Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform

2011 – Catch-22 Year In Review

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

I published my predictions for 2011 on January 3, 2011 in my article 2011 – The Year of Catch-22. Humans evidently enjoy being embarrassed by how pitiful they are at predicting the future, because we continue to do it year after year. The mainstream media pundits don’t dare look back at their predictions or the predictions of the Wall Street shills that parade on CNBC and get quoted in the Wall Street Journal, eternally predicting 10% to 15% stock market gains. The multi-millionaire Wall Street strategists like the spawn of the squid, Abbey Joseph Cohen, have used all of their Ivy League brain power to predict at least a 10% stock price gain every year since 1999. The S&P 500 stood at 1,272 on January 6, 1999. As of this writing it currently stands at 1,261. ZERO appreciation over the last twelve years.

The Wall Street mantra of stocks for the long run is beginning to get a little stale. If Abbey Joseph Cohen had been right for the last twelve years, the S&P 500 would be 4,000. For this level of accuracy, she is paid millions. Her 2011 prediction of 1,500 only missed by16%. The S&P 500 began the year at 1,258 and hasn’t budged. The lowest prediction from the Wall Street shysters at the outset of the year was 1,333, with the majority between 1,400 and 1,500.

The same Wall Street clowns are now being quoted in the mainstream media predicting a 10% to 15% increase in stock prices in 2012, despite the fact we are headed back into recession, China’s property bubble has burst, and Europe teeters on the brink of dissolution. They lie on behalf of their Too Big To Tell the Truth employers by declaring stocks undervalued, when honest analysts such as Jeremy Grantham, John Hussman and Robert Shiller truthfully report that stocks are overvalued and will provide pitiful returns over the next year and the next decade.

I will take my chances with a few predictions for 2012 after reviewing my lack of foresight regarding 2011. I declared 2011 the year of Catch-22 because no matter what happened, it would not translate into a positive result for the American people. This was my thesis:

The United States and its leaders are stuck in their own Catch 22. They need the economy to improve in order to generate jobs, but the economy can only improve if people have jobs. They need the economy to recover in order to improve our deficit situation, but if the economy really recovers long term interest rates will increase, further depressing the housing market and increasing the interest expense burden for the US, therefore increasing the deficit. A recovering economy would result in more production and consumption, which would result in more oil consumption driving the price above $100 per barrel, therefore depressing the economy. Americans must save for their retirements as 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day, but if the savings rate goes back to 10%, the economy will collapse due to lack of consumption. Consumer expenditures account for 71% of GDP and need to revert back to 65% for the US to have a balanced sustainable economy, but a reduction in consumer spending will push the US back into recession, reducing tax revenues and increasing deficits. You can see why Catch 22 is the theme for 2011.

BS numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

The first half of 2011 is guaranteed to give the appearance of recovery. The lame-duck Congress ”compromise” will pump hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars into the economy. The continuation of unemployment benefits for 99 weeks (supposedly to help employment) and the 2% payroll tax cut will goose consumer spending. Ben Bernanke and his QE2 stimulus for poor Wall Street bankers is pumping $75 billion per month ($3 to $4 billion per day) directly into the stock market. Since Ben gave Wall Street the all clear signal in late August, the NASDAQ has soared 25%. Despite the fact that there are 362,000 less Americans employed than were employed in August 2010, the mainstream media will continue to tout the jobs recovery. The goal of all these efforts is to boost confidence and spending. Everything being done by those in power has the seeds of its own destruction built in. The Catch 22 will assert itself in the 2nd half of 2011.

The payroll tax cut, extension of unemployment benefits and Bernanke’s gift to Wall Street criminal banks did nothing to help real Americans in the real world. The government manipulated GDP has languished between 0.4% and 1.8% in the first three quarters of 2011. Using a true measure of inflation, as detailed by John Williams at www.shadowstats.com, GDP has remained at a recessionary level of -2% to -3%.

Millions of homes built and taken off the market

Easy Ben accomplished his goal of pumping up the stock market with his QE2 gift to Wall Street bankers during the first six months of 2011, with the S&P 500 peaking at 1,364 in late April. The market began to fall the second Ben stopped handing Jamie Dimon and his friends $4 billion per day, with the market dropping 18% in three months. The market has risen back near the breakeven level for the year based on Ben’s promise to keep interest rates at zero forever and the hope of QE3.

A new perfect storm is brewing for housing in 2011 and will not subside until late 2012. You may have thought those bad mortgages had been all written off. You would be wrong. There will be in excess of $200 billion of adjustable rate mortgages that reset between 2011 and 2012, with in excess of $125 billion being the dreaded Alt-A mortgages. This is a recipe for millions of new foreclosures.

The brainless twits on CNBC will dutifully report the number of completed foreclosure sales plunged by 24% in 2011, giving the impression to their non-critical thinking viewership that all is well on the housing front. What they will fail to point out is that the number of foreclosures in process went up in 2011 and now stands 59% ABOVE the level in 2009 at the height of our recession. The reason that completed foreclosures have fallen is twofold. The criminal Wall Street banks can’t prove they hold the mortgage notes on hundreds of thousands of homes and they have a few legal issues related to the massive robo-signing fraud they committed. Kicking old ladies and Iraq War veterans out into the street using fraudulent documentation has caused the Wall Street Too Evil To Believe Banks some public relations issues. Secondly, the Wall Street Plutocrats have these mortgage loans valued at 100% on their balance sheets due to the FASB gift of mark to fantasy accounting rules. Foreclosing actually reveals their assets to be overvalued by at least 50%. This may explain why millions of Americans are still in their homes after not making a mortgage payment for two years, as detailed by economist Tom Lawler:

Given the number of loans either seriously delinquent or in the process of foreclosure at the beginning of the year, the number of completed foreclosure sales in 2011 is almost absurdly low, reflecting the complete screw-up of the mortgage servicing industry, and the resulting dramatic slowdown in foreclosure resolutions. As of the end of October, 2011 LPS estimated that there were 1.759 million seriously delinquent loans with the average number of days delinquent at 388 (compared to 192 days in January 2008), and there were 2.210 million loans in the foreclosure process that had been on average delinquent for 631 days.

Completed Foreclosure Sales And Short Sales/DILs (thousands, estimates)
…………………………………………………………………………2008 …2009 ……2010 …2011(E)
Completed Foreclosure Sales ……………………….914 ……949 ……1,070 ……815
Owner-occupied ……………………………………………..N.A. …..N.A. …..785 ……..608
Non-owner-occupied ………………………………………N.A. …..N.A. …….285 ………207
Short Sales/DILs ……………………………………………105 ……270 ……..354 ……..380
Foreclosures plus Short Sales/DILs ……………1,019 …1,219 …1,424 …..1,195

Outstanding first liens: ……………………Jan-08 …Jan-09 …Jan-10 …Jan-11
Seriously Delinquent (90+) ………………1,016 …1,983 ……3,061 ……2,168
In Process of Foreclosure …………………860 ……1,386 ……2,110 ……2,203

The concerted effort to not complete foreclosures did nothing to slow the continued descent in home prices. As you can see in the chart below from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/, real home prices will have fallen another 5% in 2011. Obama and his minions threw $50 billion of your tax dollars at the housing market in 2009 – 2010 with tax credits, loan modification programs, homebuilder tax loss carry-backs, and a myriad of other Keynesian claptrap solutions. They succeeded in pissing your tax dollars down the toilet as prices have declined another 12% in the last 18 months. Prices have fallen 42% nationally since 2006. I wonder who missed the boat on that development?

The Federal Reserve is now leverage at 57-1, insanity levels

“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit.” – Ben Bernanke – July 2005

There are approximately 48.5 million homes with mortgages in the United States and 10.7 million of them have negative equity. Another 2.4 million have less than 5% equity. Considering it costs more than 5% in closing costs to sell a house that means 27% of home occupiers with a mortgage are trapped like rats in a cage. With 2.2 million foreclosures still in the pipeline and a looming recession, home prices will continue to fall another 10% to 20% over the next two years and one third of all home occupiers will be underwater. That sounds like a recipe for 10% to 15% stock market gains.

Quantitative easing has benefited only Wall Street bankers and the 1% wealthiest Americans. The $1.4 trillion of toxic mortgage backed securities on The Fed’s balance sheet are worth less than $700 billion. How will they unload this toxic waste? The Treasuries they have bought drop in value as interest rates rise. Quantitative easing’s Catch 22 is that it can never be unwound without destroying the Fed and the US economy.

Enjoy the Dollar Index at 80 while it last

Bennie and his Inkjets did a bang up job in 2011. He was able to expand his balance sheet from $2.47 trillion to $2.95 trillion in twelve short months. According to Ben and his Federal Reserve friends, increasing your balance sheet by $480 billion isn’t really printing money out of thin air and handing it to their Wall Street owners for free, so they can prop up the stock market and enrich their executives. Ben is now leveraged 57 to 1. He should move to Europe, where this level of leverage is commonplace. In comparison, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were leveraged 40 to 1 when they went belly up.

There is absolutely no way that Ben Bernanke could ever reduce the Federal Reserve balance sheet to the pre-crisis level without destroying the U.S. economy. He knows that and will never sell off those toxic mortgage assets. Not only won’t he reduce the Fed balance sheet, but by mid-2012 he will institute QE3 and buy another $600 billion of mortgage debt. His hubris knows no bounds, as his reckless illegal actions thus far have not driven interest rates sky high – YET. He has only destroyed the finances of senior citizens, savers and people who eat food and use gasoline. He will surely go down in history, but not the way he envisions.

The rise in oil to $91 a barrel will not be a top. The Catch-22 of a declining dollar is that prices of all imported goods go up. If the dollar falls another 10%, the price of oil will rise above $120 a barrel and push the economy back into recession.

European Central Bank printing like the Federal Reserve trying to save the elites

As Bernanke printed like a drunken sailor during the first six months of 2011, the USD fell by 9% and the price of oil did exactly as expected, rising to a peak above $125. The NATO “intervention” in Libya also added a few bucks to the price of a barrel of sweet crude.

The complete implosion of Europe and the ensuing weakness of the Euro have given the false impression that the U.S. dollar is a safe haven. The USD has regained its losses and will end the year exactly as it started versus a Euro heavy basket of world currencies. With annual deficits equaling 10% of GDP, a national debt now exceeding 100% of GDP, and Ben Bernanke in perpetual printing mode, the USD is destined to reach its intrinsic value of zero. With Brent crude still above $108 a barrel, employment still weak, and double digit food and energy inflation slowing consumer spending, the ECRI knows a recession during 2012 is baked in the cake.

The imminent collapse of the European Union as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are effectively bankrupt. Spain is the size of the other three countries combined and has a 20% unemployment rate. The Germans are losing patience with these spendthrift countries. Debt does matter.

It seems I was wrong about Europe. It turned out to be much worse than anyone envisioned, with Italy now the likely fuse that blows the whole thing sky high. The ECB has made Ben Bernanke look like a lightweight by increasing their balance sheet by 44% to over $3.5 trillion in a futile effort to solve a debt crisis with more debt. It seems central bankers are programmed to print until the very end (see Weimar). The European Union will not survive 2012. Too many countries, too much government debt, too many zombie banks, too many bureaucrats, too much austerity rammed down the throats of citizens, and not enough honesty or reality based solutions.

State and Local governments will crash and burn

State and local governments were able to put off hard choices for another year, as Washington DC handed out hundreds of billions in pork. California will have a $19 billion budget deficit; Illinois will have a $17 billion budget deficit; New Jersey will have a $10.5 billion budget deficit; New York will have a $9 billion budget deficit. A US Congress filled with Tea Party newcomers will refuse to bailout these spendthrift states. Substantial government employee layoffs are a lock.

State and local governments have laid off 535,000 workers since 2008. With borrowed Federal government stimulus handouts evaporating into thin air during 2011 – 2012, this total will reach 800,000 by the end of the next year. The U.S. Postal Service will do their part by cutting 28,000 jobs in 2012, even though they need to cut 100,000. States and municipalities based their budgets on the revenues produced by the fake debt driven housing boom from 2003 – 2007. The tax revenue dried up, but the union jobs added are a gift that keeps on costing taxpayers billions. States and localities can’t print, so layoffs will continue.

There is a growing probability that China will experience a hard landing as their own quantitative easing has resulted in inflation surging to a 28 month high of 5.1%, with food inflation skyrocketing to 11.7%. Poor families spend up to half of their income on food. Rapidly rising prices severely burden poor people and can spark civil unrest if too many of them can’t afford food.

China is crashing, no more bail outs, no more cheap products

According to official government statistics China’s economy continued to boom in 2011. But, of course Chinese government reports make the BLS look honest. The fact is the Chinese stock market has fallen 28% since April as the property bubble deflates. If their economy has truly grown at an annual rate of 8% to 10% over the last five years, why is their stock market down 62% from its 2007 high?

The price inflation in food and energy prices, along with the property bubble bursting has led to breakouts of civil unrest across China. China’s two biggest markets – Europe & the United States – are in or near recession and are buying less of their crap. They can only build so many vacant cities and shopping malls to create the appearance of growth. The hard landing is about to get harder in 2012.

The Tea Party members of Congress are likely to cause as much trouble for Republicans as Democrats. If they decide to make a stand on raising the debt ceiling early in 2011, all hell could break loose in the debt and stock markets.

It seems I got the timing wrong on this prediction, but the August showdown was a doozy. The threat of a government shutdown resulted in the stock market collapsing by 18% in a matter of weeks in August. Our beloved politicians then came up with another bullshit non-solution by creating a commission which, after months of negotiations, failed to do anything. The $1.2 trillion of automatic spending cuts will never happen. The slime that inhabit the hallowed halls of Congress will pretend to cut, while actually increasing spending. And so it goes. The stock market has risen from its October low based on Easy Ben’s assurances to keep interest rates at zero forever and the anticipation of QE3 in the new year.

Will the consensus forecast of a growing economy, rising corporate profits, 10% to 15% stock market gains, 2 million new jobs, and a housing recovery come true in 2011? No it will not. By mid-year confidence in Ben’s master plan will wane.

Look, there is a correlation between printing, borrowing, and the price of gold!

Corporate profits did rise, mostly due to Ben Bernanke providing free money to the Wall Street Mega-Banks so they could generate risk free profits on the backs of senior citizens getting .15% on their savings. It also helps when the same Wall Street banks can make accounting entries declaring that future loan losses will be minimal and the toxic mortgages on their books aren’t really worthless. Who knew accountants could do so much for America? Abbey Joseph Cohen only missed her stock market projection by a smidgeon. The S&P 500 is essentially unchanged for the year, while the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 will finish in the red.

The country did not add 2 million new jobs. It added 1.4 to 1.5 new jobs. Too bad the working age population went up by 1.7 million people. But our friends at the BLS, when they aren’t manipulating away the inflation that real people in the real world experience every day, have the gall to declare the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% to 8.6% in the last twelve months. How could this be you might ask, since the working age population went up by more than the number of people who found jobs. Easy if you are a BLS government drone. Everyone knows that things are so good out in the real world that 1.8 million Americans decided to kick back and enjoy the good life by leaving the workforce. It wasn’t because they gave up looking for the jobs that were shipped to the Far East by the mega-corporations making record profits and paying record bonuses to their executives. It’s just a rumor that those long lines at food banks around the country have a few of these “lucky” non-members of the workforce in them.

The housing recovery is just around the corner. Larry Yun, chief liar for the National Association of Realtors, assures us that it’s the best time to buy. We all know that the NAR is a bastion of honesty and truth. Just because they reported 3 MILLION more home sales than actually occurred between 2007 and 2010, you can’t scorn, ignore and treat everything they say as a bald faced lie. If Larry says the housing recovery has arrived, it must be true.

Revised Previous % Change
2007 5,022,000 5,652,000 -11.1%
2008 4,124,000 4,913,000 -16.1%
2009 4,334,000 5,156,000 -15.9%
2010 4,182,000 4,907,000 -14.8%

When the pundits on CNBC sum up the year, they will not be touting the fact that gasoline prices went up 10% in the past year and the average price for a gallon of gas was the highest in U.S. history. They will not be proclaiming that even the government manipulated CPI shows food prices up 6% and clothing prices up 5% in the last year. I’m sure glad Ben Bernanke doesn’t see any inflation on his radar. Maybe he should ask his chauffer about his inflation. Lastly, the stocks for the long run crowd will not be yakking about the fact that gold finished up 10% for the year and has been up for TEN consecutive years. I wonder whether the numbskulls on CNBC can look at the chart below and figure out why gold is up ten years in a row. The national debt reaching $20 trillion by 2015 is a given. I wonder whether the price of gold will be higher. Maybe I’ll give Abbey Joseph Cohen a call and ask for her prediction.

Overall, my assessment of what would happen in 2011 wasn’t too far off. But, it was the things that I and virtually everyone on the planet missed that will reverberate in 2012 and for the next ten years. Our 20 year Crisis deepened, became more violent, and clearly revealed that the establishment will use all their power to put down protests and crush opposition to their corrupt crony capitalistic policies. The major developments I missed regarding 2011 included:

The self-immolation of a young Tunisian man set off revolutions around the globe, toppling U.S. supported dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Dictators attempted to retain power by killing citizens by the thousands. The self-immolation of a man in New Hampshire in front of a courthouse was completely ignored by the mainstream media. I wonder why.

The Arab Spring has resulted in revolutions in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and Libya. Depending upon how much oil was at stake, the U.S. has supported the dictator or the people whenever it suited them. This is called democratic principles.

Young people across the U.S. were inspired by the Arab Spring and began to Occupy Wall Street and many other streets in 97 other U.S. cities this past Fall. The spirit of these protests was against Wall Street criminality, Washington corruption, and corporate malfeasance. Peaceful civil disobedience by citizens of this country was met with beatings, tear gas, mass arrests and bulldozing their encampments. Students were maced while sitting in front of a college building. Ultimately a Department of Homeland Security coordinated attack on all the protests squashed the movement. The American people were too distracted by Dancing With the Stars and the latest iGadget to notice. The corporate media did their part by spewing misinformation and propaganda about the Occupy Movement, while the Wall Street Elite giggled with delight from their NYC penthouse suites.

Shockingly, no bankers were prosecuted despite clear unequivocal evidence of the greatest financial fraud in world history. The former head of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Senator, and NJ Governor continues to eat caviar and drink champagne in his glorious mansion after stealing $1.2 billion directly from customers’ accounts. These funds now reside in the pocket of Jamie Dimon and his upstanding JP Morgan institution.
The Federal government methodically moved closer to a totalitarian regime by passing legislation that will enable them to imprison U.S. citizens without charges. The only remaining area that has allowed critical thinking Americans to find the truth – the Internet – is on the verge of being locked down by the Feds. Pending legislation will allow them to shut down any website that may inconvenience their agenda. We inch ever closer to Orwell’s vision of the future.

No one in the MSM or government anticipated that the only truthful, honest, forthright politician in Washington D.C. – Ron Paul – could possibly win the Iowa caucus. His message of freedom, liberty, self reliance, and non-interventionism has struck a chord with young people and those capable of distinguishing between MSM propaganda and reality. The establishment is terrified of Ron Paul and is now on a mission to destroy him. What they don’t realize is their time is coming to an end. The existing social order will be swept away in a violent manner. The youth of this country will lead the charge. 2012 should be a real doozy.

I’ll take another shot at predicting the unpredictable with my next article: 2012 – The Year of Living Dangerously.

Orange County, Florida Mayor Teresa Jacobs

Are these claims legitimate?

Yes and no.

Going by the unemployment rule book Rick Scott has been very diligent in eliminating unemployed claimants from the roles who do not follow procedures to the letter. The Florida labor force has declined about 0.5% since Scott took office in January from 9,278,147 to 9,228,406, a reduction of 49,741 people from the unemployment roles. Good or bad? You decide.

Florida employment has increased from 8,176,318 to 8,302,617 or a 1.5% increase, slightly outpacing the population growth rate of 1.36%.

So there is some truth in the numbers, but certainly even Scott and Jacobs realize a 10% unemployment rate is catastrophic.

Here are some sectors and their growth percentages for the last 11 months;

Florida Government Employment down 0.3%. This is positive. Less government workers means twice as many private sector workers in sustainable jobs.

Florida Governor Rick Scott

Professional and Business Services Employment up 3.7%.

Leisure and Hospitality Employment up 2.8%.

Trade, Transportation, and Utilities Employment up 2.3%.

The total Florida population is around 19,190,944, growing at about 1.4% per year.

The national labor force has grown 0.8%, compared to Florida’s negative growth of 0.5%, since January, 2011. If the labor force in Florida kept pace with the national labor force, the Florida unemployment rate would be 11.2%, a much smaller decline and a national embarrassment.

The national employed work force has increased 2.5%, compared to Florida’s 1.5%.

Those are the numbers, you make the call.

Free what?

Wait a second here weren’t we all told we were born free?
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights gives us freedom of speech?
“We the People” are suppose to be the ones who control our government instead of the other way around?
When the heck did all that go up in smoke?
Because when you take a close look clearly the government does not give a flip what the people think, say or do.

I am ever awestruck at those who remain glued to THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA (all sides) and adamantly claim they know what is going on.
So many Americans are the ULTIMATE SUCKERS.

My husband still remains glued to the idea that the rise of the stock market is just around the corner. Somehow he can not seem to wrap his mind around the fact that the market is NOW FOR SUCKERS like him. The SMART INVESTORS got out and will stay out.

Perhaps a saving grace for “my sweetie pie” is the shock of American Airlines bankruptcy which has put a screeching halt to any further frittering off of funds. So here we sit on 8000 shares of AA that has the equivalent street value of confederate money … perhaps less considering confederate bills might have some historic value.

As I sit and watch this very interesting political season unfold where “we the people” are victims of a giant con.
The political right and left is a sheer FANTASY of choice.
It is more evident this election cycle than any before that the die has already been cast.
We are going to get a choice of Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.
I will be shocked if that turns out to NOT BE TRUE.

There is a clear MSM propaganda push for these two.
There IS NO FREE ELECTION CHOICE.

Well unless you call choosing THE WORST OF 2 EVILS a choice.
I guess technically that might be true.

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMNEY AND OBAMA.
Neither are “natural born citizens”.
That makes them peas in a pod. BOTH HELL BENT on destroying the founding documents of our country.
BOTH CLAIM TO UPHOLD the Constitution.
WHAT AN IRONIC JOKE!

So we head into the Iowa caucus … should Ron Paul win there you will see both republicans and democrats TOTALLY COME UNHINGED.

That should be an interesting show.
More raciest crap heaped his way. Oh wait that is already on the scene right?
More he is an “insane psychopath”.

All of which whips his followers into a more cohesive determined frenzy to get him in the white-house come hell or high water.

I have to wonder if it ever dawned on this “political establishment” and those who hang on their every word as if it were gospel that THEY HAVE LOST TOTAL CONTROL this time around?

It will be interesting if they all decide JUST MAYBE they better take the heat off Gingrich out of STARK FEAR that Paul will pull together enough people (Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and those who simply HATE THEM ALL) to whisk him to victory as a 3rd party WINNER.

AWWWW! That can not happen in a million years right?

ROFL … yeah right.

I have been actively involved in the political spectrum for about 3 years now. Thirty-five years ago I tried to get involved but when I saw how corrupt and self-serving the process was I gave up. I registered as an Independent with the hopes that being an Independent would insulate me from the corruption, self-serving politicians, and the evil that pervades both parties. I was sadly mistaken. In that 35 years nothing has improved. Now, 35 years later, I find our Republic in the death throes of dictatorship and people in both political parties working together to enslave We the People. Sadly much of this is my fault because I chose to ignore it in the hope it would go away. It didn’t go away but instead has become much more of a problem and much more of a danger. I re-registered as a Republican just after the 2008 elections that saw John McCain, and the Republican Party machine, surrender my nation to the most radical thing that has ever sat in the White House.

I have seen the Republican Party sacrifice my freedoms on the altar of the party machine interests time and again. I have seen congressional Republicans cave on issue after issue and “go along to get along”, be “bi-partisan, civil, and agreeable” , and “reach across the aisle” to work with their “friends in the Democrat Party” until they no longer stand for the ideals our founding fathers espoused in the Constitution. Republicans have done this in spite of the promises they made to get elected in record numbers. I have found the Republican Party does not represent me any better than the Democrat Party.

In 2010 voters in the State of Oklahoma swept Republicans into office in unprecedented fashion, much as was done in the national elections. We also passed state referendums opposing Sharia Law and Obamacare. The first thing the newly elected Republican governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House did upon taking office was begin a plot to implement Obamacare in the State of Oklahoma. They tried 3 different stealth approaches to slip this into law in spite of the overwhelming, and by overwhelming I mean 70% of the voters, opposition to Obamacare. They were looking at the $54.5 million that would come from the federal government for them to spend, particularly with their allies in the insurance business. Governor Mary Fallin, State Sen. Brian Bingman,

and State House Speaker Kris Steele were the authors of this dastardly plot to subvert the wishes of 70% of We the People of the State of Oklahoma. All of their attempts were thwarted due to the dogged work of OKSAFE, an organization dedicated to defeating Obamacare, and dedicated to being a watch-dog on Oklahoma politicians. I have been told, but cannot verify at this moment, that they are hatching new plots to implement Obamacare in the next legislative session. They seem to be determined to sneak this through when they think We the People aren’t looking. They want that $54.5 million for their cronies, not for We the People.

I was astounded that Republicans would behave in this fashion. I don’t know why it surprised me but it did. Maybe it is because I have followed the TEA Party movement and seen how Republicans have seemed to step right into what We the People want done in government. Once again I have seen the duplicity and self-serving nature of politicians rear its ugly head and have begun to realize none of them can be trusted. I have seen the “tell voters what they want to hear and do as we please once elected” attitude alive and well within the Republican Party.

In 2009 I got involved in a campaign for the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma. Dr. Charles Thompson nearly upset a long time Democrat, coming close enough that Rep. Dan Boren has decided he won’t run again. Since that time I have become actively involved in my local county party group with the intent of cleaning the corruption and “insider trading” out of the system. I have been elected, by my county peers, as the State Committeeman representing Rogers County in the Oklahoma Republican Party.

Everything was rolling along fine until we began the primary race for the 2nd Congressional District. I won’t go into details as the details will be very plainly evident in this letter that I sent to the state chairman, district chairman, and the county chairwoman responsible for the issue at the district meeting held in October 2011 in McAlester, Oklahoma. The last 3 names on the list of recipients are there because I discussed it with them to get their input on how I should approach this matter. We were working together to organize a candidate forum and I felt I owed them the courtesy of letting them know how I wound up handling this matter. The e-mail I sent follows:
Text to Montgomery-email

To date I have received one response to this e-mail. Matt Pinnell, Oklahoma State GOP Chairman, called me one afternoon and told me that Ms. Gerard was contemplating stepping down from her county president position and that this is behind us. I don’t know that anyone has stepped down and the problem wasn’t addressed, only swept under the rug. It might be behind him but it isn’t behind me.

I subsequently made a request that I be allowed to speak at the next Republican Party District 2 meeting and at the next state committee meeting. So far Mr. Montgomery e-mailed me that Ms. Gerard was doing the planning for the District meeting and that he would get back with me on the matter. That was November 16, today is December 27. I have yet to hear any response at all from the state level. My purpose in speaking at these meetings is to make others aware that this happened and remind them that We the People must step up to tell the political operatives who they represent, and who they work for. I also desire to let others as appalled as I am know that they aren’t alone and need not fear standing up for what is right and just.

State Representative George Faught is playing the old game of self-serving political opportunism. I believe that if he is our next congressman he will do whatever he is told to do by party leadership. He will do what he has to do to improve his own position, power, and benefits in Congress. In addition to this little game he has his campaign staff, one of which is the Vice-Chair of Rogers County, going around to speaking engagements of the other 5 candidates and recording everything they say. This might be good politics but to this voter it is unethical and shows a lack of confidence in his own message. I don’t need to know what others are saying about issues, I can make the case for my views. A good candidate should be able to make the same statement.

Bringing this to the public is painful as I have no desire to hurt the Republican Party. My desire, or more accurately my responsibility, is to stop the corruption and turn the party back into “the party of the people”. It is up to citizens to get involved and have the courage to take whatever steps are necessary to save our nation for future generations. The only way to defeat evil is to fight it, to bring the back room deals into the light and under the table bargaining above the table. The only way to stop the party insider dealing is to get outsiders involved, outsiders who value the Constitution more than the party.

Bob Russell
Rogers County Oklahoma State Committeeman
December 27, 2011

Below you will find a reminder of what was said in the past by some wise individuals.
Perhaps we should take time out of our busy days and reflect on them periodically?
Thank you Gunner for posting this list from back then

• “[The founding fathers] conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone — the right most valued by civilized men.” — Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court Justice
  1928
• “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to The Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland, 1809
• “…whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force…”Thomas Jefferson, Federal v. Consolidated Government
• “We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.” — Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)
• “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”—- Thomas Jefferson
• “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”—- Thomas Jefferson
• “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” — Thomas Jefferson
• “[A] wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” –Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801
• “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”—- Thomas Jefferson



• “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”—- Thomas Jefferson
• “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” — Thomas Jefferson
• “It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people…They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.”—- Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist
• “If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?”—- Tom G. Palmer (1956-) Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute
• “The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it.”—- Woodrow Wilson
• “Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.”—- Edward H. Crane Founder and president of the Cato Institute
• “The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”—- Thomas Jefferson



• “There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”—- Charles de Montesquieu
• “[W]henever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience…”—- John Locke
• “Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” — Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author Source: Atlas Shrugged, 1957
• “[T]hose who are willing to surrender their freedom for security have always demanded that if they give up their full freedom it should also be taken from those not prepared to do so.”—- Friedrich August von Hayek
• “Many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of Nazism, and sincerely hate all manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny.” — Friedrich August von Hayek
• “The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.”—- Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author



• “The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.” –Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788
• “Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank.”— Robert A. Taft (1889-1953) U. S. Senator Source: after his defeat at the 1952 Republican convention
• “Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.” –Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821
• “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . .you may know that your society is doomed.”—Ayn Rand
• “Increasing the power of the state in response to the Soviet menace would not defeat socialism in Russia but bring it to the United States.”—- Frank Chodorov (1887-1966) American author, publisher
• “No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.” –George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1786
• “But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face?
  Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on?
  Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then you are not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant.”—- Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

The more I look at decisions from the 9th Circuit the more interest I take in Newt Gingrich and his plans of action.

So let me get this straight.
It does not matter that there might be election fraud involved in the 2008 election campaign?
Fraud (possibly treason) that allowed Barack Obama to gain office even though he does not meet the “natural born citizen” requirement of the US Constitution?

The opinion from judges Harry Pregerson, Ray Fisher and Marsha Berzon explained the concept is called “competitive standing,” and they affirmed it as legitimate grounds for concern.

“This notion of ‘competitive standing’ has been recognized by several circuits,” the opinion said. “We, too, have upheld the notion of ‘competitive standing.’ In Owen v. Mulligan, we held that the ‘potential loss of an election’ was an injury-in-fact sufficient to give a local candidate and Republican party officials standing. In that case, the candidate for local office sued the Postal Service for giving his rival a preferential mailing rate, in violation of its own regulations.”

The opinion said the case had the candidate and party officials seeking “to prevent their opponent from gaining an unfair advantage.”

However, in Obama’s case, the court panel simply said once the inauguration was held, the claims evaporated.

Maybe WE THE PEOPLE need to reconsider Newt Gingrich (for commander in chief) and his suggestion to haul these judges before Congress to make them accountable for their rulings?

The moral of this story is NONE OF US can trust anyone who is suppose to be legitimate and telling the truth.
Jurista.com now bites the dust where credibility use to be.
Just plain lies, corruption or server error?

You be the judge.
Check out important data yourself at the source.
The Constitution, Congressional records, State records? Take the time in the end it will be worth it.

December 14, 2011
JustiaGate: ‘Natural Born’ Supreme Court Citations Disappear
By Dianna C. Cotter with L. Donofrio Esq.

Did Justia.com deliberately aid Barack Obama in 2008 by helping to hide the one legal case that might prevent him from legally qualifying for the presidency?

On October 20, 2011, New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio accused online legal research behemoth Justia.com of surgically redacting important information from their publication of 25 U.S. Supreme Court opinions which cite Minor v. Happersett, an 1874 decision which arguably contains language that appears to disqualify anyone from presidential eligibility who wasn’t born in the country to parents who were citizens. According to the decision in Happersett:

At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. (Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167 [1874])

Justia is a Google Mini-powered website which has singled itself out as one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-search legal sites on the internet. Other legal resources such as Lexis can cost as much as $5,000 a month for a subscription, and it’s impossible to hyperlink to cases which include copyrighted headnotes and analysis. This is why powerful law firms such as Perkins Coie (where former Obama White House Counsel Bob Bauer practices law) have cited Justia’s pages.

The Wayback Machine, run by InternetArchive.Org, is the means by which the changes made at Justia were documented over time. Among the first responses from Justia regarding this controversy was to block its Supreme Court Server from being viewed by the Wayback Machine.

Click the following link for an image documenting the pattern of changes made to one of those 25 cases, Luria v. U.S., 231 U.S. 9 (1913). Notice that the case name “Minor v. Happersett” has been removed, minimizing the case searchability.

The cover-up simply reeks. While Justia owner Tim Stanley told CNET that there were more cases which had also been “mangled,” there is no way to identify how much bogus law was published by Justia over the three-year period in question. Minor v. Happersett simply disappeared from cases which cited it, minimizing its footprint on the internet at a critical juncture in history — the election of 2008.

McCarthy v. Briscoe, 429 U.S. 1317 (1976)

On Nov. 3, 2008, one day before the election, Donofrio petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the ballots in New Jersey from being used the next day in the case Donofrio v. Wells, claiming that the eligibility of both Obama and McCain had not been verified by the NJ secretary of State as required by law.

In his research, Donofrio had found a reference to McCarthy v. Briscoe, 429 U.S. 1317 (1976), an important precedent which allows the Supreme Court — or even one justice acting alone if an emergency stay is requested — to order a secretary of state to insert a name on the ballot. The holding of the case implies a reciprocal power to remove names from ballots for the several secretaries of State, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.

Back in ’08, Donofrio couldn’t find the in chambers decision anywhere online. Forced to go old-school, he procured it from a brick-and-mortar law library. But to this day, McCarthy v. Briscoe remains elusive at Justia. If you look in their “Volume” database and click “429,” all of the in chambers opinions are mysteriously absent.

In chambers opinions generally begin on pg. 1,301, but not every official volume has them. For example, Volume 428 has no in chambers opinions, but 429, 434, and 439 do. Justia’s database for Volumes 434 and 439 do exhibit the in chambers opinions, but Volume 429 has them scrubbed.

If you search Justia’s Cases & Opinions by Year in 1976, McCarthy v. Briscoe is listed. There are two cases, an insignificant one-page opinion at page 1,316, followed by the relevant decision on pg. 1,317. There are links to the preview as well as “Full Text.” However, all of the links are broken, leading back to Justia’s front page.

Additionally, Justia’s publication of a following 1977 5th Circuit case, 553 F.2d 1005, includes a hyperlink back to 429 U.S. 1317, and that link is also mysteriously broken.
The rest of the story ….

From all of us who contribute to this blog … to all of you who faithfully follow it.

Have a MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR and MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA!

More Christmas Greats:

The GREAT Elvis and Martina McBride.
This is an old video of Elvis and has been digitally remastered by/with Martina McBride.
Great work!

“Do You Hear What I Hear” Mannheim Steamroller

Merry Christmas!