Author: Personal Liberty

03.18.10 08:46 PM

French researchers have reportedly found that older men who have high levels of selenium, an antioxidant found in liver and a variety of nuts, may be at a decreased risk of developing dysglycemia, a condition that leads to unhealthy blood sugar levels and is often a precursor for diabetes.

In the study, investigators from the University of Montpellier recruited 1,162 French men and women between the ages of 59 and 71. They regularly monitored their levels of selenium and any blood sugar problems that arose over a nine-year period.

Lead researcher Tasnime Akbaraly and her colleagues found that elderly males with selenium concentrations in the top third of the study group had a significantly lower risk of developing dysglycemia and diabetes. However, no such link was found in female participants.

"The reason we observed a protective effect of selenium in men but not in women is not completely clear, but might be attributed to women being healthier at baseline, having better antioxidant status in general and possible differences in how men and women process selenium," said Akbaraly.

She added that selenium, which can be found in many nutritional supplements, may have an effect on the body’s ability to regulate insulin levels.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…-men-19677988/

03.21.10 07:01 PM

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined a lawsuit filed against a Mississippi High School that announced it would cancel its prom because a lesbian student was planning to attend the event with her girlfriend.

In legal papers filed on March 16, the ACLU asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the Itawamba County School District from canceling the prom and from prohibiting Constance McMillen from bringing her girlfriend as a date and wearing a tuxedo.

“We are determined to get the prom back on the calendar and open to all students,” ACLU lawyer Christine Sun, who represents McMillen, told CNN.

“What this case comes down to is the school taking the extraordinary measure of canceling the prom, rather than live up to its legal obligation to fairly treat all students who want to come to it,” she added.

The case has attracted national attention, and offers to host or help fund an alternative independent prom have reportedly come from across the country.

A hearing on the motion has been set for March 22 at the Federal District Court in Aberdeen, Miss.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…dent-19675287/

03.21.10 07:01 PM

For 15 months there has been a growing opposition to the increasing encroachment of the Federal government over the rights of its citizens. It finally reached a crescendo last week as the House worked to steamroll Obamacare through despite objections by the vast majority of the electorate.

The past 12 months have been extremely frustrating for many. People voiced their opposition to Obamacare, Cap and Trade and stimulus bills to their Representatives and Senators, but it seemed that most of their opposition fell on deaf ears.

The Tea Parties were formed, and the shouting grew louder. Many of the elected class who were supporting the growing government—both Democrats and Republicans—found their town hall meetings to be unpleasant places to be.

But still, government grew and spending increased… and the march to Obamacare continued.

Deciding that their voices weren’t being heard and their marches on Washington were being ignored, voters wanting smaller government and a return to Constitutional principals voted in droves. The results were upsets in New Jersey, Virginia and finally, in Massachusetts. The election of Republican Scott Brown to the late Ted Kennedy’s senate seat seemed to end the threat of Obamacare by eliminating the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority.

Supporters of small government and Tea Party activists breathed a sigh of relief. But, despite President Obama’s promise to focus on jobs, Obamacare didn’t die. It continued to fester and so the shouting got loud again.

But still the elected class, pushing their socialist agenda and seeking to control us from cradle to grave—seeking to enslave us with unconstitutional mandates—didn’t listen.

Writing in Anti-Federalist letter No. 1, Brutus (Robert Yates) said that in a free republic, all laws are derived from the consent of the people and passed by representatives who are supposed to know the minds of their constituents and possessed of the integrity to declare this mind. Unfortunately, the representatives holding the majority don’t possess this integrity.

So Brutus wrote: “If the people are to give their assent to the laws, by persons chosen and appointed by them, the manner of the choice and the number chosen, must be such, as to possess, be disposed, and consequently qualified to declare the sentiments of the people; for if they do not know, or are not disposed to speak the sentiments of the people, the people do not govern, but the sovereignty is in a few.”

That’s were we are now—with sovereignty in the hands of a few. So now it’s time to take the next step. Fortunately, we have the words and deeds of some of our Founding Fathers to direct us.

Since its beginning the Federal government has sought to grow and even those who took part in the framing of the Constitution have tested it’s parameters by trying to intrude on the rights of Americans.

The second president, John Adams, signed legislation that made it a treasonable activity to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing.” This was one of the laws that became part of the Alien and Sedition Acts. As a result, 25 men, most of them Republican supporters of Thomas Jefferson were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down.

One of those arrested was Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora.

In response, Jefferson, then the vice president, secretly wrote the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. In them he argued that the Alien and Sedition Acts were acts of usurpation—that the Federal government had overstepped its bounds and was exercising powers which belonged to the states.

After all, the 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

He saw the Constitution not as a document that restrained the people, but as one that restrained the Federal government. And he believed that was a good thing. As an aside: Obama has stated just the opposite. He has said he finds it unfortunate that the Constitution contains the restrictions on Government that it does.

Jefferson corresponded with James Madison (known as the father of the Constitution) about the Kentucky Resolutions and Madison drafted similar Resolutions for Virginia.

Both Kentucky and Virginia adopted the resolutions which essentially said that when the Federal government assumes undelegated powers—those not enumerated in the Constitution—those acts are “unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

These came to be known as the Principals of ’98.

It’s time to lobby your state representative and state senator and governor and push for a law to prohibit the enforcement of Obamacare and other unconstitutional laws in your state. It’s time to resurrect the Principals of ’98.

Both Virginia and Idaho have voted to sue the Federal government over Obamacare. You must push your state to do the same.

The overreach has gone on for far too long. In addition to Obamacare there is the looming Cap and Trade legislation, there are restrictive gun laws and, under George W. Bush, there was the USA PATRIOT Act and the REAL ID Act (which states have resisted).

Resistance to a tyrannical government is very American. And if the Federal government continues its oppression then it will be time to consider other steps.

Writing to Madison in 1787, Jefferson said, “I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

And then there is one more step to consider. It was commonly understood prior to 1861 that the states reserved the right to secede. There had been talk of secession by the northern New England states many times. Even Abraham Lincoln, as a representative, recognized the states had the right to secede—he only changed his mind after he held the reins of the presidency.

In 1825, Jefferson wrote: “If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at once as a dissolution, none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are the dissolution of our Union with them or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation. But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.”

For too long we have failed in being watchful of every “material usurpation” of our rights. But for the last year at least, we have protested them. And our protests have fallen on deaf ears. Dissolution must be in the back of our minds now. But, we’re not ready for that step… not yet.

http://www.personalliberty.com/perso…nciples-of-98/

03.18.10 07:01 PM

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) publicly lashed out at Al Gore on Monday, referring to global warming as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” while claiming that the former vice president is “running for cover” following recent questions regarding climate change science.

“He’s under siege these days,” said Inhofe, while speaking on the Senate floor. “The credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is eroding, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding is collapsing and belief that global warming is leading to catastrophe is evaporating.”

“Gore seems to be drowning in a sea of his own global warming illusions nevertheless,” added the senator, who has been a longtime critic of the science behind climate change.

Inhofe also insinuated that Gore had gotten rich due to global warming, referring to the Nobel Peace Prize winner as the first “climate billionaire,” and said his recent op-ed piece in The New York Times was a simple act of desperation.

Meanwhile, the senator concluded his 30-minute speech by denouncing climate change legislation being authored by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.), claiming that any cap-and-trade bill would adversely affect the American people.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…over-19672714/

03.17.10 07:01 PM

“I’ll just tell you this, if this [Obamacare] passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented, I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.” —Rush Limbaugh

Dear supporters of Personal Liberty,

Rush is right. Our personal and financial freedoms are threatened now more than ever, and smart people are seriously looking for the best loopholes to escape ObamaNation, including the possibility*of leaving the country.

Intrade, the political futures market, now shows that Obama’s Deathcare legislation, with all its huge tax increases and regulations, has a 59 percent chance of passing. That’s scary.

We now enter “Phase II” of the Obama regime, and it will be more dangerous than Phase I (the first year). Obama and his radical Democrats are becoming more radical in Phase II. We survived the first year of the Obama administration without much damage, but now the White House has decided to turn up the heat and go all out to push through Obamacare, his unpopular trillion dollar program of socialized medicine.

This radical measure, on top of sharply higher taxes, closing of legitimate deductions and loopholes, draconian regulations on Wall Street, consumer “protection,” increased union power and multiple attacks on business can spell only one thing: more deficits, slower growth and quagmire on Wall Street.

How to profit? Besides buying gold and silver, you might consider getting some of your money outside the country, or even considering leaving the country. Rush might be on to something.

One of our most popular sessions at FreedomFest last year was on the personal and financial benefits of leaving the country and living abroad. Led by such tax and estate planning experts as Vernon Jacobs and Marshall Langer, the room was packed with people who wanted to know more about the financial and personal benefits of moving abroad (without giving up your citizenship).

After all, more than 3 million Americans have already moved abroad and are saving millions in taxes, and enjoying personal liberty. They’ve moved to Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribean, Europe and Asia.

Langer, the world’s foremost tax attorney, asked the audience “How many of you want to know about moving to a low tax state such asFlorida?” A few hands went up. Then he asked, “How many of you are interested in moving to a foreign tax haven?” Almost every hand went up!

Moving to a foreign tax haven doesn’t mean giving up your U.S. citizenship, although some have taken that drastic step. I personally lived in the Bahamas, a tax haven, for two years without giving up my citizenship and saved a ton of money in taxes. It was life in living color! (For those who want to read my story, Easy Living:*My Two Years in the Bahamas, go to www.markskousen.com.)

Good news; we’re going to repeat those special sessions at this year’s FreedomFest. The session, “The Tax and Financial Advantages of Moving Abroad,” will be led by experts Vernon Jacobs, CPA, and Robert Bauman, president of the Sovereign Society (and former US congressman) and a contributor to Personal Liberty Digest.

By attending this year’s World Economic Summit at FreedomFest you can learn specific ways to protect your business and your investments from the unprecedented onslaught of our freedoms. More details can be found at http://www.freedomfest.com.

Speakers this year will include Steve Forbes (president and chief executive officer of Forbes, editor in chief of Forbes magazine and a former presidential candidate), John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods Market) and Greg Mortenson (author of the famous book, Three Cups of Tea, and the most admired American in the Middle East).

An incredible number of top financial gurus will also be speaking at this year’s FreedomFest. Back by popular demand is Donald Smith, the New York money manager who has the best track record—an average annualized return of 12 percent a year since 1980—better even than Warren Buffett! His fund was up 65 percent last year.

He is so impressed with FreedomFest that he is bringing 20 of his friends/colleagues with him this year. Now that’s what I call catching the spirit of FreedomFest.

Yours for peace, prosperity, and liberty, AEIOU,

Mark Skousen

http://www.personalliberty.com/liber…g-obamanation/

03.16.10 07:01 PM

Results of a new study suggest that the majority of people taking vitamins may want to store them in a different place. Researchers from Purdue University have found that the high humidity present in bathrooms and kitchens may seriously degrade vitamins and other dietary supplements.

Lead study author Lisa Mauer, an associate professor of food science at the university, and her colleagues found that crystalline substances—which include vitamin C, vitamin B and other natural supplements—are susceptible to deliquescence, a process by which humidity forces water-soluble solids to dissolve.

“You might see salt or sugar start to cake in the summer, start to form clumps, and that’s a sign of deliquescence,” said Mauer.

“You can also get chemical instabilities, which are a little more problematic if you’re consuming a dietary supplement with vitamin C,” she added.

The researchers found that even a minimal amount of moisture can significantly decrease the nutrient delivery and shelf life of vitamins.

Specifically, they discovered that vitamin C can degrade within one week when high amounts of moisture are added to a bottle that is regularly opened and closed.

Nutrient degradation is commonly marked by brown spots on vitamins or small amounts of liquid in the container.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…hens-19667500/

03.16.10 07:01 PM

“Sic semper tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants). —Brutus, during the assassination of Julius Caesar.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a soothsayer warns Caesar to “beware the Ides of March.” The warning did nothing to help Caesar, who was stabbed to death on the Senate floor. The principal conspirator against Caesar was Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar’s most trusted ally.

Fast forward two millennia and we see another great empire is in trouble, and so, too, its leader.

Thankfully, democratic rulers aren’t murdered, they are voted out of office. Yet this President has almost three more years left in office, plenty of time to do more economic damage for a country and to lose every shred of confidence in a man once hailed as a visionary and a redeemer; the exact qualities that were bestowed upon Julius Caesar.

Caesar came to political prominence in 67 B.C. when he was elected to the Roman Senate. Over the next two decades he would become one of the most renowned of all generals. Eighteen years later he established himself as the sole dictator of the Roman Empire.

Caesar declared himself a man of the people and in 46 B.C. drafted a public letter outlining his goals. They included: “tranquility for Italy, peace for the provinces, and security for the Empire.”

History has declared Caesar did not have the time or means to complete his overly ambitious agenda which included resolving foreign conflicts, strengthening the middle class and resolving the debt crisis. It sounds all too familiar, with the exception that I find nothing about Caesar instituting Roman healthcare.

Historians do point out that Caesar’s goals and methods of governing alienated many of the nobles. For a time, that did not stop Caesar’s lackeys in the Senate from constantly voting him new honors. Unfortunately for Caesar, the Nobel Prize was not one of them, as it was created some 2,000 years later.

On March 15, 44 B.C., Caesar attended his last meeting. He ignored a warning and went to the Senate. Sixty conspirators, most of them Senators who had lost faith in his vision for rebuilding Rome, were waiting for him with concealed daggers. He was stabbed 23 times.

March Madness
What exactly the House and Senate will do to Mr. Obama’s grand plans remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: Mr. Obama has faced a winter of discontent.

According to a survey done by Rasmussen in March, only one in four Americans think the country is heading in the right direction. Other surveys this month show expectations for the nation’s short- and long-term economic future are gloomier than they have been at any time since President Obama took office.

Still, Obama supporters continue to harp on some silver linings among the dark economic clouds. Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the latest job numbers proof that the economic recovery is underway, even though the unemployment rate is a whopping 9.7 percent and the true jobless number is close to double that.

“Today is a big day in America,” said Reid earlier this month. “Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today; which is really good.”

Reid seems like the kind of cheerleader the Titantic could have used: “Good news passengers! The ship isn’t sinking as fast as we feared!”

I suspect that Reid and other Obama loyalists will find that most Americans think such talk cheap. In the second half of March, 2010, The Fates may have already determined the President’s plight. The big question is: who will deliver the blow and what will be the result?

Bernanke Obama’s Brutus
In March Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke promised to end Quantitative Easing (a fancy term for stimulating the economy and funding deficits by running the printing presses). Some think that the Fed Chairman only wants to ensure his Senate reconfirmation. Others think it is a real commitment; that Bernanke is more loyal to the dollar than the President.

I don’t blame you if you are skeptical about Bernanke. Still, there is precedent for the Fed to put the country first. It happened in 1979 when President Carter appointed Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The economy then was much as it is now. Unemployment was soaring, confidence was disappearing and the dollar was in crisis. Yet Volcker put the nation first and the presidency second. He raised interest rates through the roof purposefully putting America into a terrible recession.

Volcker’s actions eventually saved the American economy and cost Jimmy Carter his bid to be reelected. But it was tough sledding. The Fed funds rate, which had averaged 11.2 percent in 1979, was raised by Volcker to a peak of 20 percent in June 1981. That same year inflation topped out at 13.5 percent, a fundamental which drove the price of gold from $280 per ounce when Volker was appointed to $850 per ounce just 18 months later.

Yet I am dubious that Bernanke will betray Obama. The Fed chairman seems much more like Arthur Burns than Paul Volcker.

Richard Nixon hurt the dollar primarily because he removed any link between the dollar and gold. After 1971 not even countries could exchange greenbacks for bullion. That gave Nixon, and all later presidents, the freedom to spend away. Because the dollar was the world’s international reserve currency, Washington basically believed that other countries had to like it or lump it.

Arthur Burns came along when it was still expected for the Fed to carry out its primary mission—to protect the integrity of the dollar. Instead, Burns acquiesced to Nixon’s war on poverty, the war in Vietnam and bid for reelection in 1972. It was a cavalcade of spending that carried on throughout the decade of the ‘70s.

“After finally winning the presidential election of 1968, Nixon named Burns to the Fed chairmanship in 1970 with instructions to ensure easy access to credit when Nixon was running for reelection in 1972,” wrote Mercury Rising.

“Later, when Burns resisted, negative press about him was planted in newspapers and, under the threat of legislation to dilute the Fed’s influence, Burns and other Governors succumbed. Inflation resulted.”

According to American Thinker, it matters not if Bernanke is loyal to the President like Burns, or the dollar like Volcker; either way he “will be Obama’s Brutus.”

That is because like Rome, America is a weakened empire with no easy choices. Two trillion dollars that the Federal government needs this year underscores this truth.

Where such funds will come from remains very much in question. Foreigners are having second thoughts about financing America’s deficit, and China—the largest owner of Treasuries—has become a net seller of Uncle Sam bonds.

Very soon Treasury yields will have to rise to get the world to continue to finance Washington’s spending spree. So whether or not Bernanke wants it, or even likes it, interest rates are heading higher. That is bad news for the economy and for President Obama who will almost certainly not be re-elected.

Rising rates are, however, good news for the nation for bullion investors. Rising rates ensure falling stock and bond prices and a rush to gold. It happened during the Carter administration and it has already begun during Obama’s term.

Action to take: Sell all bond instruments and Big Board stocks and use the funds to buy bullion, either in physical form or blue-chip gold mining stocks.

As Shakespeare’s soothsayer warned, “Beware the ides of March.”

Yours for real wealth and good health,

John Myers
Myers’ Energy and Gold Report

http://www.personalliberty.com/john-…ll-do-to-gold/

03.16.10 07:01 PM

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, has announced it has received a top secret memorandum from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that appears to detail the extent of congressional knowledge about alleged torture of foreign terrorist suspects in United States custody.

The memo is said to include a report of a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence closed hearing, conducted in July 2004, regarding the subject of enhanced interrogation techniques.

The organization has released several excerpts from the hearing, including a summary of testimony by a Department of Defense official who reportedly asserted that “interrogation is a critically valuable tool, and … the most [important] factor in the capture of Saddam Hussein.”

Another top official was quoted as saying that methods such as diet and sleep “management,” as well as “segregation,” are among the most important techniques that were—or were planned to be—employed at that time.

After the memo was made public last week, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said it proved what the group had long suspected, namely that intelligence officials repeatedly informed members of Congress that enhanced interrogation techniques were effective.

“We are now beginning to get a very clear picture of what members of Congress knew and when they knew it,” he added.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…ndum-19662600/

03.16.10 07:01 PM

As the deadline approaches for the Senate vote on healthcare reform, Democratic leaders have confirmed their plan to move forward on the bill using a fast-track legislative tactic known as budget reconciliation.

They have also said they will stop trying to work out a deal with Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) regarding federal funding for abortions.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), made the reconciliation announcement—which will allow Democrats to pass the bill with 51 votes, instead of the usual threshold of 60—in his letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday.

“We will finish the job,” Reid said in the letter, adding that “we will do so by revising individual elements of the bills both houses of Congress passed last year, and we plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process that the Republican caucus has used many times.”

As federal funding for abortions remains a sticking point, and as the latest round of negotiations with the proponent of an amendment that would ban it have come to a naught, Democratic leaders have said they will no longer try to negotiate with Stupak.

Commentators have said this suggests the Democratic leadership believes there aren’t enough pro-life Democrats that will follow Stupak in voting against the bill, something the latter disputes.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…bill-19667528/

03.16.10 07:01 PM

Virginia’s new Republican Governor Bob McDonnell has spoken out against his attorney general’s claim that the state’s schools have no right to ban anti-gay discrimination, as the firestorm surrounding the governor’s first executive order continues.

The controversy first emerged when McDonnell, who was sworn in in January, signed his first executive order that, unlike those issued by two previous governors, did not include specific protections for gay state workers.

Soon thereafter, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, also a Republican, sent a letter to public colleges in which he stated that they had no right to impose their own bans as only state legislature can extend such protections, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

The ensuing uproar has led McDonnell to backtrack on his own order and on Cuccinelli’s interpretation by announcing an extension of protections to homosexuals, citing their constitutional rights.

“The Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination without a rational basis against any class of persons [including] based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation,” he wrote, quoted by Falls Church News-Press.

Therefore, “discrimination against any class of persons without a rational basis is prohibited,” he added.

In the meantime, there have been individual acts of defiance across the state, including the City of Falls Church School Board, that voted to add language to its anti-discrimination policy to protect lesbians and gays at its most recent meeting on Tuesday night, the news provider further reported.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…roar-19667530/

03.15.10 07:01 PM

You heard the news and you bought the product. The promise of a liquid soap that can kill bacteria—99 percent of bacteria—was too good to pass up. Billions of consumer dollars later, and now experts say the claim is false.

According to the Associated Press (AP), a federal advisory panel found anti-bacterial soaps to be no more effective than regular soap and water.

Companies manufacturing these hand soaps are now being warned: Prove your claims or remove them from the packaging.

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Years of promoting liquid anti-bacterial soap as the answer to killing disease-causing germs—and now without the need for water! Some brands offer the type that is loaded with alcohol and dissolves dry right on your hands!

Yet an 11 to 1 vote by the panel that advises the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that they “saw no added benefits to anti-bacterials when compared with soapy hand washing.”

The irony? The advisory board also said that these anti-bacterial soaps are made from synthetic chemicals that could actually contribute to the growth of a strain of bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics.

That’s right; the soap that bills to kill 99 percent of germs is causing new super germs that our antibiotics can’t handle! Each year the flu virus gets worse and “anti-bacterial” soaps and cleaners just may be one of the causes.

Yet the advisory panel made no suggestion to the FDA to remove the products from consumer shelves. Their argument for allowing the products to remain is that their true risks versus benefits have not yet been determined.

But Dr. Alastair Wood, chairman of the Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee, said: “There’s no evidence they are a good value.”

And Dr. Mary E. Tinetti, another panelist, said unless these products can show benefits over soap and water there could be a strong movement to remove them from the market.

For now the FDA is considering what action to take. The so-called anti-bacterial soaps actually do clean your hands. And they are just as effective in doing so as regular soap and water. Yet, whether they kill 99 percent of bacteria and whether they are safe isn’t the problem. So, the FDA may vote to have such claims simply removed from the packaging for now.

You see, where anti-bacterials kill germs on the spot, soap and water separates them from the skin for rinsing down the drain. But they both do the same job of cleaning. Neither is more effective than the other.

And while the manufacturers of such products state that their benefits are better than soap and that consumers at home and at work need “choices” when deciding on what they clean with, they offer no proof to substantiate their claims.

And so the FDA is awaiting industry members to present substantial evidence that the anti-bacterials do as they claim and are not harmful to the consumers using them.

Until then, the choice is yours. And here’s another choice: mass produced vs. organic food.

A recent study suggests that organic food is no better than mass produced food… at least in terms of nutrients.

According to the latest long-term study of organic food versus mass-produced food, it seems there is no nutritional difference. It seems consumers in London have been complaining about the huge financial disparity between ordinary food and organic food and wanted to know if there was true health value for their financial investment.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine conducted a systematic review of more than 160 scientific papers and studies published in the leading journals over the past half-century.

Their findings showed that “a small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance,” said Alan Dangour, one of the report’s authors.

Dangour went on to say: “Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”

So what do I think of this? It makes no difference at all.

Sure, their research shows that the nutritional content of normal food is almost the same as organic food. So what? The reason I (and others) turned to organic food was to avoid the herbicides and pesticides that commercial farmers use to improve crop output and kill crop-eating insects.

We choose organic so that we won’t get cancer from eating an apple or salad that was grown in chemically-heavy soil or sprayed with toxic chemicals that will then enter our blood stream.

Recent reports showed that children who ate fruit grown with everyday commercial chemicals presented with traces of pesticides in their urine! And after a mere five days of switching to organic fruit, the toxic levels dropped drastically from their blood.

So you can save a few bucks by consuming commercially grown foodstuffs and you may actually receive the actual nutrients found in their organic counterparts.

But beware: having money in your pocket and nutrients in your system in no way reflects the toxic chemical levels you are also living with. Life is too short and too valuable to play games with. Again, the choice is yours.

What’s it gonna be?

—Dr. Mark Wiley

http://www.personalliberty.com/healt…-dont-hold-up/

03.15.10 07:01 PM

After the recent round of primary elections in Texas some commentators have suggested that victories of fiscal conservatives are an indication of the growing strength of the Tea Party movement. However, others have cautioned that the claims may be overblown.

They point out that although Governor Rick Perry resoundingly won the Republican gubernatorial primary by advocating small government, opposing the federal deficit as well as tax increases, there was also a Tea Party candidate in that race who finished a distant third.

In fact, despite Tea Party challengers, all 11 of the incumbent House Republicans facing challengers in the state won their primary battle in the end, according to CNN.

"[These] candidates complicated things at the lower level of the tickets, but they didn’t quite overwhelm the better-established dynamics in a lot of these districts," said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, quoted by the news provider.

As far as the Tea Party impact, he added, "there was a lot more flash than bang."

The grassroots movement was launched last year in response to the massive stimulus package passed by Congress and signed by President Obama. Its website specifies that Tea Party Nation is a group of people who want to preserve God-given individual freedoms introduced by the Founding Fathers and who believe in limited government, free speech, the Second Amendment, the military and secure borders.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…omes-19664994/

03.15.10 07:01 PM

Joe Racalto, the chief of staff for former Representative Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), informed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office of his boss’s inappropriate behavior toward several unmarried male staffers in October of 2009, an unnamed source told The Washington Post last week.

Earlier in the month, Pelosi indicated that her staff had only learned in February of the concerns regarding Massa, who recently resigned from the House amid an Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct, Fox News reports.

According to the Post, Racalto called Pelosi’s director of member services because he was troubled that Massa, 50, was living in a townhouse with numerous young male staffers and had been using explicit language in front of them. Moreover, Racalto was concerned about a lunch date that the congressman—who is married with two kids—had set up with an aide in his 20s who worked in the office of Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

Although the Ethics Committee has concluded its investigation into Massa’s conduct—as his resignation put him outside the reach of any punishment it could impose—House Republicans are calling for an inquiry into the manner in which Pelosi’s office handled the accusations.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that the committee should continue to investigate, as there are "an awful lot of questions" that have been left unanswered.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…ober-19664435/

03.15.10 07:01 PM

As the debate continues on legalizing and taxing marijuana in the climate of growing budget deficits, a Vanderbilt University Law School professor has said that although the proposal sounds simple, there are too many legal hurdles for it to work.

In a new paper, professor Robert Mikos wrote that the federal ban on marijuana would cripple a state’s ability to collect taxes because it encourages marijuana distributors to remain small and continue to operate underground. Moreover, it prevents states from being able to monitor or tax the distributors.

Mikos also pointed out that even if states could successfully monitor marijuana distributors, any information they collected could be used by federal law enforcement to prosecute dealers.

"Federal law enforcement officials could use any information the states gather to track down and sanction marijuana distributors," he said, adding that "the federal ban would thus encourage distributors to evade state tax collectors."

According to Vanderbilt University, activists in states such as California who advocate legalizing marijuana claim the move could generate more than a billion dollars and save millions more by reducing law enforcement costs on prohibition enforcement.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…uana-19664991/

03.14.10 07:01 PM

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said last week that President Obama’s actions during his first State of the Union address were "very troubling," noting that the atmosphere surrounding the annual event has "degenerated to a political pep rally," according to media reports.

During his speech, Obama openly criticized the high court for its decision regarding campaign finance regulations, an act that visibly seemed to bother Roberts and other Supreme Court justices attending the address.

While speaking to a crowd of law students from the University of Alabama, Roberts questioned whether justices should even attend the increasingly political televised speech.

"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court—according the requirements of protocol—has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling," he said. "I’m not sure why we are there."

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs quickly responded, stating that the only thing troubling the administration was the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that will allow corporations to spend unlimited resources while advocating on behalf of candidates in elections, according to Fox News.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…ly-2-19662248/

03.14.10 07:01 PM

The great swine flu hoax is finally fizzling out.

Aside from an occasional public service announcement there is almost no mention of swine flu—or H1N1—in the media today. No more Kathleen Sebelius telling you to cough into your bent arm, no more government hucksters urging you get vaccinated.

And curiously, in the mainstream media there is no reflection on the “pandemic” as we approach the one-year anniversary of the first reports coming out of Mexico. Or maybe it’s not so curious after all.

It was last April that the outbreak began in Veracruz, Mexico. The mainstream media went nuts, providing daily tallies of infections and deaths from around the globe as it followed the spread of the so-called deadly disease. There were quarantines in Hong Kong and people wearing surgical masks in South America, China and Japan.

It wasn’t long before the World Health Organization (WHO) was proclaiming it a crisis in the making and predicting deaths in the millions worldwide—2 million in the United States alone.

Billions of tax dollars were sent to the largest drug manufacturers—GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Novartis—to develop a vaccine. Governments quickly passed legislation absolving Big Pharma from any liability if people were harmed in the taking of the vaccines. And then Big Pharma foisted a harmful vaccine on the public.

Officials from all levels of government went to the media first encouraging, the suggesting and, finally, threatening to order people to take the vaccines. Early on people lined up hoping to get vaccinated but became frustrated when manufacturers failed to meet their quotas. Later, people stayed away in droves. In the end, more people stayed away than were vaccinated.

If you invested in GlaxoSmithKline, Roche or Novartis a year ago, pat yourself on the back. Either you were lucky, prescient or in on the scheme. You and your companies have made a killing. The stock prices of these companies were in a precipitous slide at the end of March 2009, and have each almost—or even more than—doubled since, thanks to the multi-billion dollar injections they received from government.

If you were one of the gullible public that subjected yourself to the harmful vaccine and came away unscathed, thank your lucky stars. Some weren’t so lucky and contracted Guillain-Barré syndrome and other afflictions. Many who had the vaccine saw no deleterious effects, but contracted swine flu anyway. However, the consequences of the harmful materials contained in the vaccines may not be known for years.

Here’s what we do know. The total number of swine flu-related deaths worldwide is around 14,000. And the number is only this high because WHO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed the way the deaths were classified. To put that in perspective, about 36,000 die in the U.S. each year from seasonal flu. And about 100,000 a year die in this country from the effects of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs.

And here’s something else to consider—and something the U.S. mainstream media isn’t telling you. In January 2010, Professor Ulrich Keil, the director of the WHO’s Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) “governments wasted huge amounts of money by investing in pandemic scenarios whose evidence base is weak.”

( Column Continues Below )

PACE’s Health Committee Chairman, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a former German lawmaker, medical doctor and epidemiologist, called the swine flu pandemic one of the greatest medical scandals of the century. Speaking on the Alex Jones radio program, Wodarg called it a hoax manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies in league with the WHO to make vast profits while endangering the public health. (prisonplanet.com)

And Wodarg told the U.K Daily Mail, “The governments have sealed contracts with vaccine producers where they secure orders in advance and take upon themselves almost all the responsibility. In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks. So they just wait until WHO says ‘pandemic’ and activate the contracts.”

Wodarg also told the Daily Mail that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed “their people” in the “cogs” of the WHO and other influential organizations.

To its credit, Time magazine ran an article in January 2010, that touched on Wodarg’s comments. So its couple of thousand subscribers—and a few thousand more patients in doctor and dentist offices—had access to the truth. But the magazine also included the typical government propaganda that people should still be vaccinated and a third wave of the “pandemic” could be in the offing.

The Time article also contains this curious tidbit:

“The current glut of vaccines in rich nations may at least prove useful to the 95 countries in the developing world that have no access to vaccines, 86 of which have written to the WHO requesting help obtaining supplies. The WHO already has 200 million doses for such countries, and the first doses of that stockpile arrived in Mongolia and Azerbaijan this month. These doses will be supplemented by bilateral deals: France, for example, plans to sell 2 million vaccine doses at cost to Egypt and 300,000 to Qatar, according to a report in the Parisien newspaper.

It appears that even in developing nations, however, the need for vaccines is not overwhelming. Despite fears that H1N1 would hit developing nations hardest, the pandemic is unfolding in those countries “in a similar pattern” to that in the developed world, says (WHO’s special advisor on pandemic influenza Dr. Keiji) Fukuda—which is to say with relatively few deaths. In fact, some developing countries, particularly in West Africa, are reporting lower rates of infection than in the developed world.

Which begs the question: why would developing countries waste what little money they have on a useless vaccine to treat a disease that’s not infecting or killing people as predicted?

The scam has been a boon to at least one British official and one CDC official. The Daily Mail reports that Sir Roy Anderson, a scientist that advises the British government on swine flu, holds a well-paying job on the board of GlaxoSmithKline.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, the former head of the CDC, recently left that organization for a lucrative job as president of Merck’s global vaccine operations. With that in mind, watch for the announcement of the next pandemic and, when it comes, consider jumping on Merck stock. That company obviously doesn’t want to get caught out of the loop again.

Just don’t take the vaccine next time. As we’ve told you before, vaccines are useless, inefficient and dangerous.

And if you don’t believe me, maybe the words of Dr. Shiv Chopra will convince you. Chopra has worked for European drug companies and served for 20 years as an advisor to the Canadian equivalent of the FDA. He recently told Dr. Joseph Mercola (mercola.com):

“No flu vaccine has ever worked. Swine flu, we don’t even know there is such a thing. It’s a misnomer. Avian [bird] flu, these are all made-up things. The whole thing is a hoax. It has been for the last 10 years. First they started with the avian flu, and then swine flu.”

“Who is the Directorate General of the WHO to say that ‘I’m raising it to pandemic level No. 6?’ Based on what? At the same time, from the same sources, we’re receiving information that we think sooner or later, the virus is going to mutate. We don’t know when but it is going to. How did they know that? How do they come to that conclusion?

“Then we hear the new virus H1N1 has components: the bird flu, H5N1, or the other way around. When you use these kinds of numbers and technical words, it frightens people because they don’t understand what H or N stands for. They take people’s words for it and the media picks it up and then starts to say, ‘This is very different. This is entirely different. This has components of the 1918 flu and the bird flu. It also has the swine flu.’

“And you go around in Mexico and you get H1N1 in the swine right now. So you make six, eight or 10 different drugs, different vaccines as many as the companies, and then you say, ‘Some will be live and they’ll be given in the nose, some will be killed, some will have adjuvants like squalene oils.’

“…And some people are being given nasal vaccine, so that means a live virus. If you’re putting a drop in the nose like you put the drop of polio in the mouth, then those are the portals of entry that obviously mean this is a live virus. If it’s a live virus, then you actually may be creating a pandemic with whatever you manufactured in the laboratory. If it’s a live virus then that’s what could happen.”

How is that for government incompetence? They predicted a pandemic, they hyped it in order to scare people into taking an untested vaccine, they enlisted government hacks, celebrities and a willing media to spread their propaganda, they deliberately infected people with a live virus and still they couldn’t make their pandemic meet their goals.

http://www.personalliberty.com/perso…re-big-pharma/

03.14.10 07:01 PM

Former top George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove’s defense of his boss’ presidency has been facing criticism not only from Democrats, but also from Rove’s own party members.

Last week, the former aid’s new book Courage and Consequences hit the bookshelves, and in it the man who was dubbed "Bush’s brain" set out to defend the administration’s key decisions, including the war in Iraq.

Speaking with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Rove emphasized that 110 Democrats voted for the war, and that there was a "worldwide consensus" on the existence of weapons of mass destruction with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair being listed among the believers.

He added that given the subsequent "attacks" on Bush by major Democratic figures, and their accusations of lying to the American people, Rove’s only regret is that the administration did not "[respond] stronger than we did."

However, The Dallas Morning News reports that as Rove continues his publicity tour, former Texas GOP chairman Tom Pauken offered a different assessment of Bush’s eight years at the helm.

Pulken said that the Bush-Rove team "hijacked" conservatism and nearly destroyed it. "[As a result] Republican politics is barely recognizable to many of us who were grassroots activists in the early days of the conservative movement," he told the news provider.

He specified that Bush spent too much, increased the national debt and conducted a "reckless" foreign policy.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…book-19659219/

03.11.10 07:01 PM

I had planned to write this week about the irritating idiocy most of us will encounter this weekend: The biannual changing of the clocks, necessitated by Daylight Savings Time.

Who the heck first proposed that we “spring forward” anyway? I think it’s a terrible idea. Among many other things wrong with it, we end up sending our children off to school when it’s pitch black outside. That can’t be as safe as waiting until the sun is out, can it?

But that rant will have to wait. Because something happened last week that got me so mad that—as my mother used to say—I could chew nails and spit bullets.

I’m talking about the utterly unfair and vicious attacks the Democrats in Congress, supported by their allies in the liberal media, launched against former baseball great Jim Bunning. In case you missed it, here’s what happened.

As you know, whenever some sensitive soul discovers someone suffering in America, someone in Congress will promise to solve the problem. And an amazing number of times (something like 999 times out of 1,000), the solution requires throwing taxpayer money at it.

That’s what happened two weeks ago, when a bunch of Democrats learned that many of their constituents had run out of unemployment benefits. In most states, such payouts last a maximum of 18 months. When the legislation was originally approved, the thinking was that a year and half would be plenty of time for someone to find a job. Assuming, that is, that he or she looked hard enough and wasn’t too fussy about the perks and pay he or she would receive.

But as you know, this isn’t just any recession we’re in. At the very least, it’s the Great Recession. Many commentators are even more pessimistic; I know several who say we’ve entered what they call the Greater Depression.

However you describe it, the sad fact is that millions of jobs have disappeared in this country. And a whole lot of them aren’t coming back any time soon. Doesn’t matter if you built cars in Detroit for decades, and your father did before you and your grandfather before that. Color that baby gone, my friend.

So jobs are hard to find, unemployment benefits are running out and some voters are getting worried. Why, this sounds like a job for Congressman! And before you could say “roll call,” the Democrats had drafted legislation to extend unemployment benefits by six more months, at a cost of $10 billion.

There was just one teensy little problem. According to legislation the Democrats themselves had passed one month earlier, the legislation was illegal. Remember when the House and Senate, with the glowing approval of the White House, passed something called “pay as you go” (pay-go)? The measure said simply that Congress could not approve any new Federal spending unless it found the money to fund it from somewhere else in the budget.

Since this year’s budget comes to more than $3.5 trillion, and will add at least another $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit, that requirement didn’t seem terribly unreasonable. In no time at all, pay-go became the law of the land.

Ah, but then up came the subject of all those poor unemployed voters. Surely they deserve a little extra consideration, don’t they? We can make an exception for them, can’t we?

So Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, asked for “unanimous consent” to approve a bill giving them another $10 billion in benefits. Most of the time, when asked for unanimous consent, everyone in the Senate meekly says “sure thing, Harry.”

In this case, the dirty deed would be done without the necessity of a potentially embarrassing recorded vote. Say what you will, our legislators aren’t stupid; they know they’ll face reelection some day. Why give a potential opponent the opportunity to ask, “Why did you, Mr. Incumbent, vote to violate the very pay-go law you passed a month earlier?”

Our august leaders clearly expected the measure to be quickly and quietly approved. After all, the skids had been properly greased. The leadership of the so-called opposition had promised to vote “aye.” What could go wrong?

But the problem with unanimous consent is that it has to be unanimous. And this time, one guy said “I object.” Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) refused to go along to get along. And that was all it took to throw a monkey wrench in the works.

“Obstructionism,” screamed Reid. “An outrage,” cried Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va). “Unfair,” said Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “Political games,” said the White House. Even his fellow Republicans joined the pile-on. “[His] views do not represent a majority of the Republican caucus,” said Susan Collins—a RINO from Maine who votes way to the left of Bunning.

The TV networks were on the story like crows on road kill. The three major networks all decided (independently, of course) to broadcast the Senate proceedings live as Bunning blocked the bill for a second time. ABC News even tried one of their famous “ambush” interviews as the senator was getting into a private elevator in the Capitol.

But here’s what no one in the mainstream media bothered to tell their gullible audience. Reid could have gotten the money any time he wanted, just by calling for a recorded vote. Bingo, the measure could have been passed in a minute.

But Reid was having more fun—and scoring more points, he thought—by exposing Republican obstructionism.

Rather than bow to the pressure, Bunning suggested a compromise: Let’s fund this thing by taking $10 billion from all of that unspent “stimulus” money. Reid wouldn’t even allow a vote to be taken on Bunning’s amendment.

USA Today offered Bunning the opportunity to tell his side. In “Why I took a stand,” which ran on March 4, the Senator said: “For too long, both Republicans and Democrats have treated the taxpayers’ money as a slush fund that does not ever end. At some point, the madness has to stop….We are on the verge of a tipping point where America’s debt will bring down our economy.”

And then he said, “If the Senate cannot find $10 billion to pay for a measure we all support, we will never pay for anything.”

Long before he entered politics, Bunning had an all-star career as a Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher—a career that includes a perfect game in 1964. When he retired after 17 seasons he had the second-highest total of career strikeouts in MLB history. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1996.

After his retirement he became a state senator in his beloved Kentucky. He was elected to House in 1986 and the U.S. Senate in 1998. He announced last year that, after 24 years in Washington, he was retiring from politics. At 79 years old, he’s earned the right to sit on his front porch for a while.

Bunning may not have been the fiercest fighter we had on the Hill. But he sure did the right thing this time. We can’t let the left pillory him for it.

If you agree, why not tell him so? Call his office at (202)-224-4343 or click here to send him an email.

Thanks, Jim. I hope your profile in courage will inspire some of your colleagues to step up to the plate, too. No matter how many bean-balls the left throws at them.

Until next Friday, keep some powder dry.

—Chip Wood

http://www.personalliberty.com/chip-…2%80%99s-hero/

03.10.10 07:01 PM

As proponents of carrying unconcealed handguns in public are fighting for the right across the nation, Starbucks and other chain stores have found themselves caught in the middle of the firestorm, according to media reports.

Recently gun-control advocates have petitioned the Starbucks coffee chain—whose policy is to comply with state open carry weapons laws, although it has the final say on its property—to ban guns on its premises, Fox News reported.

In the last few days pickets have been held across the country, including in Seattle where the company is headquartered, but Starbucks has reiterated its commitment to the policy, saying that banning guns at its stores might put baristas, or coffee servers, in danger.

"The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores," states the company’s official position, quoted by the news provider.

The developments are taking place as the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in one of its biggest cases in recent years, where the plaintiff in McDonald v. Chicago is urging the court to reverse the city’s 28-year-old handgun ban.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…ersy-19652114/

03.10.10 07:01 PM

Representative Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said last week that he and 11 other Blue Dog Democrats in the House will not vote for the healthcare bill unless it includes language that clearly prohibits the use of federal money to fund abortion services.

"We’re not going to vote for this bill with that kind of language," said Stupak on Good Morning America, referring to the Senate version of the healthcare bill that President Obama is urging lawmakers to adopt. "I want to see healthcare," added the Michigan Representative, "but we’re not going to bypass some principles and beliefs that we feel strongly about."

If Stupak and the other Democrats follow through on their pledge, it will be very difficult for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to approve the bill, which only passed by a margin of 220-215 in November.

However, Senate Democrats may resist Stupak’s attempt to include the more restrictive abortion language in the final version of the bill, as it would almost certainly rule out the possibility of utilizing budget reconciliation. This parliamentary tactic would allow Democrats to pass healthcare legislation in the Senate with only 51 votes, rather than the 60 that are usually required to overcome a Republican filibuster.

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/…uage-19651973/