Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, “He’s a traitor. The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk. It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told reporters, “I think it directly is (an act of treason).” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said that Snowden had committed an “act of treason.”
So we know Edward Snowden is a traitor, because he revealed secret information about our favorite government and its protection agency, the NSA — information the revelation of which compromised U.S. defenses. For instance, according to the President of the United States of America:
“We know that the intelligence services of other countries — including some who feign surprise over the Snowden disclosures — are constantly probing our government and private-sector networks and accelerating programs to listen to our conversations and intercept our emails and compromise our systems. We know that.”
Hey, wait a minute. “Other countries . . . who feign surprise?” What’s that word “feign” doing there? Are you saying, Mr. President, that “other countries” were aware of what Snowden disclosed to the American people? Are you saying that of the people on earth, the American people knew less about the NSA’s activities than did the people in other countries?
Are you saying, Mr. President, that quite likely the bad guys already know what we’re doing, and that Mr. Snowden didn’t reveal anything to them they didn’t already know?
Hmmm . . .
Well anyway, the NSA’s gathering of metadata has provided a powerful defensive shield against terrorist activities. It prevented the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings and . . . uh . . . you say it didn’t?
Well, what about the twin towers. Metadata could have prevented that. According to President Obama:
“The program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. One of the 9/11 hijackers—Khalid al-Mihdhar—made a phone call from San Diego to a known al Qaeda safe-house in Yemen. NSA saw that call, but could not see that it was coming from an individual already in the United States.
“The telephone metadata program under Section 215 was designed to map the communications of terrorists, so we can see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible.”
So there it is. If NSA had been collecting data on everyone’s phone calls, it would have been able to connect the dots, seen that terrorists were planning terror, and stopped 9/11. Case closed, right?
Well, not exactly. According to Reason.com’s January 17th article titled, Obama Suddenly Realizes Mass Surveillance Threatens Privacy, by Jacob Sullum:
As ProPublica’s Justin Elliott pointed out last June, “U.S. intelligence agencies knew the identity of the hijacker in question, Saudi national Khalid al Mihdhar, long before 9/11 and had the ability find him, but they failed to do so.”
Furthermore, it is not clear why the NSA, having eavesdropped on seven calls between al-Mihdhar and the Al Qaeda safe house in Yemen, needed a database containing everyone’s phone records to identify the source of those calls.
The Justice Department “could have asked the FISA Court for a warrant to all phone companies to show all calls from the U.S. which went to the Yemen number,” former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke told ProPublica.
“Since they had one end of the calls (the Yemen number), all they had to do was ask for any call connecting to it.”
NSA, this giant, information-gathering monster, had all the information it needed and failed to act on it. So what possible purpose could be served by gathering even more information?
As ProPublica’s Kara Brandeisky notes, “Obama’s own review group concluded that the sweeping phone records collection program has not prevented any terrorist attacks.”
The NSA’s record: Billions spent. No terrorist attacks prevented. None. Zero. Nada.
O.K., so the NSA has stopped no terrorist attacks, but still Snowden is, if not a traitor, at least a criminal. Here’s why:
Geoffrey R. StoneEdward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago, doesn’t think Snowden is a traiter. Instead, “He is most certainly a criminal who deserves serious punishment” (because he revealed classified information). Probably, he should have presented his concerns to senior, responsible members of Congress.”
I assume among those senior, responsible members of Congress would be John Boehner, Bill Nelson and Dianne Feinstein, who clearly are outraged, not by the spying on innocent Americans or the lying to Congress, but rather by the revelation to innocent Americans that they are being spied on and lied to.
But if Snowden is a criminal, because he violated his oath not to reveal classified information, who else acted criminally?
Federal Judge John D. Bates, a judge on the FISC, wrote “(This was) the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program.”
Let’s sum it up. NSA had information that could have prevented 9/11, but did nothing. Three times in three years, this federal agency that spends billions to prevent terrorism, but cannot point to a single instance of having prevented terrorism, has broken the law, and gone unpunished. (James Clapper Jr, the director of national intelligence, lied to Congress when he testified that the NSA was not collecting data on millions of Americans.)
Meanwhile, Edward Snowden, who objected to the NSA’s criminality and revealed the NSA’s unlawful and useless activities to the American public — activities known to foreign nations, but not to Americans — Edward Snowden is a traitor or a criminal or both, and should be prosecuted, while no criminals in the government did anything that should be prosecuted.
Does that about cover it?
But wait. What about the title of this post, “Why I love the National Security Agency”? Why do I love an agency run by lying criminals, that spies on innocent Americans?
The answer can be found above, in this phrase: ” . . . a government agency that spends billions . . .”
While Congress has been increasing taxes on the middle class (FICA) and cutting benefits to the middle and poor (Social Security, Medicaid, government employment, the sequester, etc., etc., it has not hesitated to spend billions on NSA.
And where do those billions go? Into the American economy — into the pockets of NSA workers and NSA suppliers, who in turn spend those billions on food, clothing, school, cars and all sorts of stuff.
And it doesn’t cost you or me or any other taxpayer a dime. Those billions are free economic stimulus, which we so desperately need.
So, Mr. President. Go ahead and spend billions of stimulus dollars on an agency that has accomplished very little. Just keep the guard dogs under control and prosecute its lawbreakers.
And please don’t hassle the one guy to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude, the guy who spilled the beans on malfeasance. I know you’re embarrassed and you should be. But don’t shoot the messenger.
Give him a medal.
And keep on spending.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports
THE RECESSION CLOCK
As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 