At a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the launch of the ‘Let’s Move’ campaign to end childhood obesity in the United States, an epidemic she said is costly and a threat to national security.

“A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year,” Mrs. Obama said. “This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.” (Read more from cnsnews.com)

There is no idea more un-American than the idea of a draft — the notion that my life is a tool for the ambitions of government. The first lady’s comment smacks of the same tyrannical idea.

The scope of a highly controversial labor bill known as “fare share” would be expanded under an amendment introduced this morning by an Iowa City lawmaker.

The bill, House File 2420, allows unions representing executive branch employees to charge nonunion workers fees for services. (Read more from desmoinesregister.com)

In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated “cognitive infiltration” of groups that advocate “conspiracy theories” like the ones surrounding 9/11.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.

As head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein is in charge of “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs,” according to the White House Web site. (Read more from rawstory.com)

This has been on my mind ever since I heard Aaron Russo suggest the elites were behind Women’s Suffrage because they wanted to change America from a country in which half the people worked and paid taxes to a country where everyone worked and paid taxes. As it typical they hi-jacked a legitimate movement for their own purposes.

I was interested to see this report from thedailybell.com. They quote some news then offer analysis along the same lines as Aaron Russo:

At a time when the world is short of causes for celebration, here is a candidate: within the next few months women will cross the 50% threshold and become the majority of the American workforce. Women already make up the majority of university graduates in the OECD countries and the majority of professional workers in several rich countries, including the United States. Women run many of the world’s great companies, from PepsiCo in America to Areva in France. Women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times. Just a generation ago, women were largely confined to repetitive, menial jobs. They were routinely subjected to casual sexism and were expected to abandon their careers when they married and had children. Today they are running some of the organisations that once treated them as second-class citizens. Millions of women have been given more control over their own lives. And millions of brains have been put to more productive use. Societies that try to resist this trend-most notably the Arab countries, but also Japan and some southern European countries-will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated citizens. – Economist

Dominant Social Theme: Hurray for women …

Free-Market Analysis: The liberation of women is in our opinion another dominant social theme, one of the longest running of the power elite’s promotions. The real push for women to become part of the work force happened in the 20th century. Not surprisingly, this was the century that saw the imposition of full-fledged central banking around the world. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was still culturally a problem for women to work, but the power elite promotion was launched to make women “modern” and it is still ongoing.

If you want to implement global governance, you need to break down the family unit as much as possible. Nothing can stand in the way of the state. From the power elite’s standpoint, getting women into the workplace in the name of “equality” solved a lot of problems at once. It left children parentless during much of the day, so that the state itself could take over childcare. And without the firm guidance of the full family, many children, especially girls, became much more promiscuous at an early age which also contributed to a fracturing of private culture.

. . . . But the real reason, in our opinion, that woman’s liberation is a power-elite promotion, and a very long-running one, has to do with central banking. The erosion of fiat money earning meant inevitably that to keep up there would have to be more than one wage earner in the household. Woman’s liberation was promoted, in our opinion, as a way of making it culturally acceptable for women to work – so as to conceal the degradation of the currency.

The media has been hyperventilating over safety concerns in Toyota vehicles, presumably for our sake. Now that the government owns and runs GM, I cannot take this news without suspicion.

Austrian Economist Patrick Barron said it best:

The U.S. government owns General Motors and now it gets to sit in judgement of GM’s most successful rival, punishing it and waging a public relations campaign to malign Toyota’s products. Sounds like another great way–in addition to the “Cash for Clunkers” program–for the government to provide a backdoor subsidy to its captive company and its union supporters.

Toyota’s Troubles Deepen
Toyota Motor Corp.’s quality crisis deepened Tuesday, as U.S. regulators accused the company of dragging its feet on fixing defective gas pedals and threatened civil penalties and further reviews of Toyota products.

The move means that Toyota’s efforts to address its biggest-ever safety and public-relations mess are far from over. Last week, the administration indicated it had no issues with how Toyota had responded to the sudden-acceleration reports, which led the company to recall about six million vehicles and have been linked to at least five fatalities.

“While Toyota is taking responsible action now, it unfortunately took an enormous effort to get to this point,” Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Tuesday in a statement. “We’re not finished with Toyota and are continuing to review possible defects and monitor the implementation of the recalls.”

Mr. LaHood said Transportation Department officials flew to Japan in December to meet with Toyota executives and remind the company “about its legal obligations.”

Toyota woes mount as gov’t examines Prius brakes
Toyota faced mounting pressure Thursday as the government opened a probe of brake problems with the Prius, a crown jewel of its lineup. The beleaguered automaker said it was “too soon” to decide whether to add the hybrid to the millions of cars it has recalled.

. . . . The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would assess the scope of the problem and the safety risk to about 37,000 cars that could be affected.

Listen to the pretty blonde lady at the end. The logic of government subsidized medicine leads seamlessly into government control of our diets.

I envision us looking back at this statement with great sadness. Let it not be said that no one tried to prevent what is about about to happen.

I’m glad I was able to find a transcript of Congressman Ron Paul’s statement. Youtube videos sometimes vanish. I’m storing the transcript here.

The US justice department is preparing a report which concludes that the FBI repeatedly broke the law by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist to obtain more than 2,000 telephone call records over four years from 2002, including those of journalists on US newspapers, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post.

The bureau also issued authorisations for the seizure of records after the fact, in order to justify unwarranted seizures.

The Washington Post said the emails show how counter-terrorism ­officials inside FBI headquarters breached regulations designed to protect civil liberties. (Read more from guardian.co.uk)

This week, the FBI released a “digitally-altered” image showing what Osama Bin Laden possibly looks like now that he’s older.

While the FBI claims to have used “cutting-edge” technology to create the image, a Spanish politician has noticed that the poster is a modified version of his campaign photo — he now finds his face in America’s most wanted list.

While on the surface it’s an amusing misstep by intelligence agencies, Gaspar Llamazares, the former leader of Spain’s United Left coalition, calls the move “shameless.” (Read more from mashable.com)

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.

. . . .

Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however. (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)

This story is interesting because of how different political ideologies interpret it. The socialists call ‘corruption’ and say we need stricter enforcement, righteous people working at the FDA, severe punishments, and in general, more government.

Libertarians like me agree that this is corruption, but point out that corruption is inevitable when government has a monopoly on approving foods. More liberty is the answer. Here are some suggestions:

· Make it legal for milk producers to label their milk rBGH-free, or artificial-hormone free, etc. The consumers will ultimately decide.

· Do NOT pass the “food safety” legislation for which Monsanto is so vigorously lobbying. All it will do is cut down on competition.

· Legalize competition with the FDA. Dozens of private food approval organizations will arise. For example the Organic Foods Consumer Association, would resume certifying food as organic. Food producers will strive to get approval of the most trusted ones. The consumer will ultimately decide.

The righteousness of government bureaucrats will fail us every time. Freedom works best.

This is getting to be old news, but I think it’s important. Inconsistencies often appear in the big sensational stories, especially the scary ones which justify our loss of liberty in the name of security.

[Kurt Haskell:] Today is the second worst day of my life after 12-25-09. Today is the day that I realized that my own country is lying to me and all of my fellow Americans. Let me explain.

Ever since I got off of Flight 253 I have been repeating what I saw in US Customs. Specifically, 1 hour after we left the plane, bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Up to this point, all of the passengers on Flight 253 stood in a small area in an evacuated luggage claim area of an airport terminal. During this time period, all of the passengers had their carry on bags with them. When the bomb sniffing dogs arrived, 1 dog found something in a carry on bag of a 30 ish Indian man. This is not the so called “Sharp Dressed” man. I will refer to this man as “The man in orange”. The man in orange, who stood some 20ft away from me the entire time until he was taken away, was immediately taken away to be searched and interrogated in a nearby room. At this time he was not handcuffed. When he emerged from the room, he was then handcuffed and taken away. At this time an FBI agent came up to the rest of the passengers and said the following (approximate quote) “You all are being moved to another area because this area is not safe. I am sure many of you saw what just happened (Referring to the man in orange) and are smart enough to read between the lines and figure it out.” We were then marched out of the baggage claim area and into a long hallway. This entire time period and until we left customs, no person that wasn’t a law enforcement personnel or a passenger on our flight was allowed anywhere on our floor of the terminal (or possibly the entire terminal) The FBI was so concerned during this time, that we were not allowed to use the bathroom unless we went alone with an FBI agent, we were not allowed to eat or drink, or text or call anyone. I have been repeating this same story over the last 5 days. The FBI has, since we landed, insisted that only one man was arrested for the airliner attack (contradicting my account). However, several of my fellow passengers have come over the past few days, backed up my claim, and put pressure on FBI/Customs to tell the truth. Early today, I heard from two different reporters that a federal agency (FBI or Customs) was now admitting that another man has been held (and will be held indefinitely) since our flight landed for “immigration reasons.” Notice that this man was “being held” and not “arrested”, which was a cute semantic ploy by the FBI to stretch the truth and not lie.

Just a question, could that mean that the man in orange had no passport?

However, a few hours later, Customs changed its story again. This time, Mr. Ron Smith of Customs, says the man that was detained “had been taken into custody, but today tells the news the person was a passenger on a different flight.”

. . . .

For the last five days I have been reporting my story of the so
called “sharp dressed man.” For those of you who haven’t read my
account, it involves a sharp dressed “Indian man” attempting to talk a ticket agent into letting a supposed “Sudanese refugee” (The terrorist) onto flight 253 without a passport. I have never had any idea how it played out except to note that the so called “Sudanese reefugee” later boarded my flight and attempted to blow it up and kill me. At no time did my story involve, or even find important whether the terrorist actually had a passport. The importance of my story was and always will be, the attempt with an accomplice (apparently succesful) of a terrorist with all sorts of prior terrorist warning signs to skirt the normal passport boarding procedures in Amsterdam. By the way, Amsterdam security did come out the other day and admit that the terrorist did not have to “Go through normal passport checking procedures”. (Read more from mlive.com)

Don’t tell Fox “News” about this. To them, the important thing about this story is the possibility of Iran’s involvement, and us remaining afraid.