choice” at its end result. Consider these comments from Mother Theresa about abortion and the resulting violence:

“America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts — a child — as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters”
And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.” (Mother Theresa — “Notable and Quotable,” Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94, p. A14)

“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child – a direct killing of the innocent child – murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love – that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. ”

February 1997 – National Prayer Breakfast in Washington attended by the President and the First Lady. “What is taking place in America,” she said, “is a war against the child. And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another.”

“Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.”

“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

Also please consider:

Inhuman: Undercover in America’s Late-Term Abortion Industry

Dr. Alveda King on Site at Gosnell Trial

Pagan Roots of Today’s Liberals

Why Liberals Support Gun Control and Control of Everything Else

Planned Parenthood Wants Abortion Survivors Killed Not Helped

Media Ignores Gruesome Serial Killer for 2 Years

Abortion doctor charged with murder for doing what Obama defended

9/12 – the Manhattan attack that gave us Obama

The Corruption of America

By Roger Aronoff

You would have thought that the Obama administration would have learned from the growing Benghazi scandal that the best way to handle such controversies is to get out in front of them, and put it all out there, rather than let it drip, drip, drip, as is now happening with the recent IRS blowup.

According to The Washington Post, based on documents it obtained from a congressional aide, the Internal Revenue Service has targeted and singled out for added scrutiny, groups applying for tax-exempt status which have made statements that “criticize how the country is being run” and that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

If so, this IRS scandal could well be an abuse of power by the executive branch, reflecting one of the issues that was an article of impeachment drawn up for then-President Richard Nixon, before he resigned.

“Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the ‘absolutely inappropriate’ actions by ‘front-line people’ were not driven by partisan motives,” reports The Washington Post.

“Does anyone actually believe this?” asks Joe Klein of Time Magazine. “But I don’t think Obama ever wanted to be on the same page as Richard Nixon,” writes Klein. “In this specific case, he now is.”

In 1998, when liberal journalists such as Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, and Lars-Erik Nelson of The New York Daily News said that President Clinton should resign in the wake of revelations about lying to the country about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, it foreshadowed the impeachment that would occur several months later. And though 50 U.S. senators voted to remove him from office, the requirement was for two-thirds of the Senate, and Clinton remained in office to complete his second term.

When a liberal Obama enthusiast like Joe Klein starts comparing Obama to Richard Nixon, that spells trouble.

President Obama announced on Monday at his joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron that he had not heard of the scandal until it made major news last Friday, following Lerner’s public statement, which seemed inadvertent. The Washington Post said that “it appeared to have happened by chance when Lerner, appearing Friday at a conference held by the American Bar Association, responded to a question about the allegations by conservative groups.” When asked later why she announced it, she said that she “heard it was going to be leaked on Friday.”

So what exactly happened with the IRS, and when? The New York Times has published a timeline that covers from March 2010 to May 2012, and outlines the changing criteria that the IRS Determinations Unit employees used to refer applications for extra scrutiny.

In March and April 2010 the unit “began searching for requests for tax exemption involving the Tea Party, Patriots, 9/12” and “political sounding names” such as “We the People” or “Take Back the Country,” according to The New York Times. In July 2011, after concerns were raised, the definition was made more generic and the politicization was removed.

But in January 2012, these criteria were again highly politicized to target “Political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, social economic reform/movement” (emphasis added). The criteria were supposedly corrected to be less political starting in May 2012.

May 2012 is also when, as ABC News reported, the current acting IRS commissioner, who was then deputy commissioner, was aware of these actions by the agency. ABC called it a “controversy” on their evening news on Monday, while both NBC and CBS led the news with the story and called it a “scandal.”

In all, about 300 applications were referred for special scrutiny. Of these 300 organizations, 85 were flagged for having the words “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their name, while 11 more had “9/12” in their name. “So far, none of those applications have been rejected, although some have been withdrawn,” reports ABC News (emphasis added). According to the Post, 130 out of the 300 organizations have had their tax-exempt status approved, while 25 have withdrawn their applications.

Ms. Lerner, who is “three rungs down” from the commissioner, argues that this inappropriate targeting of conservative groups was conducted by low-level officials at the Cincinnati office. However, it isn’t just rogue agents or officials, which the news media accounts might have superficially left readers to believe. According to the Associated Press, “Lerner said the number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400.”

“To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.” In other words, it was the central office that was mishandling tax exemption applications.

Left-leaning news organizations such as ABC News and The New York Times would like this scandal to go away for the Administration. Thus, they have generally cast their reporting as if there is no scandal—as if this is all Republican or conservative bluster. “Conservative groups have rejected an Internal Revenue Service apology for unjustifiably scrutinizing tax-exempt conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle,” reports Abby Phillip for ABC News. “The IRS apology has seemingly validated conservatives’ fears of politically motivated regulation.” The bias, in fact, seems pretty clear.

During the press conference last Friday, Ms. Lerner stated that there was no political bias, but was unable to name any liberal groups or associated words that were targeted. She also wouldn’t say at first whether anyone was being disciplined, then “appeared to say there was no disciplinary action, then went back to saying she wouldn’t comment.” And as to how she found out about the wrongdoing, “Lerner said the investigation stemmed from media reports about conservative groups claiming that they were targeted, not from any internal review.”

That same day, White House spokesman Jay Carney called the actions “inappropriate.” The IRS has officially apologized, and House Republicans will be holding Congressional hearings regarding the matter later this week. The Post has reported that the IRS lied repeatedly about it when asked by members of Congress. And even some Democrats are voicing their disapproval: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said, “The actions of the IRS are unacceptable and un-American.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said there is “No excuse for ideological discrimination in our system.” Outgoing Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) called it an “Outrageous abuse of power and breach of the public’s trust.”

But, for Abby Phillip, “The rare apology in some ways vindicates conservative groups that have been hounded by allegations that their activities were not completely legal.” Such reporting is meant to turn the head on conservative groups and insinuate that they deserved to be targeted.

The New York Times is also pushing the idea that this is about Republicans bashing the Administration, rather than a real story. “Since last year’s elections, Republicans in Congress have struggled for traction on their legislative efforts, torn between conservatives who drove the agenda after their 2010 landslide and new voices counseling a shift in course to reflect President Obama’s re-election and the loss of Republican seats in the House and the Senate,” write Jonathan Weisman and Matthew L. Wald in a New York Times article entitled  “I.R.S. Focus on Conservatives Gives G.O.P. an Issue to Seize On.” You see, it’s the Republicans who are playing politics here, not the Administration.

“But the accusations of I.R.S. abuse are sure to fuel an effort that appears to be uniting dispirited Republicans and their conservative political base: investigating Mr. Obama and his administration,” continue Weisman and Wald. Such reporting insinuates that the Administration does not deserve to be investigated for targeting its political opponents with the government apparatus.

As it is, the IRS scandal may not just be limited to Tea Partiers or patriotic organizations. It may also include pro-Israel organizations, as well. “The IRS required that Jewish organization [Z Street] to state ‘whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,’ and also demanded the organization ‘[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel,’” according to Lori Lowenthal Marcus with the Jewish Press. Lowenthal Marcus is the founder of Z Street, which is currently suing the IRS.

This scandal isn’t about to go away.

Investor’s Business Daily recalled “a chilling memo from Nixon White House counsel John Dean in 1971 describing how ‘we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.’ Dean emphasized that ‘a low visibility of the project is imperative.’ The Watergate break-in seemed low level, but relentless reporting found it led to the top. Within 27 months a presidency was toppled.

“We know the Obama administration is capable of misusing the IRS. In 2010, an attorney for donors Charles and David Koch told the Weekly Standard of a senior Obama aide telling reporters that the Kochs ‘do not pay corporate income tax’ through their firm. He wondered how the White House got his clients’ private information from the IRS.”

National Review editorialized that “This episode is not the only reason we have had to question the rectitude of the IRS’s conduct in recent years. Somehow, Mitt Romney’s tax returns managed to be leaked, as did documents from American Crossroads, the organization associated with Republican strategist Karl Rove.”

They added, “The misuse of confidential IRS documents is a crime, and a serious one. To target individuals and organizations because of their political and religious beliefs is a serious offense to our constitutional order. To use federal employees, offices, and records to do so is the misappropriation of government funds and other resources.”

President Obama claimed he didn’t know about this until last Friday. At his press conference on Monday, he said, “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday.” As Joe Klein asked, “Does anyone actually believe this?”

Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org.

After deliberating more than ten days, a jury in Philadelphia today convicted Dr. Kermit  Gosnell, 72, one of Philadelphia’s oldest and wealthiest abortion doctors, of three counts of first degree murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter.  The convictions were based upon the horrendous and extensive evidence presented by the prosecution through 54 witnesses to the jury during more than a month-long trial that concluded with Gosnell’s defense attorney offering no witnesses or other evidence in his defense, except to argue (contrary to the evidence) that the babies Gosnell killed were already dead when they were born and the prosecution’s case was “the most extraordinary hype and exaggeration in the history of the criminal justice system” solely based upon the “political climate of racism and elitism.” But even defense counsel made a critical misstep when he argued that the neck snipping was to alleviate any pain that the brain might detect, indicating that there may have been brain function and the sensation of pain in these babies before their spinal cords were cut. Pennsylvania law says brain wave activity after birth is evidence of being “alive.”

On the three first degree murder counts for which he faces the death penalty, Gosnell was found to have intentionally killed (or supervised the killing) of three infants who had been born alive after Gosnell (or his unlicensed staff) either botched their chemical abortions using Digoxin (that was supposed to fatally cause the babies to die of heart attacks in the womb), or never even used Digoxin (since no puncture wounds were found in the victims), but in any event finished the job by severing the children’s spinal cord with surgical scissors plunged into the backs of their necks. One witness recalled a baby that writhed in pain from the pressure of the surgical scissors around his neck. Gosnell joked, “that’s what you call a chicken with its head cut off.”

On the third degree murder count, Gosnell was found ‘with reckless disregard’ to have supervised the drug overdose by his unlicensed employees of a 41-year old immigrant Nepalese woman named Karnamaya Mongar. The evidence showed that when Gosnell heard Mongar’s respiration had slowed prior to her late-term abortion procedure, he responded by giving her more drugs. After being told half way through the abortion that Mongar had turned gray, Gosnell continued the abortion for twenty more minutes. A drug that could have counteracted the drug overdose was expired in the cabinet and went unused.  Additional time was lost when the responding EMT’s trying to rush Mongar to the hospital were blocked by the locked emergency exit for which Gosnell had lost the key.

Gosnell was also convicted on many of the lesser remaining charges including racketeering, performing illegal abortions after 24 weeks, failing to observe Pennsylvania’s 24-hour waiting period before an abortion can be performed and endangering a child’s welfare for employing a 15-year old in the procedure area.

Two other unlicensed employees of Gosnell’s inaptly named ‘Woman’s Health Society,’ Lynda Williams and Steven Massof, who had already pled guilty to two counts of third-degree murder, murder conspiracy and other charges (to avoid the death penalty) testified that they snipped the spines of more than 100 babies after seeing them breathe, move or show other signs of life. “Severing the spinal cords of moving, breathing babies outside their mothers’ wombs was, according to Massof, ‘standard procedure,’ at Gosnell’s clinic. “Gosnell encouraged his staff to kill babies born alive; Lynda Williams, Adrienne Moton and Steven Massof all followed his barbaric example,” said the nearly 300-page Grand Jury report, issued January 14, 2011, that formed the basis for Dr. Gosnell’s indictment.

Sam Casey, JC-LOLP’s Managing Director and General Counsel, said:

“While we were appalled that the mainstream media was rarely present during this trial and gave far too little coverage to a well-developed case which effectively took the covers off what the abortion industry too often gets away with in this country, we are pleased that justice was done today by a jury of Dr. Gosnell’s peers here in Philadelphia.  In Pennsylvania, what Dr. Gosnell seemingly dismissed and the responsible regulatory agencies apparently ignored as permissible “after-birth abortions” were today rightly adjudged murders in the first or third degrees because that is precisely what they are.”

Last week, JC-LOLP joined with other pro-life leaders in America in signing an “Open Letter to our Fellow Citizens” stating that although only one abortion doctor was being prosecuted for murder in Philadelphia, the practices of the “entire abortion industry” should remain on trial in the ‘court of public opinion:’ “We remember the wrongful death of Tonya Reaves at the hands of Planned Parenthood last July [in Chicago]. We remember the needless death of Jennifer Morbelli at the hands of Dr. LeRoy Carhart [in Maryland] just a few months ago. We have recorded the deaths of countless other women as well who have lost their lives to the euphemistic ‘freedom of choice’ [or been otherwise harmed in unsafe unregulated or under-regulated abortion clinics]. In history, there are often significant moments that make the once-hardened hearts of people more malleable.  These changed hearts are then more eager to bring about social reform and work toward justice…The trial of Kermit Gosnell is just such a moment.”

On May 3 and 5, FOX News Channel aired a shocking documentary “See No Evil” on Gosnell’s abortion practices that the jury never saw. The documentary about Gosnell’s 40-year career as the abortion industry’s pioneering “doctor” included Gosnell’s infamous “Mother’s Day Massacre” when he injured nine women by testing an experimental abortion device on them that caused plastic razor blades to lacerate their wombs. Even then, however, Gosnell escaped receiving any disciplinary action, with the state turning a blind eye, as it would for the next four decades as he operated his “House of Horrors.”

While it is sad that justice and media attention now comes so late after so many mothers and children have been harmed and killed, it is important that all Americans see, hear and learn the bitter lesson that Gosnell teaches us: pregnancy is not a disease and abortion is not health care.  Whether “legalized” or not, abortion is a dirty business that exists for the compensation of abortionists and the politicians whose war chests they fund, not for the assistance of thousands of women and children they daily victimize, harm and kill.

So now that Gosnell stands convicted and may soon find himself on death row, we are left to ponder, why late-term abortion, a practice permitted by our courts so long as the baby is in utero, be forbidden by our laws and consciences when the baby has just been removed from the mother by her abortionist moments before? Is it because ordinary citizens serving on the trial jury in Philadelphia believe that the expansive power to destroy human life established by five members of our United States Supreme Court in its 1973 Roe and Doe decisions, and affirmed in its 1993 Casey decision, is deeply immoral and ought in no way to be extended under our Constitution to permit infanticide.  If Gosnell asks the Court to reverse his convictions on constitutional grounds, they ought to tell him there is no way our Constitution protects infanticide. If we insist Kermit Gosnell should die, then perhaps, as many suggest, we must reexamine the “assumicide” in Roe and Doe that erroneously assumed without any proof that we don’t know when life begins and that the legalization of abortion would make abortion safe because we could trust the doctor-patient relationship. The evidence in Gosnell’s trial puts the lie to these judicial “assumptions.”

For those who think that Gosnell is the sole perpetrator of such unlawful “after-birth abortions,” JC-LOLP commends the investigatory work of Live Action and Operation Rescue whose web sites provide ample evidence that the abortion industry, despite its protestations to the contrary, widely practices what Gosnell preached to his employees and was finally caught red-handed doing. In fact, the Gosnell Grand Jury Report reveals that other abortion providers regularly referred its second and third trimester abortion clients to Gosnell (which is how Mrs. Mongar arrived only to be killed by the drug overdose administered to her by Gosnell’s unqualified staff).  Indeed the Gosnell Grand Jury Report (at page 8) also reveals that the abortion industry’s trade standards association, the National Abortion Federation, inspected Gosnell’s facility, refused to certify it but also failed to report the numerous violations and sub-standard practices they observed. As to why this happened, the Grand Jury Report (at page 13) concluded: “Bureaucratic inertia is not exactly news. We understand that. But we think this was something more. We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.”

At JC-LOLP, we are working to ferret out the ‘Gosnells’ of this world, as we seek to prevent and mitigate these heinous crimes and close or correct the sub-standard abortion facilities and medical practices that propagate such crimes.  The Gosnell Grand Jury (at page 16) recommended that “the Pennsylvania Department of Health plug the hole it has created for abortion clinics. They should be explicitly regulated as ambulatory surgical facilities, so that they are inspected annually and held to the same standards as all other outpatient procedure centers. Inspectors should review patient files, including ultrasound images, on site. Equipment, and employees’ licenses, should be scrutinized. Second-trimester abortions should be performed or supervised by physicians board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology.”

That is why JC-LOLP worked with many other community groups for over the past two years submitting agency comments in support of the Virginia law and regulations that now require Virginia’s abortion clinics, as even reported in the New York Times, to abide by the same rules and regulations that apply to all Virginia outpatient surgical facilities. While predictably the liberal media like the Washington Post’s editorial board waxes uncharacteristically ‘libertarian’ in their objections to such reasonable regulations, we are pleased that already one sub-standard Virginia abortion clinic, Hillcrest in Virginia Beach, that claims to do up to 7% of Virginia’s abortions (about 1600 per year) is shutting down rather than comply with the same regulations Virginia applies to all other out-patient surgical clinics. We should also never forget that had such regulations been effectively enforced in Pennsylvania, Gosnell would also have been shut down and Karnamaya Mongar, and countless number of infants, would not have been murdered.

Casey said:

“Since abortion operates under the guise of health care in this country, the abortion industry must be

properly regulated for the safety of all pregnant mothers who are deciding whether to terminate their pregnancy or not.  For example, Virginia’s permanent abortion facilities regulations will now prevent abortion facilities from subjecting women to unlicensed drug prescriptions, facilities where medics can’t even get a patient safely out of the facility, and patient unsanitary conditions, including physicians performing abortions with unwashed hands or blood splattered on examination tables and medical trays, all of which actually occurred in the Gosnell case.”

About the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project
The Law of Life Project is a public interest legal organization dedicated to legally defending the right to life and dignity of the human being from biological conception until natural death in all matters worldwide where such a defense is required.  Jubilee Campaign is an international charitable organization that seeks to be a “voice for the voiceless” promoting the human rights of all, particularly women and children in countries which imprison, terrorize or otherwise oppress them.   www.lawoflifeproject.org

Christian Newswire

Also please consider:

Media Ignores Gruesome Serial Killer for 2 Years

Abortion doctor charged with murder for doing what Obama defended

Inhuman: Undercover in America’s Late-Term Abortion Industry

Planned Parenthood Wants Abortion Survivors Killed Not Helped

9/12 – the Manhattan attack that gave us Obama

The Corruption of America

by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish

Lady Macbeth may have been one of literature’s most famous villains, but at least she had the guilty conscience to eventually try and wash the blood off her hands. Even if by then it was much too late.

It is doubtful that Hillary Rodham Clinton will start hallucinating bloody spots on her palms during the book tour for her upcoming 14-million-dollar book or compulsively washing her hands during the 2016 campaign.

If she does make it into the White House, it is even more doubtful that she will wander it at night in a nightgown crying out for the blood that can never be washed away.

Lady Macbeth may have cried out, “Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Araby will not sweeten this little hand.” But the black perfumes of today’s Araby are more than enough to sweeten a multitude of appeasements and cover the blood that flows out from them.

Real life villains are closer to Richard III than Lady Macbeth, offering to trade their stolen kingdom for a horse to the very end, rather than seeking some intangible repentance in a fit of remorse. They are more likely to ask what difference it makes; the solipsistic query of the sociopath to whom the feelings of others are abstract things.

The Benghazi hearings featured more hypocritical and trite eulogies than anything Richard III could have imagined. Congressman Elijah Cummings told witnesses that “death is a part of a life.” A fact that they were surely unaware of. His colleague, Eleanor Holmes Norton asked, “What’s the big deal here?”

“We had Benghazi I with Susan Rice, now we’re having Benghazi II with Hillary Clinton. Enough Benghazi,” Norton declared. It’s not quite “Out, damned spot!” or “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” and more “What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”

The latter is a timeless villain’s truth, whether in a fictional 11th century Scottish castle or in the all too real 21st century Capitol Hill.

For Lady Macbeth, power was not a sufficient defense against conscience. A thousand years later, in Foggy Bottom, Capitol Hill and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; there is no conscience, only power. The arrogance of an Obama, a Clinton or a Norton comes from their confidence that none can call their power to account.

Norton and Clinton have more of a point than critics give them credit for. Benghazi isn’t a big deal. Not compared to the rivers of blood they shed in Afghanistan. In Benghazi, four Americans were abandoned. In Afghanistan, it was over 1500 soldiers killed and nearly 15,000 wounded many of them denied air support and the ability to fight back under rules of engagement that likely also played a part in the betrayal at Benghazi.

Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, a Shakespearean villain, if there ever was one, who helpfully wrote his own soliloquies, once said that while a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. The four deaths in Benghazi are also a tragedy. Though we must of course, as Congressman Cummings told us, put them into the context of death being a part of life. Afghanistan however is just a statistic.

The day after Benghazi, the parents of Navy SEALS from Seal Team Six, along with military experts and former military officials, appeared at the National Press Club to demand a congressional investigation. The media responded with a collective shrugs and resumed providing non-stop coverage of the Jodi Arias case. Some Lady Macbeths go to prison. Others are meant to go to the White House.

“Why was there no pre-assault fire?” Karen Vaughn, the mother of Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn, asked. “We were told as families that pre-assault fire damages our efforts to win the hearts and minds of our enemy. So in other words, the hearts and minds of our enemy are more valuable to this government than my son’s blood.”

“Why didn’t they take them out with a drone,” Charles Strange, the father of Michael Strange asked. “The Admiral told me, to win the hearts and minds. I says, to win the hearts and minds? How about my heart? How about my mind?” But not all hearts and minds are created equal. And not all blood is valued the same.

If Lady Macbeth had wandered through her Foggy Bottom castle or the Westchester mansion, complete with wine cellar, artist’s studio and outdoor fireplace, mourning for a Muslim terrorist killed in a drone strike or a Muslim protester during the September 11 embassy attacks, that would have been a socially acceptable act of regret for a lost mind and heart that could have yet been turned to a moderate appreciation of a country where you can hate it, bomb it and still get an academic posting at Columbia University.

But why bother mourning for one of the expendable human drones who are expected to give their lives to remind Muslims of our respect for their culture and religion?

When a Muslim is killed by a drone, the media gathers its outrage, but when one of our soldiers or diplomats dies in the hopes of softening a Muslim’s heart, then the men and women who sent him to die with his hands tied and a target painted on his back cannot see the red spots on their soft palms.

Muslim hearts and minds are the obsession of the policymakers of the dying West, but who cares about the hearts and minds of the men and women who ride Chinooks into danger zones, run marathons in cities where aspiring Chechen boxers feel marginalized and work in skyscrapers that Muslim students fly past on the way from Boston, except on Election Day?

“Under the current Rules of Engagement, if the enemy fires on you then runs behind a rock,” Karen Vaughn told a press that was busy pressing its fingers into its ears as deep as they could go, “when he pops his head out from behind the rock, you’re not allowed to engage him unless you can verify that he has not laid his gun down… in other words you must be fired on twice.”

Today it’s twice. Tomorrow it may be three times. And then four. The angrier they get, the more free shots we have to give them to improve their self-esteem and soothe the throbbing emotions in their hearts and minds.

The press release for Hillary Clinton’s 14-million-dollar book declares that she “has redefined the meaning of ‘trailblazer’ in every phase of her career on the world stage.” Considering the ambassador she left choking to death on the smoke from a fire set by the militias she helped empower, that might not be the best choice of words. The unnamed book will offer “dramatic moments”, “vivid personal anecdotes” and “memories of her collaboration with President Obama and his National Security team.”

Again, not the best choice of words. But all too apt.

“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters,” Lady Macbeth advised her lord. But it isn’t likely that readers who plonk down their thirty bucks will read any strange matters in this sixth or seventh Clinton book. Those who have already endured “Living History” with her and “It Takes a Village”, not to mention “Dear Socks: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets” are unlikely to learn anything new from Hillary Clinton’s version of Decision Points.

The books after all take the next part of Lady Macbeth’s murderous advice. “To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye… But be the serpent under’t.” The time now is that of the successful career woman whose marriage may be a sham and whose career is littered with more bodies than Lady Macbeth could have aspired to in her most deranged fantasies, but who never lets that get her down or stop her from leaning in to offer some empowering advice for that big meeting.

The serpent is still underneath. And sometimes it comes to the surface, asking what difference it makes it four people died here or fifteen hundred people died there. It’s been Benghazi I and Benghazi II and eventually Benghazi III and it’s time to MoveOn.org to discussing some offensive thing about the reproductive process that a Republican in Iowa or Idaho said.

There will be no book titled, “Dear Hillary, I’m In a Burning Diplomatic Mission with no Security and Can’t Breathe: Dying Ambassador’s Letters to Former First Ladies” and no, “It Takes a State Department to Spend Money on Art in Embassies Instead of on Embassy Security” book either. Those books wouldn’t look like the time, they actually would be the time. They would be the bloody handprints on the wall and that would distract us from the Jodi Arias 2016 campaign.

The families of Navy SEALS demanding answers will not receive a fraction of the coverage that Cindy Sheehan did for burping in Bush’s direction. American hearts and minds only matter when they are being influenced to stop fighting back against all the hate in Muslim hearts and minds. Soldiers will go on fighting and dying with their hands tied behind their backs. Embassies will go on being attacked. And nothing will be done about it because fighting back is insensitive and hurts our chances of winning Muslim hearts and minds.

Lady Macbeth only wanted power, but she lacked an ideology that would allow her to believe that she was doing the right thing.  There was no Wellesley College senior thesis about Saul Alinsky on her shelf and she was left unequipped to believe that the ends justified the means and that rivers of blood could be spilled in a good cause.

“If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the result would be social revolution,” Hillary Clinton wrote in her conclusion.

The social revolution of her 1969 thesis is once again here, and like most revolutions, it’s a bloody mess. Once again social values are under attack by radicals while soldiers die overseas without being allowed to fight back. And the radicals care for nothing for the blood that they spill for their radical revolution. Not the blood of a single man or of a thousand men.

“What is a traitor?” Lady Macduff’s son asks his mother, before being murdered by Macbeth’s assassins. “Why, one that swears and lies,” his mother replies. “Who must hang them?” her son asks. “Why, the honest men,” she answers. “Then the liars and swearers are fools,” he says, “for there are liars and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.”

The liars and swearers have hung up the honest men from Benghazi to Kabul to Capitol Hill. And the traitors walk through the night with blood on their hands and do not even see.

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger and columnist born in Israel and currently living in New York City. I am a contributing editor at Family Security Matters and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center.

His columns appear at Family Security Matters , Right Side News and daily at the Canada Free Press, as well as at Act for America, Front Page Magazine and usACTIONnews.

Also please consider:

Three Benghazigate Women

DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

Team Obama’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood

Andy McCarthy on Muslim Brotherhood Influence Operations in the US

The Muslim Brotherhood in America

Obama Administration Silent on Muslim Brotherhood Ties

Obama Protects and Arms Islamic Terrorism

There Is a Motive for Terror and Islam Is Its Name

New Evidence of Obama Coverup on Benghazi Terror Attack

“What difference does it make?” – That Obama & Hillary Lied, Americans Died?

By Michael T. Snyder

If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately.  It is a system that was designed by international bankers for the benefit of international bankers, and it is systematically impoverishing the American people.  The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger over the past 100 years.  The Fed creates our “booms” and our “busts”, and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy.  But why do we need a bunch of unelected private bankers to manage our economy and print our money for us in the first place?  Wouldn’t our economy function much more efficiently if we allowed the free market to set interest rates?  And according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.  So why is the Federal Reserve doing it?  Sadly, this is the way it works all over the globe today.  In fact, all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank.  But the truth is that there are much better alternatives.  We just need to get people educated.

The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve should be abolished…

#1 The Greatest Period Of Economic Growth In The History Of The United States Happened When There Was No Central Bank

Did you know that the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was between the Civil War and 1913?  And guess what?  That was a period when there was no central bank in the United States at all.  The following is from Wikipedia…

The Gilded Age saw the greatest period of economic growth in American history. After the short-lived panic of 1873, the economy recovered with the advent of hard money policies and industrialization. From 1869 to 1879, the US economy grew at a rate of 6.8% for real GDP and 4.5% for real GDP per capita, despite the panic of 1873.  The economy repeated this period of growth in the 1880s, in which the wealth of the nation grew at an annual rate of 3.8%, while the GDP was also doubled.

So if our greatest period of economic prosperity was during a time when there was no Federal Reserve, then why shouldn’t we try such a system again?

#2 The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying The Value Of The U.S. Dollar

The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

If you do not believe this, just check out the inflation chart in this article.

The Federal Reserve systematically penalizes those that try to save their money.  Inflation is a tax, and the value of each one of our dollars goes down a little bit more every single day.

But over time, it really adds up.  In fact, the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen by 83 percent since 1970.

Anyone that goes to the grocery store on a regular basis knows how painful inflation can be.  The following is a list that shows how prices for many of the things that we buy on a regular basis absolutely skyrocketed between 2002 and 2012…

Eggs: 73%

Coffee: 90%

Peanut Butter: 40%

Milk: 26%

A Loaf Of White Bread: 39%

Spaghetti And Macaroni: 44%

Orange Juice: 46%

Red Delicious Apples: 43%

Beer: 25%

Wine: 60%

Electricity: 42%

Margarine: 143%

Tomatoes: 22%

Turkey: 56%

Ground Beef: 61%

Chocolate Chip Cookies: 39%

Gasoline: 158%

Even the price of water has absolutely soared in recent years.  According to USA Today, water bills have actually tripled over the past 12 years in some areas of the country.

So how can the Federal Reserve get away with claiming that we are in a “low inflation” environment?

Well, what Ben Bernanke never tells you is that the way that the government calculates inflation has changed more than 20 times since 1978.

The truth is that the real rate of inflation is somewhere between five and ten percent right now, but you will never hear about this on the mainstream news.

#3 The Federal Reserve Is A Perpetual Debt Machine

The Federal Reserve system was designed to be a trap.  The intent of the bankers was to trap the U.S. government in an endless debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape.

But most Americans don’t understand this.  In fact, most Americans don’t even understand where money comes from.

If you don’t believe this, just go out on the street and ask regular people where money comes from.  The responses will be something like this…

“Duh – I don’t know.  I’ve got to get home to watch American Idol.”

This is why it is so important to get people educated.  I think that most Americans would be horrified to learn that the creation of more money in our system also involves the creation of more debt.

The following is a summary of money creation that comes from one of my previous articles…

When the U.S. government decides that it wants to spend another billion dollars that it does not have, it does not print up a billion dollars.

Rather, the U.S. government creates a bunch of U.S. Treasury bonds (debt) and takes them over to the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve creates a billion dollars out of thin air and exchanges them for the U.S. Treasury bonds.

So what does the Federal Reserve do with those Treasury bonds?  I went on to explain what happens…

The U.S. Treasury bonds that the Federal Reserve receives in exchange for the money it has created out of nothing are auctioned off through the Federal Reserve system.

But wait.

There is a problem.

Because the U.S. government must pay interest on the Treasury bonds, the amount of debt that has been created by this transaction is greater than the amount of money that has been created.

So where will the U.S. government get the money to pay that debt?

Well, the theory is that we can get money to circulate through the economy really, really fast and tax it at a high enough rate that the government will be able to collect enough taxes to pay the debt.

But that never actually happens, does it?

And the creators of the Federal Reserve understood this as well.  They understood that the U.S. government would not have enough money to both run the government and service the national debt.  They knew that the U.S. government would have to keep borrowing even more money in an attempt to keep up with the game.

Men like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford could not understand why we would adopt such a foolish system.  For example, Thomas Edison was once quoted in the New York Times as saying the following…

That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.

Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good.

Unfortunately, today most Americans don’t even understand how the system works.  They just assume that we have the best system in the entire world.

Sadly, the reality is that the system is working just as the international bankers that designed it had hoped.  The United States has the largest national debt in the history of the world, and we are stealing more than 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day in a desperate attempt to keep the debt spiral going.

#4 The Federal Reserve Is A Centrally-Planned Financial System That Is The Antithesis Of What A Free Market System Should Be

Why do we need someone to centrally-plan our financial system?

Isn’t that the kind of thing they do in communist China?

Why do we need someone to tell us what interest rates are going to be?

Why do we need someone to determine what “the target rate of inflation” should be?

If we actually had a free market system, the free market would be the one “managing” our economy.

But instead, we have become so accustomed to central planning that any alternatives seem to be absolutely unthinkable.

For example, CNBC cannot possibly imagine a world where the Fed (or some similar institution) was not running things…

But suppose the law were taken off the books? The Fed’s job—in simple terms—is to manage the nation’s money supply and achieve the sometimes-conflicting tasks of full employment, stable prices while fighting inflation or deflation.

How would the U.S. economy then function? Something has to take its place, right?

Global markets would also need some sort of economic direction from the U.S. The Fed manages the dollar — and as the world’s leading currency, a void left by a Fed-less America could throw those markets into chaos with uncertainty about who’s managing U.S. interest rates and the American economy.

I’ve got an idea – let’s let the free market “manage” U.S. interest rates and the American economy.

I know, it’s a crazy idea, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it just might work beautifully.

#5 The Federal Reserve Creates Bubbles And Busts

Do you remember the Dotcom bubble?

Or what about the housing bubble?

By dramatically distorting interest rates and financial behavior, the Federal Reserve creates economic bubbles and the corresponding economic busts.

And guess what?

Now it is happening again.

When will the American people decide that they have had enough?

If you can believe it, there have been 10 different economic recessions since 1950.  And of course the Federal Reserve even admits that it helped create the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Perhaps it is time to try something different.

#6 The Federal Reserve Is Privately Owned

It has been said that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.

Most Americans still believe that the Federal Reserve is a “federal agency”, but that is simply not true.  The following comes from factcheck.org…

The stockholders in the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks are the privately owned banks that fall under the Federal Reserve System. These include all national banks (chartered by the federal government) and those state-chartered banks that wish to join and meet certain requirements. About 38 percent of the nation’s more than 8,000 banks are members of the system, and thus own the Fed banks.

And even the Federal Reserve itself has argued that it is “not an agency” of the federal government in court.

So why is there still so much confusion about this?

We should not be allowing a private entity that is owned and dominated by the banks to make decisions that dramatically affect the daily lives of all the rest of us.

#7 The Federal Reserve Greatly Favors The “Too Big To Fail” Banks

Since the Federal Reserve is owned by the banks, should we be surprised that it serves the interests of the banks?

In particular, the Fed has been extremely good to the “too big to fail” banks.

Over the past several decades, those banks have grown tremendously in both size and power.

Back in 1970, the five largest U.S. banks held 17 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets.

Today, the five largest U.S. banks hold 52 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets.

#8 The Federal Reserve Gives Secret Bailouts To Their Friends

The Federal Reserve is the only institution in America that can print money out of thin air and loan it to their friends any time they want to.

For example, did you know that the Federal Reserve made 16 trillion dollars in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis?

The following list is taken directly from page 131 of a GAO audit report, and it shows which banks received secret loans from the Fed…

Citigroup – $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley – $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch – $1.949 trillion
Bank of America – $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC – $868 billion
Bear Sterns – $853 billion
Goldman Sachs – $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland – $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase – $391 billion
Deutsche Bank – $354 billion
UBS – $287 billion
Credit Suisse – $262 billion
Lehman Brothers – $183 billion
Bank of Scotland – $181 billion
BNP Paribas – $175 billion
Wells Fargo – $159 billion
Dexia – $159 billion
Wachovia – $142 billion
Dresdner Bank – $135 billion
Societe Generale – $124 billion
“All Other Borrowers” – $2.639 trillion

If you will notice, a number of the banks listed above are foreign banks.

Why is the Fed allowed to print money out of thin air and lend it to foreign banks?

#9 The Federal Reserve Is Paying Banks Not To Lend Money

Did you know that the Federal Reserve is actually paying U.S. banks not to lend money?

That doesn’t make sense.  Our economy is based on credit, and small businesses desperately need loans in order to operate.

But the Fed has decided to pay banks not to risk their money.  Section 128 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 allows the Federal Reserve to pay interest on “excess reserves” that U.S. banks park at the Fed.

So the big banks can just send their cash to the Fed and watch the money come rolling in risk-free.

As the chart below demonstrates, the banks have taken great advantage of this tremendous deal…

#10 The Federal Reserve Has An Astounding Track Record Of Failure

Over the past ten years, the Federal Reserve has been an abysmal failure when it comes to running the economy.

But despite a track record of failure that would make the Chicago Cubs look like a roaring success, Barack Obama actually decided to nominate Ben Bernanke for a second term as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

What a mistake.

Just check out some of the things that Bernanke said prior to the last financial crisis.  The following is an extended excerpt from an article that I published previously…

*****

In 2005, Bernanke said that we shouldn’t worry because housing prices had never declined on a nationwide basis before and he said that he believed that the U.S. would continue to experience close to “full employment”….

“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.”

In 2005, Bernanke also said that he believed that derivatives were perfectly safe and posed no danger to financial markets….

“With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.”

In 2006, Bernanke said that housing prices would probably keep rising….

“Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

In 2007, Bernanke insisted that there was not a problem with subprime mortgages….

“At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency.”

In 2008, Bernanke said that a recession was not coming….

“The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”

A few months before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed, Bernanke insisted that they were totally secure….

“The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.”

*****

There are many, many more examples that could be listed, but hopefully you get the point.

And now it is happening again.  Bernanke is telling the American people that everything is going to be just fine and that no major problems are ahead.

Do you believe him this time?

#11 The Federal Reserve Is Unaccountable To The American People

What is the most important political issue to most Americans?

Survey after survey has shown that the American people care about the economy more than anything else.

So why do we allow an unelected, unaccountable entity that is privately-owned to make our economic decisions for us?

The Federal Reserve has become so powerful that it has been called “the fourth branch of government”.  Every four years, presidential candidates argue about who will be best at managing the economy, but the truth is that it is the Fed that manages our economy.

We are told that the “independence” of the Federal Reserve is absolutely critical, but don’t the American people deserve to have a say in the running of the economy?

Our system is broken.  It is a system that will continue to create more bubbles and more debt until the entire thing finally collapses for good.

Thomas Jefferson once stated that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a ban on all government borrowing….

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

But instead of banning government borrowing, we have allowed ourselves to become enslaved to a system where government borrowing actually creates our money.

We do not need to have a central bank.  There are much better alternatives.  We just need to get people educated.

Please share this article with as many people as you possibly can.  These are things that every American should know about the Fed, and we need to educate the American people about the Federal Reserve while there is still time.

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and has a law degree from the University of  Florida. He is an attorney that has worked for some of the largest and most prominent law firms in Washington D.C. and who now resides outside of Seattle, Washington. He is a very active blogger and is also a respected researcher, writer, speaker and activist. He blogs at http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

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By: John Hayward at Human Events

EXCERPTS:

… Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website …

IER divided the $26 billion spent on “green jobs” by the Energy Department since 2009, divided it by the 2,298 permanent jobs created, and came up with a cost of $11.45 million per job.

Your calculator will melt if you try to compute the per-job cost of famed boondoggles like Solyndra or Abound Soler, where the DOE handed out $535 million and $400 million respectively to create zero permanent jobs, because it turned out the companies were temporary.  But don’t overlook still-functional triumphs like Granite Reliable, a wind-power company that took $168.9 million in Energy Department loan money to create 6 permanent jobs.

Just imagine what the actual market – not the imaginary green one dreamed up by Obama and his billionaire cronies, who very much appreciate your support, even if they never seem to get around to thanking you for it – could have done with all those billions!

FULL ARTICLE

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