I know you are busy setting up your new administration as the President elect of the greatest country in the world, but there are a couple of things about your background and qualifications for the office that concern me and many of my fellow Americans. Never before has a Presidential candidate failed to fully disclose routine information about their background.

It seems that many records concerning your background have either been sealed or are temporarily unavailable for review. I know that any honest person like yourself, who is about to assume the highest office in the land, would never overtly want to keep such information from public review.

Here's a partial list:

1. College records from Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard -- Not available and secured by college administrators.
2. Columbia Thesis paper -- not available, secured by college administrators
3. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate - Not released (sealed?)
4. Certified Copy of Certification of Live Birth -- Not released (sealed?)

I believe items #3 and 4 are the most critical and they concern two issues that are very important to the American people:

1. Are Are you a Natural Born Citizen of the U.S.? and
2. Are you legally qualified to hold the Office of President?

There have been several lawsuits filed, or currently being filed, in 7 or 8 states with various state Boards of Elections, claiming you are ineligible to be on their ballots because you have not produced proof that you are a natural born citizen of the United States.


As you may recall, there was a Cetificate of Live Birth (COLB) for you posted on your campaign website in the past that was reported as an original, but which was later found to be only an abstract of a computer record having no connection to the original 1961 COLB document. The abstract copy was later taken down.

In an election of a President, where being a "Natural Born Citizen" is a requirement for the position, I believe that the American people have a right to know if you are a natural born citizen.

What does the actual original document say about the birth? What hospital were you born in? Who was the attending physician? What was the date and time? What names are listed on the COLB? I think the question of your birth is a very important constitutional issue and the issue should be publicly put to rest one way or the other.

Mr Obama, it seems that you are creating needless confusion when you could easily avoid all of this doubt simply by asking for release of your original 1961 document and let it be examined. Why haven't you done this? and why have you fought against every attempt to produce the document?

Mr. Obama, if you are truly and honorable man and a "Natural Born Citizen of the United States" you can clear up this issue very quickly. Just sign a release to have the full document examined and made available for public scrutiny.

Your continued avoidance of the issue and your subsequent failure to provide proof that you are a "Natural Born Citizen of the United States" is very suspicious and raises a very important constitutional issue that must be addressed before you take office. I am asking you to stop using legal technicalities, record sealing and courtroom maneuvers to avoid the issue. The American people have every constitutional right to know whether or not you are a "Natural Born Citizen" and they will eventually find out.

Let's put this issue to rest once and for all so we can get on with the American people's business.

John Wallace
www.NYCampaignforLiberty.com

When I was growing up in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan, I remember when I was about 12 or 13 years old I had my first contact with discovering what a “front” was for another business. It was called Tack’s Tackle Shop. When it first opened, it looked like just another business. The guy in the store, Tack, was selling fishing rods, live bait and an array of fishing equipment. It didn’t take long before the kids in the neighborhood figured out that perhaps there was something else going on. The live bait in the window wasn’t alive anymore and local hoods and gangster type people seemed to be going in and out, particularly in the evenings and none of them looked like fishermen. It wasn’t long before the place was raided by the NYCPD and my friends and I all watched from across the street on Sherman Avenue as “Tack” came out in handcuffs along with a bunch of other men. We were later told that Tack’s Tackle Shop had actually been a front for an illegal gambling operation.

 A “front group” can be any entity that is set up to appear to be a legitimate independent organization, like Tack’s Tackle Shop, when it is actually controlled from behind the scenes by another organization or group of individuals. These front groups are often legitimate businesses, social or political organizations, professional groups, advocacy groups, research organizations, etc. Organized crime has used legitimate front organizations for many decades to launder their income from various illegal activities. Pharmaceutical companies have used front organizations to advocate for the drugs they manufacture. International terrorist organizations have their front groups here in the United States and as the evidence clearly shows, so do the international bankers.

After researching the formation and activities of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) it appears that it may be a very sophisticated version of “Tack’s Tackle Shop.” The CFR was specifically set up to carry out the goals and objectives of  international bankers so that the public positions taken by the CFR would appear to be independent positions that could not be directly connected to the international bankers who personally control and fund the CFR.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was founded in 1921 by a very select group of international bankers, Wall Street lawyers and wealthy “old money” families sometimes called the Establishment or the Elites. Among the CFR’s founders were JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, “Colonel” Edward House (Marxist. globalist and close advisor to President Wilson), Paul Warburg (international banker), Otto Kahn and Jacob Schiff (both international investment bankers). The CFR’s stated purpose at that time was to improve the understanding of US foreign policy and international affairs through the exchange of ideas. The select membership has been gradually expanded over the years,   now totaling around 3,800 and includes various professionals, corporate CEO’s, college presidents, media owners and reporters, high-ranking government officials and even high ranking US military officers.

These same international bankers that started the CFR were instrumental in getting President Woodrow Wilson to sign the Federal Reserve Act into existence in 1913 that basically gave these international bankers the power to print money and control our entire economy. To show you the mind set of this core group, one of the founding CFR members, Edward House, authored a book in 1912 entitled “Philip Dru: Administrator” in which he laid out a fictionalized plan for the conquest of America. In the book, he told of a conspiracy by which a group of wealthy businessmen would gain control of both the Democratic and Republican parties and use them as instruments for the creation of a socialist world government. 

After signing the Federal Reserve Act into law, President Woodrow Wilson later admitted, "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country….(America is) no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." He was, of course, talking about the international bankers and the creation of the first great nationwide “front organization” called the Federal Reserve that was designed to directly benefit the international bankers at the expense of the American taxpayers.

The late Carroll Quigley (mentor and advisor to President Clinton) who was a long term  member of the CFR, wrote in his book “Tragedy & Hope”: "The CFR is the American Branch of a society….which believes that national boundaries should be obliterated, and a one-world rule established."

Rear Admiral Chester Ward, a former member of the CFR for 16 years, sounded the alarm about the real intent of the CFR and pointed out that there was two separate cliques within the CFR:

1.      The first and most powerful clique wants to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and national independence of the United States.

2.      The second clique of international members is comprised of Wall Street international bankers and their key agents who want to receive a world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in control of global government.

Congressman John Rarick, a recipient of the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in World War II and a Democrat from Louisiana who once argued with his party over its increasing liberalism, said, "The CFR, dedicated to one-world government, financed by a number of the largest tax-exempt foundations, and wielding such power and influence over our lives in the areas of finance, business, labor, military, education, and mass communication-media, should be familiar to every American concerned with good government, and with preserving and defending the U.S. Constitution and our free-enterprise system. Yet, the nation’s right-to-know machinery, the news media, usually so aggressive in exposures to inform our people, remain conspicuously silent when it comes to the CFR, its members and their activities.”

By using the CFR as a front organization to push their globalist agenda for America and the world, the “Establishment Elites and International Bankers” have managed to gain significant influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of our government. They can not only advocate their new world order ideas from within the government by using their CFR members in high government positions, but they can also use individual CFR members and research groups financed by their non-profit foundations to bring pressure from another direction. The international bankers use this process to implement the step by step decisions that will gradually convert the US from a sovereign nation to a subservient position in the new world order run by appointed bureaucrats selected by the international bankers. The CFR is being used much in the same manner as “Tack’s Tackle Shop” was used by an organized criminal group. The international bankers behind the CFR want to give the public the outward appearance of legitimacy in order that they can slowly accomplish their illegal objectives to usurp the US Constitution and the sovereignty of this country.

Many of the most influential international bankers, Wall Street CEOs, politicians, academics and media owners and TV personalities are members of the CFR. They join the CFR for the same reasons that other people join similar business organizations: to make political or business contacts, to enjoy the prestige of being in the organization or to simply use their connections to make more money. The CFR in turn, uses the broad influence of these people and their organizations to slowly infiltrate their globalist ‘New World Order’ plans into American life. CFR members and their ghost writers author scholarly articles that are designed to specifically affect public opinion and future government decision making. These authors and researchers are oftentimes funded directly by one or more of the international bankers’ non-profit foundations. The CFR’s well paid academics expound on the wisdom of a united world and the CFR media members disseminate the message.

In the 1940’s, President Roosevelt began bringing CFR members into the State Department and they have dominated it ever since. CFR members were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations. The American delegation to the San Francisco meeting that drafted the charter of the United Nations in 1949 included CFR members Nelson Rockefeller, John Foster Dulles, John Mc Cloy and the Secretary-General of the conference, Alger Hiss, who was later arrested as a spy for Russia. In all, the CFR sent at least forty-seven of its members in the United States delegation, effectively controlling the outcome.

These same CFR members were also instrumental in using our country’s new membership in the United Nations to create the concepts of “limited wars” and “police actions” that were designed to circumvent the US Constitution and permit an administration to send our troops to war without a formal Declaration of War. It should also be pointed out that these two concepts benefit the international bankers and large corporations most because they allow these entities to make huge profits by providing financing and/or equipment and products to the enemies of our country during the conflict. It definitely did not benefit the US military men and women who were wounded or died in these conflicts. If a Declaration of War was declared, these same bankers and corporation CEO’s would be charged with treason for aiding the enemy during a time of war.

James Warburg, a CFR member and son of CFR founder Paul Warburg testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17, 1950, defiantly telling the Senators that: “We shall have world government, whether or not you like it – by conquest or consent.”

On November 25, 1959, the Council on Foreign Relations published “Study No. 7”, which openly declared its true purpose to bring about a New World Order through the manipulation of U.S. foreign policy and through international economic interdependence:

·         "...building a New International Order [which] must be responsive to world aspirations for peace, [and] for social and economic change...an international order [code for world government]...including states labeling themselves as 'Socialist.'"

The plan for the New World Order and the ultimate control of America by the international bankers, was clearly outlined once again in the April 1974 issue of “Foreign Affairs” the Council of Foreign Relations’ own publication, when CFR member and former Secretary of State Richard N. Gardner, wrote an article entitled “The Hard Road to World Order” in which he stated:

·         “In short, the house of world order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned assault…” one way to garner public support for new international treaties would be to propagandize world wide predicaments. If people are scared of terrorism, financial chaos or global warming, they will be willing to cede their national sovereignty, freedom and liberties for global authority.”

Since the FDR administration, all transition teams and administrations have been full of CFR members. It didn’t matter whether they were liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. The Nixon administration had over 115 CFR members all in key Executive branch positions, most of who continued into the Ford years. Ronald Reagan wasn’t a CFR member, but his Vice President George HW Bush was a CFR member, and so were 28 members of his transition team alone. The Clinton administration had over 150 CFR members in key executive positions. George W. Bush is not a CFR member either, but his father and uncle are, his Vice President Dick Cheney is, and his administration is swarming with CFR members. The incoming Obama administration’s transition team is packed with CFR members and he is already looking to staff many of its administration’s key executive branch positions with CFR members.

Did you vote for change in the 2008 Election? If you did, here’s a partial list of Mr. Obama’s transition team:

Susan E. Rice – (CFR) former State Department Asst Secretary for African Affairs; Anthony Lake (CFR) – Bill Clinton’s first national Security advisor; Zbigniew Brzezinski – (CFR) and Trilateral Commission - Brzezinski is widely seen as the man who created Al Qaeda, and was involved in the Carter Administration plan to give arms, funding and training to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan; Richard Clarke (CFR) - Former chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council under Bush; Robert W. Kagan (CFR) argues that interventionism is a bipartisan affair that should be undertaken with the approval of our democratic allies; Dennis B. Ross (CFR) and Trilateral Commission - Served as the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush and special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton; Lawrence J. Korb (CFR)  - Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Has criticized manor of the invasion of Iraq but has detailed plans to increase the manpower of the United States Army to fight the war on terror and to "spread liberal democratic values throughout the Middle East"; Bruce Reidel (CFR) - Former CIA analyst who wishes to expand the war on terror to fight Al Qaeda across the globe. Considered to be the reason behind Barack Obama’s Hawkish views on Pakistan and his Pro India leanings on Kashmir; Stephen E. Flynn (CFR) - Has been attributed with the idea for Obama’s much vaunted "Civilian Security Force". Flynn has written: "The United States should roughly replicate the Federal Reserve model by creating a Federal Security Reserve System (FSRS) with a national board of governors, 10 regional Homeland Security Districts, and 92 local branches called Metropolitan Anti-Terrorism Committees”; and Madeline Albright (CFR) and Brookings - Currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors and was Former Secretary of State and US Ambassador to the United Nations under Clinton.

Here’s the list of possible cabinet positions in the new administration: James B. Steinberg – CFR and the Trilateral Commission; Chuck Hagel (R) – (CFR); Robert M Gates – (CFR), Hillary Clinton – Husband Bill is a CFR member; Bill Richardson (CFR); Sen John Kerry (D) (CFR); Susan Rice (CFR); Robert Rubin (CFR); Lawrence Summers (CFR); Timothy Geithner (CFR); Paul A. Volcker (CFR); David L. Boren (CFR); Thomas H. Kean (CFR); Gary Hart (CFR), and Jane Harman (CFR) – Defense Department Special Counsel (1979).

At time of writing of this article, President-elect Barack Obama's has apparently selected Arizona Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of Homeland Security; Timothy Geithner, the current New York Federal Reserve head, as the Secretary of the Treasury; and Texas Democratic Gov. William Richardson as the Secretary of Commerce.  Guess what? They are all members of the Council on Foreign Relations.  So much for change!

What do Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Jim Lehrer, Marvin Kalb, Diane Sawyer, Andrea Mitchell and Tom Brokaw have in common? Answer: They are all members of the CFR.

What does the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street journal, LA Times, Boston Globe, Baltomor Sun, Chicage Sun-Times, Houston Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Arkansas Gazette, DesMoine Register and Tribune, Louisville Courier, the AP, UPI, Reuters, the Gannett Co, Walt Disney, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Networks, Clear Channel have in common: Answer: They are all members of the CFR.

Freedom of the press has always been vital to the preservation of our American Republic. Ever since the early years of our country, it was the American “free press” that stood tall between us and the crooked international bankers, industrialists and corrupt government officials. While some of the major newspapers in the big cities were controlled by establishment types like William Randolph Hearst, who definitely influenced the content, most of the newspaper owners and reporters were independent and honorable people who chose to keep their integrity by pursuing the truth. Most local newspapers, radio stations, and later on TV stations, were owned locally.

As they grow larger and eliminate their competition, major media corporations and international bankers are choosing what you will see on the nightly news while trying to  trick you into believing it is unbiased reporting.  The very news stories that you are fed by the mainstream media are manipulated to mirror the public relations campaigns of corporations, international bankers and even their favorite presidential candidates. If this is not the case then why, during the course of the 2008 election, was there no mention of the issues that were important to Americans: the threat by big government to our freedoms, liberties and sovereignty; the actions of the Federal Reserve and the issuance fiat money; the drugging of 6 million of our nation’s youth; or amnesty for illegal aliens. Popular candidates like Ron Paul were either ignored by the media, excluded from most of the TV debates, or asked fewer questions than their CFR candidate counterparts.   Of the top twenty media corporations in the U.S, 18 are members of the CFR.

The CFR's strategy is to use their members in the media to promote the need for world government in order to fight international threats like global warming. Both Obama and McCain made the environment a major issue in the campaign, but avoided mentioning the immigration issue. The CFR has long identified the worldwide environmental movement as a means to advance its agenda and has even suggested a global tax on all developed nations, payable to the United Nations of course. Most of the major media companies are now controlled by individuals or organizations that are members of the CFR, including the international bankers. One of the techniques used by the CFR and its membership has been to manipulate the news in such as way as to push their internationalist views on the rest of us.

As the big media corporations keep merging into larger and more powerful companies, they will be able to control public opinion as never before. With their friends in congress and in key government agencies, all the international bankers and their CFR members need to do is advocate bringing back the “Fairness Doctrine” and regulating the internet and their control of the media will be complete.

The average American might find the CFR’s powerful influence over America's government very difficult to understand or believe, but never forget that the CFR was founded by international bankers for the express purpose of bringing about socialism and world government. It is the deliberate plan of these international bankers, who hide in the shadows and pull the strings of their marionettes, to gradually increase their influence and domination over America’s domestic and foreign affairs. CFR members have been in control of our government since the 1940’s. If CFR members are supposedly to be the nation’s best and brightest in running the federal government and overseeing foreign affairs, why is the country in such a mess under their eighty year watch? The answer is: That’s the plan.

The international bankers behind the Federal Reserve and the CFR are deliberately trying to usurp the US Constitution and gradually destroy our freedoms, liberties and sovereignty in the process. They are using the Federal Reserve System to bankrupt the country so we will be at their mercy. The deeper in debt our country goes, the richer and more powerful these international bankers become. If action is not taken to take back control of our nation’s currency from the criminals in the private international banking cartel and if the CFR’s influence over the highest levels of our federal government isn't soon broken, America will be reduced to a third world nation controlled by a socialistic world government where our freedoms and liberties would have disappeared and our national sovereignty is but a fond memory.

Many Americans believe that we may have reached a point where it no longer matters which party or candidate wins the election, because both candidates are already beholden to special interest groups and the winner will most like staff the high level executive positions with CFR members. 

The activities of the international bankers behind the Council on Foreign Relations and the Federal Reserve should be thoroughly investigated by an independent prosecutor. If criminal activities are uncovered, then those involved should be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) as an ongoing criminal conspiracy. The American people must not give up their liberties for the false sense of security offered by the international bankers and their CFR puppets. The grip of these international criminals must be broken and the threats against our liberties, freedoms and our nation’s sovereignty must be eliminated. It can only be accomplished by a demand for action by a determined and educated American citizenry, as well as by an honest and thorough federal criminal investigation.

I close this article with a quote from David Rockefeller, the former Chairman and the current Honorary Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relation and ask you to consider the implications of what he has said:

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years... It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."

- David Rockefeller, Bilderberg Meeting, June 1991 Baden, Germany

By:

JOHN W. WALLACE

New York Campaign for Liberty

www.NYCampaignForLiberty.com  

My fellow citizens, the greatest threats to your freedoms and liberties are not coming from outside our country. They are coming from inside our country. While there are numerous anti-American groups and organizations located within America that would love to see our nation fail, Americans are also facing a federal government that is no longer listening to them.

With its unconstitutional expansion and intrusion into every facet of our lives, it is our own government, not some foreign power, which has become the biggest threat to our individual freedoms and liberties.

Special Interest donors are giving huge amounts of money to candidates of both major political parties and these donors no longer care who wins the election, because they have already paid off all of the candidates. Regardless of the outcomes of elections, it is the Special Interest Groups that are usually the big winners and it is the American people who are usually the losers.

In his Gettysburg address in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln described the nation as "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I'm afraid that is no longer true. Although it has happened gradually over many, many years of corruption and bribery, America has now become a government of the special interest groups, by the special interests groups, and for the special interest groups. It can now be said with confidence, that America truly has the best government that money can buy.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM from the hundreds of millions of Special Interest dollars that are buying votes and elections. Why is it still legal for a politician to take a bribe simply by calling it a contribution, when every other public official who takes this kind of money commits the crime of bribery? Do you think it's because politicians make the laws? Of course it is. In 1776, our Founders stood up, put their lives and fortunes on the line and declared their freedom and independence from the chains and shackles of the King of England. In 2008, Americans must also be willing to stand up and publicly declare their Freedom and Independence, not from the King of England, but from the chains and shackles of special interest money. America needs legislation that defines the receipt of any special interest money by elected officials and candidates, at all levels of government, as Bribery and therefore illegal and a crime.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM from the invasion of Illegal Aliens that threatens our country's sovereignty and costs us over $350 billion dollars a year. The government must stop this invasion by securing our borders, by enforcing our current immigration laws, by cutting off the honey pot of financial assistance that attracts illegal aliens, by not issuing them drivers' licenses and by deporting all illegal alien criminals when they are released from prison.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM ELECTION FRAUD. Computerized voting systems that are easily hacked and designed by companies that make big donations to elected officials are definitely not 100% reliable as we have seen in the recent primaries and elections. We need an honest and verifiable election process that mandates a permanent, verifiable paper record of the peoples' votes.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM A MULTI-LINGUAL SOCIETY. We need legislation designating English as the official language of the United States; for it is our common language that unifies us and will preserve us as one nation.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM DESTRUCTIVE INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS. Free and Fair Trade between nations is a good thing, however some trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other similar agreements are a threat to our sovereignty and independence as a nation. Many of these international agreements transfer power from the U.S. government and its people to un-elected international bureaucrats. These agreements help no one but the international corporations that exploit cheap foreign labor and they are costing millions of Americans their jobs.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM EXCESSIVE TAXATION. In addition to a drastic reduction in spending that includes the abolition of programs and agencies that are unconstitutional, ineffective or no longer needed, the government must reduce the tax burden on the American people by substantially reducing or eliminating the income tax on individuals and any other taxes that punish individual investment and savings. We must also eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits and eliminate the Tax on the estates of hard working Americans who have died and already paid their taxes on these assets.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM ATTACKS ON OUR SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS. Our country's founders designed a formal system of checks and balances for our government, but they were also concerned that the system could fail and that we might someday face a new tyranny, not from a foreign government, but from our own government. They knew that a government facing an armed citizenry was less likely to take away our rights, while a disarmed population wouldn't have much hope. Law abiding American citizens have a right to keep and bear arms. It is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right that we have a sacred duty to defend.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM ATTACKS ON THEIR PRIVACY AND FROM A NATIONAL ID CARD. Protecting the country from Illegal Aliens and Terrorists attacks are necessary in today's world. Making it very hard for these individuals to obtain driver's licenses and other legal documents is a good thing. But imbedding American citizen's driver's licenses with radio frequency identification chips, in the name of security, that allows the government to remotely access their personal information and determine their location and travel habits is a violation of the people's freedoms and liberties. We must support legislation to get rid of the RFID chip requirements on our citizens' licenses.

AMERICAN CHILDREN NEED FREEDOM FROM BEING DRUGGED BY GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS. Approximately 6 million children, including 10% of all 6-18 year old boys in the United States are on psychotropic drugs like Ritalin for attention deficit hyperactivity disorders. These numbers are increasing despite the fact that there is no independent, scientifically accepted valid test for ADHD. Could the millions of dollars in campaign contributions to members of congress and the funding of professional and academic institutions by the Pharmaceutical industry have something to do with this continued expansion? Of course it does.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM A FAILING FEDERAL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. Before the creation of The Federal Department of Education in 1979, America had the finest education system in the world. With help from the National Education Association, federal programs are now specifically designed to de-emphasize academic knowledge and dumb-down America's children. Why is it that more and more of our children can't read, write or understand math at grade level? How come many of our high school students can't find the United States on a map of the world, but know how to put a condom on a cucumber? It's because our once great educational system has been hijacked, corrupted and deliberately Dumbed-Down by socialist, politically correct bureaucrats in Washington.

Not only has the federal Department of Education been a colossal failure, it is also unconstitutional. Nowhere in the US Constitution, is the federal government given the power to legislate or mandate educational policy for the states. This very important power was retained by the states and for a very good reason. Parents, along with their respective State and local governments, are the people best situated to educate their children, not federal government and union bureaucrats in Washington trying to push their political and social agenda on us. The Federal Department of Education deserves a failing grade of "F" and should be abolished.

AMERICANS NEED FREEDOM FROM THE PRIVATE CONTROL OF OUR NATION'S MONEY. In the U.S. Constitution, the people of the United States granted Congress the power to coin Money and regulate its Value. The people never gave congress the constitutional power to delegate this money-creating and regulating responsibility to any private group of bankers. Yet this is exactly what the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did. As long as this cartel of private banking executives, who make up the Federal Reserve Board, have control over our nation's money, they will continue to encourage our government to spend more than it takes in. For the deeper in debt the country goes, the more money these private bankers make.

When their own private banking investments fail, they always find a way to get the American taxpayers to bail them out with guaranteed loans and the issuance of new printed fiat money that is backed by nothing. The recent federal bailout scheme will cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars before it is over. The member banks of the Federal Reserve will make hundreds of billions of dollars at our expense.

The big banks and Wall Street firms take no risk and the taxpayers foot the bill. How does this system benefit the American people? The answer is that It's doesn't. It's just a clever criminal scheme that fuels inflation, devalues our dollar and benefits the big commercial banks. The Federal Reserve Board should be abolished.

FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE ALSO NO LIMITS TO WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CAN DO: Largely as a result of the Ron Paul Revolution, the Internet and conservative radio, the American people are becoming more aware of the corruption, unconstitutional expansion and intrusive power of our federal government and there are some hopeful signs.

When the US Senate tried to quickly pass an Amnesty bill for Illegal Aliens last year, we saw the power of the American people. Because they were so outraged by the actions of the Senate, the people rose up in great numbers, shut down the Senate's switchboard and the politicians quaked in their boots in the face of this massive display of citizen power.

The time has come for Americans to exert that citizen power again. Let's put aside all of our minor differences that have separated us and unite as one strong political force. We must be united by our major common goals and not divided by our minor differences. We must become active in politics and all levels of government and support only those candidates that are honest, ethical, of good moral character, who take no special interest money and who support smaller, less intrusive federal, state and local governments.

Together, let us begin the journey that will leave future generations of Americans a legacy of individual freedom and liberty, a first class education system, a clean environment, a strong and sovereign America with an honest, limited government that will offer unlimited opportunities for their future. If we stand together, we can give it to them.

For Freedom, Liberty and Sovereignty,

John Wallace

www.NYCampaignForLiberty.com

There is no doubt that the individual freedoms and liberties that Americans enjoy, as well as our nation's sovereignty, are in danger because of the actions and inactions of our federal elected officials, both Republicans and Democrats. Although the Democratic party is equally responsible for the mess this country is in, if not more so, the 2008 election was a clear repudiation of the Republican administration's out-of-control spending policies, their failure to stop illegal immigration and control our borders, their out-of-control expansion of big government into our everyday lives, their active support of NAFTA and other treaties that hurt American workers, as well as their fraudulent financial bailout of the big banks and Wall Street firms that has pushed our country deeper into debt by trillions of dollars. The Republican leadership, particularly at the national level, has not only failed their fellow republicans, but has failed the American people as well.

Registered Republicans in record numbers voted for Democratic candidates in the last election because they honestly believed that the Republican Party no longer represented their interests. The injuries the Republican Party suffered from the massive loss of congressional and Senate seats in the 2008 election were mostly from self-inflicted wounds.

The majority of registered Republicans wanted a conservative candidate for president, not a so-called maverick who was a moderate republican at best, and one who frequently voted with the liberal Democrats for bigger government programs. Don't get me wrong. I believe that John McCain is a good man who has served his country honorably for over 40 years and would have made a better president than Barack Obama, but John McCain is no conservative republican. The Republican Party leadership at the national level has proven time and time again that they are out of touch with Main Street America. If the Republican Party fails to get back to its conservative roots, uphold the constitutional principles it was founded upon and select more conservative candidates, it will become irrelevant and cease to exist as a viable party.

Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven't stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, public outcry over excessive pay and the demise of three of the biggest securities firms won't deter Wall Street from offering year-end rewards to employees on top of their salaries, compensation experts say.

``Critical producers and critical managers will be retained with the same bonus they had last year,'' said Robert Sloan, head of U.S. financial-services recruiting at Egon Zehnder International, a New York-based executive-search firm. ``The others will see sharp cuts.''

Goldman, the biggest and most profitable Wall Street firm until it opted to become a bank holding company last month, has set aside about $6.85 billion for bonuses, or an average of $210,300 for each employee, down 32 percent from $339,400 a year ago. Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm until it also converted to a bank, has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person, down 20 percent from last year. Both firms accrue a fixed percentage of their revenue for compensation, so the decline in bonus pools matches the drop in revenue.

Merrill's Compensation

The money Merrill has set aside for bonuses equates to an average $110,000 for each of its 60,900 people, up from $108,000 a year ago because more than 3,000 jobs have been cut.

The bonus figures are based on estimates that about 60 percent of the compensation and benefits expenses reported by the companies will be paid in year-end bonuses, as occurred in past years. Average bonuses aren't an indication of how much any employee will receive, since payments range widely from assistants to top traders. Bonuses aren't paid until the end of the fiscal year, so firms could choose to reallocate the funds.

``We are in the process of determining appropriate levels of year-end compensation, and no decisions have been made,'' said Mark Lake, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley. Ed Canaday, a spokesman for Goldman in New York, declined to comment.

Merrill spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim said the firm's accrued bonuses aren't down as much as those at Goldman and Morgan Stanley because the firm reduced expenses last year, when it also had a loss. Compensation costs are down 18 percent this year, compared with the first nine months of 2006, Merrill's last profitable year.

`Moratorium on Bonuses'

A worldwide economic slowdown, caused in part by the financial industry's losses, and a U.S. Treasury plan to spend $250 billion of taxpayer money buying stakes in banks, have made pay a political issue this year.

``There should be a moratorium on bonuses,'' Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters last week. ``If nobody gave them, there wouldn't be a competitive aspect.''

In Zurich, protesters blocked UBS AG's private-banking branch on Paradeplatz last week to seek curbs on executive pay after Switzerland's largest bank was forced to ask for government aid.

$145 Billion

``I'm just flabbergasted that the financial community has failed to show any sense of leadership on this issue and doesn't seem to understand how angry people are at them,'' said Nell Minow, editor of Corporate Library, a Portland, Maine-based corporate-governance research firm. ``They are just a bonus away from having the villagers come after them with torches.''

New York-based Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman and Bear Stearns Cos. awarded their employees a cumulative $145 billion in bonuses from 2003 through 2007, according to estimates based on company reports. That's more than the annual gross domestic product of the Philippines. Last year the firms paid out a record $39 billion.

At the end of this year, companies may decide against paying the money accrued for bonuses and instead use part of it to cover severance costs, said Rose Marie Orens, a New York-based partner at Mercer, the human resources consulting unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos., who specializes in executive compensation for financial- service companies. Goldman and Morgan Stanley end their fiscal year in November, and Merrill's ends in December.

Lehman Bankruptcy

``Whether what you see is what they're going to pay, you can't tell yet,'' she said. ``It's highly unlikely they'll add to those numbers and more likely they'll bring them down.''

Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15. Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns were rescued in emergency sales to Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. Goldman and Morgan Stanley are each receiving $10 billion of capital from the government.

Bank of America is offering Merrill's U.S. brokers bonuses of as much as 100 percent of the revenue they generate to keep them after the deal is complete, people briefed on the plan said last week. Scott Silvestri, a spokesman for Bank of America, declined to comment.

Employees at Lehman Brothers in Europe have been promised by their new owner, Nomura Holdings Inc., that they will receive the same bonus as last year, according to two people familiar with the situation. A Nomura spokesman declined to comment.

Earnings Slump

Share prices and profits have dropped more than bonuses so far. Goldman's profit has fallen 47 percent this year, and the stock is down 53 percent. Morgan Stanley's earnings have tumbled 41 percent, and the shares have shed 69 percent of their value.

``Performances have certainly not been what investors would expect,'' said Daniel Moynihan, a principal at Compensation Resources Inc., a 25-year-old company in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey that advises companies on pay practices. Still, ``smart companies are going to reward those people who performed well,'' he said.

Even without bonuses, Wall Street's traders and bankers typically receive salaries that range from $80,000 to $600,000 a year. That compares with the mean annual wage for the average U.S. employee of about $40,690 and a mean for CEOs of $151,370, according to a May 2007 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

For many on Wall Street, those salaries aren't enough. Top employees expect to receive bonuses that can be in the millions or tens of millions of dollars. Lloyd Blankfein, 54, Goldman's chief executive officer, was awarded a $67.9 million bonus last year on top of his $600,000 salary.

`Obscene' Mindset

At Merrill Lynch, CEO John Thain, 53, received a $15 million bonus when he was hired in December. Peter Kraus, 56, who is leaving after joining Merrill last month as strategy head, may be eligible to collect on a pay package originally valued at $95 million, including stock and options that replaced a Goldman stake he had to forfeit, people familiar with the matter have said.

While some of the most senior executives may choose to forgo their bonuses, like Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, 63, did last year, others whose compensation isn't disclosed can still take home millions, said Mercer's Orens.

At investment banks, ``the largest compensation doesn't necessarily get paid to the top five executives,'' she said. ``They could be zeros, but there still will be people making $28 million.''

``When you work on Wall Street and you get no bonus, that is a huge shock to the system,'' said Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer at Salary.com, a software provider based in Waltham, Massachusetts. ``Wall Street has created this mindset that most people find obscene, which is that it's hard to live on just half a million dollars a year.''

`No Wall Street'

A Morgan Stanley investment banker in Europe, speaking on the condition that he wouldn't be identified, said his bonus last year was five times his salary and that he would quit if he didn't get a bonus this year, unless his salary was doubled.

``There is no Wall Street without bonuses,'' said Andy Kessler, a former analyst and hedge-fund manager turned author. ``The guys who know how to make money are the ones who are in demand. If you want to keep them, you have to pay them something.''

More than 148,000 financial jobs have been eliminated worldwide since the middle of 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Securities industry jobs in New York fell by 9,000, or 5 percent, through August 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in an Oct. 23 report. The mean annual salary of securities-industry employees in 2007 was ``slightly less than $400,000,'' according to the Fed report.

Goldman Cuts

Goldman Sachs plans to cut about 3,200 people, or 10 percent of its employees, a person familiar with the matter said last week. That's a reversal from Sept. 16, when Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said he expected the number of employees to grow this year. Viniar told analysts in March that compensation costs make up two-thirds of the firm's expenses and that year-end bonuses are roughly two-thirds of compensation.

More job reductions are likely, especially at Merrill and Lehman. About 10,000 Merrill employees may lose their jobs, estimates Richard Bove, an analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Options Group, a financial services recruitment and consulting firm in New York, estimates that global banking job cuts could reach 200,000, with as many as 50,000 in New York.

``The vast majority of the guys who are being let go are not going to find another job in this environment on the Street,'' said Fred Joseph, the former CEO of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. who's now co-head of Morgan Joseph & Co. in New York. ``Middle- market firms like us are growing, but all of us won't hire enough people to dent the 10 percent of people that Goldman's going to let go.''

Hedge Funds

Barclays Plc, which is acquiring Lehman's North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, will cut about 3,000 jobs, Barclays President Robert Diamond said in an Oct. 10 Fortune magazine article. While London-based Barclays has a $2.5 billion pool of money to pay severance and other compensation, it hasn't promised former Lehman employees any bonuses. Seth Martin, a spokesman at Barclays, declined to comment.

Competition for top employees, a standard explanation for paying large bonuses, is less fierce this year. Hedge funds, which have poached top traders from securities firms in the past, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs this year after their biggest losses in more than 20 years, estimates Options Group.

``People don't have a whole lot of alternative places to go to, and it's pretty clear to everybody that they're lucky to have a job,'' said Roy Smith, a former Goldman partner who's now a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. ``It has never been easy to find industries away from finance where you can make millions of dollars a year.''

Who Are Keepers?

Fewer employees means more bonus money will be available for those who remain, said Mercer's Orens.

``You determine these are keepers, and you've got to keep them, so they'll receive a disproportionate amount of the money that remains,'' she said. ``You want to make sure they're not there and angry.''

Joseph, the former Drexel CEO, recalled the time at Shearson Hammill & Co. in 1973 when he had to deliver some good news and some bad news to a young employee.

``The good news is we're firing half your class, but we love you and we want you to stay; the bad news is you're not going to get a bonus, and we're cutting salaries 10 percent,'' he said. ``He stayed and he built a whole career, and he's been a successful investment banker ever since.''

The following table compares compensation and estimated bonuses for the first nine months of 2008 with the first nine months of last year. Bonus estimates are 60 percent of total compensation. Bonus awards are typically determined at the end of the year, with payments made in December or January.

                    Goldman        Morgan Stanley      Merrill
Nine Months 2007
Total Compensation  $16.92         $13.37              $11.56
(in billions)
Estimated Bonus     $10.15         $8.02               $6.94
(in billions)
Employees*          29,905         47,713              64,200
Bonus Per Employee  $339,408       $168,067            $108,075
Nine Months 2008
Total Compensation  $11.42         $10.73              $11.17
(in billions)
Estimated Bonus     $6.85          $6.44               $6.70
(in billions)
Employees*          32,569         46,383              60,900
Bonus Per Employee  $210,322       $138,749            $110,049
*Employee numbers are figures in third-quarter earnings reports
and don't reflect any cuts or additions since then.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Christine Harper in New York at
charper@bloomberg.net;
Serena Saitto in New York at
ssaitto@bloomberg.net.