New York Times Picks up on McCain's Eligibility Issue

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of Mr. McCain’s closest allies, said it would be incomprehensible to him if the son of a military member born in a military station could not run for president.

“He was posted there on orders from the United States government,” Mr. Graham said of Mr. McCain’s father. “If that becomes a problem, we need to tell every military family that your kid can’t be president if they take an overseas assignment.”

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Lindsey, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that the US Military bases are not US Soil for the purposes of US Court jurisdiction, and then turn around and argue that they are for the purposes of presidential eligibility.

Retroactive Immunity = Ex Post Facto

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

---U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 9

3.4 Billion Dollar Senator

But Keating was more than a constituent to McCain--he was a longtime friend and associate. McCain met Keating in 1981 at a Navy League dinner in Arizona where McCain was the speaker. Keating was a former naval aviator himself, and the two men became friends. Keating raised money for McCain's two congressional campaigns in 1982 and 1984, and for McCain's 1986 Senate bid. By 1987, McCain campaigns had received $112,000 from Keating, his relatives, and his employees--the most received by any of the Keating Five. (Keating raised a total of $300,000 for the five senators.)

After McCain's election to the House in 1982, he and his family made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, three of which were to Keating's Bahamas retreat. McCain did not disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989. At that point, he paid Keating $13,433 for the flights.

And in April 1986, one year before the meeting with the regulators, McCain's wife, Cindy, and her father invested $359,100 in a Keating strip mall.


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Leaving aside the question of McCain's not having been born on US Soil (he was born at Coco Solo Air Base, in the Panama Canal Zone), it seems McCain is hoping that the US Taxpayer's have forgotten about his Keating Five scandal.

Sin of Omission

DALLAS, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- The Secret Service told Dallas police to stop screening for weapons while people were still arriving at a campaign rally for Barack Obama, a report said.

Police stopped checking people for weapons at the front gates of Reunion Arena more than an hour before the Democratic presidential hopeful appeared on stage Wednesday, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported.

Police said the order to stop using metal detectors and checking purses and laptop bags constituted a security lapse, the newspaper reported.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence -- who heads the department's homeland security and special operations divisions -- told the Star-Telegram the order had been intended to speed up seating of the more than 17,000 people who came to hear the candidate speak.

Lawrence said he was concerned about the large number of people being let in without being screened, but that the crowd seemed "friendly," the newspaper said.

Several Dallas police officers -- speaking on condition of anonymity because the order came from federal officers -- told the newspaper it was worrying to see so many people get it without even a cursory inspection.

The Star-Telegram said the Secret Service did not return a call seeking comment.

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In Dallas, nonetheless...

US Consumer Confidence Plummets

Confidence among US consumers has fallen to a 16-year low, as fears grow about a recession and job cuts, a closely-watched survey has found.

The University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell to 69.6 in February, from 78.4 in January.

The report said the index had only been this low during past recessions.

Its findings come a day after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned that the outlook for the US economy in 2008 is deteriorating.

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The so-called 'service economy' is a farce. The USA is shipping both jobs and money overseas in record amounts, and selling the whole charade as good for America. It's not good. Correction. It's not good for the majority of people in the USA. It is, however, good for those people who own businesses (stock holders) that profit from lower wages found overseas.

The free-trade plan these globalists have in mind will have a leveling effect on wages and skills across the world. Citizens in countries where there are many skilled workers will find themselves chasing lower and lower wages, or risk seeing their jobs sent overseas. And citizens in countries where there are many unskilled workers will find themselves with record employment levels, albeit at slave-like wages. Given enough time, such a system, if allowed to play out completely, will create balance -- great if you're currently on the low end of the scale, in say Africa or so. But not so great if you're in the majority of Western countries and watching your wages drop and jobs sent away.

Notice how Hillary Clinton loves to take credit for the successes of her husbands Presidency? Well, when was the last time you heard Hillary talk about how great NAFTA has been for the USA?

InfraGard

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.
...
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.

But that’s not all.

“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.

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IRS Above the Law?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is flouting three court orders requiring it to regularly provide a nationally recognized researcher with the statistical data she needs for her studies, according to a court action brought today by the researcher.

The new motion was by filed by Public Citizen and the Seattle, Wash., law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine on behalf of Susan B. Long, a professor at Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management. For more than 30 years, Long has used the IRS’s own statistical data to examine how this powerful agency has been enforcing the nation’s tax laws.

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Who Runs The World?

A picture is worth...

Welcome Bythios

Bythios has joined this blog as an author. I've known him for nearly 20 odd years now, and it will be interesting to see his 'lawyerly' approach in action.

Cold War Re-Ignites?

In a nationally-televised speech, he condemned Nato's expansion and the US plan to include Poland and the Czech Republic in a missile defence shield.

"It is already clear that a new phase in the arms race is unfolding in the world," Mr Putin said.

"It is not our fault, because we did not start it," he said.

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Poor people are not generally the ones who are paid to manufacture these instruments of death. They are generally manufactured by the upper class -- people who make more than the mean income of the nation. These are exactly the people that Bush and his Republican party are expected to keep happy, in order for their campaign donations to continue coming in.

'Service' Economy Tanking

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tanked Tuesday afternoon, after a report showing a big slowdown in the services sector of the economy amplified fears that a recession is underway or imminent.

With just over 2 hours left in the session, the Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) had lost about 300 points. Should the blue-chip index end where it stood at roughly 1:45 p.m. ET, it would be the Dow's second biggest one-day point loss of the year.

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A country which runs a trade deficit can only move money around inside its borders, it can't prosper. As the rich continue to get rich, they are doing so to the detriment of the lower and middle classes.

Job Creation at a Glance

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Sensenbrenner Confronted by Prothink

Notice how this representative tells a constituent to go ahead and move to Cuba. Disgusting!

First Artificial Life-Form on Earth

"Foolish people are often reckless, attempting feats that the wise avoid." -- Alexander Pope.

A Failure of Central Banking

It has been forgotten by many that before 1913, there was no central bank in the United States to bail out troubled commercial and associated financial institutions or to keep inflation in check by trading employment for price stability. Few want inflation but fewer still would trade their jobs for price stability.

For the first 137 years of its history, the US did not have a central bank. The nation then was plagued with recurring business cycles of boom and bust. For the past 94 years the Federal Reserve, the

US central bank, has assumed the role of monetary guardian for the nation, yet recurring business cycles of boom and bust have continued, often with the accommodating participation of the Fed. Central banking has failed in its fundamental functions of stabilizing financial markets with monetary policy, succeeding neither in preventing inflation nor sustaining growth nor achieving full employment.

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But it has made certain people quite a bit of profit from usury. The US Constitution gives the power to coin money to the people, via their elected representatives. If we wish to print/coin more money, the Constitution provides us that ability WITHOUT ANY INTEREST PAYMENTS TO PRIVATE PARTIES. The whole idea of paying interest on our national debt is ridiculously unconstitutional.

Dead Peasant Policies

Few Americans are aware that for at least 16 years big business and banks have been secretly taking out millions of life insurance policies on their rank and file workers and naming the corporation the beneficiary of the death benefit without the knowledge of the worker. The individual policies are frequently in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the employee leaves the company, no problem; big business is still allowed to collect the death benefit and they track the employee through the Social Security Administration to keep tabs on when they die. These policies are commonly known as "dead peasant" or "janitor" policies because they insure low-wage earners including janitors. Some of the largest corporations in America have been boosting their income statements by including cash buildup in the policies as well as receiving the death benefit tax free.

http://www.counterpunch.org/martens02022008.html

This should be illegal. We are forced to give our SSN to our bank and employers in order to comply with the US Government's policies regarding taxation and social security. If the employers are then taking our SSN and taking out life insurance policies on us, with themselves as beneficiaries, then they are using our SSN in ways we did not authorize.

Secret History of the Credit Card

Curious how Credit Cards became such an integral part of life in the USA? Interested in how laws against 'usury' simply vanished as though they never had a purpose? Then watch: