CNN to Broadcast I.O.U.S.A.

The public has spoken, and we've listened. In response to demand for information about our country's financial challenges, CNN/U.S. will air the broadcast premiere of the acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A. on on

THIS...

Saturday, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. EST,
Sunday, January 11 at 3:00 p.m. EST.
Tivo time.

Accompanying the documentary will be an unscripted panel discussion with policy leaders about various economic solutions currently under consideration.


This exclusive televised event will air only on CNN, and will be hosted by Ali Velshi and Christine Romans, co-anchors of CNN's Your $$$$$, the network's weekend business roundtable program.


Learn more about the film at www.IOUSAtheMovie.com. And be sure to spread the word about the U.S. broadcast premiere!

The Federal Department of Economic Recovery

I have to say it: the "small-government conservatives" deserve this one. For years, I have railed against the ineffectual advocates of "small government" who direct all of their anger toward "earmarks"—which in total constitute less than one tenth of one percent of the federal budget.

Earmarks are small government;

it's the rest of the budget that's big.

Well, Barack Obama has the perfect answer to them. He has proposed a colossal $775 billion public-works bill—but he has declared that he wants to ban earmarks and find "efficiencies" in how the money is spent. Oh, and he also wants to make the spending "transparent," so we can go on the Internet and track to the last penny exactly how our money is being wasted.

But the part of this story that ought to make you really scared is Obama's pledge to create an "economic recovery oversight board." According to the article below, "Obama's proposed Economic Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board is to include members the administration deems relevant to helping the country rebound from the year-old recession."

In effect, this is a new central planning board for the American economy—

a revival of the oldest, most discredited ideas of the Left...

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THE NEXT SUBPRIME SINKHOLE

IN America's ever-more-democratic society, egalitarianism seeps into everything, even the supposedly severe meritocracy of sport. So almost every college football team that is not dreadful is "bowl eligible." That is why there are 34 bowl games, which is why you might not have noticed Tuesday's Bailout Bowl in which you could have seen your tax dollars at work. Or at play.

The game's real name was the GMAC Bowl. GMAC is known as the "financing affiliate" of General Motors. But Cerberus, the huge private-equity firm that owns 80.1 percent of Chrysler. Washington sternly said that it would allow GMAC to become a bank-holding company only if GMAC managed to increase its capital to $30 billion. When GMAC fell far short of that goal, Washington supplied the shortfall... [snip]

In 2000, the first year of its bowl sponsorship, GMAC paid $500,000. Perhaps the sponsorship makes marketing sense, even today. But though its pockets are bulging with public money, GMAC says, through a spokeswoman on Monday, that it doesn't disclose the specifics of its marketing program.

You might think that a company forfeits a right to such secrecy when it takes the public's money. You would, evidently, be mistaken. Although GMAC is now attached by an umbilical cord to the US Treasury, GMAC's position is that the sponsorship price is none of the public's business...

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The Deficit Spending Blowout

The looming red ink is unlike anything in U.S. peacetime history

Remember when Dick Cheney was pilloried for reportedly saying, earlier this decade, that "deficits don't matter"? We recall reading any number of press releases denouncing the Vice President for supporting tax cuts that contributed to short-term deficits but also helped the economy grow until the deficits shrank nearly away.

As an economic matter, it does make sense to run deficits in a recession rather than to raise taxes in a way that would delay any recovery. Borrowing money to finance a war (Reagan's aircraft carriers in the 1980s) or to pay for tax cuts that promote growth (Reagan and Bush's tax cuts) is often money well spent.

Yet somehow none of those same voices are objecting now that the government is spending* its way into deficits that are so large they dwarf any during peacetime in U.S. history... [snip]

The undeniable truth is that this money has to come from somewhere, which means that it is borrowed or taxed from the private economy. This spending blowout is all but guaranteeing huge future tax increases, and anyone who thinks only the rich will pay is living an illusion. Taxpayers need some new champions in Washington -- and fast.

[* and that's the critical caveat: Bush's initial deficits were because he reduced revenue by reducing taxes, which stimulated the economy. All current 'stimulus' proposals grow the deficit by spending more money we don't have, thereby burdening the economy (which is private) -- and delaying any real (broad, sustainable) recovery. The years of unnecessary pain caused by FDR's policies evidently taught us nothing]

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Sarkozy, Merkel, Blair call for 'new' capitalism

European leaders will meet in Berlin before the G-20 summit in London to decide a 'common approach' as global leaders gear up for a second meeting on the global financial crisis, Sarkozy said.

Merkel said the International Monetary Fund has not managed to regulate global capitalism, and she called for the creation of an economy body at the United Nations, similar to the Security Council, to judge government policy. [snip]

Sarkozy described current capitalism as:

"... a system where wealth goes to the wealthy, where work is devalued, where production is devalued, where entrepreneurial spirit is devalued,"

But no more:

"In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state,"

he said.

['the state' to which he's referring is a UN-like global government. Make no mistake, the global financial melt down has given the one-world-government types an opening to again try and undercut the sovereignty of the United States. They're desperate to do this because, IF we can resist the wave of socialistic proposals being made, their welfare states will not be able to compete with our comparatively free market capitalism. But they can avoid the pain of undoing much of what they've done if they can bring us down to their level (example 1: global tax rates to avoid 'unfair' tax advantages - raised here to the levels there of course}. Just think about a United Nations Council 'judging' America's business structure...]

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GLOBAL WARMING: REASONS WHY IT MIGHT NOT ACTUALLY EXIST

Skeptics have long argued that there are other explanations for climate change other than man-made CO2. As Christopher Booker explains, there are many arguments put forward by those who believe that global warming is all a hoax:

• Temperatures are falling, not rising: Last winter, the northern hemisphere saw its greatest snow cover since 1966; this winter is predicted to be even worse.

• The earth was hotter 1,000 years ago: Research shows that temperatures were higher in what is known as the Medieval Warming period than they were in the 1990s.

• The earth's surface temperature is not at record levels: According to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, surface air temperature measurements show that December 2007 to November 2008 was the coolest year, and that the hottest decade was the 1930s, not the 1990s.

• Ice is not disappearing: According to the Web site Crysophere Today, Arctic ice volume was 500,000 square kilometers greater than this time last year; additionally, Antarctic sea-ice reached its highest level this year since satellite records began in 1979.

• Himalayan glaciers: The UN Environmental Program reported that the cause of melting glaciers in the Himalayas was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud" over that region made up of soot particles resulting from Asia's increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

• Temperatures are still dropping: NASA satellite readings on global temperatures show that August was the fourth month in 2008 when temperatures fell below their 30-year average since satellite records began.

[I prefer 'scam' to 'hoax' as it's the money component which is truly fueling this massive deception]

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Carbon market worth up to $118 bln in 2008-report

LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The global carbon market was worth around $118 billion in 2008, rising 84 percent from the previous year. The market's value should swell to $150 billion in 2009, in spite of the gloomy backdrop of a global recession, the group forecast in a quarterly trading update.

New Carbon Finance forecast moderate growth in the EUA market in 2009, but increased liquidity in secondary certified emissions reductions (CERs), carbon offsets under Kyoto's clean development mechanism (CDM) which are directly linked to investments in clean energy project.

New Carbon Finance based its forecasts on future price predictions and permit allocations in the European, North American, Australian carbon markets as well as project-based markets such as spot trades, swaps, options and futures...

[understand any of that? You're not supposed to - it's the NEXT GREAT PONZI SCAM - ask yourself, if 2008 was the 'disaster' we've been told it was how does a 'market' go up 84%? A: it's a legislated (read: forced) market - and if Obama signs up for it you will pay for it...]

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"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

-- P.J. O'Rourke

.

Carbon-Offset Cowboys

In the rolling foothills of the madison range in southwestern Montana, a cabin-style house sits beside a washboard dirt road. A few horses loiter in a corral outside.

Last year Sun Ranch became the first ranch in the U.S. to cash in on a program that pays rangeland owners to help fight global warming. The ranch received a $30,000 check for the carbon dioxide its grasslands have been absorbing from the air.

[good thing: without your 30K$ I'm sure the grass could never been convinced to grow. This is government {this is the carbon offset scam}]

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"And Then We Sell to Google"

[HT:BW]
"Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley," describes the continuing effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulations imposed during the Enron hysteria in 2002.

In effect, this law has suppressed the venture capital process that serves as an engine for creating innovative new companies, particularly in high technology. Sarbox discourages independent new startups and instead solidifies the dominance of a few giant companies that are big enough to deal with the regulatory hassles imposed by government.

"Faced with crushing reporting costs if they go public, new companies are instead selling themselves to big, existing corporations. For the last four years it has seemed that every new business plan in Silicon Valley has ended with the statement "And then we sell to Google." The venture capital industry is now underwater, paying out less than it is taking in. Small potential shareholders are denied access to future gains. Power is being ever more centralized in big, established companies. "

Read the whole article for a lot of sobering details about the government's smothering of the "entrepreneurship-venture capital-IPO cycle." Particularly telling is the anecdote about how new venture-capital proposals all end with "and then we sell to Google"—substituting one company as the financial engine of Silicon Valley, in place of a large, vibrant financial marketplace.

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U.S. plans 'surge' if Mexican bloodshed crosses border

The soaring level of violence in Mexico resulting from the drug wars there has led the United States to develop plans for a "surge" of civilian and perhaps even military law enforcement should the bloodshed spread across the border, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, said Wednesday. Chertoff said the criminal activity in Mexico, which has caused more than 5,300 deaths in the last year, had long troubled American authorities.

[IF?!? What does Einstein think NS13 is?]

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Drug cartels allegedly bribing way into US courtrooms

McALLEN, Texas— The case of a South Texas paralegal who allegedly leaked information to members of a violent drug cartel is highlighting fears that smuggling networks are using bribes to reach into the U.S. halls of justice.

Federal authorities allege that Joel Carcano Jr., a college-educated paralegal, unlawfully provided confidential court information to the Texas Syndicate drug mafia...

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Legislators Vow to Fight Fairness Doctrine with Introduction of New Bill

GOP Sens. Jim DeMint, S.C. and James Inhofe, Okla., along with two of their House colleagues, Reps. Mike Pence, Ind. and Greg Walden, Ore., introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7.

DeMint, who is named on the Senate of version of the bill, the DeMint-Thune Senate bill, S. 34., told a group of reporters that he would fight any effort by the federal government to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.

"One of the most important freedoms we have is for people to know the truth about what we're doing here and people learn more about what we're doing from talk radio than from anything else in the country today."

Rep. Greg Walden, one of the namesakes of the Pence-Walden bill, the House version of the Broadcaster Freedom Act, ,said there were instances of the use of the Fairness Doctrine as a political weapon.

"There is evidence in the past that administrations of both parties have used the Fairness Doctrine to go after people they oppose by threatening their licenses when those licenses were up for renewal," Walden said. "And that's the core of the issue here - is that government bureaucrats will decide whether a broadcast station owner gets his license or her license again - or is somehow punished for not having exactly the right other view on the airwaves."

The Fairness Doctrine was implemented by the FCC in 1949 in an attempt to ensure that broadcasters presented balanced and fair coverage of controversial subject matter. In 1985, the FCC determined that the Fairness Doctrine was no longer necessary due to the emergence of a "multiplicity of voices in the marketplace."

Twice Democrat-controlled Congress' have passed legislation restoring the Fairness Doctrine, but Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush vetoed the bills.

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then >

"Support DeMint-Thune/Pence-Walden
'Broadcaster Freedom' bills"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

- and pass it on -
.

.

Vote to End Fairness Doctrine Blocked

UPDATE:

The House Democratic leadership, which controls the legislative schedule, currently has no plans to bring the Broadcaster Freedom Act – which would permanently ban the Fairness Doctrine – up for a vote.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com at the Capitol on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans on Wednesday unveiled legislation identical to the Broadcaster Freedom Act...

[and there we are: the Democrats' idea of democracy is not to allow a vote. We need a 'comprehensive immigration' moment...]

again >

"Support DeMint-Thune/Pence-Walden
'Broadcaster Freedom' bills"


Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama Transition: http://change.gov/page/content/contact/
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

- and pass it on -

.