FEMA Coffin investigation

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"Stimulus" Spending Will Harm Recovery

From: http://www.breakthematrix.com/Economy/Stimulus-Spending-Will-Harm-Recovery

Congress is now considering the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the latest barrel of pork to be tossed into the recessionary pit. This time around, the misnamed stimulus will, in the self-congratulatory language of the House's summative press release, "create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and begin the process of transforming it for the 21st century with $275 billion in economic recovery tax cuts and $550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in."

All you really need to know about the plan is implied by the two numbers given: $275 billion in supposed benefits to taxpayers, and a figure exactly twice that amount that the federal government intends to bestow on itself and its primary beneficiaries. The $550 billion will include, among many other things:

• An $87 billion "temporary" increase in Medicaid matching aid (and here we must note that the phrase "temporary government program" is oxymoronic);
• $20 billion for food stamps;
• $39 billion for healthcare for the newly unemployed;
• $43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and jobs training;
• $15.6 billion for Pell grants;
• $79 billion for state fiscal relief (probably only a down payment on a dole for the states, several of whom are lobbying for a bailout of $1 trillion);
• $41 billion for local school districts;
• $30 billion for highway construction;
• $6 billion to weatherize modest-income home; and
• $32 billion to transform the nation's energy transmission, distribution, and production systems.

"Even with this package," the House press release warns, "unemployment rates are expected to rise to between eight and nine percent this year. Without this package, we are warned that unemployment could explode to near 12 percent. With the passage of this package, we will face a large deficit for years to come. Without it, those deficits will be devastating and we face the risk of economic chaos. Tough choices have been made in this legislation and fiscal discipline will demand more tough choices in years to come."

All of this is arrant nonsense mingled with a contemptible disregard for limits, constitutional or otherwise, on the size, power, and cost of government. "Tough choices" for whom, may we ask? Well, certainly not for our preening Capitol Hill nomenklatura nor for the millions of workers on federal, state, and local government payrolls and the many thousands more quasi-private sector contractors who will be receiving the lucrative public-works contracts contemplated in this bailout. For all of those folks, business is booming; even as corporation after corporation — from Microsoft to Caterpillar to Home Depot — announce massive layoffs or liquidates altogether, we've heard nary a peep about layoffs among federal employees. Government, it seems, is not only deemed too large to fail, it's also too large to downsize. This is the message Congress is sending loud and clear to American taxpayers as it contemplates spending two dollars on itself and its hangers-on for every dollar it returns to the taxpayer.

But beyond the purely fiscal outrage, this bill, like so many federal bailouts stretching all the way back to the Great Depression, is an affront to lawful, constitutional government and yet another slap in the collective face of the Founding Fathers. What, this author wonders, would the Founders think of us, their heirs, could they see the willful bondage to which we are subjecting ourselves? Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any authorization for Congress to spend money on housing, public schools, mass transportation, telecommunications, food stamps, healthcare, college tuition, clean water, scientific research, or jobs training. Yet all this and much, much more is in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009.

The only part of the House's statement with a ring of truth is the soothing cant about "transforming" our economy "for the 21st century." That, unfortunately, is exactly what this bill is about — hastening the descent of the United States into full-blown socialism of the sort that most of the rest of the world has already experienced and is experiencing. And no matter how much damage this bill does to our already crippled economy and entire way of life, the strident apostles of government interventionism can be counted on to claim — as they did throughout the Great Depression — that things would be worse still without their benevolent ministrations.

The only possible remedy for the economic crisis, as pointed out over and over, is to allow the recession to run its course and free-market mechanisms to heal the economy. Instead, this bailout bill, like those gone before it, is only a feckless try at re-inflating the bubble and providing golden parachutes for the wealthy and well-connected.

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Milton Friedman vs. Naomi Klein

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Ron Paul on the Economic Stimulus Plan

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FEMA Camps Become Public

Congress has finally decided that the FEMA camps we've all been wondering about can be publicized. In a bill before the House of Representatives, the Congress is calling for the director of Homeland inSecurity to establish "national emergency centers" on military bases.

Here's the bill itself (about 10 pages):
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h645ih.txt.pdf

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Trailer - The Obama Deception

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Do police have the right to confiscate your camera?

by Carlos Miller
Seconds after BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, police immediately began confiscating cell phones containing videos that have yet to see the light of day.

In fact, the only videos that have been seen by the public were filmed by people who managed to leave the scene before police confronted them.

In one instance, police chased after Karina Vargas after she stepped on the train, banging on the window after the doors closed and demanding her to turn over the camera. The train sped away with Vargas still holding her camera.

Her video, which did not show the actual shooting but captured the turmoil before and after, was one of the first to pop up on the internet. And soon after more videos popped up showing the actual shooting.

In the most vivid video, the train doors can be seen closing seconds after the shooting as the train speeds away.

But the truth is, police had no legal right to confiscate a single camera.

“Cops may be entitled to ask for people’s names and addresses and may even go as far as subpoenaing the video tape, but as far as confiscating the camera on the spot, no,” said Marc Randazza, A First Amendment attorney based out of Florida and a Photography is Not a Crime reader.

Bert P. Krages II, the Oregon attorney who drafted the widely distributed The Photographer’s Rights guide, responded to my inquiry with the following e-mail message:

“In general, police cannot confiscate cameras or media without some sort of court order. One exception is when a camera is actually being used in the commission of crime (e.g., child pornography, counterfeiting, upskirting).”

It didn’t appear that the BART videos were being used in a commission of a crime, so what could people have done to prevent police from illegally confiscating their cameras?

Read the rest at this link: http://carlosmiller.com/2009/01/21/do-police-have-the-right-to-confiscate-your-camera/

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New rules outlaw melting pennies, nickels for profit

by Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — People who melt pennies or nickels to profit from the jump in metals prices could face jail time and pay thousands of dollars in fines, according to new rules out Thursday.

Soaring metals prices mean that the value of the metal in pennies and nickels exceeds the face value of the coins. Based on current metals prices, the value of the metal in a nickel is now 6.99 cents, while the penny's metal is worth 1.12 cents, according to the U.S. Mint.

That has piqued concern among government officials that people will melt the coins to sell the metal, leading to potential shortages of pennies and nickels.

"The nation needs its coinage for commerce," U.S. Mint director Ed Moy said in a statement. "We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer. Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers."

There have been no specific reports of people melting coins for the metal, Mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey says. But the agency has received a number of questions in recent months from the public about the legality of melting the coins, and officials have heard some anecdotal reports of companies considering selling the metal from pennies and nickels, she says.

Under the new rules, it is illegal to melt pennies and nickels. It is also illegal to export the coins for melting. Travelers may legally carry up to $5 in 1- and 5-cent coins out of the USA or ship $100 of the coins abroad "for legitimate coinage and numismatic purposes."

Violators could spend up to five years in prison and pay as much as $10,000 in fines. Plus, the government will confiscate any coins or metal used in melting schemes.

The rules are similar to those enacted in the 1960s and 1970s, when metals prices also rose, the Mint said. Ongoing regulations make it illegal to alter coins with an intent to commit fraud. Before today's new regulations, it was not illegal to melt coins.

Metals prices have skyrocketed worldwide in recent years in response to rising demand, particularly in rapidly growing China and India. Prices for zinc, which accounts for nearly all of the metal in the penny, have risen 134% this year, according to the London Metal Exchange. Even accounting for a recent decline, the price of copper is up 50% since the start of 2006. Nickels are produced from 75% copper and 25% nickel.

Although the Mint's new rules are immediately going into effect, the Mint will take comments from the public for a month.

The government has changed the composition of coins in response to rising metal prices. The penny, which was pure copper when it was introduced in 1793, was last changed in 1982.

Mili Note: First, the GOVERNMENT doesn't have anything to do with coin minting in this nation, that's owned by the PRIVATE Federal Reserve Bank. So all of her allusions to "government" are falsely pointing the finger. On the other hand, I had no idea there were enough base metals of any value in a US Mint coin to make it worth melting down. I find that idea dubious, to say the least.

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Barack Obama's Love Affair with Israel

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