Speaking to an audience of college students at Xavier University, Obama rolled through his standard teleprompter-zombie applause lines:

(“it’s great to be back here in [insert city name]. What a job you all have done recovering and rebuilding from [insert disaster reference here]. I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to ensure [repeat disaster reference here] never happens again. Remember, vote for me, because I give a damn.”)

Then the President, looking remarkably refreshed after his latest vacation — this time in Martha’s Vineyard, an ultra-exclusive enclave favored by liberal millionaires, began spouting talking points which strained credulity, to say the least.

Standing in the heart of a city which was nearly wiped off the map by a combination of decades-long Democrat incompetence and corruption, a dystopic liberal culture of dependence and one mighty impressive natural disaster, the fabulously wealthy President Obama… blamed everything on President Bush.

Again.

But blame is as American a pastime as baseball. Actually, given the multisyllabic surnames dominating most Major League rosters these days, blame is right up there with Mom and apple pie. But Obama is blaming the wrong guy.

With Hurricane Earl now becoming a force to be reckoned with, and the five-year anniversary of the Democrat-engineered Katrina disaster, I thought I’d take a moment to — as the kiddies say — drop a little knowledge on you.

According to Obama, Katrina was:

"a man-made catastrophe — a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men, women and children abandoned and alone.”

Last time I checked, hurricanes are almost never man-made, despite Al Gore’s assertions. As for governmental breakdowns, the actions of Mayor Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin, and Governor Kathleen “Crocodile Tears” Blanco in the face of Mother Nature’s oncoming wrath didn’t exactly reverberate with redoubtable statesmanship. Of course, the goodly people of New Orleans re-elected their Candyman, so some of the blame for their plight can be placed on them.

Actually, quite a bit of the blame for the plight of New Orleans can be set down right on Bourbon Street. Despite the insistence of multimillionaires like Spike Lee and Kanye West, the teeming mass of destitute humanity gathered at the Superdome wasn’t consigned to their plight because “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Nor did the levees near the 9th Ward give way because they were secretly destroyed by Federally-placed explosives (sorry, Mr. Farrakhan).

A massive hurricane formed in the Bahamas, made its way into the Gulf of Mexico and then headed for Mardi Gras-ville. Bush actually declared a Federal state of emergency two days before Katrina’s landfall. In fact, Bush ended up having to push Louisiana’s Democrat Governor Blanco to order mandatory evacuations less than 24 hours before Katrina’s arrival, with Nagin finally ordering mandatory citywide evacuation later that day.

Beyond that, the pictures tell a far more accurate story than the Democrat-controlled corporate media would ever allow. And I’m not just talking about flooded fleets of school buses. Nor am I referring to those scenic shots of fine Orleans-ians swimming through the flooded streets with filched flat screens (although had they purloined the plasmas earlier, they might have caught the GET OUT, THERE’S A GIGANTIC FREAKIN’ HURRICANE HEADED RIGHT FOR YOU warnings blaring from the boob tube for at least 72 hours before Katrina set up shop near Lake Pontchartrain).

I’m thinking of the thousands of NOLA residents swarming together at the Superdome and adjacent convention center. After decades of voting Democrats into office, they were helpless; willingly robbed of their ability to fend for themselves beyond basic self-preservation instincts. Nagin, Blanco and the massive, overarching bureaucracy created by virtually unfettered liberal authority — granted by the electorate — had abandoned them at the crucial moment and they were prostrated before God and CNN.

Five years later, and still, according to Obama: Bush did it.

Now I’m going to throw out a heavy concept for you port-siders: Let’s assume that Bush DID do it. Let’s say he engineered a hurricane, directed it to New Orleans, dynamited the levees, ensured Blanco and Nagin would both fumble the ball on the goal line, pulled the batteries out of the NOLA buses and flooded the city.

Perhaps this is not a man with whom you want to pick a fight.

In its quest, the community is supported by most New Yorkers, as a new Zogby International poll found that more than 68 percent believe State and Federal governments should honor Indian treaties that bar state taxation of their businesses.

"Once again the people of New York State have voiced their support of our rights as a sovereign nation," said Seneca Nation of Indians president Barry E. Snyder, Sr.

This is not the only outcry against New York state plans to ramp up taxes. For example, bagel sellers also expressed criticism over plans to enforce a sales tax for sliced or prepared bagels, according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

"Instead of thinking what can be done to encourage small business owners, they are wasting their time and taxpayer money, harassing job creators to fund the state budget," said Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst at The Cato Institute, quoted by CNN.

For 75 years the rule has been that in order for any class of workers (e.g., pilots) employed by an airline or railroad to unionize, a majority of all employees in that class have to vote for unionization. But the proposed new rule would require only that a majority of employees who actually vote on the question of unionization would be needed to unionize.

All Democrats love unions; Republican progressives love unions; and even many conservatives believe that a worker should be allowed to join a union voluntarily, so long as those who do not want to join the union are not forced to do so.

Which probably makes me a minority of one. Why? Because not only do I believe that workers do not have a right to unionize a company through tyranny of the majority, I don’t believe that any worker has a right to join a union without the consent of his employer.

It is a basic tenet of libertarian-centered conservatism that without property rights, no other rights are possible. Unfortunately, most people do not understand this fundamental concept. They view property only as inanimate matter, separate and apart from a person’s life. They cannot seem to make the connection between the two.

In actual fact, they are so connected that one is virtually an extension of the other. How can one separate a person’s life from his property? If you took everything that an individual owned, the fact is that he would not own his own life because whenever he attempted to create something for his personal gain, the fruits of his labor could again be confiscated.

The same is true of purchasing property. The money used to make a purchase presumably was earned through the purchaser’s efforts. That makes the money an extension of his life and, therefore, the same would be true of anything purchased with that money. No matter what the circumstances, when a person’s property rights are violated, his freedom is violated.

A libertarian-centered conservative (i.e., a true conservative) believes that no one has a right to any other person’s property, which includes both his body and everything he owns. Once this concept is understood it would be proper to say that, in reality, all crime is based on trespassing on the property of an owner.

When people make “humanitarian” statements about human rights being more important than property rights they are, in a sense, correct. That’s because human rights include property rights, as well as all other rights of man.

A man has the right to dispose of his life and his property in any way he chooses, without interference from others. By the same token, he has no right to dispose of any other person’s life or property, no matter what his personal rationalizations may be.

As explained in The Fundamentals of Liberty by Robert LeFevre, there are only three possible ways to view property:

1. Anyone may take anyone else’s property whenever he pleases.
2. Some people may take the property of other people whenever they please.
3. No one may ever take anyone else’s property without his permission.

It is self-evident to anyone who believes in individual liberty that the only morally valid way to view property is No. 3. Likewise, no one has a right to tell a property owner (property being land, buildings, a business or anything else that a person may own) what he can or cannot do with his property.

Take a business, for example. It belongs to the owner, whether he started the business himself or bought it from someone else. No one has a right to take any part of someone else’s business, nor do they have a right to tell him what he can and cannot do with his business.

If a business is a public company, it is the property of a large number of people (shareholders). Thus, size is irrelevant when it comes to property rights. When property rights are violated against a multinational corporation as opposed to a mom-and-pop business, it simply means that far more people become victims of government aggression. It is a moral absurdity to believe that bigness validates aggression.

Therefore, as a minority of one, I am compelled to say that regardless of the size of a business, the only way unionization is morally valid is if the owner of that business voluntarily agrees to it. Why? Because it’s his business! It’s his property! And it is his human right to set the rules for his own property!

In a truly free society, a worker has one inalienable, overpowering right with regard to his job: He can quit at any time. He is not a slave, so his employer cannot chain him to his work. If he wants to belong to a union he is free to search for employment with a company that allows workers to unionize.

The fact that many people reading this article will find my comments to be extreme speaks only to how far down the road toward socialism we have traveled. We no longer respect property rights, especially when the property is a business. Generations have been brainwashed into believing that abstract notions such as “the good of society” and “social justice” are more important than private ownership.

The proposed new ruling by the National Mediation Board opens a debate over the issue of whether 75 percent of the overall majority of workers in a given class should be required to unionize an airline or railroad, or just 75 percent of those who actually participate in voting on the question. But, in reality, the debate is nothing more than a distraction. The real debate should be over whether or not employees should be allowed to unionize at all without the consent of the owner.

This is precisely the kind of issue that has caused conservatives to lose their way over the years. Until politicians have the courage to confront an issue such as unionization head on and stop buying into debates about whether to move further to the left or stick to what has become the status-quo left, America will continue its acceleration toward total collapse — both morally and economically.

It will be interesting to see if anyone reading this article has a strong enough belief in the absolute sanctity of property rights to agree with what I’ve said here. That would be nice, because it would instantly elevate me to the status of being part of a minority of two.

–Robert Ringer

In Nullification: How To Resist Tyranny In The 21st Century, Thomas E. Woods Jr., explores the history of nullification in America. It’s a history that few students are taught in government schools, and one that even fewer mainstream historians are willing — or able — to discuss. In fact, Woods writes that at a scholarly debate he attended in 2003, only he and one other academic defended the Thomas Jefferson view of nullification (as espoused in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts and known as the Principles of ’98).

Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and received a master’s, a Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He’s a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, he edited Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877 (an 11-volume encyclopedia) and is the author of 10 books.

He says that the Founders meant for the States to be checks against Federal tyranny and the 10th Amendment was put into the Constitution to reinforce the rights of States to nullify unConstitutional laws.

A commonly-used argument against nullification is the idea that the Civil War “settled” the issue. Woods argues that the Civil War had nothing to do with nullification even though the Southern States seceded based on the (correct) compact theory of the union. That theory maintains that each individual State — not a single group of united people — joined together to form the Union. Each individual State, acting in its sovereign capacity, ratified the Constitution in the months and years following its drafting in 1878.

“The very fact that the states voted separately to ratify the Constitution, and that the Constitution was not ratified by a single, consolidated vote of all individuals in the original thirteen states, is an important piece of evidence to compact theorists that the states, rather than some single American people, created the federal Union,” Woods writes.

This is not the American history that most school children learn — nor the one that most law students study. What they are taught can be called the nationalist theory which conceives of the United States as deriving from a single sovereign people rather than from an agreement among States and the residents of each State.

Woods covers the discussions that took place and essays that were written during the States’ ratifying conventions — particularly those in Virginia — that prove they understood the States maintained the right to shield their people from encroachments by the Federal government.

The idea of nullification was invoked in the Principles of ’98 by Jefferson and James Madison, and in subsequent years by a number of States over a variety of issues. And it has continued to this day.

One recent example occurred in 2005 and 2006 when 24 States nullified the REAL ID Act of 2005. Opposition to the legislation came from both Republicans and Democrats — with one side opposing the unfunded mandates and the impact they would have on state finances and the other side opposing the privacy issues involved. Another example involves the medical use of marijuana, which is illegal under Federal law but allowed in 14 States.

And it’s through nullification that a number of States are resisting the institution of Obamacare’s mandates that everyone purchase health insurance.

Woods’ book comprehensively covers the history of nullification and lays out a plan whereby Americans can battle the ever-growing tyranny of the Federal government. It deals with all the arguments for and against the idea of nullification and is an excellent source for anyone wanting to learn how to stop the leviathan state.

I recommend Nullification: How To Resist Tyranny In The 21st Century to every patriot looking to resist Federal tyranny. It provides not only a good history lesson, but a legal lesson as well.

According to Paul, the last “decent audit” was done 50 years ago. In the early 1980s Paul tried to get an audit done when he was on the gold commission. Fifteen of the 17 members of the commission voted not to conduct an audit.

In recent months there have been a number of rumors about Ft. Knox, among them: that it no longer contains any real gold; That it contains only a small portion of what is claimed; and that many of the bars that are there are made of lead or some other material and only coated in gold.

“If there was no question about the gold being there, you think (the Federal Reserve) would be anxious to prove gold is there,” Paul said.

Paul has long been an advocate of sound money and has fought against the Federal Reserve. His efforts last year to get legislation passed to audit the Federal Reserve was ultimately watered down by Congress to the point of uselessness.

“I don’t think the Federal Reserve should exist — it would be best for Congress to exert their responsibilities and that is find out what they are doing,” Paul told Kitco News. “It is an ominous amount of power they have to create money out of thin air and being the reserve currency of the world and be able to finance runaway spending whether it is for welfare or warfare; it seems strange that we have been so complacent not to even look at the books. If we knew exactly what they were doing, who they were taking care of, there would be a growing momentum to reassess the whole system.”

The Federal Reserve has created bubbles and inflation and today’s dollar is worth about 2 cents compared to the 1913 dollar, Paul said.

Paul said he would like to see gold and silver legalized as currency to give people a choice of using the Government’s fiat currency or real money.

Of course, the Federal Reserve can print money to infinity which isn’t backed by anything. This makes wars possible and has led to the devaluation of the dollar and is “legal” theft of the individual by the government.

The Restoring Honor rally could prove to be a defining moment in Beck’s ongoing career and may have struck a chord with Americans who are more religious in nature.

During the rally Beck said that the country "for too long had wandered in the darkness" and that the potential answer would be that more Americans need to "turn back to God."

A piece by columnist Ross Douthat was featured in the Monday edition of The New York Times and remarked that the rally carried a more religious tone, and that Beck may be a much more powerful voice than some realized.

"To this rally-goer, though, the most striking thing about ‘Restoring Honor’ was the way the pageant effortlessly tapped into the same rich vein of identity politics that has given us figures as diverse as Palin and Howard Dean, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — but did so, somehow, without advancing any explicitly political agenda," wrote Douthat.

What better way to prove he is not a Muslim than for President Barack Obama to strike at the heart of the Middle East? And what better way to reflate the economy, unite the nation and secure America’s future energy needs? It’s a grand slam and the White House knows it.

Then again, Iran is making it easy for Obama to get his war. Tehran’s leaders appear to have graduated from the Adolf Hitler School of Diplomacy. The day after announcing the start-up of Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulled a cover away from an aircraft called the Karrar and announced it was Iran’s first long-range drone. Not so subtly the Iranians have coined it, “The Ambassador of Death”.

Furthermore says Ahmadinejad, “Enemies know well that Iran is an invincible fortress and I do not believe the U.S. masters of the Zionists will allow the regime to take any measures against Iran.”

Not so quick President Mahmoud. The last leader that questioned an American President’s will for war was the leader of your next door neighbor. That president, named Saddam, saw not one but two wars with the United States; one initiated by the father, the other by the son.

All this has left the United States and Israel hinting war with Iran. Washington and Jerusalem are disconcerted after the Islamic Republic has shown off all its weaponry; everything from new mini-submarines to a surface-to-surface missile. Tehran has even announced plans to launch high-altitude satellites over the next three years.

The Truth Behind The Exit From Iraq
In August the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said the U.S. has a plan in place to attack Iran, if it is necessary. Executing this plan no doubt calls for the U.S. to shuffle its overseas assets, including its standing army in Iraq. It is no coincidence that within a week of Mullen’s comments, Obama touted his planned withdrawal, saying: “As a candidate for President, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end… Shortly after taking office; I announced our new strategy… for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by Aug. 31, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing — as promised, on schedule.”

The Obama administration and mainstream media have celebrated the Iraq withdrawal announcement as if it were V-E Day.

The truth, says Stephen Lendman, OpEdNews: “Unmentioned was combat readiness remaining, paramilitary army additions replacing those leaving, shifting Iraq forces to Afghanistan, increasing hostilities against Pakistan, committing daily war crimes throughout the region, planning more conflicts ahead, continuing America’s permanent war agenda.”

More conflicts likely means Battlefield Iran. But Iran won’t be the pushover the way Iraq was with its low-tech static defense. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism advisor in the White House under three administrations, says that short of an all out nuclear strike the U.S. cannot win a war against Iran.

“After a long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favorably for the United States,” said Clarke, pointing out that the Pentagon’s planners have war-gamed an attack on Iran several times in the past 15 years, and simply can’t generate a non-nuclear scenario where the U.S. wins.

Unlike Iraq, Iran has much higher tech weaponry than Soviet Union throwaways like the 1960s designed T-72 tank. Also there are some 80 million people in Iran, the great majority of them religious zealots who would throw themselves in the face of a foreign invasion.

Iran is mountainous and vast; four times the size of Iraq. Furthermore, the Iranian army numbers 450,000 combat troops, only slightly smaller than the U.S. Army whose troops are scattered across the globe and must be on alert for other enemies.

According to Gwynne Dyer, a syndicated columnist and military historian, if the White House were to propose anything larger than minor military incursions along Iran’s south coast, senior American generals would resign in protest. “Without the option of a land war, the only lever the United States would have on Iranian policy is the threat of yet more bombs — but if they aren’t nuclear, then they aren’t very persuasive,” wrote Dyer in Straight.com.

Obama Hawks Set To Wade Into War
That’s not to say there aren’t some in America and even some in the Obama administration itself that are itching to go to strike Iran. Earlier this summer The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a collection of neoconservatives, hawks and neoliberal interventionists, began calling on the President to make war preparations against Iran. Two prominent BPC members, former Senator Chuck Robb and retired General Charles Wald, concluded in a July op-ed in The Washington Post that, “current trends suggest that Iran could achieve nuclear weapons capability before the end of this year.”

To meet this threat Robb and Wald advocate that the Obama administration begin an immediate military buildup for war. They suggest a plan that will include a “targeted strike on Tehran’s nuclear and supporting military facilities.”

The BPC has supporters within the Obama administration including Dennis Ross, currently Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region of the National Security Council and who was one of the “original task force members” of the BPC’s bomb-Iran planning group. Ross and other neoconservatives in the Obama administration are itching to bomb Iran for military and strategic reasons. But I suspect there are others in the administration that want war for purely political reasons.

First and foremost is the President’s loss of support going into the fall Congressional elections, including musings that the President may not have been born a U.S. citizen and may in fact be a Muslim. Just as LBJ believed waging war on Vietnam would stem Republican criticisms that he was a dove, so too, Obama might think that waging war against Iran will answer any questions about his leadership and loyalties.

There are also strategic arguments to going to war with Iran. Iran is the defacto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, having wrestled control from Saudi Arabia more than a decade ago. It carries the biggest stick on a patch of ground that contains two-thirds of the world’s conventional petroleum reserves. Iran’s control of the world’s oil supplies gives American strategic planners nightmares.

Countdown To War
Desperate times mean desperate measures. But make no mistake; this war could be much more devastating to the U.S. and the world than any war since World War II. There is the real potential that an isolated conflict will spread and perhaps engulf China and Russia.

Each passing week, as Obama slips in the polls and Tehran rattles its sabers, the prospects for war grow; a war that will no doubt drive up oil and gold prices. But also a war whose final outcome may be so devastating that few will enjoy the profits they reap.

Yours for real wealth and good health,

John Myers
Myers’ Energy and Gold Report

Earlier polls showed that although older people have always been skeptical about such a measure — which would require taxpayer funding — their younger counterparts may now increasingly share this sentiment.

Specifically, the average yearly amount adult Americans were willing to pay for universal healthcare fell from $201 in February 2010 to $123 this summer, according to LightSource Poll, conducted by KJT Group, a consulting and research company specializing in the healthcare marketplace.

Overall, it found that only about 32 percent of Americans are willing to pay any extra money each year to achieve universal healthcare coverage. Although there was no party affiliation difference in the average amount people were willing to pay, Republicans were less likely to want to contribute any amount at all.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed and signed into law last March, is expected to expand the ranks of insured Americans and prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions, when most of its provisions come into full effect in 2014.