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

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

I’m disinclined to hand a free pass to an Islamofascist regime with a pronounced tendency to make the psych ward at Bellevue look like bingo night at the senior center. I’m similarly disinclined to believe Pollyanna-ish assurances that we have nothing to be concerned about in the wake of a line of trucks pulling into the brand-spanking new nuclear plant at Bushehr, Iran on a recent Saturday afternoon.

Sure, they were delivering uranium fuel to the terrorist regime’s new nuclear facility — but what’s a little radioactivity between friends? Plus, The Associated Press says the Russians are keeping a watchful eye on things. I’m sure we’re perfectly safe now. The town drunk has promised to watch the town sociopath while we’re out shopping for a new economy. What could possibly go wrong?

But wait — the Russians are not the only ones playing Officer Krupke when it comes to Iran’s supposedly peaceful development of the world’s most dangerous filament fertilizer.

The United Nations gave the all-clear as well. In fact, they’re claiming that the Russian-oversight plan should ease concerns about just how enriched will be the enriched uranium now clasped in the Iranian paws.

In order to function as fuel for a power plant, uranium needs to reach the 3.5 percent enrichment level. Weapons-grade uranium must be jacked up to the 90 percent level. The Iranians are already working on enriching the good stuff to a 20 percent level (for medical research, honest!)

Fret not, my friends — the Russians are going to control the fuel supply. And there’s no chance the Iranians might sneak around the corner and dump a little extra octane into the mix, right?

Even the mighty French have chimed in. The French Foreign Ministry released a statement regarding the Iranian nuclear program, saying — again — there was no real cause for alarm. Terrific — the French said the same thing about Germany and the Anschluss.

If only the Iranians were as reassuring. Leave it to one-third of the Axis of Evil to remind us that they’re… one third of the Axis of Evil. While the Russians, French and U.N. all spoke in soothing tones, the note struck by Iran was decidedly less mellifluous.

Lest we think Ahmadinejad and the rest of the Islamic Clown Posse were just playing nuclear dress-up, they also broke the news that they have tested their air defense systems around Bushehr, and have determined them to be effectively operational.

Any time a spokesterrorist “strikes a defiant tone” — trouble isn’t just in the neighborhood, it’s doing doughnuts on the lawn and TP’ing the house.

According to Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi:

"Despite all pressure, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the startup of the largest symbol of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities,"

The same guys who can’t finish a sentence without shrieking about the fiery death of some Zionist-capitalist-imperialist-somebody are promising to play nice with their high-yield glow sticks.

“We have no intention of building nuclear weapons with this stuff we have that can be used to build nuclear weapons. We are a peaceful society, simply trying to…DEATH TO THE ZIONIST/AMERICAN INFIDELS…make it cheaper to turn on the lights.”

Let me get this straight: an Islamofascist regime is about to throw the switch on a heavily defended NUCLEAR facility, and the only assurances that they’re not going to start churning out atomic luggage for every Tom, Dick and Akbar with a saif to grind are coming from the guy who can’t get past the first step in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, the guy who still laughs at Jerry Lewis movies and the rejects from the carnival?

For you victims of teachers’ unions out there, Iran’s proclamations of peaceful nuclear intent are as transparent as a Lady Gaga Grammy Awards costume.

Iran sits on top of some of the most expansive oil reserves on the planet. Unconstrained by a Democrat Party bent on protecting foreign oil interests to the detriment of their own people, the Iranians can — to paraphrase Governor Sarah Palin: “Drill here and drill now.”

The AP, doing their best version of the liberal appeasement shuffle, excuses the Iranian desire for nuclear power despite being awash in enough black gold to make Jed Clampett magenta with envy by suggesting their refinery capabilities don’t match their raw material output.

Here’s a suggestion: instead of building nukes, have the Iranians considered building REFINERIES? It’s not like they have to worry about the Sierra Club showing up to demonstrate — the Sierra Club is busy pretending global warming is real. Besides, the Sierra Club is stupid, not crazy. Protesting against American oil companies earns you donations from Sean Penn. Protesting against Iranian anything earns you a bullet.

Three weeks ago, I penned “The Lapdogs Of War” for Personal Liberty Digest in which I suggested that the time had not yet arrived for war with Iran. Ham-fisted foreign policy, especially with regards to the evil-dwarf regime running the show in Tehran makes a concerted military effort dubious at best.

In a hypothetical conflict, the United States vs. Iran would be shorter than Ahmadinejad without the lifts in his shoes. Sadly, the fact that Obama has alternated between apologizing to murderous dictatorships for the American pursuit of freedom and cowering like a frightened 5-year-old in a thunderstorm every time one of these tin pots starts banging his cymbals together assures we would end up bogged down in the mother of all Mesopotamian quagmires.

However, while our current ruling elite may have brought back the idiotic foreign policy malaise of Jimmy Carter, who was such a sniveling knot head when it came to dealing with global hostilities that his biggest military engagement was a loss in the Battle of the Chattahoochee Bunny; there is an alternative: Israel.

Now, I know many of my fellow Bob Livingstonians consider allowing Israel off the leash to be anathema at best, but consider the alternatives. Our current ruling elite is less likely to lead a successful military effort than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is to turn down free Botox®. And given the green light on turning Bushehr into an even more inhospitable sandbox than it already is, Israel would light these guys up like a Menorah on… whatever day it is that a Menorah is fully lit.

When Saddam Hussein tried to enact his original nuclear ambitions, Israel hit the off switch at Osirak (built, perhaps tellingly, by the French) with a sledgehammer, killing the Iraqis’ chances at debuting the world’s first atomic arsenal in the hands of a complete lunatic (not counting Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Xiaoping.) Iran has already admitted plans to construct an additional dozen nuclear plants in mountain strongholds.

Iran has also repeatedly promised the complete destruction of Israel. Iran ALSO has missiles which put Tel Aviv well within range. Israel has no problem kicking hostile Islamofascist regimes in the teeth. Given their track record in that area, they’re pretty good at it.

A pre-emptive Israeli strike on Bushehr might lead to open warfare in the Middle East. A nuclear-armed Iran will, by its own admission, almost certainly lead to open warfare in the Middle East. The former might well involve American money. The latter might well involve American lives. Combining the possibility that Iranian aggression may well be backed by Russian and/or Chinese men and materiel with Obama’s weak-kneed tendencies, a nuclear-armed Iran could well spell Big Trouble in Little Tehran.

Iran has stepped up its schedule with surprising speed. In addition to the Bushehr reactor, they also used the weekend to debut a new Qiam-1 medium range missile and even capped off their Sunday with a ceremony to introduce the world to an unmanned bomber which Ahmadinejad dubbed their “ambassador of death.”

Given the Iranian regime’s rhetoric, when they can start trying to dictate the terms of the nuclear conversation, they will. I’d rather gamble with Israeli lives than our own. And with our current Commander-in-Chief more interested in engaging Arizona law enforcement than Islamofascist terrorism, the odds on the table are nowhere near worth our chips.

Perhaps most telling of all: I considered offering this piece to President Obama for comment, but he was on vacation… again.

Writs of assistance were very vague search warrants and it was a simple procedure to obtain them. They could be had for any reason or no reason from the Colonial governor or from judges — all of whom held their positions at the whim of the King of England.

In 1761 James Otis Jr., the Advocate General of Massachusetts — whose job it was to defend the issuance of the writs in court — resigned his position and took the side of 63 Boston merchants in a court battle against the writs. He represented the merchants for free, and though he lost the case in a court stacked against him, he earned the title of patriot.

It was his five-hour speech in court that served “as the spark in which originated the American Revolution,” according to John Adams, who was sitting in the courtroom at the time.

“The child of independence was then and there born, every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance,” Adams said.

The issue was such an important one to the Colonists that it was mentioned as one of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence: “He (the king)… sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

Since it was so important an issue to the Founding Fathers it’s not surprising that an Amendment was included in the Constitution that forbids the government from arbitrarily searching people, homes and businesses.

It was the Colonists’ experience with unreasonable searches and seizures and Otis’ speech that planted the seeds that grew into the 4th Amendment which reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in the persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The 4th Amendment has been under assault before in our nation’s history. And that has been chronicled in other articles on this site. But now that right, guaranteed by our Constitution, is as dead as a hammer.

The most recent major assault on the 4th Amendment came in the wake of 9/11 when President George W. Bush proposed and Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act, which was most unpatriotic.

In the Senate the act passed 98 to one. Democrat Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was the lone dissenter. Democrat Mary Landrieu (D-La.) did not vote.

In the House it passed 357-66 with nine not voting. Sixty-five of the dissenters were Democrats. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was the lone Republican to oppose the bill.

Without getting into specifics, the bill gives government investigators almost unlimited power to conduct wire taps, eavesdrop, access and search records and enter homes in an effort to root out those it considers terrorists. The bill was couched in a way that led Americans to believe it was to be used only in the war on terror but, like all other government powers, it has been abused and used against Americans. In fact, some Americans have been charged with terrorism-related offenses through the Act even though their “crimes” involved nothing more than making innocuous threats, taking or possessing photographs or drawing pictures.

The travesty is that Americans, for the most part, seemingly don’t care. They’ve decided that government should be allowed to do anything and everything “if it makes us safer.” In fact, many commenters on this subject on this site have said as much. So the heavy hand of government has grown bigger and stronger — as government is wont to do — and the USA PATRIOT Act has been renewed and strengthened.

In the name of safety we have ceded our right not to be searched at airports… almost without a whimper. First we accepted removing our shoes and opening our bags. Then we gave up our lotions, sanitizers and water bottles. Then we accepted being frisked and poked and prodded. Then we accepted having our bodies irradiated and naked pictures being taken and ogled at and saved in the system — in effect allowing government to assume we are all criminals with plans to blow up an airplane — all in the interest of “safety.”

But here’s what really killed the 4th Amendment. Technology and government have taken the next logical step beyond airport scanners. American Science and Engineering, Inc., one of the manufacturers of the backscatter radiation machines now being employed at airports, has made the backscatter radiation system portable.

The Z Backscatter Van™ allows law enforcement to look inside vehicles, buildings and homes just like the airport backscatter scanners allow agents from the Transportation and Security Administration to peer beneath your clothes.

AS&E’s website says the van:

“…is a low-cost, extremely maneuverable screening system built into a commercially available delivery van. The ZBV allows for immediate deployment in response to security threats, and its high throughput capability facilitates rapid inspections. The system’s unique "drive-by" capability allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past.

“The ZBV can also be operated in stationary mode by parking the system and producing X-ray images of vehicles as they pass by. Screening can also be accomplished remotely while the system is parked. Remote operation allows scanning to be done safely, even in dangerous environments, while maintaining low-profile operation. The system is unobtrusive, as it maintains the outward appearance of an ordinary van.”

A company video of the van in action can be viewed here.

These vans and a more powerful, fire truck-sized version called the Mobile Search HE (high energy), are now on the roads in America. AS&E sold $242,093,000 of its backscatter imaging products in fiscal year 2010 with 63 percent of the sales in the United States, according to the company’s annual report. The company says 500 of the ZBVs have been sold.

The company’s main contractor — not surprisingly — was the Department of Defense, where the trucks were deployed in war zones. But the vans and trucks have been sold to other government entities — including states and municipalities — as well.

That means that, right now, ZBVs and Mobile Search HEs are prowling around our streets and towns looking into our cars, homes and businesses searching for something — anything — the heavy hand of government finds “suspicious.”

No longer are you secure in your “persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Government agents can peer into your car, home and business and you will never know it until they show up on your doorstep flashing a warrant based on something they saw through the walls.

And not only are you no longer secure in your home, your thoughts — or future thoughts — are being probed as well. A University of Pennsylvania professor has developed software that the developer says can predict which individuals on probation or parole are most likely to murder or be murdered.

According to ABC News, if the software proves successful it could influence sentencing recommendations and bail amounts. It is being used in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

And, of course, we already have “hate crime” laws in which judges and prosecutors deign to know the thoughts and motives behind criminal acts — giving the impression that a heinous crime is somehow even more heinous because the person harbors some type of grudge or bias.

Folks, we have reached the totalitarian regime foreshadowed in George Orwell’s 1984, where all that we do is watched and where even our thoughts have become crimes.

“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” — 1984, George Orwell.

No longer a thing of fiction, government has truly become Big Brother. What Orwell didn’t know is that the technology would advance to let Big Brother watch us even in darkness.

Our nation has become the Oceania of 1984, where history is changed daily, our actions are watched, our thoughts are discerned, our communities are decaying and we are in a perpetual state of war.

Buying Big Brother’s vow to keep us safe we have kicked the Constitution to the curb and if the Founders — who sacrificed so much for liberty — were alive today they would surely weep at our foolishness.

Yesterday I realized something I said in that piece wasn’t quite accurate. No, no, don’t get ahead of me. I’m not about to retract anything I said about any of my favorite columns or columnists. But in reading the last item on my recommended list I realized I wasn’t entirely fair in my description.

I said that Daily Wealth gives more genuinely valuable contrarian investment advice than any other website I know of. And they do it for free (if you don’t count all the ads you’ll receive) six times a week.

That’s still true. But what I should have added is that every once in a while you’ll get some political commentary that is so right-on-the-mark you’ll wish you had said it first. At least that’s how I felt last week, when I read “This Is Why There Are No Jobs in America” by my good friend Porter Stansberry.

I liked it so much that I got the publisher’s permission to share it with you today. Read it and see if you don’t agree. If you do, then check out www.dailywealth.com on your own. I think you’ll enjoy what you find. Now, here’s the piece that impressed me so much:

I’d like to make you a business offer…

Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can’t turn me down, as you’ll come to understand in a moment.

Here’s the deal. You’re going to start a business or expand the one you’ve got now. It doesn’t really matter what you do or what you’re going to do. I’ll partner with you no matter what business you’re in — as long as it’s legal.

But I can’t give you any capital — you have to come up with that on your own. I won’t give you any labor — that’s definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you’re allowed to operate your business. That’s my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

Now in return for my rules, I’m going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business each year. Half seems fair, doesn’t it? I think so. Of course, that’s half of your profits.

You’re also going to have to pay me about 12 percent of whatever you decide to pay your employees, because you’ve got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you’re my partner. It’s only "fair."

Now… after you’ve put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business, and after you’ve worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50 percent or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you’d like to cash out — to finally live the good life.

Whether or not this is "fair" — some people never can afford to retire — is a different argument. As your partner, I’m happy for you to sell whenever you’d like… because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20 percent of whatever the capitalized value of the business is at that time.

I know… I know… you put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That’s all true. But I’ve done my part, too. I’ve collected 50 percent of the profits each year. And I’ve always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20 percent slice of the business.

Oh… and one more thing…

Even after you’ve sold the business and paid all of my fees, I’d recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you’ve been retired for years, when you die, you’ll have to pay me 50 percent of whatever your estate is worth.

After all, I’ve got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don’t think it’s “fair” for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children.

All in all, if you’re a very successful entrepreneur … if you’re one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public … you’ll end up paying me more than 75 percent of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

I’m sure you’ll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me … but it doesn’t really matter how you feel about it, because if you ever try to stiff me — or cheat me on any of my fees or rules — I’ll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy, automatic weapons, and throw you in jail.

That’s how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is America, isn’t it?

That’s the offer America gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington wonder why there are no new jobs.

And your editor returns. Well, that was something, wasn’t it? If any of you disagree with Porter’s arguments, I know you’ll be happy to tell me so below. I’ll be interested to see how some of my fervid critics (and I’m glad there are some of you out there, I really am) respond to his arguments.

In conclusion, let me mention two things. One, I saw an item in the news a few days ago that said Americans are fleeing the stock market in droves. In the first six months of this year, more than $33 billion was pulled out of stock mutual funds. That is, investors pulled $33 billion more dollars out of the market than they put in. That is a heck of a vote of “no confidence” in the Obama Administration’s efforts to fix our economy.

The second thing is that I promised the folks at Stansberry & Associates I’d give Porter’s monthly newsletter a plug, in return for them letting me reprint his rant. So here it is: To read more from Porter, sign up for his outstanding Investment Advisory. His latest issue — which covers the coming crisis brought on by the United States government — details exactly what he sees ahead and how to profit (and protect yourself). For details on how to gain immediate access to his report, click here.

If you think I ended this week on a downer I’m sorry, but next week will be worse. The working title of that column is “The Conspiracy that Is the Federal Reserve.” Stay tuned.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

— Chip Wood

Just what is this nutrient? It’s ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) and according to more than 1,000 published scientific studies, this amino acid has the ability to grab hold of heavy metals lurking in your bloodstream and safely carry them out of your body.

Intravenous EDTA will enter your body immediately, but these treatments can often be costly and painful. Oral chelation means the EDTA is delivered steadily in a pill form and in the convenience of your own home. Studies show that oral EDTA is 5 percent to 18 percent more absorbable in an oral dose.

EDTA helps eliminate the plaque that can cause a fatal heart or brain disaster, and it helps flush toxins and chemicals from your system, too. Since your body recognizes EDTA as a foreign substance, it is quickly eliminated from your body — carrying with it all the heavy metals and plaque deposits.

EDTA can help remove toxins and chemicals associated with leaded house paint… lead-arsenate pesticides… motor vehicle exhaust… car batteries… mascara… painted children’s toys… canned food and juices… newsprint… hair dyes… and thousands of other everyday items.

Indeed, EDTA chelation is very controversial — especially when discussed as an alternative to expensive heart surgery. The truth is, most doctors are inexperienced when it comes to chelation and don’t understand how it really works.

Like nearly every other area of medicine, you will find articles “for” and “against” chelation. It is interesting how medicine is presented to the public — through the eyes and interests of the controlling parties who stand to profit the most.

Keep in mind, doctors and surgeons who continue to gain huge profits by performing angiograms… placing stents… performing balloon angioplasties… and cracking the heart open… do not want to read glowing reviews about this therapy. And, heart drug-related pharmaceutical companies would love to see chelation proven ineffective — to keep their competition down.

However, clinical and scientific studies show that the nutrient EDTA is effective at helping eliminate plaque from the arteries.

Here’s how it works: EDTA binds to the calcium deposits stuck to your vessel walls and carries them to the kidneys. Then those plaque deposits are safely dumped out of your body with the urine. This process opens up your small vessels and blood can flow freely throughout your body.

What’s more, by increasing the circulation of your life-giving blood, EDTA can help:

• Promote healthy blood pressure
• Reduce chest pain
• Reduce swelling in your legs and ankles
• Maintain good HDL cholesterol levels
• Promote healthy kidney function
• And more.

Linus Pauling, Ph.D., two-time Nobel Prize-winning scientist states, “Published research and extensive clinical experience showed that EDTA helps reduce and prevent arteriosclerotic plaques, thus improving blood flow to the heart and other organs. The scientific evidence indicates that a course of EDTA chelation might eliminate the need for bypass surgery.”

The evidence speaks for itself — the benefits of chelation are remarkable. In fact, if you suffer from age-related memory loss… poor vision… constant colds and flu… cold hands and feet… and more… then EDTA chelation can help reduce those symptoms, too.

— Layne Lowery

It turns out that the causes of depression are many and varied and include independent thought as well as accessing information from outside the mainstream. Fortunately I have found that watching network news, especially news from CNN, one to two hours a day can do wonders to clear up depression.

You see CNN is like a soothing ointment for a troubled soul. It’s the network that provides promises of a better tomorrow while proclaiming that things could be far worse. Once you see video from places like Haiti and Pakistan you understand that it is those countries that have something to be depressed about.

How CNN Helped Cure My Depression
But CNN does more than just show how bad things are elsewhere. It also tells us how much better things are becoming here.

Take the oil spill for example. Earlier this summer I was depressed over the fact that BP had leaked some 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. There were a lot of dire predictions for the environment and for the economy in the region. But just a few weeks ago White House energy adviser Carol Browner went on CNN to say that a new assessment found that about 75 percent of the oil has been captured, burned off, evaporated or broken down in the Gulf. Voila; problem solved. Thanks CNN!

And that’s not all. This month CNN broadcast a photograph of a smiling President Barack Obama and his daughter Sasha taking a dip in the Gulf waters off Alligator Point in Panama City Beach, Fla. CNN admits it wasn’t present for the swim, but says the photo conveys the message that the White House wants to send: The Gulf Coast is repaired and open for business.

I had to force from my mind the image of the movie Jaws when Mayor Larry Vaughn orders his assistant into the water to impress upon the town folks just how safe things are. Fortunately I was able to eradicate these negative thoughts.

Mission Accomplished… Again!
Watching CNN can make you feel better about a great many things. For example the war in Iraq has caused me a lot of anxiety over the past eight years. When I was writing Outstanding Investments I got in a lot of hot water with my readers and one of my editors for opposing that war and calling it unwinnable. It turns out that I was wrong: Twice in fact.

The first time was in May 2003 when CNN and the other networks carried President George W. Bush’s victory speech from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Above the President was a giant banner titled, “Mission Accomplished.”

The second time was just this month when Obama gave a television address declaring victory in Iraq and announced that troops there will begin to withdraw next year. According to CNN, “The military is continuing its drawdown ahead of Obama’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending all combat operations and keeping a residual force of 50,000 with a mission limited to stability operations and advising and assisting Iraqi security forces.” (Emphasis added)

And the “world’s leader in news” had more good news, reporting that Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh had said while the Iraqi Army might not be fully ready to handle security by the end of 2011, that does not mean the alternative means keeping U.S. troops longer. Neither al-Dabbagh nor CNN said what that alternative is so I can only conclude that my parents were wrong; you can have your cake and eat it too.

Blue Skies Ahead
With my fears about the Gulf Coast and Iraq having been eased I have only a few other concerns, such as the direction of the economy and global warming.

But here again CNN helped. They were on hand last week when Obama touted his administration’s clean energy initiatives, saying tax credits and loans would help create 800,000 jobs by 2012.

CNN showed the President after he toured the ZBB Energy Corporation plant in Menomonee Falls, Wis. It was CNN carrying Obama’s speech telling workers that their jobs manufacturing renewable batteries and power systems were part of a necessary transition of the U.S. economy.

“We can’t turn back. We’ve got to keep going forward,” Obama said to resounding applause caught on CNN microphones. Then we got to hear more from the President: “You’re pointing us in the right direction. And I am confident about our future because of what I have seen at this plant.”

The company is using a $1.3 million Recovery Act State Energy Program loan to help fund a $4.5 million factory renovation. Obama said the renovation is expected to result in the hiring of 80 new workers and triple the capacity of the manufacturer’s renewable power and storage systems.

CNN delivered Obama’s message that the American workers are resilient enough to emerge stronger than ever from a decade-long manufacturing decline and an economic recession. Not only that, we are going to get a cleaner, greener world to boot.

Now I know CNN may be hard medicine for some of you to swallow. Furthermore I don’t want you to just take my word that CNN will not only make you feel better. The Aug. 10 editorial page of The Boston Globe told CNN’s critics to “back off” and called the network, “the best hope for a revival of traditional news values on cable.”

The Globe also said that Fox News and MSNBC can’t be trusted because of their partisan leanings:

“CNN’s rivals, Fox and MSNBC, have chosen to preach to the converted, fueling a culture of outrage and denunciation. Their effects on American political dialogue have been widely noted, and widely condemned.”

The Globe even gave the thumbs-up to Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker, who are replacing Campbell Brown’s evening news program, pointing out that the two would make a very good pair: “Another Crossfire this won’t be: Spitzer and Parker will probably be unpredictable and sometimes contrarian.”

One can only hope that on this last point The Globe is wrong. For if CNN becomes unpredictable and heaven forbid, contrarian, it will no longer assuage my fears and worries. Things are so bad I would hate to start having to deal with the truth.

Before I sign off I need to leave you with a warning. If you do decide to begin a daily regimen of CNN you will have to closely monitor your level of viewing. For example, people who watch more than an hour a day of Anderson Cooper 360 can experience sudden mood changes, the most common of which is feelings of self-righteousness.

And never exceed more than three hours viewing in a 24-hour time period as this can lead to psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia, in which the logic center in your brain tells you that things are a mess but the cerebral cortex insists that things are not only fine but getting better all the time.

Yours for real wealth and good health,

John Myers
Myers’ Energy and Gold Report

The answer may well be found within the mind itself and the hold it has over, not only our thoughts and emotions, but the quality of our physical bodies. When the mind (psycho) and the body (soma) come together in adverse ways to manifest pain, inflammation, rashes and muscle spasms, it is called psychosomatic illness.

In decades past the term psychosomatic was primarily used by psychologists to identify pain or illness that were “all in the mind” and “not real.” This outlook is dated and false. Yes, the seed of the physical condition is in the thoughts and emotions of the person affected by them. But these symptoms are not “imaginary.” They exist in very real forms — like rashes, swelling, spasms and trigger points. In other words… pain.

If you suffer some pain — most notably low back, shoulder, neck and headaches — and have tried everything, please, keep reading. If you have exhausted mainstream medicine, physical therapy, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture and surgery — yet the pain persists — I would like to suggest you consider the possibility of the mind and emotions playing a key role in your chronic condition.

Indeed, if the physical body has been treated in every safe way imaginable but to no avail, perhaps looking at your thoughts and emotions — a psychosomatic cause — may well be the next logical step for you. Below we look at three of the safest, easiest and most powerful mind/body systems for eradicating chronic pain and associated symptoms.

Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS)
In the field of mainstream medicine there is one shining hero of the chronic pain sufferer. His name is John Sarno, M.D., and he spent decades specializing in pain; specifically back pain, using both mainstream and alternative therapies in his very busy New York practice. Today Sarno treats pain with only education and therapy — and he does so successfully.

He dumped the massage, the weights, the physical therapy and the drugs. He found that misaligned vertebrae, slipped or bulging discs, pinched nerves and so on are not necessarily the cause of pain. He found that most people actually have these issues, yet are not in pain. His research led directly to the mind and to the mental and emotional components of pain.

Sarno calls pain conditions with a psychosomatic cause Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS). Sarno says that “in most cases what is causing the pain is not a structural problem, but a mild oxygen deprivation that causes pain in the affected muscle.”

TMS affects not just the upper back or lower back, but also the neck, the knees or even the feet. For instance, oxygen deprivation in the sciatic nerve is what Sarno believes causes numbness, tingling, pain and weakness in the leg; this is in contrast to the traditional understanding of sciatica which is assumed to be due to a structural cause, such as a herniated disc.

According to Sarno, oxygen deprivation is a side effect of how people cope with some emotional issues. Indeed, our dysfunctional responses to stress cause self-induced tightness, spasms in the muscles and poor breathing which results in a lack of oxygen being carried through cells into muscles. Repressed anger, resentment and even love can cause this syndrome. Then when we feel pain, we worry about it, stress over it… which spins us into an even-worse spiral of oxygen deprivation and tension in the muscles (tension myositis).

Sarno’s method for relieving pain is to educate people on how to release their repressed emotions and then release the chronic pain. Sarno has written several books and has a website full of free information. You can check it out here.

The Sedona Method
Pioneered by Lester Levenson, The Sedona Method® is a powerful yet easy-to-learn technique that teaches you how to “let go” of unwanted emotions in an instant. It is these emotions that cause ill-health, pain and suffering. In essence, The Sedona Method® consists of a series of questions you ask yourself that lead your awareness to what you are feeling in the moment and gently guide you into the experience of letting go.

This method is easy to do because there are only a few steps necessary to accomplish the release of new or decades-old pent-up negative emotions. With so many successes, this again points to the vital role that the mind and emotions play in the pain and ill effects we suffer in our bodies — those psychosomatic illnesses.

The effectiveness of The Sedona Method® has been validated by respected scientific researchers at major universities and the MONY Corporation. In fact, if you’re not feeling happy, confident and relaxed at least 90 percent of the time, chances are your ailments are the manifestation of these less-than-great emotions.

Sedona literature puts it this way:

“It is our limiting emotions that prevent us from creating and maintaining the lives that we choose. We abdicate our decision-making ability to them. We even imagine that our emotions can dictate to us who we are supposed to be. This is made apparent in our use of language. Have you ever said to someone, ‘I am angry,’ or, ‘I am sad?’ When we speak like this, we are saying to those around us and to ourselves, without realizing it, that we are our anger, or we are our grief. We relate to others and ourselves as though we are our feelings. In fact, we even invent whole stories of why we feel the way we feel in order to justify or explain this misperception of our identity.”

If you’ve tried other mental techniques such as therapy and meditation you know that it is difficult to create a change. But The Sedona Method’s® “releasing” operates on the “feeling” level, so it’s easy. It teaches you to “let go” of years of mental programs and accumulated feelings in just seconds.

There is a great book on this method available at book stores, and plenty of websites are dedicated to the method. Please, take a look and see how easy a great life can be.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Based on a method known as Thought Field Therapy and also on acupuncture theory, its methods relieve pain and illness by addressing the connection between your body’s subtle energies, your emotions and your health.

This therapeutic method is similar to TMS but goes deeper in its explanation of what causes the emotional imbalances. Advocates of the Emotional Freedom Technique believe that it is disturbances in your energy field that are actually causing the negative emotions which then cause your ill-health symptoms

Essentially, EFT teaches methods of looking in specific directions, touching and pressing your face and arms in certain places to open the energy channels and rebalance what is out of balance. This then allows your body to return to normal functioning and for your signs and symptoms to disappear.

It appears that anyone can learn and use EFT by taking a course, reading a book or going through the tutorials on the websites. Experience EFT’s results for yourself. After you read the free basic instructions you can perform your first “rounds” of personal tapping in only a few minutes. It sounds simple and effective, and it is.

I know that you are suffering. I, too, suffered chronic pain for nearly 30 years. And I can honestly tell you that the role of the mind — the emotions — is central to perpetuating and holding that pain in the body. If you have not tried them before, or have tried and failed at them, I urge you to take a fresh look at the healing methods based on psychosomatic causes of pain and illness. You just may find the release and relief you have been looking for.

— Dr. Mark Wiley

In fact, a recent poll by CNN — a news organization that has been downright gushing in its praise of Barack Obama — showed that six out of 10 people are uncertain the President was even born in the U.S. And that includes about one-third of all Democrats.

It’s troubling that so many question Obama’s eligibility to hold the office of President but that so few of the elected class and those of national prominence will even broach the issue. It demonstrates what a superb job Obama’s team and the Democrat party have done in casting those who question his status as a natural born citizen as the lunatic fringe.

In fact, if you are a “birther” — a term coined by the mainstream press to disparage those who doubt Obama’s eligibility to hold office based on his citizenship — even so-called conservative icons like Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck consider you a nut.

All this proves is that the elitists who shape messages are a clique interested not in seeing that the U.S. Constitution is upheld, but in maintaining their power and protecting their own. This was demonstrated once before, when the House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton for lying to a grand jury, but the Senate voted 100-0 not to remove him.

When was the last time the Senate was unanimous on anything? Democrats and Republicans never agree unanimously. The fix was in from the beginning.

So, too, is the issue of Obama’s citizenship and eligibility. The fix is in, even though the evidence that he is not a natural-born citizen, and therefore ineligible to hold the office, far exceeds evidence that he is.

The Republican governor in Hawaii says a birth certificate exists but she has sealed access to it, thereby eliminating one avenue of determining whether he was born in Hawaii, as he says, or in Kenya, as Michelle Obama, several of Obama’s Kenyan relatives (his paternal grandmother, half sister and half brother) and a couple of Kenyan officials have said. And for you Obama sycophants, don’t even bring up the certificate of live birth (COLB) posted online as proof. The COLB was available to anyone. It is not a legal document, does not list the attending physician, does not include his fingerprints or footprints, could not have been used to obtain his passport and is only a diversion to a weak-minded press and public.

Earlier this year a senior Honolulu elections clerk went on local television and said that it was common knowledge among election officials that no official birth certificate — he called it the long-form birth record — exits in Hawaii, despite what Governor Linda Lingle has said.

The whole situation remains a muddle, just as Obama and his handlers want it. Documents disappear. Other documents crop up — some that cast more doubt on his story and some that seem at first glance to support his claims but simply serve to send the discussion on a tangent. And Obama fights disclosure at every turn, sending agents from the U.S. Justice Department out to block all efforts at obtaining his records.

Thankfully, one news organization is doggedly pursuing the story. Joseph Farah and his reporters at WorldNetDaily (WND) hammer on the Obama eligibility story relentlessly, slowly chipping away at the facade. Some other conservative, fearless publications and websites are also digging for the truth and opining on the eligibility question.

Yet despite a total blackout from the main stream media on the subject of Obama’s citizenship, 60 percent of the American public still doubt Obama’s story that he was born in Hawaii. As Farah says, that means the birthers are winning.

There are some things we do know — or can surmise — about Obama, thanks to WND, some other publications and Obama’s own book, Dreams From My Father.

The man who would ascend to the Presidency in 2009 was born to Ann Dunham on Aug. 4, 1961. The father is purported to be Barack Hussein Obama, a Kenyan student in Hawaii who married Dunham on Feb. 2, 1961.

Some have speculated that Barack Obama II’s (this is how Obama’s name is listed on the COLB) biological father was actually Frank Marshall Davis, a black friend of Ann Dunham’s parents and the man the young Obama would later claim in his autobiography was his mentor. The speculation about Davis — a radical communist — as possibly Obama’s biological father stems from a book Davis wrote under a pseudonym in which he describes having sex with an under aged white girl. The idea is plausible, as Davis was a good friend of Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, Ann Dunham’s parents.

The irony is that this is one nativity story that would cement Obama’s claim to be a natural-born citizen. If Obama Sr., a Kenyan citizen, is Obama’s father, Obama is not a Constitutionally described natural-born citizen because one parent is a non-citizen and the other was a minor and therefore unable to bestow citizenship on the child — if Obama was born in Kenya, as many believe.

As lawsuits have claimed, there is no evidence — beyond the afore-mentioned COLB — that Obama was born in Hawaii. Both Obama and a half sister have named two different Hawaii hospitals as his birth place, no records exist that Dunham was hospitalized in Hawaii and no physician or nurse has stepped forward to claim they assisted with the birth.

Obama’s supporters have pointed out that newspaper articles published in August 1961 in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin prove Obama was born in Hawaii. The address listed was the address of Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, Ann Dunham’s parents. WND has reported that official documents show Obama Sr., had a residence at another address at the same time. And neighbors of the Dunhams told WND they don’t recall a white woman with a black baby ever living next door. College transcripts indicate Dunham moved with her new baby to Seattle within days of Obama’s birth and enrolled in the University of Washington for classes that began on Aug. 19, 1961.

These birth announcements prove only that someone submitted information to two newspapers to herald the birth of a baby. They document the timeframe of the birth, not the location. The baby could have been born on Mars and these announcements could have still run in the newspapers.

Another problem Obama faces is found in his mother’s trip to Indonesia with her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, in the late 1960s. WND has reported that several lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility hinge on this time in Indonesia, which does not allow dual citizenship. Documents released by the U.S. State Department under two Freedom of Information Act requests indicate he may have given up his citizenship when he moved there.

Those documents show that Obama’s mother sought to have “Barack Obama II (Seobarkah)” removed from her passport, possibly as a prelude to obtaining Indonesian citizenship for him. If she did this it was more than likely for the child’s safety, as it was a turbulent time in Indonesia and there was a strong anti-American sentiment there.

While in Indonesia Obama was enrolled in school under the name of Barry Soetoro, as proven by school records photographed by an Associated Press photographer in 2007. Those school records list Soetoro as an Indonesian citizen, born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961, and records his religion as Muslim.

According to WND, Obama was either 5 or 6 years old when he traveled to Indonesia. This is important because if Lolo Soetoro adopted him at age 5 then he would have automatically become an Indonesian citizen. The law differed for children aged 6 and up and an adoption for a 6-year-old would have had to take place through legal channels.

Another puzzle uncovered by WND revolves around a photograph of Obama — or Soetoro, whoever he is — with another child at a school in Hawaii at the same time he was enrolled in school in Indonesia. The photo is marked has having been taken in 1969, and there is no good explanation as to how he was attending school in two different places at the same time.

The Obama camp has also refused to explain why Obama/Soetoro is using a Social Security number issued in Connecticut. WND has reported that two private investigators discovered the Social Security number anomaly and filed documents in an eligibility lawsuit showing the number was issued in Connecticut between 1977 and 1979, yet Obama’s/Soetoro’s earliest reported employment was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop in Hawaii in 1975.

The Social Security website confirms that the first three numbers of Obama’s/Soetoro’s Social Security number are reserved for applicants with Connecticut addresses. That Social Security number corresponds with Obama’s/Soetoro’s Selective Service registration, according to WND.

Finally, questions surround a trip Obama/Soetoro has admitted he took to Pakistan in 1981, WND reports.

“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college — I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Obama/Soetoro reportedly stated at a fundraising event.

Pakistan in 1981 was under military rule. It was difficult for U.S. citizens to travel to the country without assistance. It would have been easier for someone to enter Pakistan on an Indonesian passport, WND reports.

Obama/Soetoro could easily clear up the confusion by releasing his birth records, his school records, college records and other official documents. Instead, he is spending millions of dollars to fight all attempts to obtain documents that most public officials release by habit. That begs the question: What is he hiding?

Some brave souls are fighting the good fight in trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious background of the 44th President. Some military people are putting their careers on the line in an attempt to get proof that any orders Obama/Soetoro issues are legitimate.

However, the court system seems hell-bent on covering up any efforts at discovery. It consistently throws out lawsuits on standing and is frequently hostile to plaintiffs. Several judges have threatened lawyers and plaintiffs with stiff fines if they continue to pursue the matter.

Meanwhile, the only logical conclusion is that Obama/Soetoro is not Constitutionally eligible to hold the office of President. Any other view is only based on hope — Obama’s/Soetoro’s favorite theme.

A Constitutional crisis is in the offing and when the truth finally gets out about Obama’s/Soetoro’s citizenship, the legitimacy of orders signed by an illegitimate President will be called into question. Expect mass chaos to ensue.

That very well could be the culmination of the whole plan by Obama/Soetoro and those pulling his strings.

That was back in the days before Personal Liberty Alerts started sending my musings to more than 500,000 people every week. No, in the fall of 2007 I had just 1,000 or 2,000 readers, most of them were probably named Wood.

So the column below didn’t reach very many people. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to run it again. Because the message it contains is quite literally a matter of life and death for every one of us. See if you don’t agree. Here it is.

Like me, you were no doubt sickened by the news from Newark, New Jersey that three young college students, Terrance Aeriel, Dashon Harvey and Iofemi Hightower, were ruthlessly murdered at a school playground. Each was forced to kneel on the ground and then shot, execution-style, with a bullet to the brain.

What you may not have heard is that the person accused of the crime, a 28-year-old thug named Jose Lachira Carranza, was in this country illegally — and the authorities knew it. His alleged colleague in this heinous crime is also an illegal alien.

Moreover, this was not Carranza’s first or only vicious assault. He had been arrested just one month earlier and charged with repeatedly raping a 5-year-old girl and threatening to kill her family if anyone called the police. A year earlier he was charged with assaulting patrons at a bar.

One of the better commentaries I’ve read on this topic is by former House Speaker (and soon to be presidential candidate?) Newt Gingrich. In his weekly column, he wrote, “There is a war here at home and it is even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Far more Americans are being killed by violent, evil people here in America than in our official military ‘combat zones’ overseas.

“The truth is, all too many Americans are being killed. But what is so completely senseless is having the lives of three young, achieving college students cut brutally short by someone who not only should not have been in the United States in the first place but also, after two previous arrests for violence, should not have been on the streets. Instead, the suspected killer should have been in jail awaiting trial, sentencing, prison and eventual deportation.”

And then Gingrich reminds us of a story I’d almost forgotten:

“New Jersey was already in the news for its failure to protect its citizens from illegal aliens when the federal government arrested six would-be terrorists for plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix. We soon learned that three of them had been illegally in the U.S. for 23 years, during which they had been charged by the New Jersey police more than 75 times. And still, our government never discovered they were here illegally.”

The former congressman then points his finger at the real culprit:

 ”…the government of the United States is not protecting the people of America.”

He continues:

“The federal government’s incompetence, timidity and uncoordinated efforts to identify and deport criminal illegal aliens have had devastating consequences for innocent Americans.”

Rather than just rail against injustice, though, Gingrich proposed a solution to this tragic situation. He called for new legislation, named after the three murder victims in Newark. “The Terrance Aeriel, Dashon Harvey, Iofemi Hightower Act” would do five things:

1. It would demand that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security develop a real-time identification system to check the legal status of every felon in America. 
    
2. Every person arrested for a felony will be checked against the Federal database. Unless there is positive evidence they are American citizens or are here legally, they will be detained. If they are here illegally they will be deported. (This sounds remarkably like what the citizens of Arizona asked their police to do, doesn’t it? We know how Washington reacted to that.)
    
3. And here’s one I love: Any city, county or state that refuses to participate in checking every felony arrest will immediately lose all of its Federal aid. (Hey, San Francisco, that would mean losing a bunch of taxpayer money, wouldn’t it?)
    
4. No illegal alien will be released back into the population at large to prey upon new victims. After they finish the time for their crime, they will be detained until they can be deported. (A question from Chip: Why feed and house them at our expense? Let’s send them back where they came from immediately.)
    
5. All current prisons in the U.S. will be screened to identify those who are here illegally. The illegal alien prisoners will be deported to their countries of origin once they’ve completed their sentences. (I repeat the question I asked above: Why keep ‘em here at all? Let’s send them back just as soon as the courts say we can.)
    
6. I’ve argued in the past that it’s usually a mistake to ask the Federal government to solve a problem. In my experience, every time they try they create new problems that are bigger and more costly than the one they promised to eliminate. In the process, the budget gets bigger and the bureaucracy gets more bloated. A good rule of thumb is, Don’t feed the monster.

But this is an approach I can endorse. After all, what is government’s first and most sacred obligation? Isn’t it to protect its own citizens from assault; to guard against attacks on our persons or threats to our property by “all enemies, foreign and domestic?”

No, we can’t prevent every crime by every illegal alien. But we can make certain that, once caught, he never gets a chance to prey on an innocent victim again… at least, not in this country.

I’ll let you know when (or if) the Aeriel-Harvey-Hightower Act gets introduced in Congress. And what happens when it does.

Back To The Present
Of course the legislation Gingrich proposed has never seen the light of day in Congress. Instead, all of the publicity recently has been about Barack Obama’s determination to stop Arizona from doing precisely what the former Speaker demanded our Federal government do to protect all of us.

At the end of his column three years ago, Gingrich wrote, “We should demand more of our leaders — or we should get new leaders.”

That’s still a good idea — even though I suspect he is one of the “new leaders” he’s talking about.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

 — Chip Wood