With Love, Gratitude and Hugs: Happy Birthday Dr. Ron Paul!

Ron Paul turns 77! What a life. What an extraordinary man. America hasn't had such a patriot since 1776.

How Statism and the NWO Will Crash and Burn

If anything, government is an optimistic entity that automatically assumes that the economy will always do well, and perpetually and generously fill government coffers with an abundance of tax revenues. However, the decline and fall of the global economy has badly dinged tax collections. If folks aren't prosperous and making money, the plundering government's cut shrinks and shrinks substantially.

Government survives by either brute force or with the voluntary consent of the people because they perceive a value. But what happens when folks no longer perceive a value in government? Well, folks just opt out of the system, go underground and/or overtly or covertly indulge in non-compliance. When this happens, we see headlines and stories like this:

Island authorities denounce attack on tax police

ATHENS, Greece -- Local authorities on the Greek island of Hydra have denounced an attack by a local crowd on tax police after they detained a restaurant owner who did not provide receipts to clients.

The Friday incident happened after the inspectors wanted to transport the restaurant owner to Athens, an hour's ride away by fast boat. They were set upon by a local crowd, which also attacked the boat's crew.

The police, along with the restaurant owner, had to retreat to the island's police station, which was besieged until riot police arrived Saturday morning. Locals cut off the station's electricity and water supplies.

The Greeks have a long history of refusing to pay taxes to its corrupt and thieving government. However, the Greeks are far from the only folks indulging in a tax revolt. In Germany, statist socialists are alleging that Germans who put their money in Swiss banks are tax cheats who should be imprisoned.

German opposition leader attacks Swiss banks

Gabriel, whose Social Democrats (SPD) have blocked a deal between the German and Swiss governments to levy taxes on German assets in Swiss bank accounts, told Deutschlandfunk that Swiss banking practices in Germany were comparable with organised crime.

"It's a serious crime," said Gabriel, the chairman of the SPD who may run against Chancellor Angela Merkel in the 2013 election. "We're talking about organised crime in Swiss banks (operating) in Germany."

Gabriel, who plans to make criticism of banks a centrepiece of the SPD's 2013 campaign, added the sentence for large-scale tax evasion in Germany could be as long as 10 years in prison.

In Italy, another nation quite notorious for tax avoidance, the desperately broke Italian government is beefing up tax collection efforts.

Italy's tax hunters target super-rich and their yachts off the Sardinian coast

There used to be a time when Italy's super-rich gravitated to the smartest enclaves of Sardinia for a summer of relaxation and luxury. Not any more. In an increasingly austerity-conscious country, the yacht-owning classes are coming under increasing and unwelcome scrutiny, some of which would not look out of place in a scene from the film Apocalypse Now.

"We first spotted the targets with the helicopter's radar and closed in to identify about 50 boats off the two islands," said Italian coastguard captain Pietro Mele, describing a recent raid on yachts suspected of straying too close to the coast.

Although these are only a few examples of governments' insatiable appetite for other peoples money and how people fight back, the stone cold reality is that western governments have been indulging in unsustainable spending sprees for decades. Now that the massive pile of unsustainable debt is evidenced everywhere, another stone cold reality that directly impacts the people is the austerity of cutting public services because bigger and bigger percentages of national income are diverted to debt service. Tax receipts are going to the banksters and not the people.

In a bad and worsening economy, such a situation is the sum of all fears for the government. Not only do governments lack the resources to fund entitlements and public services, they've lost the trust of the people who are waking up to another reality, namely, that a big spending corrupt government wasn't such a good idea after all.

As the world unwinds according to the laws of financial physics and the fictitious fiat monetary paradise implodes, folks will be forced to plunge into raw survival mode as they seek and invent new paradigms of survival that most assuredly won't include trust in government and its army of bureaucratic goons. .

Meanwhile, folks accustomed to feeding off of everybody else will indeed clamor for a more violent and draconian government that will militarily plunder everybody and everything. But there comes a point when there is nothing left to plunder.

The only difference between the murderous and ruthless tactics of Mao/Stalin and Gang who killed 100 million folks during the 20th century alone, and the so-called soft socialism of the west is that the former didn't have the luxury of a wealthy economy to plunder. Well, the plundering class is rapidly running out of options because there isn't much left to plunder which is why the hysteria is now focused on 'tax the rich'. In France, the socialists have passed a law imposing a 75% tax on the rich. What will happen is that what productive capital that remains in socialist France will simply pack up and move to friendlier abodes. The French economy will be deprived of scare financial resources to reboot its ailing economy, the economy will worsen and French misery will intensify. Socialists never think about the future and merely dwell on the immediate and politically expedient that invariably includes class warfare.

At this juncture, it's safe to assume that the west (Europe and America) are going down and it won't be a soft landing. Things are about to get a whole lot worse, it's won't be a pretty sight, there will be massive human suffering and probably violence and massive civil unrest.

However, if folks can just resist the temptation to implement more bad government and thieving central banks, they will finally acquire a bright and prosperous future out of the pile of statist rubble.

Simply put, the glutenous beast that is devouring us must be starved if folks are to survive in peace, liberty and prosperity.  

The Ron Paul Liberty Army Marches on Tampa. Now What?

With the RNC Convention kicking off in a week, many Ron Paul supporters are flocking to Tampa in the hope that they will witness a miracle and that Republicans will come to their senses and nominate Ron Paul. Personally, I don't believe that Ron Paul will be the nominee, not unless all those Romney delegates turn out to be closeted Paulites.

Ron Paul's entire campaign for the presidency absolutely mirrors the sole purpose of his entire public career in Congress, namely, that Ron Paul has always been about waging a Revolution for Liberty by educating folks on the issues and speaking the truth.  Ron Paul is making history and there are darn few folks in American history who possess such an extraordinarily high level of ideological purity, consistency and tenacity.

The biggest problem for liberty activists is that we don't fit into the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.  We are, pure and simple, party crashers without a party that represents our commitment to peace, liberty and prosperity as clearly defined by our founders in our founding documents.  Logically, it makes far more sense to crash the Republican Party than the Democratic Party simply because the GOP claims to be anti-statist (yes, it's lying  crock of crap) while the Dems remain adamantly and openly committed to totalitarian command and control police state Marxism.  The Republicans really are no different than the Democrats they claim to oppose; it's just that what the Democrats do openly, the Republicans do by stealth.

Overall, 2012 has been a glorious year and one that we should be extremely proud of!  Compared with 2008, the liberty movement has blossomed into a new dimension of reality and instead of liberty activists being sarcastically dubbed nutjobs, we are being taken seriously because Americans are becoming seriously aware that we do indeed live under a tyrannical and oppressive government.

To be sure, Ron Paul was the sole spark who ignited the liberty movement into money bombs, Facebook pages and extraordinary grassroots activism from sea to shining sea.

In 2008 I heard the insufferable whining of Ron Paul supporters who became despondent because he didn't win.  In 2012, I'm hearing the same thing again.  Americans are not a patient people and this is a tragedy because it's going to require a long term commitment to the Ron Paul Revolution. Victory will not be easy nor will it come quickly but if we at least have a fraction of the testicular fortitude of Ron Paul who stuck it out for decades against insurmountable obstacles while enduring non-stop media and political scorn, we will at least become worthy of being a Paulite in every sense of the word.

Think 1776.  When George Washington's pathetically decrepit yeoman farmer ragtag of an army was constantly escaping and running from the far superior British Army and Navy, the strongest military power on the earth at the time, the Revolution of 1776 only survived by the sheer will of Washington's decision to refuse to surrender.  He didn't and 6.5 years later, he won.  Imagine Washington's army marching through snow and blizzards with bloody barefooted half naked solders who were starving and freezing to death.  The human misery as recorded by those who lived through it is beyond anything that any modern pampered American can even fathom.

Now is not the time to despair and give up but it's definitely time for us to embrace the character and tenacity of Ron Paul as we move forward because:

Why Do Republicans Reject the Constitution?

As a Libertarian turned Republican turned Libertarian, one of the most frustration things I've encountered in political life is the fact that Republicans claim they revere the Constitution and liberty.  Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, Republicans are always accusing me of being a liberal and a socialist!  Republicans need to look in the mirror if they want to see socialists. The grand Republican delusion is that they truly believe that they endorse liberty and constitutional governance.

Yet, Republicans consistently vote for anti-Constitutionalists and big government statists. In fact, Republicans vote against liberty and the Constitution every chance they get. Republicans cheered the Bush era, including No Child Left Behind (written by Ted Kennedy) and Medicare Part D, the multi-trillion dollar prescription drug entitlement.

Why is it that Republican socialism is somehow good while Democrat socialism is bad?  There is no such thing as good socialism or good statism.

For reasons no sane person can fathom, Republicans are notorious for going on a rampage accusing Obama and Gang of being socialists. Republicans and their media mouth pieces have even labeled Obama the 'Food Stamp President'.

The truth?

Bush is the REAL Food Stamp President

It’s true that the most recent figures from the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (provided to Factcheck.org/USA Today) show that a record number of people—some 46.2 million—are enrolled in the program. But the same data shows that more individuals were added to the program while George W. Bush was in office than have enrolled under Obama’s presidency: Under Bush, the program grew by 14.7 million individuals; under Obama so far, it’s grown by 14.2 million, and, as of October, was declining.

So Bush wins on volume, and Obama wins on velocity: In just a few years, President Obama managed to expand the program by nearly as much as Bush. But Obama didn’t do it without some help from his Republican predecessor, who approved policy changes that set the stage for the program’s current growth.

To some extent, the food stamps expansion the country has seen under Obama is how food stamps are supposed to work: It’s a countercyclical program, meaning that as the economy declines, enrollment grows. Typically, then, the program grows in recessions and declines in economic boom times. But with the 2002 farm bill, President Bush dramatically expanded eligibility, restoring benefits to nearly a million individuals at the beginning of 2003, and paving the way for the program to expand as it did during the rest of presidency. As a result, Bush managed to oversee unprecedented growth in the program even as the economy grew. Obama then followed up on this with an eligibility expansion of his own in the 2009 stimulus package.

It’s not unreasonable to criticize Obama for the expansion of the food stamps program under his watch. But Obama's Republican critics shouldn’t forget that it was a GOP president who helped make that expansion possible.

Meanwhile, frustrated Republicans just don't understand why Libertarians and constitutionalists just won't hold their noses and vote Republican because as they see it, the Republicans are the lesser of the two evils. But unconstitutional statist evil is still unconstitutional statist evil and Libertarians and constitutionalist see no differences between the Republicans and the Democrats, except for the social issues which they don't care about anyway because they correctly perceive that the theocrats are anti-natural rights advocates who seek to criminalize every possible human behavior that they don't like.

I don't know what will happen in November but I do believe that the advantage goes to Obama simply because the Republican Party has totally wimped out and failed to distinguish itself on critically important issues. 

Meanwhile, I urge Republicans to read the Constitution, here, especially Article 1, Section 8, that lists the specific enumerated powers granted to the federal government by the states that created the Constitution.  The Federal government has no constitutional right or authority to do anything that it wasn't specifically authorized to do.  Our founders worked hard to limit Federal powers and now we've got "Fedzilla Gone Wild".  

Wondering How to Get Loans With Bad Credit?

The common perception is that people with bad credit will most likely be turned down by most lenders and the only option left for them is to file for bankruptcy. The reality is that many people do happen to have poor credit score and have successfully managed to turn their bad luck into good financial management by focusing more on what can be done and not on the damage. For instance, you can still recoup your losses from an unsound investment by looking for loans, especially if you already have a sure proof opportunity to earn more money. The experts would often say to go slow with borrowing if you are in a financial rut, but successful persons are those who are willing to take risks as long as they are calculated.

To make sure you are making the right financial decision, here are a few things you need to consider first before applying for a loan:

    * Choose the right terms

The first thing you need to know is find out the various types of bad credit loans available to you. The term of a loan can vary from as short as two weeks or as long as forty years. Instant loans for people with bad credit are also like payday loans, which are short term loans for those times that you need emergency cash. You also need to understand that the term is crucial for the longer the loan period, the more interest you pay. On the other hand, the shorter the loan term, the more difficult is the payment, requiring a substantial amount of money as opposed to small amounts by installments.

    * Determine your capacity

It is best to know just how much monthly instalments you can afford to apportion from your income. If you are bogged down by the high interest rates often charged on people with bad credit, then you may opt to apply for secured loans that require some form of collateral to cushion the risk of lenders. However, make sure you can meet the payment schemes for you may end up losing more than you bargained for. On the other hand, if you have no such property that can be used as collateral, there is still the option of unsecured loans, with higher interest rates.

    * Find the most suitable loan

If you need instant cash, then payday loans may be your best option with a processing of not more than 24 hours even for people with bad credit. This is because lenders are not particular about your credit score and would only ask for a verified way of making payments like through a bank account. You could even borrow a huge amount like $50,000 as long as your salary can cover the repayments. This is especially true with online lenders who are not as stringent as traditional lenders. This is why most people choose their car loans for bad credit from online sources to get a better deal.

Once you got your basics covered and you already know what sort of loan you need, you could now go to the bank or online site of your choice to fill in the application form. There are a few things you need to prepare for the lender may require these to process your application:

    * Proof of identity

A common requirement in all official transactions would be a government issued identification card. An example would be your passport ID or your driver's license. For online loan applications, you would be asked to either enter the ID number or a scanned copy of the actual document.

    * Proof of employment and capacity to pay

For payday loans, employment verification is a requirement especially when it is your capacity to pay that serves as the basis for getting your loan approved and not really your credit score. Not only do you need to provide proof that you are employed, but you need to also state your monthly salary.

    * Active bank account or credit card

A bank account will serve as a channel to make your monthly payments. More often, the deductions are automatic with special arrangements with your bank and the loan provider. Another option is via a credit card so affiliation with a credit union or provider would be very helpful to have your loan approved.

In truth, borrowing money or applying for a loan is the easy part even if you have poor or bad credit. The real challenge is to find a loan that makes payments less burdensome so as to allow you enough funds to meet your dues as well as your personal needs. The trick is not just to live within your means and cut down overspending for the hard part is all about discipline and getting organized. In some cases, it is just poor management and negligence that resulted in a poor credit score. Hence, it is imperative that you build your credit score so that you can have better deals than what loans for bad credit offer.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Military Civil Asset Forfeiture: A Draconian Extension of Civil Asset Forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture is a nasty legal mechanism that allows the government at the federal, state, city and county level to steal on a massive scale even if a person has not been arrested or convicted of a crime.

Civil Asset Forfeiture - The Government's License to Steal

Many if not most of the victims of civil asset forfeiture are poor and middle class folks who don't have the resources to fight back.  Government never goes after rich folks who can afford to hire an attorney.

Horrifying as civil asset forfeiture statutes are, these instruments of terror and legal plunder have taken on a new dimension - military civil asset forfeiture.

Military Asset Forfeiture

The Department of Defense Criminal Investigation Service now has the ability to use federal asset forfeiture and “Equitable Sharing” provisions to seize and forfeit property:

"In order to gain sharper teeth in its investigations and prosecutions, DCIS added something more to its arsenal in 2007. A Memorandum of Understanding outlining basic functions and guidelines of DCIS’s participation in the DOJ’s Asset Forfeiture Program was formalized on May 25, 2007. Before this MOU became official, DCIS could only seek civil judgments and settlements for large sums of money as some form of financial punishment.

Assets being sought for forfeiture by DCIS are entered into DOJ’s Consolidated Asset Tracking System (CATS). DOJ’s CATS system, a controlled DOJ database, tracks assets through the forfeiture process and gives the Attorney General a good picture of what assets are being forfeited, in what amounts, from whom, and by what investigative agency. CATS, however, is only as accurate as the end user or data entry specialist who inputs the information at the local level. If assets are being forfeited but are not entered into CATS, DOJ has no other way to know what assets are being forfeited by each investigative agency. As the forfeiture partnership progresses, CATS should provide an accurate reflection of the assets being forfeited by DCIS.

Another aspect of the DOD/DOJ MOU is that the United States Marshal’s Service (USMS) will be the custodian of all assets seized when DCIS is the lead investigative agency. This is common practice for other DOJ criminal investigative agencies such as the DEA, FBI, and some non-DOJ participating investigating agencies such as the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).

Part of the rationale for establishing DCIS as a participating agency in the DOJ Asset Forfeiture Program, specifically the Assets Forfeiture Fund, are the two DCIS capabilities that were not available before 2007. As previously described, DCIS now has the ability to take [*204] the profit out of crime affecting DOD and its sub-agencies. Additionally, the MOU gives DCIS the ability to receive equitable sharing funds directly from the DOJ Assets Forfeiture Fund. Equitable sharing is available to DCIS if it was not the lead investigative agency seeking forfeiture on a case but contributed to the investigation. The MOU establishes that DCIS can not only seek equitable sharing from DOJ criminal investigative agencies, but also investigative agencies that participate in the Treasury Fund and Postal Fund. An example of this would be when IRS Criminal Investigations is the lead agency on a forfeiture case that DCIS substantially assisted. Funds shared and received must be used in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 524(c), the Attorney General’s Guidelines on Seized and Forfeited Property (July 1990), and DOJ’s policies.

With the US military and Department of Defense actively pursuing civil asset forfeiture, this constitutes a dangerous 'crossing of the Rubicon' because the military is now vested with powers it was never intended to have.  

Civil Asset Forfeiture - The Government's License to Steal

What is civil asset forfeiture? The best explanation is provided by the Institute for Justice who researches and follows this issue.

Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. Under civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets—all without so much as charging you with a crime. Unlike criminal forfeiture, where property is taken after its owner has been found guilty in a court of law, with civil forfeiture, owners need not be charged with or convicted of a crime to lose homes, cars, cash or other property.

Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but civil forfeiture turns that principle on its head. With civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.

Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture chronicles how state and federal laws leave innocent property owners vulnerable to forfeiture abuse and encourage law enforcement to take property to boost their budgets. The report finds that by giving law enforcement a direct financial stake in forfeiture efforts, most state and federal laws encourage policing for profit, not justice.

It's crucial to understand the difference between civil asset forfeiture and criminal asset forfeiture.  With civil asset forfeiture, a person doesn't even have to commit a crime or be convicted of a crime.  The government at the federal, state, city and county level have the legal authority to just steal and keep whatever they want and legal recourse for the victim can be difficult, time consuming and legally expensive.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also addressed the issue of civil asset forfeiture.

Easy Money: Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuse by Police

On November 18, 2009, Shukree Simmons, who is African-American, was driving with his business partner on the highway from Macon, Georgia, back to Atlanta after selling his cherished Chevy Silverado truck to a restaurant owner in Macon for $3,700 of sorely needed funds. As Mr. Simmons passed through Lamar County, he was pulled over by two patrol officers who stated no reason for the stop, but instead asked Mr. Simmons numerous questions about where he was going and where he had been, and even separated him from his business partner for extended questioning. The officers searched both people and the car, finding no evidence of any illegal activity. A drug dog sniffed the car and did not indicate the presence of any trace of drugs. Notwithstanding the total lack of evidence of criminal activity and Mr. Simmons’s explanation that he was carrying money from selling his truck, the officers confiscated the $3,700 on the suspicion that the funds were derived from illegal activity, pursuant to their authority under Georgia’s civil asset forfeiture law . Despite the fact that Mr. Simmons mailed his bill of sale and title for the truck to the officer, he was told over the phone that he would need to file a legal claim to get his money back.

For most people in Mr. Simmons’s position, the story would end there. To challenge this activity and get their money back, victims of seizures bear the burden of initiating a claim for the money. If no claim is filed, the police can keep the money. It is unlikely that regular folks whose money is taken will be equipped to seek out the appropriate statute and comply with the requirements for making a claim. While lawyers are available to do this work, the price is high — in Georgia, a standard retainer fee is $5,000. Many people lack the resources to pay that price, and even if they had them, it would not make sense to pay more than the value of the seized funds.

Luckily for Mr. Simmons, he spoke to a lawyer who referred his case to the ACLU...

Cases such as the horror experienced by Mr. Simmons are not at all unusual or even rare. Reason.com cites another horrifying example of civil asset forfeiture.

The Forfeiture Racket, Police and prosecutors won't give up their license to steal.

Around 3 in the morning on January 7, 2009, a 22-year-old college student named Anthony Smelley was pulled over on Interstate 70 in Putnam County, Indiana. He and two friends were en route from Detroit to visit Smelley’s aunt in St. Louis. Smelley, who had recently received a $50,000 settlement from a car accident, was carrying around $17,500 in cash, according to later court documents. He claims he was bringing the money to buy a new car for his aunt.

The officer who pulled him over, Lt. Dwight Simmons of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department, said that Smelley had made an unsafe lane change and was driving with an obscured license plate. When Simmons asked for a driver’s license, Smelley told him he had lost it after the accident. Simmons called in Smelley’s name and discovered that his license had actually expired. The policeman asked Smelley to come out of the car, patted him down, and discovered a large roll of cash in his front pocket, in direct contradiction to Smelley’s alleged statement in initial questioning that he wasn’t, in fact, carrying much money.

A record check indicated that Smelley had previously been arrested (though not charged) for drug possession as a teenager, so the officer called in a K-9 unit to sniff the car for drugs. According to the police report, the dog gave two indications that narcotics might be present. So Smelley and his passengers were detained and the police seized Smelley’s $17,500 cash under Indiana’s asset forfeiture law.

But a subsequent hand search of the car turned up nothing except an empty glass pipe containing no drug residue in the purse of Smelley’s girlfriend. Lacking any other evidence, police never charged anybody in the car with a drug-related crime. Yet not only did Putnam County continue to hold onto Smelley’s money, but the authorities initiated legal proceedings to confiscate it permanently.

Smelley’s case was no isolated incident. Over the past three decades, it has become routine in the United States for state, local, and federal governments to seize the property of people who were never even charged with, much less convicted of, a crime. Nearly every year, according to Justice Department statistics, the federal government sets new records for asset forfeiture. And under many state laws, the situation is even worse: State officials can seize property without a warrant and need only show “probable cause” that the booty was connected to a drug crime in order to keep it, as opposed to the criminal standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, owners of seized property all too often have a heavier burden of proof than the government officials who stole their stuff.

Municipalities have come to rely on confiscated property for revenue. Police and prosecutors use forfeiture proceeds to fund not only general operations but junkets, parties, and swank office equipment. A cottage industry has sprung up to offer law enforcement agencies instruction on how to take and keep property more efficiently. And in Indiana, where Anthony Smelley is still fighting to get his money back, forfeiture proceeds are enriching attorneys who don’t even hold public office, a practice that violates the U.S. Constitution.

Banksters aren't the only crime syndicate in America with a license to steal.  The police and prosecutors routinely steal and they almost always steal exclusively from  poor and middle class folks who don't have the resources to fight back.

Not much of anything is being done about it either.  Folks really need to start aggressively lobbying their state legislatures to pass laws outlawing the practice of civil asset forfeiture.