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20 Signs That Dust Bowl Conditions Will Soon Return To The Heartland Of America

For decades, the heartland of America has been the breadbasket of the world.  Unfortunately, those days will shortly come to an end.  The central United States is rapidly drying up and dust bowl conditions will soon return.  There are a couple of major reasons for this.  Number one, the Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at an astounding pace.  The Ogallala Aquifer is one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the entire world, and water from it currently irrigates more than 15 million acres of crops.  When that water is gone we will be in a world of hurt.  Secondly, drought conditions have become the “new normal” in many areas of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and other states in the middle part of the country.  Scientists tell us that the wet conditions that we enjoyed for several decades after World War II were actually the exception to the rule and that most of time time the interior west is incredibly dry.  They also tell us that when dust bowl conditions return to the area, they might stay with us a lot longer than a decade like they did during the 1930s.  Unfortunately, without water you cannot grow food, and with global food supplies as tight as they are right now we cannot afford to have a significant decrease in agricultural production.  But it is not just the central United States that is experiencing the early stages of a major water crisis.  Already many other areas around the nation are rapidly developing their own water problems.  As supplies of fresh water get tighter and tighter, some really tough decisions are going to have to be made.  Fresh water is absolutely essential to life, and it is going to become increasingly precious in the years ahead.

Most Americans have never even heard of the Ogallala Aquifer, but the truth is that it is one of the most important bodies of water on the globe.  It covers well over 100,000 square miles and it sits underneath the states of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer is used to water more than 15 million acres of crops.  Without this source of water, the United States would not be the breadbasket of the world.

That is why what is happening right now is so alarming.

The following are 20 signs that dust bowl conditions will soon return to the heartland of America….

#1 The Ogallala Aquifer is being drained at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute.

#2 According to the U.S. Geological Survey, since 1940 “a volume equivalent to two-thirds of the water in Lake Erie” has been permanently lost from the Ogallala Aquifer.

#3 Decades ago, the Ogallala Aquifer had an average depth of approximately 240 feet, but today the average depth is just 80 feet.  In some areas of Texas, the water is gone completely.

#4 Scientists are warning that nothing can be done to stop the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer.  The ominous words of David Brauer of the Ogallala Research Service should alarm us all….

“Our goal now is to engineer a soft landing. That’s all we can do.”

#5 According to a recent National Geographic article, the average depletion rate of the Ogallala Aquifer is picking up speed….

Even more worrisome, the draining of the High Plains water account has picked up speed. The average annual depletion rate between 2000 and 2007 was more than twice that during the previous fifty years. The depletion is most severe in the southern portion of the aquifer, especially in Texas, where the water table beneath sizeable areas has dropped 100-150 feet; in smaller pockets, it has dropped more than 150 feet.

#6 According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. interior west is now the driest that it has been in 500 years.

#7 It seems like the middle part of the United States experiences a major drought almost every single year now.  Last year, “the drought of 2011” virtually brought Texas agriculture to a standstill.  More than 80 percent of the state of Texas experienced “exceptional drought” conditions at some point, and it was estimated that about 30 percent of the wheat fields in Texas were lost.  Agricultural losses from the drought were estimated to be $3 billion in the state of Texas alone.

#8 Wildfires have burned millions of acres of vegetation in the central part of the United States in recent years.  For example, wildfires burned an astounding 3.6 million acres in the state of Texas alone during 2011.  This helps set the stage for huge dust storms in the future.

#9 Texas is not the only state that has been experiencing extremely dry conditions.  Oklahoma only got about 30 percent of the rainfall that it normally gets last summer.

#10 In some areas of the southwest United States we are already seeing huge dust storms come rolling through major cities.  You can view video of a giant dust storm rolling through Phoenix, Arizona right here.

#11 Unfortunately, scientists tell us that it would be normal for dust bowl conditions to persist in parts of North America for decades.  The following is from an article in the Vancouver Sun….

But University of Regina paleoclimatologist Jeannine-Marie St. Jacques says that decade-long drought is nowhere near as bad as it can get.

St. Jacques and her colleagues have been studying tree ring data and, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Vancouver over the weekend, she explained the reality of droughts.

“What we’re seeing in the climate records is these megadroughts, and they don’t last a decade—they last 20 years, 30 years, maybe 60 years, and they’ll be semi-continental in expanse,” she told the Regina Leader-Post by phone from Vancouver.

“So it’s like what we saw in the Dirty Thirties, but imagine the Dirty Thirties going on for 30 years. That’s what scares those of us who are in the community studying this data pool.”

#12 Experts tell us that U.S. water bills are likely to soar in the coming years.  It is being projected that repairing and expanding our decaying drinking water infrastructure will cost more than one trillion dollars over the next 25 years, and as a result our water bills will likely approximately triple over that time period.

#13 Right now, the United States uses approximately 148 trillion gallons of fresh water a year, and there is no way that is sustainable in the long run.

#14 According to a U.S. government report, 36 states are already facing water shortages or will be facing water shortages within the next few years.

#15 Lake Mead supplies about 85 percent of the water to Las Vegas, and since 1998 the level of water in Lake Mead has dropped by about 5.6 trillion gallons.

#16 A federal judge has ruled that the state of Georgia has very few legal rights to Lake Lanier, and since Lake Lanier is the main water source for the city of Atlanta that presents quite a problem.

#17 It has been estimated that the state of California only has a 20 year supply of fresh water left.

#18 It has been estimated that the state of New Mexico only has a 10 year supply of fresh water left.

#19 Approximately 40 percent of all rivers in the United States and approximately 46 percent of all lakes in the United States have become so polluted that they are are no longer fit for human use.

#20 Eight states in the Great Lakes region have signed a pact banning the export of water from the Great Lakes to outsiders – even to other U.S. states.

Unfortunately, it is not just the United States that is facing a shortage of fresh water in the near future.  The reality is that most of the rest of the world is in far worse shape than we are.  Just consider the following stats….

-According to the United Nations, the world is going to need at least 30 percent more fresh water by the year 2030.

-Global demand for fresh water tripled during the last century, and is now increasing faster than ever before.

-According to USAID, one-third of the people on earth will be facing severe or chronic water shortages by the year 2025.

-Of the 60 million people added to the cities of the world each year, the vast majority of them live in deeply impoverished areas that have no sanitation facilities whatsoever.

-It has been estimated that 75 percent of all surface water in India has been heavily contaminated by human or agricultural waste.

-Sadly, according to one UN study on sanitation, far more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet.

-Every 8 seconds, somewhere in the world a child dies from drinking dirty water.

–Due to a lack of water, Saudi Arabia has given up on trying to grow wheat and will be 100 percent dependent on wheat imports by the year 2016.

-Each year in northern China, the water table drops by an average of about one meter due to severe drought and overpumping, and the size of the desert increases by an area equivalent to the state of Rhode Island.

-In China, 80 percent of the major rivers have become so horribly polluted that they do not support any aquatic life at all at this point.

-In sub-Saharan Africa, drought has become a way of life.  Collectively, the women of South Africa walk the equivalent of the distance to the moon and back 16 times a day just to get water.

It has been said that “water is the new gold”, and unfortunately we are getting close to a time when that may actually be true.

Without water, none of us could survive for long.  Just try not using water for anything for 12 hours some time.  It is a lot harder than you may think.

We can’t grow our food in a pile of dust.  Unfortunately, many areas of the heartland of America are slowly but surely heading in that direction.

History tells us that it is only a matter of time before dust bowl conditions return to the central United States.  We have used irrigation and other technologies to delay the inevitable, but in the end it cannot be stopped.

Let us hope that the return of dust bowl conditions can be put off for as long as possible, but let us also prepare diligently for the worst.

America 1950 vs. America 2012

Would you rather live in the America of 1950 or the America of 2012?  Has the United States changed for the better over the last 62 years?  Many fondly remember the 1950s and the 1960s as the “golden age” of America.  We emerged from World War II as the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet.  During that time period, just about anyone that wanted to get a job could find a job and the U.S. middle class expanded rapidly.  Back in 1950, America was still considered to be a “land of opportunity” and the economy was growing like crazy.  There was less crime, there was less divorce, the American people had much less debt and the world seemed a whole lot less crazy.  Most of the rest of the world deeply admired us and wanted to be more like us.  Of course there were a lot of things that were not great about America back in 1950, and there are many things that many of us dearly love that we would have to give up in order to go back and live during that time.  For example, there was no Internet back in 1950.  Instead of being able to go online and read the articles that you want to read, your news would have been almost entirely controlled by the big media companies of the day.  So there are definitely some advantages that we have today that they did not have back in 1950.  But not all of the changes have been for the better.  America is in a constant state of change, and many are deeply concerned about where all of these changes are taking us.

There has never been any society in the history of the world that has been perfect.  America was flawed in 1950 just as America is flawed today.

But that doesn’t mean that we should not reflect on how much things have changed over the past 62 years.

So which version of America would you rather live in?

America 1950 vs. America 2012 – you make the call….

In 1950, a gallon of gasoline cost about 27 cents.

In 2012, a gallon of gasoline costs $3.69.

In 1950, you could buy a first-class stamp for just 3 cents.

In 2012, a first-class stamp will cost you 45 cents.

In 1950, more than 80 percent of all men were employed.

In 2012, less than 65 percent of all men are employed.

In 1950, the average duration of unemployment was about 12 weeks.

In 2012, the average duration of unemployment is about 40 weeks.

In 1950, the average family spent about 22% of its income on housing.

In 2012, the average family spends about 43% of its income on housing.

In 1950, gum chewing and talking in class were some of the major disciplinary problems in our schools.

In 2012, many of our public schools have been equipped with metal detectors because violence has become so bad.

In 1950, mothers decided what their children would eat for lunch.

In 2012, lunches are inspected by government control freaks to make sure that they contain the “correct foods” in many areas of the country.  For example, one 4-year-old girl recently had her lunch confiscated by a “lunch monitor” because it did not meet USDA guidelines….

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs – including in-home day care centers – to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

In 1950, the United States was #1 in GDP per capita.

In 2012, the United States is #13 in GDP per capita.

In 1950, redistribution of wealth was considered to be something that “the communists” did.

In 2012, the U.S. government redistributes more wealth than anyone else in the world.

In 1950, about 13 million Americans had manufacturing jobs.

In 2012, less than 12 million Americans have manufacturing jobs even though our population has more than doubled since 1950.

In 1950, the entire U.S. military was mobilized to protect the borders of South Korea.

In 2012, the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada are wide open and now there are 1.4 million gang members living inside the United States.

In 1950, there were about 2 million people living in Detroit and it was one of the greatest cities on earth.

In 2012, there are about 700,000 people living in Detroit and it has become a symbol of what is wrong with the U.S. economy.

In 1950, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slightly over the 200 mark.

In 2012, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is threatening to soar over the 13,000 mark.

In 1950, corporate taxes accounted for about 30 percent of all federal revenue.

In 2012, corporate taxes will account for less than 7 percent of all federal revenue.

In 1950, the median age at first marriage was about 22 for men and about 20 for women.

In 2012, the median age at first marriage is about 28 for men and about 26 for women.

In 1950, many Americans dressed up in suits and dresses before getting on an airplane.

In 2012, security goons look at the exposed forms of our women and our children before they are allowed to get on to an airplane.

In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers.

In 2012, each retiree’s Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 workers.

In 1950, many Americans regularly left their cars and the front doors of their homes unlocked.

In 2012, many Americans live with steel bars on their windows and gun sales are at record highs.

In 1950, the American people had a great love for the U.S. Constitution.

In 2012, if you are “reverent of individual liberty“, you may get labeled as a potential terrorist by the U.S. government.

In 1950, the United States loaned more money to the rest of the world than anybody else.

In 2012, the United States owes more money to the rest of the world than anybody else.

In 1950, the U.S. national debt was about 257 billion dollars.

In 2012, the U.S. national debt is 59 times larger.  It is currently sitting at a grand total of $15,435,694,556,033.29.  Surely our children and our grandchildren will thank us for that.

One of the only things that is constant in life is change.

Whether we like it or not, America is going to continue to change.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, about 70 percent of all American adults were married.

Today, only about 50 percent of all American adults are married.

We are more independent, less religious, more addicted to entertainment and more doped up on prescription drugs than Americans used to be.

We have a higher standard of living than Americans in 1950 did, but we are also drowning in an ocean of debt unlike anything the world has ever seen.

For a lot more on how the U.S. economy is doing in 2012, just check out this list of interesting facts.

So is America 2012 a better version than America 1950 was?

Have we made progress since then or are we going backwards?

Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below….

10 Signs That America Is Decomposing Right In Front Of Our Eyes

The decay of society is so much harder to quantify than economic decline is.  The government keeps lots of statistics on things like unemployment and inflation, but it really does not keep track of how sick and twisted people are becoming.  Most of us recognize that the character of the American people has changed dramatically over the decades, but unlike the national debt, you can’t easily point to a chart or a graph to show exactly how bad things are getting.  In this article, my approach will be to point you to various “signs” of social decay.  Signs tell us where we are at now and where we are headed.  Some of the signs that I will use will be statistics while others will simply consist of anecdotal evidence.  Yes, anecdotal evidence is not perfect, but when you put enough of it together it starts to paint a pretty clear picture of what is going on out there.  America is becoming a truly frightening place.  Our cities our decaying, thieves are becoming bolder, you never know who you can trust and everyone seems depressed.  America is decomposing right in front of our eyes, and it is time that we all admitted it.

In the old days, if you met a stranger out on the streets you knew that you could almost certainly trust that person.  But these days if you let your child wander one aisle over while you are shopping at Wal-Mart there is a chance that someone will try to abduct her.

Something has changed.

In our major cities, if you walk up to someone at random there is a decent chance that person will be a pervert or a sicko, and most Americans know that this is true at a gut level.  Almost everyone is very leery of “strangers” these days.  It has gotten to the point where we are all afraid of one another.

Just try this some time….

In a major U.S. city, walk right up to people on the street, look them in the eyes and try to introduce yourself.

What will happen when you do that?

In many instances, people will literally run away from you.

We are scared to death to interact with people that we do not know, and the reality is that those fears are way too often justified.

The character of the American people is decaying at a rapid pace, and the evidence of this is all around us.

The following are 10 signs that America is decomposing right in front of our eyes….

#1 As the economy crumbles, in many U.S. cities desperate people are increasingly resorting to violent acts in an attempt to survive.  So far this year, violent crime in Washington D.C. has risen by 40 percent.  Robberies at gunpoint have more than doubled compared to the same time period last year.

And as I wrote about recently, justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011, and the rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is now 2200% above the national average.

#2 But it is not just in the cities where you will find crazies.  A recent Daily Mail article described a very disturbing incident which took place recently in North Dakota.  Two crack-fueled perverts abducted and murdered a 43-year-old math teacher named Sherry Arnold….

Spell and Waters had left Colorado days before the crime claiming they wanted work in eastern Montana and western North Dakota’s oil fields.

After smoking crack cocaine over the entire trip, Waters allegedly told Spell the drug ‘brought the devil out in him’ and began talking about kidnapping and killing a female, AP reports.

After they spotted Arnold, Spell claims that Waters told him to ‘grab the lady’ and pull her into their Ford Explorer as she jogged by.

After they got Arnold into the car, they choked her to death and then buried her body in a shallow grave in North Dakota.

Why would anyone do something like that?

#3 Unfortunately, sickos will even be found working for the government.  Just as so many of us feared, TSA workers are actually purposely selecting attractive women to go through the body scanners so that they can admire their naked bodies.  The following are actual quotations from official TSA complaints….

-“I feel I was targeted by the TSA employee to go through the see-you-naked machine because I am a semi-attractive female.”

-“The screener appeared to enjoy the process of picking someone rather than doing true random screening. I felt this was inappropriate. A woman behind me was also “randomly selected.”

-“TSA staff ‘trolling’ the lines looking for people to pull out was unprofessional.”

-“I know he went to that room to see my naked body through the machine with the other guy.”

-“When I looked around, I saw that there were only women that were “told” to go through this machine. There were no men.”

One woman was recently forced to go through the body scanner three times because the TSA workers wanted to get a really good look at her “cute figure“.

Isn’t about time that we admitted that the TSA is a massive failure?

#4 The American people seem more depressed than ever.  So are we the most depressed nation in the entire world?  The U.S. has the highest percentage of women taking antidepressants of any country in the world, and kids in the U.S. are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than kids in Europe are.

#5 The gang problem in the United States has never been worse.  According to the FBI, the number of gang members in the United States has risen by 40 percent since 2009 and there are now a total of 1.4 million gang members living inside this country.

#6 Millions of other young people are not able to find jobs once they finish school and end up financially dependent on their parents.  Today, record numbers of young adults are living at home.  Many of these young people end up very disillusioned and very frustrated.  Right now, more than 30 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 34 age bracket are currently living at home with their parents.  That is not good news for the future of this country.

#7 All over America, criminals are becoming bolder and more desperate.  The following is a report about one serial home invader from the Washington Post….

A housekeeper was tied up and sexually assaulted and a mother and teenage son were tied up during a home invasion in Bethesda early Wednesday morning that Montgomery County police say involves the same suspect as in a home invasion Tuesday in Wheaton.

As the economy gets even worse, home invasions will become even more common.  You might want to learn how to defend yourself.

#8 These days thieves will steal literally anything.  Each night in cities all over the nation more street lights are going out as thieves strip the copper wiring right out of them. In the San Francisco area, one very ambitious group of thieves actually swiped a copper bell that weighs 2.7 tons.

#9 One of the clearest signs that America is decomposing is the stunning decline of major cities such as Detroit.  In response to my recent article about the death of Detroit, a reader identified as Bill posted the following….

Seeing what is happening to Detroit makes me want to cry AND scream.

I’m a native Detroiter myself – born in Harper Hospital on the east side & was one of those 2 million plus counted in the 1950 Census. I left Detroit in the early 70s for work reasons and had not gone back there since 1984.

When I drove through there on my way to Port Huron last September I “made a lap” around the city – got off I-75 downtown, made a loop around the downtown area (the 2 new stadiums look nice as does the RenCen) then went out Michigan Avenue to 12th and up through the 1967 Riot area to Grand River and out to the northwestern part of town where I grew up and went to school.

What a depressing trip. All my old haunts are gone, boarded up or burnt to the ground. The car dealer where I bought my first car (the old “Redford Rambler” on Grand River just west of Evergreen) is nothing but a slab. All the car dealers along the Grand River strip from Evergreen to McNicoles (6 Mile Rd.) are gone, the 16th Precinct Police Station at GR & Mc Nicholes is abandoned and the high school where my cousin graduated is all boarded up (Redford High School, across Grand River from the old police station). My old house on Lasher just north of Grand River is there but the stores in the area are all gone. One would think space aliens had come and taken all the life out of the area.

On that same article, another reader identified as “Disappointed” shared his thoughts on the decline of that once great city….

I worked in Detroit for a few years a while back. I was fascinated by the crumbling ruins, drove around to see a lot of them after work (a couple of times I drove through neighborhoods that I can tell you now I would not go near, even in the daytime). It was sad and fascinating at the same time. I would not even THINK of doing that now, it would be highly dangerous. I would not even work in Detroit now.

#10 But it isn’t just Detroit that is falling apart.  This kind of thing is happening all over the country.  A reader identified as Golden Child recently left the following comment on my website….

Much of America is like Detroit. America is rotting from California to West Virginia to Baltimore. It’s the same song across the United States. High unemployment, falling rent and or house prices, massive police lay-offs, giant spikes in crime accompanied by a rising cost of living and fewer job opportunities. Vallejo and Oakland, California are very much like Detroit. Vallejo ranked as the ninth most miserable city in America according to Forbes. Oakland and Vallejo have laid off nearly half of their police forces. You can get an apartment in Vallejo or Oakland for $200-600 a month although the median monthly rent in California is well over a thousand dollars with Bay Area rent being generally higher. There is a reason why rent is so comparably dirt cheap in those cities. San Francisco-Oakland-Vallejo collectively make up the car-theft capital of the United States. Northern CA cities like Oakland, Richmond and Stockton are regulars on the top ten most dangerous cities in America list. Baltimore, MD is also very much like Detroit with its thousands of abandoned rowhomes, high concentration of Black poverty, drugs and violence. Camden, NJ, East St. Louis, Gary Indiana are all no different from the D. Even large sections of wealthy world class cities like DC, NYC and San Francisco are impoverished quasi-third world hellholes. Southeast DC has the highest unemployment rate of anywhere in America despite the fact that DC is the richest city and metro in America. NYC has the widest income inequality gap of any metro area. Massive swaths of NYC are dangerous towering project buildings packed with working poor minorities. SF is home to some of the most sub-standard public housing in America in neighborhoods like Hunter’s Point, Sunnydale and Potrero Hill. America has been rotting from the core since at least the 70′s.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

As the economic decline of this nation accelerates, people are going to become much more desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

So where do all of you think America is headed?  Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below….

***EPILOGUE***

I wanted to post a couple of new comments from the readers.  These are more firsthand examples of what life is like on the streets of America today….

—Comment By “Bean”—

This evening I had to pick my daughter up from work,a fast food restaurant in the heart of downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. My daughter came out later than expected so I had to sit in the car for about forty minutes waiting. While waiting a man walked up to my car and reached for the door handle, thankfully I had the doors locked, he started tapping on the window, I drove off went around the block and parked again to wait for my daughter. A little while later an elderly man with a cane, who appeared to be homeless, shuffled along the sidewalk, he saw me sitting in the car and he came up and tapped on the window, fortunately at that moment my daughter came out of work so I pulled up and picked her up and we got out of town. It was creepy, this was downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, a city with a population of around 300,000, I was shocked! I do not want my daughter coming out of work at night into this kind of environment, I will be contacting the owner of the business to let them know that it is not a safe environment for young people to have to walk to their cars after dark.

—Comment By Madsr—

My wife and I were discussing this exact thing. A young girl in our quiet Arkansas town met a local guy off the internet she ended up dead on his family farm in a 55 gal drum…..Who does this? We live in a town of 4000 where we all know each other, a man walked into a little shop 3 weeks ago and raped the woman behind the counter. My wife and I consider where we live very safe compared to most of America. Yet we never go anywhere that we are not both carrying a pistol. That is what is so different between todays depression and the great depression. Most people would not hurt or kill you for food or goods. They were more apt to suffer quietly or sneak and get a chicken. It is just the opposite today they are being told everyday they are owed food and goods. The only reason they don’t have them is because the rich have it all, so you should take it from them. I guess that makes most of us that have worked 60 hours a week for the last 25 or 30 years the rich evil people. This is not going to get better regardless of the President both sides have supported the moral decay. God help us!

*****

The United Nations Wants To Crash The World Economy In Order To Save The Environment

The United Nations says that the earth is in great danger and that the way you and I are living is the problem.  In a shocking new report entitled, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing” the UN declares that the entire way that we currently approach economics needs to be changed.  Instead of focusing on things like “economic growth”, the UN is encouraging nations all over the world to start basing measurements of economic success on the goal of achieving “sustainable development”.  But there is a huge problem with that.  The UN says that what we are doing right now is “unsustainable” by definition, and the major industrialized nations of the western world are the biggest culprits.  According to the UN, since we are the ones that create the most carbon emissions and the most pollution, we are the ones that should make the biggest sacrifices.  In addition, since we have the most money, we should also be willing to finance the transition of the developing world to a “sustainable development” economy as well.  As you will see detailed in the rest of this article, the United Nations basically wants to crash the world economy in order to save the environment.  Considering the fact that the U.S. and Europe are in the midst of a horrible economic crisis and are already drowning in debt, this is something that we simply cannot afford.

There is certainly nothing wrong with taking care of the environment.  But what the United Nations wants is a fundamental restructuring of the global economy based on flawed science.

In this new UN report, we find the following statement….

Achieving sustainability requires us to transform the global economy. Tinkering on the margins will not do the job.

This is absolutely crucial to understand.

The folks over at the UN don’t just want to change things a little.

Their goal is a radical transformation of the entire world.

According to the United Nations, if we don’t implement their recommendations the consequences will be absolutely disastrous….

But what, then, is to be done if we are to make a real difference for the world’s people and the planet? We must grasp the dimensions of the challenge. We must recognize that the drivers of that challenge include unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns and the impact of population growth. As the global population grows from 7 billion to almost 9 billion by 2040, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water — all at a time when environmental boundaries are throwing up new limits to supply. This is true not least for climate change, which affects all aspects of human and planetary health.

So what changes are needed in order for us to achieve a “sustainable” global economy?

Well, the following are some of the disturbing recommendations that we find in the new UN report….

Raise Prices

According to the United Nations, we need to start significantly raising the prices of things that are made in an “unsustainable” way so that they reflect the “true cost” of their production….

Most goods and services sold today fail to bear the full environmental and social cost of production and consumption. Based on the science, we need to reach consensus, over time, on methodologies to price them properly. Costing environmental externalities could open new opportunities for green growth and green jobs

That means that you and I would start paying a lot more for the basic things that we need every day – food, gasoline, etc.

Carbon Taxes

The UN report also discusses the need to use regulations and taxation as tools to penalize economic activities that are not “sustainable”….

Establish natural resource and externality pricing instruments, including carbon pricing, through mechanisms such as taxation, regulation or emissions trading systems, by 2020

This is one of the favorite things that social engineers like to do.  They love to use taxation and regulations as weapons to get people to do the things they want.

Base Lending Decisions On Sustainable Development Criteria

The United Nations is actually suggesting that lending decisions be based on whether or not the money will be used for something “sustainable”….

Reform national fiscal and credit systems to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices, as well as disincentives for unsustainable behaviour

Considering the fact that the entire global economy is based on credit, this is a very dangerous recommendation.

Green Jobs

The UN report also says that governments all over the world should seek to create as many “green jobs” as possible….

Governments should adopt and advance “green jobs” and decent work policies as a priority in their budgets and sustainable development strategies while creating conditions for new jobs in the private sector.

This is something that we have seen Barack Obama try to do, but obviously he has not had much success at it.

A New Economic Paradigm

According to the UN, the very way that we define “economic success” needs to be changed.  Instead of looking at statistics such as GDP and inflation, we should be measuring what we do by how much it gets us closer to a “sustainable world”….

Expanding how we measure progress in sustainable development by creating a sustainable development index or set of indicators

So an economic collapse could actually be “good” if we make “progress” toward the goal of sustainable development.

Wealthy Countries Funding The Sustainable Development Goals Of Poor Countries

The UN report makes it clear that you and I will be paying for sustainable development all over the world in addition to paying for our own transition to a sustainable economy….

Financing sustainable development requires vast new sources of capital from both private and public sources. It requires both mobilizing more public funds and using global and national capital to leverage global private capital through the development of incentives. Official development assistance will also remain critical for the sustainable development needs of low-income countries

But considering the fact that the United States is already flat broke, where are we going to come up with all of this money?

Teach Sustainable Development To Our Children

The United Nations also believes that this philosophy of “sustainable development” should be taught to children in public schools all over the globe….

Government and non-governmental entities should promote the concept of sustainable development and sustainable consumption, and these should be integrated into curricula of primary and secondary education.

Sadly, this agenda is already being pushed on our children in schools all over the United States.  When these children grow up, the concepts behind “sustainable development” will be second nature for them.

Population Control

Those that believe in sustainable development want to reduce carbon emissions by as much as possible.

When you sit down and really think about that, it becomes quite frightening.

Nearly every form of economic activity produces carbon emissions.

In fact, if you just sit in your home and breathe, you are producing carbon emissions.

So to them, you and I are the problem.

For those that are worried about man-made global warming, the math is simple.

The more people on earth, the higher the level of carbon emissions will be.

The less people on earth, the lower the level of carbon emissions will be.

So those that believe in sustainable development love to promote things that will reduce the human population of the earth.

In fact, we see this agenda reflected in one of the recommendations of the new UN report….

Ensuring universal access to quality and affordable family-planning and other sexual and reproductive rights and health services.

If more women have access to abortion facilities, then less babies will be born.  For those that believe in sustainable development, that is a good thing.

But the UN has been pushing this kind of agenda for a long time.

For example, the United Nations Population Fund released a report back in 2009 entitled “Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate” that included the following very chilling statement….

“Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendants. Hence, the emissions savings from intended or planned births multiply with time.”

This population control agenda is also being heavily promoted by many of the wealthiest people in the world.  Many big “philanthropists” such as Bill Gates are using their money to fund research into population control measures.  For example, Gates is currently funding research on “cutting edge” forms of birth control that could potentially be used all over the world.  The following comes from a recent Natural News article….

Mass vaccination is apparently not the only depopulation strategy being employed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as new research funded by the organization has developed a way to deliberately destroy sperm using ultrasound technology. BBC News reports that the Gates Foundation awarded a grant to researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) to develop this new method of contraception.

For their study, the UNC team tested ultrasound on lab rats and found that two 15-minute doses “significantly reduced” both sperm counts and sperm integrity. When administered two days apart through warm salt water, ultrasound caused the rats’ sperm counts to drop below ten million sperm per milliliter, which is five million less than the “sub-fertile” range, and stay that way for up to six months.

This population control agenda is one of the most frightening elements of sustainable development.  Many advocates of sustainable development would actually cheer if something suddenly caused the population of the earth to drop dramatically.

Much Stronger Global Governance

The new UN report also advocates stronger “international governance” by bodies such as the United Nations….

International institutions have a critical role. International governance for sustainable development must be strengthened by using existing institutions more dynamically and by considering the creation of a global sustainable development council and the adoption of sustainable development goals

But this has been the ultimate goal of these control freaks for a long time.  The idea is that a “global government” and a “global economy” will bring a great era of peace and prosperity to all of humanity.

Of course that is a complete and total lie, but there are a lot of people out there that actually believe this stuff.

In fact, the economic crisis that we are going through right now has renewed calls for a “global currency” which would be used by the whole world.

For example, you can watch banker Evelyn de Rothschild discuss the “need” for an “international currency” on Bloomberg Television in the following video….

The new UN report reflects this globalist agenda.  The report states that “the peoples of the world” are not going to put up with all of this “inequality” any longer and that they will be demanding that their national governments adopt a “sustainable development” agenda….

“The peoples of the world will simply not tolerate continued environmental devastation or the persistent inequality which offends deeply held universal principles of social justice. Citizens will no longer accept governments and corporations breaching their compact with them as custodians of a sustainable future for all. More generally, international, national and local governance across the world must fully embrace the requirements of a sustainable development future, as must civil society and the private sector.”

If you want to get a really good idea of what a “sustainable development” society would look like, just check out the video posted below….

If you do not want to end up living in a “Planned-opolis” where virtually everything you do is watched, tracked and controlled by bureaucratic control freaks, then you better say something now.

If the United Nations actually succeeded in implementing this agenda worldwide, it would crash the global economy and it would be the end of national sovereignty.

Unfortunately, many of those that are promoting this agenda are absolute fanatics about it because they are convinced that they are saving the planet.  They are so obsessed with “rescuing the earth” that they would do almost anything to all the rest of us in order to accomplish that goal.

Yes, we need to be concerned about the future of the planet, but the truth is that the “sustainable development” agenda is based on flawed science and it would make our economic problems far worse.

But the control freaks that are obsessed with “sustainable development” are going to continue to try to cram this agenda down our throats, so this is a battle that is likely to go on for many years.

Outrageous! The Government Is Giving Out Free Cell Phones And Free Cell Phone Minutes To Welfare Recipients

Did you know that the federal government is giving out free cell phones and free cell phone minutes to welfare recipients?  It may be hard to believe, but it is true.  Right now, there are companies that are running advertisements specifically targeted at low income Americans informing them of the fact that all they have to do is sign up and they can get a free cell phone and hundreds of free cell phone minutes every single month and it will all be paid for by the federal government.  Some have referred to this as “The Obama Phone”, but that is not exactly accurate.  The outrageous federal programs that are paying for this were initiated before Barack Obama entered the White House.  But the fact that welfare recipients have been receiving free cell phones and free cell phone minutes under both the Bush and Obama administrations has been confirmed as being true by Snopes.  All of this is paid for by “the federal Universal Service Fund”.  That is one of those annoying little taxes that you may have noticed on your phone bill.  So what is essentially happening is the federal government is taking money from all of us so that they can provide free cell phone service for welfare recipients every single month.

When some of my readers informed me of this free cell phone scheme, I decided that I better go to the source.  So I went over to the FCC website, and it turns out that there are two federal programs involved.  “Link Up” provides a one-time connection discount on phone service, and it can be applied to the cost of a cell phone.  So this is where the free cell phone comes from.  “Lifeline” provides a monthly discount on telephone service.  So this is where the free cell phone minutes each month come from.  The following is a description of these programs from the FCC website….

What Benefits are Available Under the Lifeline and Link Up Programs?

  • Lifeline provides discounts on one basic monthly telephone service (wireline or wireless) for qualified subscribers. These discounts can be up to $10.00 per month, depending on your state. Federal rules prohibit qualifying low-income consumers from receiving more than ONE Lifeline service at the same time. That is, qualifying low-income consumers may receive a Lifeline discount on either a home telephone or wireless telephone service, but may not receive a Lifeline discount on both services at the same time. Lifeline also includes Toll Limitation Service, which enables a telephone subscriber to limit the amount of long distance calls that can be made from a telephone.
  • Link Up Up provides qualified subscribers with a one-time discount (up to a maximum of $30) off of the initial installation fee for one traditional, wireline telephone service at the primary residence or the activation fee for one wireless telephone. It also allows subscribers to pay the remaining amount they owe on a deferred schedule, interest-free. Federal rules prohibit qualifying low-income consumers from receiving more than ONE Link Up discount at a primary residence. That is, qualifying low-income consumers may receive a Link Up discount on installation or activation charges associated with either a home telephone or wireless telephone service.

Apparently these programs are becoming quite popular.

You can find a company called Safelink Wireless offering welfare recipients a free cell phone and 250 free cell phone minutes a month right here.

You can find a company called Assurance Wireless offering welfare recipients a program that is virtually identical right here.

This is absolutely outrageous, and it is yet another sign that dependence on the government is totally out of control.

Not that assisting the poor is bad.  Of course we always want to help those that cannot help themselves.  We never want to see anyone go without daily food or sleep in the streets.

But providing the poor with the basics of life is much different from providing them with luxuries such as cell phones.

In some areas of the country, the poor can also receive nearly free Internet service every single month.

Just check out the following example from the Houston Chronicle….

When Comcast acquired NBC Universal earlier this year, an FCC-mandated requirement was that the cable giant offer cheap Internet access to low-income households. Comcast is making good on the mandate through a new program called Internet Essentials.

Families who qualify will be able to sign up for 1.5-Mbps Internet access – the same download speed as AT&T’s basic DSL service – for just $9.95 a month. Customers may also be eligible for a computer that costs just $150 and free Internet training.

Also, a new bill has been introduced in Congress that would give “eligible” households money to help pay for gasoline….

Low-Income Gasoline Assistance Program Act – Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to states to establish emergency assistance programs to pay eligible households for the purchase of gasoline.

These days, as long as you are “eligible”, just about everything you need will either be purchased for you or subsidized by the federal government.

Yes, we will always need programs to help take care of the poor, but some of the things that go on today are absolutely outrageous.

There are millions of people out there that have become extremely comfortable receiving government benefits and it will be extremely difficult to ever get them to give them up.

After all, why bust your behind for 40 or 50 hours a week at some meaningless, low paying job when you can live a similar lifestyle by just depending on government benefits?

The following is a rap video that shows the kind of mindset that is developing all across America.  Please be advised that it contains some very strong language.  It was done by a rapper known as “Mr. EBT”, and it is a perfect example of the kind of attitude that many welfare recipients have today….

Yes, everyone needs a helping hand once in a while.  But if you do have to rely on government benefits for a time, you should be fighting like crazy to improve your situation so that you can get off of them as soon as possible.

Of course the biggest welfare recipients of all are the big corporations.  The federal government showers billions upon billions of dollars on them every year, and this has got to stop.

The following example comes from an article in the Weekly Standard….

General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn’t pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.

Can you imagine a 57,000 page federal tax return?

That is absolutely disgusting and it is a perfect example of how corrupt our system has become.

All year long, GE has people pouring over the tax code just looking for any little tax loophole that it can exploit.

GE made $14,000,000,000 in profits, but they paid less taxes to the government than you or I did.

There is something very, very wrong with that picture.

All of this unnecessary welfare has got to stop.

No more free cell phones for people on welfare.

No more giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to big corporations.

We simply cannot afford it.

The U.S. debt problem is way, way out of control.  We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and it gets about 150 million dollars worse every single hour.

Sadly, none of this is likely to change any time soon.

The big corporations provide the money that our politicians need to win campaigns, and most of our politicians are very careful not to bite the hands that feed them.

On the other end of the spectrum, our economy continues to crumble and the number of poor Americans continues to increase.  So even if we don’t provide them with free cell phones, the truth is that the number of Americans that need basic food and housing is not going to go down any time soon.  In fact, it is going to go a lot higher in the years ahead.

We are rapidly becoming a European-style socialist welfare state.

In America today, the poor are absolutely showered with outrageous government benefits and so are the big corporations.

So who pays for all of this?

You and I do.

I am afraid that the joke is on us, and nothing is going to change as long as we keep sending the same kind of politicians back to Washington D.C. over and over.

The Man Without A Plan

Barack Obama is a man without a plan.  When you are young, they often tell you to “fake it until you make it”, but Barack Obama is taking this to ridiculous extremes.  Barack Obama has absolutely no idea what he is doing when it comes to the economy, and yet he continues to give speeches in which he declares that he is the man for the job.  The State of the Union speech the other night was just abysmal.  The federal government is spending way too much money, and yet Barack Obama is proposing even more government spending.  Entrepreneurs and small businesses are being taxed into oblivion and yet Barack Obama is proposing even higher taxes.  Our economy is being strangled to death by crippling regulations, and yet Barack Obama is proposing a vast array of new regulations.  Barack Obama always gives a nice speech, but it has become appallingly evident that he is totally out of ideas.  So our country will continue to drift aimlessly along without a direction and without a plan until the next financial tsunami comes along and makes things even worse.

And the American people are starting to clue in to the fact that Obama does not have a plan and does not have anything new to say.  Just check out how the audiences for his State of the Union addresses have declined each year….

2009: 52.3 million

2010: 48 million

2011: 42.8 million

2012: 37.8 million

His ratings are falling almost as fast as the ratings for American Idol are.

It is amazing how Barack Obama can use so many words to say so very little.

He always tickles our ears but then he never delivers the goods.  Toward the beginning of his speech the other night, he made the following statement….

“Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last—an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values”

Well, that sounds pretty good.  Except for the fact that everything he has done for the past 3 years has been the exact opposite of that.

It is almost as if he woke up that morning and decided that he would try the whole “do the opposite” thing once made famous by George Costanza on Seinfeld.

Obama says that our employment situation is getting better, but that is not really true.  The only way that the federal government can claim that there is an 8.5 percent unemployment rate is because they have decided that millions of Americans that have been unemployed for a long time should not be considered “part of the workforce” any longer.

If the number of Americans that were considered to be part of the workforce was the same today as it was back in 2007, the “official” unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to approximately 11 percent.

Sadly, the number of Americans that are dependent on the government continues to soar even higher.

Since Barack Obama took office, the number of Americans on food stamps has actually increased by 14 million.

Things have not gotten better for average Americans.

They have gotten worse.

In fact, 10 million more Americans have fallen below the poverty line since 2006.  And in 2010, more Americans fell into poverty than ever before.

A lot of people out there are really hurting, and the American people deserve some real answers.

But instead, Obama was saying stuff like this the other night….

“I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place”

Oh really?

What is Obama actually doing about the things that caused the last financial crisis?

The “financial reform” bill was a complete and total joke.  Obama has been shamefully soft on the big Wall Street banks that caused the last crisis.

Today, the “too big to fail” banks are larger than ever.  The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

So now they are more of a danger to the financial system than ever.

And not a single Wall Street executive has gone to jail for what they did during the last financial crisis.

Thanks Obama.

But of course Obama was never going to seriously go after Wall Street.

After all, they are the ones that fund his campaigns.

Most Americans don’t realize this, but 3 of the top 7 donors to Obama’s campaign in 2008 were “too big to fail” banks.

And the Obama administration has been absolutely packed with ex-Wall Street bankers.  Last year, Michael Brenner wrote the following about the composition of the Obama administration….

Wall Street’s takeover of the Obama administration is now complete. The mega-banks and their corporate allies control every economic policy position of consequence. Mr. Obama has moved rapidly since the November debacle to install business people where it counts most. Mr.William Daley from JP Morgan Chase as White House Chief of Staff. Mr. Gene Sperling from the Goldman Sachs payroll to be director of the National Economic Council. Eileen Rominger from Goldman Sachs named director of the SEC’s Investment Management division. Even the National Security Advisor, Thomas Donilon, was executive vice president for law and policy at the disgraced Fannie Mae after serving as a corporate lobbyist with O’Melveny & Roberts. The keystone of the business friendly team was put in place on Friday. General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt will serve as chair of the president’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

During his State of the Union address, Obama also promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to America….

“Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs”

That sounds great, except for the fact that Obama has been doing everything he can to get more American jobs shipped out of the country.

The Obama administration has been aggressively pushing new “free trade” agreements with Panama, South Korea and Colombia.  The Obama administration has also made the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“the NAFTA of the Pacific“) an extremely high priority.

And of course we have all seen how wonderfully the first NAFTA worked out.

Our “free trade” policies have been an absolute nightmare for the American worker.

During 2010, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities a day shut down in the United States.  Overall, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have shut down since 2001.

We are bleeding jobs at a pace that is hard to believe.

Amazingly, the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Yet Obama promises more of the same and that is  supposed to help?

During his speech, Obama correctly noted that many foreign manufacturers are heavily subsidized….

“It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours, only because they’re heavily subsidized”

So are we going to deeply penalize those that have been cheating?

Are we going to warn them that we will stop trading with them unless they stop?

Of course not.

Obama is going to do next to nothing to stop what China and other predatory nations are doing to us.

Today, the United States spends approximately 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States, and the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

But the Obama administration doesn’t seem to care much about these things.

In fact, just check out what U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Tim Robertson of the Huffington Post about the Obama administration’s attitude toward keeping manufacturing jobs in America….

Let’s increase our competitiveness… the reality is about half of our imports, our trade deficit is because of how much oil [we import], so you take that out of the equation, you look at what percentage of it are things that frankly, we don’t want to make in America, you know, cheaper products, low-skill jobs that frankly college kids that are graduating from, you know, UC Cal and Hastings [don’t want], but what we do want is to capture those next generation jobs and build on our investments in our young people, our education infrastructure.

Oh, but Obama now says that he is going to toughen up on trade….

“I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trading practices in countries like China. There will be more inspections”

Oh boy – “inspections” – yeah, that is really going to have the Chinese shaking in their boots.

Meanwhile, the Chinese just keep hitting us with new tariffs.  According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States will now cost about $85,000 in China thanks to these new tariffs.

So is Obama going to hit China with tough new tariffs in return?

Of course not.

Meanwhile, our economy continues to bleed businesses and jobs.  According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

But if you listen to Obama, he makes it seem like many of our industries are in better shape than ever….

“We bet on American ingenuity, and tonight the American auto industry is back.”

Yes, the American auto industry is no longer on the brink of bankruptcy, but it is not “back”.  Just consider the following stats….

*In 1970, General Motors had about a 60 percent share of the U.S. automobile market.  Today, that figure is down to about 20 percent.

*Back in 2000, about 17 million new automobiles were sold in the United States.  During 2011, less than 13 million new automobiles were sold in the United States.

*Japan builds more cars than anyone else on the globe.  Japan now manufactures about 5 million more automobiles than the United States does.

*Since Alan Mulally became CEO of Ford, the company has reduced its North American workforce by nearly half.

*In the year 2000, the U.S. auto industry employed more than 1.3 million Americans.  Today, the U.S. auto industry employs about 698,000 people.

Obama bailed out the auto industry, and they responded by sending even more of our jobs overseas.

During his speech, Obama declared that there will be no more bailouts….

“No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.”

That is kind of funny because Obama is basically the all-time champion of handing out bailouts.

If Barack Obama and John McCain had not aggressively pushed for the Wall Street bailouts back in 2008, they never would have happened.

And once Obama became president, there was a seemingly endless parade of bailouts and “stimulus packages”.

So what do you honestly think he will do when the next financial crisis happens?  Do you think he would actually be able to resist the temptation for more bailouts?

Obama also says that he wants to spend more money on training for American workers….

“Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans with skills that will lead directly to a job.”

But the American people already have enough training.  There are tons of college-educated Americans that are among the ranks of the unemployed right now.

What the American people need are jobs.

Unfortunately, jobs are leaving this country at an unprecedented pace.

Back in the year 2000, more than 20 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  Today, about 5 percent of all jobs in America are manufacturing jobs.

Not only that, but our incomes are also going down.  Because U.S. workers now have to compete for jobs with workers that make slave labor wages on the other side of the globe, pay in this country continues to decline.

A recent White House reported entitled “Investing in America: Building an Economy That Lasts” actually bragged that our trade policies have driven wages in America down.  The following chart is from that report….

The Obama administration has been very good for the largest corporations.

For the rest of us, not so much.

But Obama now says that he wants America to be a place that encourages entrepreneurs and small businesses to thrive….

“It means we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.”

Unfortunately, the reality is that the federal government is strangling entrepreneurs and small businesses to death with taxes and crippling regulations.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006.  Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

That is not a good trend.

And right now small businesses are extremely hesitant to bring on new workers.

One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers in the coming year.

So obviously what the Obama administration is doing is not working.

During his speech, Obama also spoke of developing our own energy resources….

“A future where we are in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.”

Hopefully most of those watching laughed when they heard this, because this had to have been a joke.

America is absolutely swimming in oil and natural gas, and yet the Obama administration has blocked the development of those resources at every turn.

Instead, Obama has been very busy trying to push green energy companies on us, but they have had a nasty habit of going bankrupt.

During his speech, Obama also spoke of the need for “comprehensive immigration reform”.

But apparently Obama’s idea of “immigration reform” is to grant “backdoor amnesty” to the vast majority of the illegal immigrants in the United States and to continue to leave our borders completely wide open.

The consequences of such a policy are very serious.  As I wrote about the other day, there are now 1.4 million gang members living inside the United States, and that number has risen by an astounding 40 percent since 2009.

The last thing we need is more “immigration reform” from Barack Obama.

Of course the “class warfare” part was the centerpiece of Obama’s speech the other night.

Referring to it as the “defining issue of our time”, Obama said that now is the time to hit the wealthy with higher taxes….

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

This is going to be what Barack Obama is going to base his entire 2012 campaign on.  He is going to try to tap into the economic frustrations of the poor and the middle class and he is going to try to get them to blame the rich and the “party of the rich” (the Republicans).

But taxing the rich is not going to solve our problems.  If Bill Gates donated his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

The truth is that the ultra-wealthy are always several steps ahead of the U.S. government.  The global elite are hiding 18 trillion dollars in offshore banks, and they are absolute experts at avoiding taxes.

No, the people that always get hit when taxes are raised are small business owners that try to do things “by the book” and middle class families that are barely scraping by.

What we need to do is to get rid of the income tax system entirely.  It is deeply corrupt and it is full of thousands of loopholes.

Trust me, I know.  I used to study this stuff.

But Obama seems to think that taxing the rich is the solution to all of our problems….

“We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference – like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right. Americans know it’s not right. They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country’s future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That’s how we’ll reduce our deficit.”

Oh really?

If we just accept Obama’s plan the deficit will be fixed?

That worked out so well during his first term.  During the first three years of the Obama administration, the U.S. government accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

The truth is that Obama does not plan to fix anything.  Barack Obama’s proposed 2012 budget projects that the national debt will rise to 26 trillion dollars a decade from now.  And his budget numbers are ridiculously optimistic.

Not that our tax system does not need reform.

If we are going to have an income tax system (which we should not), then it should at least be fair.

There is no way in the world that General Electric and Mitt Romney should pay a lower tax rate than you and I do.

In a previous article, I noted some of the big corporations that have made enormous profits and yet have paid less than zero in taxes in recent years….

What U.S. corporations are able to get away with is absolutely amazing.

The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice.  These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

During those three years, all of the corporations below made a lot of money.  Yet all of them paid net taxes that were below zero for those three years combined.

How is that possible?  Well, it turns out that instead of paying in taxes to the federal government, they were actually getting money back.

So for these corporations, their rate of taxation was actually below zero.

If you have not seen these before, you are going to have a hard time believing some of these statistics…..

*Honeywell*

Profits: $4.9 billion

Taxes: -$34 million

*Fed Ex*

Profits: $3 billion

Taxes: -$23 million

*Wells Fargo*

Profits: $49.37 billion

Taxes: -$681 million

*Boeing*

Profits: $9.7 billion

Taxes: -$178 million

*Verizon*

Profits: $32.5 billion

Taxes: -$951 million

*Dupont*

Profits: $2.1 billion

Taxes -$72 million

*American Electric Power*

Profits: $5.89 billion

Taxes -$545 million

*General Electric*

Profits: $7.7 billion

Taxes: -$4.7 billion

Are you starting to get the picture?

Hopefully we can all agree that there is something seriously wrong with those numbers.

But fixing holes in the tax system is one thing – blaming America’s economic ills on the wealthy is another.

During his speech, Obama made the following statement….

“You can call this class warfare all you want”

And yes, we will hear the term “class warfare” over and over again for the rest of 2012.

Obama actually believes that “blaming the 1%” can get him sent back to the White House again.

But that isn’t going to solve any of our problems.

Instead, we should be focusing on the root causes of our economic problems.

I would love to see a president get up during a State of the Union address and declare that we need to shut down the Federal Reserve.

Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power.

Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger.

Thanks to the debt-based Federal Reserve system, we are going into debt at a pace that is unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Right now, the federal government is stealing 150 million dollars an hour from our children and our grandchildren.

But Barack Obama loves the Federal Reserve.

In fact, he actually nominated Ben Bernanke for a second term as Federal Reserve Chairman even though Bernanke has a track record of incompetence that is legendary.

So no, nobody should be applauding Barack Obama for his absolutely abysmal speech the other night.

He is a man without a plan and he has been an absolute disaster for America.

America After Dark: Desperate Meth Heads, Rampant Human Trafficking And Millions Of Criminal Predators Searching For A New Victim

When the sun goes down every night, America becomes a very frightening place.  There are communities all over the country where drug dealing, human trafficking and gang violence have gotten so out of control that authorities don’t really know what to do about it.  In America tonight, thousands of meth heads will break into homes as they desperately search for enough money for another hit.  In America tonight, thousands of children will be sold for sex at truck stops and on street corners.  In America tonight, millions of criminal predators will be searching for a new victim.  From the top levels of the federal government all the way down to the most depraved criminals on the street, America is rotting.  Once upon a time our tremendous affluence masked the moral decay that was happening in this nation, but now that the economy is falling apart the damage to the fabric of our society is being revealed.  We have become a nation of addicts, junkies, thrill seekers and predators.  When we finally see the U.S. economy fully collapse, millions of desperate, angry and depraved monsters will take out their sick frustrations on all the rest of us.

It isn’t talked a lot about anymore, but the meth epidemic in America is getting worse.  According to PBS, there are approximately 1.4 million meth users in America.  Meth is unbelievable addictive and it can absolutely destroy your life.  If you doubt this, just check out these before and after pictures.

Sadly, there are indications that meth use is on the rise once again.  According to the DEA, meth seizures increased from 2,839 in 2007 to 6,168 in 2010.

When you take meth, it can literally make you crazy.  The following is from a recent USA Today article….

A mother in Bakersfield, California, was sentenced Tuesday for stabbing her newborn while in a meth rage. An Oklahoma woman drowned her baby in a washing machine in November. A New Mexico woman claiming to be God stabbed her son with a screwdriver last month, saying, “God wants him dead.”

Large numbers of meth addicts turn into thieves when they run out of money.  Often, they will steal just about anything they can in order to get money for their next hit.  Some things that meth addicts have stolen recently include agricultural plumbing, copper wiring and lawn sprinklers.

And making meth can be extremely dangerous as well.  U.S. hospitals are filled with thousands and thousands of uninsured burn patients that were horribly burned while trying to make “shake and bake” meth.

The following comes from a recent Daily Mail article….

It is filling hospitals with thousands of uninsured burn patients requiring millions of dollars in advanced treatment – a burden so costly that it is contributing to the closure of some burns units.

So-called ‘shake-and-bake’ meth is produced by combining raw, unstable ingredients in a two-litre bottle.

But if the person mixing the noxious brew makes the slightest error, such as removing the cap too soon or accidentally perforating the plastic, the concoction can explode, searing flesh and causing permanent disfigurement, blindness or even death.

A survey of key hospitals in America’s most-active meth states showed that up to a third of patients in some burns units were hurt while making meth, and most were uninsured.

But of course meth is just one of the highly addictive drugs that are plaguing our youth.  There are many other nightmarish drugs that could also be discussed.  Nearly every community in America is dealing with some sort of a drug problem, and despite the “war on drugs” this crisis just seems to keep getting worse every single year.

Perhaps even more alarming is the rise of human trafficking in America.

When I was going through school, I was taught that slavery had been abolished in the United States.

But that was a lie.

Right now, thousands upon thousands of Americans are living as slaves.  Most of them are sex slaves.  As you read this, there are women all over America that are literally chained to beds in dark rooms where men pay their “owners” to have sex with them.

The following stats about human trafficking come from a recent Detroit Free Press article….

• Human trafficking is a $32-billion industry worldwide.

• Up to 2 million people are trafficked worldwide every year. Of those, 15,000-18,000 are in the U.S.

• Eight in 10 human trafficking cases involve the sex industry; the others involve labor trafficking.

• In 2010, 2,515 human trafficking cases were under investigation in the U.S.

• Eighty-three percent of victims in confirmed sex trafficking cases in the U.S. in 2010 were American citizens

Many Americans would be absolutely horrified to learn what goes on behind closed doors in America.

All over the nation tonight, vicious monsters will be selling or “renting” young children to other vicious monsters for sex.

The following story of one human trafficking victim comes from a recent Fox News article….

Today, Keisha Head is a wife and mother of three. But more than decade ago, she was the victim of a notorious human trafficker.

At 16-years old, Head says she was being sold on the streets of Atlanta for sex.

“I did not know that a normal, average man who was a preacher, who was a lawyer, who was a senator – could turn into this monster,” Head said. “That is the scariest moment when you are amongst people who claim to be normal yet they purchase you and they turn into these monsters. They rape you. They beat you. And then act as if they’re normal. These are not your normal pedophiles.”

When you push morality out of the schools and out of public life, this is the kind of thing that starts happening.

Thousands upon thousands of other women “work for themselves” on the streets of America.  Some are willing to let strangers have sex with them for next to nothing.

For example, one woman in Los Angeles was recently arrested for approaching customers at one McDonald’s and offering sexual favors in exchange for Chicken McNuggets.

A lot of really weird stuff happens in America after dark.

As the economy has crumbled, thieves all over the country have become increasingly bold and increasingly desperate.

The following are just a few recent examples….

*In Fresno, California the damage caused by thieves stealing copper wire from city street lights is costing the city approximately $50,000 a month.  So far, about 2,500 street lights have been stripped of their wiring.

*In northern Alabama, one group of crooks has been using a forklift to pull entire ATM machines out of the ground.

*A while back, a team of ambitious thieves in Pennsylvania actually stole an entire 50 foot long bridge.

Other crimes are committed by members of the government.  In Chicago, the bodies of poor people that don’t have enough money to bury themselves are being treated with absolutely no respect at all by government officials.  Just check out what Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says that he found….

“Babies are buried 10, 15 to a box.  They’re buried in there with animal remains.  They’re buried in there with arms and legs from body parts they found during the course of the year.  It is not anything that our county or society should ever sit there and say is acceptable”

Can you imagine that?

What kind of a monster would do such a thing?

Of course I could go on for ages about the sick corruption of our government officials, but that will have to be left for another day.

For now, I want to focus on another rising problem in our society.  As I wrote about the other day, the FBI says that there are now 1.4 million gang members living inside the United States.  That number has risen by an astounding 40 percent since 2009.

Nearly every major U.S. city has areas that are essentially “owned” by gangs.  Some of these gangs are the size of small armies.  For example, it is estimated that the Latin Kings have 18,000 members in the city of Chicago alone.

When civil unrest erupts in America, these organized groups of criminal predators will have a field day.  Even now, law enforcement authorities in many areas of the country are having an incredibly difficult time trying to contain them.

As things fall apart all around us, an increasing number of Americans are coming to the realization that they are not going to be able to depend on someone else to defend themselves and their families.

Perhaps that is why the American people stocked up on firearms at an astounding rate during 2011.

In some areas of the country, a firefight can potentially erupt just about at any time.  The following is from an article that was recently posted on standwitharizona.com….

Barbed wire fencing doesn’t keep illegal aliens off the property anymore. One Starr County, TX rancher doesn’t have time to worry about the illegals these days. He now worries about the smugglers protecting their loads.

“I don’t think they would have any conscience of taking someone’s life,” the rancher says.

He saw that will to kill firsthand. A smuggler shot at him on his own land.

“One round was fired at me, and it missed my head by about two feet,” says the rancher.

He says there’s only way to react.

“Fire all the rounds you have, reload, and do it again,” says the rancher.

We don’t do ourselves any favors by pretending that America is going to somehow turn around and become the safe, friendly place that it used to be.

There are millions of criminal predators in this country today that have little or no conscience.  They don’t care about you, your spouse or your children.  All they care about is feeding their addictions.

In the months and years to come, the economy is going to get worse.  As it does, all of those predators are going to become even more desperate.

Desperate people do desperate things.

America is going to become a very frightening place.  But instead of curling up into a ball and crying about it, the better response is to be strong and courageous and to get prepared the best that you can.

112 Questions To Ask Yourself In 2012

The beginning of each year is a great time to evaluate the direction of your life and to ask yourself some very important questions.  Often we get so busy just living life that we lose our perspective.  It is important for each of us to take time once in a while to reassess how our lives are going.  It is also important for all of us to reassess the direction that our nation is heading in every so often.  The truth is that America has gotten badly off track.  We have abandoned the principles which once made this country great, and this country is literally falling apart all around us.  Hopefully the questions below will not just get you focused on our problems.  Hopefully they will also spur you to think about solutions.  Both individually and as a nation, we are in a lot of trouble.  We need to start asking better questions and we need to rediscover the things that once made America the greatest nation on earth.  If we are willing to humble ourselves and change course then there is hope for us.  If not, then the road that we are currently on will only lead to national disaster.

The following are 112 questions to ask yourself in 2012….

#1 Are Barack Obama and Mitt Romney really the best that America can come up with?

#2 Right now the nations of the world are 55 trillion dollars in debt.  How long will it be before this system of debt totally collapses?

#3 What things in life are you truly grateful for?  Do you ever take time to thank those that have been so good to you?

#4 In 2012, when you add the maturing debt that the Italian government must roll over to their projected budget deficit, it comes to 23.1 percent of Italy’s GDP.  How in the world is Italy going to be able to handle that in this economic environment?

#5 What do you feel like you are missing in life?  Are you actively looking for those things?

#6 According to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find Iraq on a map of the world.  What does that say about our education system?

#7 Do you give more than you take?  Would you rather serve people or be served?

#8 Why were gun sales in the United States at record levels as we entered 2012?

#9 What are you afraid of? Are those fears rational or irrational?

#10 168 million emails are sent every single minute.  Are we rapidly getting to the point of information overload?

#11 Do you care enough about other people?  Do you spend more time thinking about yourself or thinking about others?

#12 Why are there 18.5 million vacant homes in America today?

#13 Did you spend enough time with your family last year?  Will you spend enough time with them this year?

#14 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased by 20 million over the past five years.  What does that say about the state of the U.S. economy?

#15 Is your family prepared for what is about to happen to this world?

#16 Why do the poor in America just keep getting poorer?

#17 After you are dead, what will people be saying about you?  Will they miss you or will they be glad that you are gone?

#18 Why have 10 million more Americans fallen below the poverty line since 2006?

#19 What do you need to change about yourself?

#20 Should we all be concerned that doctors in India say that “incurable” cases of tuberculosis are showing up in India?

#21 Who do you know that could use some more love?

#22 Why is the Department of Homeland Security scanning Facebook and Twitter for “sensitive words“?

#23 Is your country a better place because you live there?

#24 Why is the FBI building a massive new biometric database?

#25 What do you think your life will be like ten years from now?

#26 40,000 new laws went into effect across the United States as 2012 began.  What does that say about the culture in this nation?

#27 If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would that be and why?

#28 What did Mitt Romney mean when he stated that he wants to “eliminate some of the differences, repeal the bad, and keep the good” in Obamacare?

#29 What is the best piece of advice that you have ever gotten?  Are you still following it?

#30 Is it a good thing that the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans have 56 percent of all the wealth?

#31 What books do you need to put on your reading list this year?

#32 About half of all Americans are now either living in poverty or are considered to be low income.  So are we still a “wealthy” nation?

#33 What are the things that you do that waste the most time?

#34 Why aren’t more Americans concerned that the trade deficit is increasing again?  This is one of the things that killed the Greek economy and it is most definitely sucking the life out of our own economy.  Could it be that most Americans have become so “dumbed down” that they don’t even know what a trade deficit is?

#35 What would happen to you and your family if you suddenly lost your job?

#36 How is Germany able to build twice as many cars every year as the United States does?

#37 Have you done anything worth remembering lately?

#38 Why is the average age of a vehicle in America now sitting at an all-time high?

#39 If you only had one day left to live, how would you spend that day?

#40 How stupid are the American people for piling up 700 billion dollars in credit card debt?

#41 Is there anything that is worth giving your life for?

#42 If Obamacare is so great for working people, then why are so many unions requesting (and getting) Obamacare waivers from the federal government?

#43 Do you believe that you can be a hero?

#44 Why is the government allowing genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in the United States?

#45 What is one great decision that you can make right now?

#46 Why is Mitt Romney taxed at a lower rate than most middle class Americans are?

#47 If someone gave you one million dollars today, how would you spend it?

#48 Who decided that it would be a good idea for TSA “VIPR Teams” to set up thousands of internal checkpoints across the United States every year?

#49 What is the number one thing on your Bucket List?  Why haven’t you done it already?

#50 Why is the federal government spending billions of dollars to militarize local police departments across the United States?

#51 If it was possible, would you want to live forever?

#52 Should we be concerned that 30% of all Americans get arrested by the age of 23?

#53 Where would you rather be than right here right now?

#54 Why did the D.C. government pass a new law that protects the rights of rats?

#55 Which is greater – the number of people that you love, or the number of people that you hate?

#56 Are CEOs really 243 times more valuable than the average worker is?

#57 What will your legacy be?

#58 Is the massive swarm of earthquakes that New Zealand is experiencing a sign that the “Ring of Fire” is becoming more active?

#59 What would your plan be if there was a major volcanic eruption on the west coast of the United States?

#60 If 63 percent of all mortgaged properties in the state of Nevada are still “underwater”, then how in the world can anyone claim that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the housing crisis?

#61 Why is the federal government arresting people who produce raw milk?

#62 Is the world on the verge of an absolutely nightmarish water crisis?

#63 What are you really good at?  Are you using that skill to make a difference in the lives of others?

#64 Why is the U.S. government giving nearly half a billion dollars every 12 months to an organization that performs about 300,000 abortions a year?

#65 What is the meaning of life?

#66 Why are so many Planned Parenthood executives earning well over $100,000 a year?

#67 How can you make tomorrow better than today?

#68 While the TSA is groping millions of Americans at airports every year, rampant sex trafficking is going on in virtually every major American city.  Isn’t it time that we admitted that our allocation of law enforcement resources is very seriously flawed?

#69 How can you make next week better than this week?

#70 One recent survey found that only 29 percent of people would describe themselves as “very happy”.  So what does that say about the state of our country?

#71 Do you consider yourself to be good?  If so, how did you determine that?

#72 If we are on the verge of a global recession, then why is the stock market still so high?

#73 What would happen if government spending was cut by 50 percent?

#74 Is the euro going to eventually fall to parity with the U.S. dollar?

#75 If the euro fails, what will Europe do?  Would national currencies make a comeback or would a new “European currency” be created?

#76 Are we getting dangerously close to a war in the Middle East?

#77 What would happen to the price of gasoline if foreign oil supplies from the Middle East were suddenly cut off?

#78 Is Germany going to just stand by and watch Greece default?

#79 Is it likely that your eating habits will send you to an early grave?  If so, why not make this the year when they change?

#80 Why aren’t politicians from either major political party doing something to stop the massive flood of blue collar jobs that is pouring out of this country?  Don’t they care about average Americans?

#81 Why do we spend so much time on things that simply do not matter?

#82 Since 1971, consumer debt in the United States has increased by a whopping 1700%.  Is that a sign of a nation that is going to be prosperous in the long run?

#83 Does the U.S. need a new major political party?

#84 The U.S. debt problem continues to escalate.  During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.  Very few of our politicians seem alarmed by this.  Are we the stupidest generation in American history?

#85 Does the U.S. need a new Constitutional Convention?

#86 When we finally see the U.S. economy collapse, who will be in better shape – those that have spent years preparing or those that have not prepared at all?

#87 Are you so afraid to fail that you simply do not even try anymore?

#88 We are facing the most horrific retirement crisis in U.S. history.  Right now, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 65 every single day.  So where in the world are we going to get all the money we need to pay them the retirement benefits that we have promised them?  Isn’t the Social Security system essentially one gigantic Ponzi scheme?

#89 If people started following your example, would that be a good thing?

#90 According to one Gallup survey, 7 out of every 10 Americans believe that religion is losing influence in the United States.  Is that good for America or bad for America?

#91 Do you ever do anything that is outside of your comfort zone?

#92 The U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a track record of incompetence that is absolutely mind blowing.  So what possible justification is there for allowing the Federal Reserve to continue to issue our currency and run our economy?

#93 If you lost everything that you currently own, would your life be over?

#94 If the European financial system is going to be just fine, then why is the UK government preparing feverishly for the collapse of the euro?

#95 When you meet someone for the first time, do you tend to instantly love them or do you tend to instantly judge them?

#96 If the one thing that almost everyone in the Republican Party seems to agree on is that Obamacare is bad, then why is the candidate that created the plan that much of Obamacare was based upon about to run away with the race for the Republican nomination?

#97 Do you feel like you are truly alive?  If not, what can you do to change that?

#98 Why have we allowed the “too big to fail” banks to become even larger?

#99 Who are you living your life for?  Does the answer to that question excite you or depress you?

#100 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.  So where are all of the jobs for the “economic recovery” going to come from?

#101 As you have gotten older, have you also become more loving?

#102 Since 1964, the reelection rate for members of the U.S. House of Representatives has never fallen below 85 percent.  How stupid can the American people possibly be?  They keep sending the exact same Congress critters back to Washington D.C. over and over and over.

#103 Do you treat others the way that you would like to be treated?

#104 According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.  Without strong family units, can America survive?

#105 Do you prefer to forgive those that have hurt you or do your prefer to hold long grudges?

#106 According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.  So why are so many young people so broke?

#107 Do you tell your family and your friends that you love them or do you just assume that they already know?

#108 According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.  How bad are things going to be when the economy gets even worse?

#109 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.    How in the world can we justify putting so much debt on to the backs of future generations?

#110 How do you want the story of your life to end?

#111 Will the years ahead find you cowering in fear or will they find you enjoying greater adventures than you ever dreamed of?

#112 If you had the opportunity to tell everyone in America one thing, what would it be?

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