Tuesday, April 26, 2011
'Intervention in Libya ruins revolution'
“If you compare it with the revolution in Egypt and Tunisia, the people there feel the joy of the revolution because it is a product of their own actions. In the Libyan country, I think this kind of joy is not felt by the people,” Abu Sohayb told Press TV's Rattansi and Ridley (R & R) program in regards with Western intervention in Libya following the people's revolution against Muammar Gaddafi.
“When someone else is involved with the revolution other than the Libyan people, I think it is no longer crystal clear, and it spoils the revolution,” He added.
Abu Sohayb also voiced his sympathy towards Libyans who have fled the country following the intervention.
“I feel sad for them, because the main reasons for the Western intervention in Libya should be to help these kinds of people. When I see my people leaving and becoming refugees in Tunisia, I feel very sad for them and their families,” Abu Sohayb went on to say.
Over 16,000 refugees have crossed from Libya and entered Tunisia, reports say.
The humanitarian situation in the city of Misratah with the population of over one million has been reported as alarming with many people in dire need of food, water and medical supplies.
Dozens of civilians have also been killed in Libya since the Western military alliance launched its attacks on the North African country.
SZH/MGH
Tennessee Considers Banning Teaching Homosexuality in Elementary Schools
Public school teachers in Tennessee could lose their tenure or their jobs for discussing homosexuality with their students under a new bill.
The state Senate will soon vote on a bill, known as "Don’t Say Gay," that would prohibit educators from "the teaching or furnishing of materials on human sexuality other than heterosexuality in public school grades K-8."
The Senate Education Committee passed the bill last week, 6-3.
The author of the bill, state Sen. Stacey Campfield, has been trying to advance the bill for several years as member of the House. But he only got momentum when Republicans won control of the governor's mansion, House and Senate in November for the first time since the Civil War-era.
Campfield said his bill aims to stop gay-rights activists from pushing their agenda in the classroom. He cited children's programming that taught homosexuality and said "several" teachers have informed him that they're already teaching the material.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/26/tennessee-considers-banning-teaching-homosexuality-elementary-schools/#ixzz1Kg5cbsOM
Gallup: Economic Confidence Returns to 2009 Levels
President Barack Obama, flanked by Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaks about the economy at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, Sept., 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
(CNSNews.com) – Americans’ confidence in the economy hit an all-year low, according to a Gallup survey, returning to levels last seen in 2009 and continuing a downward trend in economic confidence that began in mid-February.
Gallup’s weekly tracking of economic confidence reflects whether Americans think the economy is getting better or worse and their assessment of current economic conditions.
“Gallup's Economic Confidence Index dropped to -39 in the week ending April 24 -- a new weekly low for 2011,” Gallup reported Tuesday. “This continues a downward trend that began in mid-February. The current deterioration of confidence contrasts sharply with the improving trend found at this time a year ago.”
Yukoner tackles 9/11 Korean Air 'hijackings' mystery
When Max Fraser started collecting footage and stories about how Sept. 11, 2001, played out in the Yukon capital of Whitehorse, he set out to make a point-of-view documentary about the terrifying spectre of 2 supposedly hijacked jumbo jets landing in — or on — Whitehorse.
It's hard to forget the images of an American Airlines jet slamming into the World Trade Center in New York City, followed by a United Airlines jet hitting the second tower minutes later. The images were beamed to television sets around the world.
What Fraser ended up with is the mysterious tale of how Korean Air Flight 085, bound for New York City, came to land at the then-Whitehorse International Airport at 11:54 a.m. that day, instead of descending at one of the many better-equipped Alaskan runways it passed on its way.
'Nowhere else in the world on 9/11 was a community under an evacuation order and nowhere else were emergency authorities told to prepare for a mass casualty incident involving a hijacked airliner.'—Max Fraser, filmmaker
And even more mysterious is why 2 Korean planes were transmitting a hijack "squawk" (a satellite code that can be discreetly set by a pilot to alert authorities on the ground of a hostile takeover), even though all was well on board the flights.
In response, American and Canadian fighter jets were deployed to accompany those planes to the Whitehorse airport.
Fraser was one of the many parents scrambling to find their children after learning that every student in Whitehorse was being evacuated from school, and that everyone in the capital had to get away from the city.
That inspired the local filmmaker to make the 45-minute documentary titled Never Happen Here — the Whitehorse 9/11 Story. It premiered Sunday night at the Dawson City Short Film Festival.
The film was a way of answering at least some of the many questions he had in the weeks, months and years following the deadliest terrorist attack ever committed on North American soil.
"Nowhere else in the world on 9/11 was a community under an evacuation order and nowhere else were emergency authorities told to prepare for a mass casualty incident involving a hijacked airliner," Fraser said.
"What we experienced, what we went through, is a story that should be told the world over."
He began by interviewing other parents who rushed to Whitehorse Elementary School as government buildings emptied and the streets filled with people trying to get out of town.
He also filed a number of access to information requests to the Canadian and American governments, trying to piece together the timeline of what was happening in the air above.
He began with what Whitehorse residents knew that brilliantly sunny day — that 2 potentially hijacked 747 jets were headed their way.
This belief was based on reports from the RCMP, who were at the airport waiting for the airliners.
The RCMP, in turn, were working with information from North American Aerospace Defence Command, which was tracking the Korean Air passenger jets.
One of the double-decker planes first raised an alarm at 9:06 a.m. PT, three hours and 21 minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 plowed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
That was when the United States Federal Aviation Administration was informed that a text message containing the international code for hijacking — HJK — had passed between the cockpit of Flight 085 and Korean Air's ground control at 8:09 a.m. Although it was, and still is, unclear which end was sending the message, it was remarkable as it was the only such text message sent that day.
It was also remarkable for those monitoring the plane at the time because when ground control spoke to the plane's pilot, he reported all was well.
Meanwhile in the U.S., then-vice-president Dick Cheney had authorized his country's war planes to "intercept civilian tracks of interest and shoot them down if they seem to be threatening a U.S. city. Clearance to shoot is authorized to save lives on the ground."
In other words: If the Air Force brass believed a plane full of people was going crash into another American building, they were to blow it out of the sky.
The 230 souls on board Flight 085 had no idea they were being tracked by two fighter jets with shoot-to-kill authorization, and only the crew knew what had happened in New York City to justify such an order.
In the three years Fraser spent investigating the orders and communications bouncing around North America that day, he has not discovered why the HJK texts were sent, but he did uncover an even bigger mystery: Why did the FAA order Flight 085 to squawk 7500 — an unequivocal hijacking distress signal?
Using actual audio footage obtained through his information requests to the American military, Fraser shows the incredulous Korean Air pilot asking ground control to repeat what must have been an unbelievable order.
In the weeks and months after 9/11, once everyone knew Flight 085 carried nothing more threatening than airplane food, officials said the hijack signal was the result of language barriers — the pilot didn't speak very good English, they said, and wires got crossed.
"That's not true," Fraser said bluntly at a press screening of his film last Thursday afternoon. "Anyone flying a 747 anywhere in the world speaks English."
It is not a statement based on assumption. The retired RCMP commander who interviewed the pilot once the plane was grounded says the same thing to Fraser's camera.
Fraser weaves these surprising revelations with the recollections of parents and students of Whitehorse Elementary, who describe the confusion and terror of being stuck in traffic as the planes headed toward downtown.
Fraser's movie leaves the watcher with more questions than answers about the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Why did NORAD officials direct supposedly hijacked planes to Whitehorse when they could have ordered them to land in any number of Alaskan airfields?
Who sent the hijack text messages and why?
Why were the pilots ordered to squawk 7500?
Why have officials been so reticent to explain their actions related to the Korean Air flights?
The questions aren't answered, but they are certainly worth asking.
Local Governments Reject UN's Agenda 21
| Written by John F. McManus |
| Thursday, 21 April 2011 07:32 |
The most devilishly effective method being currently employed to carry out the totalitarian scheme doesn’t call for military action or a series of sudden national coups d’etat. Instead, veteran promoters of the drive are using a “piecemeal” approach aimed at destroying personal freedom and transferring national sovereignty to the United Nations. This process brings to mind the oft-repeated poser: “How does one eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time!” Four years later, another professor and occasional State Department veteran named Richard N. Gardner boldly suggested the same strategy in his article “The Hard Road to World Order.” Published in the April 1974 issue of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the world-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations, Gardner lamented that a single leap into world government, which he preferred, wasn’t attainable. So he urged “an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece.” And he pointedly advocated a “piecemeal” transfer of power to such international organizations as the UN’s International Monetary Fund, the UN’s World Bank, the UN-led World Food Conference, the UN-led Population Conference, even a United Nations military arm. The end sought by these two internationalist heavyweights — and many other likeminded globalists — would result in forced redistribution of the world’s wealth, termination of basic freedoms (religion, speech, publishing, property rights, etc.), and complete regimentation of all human activity right down to the local level. It’s no surprise, therefore, to discover that the “piecemeal” process aiming toward this megalomaniacal goal appears in the UN’s Agenda 21. This enormous document emerged from the highly publicized 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Its 1,100 pages supply a detailed program for social engineering on such a massive scale that it would, if fully implemented, accomplish complete regimentation of all life on the planet during the 21st Century. Hence the name Agenda 21. Rio Hosted the Birth of Agenda 21 Attorney David Sitarz, one of the major editors of the massive Agenda 21 document, minced no words in telling the world its overall purpose. His revealing summary appeared in its early pages: Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on earth.... It calls for specific changes in the activities of all people.... Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced — a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level. If a major enthusiast for Agenda 21 admits that this comprehensive document calls for the total regimentation of all life on Planet Earth, shouldn’t people take notice? Sitarz continued: There are specific actions which are intended to be undertaken by multinational corporations and entrepreneurs, by financial institutions, by high-end companies and indigenous people, by workers and labor unions, by farmers and consumers, by students and schools, by governments and legislators, by scientists, by women, by children — in short by every person on earth. “Every person on earth”? Yes indeed. What Sitarz wrote led The New American magazine’s William Jasper to conclude that Agenda 21’s “tyrannical implications are so stunningly transparent that it seems impossible that any nation not overtly communist could endorse it.” Yet, most nations have endorsed it and have been implementing its recommendations — piece by piece — while the far-reaching totalitarian goal remains in the shadows. Piecemeal Implementation of Agenda 21 Through ICLEI ICLEI’s website openly admits that its Local Agenda 21 Model Communities Program will “aid local governments in implementing Chapter 28 of Agenda 21, the global action plan for sustainable development.” Former Clinton administration adviser J. Gary Lawrence later worried that there might be some who discover that the ICLEI effort constitutes “an attack on the power of the nation-state.” At a seminar in England, he told a British audience, The segment of our society who fear “one-world government” and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedoms might be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined [in our effort.] So, we’ll call our processes something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management, smart growth. Veteran “sustainable development” opponent Tom DeWeese, the leader of the Virginia-based American Policy Center, notes that the Sustainable Development plan contained in the Agenda 21 plan is being advanced under an array of deceptively labeled initiatives such as: … cap and trade, global warming, population control, gun control, open borders and illegal immigration, higher taxes, higher gasoline prices, refusal to drill for oil and natural gas, education restructuring, international IDs, health supplement control, food control, farming “reform,” control of private property, etc. While pointing out that ICLEI is already functioning in other countries, DeWeese has published a list of 544 U.S. communities (cities, towns, counties) where ICLEI is hard at work while being financed by local tax revenues. Just as the term “global warming” has lately been replaced by the increasingly mocked “climate change,” ICLEI has adopted a newer name, “ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability.” The hope is that the four-word addition to its title will overcome whatever fear might be generated by discovery of the word “International” in its full name. Yet ICLEI’s website actually bares its internationalist goal: “Connect cities and local governments to the United Nations and other international bodies.” Each would then “help their countries implement multilateral environmental agreements,” such as those produced at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. That means Agenda 21. Americans Awakening to the Threat The city of Edmond, Oklahoma, has also pulled out of ICLEI. In Maine, the state’s Department of Transportation cancelled plans for the “Gateway Project,” a plan to create unnecessary linkages among 20 communities. Some opponents of the Maine project expressed their belief that the idea stemmed from the overall Agenda 21 planning. While some Americans now realize that Agenda 21 and its numerous stepchildren pose a danger to their communities and their nation, many more must be made aware. Far more than considerations about the cost and control associated with involvement, the more important overall threat posed by Agenda 21 is loss of independence at the community, county, state, and national levels. The designs of the globalists who are working to seize control of the world — piecemeal, step-by-step, bite by bite, or however else the process can be described — must be blocked. Our nation has always benefited from its diverse communities and independent-thinking citizens bound together loosely under the U.S. and state constitutions. Let’s keep it that way! (First published as "Agenda 21 and Its ICLEI Stepchild" in the May, 2011 issue of the Bulletin of The John Birch Society; reposted here with permission.) |
U.S. Military Invades Columbus, Ohio. April 25th 2011
Capitalism without a Heart, without a Conscience: Obama Blind to the Needs of the American People
President Obama's compromise with Congressional Republicans to reduce the deficit is “a rotten deal” that “hits the poor and the middle class the hardest,” The Nationmagazine said in a May 2nd editorial.
The president may have called for “shared sacrifice”to reduce the budget by $4 trillion over the next 12 years but for every $1 raised by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, he proposes $2 in spending cuts, the liberal magazine says.
And “Two-thirds of those cuts would come from education, health and other social programs while one-third would come from the military budget,” the magazine editorialized.
“The president's vision of 'shared sacrifice,' in other words, hits the poor and the middle class hardest. Meanwhile, wealthy Americans and the military are asked to sacrifice less, even though it was unfunded tax cuts and wars that got us a deficit in the first place,” the editorial continued.
To avoid a government shutdown, the president agreed to a 2011 budget compromise that cut spending by $38 billion, “the majority of which will come from the departments of education, labor and health,” The Nation pointed out.
The magazine concluded Mr. Obama's “balanced approach” “conceded too much too early to the deficit hawks and austerity pushers.” Where he “needed to reset the debate,” instead “he split the difference.”
In a similar vein, former Labor Secy. Robert Reich wrote on his blog the president “is losing the war of ideas because he won't tell the American public the truth: That we need more government spending now---not less---in order to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.”
That's because “the increasingly lopsided distribution of income and wealth has robbed the vast working middle class of the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going at full capacity,” Reich explained.
Early in the last century, enlightened industrialists raised workers' salaries so they could buy the goods they were manufacturing. Today, corporations show zero loyalty to their workers. They do not cut productive workers in for a share of the profits. Working Americans, Reich says, are earning on average “only about $280 more a year than 30 years ago, adjusted for inflation. That's less than a 1 percent gain over more than a third of a century.”
Worse, corporations whose employees made them great in the first place quit the country to find cheaper labor overseas. And many of the new jobs being created in recent months are bottom-of-the-barrel, minimum wage work.
“Real hourly wages continue to fall,” Reich says, because “with unemployment so high, most people have no bargaining power and will take whatever they can get.”
At the same time ever more families are sliding into poverty, signing up for food stamps, and lining up at church soup kitchens, “Wall Street profits soared to $426.5 billion last quarter,” Reich says.
Since Corporate America is largely responsible for the Great Recession by starving its workers of the purchasing power they need to put punch back into the economy, you might think companies would plow some of their lush profits back into the work force. You might think the oil companies would share some of their fabulous profits with motorists. But no such luck.
Worse, the corporate types and their Republican allies in Congress want to stop federal and state governments from paying their workers fairly and creating needed public service jobs. Instead, they want to lay off loyal employees. They want to bust the unions. They move whole factories overseas. They abandon cities and counties, robbing them of their industrial base. They relocate offshore to evade taxes. They even outsource help-line jobs to low-paid workers in India. And if they can, they will privatize Social Security and gut Medicare.
This is capitalism without a heart, without a conscience.
Yet if the private sector will not live up to its responsibilities, who would deny government the role of employer of last resort and the trainer of last resort?
Right now, not tomorrow, the U.S. needs to provide a job for every person who wants to work. Right now, the U.S. has got to mobilize and upgrade a vast network of vocational training facilities---in trade schools, union halls, community colleges and, yes, corporations---to train millions of workers in skilled trades. Right now, the U.S. needs to create millions of jobs in day care centers, hospitals, the building trades and for work on all phases of infrastructure---from replacing sewer and water pipes, to creating solar, sea, and wind power plants, to refurbishing run-down housing and beautifying deteriorating communities.
Tragically, Mr. Obama is virtually blind to the needs of the American people. He is smitten with the imperial vision. Americans have been electing presidents who, upon taking office, act like kings, and kill like tyrants, and he is no exception. Americans want jobs at home, not wars abroad. They want money for local schools, not for foreign bases. They want peace and prosperity. At the least, Democrats need a new standard-bearer in 2012. Americans need a Green Revolution. President Obama talks a great game. But his promises before an election are broken after he's elected. And his foreign policy of wars and assassinations is cruel and contemptible. It's time for a change!
Sherwood Ross worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and as a columnist for wire services. To comment or contribute to his Anti-War News Service contact him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com
Euro strikes 16-month high against dollar
The European single currency hit $1.4653 in morning trade, the highest point since mid-December 2009, as many dealers returned from a long holiday weekend. It later stood at $1.4619, compared with $1.4572 late in New York on Monday.
The dollar meanwhile tumbled to an all-time low point of 0.8745 Swiss francs.
Investors moved to adjust positions ahead of the US Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting, which was to open later on Tuesday, dealers said.
The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to maintain interest rates at between zero and 0.25 percent, where they have stood since December 2008.
Traders are also eagerly awaiting Thursday's publication of US gross domestic product (GDP) data for the first three months of 2011.
"The US dollar continues to remain under pressure ahead of this week's key FOMC rate meeting tomorrow and first quarter GDP figures, which are due on Thursday," said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
Markets are keenly awaiting Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's first news conference on Wednesday after the meeting. It will be the first by any Fed chief, in contrast with regular news conferences held by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet.
Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Decreased 3.3% From Year Ago
April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Residential real estate prices dropped in February by the most in more than a year, a sign the U.S. housing market is struggling to stabilize.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 3.3 percent from February 2010, the biggest year-over-year decrease since November 2009, the group said today in New York. The decline matched the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey.
Increases in foreclosures are adding to a growing inventory of unsold homes, which may further depress prices and dissuade potential buyers anticipating even cheaper dwellings. Declining property values also limit construction and restrain consumer spending as homeowners have less equity to borrow against.
NATO starts hunting for Gaddafi
Voice of Russia
April 25, 2011 |
Guantánamo Bay files: Torture gets results, US military insists
Camp X-ray authorities defiant in face of official criticism, arguing 'harsh interrogation' yielded valuable leads from 9/11 suspects
The US military insists its use of torture has extracted accurate information from al-Qaida prisoners, according to the secret Guantánamo files.
The two "enemy combatants" who were the first victims of the policy of deliberate ill-treatment cannot be prosecuted because of the illegal way they were interrogated almost a decade ago. Saudi inmate Maad al-Qahtani and Mauritanian Mohammed Ould Salahi are among the 172 prisoners languishing indefinitely at the internment camp in Cuba despite Barack Obama's attempts to close it down. Qahtani has been there for over nine years.
The US military still claims Qahtani to be a would-be "20th hijacker" who narrowly failed to get into the US in time for 9/11, when teams of terrorists seized control of planes and flew them into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. The prisoner assessment file claims: "Although publicly released records allege detainee was subject to harsh interrogation techniques in the early stages of detention, detainee's admission of involvement in [Osama bin Laden's] special mission to the US appear to be true and are corroborated in reporting from other sources."
The file adds: "He has admitted using a cover story and continues to withhold information of intelligence value."
The records make similar claims about Salahi, claimed to be head of an al-Qaida cell in Germany and recruiter of three of the 9/11 hijackers. He was arrested at his home in Mauritania, rendered to Jordan for eight months, passed on to the US interrogation unit at Bagram in Afghanistan and finally shipped on to Guantánamo in July 2002. He was subjected to the same range of deliberate maltreatment at Guantánamo detailed in 2005 by a military investigation, the Schmidt-Furlow report.
Once again the Guantánamo authorities refused to accept that information obtained through torture is unreliable. Salahi's classified assessment file, dated 3 March 2008, says: "Analyst note: Detainee is determined to be highly credible, notwithstanding … the Schmidt-Furlough [sic] report ... Given the extensive reporting provided by detainee, he remains one of the most valuable sources in detention at JTF-GTMO. He has been highly co-operative and continues to provide valuable intelligence."
(Salahi brought an action against the US government for illegal detention in 2010 in which he claimed his association with al-Qaida ended after 1992 and any incriminating statements he had made should be disregarded because of the mistreatment he had suffered.)
The interrogation techniques first used on Qahtani in 2002 and then repeated on Salahi were bluntly described as torture by the top military judge overseeing the Bush-era military tribunals at Guantánamo. "We tortured Qahtani," Susan Crawford told the Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in 2009. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case for prosecution."
A Senate inquiry reported: "Military working dogs had been used against Qahtani. He had also been deprived of adequate sleep for weeks on end, stripped naked, subjected to loud music and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks." During his 20-hour continuous interrogations, which were repeated for 48 days, he was also chained in stress positions, screamed at, had water dripped on his head and was chilled using air conditioning.
The maltreatment he suffered was so severe that his heart rate crashed and he had to be treated in hospital. Permission for waterboarding was sought at Guantánamo, but not used on Qahtani.
His interrogation plan was the first experiment at Guantánamo in adopting illegal Chinese methods previously used against US servicemen in the Korean war of the 1950s. The use of "enhanced techniques" was signed off by Donald Rumsfeld, despite protests from the army and FBI who said the methods were illegal.
The techniques later migrated from the so-called "battle lab" of Guantánamo to the more conventional theatres of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, where prisoners were supposedly entitled to the protections of the Geneva conventions. This ultimately led to the scandal of inmate maltreatment at Abu Ghraib, which fuelled hostility throughout the Arab world.
Chuck Baldwin -- Have The Tea Parties Been Neoconned?
By Chuck Baldwin
April 21, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
Back in February of 2010, I appeared on Neil Cavuto’s FOXBusiness TV show to talk about the emergence and effectiveness of America’s Tea Party movement. I warned FOX biz host Charles Payne that I was very concerned about the Tea Parties being infiltrated and taken over by big-government neocons.
See my interview on Neil Cavuto’s show (hosted by Charles Payne).
With more than a year having gone by since that interview, I believe the concerns I expressed on FOX were more than warranted. I am seeing more and more Tea Parties fall into the same trap, as did their predecessors back in the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994 and ‘95.
Right here in my home State of Montana, voters overwhelmingly threw the liberal Democrats out of both State houses and replaced them with Republicans who campaigned on strong conservative rhetoric. But what has happened since? Neocon Republicans in leadership positions squashed the best legislation and bullied compromised, big-government legislation through both chambers. The result: big-government neocons, once again, stymied and squashed the efforts of constitutionalist GOP legislators.
A press release at the half-way point of the Montana legislative session stated, “According to Montana Conservatives’ just-released mid session scorecard, the new wave of Republican legislators elected in November’s landslide are actually voting less conservative than their party’s incumbents.
“This is not good news for Tea Party organizers and other conservative activists, who were hopeful the strong conservative mood of the fall elections would sweep into office a new breed of bolder conservative voices. Instead, the organization’s Taxpayer Advisory Bulletin (TAB) reveals that returning GOP legislators (including those who switched houses) voted 46% conservative through the transmittal break, while newcomers graded a slightly lower 43%. Democratic legislators had an average conservative score of 7%.
“Commenting, MC spokesman Roger Koopman said, ‘This poor performance of Republican freshmen perpetuates what is functionally a three-party system in Helena, consisting of small government Republicans, big government Republicans and big government Democrats. The pattern has existed for years. Consequently, even with large Republican majorities in both houses, conservative ideas remain in the minority and the overall thrust of the legislature is toward bigger, more intrusive government, with greater state control and less individual freedom.’”
See the TAB press release and report here.
What the report does not make a point to say is that the poor performance of many of these freshman GOP legislators is primarily due to the political pressure brought upon them by big-government neocons in leadership positions within the GOP State caucus. This is the same thing that has been going on in State legislatures all over America, and even more so in Washington, D.C. When the courageous freshman class of 1994 was elected to the US House of Representatives, everyone was talking about the great “Conservative Revolution” that had just taken place. Conservative freshman House members such as Helen Chenowith, Bob Barr, Steve Largent, J.C. Watts, J.D. Hayworth, Joe Scarborough, Sonny Bono, etc., marched into the US Capitol with broad support from the American electorate and a sense of commitment to reign in an out-of-control federal leviathan in Washington, D.C. So, what happened? Were any federal departments dismantled? No. Was the size and scope of the federal government reduced? No. Was federal spending reduced? No. Within a year from that historic election in 1994, the “Conservative Revolution” was dead, and it was “business as usual” in Washington, D.C.
Why did this happen? Two reasons: big-government neocon GOP Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich and big-government neocon GOP Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. These two big-government establishment phony conservatives used their leadership positions to stymie, steamroll, and squash the conservative agenda of the 1994 conservative freshman Republicans.
And the same way that Gingrich and Lott killed the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994 in Washington, D.C., big-government neocons in the State legislatures (including here in Montana) have killed and are killing the limited-government revolutions of the various Tea Parties in 2010 and ’11. Beyond that, many Tea Party leaders and activists are currently touting the Presidential candidacy of the same man who helped kill the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994: former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.
In my interview on FOX, I said that I was angrier with the Republican Party than I was the Democrat Party. If you listened to the interview referenced above, you heard my reason why: with Democrats there is no pretense. One knows exactly what the Donkeys stand for: Big Government, more taxes, more spending, more welfare, etc. Republicans, however, constantly campaign for less government, less taxes, less spending, less welfare, etc., but after they are elected, they continue the big-spending ways of their colleagues on the other side of the aisle (then throw in their own propensities to expand a burgeoning Police State and Warfare State). Say what you want, at least Democrats are honest about their affinity for Big Government.
If Tea Party activists really believe they are going to change the size and direction of government (at any level) by promoting and electing people such as Newt Gingrich, they are living in fantasyland. (Or, if they live in Montana, they are smoking too much of the weed that they seem hell-bent to deny everyone else!)
Furthermore, this whole Republican vs. Democrat, or “conservative” vs. liberal, paradigm is a joke, anyway! Voters have been replacing Democrats with Republicans, liberals with “conservatives” (and vice versa) for decades; and what has it gotten us? Nothing but bigger and bigger government; more and more government spending; more and more welfare programs; more and more taxes; more and more Police-State legislation; more and more political correctness; more and more environmental wackoism; more and more foreign wars; less and less freedom; and less and less State autonomy.
Koopman’s “three party” description is well taken, except I might refine it a little by maintaining that we still have only two parties: socialist Democrats and neocon Republicans in one party, and limited-government, freedom-oriented constitutionalists in the other party. It’s time that people start identifying big-government neocons in the GOP as being nothing more than a clandestine fifth column unit of the Democrat Party!
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If Tea Parties have a death wish, they will promote and support big government neocons such as Newt Gingrich. If they want to truly change the course of their states and country, they will promote and support only those men and women who understand what constitutionalism, limited-government, and liberty really mean--and who have the courage and fortitude to actually defend those principles after being elected. Anything less is just more of the same.
Chuck Baldwin -- Have The Tea Parties Been Neoconned?
By Chuck Baldwin
April 21, 2011
NewsWithViews.com
Back in February of 2010, I appeared on Neil Cavuto’s FOXBusiness TV show to talk about the emergence and effectiveness of America’s Tea Party movement. I warned FOX biz host Charles Payne that I was very concerned about the Tea Parties being infiltrated and taken over by big-government neocons.
See my interview on Neil Cavuto’s show (hosted by Charles Payne).
With more than a year having gone by since that interview, I believe the concerns I expressed on FOX were more than warranted. I am seeing more and more Tea Parties fall into the same trap, as did their predecessors back in the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994 and ‘95.
Right here in my home State of Montana, voters overwhelmingly threw the liberal Democrats out of both State houses and replaced them with Republicans who campaigned on strong conservative rhetoric. But what has happened since? Neocon Republicans in leadership positions squashed the best legislation and bullied compromised, big-government legislation through both chambers. The result: big-government neocons, once again, stymied and squashed the efforts of constitutionalist GOP legislators.
A press release at the half-way point of the Montana legislative session stated, “According to Montana Conservatives’ just-released mid session scorecard, the new wave of Republican legislators elected in November’s landslide are actually voting less conservative than their party’s incumbents.
“This is not good news for Tea Party organizers and other conservative activists, who were hopeful the strong conservative mood of the fall elections would sweep into office a new breed of bolder conservative voices. Instead, the organization’s Taxpayer Advisory Bulletin (TAB) reveals that returning GOP legislators (including those who switched houses) voted 46% conservative through the transmittal break, while newcomers graded a slightly lower 43%. Democratic legislators had an average conservative score of 7%.
“Commenting, MC spokesman Roger Koopman said, ‘This poor performance of Republican freshmen perpetuates what is functionally a three-party system in Helena, consisting of small government Republicans, big government Republicans and big government Democrats. The pattern has existed for years. Consequently, even with large Republican majorities in both houses, conservative ideas remain in the minority and the overall thrust of the legislature is toward bigger, more intrusive government, with greater state control and less individual freedom.’”
See the TAB press release and report here.
What the report does not make a point to say is that the poor performance of many of these freshman GOP legislators is primarily due to the political pressure brought upon them by big-government neocons in leadership positions within the GOP State caucus. This is the same thing that has been going on in State legislatures all over America, and even more so in Washington, D.C. When the courageous freshman class of 1994 was elected to the US House of Representatives, everyone was talking about the great “Conservative Revolution” that had just taken place. Conservative freshman House members such as Helen Chenowith, Bob Barr, Steve Largent, J.C. Watts, J.D. Hayworth, Joe Scarborough, Sonny Bono, etc., marched into the US Capitol with broad support from the American electorate and a sense of commitment to reign in an out-of-control federal leviathan in Washington, D.C. So, what happened? Were any federal departments dismantled? No. Was the size and scope of the federal government reduced? No. Was federal spending reduced? No. Within a year from that historic election in 1994, the “Conservative Revolution” was dead, and it was “business as usual” in Washington, D.C.
Why did this happen? Two reasons: big-government neocon GOP Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich and big-government neocon GOP Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. These two big-government establishment phony conservatives used their leadership positions to stymie, steamroll, and squash the conservative agenda of the 1994 conservative freshman Republicans.
And the same way that Gingrich and Lott killed the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994 in Washington, D.C., big-government neocons in the State legislatures (including here in Montana) have killed and are killing the limited-government revolutions of the various Tea Parties in 2010 and ’11. Beyond that, many Tea Party leaders and activists are currently touting the Presidential candidacy of the same man who helped kill the “Conservative Revolution” of 1994: former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.
In my interview on FOX, I said that I was angrier with the Republican Party than I was the Democrat Party. If you listened to the interview referenced above, you heard my reason why: with Democrats there is no pretense. One knows exactly what the Donkeys stand for: Big Government, more taxes, more spending, more welfare, etc. Republicans, however, constantly campaign for less government, less taxes, less spending, less welfare, etc., but after they are elected, they continue the big-spending ways of their colleagues on the other side of the aisle (then throw in their own propensities to expand a burgeoning Police State and Warfare State). Say what you want, at least Democrats are honest about their affinity for Big Government.
If Tea Party activists really believe they are going to change the size and direction of government (at any level) by promoting and electing people such as Newt Gingrich, they are living in fantasyland. (Or, if they live in Montana, they are smoking too much of the weed that they seem hell-bent to deny everyone else!)
Furthermore, this whole Republican vs. Democrat, or “conservative” vs. liberal, paradigm is a joke, anyway! Voters have been replacing Democrats with Republicans, liberals with “conservatives” (and vice versa) for decades; and what has it gotten us? Nothing but bigger and bigger government; more and more government spending; more and more welfare programs; more and more taxes; more and more Police-State legislation; more and more political correctness; more and more environmental wackoism; more and more foreign wars; less and less freedom; and less and less State autonomy.
Koopman’s “three party” description is well taken, except I might refine it a little by maintaining that we still have only two parties: socialist Democrats and neocon Republicans in one party, and limited-government, freedom-oriented constitutionalists in the other party. It’s time that people start identifying big-government neocons in the GOP as being nothing more than a clandestine fifth column unit of the Democrat Party!
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If Tea Parties have a death wish, they will promote and support big government neocons such as Newt Gingrich. If they want to truly change the course of their states and country, they will promote and support only those men and women who understand what constitutionalism, limited-government, and liberty really mean--and who have the courage and fortitude to actually defend those principles after being elected. Anything less is just more of the same.