Tag Archives: Sharon Sebastian

02/26/16

THE SHAME OF SUBSTANDARD CARE: SHADOW ECONOMIC CRISIS (Part 3)

By Sharon Sebastian

It is rare that politicians step into the nightmare of shame that is today’s nursing home industry in an effort to protect the innocent and condemn an industry rife with greed and substandard care.

“Nursing homes are rapidly becoming nothing other than legalized scams…a place to ‘warehouse’ the elderly, suck away their money, treat them like children, let them die, and then take in another from the waiting list.” – Former Iowa State Senator Dennis Black

Senator Black’s lament reveals the desperation of families across the nation.

“It is hard for people to accept reality about people being abused. Out of sight, out of mind. Unless it happens to you, people do nothing about it. My experience has been extremely heart wrenching. I did not really know the man. He was not even a constituent. I just stepped in and tried to help.”

In a nation that prides itself on quality health care, first-hand investigations and extensive research reveal a shameful truth that must be brought out of the shadows. While embedded as a journalist for years in the elder care system from hospitals to nursing homes, what became evident was a broken system of care for families and their elderly loved ones. In a system where too frequently profits trump care, the results are ugly, inhumane and often deadly.

What the Iowa Senator details, in addition to deficient care, is a great moral collapse undergirded by greed in today’s America. The continuing degradation of the nursing home industry is forcing a crisis of conscience. Senator Black speaks of a man, a father, a grandfather and a U.S. veteran:

“America needs to know that he is but one of untold or unknown numbers of people who are being ‘farmed’.  They represent a certain amount of cash and assets, and are seen as such by the money changers who only see them as a cash crop. He was just a ‘throw-away’ person that this system of DHS [Department of Human Services] has deteriorated    to in Iowa and apparently across the nation. We allow our elderly to be placed in confinement in a nursing home at $6,000 per month, drain them of their life’s savings and assets, medicate them into a stupor of near comatose…” Sharon, I can’t go on with this. It brings back too much from my experience and memory. [But,] I can’t put it away, because my buddy is six feet underground, placed there without the truth being told.”

Senator Black continues:

“I am not broad-brushing the entire nursing home industry.  Readers know who the good and the evil are, for you have either experienced it with your elders, or had reliable verification of the travesties that occur to others. Frankly, I’ve been exposed to an epidemic of abuse that emanates from the fact that ‘the bottom line’ is the first statistic viewed by the management of these [nursing home] corporations… As always, the almighty dollar dictates.”

Families in every state across America feel abandoned as government policies fail to adequately regulate the multi-billion dollar nursing home industry. Contract fraud is rampant. An average of $5,000 is paid monthly for each resident’s care. Yet, the shortage of actual services rendered to patients often reveals a theft that would not be tolerated in other businesses. With no one taking account, nursing homes regularly cutback on staff, nutrition and supplies (such as toothpaste and diapers) in order to shave costs. Savings stolen from patient care are applied to bottom-line profits for the owners who are reaping a reported financial boon of billions of dollars during a down-economy. The average nursing home administrator’s salary is over $100,000 annually.

What would be condemned or prosecuted just outside of the doors of nursing homes goes unchecked once inside. Prosecution of abusers is rare to nonexistent in the majority of cases where people are subjected to physical harm. Physical assaults, mental taunting and emotional bullying occur regularly to frail, defenseless victims and go unpunished. America cannot consider itself a civilized society when our aging and fragile parents and grandparents are left in the hands of bullies and predators without protection or relief.

The first critical step is strict enforcement of the laws that are on the books, both financial and criminal. Closing down what some call “houses of horror” is another. Marjie Lundstrom of The Sacramento Bee reports that the California State Attorney General’s Office filed involuntary manslaughter charges against a nursing home in suburban Los Angeles: “Two registered nurses on staff also were charged with felony abuse. Public officials in neighboring South Pasadena continue to press the Attorney General’s office for criminal charges against another nursing home – a facility the local police chief denounced as a “cesspool” and a “community menace.”

What Senator Black and others may not know is that many nursing homes owners reward nursing home administrators with thousands of dollars in bonuses if they can get a four-or-five-star rating from State and Federal inspectors. Akin to the atrocities that have gone on in the Veterans Administration and its treatment of our veterans, nursing home managers have become adept at hiding the ongoing neglect and abuse during inspections. First-hand experience reveals that inspectors are easily fooled or choose to look the other way.

With a nursing home dependent on profits, a good rating from government inspectors, even when false, attracts customers and potential investors. To affect the bottom line or mollify stockholders, nursing homes cut services and care to increase profits. What is at stake is quality-of-life and, oftentimes, life itself. Prioritizing cost cutting over basic care is endemic throughout the industry. The result, according to Whistleblowers, is that people suffer or die. The good deserve credit, whereas the bad remain profiteering merchants of misery.

Every ten years a study comes out proclaiming that nursing home “care” is every bit as shameful as it was ten years prior. That pattern remains unbroken. Conditions   have worsened since U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) wrote a letter to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services over a decade ago after reviewing an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General. Senator Grassley complained that: “…facilities are given too many ‘free passes’ to correct deficiencies… Surveyors’ noted that in most instances a facility would, as an initial matter, correct the deficiency only to revert back to its “old ways” once a follow up review is completed.”

Grassley further adds and recent investigations reveal that surveyors state that: “…patients and/or family members are rarely interviewed; administrative and medical records are rarely reviewed; valuable information is routinely recorded incorrectly; and the word of the facility is often taken at face value over that of a resident and/or family member. As a result of these inherent procedural failures, complaints are rarely substantiated and serious quality problems are therefore not corrected. Despite years of reports, evaluations, and investigations, the surveyors that we interviewed portray a bleak and dismal situation in America’s nursing homes. The surveyors themselves are demoralized when blatant quality of care deficiencies and findings are watered down, substantively altered, and/or blatantly ignored or dismissed. These surveyors have raised enormously disturbing issues for anyone who cares a wit about the very health and safety of frail nursing home residents.”

Senator Grassley asserts that government ratings’ systems are unreliable and misleading since nursing homes are allowed to “self-evaluate” as part of the government’s five-star system of ranking. Families are unable to discern which are the good ones and which are bad.

Grassley denounces Medicare’s rating s as notoriously outdated and incorrect: “The concerns include questions about the integrity and reliability of the information provided to the public through the Nursing Home Compare [Medicare] website. A plan of attack is needed to restore the integrity of the system… The survey process, I am sure you will agree, is meant to improve the quality of care for residents, not to ignore it, gloss over it, and most of all, not make it worse. If the survey and certification process is not working–and it looks like it is not–it must be fixed.”

Owning and running nursing homes is based on a financially strategic decision where making a profit is central. Some open their doors to provide a decent service to meet a critical need. For others it is an ugly, get-rich scheme off the backs of families and our most vulnerable members of society. Dr. Charlene Harrington, has researched nursing home standards and regulations for more than three decades. I posed questions to Professor Harrington:

Q. How do nursing homes cut their operational costs? Is it by chronic understaffing, cutting supplies, and poorer quality meals?

A. There is really only one major way to cut costs and that is to cut staffing especially RN staffing since it is the most expensive.  The chains often have very low supplies and equipment and spend little on meals but they can’t go much lower on those [food] expenditures.

Q. If sufficient funds are paid [average $5,000 per month nationwide] and insufficient care is provided, is that fraud against the government and those paying thousands of dollars monthly per resident for the promised quality care that is most often advertised by these companies?

A. Yes, that is fraud and false advertising and there have been a number of legal actions on this, but unfortunately not enough to put the bad companies out of business.

The book, “Aging Warning: Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental and Financial Minefields details how widespread substandard care is and provides insight on how families can protect themselves and their loved ones medically, mentally and financially.

Nursing homes are licensed by the State to provide quality care and protection for their residents. As a care facility, they have a greater calling to decency, morals, ethics, kindness, and patience – in addition to appropriate levels of skill and training. Yet, the system is corrupt. A symbiotic arrangement exists between many in the billion dollar nursing home industry and politicians. Whistleblowers report that State and Federal politicians’ pockets are lined as lobbying occurs across party lines. Wealthy owners’ with deep pockets buy influence from both sides of the aisle to influence legislation favorable to the industry. Quality skilled long-term nursing facilities are an important part of the future. Along with families, ethical nursing home owners must demand a purging of the fraud and corruptness that permeates the industry.

Without the public holding government overseers accountable, conditions will continue to worsen inside nursing homes. Expect overcrowding, understaffing and the hiring of less skilled personnel handling more patients, including an increase of those with brain diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. Our elderly and their families face a dismal future unless strict enforcement of criminal and civil laws inside of nursing homes becomes a reality nationwide.

Daily, people are being physically hurt, emotionally traumatized and bullied. The vulnerable must be protected. Ongoing suffering at the hands of predators must stop. A quality level of services must be rendered. The shame on this great nation will manifest itself as a grievous moral and financial crisis that could have been avoided — if only the warnings were heeded.

Take action. Email this article, and the links to this 3-part series posted below, to your representatives in Congress and the legislators in your state.

Related articles in series:  

Epidemic of Dementia: Shadow Economic Crisis (Part 1) by Sharon Sebastian

FDA and the Spread of Brain Diseases: Shadow Economic Crisis (Part 2) by Sharon Sebastian

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:   www.AgingWarning.com

02/5/16

FDA AND THE SPREAD OF BRAIN DISEASES: SHADOW ECONOMIC CRISIS (Part 2)

By Sharon Sebastian

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), charged with the mandate to protect the public’s food supply, openly admits its liability in the deaths of Americans, mostly in the form of heart attacks. That is far from the full story. What the giant government agency hides is its culpability in the recent rise in brain diseases that continue to claim both memory and lives.

A broad alert from the FDA should read:

  • Research links processed foods to a proliferation of deadly brain diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
  • Studies reveal a food ingredient is connected to memory loss that impacts learning acuity in schoolchildren and lessened productivity in the workplace among adults.

The FDA concedes that under its watch it has allowed so-called “Frankenstein oils” to permeate Americans’ processed food supply. On public record, the FDA states that partially hydrogenated oils (and their derivatives, trans fats), have caused thousands of heart attacks and deaths annually. The FDA would like it to be old news, swept under the rug. What the FDA hopes to bury from public knowledge is that the “killer oils” have proven to be more deadly than disclosed.

The bad oils that have been fed to Americans for over five decades have now been linked to the increase in deadly brain diseases. In an official release, the FDA admits that the laboratory-engineered oils cause “memory loss” without telling the full story to the American public of a scientific link to long-term, physical damage to the brains of people of all ages. The FDA’s admittance of wrongdoing evades full disclosure. The agency remains conspicuously mute on the recent scientific link of the oils to the sudden increase of incurable brain diseases. An early symptom, of which, is memory loss.

Among the scientists interviewed in the newly released book, “AGING: WARNING – Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” Dr. Beatrice A. Golomb, a renowned researcher at the University of California, San Diego, provides insight:

  1. Are “partially hydrogenated oils” and their derivatives, trans fats, toxic?
  2. If “toxic” is defined by the ability to confer harm, then yes, overwhelmingly evidence indicates that trans fats/partially hydrogenated oils are “toxic”.
  1. These oils are notorious in scientific circles for being bad for the body; what is the mental impact?
  2. The brain has a few important functions. One is regulation of mood. One is regulation of behavior (e.g. to control irritability/aggression). One is regulation of cognition [ability to think]. Our data have found trans fat [partially hydrogenated oil] consumption to be adversely linked to each of the three.
  1. Does this loss of memory indicate loss of brain cells?
  2. Evidence shows that trans fats increase inflammation (brain inflammation is bad for memory) and increase oxidative stress, the kind of damage that antioxidants protect against – which is bad for memory – it can kill cells, and it can impair cell energy which can kill cells. But these effects can also impair function without killing cells.
  3. How does memory loss in young, working Americans, due to their consumption of these fats, [partially hydrogenated oils] impact their lives?
  4. That was not an aspect of our study. But certainly, less favorable memory function is expected to translate to less favorable performance in school and in the workplace. Less favorable performance can constrain career choices, affect job performance, and thus influence career trajectories.
  1. What is the value, if any, for using industrially-fabricated oils in our processed food supply?
  2. I used to tell my patients that trans fats improve the shelf life of the food, but reduce the shelf life of the person.

Of critical note is that the deadly oils will remain in the American processed food supply until mid-2018. An excerpt from the aforementioned book, provides further details on how these oils are linked to the build-up of a sticky and deadly protein scientifically known as beta-amyloids. Beta-amyloids wreak havoc as they flow through the cardiovascular system to the brain and eventually attack brain cells:

“A build-up in the brain and blood vessels of a protein plaque called beta-amyloids may be spurred or exacerbated by a build-up of bad cholesterol. Bad cholesterol is accelerated by – how does the FDA put it – by an ‘industrially produced’ food ingredient that the FDA allows to permeate the food supply. Converted in laboratories, they are known as partially hydrogenated oils or PHOs. When deadly beta-amyloids attack and disintegrate brain cells, ‘memory loss’ first occurs, then overtime, oxygen flow is diminished, limbs become incapacitated, bodily functions shutdown and eventually death occurs.”

It is the classic description of death due to most forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s.

Though brain diseases have existed over time, the documented increase per capita in memory related disorders has sounded alarms. Research points the finger at the very ingredients that, for decades, have permeated processed foods: partially hydrogenated oils. These oils have long been banned in other nations from Europe to Asia. Yet, the FDA looked the other way as major processed food manufacturers glutted the American food supply with the “killer oils.”

An outcry by health advocates forced the FDA to announce a total ban of the oils effective as of June 18, 2018. Until mid-2018, buyer beware. The “phantom oils” remain in a vast array of processed foods as an active ingredient that is being fed daily to American families.

Though a staggering 1 in 3 seniors reportedly dies with dementia, the loss of mental capacity, whether dementia or Alzheimer’s, does not automatically occur with aging according to experts.

“Alzheimer’s [dementia] is not a normal part of aging.” — Alzheimer’s Association.

If not age, researchers queried, what is mentally derailing increasing numbers of people? It is jokingly said when a person’s body goes physically or mentally awry: “Was it something I ate?”

Diseases are caused by either genetics or the environment. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, family-inherited, early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease accounts for less than 5% of Alzheimer’s cases worldwide. Based on those extremely low statistics, researchers zeroed in on an environmental cause. In their sights are industrially-modified oils.

For almost twenty years, food activists voiced alarms that the laboratory-contrived oils remain stuck in arteries and veins far longer than oils from natural food sources. Under assault, the FDA has begrudgingly initiated a ban to slowly withdraw from processed foods the numerous forms of the oils that still saturate the marketplace. While not identified as the cause of Alzheimer’s, partially hydrogenated oils are linked to the acceleration of the build-up of the cell and nerve killing, sticky proteins — beta-amyloids — that turn into plaque and clog the brain. Beta-amyloids are the hallmarks of Alzheimer disease. Findings of top scientists are detailed in the book.

As a government agency, the FDA fails to “use reasonable care” on behalf of the American people. For decades, its inactions resulted in deaths and mental and bodily harm to millions. By law, the inactions by the FDA would be categorized as “depraved indifference” or “gross negligence.” At minimum, it is a “reckless disregard” for human life.

The damage imposed by the FDA proves costly, especially for middle-income families. An excerpt from the article “Epidemic of Dementia: Shadow Economic Crisis” explains: “The rapid increase in dementia and other brain diseases is occurring at a time when middle-income American’s discretionary spending is being tapped out. For growing numbers of families nationwide, long-term health care costs, both inside and outside of the home, are unsustainable.”

The FDA functions under outdated laws that give wide leeway to corporate food giants. Charged with overseeing the overseer, it is Congress that must act to plug the loopholes:

“Corporations that are supposed to be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may also be aided and abetted by the FDA as food corporations are allowed to ‘self-regulate’. The FDA allows major processed food manufacturers to designate their products as being ‘Generally Recognized As Safe.’ It is known by the acronym GRAS. Under the practice of GRAS, the FDA depends on the processed food industry to be its own overseer, its own inspector. Essentially, what that means is that the processed food industry is on the ‘honor system’. It is eerily akin to the tobacco industry when cigarettes were once promoted as being good for your health.”

In addition to PHOs that are consumed daily, the U.S. FDA allows other ingredients and toxins into the American food supply that are banned in other parts of the globe. Processed food manufacturers continue to pack the processed food supply with chemically manipulated ingredients that negatively impact young and old alike.

Taste biotechnology companies today have chemicals aimed at binding artificial flavors to taste bud “receptor cells” on the tongue. They are meant to ‘manipulate and trick’ the mind as substitutes or catalysts for heightened sugar, salt or other flavor sensations. With more patents in the pipeline, competition to stimulate your taste buds through both chemical and natural ingredient-alterations is expected to be fierce.

Will taste bud modifiers that reportedly “trick the mind” have a damaging impact on the developing systems of the very young and the fragile systems of aging Americans? Will the FDA do sufficient testing to determine if mind-altering chemicals will have a long-term, negative impact on consumers’ health regardless of age? If the past indicates the future, the FDA may again remain on the periphery as processed food companies continue to spoon-feed chemically-modified food and drink to unsuspecting consumers.

The charge against the FDA is malfeasance against the American public. As one major toxin is slow-walked out of the processed food supply, a stream of new, laboratory-engineered chemicals and toxins are set to permeate the marketplace. Why is the FDA loath to alert U.S. families that many of the chemicals and ingredients found in the food on their dinner tables, in children’s school menus, in fast foods, on grocery shelves, and in hospitals and nursing homes — are banned elsewhere around the world?”

Recent findings of the damaging impact of lab-modified partially hydrogenated oils come decades too late for the afflicted, dying, and loved ones lost to brain and heart diseases. Instead of a full explanation of the harm done and harm still to come, the FDA’s message remains: “Sorry about that memory loss and all of those heart attacks.” Having admitted guilt without consequence, it remains business as usual as the FDA continues to bow to corporations’ profits over citizens’ health. The determining question is — do Americans care?

Note: The 3-part series of articles on a Shadow Economic Crisis by Sharon Sebastian is presented after years of research and interviews with top professionals and scientists in various fields.

Upcoming article:  

The Shame of Substandard Care: Shadow Economic Crisis – (Part 3) by Sharon Sebastian

Related articles:

Epidemic of Dementia: Shadow Economic Crisis (Part 1) by Sharon Sebastian

Scamming Alzheimer’s by Sharon Sebastian

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:   www.AgingWarning.com

01/24/16

EPIDEMIC OF DEMENTIA: SHADOW ECONOMIC CRISIS (Part 1)

By Sharon Sebastian

The country is in the midst of an “epidemic of dementia.” It rocks the foundations of families. Few perceive its prevalence because it begins on a micro level — family to family. Without an effective means to connect shared experiences, families are unable advocate and influence critical changes at both the state and national level. Some in the media write about dementia being widespread. Few detail its far-reaching, financial impact. Economists track the instability of the macro-economy while woefully unaware of the shadow economic crisis that is deepening from town-to-town and state-to-state across America.

A tsunami of health care debt is welling to a point where it will undermine the national economy. Families are already caught in the undertow. Forbes Contributor, Todd Hixon, warns: “If the trends of the last 20 years continue, health care spending will eat up U.S. GDP in our children’s lifetimes.” It is a serious warning projecting devastating consequences.

It is far more complicated than economic charts reveal. Nationwide, unexpected needs of loved ones suffering from gradual to severe to debilitating memory loss have families emotionally and financially torn. The wealthy have a financial cushion. The poor have a government safety net that financially covers their needs. The middle-class is left adrift to fend for itself.

Anger builds at a government spending large in Washington using American’s tax dollars to become the world’s caretaker while abandoning its own people in need. Can America’s middle-class save itself, its families, and its elderly while being forced to financially support burgeoning groups of global dependents who seek America’s health care and welfare dollars? The answer is “no.” The American worker and their families should be the recipients of the dollars they earn in the time of their need. Only then can a strong America render aid to others on a large scale.

The article “Scamming Alzheimer’s” reveals that, “Many forms of dementia are today claiming more people than at any time in the history of the disease.” Studies show that one form of dementia, Alzheimer’s, alone increased 68% over ten years while, according to the U.S. Census, the elder population only increased by 15.1%.” Increasingly and ever-present, brain diseases are destroying memory and life.

Lost amid high demands for a “cure” for dementia and Alzheimer’s are the hard realities of the high costs for the “care” that is required until a cure is found. It is established fact that most patients with memory related brain diseases require long-term, high-skilled and supervised attention at substantial costs. The first financial casualty is the tax-paying, wage-earner. Slammed the hardest, middle-income workers insist that nobody in Washington understands how tough it is for them and their families as this unexpected health care crisis drains incomes and savings.

Economists warn that so goes the middle-class, so goes the country. The question is: How goes the middle-class in today’s economy as it faces this mounting, financial headwind?

  • America’s shrinking middle-class is now “in the minority for the first time ever” according to Pew Research Center.
  • The average worker’s wages have remained flat or down for ten years.
  • Fewer Americans are working since 1977 while “the percentage of adult Americans actively looking for a job stands at 62.6 percent, the lowest level in nearly four decades.”
  • The number of Americans in poverty continues to grow.
  • Single female heads of households are significantly poorer and face greater challenges providing aid to an elderly parent or grandparent that is in need of care.

Americans remain on borrowed time with a shrinking workforce that is kowtowed to ever-increasing government spending and decades of waste by this and former administrations. In regard to costs, long-term medical care is the leading cause of bankruptcy for our elderly. Retirement savings may be depleted in months depending on the level of care required. Family inheritances are in jeopardy or may be wiped out entirely.

“Hand-to-mouth nation: Roughly 40 percent of US households live paycheck to paycheck but two thirds of these families are not considered poor by economic definitions.” — My Budget 360

The struggle becomes can adult-children sock a few dollars away for the long-term care of an aging parent, apply it towards their teen’s college fund, or save for their own retirement and potential future illness and care needs. The demand for dollars exceeds supply.

Many Americans do not know that neither Medicare nor Medicaid help foot the bill for skilled, ongoing long-term care except under the most dire of circumstances. Once financially depleted and living at the poverty level, only then can an individual or their family seek government dollars to help pay for continuing long-term care. Stringent Medicaid qualifications require that an individual be legally poor as well as mentally or physically incapacitated.

In the face of long-term care for their loved ones, inflation, mounting taxation, unemployment and underemployment have placed a rising burden of debt on multiple generations. Despite the ballyhoo about wealthy seniors, the reality is, the majority of our elders and their families have small nest eggs, if any, in the way of savings.

Families must be warned and prepared. The rapid increase in dementia and other brain diseases is occurring at a time when middle-income American’s discretionary spending is being tapped out. For growing numbers of families nationwide, long-term health care costs, both inside and outside of the home, are unsustainable:

“On average, nursing home costs would consume 246 percent of the median annual household income of older adults. Home care generally is more affordable than nursing home care, allowing consumers to stretch their dollars further. But at an average of 84 percent of median income, the typical older family cannot sustain these costs for long periods. This finding has profound implications for the entire LTSS system [Long-Term Services and Supports]. States have limited ability to control the costs of care for those who pay privately.” — Raising Expectations, 2014

The cost of long-term, skilled nursing care averages $5000 a month which equals $60,000 a year. The latest data from Social Security reports that 51% of working Americans now make less than $30,000 a year. Bankruptcy looms for households nationwide as economists warn that the American consumer is already on the edge. The NY Federal Reserve’s Consumer Expectations Survey reports that “household income expectations have fallen.” Spending growth expectations have plunged to record lows. Consumers are spent.

Discretionary income that would otherwise go towards purchases in the marketplace, entertainment, travel, charities or into investments is being diverted into the massive care system. Large and small businesses are denied additional consumer dollars that might have otherwise come their way. As a result, a deepening economic crisis is taking root.

Laden on top is the trauma and heartache of coping with life-debilitating brain illnesses that are being linked by scientific research to gross malfeasance by the U.S. government. Science reveals that the “epidemic” of dementia began under the negligent and enabling eye of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Years of government culpability in the loss of Americans’ lives amounts to “depraved indifference” as the FDA practices corporate cronyism with major processed food companies.

Scientific research links laboratory-engineered ingredients and toxins in our processed food supply to a rapid increase in deadly and debilitating brain diseases in our elders as well as memory loss in people of all ages. Research and findings of top scientists are detailed in the book, “AGING: WARNING – Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields” and will be expanded upon in Part 2 of this 3-part series.

Alzheimer’s and dementia deaths have been greatly underreported which deceptively underplays the severity of what it to come. The book, “AGING: WARNING” details the crisis, already underway, that is deeply impacting the lives and livelihoods of American families. It also charts a path for change. In addition to providing insight for families on how to cope, the book was written as a critical warning of this growing economic crisis that is rapidly emerging from the shadows. In addition to the financial impact on families, at risk is the moral conscience of this nation.

The bottom line. America must provide care and protection for its own, in particular for those unable to care for themselves. Yet, today, America’s ability to provide for American’s first is threatened by a shrinking tax base and a government that increasingly funds and prioritizes global need. In addition to putting Americans first, members of Congress, legislators and economists must factor this shadow economic crisis into the nation’s current and future planning. Anything less is moral turpitude.

Note: The 3-part series of related articles on a “Shadow Economic Crisis” by Sharon Sebastian is presented after years of research and interviews with top professionals and scientists in various fields.

Upcoming articles:  

FDA and the Spread of Brain Diseases: Shadow Economic Crisis – (Part 2) by Sharon Sebastian

The Shame of Substandard Care: Shadow Economic Crisis – (Part 3) by Sharon Sebastian

Related article:

Scamming Alzheimer’s by Sharon Sebastian

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:   www.AgingWarning.com

01/21/16

TED CRUZ, HOLLYWOOD AND FAITH

By Sharon Sebastian

Like clockwork, political campaigns degrade to low-rung rhetoric for some candidates. They also bring old acquaintances out of the woodwork who didn’t like you then and don’t like you now.

Such is the reported case for Conservative Presidential candidate Ted Cruz and a film writer in Hollywood. Conflicts in principles and ideas appear immediately apparent in any sentence that mentions Conservative and Hollywood. The Senator and the writer, Craig Mazin, have a very brief history. They were reportedly on the same dorm at Princeton during Freshman year. Mazin has been dogging Ted Cruz with attacks that surfaced nationally during the Conservative’s 2012 run for the Senate.

A skilled trash-talker, who weaponizes Twitter, screenwriter Mazin resorts to schoolyard taunts and name-calling worthy of a bully who enjoys attacking someone who rises above the ugly fray and chooses to walk away. Say, a Christian, perhaps. In a less profanity tinged missive about Cruz, Mazin recently tweeted: “Getting emails blaming me for not smothering Ted Cruz in his sleep in 1988. What kind of monster do you think I am? A really prescient one?”

What is really going on here? What would possess an adult film writer to resort to the pettiness and mean-spirited jargon of a pubescent adolescent? What could a Hollywood screenwriter have against a Senator who runs for office in the defense of faith, freedom and patriotism? The question likely answers itself.

Assuming that Mazin is for freedom and patriotism, possibly it is the issue of faith that so sticks in his craw. It is well reported that the young Ted Cruz was principled in prayer in his college days. Senator Ted Cruz hides his Christianity from no one. It is safe to say that his faith is an irritant at best for a writer of scripts that the Motion Picture Rating (MPAA) assigns an R-Rating for “graphic nudity, violent images and drug use.” It can be said for Mr. Mazin that he stands by his “graphic nudity, violent images and drug use” in his films and his juvenile, low-grade tweets.

There are others with differing opinions. Famed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz (a renowned Liberal) calls Ted Cruz “off-the-chart brilliant”. Now, that’s got to hurt a guy like Mazin whose tweeted claim to fame is: “In 1988, I puked all over Ted Cruz’s textbooks.”

A closer look at Senator Ted Cruz and his support of the faith may only give Mazin fuel for his Twitter fire. Possibly, however, there may be a lesson in it for who Ted Cruz is today as opposed to how Mr. Mazin chooses to conjure him up during the college years. Assuming that it is the Christian faith that has Mazin all rankled, he may find the following highly disturbing. That Cruz put his years of law school to work and prevented a “takeover” of churches by the Obama administration could create a full-on, tweet blast from Mr. Mazin.

While Mr. Mazin was writing Hollywood films which can have great cultural impact, both good and bad, Ted Cruz was already protecting faith and freedom of religion before ever announcing a run for the Presidency.

In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz (TX-R) exposed unprecedented power grabs by the Obama administration in multiple cases before the Supreme Court. Cruz stood firm against Obama’s Justice Department in these cases and successfully helped block an attack on the faith and its pastors:

“If the Department of Justice had won these cases, the federal government would be able to… “dictate who churches choose as ministers…” — Ted Cruz (The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration’s Attempts To Expand Federal Power)

On the Obama Justice Department’s hit list was freedom of religion with Christianity as the primary target.  Long a bane to the Progressive Left (that rejected God from it 2012 Presidential convention) is that the Ten Commandments – that are foundational to the Judeo-Christian faith – served as the biblical inspiration for both the U.S. Constitution and Capitalism. True Christians stand with Israel much to the disdain of Democrat Presidents from FDR, to Jimmy Carter, to Barack Obama. True Christianity is a blockade to bigotry and tyrannical aspirations.

In an outrageous attempt to increase its power, the Obama administration attempted to usurp the right of a church to choose its own pastors. In the case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, the Justice Department reportedly argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it “had the right to oversee a church’s choosing of ministers.” The Supreme Court foiled Obama’s egregious attempt to curtail a fundamental right of churches. In a 9-0 opinion, the justices sided in favor of the Lutheran Church.

The day Barack Obama swore on the Bible to uphold the U.S. Constitution – which includes the freedoms of speech and religion – the assault began. Obama’s gibes at Judeo-Christian belief and scripture are well documented. Gaining control of who preaches in Christian churches would have given the Obama administration control of the message. Obama acolytes in the pulpit would be in position to convolute the scripture to serve their political ideologies.

Socialist-Progressives in the Democrat Party are going to great lengths to escape the authority of God, preferring to live by their own countenance and self-devised morality while attempting to subjugate or eliminate God out of society. In a head-fake to voters, many assume the role as pretenders of faith. Those who outsmart themselves in matters eternal, including those in Washington and Hollywood, go so far as to cherry-pick the Bible and mismatch or purposely convolute scriptural intent to serve their political agenda.

That Ted Cruz professes the Christian faith may cause any number of Hollywood screenwriters angst. If so, that explains it. Though just being conservative, or simply independent in thought, has always been enough to tee-off any Hollywood liberal worthy of their far-Left credentials.   Third-grade name calling or vitriolic rhetoric, whether from the Left or from the Right, that does not promote serious discussions — does the country no service. The message to Mr. Mazin is that the pillars of faith on which Ted Cruz professes to firmly stand cannot be knocked down. Whether a bitter sounding, former acquaintance can cheapen the national dialogue, that is a whole other matter entirely.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:   www.AgingWarning.com

01/15/16

BUSH PROVES GOPe STUNNINGLY TONE DEAF

By Sharon Sebastian

It is patently evident that the fate of the nation lies solely in the hands of the American people. Both political parties have serious flaws.

The Democrats have become the party of Socialists and, thus, offer nothing for the future of America except dependence on government which ultimately and historically leads to iron-fisted control of the people. The get-free-stuff crowd eventually comes to the harsh reality that under Socialism the hand-outs become more and more meager as the government determines what, when and how much. The heavy burden of Socialism eventually takes its toll. Over time, it spurs a desire for freedom, self-determination and free-market capitalism as it again beats in the melancholy hearts of the down-trodden who were so eager to give up their freedom and independence. That is the future offered by the Democrat Party.

The Republican Party, by contrast, touts Constitutionally based freedoms and a free-market where the people are not constrained by a heavy-handed government, but are driven by their own energies and desires to personally succeed and grow a nation with liberty at its core. That is the future that may still be offered by the Republican Party — if it does not let its old-establishment leaders get in the way. The greater the distance by the GOPe from the nation’s founding values and ideals, the greater the rebellion from the base that is refusing to be pushed around.

The cold reality of the extent of the divide within the party came when it was reported by the Associated Press that GOP establishment Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush says that he finally “got it” in regard to the angry mood of the American people. The U.S. News & World Reports’ headline reads, “Bush tells AP he misjudged intensity of anger among GOP voters before his White House campaign.” Though his campaign is most associated with the old-party elites, Bush is not alone in that potentially terminal disconnect.

The old dogs of Capitol Hill, too long cushy in their jobs, now fear the new bloods that look to turn them out into the streets. The GOP establishment (GPOe) has been amply and repeatedly warned about neglecting the concerns of its constituency.

An example of such a warning is an article I wrote, “The Spine of the GOP,” on May 3, 2011, citing what amounted to years of desertion by the GOP establishment. The initial outsiders became the conservative and moderate voters within the party. Governor Bush confirmed what middle America has long known, elitist Republicans — who also hold disdain for so-called outsider Republican candidates in the race of for the Presidency — had become increasingly detached. They were more immersed in retaining power and control than in serving the people.

Consider that the following article was written as a warning to the GOP establishment five years ago. With some ironic déjà vu, note that Donald Trump was also in the aim and was the bane of the GPOe back then. The mood of the electorate was souring with the American people already fed-up with promises not kept by elected officials.

“The Spine of the GOP,” by Sharon Sebastian, May 3, 2011 —

“Myopically, Republicans are asking themselves – why are voters swooning over Trump?

Republican voters began feeling disenfranchised in 2005-2006 when core conservative principles were discarded by a GOP in search of the independent and liberal vote. The outcry of being constituents without representation rang true in conservative circles. Unwarranted spending sprees and unprotected borders had dire consequences for the GOP in 2008 as liberals swept the vote. Once burned, voters today warn that a GOP that compromises values, rights and freedoms could mean the death knell of the party. In 2010, after two harried years of Barack Obama, voters put the GOP on life-support, which opened the door for a fragile recovery – a recovery that relies on spending cuts, defunding Obamacare, restraints on the EPA and an end to onerous backdoor, economy-killing government regulations. The Republican Party has prospects for new life – a half-life at best – until it proves itself to be a party of leadership in defense of the Constitution, adherence to fiscal responsibility and Americans’ God-given rights and liberties.

On such unsteady ground, GOP candidates fear Donald Trump. Consensus is that the appeal of Trump is his bluntness, his unreserved frankness about the dire condition of the country and who put us there. Trump wisely acquiesced that if his joining the race as an Independent would assure re-election of Barack Obama, then he would not do it. Trump says his focus is to make certain that Obama does not see another four years in office. Trump appears to have no interest in being eviscerated by the American people as the historical spoiler who helped push the nation into its demise by aiding, inadvertently or not, in the re-election of Barack Obama.

Politicians need to know that the American people are in no mood. If politicians are sitting in Congress taking up space and enjoying top of the line benefits, free gas, and a free ride at the expense of American families, then voters are done with you. If a politician is willing through compromise to sell-out this nation’s future, voters are done with you. If a politician abuses and refuses to listen to constituents’ concerns whether at town halls or on phone calls, they are done with you. And, if politicians disregard a revival of Constitutional principles, the balancing of the budget, the guidance of the founding faith and the immeasurable sacrifice and value of our men and women in the military, voters are done with you.

The American voter is developing a fine sense of detecting political double-speak versus earnest representatives who say what they mean and mean what they say. To restore this nation, politicians with a spine, who will not back down on issues of major consequence, must become America’s future leaders. Those who leech off of this nation, as it struggles for survival, are the antithesis of our founding fathers and have become the enemy within. Though a few slipped through during the last election, serial compromisers need not apply. Whether in office or running for office, it will not be wise to test the ire of the American voter with old style GOP give-away-the-farm politics as usual.”

So, where does the nation stand five years later? That Barack Obama is the root cause of and, with determination, accelerated the failing of our nation at home and abroad is now part of history. The final chapter of his legacy is to be written in 2016 with more threats of unconstitutional executive orders. Fully aware of Obama’s goal to downgrade America under the guise of “transformation”, the established, old-guard Republicans did little to abate his executive lawlessness, and indeed aided and abetted in some cases. Such cooperation and compromise with Obama’s agenda and the unprecedented empowerment of his presidency by Congress assigns cause for America’s demise to both sides of the aisle. It bears repeating. Those in Congress that took a stand against the tide of a progressively socialistic and weakened America — those politicians with a spine who will not back down on issues of major consequence — must become America’s future leaders.

Reminiscent of the quote from the late baseball manager Yogi Berra, the warning in the article posted five years ago to the GOPe, is today “like déjà vu all over again.” That Jeb Bush just now realizes that he “misjudged the intensity of the anger of the GOP voter” confirms that which the base of the party was already sorely aware. His statement gives credence that in regard to the established Republican elites, the Constitutionally-grounded, traditional voice in the GOP was being ignored. Today, that voice is making itself heard. They refuse to remain a constituency without representation. Beyond the halls of Congress and the campaign trail, Americans will have the final say. Voting to preserve our nation is the final message that must be delivered in what is, unquestionably, a struggle for America’s future. That is the most critical warning of all.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:   www.AgingWarning.com

01/6/16

Big Short Shorts Some Facts

By Sharon Sebastian

It is a good thing when Hollywood attempts a portrayal of the facts without overtly distorting history beyond recognition in the process. So, hats off to the creative team behind The Big Short. It is necessary, however, to fill in the gaps with facts that may not fit into a film’s limited timeframe. Real world events are always more unwieldy than a tightly knit movie script. There are no spoiler alerts in what follows. We all know the ending. It is how we got there that matters.

So picture this, if you will, as you go back in time and tap into the remnants of an article that I wrote in 2012 that revealed a real life disaster that was not made in Hollywood, but in Washington, DC.

Old news, except it isn’t. In regard to the devastating housing fraud that helped collapse the U.S. economy, a Reuter’s headline read: “U.S. Sues Bank of America for Alleged Mortgage Fraud.” According to Reuters, Barack Obama’s Justice Department “filed a civil mortgage fraud lawsuit against Bank of America, accusing it of selling thousands of toxic home loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that went into default and caused more than $1 billion of losses.”

That’s right, the banks did it. In reality, it is another glaring example of Barack Obama and the Progressive Democrats’ adeptness at avoiding culpability and deflecting blame. After all, to this date, they have fooled so many about their role in perpetuating the housing collapse that thrust the economy into a nose dive. They are counting on voters lacking enough information to connect-the-dots as they point accusingly at their partners in crime. Obama’s sycophantic media obediently reported that it was all the fault of greedy bankers, mortgage brokers and Wall Street derivatives. What they failed to report was that the Democrats set-up the alchemy, the opportunity for greed that bated the bad players into joint accountability.

The question the American people should ask is: Who were the svengalis of the economic collapse, the architects whose scheme worked so well that they virtually escaped the blame? Historically, it will go down as one of the liberal Democrats’ all-time big lies to the American people. Democrats led by Barney Franks (D-MA), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Greg Meeks, (D-NY) are on video, in effect, in support of glutting the housing market with unsustainable mortgages in the form of bad loans.

In Capital, Azi Parbarah reported in 2011 that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed the finger squarely at the Democrat-controlled Congress as instigating America’s financial collapse:

“If there is anyone to blame for the mortgage crisis that led to the collapse of the financial industry, it’s not the “big banks,” but Congress. [They] were the ones who pushed Fannie and Freddie to make a bunch of loans that were imprudent. They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody. And now we want to go vilify the banks because it’s easy to blame them and Congress certainly isn’t going to blame themselves.” Bloomberg added, “It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.”

What Bloomberg failed to mention is that Obama, himself, adamantly demanded that banks make more loans to low-income borrowers. Subprime loans became the great American rip-off. Obama and the Democrats both enticed and strong-armed lenders to give loans to people who could not repay them. The plan? In exchange, grateful new homeowners would obligingly ply the Democrats with their votes.

The ugly and inevitable consequences forced the poor, mostly Hispanics and Blacks, out of their unaffordable houses through wide scale foreclosures. Home prices fell, construction workers lost jobs, the housing industry began a free-fall and America’s AAA credit rating was downgraded for the first time since 1917. The result: The worst economy in recent memory. Today, America bears the brunt of the Democrats’ manipulation of the housing market resulting in lost homes and lost jobs. Hawking for votes, Obama and liberal Democrats put politics over people.

Many harken back to former Democrat President Bill Clinton igniting the long fuse that led to the crisis when in 1998 he removed the barriers between commercial banks and investment banks. After Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, big banks suddenly had federally insured money to play with. Greed from Congress to Wall Street spread unabated.

Some claim Clinton’s deregulation of banks was not a factor. Yet, the Guardian reported a direct correlation as cited by economist Robert Kuttner in his testimony before Congress. Kuttner’s testimony revealed Clinton’s actions as both a cornerstone and an early catalyst that seeded the greed years:

“Since repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, after more than a decade of de facto inroads, super-banks have been able to re-enact the same kinds of structural conflicts of interest that were endemic in the 1920s – lending to speculators, packaging and securitizing credits and then selling them off, wholesale or retail, and extracting fees at every step along the way. And, much of this paper is even more opaque to bank examiners than its counterparts were in the 1920s. Much of it isn’t paper at all, and the whole process is supercharged by computers and automated formulas.”

Obama and the Democrats counted on an already embedded need for greed. Some banks and lenders found policy and conditions enabling corruption to be irresistible. The lure of big money that was ill-gotten — crossed political and commercial lines and made bedfellows out of adversaries as deals were made and commissions increased to all-time highs. As financial institutions dove head-first into irresponsible behavior, Democrats looked the other way and feigned innocence during the housing and market collapse that followed.

All the while, two government-sponsored finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were reportedly hiding their role in the subprime and low-rate mortgage loan business. Harold Raines, former head of the Budget Office for Clinton and Fannie Mae’s CEO in the mid-1990s, told the Washington Post that Fannie Mae is “the equivalent of a Federal Reserve system for housing.”

Democrats were entrenched in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s top management. According to Bethany McLean of CNNMoney, “The same article noted that Fannie’s financial moves generated more than $100 million a year in fees for Wall Street firms …. guaranteed a stunning $1 trillion of mortgages and held $376 billion of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities on its own books.” A Security and Exchange Commission investigation uncovered accounting irregularities in Fannie Mae’s books and a false reporting of $9 billion in past profits. At the time of Raines early retirement from Fannie Mae, the Democrat reportedly earned $20 million in salary and bonuses.

What the film, The Big Short, was short on was the role the government played in short-changing the American taxpayer and the tragic aftermath on unqualified mortgage holders forced into foreclosures. Controlling the nation’s purse strings in Congress, the Democrats steered the economy toward the fiscal cliff. With the DEMS behind the wheel, some Republicans jumped on for the ride amid the financial melee.

Based on voter backlash against Obama’s handling of the economy, in the 2010 midterm elections the Democrats lost control of the House. In the 2014 midterm elections, still feeling the financial sting, voters took away the Democrats majority in the Senate. In addition to filling in the gaps of a Hollywood movie, this tale of greed, arrogance and deception at the expense of the American people should serve as a warning to both Democrats and Republicans in regard to the mood of a betrayed constituency come the 2016 elections.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields,” is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:   www.AgingWarning.com

12/7/15

O’Reilly & Krauthammer Miscued on Clues to Obama’s Climate Agenda

by Sharon Sebastian

The O’Reilly Factor‘s Bill O’Reilly pressed renowned columnist and commentator Charles Krauthammer for an answer. O’Reilly wanted to know why President Barack Obama is so relentless in his drive to convince the world that global warming is a bigger threat than ISIS. Krauthammer gave a frank psychoanalysis of Obama, but it failed to hold water on this topic.

What these two astute gentlemen of the media failed to apply was the old journalistic axiom: “Follow the money.” First, start with the question that begs an explanation. Why did former Vice-President Al Gore repeatedly declare that he was going to become “the first global warming billionaire” — did that not pique any potential Pulitzer Prize winning journalist’s curiosity as to what was behind that curtain? After losing his bid for the presidency, becoming the first global warming billionaire was Gore’s road not only to extraordinary wealth, but paved his return to global influence.

Set-up to unfold was a “golden parachute” scheme that would line the pockets of a cadre of elitists and global-warming advocates long after they were displaced from their seats of power. The scheme to retain or regain power and amass money is in plain sight. Some history and current day facts:

Few realize that the “green movement” is about building large personal fortunes for an elite few. President Barack Obama laid out his threat to bypass Congress and ignore the American people during his 2013 State of the Union address by exerting his authority under Executive Orders:

“I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.” — President Barack Obama, February 12, 2013.

Obama’s green energy plan put the coal industry on life-support, targeted oil and gas as the enemy and sought to impose restrictions on power plants that generate electricity to homes and businesses. What the President reportedly hides behind the curtain is his alliances with international green elites, a select group of political and Wall Street cronies, and energy regulatory czars who have orchestrated a CO2 carbon-taxing scheme that would put billions of dollars into their own pockets. Forced regulatory compliance is now being assembled through federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is a money scheme at the highest levels.

In 2010, the global-warming money transfer scam surfaced and named not only this president, but a former Democrat president and vice-president as participants planning to accumulate vast personal wealth. Again, any investigative reporter need only ask: Why did Al Gore so confidently tout that he was destined to become the “first global-warming billionaire”?

Long in the designing, the elements were close to being in full play. The plans were drawn, the carbon-credit trading exchange registered as the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) was formulated and set to transfer cash (New York Times). A privately-owned Chicago bank was reportedly on the ready as a depository and for routing money transfers. That is, until the great global-warming-climate-change fraud stopped the United Nations-supported, elite group of well-connected “green” associates in their tracks. British Freedom quotes The Times of India:

“Billionaire globalists like George Soros fund green groups and seek to promote the globalist ‘climate change’ scam as a way to enrich themselves and infiltrate developing nations in order to financially exploit them and their natural resources for profit.”

The June 16, 2009 Bloomberg article, “Sandor Got Obama’s Nod for Chicago-Style Climate Law” by Jim Efstathiou Jr., reported that a carbon-capping bill set to be imposed on American businesses was the cornerstone of Obama’s environmental agenda. Bloomberg quotes CCX founder Richard Sandor as saying that the bill began “…way, way to the left with provisions to push U.S. utilities into bankruptcy.” The article further reads: “Sandor launched the Chicago Climate Exchange, or CCX, in 2003 after getting two research grants from the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. Obama was on the foundation that gave us the grant, Sandor said. We know him well.” CCX reportedly is now under the auspices of Environmental Financial Products which lists its Chairman and CEO as Richard Sandor.

With CCX officials lamenting the sidelining of a carbon-credit trading exchange (similarly structured to the stock exchange, but with exorbitant transaction fees), Nathaniel Gronewold of ClimateWire published the following on January 3, 2011:

“Meanwhile, CCX’s sister institutions, the European Climate Exchange and the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange, will continue as long as there is corporate and state government interest in fighting climate change, even with the failure of cap and trade in the U.S. Congress, CCX officials insist.”

During the recent 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Mr. Obama again upped his high-stakes play to push through his green agenda despite the high cost to even the poorest of Americans. Unlike Obamacare that revealed itself in a matter of years, this scheme can be carried along for decades based on false data and computers models only to be uncovered decades later and trillions of dollars too late. A list of powerful global titans remain on the ready to engage in a revived carbon-emissions trading program. They do so despite the evidence that weighs against any such necessity. The question is why?

A new report by Dr. Indur Goklany, an international authority on climate change, was published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Dr, Goklany states:

“The academies claim that fossil-fuel use has reduced the world’s sustainability and resilience. But despite record human numbers and carbon-dioxide emissions, human wellbeing has never been higher, by virtually any measure whether climate-sensitive or not. The average person has never lived longer or been healthier or wealthier. Living standards are at their highest ever; poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and mortality from vector-borne diseases and extreme events are at record lows. There is no indication that these trends are being reversed.”

In the face of highly publicized studies based on real science, and not computer models, that global temperatures have not substantially risen for more than a decade, Obama gears up to invest multiples of billions of America’s tax dollars into the green abyss, even while other countries across the globe are backing away. Why does Obama ignore real science?

Other scientific facts come from Edmund Contoski, an environmental consultant for more than 40 countries. In Liberty Unbound, Contoski writes: “Nature itself foils the environmentalists as The U.S. Department of Energy admits that once emitted that 98% of all the carbon dioxide emissions are again absorbed by nature. Contosky then queries, “Termites emit ten time more CO2 than humans, should we cap-and-tax them?”

Again, with the scheme hidden in plain sight, the media neglect the global green machine being run by an elite group that will reap financial gain at America’s loss. Perhaps a great investigative journalist will make a mark on history by peeling back the layers of this geo-political fraud. Armed with this information, perhaps Mr. O’Reilly or Dr. Krauthammer will use their access to vast journalistic resources to earnestly answer Bill’s question to Charles on why Barack Obama is pushing, at the expense of America and beyond all logic and recent scientific data, for a long-term and massive financial commitment to climate change. Start with money and power.

Whoever controls the world’s energy distribution, controls the world. If they can get the little people to “believe” that climate change is a bigger threat than ISIS, the global elites of the future will have the ultimate golden parachute.

CCX now transfers to: Page Not Found. The Chicago Climate Exchange reportedly changed names. While ultimately drowning the carbon-trading scheme and not shorelines, nature turned on the CCX planners when the Himalayas did not melt, the polar bear population grew, and carbon dioxide output revived and increased farming yields that today feed millions more people across the globe as a result.

Yet, the other shoe is about to drop and it is nuclear in its impact. It is Obama’s coup de gras for America. Buried in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is Obama’s climate agenda on steroids. It shifts independent powers to the president while putting America at the mercy of 140 member TPP countries that outnumber and hold sway over the United States’ “one” vote. Disguised as open trade to keep America competitive, it sets-up the means for America’s detractors to put a crippling chokehold on America’s sovereignty and economy. It is dangerous.

TPP is designed to become an international regulatory body from China to Vietnam armed with enough voting numbers to subdue the United States into submission while enforcing massive fines if American businesses do not transfer jobs and resources offshore. Expect political sleight-of-hand from both sides of the aisle when a Congressional vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership comes up next year. American must hold their leaders accountable. Send a copy of this article as a warning that will strip them of the excuse of any ignorance of “unforeseen circumstances” upon which they too often rely. Under Obama’s climate change, money and power supersede national security. Perhaps, Messrs. O’Reilly and Krauthammer will look behind that door as well.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields” (here), is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website: www.AgingWarning.com

12/3/15

NY DAILY NEWS JOINS ABC & GOLDBERG IN HATE SPEECH

By Sharon Sebastian

Whoopi1

On the heels of Whoopi Goldberg’s maligning statement that “Hitler was Christian” comes the New York Daily News‘ attention baiting front cover that “God Isn’t Fixing This” in regard to the mass murders by two alleged terrorists in San Bernardino, CA. The Daily News‘ headline was quick to take aim at America’s Second Amendment gun rights and people of faith. Both liberal media outlets suggest that the rights of Americans to protect themselves must now be changed or suppressed based on the acts of terrorists and murderers. Both impugn Christians or Conservatives as a base cause for either past violence against Germany’s Jews or for today’s violence that is erupting from a terrorist arm of Islam. What Goldberg and the Daily News have in common is the targeting of Christianity.

For the Daily News, it is surreptitious hate speech disguised as a headline. Pushing the propaganda against Christians further and like so many trapped in their own illogical thinking without knowing the facts, ABC Talk Show Host Whoopi Goldberg contorts both truth and history. Ironically, Goldberg’s comments have historical bearing as they pose a threat to Christians worldwide. It is a threat that must not be dismissed.

In regard to the talk show’s on-air debate over Syrian refugees and who should be allowed in, Muslims or Christians, Goldberg let it rip: “There have been a lot of horrifying — there have been a lot of monster Christians. Hitler was a Christian.” In a deepened display of her ignorance of what it means to be Christian, Ms. Goldberg declared: “Well, he didn’t like the Catholics, remember? So, he thought of himself as a Christian person.” Break down her statements and you get: Monster equals Christians equals Hitler. The question is: What is her intent?

Is Ms. Goldberg practicing “hate speech” while she sits comfortably in the lap of an ABC Entertainment talk show as she both denigrates and targets Christians? By doing so, Ms. Goldberg displays similar traits to Hitler. Does this escape her? Ms. Goldberg’s right to free speech is tantamount. Even so, her “Hitlerizing” of the followers of Christ recalls the same insidious propaganda verbalized by Hitler that first vilified then led to the persecution and slaughter of the Jews. Is that Ms. Goldberg’s intention? Are we to conclude that Ms. Goldberg represents the same mind-set as Hitler with her deception and targeting. What are Ms. Goldberg’s motives to subject God-loving Christians to such a negative and damning association?

Such rhetoric by Goldberg feeds into the game plan of the terrorist who want to destroy all, especially Christians and Jews. Being broadcast within her incendiary and pointed denigrations of people of the Christian faith are the deep seeds of oppression that were at the core of Hitler’s massive propaganda machine. Hitler targeted the Jews. Goldberg lays bare a malintent of “hate speech” towards Christians. But, let’s be fair. Is it simply that on her day’s off she clearly has not thought it through?

The facts: Hitler’s mother did profess Catholicism. As an adult there is no evidence that Hitler was committed to any faith. Hitler was a great deceiver. He used religious language in speeches to gain political support. It is not an uncommon tactic in modern day politics. In the defense of the truth, Hitler was not a Christian. Hitler persecuted and killed Christians and their pastors.

The great German Christian Theologian and anti-Hitler dissident, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, would have had to disagree with Ms. Goldberg’s errant history lesson from behind the cold bars of one of Hitler’s prisons. As one of Germany’s foremost Christians, Bonhoeffer was eventually hung in a Nazi concentration camp. Hitler jailed, tortured, and killed other German pastors alongside Christians whom Hitler viewed as enemies opposed to his agenda to annihilate Germany’s Jews. Pastor Bonhoeffer’s writings detail Hitler’s hatred for Biblical Christianity.

Evidence abounds that Hitler was not a Christian. The following modified excerpt from the article: “Christian Purge — The Hitler Factor” is an open history lesson, a gift of knowledge.

“Hitler allowed religions. Early in his political career, he praised Catholicism. Initially, he also was favorably inclined towards Christianity. In time as he garnered power, Hitler came to find Christianity particularly troublesome when Christian pastors spoke out against his systematic annihilation of Germany’s Jews. Hitler set out to wash the veneer of Christian beliefs from German society. He sought a new religion. Hitler’s Reich Church would spring from the Nazi party with the pagan ‘crooked cross’ of the Swastika (to replace the Christian Cross) as its symbol in Germany’s New World Order.

Hitler had created the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) and surrounded himself with men who were atheists or occultists who shared the desire to replace Christianity with a religion that did not require conscience. Men like Hitler’s Deputy Chancellor of the Reich, Rudolph Hess, and Heinrich Himmler, who oversaw the Nazi death camps, were occultists. Himmler stated a preference for the faith of anti-Semitic Muslims who were willing to die for the German cause to attain a reward in their heaven. German school children were indoctrinated to sing praise songs, “Hitler is our Savior, Hitler is our Lord.” Hitler made his memoir, Mein Kampf, the official bible of Nazism.

It was early in his political career that Hitler allowed a favorable view of Christianity. Historians reveal that, in time, power turned him inward to self-worship that perpetuated a growing alienation resulting in the imprisonment and death of Christians. Nazi Germany stands as a warning to all societies that look the other way or tolerate a denunciation or assault on Christianity and Judaism by their political leaders.” (For the full article click here.)

The New York Times published a 30-point program detailing the key doctrines of Hitler’s new National Reich Church. Foremost was to destroy the Christian religion. The January 3, 1942 Times’ article detailed Hitler’s intent: “The National Reich Church is immutably fixed in its one objective: to destroy that Christian belief imported into Germany…” (Click here)

If Ms. Goldberg has not repented of her sins, nor believes in Jesus Christ as her Savior who died for her sins on the Cross, then she has no idea what or who a Christian is. Knowing that Hitler’s pedigree is pure evil, one must question her intent. Based on her statements, today the direct connection that Hitler has to Christianity is Whoopi Goldberg.

Such hostility towards Christians and Christianity may gain Whoopi Goldberg favor with the White House, but not with the majority of Americans who consider themselves Christians. Chiming in, The View’s co-host Joy Behar reportedly seemed to imply that Syrian Christians, fleeing genocide, may be as dangerous as any terrorist based on her misconception that Oklahoma bomber Tim McVeigh was a Christian. No, Ms. Behar, Oklahoma bomber McVeigh was not Christian. He was reportedly an agnostic who hated the Federal Government.

The View’s and Ms. Goldberg’s ignorance is dangerous during these time of turmoil as terrorists seek the deaths of all Christians. Will she or ABC come to understand that words have meaning and impact? Will ABC ask Ms. Goldberg to apologize on-air for her gross libeling of the people of Jesus Christ, or will ABC become known as the network of Anything But Christian?

It is odd that ABC’s The View goes from mocking America’s nursing profession in a public relations fiasco one month to denigrating Christians and then calls itself “entertainment.” Goldberg should be grateful for a nation grounded in Christianity. If ever confronted with the choice of facing a Christian or a terrorist — whatever is a liberal talk show host to do? Note to Ms. Goldberg, real monsters use the veil of Christianity for purposes of evil. They are not Christian. Hitler was once quoted as privately saying in 1933, “You can be a German or a Christian, but you can’t be both.” A quick theology lesson: You can either be a monster or a Christian, but you can’t be both. Hitler was a monster. It is the folly of ignorance in which Goldberg is engaged. Christians will pray for Whoopi Goldberg. Hitler would not. Terrorists will not.

Whether hate speech or hateful, Ms. Goldberg speaks a stigmatizing verbal violence at a time when Christians are being slaughtered in parts of the globe. It is reminiscent of Hitler’s seeding of libelous propaganda against the Jews. On a television show with global reach, Ms. Goldberg appears to reveal a prejudice and a bigotry. That ABC enables it is dangerous.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING– Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields” (here), is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website: www.AgingWarning.com

12/3/15

The Road to War

by Sharon Sebastian

Road to War

John Kerry is wrong. The Secretary of State displayed a dire lack of knowledge when he stated that the world is “not in a war of civilizations.” The enemy can only smirk at the naiveté or seeming ignorance of yet another American leader that blurs the reality of an ancient war in modern times. Kerry was right when he stated that Islamic radicals are recruiting “thugs” into their ranks. The criminal element has no cause. Their purpose is not religious. They are recruited as a front line of terror to be unleashed by hardcore jihadists.

We are at war. It is critical that Americans understand this ancient war in order to comprehend the long-term strife and bloodshed that is ahead. Some leaders, led by the American President, deny its root causes. Disturbingly, we are at war when Americans increasingly use words like liar, traitor, or incompetent to describe the Commander-in-Chief. Opinion grows that the sitting President is doing more harm to the country than any terrorist could as Americans suspiciously eye his actions.

The American people already hold the Obama administration accountable for the coming harm. Most question why our government would allow terrorists to penetrate our cities secreted among the refugees that are fleeing the bloodletting in their own countries. False identity documents are common. Male and female suicide bombers are equal threats. Whether a moderate Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Rastafarian or Mormon, as a nation, we all look the same to the jihadists. Whatever your skin color, all American blood runs red.

Historical hindsight is not needed to reveal that our government gave cues to the enemy that America was being weakened. To America’s profound loss most Americans missed the cues, but the enemy did not. Based on both our government’s wrong footed action or inaction, the enemy was strengthened with the resolve to do America harm. History will not dispute that recent actions and inactions by the White House enabled a ancient war of civilizations to emerge from a comparatively suppressed state into a new World War.

The enemy takes notes and the sabers of war are sharpened as:

  • America’s President refuses to name the enemy as a radical arm of Islamists hell-bent on committing violence against the American people based on Islamic teachings that they hold sacrosanct in the Koran.
  • America’s President announced support of the Arab Spring which has manifested violent actions that today devastate the Middle East and are erupting in Europe.
  • America’s President drew a Red Line in the Syrian sand and then abandoned its intent.
  • America’s President withdrew American troops from Iraq leaving Iraq unprotected and vulnerable to take-over with portions functioning today as an enemy base of operations.
  • Patriotic Americans and their Ambassador fell at Benghazi with no life-saving, rescue efforts from the American government.
  • Convoys of trucks carrying enemy combatants openly crossed the desert out of Syria into Iraq as the White House watched the build-up of a combatant army with the known intent to not only establish a Caliphate, but to establish a State from which to wage war against America and its Middle-Eastern and European allies.
  • America’s President released five hardened enemy captives from Guantanamo Bay with promises to free others and to bring those remaining into America’s prison system.
  • The U.S. government signaled that America’s borders were open as human smuggling routes without protections in place that would both identify and keep the terrorist enemy out of America’s soft-target population.
  • U.S. Military forces are thinned, long-time ally Israel is treated with disdain and the list goes on…

The actions of President Obama have become so blatantly obvious that even the liberal press can no longer feign befuddlement.

Unsettling are the unacceptable actions by our government as it appears to choose sides on a basic human level. Evidence of that is an immigration quota that favors Muslim refugees over Christian refugees. The U.S. State Department released data showing that under 3% of Christian refugees are allowed into the country verses 96% of Syrian Muslims who are allowed in. Statistically that is discrimination. Ideologically that is discrimination. Blatant discrimination lies at the feet of this American President in this ancient war that has targeted Christians and Jews from its inception.

It is important to note, with irony, that in regard to the porous vetting of Syrian refugees, the stark difference between their entry versus many entering our country’s porous southern border is that they do not have to pay the coyotes. Most critically, among those in both groups who are escaping poverty or oppression are terrorists. True identities are smoke in the air for those infiltrating with the intent of doing harm.

What is this War of Civilizations that the administration is downplaying through the words of its Secretary of State? What is this centuries old war that erupts on the world’s stage when conditions are right for it to do so? Though it initially targets the world’s oldest faiths, Judaism and Christianity, none of the other world religions need apply for exemption from the coming violence.

The War of Civilizations is based on the enemy’s desire to hasten the return of the 12th Mahdi. While such a statement is foreign to most in the West, it is the basis for this current World War.

President Barack Obama understands this war’s connection to Islam having studied the Koran in Indonesia. That curriculum identifies The Twelfth Imam or 12th Mahdi as the Islamic savior — its Islamic messiah. Islam requires that in order for the 12th Imam to reveal himself, the world must be in a global war. Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly revealed a divine mission to “hasten the return” of the 12th Mahdi” as Iran sought nuclear weapons.

Destroying Israel, then America, facilitates the 12th Mahdi’s return. Iran’s former leader was clear that the world must first erupt into chaos as a signal for the Mahdi to appear. Both ISIS and the Iranian theocracy seek the return of Islam’s messiah. The two factions of   Islam, the Sunni and Shia doctrinal divides of the Islamic faith, differ on who the 12th Mahdi is and remain engaged in an ancient war with each other.

Islam came into existence some 600 years after the groundswell of Christianity. The Christian Messiah is the Savior Jesus Christ. Islam reveres Jesus as a lesser prophet and not God, which puts Islam at inextricable odds with Christianity. The belief is that the “Mahdi” or “Twelfth Imam” will appear publicly during a time of great disaster, with Jesus at his side, to bring peace to a war-torn world. It is said that the 12th Mahdi will take Jesus to Mecca to replace the Bible with the Koran so that Christians worldwide will convert to Islam. A “Muslim anti-Christ” is also to surface in the world and falsely convince Jews that he is the Jewish people’s “Jesus” or “Messiah” that they have long awaited.

An “Islamic Jesus,” it is said, will kill all Jews and behead anyone worldwide who does not accept Islam as the only true religion. The Islamic Mahdi will set-up his kingdom in Jerusalem, establish a worldwide Caliphate, along with Sharia Law, and rule the world. Non-believers must convert, be fined, or put to death. Homosexuals will be killed and women will become property and be oppressed. Such belief is a driving force of today’s war on non-Islamic nations; an ancient war based on fundamental Islam that has entrenched the globe in a war on terror. Moderate Muslims declare that only extremists hold such beliefs.

Only the foolish would categorize this war as a war of political ideologies between the West and the Muslim world. A radical jihadist movement forced turmoil in the Middle East to set up the Caliphate and enslave global societies via a rampage of death and destruction. The youth in Paris at the concerts and coffeehouses now understand the savagery that is involved. Will America’s youth understand what is coming to our shores, that American blood runs as red as Parisian blood? Will the world community have the same conviction when it proclaimed “never again” after witnessing the horrors of the holocaust?

President Obama’s denigrations and actions against Christians and Jews signals to the enemy that they have commonality with America’s President. If the American President does not recognize that as a threat, the American people do.

Obama’s years of studying Islam should have taught him that he cannot unmoor this enemy from what they believe is the sole reason that they exist on the planet. To retreat in any degree from a war not of our choosing or to repeatedly mock a growing warrior response among others intent on protecting our nation is not leadership. It is acquiescence. Islamic radicals seek world chaos. Such intent nullifies comments by members of Congress who state that “they do not want to get sucked into this war.” Both misunderstandings of this new World War reveal either a profound ignorance or a dangerous, home-grown ideology. Americans did not seek this war, Americans do not want this war, but as many in Congress are proving, America will defend its homeland in spite of a recalcitrant White House and a reticent Commander-in-Chief.

Sharon Sebastian, author of the book, “AGING: WARNING – Navigating Life’s Medical, Mental & Financial Minefields” (here), is a columnist, commentator, and contributor in print and on nationwide broadcasts on topics ranging from healthcare, culture, religion, and politics to domestic and global policy. Sebastian’s political and cultural analyses are published nationally and internationally. Website:  www.AgingWarning.com