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The President of Belarus has threatened to jail farmers who harvest inefficiently, saying such carelessness is criminal in the midst of a global food crisis. Agriculture is a mainstay of Belarus' economy, and President Alexander Lukashenko seems determined to keep it that way. While on a regional tour to inspect a rural revival program, Mr Lukashenko has offered his own encouragement, saying it is criminal to be careless in harvesting grain when there is a global food crisis. The Interfax agency reported him as saying that "special measures" may be necessary for proper harvesting. "No one will understand until we...

Henry Paulson is about to be given an $800 BILLION dollar blank check in the form of an increased Federal Debt Ceiling which he can spend on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac IN ANY WAY HE CHOOSES, INCLUDING BUYING THE CRAPPIEST LOANS THEY HAVE AND STICKING A ONE HUNDRED PERCENT LOSS, $800 BILLION WORTH, ON YOUR TAX BILL. A huge percentage of the debt issued by Freddie and Fannie - about $1.5 trillion worth - is held by foreign central banks. Paulson is proposing to bail out the Chinese and Japanese governments with our tax money! Paulson SAYS he will...

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate two bills that could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems. The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) are two bills geared toward military and families who fall below state poverty lines. The measures are said to be a way to prevent child abuse, close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children and...

Here's the real story. I found a source who put Quinn's report on the net: Barack Obama is basing his plans for this civilian force on something whipped up by Canadian Senator Jacques Hebert, called the “Katimavik“. Katimavik is the Inuit word for “commune”. Hebert, an admitted communist and avowed socialist, was a big supporter of the USSR and communist China as far back as the 60s and 70s. In the late 70s, he came up with the idea for and initiated Katimavik, in an attempt to get rid of Canada’s version of the ROTC, the volunteer military cadets. Hebert...

Brought to you by none other than Baghdad Jim McDermott (D-WTF?). I must’ve done something truly horrible in a former lifetime to be sentenced to live in this guy’s district. The proposed legislation is to create a new program along the lines of the federal food stamp program. The press release and proposed bill is here. Some highlights: “Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, introduced legislation today to provide financial assistance to vulnerable Americans struggling to survive under crushing gasoline prices.” “The Emergency Gasoline Assistance Act (H.R. 6561) would...

Maxine Waters, the dumbest little commie in congress, wants to take over! No lie! Check out the latest "Geeks On Caffeine" cartoon and see what's on her hit list! Note: The author of this cartoon requests that you visit the web site and refrain from pasting the cartoon within the thread. Thanks a bunch!

The underlying issue of the 2008 election makes this a watershed moment in American history, too important to shrink from full and frank debate or allow emotional appeal to cloak party platform DNA. In April, when Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., was asked if presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama was a Marxist, he replied: "I must say, that's a good question . . . I will tell you that during this campaign, I've learned some things about him, about the kind of environment from which he came ideologically. And I wouldn't . . . I'd hesitate to say he's a Marxist,...

Democrats' single most important domestic proposal — universal health insurance — may blow up in Barack Obama's face when voters are exposed to the deadly details. Obama has said, proudly and often, "I am going to give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." But are they "Americans?" That 47 million statistic includes illegal immigrants, who virtually all lack insurance. In fact, about one in four of those lacking insurance is here illegally. And they are, by far, the group most in need of health insurance. About 15 million of the remaining uninsured are eligible for...

Liberalism in action, California style: The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city's homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing. "We just warehouse addicts," said the grand jury's Stuart Smith. "Granted, it is a nicer place for them, but it doesn't address the problem." Almost three out of four people on the street live in supportive housing. The article explains that people who live in or move to San...

THE SAD ROAD TO SOCLIALISM What happens When Private Property is No Longer a Right by John Loeffler Contributor, Steel on Steel Radio Program Co-host, Financial Sense Newshour July 18, 2008 “But if the government undertakes to control and to raise wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care for all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to lend interest-free money to all borrowers, and cannot do it; if .... ‘The state considers that its purpose is...

ATROCITIES IN SPAIN CHARGED BY BISHOP Erie (Pa.) Prelate, Sailing to Investigate, Declares 16,000 Priests Slain ‘20,000 CHURCHES SACKED’ Xxx Rev. John M. Gannon Says Full Story Will Appall the Civilized World Bishop John Mark Gannon of Erie, Pa., chairman of the National Catholic Welfare Conference xxx department, sailed last night on the liner Queen Mary for Spain, where he said he expected to obtain first-hand information concerning the persecution of the Catholic clergy by the Barcelona government. He said that from information he had already received the ferocity of the ‘Loyalist’ government’s assault on the Catholic Church” was such...

...The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he's going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that's also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support...

Austin, Texas -- Last year online activists inspired by DailyKos.com, the nation's most popular liberal blog, swelled with power as the Democratic presidential candidates debated at their annual convention, asking for their blessing and a little cash - or at least a link to their site. And this year? In the words of Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos blog on which this Netroots Nation convention of political gate-crashers originally gathered: "We are the mainstream." The progressive online movement is now faced with its most significant challenge: using its online power to help elect a Democratic president. Doing that...

KABUL (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama called the situation in Afghanistan "precarious and urgent" on Sunday after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during an overseas trip meant to burnish his foreign policy credentials.

Barack Obama's campaign has rejected Republican claims that his five-nation Middle East and Europe tour is a political stunt, as it unveiled a packed agenda of talks with leaders. Campaign spokesman said the Illinois senator would avoid negotiating or trying to make policy during the meetings, in deference to the duties of current President George W Bush. The campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain has branded Senator Obama's tour, which is expected to draw massive media coverage, as nothing more than a political stunt, especially as it will include a high-profile speech in Berlin. "That is not what we...

New York tax filers reporting more than $375,000 a year in earned income may end up paying nearly 60% of their wages in taxes to the government under a Barack Obama presidency, economists who have analyzed his plan said. The Democratic presidential candidate is proposing not only raising the federal income tax, but also adding a Social Security tax for those Americans earning more than $250,000 a year. For New Yorkers, that could mean that if the current Social Security rate is applied, the marginal tax rate, or rate on every extra dollar earned, could rise to 58%. "This is...

In the 1950s, the word "socialism" was as vulgar as the four-letter words, which, when uttered by a youngster, could result in a mouthful of soap. Not so today. Perhaps contemporary acceptance of the term is the result of tolerance lessons, or political correctness that permeates progressive thought today. It could be ignorance; schools no longer teach the flaws of socialism. Or, what's even worse, today's acceptance of the term is more likely to be acceptance of the system. When Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., blurted out in a congressional hearing that she was ready to "socialize" the oil industry, it...

Having had the pleasure of sitting in for Hugh Hewitt today on his radio show, much of the discussion centered around a peculiar riff by Barack Obama in a speech from July 2 -- one which, remarkably enough, is going unreported by the media. In a deviation from the speech's transcript as printed in the Wall Street Journal and the Denver Post, Barack added: We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as...

California Proposes Sales Tax Hike To Fund Transport, Government Services July 18, 2008 11:32 a.m. ESTVittorio Hernandez - AHN News WriterSacramento, CA (AHN) - To close California's $17.2 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considered on Thursday hiking the state sales tax and using funds intended for transportation and government services.State legislators proposed the two measures, which the governor initially described as bad ideas, but he did not rule out adopting the measures to avoid a cash crisis in California.The lawmakers plan to close the budget gap by collecting $5.6 billion income tax increase on the rich and borrowing $1.1...

At a town hall meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, had the "most extreme" record in the Senate. Kansas City Star reporter Dave Helling later asked McCain about that comment. "Extreme?" Helling asked. "You really think he's an extremist? I mean, he's clearly a liberal." "That's his voting record," responded McCain. "All I said was his voting record, and that is more to the left than the announced Socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont." Asked Helling: "Do you think he's a socialist, Barack Obama?" "I don't...

<p>WARREN, Michigan (CNN) – John McCain on Thursday described Barack Obama’s Senate record as “more to the left” than Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — an independent who caucuses with Democrats but has described himself as an “independent Democratic socialist.”</p>

Hotel Of Doom Hotel of Doom is a mocking name for one of the biggest and most ugliest structures in the world. The real name of that behemoth is Ryugyong Hotel which is located in Pyongyang, North Korea. This hotel is one of the best examples of awful planning. The communist regime in North Korea wanted to show the entire world that they can be equal to them in any aspect. And is there a better way to show the world how capable they are then by building a huge structure which will attract rich foreigner tourists and investors. That’s...

MADRID — A Spanish court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth on Thursday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil. The rulings followed appeals of some of 21 convictions by a lower court after a five-month trial that ended in October. Seven other people were acquitted at that time. Most dramatically, the court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing’s accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in...

People smarter than me are saying it so it must be true: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are socialist institutions nursing at the teat of government. They are privately owned companies backed by our tax dollars, which encourages the "capitalists" running them to take imprudent risks. Here's an excerpt by Terence Corcoran's article in Canada's National Post. ...turns out not to be rampant capitalism but out of control back-door socialism.There is nothing free market about the two American mortgage backers, hybrid institutions created by the U.S. government to support mortgages and make home buying easier and more affordable for Americans....

"I don't want to send another generation of American children to failing schools." (Barack Obama, Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, Des Moines, Iowa, November 10, 2007) The signature initiative of an Obama campaign for a second term would be nationalizing public education, kindergarten through grade 12. If it happens, say goodbye to the Independent School District (I.S.D.) as we've known it. The Obama campaign document entitled "The Blueprint For Change: Barack Obama's Plan For America" continues to be ignored by the old media news. The section entitled "Plan To Give Every American Child A World Class Education," was profiled earlier in much of...

Bad News:  A million dollars won't be worth a bucket of spit.  Consider Argentina:  The corrupt, incompetent colossus of South America.  It has lucrative farming operations, abundant fertile land, natural resources and universities, but it is an economic basket case.   It wasn't always like this.  100 years ago Argentina enjoyed one of the top 10 global economies and was a powerful, respected nation.  Those evil twins, Corruption and Socialist Statism, got the best of them. Think it can't happen here?  Consider what our interventionist government is doing: - Bailing out the Wall Street welfare queens (formerly known as capitalists) -...

The Democrat Assault on American Energy May 2008 In light of rising crude oil prices, the resulting spike in gas prices, and the continued reliance on energy supplies from unfriendly or unstable regions of the world, the RSC has prepared the following policy brief summarizing the Democrat pattern of blocking attempts to increase the supply of American energy and actively promoting policies that would make American energy less available, more expensive, and thus less affordable for poor and middle class Americans. Basic Economics.  It’s basic economics.  When demand exceeds supply, the price goes up.  One way to bring the...

No matter how much Barack Obama blathers about change and John McCain boasts of straight talk, neither could be elected if he espoused traditional values such as self-reliance and personal responsibility. Imagine either candidate saying to the voters: 1. It is not the responsibility of your fellow citizens to buy health insurance for you and your family. They have enough of a burden paying their own bills. If you don’t have health insurance because you’re unemployed, then get a job. If your employer doesn’t provide health insurance, buy it. Low-cost policies are available; in the Washington area, a family of...

In this morning's New York Times, Barack Obama published an op-ed on Iraq that presumably previews his "major speech" on the subject tomorrow. Even by Obama's standards, the piece is breathtakingly dishonest. Obama admits that he opposed the surge, and the attendant change in strategy and tactics, that have brought us close to victory. But he somehow manages to twist his being wrong about the surge--the major foreign policy issue that has arisen during his time in Congress--into vindication: But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown,...

Governor Deval Patrick's proposal to ask businesses, insurers, and hospitals to kick in about $100 million to close a gap in funding for the state's landmark health insurance law is threatening to fracture the fragile coalition whose support was instrumental in passing the measure. Business and insurance industry leaders are opposed to Patrick's plan, saying it is unfair to ask them to pay more, especially during an economic downturn. But consumer groups praised the proposal, saying patients were asked to pay more when copayments and deductibles for subsidized health plans were increased earlier this year. Now, they say, it is...

Randi Weingarten, the New Yorker who is rising to become president of the American Federation of Teachers, says she wants to replace President Bush’s focus on standardized testing with a vision of public schools as community centers that help poor students succeed by offering not only solid classroom lessons but also medical and other services. Ms. Weingarten, 50, is running unopposed for the presidency of the national teachers union, whose delegates at an annual convention in Chicago are expected to elect her Monday. In a speech prepared for delivery after the vote, Ms. Weingarten criticizes No Child Left Behind, President...

NEW YORK: In a country that holds itself up as a citadel of free enterprise, Washington has morphed from being the lender of last resort into effectively the only resort for home loans for millions of Americans engaged in the largest transactions of their lives. Before, the government's more modest mission was to make more loans available at lower rates. Now it is to make sure the loans that matter most to middle class Americans are made at all. The new reality is scorned by libertarians and conservatives, who fear intrusions by the state in the market, and by populists...

Gov. Jon Corzine enacted the first phase of New Jersey's universal health care plan yesterday by mandating coverage for all children within three years and offering affordable, subsidized policies to needy parents. The goal is to cover 1.3 million uninsured state residents by 2011 through a state program administered by private insurers at a lower cost. "For those who are cynical about government and say we don't move and we don't change, I assure you when you look back 10 years from today, you will say we made a great stride forward," Cor zine said before signing the legislation at...

State Controller John Chiang delivered more grim evidence of the state's budget meltdown Thursday. Chiang's office released cash figures showing that California overspent by $3.9 billion in the fiscal year just ended. General fund expenditures for the 2007-08 fiscal year that ended June 30 totaled $107.3 billion, while total receipts were $103.4 billion. Receipts would have been even lower had the governor and Legislature not borrowed $3.3 billion earlier this year. "Without counting bond proceeds, the gap between last year's revenues and expenditures was more than $7 billion," Chiang said in a statement. "Without a spending plan in place, the...

On June 26, the Stop War on Iran Campaign initiated an emergency call to action to oppose a war on Iran on the weekend of Aug. 2 and 3. A major march is being planned Aug. 2 in New York. Demonstrators will assemble at 12 noon in Times Square at 43rd Street and Broadway. Other places, inside the U.S. and worldwide, are organizing local actions.

The English Speaking Nations are the Greatest Nations in the World By Christopher CookLet's face it... People are rotten. Governments are rotten. Human history is mostly slaughter, oppression, and privation. True freedom—in the context of civil government that protects that freedom—is a relatively recent phenomenon. English history was made by humans, and by the governments the they empowered or suffered to rule over them. And it is a history filled with the kind of rotten behavior by people and governments that we have seen in every corner of the globe for all of human history. And yet... ...something put the...

Fears about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac retreated somewhat Tuesday after their federal regulator, OFHEO Director James Lockhart, said new accounting rule changes should make "no difference in the risks of the two firms."On Monday, Freddie and Fannie shares plummeted after a Lehman Brothers analyst said a new FASB rule could require the two firms to write-down as much as $75 billion.Rather than the accounting rules, what's really got investors spooked is a growing realization the government will have to nationalize Fannie and Freddie, says Kevin Depew, executive editor of Minyanville.com.The two mortgage lenders are simply too big to fail...

STEWART: That's the way to read through it. What do you feel like-- Do you watch the news that we're watching in the United States? LOGAN: No. STEWART: Do you see what we're hearing about the war? Do you-- LOGAN: No. STEWART: So we might actually know everything? LOGAN: If I were to watch the news that you're hearing in the United States, I'd just blow my brains out. 'Cause it would drive me nuts. STEWART: Really? LOGAN: Yeah.

Yesterday on my fine radio program I told you that the total unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare amounted to $41 trillion dollars. That's with a "T". Our government has promised $41 trillion dollars to Social Security and Medicare recipients without any plan to raise the needed money. So .. just how much is a trillion? Sure, there are plenty of zeros, twelve, to be exact – but that doesn't begin to explain things. So let me take a stab at it. Have you ever asked for something from someone and had them reply "Just give me 5 minutes."...

WASHINGTON, US - BARACK Obama will buck tradition and accept the Democratic presidential nomination in August at a 75,000 capacity football stadium, the party said on Monday, in what will likely be a spectacular photo-op. The Illinois Senator's formal prime time speech is being switched to Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos American football franchise, from a smaller indoor hockey and basketball arena hosting the rest of the convention. Mr Obama attracted massive and enthusiastic crowds during his victorious primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, and party officials said the new venue would again help fire up grass-roots activists countywide....

[In The death of Socialism Roger Kimball wrote:] [Joshua Muravchik's Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism] provides a devastating anatomy of the socialist dream -- a dream that with clocklike regularity becomes a nightmare. If, as Muravchik suggests, "socialism was . . . the most popular political idea ever invented," it is also undoubtedly the bloodiest. Of course, many who profess socialism are decent and humane people. And it is worth noting that socialism comes in mild as well as tyrannical versions. Muravchik, who was once a socialist himself, pays frequent homage to the generous impulses that...

No, ignore that photograph, and its possible implications, and look further down the piece at this fellow (pictured at right; click to enlarge). Look closely at his medals. As any American veteran can tell you, it's as easy to spot the fact that those aren't American medals as it is to tell the difference between, say, an M4 and an AK-47. In particular, take a look at the top right medal in the gentleman's array. Then, take a look at the image below at left. See a resemblance? The medal is the "Order of the Patriotic War" -- "an Order...

More ties to the radical left have surfaced in Barack Obama's past. The latest stem from his involvement with the activist group, ACORN... ACORN...is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. Obama was a member of ACORN and taught leadership conferences for the group while working for Miner, Barnhill & Galland... Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns. He has now done the same in his bid for the USA presidency... So what is ACORN all about? In a Spring 2003 article for...

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fraudulent Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears. The evidence of forgery and manipulation of images of official documents, triggered by Israel Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images on the Photobucket site and the detective work of independent investigative journalists and imaging professionals in the three weeks since the publication of the images, implicate the Daily Kos,...

Democratic presidential presumptive Sen. Barack Obama (IL) met with his terrorist supporting fundraiser, Jodie Evans, at a $5 million Hollywood fundraiser held last week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion on Tuesday, June 24.In what can only be described as a big middle finger to the veterans and military families who have urged Obama to renounce Evans, Obama met with Evans and was photographed with her at the fundraiser.Evans is co-founder of the leftist anti-American group Code Pink. She and Code Pink have endorsed the terrorists in Iraq and have sent over $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to "the other...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Senator Barack Obama is issuing a call here today for more Americans to become involved in public service, imploring citizens of all ages to rally to the nation’s need at home and abroad. “I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am president of the United States,” Mr. Obama will say in an address here on a college campus. “This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program – this will be a central cause of my presidency.”

EU ministers grapple with global warming goal French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, chairing the first top-level meeting under France's six-month presidency of the EU, was to ask his counterparts to identify two key areas of national concern to help spur the negotiation process. PARIS - EUROPEAN UNION (EU) environment ministers began an informal two-day meeting here on Thursday aimed at clearing some of the many obstacles besetting their goal of slashing carbon emissions by 2020. French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, chairing the first top-level meeting under France's six-month presidency of the EU, was to ask his counterparts to identify two...

Patients will be able to escape NHS queues by demanding treatment anywhere in the European Union without the prior approval of a doctor, under proposals to guarantee health rights unveiled today in Brussels. The NHS would then be duty bound to refund the British cost of the procedure under the new rules for cross-border healthcare. Today’s proposed EU directive will give patients in all 27 member states the same rights to treatment on the NHS as British patients. It also guarantees that the full cost of treatment abroad will be refunded when an NHS professional has agreed that it...

WEBSITE Overview What is a Vanpool? With gas prices rising, traffic congestion increasing, and energy resources dwindling, smart long-distance commuters are seizing the opportunity to turn an often costly and frustrating daily commute into a more pleasant experience. It’s called vanpooling. Vanpools are similar to carpools, except they generally involve more people. A vanpool is a group of 5 to 15 people who regularly travel together to work 30 miles or more (roundtrip) in a comfortable van. Typically, riders pay a monthly fare and maintenance fee, while drivers ride at a discounted rate in exchange for driving and maintaining...

THE HAGUE, 02/07/08 - Yesterday, on 1 July, a series of tax measures came into effect that will make the Dutch population's life more expensive. Additionally, they are no longer allowed to smoke in hotels, bars and restaurants. The cabinet introduced its new flying tax yesterday. For a flight of up to 2,500 kilometres, an extra 11.25 euros will have to be paid, and for longer flights, as much as 45 euros. Despite high fuel prices, the government also raised excise duties on diesel by 3 cents and on LPG by 1.5 cents a litre from yesterday. Smokers also have...