Jack Hunter's Patriot act assessment (happy birthday Jack Hunter BtW) :-)

Video above/article below

Jack Hunter: The Patriot Act is not conservative

The Southern Avenger takes on the GOP Establishment & the Patriot Act

Conservative radio host and columnist Jack Hunter (“the Southern Avenger”) has an article for The American Conservative Magazine about the (mis-named) Patriot Act and why the GOP Establishment remains supportive of the Big Government measure:

Judge Andrew Napolitano & Jack Hunter

If Americans needed another reminder of why the Democratic Party is absolutely worthless, they got it during last week’s Patriot Act extension debate when Senate Majority leader Harry Reid again behaved exactly like the Bush-era Republicans he once vigorously opposed. In 2005, Reid bragged to fellow Democrats, “We killed the Patriot Act.” Today, Reid says that anyone who opposes the Patriot Act might be responsible for the killing of Americans. Dick Cheney now hears an echo and Americans deserve congressional hearings—as to whether Harry Reid is a sociopath, mere liar, or both.
But while Democrats stand pat for Bush Republicanism, the GOP now debates the extent to which it will remain the party of Dubya. Tea Party favorites like Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Congressmen Ron Paul, Justin Amash, Allen West and others, all voted against the Patriot Act. To varying degrees, each of these GOP representatives questioned the act’s effectiveness and legality. But unfortunately, most Republicans still won’t ask any questions.
The “War on Terror” that defined and preoccupied Republicans during the Bush era brought with it not only massive government growth and debt, but an unprecedented expansion of extra-constitutional state power, symbolized most famously by the Patriot Act. In the name of national security, government officials could begin wiretapping phones, hacking into email accounts, prying into business records and spying on citizens—all without a warrant and at government officials’ own discretion. Defenders say the Patriot Act did what needed to be done after 9/11. Critics say it did away with the 4^th amendment.
Let us say both have a point, and that for arguments sake, both Harry Reid and Dick Cheney are correct in arguing that it is sometimes necessary to surrender our liberties for increased security. Is this still true a decade after 9/11? Will it be true two decades after 9/11? How about three? Have the actions of Osama Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists forever altered our Bill of Rights?
Allegedly, the default position for conservatives is to distrust the government and defer to the Constitution. Concerning the Patriot Act, too many conservatives blindly trust the government at the expense of the Constitution. This type of thinking mirrors the logic of the Left, in which the constitutionality of a big government program like Obamacare is considered irrelevant due to the severity of the problem at hand. The liberal healthcare ends justify the unconstitutional means. This characteristic mentality of the Left is exactly how most of the Right approaches the Patriot Act—though it is an outright rejection of what most conservatives of any generation have held most dear.
Think about it. Conservatives get upset about many things on a regular basis—ACORN corruption, NPR funding, demanding that French fries be renamed “Freedom Fries.” At any given time there is always some new and outrageous rightwing distaste of the week.
But most of these controversies are a speck on a gnat’s ass compared to the damage done to the Constitution by the Patriot Act. For genuine constitutional conservatives, something like NPR funding is undoubtedly wrong but ultimately trivial and peripheral—while the protection of the Bill of Rights is crucial and integral. If George Washington or Thomas Jefferson were alive today, are we to believe that they would be more outraged that: A. The federal government helps fund public radio. B. The federal government snoops on citizens without restraint. Those who answered A. truly don’t understand the mindset of the men who founded this country.
A Republican critic of mine once asked me during a radio broadcast “Jack, can you show me where any American has been harmed due to the Patriot Act?” I replied, “Can you show me where any American has been harmed by Wikileaks?” The caller said he couldn’t, but stated that he believed private individuals shouldn’t haven’t access to private government documents. The gentleman was basically saying that whether or not Wikileaks has hurt anyone to date is irrelevant—the whistleblower outfit shouldn’t be trusted with such power to begin with. I argue the same is true of the federal government. So did the Founding Fathers. That’s why they wrote the 4^th amendment.
The entire reason we have a written charter like the Constitution is to specify the enumerated powers that define the hard parameters of our federal government. Among those powers is national defense and security. But much of what we call “defense” is anything but. Similarly, a total police state could undoubtedly provide much better security, though few Americans would desire a country so void of liberty. After all, most Americans can barely tolerate the way the federal government handles air travel these days.
When Ronald Reagan said there was nothing closer to eternal life on this earth than a government program he could have easily been describing the Patriot Act. When Barry Goldwater said that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” he could have easily been describing the minority of Republicans who now at least question the Patriot Act. When James Madison wrote, “Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other,” he could have easily been describing our current state of perpetual war that now gives seemingly permanent life to the Patriot Act.
If the “War on Terror” is a perpetual war—as so many politicians readily contend—have we now permanently given up our liberties? If terrorists really do “hate us for our freedoms” is the best method of defeating them to permanently surrender our historic freedoms? And if so, who is really winning the War on Terror? Us or the terrorists?
By the very nature of their philosophy, conservatives are supposed to question their government. And given the very nature of our Constitution, this is precisely how the Founders would expect any true patriot to act.

:-) We're Not Alone.. no matter the circumstances :-)

This story is near and dear to my heart so I wanted to post it I know it is off topic but I'll occasionally throw some random stuff up on here ...

Herren’s bio shows dark side of his fall

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports May 20, 7:41 pm EDT

As his life and NBA career unraveled in the late 1990s, Chris Herren would, wearing his Boston Celtics warm-ups, hustle down to the player’s parking lot to meet his drug dealer. Herren was a junkie, in need of a fix so bad that he marched directly to the locker room to get loaded on OxyContin. The rest of the time, Herren pumped heroin into his body.
Here was a New England kid with a chance to live out his childhood dream. Only, he never had a chance. Chris Herren was killing himself.

Chris Herren played in 25 games for the Celtics in 2000-01, the second of his two seasons in the NBA.
(Getty Images)

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“If I didn’t get my stuff, I was too sick to even go through the pregame layup line, never mind actually play in the game,” Herren says. “That was the reality of my life. If they weren’t there when they were supposed to be, I couldn’t function.”
As the dark and riveting pages of his new memoir, “Basketball Junkie,” unfold, his final NBA days in Boston were nowhere near the bottom. As he chased heroin and crack cocaine in bus terminals and back alleys across failed pro stops in Turkey, Italy and Iran, he lost all his jobs, all his money and ended up dead for 30 seconds in the back of an ambulance.
In this basketball culture, plenty of people love a good white guard, and his talent kept getting him opportunities. Eventually, he drained his wife’s bank accounts with a tens of thousands-a-month heroin addiction. He ended up back in his hometown, broke, life in freefall, shooting up with his own children fastened into car seats.
Basketball wasn’t to blame for Herren spending most of his grown life as an addict, though the culture surrounding it on every level probably pushed it along. His wife, Heather, the hero of this story, of his life, watched the pressures consume Herren as a prodigy in the fading, factory town of Fall River, Mass. He became the subject of a book, “Fall River Dreams,” a cult figure in his backyard and far beyond. Heather watched the joy of basketball sapped, replaced with burdens to carry the family basketball heritage and a town’s dream. She watched him transform into someone cynical, entitled and empty. Finally, he stumbled into drinking and weed, cocaine and heroin at Boston College and Fresno State.
She watched him unable to handle the professional life with the Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics, nor manage an overseas career in exotic European and last-chance Middle East locales.
“I think basketball was a vehicle to let the addiction go further than it might have someone else,” Heather says. “It was a curse and a blessing. I always cringe when I hear people say that he had so many opportunities and he messed them all up. That’s not what an addict thinks. Chris would’ve had these issues regardless, but he was never able to build coping skills to get through all the pressures from the beginning. As long as he had talent and people around him to tell him that he could get through life by playing basketball, he just kept going.

"Basketball Junkie" details Herren's battle with drug addiction as he tried to keep his professional career going.

“Chris missed out on the things that I had as a kid: a job, a normal high school life. From an early age, Chris didn’t have normal responsibilities and consequences. It made his fall even harder. He was a runaway train from the beginning, and basketball became something that prolonged the escape, prolonged a pseudo reality that wasn’t the real world.”
Heather and Chris were childhood sweethearts. She says the only way she ever could’ve stayed with him through those darkest years was because she had known him before basketball stardom. She knew the good heart, the gentle soul within him. When her own mother was dying, she asked Heather: Do you still have hope for him? She did, and she never left him.
“She’s the hero of my story,” Chris Herren says. “The hero of our family’s story.”
When Chris had returned to an in-treatment program in the Catskills of New York more than three years ago loaded, a counselor told him this: “Why don’t you do the only noble thing you’ve ever done in your life and get away from your kids? Do them a favor and get the [expletive] out of their lives. Because you’re like a ball and chain around their neck and they’ll be better off without you.”
Looking back, the moment changed everything for him. He stayed several months in rehab and slowly, surely put his life back together. He’s been clean over three years, and running basketball workouts and leagues for young players in Rhode Island. Speaking to schools and teams about drug addiction has given him something he never had: a purpose in life.
Herren’s forever chasing the source of his own issues with high school parents and coaches and kids, trying to get them in front of substance issues before they ever start. “I always want the kids coming in and out of my gym smiling, happy to be playing,” Herren says. He should’ve lost his own family long ago, his own life, but somehow he made it. He laughs when he hears everyone talk about the basketball career he threw away, because he finally figured out that he ultimately saved the most important things of all.

great article on maoist chinese

How To Identify Members Of The Collectivist Fringe

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
May 18, 2011
There is a mysterious, devious, and violent movement out there on the fringe of American society. Its tendencies are destructive, its theories and ideologies are absurd and unfounded, and its influence is growing to the point of cultural eruption. Its goal is to destabilize the legal constructs and philosophical principles which founded this country and replace them with a new social model so far outside rational guidelines it can only be described as “fantasy land on PCP.”
Now, if you are one of the random indoctrinated idiots out there that has already assumed I am describing the Sovereign Citizens Movement, Constitutionalists, or so called “right wing extremists”, then you have answered incorrectly, you receive no consolation prize, and you go home empty handed on top of being completely inept. Hang your head in shame…
I am certainly not describing Constitutionalists, who have never been a “fringe movement”, and never will be. I am not talking about Sovereign Citizens, who, thanks to a recent and very poorly executed 60 Minutes hit piece, are now superficially lumped in with every conceivable villain known to man, including Terry Nichols, Jerry and Joseph Kane, racism in general, and the ever nefarious Wesley Snipes (who did, I admit, play a villain in the movie ‘Demolition Man’).
This rancid piece of festering half-assed journalism is a laughable example of a clueless and outdated mainstream media desperately trying to tap the propaganda vein of the average American dupe. Luckily, the only people left on the planet that actually watch ‘60 Minutes’ for news value are all senile geriatrics who are about 60 minutes from death anyway. However, the hit piece does represent very well the particular movement I am describing.
Some call them “Statists”, others call them “Globalists”, or “Collectivists”. I usually call them all of the above. They represent a much smaller portion of the U.S. population than is often imagined, but like the venomous blowfish of the ocean deep, they have the ability to “puff up”, giving the illusion that they are ten times their actual size, as well as having a propensity for poison. Collectivist rhetoric is enjoying a considerable foothold in the U.S., building over several decades to culminate in what amounts to a slow motion Chinese-style “Cultural Revolution”. A complete disintegration of traditional social principles, the destruction of philosophical and political checks and balances, the total rewriting of historical fact to suit the supplanting agenda, as well as the rampant and fanatical demonization of anyone who supports and defends the “old way”.
Such a movement has no boundaries. It only stops when it has assimilated EVERYTHING, and never before. It is used as a tool by oligarchy (fascist, communist, corporatist; their attributes are all essentially the same) to mold nations and manipulate civilizations to follow a single directive, a single path, a single historical narrative. The collectivist methodology is one of centralization, fealty, and feudalism. The most prominent monsters in the history of man have all been collectivists, or at least public proponents of collectivism.
So, how do we go about identifying one of these creatures, or their drooling disciples, and root them out? Well, since establishment shills like those featured on 60 Minutes seem perfectly at ease with the idea of making generalizations to pigeonhole entire subsections of the citizenry, I feel quite comfortable targeting them with the same brand of fire. At least I will have the decency to be a little more specific in my descriptions, and far more accurate. Here are some sure signs of a collectivist extremist…
1) Maligned and ridiculed during most of childhood and adolescence. Felt powerless for most of life and probably still feels powerless in adulthood. Discovered the effectiveness of single minded groups very early, and has been a “joiner” ever since. Feels a rush when immersed in a mob, and thirsts for the control, dominance, and acceptance that the mob commands. Certain types become absolutely addicted to law, legal structures, and the bureaucratic machine, to the point that they are unable to discern between a just law, and an unjust law. To them, ALL law instituted by a power structure such as government is “just”, regardless of moral conflict.  This leads to a worshipful attitude towards mainstream designated leadership figures.
Becoming an appendage of the state gives them the petty authority over others that they never had when they were young, and they love it. They despise anyone who questions the legitimacy of their authority, or authority in general. They have handed over everything to the collective, including their identity, and their soul. To come across someone who is not weak like them, who has the strength of character to make their own way, on their own terms, and who is fearless in the face of overwhelming opposition, forces them to acknowledge their own cowardice and deeply buried regrets. This, of course, infuriates them…
2) See themselves as “intellectual”, or rather, far more ingenious than the majority of people. This would be fine if they actually were intelligent, but in fact, this is rarely the case. Average collectivists tend to be undereducated, slow witted, and easily manipulated, but because they have conformed to the establishment social model so thoroughly, they still find themselves climbing the ladder of “success” (success in today’s typical business environment usually includes backstabbing and/or shameless butt kissing). This gives them severe delusions of grandeur. It is common to hear them rant about overpopulation, and the need to “weed out the inferiors”, of which they obviously do not include themselves, but should.
Their world view has been entirely scripted for them, and rarely is an original thought ever uttered from their lips. Anyone who presents a view outside of the mainstream script is automatically and viciously attacked. A very common collectivist reaction to any opposing view is to use Ad hominem tactics to disparage the person presenting the view, instead of confronting their view directly. The 60 Minute segment above is simply one long Ad hominem attack linking anyone who promotes Constitutionalist ideals or anti-establishment arguments with killers, racists, and terrorists (The father of one of the police officers slain by the Kane’s claims that if his son had know they were “Sovereign Citizens”, he would still be alive today; insinuating that ANYONE who makes sovereignty arguments should be considered armed and dangerous by police, and treated as guilty before proven innocent). Collectivists use these kinds of tactics for the most part because they do not have the mental capacity to defend their twisted ideals with any vigor, and would surely lose a fair debate on neutral ground.
3) Constantly pushing a new angle; a “magic bullet” solution to all the problems of the world, which usually seems to include more centralization, more government micromanagement of our resources, our economy, our education, and our lives. Certain types believe that technology will somehow undo all the failings of humanity in one fell swoop. Tales of floating cities, infinite energy, unlimited abundance, and a labor-free society, are spun by collectivists with much excitement but with no practical concrete planning as to how to reach such a Utopia. “If only everyone realized how brilliant they are, how fantastic their ideas are. If only everyone thought exactly as they do, the Earth would truly be a better place…” they think to themselves. “If only everyone would shut up and do as they’re told…”
4) Attacks tradition with a cultish fervor. Preaches ad nauseam about the need for social evolution, but fails to acknowledge that one of the primary fundamentals of evolution is to hold onto that which makes an organism stronger, and outgrow that which makes it weaker. Just because a concept is “new”, it does not necessarily make it superior to concepts that are supposedly old. Collectivists regularly undercut the values of the Constitution, or free markets, for example, as being outdated and obsolete, even though they have rarely if ever actually experienced a constitutionally regulated environment, or commerce that is truly free from subversion. Because collectivists are weak people, the idea of legitimate strength is foreign to them. Therefore, they fill the void with whatever “appears” strong, or trailblazing, and leave behind all ideas they do not understand, which is a considerable number.
5) Believe the family is subject to the whims of the state, and that parents are not to be trusted with the development of their children. Now, certainly, there are plenty of terrible parents in the world, and some of them don’t deserve the families that they have, however, as far as the education of children is concerned, the state is hardly a better teacher. Attributes most often given to governments through the ages include: lying, cheating, stealing, murder, subjugation, and remorselessness. Is this really who we want raising our children? “Yes”, say collectivists.
Ever wonder why the rather harmless institution of homeschooling is brought up so frequently in MSM hit pieces like the one above, or in DHS official releases like the MIAC report on domestic terrorism? Because it represents independence from the system. It is an avenue by which any family can decouple, at least partially, from the establishment and make their own decisions. This kind of activity is an affront to the collectivist ideology. Hell, if our government is willing to set its sights on a group as passive and non-threatening as the Amish, of course they are willing to go after homeshoolers!
6) Has the ability to rationalize almost anything in the name of the system. Always proclaiming the necessity of peace, but insist peace only on their terms. Abhor violence in words, but in action, they bathe in it. Ultimately, they see the “group” as a single entity whose survival is paramount over all other concerns, including individual freedom. To protect this entity, they will forgo any obstacles of conscience, even, ironically, to the point that the group self destructs. Without a healthy appreciation of the vitality of the individual, all “groups” revert to chaos and self mutilation. Without the individual, the group cannot function. It cannot exist.
New Cultural Revolution To Destroy America?
The psychologist Carl Jung, overwhelmed by the ignorance of communist and collectivist movements given birth in his lifetime, often stated that if a man thinks he can abandon history, if he thinks he can exist without the teachings of the past, without connections to that which came before him, without individual relationships to cultural memory, then he is literally diseased. He is insane. Not surprisingly, most collectivists hate Jung. For, through his studies, he exposed the undeniable madness of centralization; a methodology that thrives on amnesia, reaps only catastrophe, and hurtles societies into the abyss.
For a collectivist movement to take hold, it MUST erase root values, not to mention as much of the past as possible from the minds of the masses, and replace it with distraction. Sometimes its war, sometimes its poverty or famine, sometimes it’s another segment of the population that is villainized on the sacrificial alter of “progress”. In China, this kind of restructuring of the public mind has been going on for decades, but nothing quite compares to the Cultural Revolution triggered by Mao in 1966.
Even before the communist revolution in 1949, China was a globalist experiment; a Petri dish where international players could create one social virus after another and let them loose to play. During the Cultural Revolution, China saw the radicalization first of the country’s youth in the name of the state, then most others followed. The promise of change gave the Chinese a false impression of rebellion. A fake rebellion driven by a fake agenda and a fake enemy. Mobilized by ignorance and the need for identity, the Chinese people were used by Mao as weapon to destroy his political rivals, as well as anyone who dared question the righteousness of the state. For ten years, anyone with enough common sense to see the hypocrisy and the lunacy of the Chinese communist system lived in fear for their lives. One misspoken word, one slip of the tongue, and millions of ears would be listening. Even those who had served the government without question would sometimes be singled out for persecution, for a statist religion needs a constant flow of enemies to destroy, to keep the people enraptured, and keep them in line. Watch the short documentary on the Cultural Revolution below very carefully, and ask yourself how far down this path has America gone?
Some might say that this kind of swing of the pendulum is not possible in the U.S., but look at the lines we have crossed so far! Our educational system has been revamped to misinform the next generation and even remove entire chunks of important history from their curriculum. The Constitution was once considered one of the most important living documents in history by many peoples, not just Americans. Now, owning one is listed as a possible sign of “homegrown extremism” by the Department of Homeland Security and the same government that is tasked with defending the liberties described within it. At every turn we hear arguments that our principles must be abandoned to make way for better, more “globally conscious” alternatives. That we must “forget the past”. And, those of us who refuse to forget the past are hoisted up on the vile stage of the MSM, forced to wear signs (labels) and paraded as criminal malcontents out to maim and kill poor unsuspecting collectivists and undermine the “legitimacy” of the government. In my opinion, we are not far off at all from the depravity of Mao’s China.
I leave you with a video of the post-Bin Laden Seal Team 6 action death (still without any concrete independently corroborated evidence that it ever actually occurred) celebration, and the unfortunate mindless drones who came out en masse without even knowing why. Compare with the documentary on China above, and then decide how far some Americans have gone down the endless well of the hive mind:

Why The Republican Party Elected Lincoln -DiLorenzo 2003

 

Why the Republican Party Elected Lincoln

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

It is occasionally possible to see through the fog of mysticism, superstition, lies, and the romantic, happy-faced, floating butterfly vision of Abraham Lincoln that has been created by American court historians over the past century. One place to begin is the gem of a book by Pulitzer prize-winning Lincoln biographer David Donald entitled Lincoln Reconsidered. In a particularly important passage Donald quotes Senator John Sherman of Ohio, the brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman and Republican Party powerhouse from the 1860s to the 1890s who was chairman of the U.S Senate Finance Committee during the Lincoln administration, on why the Republican Party nominated and elected Abraham Lincoln.

"Those who elected Mr. Lincoln expect him . . . to secure to free labor its just right to the Territories of the United States; to protect . . . by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers . . . ; to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific."

Donald then claims to translate this statement "from the politician's idiom" into plain English. Lincoln and the Republican Party "intended to enact a high protective tariff that mothered monopoly, to pass a homestead law that invited speculators to loot the public domain, and to subsidize a transcontinental railroad that afforded infinite opportunities for jobbery."
This is what is so refreshing about David Donald, the best and most honest of all the mainstream "Lincoln scholars." He understood that "wise revenue laws" meant a 47 percent tariff on imports that would plunder the Southern states especially severely; he understood that "free labor" meant white labor, and protecting the white race's "just right to the territories" meant disallowing labor market competition from either slaves or free blacks. At the time, the small number of free blacks in the North had no real citizenship rights and some states, like Lincoln's Illinois, had amended their constitutions to make it illegal for blacks to move into the state.
Donald also understood that "developing the internal resources of the country" was a euphemism for the colossal corruption that would inevitably accompany massive federally-funded subsidies to railroad corporations.
The financial powers behind the Republican Party in 1860 were the Northern railroad barons, Northern manufacturers who wanted protectionist tariffs to protect them from competition, and Northern bankers and investors like Jay Cooke who wanted to use their political connections to make a killing financing a transcontinental railroad (among other schemes, such as central banking). They decided at the Chicago Republican National Convention of 1860 that Abraham Lincoln was the perfect political front man for their corrupt, mercantilist agenda.
The Great Railroad Lobbyist
From the time he entered politics in 1832, Abraham Lincoln aspired to such a position. That is why he became a Whig, the party of the moneyed elite. Lincoln was one of the most money- and power-hungry politicians in American history. (Indeed, this would seem to be a prerequisite for anyone who is capable of being elected president).
As soon as he entered the Illinois legislature he led his local delegation in a successful Whig Party effort to appropriate some $12 million in taxpayer subsidies for railroad and canal-building corporations. In his landmark book, Lincoln and the Railroads, first published in 1927 and reprinted in 1981 by Arno Press, John W. Starr, Jr. noted how one of Lincoln's colleagues in the legislature said "He seemed to be a born politician. We followed his lead . . . " And they followed Lincoln down a road that would nearly bankrupt the state of Illinois. The $12 million was squandered: Almost no projects were completed with it; much of the money was stolen; and the taxpayers of Illinois were put deep into debt for years to come.
Lincoln's "internal improvements" fiasco in Illinois promised to build "a railroad from Galena in the extreme northwestern part of the state." Above St. Louis, in Alton, "three [rail]roads were to radiate"; "There was also a road to run from Quincy . . . through Springfield"; another one "from Warsaw . . . to Peoria"; and yet another "from Pekin . . . to Bloomington" (Starr, pp. 25—26). The first road mentioned was to become the Illinois Central, which would later employ Lincoln for more than a decade as one its top lawyers.
Lincoln and the Whigs saw to it that "the Assembly also voted wildly and injudiciously in the matter of banking legislation," urging the legislature to print paper money to help finance what his personal secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, would later say was "a disaster to the state." Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, described the whole debacle as "that sanguine epidemic of financial and industrial quackery which devastated the entire community" (p. 28). The whole scheme was eventually abandoned, and taxes were raised sharply on the hapless Illinois taxpayers to pay off the debt.
The 1837 internal improvements debacle in Illinois may have been a disaster for the public, but it helped catapult a young Abraham Lincoln into position as one of the top — if not the top — lawyer/lobbyists in the country for the railroad corporations.
By 1860 the Illinois Central Railroad was one of the largest corporations in the world. In a company history, J. G. Drennan noted that "Mr. Lincoln was continuously one of the attorneys for the Illinois Central Railroad Company from its organization [in 1849] until he was elected President" (Starr, p. 58). He was called on by the company's general counsel to litigate dozens of cases. He was such a railroad industry "insider" that he often rode in private cars and carried a free railroad pass, courtesy of the Illinois Central.
Lincoln successfully defended the Illinois Central against McLean County, Illinois, which wanted to tax the corporation, for which he was paid $5,000, an incredible sum for a single tax case in the 1850s. The man who paid him the fee was George B. McClellan, the vice president of the Illinois Central who in 1862 would become the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac and, later, Lincoln's opponent in the 1864 election. Starr explains the dishonest ruse that was apparently used by Lincoln and McClellan to trick the Illinois Central's New York City-based board of directors to go along with such an unprecedented fee to a "country lawyer" from Illinois.
McClellan would formally refuse to pay such a large fee, making his directors happy. Then Lincoln would sue the Illinois Central for the fee. But when Lincoln went to court over the fee (armed with depositions from other Illinois lawyers that such astronomical fees were perfectly appropriate!) no lawyers for the company showed up and he won by default. Proof that this was all a ruse lies in the fact that "Lincoln . . . continued to handle [the Illinois Central's] litigation afterwards, the same as he had done before" (p. 79).
By the late 1850s, writes Starr, it was widely known that "Lincoln's close relations with powerful industrial interests" are "always potent and present in political counsels" (p. 67). In today's language, he was the equivalent of a powerful, rich and politically influential "K Street lobbyist." He often traveled "with a party of officials of the Illinois Central company. He rode in a private car, on his own pass furnished him in his capacity as attorney for the company." This "greatly impressed some of the young Republican leaders . . ." This was the real Lincoln, and it is diametrically opposed to the image of the modest, backwoods "rail splitter" that the court historians have created.
In a masterpiece of understatement, Starr comments that "Lincoln's rise [in politics] was coincident with that of the railroads" (p. 80). In addition to working for the Illinois Central, Lincoln also represented the Chicago and Alton, Ohio and Mississippi, and Rock Island Railroad corporations. As soon as the Chicago and Mississippi Railroad was built, he was appointed as the local attorney for that company as well. By 1860 Lincoln was the most prominent attorney/lobbyist the railroad industry had. He was so prominent that the New York financier Erastus Corning offered him the job of general counsel of the New York Central Railroad at a salary of $10,000 a year, an incredible sum at the time. Lincoln turned down the offer after agonizing over it.
Lincoln also used his status as one of the top political insiders within the railroad industry to engage in some very lucrative real estate investments. On one of his trips in a private rail car accompanied by an entourage of Illinois Central executives Lincoln "decided to go to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he had some real estate investments" (p. 152). "Shortly before his trip to Council Bluffs," writes Starr, "Abraham Lincoln had purchased several town lots from his fellow railroad attorney, Norman B. Judd, who had acquired them from the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. Council Bluffs at this time was a frontier town, containing about fifteen hundred people" (p. 195). To this day, this land in Council Bluffs, Iowa is known as "Lincoln's Hill."
Why invest in real estate in Council Bluffs, Iowa, of all places? Why not Chicago or even Springfield, the state capital? Because Lincoln the political insider knew that there was a very high likelihood that 1) the federal government would eventually subsidize a transcontinental railroad; and 2) the starting point for that railroad could well be in the vicinity of Council Bluffs. If so, the value of his real estate holdings would be wildly inflated and he would make a killing.
Indeed, the 1860 Republican Party Platform contained a sixteenth plank that read: "That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country; the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction . . ." As the party's nominee, Lincoln pledged his wholehearted support of this plank. In the interests of "the whole country," of course.
When he became president legislation was immediately proposed, in a special legislative session called by Lincoln in July of 1861, to create the taxpayer-subsidized Union Pacific Railroad. "There was no firmer friend of the Union Pacific bill than the President himself," writes Starr. (In contrast, most mainstream "Lincoln scholars" make the preposterous assertion that he had nothing to do with such legislation). The bill was passed in 1862 and it gave the president the power to appoint all the directors and commissioners and, more importantly, "to fix the point of commencement" of the Union Pacific Railroad. And guess where Lincoln chose to fix the point of commencement of the railroad. He "fixed the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad . . . at Council Bluffs, Iowa" (p. 202). His financial gains must have dwarfed Corning's $10,000 salary offer. During the Grant administrations dozens of prominent people would go to federal prison for such criminal self-dealing but Lincoln, the ringleader of the whole enterprise, has up to now escaped scrutiny.
In addition to lining his own pockets with this piece of legislation, proving to his well-heeled supporters that he was indeed "one of them," the legislation was essentially the Mother of all Political Payoffs. One hundred fifty-eight of the prominent Northern bankers, industrialists, and railroad barons who had supported Lincoln's political career were appointed as "commissioners." As Dee Brown wrote in Hear that Lonesome Whistle Blow: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroads, when Lincoln signed the bill creating the Union Pacific he "assured the fortunes of a dynasty of American families . . . Brewsters, Bushnells, Olcotts, Harkers, Harrisons, Trowbridges, Langworthys, Reids, Ogdens, Bradfords, Noyeses, Brooks, Cornells, and dozens of others . . ." (p. 49).
What does all this have to do with Lincoln's war "to save the union"? The answer is, "everything." The official reason for the war that was given by both Lincoln and the U.S. Congress was "to save the union." But Lincoln inherited no "perpetual union." The union of the founding fathers was a voluntary compact of the states. The states delegated certain powers to the central government as their agent, but retained sovereignty for themselves. Secession was considered a legitimate option by political and opinion leaders from all sections of the country in 1860, as I document quite extensively in The Real Lincoln.
In his First Inaugural Address Lincoln promised that he had no intention of disturbing Southern slavery, and that even if he did it would be unconstitutional to do so. In the same speech he pledged his support of a proposed constitutional amendment that had just passed the U.S. Senate two days earlier (after passing the House of Representatives) that would have forbidden the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. In other words, he was perfectly willing to see Southern slavery persist long after his own lifetime.
But on the issue of taxation he was totally uncompromising. The Republican Party was about to more than double the average tariff rate (from 15 percent to over 32 percent), and then increase it again to 47 percent. The Morrill Tariff passed the House of Representatives in the 1859 session, before Lincoln's nomination and before any serious movement toward secession. In the First Inaugural Lincoln clearly stated that it was his obligation as president to "collect the duties and imposts," but beyond that "there will be no invasion of any state." He was telling the South: "We are going to economically plunder you by doubling and tripling the tariff rate (the main source of federal revenue at the time), and if you refuse to collect the higher tariffs, as the South Carolinians did with the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," there will be an invasion. That is, there will be mass killing, mayhem, and total war.
Why was the tariff so important — even more important than the issue of slavery in the eyes of Abraham Lincoln? Because tariff revenues comprised about 90 percent of federal revenue, and if the Southern states seceded they would no longer pay the federal tariff. All the grandiose plans of building a transcontinental railroad with taxpayer subsidies and creating a continental empire would be destroyed, and along with them the political career of Abraham Lincoln and, possibly, the Republican Party itself. The union was "saved" geographically but destroyed philosophically by the waging of total war on the civilian population of the South, a war in which nearly one half of the adult white male population was either killed or mutilated.
Three months after the war, Generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan would commence a twenty-five year campaign of ethnic genocide against the Plains Indians to make the American West safe for the subsidized transcontinental railroads. Sherman (who was also a railroad industry-related real estate investor) explicitly stated that the purpose of eradicating the Plains Indians was to make sure that they did not stand in the way of the government-subsidized railroads.
By ignoring this true history of how a modestly successful trial lawyer from Illinois came to be the nominee of the moneyed elite that ran the Republican Party in 1860, America's court historians have railroaded the public into believing a fairy tale version of their own history. The popular notion that the Republican Party's early leaders were Selfless Humanitarians is as big a lie as has ever been told.

-tom dilorenzo 2003-










How obvious does it need to be??? Court Historians and selective memory seems to be the best way to follow the "Church of Lincoln"


Please check out the great site to the great cause LINK HERE

-Matt Bowden-
DALLAS TEXAS CSA
DEO VINDICE
GOD SAVE THE SOUTH!!!

FACEBOOK HATERS

Man.. thinking for yourself and standing up for what you believe wont make u the most popular guy in the world.. but atleast you know that you were intellectually honest with everyone including yourself.. People buying into this fake left vs right B.S. attack myself and my blog on a daily basis.. i got LEFT WINGERS saying im crazy for standing up against globalism and centralized government but as long as I'm basing bush im ok but as soon as I turn on a "democrat" they hate. I got RIGHT WINGERS pissed at me for talking trash about Bush but they love me when i go 4 obama.. wake up folks both parties are controlled by the same douche bags BANKERS. Its FACTS.. Its documented that there is plans to merge the US with canada and mexico and turn it into the North American Union which will erase the bill or fights and constitution, its facts that the national guard is training to turn on the american people and confiscate firearms.. its fact that the us military is shipping in COCAINE AND HEROIN which is funded by the bankers and the fake drug war is aimed at the american people to put them in jails for having small amounts of marijuana and other drugs and other non violent crimes.. the jails are also owned by the SAME GLOBALIST BANKERS! Its on record that "AL QUAEDA" is a CIA run organization and is used to stage events so the us military can attack countries and exploit them for OIL/OPIUM/ and other valuable assets... WHY ARE PEOPLE SO HATEFUL OF MYSELF.. WHEN ALL I WANT IS TO LIVE IN A NATION WHERE THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER.. THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER TO BRING WAR CRIMINALS LIKE GEORGE W. BUSH AND DICK CHENEY TO JUSTICE.. A COUNTRY WHERE THE BANKERS DON'T OWN BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE POLITICIANS TRULY SERVE THE PEOPLE NOT THE BANKERS.. YOU CANT CALL ME BIAS... I AM EQUALLY AS CRITICAL OF BOTH FAKE PARTIES.. I STAND AGAINST THE PATRIOT ACT(INVASION OF PRIVACY OF LAW ABIDING US CITIZENS), FAKE DRUG LAWS AIMED AT NON VIOLENT AMERICANS, IM AGAINST THE FAKE DRUG WAR WHICH JUST GIVES POWER TO DRUG CARTELS BACKED BY THE CORRUPT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, IM AGAINST THE FEDERAL RESERVE WHICH IS WHERE THE TRUE POWER IN THIS COUNTRY RESTS.. IN UNELECTED INTERNATIONAL BANKERS WHICH CAN DEVALUE OUR CURRENCY AND DESTORY OUR CURRENCY TO CONSOLIDATE POWER, IM AGAINST ANTI 2ND AMENDMENT LAWS AIMED AT DISARMING AMERICANS SO THAT THE GLOBALISTS CAN FORCE THE CITIZENS INTO SUBMISSION WITHOUT FEAR, I JUST WANT A NATION WHERE PEOPLE CAN MAKE DECISIONS.. If you say you hate bush but think im crazy for wanting to change the current government so that people like him can never do the CRIMES HE COMMITTED EVER AGAIN!!... you are the biggest hypocrite on earth and need to become intellectually honest with yourself.  IF you truly hated bush... you would support a change in the government so that douche bags like him cant bring us into wars for fake reasons, etc But if you dont support any real change.. then you are lying to yourself saying u "hated bush" because you are just inviting another criminal like him to commit the same B.S. Either get intellectually honest or admit your a hypocrite either way... THANKS FOR READING MY BLOG.. THE BIGGEST FORM OF FLATTERY is Imitation/Criticism THE SPIRIT OF 1776/1861 AND THE REPUBLIC WILL PREVAIL I SWEAR ON THE ALTER OF GOD THAT THE REPUBLIC WILL PREVAIL.. 1 WORLD GOVERNMENT WILL FAIL!

-Matt Bowden-
LEWISVILLE TEXAS CSA

OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE IS OBVIOUSLY FAKE ON PURPOSE TO DIVERT THE DEBATE AWAY FROM ECONOMY, WARS, UNEMPLOYMENT, GAS PRICES, BANKER BAILOUTS, ETC

THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE IS CLEARLY FAKED!! IT IS MEANT TO MAKE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DIVIDED AND TO FIGHT WITH ONE ANOTHER OVER THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE CERTIFICATE AND NOT THE REAL ISSUES (OBAMA'S RECORD ON: ECONOMY, UNEMPLOYMENT, PATRIOT ACT, ILLEGAL WARS, ETC) 

READERS, FRIENDS; THE NEWEST OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE BEING RELEASED AT THE TIME AND THE WAY IT WAS RELEASED SHOWS A HIDDEN AGENDA THAT WE MUST ALL RECOGNIZE! THE CERTIFICATE IS SOO BADLY FAKED/MANIPULATED, HAS SOO MANY FLAWS THAT IT LITERALLY MAKES YOUR JAW DROP! THE QUESTION IS WHY? THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE THIS ON PURPOSE TO MAKE ALL AMERICANS FALL INTO THE FAKE RIGHT VS. LEFT PARADIGM AND DEBATE THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE ISSUE AND NOT DISCUSS THE REAL ISSUES WHICH ARE: OBAMA'S RECORD OF MORE WARS, THE NATIONAL DEBT SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL, EXTENDING THE PATRIOT ACT, AIRPORT SECURITY GOING CRAZY, ANNOUNCEMENT OF TSA BEING PLACED IN WALMARTS& TRAFFIC STOPS, DEVALUATION OF THE DOLLAR, UNEMPLOYMENT RATES, GAS PRICES RISING, TORTURE, BAILING OUT BANKS, SIGNING STATEMENTS, AND LOBBYISTS!


The video from Alex Jones (link below) and literally HUNDREDS of Photoshop experts including those with a DEGREE IN PHOTOSHOP/PHOTO-EDITING! Have now given all of us "LAMENS" the info on HOW and why the birth certificate released by the white house yesterday was a fraud.  It is not just one or two points that people are pointing to there are BLATANT MISTAKES that a high school photo editing student would NOT make. The first obvious mistake is by opening the PDF released off the whitehouse website in adobe, the person who made the fake document "FORGOT" to COMPRESS the Layers into a single layer. In other words, the different layers that were manipulated are clearly still visible to anyone that has adobe and wants to go to the shite house.gov website and download the pdf! If one wants to look at eah point and how INCREDIBLY BADLY MANIPULATED the letters on the form are in combination with other issues.. one can go to this article or this one.. or simply google it and learn for yourself.  The question I want my readers to ask themselves and I IMPLORE EVERYONE TO GET THIS POINT OUT TO COMBAT THE GLOBALISTS!!!.. is:

"why would the obama/administration pend millions of dollars fighting this issue in court if he had this document the entire time ANND WHY is THIS document so MANIPULATED AND EASILY TO BE CLAIMED AS FALSE?? Certainly the government could make a much better document or atleast compress all the layers to a single layer so that even the most simple minded photo editors couldn't find out it is a questionably authentic document.. but they left it as it is today on the white house website. So THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION ON THIS ISSUE IS --WHY?? WHY IS IT SO EASY TO QUESTION THIS DOCUMENTS AUTHENTICITY. WITH PROVABLE, COMPUTER SOFTWARE, AND PHOTO MANIPULATION EXPERTS TESTIMONY and MOST IMPORTANTLY.. PEOPLE BORN IN THE SAME HOSPITAL IN THE SAME YEAR AS OBAMA COMING FORWARD WITH THEIR CERTIFICATES AND ALL OF THEM (ATLEAST 5 SO FAR!!!) HAVE A SEAL ON IT EXCEPT OBAMA'S????

The answer to these questions is obvious but it is hidden in plain site so most americans who are caught up in the FAKE RIGHT vs LEFT PARADIGM will NEVER SEE IT.  The purpose for the white house releasing this document now and for the document to be sooo flawed is that OBAMA WANTS THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE TO BE THE ISSUE!!! By releasing this flawed document, people will be fighting, bickering, trying their hardest to prove the other side wrong throughout the campaign.  The MAIN FOCUS of this is to make EVERYONE focus and fight on the certificate issue and NOT FOCUS on OBAMA'S RECORD OF MORE WARS, THE NATIONAL DEBT SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL, EXTENDING THE PATRIOT ACT, AIRPORT SECURITY GOING CRAZY, ANNOUNCEMENT OF TSA BEING PLACED IN WALMARTS & TRAFFIC STOPS, DEVALUATION OF THE DOLLAR, UNEMPLOYMENT RATES, GAS PRICES RISING, TORTURE, BAILING OUT BANKS, SIGNING STATEMENTS, AND LOBBYISTS!

REMEMBER:
THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE IS CLEARLY FAKED!! IT IS MEANT TO MAKE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DIVIDED AND TO FIGHT WITH ONE ANOTHER OVER THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE CERTIFICATE AND NOT THE REAL ISSUES (OBAMA'S RECORD ON: ECONOMY, UNEMPLOYMENT, PATRIOT ACT, ILLEGAL WARS, ETC)

Please tell all you know the real agenda behind the birth certificate and in FIGHT BACK in this INFOWAR! Do not allow yourself or anyone you know to get sucked into this debate about the birth certificate.. KEEP THE PRESSURE ON AND MAKE SURE THE REAL TOPICS GET DISCUSSED AND DEBATED! REAL ISSUES THAT MATTER.. OBAMA'S PLACE OF BIRTH DOES NOT MATTER, THE GLOBALIST BANKERS AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER HAVE HIS BACK.. WE MUST FIGHT BACK IN THIS INFO WAR WITH THE TRUTH.. WE MUST BRING TO THE DISCUSSION THE REAL ISSUES.. GAS PRICES, VALUE OF THE US DOLLAR, UNEMPLOYMENT, ILLEGAL WARS, IMMIGRATION, ETC

When people discuss those issues they will see OBAMA is the SAME AS BUSH and for REAL CHANGE we need to vote for someone that is not controlled by the GLOBALISTS..

Get the info out.. fight back and don't let THEM WIN! DONT LET THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE  BE THE ISSUE.. FORCE THE REAL ISSUES LISTED ABOVE TO BE THE REAL TOPICS, NOT THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE WHICH IS SO CLEARLY FAKED THAT IT IS MEANT TO MAKE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DIVIDED AND TO FIGHT WITH ONE ANOTHER.. The TRUTH AND THE REAL ISSUES ARE ON OUR SIDE!

liberty or death!

Deo Vindice

-Matt Bowden-
Lewisville Texas CSA

Confederate Monument at Texarkana (beginning of Texas Monument Project)

I have decided as a pet project to get a photo at all confederate monuments in the state of Texas.  After studying on how many and where these great monuments to the Confederate soldier and the Confederacy, I have realized I have not seen very many of them, even in the DFW area, an area in which I have lived 20+ years.  So with this in mind, I will be posting pictures at each Monument and eventually have an album made.  I will knock out the Confederate War memorial in Downtown Dallas, Robert E. Lee monument in Dallas, Tarrant County, Denton County and others in the next week or so.  When I am traveling in Texas in the future I will make it a point to stop and get pictures in the countys I am traveling through and post everything on here. So the first ( of many) is in this post.
This Monument is in Down town Texarkana within yards of the post office. I was in Texarkana for Easter with my girlfriend Blair. Unfortunately, on the way back I was unable to get photos at three other county monuments due to weather, but I will get another chance in the near future.
This monument was dedicated APRIL 21 1918 at the cost of $10,000 USD ($ 142,000 USD TODAY!) The united daughters of the Confederacy helped raise money for the monument.  The big inscription on this monument reads  " TO OUR LOYAL CONFEDERATES" and has a Confederate Infantrymen standing atop the obelisk.  A female figure is within the monument sitting on a chair with the CSA battleflag on it. The smaller inscription reads " O' GREAT CONFEDERATE MOTHERS WE WOULD PAINT YOUR NAMES ON MONUMENTS THAT MEN MAY READ THEM AS THE YEARS GO BY AND TRIBUTE PAY TO YOU WHO BORE AND NURTURED HERO SONS AND GAVE THEM SOLACE ON THAT DARKEST DAY WHEN THEY CAME HOME WITH BROKEN SWORDS AND GUNS!

This monument is well done and has a great location in the town swuare, it is large by other Texas Monuments standards and has alot of unique features. It is showing some age and the bushes around it are growing in such a way that if one wants a photo with it, it is quite difficult. The bush also obscures a good portion of the monument from auto traffic traveling in the square. I hope it is not done on purpose but in the war to destroy southern heritage and history, one can never know for sure. On my 1-10 scale I rate this monument an 8 based on size, uniqueness and prominence in the town square. This is truly a must see, when one is in East Texas!

SCORE: 8!

-Matt Bowden-
Lewisville Texas CSA

VIDEO OF THE DAY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBDgczOhRME