¡Ya Basta!

Let me be real clear about this: Patriots do not sing songs about the president. The executive is a civil servant, an employee of the People. Do we sing about gas station attendants? Court stenographers? This is a cult of personality. It shows a frothing, fearful desperation on the part of Americans. Citizens should not be syncophants, training their children to sing praises to the Leader. This is disgusting. Democrats should be ashamed of themselves. I’m going to listen to some Bad Brains now, try to clean my ears out.

SEE VIDEO HERE Kurt Nimmo Infowars October 3, 2008

In House debate on the banker “rescue” bill, Rep. Brad Sherman told his fellow Congress critters the government will declare martial law and the stock market will drop 3,000 points if the bill is not passed. “The panic-mongers were to the point of telling people the market would drop 3,000 points and there would be martial law,” said Sherman.

Sherman’s comment was not in the same context as a comment issued by Rep. Michael Burgess earlier in the week. Burgess, who appeared on the Alex Jones Show, said Pelosi threatened to invoke House rule XIII(6)(a), described as “martial law,” intended to suspend normal procedures and safeguards and thus allowing the House leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. Sherman, however, said martial law would be declared on Wall Street, not in the House. Continue Reading »

Martin Masse National Post September 30, 2008

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive “injection of liquidities” engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package.

Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001.

“Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?” Marx would likely wonder.

At first glance, anyone who understands economics can see that there is something wrong with this picture. The taxes that will need to be levied to finance this package may keep some firms alive, but they will siphon off capital, kill jobs and make businesses less productive elsewhere. Increasing the money supply is no different. It is an invisible tax that redistributes resources to debtors and those who made unwise investments.

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Shashank Bengali McClatchy Newspapers September 30, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya — The U.S. Africa Command, the Pentagon’s first effort to unite its counterterrorism, training and humanitarian operations on the continent, launches Wednesday amid questions at home about its mission and deep suspicions in Africa about its intentions. U.S. officials have billed the new command, known as Africom, as a sign of Africa’s strategic importance, but many in Africa see it as an unwelcome expansion of the U.S.-led war on terrorism and a bid to secure greater access to the continent’s vast oil resources. Several countries have refused to host the command, and officials say Africom will be based in Stuttgart, Germany, for the foreseeable future.

U.S.-based aid groups and some in Congress have expressed worries that Africom will tilt U.S policy in Africa away from democracy-building and economic development and toward security objectives such as stemming the growth of militant Islamist groups in Somalia and North Africa, some of which have ties to al Qaida.

U.S. covert operations in Somalia and elsewhere have fueled the controversy. In late 2006, the U.S. military provided intelligence to help Ethiopia topple a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Somalia, an invasion that’s fueled a violent Islamist insurgency.

U.S. forces have since launched several strikes on suspected terrorist targets in Somalia. While one of the strikes killed a top militant commander, Aden Hashi Ayro, in May, Somalis say the attacks also killed and badly wounded civilians.Underlining the skepticism in Washington, the House of Representatives voted last week to provide $266 million to fund Africom’s first year of operations — $123 million less than President Bush had requested. The House Appropriations Committee said the reduction was due partly to “the failure to establish an Africom presence on the continent.”

The fledgling command’s image problem, at home and abroad, is cause for concern because of Africa’s growing importance to the United States.

The Department of Energy says that 17 percent of U.S. crude oil imports now come from Africa, more than the U.S. gets from Persian Gulf countries. But rising powers such as China have strengthened their ties with Africa and become a powerful counterweight to American influence.

Pentagon officials reject claims that Africom is about oil or China, but those perceptions remain strong in Africa.

“Obviously the U.S. is concerned about China’s influence, security, oil, counterterrorism, hunting down al Qaida suspects,” said Erin Weir of Refugees International, a Washington-based advocacy group that’s opposed Africom. “Africans read the newspaper just the same as we do, and they know what drives U.S. interests now.”

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Hmm, Hank Paulson is a former Goldman Sachs executive. Hank Paulson will soon have the ability name banks agents of the government and buy and sell assets for whatever he deems fair. I wonder why Buffet has so much faith in Goldman?

via: LA Times

NEW YORK — Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc. got a much-needed seal of approval Tuesday from billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. agreed to invest $5 billion in the investment bank via a purchase of preferred stock, Goldman announced after the stock market closed. Berkshire also will get warrants to buy about 10% of Goldman’s common stock at a discount price of $5 billion.

Goldman said it also would raise $2.5 billion in a public offering of common shares.

Buffett’s move amounts to a huge show of support by the legendary investor in Goldman at a time when the stock market has become deeply concerned about the future of the investment-banking business.

“You’ve got the most renowned investor of the 20th century putting money into Goldman,” said Scott Schubert, an investment banker specializing in financial companies at Jefferies Putnam Lovell in New York. “It’s a vote of confidence in Goldman and in Wall Street in general.”

Buffett’s money isn’t coming cheap.

Berkshire will earn a hefty 10% dividend yield on the preferred shares. The warrants give Berkshire the right to pay $115 a share for Goldman’s common stock — $10 a share less than its closing price Tuesday — any time between now and five years from now.

The deal gave Goldman’s shares a pop in after-hours trading to $135.87. In regular trading, the stock finished up $4.27 at $125.05 after falling as low as $113.

If the after-hours price of about $135 holds up until the deal closes, Berkshire would immediately have a paper profit of $870 million on the warrants.

We here at Ya Basta are not telling you to vote for McCain; he is just as much a gun-grabber as the Democratic candidates. See GOA. Readers should also check out Gun Owners of America to see the ratings given to most of the presidential candidates. The stances and records of Nader, McKinney, and most of the other 3rd party candidates are also pretty bad when it comes to guaranteeing our inalienable right of self defense. See other candidates here.