What is a ''Ponzi Scheme''?

Ponzi Unmasked

Caveat adsiduus.

Sheldon Richman
The Freeman
September 02, 2011


Texas governor and Republican presidential aspirant Rick Perry stirred up a fuss when he impolitely called Social Security “a Ponzi scheme.” Was he right?

Ponzi schemes, which appear to be investment programs, have two elements. First, no investment actually takes place. People are promised returns on their money, but those returns don’t come from profits on successful investments; rather they come from new contributors to the scheme. Ponzi tells Contributor 1 that if he turns over a sum of money, he will see a handsome return next week. One week later Ponzi makes good on his promise — not by investing C1’s money, but by making the same promise to Contributor 2. Once C2’s cash is in hand, Ponzi can pay C1, and so on. Obviously, this is unlikely to last forever.

Now it so happens that this is indeed how Social Security works, except unlike Ponzi, the government uses compulsion. People are forced to pay FICA taxes, assuming that when they reach 65 they will receive a monthly check. Where will that money come from? From revenue extracted from the current working generation. No one’s contributions are invested. Until recently Social Security ran a large surplus; it took in more than it paid out to retirees. Was the surplus invested? No, it went into the government’s general fund.
But the so-called trust fund wasn’t left empty-handed. The Treasury deposited a special nonnegotiable bond – an IOU.

Now that the trust fund runs a deficit, it must redeem the bonds at the Treasury for cash. The Treasury has its own deficit, of course, so it has no spare cash and must borrow from the public. Hence, inter-agency debt transforms into public debt. (This Freeman article imagines trying to run a family college fund like Social Security.)

Requirement #2

Social Security therefore meets one requirement of a Ponzi scheme. But there are two requirements. The second is deception. That should have already been clear. You couldn’t run a Ponzi scheme if you told your contributors the truth: “Give me $1,000 today, and I will double your money – as soon as I find two more people willing to give me $1,000 on the same condition.” That wouldn’t get very far.

The question, then, is: Does Social Security dishonestly represent itself as an investment, or insurance, program? It often has done so. The regressive payroll tax is formally known as FICA: Federal Insurance Contributions Act. (It also funds Medicare.) Besides that, the Social Security website mentions insurance on its history page, which features a picture of the father of “social insurance,” nineteenth-century German chancellor Otto von Bismarck:

The significance of the new social insurance program was that it sought to address the long-range problem of economic security for the aged through a contributory system in which the workers themselves contributed to their own future retirement benefit by making regular payments into a joint fund. It was thus distinct from the welfare benefits provided under Title I of the Act [Grants to States for Old-Age Assistance] and from the various state “old-age pensions.”

In other words, Social Security can’t be transfer, or welfare, program because it’s an insurance program to which workers contribute through a joint fund. Franklin Roosevelt insisted that Social Security be financed through separate “contributions” rather than general taxation precisely to maintain the appearance of insurance and to give workers an apparent stake in the system.

Money Long Spent

But it is a transfer program. By the time you go on Social Security your money has long been spent, and the money you receive is taken from current workers through taxation. That’s a transfer, or welfare, program in insurance clothing.

While the government has usually tried to fool people into thinking Social Security is insurance, it has operated on a different track when necessary. Will Wilkinson notes, “The Act was scrupulously drafted to ensure that the tax and the government transfers would not appear to have anything to do with each other. And the program is never described therein as ‘insurance.’”

The reason is that the government needed to protect itself — from the people. Wilkinson: “In anticipation of a constitutional challenge, Social Security officials went out of their way to purge their informational materials of insurance language.” When court challenges came, the government argued that the payments were taxes and benefits were not a matter of contractual right.

“The old-age monthly benefits program which Title II of the Social Security Act establishes is not a federally-administered ‘insurance’ program,” Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Arthur Sherwood Flemming said in his brief in Flemming v. Nestor (1960). “The contribution exacted under the Social Security plan is a true tax. It is not com­parable to a premium promising the payment of an annuity com­mencing at a designated age” (emphasis added).

Court Agrees

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed (twice): “Appellee’s right to Social Security benefits cannot properly be considered to have been [an 'accrued property right'],” it stated in Flemming. “It is apparent that the noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments…. To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands” (emphasis added). Flexibility and boldness equals congressional caprice.

As the act says, Congress is legally free to change the terms of the program at any time. There is no contract. The entitlement really isn’t. (See more here by John Attarian.)

Once the program was safe from challenge, however, the government resumed its insurance propaganda.

So … Social Security: Ponzi scheme or not?

I think we have to say it once was, but is no more, because Social Security was unmasked as a coercive transfer scheme long ago and critics remind us of that fact constantly. If everyone knows (or can easily find out) something is a Ponzi scheme, it’s no longer a Ponzi scheme. Anyone who thinks Social Security is insurance just isn’t paying attention.

Caveat adsiduus. Taxpayer beware.

NO, YOU CAN'T.

Derek Gunby
September 1, 2010

Lying Presidents, activist Judges, power-drunk Congressmen, and special interests who happen to be in a position to appoint judges or enact whatever legislation their arrogance might lead them to ram down other Americans' throats cannot be trusted with the power to "amend" the Constitution by their self-serving "interpretations". They dishonestly use the ''living, breathing, document'' line to justify undermining its core principles. In other words, using the Constitution to destroy it while feigning loyalty when it's politically convenient. ''I taught the Constitution for 10 years''. We all know you're well-versed in Constitutional law, Barry, but you have aptly demonstrated it's a case of ''know thy enemy''.

Rule of the majority party can be as evil as any dictator. That is why we are not a ''Democracy''--a notion that has been erroneously force-fed to us since anyone can remember--but a Representative Constitutional Republic. This fact has been obscured by a progressive education system designed to indoctrinate rather than educate, and unfortunately it is only now that many are rediscovering this. It took a lot of pushing of the People to wake them up to the fact that their once-great nation is being systematically destroyed. And no it is not just Obama and the Democrat Party, although they are by far the worst when it comes to forcing Statism and calling it ''democracy''. No, This has been happening for a long time, it's effects culmulative until it has almost reached a breaking point. Maybe that's what they want. Unfortunately for the Regime's supporters it is at this point in time that things have gotten so bad that the People are literally on the verge of revolution. Like the kid who is bullied daily at school and finally summons the courage to smash the bully's nose in, so it may be with the American populace. And I have news for you: the kid is not the bad guy. The kid is not the ''extreme'' one. The bully is.

When our public servants abdicate their oath of office by attempting to dismantle, even openly disparaging the Constitution as some irrelevant "rag" of the past that can be changed or junked to suit their immediate small-minded ideological goals, those politicians are not acting as Americans or in America's best interests, but as America's enemies. And their self-delusional claims to the contrary are pathetic.

This time, politicians will get the voters they so richly deserve. Very, very angry voters. Being dismissive of this by assuming that they are ignorant masses who don't know what's best for them or that they don't like this president because of his skin color is what is truly ignorant, and only fuels the fire that is going to one day restore this nation to it's rightful owners--those who understand and have a healthy historical perspective on the dangers of Statism and how it destroys liberty, the individual, and free markets while aiding the monopolization, corporatism, and corruption it claims to be trying to ''regulate''. No amount of MoveOn.Org, Huffington Post, NY Times, MSNBC, or George Soros-funded think tank talking points are going to stop the real change that is going to occur.

Ridicule or dismiss the people in the street all you want, pretend it's all just a result of Limbaugh, Beck, Rupert Murdoch, FOX or any of the other phony Establishment Right hacks stirring up trouble. No, the sentiment is quite real, completely justified, and would exist even if the so-called "conservative" media didn't. Many of us are on to them as well and are exposing them for what they are. We won't forget the Neoconservatives' support for endless foreign occupations, the Constitution-killing Patriot act, and their own version of Statism.

Right now, our immediate problem is the current Administration and Congress, because it is what we can tangibly make accountable to us. The ''Bush did it too'' defense just doesn't cut it, nor does the ''it's better than the last 8 years'' defense. It is not better than the last 8 years, which were horrible. It is everything bad that came from that administration, and even worse. We need to take back our country, starting at the local level. In any case, our out-of-control government's current Goldman Sachs regime and their unwitting supporters need to understand: NO,YOU CAN'T.

We Need A Revolution, Not A Movement

Chuck Baldwin
August 29, 2010


The elections of 2008 (and the early elections of 2010) produced two significant phenomena: the “Ron Paul Revolution,” and the “Tea Party Movement.” And, mark it down: both of them will have profound effects upon the upcoming November elections–and upon the 2012 elections as well. Call them what you want, however, America doesn’t need another movement; it needs a genuine revolution.

The Tea Party movement, while still a force with which to be contended, has already been diluted and compromised. The primary elections plainly reveal the reality of this fact. The high spots so far are the defeats of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Bob Bennett in Utah. The low spots so far are the reelection of John McCain in Arizona and the election of Dan Coats in Indiana.

John McCain’s election, in particular, demonstrates how many conservatives and “revolutionaries” still don’t get it. If any State in the union should have an up-close-and-personal look at what we are up against, it would be the people of Arizona. After all, they are on the front lines in the fight of one of the most important battles currently being waged in our country: illegal immigration. And John McCain is one of the worst offenders in terms of facilitating and encouraging this illegal invasion. Yet the people of Arizona reelected McCain to the US Senate. (It would interesting to know how many illegal aliens voted for McCain, would it not?)

Then again, John McCain received the enthusiastic endorsement of former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. This endorsement obviously brought McCain thousands of Tea Party votes that otherwise would have gone to his principal opponent, J.D. Hayworth. McCain is not the only Big-Government globalist neocon to receive Palin’s endorsement. Many of Palin’s endorsees are neocons; which leads to one of the biggest problems with any so-called conservative movement: allowing celebrity-type “conservatives” to become the de facto leaders and spokesmen for what should be a true grassroots, people-generated rebellion. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are the two biggest culprits in this regard.

Mark my words: Palin and Beck may see themselves as part of a conservative “movement,” but they want nothing to do with an old-fashioned, honest-to-God, Patrick Henry-style revolution. In fact, they are doing everything in their power to keep such a revolution from taking place.

This does not mean that Palin and Beck do not contribute some good things to freedom’s fight. They do. The problem is, for every good thing they contribute they counterbalance it by supporting establishment principals, such as John McCain and Newt Gingrich, and attacking non-establishment players and ideas, which serves only to keep the Big-Government power structure firmly ensconced in Washington, D.C.

Get real, folks, and start thinking for yourselves. Ask yourself why Fox News never (or hardly ever) invites non-establishment patriots to appear on their network. Why do you not see former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts on Fox News? Why do you not see former Georgia congressman and Presidential candidate Bob Barr on Fox News? Why do you not see former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura on Fox News? Why do you not see former Director of the US Office of Economic Opportunity and Presidential candidate Howard Phillips on Fox News? Why do you not see Presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin on Fox News? The list is endless.

Fox News is not “fair and balanced.” It is as controlled and manipulated as any other media news network. The only thing it balances is the other networks’ infatuation with the Democrat Party, by promoting Republican candidates and ideas. What it does not do is educate and inform the American people with the truth as to what both major parties are doing to destroy our country. But remember, Fox News is owned by Keith Rupert Murdoch, the same man who helped finance Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the US Senate, and who is as much of a globalist as anyone in Washington, D.C., or New York City.

As an aside, and speaking of Hillary Rodham, I predict that she will replace Vice President Joe Biden BEFORE the 2012 elections. I’ve said that in private for many weeks, and now say it in this column–remember, you heard it here. The Clinton-Bush Crime Syndicate (CBCS) needs Hillary in the White House badly, and Obama has readily accepted a subservient role in the criminal affairs of CBCS (for very profitable reasons, no doubt). And with the CBCS bosses pretty much running things at the White House (they don’t worry about domestic or social issues, providing that these do not interfere with their international criminal activities), is it any wonder that Obama has already taken more vacations than most Presidents take during an entire term?

And it is the influence of globalists and neocons upon national and international politics that the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck simply do not get–or do not want to get. And because many Tea Partiers are so enamored with these two (and allow them to do much of their thinking for them), they remain clueless as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, America is in the throes of socialist and Marxist political upheaval. The curtain could fall at any time. The American people need to wake up to this truism: a “conservative” movement–even a conservative Tea Party movement–will not save us. The only thing that will save us is an old-fashioned State revolt.

Arizona had the opportunity to become a modern-day version of 1775 Massachusetts. But Arizona has probably forfeited that leadership role by 1) reelecting John McCain, and 2) being willing to allow federal courts to dictate law to a sovereign State. Instead of taking its case to the federal courts, Arizona should simply tell the federal government that it will enforce its own State laws (including the newly enacted anti-illegal immigration law) regardless of what any federal court says or doesn’t say. At some point, that is exactly what some State (or group of states) in this union is going to have to do, or liberty will be forever lost.

As long as freedom lovers are content to remain satisfied with the status quo by allowing party politics and media celebrities to dominate their efforts, there will be no stopping this socialist avalanche that is crashing down upon us. The Tea Party movement of 2010 (if left free of Big-Government neocons) could certainly translate into positive developments this November; that is for sure. A revival of the “Ron Paul Revolution” in 2012 could also make a significant contribution, but it is going to take a State revolution to seal the deal. I, for one, am ready.

Schwarzenegger, Murdoch Give Keynote Speeches At The Bohemian Grove

Media mogul lectures on “the future of news”

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, Jul 30th, 2010

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is to make a keynote address this evening before the Annual Bohemian Club secret gathering – a lifetime achievement for a man who has long been groomed for power by the globalist elite.

Schwarzenegger will speak in front of hundreds of movers and shakers at the 2,700-acre wooded encampment along the Russian River in Monte Rio.

The plutocrats will no doubt be eager to hear from the man that they hand-picked to become California Governor in 2003, a fact that was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle at the time.

Schwarzenegger has since been a regular attendee at the Grove, but this will be the first time he has delivered a main event address at the elite hideout.

The news was reported as part of a puff piece on the grove in the Santa Rosa based Newspaper, The Press Democrat.

The article paints the Grove as some kind of fund-raising arts variety festival, when in reality it is the setting for top powerbrokers to knock their heads together on issues directly affecting world events, in between frolicking naked, urinating on giant Redwood trees and engaging in bizarre rituals.

The Manhattan Project was conceived at the Grove in the early 1940s, and Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan met there in 1967 and agreed who would seek the presidency first.

Other members include George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Alan Greenspan, David Rockefeller, Colin Powell, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and former secretaries of state George Shultz and James Baker.

In the past former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has attended the gathering, while in 2008 just months before the election, it was rumoured that both Barack Obama and John McCain attended.

In 2000 Alex Jones infiltrated the encampment and caught exclusive video footage of a bizarre mock human sacrifice ritual, known as “the cremation of care”, under a 40 foot stone owl that the members refer to as Molech.

Attendees dress up like Klan members in hooded robes and perform druidic pagan ceremonies to mark the spectacular finale of the event.

Nixon is on record discussing homosexual activity at the Grove, whilst it is also documented that male and female porn stars and prostitutes are shipped in for the annual retreat.

A reader who got a summer job working at the Grove in 2005, Chris Jones, reported that he was regularly propositioned for sex by the old men attending the encampment and asked if he “slept around” and wanted to have some fun.

Jones was later sentenced to three years in jail by California authorities for simply showing a tape of his visit to minors.

The New York Times is the only mainstream news source to have covered the Grove this year, with the usual sardonic whitewash piece that ridicules anyone who has reservations or questions regarding the weird rituals that the robed attendees engage in:

“…the requisite summer-camp assembly of robed men, a 40-foot concrete owl, and a body burned in effigy (conspiracy theorists note: it is not a real body)… no, conspiracy theorists, the owl does not represent a demonic idol or any potato-chip concern.”

Oh I see, it’s not a real body - that’s perfectly normal then – after all, who doesn’t sneak out into the woods in a black robe and burn human effigies with their friends. every once in a while?

The piece also notes that some reporters have managed to sneak into the Grove in the past, and refers to Alex Jones’ infiltration in 2000:
“some returned with reports of drunken, gray-haired sophomores, while at least one saw evidence of the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati and Beelzebub himself.”

It also revels in a lack of protesters outside this year’s gathering:
“For most of the last 30 years, protesters by the dozens and hundreds have agitated outside this dark-wooded lair… Yet the ritual on this day includes only one protester, bearded, lanky Brian Romanoff, 28, who has been working mostly alone since the two-week encampment began on July 16. He says he has adopted a nonconfrontational approach, better to spread the truth about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.”

The writer, Dan Barry, gives away his intentions when he refers to the fact that The Bohemian Club has appointed a public relations consultant, Sam Singer, who is clearly the source of the piece.

Another keynote speaker at the Grove this year was Newscorp CEO Rupert Murdoch, who reportedly discussed “the future of news” earlier in the week, following revelations that his new paywall at the London Times has thus far resulted in dismal failure.

No doubt Murdoch had much to say about the rise of the alternative media and the blogosphere, and the threat to the elite monopoly on information that its exponential success constitutes.

Top Clinton Official Claims Only A Terror Attack Can Save Obama

Paul Joseph Watson

A former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton says that the only thing which can rescue Barack Obama’s increasingly tenuous grip on power as his approval figures continue to plunge is a terror attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9/11, another startling reminder that such events only serve to benefit those in authority.

Buried in a Financial Times article about Obama’s “growing credibility crisis” and fears on behalf of Democrats that they could lose not only the White House but also the Senate to Republicans, Robert Shapiro makes it clear that Obama is relying on an October surprise in the form of a terror attack to rescue his presidency.

“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” said Shapiro, adding, “He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.”

Shapiro’s veiled warning should not be dismissed lightly. He was undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs during Clinton’s tenure in the Oval Office and also acted as principal economic adviser to Clinton in his 1991-1992 campaign. Shapiro is now Director of the Globalization Initiative of NDN and also Chair of the Climate Task Force. He is a prominent globalist who has attended numerous Bilderberg Group meetings over the past decade.

Shapiro is clearly communicating the necessity for a terror attack to be launched in order to give Obama the opportunity to unite the country around his agenda in the name of fighting terrorists, just as President Bush did in the aftermath of 9/11 when his approval ratings shot up from around 50% to well above 80%.

Similarly, Bill Clinton was able to extinguish an anti-incumbent rebellion which was brewing in the mid 1990’s by exploiting the OKC bombing to demonize his political enemies as right-wing extremists.As Jack Cashill points out, Clinton “descended on Oklahoma City with an approval rating in the low 40s and left town with a rating well above 50 and the Republican revolution buried in the rubble.”

Anti-incumbent fever is dominating the political climate once again, with establishment Democrats facing serious challenges from Tea Party candidates, people like Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid, who has a battle on his hands against Sharron Angle, a candidate the establishment media has attempted to demonize as a far-right extremist because she supports populist measures like removing sodium fluoride from water supplies and supports the Oath Keepers group, an organization centered around upholding states’ rights and the U.S. Constitution.

Only by exploiting a domestic terror attack which can be blamed on right-wing radicals can Obama hope to reverse the tide of anti-incumbency candidates that threaten to drastically dilute the power monopoly of establishment candidates from both major political parties in Washington.

As we highlighted yesterday, Shapiro is by no means the first to point out that terror attacks on U.S. soil and indeed anywhere in the world serve only to benefit those in positions of power.

CNN host Rick Sanchez admitted on his show this week that the deadly bombings in Uganda which killed 74 people were “helpful” to the military-industrial complex agenda to expand the war on terror into Africa.

During the latter years of the Bush presidency, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mused with Pentagon top brass that shrinking Capitol Hill support for expanding the war on terror could be corrected with the aid of another terror attack.

Lt.-Col. Doug Delaney, chair of the war studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, told the Toronto Star in July 2007 that “The key to bolstering Western resolve is another terrorist attack like 9/11 or the London transit bombings of two years ago.”

The same sentiment was also explicitly expressed in a 2005 GOP memo, which yearned for new attacks that would “validate” the President’s war on terror and “restore his image as a leader of the American people.”

In June 2007, the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party Dennis Milligan said that there needed to be more attacks on American soil for President Bush to regain popular approval.

Given the fact that a terror attack on U.S. soil will only serve to rescue Barack Obama’s failing presidency, and will do absolutely nothing to further the aims of any so-called “right wing extremists” the attack is blamed on, who should we suspect as the masterminds behind any such acts of terror? Surely not Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief string puller, the son of an Israeli terrorist who helped bomb hotels and marketplaces, and the man who once said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste….an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Undoubtedly, the first people we should suspect as culprits in the event of a domestic terror attack in the United States are the individuals Obama fronts for, globalists who are desperate to neutralize the growing success of grass-roots movements who have ridden a wave of rising resentment against big government as a means of obtaining real political power.

Media Ignore Planned Parenthood's $1.3 Billion Federal Funding Discrepancy

Networks and newspapers silent on government report contradicting abortion group's taxpayer funding figures

by Nathan Burchfiel, Culture and Media Institute

If $1.3 billion is unaccounted for and the media don’t report it, did it really happen?

According to an American Life League review of Planned Parenthood’s annual reports, the organization received more than $2 billion in federal grants and contracts between 2002 and 2008. A June 16 Government Accountability Report, however, found that the organization spent just $657.1 million of taxpayer money in the same time period.

The $1.3 billion discrepancy failed to catch the attention of the nation’s major media outlets. None of the networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) or major newspapers (Los Angeles times, The New York Times, USA Today and The Washington Post) reported it.

A Culture and Media Institute review of coverage found that only one newspaper listed among Nexis’ “major newspapers” – The Houston Chronicle – even mentioned the GAO report. The Chronicle’s June 16 article noted that Planned Parenthood spent $657 million of federal money over seven years, but did not mention the income/outlay discrepancy.

Don’t Follow the Money

The media have made Planned Parenthood a go-to source for several stories over the last six months, including debate over abortion language in health care reform legislation, the trial of the activist who killed abortionist Dr. George Tiller, and the 50th anniversary of the Pill.

From Dec. 28, 2009, to June 28, 2010, the broadcast networks and the “Big 4” newspapers mentioned Planned Parenthood 56 times in news stories. None of those stories mentioned the GAO report, and only one article reported the amount of federal money going to Planned Parenthood.

The February 27 article in The New York Times mentioned an investigative operation by pro-life activist Lila Rose which found Planned Parenthood clinics willing to accept donations from people who wanted African American babies aborted. A separate New York Times report on January 28 characterized the investigation as “prank calls” to Planned Parenthood.

Four reports referred to state funding of Planned Parenthood, but did not mention federal resources granted to the organization.

Planned Parenthood’s 2008 Annual Report says $349.6 million in taxpayer-funded grants and contracts accounted for more than a third (36 percent) of the organization’s income that year, second only to health center revenue. Federal funding for Planned Parenthood has increased by 45 percent since 2001-2002, when it received a reported $240.9 million from taxpayers.

While federal orders mandate that government money not be used directly for abortions, pro-life advocates point out that federal money used to cover non-abortion costs frees up private money to pay for abortions.

Favorite Experts

Planned Parenthood is by far the most cited pro-abortion group when it comes to national media coverage. In the last six months, 30 broadcast and print reports have quoted Planned Parenthood representatives and another 26 have mentioned the organization.

The 56 mentions of Planned Parenthood dwarf other pro-abortion groups, including the National Organization for Women (30) and NARAL Pro-Choice America (15).

When abortion was a major focus of health care reform debates, the media turned to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and other affiliated representatives to statements and analysis. When the media celebrated the 50th anniversary of “the Pill,” the media commemorated Planned Parenthood’s role in making it possible.

A February 26 profile in The Washington Post painted a glowing picture of abortion doctor Carol Ball. The article described a “difficult time” for Ball and other doctors who perform late term abortions in South Dakota.

When Planned Parenthood produced an ad in response to Focus on the Family’s pro-life Super Bowl ad, the media praised it. USA Today noted it “defend[ed] abortion rights,” although the Focus on the Family ad did not target abortion “rights.”

The New York Times on January 27 turned to Richards on the increase in teen pregnancy rates, and she used the opportunity bash abstinence education. “This new study makes it crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work,” Richards said.

In addition to news reports related to Planned Parenthood, newspapers published five letters to the editor from readers mentioning the organization and fives letters to the editor from Planned Parenthood executives.

Another seven op-eds and entertainment reviews mentioned Planned Parenthood, as well as 15 death notices, and a couple of comedians’ jokes. All told, the networks and newspapers mentioned Planned Parenthood more than 80 times in the last six months.

But when someone noticed a $1.3 billion discrepancy in Planned Parenthood’s handling of federal money – crickets.

The Sound of Silence

One letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times February 7 illustrated the effect the media blackout has had on public perceptions of Planned Parenthood.

Responding to the media-manufactured controversy over Focus on the Family’s pro-life Super Bowl ad, a reader wrote, “If I had it, I would give millions to Planned Parenthood to advertise on CBS during the Super Bowl.”

Well, dear reader, your wish has already come true. You might not know it from reading the Times, but Planned Parenthood already receives more than $350 million every year from you and every other American taxpayer, with no oversight from the “watchdogs” in the media.

Obama Plans To Sneak Through Carbon Tax By Stealth

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, June 18, 2010
President Obama is planning to sneak through his job-killing, economy wrecking carbon tax by stealth according to the Washington Post, by passing a weakened bill and then adding in cap and trade provisions after the heat is off following the November elections.
Described as the “lame duck climate strategy,” Obama is planning to secure enough votes in the Senate to pass a weakened energy bill and then drag out the conference long enough to ensure the stronger provisions contained in the original House version are added “after lawmakers have faced voters in November, thereby cushioning the vote’s political impact.”
“Several sources familiar with the administration’s thinking confirmed it has started pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring up a slimmed-down energy and climate bill next month. Such a measure would pass more easily than a comprehensive climate bill, and could still be negotiated with the broader bill the House passed a year ago,” reports the Washington Post.
Knowing that the “energy bill” represents nothing less than another massive plunder of the American taxpayer and is widely unpopular, Senators will only stab their constituents in the back and vote for the more nightmarish aspects of the legislation, including a tax on the very substance they exhale, after they have secured their seats in November.
As we highlighted last week, plans to impose a carbon tax on American citizens appeared to fade after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham shockingly reversed his views on climate change, telling a press conference that the science behind man-made global warming is in question and those pushing it are alarmists who have oversold the problem.
“The Senate is expected to try and push a watered down bill with the hope of moving towards a carbon tax later on,” we reported on June 10, which is exactly the approach now being adopted by Obama.
The elite are still desperate to impose a consumption tax on Americans as part of the move towards a “post-industrial revolution” and the kind of nightmare “green economy” that has left Spain with a 20 per cent unemployment rate. In a so-called green economy, over 2.2 jobs are lost for every “green job” created.
The EPA has been busy floating propaganda about how Obama’s cap and trade legislation would cost Americans an average of $79 to $146 per year. In reality, as we have documented, the stronger provisions of the bill would see around $2.9 trillion shaved off the economy by the year 2050 if enacted. The legislation would also reduce GDP by 6.9 percent – a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.
A carbon tax would impact almost every aspect of Americans’ lives, from higher gas prices, to soaring utility bills, to exorbitant excesses related to the “energy efficiency” of their homes. It would be enforced by an army of environmental regulators and green police poking their noses into the private affairs of citizens.
The government has aggressively exploited the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to manufacture an artificial urgency in an effort to speed the passage of cap and trade, an agenda firmly supported by the transnational oil corporations Obama is claiming to be reigning in. British Petroleum is one of the founding members of the cap and trade lobby, and has consistently “lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.”
Yesterday, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt invoked the oil spill disaster to justify passage of the carbon tax bill.
“The tragedy in the gulf underscores the need to move quickly, and the president is committed to finding the votes for comprehensive energy legislation this year,” said LaBolt.
Obama himself even went to the extreme of comparing the oil spill to 9/11, proving that he is perfectly willing to exploit the horror of nearly 3,000 dead Americans in a completely unrelated event nine years ago to underhandedly push his political agenda.