Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Politics and Mathematics Collide in Chicago

Thursday, 05 March 2015 06:21
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This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, March 4, 2015:

English: Downtown Chicago, Illinois at night. ...

Downtown Chicago, Illinois at night.

Chicago is a microcosm of Illinois: it has a determined unwillingness to face reality. Even Moody’s, in its latest downgrade of Chicago debt, has failed to grasp the enormity of the shortfalls facing the city and the state.

Moody’s tried to be realistic, using unrealistic numbers:

[Our rating] incorporates expected growth in Chicago’s already highly-elevated unfunded pension liabilities and continued growth in costs to service those liabilities, even if recent pension reforms proceed and are not overturned….

The “expected growth” will likely surprise to the downside even the realists at Moody’s, as the real shortfall in the five pension plans the state is funding is vastly greater than even the $100+ billion the state faces. A “special pension briefing” performed back in November by the state’s Commission on Forecasting and Accountability showed the accrued liabilities on those plans to be

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Moody’s Downgrades Chicago Again

Wednesday, 04 March 2015 06:30
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 3, 2015:

English: in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Downtown Chicago, Illinois

Within hours of Moody’s Investors Service announcing another downgrade to Chicago’s general obligation bonds last Friday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration responded, saying that Moody’s was out of touch with reality:

We strongly disagree with Moody’s decision to reduce the city’s credit rating and would note that Moody’s has been consistently and substantially out of step with the other rating agencies [Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings], ignoring progress that has been achieved.

At the moment those other two agencies rate Chicago’s debt at A-plus or A-minus, each with a negative outlook. But in light of an imminent court ruling that could invalidate efforts to cut pension benefits, along with the crushing and increasing burden of those benefits, observers are just waiting for the next two shoes to drop.

As Moody’s noted, its downgrade will stand even if the court validates those pension modifications: 

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Putin Critic Nemtsov Murdered; 100,000 March to Honor Him

Tuesday, 03 March 2015 06:09
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 2, 2015:

Just hours before being murdered in Red Square Friday night, Boris Nemtsov blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin on the radio, charging him with his “mad, aggressive and deadly policy of war against Ukraine.” He added, “This country needs political reform. When power is concentrated in the hands of one person and this person rules forever, this will lead to an absolute catastrophe.”

Walking across Red Square after having dinner with a young female companion at about 11:30 p.m. Friday night, Nemtsov was shadowed by a gunman who waited for the couple at the bottom of stairs leading to his apartment. Once they passed him, the gunman

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Putin’s Denials are Wearing Thin

Tuesday, 03 March 2015 05:50
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This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, March 2, 2015:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, former head of the KGB in the old Soviet Union, needs a new script writer. His denials and disclaimers about not having anything to do with the mounting number of murders of his opposition are becoming monotonous.

Following the murder of Boris Nemtsov Friday night, Putin not only disclaimed any knowledge of the matter but was sure that it was a ploy instigated by supporters of Nemtsov to make Putin look bad. One of Putin’s script writers, Dmitry Peskov, tried to cover for his boss:

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Obamnesty: A Tyrant’s Tool to Transform America

Saturday, 28 February 2015 16:54
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This article was just published in the latest subscribers-only issue of the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor newsletter:

 

This writer has frequently noted the accuracy of John Adams’ summary and dangers of the Founders’ Constitution when he said that it “was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” It was designed, as Thomas Jefferson noted, to keep criminals like Barack Obama from taking control:

 

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

 

During the Constitutional convention there was little debate over the issue of immigration and so those chains were not forged with the result that the states, up until 1808, were to determine their own immigration policies, and afterwards to defer to the national government.

 

Consequently, when Obama asked his henchmen, Jeh Johnson and Eric Holder, to find ways he could implement the DREAM Act without having to wait for Congress to enact it, they succeeded, using the president’s discretion allowed by the Constitution under Article I, Section 4, that “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

One of the tools of a tyrant is using language to hide his true intents. For years Obama has disclaimed any such powers as he is now exercising. As a candidate back in March, 2008, he said:

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China’s Internet Censorship Efforts Continue to Fail

Saturday, 28 February 2015 16:27
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This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, February 27, 2015:

The Courtship of Princess Leia

Princess Leia

At that moment in Star Wars when Princess Leia is threatened by Governor Tarkin, the following dialogue takes place:

Princess Leia: Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.

 

Governor Tarkin: Charming to the last. You don’t know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your life.

 

Princess Leia: I’m surprised that you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself.

 

Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, I’d like you to join me for a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

 

Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his little tyrant, Lu Wei, really ought to get out more. Instead, they are issuing threats of censorship in a war they cannot win. Xi holds that the internet is a battleground. He starts off in a tone mild and gentle:

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China’s Failing Attempts to Censor the Internet

Friday, 27 February 2015 06:21
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 26, 2015:

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Internet censorship czar, Lu Wei, are learning that Princess Leia was right when she said in the movie Star Wars about extending increasing totalitarian political control, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

When Wei visited Silicon Valley heavyweights last December, he noted that Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had an anthology of President Xi’s speeches on his desk. Included in that book was a speech in which Xi laid out his vision of the Chinese Internet: 

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Even Fewer IRS Audits This Year

Thursday, 26 February 2015 05:55
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 25, 2015:

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Obama is not the first president to use the IRS to bludgeon his opposition.

A year ago John Koskinen, head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), was heard complaining that his agency was suffering from budget cuts that forced him to reduce his staff, which caused fewer audits in any year since 2005. Last year Koskinen complained:

I have not figured out either philosophically or psychologically why nobody [in Congress] seems to care whether we collect the revenue [we are owed] or not.

Coupled with increased responsibilities to enforce the mandates under ObamaCare and increasingly bad publicity, Koskinen continues to have to make do with less. A year ago he had $11.2 billion to spend. This year he has just $10.8 billion. And requests for more money from Congress continue to fall on deaf ears. In a phone interview with USA Today on Monday, Koskinen admitted that he runs an agency that is “not the world’s most beloved.” It’s also continuing to decline in credibility. In a speech to the New York State Bar Association on Tuesday he said: 

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Internet Freedom to Disappear on Thursday

Thursday, 26 February 2015 05:44
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This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Thursday, February 26, 2015:

Ronald Reagan wearing cowboy hat at Rancho del...

Ronald Reagan was right:

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Tom Wheeler, the current FCC Chairman, doesn’t think that’s funny. He thinks they are his marching orders. Encouraged by his boss, Wheeler is reaching for the biggest hammer in his toolbox to bludgeon the internet into submission and turn it into a utility. On Thursday Wheeler will

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FCC to Vote on Net Neutrality Rules on Thursday

Wednesday, 25 February 2015 06:44
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This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, February 24, 2015:

Logo of the United States Federal Communicatio...

On Thursday consumers will finally be able to see and read the FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission) planned new rules to regulate the Internet. Deliberately hidden from public view, the 332-page document is expected to be passed by the FTC, as demanded by President Obama last November when he told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to adopt the “strongest possible rules” in regulating the Internet.

Leaks from the document were inevitable, and critics have slowly pieced together the latest attack on Internet freedom.

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Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.