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Bill Lockwood: It is the Mammoth-Sized Government Which Destroys Lives 4 (1)

Posted on October 1, 2020 by Leave a comment

by Bill Lockwood

Whatever one may think about the United States’ Government leaders’ involvement in bringing about the 1930’s Depression, the crisis was certainly used by the Democratic left to usher us into an unconstitutional era of Big Government intrusion. And it is this mammoth-sized government which, in the name of assisting the poor, crushes the lives and liberties of citizens.

Amity Shlaes, in her new masterful recounting of Lyndon Johnson’s socialistic Great Society programs, provides ample proof that big government erodes freedom. Her book, Great Society: A New History, documents how the do-gooders of yesteryear in reality “shackled millions of families in permanent government dependence.”

Setting the American people on the course of entitlement dependency – which is dependency upon government confiscated taxpayer money– Lyndon Johnson practically “precluded” a return to constitutionalism. One particular episode perfectly illustrates the destructive force of bureaucracy. It is the formation of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its implementation of “urban renewal.”

Destroying Families

As with its precursor, the Federal Housing Administration, HUD began using public monies to bribe the local communities to establish local housing authorities as receptacles to receive and dispense funds. As with all funds funneled through the federal government, these federal monies now controlled the projects themselves. One can see even today that every element of social and private life is controlled by Uncle Sam.

Illustrative of this is the fact that when massive housing structures such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis were built, only “welfare families were entitled to the lowest rents.” But to receive welfare in Missouri a family could have only one parent—normally, the mother. The government itself thus incentivized single-parent families. Where there were two-parent families, a mom and dad, many of these families actually “lost a father” in order to move into Pruitt-Igoe.

“’The stipulation was that my father could not be with us,’ recalled a former tenant, Jacquelyn Williams. ‘They would put us into the housing projects only if he left the state.’” The social workers even policed apartments at night, checking to see if father had secretly returned, grounds for eviction. Williams remembered this all her life. “We’re giving you money, so we have the right to make stipulations as to how you use it.”

Confiscating Private Property—Evicting Citizens

Next, “the only way to make grand-scale building possible [for public housing] was for the authorities to condemn and claim large swaths of private land.” For this they used the old doctrine of “eminent domain.” “Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, this was the taking of private property for ‘public use.’” This was specifically constructed by the Founders for military and other public purposes.

But Johnson “began to bulldoze whole sections of cities, and then hand the land with its rubble to private developers. In Detroit, the violence to old neighborhoods was especially great.”

Black Detroit in the 1940’s and 1950’s lived packed in areas known as Paradise Valley and Black Bottom. The main retail thoroughfare, Hastings Street, was legendary, known the nation over because it was frequented by the singers and agents who later gave the country Motown music. Stores, churches, and homes stood tightly together, sometimes tightly enough to be called ‘slums,’ but often containing a vibrant life, much loved by the inhabitants.

However, liberty is lost in Big Government schemes, and regardless of what was and was not loved by the people who actually lived there, in “the eyes of the government, Black Bottom looked like blight. To the eyes of the auto unions and the Big Three automakers, pedestrian zones were a threat: highways that replaced sidewalks represented not only modernity but job security and high company share prices.”

The bulldozers leveled it all. Room was made for “public housing towers, for [Walter] Reuther’s Lafayette Park and for freeways. “Families had been herded into tall, anonymous apartment buildings, or had simply disappeared.” Hundreds of thousands of Americans, many poor or black, were evicted in this way.

Such grandiose government on the scale of Lenin was taken to court by home and business owners who resented the confiscation of their properties. As a matter of fact, both sides appealed to the Supreme Court. The homeowners and the government. In its decision, Berman v. Parker, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas “stretched the old concept of eminent domain like a rubber band.” His words are remarkable for the disdain of individual rights and the Constitution.

“’Public welfare,’ Douglas wrote, equating ‘public welfare’ with public use, should be ‘broad and inclusive.’ Authorized agencies could make their decisions about what to take freely.”

“’It is not for us to reappraise them,’ Douglas said. Douglas concluded by handing over his rubber band to government authorities. ‘If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the nations’ capital shall be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.’”

Shlaes points out that more than 600,000 Americans were displaced by this totalitarian process.

Predictably, Johnson’s socialistic utopia of urban renewal failed. The vacancy rate of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis was at 23.9 percent and 29.3 percent, much higher than in the free market. Poor maintenance meant that elevators jammed, windows were regularly broken by wild youngsters, gangs of thugs lurked in the halls, and the entire community surrounding it became a sorry joke. Even the architect hired by Johnson, Minoru Yamasaki apologized publicly for Pruitt-Igoe.

In the end one cannot but draw the conclusion that it is the government itself which destroys lives. Pruitt-Igoe a perfect illustration.

BIg Government

Bill Lockwood: Freedom v. Force 0 (0)

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Leave a comment

by Bill Lockwood

Freedom irritates the left. Not their own freedom—but yours. Democrats live with a hatred; a despising of the very principle of liberty. This is the essential difference between the left and the right—not merely how spend money and upon what—but whether or not to curtail your freedom.

Consider free speech. The free and open exchange of ideas has been the hallmark of American society for over two centuries. The First Amendment has served as a prohibition against the Federal Government from managing any kind of speech. Alarmingly, however, more than one-half of Americans today favor a “re-writing” of the First Amendment whereby “hate speech” would be illegal. The survey was taken by the nonpartisan Campaign for Free Speech (CFS).

As everyone knows, the determination of what constitutes “hate speech” is the crux. Who will determine what type of speech is hateful enough to be illegal? (see First Liberty Institute article, 11-15-19).

College campuses lead the nation in showing contempt for free speech. Most college students, according to surveys, want restrictions on what they call “offensive” speech. Marxist professors have instilled a pure hatred for free speech in the student bodies. Witness the hostile reception conservative speakers have had at various Universities around the country.

Even the liberal American Bar Association (ABA) documents in a recent article the silencing of various speakers at college campuses. The authors, Stephen J. Wermiel & Josh Blackman, try to explain that it comes from “both sides”, left and right, but conclude that the “incidents” of disruption to speakers on the liberal side are “less common.” Indeed! And it is more than a stretch to say that “hecklers” wearing “Make America Great Again” hats equate with the violence of shutting down speakers and forcing college campuses to withdraw conservative invitations to speak. Silencing by force is the leftist method.

Force has been used so much by the left that some Republican-led state legislatures have felt the need to impose policies on their state university campuses to allow free speech.

Under the rubric of “hate speech” the big tech giants Facebook and YouTube have already shut down Alex Jones’ voice on InfoWars. Some Christian voices, like Julio Severo, are put in “Facebook jail” for posting Bible verses such as about homosexuality. Google suppressed Prager University and Twitter temporarily banned Candace Owens. So prevalent has this forcible silencing of speech been on the left that Bill Maher was compelled to ask, “If you’re a liberal, you’re supposed to be for free speech. That’s free speech for the speech that you hate.”

Consider Climate Change. The Paris Climate Accord from which Trump withdrew in 2017 is all about force. Those who preach the Green Gospel of saving the planet cannot garner enough support for their message by normal debate and means of persuasion. Therefore, these globalists wish to sign American taxpayers on to a globalist “Carbon Pricing Panel” whereby the dictators of the United Nations will force reparations from the United States to pay for our environmental sins. These payments will be distributed to Third World and developing nations.

All of us have pulpits. Some of us preach the gospel of Christ and by reasons addressed to the mind ask worshippers to contribute in collection trays. Leftists and socialists of the Democrat Party cannot garner enough support for their doomsday message that the Sky is Falling, consequently they must save us all—by forcing us to pay contributions to their collection baskets. They cannot rely on freedom or the free-flow of ideas, so proponents of the Green Gospel use force.

Fred Singer, prominent scientist at the Heartland summit, a University of Virginia environmental science Professor Emeritus, and founder of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, observed, “This is about money and power. Science plays a small role, and mostly it’s being misused….It’s a matter of really trying to control things.”

Consider attacks on private property. So essential is this to freedom that John Adams commented that this was the single foundation stone undergirding all human freedom and liberty. “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.”

The left knows this as well. The all-out attack on private property by the program Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), fostered by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development program and flourishing under HUD funding, has become common-place in American cities.

Big government planners do not like that you have the “freedom of association.” Liberty to live where you like and with those whom you are most comfortable is anathema. We must pare down your liberty branches! Cities are bribed with the endless access to federal money to “re-distribute” the racial mixes of their populations. Cities such as Baltimore, MD are placing minority families in white suburbia. No freedom here.

Liberal bastion Minneapolis, Minnesota became the first city to end single-family zoning. The Mayor of the city called such housing a mark of racism and “self-segregation” that must be halted at once. The white population is in his cross-hairs. Other cities are beginning to follow suit. 1

There are also a large number of organizations, such as Center for Study of Social Policy, Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE); Center for American Progress (CAP); W. Kellogg Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and others, that are in the business of bribing cities with large amounts of George Soros money to forcibly re-zone various neighborhoods or re-draw school boundaries to dismantle schools that have “too large a white or Asian population.” 2

Another group, PolicyLink, a radical activist group, pushes policies such as “parks equity” which states that lack of access to city parks are partly responsible for “racial performance gaps” in school and on the job. The manifesto therefore is for middle-class tax-payers, once again by force, to begin funding more parks in slum areas of the country.

The common denominator in all of this is lack of freedom. Force replaces it. This is the tool of the left.

American Freedoms

John Anthony: HOW TO ANNIHILATE U.S. SOCIALISM AND FORCE WASHINGTON TO LISTEN 0 (0)

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Leave a comment

by John Anthony

Socialism’s barbs have sunk deep into the heart of America’s soul. We see the Titanic struggle as Democrats and Republicans jointly hamper Trump’s attempts to return choices to the people. Washington will never willingly stop its progressive control, but we can make them.

As one who has studied the progressive/socialist movement from the Congressional halls to small communities across the country, I believe we have a rich opportunity to adopt an explosive method to defeat the anti-Constitutional forces in America.

For years, Constitutionalists have joined marches, attended meetings, written articles, and built networks. Through speeches, seminars and videos we have exposed regionalists for grabbing local authority, sustainable development for driving up housing costs, and federal regulations for usurping local land use and zoning laws. Experts in education, climate science, and Constitutional law have bared how our federal agencies and court system are turning the land of the free into regions of the fettered.

Despite successes, every week reveals the incessant ‘tick-tock’ of the socialist advance.

In September 2016, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority used taxpayers’ money to reduce the monthly rents to $75 for HUD residents who visit relatives overseas for up to 3 months. The agency felt it was unfair that East Africans should have to face fiancial hardship to take an international trip most working Americans may never be able to afford.

In 2014, an affordable housing developer proposed building low-cost housing in a closed Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania warehouse. When the voters and officials rejected the plan for zoning reasons, the developer contacted HUD who sued Whitehall. By December 2016, Whitehall agreed to change their zoning laws, operate under a court-appointed monitor, and pay the developer $375,000 for costs including “out of pocket expenses.”

In a socialist society, the government defines ‘fair’ and votes become a minor nuisance.

The progressive movement in America has advanced so far that in 2016, the unelected Thrive Regional Partnership consisting of 16 counties in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, urged their faked regional community to take “inspiration” from the works of Parag Khanna. Khanna is a global strategist who preaches that nations must merge into connected regions overseen by direct technocracy. He advocates that the American Democracy of our Founding Fathers, (he apparently does not realize the U.S. is a Constitutional Republic,) is “crumbling” and must be replaced by a technocratic intelligentsia.

Khanna’s technocracy model recommends we eliminate the U.S. Senate and replace the President with a 7-member panel of elite, ivy-league educated experts who are better equipped to make decisions than squabbling elected officials and uninformed citizens. The nation would consist of regions managed by unelected councils. Local community members would merely have an opportunity to offer input. (Think of a regional planning session where all opinions are welcome, but only those that meet the pre-determined outcomes are accepted.)

Along with dozens of other regions, these groups and hundreds of existing Councils of Governments are salivating to turn Khanna’s’ direct technocracy into your future.

President Trump has thrown a monkey wrench into the left’s relentless drive toward a centrally managed nation. He has been immensely successful in re-working bad trade deals, opening industries for growth, and reducing costly federal regulations. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment is the exposure of the vitriol and atrocities of the leftist establishment.

Still, Trump is not enough.

Yet, HUD’s recent resolution of the AFFH-based Westchester case and the confirmation of Dr. Carson as HUD Secretary have left the rule fully intact.

The left needs the poor to be poor. It is the only way they can garner the votes to remain office. Imagine entering an election cycle knowing that 11% – 15% of the people think they need you for they fear they will not eat.

It is not just poverty that propels socialism. The socialist movement eliminated Christianity in government and education because they know what our Founders knew. Only a moral society can be a free society. Without a Christian moral foundation, America devolves into more offenses and violence, which leads to more elitists and tighter state control.

A growing society of independent, financially successful, Christian practicing, and capitalist African-Americans and Latinos is the equivalent of an Ebola outbreak inside the haughty progressive political community.

This much-abused base must be realigned with people who have no political axes and no concern other than to help them out of poverty and to share in freedom.

Community programs are already proving that low-income minorities will change their allegiances when they feel the benefits of new opportunities. That is why, in the Spring of 2017 I started the Miss Mary Project. We are a church-based program that teaches working age members of low-income families in urban and suburban areas, not just how to get a job, but how to excel on the job and become indispensable, promotable employees. Rather than help people rise to just above poverty, we help propel them to a lifetimg of success, reducing the need for federal programs.

Our work is based on 30 years of corporate leadership training experience and builds on existing successful programs for the poor. The Miss Mary Project has been so well-received that we are already opening publicly supported centers in Chattanooga, TN and Greenville, SC with plans to go nationwide.

We can defeat socialism, but not through reactionary and survivalist methods. We must once again make the church the center of our community life and engage in and support positive local programs that truly help people become financially independent and free of government.

SFL: https://www.wnd.com/2019/06/your-leaders-never-cared-about-you/https://sustainablefreedomlab.org/2017/08/09/how-to-annihilate-u-s-socialism-and-force-washington-to-listen/

Read John Anthony’s Biography

Tom DeWeese: THE GROWING ASSAULT ON PRIVATE PROPERTY – ARE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES “RACIST?” 0 (0)

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Leave a comment

by Tom DeWeese

One of the main indicators used by economists to measure the health of the nation’s economy is housing starts – the number of private homes being built around the nation. In 2018 housing starts fell in all four regions of the nation, representing the biggest drop since 2016.

While many economists point to issues such as higher material costs as a reason for the drop in housing starts, a much more ominous reason may be emerging. Across the nation, city councils and state legislatures are beginning to remove zoning protections for single-family neighborhoods, claiming they are racist discrimination designed to keep certain minorities out of such neighborhoods. In response to these charges some government officials are calling for the end of single-family homes in favor of multiple family apartments.

Minneapolis, Minnesota: the city council is moving to remove zoning that protects single-family neighborhoods, instead planning to add apartment buildings in the mix. The mayor actually said such zoning was “devised as a legal way to keep black Americans and other minorities from moving into certain neighborhoods”. Racist, social injustice are the charges
Chicago, Illinois: So-called “affordable housing” advocates have filed a federal complaint against the longtime tradition of allowing City Aldermen veto power over most development proposals in their wards, charging that it promotes discrimination by keeping low-income minorities from moving into affluent white neighborhoods. Essentially the complaint seeks to remove the Aldermen’s ability to represent their own constituents.
Baltimore, Maryland: The NAACP filed a suit against the city charging that Section 8 public housing causes ghettos because they are all put into the same areas of town. They won the suit and now the city must spend millions of dollars to move such housing into more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, landlords are no longer permitted to ask potential tenants if they can afford the rent on their properties.
Oregon: Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting legislation that would end single-family zoning in cities of 10,000 or more. She claims there is a housing shortage crisis and that economic and racial segregation are caused by zoning restrictions.

Such identical policies don’t just simultaneously spring up across the country by accident. There is a force behind it. The root of these actions are found in “fair housing” policies dictated by the federal Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD). The affected communities have all taken HUD grants. There is very specific language in those grants that suggest single family homes are a cause of discrimination. Specifically, through the HUD program called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), the agency is taking legal action against communities that use “discriminating zoning ordinances that discourage the development of affordable, multifamily housing…”. The suits are becoming a widely used enforcement tool for the agency.

To enforce its social engineering policies HUD demands the following from communities that have applied for or taken HUD grants:

First, HUD forces the community to complete an “Assessment of Fair Housing” to identify all “contributing factors” to discrimination. These include a complete breakdown of race, income levels, religion, and national origin of every single person living there. They use this information to determine if the neighborhood meets a preset “balance,” determined by HUD.
Second, HUD demands a detailed plan showing how the community intends to eliminate the “contributing factors” to this “imbalance.”
Once the plan is prepared, then the community is required to sign an agreement to take no actions that are “materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.”

Americans who have grown up experiencing private home ownership as the root to personal prosperity must quickly learn of the threat of the HUD/AFFH program. They must fully understand why cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Baltimore and states like Oregon have suddenly announced actions to eliminate single-family home zoning. These cities have already taken the grant poison and must now comply. The ultimate government game is to reorganize our cities into massive urban areas where single-family neighborhoods are replaced by the Sustainable/Smart Growth model of “Stack and Pack,” wall-to-wall apartment buildings.

To the frustration of those Sustainablists determined to change our entire economic system, the legal protection of private property rights and ownership have proven to be a roadblock for implementation. New York Mayor William DeBlasio best expressed the frustration of those driving to control community development when he was quoted in New York Magazine saying, “What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it and what the rent will be.”

Most importantly, HUD and its social engineering advocates have sold these so-called sustainable policies using the well-worn excuse that such programs are simply to help lower income families to succeed. In fact, these programs are actually at the very root of why many of them are NOT succeeding.

The immediate result of eliminating single-family homes and in turn, destroying private property rights, is to degrade the property values of the homes so many have worked to build. It used to be called the American dream. Now it’s labeled racism, discrimination, and social injustice.

Eradicating poverty is the most popular excuse for the expansion of government power. Yet, it’s interesting to note that not a single government program, from the federal to the local level, offers any plan for eradicating poverty except the well-worn and unworkable scheme of wealth redistribution. After decades of following such a failed policy the only result is that we have more poor.

Today, as demonstrated in Oregon, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Chicago, we hear the claims that there is a “housing crisis” and so government must take a dramatic step to solve the very crisis is has created. As economist Thomas Sowell has said, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

It is interesting to note that, as private property ownership shrinks under these misguided policies, so too does the nation’s wealth. Sustainable policies are at the root of nearly every local, state, and federal program. Each step diminishes individual freedom, personal and national prosperity, and the destruction of the hopes and dream of every American. The American Policy Center is determined to lead the fight to end this misnamed and disastrous ‘Sustainable’ course for our country.

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/03/07/the-growing-assault-on-private-property-are-single-family-homes-racist/

Read Tom Deweese’s Biography

Tom DeWeese: Why Property Rights Matter Prosperity – Stability – Freedom 0 (0)

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Leave a comment

by Tom DeWeese

There is an all out assault taking place in nearly every community against private property ownership. It’s being perpetrated at every level of government and funded by taxpayer grants. Yet few property owners raise objections, mainly because today most don’t have the basic understanding of the right of property ownership and its vital place in preserving our nation’s prosperity, economic stability and foundation of freedom.

Most Americans tend to think of private property simply as a home — the place where the family resides, store their belongings and find shelter and safety from the elements. It’s where you live. It’s yours because you pay the mortgage and the taxes. That’s about the extent of thought given to property ownership in today’s America.

There was a time when property ownership was considered to be much more. Property, and the ability to own and control it, was life itself. The great economist, John Locke, whose writings and ideas had major influence on the nation’s founders, believed that “life and liberty are secure only so long as the right of property is secure.”

Purchase Tom’s latest book “Sustainable: The WAR on Free Enterprise, Private Property and Individuals”.

Locke advocated that if property rights protection did not exist then the incentive for an industrious person to develop and improve property would be destroyed; depriving that person of the fruits of his labor; that marauding bands would confiscate by force the goods produced by others; and that mankind would be impelled to remain on a bare subsistence level of hand to mouth survival from fear that the accumulation of anything of value would invite attack.

Homeownership, and the equity it creates, has been the main source of wealth for millions of Americans. It’s the reason the United States was able to build incredible wealth and rise above much older nations. Sixty percent of American businesses were created by homeowners using the equity from their homes. Where private property is disallowed teeming and unrelenting poverty is the result.

Locke’s fears have become reality today through the innocent sounding term called “Sustainable Development. Under that banner, the very concept of property rights is being targeted as unrealistic in a drive to reorganize our communities through strict planning regulations.

Proponents define Sustainable Development as: “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” According to its advocates, to achieve that goal requires massive amounts of land and natural resources to be permanently locked away from use; which translates to control, not conservation, as many perceive it to mean.

Sustainable Development requires a complete transformation of American society that will affect our system of justice, our economic system, and our ability to make individual life choices such as careers, family size, and the location of our homes.

The best known form of the Sustainable transformation is called Smart Growth. We’re told this policy is necessary to create the community of the future, to guarantee effective planning, and, most importantly, to protect the environment by reducing our carbon footprint to combat climate change.

Attending a local public meeting where the community‘s new “visioning” plan is being promoted, citizens will be assured that everything has been prepared by local leaders simply to address unique problems and well-laid plan for the future. However, a little research will show, ironically, that almost every community in every state has a nearly identical plan in process, usually ending with numbers like 2030 or 2050. One can also search the Internet and find such plans as Jamaica 2050 and Dubai 2050. They cover the world and most importantly – they are all the same basic plan no matter where they are, nationally or globally. One thing they all have in common – none of them are LOCAL!… CONTINUE READING ON OUR WEBSITE

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2018/07/30/why-property-rights-matter-prosperity-stability-freedom/?mc_cid=64f875b2fd&mc_eid=210870cea5

Read Tom Deweese’s Biography

Property Rights

John Anthony: How to Annihilate U.S. Socialism and Force Washington to Listen 0 (0)

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Leave a comment

How to Annihilate U.S. Socialism and Force Washington to Listen- “In a socialist society, the government defines ‘fair’ and votes become a minor nuisance.”

by John Anthony

As one who has studied the progressive/socialist movement from the Congressional halls to small communities across the country, I believe we have a rich opportunity to adapt an explosive method to defeat the anti-Constitutional forces in America. For years, Constitutionalists have joined marches, attended meetings, written articles, and built networks.

Through speeches, seminars and videos we have exposed regionalists for grabbing local authority, sustainable development for driving up housing costs, and federal regulations for usurping local land use and zoning laws. Experts in education, climate science, and Constitutional law have bared how our federal agencies and court system are turning the land of the free into regions of the fettered. Despite successes, every week reveals the incessant ‘tick-tock’ of the socialist advance.

In September 2016, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority used taxpayers’ money to reduce the monthly rents to $75 for HUD residents who visited relatives overseas for up to 3 months. The agency felt it was unfair that East Africans should have to save for so long to take an international trip most working Americans will never be able to afford.

In 2014, an affordable housing developer proposed building low-cost housing in a closed Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania warehouse. When the voters and officials rejected the plan for zoning reasons, the developer contacted HUD who sued Whitehall. By December 2016, Whitehall agreed to change their zoning laws, operate under a court-appointed monitor, and pay the developer $375,000 for costs including “out of pocket expenses.”

In a socialist society, the government defines ‘fair’ and votes become a minor nuisance. The progressive movement in America has advanced so far that in 2016, the unelected Thrive Regional Partnership consisting of 16 counties in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, urged their faked regional community to take “inspiration” from the works of Parag Khanna.

Khanna is a global strategist who preaches that nations must merge into connected regions overseen by direct technocracy. He advocates that the American Democracy of our Founding Fathers, (he apparently does not realize the U.S. is a Constitutional Republic,) is “crumbling” and must be replaced by a technocratic intelligentsia.

This Communist nightmare is closer than you think. Regions like San Francisco’s Association of Bay Area Governments and Minneapolis’ Twin Cities Regional Council, routinely force through transit lines, toll roads, complete streets, and housing projects against voter’s wishes. Along with dozens of other regions, these groups and hundreds of existing Councils of Governments are salivating to turn Khanna’s’ direct technocracy into your future.

HUD’s 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, handed the progressive movement a legal tool to bludgeon communities into central planning and assault the poor while masquerading as their rescuers. AFFH represents the clearest threat to independence, property rights, and local autonomy in our history. Yet, HUD’s recent resolution of the AFFH-based Westchester case and the confirmation of Dr. Carson as HUD Secretary have left the rule fully intact.

We must disconnect local communities from federal dependence because it is the lifeblood of socialism. Big government does not help the poor, it feeds on them. Since 1965 the U.S. poverty rate has not wavered from between 11% and 15%, ever! This, despite spending over $20 trillion. The left needs the poor to be poor. It is the only way they can garner the votes to remain office. Imagine entering an election cycle knowing that 11% – 15% of the people think they need you for they fear they will not eat.

It is time to attack the heart of the progressive beast. The only way to kill the socialist movement is to free the poor, eliminate the demand for federal money and reinstate the church as the center of community life.
A growing society of independent, financially successful, Christian practicing, and capitalist African-Americans and Latinos is the equivalent of an Ebola outbreak inside the haughty progressive political community. This much-abused base must be realigned with people who have no political axes and no concern other than to help them out of poverty and to share in freedom.

Community programs are already proving that low-income minorities will change their allegiances when they feel the benefits of new opportunities. That is why, in the Spring of 2017 I started the Miss Mary Project. We are a church-based program that teaches working age members of low-income families in urban and suburban areas, not just how to get a job, but how to excel on the job and become indispensable, promotable employees. Rather than help people rise to just above poverty, we help propel them to a lifetime of success, reducing the need for federal programs.

John Anthony is a nationally acclaimed speaker, researcher and writer. He is the founder of Sustainable Freedom Lab. Mr. Anthony is the former Director of Sales and Marketing for Paul Mitchell Systems, Inc. In 1989, he founded Corporate Measures, LLC, a management development firm. In 2012, Mr. Anthony turned his attention to community issues including the balance between federal agency regulations and local autonomy. In January 2016, Mr. Anthony was a guest at the prestigious Rutgers University School of Management Fellowship Honoring Dr. Louis Kelso. In February 2017, he was the keynote speaker on HUD and Property Rights at the Palmetto Panel at Clemson University and in August, the keynote speaker on HUD at the American Dream Coalition in Arlington VA. Most recently John is the Founder and CEO of the Miss Mary Project.

Reaching Across the Aisle? Arizona Senators Illustrate How Republicans are Failing America 0 (0)

Posted on August 3, 2017 by Leave a comment

Reaching Across the Aisle? Arizona Senators Illustrate How Republicans are Failing America- “Paul Ryan couldn’t persuade him. Neither could Mike Pence. And in the end, President Donald Trump couldn’t reel in John McCain either.”

by Bill Lockwood

First it was John McCain’s last-minute betrayal on ObamaCare. Now it is Jeff Flake’s unwillingness to invoke the so-called “nuclear option” to remove the same socialistic monstrosity that will bring America into the totalitarian pit. For Flake’s betrayal of conservative values GOPUSA website labels him “flakier” than McCain. Both Arizona Senators epitomize what is wrong with the Republican Party.

Republicans have campaigned on repealing ObamaCare ever since the statist measure became law. John McCain and the Republicans voted for its repeal on a number of occasions. As all GOP legislators have done, they wrung their hands over it, bemoaning the fact that without a Republican president conservatives never will have a chance. That was a safe methodology. Their “repeal bills” never had a chance of passing the president’s desk as long as Marxist Obama sat in the Oval Office. Finally, Americans have what they “thought” they wished for—a Republican in the presidency encouraging the Senate to finish off Big Government in the Health Care Industry.

It was last week’s “skinny repeal” bill than even ObamaCare opponent Rand Paul supported. As Kelly Walsh writes, “The plan looked like it was going to pass until Arizona Senator John McCain dramatically provided the third and final GOP ‘no’ vote to kill the Republicans seven-year quest to repeal Obamacare.”

Politico explained: “Paul Ryan couldn’t persuade him. Neither could Mike Pence. And in the end, President Donald Trump couldn’t reel in John McCain either. The President made a last-ditch effort, calling the Arizona Senator and key holdout on the GOP’s repeal measure, as the bill’s fate hung in the balance.” All to naught.

McCain strode into the Senate after lunch and gave a dramatic “No” vote as stunned gasps echoed through the chamber. Constitution be hanged.

Now the second senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, in an interview on “Face the Nation,” where he talked about his new book “Conscience of a Conservative,” criticizes the direction of the Republican Party saying it has “lost its way.” “We’ve given in to nativism and protectionism” he explained in a veiled attack on Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Particularly responding to President Trump’s encouragement to use the “nuclear option” which requires only a 51 vote majority instead of the traditional 60, Flake said that changing the rules to invoke the nuclear option would be a “mistake.” “We are at our best in the Senate when we work across the aisle,” he told CBS news.

What of These Things?

Americans are sick of weak-spined, if not treasonous, Republican Senators and Congressmen who continue to pretend that our nation is simply in the midst of a gentlemanly disagreement about the best policies, as if the differences between the left and right are similar to the distinctions between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. These softie Republicans refuse to acknowledge that we have been practically ruined by the ungodly, unconstitutional intrusion of Marxist-style street-thuggery tactics in the halls of government for almost a century and our great nation is fast being re-shaped into a totalitarian nightmare.

These are desperate times in which communist infiltration has been so thorough at all levels of American culture that radicals have almost completely destroyed the Founders’ concept of limited government. America will not be saved from the throes of socialism by the Flake’s and McCain’s who wish to “reach across the aisle.”

Why reach “across the aisle” Jeff Flake? Who can forget the pictures of “closed doors” as Obama’s Democratic Congress secretly met without one single Republican in order to push us into socialized medicine? ObamaCare passed with a 60 vote margin. Not only was this accomplished solely by Democrats—not one single Republican voting in favor of it—but Obama’s Congress later invoked the “nuclear option” in order to cram through more of its lawless agenda. All of this in spite of the fact that polls in the USA consistently showed Americans, by a large measure, disfavored the Obama agenda.

However, there is no need to reach back into even recent history. Witness the manner in which the Democrat base continues to viciously attack our President, even to the point of threatening murder and violence. Congressional Democrats, if not feeding the mindless media frenzy about Russian influence in America, have continued to threaten with nonsensical measures as impeachment. This is a nation out of control, in large part because of liberals who have never learned to put a governor on their own tongues or actions.

The Democrats demonstrated that they intend to be lewd and lawless, from the Fast & Furious controversy to the shutting down parts of the oil industry to robbing American workers to pay for socialized medicine to intruding into every neighborhood to revamp it under the HUD program called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). Yet, when Republicans are placed in positions in which they can stop this descent into political Sodom and restore sanity for the American citizen Jeff Flake wants to “reach across the aisle.” Unbelievable.

Flake and McCain may be in lock-step with the international agenda (aka, World Government) in which the U.S. Congress is merely a figurehead beneath the control of the United Nations, but to those who cherish American constitutional values and individual liberty their endorsement of and/or allowance of ObamaCare to continue to ruin the lives of hard-working Americans should be their last legislative step.

Jesse Lee Peterson: SELFISH BLACK WOMAN GOES STARK RAVING MAD – OVER TRUMP! 0 (0)

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Leave a comment

SELFISH BLACK WOMAN GOES STARK RAVING MAD – OVER TRUMP!-Jesse Lee Peterson spills wicked secret of rich liberal in $4.3 million homeby Jesse Lee Peterson

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the de facto leader of the #Resistance to President Trump in Congress, is vowing to take Dr. Ben Carson apart. Speaking at the Essence Festival – a gathering of black liberals – Waters said HUD Secretary Ben Carson “doesn’t care about people in public housing.” “He believes that if you are poor, it is your own fault,” the California Democrat added. Waters promised to “take his ass apart” when he testifies before the House Financial Services Committee.

“Auntie Maxine” has been calling for the impeachment of President Trump. She hates the president and independent-thinking blacks like Ben Carson. Waters is angry at Carson over his recent remarks about the root cause of poverty in the U.S. In an interview, Carson said that a “certain mindset” contributes to people living in poverty, pointing to habits and a “state of mind” that children take from their parents at a young age.

“I think poverty, to a large extent, is also a state of mind. You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there,” he said during an interview on SiriusXM Radio. “And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom,” Carson said.

Ben Carson is right!

Black Americans are worse off today than they were under Jim Crow. In 1950, the marriage rate for whites and blacks were roughly the same, 67 percent and 64 percent, respectively. Blacks were moral, they owned businesses, and they weren’t as angry at whites as they are today. Maxine Waters has been a career politician for the past 40 years. She lives in a $4.3-million home in a predominantly white neighborhood. But she wants her black constituents to remain in the projects.

Dr. Carson is a self-made, highly accomplished neurosurgeon. A working-class, single mother in Detroit raised him; he knows what it takes to succeed it in this country. Waters attacked Carson at a black festival in New Orleans – a city plagued with intractable crime and poverty – because he is a member of President Trump’s cabinet and he seeks to improve the condition of inner-city blacks.

Just how bad is crime in New Orleans? Murders are up by 41 percent from last year. Per capita, New Orleans has had more killings than Chicago. So what is the mayor doing about the crime problem? Not much. Democrat Mayor Mitch Landrieu has been preoccupied, calling for the removal of Confederate monuments. Now, Landrieu wants to shift his focus from crime to fighting the effects of “climate change” and “resisting” Donald Trump.

Order Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s book, “The Antidote: Healing America from the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood

Mitch Landrieu and Maxine Waters don’t care about blacks. Liberal social engineering broke up black families, and it has fueled the increase in crime, poverty and blacks’ dependence on government. Now, the very people who created the problems in black America want to “resist” President Trump and those who offer real solutions to help them.

Liberals don’t want blacks to become independent. They want them to remain reliant on crumbs they receive from the government. They want to take from successful whites and “spread the wealth” to those who don’t deserve it.

Today, more than 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock. As a result, angry single, black females are raising black children. There is no respect for authority, and they don’t value life whatsoever.

Recently in Chicago, more than 100 people (mostly black) were shot, and 15 people died over the Fourth of July weekend. A shooting at a black nightclub in Little Rock, Arkansas, injured 28 people. NYPD Officer Miosotis Familia was fatally shot by a black ex-con with a vendetta against police officers.

Mike Mayor Landrieu, left-wing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio thinks climate change is a top priority. While NYPD officers are being executed, Bill de Blasio attended anti-capitalist protests at the G-20 summit in Germany. The Trump administration is trying to reverse 50 years of dependency, while Maxine Waters and others on the left are only interested in power, wealth and self-aggrandizement.

In an attempt to root out waste and make the agency more responsive to the needs of citizens, the Trump administration has proposed $6.2 billion in cuts to HUD funding for fiscal 2018. The proposal puts increased responsibility on state and local governments and calls for the private sector to do more to meet community needs, a key goal of HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

This is the perfect time for our nation to have honest discussions and put forth real solutions to fix the problems that plague inner cities. To help blacks and change the urban areas, we must first focus on rebuilding families. President Trump is committed to fixing the problem, as is Dr. Carson. Let Maxine Waters and the left “resist,” while we the people support the president and his team in their effort to Make America Great again.

WND: http://www.wnd.com/2017/07/selfish-black-woman-goes-stark-raving-mad-over-trump/#6tb7sH1xKfZZklUj.99

Read Jesse Lee Peterson’s Biography

TOM DEWEESE: The Trump Administration Is About To Make a HUGE Mistake 0 (0)

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Leave a comment

The Trump Administration Is About To Make a HUGE Mistake – “ACTION ALERT!”

by Tom DeWeese

Last week the American Policy Center issued an urgent Sledgehammer Action Alert demanding that the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) immediately withdraw the nomination of Neal Rackleff as Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development.

If ratified to that position, Rackleff would oversee such programs as the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), an Obama policy that is a direct threat to private property owners and local governments.

HUD is using the program for pure social engineering to change the very culture of the nation, and destroy the concept of property ownership. In the process HUD is using law suits and intimidation to destroy the Founder’s concept of local rule that is elected by the people.

During the campaign Candidate Trump promised to end AFFH. Rackleff’s appointment to oversee this dangerous program would be a disaster. That’s because he is a partner in a Houston law firm that is a major force behind promoting such HUD grant schemes. In short, Neal Rackleff is the swamp that President Trump promised to drain!

As APC launched this action alert the response from our supporters was outstanding. Americans from across the nation quickly began to make the calls to HUD and to Congress to protest the Rackleff nomination. Reports began to come into the APC office that HUD’s phone lines were jammed and their voice mail boxes were full. Our voice of opposition is absolutely being heard! Now we need to keep up the pressure until the nomination is withdrawn.

So today I am again issuing the action alert to media across the nation to help others learn of this fight and why it is so important.

If you have not already called — or couldn’t get through yesterday — please do so now and if the phone lines are busy, please try again every hour until you get through! For more details and a list of phone numbers for Members of Congress to call– please view the email below this message. It has all the details.

For more information on the very dangerous HUD program called AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) please read my article, “Listen This Time or HUD Will Destroy Your City!”

Thank you!
Tom DeWeese : President American Policy Center

SLEDGEHAMMER ALERT!
URGENT! URGENT! URGENT
The Trump Administration Is About  To Make a HUGE Mistake! Your Action Needed At Once!!!

President Trump promised to DRAIN THE SWAMP! Specifically President Trump promised to defund and roll back AFFH. But that may not be possible because his Administration has made a huge mistake in nominating a very bad choice to oversee these development programs.

AFFH is one of the worst assaults on local property rights and your property values. It is also the greatest threat to local home rule in communities across the nation. AFFH is being used by HUD to sue cities and put federal HUD agents in charge of local development programs. But somehow someone in the Trump Administration has nominated a man named Neal Rackleff to be the Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development at HUD. This will be the man to oversee AFFH and much more.

Why is his nomination such a mistake?

• Neal Rackleff is the former Director of Public Housing for Houston, Texas. In that job he led the programs President Trump promised to eliminate.
• Currently Neal Rackleff is a partner of a law firm called Locke Lord. They specialize in dealing with “community and economic development, affordable housing, and municipal and public law.” In short, they are lobbyists pushing the HUD policies and grant programs onto local governments. These are basically the guys hiding in the back rooms, out of sight, spreading the poison of AFFH!
• In short, Neal Rackleff is the swamp!

HOW DID SOMEONE IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE IN THIS NOMINATION?

Unless his nomination is withdrawn there is no way to stop the HUD tyranny.
That’s why I need you to take immediate action.

First: Please call HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s Chief of Staff – Sheila Greenwood. She has the power to withdraw Neal Rackleff’s nomination. Tell her he has a severe conflict of interest to serve in this vital position. Tell her Neal Rackleff is the very swamp President Trump pledges to remove!! Her phone number is (202)708-2713

Second: Please call Senator Mike Crapo. He is the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee. His committee will decide on Rackleff’s nomination. Again, explain that Rackleff and his law firm create a major conflict of interest and that the nomination must be defeated. Senator Crapo’s number is (202) 224-6142. Fax (202) 228-1375.

Third: If you can, please call any or all of these Republican members of the committee with the same message:
Richard Shelby R AL phone (202) 224-5744 fax (202) 224-3416
Bob Corker R TN phone (202) 224-3344 fax (202) 228-0566
Pat Toomey R PA phone (202) 224-4254 fax (202) 228-0284
Dean Heller R NV phone (202) 224-6244 fax (202) 228-6753
Tim Scott R SC phone (202) 224-6121 fax (202) 228-5143
Ben Sasse R NE phone (202) 224- 4224 fax (202) 228-9642
Tom Cotton R AR phone (202) 224-2353 fax (479) 927-1092
Mike Rounds R SD phone (202) 224-5842 fax (202) 224-7482
David Perdue R GA phone (202) 224-3521 fax (202) 228-1031
Thom Tillis R NC phone (202) 224-6342 fax (202) 228-2563
John Kennedy R LA (202) 224-4623 fax (202) 228-0447

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/

Read Tom Deweese’s Biography

Housing and Urban Development

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