Stanton, Torture, and Military Prisons — Setting the Precedent by Al Benson, Jr.

 

AlBensonJr.Com e-Newsletter

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15 May 2008

Stanton, Torture, and Military Prisons — Setting the Precedent 

by Al Benson, Jr.

 

By now we should all have heard of Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where American soldiers practiced various forms of torture, both emotional and physical, on various Iraqi prisoners–all a part of George Bush’s “experiment” in democracy in Iraq. People were shocked when they read about Abu Ghraib. How, they thought, could Americans do such things?  They wondered how decent and upright American soldiers could partake of such behaviour–surely this had to have been the first time for this sort of thing, right?  Well, no, actually that’s not quite right. Americans have been partaking of torture of one sort or another since the advent of the Lincoln administration. Lincoln and his associates seem to have had a paranoid fear of disloyalty to the federal government, to the point where thousands upon thousands of Northern civilians were arrested and hauled off to prisons on the basis of nothing more than vague suspicion or some neighbour’s hearsay accusation.

THREE PEAS IN A POD By Chuck Baldwin

 By Chuck Baldwin

May 16, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

I realize that is extremely difficult for some people to think outside the box. The vast majority of people are prone to be followers, to “go with the flow,” to follow the path of least resistance. This appears to be the nature of human nature.

Therefore, I think I understand the reasoning of many who are so reluctant to step outside the two major parties and vote for a third party candidate. I seem to recall that I, too, was just as hesitant (though not for nearly as long as some people) as they are.

We have all heard it before: He doesn’t stand a chance; it’s a wasted vote; we must work within the party to make it better, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Lies of Aggression

 

by Paul Craig Roberts by Paul Craig Roberts DIGG THIS On May 15, the White House Moron, in a war-planning visit to Israel, justified the naked aggression he and Olmert are planning against Iran as the only alternative to “the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.” But the White House Moron has the roles reversed. It is not Iran that is threatening war. It is Bush. It is not Bush who is appeasing. It is Iran.

READ A BOOK, GET CHARGED WITH RACIAL HARASSMENT

 By Selwyn Duke
May 13, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

The May 9 edition of the New York Post carries a short article by an Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis student named Keith John Sampson. He tells a story of being charged with “racial harassment” simply because he was “caught” reading an anti-Ku Klux Klan book. I’m not kidding. Sampson tells his story:

The book was Todd Tucker’s ‘Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan’; I was reading it on break from my campus job as a janitor. The same book is in the university library . . . .

But that didn’t stop the Affirmative Action Office of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis from branding me as a detestable Klansman.

They didn’t want to hear the truth. The office ruled that my ‘repeatedly reading the book . . . constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers.’

The affirmative-action officer – who draws a salary of $106, 000 a year to perform her crucial role and is obviously a woman of inestimable intellect – neither examined the book nor spoke with Sampson. He wasn’t guilty before proven innocent. He was just guilty.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION POLITICIZES TRAGEDY IN BURMA

By Ivan Eland

May 14, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

From the administration that used the 9/11 tragedy to violently pursue an unrelated vendetta against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, we get Round Two. After a cyclone devastated portions of Burma (which the despotic Burmese government has renamed Myanmar) and killed an estimated 100,000 people, instead of concentrating on providing relief, the Bush administration couldn’t resist scoring points on First Lady Laura Bush’s pet issue—the tyranny of the Burmese military junta. Mrs. Bush, apparently the administration’s self-anointed czar and expert on U.S. policy toward Burma, went before the White House press corps and laid into the Burmese government for giving its citizens insufficient warning of the coming storm. One day later at a White House ceremony that just so happened to honor Aung San Suu Kyi, a high-profile proponent of Burmese democracy who has been detained in that country, the President himself piled it on, first by offering U.S. government aid, and then by lambasting the Burmese dictators for delays in approving visas for emergency workers.

HOME MORTGAGE HIJINKS

 By Jon Christian Ryter

May 14, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

The home mortgage default and foreclosure figures are in for February. The Bush Administration was not anxious to release them. The figures don’t look good. The home mortgage crisis has become contagious. It’s spreading from the subprime home market into the prime loan market. Approximately 2.3% of the holders of prime rate mortgages were at least 60 days late. That number is up 1.4% from a year ago. It is the highest level of delinquencies from prime rate borrowers in a decade. Prime rate mortgages are given only to the “A” list of credit worthiness.

First American’s CLLP (Core-Logic-Loan-Performance) tracking system noted that the number of prime rate delinquencies is relatively small. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research agreed but feels, since February, the number of delinquencies from borrowers who previously had stellar credit, has risen substantially because all of the economic news since the first of the year has been negative. Unemployment is up. State welfare, which has declined steadily for the past decade is spiking upwards with 27 States reporting increases in applicants to the federal government’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. Since the program was started in 1994 to wean generational welfare recipients off the dole, 3.9 million US families (mostly adults with physical or mental handicaps that bar them from meaningful employment, or grandparents too old to find work who are raising grandchildren because the parents are out of the picture) have been on the program. Today, that number is expanding as the most likely destinations for tourists, like Florida, California and Nevada, are feeling the impact of the downsizing of the tourism industry.

US ROLE IN IRAQ THREATENS SECURITY

By Charles Peña

May 14, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

More than four years after the decision to invade Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein and impose democracy, nearly 160,000 U.S. soldiers remain there.

Despite the war’s growing unpopularity with Americans, President Bush is adamant about not setting an “artificial deadline” for withdrawing troops.

Last week’s anniversary of the fall of Saigon, April 30, 1975, and the final U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, ending the longest war of the last century, prompts some historical reflection—for example, the poignant photograph of people being plucked off that famous Saigon rooftop in April 1975, juxtaposed against the completion in Baghdad of the largest U.S. embassy ever.

SHIFT HAPPENS: A NEW PARADIGM TO CONSIDER Part 2

By Frosty Wooldridge
May 15, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

In the 21st century, old paradigms fail us in our new technological age. You’re invited to stop reading and watch a five-minute video on YouTube.

“Did You Know; Shift Happens” Globalization; Information Age

Karl Fisch created the video and Scott McLeod modified it. As you watch the video, take notes. You may find that you want to watch the video a second time to complete your notes.

As with each section of this four-part series, you may jot down the ingredients of your personal plans. Part-1 covers your personal long-range and near-term planning.

As a country, our military posture, guided by political decisions in the U S Congress, shifts from so-called “Imperialistic Attacks” overseas to focus upon the active defense of the 50-states. Nellis Air Force Base, next-door to Las Vegas, Nevada features our best-and-brightest in the first-line fighter aircraft. Here’s what the Global Security website teaches us.

BURN, BABY, BURN!

 By Coach Dave Daubenmire
May 15, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

Leadership is intimidated by passion.

I see it over and over. The one thing that most leaders want to avoid is a crowd of people who really believe something. It is so much easier to be in charge when the natives aren’t restless.

That is especially true in our churches. Lord knows we could use a little passion in the place but “wildfire” is the last thing the pulpit wants to deal with today.

Screwing Private Ryan

 Screwing Private Ryan
Strategy Page ^ | May 16, 2008 | James Dunnigan

Posted on Friday, May 16, 2008 08:22:48 by radar101

Once again, the U.S. Army shot itself in the foot by doing the right thing, then screwing it up.

In this case, a soldier, one of three brothers, was released early from his enlistment because of the 60 year old “sole survivor” rule. This regulation allows for the sole survivor of a group of siblings to be released from service. In this case Specialist Jason Hubbard had two other brothers killed (one by a roadside bomb, the other in a helicopter crash), and he decided to take advantage of the sole survivor rule.

But….

FASCISM, CORPORATE STATE’S ACHILLES HEEL by Alan Stang

 

FASCISM, CORPORATE STATE’S ACHILLES HEEL
by Alan Stang
May 15, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Last week we looked at a couple of the horrors of our fascist system. Of course there are many others. Monster corporations control that system, and they have long since proved that they will do anything they can get away with to maximize that control, even including the murders of millions around the world. Is there anything we can do to defeat concentrations of power so vast?

Consider that these fascist corporations have a large, soft, vulnerable Achilles heel. Yes, they are in bed with the government – their top executives go back and forth between both sides of the bed – to such an extent that it no longer is possible to tell who is impregnating whom. But there still is a difference.

GyG: More Daily Erosion of Our Basic Rights!

 Office worker awarded £5,000 after boss constantly broke wind in her direction
dailymail.co.uk ^ | 05/15/08 | NEIL SEARS

Posted on Friday, May 16, 2008 06:52:58 by TornadoAlley3

A bullied office worker has been awarded £5,000 after her boss raised his right buttock from his chair and broke wind in her direction.

Humiliated mother-of-three Theresa Bailey, 43, was the only woman on a sales team where “laddish” behaviour made her life a misery, and continued despite complains to senior managers.

Beware: The Pythons Are Here Too!

 Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said.”Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana,” said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study.

Ref
http://tinyurl.com/5w3xyv

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Beware: The Crazy, Rasberry Ants Are Here!

 Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics

By LINDA STEWART BALL – 1 day ago

DALLAS (AP) — In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as “crazy rasberry ants” — crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and “rasberry” after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

GyG: BUT WAIT! Still More Kinder, Gentler Military Coming Our Way….

GyG: BUT WAIT! Still More Kinder, Gentler Military Coming Our Way….

Ha!

And you thought PC had about run its course in the military–in a pig’s @$$ it has!

-GyG

~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

Washington Post
May 16, 2008
Pg. 5

West Point May Alter Songs’ Lyrics

WEST POINT, N.Y. — The head of the U.S. Military Academy thinks it is time to replace the “men” and “sons” in West Point’s two most beloved songs with more gender-neutral lyrics.

Bill O’Reilly Meltdown Resurfaces (video)

Bill O’Reilly Meltdown Resurfaces (video)
Gawker.com ^ | May 12 2008 | Ryan Tate

Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008 03:41:11 by Impy

Yeah, you already knew Fox News host Bill O’Reilly could be a volcanic…

U.S. VETERAN DISPATCH - POW/MIA, MILITARY NEWS, ETC.

 

U.S. VETERAN DISPATCH - POW/MIA, MILITARY NEWS, ETC.

Politicizing the Congressional Medal of Honor
Col. Bud Day, his Medal of Honor and the McCain campaign’s abuse of our nation’s highest award for valor.
For years, Day has been waving his Medal of Honor at political events in support of McCain’s political ambitions. His politicizing of our highest military award for valor has bothered me for as many years. When I finally took a look at his Medal of Honor Citation, some discrepancies stood out like a festering thumb splinter. . . . . .

today’s toons….

today’s toons….

 http://tinyurl.com/4a8p9g

GyG: Aviation Marines Sea Stories….

I just happened to come across an old post (2003) regarding a couple old sea stories I had all but forgotten 

 http://tinyurl.com/62f6te

GyG: What’s WRONG w/This Picture?

GyG: What’s WRONG w/This Picture?

———- Forwarded message ———

CNN
May 13, 2008

Interview With Admiral Keating

American Morning (CNN), 7:00 AM

KYRA PHILLIPS: All right. Well, allegations that the military junta is hoarding good food and giving the rotten food to the cyclone victims on the verge of starvation right now. So, what will happen and will the government in Myanmar even agree to accept more American help? I talked to Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the U.S. military Pacific command, who led the first relief flight. He got some resistance, a little bit got in. And here were his first impressions upon landing there in the area also known as Burma.

Polygamy II: The Good, the Bad, and the Dilemma by Chrles Adams

 

by Charles Adams by Charles Adams DIGG THIS With so many emails on my article on Polygamy, I thought it would be worthwhile to tell more of the story of polygamy. Polygamy seems to have been involved in almost all societies and cultures: Africa, Asia, China, the American Indians, the Middle East, the Hebrews, and even Europe in its early days before monogamy took over from the Romans. Go back a few thousand years and we learn polygamy was universal. Usually only a wealthy man could have more than one wife as he had to provide her with her own home and wealth. Today a study of 565 of the world’s societies found that over 75% favored polygamy. With the American Indians in warfare the victors would kill all the men and carry off the women as secondary wives, the prize of war was females as polygamist wives. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, was concerned about all the polygamy in the Bible and he said he received a revelation explaining the ways of polygamy in Old Testament times, including a commandment to the people today, saying that if a man “espouses a virgin” and his wife consents he may marry her and there is no adultery, D&C 132:61. It says a man can have 10 virgins and it is not adultery, but she cannot have another man that is adultery on her part. It is obvious with the revelation directed in part to Emma, Joseph Smith’s wife, she was not in favor of it, claiming he never had any other wives but her, and started the Reorganized LDS Church with her son as the head, repudiating polygamy. It is today a good size church still maintaining that polygamy was Brigham Young’s idea.

Rant About Permits and Licenses

 

by Manuel Lora by Manuel Lora DIGG THIS A license is a grant of permission. The licensor grants permission to the licensee to do something that the licensee does not have a right to do. A rental contract, though usually called a lease, is a form of license. In exchange for money, the licensee (in this case the lessee/tenant) is allowed to occupy and live in the premises owned by the lessor (in this case the licensor/landlord). Notice that the owner of the property does not have a right to the (potential) tenant’s money until after the contract is signed. Similarly, the (potential) tenant does not have a right to enter the property. If the landlord takes the money without consent or agreement it is theft; if the tenant moves into the property without consent or agreement it is trespass. Only those who have rights in property can grant licenses over that particular property. The difference between borrowing a car and stealing it is the license, or permission. Thus, it is clear that whenever a person owns a particular resource, only he or she can legitimately decide how to use or not use it. Yet this is not what we see in everyday reality. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Upon entering most establishments you are greeted not just by an employee or manager, but also by a barrage of government papers that are usually framed and hanging on the walls. Why, one asks, can this be? As we mentioned before, only the owner of a resource can decide how it should be used. How, then, can state governments demand permission from owners before they can engage in certain activities? There are two solutions to this question:

The Crucifixion of Jeremiah Wright by A.D Lelong

 

The Crucifixion of Jeremiah Wright by A.D Lelong by A.D Lelong DIGG THIS I have spent my entire life cringing at the stupidity, cowardice, and self serving fraud of the intellectual establishment in this country. And now that we have 24 hour cable news, and now that talk radio has become BIG MEDIA (it used to be honest when there was no money in it) the intellectual level of political and social criticism in this republic aspires to Olympian heights of fatuity. Nothing is allowed in political discourse except the bromidic, the stupid, the superficial. Any attempt at truth or honesty is attacked as extreme, even insane, by a cowardly bunch of media pundits trying to score points with each other by ganging up on the victim like schoolyard bullies ganging up on the new kid. Just look at the way they turned Dr. Ron Paul into a doubleplus unperson. Consider the difference in other countries. Consider that in Italy the newly elected right wing openly compares itself to General Franco and the crowd cheers ”Il Duce” at the new Roman mayor. This is the very same country that boasted the largest communist party in Europe in the 1970’s.This is also a country with a dozen viable political parties, a country that discusses the idea of regional secession as a serious consideration. How ironic it is that a country such as Italy with broad based support of Fascism and Communism is freer intellectually than the US, a supposed free country with a bill of rights guaranteeing free speech! In this country, the chattering classes all compete to see who can repeat the same hackneyed phrases more loudly. Any dissent is seen as a reproach on the monolithic poltroonishness of the conformist establishment and its apostles. With the new 24 hour electronic yellow journalism and its vaudeville showmen posing as thinking pundits, the superficiality takes on hyper levels. Complex issues concerning peace and war, foreign policy, terrorism (and its causes), morality, political philosophy become mere talking subjects, theatrical props, for media sideshow barkers pimping for ratings glory. The tendency is to use out-of-context sound bites to invent huge media controversies, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

The Long Night by Charley Reese

 

The Long Night by Charley Reese by Charley Reese DIGG THIS Have you ever wondered how human beings can be so cruel? And how cruelty crosses all the boundaries – national, racial and ethnic? I have. Rereading an autobiography published in 1941 by a communist agent reminded me of the dark side of human nature. The book, Out of the Night, was written – under the pseudonym “Jan Valtin” – by a German who lived through the chaos of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. Broken by Gestapo torture, he ended up being pursued by both the Nazi and the communist manhunters and killers.

Take the Red Pill by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

 

Take the Red Pill by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. DIGG THIS In The Revolution: A Manifesto, Ron Paul says he doesn’t believe the claim that most people are indifferent about freedom as long as they’re kept entertained and well fed. It’s more a lack of knowledge, he says, that keeps people from embracing the free society. I’ve gone back and forth on this, and I’m inclined to think the truth is somewhere in between. But I think the cynics, who hold out no hope for the American people at all, are surely wrong. Case in point: this thread. This nurse had accidentally left her copy of The Revolution: A Manifesto at her nurses’ station overnight. When she arrived the next morning, fearing the book might be lost, she found to her amazement that the overnight nurse had actually read the entire thing. Not only that, but she had become an instant convert, wanting to spread Ron Paul’s message to her friends and family, and get extra copies of his book.

Ron Paul’s Manifesto Against ‘False Choice’

 

by J. H. Huebert by J. H. Huebert DIGG THIS How frustrating it must be to be Ron Paul. The Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate always said there was no justification for war with Iraq – no weapons of mass destruction, no threat to the United States – and his colleagues in Congress and most of the American people ignored him. Ron Paul also saw that we were headed for a financial collapse and runaway inflation because of the Federal Reserve Bank – and his colleagues in Congress and almost all of the American people ignored him. Now, Americans realize the war was wrong, and they want the troops to come home – but they still vote for candidates who won’t promise to bring the troops home and who are ready or even eager to commit troops elsewhere.

Drill for Offshore Oil

 

by Humberto Fontova by Humberto Fontova DIGG THIS In the early 1960’s the law of supply and demand greatly irked Cuba’s “Minister of the Economy” Ernesto “Che” Guevara. “No problemo!” he decided. I’ll simply abolish it by creating a “New Man,” with these insufferable Cubans as my Guinea Pigs. The world’s intelligentsia applauded deliriously as 14,000 Cubans were murdered by firing squad, 77,000 drowned or were ripped apart by sharks attempting to flee Guevara’s whim, and half a million were herded into political prisons and forced labor camps at bayonet point. (All of this out of a Cuban population of 6.5 million meaning that Castro and Che’s political incarceration rate topped Stalin’s.) And wouldn’t you know it? After years of this glorious effort, cheered by everyone from Jean Paul Sartre to George Mc Govern, that doggone law of supply and demand held firm, while Cuba’s per capita income (surpassing half of Europe’s in the 1950’s) plummeted to nudge Haiti’s.

We Live in Our Heads by Charley Reese

 

We Live in Our Heads by Charley Reese by Charley Reese DIGG THIS There is only one physical world, but unfortunately, we all live in different worlds created by our minds. The physical world, which is separate from us, can be contacted only through our senses – sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste – but all of these are limited. There are parts of the spectrum we can’t see, sounds we can’t hear. We are lucky that our olfactory nerves are limited, because I suspect that the world our dogs smell is a pretty stinky place. Furthermore, the part of the Earth we actually occupy is for most of us quite limited. We fill in the blanks with ideas and concepts and images that may or may not conform to reality. Even though we can learn from reading and hearing, the most vivid learning always comes from experience. People who have had direct contact with racism or anti-Semitism are not likely to be convinced by arguments. Reading about, say, China is no substitute for actually being there.

The Corporation

 

NEWS YOU WON’T FIND ON CNN

The Corporation

I believe this is one of the best and most important documentary films to be made in many years.
This is an extraordinary film about the creation of the American corporation, its legal organizational model, its global economic dominance and its psychopathic tendencies, and its incredible ambition to influence every aspect of culture in its unrelenting pursuit of profit.

Will King George NUKE Ron Paul’s Revolution? by Captain Eric H. May

 

by Captain Eric H. May
Military Correspondent
The Lone Star Iconoclast
May 10, 2008

 

Capt. Eric H. May Military Analysis

Monarchy and Mayhem

Houston, May 10 —In Dr. Ron Paul’s 14th Congressional District, just south of Houston, Texas City residents are living in fear. It’s not because their BP refinery, the nation’s most polluted plant, is earning them the unenviable nickname of “Toxic City.” It’s not because BP is far and away the most deadly industrial site in the nation. It’s because they are afraid that BP is the target for a king-sized plan to explode a nuke on US soil.
Federal authorities and national media have been hinting for years that “terrorists” want to nuke Texas City, and they regularly insinuate it on the nightly news. The programming has been effective, and each time the BP refinery has exploded in recent years locals have instantly thought of Al Qaeda. They are already halfway convinced that it’s only a matter of time before Texas City, Texas joins Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and New York City, New York on the US “greatest hits list.”

The Ordinary Face of Everyday Evil

 

Is Barr the New Hope for America?

 

by Joshua Katz by Joshua Katz DIGG THIS There is much excitement in some libertarian circles over the entrance of Bob Barr into the race for the Libertarian Party’s nomination. Even the mainstream media has been reporting his candidacy, as well as that of Mike Gravel. Based on the way these men are covered, you would have thought that the party had previously planned not to run a Presidential candidate, or that it hasn’t run a candidate in every Presidential race since it’s founding. Nonetheless, many are thrilled with the idea that, if we nominate Bob Barr, this press coverage could continue. Others see the Barr candidacy as an opportunity to continue the energy of the Ron Paul campaign. I believe the excitement over the Barr candidacy is misplaced, will lead to disappointment, and that Barr should not receive the LP’s Presidential nomination.

FRED Columns Returning to the scene of the crimes

 FRED Columns

Bangkok
Returning to the scene of the crimes
 

May 10, 2008

Bangkok—I got here two nights ago, out of Taipei into Bangkok’s new airport, Savannapun. It’s huge, well-designed, classy. As always when I come to these parts I think, “Holy rikshas, Batman, this place is on a roll.” Just so. There is a dynamism in much of Asia that you don’t see in Latin America. Below the Rio Grande you find a couple of modern countries, Argentina and Chile for example—almost the only examples. Yet the whole region seems stagnant, as if it already is what it is going to be. Not here. Asia rocks. Peoria hasn’t noticed but, I promise, it will, and that before long.

We hear that China is booming. It is. But so are other places. Thailand can no longer be called a third-world country. The Sky Train, the elevated rail system, swooshes above the city in air-conditioned comfort, efficient and built by Thais, not some international contractor. The new subway works. The normal Third-World attitudes have left for other climes. Call this place Second World and climbing.

New WW I Book

 

Friends

 

A friend, Dr. Wayne Pettyjohn, sent me a copy of a novel he has worked on for several years. The title is Buck’s Story, a Marine in the Great War. Illustrated, maps, 241 pages, soft covers.

 

I have previously read it in manuscript and I can tell you if you read novels you will like this one. It is the story, told in a serious mode, about a young farm lad that follow’s his desire to make something of himself. There are numerous other invidivuals, all of whom are well described, that come into the story, making it more than just one man’s experiences.

The Essence of Liberty Reconstructing America: Lincoln’s Political Legacy

 

The Essence of Liberty  A Condensed Version of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda and an Unnecessary War by Thomas J. DiLorenzo. Prima. 352 pp. $24.95  Condensed by  Dr. Jimmy T. (Gunny) LaBaume   Chapter 8: Reconstructing America: Lincoln’s Political Legacy One of the greatest myths of American history is that federal policy in the South after the war “bound the nation’s wounds” and made for a ”just and lasting peace.” To the contrary, the Republican Party, emboldened by Lincoln ’s disregard for constitution, invoked his name to engage in more of the same after the war. In fact, General Lee told former Texas Governor Fletcher Stockdale, ”…if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse…Had I foreseen these results…I would have preferred to die…with my brave men, my sword in my…hand.”

Big Government Responsible for Housing Bubble by Ron Paul

 

Big Government Responsible for Housing Bubble by Ron Paul by Ron Paul DIGG THIS The House passed two bills attempting to rehabilitate the housing and mortgage market this week. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of criticism and blame for the bad decisions, and rightly so. Lenders and banks do share much of the blame for the overheated market. Lending standards were relaxed, or even abandoned altogether, creating an exaggerated pool of homebuyers that led to ballooning home prices that many, especially real estate investors, expected to continue forever. Now that the bubble has burst, the losses are staggering. However, many in Washington fail to realize it was government intervention that brought on the current economic malaise in the first place. The Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates created the loose, easy credit that ignited a voracious appetite in the banks for borrowers. People made these lending and buying decisions based on market conditions that were wildly manipulated by government. But part of sound financial management should be recognizing untenable or falsified economic conditions and adjusting risk accordingly. Many banks failed to do that and are now looking to taxpayers to pick up the pieces. This is wrong-headed and unfair, but Congress is attempting to do it anyway.