Sens. Diane Feinstein D-Calif. and Mel Martinez R-Fla. authored a bill with 11 co-sponsors, including Sen. Barack Obama that was incorporated into a housing bill passed by the Senate Banking Committee 19-2 before the Memorial Day recess — a bill that creates a national fingerprint registry.
The outcry from the the mainstream media here in the United States — the very same people who complained about our privacy and liberties in the wake of the news that the NSA was listening in on phone calls involving known terror suspects — is where? Their silence is deafening.
Barack Obama is showing us through his actions exactly who he is. But are we paying attention?
You need to make your voice known. Use The Mailbox to contact your senators. Tell them since it is an affront to liberty and privacy, vote “no” on the SAFE Mortgage Licensing Act (S. 2595). And monitor the progress of this bill in our Action Center.
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Comments (0) Last month, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that Social Security is “financially unsustainable” and needs an urgent overhaul.
Ya think? Simple elementary-school math shows it’s unsustainable.
“As the baby boom generation moves into retirement, these programs face progressively larger financial challenges,” Paulson said.
The Treasury secretary said a growing number of retirees and the programs rising costs could harm Americas future prosperity if Social Security and Medicare are not overhauled and bolstered.
The needs of the Social Security program, which provides retirement benefits to all Americans as long as they have contributed to the program, are less acute, however, than Medicare.
Paulson said the Social Security programs cash flows are projected to turn negative in under 10 years and that a Social Security trust fund would likely be exhausted in 2041 without urgent reform.
Regardless what any politician will tell you, Social Security cannot be maintained. And you can prove this by doing some simple math. So sharpen your pencils, and read on for today’s lesson.
Four years ago I got into a debate with someone who decried the war as “blood for oil.” (He also went on to call American servicemen “pawns”, but I’ll leave that for another time.) I said then that the supply and demand of oil is a global problem, not just a United States problem. I explained how high oil prices would affect the price of food and its availability. I explained how essential it was to the global economy that the global oil supply wasn’t effected.
He didn’t agree with my assessment, said there was “no connection”, and that Bush was just “trying to make his oil buddies rich”.
Recent headlines prove who was right:
- Wal-Mart customers are feeling the pinch of higher food prices
- Corn hits $6 a bushel
- Rice prices jump 10% in Africa
- Rice Jumps to Record on Philippine Imports, Curbs on Exports
- Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing
- Food Costs Rising Fastest in 17 Years
- UN chief warns world must urgently increase food production
- Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
Oil prices and food prices & availability are intrinsically linked. This is a lesson we all must learn, and learn quickly. Taking part of our food supply (corn) and burning it as an inefficient fuel source (in the form of ethanol) is beyond idiotic because it causes both prices to increase and there’s no appreciable benefit to burning an inefficient fuel source.
Do we need an alternative to oil? Yes. But ethanol is not the answer, and until we find one, the stability of the world’s oil market and price is essential to everyone. And closer to home, it is essential to the preservation of our liberties.
Read More to view my original email:
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