Most of the headlines are proclaiming Romney the winner and buried somewhere in the story we discover that Romney beat Ron Paul by only 1 vote in this early beauty contest for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Here's how they voted:

Mitt Romney: 439 votes
Ron Paul: 438 votes
Sarah Palin: 330 votes
Newt Gingrich: 321 votes

Many people, Sean Hannity  for example, keep saying that there is no need for a third party, but instead a revitalized Republican party. But, when given the chance to vote for that revitalized, truly conservative party, Republicans revert to form and vote for a progressive candidate. I realize that if one totals all of the votes for other candidates they far outnumber Romney, but that's not how elections work and that's not how primary contest winners are chosen. In fact, that's why we ended up with John McCain in the last Republican primary. If this is the way it's going to go between now and 2012, then I don't see a revitalized Republican party anywhere on the horizon.

The full text of the amendment reads as follows:

Question On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Coburn Amdt. No. 3556) Amendment purpose To reduce the cost of providing federally funded prescription drugs by eliminating fraudulent payments and prohibiting coverage of Viagra for child molesters and rapists and for drugs intended to induce abortion.

Question On the Motion (Motion to Waive Sec. 313 of the CBA Grassley Amdt. No. 3564)Amendment purpose To make sure the President, Cabinet Members, all White House Senior staff and Congressional Committee and Leadership Staff are purchasing health insurance through the health insurance exchanges established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Here's Who Voted How:

Max Baucus had one of those Maxine Waters moments last week when he let this slip out. "Too often, much of late, the last couple three years, the mal-distribution of income in American is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy and the middle income class is left behind," he said. "Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America."

I'm sure everyone who is familiar with Democrat-think already knew this bill has nothing to do with health care, but I'm sure when the buzz wore off the sleaze high that the Democrats had after passing the Socialized Medicine Act that he reminded himself not to say things like that in his outside voice.

Liberals have been much more effective at controlling the language of debates than conservatives have and it allows them to win even though they always have the losing argument. Let's look at the abortion debate as an example. I'm not personally taking sides in this debate, I'm just using this to illustrate a point. Liberals have been able to control the language of the abortion debate by using terms such as Pro-Choice. Now, who in the world could be against a person's right to choose? That would just be downright unfair. People don't stop to think about choose what? But if they do, the liberals will counter with "The right of women to control their own bodies." Again, who could possibly be against that? But, that's not what's really happening is it?

Now assume that instead of being anti-choice, you change the language to anti-feticide, thereby making your opponent pro-feticide. It's much harder to justify why one is pro-feticide and it doesn't look good as a t-shirt slogan or bumper sticker either. By controlling the language of the debate one can control the debate. The important lesson is to remember to call things what they actually are and avoid falling into the politically correct language trap. Never debate against euphemisms.  Insist on calling things what they actually are and you will win every debate against liberal opponents.

The recent defeat of Republicans on the "Health Care Reform" act is a case in point. This bill does not reform health care; it transforms our health care system into a system of socialized medicine, and that's exactly the debate that should have been taking place. Do we want socialized medicine in this country? That's a completely different debate than the one we just had. I saw hundreds of polls, but I don't recall seeing even one that asked: "Are you in favor of socialized medicine in this country?"  We should have been asking that question over and over again. We must learn from our losses and avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.

A Rasmussen poll, just out, shows the race to fill the vacant Massachusetts Senate seat narrowing. Democrat Martha Coakley still leads in the polls by a margin of 50% to 41% ahead of Republican challenger Scott Brown.  However, two months ago Coakley led by a comfortable 25 point margin. Among the ever-dangerous independent voters Brown leads by an overwhelming 65% to 21% margin.  Should Brown pull off a victory, this upset could be a disaster for the Democrat take over of the health care system.  Brown would represent the 41st Republican Senator, ending the Democrats' current lock on the Senate.  Further, Brown has stated publicly that he will filibuster to stop passage of the health care bill,  as well as the Cap and Tax legislation, if elected.

Even with the momentum behind him, Brown is going to require huge amounts of support to upset Coakley, who is backed by the Democrat and SEIU  political machines.   With the Democrats pushing the legislation through behind closed doors, Brown is seen by many as the last best hope of averting the health care fiasco that will result should the Democrats succeed.

Most people don't understand the world's monetary system or banking.  According to Henry Ford that's probably a good thing, since he believed that if they were made to understand it there would be a revolution the following morning.  He was probably right, but let's lift the veil and see what's under there anyway.  

Most people like to think of a bank as a warehouse for money.  They like to think of it as a place where they deposit money and then assume that the money is stored in a secure vault so that they could, if they so chose, go to the bank and ask for the money in cash and the bank would be obliged to give it to them.  That's the way banking should work.  It is not the the way, however, that it does work — not by a long shot.

Imagine that you have several very valuable Persian carpets that you need to store.  You might look for a reputable warehouse facility with good security and a climate controlled environment where you could store them.  If you return to the warehouse some time later to get your rugs, you would rightly be alarmed if the proprietor told you that the rugs are no longer there because he leased them out to a hotel for the rest of the year.  If that were to happen, you would call the police immediately and have the warehouse owner arrested.  No doubt he would be charged with either theft or embezzlement.   He would be tried and  quite possibly sent to prison.  In addition,  you would probably file suit to try to recover your carpets or at least their value from his business or personal assets. I don't suspect that many would argue that it should be otherwise.  The area of law that covers this type of relationship is called a bailment. You as the owner of the carpets are the bailor and the warehouseman, in this case, is referred to as the bailee. This contractual relationship transfers possession of the carpets, but not the ownership of them. Further, under ordinary circumstances, the bailee is not entitled to use the goods that are in his possession.  Yet when it comes to depositing your money in a bank, things do not work this way — far from it.

Unlike a warehouse, where you still hold title to the goods you have stored and those items are expected to be delivered into your possession upon request, banks are not governed by the same laws.  The money that you deposit into a bank becomes an asset of the bank. The bank is then considered to owe you the amount that you deposited, as though you made a loan to the bank.  By law, banks are only required to hold in reserve a fraction of the money deposited and are free to loan out the rest. This system is called "fractional reserve" banking and is now common throughout the world.

 The amount of money that has been deposited in a bank, plus the amount they have on their books as accounts receivable is called their Net Transaction Accounts (NTA).  The percentage of the NTA that must be held in reserve depends on the amount of money that the bank has on its books.  For banks that have NTA values of from $0 to $9.3 million dollars they are allowed to hold 0% of the money in reserve.  Banks that have over $9.3 million but less than $43.9 million must hold 3% of their depositors' money in reserve.  Banks that have over $43.9 million must hold 10% of their depositors' money in reserve.  Even these reserve funds are not kept in the bank.  A bank's reserves are actually a checking account that is kept with the Federal Reserve.  When compared with the laws that govern warehousing and pawn brokers, the banks actions  amount can be viewed as legalized embezzlement, on the one hand,  or the moral equivalent of counterfeiting on the other. 

The underlying theory behind this legalized embezzlement scheme is that not all of their depositors are likely to show up at the same time and ask for their money.  Normally, this is the case, which is why they continue getting away with it year after year.  However, when large numbers of  depositors do show up and ask for their money, it's called a "run on the bank" and the bank will either close its doors to try to avoid paying money out, or the bank will quickly fail, since only a small fraction of the money deposited in the bank is actually available.  The rest of the money has been loaned out to borrowers.  In fact, banks generally try to loan out as much as they are legally allowed to loan and when they can loan no more, the bank is said to be "loaned up." 

But the trail doesn't end there.  When someone borrows money from a bank they are generally issued a check which they then deposit in their own bank.  That money goes onto the books of that bank as an asset and, assuming it is a large bank, it may in turn loan out 90% (remember that 10% must be held in reserve for large banks) of the amount deposited from the first loan. Then that money is loaned and deposited in another bank and the cycle continues until the amount has been carved down to nothing.

While this pyramid embezzling scheme would be bad enough in its own right, recall that I likened it to counterfeiting as well.  Let's look at why this is so.  It turns out that about $9,000 worth of loans (if we follow the money trail through a series of banks) will be granted for each $1,000 deposited.  So where did the other $8,000.00 come from?  It didn't come from anywhere, it is money created, literally, from thin air.  The act of granting the loan creates the money, which is, in fact, just an entry in a banks ledger.  Creating money from thin air, does however increase the number of dollars in circulation. When you hear the phrase "increasing the money supply," this is what is meant.  When you increase the money supply, you create inflation, which appears to the common person as rising prices, but is, in reality, loss of value in each individual unit of money. 

Money, as it turns out, is simply a commodity like any other and when the supply of anything, whether it is  wheat, cotton, silver or money  is increased, its value is reduced.  The only difference is that when you reduce the price of other commodities, it is a boon to the consumer and serves to raise the standard of living.  When you devalue the dollar through inflation, it is a curse  that appears to be rising costs of literally everything and consequently lowers the standard of living.

In summary, through fractional reserve banking, banks are legally allowed to embezzle the money of their depositors, to lend that money to others in order to profit themselves, to create money in a way that is the moral equivalent of counterfeiting, and to increase inflation, thereby lowering the standard of living for all Americans. 

The practice of fractional banking should be outlawed, once and for all, and banks should be required to maintain 100% of their depositors' money in reserve.  They could earn a  profit by charging storage fees,  exactly as the warehouseman does and by selling other products such as checks. Bank runs would then be unnecessary, since people would be certain that their money could be requested on demand,  bank failures would cease, the money supply would not be increased through the practice of loaning up, and the resulting inflation that it causes would cease.

While fractional banking is morally equivelant to counterfeiting, ordinary banks do not literally print dollar bills.  For that you need the biggest of all banks, the Federal Reserve.  That will be the topic of a future article.

Senate Tricks Make it Hard to Find the Senate Health Care Bill

The Constitution requires that all revenue bills originate in the House of Representatives. This would make Harry Reid's health care bill unconstitutional from the very start, but as you may have already guessed, the Constitution is nothing more than an annoyance to Democrats. That's why they have to use trickery to get around it. How does it work?

In order to create revenue or appropriations bills in the Senate, they simply take some piece of legislation previously sent over by the House and completely gut it, inserting whatever language they want as an amendment. In the case of Harry Reid's government health care takeover bill, the bill started its life as H. R. 3590 Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009. The bill is now titled H. R. 3590 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Amendment in Senate). That's how easy it is to ignore the Constitution, and it gets easier with the practice that they get every single day. It truly makes the Oath of Office a very bad joke.

If you've been looking for this horrendous piece of legislation, the best place to read it is here: H. R. 3590

Some hoaxes are innocent pranks played on the gullable just for the humor of it. For example, the 1957 BBC pseudo-documentary showing a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from their spaghetti trees was done for the humor of it. Afterward, hundreds of spaghetti-loving dimwits phoned in to find out how they could get a spaghetti tree of their own. While they were probably disappointed to find out that spaghetti, like money, does not grow on trees and even a bit miffed at having proven just how empty-headed they were, no real harm was done. Other hoaxes, however, are much more nefarious. Usually these hoaxes are designed to defraud the public of their money or to make the perpetrator famous based on undetected deceit. The man-made climate change fraud tries to accomplish both — on an unbelievable scale.

Thanks to an unnamed Russian computer hacker that pilfered 60 megabytes of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University East Anglia in Great Britain, that fraud has been revealed. If the story "gets legs" as they say in the reporting business, this fraud will make the exposure of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912 seem trivial. It seems that the climate-change "scientists", if one can call these people that with a straight face, have known like anyone else who has been paying attention, that the earth's rising temperatures leveled off a decade ago and has, in fact, been cooling — rather rapidly. The bad news for them was that not only would they lose face if the real data was used, not only would their computer models be shown to be completely wrong, not only would they be revealed for the con-men that they are, but — god forbid — the research money and the notoriety of being an IPCC big shot would come to an end. Well come to an end it has, and there can be little doubt that today, the Forrest Gump of the scientific world, Al Gore, is having a hissy fit. 

We do not know if the the emails are real, but it has been reported that Dr. Phil Jones of the CRU, from which the emails where stolen says the "emails appear to be genuine."   If that is the case,  then they are clearly damning evidence of a multi-trillion dollar hoax perpetrated on a global scale. Here are a few samples from the emails.

According to one email, Dr. Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit says, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps for each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Who is this Mike that he's talking about?  He's Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University, the guy who came up with the ridiculous hockey stick graph so proudly bandied about by the climate crowd as proof positive of global warming.  Of course, people knew that the data being used by these hucksters was fraudulent, and they began to call them out on it.  Apparently becoming worried, Dr. Jones said in one email to Dr. Mann and Dr. Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts and Malcom Hughes of the University of Arizona: "I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!" 

Again,  according to an email,  Dr. Mann says, "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone" [...] "We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind."  He went on to say in another, ""I did get an email from the [Freedom of Information] person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn't be deleting emails."

Clearly he didn't delete enough of them.

In a later email, he tells us what was behind the falsification of data. The email says  that the data would support the argument of the climate-change skeptics.  It appears to have been very important to keep the work of the climate-change skeptics out of the peer reviewed journals, so as to maintain the appearance of "settled science", as Al Gore says.  According to one email Dr. Jones says,  "We will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Even as this is being written, Barrack Obama, is preparing to meet in Copenhagen to sell American down the river under the guise of climate change, and the American taxpayers wait to be soaked yet again by the massive Cap and Tax bill now in the Senate — all based on a hoax.

It may not be time kiss grandma and grandpa goodbye just yet, but it's getting closer. In a strictly party-line vote all Democrats and both Independents voted for cloture on the Obamacare bill. All Republicans voted no, except for George Voinovich (R-OH) who is either too cowardly or simply did not care enough about the subject to vote.

The Senate Bill which aims to nationalize health care in the U. S. by emulating the failed systems of Massachusetts, Canada, most of Western Europe and Cuba should never have even come up for debate. The question is actually: Do you want a health care system like the one in Cuba? The answer is No! That should have been the extent of the debate. Instead, we can look forward to Senators whose blind lust for power at any cost will destroy the American health care system and America along with it.

Make no mistake about it, these people will pass this legislation no matter what the American people have to say on the matter, because they represent only themselves and their desire to control others. They long ago ceased being representatives of the people and believe they have now become our masters. Continuously, they either willfully ignore, or show utter contempt for their constituents.

Those who care about America still have a powerful weapon at their disposal — the power of the vote. Anyone who voted for this bill needs to pay the price for it at the polls. Don't forget this day whether it is next November or in 2012. Beyond that, we need a new form of leadership in this country, representatives that are of the people, not elitist professional politicians who have never worked an honest day in their lives. Surely, there are millions of people working all across America, people of principle, people of character, people of integrity, who must now consider stepping forward and running for office to retake control from the rabble that has overrun our government. The time has come. Stand up! Be heard! Here's how they voted: