I understand that Wikipedia has loose restrictions on posting and what is acceptable. But considering other limit testing, could this be an Obama test on the limits of an internet media?

Considering his previous decisions: State control of the means of production (auto and banking), his unprecedented grab for the Census (which we all know why), and his desire for euthanasia with the state controlled health care, and just today Obama creating a "campaign army" (predecessor of Civilian force?). http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.1da91b565bedacc6461ea17550408182.661&show_article=1

Mr. Obama is really starting to concern me. We all know he is connected to ACORN, George Wiley, Wade Rathke, Cloward-Piven strategy, George Soros, Secretary of State Clinton, and Saul Alinsky. Mr. Obama's power grabs need to be questioned. Ask yourself, what is the status of the Census bureau? Can a president just GRAB that and take control of it? Mr. Obama is constantly testing the limits of his power and there needs to be a check and balance, because we know the Senate and Congress will not do anything.

Who can stop him from grabbing more power? Is there anyone looking out for us? Ask yourself also, where is all the investigations regarding ACORN and voter fraud. Why did ACORN get money from the stimulus package? Why was ACORN able to remove responsible amendments to the Budget Bill with no notice and no opposition?

We are looking out for us. Our eyes need to be watching and we always need to remember: the government works for US.

In order of liking:

1. System of a Down
2. Green Day
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Bob Dylan
5. Pearl Jam

Calling for the Federal Government to regulate the derivatives market is like leaving the fox alone with the chickens. In an era of misguided economic policies comes yet another step in the wrong direction.

The call for this regulation began while the Bush administration was still in office in October 2008. Recently, the very liberal New York Times asked President Obama if he was a socialist. Concerned that his first answer was not sufficient, he made the following statement: "…It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn't under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn't on my watch." His answer did not imply that he wasn’t but does ironically resemble Pee-Wee Herman’s famous line: “I know you are, but what am I?”

If President Obama is not a socialist, then he could take America off of George W. Bush’s path to that governmental structure. There is no denying the fact that advocates of the free market have nothing but harsh criticisms for George Bush’s economic policy. Last fall, I wrote about the hazards of mark-to-market accounting in the banking industry and the role it played in the crash of the financial sector (view here). With the stroke of a pen, President Obama could change this rule and abandon burdensome regulation in the derivatives market. These measures began with the Bush administration and could end with the Obama Administration. That would be “change we can believe in” and lay to rest the socialist accusations.

Arguments for regulation center around the fact that credit default swaps (CDS) pose a great risk as an over-the-counter (OTC) derivative. They are OTC because no clearinghouse exists in the middle to guarantee the deal. The government and proponents of regulation believe that such clearinghouses would provide greater transparency in the market.

CDS are bought as an insurance policy against a debt default. In the event of a default, the buyer receives a lump sum payment. The buyer pays a premium to purchase a CDS, and the seller receives monthly payments from the buyer.

CDS are bought as a hedge against a total loss of investment – in other words, to drastically minimize risk exposure. For example, if an investment fund owned mortgage bonds and was concerned about the company defaulting, it could purchase CDS from a hedge fund. The spread on CDS relies on a company’s credit rating and overall financial position. Speculation varies depending on institution’s financial behavior. One of the reasons why CDS have grown immensely in the market was due to many institutions taking on risky mortgages. Quasi-public companies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have guaranteed loans that private lenders made which, in essence, removed natural risk aversion and drove the speculation in CDS. Private lenders have nothing to lose if the government guarantees their recklessness.

In the aftermath, the government now wants to regulate the derivatives market – the very body that drove the speculation, created the artificial bubble and caused the crash. Regulation will do very little to avert problems in the future because increased regulation does not address what caused the situation. Government regulation will do nothing more than increase transaction costs and divert people away from the OTC market.

Burdensome regulation prevents business from protecting itself. As with oil speculation, CDS are insurance policies for business. Politicians conveniently ignore the fact that joint ventures between government and the private sector are what caused increased volatility and bubbles. Elected officials understand one thing: increased government regulation EXPANDS their power and emboldens the lobby influence.

The derivatives market is very difficult to explain, but I encourage my readers to take the following into consideration when doing further research:

• The CDS market did not fail, and did not cause institutions like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to fail. All of these failed and struggling institutions made big bets on the wrong side and lost. Greed in the market, regardless of whether it is driven by the government or executives should not be rewarded and encouraged through bailouts. Failure is part of business and becomes someone else’s opportunity.
• The CDS market was quietly the most stable throughout all of the financial mayhem. It survived the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
• There is transparency in the CDS market. There is no talk outside of political circles about the worries of identifying CDS participants and with whom they are trading.

Markets that are self-regulating weaken the power that lobbyists and politicians have on the market. Fear is used to coerce the public into accepting the fact that the government must step in and protect people from unregulated markets, when in truth, these are the markets that can restore stability. Crisis is a friend of the state as Rahm Emanuel knows all too well. It is being used too often as an excuse to strip power away from the people and the private sector.

Sources:

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/11/14/Regulating-OTC-Derivatives
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/08/barack_obama_george_w_bush_is_a_socialist

BY: MIKE PORTER

Washington District of Columbia (DC) is currently home to about 600,000 people. The majority of DC residents believe they should have representation in Congress. At the present time, DC is represented in the House of Representatives by a non-voting delegate. Non-voting delegates can be on committees, debate issues and actually introduce legislation. The only thing they cannot do is vote in the House. Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands all have non-voting delegates as well. Unlike the others, Washington DC is subject to all US federal laws and taxes. Many residents think they should have some kind of representation. “Taxation without Representation” has become the area slogan. It may be difficult for the rest of us to believe or understand what residents there must feel like. The feeling of being muzzled while they must obey all the laws, pay all the taxes, but cannot have a vote in what goes on. While this may seem unfair to the people who live there, DC should never have representatives in Congress.

Let's begin by examining why DC is not a state. The federal government moved to DC in the year 1800. Prior to the move, the US federal government operated primarily out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the late 1700’s, it was decided the federal government should have a permanent center of operations. Several states and cities wanted to host the newly established government in their cities assuming it would be a tourist attraction and become an industrial hub for the nation. These debates became heated as every city thought they deserved to house the federal government. Alexander Hamilton suggested the country build the capital on government owned land outside of any state territories. Congress finally agreed on an area near the Potomac River. Virginia and Maryland donated some land and the capital was named Washington. Back then, the area was sparsely inhabited, but eventually the area became a home for many residents. In 1960 the twenty-third amendment was passed granting three electoral votes to the citizens of DC.

Legislation has been proposed and expected to pass granting DC full representatives in the US House. The only problem with this is that it is unconstitutional. The constitution clearly states that only states can have representatives in Congress. In order for this to pass, the constitution would have to be amended or DC would have to apply for statehood. To do neither would be illegal according to our constitution, and the final vote would go before the Supreme Court of the United States. How our Supreme Court will vote on this issue remains to be seen.

So why not have DC apply for statehood and join the union as the fifty-first state? There are quite a few reasons. The first being why it was decided to move the federal government out of existing cities in the first place. No state in the union should get favorable treatment over all the others. Any state that houses the federal government would certainly be treated differently. State governments work for the state and the federal government works for union as a whole. States are represented in the federal government by elected officials in a democratic republic. If DC were to become a state, it would house a state government as well as the federal government. If these two coexist within state lines, then they will work as one. This opens the potential for a conflict of interest. The state of DC could get dollars from the state as well as significant dollars from the federal government - a privilege no other state currently has. The money for state defense and police would be disproportionate. There would be continued questioning as to how the money was used. Residents of Delaware do not want to pay for things being done in Vermont. The same would apply here. There is no doubt our founding fathers ran into something similar, which is why it was decided to move the home of the federal government out of a state in the first place. Also some people have argued that if this is done to DC, then every territory owned by the US should get the same treatment. Some would think Guam and Puerto Rico should soon follow. Some have also said what is to stop other large cities from doing the same? Could we find ourselves in a debate where Chicago and NY want their own representatives or statehood as well?

The Democrats have been really pushing hard for this legislation which brings me to my final and perhaps most disturbing reason why DC should not get representation. The area in DC has been overwhelmingly Democratic. Some people believe the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are trying to buy themselves another blue state. While none of this can be proved, it really makes one think why there is such a push to have this done right now. DC statehood or voting representatives in the district could increase the gap between the GOP and the Democrats further than it is today. A gap this wide would allow the Democrats to push through bills without any Republican support. In addition, DC is the home of the federal government. Granting representatives would be almost like giving the federal government voting rights for the federal government itself. Instead, the federal government is supposed to be made up of elected officials in each state. One wouldn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see ways in which this can be abused and that it is dangerous to the rest of the union.

Residents in DC are aware they do not live in a state. While I do feel for them and certainly understand their frustrations, I fear for the ramifications of making a radical change like this. I would not support this if the Republicans or Libertarians were pushing for this measure. There is no law that says anyone has to live in DC. People who feel they are not getting the voice they deserve are free to move into Maryland or Virginia. Doing so would give them all the benefits of living in a state relatively close to home. I do not believe it is in the best interest of the United States to make DC a state or give Congressional representatives.

Americana is a new series of short stories I will be writing. It is based in a worst-case scenario world for conservatives. President Obama won two terms and accomplished much in re-shaping American culture to a leftist slant. His successor was voted in with a large majority and continues with the project: human rights courts, gun bans, weak foreign policy, politically correct media, etc.

The stories will follow (in first person) several people across the nation who are against the changes one way or another (from conservatives to libertarians to moderates to center-left). I'll try to cover all sides of the political world, but feel free to leave suggestions of issues I may have missed or you'd like to see.

WARNING: There is vulgar language in this series. I will post a warning for every entry.

And now, Americana #1

***

Americana #1: A New Freedom (Part 1)

Summer, 2017. Salt Lake City, Utah. Salt Lake Public Safety Building.

I was the only one near the television when the famous line was said. It was kind of sad that no one else thought the hearings were important, but I guess since I was at school in gym class when 9/11 happened and most of the Iraqi fighting was at night when I was sleeping, I deserved my own live history unfolding before me.

A morbid thought.

David Mitchell, junior senator from Nevada and right hand man of President James in the upper house of Congress, leaned into his microphone and bellowed, “Mr. Berg, it is not the right of an American to speak at the expense of another's well-being!”

The Scold Heard 'Round The World, the media called it. The President's bulldog just let slip the true meaning behind the Senate Hearings on the Establishment of Human Rights Courts in America: thought police. Surprisingly, the President wasn't pissed at all. President James actually congratulated Senator Mitchell on putting talk radio superstar Daniel Berg in his place. “For too long has the corporate media held people enthralled to their views,” the president said. “The Diversity in Media Act of 2010 did much to free the minds of Americans, but we must not pull our punches now. I see the media monopolies broken by year's end and the people of American having safe, diverse information airways.”

I sipped at my coffee cynically.

It was hard to take such a statement seriously. Any semblance of the real so-called media monopoly was broken up during President Obama's second term, led by Senator Durbin's rewriting of antitrust laws. Major media corporations and their smaller competitors were destroyed, broken up into smaller companies only allowed to own stations in a single media medium: radio, television or Internet. The new antitrust laws did have an alternative to break-up: government ownership. Durbin and the left thought there weren't enough national public broadcasting stations, so while destroying private broadcasting empires they'd build up the public empire. Only one media empire took it up: Turner Broadcasting.

“Hey, Carl,” a voice bellowed from behind me.

I cringed at my partner's need to yell in the dispatch locker room. The place was the size of a small closet. “Yeah?”

“Why are you in here?” he asked. “Our break room is bigger.”

“Sometimes I like watchin' TV by myself, Joe,” I answered.

I could hear his body armor slide against his uniform as he him shrugged. “Time to mount up, bud,” Officer Joseph Valdez, the tall, buff Honduran, never lost the childish glee of living in the western state of Utah and loved to use western movie cliches at every opportunity. “Let's go beat the bad guys of Salt Lake City.”

“Comin',” I walked up the TV, standing still for a moment as Senator Mitchell glared down at the now nationally humiliated radio host and, without any conscious thought behind his words, said, “You will not escape the will of the people, Mr. Berg. Your hateful thoughts will no longer poison this new, safe and just America.”

***

“Racism! This is racism!” This was a charge I heard way too often.

“Sir, you need to calm down,” I quietly and calmly said to the agitated tattooed Hispanic with a red bandanna around his head and a very large knife in his hand.

“Alpha One-Nine-Seven, Nine-Two,” Joseph quietly messaged to dispatch as he walked up beside me, his hand strategically placed on his mace.

Dispatch quickly responded, “Alpha One-Nine-Seven, back up en route.”

“You fucking pigs. You all hate the brown man, I fucking tell you!”

Joseph, always the jester, couldn't resist the irony, and turned his head to me “Do I look like Casper, man?”

“You are looking a bit pale, amigo,” I replied, my eyes never leaving the suspect.

“Do you think I'm white?” He asked the knife wielder.

“You're just a fucking sell out, puto!”

“I'm a sell out?” Joseph said in mock offense.

“These white fags don't know what its like for us! They keep their white bosses in power and keep us in the dregs! I can't get a fuckin' job 'cause all you white Mormon fuckers are racist!” To make sure my Honduran partner was totally clear, the suspect pointed the knife at me for emphasis.

Joseph and I drew our mace in unison. New regulations mandated that no office is to draw their firearm unless threatened by a a projectile weapon (like a firearm) or under attack with a vehicle. We had mace because tasers were banned nationally after the unfortunate death of a Congressman's drug addicted son during an arrest for sexual assault in New York.

“I highly doubt that its just your race that prevented you getting a job, bro,” I said. “My friend here is a cop and he's darker than you.”

“You calling me a half-breed?” He screamed so hard his voice broke.

Joseph quickly became very angry. He grew up as a kid in Rose Park, a Hispanic heavy ghetto-like area north of downtown Salt Lake City. His mom raised him a good kid, even when his dad and four brothers were part of one of the myriad of gangs that plagued the entire length of the Wasatch Front metro area (a span of over a dozen cities along the western side of the Rockies in northern Utah). He became a stand up officer despite his environment. To Joseph, there is no excuse for people like the one that stood in front of him with a knife and a gripe with the white race.

“Are you?” The suspect's voice literally crackled. His eyes spelled out the violence he felt he had every right to commit against his oppressors.

Joseph had enough. “Now, listen here, you ice smokin' wetback. You will put down that blade or, God help me, I will melt your eyes with this pepper spray. Do you hear me?”

The gangster was taken aback by the strength and anger of Joseph's ultimatum. The hate in his eyes died for a moment, the knife lowered, as if he was emotionally hurt by my partner's words. He tried to speak, but he couldn't make any words.

I didn't waste any time. Quickly, I dropped my mace on the road and grasped at suspect's right arm, pushing it back and removing any leverage he had for stabbing. A split-second later, Joseph fired a shot of mace in to the kid's eyes and then tackled him to the ground while I had the weapon hand I control. As soon as the kid was on the pavement the knife flew out of his hand. I put my left knee on his wrist and my right on his elbow.

He was screaming like a child.

By the time we started to cuff the drugged out offender, our back up arrived and the oppressed gangster found his voice again, now that he had a new audience, “These guys are racist! The white one called me a half-breed and the other called me a wetback! I want a lawyer!” I didn't hear much after Joseph put him in the patrol car.

I looked at my partner with a concerned look. Our back-up didn't look too happy with us after the suspect voiced his complaints. Officers Hobeck and Stain were on Freedom Precinct's Officer's Sensitivity Circle. A voluntary gathering of multicultural minded cops.

Joseph walked up to me and asked, “CRB?”

I nodded. CBR stood for Civilian Review Board. The city mandated council of twelve lawyers that, along with Internal Affairs, looked into all complaints against officers. They usually took on cases of racism, sexism, homophobia and class discrimination (as in hating the poor). There's no doubt that this would get passed on to them by Hobeck and Stain. We'd have to defend our actions to the gaggle of social justice seeking bureaucrats.

“Fuck,” Joseph whispered angrily.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Bud,” I said with an obvious sarcastic tone. “Even criminals have the right not to be offended.”

“When did that become a right?”

I looked at him solemnly and shrugged. I didn't have an answer, not one that would make anything better. The truth was it wasn't a right. It couldn't be found in the founding documents of our country or the constitution of the state of Utah or the history of Salt Lake City (until a few years ago).

I inhaled sharply, “Its a new freedom, I guess.”

Joseph shook his head. “I'd like the old ones back.”

I wanted them back, too. But according to the President, that America was dead and this was the new, just one that took it's place.

Those ads are so insensitive.

As you probably know, the 2009 Omnibus spending bill, which consists of over 8,500 pork projects, recently passed the House and is on its way to the Senate. The bill will cost 410 billion dollars ($410,000,000,000) of taxpayers’ money and includes items such as the following:

-$1,117,000 for grasshopper and Mormon cricket activities in Utah.

-$472,000 for beaver management and control in Mississippi.

-$2,000,000 for the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii.

-$1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa.

-$6.6 million for termite research in New Orleans.

-$1.7 million for a “honey bee factory” in Texas.

-$333,333 for a sidewalk in Texas.

-$951,500 for a “sustainable Las Vegas.”

And there are over 8,000 more pork projects like these.

Your job is easy. Call your senators ASAP and tell them to vote no on this abominable waste of taxpayer money. Ultimately, yes, the bill will pass. Politics is about numbers and, unfortunately, right now we don’t have them. We’re going to lose a lot of battles in these early days. If we can ever kill a piece of legislation, great, but right now that’s not what’s important. What’s important now is making sure that the Democrats OWN every bit of egregious legislation that works its way through the lower intestine of congress. Here’s your contact info for all 100 Senators: http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm