Real Name: Harold Thomas Gender: male Date of Birth: June 19, 1967 Member Since: October 24, 2007 Last Signed In: May 03, 2008 Profile Views: 367 Blog Views: 1582
Wed, Oct 31 2007, 21:35 GMT
http://www.afxnews.com
NEW YORK (AP) - The dollar skidded to a new low against the euro Wednesday while the British pound broke through $2.08 after the Federal Reserve lowered a key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 4.5 percent.
The Canadian currency bought more than $1.60 for the first time since 1957.
The 13-nation euro soared to $1.4503, its fourth new high in as many trading days, while the British pound bought $2.0813, after having hit a high of $2.0822 Wednesday.
The euro bought $1.4434 in New York late Tuesday, while the pound was worth $2.0679.
The Canadian currency was trading at $1.0571, or 94.60 Canadian cents, shortly after the announcement, above the 47-year high of $1.0510, or 95.15 Canadian cents, it hit Tuesday. The dollar bought 95.35 Canadian cents late Tuesday.
The dollar continued to plunge against the Canadian dollar in later trading, buying 94.16 Canadian cents. The Canadian dollar was worth $1.0620, the first time it broke through $1.60 in 50 years.
"The stock market is going to think very highly of this (rate cut), but it will continue to undermine the dollar," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at the Bank of New York.
The Fed's statement was intended to signal a continued openness to cutting rates, while indicating that inflationary pressures made doing so risky, he said.
Although lower interest rates can jump-start an economy, they can also weaken a currency as investors transfer funds to countries where their deposits and fixed-income investments bring higher returns.
"Currency traders are not buying into the relative hawkishness cropping up in this month's statement," said Ashraf Laidi, chief currency analyst at CMC Markets U.S. "While the outlook for the Fed is between further rate cuts and no rate cuts ... rates will remain unchanged if not go up for foreign banks," he said, causing currency traders to drop the dollar.
The rate-cut announcement, while expected, drove the dollar down, even as new U.S. data showed the economy grew at a 3.9 percent pace in the third quarter, the fastest pace in 1 1/2 years.
A second report showed that construction spending rose 0.3 percent in September, the best showing in four months.
The euro, the Canadian dollar and the pound have been climbing steadily against the dollar, regularly touching new highs since August amid fears for the health of the U.S. economy, stoked by the subprime credit crisis.
The euro has been helped by sentiment that the European Central Bank has yet to finish a gradual campaign of rate increases, while the pound has benefited from expectations that the Bank of England will leave rates untouched rather than follow the Fed in cutting the cost of borrowing.
The Canadian dollar, a commodity-backed currency, has benefited as oil prices soared and demand for Canada's exports increases.
In other trading, the dollar rose against the Japanese currency, climbing to 115.31 yen from 114.77 yen Tuesday. However, the dollar slid against the Swiss franc to 1.1565 from 1.1600.
Dollar vs: Exchange RatePvs Day
Yen 115.31114.77
Euro $1.4503$1.4434
Pound $2.0813$2.0679
Swiss franc 1.15651.1600
Canadian dollar $1.0571$1.0488
94.60 95.35
Mexican peso 10.681110.7227
1.0620
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The sad part of all this is Dr. paul has been trying to warn us for the last 30+ years of the impending collapse of the $. Dr. Paul is not clairvoyant, but he is an astute student of both History and economics. There is a reason that the founders of this great nation made it explicitly clear in the Constitution that "only" Gold & Silver were to be legal tender.
A fiat money system which is what we currently have has NEVER worked long term anywhere it has been tried. Gold has replaced every fiat currency for the past 3000 years. I know a lot of people think Dr. Paul is nutty for wanting to return to the gold standard, but it is the ONLY way the $ long term will hold & increase in value. At least we are still doing better than the Peso.
This video is so funny I almost soiled myself laughing so hard. The sad part of it is the information although disseminated in a humorous manner is the God's honest truth! As a traditional Conservative Republican I think we could learn a LOT from the Libertarians when it comes to Taxation.
Donna D'Errico, who starred as Donna Marco in Baywatch, has come out in support of Ron Paul for president. She states on her MySpace profile as well as her blog that Ron Paul is her hero.
There are millions of us Ron Paul supporters all across America. Everyday we send out millions of e-mails to our family and friends, and to people we work with or do business with. A great many of these people are people within our personal sphere of influence.
Just think of the potential we few million Ron Paul supporters have to influence millions more poeple to vote for Ron Paul, just by getting and using our very own Ron Paul e-mail address to send out our millions daily e-mails!
The following article is part of a column by Neil Steinberg, from the Chicago Sun-Times this past Wednesday:
... and justice for all
Americans must adhere to our own standards when dealing with prisoners
My wife recently started setting the alarm on our clock radio, since the 11-year-old has orchestra, and somebody has to prod his little pre-adolescent hiney out the door.
So we wake up with a dose of the WGN news, which mentioned Monday that the Supreme Court is convening its fall season and will, among other matters, explore the status of prisoners being held indefinitely at GuantanamoBay.
It'll probably decide that they aren't Americans and so don't have any rights, I think, sleepily.
The next thought jars me awake like a gong: They aren't Americans ... but we are.
As foreigners on foreign soil, they may indeed have no American legal rights.
But as Americans, wherever we go, on whatever soil we tread, we have definite obligations to our system of justice, to our standards of morality. Don't we? At the Nuremberg trials, we took pains to administer justice to the Nazis, even though they were foreigners on foreign soil, even though they were guilty as sin of enormous crimes.
How can we do any less for this ragbag of unfortunates, scooped off the battlefields of Afghanistan? Some guilty of something, some guilty of nothing at all. How does their possibly being enemies relieve us of the need to adhere to our own standards?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Do you think our prisoners of "war" at Gitmo deserve the rights we hold dear? (The right to an attorney, the right to be charged in a timely manner, the right to know what you're charged with).
~ What are your thoughts about our government detaining these foreign men on foreign soil and doing an end-run around our Constitution?
In this day and age of dire warnings about the state of our environment, alternative energy sources are becoming more and more popular, though not without controversy. Solar power, hybrid cars, ethanol: these are ideas that years ago seemed far-fetched and are now becoming mainstream. State governments are encouraging the use of such sources with tax breaks for those who install them and companies who produce them are appearing everywhere. What used to be an extremely expensive venture is becoming less so as more people participate.
Visit this site to learn more about some sources that are available:
Win REAL money -- stacks of Ron Paul silver dollars! Just submit your best ideas to be placed on signs made by 'Paulunteers' in support of Dr. Paul. For more information, see:
Just imagine -- our nationwide Ron Paul rallies and 'Banner Brigades' featuring signs like:
* "Dr. Ron Paul Cured My Apathy,"
* "No WMD? Ron Paul told CONGRESS in 2002,"
* or other ideas from YOU!
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 8PM ET (5PM PT), Thursday, November 8th. (Sign ideas posted before October 22nd are ineligible for prize money.)
With visions of creative Ron Paul signs 'from sea to shining sea,' the Portland Meetup group developed the Ron Paul Sign Page. As a categorized master list of sign ideas, the page will grow as a national resource consisting of sign suggestions submitted by Paulunteers everywhere. With this resource, you can now easily acquire great sign ideas that will ELECTRIFY your own 'Banner Brigades' -- just pick whichever messages resonate with YOUR local 'target market'.
PLEASE forward this page to other Ron Paul supporters, and post a notice on your favorite blog or message board. And if you host your own Web site, please consider adding the Sign Page Logo with an embedded link to the page.
In Peace, Liberty, & Fun!
Scott G. Sutton
Co-Organizer - Portland Ron Paul Meetup
OregoniansForRonPaul.com
ValueFreedom.blogspot.com
We don't normally send you Saturday action items, but some of our allies have just alerted us that we need to do so today.
The annual bloated corporate welfare farm bill is coming up for a vote, perhaps as soon as Monday. A new version of this bill is passed almost every year, and it is always bad -- a monstrous rape of the taxpayers for the benefit of the wealthy and well-connected. We plan, in the near future, to begin a permanent campaign against this bill, but in the meantime . . .
We need to strike at a particular part of this year's bill -- funding for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). We have been campaigning against NAIS for a long time, bombarding Congress with more than 30,000 messages. We need to make another push this morning.
We have a long explanation of NAIS and why it's bad on our campaign page. We won't repeat it here. Suffice it to say that NAIS will strangle small family farms to the benefit of big corporate farms. Please send Congress a message asking them to stop the Department of Agriculture from implementing NAIS.
Our coalition allies ask that you specifically request that Section 10305 be removed from the Farm Bill. You can do that in your personal comments. Send your message here
With the passing and approval of the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA) during the early years of the Clinton administration by Canada, Mexico and the USA in the 1990s, millions of small farmers in Mexico, small subsistence farmers, were forced off their land through economic necessity. They could no longer make a living on their small plots.
This fueled the massive illegal migration to the USA that started at that time, and continues to this day.
Nowhere was this more true than in the mountainous southern Mexican state of Chiapas, which borders on Guatemalan.
The primary beneficiaries of NAFTA are large multi-national corporations.
NAFTA is the agreement that allowed Walmart to enter the Mexican market.
With financing secured and arranged by multi-national (primarily US) corporations, wealthy Mexicans and Mexican corporations took over a number of the small Mexican land holders and consolidated the lands. This added further fuel to the spreading fire of illegal immigration.
Chiapas is one of the major coffee growing regions in Mexico. With its high mountains, it is ideally suited for raising the very best of organic, shade tree, aromatic coffee.
The largest coffee consuming nation in the world is the USA, and most of the major coffee purchasers and roasters are US.
The US coffee purchasers are notorious for driving a hard bargain, and paying the absolute minimum for coffee. This does nothing for the peon who sweats out tending the coffee bushes, but it maximizes corporate profit.
With the growing social consciousness of the 90s and into the new century, corporations realized that they could use this "social consciousness" as a selling point.
Starbucks and other overpriced coffee roasters started purchasing a tiny fraction of the coffee they buy at "Fair Market Value."
Fair Marker Value means that the producers of the coffee bean, the humble tenders and cultivators of the Earth, are paid enough so that they can live on their land and support their families without having to resort to illegal immigration. It doesn't mean that they are getting wealthy, but they are receiving enough to maintain their humble lifestyles and even make slight advances.
This allows Starbucks and others to faceously advertise that they pay Fair Market Value, a legal slight of hand.
There is one small non-profit coffee roaster that purchases all their coffee at Fair Market Value. The company is Just Coffee.
They purchase their coffee in Chiapas and roast it in the
Sonoran border community of Agua Prieta, paying the people who do the roasting a livable wage.
Just Coffee is a small roasting operation, but that works out to the advantage of the people who purchase their coffee.
After coffee is roasted it needs to set for three days so it can "gas out." This allows the unsavory and slightly toxic gases in all coffee beans to exit. Once the coffee is gassed out, it remains at an absolute prime state for approximately a week to ten days.
The "prime" over-priced coffee you purchase at Starbucks or your local (more than likely) chain grocery store normally hasn't been allowed to properly gas out, and is almost always older than ten days, and well past its prime.
Just Coffee sells its coffee online from its offices in Douglas, Arizona, just across the border from Agua Prieta. It makes sure that all the coffee it ships is in a prime state. If this coffee in a prime state is kept frozen until use, the prime state is extended a considerable length of time.
Just Coffee offers whole beans and ground coffee in different roasts. It can be ordered online at www.justcoffee.org.
If you are a coffee drinker who likes truly good coffee, do yourself a favor and try some especially roasted coffee from Just Coffee. You will not only be doing yourself a favor, you will be doing something, in a small first step way, to stop the tide of illegal immigration.
ABC: Giuliani 'defending and protecting' predator priest?
David Edwards
Published: Tuesday October 23, 2007
This morning on ABC's Good Morning America, Brian Ross reported on a priest who is a Giuliani employee and has been accused of molesting teenage boys.
A report from ABC News says, "Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties."
"The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events. "
Please join us this November 5th for the largest one day political donation event in history. Our goal is to bring together 100,000 people to donate $100 each to the Ron Paul campaign, creating a one day donation total of $10,000,000.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. There is little doubt that this bill is specifically targeting the growing patriot community that is demanding the restoration of the Constitution.
First let’s take a look at the definitions of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as defined in Section 899A of the bill.
The definition of violent radicalization uses vague language to define this term of promoting any belief system that the government considers to be an extremist agenda. Since the bill doesn’t specifically define what an extremist belief system is, it is entirely up to the interpretation of the government. Considering how much the government has done to destroy the Constitution they could even define Ron Paul supporters as promoting an extremist belief system. Literally, the government according to this definition can define whatever they want as an extremist belief system. Essentially they have defined violent radicalization as thought crime. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.
`(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
The definition of homegrown terrorism uses equally vague language to further define thought crime. The bill includes the planned use of force or violence as homegrown terrorism which could be interpreted as thinking about using force or violence. Not only that but the definition is so vaguely defined, that petty crimes could even fall into the category of homegrown terrorism. The definition as defined in the bill is shown below.
`(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Section 899B of the bill goes over the findings of Congress as it pertains to homegrown terrorism. Particularly alarming is that the bill mentions the Internet as a main source for terrorist propaganda. The bill even mentions streams in obvious reference to many of the patriot and pro-constitution Internet radio networks that have been formed. It also mentions that homegrown terrorists span all ages and races indicating that the Congress is stating that everyone is a potential terrorist. Even worse is that Congress states in their findings that they should look at draconian police states like Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom as models to defeat homegrown terrorists. Literally, these findings of Congress fall right in line with the growing patriot community.
The biggest joke of all is that this section also says that any measure to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism should not violate the constitutional rights of citizens. However, the definition of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism as they are defined in section 899A are themselves unconstitutional. The Constitution does not allow the government to arrest people for thought crimes, so any promises not to violate the constitutional rights of citizens are already broken by their own definitions.
`SEC. 899B. FINDINGS.
`The Congress finds the following:
`(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.
`(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.
`(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.
`(4) While the United States must continue its vigilant efforts to combat international terrorism, it must also strengthen efforts to combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists based and operating within the United States.
`(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.
`(6) The potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily prevented through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts, and requires the incorporation of State and local solutions.
`(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.
`(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations.
Section 899C calls for a commission on the prevention of violent radicalization and ideologically based violence. The commission will consist of ten members appointed by various individuals that hold different positions in government. Essentially, this is a commission that will examine and report on how they are going to deal with violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. So basically, the commission is being formed specifically on how to deal with thought criminals in the United States. The bill requires that the commission submit their final report 18 months following the commission’s first meeting as well as submit interim reports every 6 months leading up to the final report. Below is the bill’s defined purpose of the commission. Amazingly they even define one of the purposes of the commission to determine the causes of lone wolf violent radicalization.
(b) Purpose- The purposes of the Commission are the following:
`(1) Examine and report upon the facts and causes of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States, including United States connections to non-United States persons and networks, violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in prison, individual or `lone wolf' violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence, and other faces of the phenomena of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence that the Commission considers important.
`(2) Build upon and bring together the work of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication, by reviewing the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of--
`(A) the Center of Excellence established or designated under section 899D, and other academic work, as appropriate;
`(B) Federal, State, local, or tribal studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence; and
`(C) foreign government studies of, reviews of, and experiences with violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence.
Section 899D of the bill establishes a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States. Essentially, this will be a Department of Homeland Security affiliated institution that will study and determine how to defeat thought criminals.
Section 899E of the bill discusses how the government is going to defeat violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism through international cooperation. As stated in the findings section earlier in the legislation, they will unquestionably seek the advice of countries with draconian police states like the United Kingdom to determine how to deal with this growing threat of thought crime.
Possibly the most ridiculous section of the bill is Section 899F which states how they plan on protecting civil rights and civil liberties while preventing ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism. Here is what the section says.
`SEC. 899F. PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES WHILE PREVENTING IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM.
`(a) In General- The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, and civil liberties of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents.
`(b) Commitment to Racial Neutrality- The Secretary shall ensure that the activities and operations of the entities created by this subtitle are in compliance with the Department of Homeland Security's commitment to racial neutrality.
`(c) Auditing Mechanism- The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Officer of the Department of Homeland Security will develop and implement an auditing mechanism to ensure that compliance with this subtitle does not result in a disproportionate impact, without a rational basis, on any particular race, ethnicity, or religion and include the results of its audit in its annual report to Congress required under section 705.'.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of contents in section 1(b) of such Act is amended by inserting at the end of the items relating to title VIII the following:
It states in the first subsection that in general the efforts to defeat thought crime shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights and civil liberties of the United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. How does this protect constitutional rights if they use vague language such as in general that prefaces the statement? This means that the Department of Homeland Security does not have to abide by the Constitution in their attempts to prevent so called homegrown terrorism.
This bill is completely insane. It literally allows the government to define any and all crimes including thought crime as violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. Obviously, this legislation is unconstitutional on a number of levels and it is clear that all 404 representatives who voted in favor of this bill are traitors and should be removed from office immediately. The treason spans both political parties and it shows us all that there is no difference between them. The bill will go on to the Senate and will likely be passed and signed into the law by George W. Bush. Considering that draconian legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act have already been passed, there seems little question that this one will get passed as well. This is more proof that our country has been completely sold out by a group of traitors at all levels of government.
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If you want to know why I support Ron Paul you need only watch this 8 minutes of video to understand. He is the only Republican candidate who both tells the truth and makes sense.
