24: Obama Accounting: National Referendum to Save the American Democracy.

Wake up to the seriousness of the issues facing the United States of America. The American Democracy depends upon an aware electorate, voters who educate themselves on the issues and the politicians whom the voters select to represent them in government.

Participatory Democracy is the best system of government. But its survival depends on honest, aware representatives who understand the issues and vote in the legislature with the will of the people.

Politicians like William Jefferson Clinton, one of Barack Obama's Democratic Party mentors, recently on the campaign trail, took the power from the people by saying: "We need individuals who think and do what's right for you".

Obama clearly follows this political dictum. A majority of Americans rejected Obamacare, including the IRS penalty for those who disagree with Obama mandate to purchase insurance. But, Obama and most of the Democrats pushed the bill through the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The question for the Republicans is: "wasn't there a way to keep this bill in committee to discuss the objections, or to delay its passage?" Some estimate it will take as long as 2 years to repeal the bill. Meanwhile, many Americans have lost coverage or are forced to pay more for coverage, as many in the insurance industry also find the rules too expensive to continue to do business.

Some years ago Ross Perot proposed a national computerized referendum for voters to directly participate in government. The idea was dropped. Perot later sold some of his computer business and developed other interests.

Many politicians and bureaucrats would prefer to make rules for the people and spend the money out of the people's wallets, taxes and more, like mandated insurance. Obamacare is a good example of legislation that should not have been passed by proponents over the people's objections. It also can be a good starting point for the development of a National Referendum Participatory Democracy.

It may be an essential part of the plan to save America, from a change to a communist "state capitalism" of elite politicians and bureaucrats seeking personal profit from "public service", paid government work.

Ecuador today faces a "state of seige" by a police insurgency. Over 800 police, angry over discontinued medals and bonuses at promotion and an additional 2 year wait to 7 years between promotions, attacked Ecuador President Rafael Correa. Police shoved the President, doused him with water, then tear gas during his speech at a police barracks in Quito, Ecuador.

Correa, still recovering from knee surgery 1 week ago, was taken to a Quito hospital. Leaders from Ecuador and Venezuela President Hugo Chavez fear that Correa is held by rebel police in the hospital. Peru President Alan Garcia has shut the border with Ecuador, until Correa's "democratic authority" is restored.

Political rivals have denounced the police insurgency. General Ernesto Gonzalez, Commander of Ecuador's armed forces, declared loyalty to President Correa. The government has put the military in charge of public order, suspending civil liberties, and allowing soldiers to carry out searches.

Schools and business have shut down. Looting has been reported in the capital. At least 2 banks have been sacked.

Police insurgents have shut down the Mariscal Sucre airport and have blocked highways to the capital with burning tires in the nationwide police "strike".

The Organization of American States (OAS) fears a "coup d'etat" is in progress, in the fifth year of democracy under President Rafael Correa in this South American country of 14 million.

Americans in Ecuador are instructed to stay where they are, if safe.

This is an frightening illustration of a police insurgency, rioting state employees, willing to destroy their country to protest budgetary benefit cuts. Ecuador has 40,000 police officers.

Americans must seriously consider downsizing government to maintain peace at home in these volatile and difficult financial times.



9/30/2010 Corrections: One political opponent, Mayor Jumi Nebat of Guayaquil, called a news conference to denounce the police insurgency. The airport was closed by the military pictured on runways. The police blocked highways to the capital city with roadblocks of burning tires.



Graphic: Chase's Calendar of Events, 2010.


Other references: Yahoo!News AP, 9/30/2010.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs in the "Obama Accounting" or other series posted my mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com until available on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com (and two through six) on www.google.com

23: Obama Accounting: "State Capitalism" vs. Private Capitalism in Employment.

The "Charticle" graph to the left dramatically depicts the Obama Administration shift from private enterprise American capitalism employment to "state capitalism", an early form of socialist/communist government, under which the government takes control of the economy.

As government jobs have increased, private sector jobs have decreased. At the left, in January 2008, the first month of the Obama Administration, government jobs, in red, number about 22,375, peaked around March, 2009, and declined to about 22,475 in January, 2010, a net gain of about 100 jobs at the start of Obama's third year.

Meanwhile, the blue line, private sector jobs steadily declined from 116,000 to about 107,000, a net loss of 9,000 jobs during the first two years of the Obama Administration.

Data on causes of private sector job loss did not accompany the graph. Possible causes include aggressive government tax collection, corporate debt, failure to raise business investments or to obtain loans, decreased sales and other losses, and ethnic lawsuit settlements like those discussed in earlier blogs with black and ethnic race-based settlements against companies like AIG and Capital One.

These losses heighten corporate interest in changing from product production to import or investment, in hopes of holding on to business money. However, even these endeavors are not safe from losses due to black race-based lawsuit business raids, as in the Delaware AIG loss of over $6 million in a Department of Justice pre-trial settlement.

This graph represents only part of the economy, but this trend is significant. If government is permitted to feed on the private sector through taxes and lawsuits, the government grows larger, controls more of business and society, and becomes a "central ruling party" as is true in communist governments.

Socialist reruitment through racial and ethnic "social justice" issues are part mechanism, part membership in the replacement of the usual impartial departments of the federal government with racial and ethnic social organizers.

It is as if Obama/Holder brought ACORN (Association of Community Organizations Reform Now) to Washington, DC to replace the Department of Justice (DoJ) in many of the issues arising:

-US Civil Rights Commission dismissing charges of intimidation of white voters by the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, PA,
-ethnic voter registration fraud as permissible within the DoJ in the case of Julie Fernandez, although ACORN/Project Vote is under investigation in Missouri and Nevada for voter registration fraud,
-black and ethnic organizations have called for a boycott of Arizona(AZ) for enforcing immigration laws while Obama brought suit against AZ for their immigration law enforcement. Obama/Hillary Clinton State Department is taking this law to a UN commission with known human rights violator member nations to review, in what many see as an embarrassment to AZ and the USA.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, before his assassination, said, "there is no role for race in government." Bringing race into government has brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy in ethnic and race-based lawsuits, and opened the door to racial polarization, extortion, and terrorist activity. A later Democratic president, William Jefferson Clinton, gave a presidential pardon to the Puerto Rican terrorist organization, the FALN. Now Americans are faced with the continuing threat of al-Qaida Islamic terrorism, 10 years after the attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and America.

Government, of course, does depend on tax revenue to fund political and civil service employee salaries in the three branches (executive, legislative, and judicial) of government and activities. But government must remain impartial, race-neutral, and smaller than private enterprise, for the survival of the American economy and for its own survival.

The racial and ethnic issues may have diverted many Americans from seeing the deals being made by politicians and bureaucrats. If American politicians and bureaucrats are permitted to restructure the American government and American business without the vote of the people, it has no legitimate constitutional basis.

There are now many millionaires working in government as US Representatives and Senators. The 50 wealthiest as a group were worth $1.4 Billion, an increase by $85.1 Million from 2008. Lawmaker increase in wealth is due to stock market rebounds with large investment portfolios, despite one of the worst economic downturns since The Great Depression. There were rules prohibiting Senators and Representatatives and bureaucrats from using government and government regulation of business to get rich.

Senator John Kerry (Dem-MA) and Representatives Darrel Issa (Rep-CA) and Jane Harman (Dem-CA) are wealthier than a Rockefeller, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (Dem-WV). Lists of the richest senators and representatives omit whether these poilticians were millionaires before politics.

The Obama Administration continues to spend enormous sums of money America does not have, creating over a Trillion dollar deficit for his Administration and a $13 Trillion national debt while funding his special interest groups, blacks and other ethnics. That Obama also throws some to Wall Street ($700 Million) and small business ($230 Million), does not solve the problem of how to regain solvency as a country.

It is time to hold a National Referendum. Do American taxpayers want to continue to be a tax-based economy with a right to control their representatives and government?

Are mainstream Americans willing to trade their civil rights and right to vote in exchange for welfare benefits like food stamps, welfare medical cards, Section 8 or other subsidized housing?

A large number of Obama's constituents are. Many blacks and other ethnics have refused to pay taxes as a protest against America, while demanding welfare benefits. So do 13 million illegals.

If US government representatives, now called politicians, are permitted to become a finanical elite, to get rich through government, to create budgets to appease welfare recipients, and to take some for themselves and their friends, America will have slipped into communism.

Graphic: Charticle: "Public-Private Employment (Seasonally Adjusted), Veronique de Rugy: Mercatus Center for biggovernment.com.

Other references: The Washington Examiner, The Hill.com

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs in the "Obama Accounting" series or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com until http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com (monthlynotestwo through six) is easily accessible on www.google.com.

22: Obama Accounting: More on Antigua, Harvard & Money Deals: Nidus for Socialist/Communist "State Capitalism" in the US?

The beach graphic above shows the blue skies, green water, white sands on the Caribbean Island of Antigua. Antigua and Barbuda form a nation. Redonda is the third small, uninhabited island. The three islands arose from the sea, white sands remain from the volcano beneath.

Carib indians are thought to be the first inhabitants of Antigua. In 1493, Christopher Columbus discovered these Lesser Antilles islands. The British established a colony on Antigua in 1632 and later on the other two islands.

The British brought slaves or, if through George III, indentured servants, to work the sugar cane plantations. The slaves were freed in 1834, in Antigua and throughout the British Empire. Later most of the British left, but Britain retained control.

In 1967 the colony of Antigua became part of the West Indes Associated States, to control its internal affairs. On November 1, 1981, Antigua and Barbuda became an independent nation. 98% of the 69,000 population, most of whom are descendants of black Africans, live in the capital city of St. John's on the NW coast of Antigua.

English is the official language. Most Antiguans are Protestant, mostly Anglican.

The government, too, is based on the English system: a constitutional monarchy, with a 17 member parliament, a House of Representatives and a Senate. The majority leader of the House of Representatives is the Prime Minister.

Tourism is the major industry. Sugar and cotton are the major crops. During drought, the clothing, paint, refrigerator and stove factories support the economy.

Isaac Royall left this Caribbean Island to move to Medford, Massachusetts (MA), later the site of the Harvard Law School. Royall fled when the American Revolution began.

In 1781 before his death, Royall left the land to Harvard for sale to endow a Professorship. In 1806, the Royall estate was returned to Royall, Jr.'s heirs. The Royall family then sold the estate and donated the proceeds for the formal foundation of Harvard Law School.

The set of donations: donated land returned, then the cash value of the land donated, may say something about how business is done at Harvard Law School, multiple transactions around the same parcel.

The Antigua experience, with slaves and plantations, most of which Royall sold to move to the USA, established a legal preoccupation with black African and ethnic civil rights issues which continues to this day with over 140 years of revisions of the Civil Rights Act since it became the 14th Constitutional Amendment in 1866. Harvard has been represented on the Supreme Court since Judge Joseph Story in 1827, but the preponderance of 6 of 9 Harvard Law graduates allows Harvard Law to establish policy as if it were a University administration.

Harvard's insistence on funding for social justice issues perhaps is restitution for its more conservative policies on blacks and ethnics in the 1980s. The benefits of restitution also are applied to Harvard, through subsidized enhanced access for students and faculty to government "public service" jobs. This is part of a conservative bent to unbridled wealth and influence. The latter was revealed in the recent Supreme Court decision to not limit political donations, and presumably influence, on politicians by corporate donors.

The question of money and influence in American law and politics, the role of an "elite" who presume to "know what is best for America and Americans", not only nationally and internationally, but globally, is becoming overwhelming.

There is a tremendous loss of middle-class money and property to both the wealthy and the welfare population, who pay no taxes. Meanwhile the working- and middle- classes are tax collected and bill collected relentlessly.

There is an enormous unregulated influx of poor "3rd world" people who stayed too long after the housing construction bubble burst. Illegals and new immigrants demand huge amounts of social services, including "English as a 2nd language" classes to get through an elementary school curriculum. These demands have overwhelmed our budgets, as state after state records budget deficits.

Meanwhile the wealthy "flip houses" and run financial services companies to amass even greater wealth in the current "millionaire money mania". The upper middle-class and wealthy try to find good returns on investment to continue to "build wealth". Now they are encouraged to take their investment money internationally.

Traditionally, Americans invest locally and nationally in new factories and industries to actually create more jobs to hire more people. But why should they, when a court will allow a black or ethnic group to bankrupt them and their investors with yet another black- or other race-based lawsuit and take it all?

Leaders often do look internationally when things are difficult domestically. But it is the American economy that is at risk now. Few Americans are really interested in international hegemony or being a world superpower. But most Americans, other than the very wealthy, cannot afford to send money out of the country. What if even the rich won't be able to follow it?

What the emergence of groups like "The Tea Party" asks is: can our now elitist, millionaire government and investment economy carry America into the future?

It may be time for Harvard and other "government for profit" business clubs to leave government, to form truly private national/international for-profit business clubs. These clubs now feed on "public service" government by creating trillion dollar budgets with $100-700 million dollar bailouts for "mortgage-flipping" friends and others, who are loosing too much or not making enough money to sate themselves, in government-unsubsidized business.

As the government-guided money raids continue, we are losing banks, 267 in the 2 years since Obama took office. Previously deposits and assets of 3-25 banks per year were "redistributed" through FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) mechanisms.

The majority of middle-class Americans lose money, homes, and our civil rights to what "sounds like it should have been helpful but was not" legislative bills, passed by bipartisan groups seeking personal profit. The Obama administered government is changing private sector capitalism to a "state capitalism" of an early socialist/communist government hybrid arising from the American Democracy.

What can Americans do about it? More on this in future blogs.


Graphics: Antigua and the Lesser Antilles, in The World Book Encyclopedia, 2003.

Other references: www.wikipedia.com, AP Yahoo!News 9-24-2010, 21: Obama Accounting in this series of blogs.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs on "Obama Accounting" or other topics posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogpsot.com until easily accessible on http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com (monthlynotes-monthlynotessix) on www.google.com

21: Obama Accounting: The Harvard Influence in the Oval Office?

Recent Harvard news from the Obama White House is the return of Larry Summers to Harvard. Despite Prof. Summers retrogressive comments about not believing there was a place for women in math, science, and the higher echelons of society, there was a place for him in the Obama White House. There is still a place for him at Harvard, but without his namesake burger at a local restaurant. Barack and Michelle Obama are Harvard Law School graduates. Martha Minow, named Dean of Harvard Law Schol 7/2009, Newton Minow, and other Harvard graduates and connections, in Chicago, IL and elsewhere, supported and contributed to Obama's campaigns.

Of interest for Prof. Summers and other Harvard faculty in government is the two-year sabbatical for "public service", Harvardese for government work, or social justice jobs. This, of course, is a funding concept shared by another Harvard graduate, recently approved Obama appointee, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. As former dean of Harvard Law School, 2003-2009 Solicitor General of the US, while sitting in the Charles Hamilton Houston Professorship for Race and Justice, Kagan promoted the full tuition grant during the 3rd year for students who pledged to spend 5 years working for non-profit organizations or the government after graduation. The "public service for tuition" payment option was discontinued and replaced with other incentives in 2009. 2008-2009 Harvard Law School tuition was $41,500, a significant remuneration for paid government work.

Harvard socialized health care rationing proponent Dr. Donald Berwick, in a speech reacting to public concern over this topic, has taken a step back from formal rationing as Director of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Harvard Influence on the current US government cannot be underestimated. 149 sitting US federal judges, 6 of 9 sitting Supreme Court Judges, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Antonin Scalia, and Elana Kagan are Harvard Law School graduates. Ruth Bader Ginsburg transferred from Harvard to Columbia School of Law.

7 US Senators are Harvard graduates.

Massachusetts (MA) Governor Patrick Deval and Michelle Obama worked for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. Former MA Governor Mitt Romney is a Harvard graduate.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is a Harvard graduate. Former Goldman Sachs employees include 2 recent US Secretaries of the Treasury, Robert Rubin under William Jefferson Clinton, then Henry Paulson in George W. Bush's administration. Both Clinton and Bush are Yale University graduates, friendly Ivy League rivals of Harvard in business and government.

Internationally, the President of the Republic of China, Ma Ying-jeou and President of the World Bank Group, Robert Zoellick are Harvard graduates. So is United Nations High Commissioner Navanethem Pillay

Harvard Law School itself has an international origin, Antigua. Antigua is a Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles, east of Cuba, Haiti and The Dominican Republic, and the American Territory of Puerto Rico.

Harvard Law School is built on the Massachusetts estate of Isaac Royall, who sold most of his Antiguan slaves and plantations to move to Medford, Massachusetts. The Royall house is the only remaining slave quarters in the Northeast US. Royall fled Massachusetts at the start of the American Revolution. Before his death in 1781, Royall left the land to Harvard for sale for the endowment of a Professor of Laws or a Professor of Physics and Anatomy.

The decision to endow the Harvard Law School with land left by the heir of an Antigua slave and plantation owner, made history, indelibly influencing the legal history of the United States from the Civil War, through Reconstruction to the present.

The conficts of interest, national and international issues, tuition money for more accessible paid government jobs, and business connections to the university and its "spin-off" businesses, currently and historically, are, like the crest of 3 stacked wheat sheaves beneath the university motto "Veritas" (truth), phenomenal.

In 1827, when the school was struggling financially, an alumnus endowed the Dane Professorship of Law to be given to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story for belief in the need for "an elite law school based on merit and dedicated to public service".

The question for the American public, in the context of interlocking law, government, and business clubs, nationally and internationally, now globally, is: does The Harvard Influence presume to know "what is best" for America and Americans?

Graphic: World Book Encyclopedia, 2003

Other References: The Washington Post, 2007, www.wikipedia.com.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs on "Obama Accounting" or other topics posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com, (monthlynotes-monthlynotessix) on www.google.com.

20: Obama Accounting: Gerrymandering for a Black Racialist Political Victory?

The Gerrymander, a politcal tool, takes the image of a frightening prehistoric salamander. This graphically portrays the political boundaries of a "gerrymandered Massachusetts election district" in 1812.

Gerrymandering is a political tool used by American politicians to change the boundaries of voting districts to produce a win by one of the two US political parties. Voters have a choice of the 2 major political parties, Democratic Party or Republican Party candidates, or occasionally other candidates who are able to get on the ballot.

Gerrymandering historically has been used to "redraw" districts to promote a Democratic or Republican win. The African-American Barack Obama, campaigned in Illinois and federally, as a Democrat, with the political party which appeals to and receives many black, ethnic, or other minority votes because of its focus on social welfare funding. In Illinois, Obama went further into gerrymandering in his legal career in preparation for his political career as an African-American candidate than the typical American politician.

As a black-identified political community organizer, Barack Obama worked with ACORN/ Project vote to register voters. Obama continued to work with ACORN/Project Vote, in 1991 and 1995, as a black civil rights attorney with Chicago's Judson Miner at Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland, to redraw voting district boundaries to promote the success of black politicians, including his own impending political campaigns in Illinois for state representative (1995-1998), then state senator, (1998-2002), then US Representative (2000), US Senator (2002-2008) from Illinois, then as candidate for the US presidency (2007).

The whole topic of Black racialist politics has been difficult to approach in the US. White civil rights lawyers like Judson Miner, black civil rights attorneys, and others utilized by black organizing groups like the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and its well-known black radical action affiliate, The Black Panther Party, have stifled discussion of topics involving racial issues.

The Washington Post editorial policy of "politically correct" is shared by numerous other major newspapers and publishers. Fear of being financially ruined by black civil rights lawsuits has created a paranoia in America so severe that many whites and publishers in general do not discuss or criticize black politicians or government policies, even those which have become so lopsided as to favor blacks and ethnics and to discriminate against whites.

Barack Obama has been transparent about his black focus in community organizing and in politics. On his way to NYC's Columbia University, Obama said, "I was trying to raise myself up to be a black man in America." Later at Harvard Law School Obama described himself as a "stand-in" for all the progress that had been made for Afro-Americans in America.

There may be books and pamphlets on building Black political power bases in America, more likely to be read and available to other blacks. But there are Black political strategies. Clinton and the Democrats dissuaded Obama from challenging IL former Black Panther House of Representative incumbent Bobby Rush in 1999 for the 2000 term. Bobby Rush's son was murdered in a street shooting in October, 1999. Obama lost in 2000.

Obama became more careful running against Black political candidates. In 2002, Obama waited for Carol Mosley Braun to decide if she would run for her former IL US Senator seat, before actively campaigning.

In her previous US Senate victory in IL, Braun proved it was possible for an Afro-American to win statewide as long as there were at least 2 white candidates to split the white vote.

As Obama described it: "Our bases overlapped so much - not just that she was Afro-American, but that she came out of the progressive wing of the (sic, Democratic) party...and our donor bases would have been fairly similar. So it would have been difficult, I think, to mobilize the entire coalition that was required for me to run." Obama knew he needed liberal white contributions and votes to win.

If Braun had run in 2002, he would have been unable to run for the Senate. Obama said, "I would probably have stepped out of politics for a while".

Obama's voice, appearance, and Harvard Law School affiliation were considered well-suited to attract white voters. Afro-American political commentator Debra Dickerson said "We'd probably like it better if he talked like Jesse Jackson, but ya'll wouldn't".

Divide and conquer is an old political strategy. But traditionally such political strategies are used by Democrats vs. Republicans or same party supporters of controversial non-racial issues like taxes. Black racialist politics supported by the politics of black race-based lawsuits, seemingly the legacy of William Jefferson Clinton and the Democratic Party, have effectively denied First Amendment rights to free speech, and have forever changed American politics.

Graphic: Gerrymander, in The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.

Other references: The Washington Post, The Boston Globe.com, www.wikipedia.com.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs in the "Obama Accounting" or other series posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com (monthlynotes through monthlynotessix) on www.google.com.

19: Obama Accounting: How is Muslim "Mainstreet" Different than American "Mainstreet"?

Modern American "Mainstreet" is more generally product, money, and profit oriented and motivated. More recently, Black and other ethnic group insistence on "minority" small business loans and government grants has changed America's Mainstreet.

The stated purpose for government intervention for ethnic business funding has been "to level the playing field" for all members of a diverse population, to allow everyone to be part of the American "melting pot". However, many black and ethnic business leaders are "activists" for business and political "transfer of power" and "redistribution of wealth" in America.

The current rise of Islam in America is partly a result, partly a cause of the Black civil rights movement, in which many American Blacks found the "faith" in becoming Muslim-identified, not in becoming part of a more diverse America.

Muslims organize around Islam as a religious, political, cultural, social, and business focus. White Christian Americans organize around many other issues in business and in politics other than race, ethnic origin, or religion, for example, product safety, cost, wages, taxes.

This information from "Mainstreet Powered by the Street" may help clarify how business may be done among different groups. An international survey asked:
"Is religion an important part of your life?"
Those who answered "Yes", by country:

US: 56%
Egypt: 100%
Sweden: 17%

Graphic: Crescent & Star from The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols, M. Bruce-Mitford.

References: S. Freigerman on Mainstreet Powered by the Street.com.

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18: Obama Accounting: Who Owns the Proposed Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque Site?

How did the Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque site story begin? Sharif El-Gamal is one of the major investors in Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque business project.

In 2006, while shopping at The Sharper Image store, El-Gamal noticed Francisco Patino on the Reality TV show "American Inventor". He hired Patino to find a Manhattan property for the Fitness Center/Mosque. Patino rode his bicycle around Manhattan and saw the Old Burlington Coat Factory building. 51 Park Place was scheduled to be shown the following day by Chase Manhattan Bank. 4 years later Patino works for Chase Manhattan Bank and said he could not comment about his role in finding the site to a NY newspaper reporter.

El-Gamal is the CEO of Soho Properties, incorporated in 2003. El-Gamal has other property holdings in NYC. El-Gamal purchased the 51 Park Place site for $5 million down and a bank loan on the remainder from Mr. & Mrs. Steve Witkoff.

In contrast to Imam Rauf, El-Gamal sometimes stresses the non-religious aspects of the project, the fitness club, culinary school. Imam Rauf wants to build a chain of Muslim Fitness Centers/Mosque modeled on the YMCA (Young Mens' Christian Association).

Hisham Elzanaty, an Egyptian, is a major investor in El-Gamal's $4.8 Million proposed Fitness Center/Mosque, his lawyer W. Starosolsky told Fox5News. Elzanaty owns a $2 million home in Roslyn Heights, and operates 2 NY Neurological & Rehabilitation Centers, 1 in Brooklyn and 1 in Tarryton, NY, which produce over $5 million after-tax income annually. Elzanaty was ordered to repay NYS $331,000 in Medicaid overpayments in 2004-2005.

Elzanaty also co-signed a $39 million mortgage for El-Gamal and Soho Properties. Elzanaty's parents died in the 1999 Air Egypt Flight 990 crash into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantucket. All 217 passengers aboard died. The crash was due to co-pilot error or mechanical failure.

Elzanaty also was in the news in 2008 for his 1999 $6 million donation to the Holy Land Foundation(HLF). Elzanaty, an Egyptian, said he was donating $500/month for Muslim orphans.

In 2008, 5 leaders of HLF were convicted of providing material support to Hamas. HLF is a front group for Hamas, the Muslim terrorist organization.

It is important to remember that Hamas is an Iranian-based Muslim terrorist organization, trying to control the Gaza Strip after forcing out the Palestinian organization, Fatah.

Egypt is at the western border of the Gaza Strip. What if Elzanaty is not simply an Egyptian businessman making a random questionable donation to a terrorist front group, but a representative of another international terrorist organization, an Egyptian organization, or an Egyptian coalition with Iran's Hamas? This creates another level of concern for allowing Middle Eastern terrorism connections to take land and property in NYC and America. What if rival Muslim paramilitary or terrorist organizations begin to fight over control of land and property here as they do in the Middle East?

Over the summer, El-Gamal and Soho Properties fell $224,000 behind on property taxes for 51 Park Place. In September, 2010, El-Gamal dropped off a check for about $35,000 and signed an 8-installment agreement to pay the property tax. El-Gamal said the payment delay involves disputed property assessment values. As noted in Blog 16 of this series, Rauf believes he was granted a lifetime non-profit, no tax exemption by the IRS for Islamic Center properties. As noted in blog 17 of this series, Rauf is pending a lawsuit by Union City, New Jersey for repairs to 2 apartment buildings.

Graphic: Chase's Calendar of Events, 2010.

References: AP, Yahoo!News9/18/2010, NYPost.com 9/2/2010, 9/3/2010, BreakingGround.com.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or for a copy of this or other blogs in the "Obama Accounting" series on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com. Other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff can be found on http://monthlynotes(two, three, six).blogspot.com on www.google.com.

17: Obama Accounting: FA Rauf, Spokesperson for Islamic Attitude Toward America

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf does appear soft-spoken on videotape news interviews. But the Imam is aggressive toward Americans in promoting his religious, cultural, and fitness center business project, the Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque. Rather than withdraw to another site, the Imam is fierce in demanding this site.

His own words are a not well-veiled threat of trouble to come if his project is denied. If read slowly and aloud, the Imam's word are an extortionate "if/then" ultimatum. If the Imam's project is denied, Imam will incite extremist Muslims by announcing "Islam is under attack (sic, in the US)".

Speaking slowly and carefully, the Imam's videotape has been shown and Imam's words quoted on numerous news media:

"If we move from that location, the story will be:
that the radicals have taken over the discourse.

The headlines in the Muslim world will be:
that Islam is under attack (sic, in America).

If we don't do this right,
anger will explode in the Muslim world".

The Imam feels "The United States policy is an accessory to the crime that was committed" in the Al-Qaeda terrorist airplane bombings on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

In his 2005 lectures in Australia, the Imam places blame on the United States for the Al-Qaeda bombings in Ameica as retaliatory acts of revenge:

"We tend to forget in the West, that the US has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent Non-Muslims.
You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the UN".

Ed Schultz on Cenk on MSNBC The Young Turks.com interviewed Sam Stein who tried to rally support for Rauf. Stein found a conciliatory Rauf quote at a memorial service for one of the World Trade Center deceased. Stein also noted that Rauf had been selected by the Bush Administration, Karen Hughes, and the FBI as some type of envoy between the US and "The Muslim World".

Rauf continues to be supported in the Obama Administration by PJ Murphy of Hillary Clinton's State Department as a paid-travel envoy for "outreach" to the Muslim world.

But who specifically is Imam Rauf an envoy to?

Al-Qaeda is an Islamic "meta-national" terrorist Muslim organization, for which no one Muslim country will claim as its own, or take responsibility for.

The problem for the average American is: with a declared war against only Iraq for not following United Nations rules for revealing "weapons of mass destruction", and as military "back-up" in resolving civil war in Afghanistan, why has the US become the target for generalized or "All-Muslim Party" aggression resulting in the World Trade Center bombings.

Who was the Bush Administration negotiating with through Imam Rauf? No specific countries were mentioned. Is Rauf an unspecified representative of Al-Qaeda? Is so, why would the US negotiate with an international Muslim terrorist organization?

What has occurred is the exacerbation of historical hostilities between mostly Arab Islamic sectarian groups, Sunni vs. Shite, Muslim Fundamentalist Taliban vs. less "religious" Muslim oil/gas traders now fighting civil wars for control over the region. Meanwhile American business people try to make deals for Arab oil and other business.

Large numbers of Arab and other Muslims have come to the US. Is this to escape the wars in their native countries or to invade or retaliate for the American presence there? Why would immigration not have been closed to those with whom America is at war or in "conflict" with, supporting one sectarian group over another?

Fighting unconventional undeclared wars in areas of ethnic sectarian civil war while trying to do business there puts the US in a precarious position. If the US is there to help spread participatory democracy in governments there, it is encouraging there are elections in Afghanistan. But neither the people nor the authorities are troubled by voter fraud, which could lead to the same violent power struggles. There are attacks even as the election is taking place.

The lack of clear goals in our government and military involvement in Afghanistan and the whole area is having a destabilizing influence on America at home, as people flood the US looking for a stable life or to retaliate for what they see as our meddling in their affairs.

Islam is not really a religion like current Christianity. The history of Islam, since 817AD, is riddled with takeovers of adjacent countries by Islam, and once Muslim populations are established, by warring rival leaders and sects of Islam.

Who really does Imam Rauf represent and what is his more specific role as emissary to whom?

AP DB Caruso wrote 9/18/2010 on Yahoo News that Sheik Ubaid of Islamic Leadership Council of Metropoliatn NY is one of a number of Muslim groups planning a Muslim summit about the Fitness Center/Mosque in NYC September 19-20, 2010.

Ubaid says Imam Rauf has been a regular "talking head" on national news media on Muslim world affairs, but among NYC Imam Rauf is something of an outsider, not that involved with the local Muslim community. Ubaid said Rauf "did not round up support for the center before going public with his plans. Had he consulted us, we probably would have told him, gently, no".

Americans may be making a very serious mistake in not knowing who it is we are negotiating with, what groups they represent, and why they are negotiating with us.
Imam Rauf may be only a very aggressive Islamic businessman, demanding a specific place for his business, and willing to risk worldwide peace for it.

Imam Rauf and one of his Islamic Fitness Center/Mosque partners, Sharif El-Gamal or Soho Properties, have fallen behind on more than $224,000 in prperty taxes this summer. Yahoo News reported that NYC finance department confirmed El-Gamal turned over a check for about $35,000 and signed an 8-installment payment plan. El-Gamal said failure to pay resulted from a dispute with NYC over assessed property values, and the appeal is still pending.

Other reports that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and staff, including Comptroller John Liu, have offered a lifetime non-profit status to the Park 51 and other Islamic centers group may have a role in this dispute.

In other Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf real estate news, (AP, Newark, NJ) 9-17-2010 The Greenwich Times.com reports wife Daisy Khan has replied to Union City, Ner Jersey pending lawsuits against Rauf for repairs on 2 apartment buildings Rauf owns there.

D. Khan says the repair delay is due to delayed city permits for repair. The city disputes this saying the city would never hold up permits when the safety of residents is at stake.

Graphic: Crescent and Star, The Illustrated Book of Signs and Symbols, M.B-Mitford.

Other references: AP, Yahoo News, Greenwich Times.com.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com (monthlynotestwo. through monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com) or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com) on www.google.com.

16: Obama Accounting: The Imam, The Near Ground Zero Fitness Center/Mosque Plan, and the Mayor.

The Imam is Feisal Abdul Rauf. He is the son of Egyptian Imam Mohammad Abdul Rauf, who came to New York City (NYC) to establish the Islamic Cultural Center of NY, which opened in 1991. The senior Rauf also established the Islamic Cultural Center of Washington, DC. Then the senior Rauf left for Malaysia.

The younger Imam Rauf studied Physics at Columbia University in NYC and in New Jersey, then was involved in teaching, sales, and real estate.

The Imam's plans for the Mosque are bold. The old Burlington Coat Factory is to become a 13-story fitness center with swimming pool, cultural center meeting rooms, and Mosque.

In July 2000, Imam Rauf said he envisioned not one, but a global association of Muslim community centers/Mosques, modeled after the American YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association).

The Imam's Center/Mosque is unlike the YMCA concept. YMCAs are non-denominational fitness centers with rooms for general community purposes, arts & crafts, sports teaching programs, without religious affiliation or religious services. YMCAs mainatain non-profit status by observing the doctrine of separation of church and state.

The Imam's plan is to establish centers for spreading moderate Islam worldwide, named "Cordoba House", which would include meetings rooms for a prostyletizing type of interfaith dialogue.

In the Imam's own words 7/2005: "Our stated objective is to establish this as a launching point, as a HQ (headquarters) is you want, of a global understanding of a moderate Islam that is true to its fundamentalist principles."

The Near Ground Zero Center/Mosque is a few blocks from Ground Zero, formerly the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Each Tower was destroyed by a Muslim Al-Qaeda suicide pilot "plane bombing", actually by flying a jet passenger airplane into the the walls of the Tower. As in the original meaning of "Ground Zero" as epicenter of a nuclear or other explosion, the waves of damage from the bombing have spread from the center of loss of about 3,000 innocent mostly American civilian lives, throughout The City, NY state, and the United States of America.

The American objection to the establishment of a Muslim Mosque so near Ground Zero is the insensitivity to the surviving family, friends, and co-workers of the WTC bombing victims. Surviving family has extended to include the majority of USA citizens objecting to the Muslim demand for this site. Other objections include a fear of future violence from a Muslim center near this site of destruction of American life and property. There also is a feeling that Muslims would be taking a bounty from a violent act of aggression against Americans on American soil, building a monument to themselves and their actioins at this site.

The proposed site originally was noted by the newsmedia as the old Burlington Coat Factory at 51 Park Place, but subsequently has been described as 45, 45-47, 45-51 Park Place.

Imam Rauf expresses only confidence in his plans. The Imam feels he has influenced American leaders, including American presidents. Imam mentions his influence on former Presient Bush. Bush will forever be remembered for his hypnotic address to the nation that "Islam is Peace" while sending American troops to stop the civil war-torn Muslim sectarian violence sites in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On CNSNews videotape posted 8/27/2010, Imam Rauf also says parts of his book were woven into Obama's Cairo speech, 2/2009. The speech was drafted by Obama White House staffers, Ben Rhodes, political advisor, and Rashed Hussein, Deputy Associate Counsel, Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Imam Rauf advises Muslims to "Think of ouselves as how to engineer solutions, we think of ourselves as an engineering shop. What has to be done to the US Government,
Israel, (sic, as) Muslims, educators, and media."

In alliances with Imam Rauf, American politicians have formed sloppy arguments about the rights to build a Mosque on private property. Whether the property actually is owned and by whom is a topic for a future blog.

Most of the American politicians who support the Mosque appeal to the 1st Amendment Right to practice one's religion. This of course is true, but does not include government help in acquiring property or helping with building expenses.

But NY politicians including Scott Stringer, Andrew Cuomo, Margaret Chin, and Daniel Squadron have expressed support. This would be using government to reverse the doctrine of separation of church and state, to support the Mosque at this site. NY Governor David Patterson has gotten involved offering to help find another site. If Patterson really meant on "state"-owned land he too would be violating the Separation of Church and State. Pre-Iftar Pres. Obama expressed some support but equivocated, remaining somewhat aloof on the issue.

But Imam Rauf may have influenced NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg the most. Mayor Bloomberg's staff stated NYC could offer the planned Muslim Fitness Center/Mosque special "non-profit funding".

The 9/2/2010 NY Post JG Riel also reported "tax-exempt" status for Imam Rauf's Muslim organizations. Documents indicate this tax-exempt status also applies to Rauf's wife's 1-bedroom Upper West Side apartment, listed as her residence, where they state over 500 members pray.

Rauf's 1997 American Sufi Muslim Association (ASMA), at 78th St., North Bergen, New Jersey and the 1998 ASMA, at a small (800 sq.ft.) apartment at 201 W.85th St. NYC, NY are both part of this exemption. The exemption is described as "never having to pay taxes, file returns, or reveal sources of congregation money or how it's spent", in documents reported by the Washington, DC-based Investigative Project on Terrorism.

ASMA has given money to Rauf's "Cordoba Project" which is said to support the Near Ground Zero Mosque.

Taxes may be somewhat differently assessed in NYC than in the rest of the US. But multiple lifetime, non-profit, but religious "mosque" exemptions in NY, NJ and who knows what other states, is a rather large "jizya" from the Non-Muslim, Jewish, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his staff.

Graphic: Money from Chase's Calendar of Events.

Other references: NY Post, CNSNews.com, wikipedia.

15: Obama Accounting: Muslims, Sharia Law, and Sharia Taxes

The Crescent, now a symbol of Islam, originally signified the waning Moon, and was associated with the goddess Diana.

As described in blog 14, Muslims belong to the religious, cultural, and political force of Islam. Sharia is the Law of Islam.

Islam is unlike most religious groups which request donations, or more strenuously, "tithes". Islam through Sharia law imposes taxes on Non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Sharia law can become "official" or quasi-official in "host" countries in which Islam has made "inroads", through the activism of Muslim activists.

Muslims apply the concept of the "head tax", apportioned and fixed for each individual. It is a "poll tax", used from ancient times until the 19th Century, as a type of Census. The "poll tax" was used to count the number of citizens who arrive at the polls to vote.

American Blacks have protested poll taxes as voter registration fees. In Virginia voters were charged $1.50 to cover clerk fees for those who did not register and provide resident information 6 months prior to voting, until banned in a federal voting rights lawsuit.

In Sharia Law when a "corvee" is commuted for cash payment, it becomes a poll tax. These can sometimes be paid off by labor, depending on the local interpretation of Sharia.

All Muslims who live above the subsistence level must pay an annual poor tax, a "zakat". This obligation owed by Muslims to the poor community is calculated on wealth, not income. There is a 2.5% base rate of taxation. This varies depending on the type of wealth being assessed, savings, jewelry, or land.

"Jizya" is the head tax on Non-Muslims, classically on able-bodied men of military age, required to be paid to Islamic authorities. In exchange, Non-Muslims receive "dhimma": are permitted to practice their faiths, be exempted from military service, and other local issues. This of course depends on the interpretation by the local "qadis", the Islamic judge.

"Jizya" often is interpreted by Non-Muslims as a form of discrimination or of "protection money" (like in Chicago, IL, 1930s). "Jizya" was abolished by the Ottoman Empire in 1855 as part of reforms to equalize the status of Muslims and Non-Muslims. "Jizya" was replaced by a military-exemption tax on Non-Muslims, the "Bedel-i Askeri".

Be mindful that in Arabic "Sharia" means "path to the water", the meaning of which is obvious to thirsty camel and rider in the Arabian deserts. An interesting question is whether "zakat" and "jizya" frequently were collected on the "sharia" path.

Graphic: Crescent & Star in The Illustrated Book of Sign & Symbol, M. Bruce-Mitford.

Other References: Encyclopedia Britannica, The World Book Encyclopedia, 2003, wikipedia.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to make a comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com.

14: Obama Accounting: Muslims and Sharia Law

Muslims account for about 1/5th of the world population. Islam is the religious, cultural, and political organizing force for Muslims. Muslim history extends back to about 817AD to the Iranian Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj. This early scholar compiled the Haddith, stories and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad from over 300,000 Islamic traditions from Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

The early story of Muslim is long, complicated by various Islamic sects, which stuggled to dominate the culture and politics, as well as the religious sector, of the Arab states, South Asia, and Africa.

In modern history, by 1906, Muslims created the "All-India Muslim League, a political group which advocated a separate Muslim state in India. This was encouraged by Great Britain, then the colonial overseer of India, until the 1913 Muslim movement to form an independent self-government in India. A moderate Muslim Muhammed Ali Jinnah called for a Hindu-Muslim alliance in India until 1940, when the Muslims began to fear independent India would be dominated by Hindus.

In 1947, the British granted independence to India, a partition was drawn, and adjacent Pakistan became a Muslim South Asian country.

Sharia was mentioned in the previous blog (13) discussing Muslim workers seeking special consideration (accommodation) in the workplace for prayer and other breaks during the daytime fast month of Ramada, the Muslim religious holiday.

Sharia is the law of Islam. Sharia laws apply to many aspects of secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, and personal life, including sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. When "official" in a Muslim or non-Muslim "host" country, Sharia law is applied by an Islamic judge, a "qadis".

"Imam" responsibilities vary with the interpretation in a particular country. An Imam may be a communal prayer leader, a scholar, religious leader or political leader.

Muslims attempt to impose Sharia law in non-Muslim countries. The imposition of a second set of laws provokes controversy, violence, and even open warfare as in the Second Civil War of Sudan.

The role of warring Muslim sects in Afghanistan and Iraq where the US has been involved, is complicated, with shifting alliances, and has not been clarified in the American newsmedia.

Muslims have made in-roads into "host" countries. In India, some Muslim minorities have been able to establish Sharia courts to adjudicate personal and community issues. Even Britain has allowed a "Muslim Arbitration Council". A recent newsreport noted self-identified moderate Muslims in Canada supported local schools, Canadian laws and government--as long as the local system remains hospitable to Islam and does not interfere with Islamic practices, that is, Sharia Law.

The American equivalent of this "country within a country" demand would be the Native American Tribal Reservations, who obviously have long been a part of truly indigenous American history.

Graphic: Star & Crescent: The crescent was adopted as the symbol of Islam in the
14th Century, the star was added later. In The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols, M. Bruce-Mitford.

Other references: Encyclopedia Britannica; The World Book Encyclopedia, 2003;
SD Strouthes Law and Politics, www.Wikipedia.com.

The next blog in this series will discuss Sharia Taxes on Non-Muslim and Muslim residents of non-Muslim "host" countries and Muslim countries.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this blog or others posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfive.com. Until indexing is complete the blogs in "five" will be available on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

14: Obama Accounting: Muslims and Sharia Law

Muslims account for about 1/5th of the world population. Islam is the religious, cultural, and political organizing force for Muslims. Muslim history extends back to about 817AD to the Iranian Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj. This early scholar compiled the Haddith, stories and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad from over 300,000 Islamic traditions from Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

The early story of Muslim is long, complicated by various Islamic sects, which stuggled to dominate the culture and politics, as well as the religious sector, of the Arab states, South Asia, and Africa.

In modern history, by 1906, Muslims created the "All-India Muslim League, a political group which advocated a separate Muslim state in India. This was encouraged by Great Britain, then the colonial overseer of India, until the 1913 Muslim movement to form an independent self-government in India. A moderate Muslim Muhammed Ali Jinnah called for a Hindu-Muslim alliance in India until 1940, when the Muslims began to fear independent India would be dominated by Hindus.

In 1947, the British granted independence to India, a partition was drawn, and adjacent Pakistan became a Muslim South Asian country.

Sharia was mentioned in the previous blog (13) discussing Muslim workers seeking special consideration (accommodation) in the workplace for prayer and other breaks during the daytime fast month of Ramada, the Muslim religious holiday.

Sharia is the law of Islam. Sharia laws apply to many aspects of secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, and personal life, including sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. When "official" in a Muslim or non-Muslim "host" country, Sharia law is applied by an Islamic judge, a "qadis".

"Imam" responsibilities vary with the interpretation in a particular country. An Imam may be a communal prayer leader, a scholar, religious leader or political leader.

Muslims attempt to impose Sharia law in non-Muslim countries. The imposition of a second set of laws provokes controversy, violence, and even open warfare as in the Second Civil War of Sudan.

The role of warring Muslim sects in Afghanistan and Iraq where the US has been involved, is complicated, with shifting alliances, and has not been clarified in the American newsmedia.

Muslims have made in-roads into "host" countries. In India, some Muslim minorities have been able to establish Sharia courts to adjudicate personal and community issues. Even Britain has allowed a "Muslim Arbitration Council". A recent newsreport noted self-identified moderate Muslims in Canada supported local schools, Canadian laws and government--as long as the local system remains hospitable to Islam and does not interfere with Islamic practices, that is, Sharia Law.

The American equivalent of this "country within a country" demand would be the Native American Tribal Reservations, who obviously have long been a part of truly indigenous American history.

Graphic: Star & Crescent: The crescent was adopted as the symbol of Islam in the
14th Century, the star was added later. In The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols, M. Bruce-Mitford.

Other references: Encyclopedia Britannica; The World Book Encyclopedia, 2003;
SD Strouthes Law and Politics, www.Wikipedia.com.

The next blog in this series will discuss Sharia Taxes on Non-Muslim and Muslim residents of non-Muslim "host" countries and Muslim countries.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this blog or others posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfive.com. Until indexing is complete the blogs in "five" will be available on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

13: Obama Accounting: Using US Department of Justice (DoJ) to Extend Lawsuit Settlements from Blacks & Ethnics to Muslims

Justice with Sword and Scales: the graphic depicts Roman Justice with a sword.

In the Egyptian Hall of Judgment, the heart of the deceased was weighed against the Feather of Truth before the god Osiris, who passed judgment.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice is extending more American money and government paid legal services to an Obama-approved international ethnic group, Somali Muslims.

The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) filed a lawsuit on behalf of 86 Somali Muslim employees who walked off the job at the Grand Island, Nebraska JBS Swift Co. meatpacking plant. The Somali Muslims, who wanted time off to pray and break time during the day during the month-long Ramadan daytime fasts, walked off the job in protest.

Non-Muslim employees counterprotested. The meatpacking plant management ended the accommodation. Then the plant fired 86 workers for walking off the job. The company stated the firings weren't about religion.

Federal employees reportedly representing the DoJ preliminarily told the plant it should provide Muslim employees with prayer time and not retaliate against workers who ask to pray. The EEOC filed the lawsuits in Federal District Court in Denver,CO and Omaha, NE on Monday August 30, 2010.

American Christians are prohibited from prayer in the schools, government, and other facilities in accordance with the doctrine of the separation of church and state.

How could the DoJ and EEOC even consider a case involving workers demanding "time off", presumably paid "time-off", for prayer and breaks during a month-long Muslim cultural-religious holiday?

This may be an early case of Muslims using federal taxpayer money to try to insert Islamic cultural-religious issues, Sharia law, into American law and society.

Serious questions are raised by the filing of this case. Are the EEOC and DoJ employees Muslim activists or supporters? Are these employees so totally inexperienced that they have no comprehension of "separation of church and state" or government impartiality in such issues in the workplace? Are these independent contractor litigation teams?

Are these litigation teams aiming for a cash settlement or trying to takeover an American factory on a specious issue involving blacks or ethnics?

Are the Somali Muslims involved in this case in the US with a legal immigration status?

Graphic: Justice with sword and scales, from The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols by Miranda Bruce-Mitford.

References: AP, San Fran Chronicle, Aug. 30, 2010; New York Times, Sept. 1, 2010.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com or on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com until indexing is complete on monthlynotesfive.

13: Obama Accounting: Using US Department of Justice (DoJ) to Extend Lawsuit Settlements from Blacks & Ethnics to Muslims

Justice with Sword and Scales: the graphic depicts Roman Justice with a sword.

In the Egyptian Hall of Judgment, the heart of the deceased was weighed against the Feather of Truth before the god Osiris, who passed judgment.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice is extending more American money and government paid legal services to an Obama-approved international ethnic group, Somali Muslims.

The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) filed a lawsuit on behalf of 86 Somali Muslim employees who walked off the job at the Grand Island, Nebraska JBS Swift Co. meatpacking plant. The Somali Muslims, who wanted time off to pray and break time during the day during the month-long Ramadan daytime fasts, walked off the job in protest.

Non-Muslim employees counterprotested. The meatpacking plant management ended the accommodation. Then the plant fired 86 workers for walking off the job. The company stated the firings weren't about religion.

Federal employees reportedly representing the DoJ preliminarily told the plant it should provide Muslim employees with prayer time and not retaliate against workers who ask to pray. The EEOC filed the lawsuits in Federal District Court in Denver,CO and Omaha, NE on Monday August 30, 2010.

American Christians are prohibited from prayer in the schools, government, and other facilities in accordance with the doctrine of the separation of church and state.

How could the DoJ and EEOC even consider a case involving workers demanding "time off", presumably paid "time-off", for prayer and breaks during a month-long Muslim cultural-religious holiday?

This may be an early case of Muslims using federal taxpayer money to try to insert Islamic cultural-religious issues, Sharia law, into American law and society.

Serious questions are raised by the filing of this case. Are the EEOC and DoJ employees Muslim activists or supporters? Are these employees so totally inexperienced that they have no comprehension of "separation of church and state" or government impartiality in such issues in the workplace? Are these independent contractor litigation teams?

Are these litigation teams aiming for a cash settlement or trying to takeover an American factory on a specious issue involving blacks or ethnics?

Are the Somali Muslims involved in this case in the US with a legal immigration status?

Graphic: Justice with sword and scales, from The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols by Miranda Bruce-Mitford.

References: AP, San Fran Chronicle, Aug. 30, 2010; New York Times, Sept. 1, 2010.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com or on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com until indexing is complete on monthlynotesfive.

11: Obama Accounting: Clinton, Obama, The Democratic Party & The Attack on America

The American Flag shown here commemorates the September 11, 2001 Attack on America.

A monthlynotesstaff editor was not in New York City on the day of the plane bombings at the World Trade Center. That editor was in Northern Virginia, 18 miles from the nation's capital in Washington, DC.

About 10AM that morning, the radio was full of concerned reports about damage to the World Trade Center, from one, then two planes ramming into the World Trade Center. Media reports changed from "a terrible accident has occurred" perspective as a third plane bombing was reported within about 30 minutes.

The third media report described the plane bombing of the Pentagon. The Capital Beltway freeway system near the Pentagon was being closed.

Then the fouth bombing was announced, the explosion of a plane flying over Pennsylvania.

America was under attack. And continues to be under attack.

President William Jefferson Clinton's pardon of the Puerto Rican terrorists, the FALN, who claimed responsibility for over 130 bombings from 1974-1983, gave a signal to violent Socialist/Communist terrorists that the US would not fight back in a consistent, concentrated way to stop their Attack on America.

Hillary Clinton's election to the US Senate from New York shortly after being contacted by Puerto Rican Independence proponents, and her husband's Presidential offer of clemency to the FALN terrorists gave a signal to "revolutionary internationalsts" that there were Americans within, in positions of power and authority, who were willing to consider making a deal, whether for votes or for money. The US Senate 75-2 vote denouncing Clinton's pardon of the FALN did not alter what was to be the future course of terrorist activity and invasive action in the US.

In 1994 America was attacked again, a "car bombing" outside of the World Trade Center. The early Al-Qaeda terrorists, led in part by Osama Bin-Laden, had brought America to Afganistan to help fight off the Soviets, who wanted control or something in return for previous Soviet foreign aid to Afghanistan.

Later Saudi Arabian Muslim terrorist Osama bin-Laden changed sides again. Bin-Laden orchestrated the Muslim Al-Qaeda September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombing.

A basic theme emerges in reviewing the blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff: the blogs are reactions to the Obama Administration, to the black radicalization of the US Government and the movement of money from white and mainstream taxpayers to black, ethnic, and international special interest groups.

Americans must find a way to stop falling back to a position of reacting. We must act, become pro-active, prevent our elected and non-elected government officials from funding black, ethnic, and other socialist/communist causes who do seek to overthrow the American government and our way of life. It is an insidious form of "revolution from within", holding us hostage by appealing to our Christian duty of tolerance and concern for others.

A First Step may be to rename "The Democratic Party" for what is has become, "Social Welfare Democrats", "International Social Democrats", or "Democrat-- Internationalist Socialist/Communist Party". Obama may prefer to rename his the "Black and Ethnic Advance Party", but it does not have that old ring for money from whites.

It is doubtful that any of the racial or ethnic beneficiaries of American money and social welfare benefits would take an "Oath of Allegiance" to the United States of America. Our ancestors did. And we remain loyal to the Oath they took for themselves and their families.

A Second Step may be to require an "Oath of Allegiance" from all who benefit from US government funding, active government and "outsourced", "spin-off" companies.

A Third Step may be to repeal Clinton's "dual citizenship" plan, doubtless done to protect his cronies and contributors from US taxes.

A Fourth Step may be to put a moratorium on federal spending, except for basic services, like basic military defense and veteran medical care, sewer and water filtration, social security retirement "pay-outs" and other current federal pensions, roadway "pothole" repair, and basic, reduced wages and salaries for a substantially downsized number of government employees, unemployment benefits, and food stamps.

A Fifth Step may be to tally the Obama Administration expenditures to determine which discriminate againt white and mainstream citizens by being earmarked for blacks and ethnics. This review could extend back through the Clinton Administration, with some solution for "recovery" of racialist dollars "redistributed".

A Sixth Step must include a re-examination of the principles and policies of the current government of the United States of America.

Many current politicians and government employees use the US government and treasury as a vehicle for ethnic and socialist/communist revolutionary change.

Others use the USA and our Treasury for profiteering and international "wealth building". The wealthy or "wannabe wealthy" must be told to do business in the private sector and to not use the USA or The Treasury as collateral or bank for their own business purposes and profit.

Those are some of our thoughts on September 11. What are yours?

Graphic: American Flag commemorating the September 11, 2001--Attack on America, in Chase's Calendar of Events.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

10: Obama Accounting: Tax "Reform" that Hurts Does Not Help.

Obama legislation in March, 2010 presented formidable challenges to the individual taxpayer. In addition to Obamacare, (Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, PPACA), mandating each American buy health care insurance or register for the welfare medical card, with IRS penalties for non-compliance, Obama proposed a confusing employer tax law which could negatively affect employees.

The tax law exempts employers who hire unemployed workers from paying Social Security taxes on those workers through December, 2010. Obama and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) have propsed extending this exemption an additional 6 months through June, 2011.

Employers deduct 2 types of taxes from employee paychecks:
1. Income tax for federal, state, and local governments and
2. Employment taxes.

There are 2 types of employment payroll taxes:
1. Social Security (6.25%) and
2. Medicare (6.25%).

Employers deduct each of these employment taxes from the employee's gross earnings. Employers are to forward a matching amount of each tax to the federal government to be added to the employee's cumulative account. (If you are self-employed you must pay twice, 6.25% for yourself as employee and 6.25% for yourself as employer, or 13.5% of gross earnings.)

Is it the employer 6.25% or both employer/employee (13.5%) which employers are exempt from? Will the employer deduct the 6.25% from the employee's paycheck and hold both 6.25% amounts? Will employers simply defer payment to the government now and pay these amounts later? Or will the employer not deduct and pass this expense onto the employee as if the employee were an "Independent Contractor", requiring a 1099 form in addition to the W-4 for part of the work year?

This tax "reform" will add stacks of return forms and hours of accounting nightmares for both employer and employee. It may create additional, but unnecesary tax liability for both, which hopefully will have to be corrected later. Inexperienced IRS agents undoubtedly will be stuck in these issues or possibly will try to maximize billing to both for unreasonably high tax amounts.

This tax "reform" also could create chaos in the future for the employee who must "pay-in" to both Social Security and Medicare for future retirement checks and retirement health care coverage through Medicare.

If this an Obama solution to covering phenomenal "bailout" amounts, he may face a taxpayer revolt beyond his imaagination.

How could a tax "reform" law like this could get out of committee to be presented to Congress. Have all the tax experts and congressional staff aides been fired?

Graphic: September, 11--Saturday USA flag commemorating the Attack on America.
In Chase's Calendar of Events.

Reference: AP 9/6/2010

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9: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided"--Reconstruction Then, Cabinet Advocacy Now.

Lincoln's War began in 1861, ended in 1865. Before the close of the Civil War, Reconstruction had begun. Reconstruction remedied the slavery question: prohibited Constitutionally in Article 9(1) and by several other regional, state, and local laws, affecting less than 700,000 people, many of whom bartered labor for room and board and farm products, 90% of whom resided in 4 states, many of whom were illegals engaged with "slave dealers" in illegal activity.

Reconstruction produced three Consitiutional Amendments:
1865: 13th Amendment: Slavery prohibited.
1866: 14th Amendment: Former US slaves granted citizenship, including right to vote.
1870: 15th Amendment: Black Suffrage, voting rights restated.

The new nation arose from the War of Independence from Great Britain, in 1776. The US Constitution, including the three Reconstruction Admendments, was ratified by
1891. The problem was solved.

Despite Lincoln's advice to reunite the nation "with malice toward none", the legacy of the Reconstruction has been replayed regularly in the 145 years since the end of the Civil War.

The Obama legacy reflects back on where he arose. From black community organizer, to law school, to black activist in Illinois politics, Obama concentrated on black causes and demanding funding for black causes.

Like his political mentors from the 1960s, The Black Panther Party, Obama focused on racial profiling in the 1990s Illinois legislature. It is a legally expensive but empty circular argument: demand police officers make detailed racial notes about suspects, then bring lawsusits against the police department, city, county, and state governments for "racial profiling".

It is a form of the "de facto" fallacy in reasoning. If the police patrol a predominantly black neighborhood, police will stop more blacks than whites, because there are more blacks than whites in the area they patrol.

From ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)/Project Vote registration, Obama sought to redraw districts with high numbers of blacks for ease of electing black candidates, large contingency fees or commissions from a 1995 $500 million federal civil rights lawsuit settlement against the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN/Project Vote. And Obama sought votes for his campaigns for the Illinois legislature. Obama lost money for Cook County and Illinois. In a lawsuit against Cook County Hospital and the Hebtoen Research institute, the County lost $5 million back to the federal government from Cook County Hospital and $500,000 from Hebtoen.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice (DoJ) continues Obama's legacy of black and ethnic advocacy. The AIG/Wilmington Finance lawsuit discussed in an earlier blog
("2: Obama Accounting: Black Funding and Lawsuit Settlements") delivered a $6.1 Million dollar settlement from AIG for wholesale broker fees involving an Afro-American mortgage company, without a finding of AIG wrongdoing. DoJ demanded $1 Million go to an "approved" ACORN-type financial literacy and credit counselling company.

Black and ethnic advocacy has become DoJ policy. In 2009, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julia Fernandez stated she would not support any enforcement of federal "Motor Voter" law Section 5 which requires the state to periodically purge voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters, and those who have moved out of state. Fernandez stated "We are not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it." What outrageous federal encouragement of voter fraud, and possibly "stuffing the ballot box" for the Administration-supported candidate and cause.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez restates the "de facto" lawsuit approach as the "disparate impact theory": there may be no intent to discriminate but there is a difference in results". This theory has been applied to school test scores (as in "Race for the Top" funding) and mortgage lending (as in the AIG/Wilmington, DE mortgage case mentioned above). Under this theory, white residents of any city, county, or state should be able to successfully win lawsuits for disproportionate lack of cheap housing for whites in cheaper, predominantly colored inner city neighborhoods. Whites must have been denied cheap housing in those neighborhoods, otherwise at least an equal number of whites would be living there.

Thomas Perez was a former aid to the late Senator Ted Kennedy. As an ethnic activist and Councilman in Montgomery City, Maryland, Perez promoted in-state tuition funding and drivers' licenses for Hispanic and other illegals.

Obama lawyer Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board, formerly employed by the SEIU Service Employees International Union and affiliated with the AFL-CIO, has been investigated for ethical complaints. Becker revealed insidious special interest group government bureaucratic strategies stating "major policy changes could be implemented without legislative approval".

To save the United States from being revised from within, the educated electorate will need to monitor meetings and policies of all governmental departments, a return to large news staffs sorting through voluminous government settlements and other documents. A down-sized government bureaucracy at the federal and other levels would help make this task less formidable.

The Obama/Hillary Clinton State Department has been working with local and regional "advocacy groups" termed NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to prepare the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Report. Obama's submission of the Arizona Immigration Law to the UN is a very controversial appeal for support for his anti-Arizona law position outside of the United States.

Membership in the UN Council for Human Rights (UNCHR) and the proposal for the human rights Periodic Review was rejected by the Bush Administration for including known human rights violators like Libya and China. The UNCHR policies make it easier for known human rights violator countries to join the council, than to be dismissed for human rights violations. The UNHRC could become a council of human rights violators ignoring or promoting human rights violations.

The Obama/Clinton State Department also has been in the news for advocating "Muslim outreach" by paying travel expenses for Near Ground Zero Fitness Center & Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to travel to and from Muslim countries.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) too deserves mention for offering Shirley Sherrod a job in "Advocacy and Outreach" after her racially offensive statements about not offering the "full force of my help" to a white farmer as Georgia Rural Director with a $2 Billion budget. USDA missed a teachable moment" about how racial respect goes both ways. Only CNN Cooper and Johns covered this and other comments by her black activist husband Charles Sherrod. On this broadcast CNN noted the $1.15 Billion "Pigford Farm" federal settlement to the Sherrods and other black farmers.

Department of Education (DoEd) Secretary Arne Duncan of the $4.3 Billion "Race to the Top" emailed over 4,000 department employees to attend Al Sharpton's counter-rally to the August 28, 2010 Glen Beck Lincoln Monument event. This raises questions of violaions of The Hatch Act which forbids federal employees from participating in political campaigns, particulary those espoused by the current administration. David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute noted the email "sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department. It is highly inappropriate...even in the absence of a direct threat", sic, of job loss, loss of promotion, etc. at work, for not participating.

Arne Duncan called education "the civil rights issue of our generation" thus politicizing DoEd including the "Race to the Top" and changing education funding into Black Racial Politics.

Also disappointing was Washington, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's statement that Beck's rally "would change nothing...We will move rght over you."
What most Americans understood as equal opportunity for everyone was changed into a Black Power message of "redistribution of wealth" and "transfer of power" from whites to blacks.

Obama et.al. have changed American politics into a Black Supremacist takeover of a non-racially motivated Government and, of course, the Treasury.

The financial cost of these black and ethnic advocacy programs is phenomenal, more so during a $12.9 Trillion dollar deficit. How much of the deficit is direct cost for these advocacy programs? The ethical and moral damage done by black racializing our historically democratic government, traditionally striving for fairness and impartiality, is inestimable.

Graphic: Scales and fasces, attributes of Justice, Cartari, 1647, in Dictionary of Symbolism, H Biedermann.

References: CNSNews.com, The Washington Examiner, biggovernment.com.

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8: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided"--Reconstruction Then

,
The Civil War raged on. In the South, north through Virginia, to the Washington, DC capital, and beyond to Maryland, above the Mason-Dixon line to Pennsylvania, west to Louisiana, the energies, monies and lives of Americans were lost. The Union lost 360,222 men (110,000 in battle). The Confederacy lost 258,000 (94,000 in battle). At least 471,427 were wounded on both sides.

Despite the war, Lincoln won re-election in 1864. The Confederacy, army and money, was weakened. General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, VA on April 7, 1865. The Civil War was over.

Seven (7) days later on Good Friday, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theater with a single bullet wound to the head. Lincoln never regained consciousness and died the next morning on April 15, 1865.

Booth's shout "sic semper tyrannis!" ("So always to tyrants!") summarizes the irony of Lincoln's Administrations. The "Great Emancipator" freed the slaves in the rebellious Confederate states. But in his war to end slavery, Lincoln became a tyrant, violating the Constitution of the US which he fought the war to preserve. Lincoln expanded the Union Army wth the first military draft in US history, the Conscription Act of 1862. Lincoln declared martial law and suspended the Writ of Habeaus Corpus, the right of the accused to face the accuser and to know the offense of which he(/she) is accused.

Lincoln's goal was to block expansion of slavery to the North and new Western territories, and gradually, even with conpensation to the southern states, to extinguish slavery in the South by 1900.

Lincoln, Black Hawk War militia captain, postmaster, and lawyer, had re-entered politics to protest repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise forbiding slavery and to protest passage of the more limited 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act prohibiting slavery north of the 36 degree 31 minute latitude. Other earlier local laws also prohibited slavery.

The nation was new. The War of Independence from Great Britain had been won less than 100 years before in 1776. The Constitution of the United States was debated and ratified by the states between 1787 and 1791.

The North was building factories, becoming industrialized and monetarized. The South remained agrarian, land rich, cash poor. The Southern economy depended on the barter of labor to continue farming the land. Congress recognized the south depended on laborers in various conditions of "servitude". Congress prohibited slavery by 1808, penalizing slaveholders prior to 1808 in Section 9(1)...a "tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." Congress limited "the migration or importation of such persons", to limit immigration and the entry of "illegals" into the US.

But there were conflicting goals: prohibiting slavery yet permitting expansion of the economy, particularly the labor-intensive southern farm economy. This occurred in the aftermath of the destruction of land and loss of money during the Revolutionary War, only fifty years earlier.

In the first US Census of 1790, the term "slave" was not well-defined, appearing to refer to non-family farm workers, indentured servants, and slaves. Local laws and local opinion prohibited slavery in the North. Congress banned slavery in 1808.

17.2% of American families were "Slaveholder" families. 90% of slaves resided in 3 Southern states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and in Maryland. 603,540 of 697,624 people classified as "slaves" in the 1790 Census resided in these 4 states.

Interestingly enough, there were black as well as white slaveholders. Thomas Day was a mixed race black cabinet maker who owned 14 slaves who worked in his antebellum North Carolina furniture shop.

The Era of Reconstruction followed the Civil War, led by Lincoln's party of Republicans and Radical Republicans. The latter coalition of newly emancipated and other blacks, northern "Carpetbaggers", and their southern collaborators the "Scalawags", molded the re-admitted Southern States to the will of the federal government in Washington, DC.

Emancipated coloreds and poor whites in various conditions of "servitude" were freed. The new "Freedmen" were provided schools and education, citizenship, voting rights, and protection from angry former Confederates under various military and other Reconstruction Acts through the 1860s.

In another irony of the Civil War and Reconstruction, on January 23, 1864 President Lincoln recgnized the concept of "free" labor in contract relations between "ex-slaves" and plantation owners and ordered the Army to encourage and supervise such contracts. This of course makes it dfficult to count the numbers of "freedmen" and slaves at the close of the Civil War.

Other significant Reconstruction era acts include the 3 related Amendments to the US Constitution:
1865: The 13th Amendment, Abolition of slavery.
1866: The 14th Amendment, The Civil Rights Act, US citizenship for all former slaves.
1870: The 15th Amendment, Black Suffrage.

Despite timely legal remedies 145 years ago, the issues of Reconstruction, including education for citizenship, voting rights, and equal rights under the law, repeatedly have been raised and remedied by the federal government. The Reconstruction Era policies of the Radical Republicans continue to this day, now under the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration Cabinet level Advocacy programs, to be discussed in the next blog in this series at http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com (or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com if indexing problems have not been resolved).

Photograph: 3 cent Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (Nov. 19, 1863) Stamp, 1948:
That government, of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth. (Nov. 19, 1863).
from Research Guide to American Historical Biography, R. Mussigrosso, Ed., Beacham Publishing, W,DC: 2008.

Other references include: NPR, The World Book Encyclopedia, 20003; Encyclopedia of American biography, JA Gararaty; Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS & JT Heidler; Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction, WL Richter.

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7: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided" - Obamacare v. 36 States

"A house divided against itself cannot stand". (Abraham Lincoln, 1858, Old State Capitol, Springfield, IL)

Barack Obama echoed the words of Abraham Lincoln when announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States on February 10, 2007.

There are differences. Lincoln, a Republican, campaigning for IL Senator to the US Congress, lost to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In the debates with Douglas, Lincoln and his views became well-known. Lincoln's primary goal in this tumultuous time was the preservation of the United States, "the Union". His position on slavery was negotiable and pragmatic.

In the debates, Douglas identified "local control" as the key to maintaining Southern agricultural wealth. Farm wealth included slaves which aded $150-400 to the farm value and kept labor affordable in a barter economy dependent on exchanging work for room, board, and some farm products.

Two (2) years later, in 1860, Lincoln would campaign and win to become the 16th President of the US.

Those words, "A house divided", were prophetic for the new President Lincoln. Southern Democrats, believing Lincoln would be hostile to the South, began to withdraw from the USA. South Carolina adopted the Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860 to protest Lincoln's election with only 40% of the popular vote.

By March 4, 1861, seven (7) states had seceded to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). The Confederacy attacked a Union rescue expedition at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, on April 12, 1861. The Civil War had begun.

Barack Obama's challenge to individual freedom, including each American's right to buy or not buy health care insurance also has provoked a battle over "local control", "state sovereignty" 150 years later.

Idaho began a legal challenge on March 18, 2010, before Congressional passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of March 23, 2010 (PPACA). Less than an hour after the Act was signed into law, 13 states, FL, AL, CO, ID, LA, MI, NE, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT and WA, filed a lawsuit in Pensacola, FL challenging the Act. Later 4 additional states joined the lawsuit (AZ, IN, MS, ND). VA has filed a separate lawsuit involving a recently enacted state law. In MO, a ballot initiative about exemption from Obamacare provisions has passed. At least 36 states have objected to this federal intervention into health care.

Obamacare demands each citizen buy insurance or register for the welfare medical card, Medicaid, if eligible, or be charged an IRS assessed and collected penalty.

Obamacare passes the cost of health care back to the individual and to the states. Ohio estimates budget increases of $444.00 for each of the 554,000 new welfare enrollees, $237 million dollars, during an expected budget deficit of over $8Billion dollars in the next 2-year budget.

Federal Congressional support for the Act was partisan. The Senate voted 60-39 with all Democrats and Independents voting for and all Republicans against on December 24, 2009. The Act passed in the House of Representatives by only 7 votes, 219-212 with all 178 Republicans plus 34 Democrats voting against, with 4 vacancies.

Public opinion has been largely negative. CNN polls of March 19-21, 2010 reported 59%opposed to it while 39% supported it. Bloomberg LP found only 4 of 10 supported it. Only a USA Today/Gallup poll had different results. 49% viewed it as "a good thing, while 40% viewed it "badly", wth +/- 4% error. However, senior citizens opposed Obamacare while those younger than 40 supported it.

Rasmussen Reports polled 59% opposed. After passage, 55% of Americans favored repealing Obamacare.

Rep. Steve King(IA) introduced HR 4972 to Repeal Obamacare.

Not often mentioned by Obama and the Democrats, or the media, is the IRS assessed and collected penalty for not purchasing insurance. Obama et.al. did mention penalties against businesses, employers who do not provide health care coverage benefits. However, seasoned employees will know that employer plans usually require a payroll tax deducted contribution by the employee.

Nor did Obama et.al. mention "rationed" medical care under the Obamacare plan. Obama appointed and Department of Heath & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius backed "rationed" medical care advocate Harvard Medical School Dr. Donald Berwick to be Director of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(See 5: and 6: Obama Accounting for blogs on rationed health care and IRS penalties for the "non-compliant".)

Photgraph: Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton (left) and Major General John A. McClernard (right) following the battle of Antietam, October 3, 1862. Photograph by Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress. In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS Heidler & JY Heidler, Editors, ABC-Clio, California, USA, 2000.

Other references: Wikipedia, CNSNews.com, National Press Club archive video.

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