1 Nation Blog

Agenda 21, Banned By New Hampshire House

nug4ever — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:49:33 +0000

Agenda 21, UN’s Sustainability Measure Banned By New Hampshire House, Weighed By Senate

Posted: 05/17/2012 12:53 pm Updated: 05/17/2012

The Tea Party-controlled New Hampshire House of Representatives voted Wednesday afternoon to ban implementation of policies connected to the United Nations’ Agenda 21, its program of recommended sustainability measures adopted in 1992.

The House voted 201 to 99 in favor of the ban, becoming the second state legislative body in less than a week to come out against the international compact. Agenda 21 has become a favorite program for conservatives to attack, with opponents saying it is aimed at weakening and undermining individual property rights. Agenda 21 has not been ratified by Congress and does not have the force of law in the United States.

“I know it is totally against our Constitution from reading the U.N. biodiversity assessment,” Rep. Anne Cartwright (R-Alstead), the primary sponsor of the bill, told The Huffington Post. “It’s through local initiative that it is being implemented in bits and pieces to erode our property rights.”

The New Hampshire legislative measure would prevent local and county governments, as well as the state government, from joining the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an international sustainability group trying to promote Agenda 21. Several New Hampshire communities, including the city of Portsmouth, are members of the group. Cartwright said her research shows that the international organization is trying to take away property rights through its agenda, which promotes land use planning, bike paths and parks.

“They are very slowly implementing rules and regulations that have not reached a high level yet,” Cartwright told HuffPost. “They are implementing it through zoning, planning and regional planning things that impact our property rights.”

Cartwright has been advocating the measure for months without success. She used a parliamentary maneuver to attach the proposal to a Senate-sponsored bill to create a new hiking trail on Mittersill Mountain so as to force its consideration by the full legislature.

This type of maneuver has beecome common in recent weeks in the New Hampshire legislature, including the placement of measure to implement a 24-hour waiting period for abortions on a bill about research-and-development tax credits. House GOP leaders have relied on this practice after moderate Senate Republicans have failed to bring up bills passed by the House, which is controlled by a Tea Party and libertarian GOP faction, according to Rep. Christopher Serlin (D-Portsmouth).

Cartwright expects the Senate on Thursday to take up the hiking trail bill, with its anti-Agenda 21 plank.

Serlin, who helped lead opposition to this anti-Agenda 21 bill in the House, noted that many of the bill’s sponsors also pushed a measure to prohibit an international baccalaureate program in New Hampshire, saying that they had described it as an international takeover of schools. The Senate rejected that ban.

“Agenda 21 has become one of those issues that the far right has latched on to,” Serlin told HuffPost. “It is real tinfoil hat material. It is scary people think this way.”

Last week the Republican-controlled Kansas House passed a resolution condemning Agenda 21. During the debate, supporters described the international compact and the council as “trying to destroy the American way of life” by creating bike paths and parks.

Tennessee legislators passed an anti-Agenda 21 resolution, but Republican Gov. Bill Haslam declined to sign it this month.

In March the Republican-controlled Arizona House of Representatives rejected a ban similar to New Hampshire’s that its state Senate had passed. Similar measures are pending in Louisiana and Alabama.

“You have legislatures taken over by radical Tea Party representatives,” Serlin said. “There is a competition between the legislatures to see who can be the wackiest.”

OBAMA BANNED THIS VIDEO – GEE, I WONDER WHY!

nug4ever — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:16:05 +0000

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE AUTHENTIC BIRTH CERTIFICATE

25 Signs That The Nazification Of America Is Almost Complete

nug4ever — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:21:40 +0000

The United States of America is becoming more like Nazi Germany every single day. In fact, the Nazification of America is almost complete. The parallels between Nazi Germany and the United States of today are going to absolutely shock many of you. Most Americans simply have never learned what life was really like back in Nazi Germany. Under Adolf Hitler, Germany was a Big Brother totalitarian police state that ruthlessly repressed freedom and individual liberty. Under Adolf Hitler, Germany adopted socialism, dramatically increased government spending and raised taxes to astronomical levels. Under Adolf Hitler, abortion became legal in Germany, the government took over health care and Christianity was pushed out of the public schools and out of public life. To prove all of these points, I am going to use extensive quotes from two sources. Kitty Werthmann was a child living a peaceful life in Austria when Hitler took over her nation. Her eyewitness accounts about what life was like under Nazi Germany are invaluable. In addition, I will also be quoting extensively from author Bruce Walker. He is the author of a book entitled “The Swastika Against The Cross: The Nazi War On Christianity”, and during his years of research he has uncovered some absolutely jaw dropping stuff. After reading the information in the rest of this article, there should be no doubt that the United States is becoming just like Nazi Germany.

Nazi Germany shows us what happens when the state becomes god. Adolf Hitler was certainly more racist than the leaders of America are today, but other than that there are very few differences between the road that Adolf Hitler led Germany down and the path that the United States is being led down.

The following are 25 signs that the Nazification of America is almost complete….

#1 Nazi Germany was a totalitarian Big Brother police state that constantly monitored everything that German citizens did.

Today, the bureaucrats that run things in the United States are also absolutely obsessed with constantly trying to monitor us. For example, there are now control freaks that inspect the lunches of preschool students in certain areas of the country in order to make sure that they contain the “right” foods….

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs – including in-home day care centers – to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

#2 Nazi officials often used their positions of power to force others to do dehumanizing things.

This is exactly what the TSA is doing today. It would be really easy to imagine some Nazi military officers forcing a young woman to walk back and forth in front of them several times so that they could admire her form. Well, that is what TSA agents are doing to American women today. The following comes from a recent Wired article….

TSA agents in Dallas singled out female passengers to undergo screening in a body scanner, according to complaints filed by several women who said they felt the screeners intentionally targeted them to view their bodies.

One woman who flew out of Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport several months ago said a female agent sent her through a body scanner three times after the agent commented on her “cute” body.

#3 In Nazi Germany, even women and children were treated like dehumanized cattle.

Well, today schoolchildren are being strip-searched all over the United States. Down in Georgia, one student was recently strip-searched by public school officials after another student falsely accused him of having marijuana.

Another student down in Albuquerque was recently forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched because he had $200 in his pocket. The student was never formally charged with doing anything wrong.

#4 In Nazi Germany, authorities could stop you and search you at any time and for any reason.

In America that is not supposed to happen, but it is happening. Last year, TSA “VIPR teams” conducted approximately 8,000 “unannounced security screenings” at subway stations, bus terminals, seaports and highway rest stops.

If you are not able to produce “your papers”, there is a good chance that you will get thrown into prison in America. For example, a 21-year-old college student named Samantha Zucker was recently arrested and put in a New York City jail for 36 hours just because she could not produce any identification for police.

#5 Under Adolf Hitler, there were massive increases in government spending.

According to eyewitness Kitty Werthmann, just about everyone was getting some sort of a handout from the German government….

Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

Of course, as I have written about so many times before, this is the exact same thing that we are seeing in the United States today.

#6 Under Hitler, taxes were raised dramatically in order to pay for all of these social programs.

Kitty Werthmann says that “our tax rates went up to 80% of our income.”

In the United States our tax rates have not gotten that bad yet, but when you total up all federal taxes, all state taxes, all local taxes, all property taxes and all sales taxes, there are a significant number of Americans that do pay more than 50% of their incomes in taxes.

#7 The economy of Nazi Germany was very highly socialized.

As Ludwig Von Mises once correctly observed, the German economy under Hitler was not capitalist at all….

What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

The United States has not gotten to the level of Nazi Germany yet, but we do have a socialist president and back in 2009 the cover of Newsweek boldly proclaimed that “We Are All Socialists Now“.

#8 In Nazi Germany, if you conducted business outside of the socialist paradigm you were heavily punished.

Well, the same thing is happening in the United States today. For example, the FDA has been runningelaborate entrapment schemes that are designed to entrap producers of raw milk. Any “unauthorized commerce” is dealt with very strictly by the U.S. government these days.

#9 In Nazi Germany, government regulation of business got wildly out of control.

The following is eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann….

My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business.

If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

Of course we all know about all of the ridiculous regulations that the U.S. government is burdening businesses with today. In every day and age control freaks love to stick it to business people that are just trying to make a living.

#10 Under Hitler, free market capitalism was absolutely hated.

National Socialist theologian Gregor Strasser once stated the following….

We National Socialists are enemies, deadly enemies, of the present capitalist system with its exploitation of the economically weak … and we are resolved under all circumstances to destroy this system.

And as I have written about previously, a lot of Barack Obama’s strongest supporters are socialists and communists, and an increasing number of Americans are showing disdain for capitalism. In fact, some recent polls show that young adults in America actually have a more favorable view of socialism than they do of capitalism.

#11 In Nazi Germany, the health care system was taken over by the government.

The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann….

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

Of course we all know what is going on in America today. The government spends nearly half of all health care dollars and Obamacare is going to mean more government control over the health care system than ever before.

#12 Under Adolf Hitler, abortion was made “safe and legal” in Germany.

It turns out that Hitler was a huge fan of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. And as I wrote about recently, it was Sanger that once said the following….

“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

Hitler echoed this sentiment when he wrote the following in Mein Kampf….

“The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring. . . represents the most humane act of mankind.”

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, abortion was very quickly legalized. By 1935 there were approximately 500,000 abortions being performed in Germany every single year.

Yes, Hitler very much encouraged Aryan women to have as many children as possible. But he also very much viewed abortion as a way to reduce “undesirable” populations.

Unfortunately, something very similar is happening today. Abortion clinics are often located in the “poor” part of town, and a staggering 72 percent of Planned Parenthood’s “customers” have incomes that are either equal to or beneath 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

#13 In Nazi Germany, killing the “defective”, the “weak” and the “disabled” was considered to be a good thing because it made the German people “stronger”.

Unfortunately, many in America today have fully embraced the eugenics principles which were so dominant in Nazi Germany.

A 3 year old girl named Amelia was recently denied a kidney transplant because she is considered to be “mentally retarded”, and we all remember what happened to Terri Schiavo.

Not only that, the editorial page editor of the Detroit News recently proposed putting contraceptives into the drinking water in Michigan because the state has become a “breeding ground for poverty“.

This kind of sick thinking is rapidly spreading in America, and that is a very frightening thing.

#14 In Nazi Germany, education was nationalized and God was kicked out of the schools.

The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann….

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles, and had physical education.

Unfortunately, the exact same thing is happening to U.S. public schools.

#15 Under Adolf Hitler, God was mocked and religion was pushed out of every corner of public life.

Just check out the following information uncovered by author Bruce Walker….

The Nazi tract Gott und Volk was distributed in 1941, and it describes the life cycle of German youth in the future, who would: “With parties and gifts the youth will be led painlessly from one faith to the other and will grow up without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments… The education of the youth is to be confined primarily by the teacher, the officer, and the leaders of the party. The priests will die out. They have estranged the youth from the Volk. Into their places will step the leaders. Not deputies of God. But anyway the best Germans. And how shall we train our children? Thus, as though they had never heard of Christianity!”

Once again, this parallels what we are seeing happen in America today. Last year, a high school student in Southern California was suspended for two days because he had private conversations with his classmates during which he discussed Christianity. He was also banned from bringing his Bible to school ever again.

For many more examples of this phenomenon, please see this article: “18 Examples Of How Christians Are Being Specifically Targeted By Big Brother“.

#16 Adolf Hitler fully embraced the theory of evolution, and Darwinism provided the intellectual foundation for much of Nazism.

At a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in 1933, Hitler declared that “higher race subjects to itself a lower race . . .a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right“.

Hitler was obsessed with the “survival of the fittest” and he took this theory to its logical extremes. The following is how one author put it….

“Hitler was influenced above all by the theories of the nineteenth-century social Darwinist school, whose conception of man as biological material was bound up with impulses towards a planned society. He was convinced that the race was disintegrating, deteriorating through faulty breeding as a result of a liberally tinged promiscuity that was vitiating the nation’s blood. And this led to the establishment of a catalogue of ‘positive’ curative measures: racial hygiene, eugenic choice of marriage partners, the breeding of human beings by the methods of selection on the one hand and extirpation on the other”

But of course we have no problem with teaching this flawed theory to our children in the public schools of America today.

Haven’t we learned anything from history?

#17 Under Adolf Hitler, the state started taking over the job of child care.

The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann….

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology.

Of course this is exactly what is happening in America today. Children are raised by day care centers and public schools, and most parents spend very little time with their own children.

#18 In Nazi Germany, it became fashionable to mock Christians and the Christian faith.

The following is more from author Bruce Walker….

By 1935, the virulently anti-Christian leader of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Shirach issued a regulation that prohibited any child from belonging simultaneously to a church youth group and the Hitler Youth, and gradually membership in the Hitler Youth became almost obligatory – parents were told that their children would not get jobs in the civil service unless they belonged to the Hitler Youth and employers were told not to hire children who did not belong to the Hitler Youth. Christian schoolchildren who did not belong to the Hitler Youth or its female counterpart were routinely beaten up by young Nazi thugs.

Boys inducted into the Hitler Youth were required to explicitly reject Christianity by oaths like this: “German blood and Christian baptismal water are completely incompatible.” At Hitler Youth center at Halle, was the following prominent statement: “The Faith fanatics, who still to-day slide down on their knees with faces uplifted to heaven, waste their time in churchgoing and prayers, and have not yet understood that they are living on the earth and that therefore their task is of a thoroughly earthly kind. All we Hitler people can still only look with the greatest contempt on those young people who still run to their silly Evangelical or Catholic Churches in order to vent their quite superstitious religious feelings.”

Those that believe that the Nazis embraced Christianity are delusional. The following are direct quotes out of Hitler Youth training manuals….

“Christianity is a religion of slaves and fools.”

“How did Christ die? Whining at the Cross!”

“The Ten Commandments represent the lowest instincts of man.”

“Christianity is merely a cloak for Judaism.”

This is definitely where things are going in America today. Our television shows and our movies regularly mock Christians and they are always portrayed as the “bad guys”.

In addition, the name of Jesus is rapidly becoming a forbidden word. Some U.S. courts have even ruled that it is unconstitutional to use the name of “Jesus Christ” during any official government meeting. The following comes from a recent WorldNetDaily article….

But the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are standing by their victory in a U.S. circuit court decision that states even “a solitary reference to Jesus Christ” in invocations before the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners’ meetings could do “violence to the pluralistic and inclusive values that are a defining feature of American public life.”

#19 Under Adolf Hitler, sexual promiscuity was actually encouraged.

The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann….

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Of course the exact same thing is happening in America today. If you doubt that your tax dollars are going to promote sexual promiscuity, then I have a video for you to watch. It is a video from the American Life League, and you can view it right here. DO NOT let any children watch this video. It is done by a pro-life organization but it is very graphic. I have posted a link to it because it is imperativethat parents understand what is really going on out there. But please be warned that it is very, very graphic.

#20 Once the Nazis too power, they rapidly implemented gun control legislation and later on they took all of the guns away from the populace.

Kitty Werthmann remembers very well what happened in Austria under the Nazis….

Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

Last year, more than 10 million guns were sold in the United States, but gun control legislation continues to become even more strict, and it is only a matter of time before the federal government tries to disarm the U.S. population completely.

#21 Under the Nazis, large numbers of children were taken away from good families.

The following is more from author Bruce Walker….

Parents who resisted Nazi anti-Christian indoctrination too strongly simply had their children taken away from them. The Nazis even forbade parents to give their children Christian names and ordered babies instead to be given names like Dietrich, Otto or Siegfried. The home teaching of Christianity by parents in the home was forbidden. Not content with simply driving Christianity out of public schools, Himmler banned all Confessing Church seminaries and instruction in 1937 and he closed all private religious schools two years later.

Doesn’t this sound exactly like where America is headed?

In many states, CPS (“child protective services”) has become one of the most feared government agencies. All over the nation, thousands upon thousands of children have been removed from good homes because the parents were not raising them “correctly”.

You can read about one particularly bad CPS horror story right here.

#22 Under Adolf Hitler, society became very highly militarized.

Of course we are seeing the same thing in the U.S. right now.

Sadly, this is even happening to our public schools. According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate “in monthly anti-terrorism drills”. The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends….

Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.

This is the kind of thing that a sicko like Adolf Hitler would try to do, and it is not good for our children.

#23 In Nazi Germany, the prisons were absolutely packed.

Right now, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world by far and the largest total prison population on the entire globe by far.

Even children are being arrested in alarming numbers. In a previous article, I described how one 12-year-old girl down in Texas was recently arrested for spraying herself with perfume and how police were recently sent out to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl in Massachusetts.

#24 Under Adolf Hitler, there was basically no freedom of speech.

In the United States today we are told that we still have freedom of speech, but that freedom is being “chilled” in thousands of different ways.

For example, the FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com….

If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.

The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.

The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.

So please speak freely on talk radio. Just realize that the feds will be recording every single word.

#25 Under Adolf Hitler, paranoia was standard operating procedure.

In Nazi Germany, every citizen was a potential threat and everyone had to be constantly watched for suspicious activity.

Of course the exact same thing is happening in America today. Just about anything you do can get you labeled as a “potential terrorist” by the government.

According to a new DHS report, the following are some of the beliefs and ideologies of potential terrorists….

-”fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

-”anti-global”

-”suspicious of centralized federal authority”

-”reverent of individual liberty”

-”believe in conspiracy theories”

-”a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack”

-”a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

-”impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

-”insert religion into the political sphere”

-”those who seek to politicize religion”

-”supported political movements for autonomy”

-”anti-abortion”

-”anti-Catholic”

-”anti-nuclear”

And the definition of “suspicious activity” has become so broad in America that it pretty much covers 100% of us. In 2012, the following activities are considered to be “suspicious” by the FBI….

-shielding your computer screen from others

-paying with cash

-acting “nervous”

-using multiple cell phones

-requesting a specific room at a hotel

-traveling with a large amount of luggage

-refusing maid service at a hotel

-staying in your room for too long

-changing your appearance

In addition, the U.S. government has decided that it would be a really good idea for all of us to spy on one another. The “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign looks like it could have been pulled right out of a Gestapo security handbook.

But America is not supposed to be about spying on one another and reporting each other to the secret police.

America is supposed to be about liberty and freedom.

Recently, Fox News made a really bad decision by cancelling Freedom Watch. Judge Andrew Napolitano was one of the few voices on television that was still standing up for individual liberty.

Voter fraud? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

nug4ever — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:15:36 +0000

Filmmaker James O’Keefe exposes ‘total liars’ in undercover video

North Carolina is the latest state featured by Project Veritas in its series on how America’s electoral system is extremely vulnerable to voter fraud. During last week’s North Carolina primary, James O’Keefe and his colleagues demonstrated how easy it is to obtain ballots even if the person has publicly professed not to be a U.S. citizen.

Poll workers insist that the ridiculously dressed activists do not need to show identification or a passport. The video further shows an election official telling Project Veritas that it’s “up to the public” to expose voter fraud.

Click here to see video from O’Keefe’s latest undercover investigation

O’Keefe also tells WND about his group’s visit to the University of North Carolina, where a dean and a program director laugh off confessions of voter fraud and even seem to encourage it. Yet a day later, both officials tell conservatives that voter fraud never happens.

“We’re trying to highlight the hypocrisy of these individuals and their inablility to do the right thing,” O’Keefe told WND.

And Project Veritas catches up with an election official who says he can no longer agree to uphold the state constitution in his oath since voters passed the amendment establishing only traditional marriage as the definition of marriage in the state.

Legislature approves bill to bar use of Islamic law

nug4ever — Wed, 16 May 2012 01:56:47 +0000

Legislature approves bill to bar use of Islamic law, other foreign codes, in Kansas courts

By Associated Press, Published: May 11

TOPEKA, Kan. — A bill designed to prevent Kansas courts or government agencies from making decisions based on Islamic or other foreign legal codes has cleared the state Legislature after a contentious debate about whether the measure upholds American values or appeals to prejudice against Muslims.The Senate approved the bill Friday on a 33-3 vote. The House had approved it, 120-0, earlier in the week. The measure goes next to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who hasn’t said whether he’ll sign or veto the measure.

The measure doesn’t specifically mention Shariah law, which broadly refers to codes within the Islamic legal system. Instead, it says that courts, administrative agencies or state tribunals can’t base rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions.

But several supporters specifically cited the potential use of Shariah law in Kansas as their concern. Though there are no known cases in which a Kansas judge has based a ruling on Islamic law, supporters of the bill cited a pending case in Sedgwick County in which a man seeking to divorce his wife has asked for property to be divided under a marriage contract in line with Shariah law.

The bill’s supporters said it simply ensures that legal decisions will protect long-cherished liberties, such as freedom of speech and religion and the right to equal treatment under the law. Sen. Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, said a vote for the legislation is a vote to protect women.

“In this great country of ours and in the state of Kansas, women have equal rights,” Wagle said during the Senate’s debate. “They stone women to death in countries that have Shariah law.”

The bill passed both chambers by wide margins because even some legislators who were skeptical of it believed it was broad and bland enough that it didn’t represent a specific political attack on Muslims.

“We don’t have any intolerance in this bill. Nobody’s stripped of their freedom of religion,” said Sen. Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican. “This is talking about the law — American law, American courts.”

But several senators noted that supporters of the bill have singled out Shariah law in talking about it.

“This bill will put Kansas in a light that says we are intolerant of any other faith,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tim Owens, an Overland Park Republican who voted against the bill. “I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning if I didn’t stand up and say I don’t want to be that kind of person and I don’t want to be in a community or a state that is that way.”

Both the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Conference of State Legislatures say anti-Shariah proposals have been considered in 20 states, including Kansas. Oklahoma voters approved a ballot initiative in 2010 that specifically mentioned Shariah law, but both a federal judge and a federal appeals court blocked it.

“It is an effort to demonize Islam,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based council. “As Muslims are seen participating in a positive way in society, that really irritates some people.”

In Kansas, 45 House members, led by Rep. Peggy Mast, an Emporia Republican sponsored a bill aimed at Shariah law last year. The House approved it overwhelmingly, but it stalled in the Senate; this year, the House pushed another version, and pressure built on senators.

Mast had a news conference Thursday to highlight the Sedgwick County case, in which Hussein Hamdeh, a Wichita State University physics professor, filed for a divorce in November 2010 from his wife, Hala.

Their Islamic marriage contract, made in Lebanon, promised her a $5,000 payment should they split. He argued that the contract settled property issues, while Islamic law limited spousal maintenance payments to her to three months. Her attorney said in a court document that following Islamic law would leave her “destitute.”

Hussein Hamdeh’s attorney declined to comment because the case is pending. Hala Hamdeh’s attorney did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

Sen. Garrett Love, a Montezuma Republican, said even if no Kansas court has yet based a decision on foreign legal codes, “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still protect Kansans from those foreign laws being used in the future — a future that really may not be that far away.”

But several senators questioned whether the legislation is necessary, arguing Kansas judges and officials already must adhere to the U.S. and state constitutions. Hooper derided it as “an anti-unicorn” bill.

“All it does is increase hostility toward Islam and suspicion of Muslims,” Hooper said.

___

The anti-Sharia law measure is House Sub for SB 79.

Manny Pacquiao Uses Bible to Rebuke Obama’s Support for Gay Marriage

nug4ever — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:29:32 +0000

By Christine Thomasos , Christian Post Reporter

May 13, 2012|10:22 am

Manny Pacquiao, Christian Filipino boxer and congressman, has reportedly disagreed with President Barack Obama‘s support of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, and has insisted people should always put God’s word first.

After Obama vocalized that he was in support of gay marriage earlier this week, Pacquiao was adamant that the president had got it wrong. In an interview with the National Conservative Examiner while training in Los Angeles, Calif., Pacquiao spoke about the need for society to put “God’s words first.”

The boxer quoted Leviticus 20:13 when referring to the president’s decision to advocate for same-sex marriage.

“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable,” Pacquiao told the Examiner. “They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

However, Obama has attempted to explain his reasoning for supporting a redefinition of marriage, using the Golden Rule of loving your neighbor as justification for ignoring other verses condemning homosexuality in the Bible.

“Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” the president said in an ABC News report. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

While the 33-year-old boxer said he respected Obama, he told the Examiner that the president should read the bible or “manual of life” to better society.

“God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other,” Pacquiao said. “It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old.”

Pacquiao, nicknamed “Pacman,” is a Roman Catholic who has talked recently about ending his fighting career to focus on his religious beliefs. The boxer told ABS-CBN News that his fight against Timothy Bradley Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on June 9 might be the last of his career.

The FDA Thinks It’s Totally Cool For Us To Eat Seafood 10,000 Times Over The Contamination Limit

nug4ever — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:29:28 +0000

Eric Goldschein|December 23, 2011|

A new study has concluded that the FDA severely underrated the risk of contaminants in seafood following the BP oil spill of 2010, according to Environmental Health Perspectives (via Alternet).

The report, conducted by non-governmental scientists, says that 53 percent of Gulf shrimp samples tested revealed “levels above concern” of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Some cases showed carcinogenic levels up to 10,000 times more than what is considered safe.

This leaves pregnant women, children and big seafood eaters at risk to develop issues stemming from the consumption of these chemicals. Prenatal exposure to PAHs has been shown to lower IQs and increase the risk of asthma, heart malformations and low birth weight.

The researchers at the Natural Resources Defense Council also included internal FDA emails — procured using the Freedom of Information Act — that showed a concerted effort to downplay the effects of the contaminants. Emails also showed decisions to ignore alarms raised by FDA staff concerning this issue.

The report calls on the FDA to update their current risk assessment of seafood.

In response, the FDA says that setting higher protective health measures will “do more harm than good,” since people would have to remove more food from their home than necessary. Both the NRDC and Alternet have noted that there was no scientific backing provided for this claim.

History Repeating Itself???

nug4ever — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:51:03 +0000

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

nug4ever — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:00:16 +0000

Published on Apr 17, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish

It’s almost two years since BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, scientists say they have found deformities among seafood and a great decline in the numbers of marine life. Dahr Jamail reports from New Orleans.

The U.S. Sugar Program: Bad for Consumers, Bad for Agriculture, and Bad for America

nug4ever — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:41:03 +0000

The U.S. Sugar Program: Bad for Consumers, Bad for Agriculture, and Bad for America

By Bryan Riley
April 18, 2012

Government interference in the sugar market hurts consumers and food manufacturers by driving up the price of sugar, threatening competitive farmers and ranchers by jeopardizing export growth, and weakening the U.S. economy by diverting resources from more competitive uses. This Depression-era program, which was supposed to end in 1940, has outlived its intended lifespan by 72 years.[1] It should be abolished.

How Trade Barriers Increase Sugar Prices

The U.S. government artificially inflates sugar prices by imposing quotas that cap the amount that food manufacturers and consumers in the United States can buy from producers in other countries. If a bakery or a candy company wants to import more sugar than is allowed under the government’s quota, it must pay a prohibitive tariff of 15.36 cents per pound for raw sugar.[2] At current prices, that works out to a whopping 62 percent tariff rate.

Economist Milton Friedman once argued: “There are so many stupid things that government is doing that, clearly, it would be in the self-interest of the public at large to have repealed. Who would—who can really on logical grounds defend sugar quotas? There’s no way of defending sugar quotas.”[3] This has not stopped domestic sugar producers from trying. However, a close examination shows that many of their arguments are misleading. Here are some of those arguments—in their own words—along with the facts.

Falsehood #1: The sugar program is a “no-cost” policy.[4]

Fact: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in March, the price of raw sugar was 40 percent higher in the United States than in the rest of the world.[5] Although the sugar program does not directly transfer funds from the federal government to sugar producers, it cannot accurately be called a “no-cost” program, since it increases prices for everyone who buys sugar or sugar-containing products.

Economist Gordon Tullock explained how sugar tariffs and similar government policies impose additional costs on the U.S. economy:

As a successful theft will stimulate other thieves to greater industry and require greater investment in protective measures, so each successful…creation of a tariff will stimulate greater diversion of resources to attempts to organize further transfers of income.[6]

As long as the government has the ability to hand out favors to some industries and punish others, resources will be diverted away from productive private-sector activities to fund lobbying campaigns in Washington, D.C. This is true for all industries, not just sugar. However, sugar producers have invested heavily in lobbying activities and political donations relative to the size of their industry. Sugar accounts for just 1.9 percent of the value of total U.S. crop production, but sugar producers fund 55 percent of crop-related political action committee (PAC) donations and 34.2 percent of crop-related lobbying expenses.[7] This behavior can result in “crony capitalism”—a system in which business success depends on a close relationship with the government.

Falsehood #2: “Sugar policy didn’t cost taxpayers a dime in ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05, ’06, ’07, ’08, ’09, ’10, ’11 and is expected to run at no cost through 2021.” [8]

Fact: U.S. sugar policy costs taxpayers millions of dimes per year. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the sugar program imposes a $49 million net cost on the economy.[9] According to a study commissioned by the Sweetener Users Association, the program costs consumers $2.9 billion to $3.5 billion.[10] According to a study by the American Enterprise Institute, the program costs consumers $2.4 billion per year, with a net economic cost of $1 billion per year.[11]

Sugar policy costs taxpayers by making them pay a little extra every time they buy a box of Lucky Charms, a Honey Bun, a package of Twizzlers, or anything else that contains sugar.

Falsehood #3: “One-sided trade deals force the U.S. to import sugar from 41 countries regardless of our needs.” [12]

Fact: There is not a single person in the United States who is forced to import sugar from other countries. However, more than 313 million Americans are forced to pay inflated prices for sugar.

Sugar industry lobbyists have repeatedly subverted U.S. trade policy and made it more difficult for trade negotiators to expand U.S. export opportunities. For example, during free trade negotiations with Australia, U.S. negotiators allowed Australia to maintain barriers to U.S. exports in exchange for keeping U.S. sugar restrictions in place.[13] Today, the American Sugar Alliance is undermining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks by demanding that sugar not be a part of the negotiations.[14]

The sugar industry’s stance is particularly damaging to U.S. farmers and ranchers. U.S. agricultural exports have doubled over the past 10 years, and America’s farmers and livestock producers increasingly rely on foreign markets for their livelihood. Unfortunately, every country has its own version of a sugar lobby working to keep out competitive U.S. agricultural products.[15] If the United States will not open its market to affordable foreign sugar, why should we expect Japan, China, and other lucrative markets to accept affordable U.S. farm exports?

Falsehood #4: “The American sweetener industry has a positive annual impact of $21.1 billion on the U.S. economy, and adds 372,000 direct and indirect jobs in 42 states.” [16]

Fact: According to a 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, “For each one sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high U.S. sugar prices, nearly three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost.”[17] In general, trade barriers do not increase employment; they just shift the composition of jobs away from competitive industries toward those favored by the government.

As Adam Smith explained in 1776, removing barriers to imported sugar would have a positive impact on the U.S. economy: “If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.”[18]

What to Do About Sugar

According to the American Sugar Alliance, 71 percent of Americans prefer to buy homegrown sugar, even if foreign sugar is cheaper.[19] Consumers deserve the opportunity to prove whether this is true. The government should give Americans that choice by removing caps on sugar imports. Congress is now working on reauthorization of the farm bill, which offers a perfect opportunity to eliminate the sugar program.

Bryan Riley is Jay Van Andel Senior Analyst in Trade Policy in the Center for International Trade and Economics at The Heritage Foundation. Wesley Gwinn and Kyle Niewoehner from The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program provided valuable research assistance.

[1]Jose Alvarez and Leo C. Polopolus, “The History of U.S. Sugar Protection,” University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, revised June 2002, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/sc019 (accessed April 9, 2012).

[2]U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Sugar and Sweeteners: Policy,” http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Sugar/Policy.htm#loan (accessed April 9, 2012).

[3]Russell Roberts, “An Interview with Milton Friedman,” Library of Economics and Liberty, September 4, 2006, http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2006/Friedmantranscript.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

[4]Testimony of Ray Van Driessche representing the Michigan Sugar Company, Field Hearing on the 2012 Farm Bill, Committee on Agriculture, U.S. Senate, East Lansing, MI, May 31, 2011, http://www.sugaralliance.org/images/stories/Testimony_Van_Driessche.pdf (accessed April 9, 2012).

[5]U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “World and U.S. Sugar and Corn Sweetener Prices,” http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Sugar/Data.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).

[6]Gordon Tullock, “The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft,” Western Economic Journal (June 1967), p. 231, http://cameroneconomics.com/tullock%201967.pdf (accessed April 9, 2012).

[7]Center for Responsive Politics, “Lobbying Spending Database: Crop Production and Basic Processing,” http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=A01&year=2011 (accessed April 9, 2012); “PAC Contributions to Federal Candidates,” http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=A01&cycle=2012 (accessed April 9, 2012); and U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, “Agricultural Statistics 2011,” http://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Ag_Statistics/2011/index.asp (accessed April 9, 2012).

[8]American Sugar Alliance, “More Sugar Facts,” http://www.sugaralliance.org/more-sugar-facts.html (accessed April 13, 2012).

[9]U.S. International Trade Commission, “The Economic Impact of Significant U.S. Import Restraints,” August 2011, pp. 2–25, http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4253.pdf (accessed April 9, 2012).

[10]John Beghin and Amani Elobeid, “The Impact of the U.S. Sugar Program,” November 17, 2011, http://sugarreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/The-Impact-of-the-U.S.-Sugar-Program-Beghin-Elobeid-Report-11.17.11.pdf (accessed April 9, 2012).

[11]Michael K. Wohlgenant, “Sweets for the Sweet: The Costly Benefits of the US Sugar Program,” American Enterprise Institute, July 12, 2011, http://www.aei.org/paper/economics/fiscal-policy/federal-budget/sweets-for-the-sweet-the-costly-benefits-of-the-us-sugar-program/ (accessed April 9, 2012).

[12]American Sugar Alliance, “More Sugar Facts,” http://www.sugaralliance.org/more-sugar-facts.html (accessed April 13, 2012).

[13]Aaron Lucas, “A Sticky State of Affairs: Sugar and the U.S.–Australia Free-Trade Agreement,” Free Trade Bulletin, February 9, 2004, http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/ftbs/ftb-008.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

[14]American Sugar Alliance, “U.S.-Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Probable Economic Effect of Providing Duty-Free Treatment for Imports,” Submission for U.S. International Trade Commission Investigations TA-131-034 and TA-2104-026, March 2, 2010, p. 6.

[15]U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, “Value of U.S. Agricultural Trade by Fiscal Year,” http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FATUS/DATA/XMS1935fy.xls (accessed April 9, 2012).

[16]American Sugarbeet Growers Association, “Benefits of Current Policy,” http://www.americansugarbeet.org/us-sugar-policy/benefits-of-current-policy.html (accessed April 10, 2012).

[17]U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration, “Employment Changes in U.S. Food Manufacturing: The Impact of Sugar Prices,” February 2006, p. 2, http://www.ita.doc.gov/media/Publications/pdf/sugar06.pdf (accessed April 9, 2012).

[18]Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN13.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

[19]American Sugar Alliance, “More Sugar Facts,” http://www.sugaralliance.org/more-sugar-facts.html (accessed April 13, 2012).