In 1938, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) was created to help Americans get mortgages. Fannie Mae is a private GSE (Govt. Sponsored Entity) regulated by Congress and it was created to help the country get out of the depression by making it easier for American to buy homes. Although Fannie Mae was established as a private company with shareholders and was supposed to make a profit, the American taxpayers would still be stuck for the bill if Fannie Mae suffered any losses.

A similar private organization, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (Freddie Mac), was established in 1970 and charged with creating a national secondary market for conventional home mortgages. By doing so, Congress hoped to level out the disparity among regions of the nation in regard to availability of and interest rates on home mortgages.

In 1977, however, Congress decided that it was time for the federal government to intrude into the free-market mortgage business through the introduction of welfare state type legislation. It passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which required banks and other lending institutions to make extraordinary efforts to give loans to “communities of color” disregarding sound economic and risk guidelines that were so successful in the past.In the name of ending alleged discrimination, members of these “communities of color” were no longer required to provide all of the standard mortgage documents such as verification of income, proof of employment, credit history, or even provide a down payment.

Because of the federal loan guarantees that came with the legislation, many banks and mortgage companies bundled billions of dollars of “subprime” loans and sold them to investors both in the USA and in foreign countries. It is these bundled Community Reinvestment Act type mortgages, that were doomed to fail, that would eventually cause the near collapse of U.S. and global financial markets in 2008.

In 1997, The Clinton administration, pushing the socialist idea that home ownership is a right of all Americans, placed even more pressure on banks to grant even more mortgages to the poor, minorities and people with bad credit. Reacting to the pressure applied by the Clinton Administration and the threat of federal lawsuits by Janet Reno, American banks began making thousands of bad loans, many with no money down, no documentation and even loans for up to 120% of actual values. Executives at Fannie Mae started to receive huge bonuses when mortgage loans targets were met. To help push the program, Franklin Raines and Jamie Garelick, from the Clinton Administration, were given top positions in Fannie Mae.

In 1998, Fannie Mae reported the following bonuses to some of their executives: chairman and chief executive James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines, chairman-designate, received $1.11 million; Chief Operating Officer Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Vice Chairman Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard received $493,750; and Robert J. Levin, an executive vice president, received $493,750. These bonuses increased in future years as fraudelent entries were made in the financial records.

In 2001, Enron Corporation collapses and congress the SEC and the FBI investigates. In the ensuing years, many of the Enron executives were charged with various federal crimes and many of them were sentenced to years in federal prison. The chielf executives of the company were found guilty of cooking the books. As a result of this business failure, in 2002 congress passed the Sorbanes-Oxley Act, which introduced major changes to the regulation of financial practice and corporate governance. Named after Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley, who were its main architects, it set deadlines for the record keeping compliance by the nation's corporations.

In 2003, President George Bush called for legislation to give the government more oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but his proposal fell on deaf congressional ears, many of whose members were receiving substantial bribes (I mean campaign contributions) from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2004, the Office of Management and Budget, found that massive fraudulent bookkeeping practices were occurring at Fannie Mae and that these practices were very similar to the fraudelent practices in the Enron Corp case. The OMB determined that these annual false mortgage statistics were used to justify the top executives getting excessive bonuses every year. Unlike the Enron case, however, congress decided not to hold any hearings and the FBI did not launch any criminal investigations. As a result of the OMB report, Franklin Raines & other top execs were forced to resign from Fannie Mae for doing the same thing that Enron executives did (cookin the books), but unlike the Enron case, the Fannie Mae executives only had to give back $31.4 million dollars in fines after a civil proceeding.

In 2005, Senators Chuck Hagel (NE), Elizabeth Dole (NC), John Sununu (NH) and John McCain (AZ) proposed legislation entitled, " The Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act" (S-190) that was designed to give the federal government increased federal oversight over Fannie Mae, Freedie Mac and other institutions, but the legislation was met with fierce Democratic partisan opposition and it went nowhere. In support of this legislation, Sen McCain stated: "if Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."

TWO SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS THAT CONTIBUTED FOR THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY FAILURES:

1 - The National Council of LaRaza, a racist and pro-illegal alien amnesty group, along with its Development Fund, have received millions of dollars in federal funds to "counsel" their constituents (including illegal aliens) on how to obtain mortgages with little to no money down. For years, there has been a rapidly expanding illegal alien home loan racket that the media and the federal government still are unwilling to talk about. Many banks looking for more federal guaranteed loan handouts, led by Wachovia and Bank of America, launched aggressive campaigns designed to attract more illegal alien homebuyers, subsidized by the American taxpayers of course.

2 - Another socialist Racist group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) demanded “affirmative action” in all lending practices and programs. They pressured banks to make subprime loans to poor people of color with bad credit. Madeline Talbott, a Chicago ACORN leader, has even boasted of “dragging banks kicking and screaming” into these dubious loans. As conservative community activist Robert Woodson put it, “The same corporations that pay ransom to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton also pay ransom to ACORN.” The ACORN organization actively supports candidates of the Democratic Party and many ACORN people have also been arrested on various charges involving voter fraud.

To make matters worse, The most recent House and Senate Democratic bail-out legislation contained a well-hidden provision that would forward some of the profits, indirectly, to help fund organizations like LaRaza and ACORN. If this provision is included in the final versions, the American taxpayer will be giving more cash to the very groups that helped create the lending mess in the first place.

By 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had loaned or underwritten about $5.3 trillion of the total $12 trillion of outstanding mortgage debt in the United States. Because of the shear magnitude of mortgages held, many in government and in the private sector believed that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were too big to be allowed to fail and the government had to take them over completely with taxpayers money.

Because of this philosophy, American Taxpayers either have or shortly will have shelled out close to $1.4 Trillion in bailout money for various reasons in the last 14 months alone.Here’s a list of some of the more recent Federal government's actions in the financial markets recently published by Reuters:

Cost to taxpayers and the Bailout Type

$ 700 billion+ - Proposed current Treasury Department legislation
$ 29 billion - Bear Stearns financing
$ 200 bilion - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization
$ 85 billion - AIG loan and nationalization
$ 300 billion - Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill
$4 billion - Mortgage community grants
$87 billion - JPMorgan Chase repayments
$200 billion+ - Loans to banks via Fed's Term Auction Facility
$ 50 billion - Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund
$144 billion - Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

TOTAL: $1.8 trillion+
COST PER US HOUSHOLD: $17,064+

I believe that the solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the free market. It is time this process is put to an end, or at the very least, reigned in. The government should sell off the assets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac quickly and close down these corrupt organizations. Government must stop pandering to special interest groups, reduce the volume and complexity of regulations it imposes on lending institutions and stop passing social engineering legislation, like the Community Reinvestment Act, that interferes in the free market economy and which has ultimately led to this financial crisis.

It's a tough battle for those Senators and Members of Congress who have stood tall and who have voted against this massive fleecing of the American taxpayers for the benefit of Wall Street investors and big commercial banks. Unfortunately, if congress can be judged by its past practices, any proposed bailout legislation that comes to a vote will undoubtedly be loaded with riders, earmarks and all forms of other "pork" so that the special interests that are looking for us to bail them out will win and the American taxpayers will lose again.

John Wallace
NY Campaign for Liberty
http://www.nycampaignforliberty.com/

 

The President and the Congress seem to be moving quickly to bail out the crooks at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the insurance giant AIG. Why are we bailing out these crooks with honest taxpayers money?

Rather than printing another $785,000,000,000. in worthless fiat money that puts each taxpayer in the hole for over ten grand, why not just give the money directly to the taxpayers instead.

Let's give the $785,000,000,000. to American taxpayers instead. Let's give 135 million American taxpayers a "citizen bailout" dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 135,000,000 bona fide U.S. taxpayers (accourding the IRS figures for 2005). Now divide 135 million taxpayers, into the $785 billion and that equals $5,800. for each taxpayer! If we have to bail out someone, isn't it better to bail out the people who are actually paying the bills. Why are we rewarding incompetence and criminal behavior with taxpayer bonuses that will go to the very crooks that caused this crisis.

I say if we are going to bail out anyone, let's give $5,800 to every American taxpayer as part of a "citizen bailout" plan. A husband and wife would get $11,600. to do with what they want!

John Wallace
NYCampaignforLiberty

At a time when our economy is struggling and unemployment for American citizens is increasing, two new anti-American worker bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives. The first bill (H.R. 5882) is designed to create 550,000 additional green cards for foreign nationals and the second bill (H.R. 5924) will make it easier for foreign nurses to come to the United States to compete with American citizens for nursing jobs and the legislation will even help pay for the foreign workers education. These bills are in addition to earlier House bills, H.R. 4088 and H.R. 5642, that are also designed to increase the numbers of foreign workers admitted to the country, at the expense of American citizens.

In August of 2008, 592,000 additional Americans were added to the official unemployment rolls. The total number of Americans who are officially unemployed now stands at 8.28 million. The current official unemployment rate (highest in 5 years) is currently 6 percent. The official unemployment rate is considerably higher for Hispanic women at 8.7% and is twice as high for Black American men at 12.3%. The last thing this country needs in tough econimic times is a large increase in foreign workers and immigration.

In these uncertain times, with so many American citizens losing their jobs, why are certain members of congress insisting on giving away 500,000+ additional American jobs to foreigners. Some House members want to increase the number of new permanent immigrants allowed into the country by using a fraudelent sceme designed to “RECAPTURE” work visas that were supposedly never used in previous years, although this turns out to be outright misinformation.

These two new bills will add a minimum of a million additional permanent immigrants, plus their families, to the United States over the next ten years. This number does not include those already being added under other immigration and visa programs. That is one million additional foreign workers, plus their families, who will be competing for jobs and wages currently held by American citizens.

Legal permanent immigrant visas are mostly comprised of two categories: family-based visas and employment-based visas. Each category has a loose limit to how many visas can be allocated in each category every year. In theory, these caps exist to protect Americans from unfair labor competition and from runaway population growth, but there are many loopholes built into the law that undermines these protections.

The law, originally written by Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1965 to increase third world immigration while limiting immigration from Western Europe, allows any unused visas from one category to automatically roll over into the other category for the following year. This guarantees that there would never be any unused visas.

The "RECAPTURE" scheme being proposed in H.R. 5882, adds a provision that essentially will count any "unused" visas twice (once to roll over into the other category and once to add that number again to the existing category). The authors of the H.R. 5882 are not "recapturing" anything. They are just devising a fraudulent anti-American Worker scheme to increase the number of permanent foreign workers and their families who can be admitted to the U.S. every year.

When it comes to importing more foreign workers into the USA, it seems that Special Interest Money from the big corporations is more important than the will of the majority of the American people. These type of imigration bills pose a danger to the economic future and well being of American citizen workers, particularly those currently unemployed, or employed as nurses, blue-collar workers and in the information technology field.

The H-1B visa program was originally created to assist American employers who were having trouble finding American high-tech workers for their businesses. It allowed a fixed number of foreign workers come to the United States to “temporarily” fill those positions while the American companies and the federal government invested time and money in upgrading the training of American workers to meet the new skill levels required.

Although the program was originally designed to benefit American businesses, it has now become a program that benefits foreign companies with offices in America, rather than American companies, because the majority of the H-1B visas are now going to foreign-owned companies.Data just released by the federal government shows that offshore outsourcing firms, mostly from India, dominate the list of companies awarded H-1B visas in 2007.Indian outsourcers accounted for nearly 80% of the visa petitions approved last year for the top 10 participants in the program. These statistics should set off some alarms in congress that the H-1B visa program is not working as it was intended.

According to data from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro, two companies based in Bangalore, top the list of visa beneficiaries in 2007, with 4,559 and 2,567 approved visa petitions, respectively. Microsoft and Intel were the only two traditional U.S. tech companies among the top 10. Microsoft received only 959 visa petition approvals, or one fifth as many as Infosys, while Intel got only 369. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

The H-1B work visa program was supposed to be used to bolster the U.S. economy by helping American-owned companies and American citizen workers. Under the program, American companies can use the specialty visa to hire foreign software programmers or computer scientists with rare skills in order to encourage innovation and improving competitiveness. Instead, foreign companies such as Infosys and Wipro are using our own government program to undermine the American economy by wiping out American jobs.

These foreign-owned companies are bringing low-cost workers into the U.S., training them in the offices of American business clients, and then rotating them back home after a year or two so they can provide low cost, out-sourced tech services that causes American IT workers to lose their jobs. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

Even though over 8 million Americans are unemployed in August of 2008, incredibly some members in the House of Representatives continue to introduce legislation to help these big foreign-owned international corporations bring in an increasing number of foreign workers that will put even more Americans out of work.

Since its inception, the H-1B Visa program has been rampant with fraud. In the first half of 2006, the Programmer’s Guild, a group representing U.S. worker interests, filed over 300 discrimination complaints against companies who posted “H-1B visa holders only” ads on internet job boards. It’s obvious that these foreign-owned companies are only targeting foreign workers and undermining the system by bypassing the American worker. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

While a bill to reduce illegal immigration (HR-4088) is stalled in Congress with the House leadership refusing to bring it to the floor for a vote, Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) has also introduced “The Innovation Employment Act” (HR-5630) that would increase the cap of H-1B visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year.In addition, there would be no cap on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students attending U.S. colleges and studying science, technology and related fields. Currently, there's a 20,000 student-a-year cap on visas for graduate students in all fields. The legislation would eventually increase the H-1B cap to 180,000 and the total number of foreigners admitted under this work and graduate education proposal could reach almost 300,000 a year.

To make matters worse for the American Citizen workers, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has introduced the “Strengthening United States Technology and Innovation Act” (H.R. 5642), which would TRIPLE the current H-1B visa cap to 195,000 in 2008 and 2009 and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif) wants to make Rep. Smith’s increase permanent. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

here is no real shortage of American information technology workers. It’s just that the large high-tech international companies want to turn these hard earned information technology skills into as cheap a labor commodity as possible at the American workers’ expense. On March 12th Bill Gates appeared before Congress calling for an increase in H-1B visas. Two days later, without soliciting comments from any representatives of American IT workers, Congress introduced two bills that would double or triple the H-1B base cap.

Why weren’t the representatives of American IT workers allowed to be heard? Could the average of $25 million dollars a year that members of congress receive in bribes (I mean campaign contributions) from the Computer Equipment and Services Industry, have something to do with this?

Here’s some interesting campaign contribution statistics compiled by the Center for Responsible Politics at http://www.opensecrets.org/ that shows why congress may be so eager to support the requests of the Computer Equipment and Services Industry over the American IT workers.

Here’s how much the high-tech industries have contributed to federal campaigns:

2000 - $38.9 million
2002 - $26.7 million
2004 - $29.0 million
2006 - $18.4 million
2008 - $15.5 million (partial)

These four bills (H.R. 4088, H.R. 5642, H.R. 5882 and H.R. 5924) will do nothing to curb the fraud in the H-1B visa program and they will have serious consequences for American citizens that are employed in the fields most effected by this type of legislation. We must learn from our mistakes.

The current H-1B visa program has not served the best interests of American workers nor American companies. The current program has actually helped foreign competitors, with branch offices in the USA, hire almost no Americans and shift as many American jobs overseas as possible. How is this helping American workers and American businesses?

The current H-1B Program, as designed, is detrimental and harmful to the welfare of American workers and American high-tech businesses. It should be abolished. In it’s place and only if it is needed, H-1B type legislation should be written in a way that actually benefits American companies, American workers and American students thinking of embarking on a high-tech career.

Any new H-1B Visa legislation should be simple and have the following criteria to help Americans only:

IT MUST BENEFIT BOTH AMERICAN WORKERS AND AMERICAN COMPANIES: The H-1B Visa Program was originally designed to help American companies. Any new H-1B Visa Program should apply ONLY to American-based business entities and the H-1B visas should only be issued to foreign employees after proof is supplied that no American worker has either applied or is otherwise qualified for the position.

BENEFIT FOR AMERICAN STUDENTS: Companies that hire H-1B visa holders should pay an annual fee for each visa holder they hire to be used to fund scholarships for American citizen high school and college students interested in high-tech careers and enrolled in STEM educational programs (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) or nursing education programs.

John Wallace
New York Campaign for Liberty
http://www.nycampaignforliberty.com/

 

Back on September 25, 2007, the US House of Representatives passed the Global Poverty Act (HR 1302) that basically commits the U.S. to spending a minimum of 0.7 percent of its gross national product on foreign aid to developing countries. The bill was passed by a voice vote with no discussion of the effect this legislation will have on our sovereignty or the potential costs to the American taxpayers. Attempts are currently being made to push Senator Barack Obama’s version of the “Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) through the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, although no hearings have been scheduled.  If the Global Poverty Act is passed by both houses and signed by the President, American Sovereignty would suffer another blow by making US foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates and whims of corrupt United Nations bureaucrats.

The Global Poverty Act would require the President “to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.” While the goals of the Global Poverty Act sound laudable, the adoption of the UN supported plan will mandate the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of its GNP in increased foreign aid spending that would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002 to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the “Millennium Development Goals,” this will amount to $845 billion.

America is the most generous country in the world in terms of how much it spends on foreign aid, not to mention the billions of dollars donated by individual Americans through private non-profit aid organizations.   Let us continue to give the people of developing countries the aid they need, but don’t give the corrupt United Nations any legal rights to tell us to whom and how much we should give.

Most of the poverty in the third world is created by corrupt governments that are oftentimes aided by corrupt UN bureaucrats. Much of the money we donate goes never gets to people we are supposed to be helping because of this corruption. Giving any control of our foreign aid funds to the corrupt United Nations will surely enhance, rather than reduce corruption. It will aggravate the current poverty levels, rather than reduce or eliminate them.

Americans should also be aware of another stated United Nations Millennium Development Goal that if implemented, will mandate the elimination of trading in small arms. The real goal of this particular mandate is to advance a worldwide gun control movement that ultimately will supersede the laws of all nations, including our own Second Amendment, which means nothing to the globalists at the United Nations.

Americans should not discount the growing power of international law, whether through changes in the United Nations charter and UN mandates, the World Trade Organization, Global Poverty Acts, Law of the Sea Treaty or the NAFTA and CAFTA treaties which are direct assaults on America’s sovereignty. American citizens must understand that the forces behind the new world order movement and the expansion of the United Nations powers are hostile toward our Constitution and America’s sovereignty.

For additional information, contact:

There's no room at the Xcel Energy Center for maverick Ron Paul, so his acolytes have packed their cars, hitched rides on "Ronvoys" and will pitch tents at Ronstock '08 in defiance of next week's GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Almost 9,800 tickets had been sold for the Rally for the Republic, being held in Minneapolis, which seeks to bring together activists who are anti-war, anti-government regulation, anti-immigration, anti-taxes, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-outsourcing, pro-individual liberty, pro-civil liberties and pro-Paul.

The Ronvoys — fleets of buses and vans carrying Paul's loyalists — were to begin arriving Saturday. A few rally-goers planned to walk from Green Bay, Wis., and join up with Paul for the final miles of their Walk4Freedom. Other attendees are driving, carpooling or flying in for the convention alternative.

Paul, a Texas congressman who failed in a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, considers the rally a celebration of traditional Republican values of limited government — and a poke in the eye of the GOP. They don't plan to crash the Republican party, but to show they and their Campaign for Liberty are not going away."No matter how much our message is ignored or ridiculed, as was done in the campaign, no matter how much they did to us, it only energized our grass roots," Paul said.

The rally builds on Paul's presidential bid, in which he set a record for single-day fundraising on the Web and touched a nerve with some disaffected voters, largely in the Republican Party.

In a few Western states, Paul was a serious contender for votes, placing second ahead of Republican John McCain in Nevada and Montana. He drew 14 percent from McCain in New Mexico, a battleground state.But Paul has no speaking role at the GOP convention. He said his staff made overtures to the party, but nothing came of its efforts.

Republican Party spokeswoman Joanna Burgos said she had to research whether Paul was invited to speak when asked about a convention role for Paul."Our focus is really on this side of the river," Burgos said. "We think there's enough excitement and energy on this side." McCain's campaign spokesman did not return a phone message.Paul's faithful still hope to permeate the ranks of the establishment by winning local and state races and pulling in disenchanted party members.

There are a couple dozen Paul delegates attending the GOP convention, though some loyalists say there are more delegates who support Paul.Meanwhile, their focus is on their own political convergence in Minneapolis."We only want to cause noise in the sense of letting people know there are other movements out there that other people believe in," said Kathleen Buchholz, 28, of Denver. Unable to take time off from school for the rally, Buchholz is attending Tuesday's events, when Paul will speak. She's bypassing sleep to save on hotel costs and flying out early Wednesday.

Rally organizers reported last week they sold all 500 tickets priced at $85 each for their Real Politics Training School scheduled for Sunday. Attendees will learn political-organizing skills and "how to compete and win at the political game," organizers said on the rally Web site.

Speakers at the Paul rally include former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, tax activist Grover Norquist, former California Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr., political commentator Tucker Carlson, former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and the baby-delivering doctor supporters call Dr. Paul.A few entertainers also are joining in, such as country star Sara Evans; pop singer Aimee Allen, known for the song "Cooties" from Hairspray but whose favorite song among rally-goers is "Ron Paul Anthem"; and Texas blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.

Paul backers who aren't staying at the Minneapolis hotel or a budget motel for the rally planned to bunk in group cabins at Camp Ihduhapi on Lake Independence, park RVs or pitch tents at campgrounds. Many others also prepared to head to a Goodhue, Minn., dairy farm for Ronstock '08, an imitation of the 1960s Woodstock counterculture festival; organizers there say a neighbor of the farm's owner is donating a cow to feed the flock.

Sonny Thomas of Springboro, Ohio, plans to drive 12 hours to attend the rally, leaving Sunday. He was offering in a Web posting to fit one or two others in his car."I feel as one person who stands up, I have a voice and letting it be heard sends fear to the establishment," said Thomas, a gas station manager who was laid off a previous job.

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer

There is a Congressional Resolution (H. Con. Res 362) currently in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that if passed, could lead to war with Iran. There is also a similar Resolution being considered by the Senate (S. Res. 580).

The House version begins as follows: "Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony, and for other purposes."

A key part of this resolution, in subsection (3) states:

"demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program;"

H. Con. Res 362 is nothing short of an "authorization to go to war" resolution without passing a formal Declaration of War. It has been these types of resolutions and authorizations of force that have eventually gotten us into war in the past. Here's how it works: Congress gives the President an authorization to use the power of our military against a country that we are not at war with and in return, individual members of congress get wiggle room to change their minds if things do not go well.

The current resolution demands that the President impose stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran, and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials. This is a proposed blockade of another country that we are not at war with. What right do we have to close down a country and where do we get the legal or moral authority to do so? Such authority or power is definitely not contained in our constitution. This is the type of action that led to the war in Iraq.

I know that the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened violence against us and our allies. He is also aiding terrorist organizations and is suspected of developing nuclear weapons and that's wrong. But why is our making threats of blockades, sanctions and violence against Iran OK?

Congress and the President must take more time to look at this situation very carefully because their decision in this matter will effect not only us, but the rest of the world as well. Why are Members of Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) and their new world order friends so eager to keep us in an endless cycle of war without ever declaring war?

If congress is privy to information about Iran that they are using to justify some sort of military action on our part, then inform the American people of what it is because it is their sons and daughters who will have to pay the price if we go to war. Let the administration and congressional leaders follow the constitution and publically lay out their case to the American people, before we get into another undeclared war that will cost American lives.

The text of the resolution can be found at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.CON.RES.362:

For Freedom, Liberty and Sovereignty,

John Wallace
Candidate for Congress
NY's 20th Congressional District
www.FreedomCandidate.com

Sandy Treadwell has filed a "Request for Judicial Intervention" with the Dutchess County Supreme Count in an attempt to keep John Wallace, of Columbia County, off the September Republican primary ballot.

There are over 60 different allegations outlined in the court filing that accuse Wallace and the people who helped him obtain the signatures for the nominating petitions of just about every technical violation there is in the election law regarding petitions.

"This is a classic example of the millionaire candidate using his vast resources to silence the grassroots candidate and at the same time disenfranchise all of the Republican voters who signed my petitions. Treadwell has accused me of everything but stealing the kitchen sink." Wallace said.

Wallace was still waiting to hear from the State Board of Elections when a copy of Treadwell's filing was delivered to his house on Friday afternoon via US mail. In the adjoining 21st Congressional District, the Republicans running in the primary did not file objections to each other petitions.

Wallace said: "I do not know why Sandy Treadwell is so afraid of givng the people in the distict a choice in the primary. What's wrong with an honest discussion of the issues that are facing the people here and in the rest of the country? Whether I win this petition fight or not, I think Sandy Treadwell, by his own actions in this matter, is showing that he is afraid of a candidate who talks about the corruption of our congress by special interest money and the federal government's increasing attacks on the freedoms and liberties of its own citizens."

A copy of the court papers can be found at:

www.FreedomCandidate.com/Treadwell-JudicialIntervention-072308.pdf

For more information contact:

John Wallace
Candidate for Congress
www.FreedomCandidate.com

On June 24, 2008, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), while at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, told reporter John Gizzi, that she favored a return of the Fairness Doctrine. The imposition of the Fairness Doctrine would force radio broadcasters to provide equal time to opposing points of view, which would essentially give the government control over what the people can and cannot hear.

Ms Pelosi also said she supported the efforts of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) who has been very active behind the revival of the Fairness Doctrine. Rep Slaughter had introduced the 2004 MEDIA Act to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and reintroduced it in 2005 as the Fairness and Accountability in Broadcasting Act.

The Democratic leadership knows that they can't directly pass a "Fairness Doctrine" piece of legislation, so they will most likely try to slip it in under another name or attach it to some 'must pass' piece of legislation. Their support of the 'Fairness Doctrine by any means' strategy poses a direct threat to American citizens' constitutonal right of Freedom of Speech.

The important questions for Americans to ask are: Why is Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats against free speech for the American people? Why are they so determined to bring back the Fairness Doctrine? and why is the Democratic leadership refusing to bring a true piece of Freedom of Speech legislation, The Broadcaster Freedom Act HR-2905, to the floor for a vote?

I believe that it was the collapse of the radio station “Air America” a Liberal talk station, that has led to this attempt to re-introduce the Fairness Doctrine as a form of de facto censorship. It appears that if certain political views can’t compete in the world of ideas, then the solution is to pass a law that forces radio stations to air those views.

I am opposed to any resurrection of the “The Fairness Doctrine,” the 1940’s law that effectively censored political talk radio for many years, because it is a violation of the First Amendment and limits Free Speech. The real issue here is not what you “are able to” see or hear, which is what the Fairness Doctrine was about originally. It’s about placing limitations on the Freedoms you currently have to “choose” what to see or hear.

In the 1940’s and 50’s, Americans had few choices with only three major networks and there was some validity to the Fairness Doctrine. Today, Americans have an almost unlimited choice of where to get their information: regular TV, cable TV, regular radio, satellite radio, internet, web-blogs, etc., which makes the Fairness Doctrine unnecessary.

I support the Broadcaster Freedom Act (HR-2905), introduced by Representative Mike Pence (R-Ind) which would prevent these first amendment restrictive regulations from returning. Representative Mike Pence introduced the BFA last June, where it is still awaiting a vote. As of June 25, 2008, two hundred Members of Congress have signed a discharge petition which would force the House to make an up or down vote on the legislation, but an additional 18 signatures are still needed. So far, not one single House Democrat has signed the petition to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote.

It should also be noted that two of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioners have already indicated that they favor the return of the Fairness Doctrine. All that would be needed to reinstitute Fairness Doctrine regulations would be for the next President to appoint a third sympathetic commissioner. Then, the regulations could go back into effect without any vote at all and the constitutional Freedom of Speech rights and guarantees of all Americans would suffer another blow.

By not bringing the Broadcaster Freedom Act to the floor for a vote, Speaker Pelosi is attempting to limit the constitutional rights of Free Speech of those American citizens who happen to oppose her political views.

The constitutional right of Freedom of Speech guarantees that people or organizations have the right to express their ideas without danger of censorship, interference or punitive action by the government. It does not mean that people or organizations with different views must be provided with a meeting hall, a radio station or a printing press through which to express their ideas. Those who value the First Amendment, as I do, must oppose the Fairness Doctrine, in any form, as a serious threat to their Freedom of Speech.

By:
John Wallace
Candidate for Congress
NY's 20th Congressional District
www.FreedomCandidate.com

 

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is a program of the US Department of Agriculture that is supposedly designed to identify and track all livestock animals, including poultry, horses, cattle, goats and sheep for the purpose of disease containment. The proposed NAIS national system requires the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) technology to track the location of animals as part of the concept that all such animals in the US are part of a “national herd.” It requires every farm, private home or other “premises” having these types of animals to be registered with government agencies, even if that private home or premises contains only a single animal that might be just a family pet. While NAIS’s stated goal of disease containment appears on the surface to be beneficial, the requirement for American citizens to register privately-owned property for tracking and monitoring purposes has very serious implications for Americans’ privacy rights, freedoms and liberties.

The NAIS program was created as the result of extensive lobbying from large corporate agribusinesses and RFID chip manufacturers. It is really designed to protect the large corporate farms against possible legal liability when some sort of animal epidemic occurs.Agribusiness giants also want the federal government to create a livestock database and provide free industry data. But small and independent livestock owners would face a costly mandate if NAIS was to become law. While the federal program is supposed to be voluntary, money given to some states from the US Department of Agriculture, through cooperative agreements and funding, has been used to make some or all of the NAIS provisions mandatory in those states.

Although the initial NAIS plan covers only livestock, provisions of the plan call for the registration of farms, private homes and other premises into a federal database even if it contains just one horse, one goat, etc. All pet owners should also be aware that dogs, cats, rabbits and all other domestic pets are not specifically excluded from any expansion of the NAIS program. Under NAIS, all livestock animals must be RFID chipped, and the owners of these animals would be required to report all transfers, sales, births, deaths etc. of these animals. The real danger here is that with the RFID chips in place, the US government will be able to track the movements of the tagged animals and the American citizens who are transporting them.

In a landmark ruling on June 4, 2008, (in Mary-Louise Zanoni v. United States Department of Agriculture), Federal District Judge for the District of Columbia, Emmet Sullivan, suspended the implementation of the NAIS program indefinitely. Although the program has not been declared unconstitutional and may return in a new form, the decision effectively keeps the USDA from using the 1974 federal Privacy Act to place severe limitations on access to the national NAIS database by members of the public, as well as the livestock owners and other individuals whose personal and business information might have been included in the database without their knowledge. The information in question is a list of farms and ranches collected through voluntary premises identification and through other means including information supplied by state Agricultural agencies, state veterinarians, avian flu records and even entry lists of animal entries from county fairs.  It would appear that the USDA was collecting data on thousands of American citizens, whose farms or other private properties were added to the NAIS registry database without their knowledge or permission.

The NAIS program is not about preventing mad cow or other diseases since most contamination happens in the processing plants after the animals have been sold and. tracing them back to the farm or ranch that sold them won’t help find the sources of the suspected disease. It’s about helping big corporate agribusinesses and RFID chip manufacturers make bigger profits at the expense of the small family farmers and ranchers. Besides, states already have some sort of animal identification systems in place. Protecting America's food supply and preserving the country’s livestock’s resistance to diseases can best be protected by the continued decentralization of our nation’s food production and processing. 

The implementation of any NAIS-type program would place small American family farmers and ranchers at an economic disadvantage against big agribusiness and overseas competition. Under the proposed NAIS program, larger livestock operations would be allowed to tag whole groups of animals with one ID device, while smaller ranchers, farmers and even some pet owners, would be forced to tag each individual animal, at a cost of anywhere from $3 to $20 per head. Should a NAIS-type program ever be implemented in the US, livestock owners would be forced to comply with the burdens of additional paperwork and new monitoring rules and regulations. American livestock owners would literally be paying for an assault on their own property and privacy rights.

The current US Department of Agriculture NAIS program means bigger government, more government intrusion, more regulations, more paperwork, more fees and taxes and more federal spending, that will result in less privacy, less freedom, less liberty and less property and 4^th Amendment rights for American citizens. It’s exactly the kind of unconstitutional federal program every American citizen and their elected federal representatives should oppose. 

By:

JOHN W. WALLACE

Candidate for Congress

New York’s 20^th Congressional District

www.FreedomCandidate.com

 

BreakTheMatrix.com Vows to Disprove Critics Claiming 'Freedom Movement' Is Dead
July 1, 2008 12:35 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 07/01/08 -- www.FreedomSlate08.com -- Over 25 congressional candidates running on a Ron Paul "Freedom" platform have united for a mass fundraising "Money Bomb" event July 4th to raise funds for their campaigns, including John Wallace of New York's 20th Congressional District. Each www.FreedomSlate08.com candidate is committed to four major tenets: ending the overseas empire and bringing the troops home, ending the Federal Reserve, limiting the federal government to its proper Constitutional framework, and dismantling the police state.

"Our goal was to create a national platform for these candidates to have their issues heard and to expand their fundraising reach beyond their districts," explained Trevor Lyman, organizer of the original Money Bombs that raised over $14 million for Ron Paul's presidential campaign. "The success of the July 4th Money Bomb will send a clear message to Congress that we aren't backing down, and that our message is resonating with a growing number of Americans across the country."

Candidate Steven Vasquez adds, "All of us across the nation must work together to take back Congress. That is why FreedomSlate08.com is such an important vehicle in demonstrating the strength of our movement. It's compelling enough to bring the masses back to volunteer for their local candidates and donate across the board."

He continues, "We are in a unique position to empower these candidates to run competitive campaigns, with a very good chance of winning 5 to 10 new seats. That is a tremendous beachhead to grow our voting block by upwards of 1000% in Congress, and create enough momentum to bring in many more candidates for the 2010 races."

www.FreedomSlate08.com was launched by www.BreakTheMatrix.com as one of many groundbreaking efforts to educate people about foreign policy, economics and civil liberties. For more information, visit www.FreedomSlate08.com.