By: Trapper Pettit
For two weeks, Epstein’s apparent murder was the leading story. The pervert had enough dirt to build a mountain. So my questions are, ‘Which mountain had him murdered and which mountain had enough sway to bury the story?’ Sometimes I think we have the attention span of rocks.
By: Tabitha Korol
Teas take on different significance in different cultures, but a TeaTime hosted by the Muslim Brotherhood members resembles no other. It is a time to be wary of the dualism of Islam and the gathering’s true purpose.
The modest event was publicized as TeaTime in a local church. It would not be a four-o’clock, English-style social occasion, complete with porcelain tea service and petit fours; or Japanese ceremony symbolizing peace, harmony and happiness; or Chinese ritual of peace, quiet, enjoyment and truth. Perhaps the focus would not be on the beverage at all but another T. The initial T. T as in Taqiyyah, whose meaning in Arabic is the practice of concealing one’s belief (more accurately known as duplicity) and foregoing ordinary religious duties in order to make Islam supreme. It is a concept and reality that must be borne in mind when reading or listening to the words of Muslims. It provides the opportunity for the affable advance guard to sell you an appealing story about a war monger, a mass murderer, so that we may continue to welcome the 1.6 billion adherents into the west, our country, and into our lives, and fundamentally and forever change what we have.
T might also refer to the visiting Taskforce and its Tactic, as well as Theocracy, Tyranny, Treachery, Territorialism, Thought control, Takeover and Theirs, all combined into a system by which they seize dominance of land and people through the centuries, as they have come to Threaten and dominate in the Middle East and Africa; proceeding in the UK, mainland Europe, Scandinavia, and progressing in the Americas and Oceania.
Their informational flyers would be displayed during the session, including one titled, “What they say about the Prophet Muhammad,” published by ICNA – Islamic Circle of North America, an offshoot of the Muslims Students Association (MSA), which is itself an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) – to complement the conversation at this Islamic outreach program. The MB is a religiopolitical organization, founded in 1928 to carry on the work of Muhammad, to advocate the application of Islamic law (sharia) in all aspects of society – and in every society on the globe. This is Hijra, conquest by population, and this is why they’re here.
This T-time would not be a Muslim outreach for socialization and assimilation, to engage their Christian neighbors and ease the adjustment of the incoming migrants into American life. They have not come to learn because they already know far more about us than we know about them, their ideology and their purpose. They have come to leave their spiritual mark on our Territory, on the church itself, because, according to Muhammad, now that they have set foot on this place, it is Theirs. There will be no need for war and bloodshed if they can convince these church folks that their religions are similar, that they believe in the same god, and that these kafirs (non-Muslims) will eventually make a peaceful Transition to worship Allah. A 2017 study revealed that Islam is the fastest-growing religion, primarily due to the young age and high fertility rate of Muslims. and conversion must be maintained to equal the rate of apostasy – desertion of the faith – which calls for the penalty of death.
When the Target country is too daunting for military conquest, a peaceful stealth operation may be employed to disable a population. In Leo Hohmann’s Stealth Invasion, the author reminds us that Muhammad’s unarmed warriors (men, women and children), come as legal refugees on air-conditioned planes, as legal guest workers, legal green-card holders, legal students, legal entrepreneurs, and legal professors and preachers. They will implement secret trade deals and mass immigration policies that will inevitably erode national sovereignty, divide national populations against each other, and cause civil strife, as well as inflict small increments of pressure for accommodation as we slowly adjust our lives to comply and adapt.
They live among us and donate to Muslim charities – particularly to the sixth pillar of jihad as directed by the Koran – and absorb the prescribed messages of behavior instilled at the five-times-daily prayer times in the mosques. These are the local businessmen, laborers, and parents who encourage their children to advocate the BDS (boycott-divestment-sanctions) movement in the hope of triggering Israel’s economic collapse, to restrict Jewish students’ educational rights and opportunities, and to harass and cause physical harm to the students who support Israel.
They are our neighbors who have suddenly purchased land that accommodates a mosque that far exceeds the size required for a Muslim community its current size, who demand special considerations for their children in school, halal foods in local food establishments, particular accommodations in the workplace, extra swim time for their women only at the local pool, and distinct laws in the courtrooms. They are our neighbors who run for local office – perhaps city council or school board – and make gradual, acceptable changes to the rules, the laws, the textbooks; the teachers and professors who change the curriculum to denigrate Christianity and Judaism, America and Israel, and provide a propagandist education about Islam. They are the instructors who take the children on unauthorized field trips to the local mosque, invite imams to class to teach the Shahada (Muslim profession of faith and conversion) to replace the Pledge of Allegiance to America, and influence the girls to wear hijabs. These are the doctors who brazenly declare they will prescribe wrong medicines to Jewish patients or the pharmacist who may administer the next flu vaccination.
The flyers include literature that describe Muhammad as one of unblemished character, the perfect human being and role model, who surpassed all standards of human greatness, and the “founder of twenty terrestrial empires.” The truth, however, is completely defined as Hudna in the Koran, which sanctions the use of deception (taqiyyah) to negotiate peace treaties and break them with sudden violence and perpetual massacre until the unwary conquered fall. Within a year of Muhammad’s death, his followers used the tactics against the indigenous people from Spain to India. Despite the complicit left’s ability to keep us underinformed, there is a website, “Religionofpeace.com,” that updates the Islamic attacks since 9/11, the (27) countries, (1176) people injured and (734) killed, and (13) suicide blasts in August 2019 alone.
On Internet websites, Muhammad is considered a charismatic warrior, but charismatic also means persuasive, and persuasive may also mean threatening. He was a self-appointed Messenger of God who revolutionized Arabian warfare, implementing his messianic ideology, his scheme of supersessionism over Judaism and Christianity, holy war (jihad) against infidels and apostates) and martyrdom (shahada). And, If his charisma did not win over the other faiths, their scimitars were drawn, and remain the weapons so proudly displayed on the flag of the “Religion of Peace.” He introduced guerilla warfare and established a belief that everyone – men, women, and children – has an obligation to fight and spread Islam throughout Arabia, thereby changing Christian pacifistic thinking.
Beginning with only 314 combatants in 624 ce, he amassed 10,000 men with his assault on Mecca in 620, and 30,000 men and a 10,000-man cavalry by that year’s end, acquiring additional military equipment as booty and quickly becoming the fearsome, powerful warlord. He ordered the beheading of Medina’s 900 Jewish men in the town square and enslaved (or sold into slavery) their women and children. Terrorism ensured discipline and control over his forces, but he also offered a better pay scale with all the booty they could carry for bravery, and a deceitful promise of sexual paradise for a hero’s death. His legacy is the death of perhaps in excess of 900 million people over 1400 years (600 million Hindus alone!), dwarfing the deaths of the Black Plague, and bested only by malaria and influenza.
Among the statements usually presented at a T-event is that we all worship the same God. In Judaism, God uses Moses to deliver The Ten Commandments to establish the moral foundation for human behavior. If we were to sum up the basic ideals of Judaism and Christianity, it would be The Ethics of Reciprocity, known as The Golden Rule and expressed in the former as “that which is hateful unto you do not do to others,” in the latter as “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” In both religions, the focus is on ethical teachings, honesty, dignity and acts of kindness. Although stories of violence are told in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, they are lessons to be learned – not open-ended dictates. The violence was an occasional and regrettable necessity, but it never became a rule of life. Islam has no Golden Rule. It has severe sharia law, replete with painful subjugation and slavery. Mainstream Islamic law stipulates detailed regulations for the use of violence, including the use of corporal and capital punishment within the family or household, as well as when and against whom to wage war. Judaism’s laws are meant for Jews, not to be imposed on others; Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have spent massively to promote and inflict their ultra-conservative version of Islam worldwide. They come not to America to become Americans, but to make us Theirs.
Toward the end of T-time, it is customary to send an American convert-to-Islam to collect the written questions from the audience. After selecting and reading aloud the simpler queries, the leader graciously announces his apologies that they’ve run out of time. The guests are invited to visit a mosque in the future, avail themselves of the literature on the table, and call with any questions. They have been softened up for the kill. And, should any of the Brotherhood presenters be running for office, the face is now familiar and friendly, and the unfamiliar name suggests there is no threat. No Threat indeed.
By: Publius Huldah
Yes he does. The Federal Reserve System is collapsing due to the inherent instability of a monetary system, not based on gold & silver, but on the Fed’s “right” to create “money” out of thin air1 which it then lends to the US Treasury (and is added to the national debt),2 in order to fund the federal government’s massive, grotesquely unconstitutional, and out of control spending.
This process of allowing the Fed to create “money” out of thin air with nothing behind it has been going on since 1933, when the promise (set forth in §16 of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) to redeem Federal Reserve Notes in gold was revoked as to domestic holders;3 and culminated during 1971, when redemption of the Notes in gold to international holders was also suspended.4
Once the statutory promise to back Federal Reserve Notes with gold was rescinded, the sky was the limit on how much fiat “money” the Fed could create, lend to the US Treasury (and be added to the national debt), in order to fund still more massive, grotesquely unconstitutional, and out of control spending by the federal government.
Now we have reached the point where the federal deficits are so huge and increasing at such a furious pace that our entire fiat “money” financial system is coming apart.5
So what are we going to do about it? Does Trump want to get rid of the Fed so we can return to the constitutional money system described in Point 2 below?
Trump may say that he wants to return to the gold standard;6 but the USMCA “Trade Agreement” he signed doesn’t do that. The Globalists’ Plan, which is advanced by USMCA, is to ratchet up the fiat “money” system created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, from a national to a global level with a central bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing and enforcing an international monetary system. And as Edwin Vieira, Ph.D., J.D., warned 8 years ago [here]:
“The true perversity of the present situation lies in the indication … that this scheme for a new supra-national monetary order will be sold to a doubting world by attaching some sort of “gold standard” to it….”
The IMF is an institution in the United Nations system.
The IMF has already created (it was done during 1969), out of thin air, an international fiat currency called “special drawing right” (SDR). The stated purpose of SDRs was to increase liquidity in settling international accounts by making short term loans to member countries to cover their balance of payments, and other temporary financial problems.
USMCA Art. 33.1 shows that the IMF is to monitor our compliance with the IMF’s Articles of Agreement (please let that sink in).
USMCA Chapter 17. Financial Services harmonizes the Banking, Insurance, and Investment Practices of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. This harmonization removes previously existing barriers to global regulation of those areas and to merging regional currencies into a global currency.7
As anyone who reads USMCA can see, the purpose of USMCA is to remove barriers to global regulation of all the areas covered by USMCA, and to advance development of a new global “money” system which will replace our collapsing Federal Reserve System.
Look at the Table of Contents for USMCA: All those areas: agriculture, textiles and apparel goods, customs administration, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, telecommunications, intellectual property (patents), labor (which includes immigration and gender & sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace), the environment, etc., are to be made subject to global regulation.
And we exchange our fiat “money” for the IMF’s fiat “money”; the United States loses control over our monetary system; and the IMF, instead of the Fed, will manage the new monetary system – and our economy.
Trump may give grand speeches before the United Nations saying he opposes globalism and supports nationalism, but the USMCA “Trade Agreement” he signed moves us into global government.8
And the claim that USMCA is about getting favorable tariff agreements for the United States is the Biggest Lie since the Garden of Eden.
Our Framers created a Constitution which delegates only “few and defined” powers to the federal government. This one page chart lists those powers.
Accordingly, except for national defense, our federal government doesn’t need much money to fund its constitutional powers. So our Framers created a taxing system wherein the funds needed to operate the federal government were raised by the import tariffs and excise taxes authorized at Article I, §8, cl. 1, and by the apportioned direct assessments on the States authorized at Article I, §2, cl. 3.9
Congress is also authorized at Article I, §8, cl. 2, to borrow money on the credit of the United States; but our Framers intended borrowing money to be restricted to funding national defense.10
Our Framers also established a money system based on gold & silver:
Accordingly, during 1792, Congress passed an Act establishing a mint and set the standards for the amounts of gold and silver in our coins. Congress took so seriously the purity of our coins that §19 of the Act provided the death penalty for debasement of coins. During 1793, Congress passed an Act regulating the value of foreign coins.
A money system based on gold & silver and a limited taxing system were perfect for a federal government of “few and defined” powers. Furthermore, such systems – if adhered to – would have prevented the emergence of the totalitarian socialist regulatory welfare state we have today.
“…A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project…” James Madison, Federalist No. 10.
Why does Madison refer to paper money as an “improper or wicked project”? Because, among other evils, paper money provides governments with access to unlimited amounts of credit – and that is what was needed to finance the totalitarian socialist regulatory welfare state we have today.
When the Progressives12 took over our Country during the early 1900’s, they needed lots of “money” to fund their unconstitutional regulatory and “welfare” schemes. But the federal government didn’t have enough gold and silver coins to fund the regulatory welfare state they wanted. So the Federal Reserve System was created in 1913 to set up a central bank – the “Fed” – which (thanks to fractional reserve banking) would have the power to supply the federal government with the “money” it wanted.13
So it was access to this credit which enabled the federal government to exceed its constitutional limits.
With this easy credit, the federal government was enabled to “buy” the States by giving them fiat “money” to implement unconstitutional federal programs: State governments literally sold the retained powers of the States and the People to the federal government. A particularly malignant example is U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s “Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act of 2019” (“red flag” law), which appropriates $20 Million for each of FY 2019-2023 to pay to States and Indian Tribes which pass the “red flag” legislation set forth in Rubio’s bill. If a Respondent, whose arms have been taken from him in an ex parte hearing [i.e., a hearing Respondent wasn’t notified about until after the Order had been issued to seize his arms], wants his arms back, he must prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that he does not pose a significant danger of causing personal injury to himself or others by having arms in his possession.
Rubio’s bill puts the burden of proof on the Respondent. For eons in Anglo/American Jurisprudence, it has been the task of the government to PROVE GUILT. But Rubio would reverse that and require Respondents to PROVE THEIR INNOCENCE. This is evil.
Rubio’s bill is also unconstitutional as outside the scope of powers delegated to the federal government; and it violates the “Privileges and Immunities clause of Article IV, §2; violates the 2nd Amendment; and violates the “due process” clauses of the 5th Amendment and §1 of the 14th Amendment.
How many States and Indian Tribes will surrender their Citizen’s Right to THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE by passing Rubio’s “red flag” law in order to get the “money” from the fed gov’t?14
If we had preserved the monetary system set up by our Constitution, the federal government wouldn’t have been able to become the totalitarian monster it is today. If you want a limited government, don’t give it unlimited “money”.
In Part 4 of his “A CROSS OF GOLD” series at sub point [3] and in Part 5, Dr. Edwin Vieira shows how States can protect their Citizens from disaster by setting up an alternative gold currency.
The Tenth Amendment Center has model legislation for States to take some steps in the right direction: See THIS under the heading, “End the Fed from the Bottom Up”.
Open your eyes, Americans. Time is running out.
End Notes:
1 See excerpt from testimony before Congress on Sep. 30, 1941 by the then Governor of the Fed.
2 Robert P. Murphy, Is Our Money Based on Debt?
3 HERE is the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. §16 promised redemption of the Federal Reserve Notes in gold. During 1935, §16 was amended to remove that promise: HERE is the amendment, codified as 12 USC §411.
4 See 31 USC §5118.
6 The quiet campaign to reinstate the gold standard is getting louder
7 See Joan Veon HERE:
“Globalization is the process of breaking through the protective barriers designed to separate the nation-states from the world system. Between 1944 and 2008 [Bretton Woods I & Bretton Woods II] all the nation-state barriers have been removed with exception of the national regulatory laws governing financial institutions, insurance companies, mortgages, and Wall Street. The real purpose of BWII is to establish the framework for a global regulatory system. This also presents the possibility of merging all regional currencies into a global currency.” [italics added] You can also see her video HERE.
8 See: USMCA and the Quest for a North American Union and The USMCA “Trade Agreement” violates our Constitution and sets up Global Government.
9 HERE is the Act of 1813 where Congress laid a direct tax of $3 Million upon the United States. It shows how Congress apportioned the tax (based on population) as required by Art. I, Sec. 2, cl. 3. (See page 93 of the linked pdf edition.)
10 In Federalist No. 41 (5th para up from bottom), Madison says:
“The power of levying and borrowing money, being the sinew of that which is to be exerted in the national defense, is properly thrown into the same class with it. This power, also, has been examined already with much attention, and has, I trust, been clearly shown to be necessary, both in the extent and form given to it by the Constitution. …”
11 Congress is not authorized to create paper money. In “A CROSS OF GOLD”, Dr. Edwin Vieira says:
[at Part 2]: “…America’s Founding Fathers, realists all, denominated redeemable paper currency as “bills of credit”. They knew that such bills’ values in gold or silver always depended upon the issuers’ credit—that is, ultimately, the issuers’ honesty and ability to manage their financial affairs.…” [boldface added]
[at Part 3]: “…every form of “redeemable currency” put out through the Federal Reserve System is, by definition, a governmental “bill of credit”, which Congress has no authority to emit, directly or indirectly.” [boldface added]
When, in 1933, the promise to redeem Federal Reserve Notes in gold was repudiated, the federal government dishonored their “bills of credit”. We should have listened to our Founding Fathers.
12 In the 1880’s, the Fabian Society was founded in England. Fabians advocate a gradual transition to socialism [as opposed to violent revolution]. They also hold that the elite – and they are the elite – should run everything [as opposed to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.] In the early 1900’s, Fabians took over our Country – here they went by the name, “Progressives”. Teddy Roosevelt & Woodrow Wilson were Progressives; and the Fabian socialist ideology has dominated our Country ever since.
13 For an education in the basics of the Fed, fractional reserve banking, and the creation of “money”, see Robert P. Murphy’s article at end notes 1 & 2; and Dr. Edwin Vieira’s fascinating explanations of these issues in his “A CROSS OF GOLD” series HERE. Dr. Vieira also shows why we must not accept a new global fiat currency and central bank to replace the collapsing Federal Reserve System.
14 And all that money used to bribe States and Indian Tribes to pass Rubio’s “red flag” law, will be added to the national debt.
Farm subsidies are perhaps the ultimate, but secret, third rail of American politics. While entitlements are discussed out in the open, farm subsidies are rarely talked about – even though they are the most expensive subsidy Washington doles out.
All told, the U.S. government spends $20 billion annually on farm subsidies, with approximately 39 percent of all farms receiving some sort of subsidy. For comparison, the oil industry gets about $4.6 billion annually and annual housing subsidies total another $15 billion. A significant portion of this $20 billion goes not to your local family farm, but to Big Aggie.
(Note that this $20 billion annual farm subsidy figure doesn’t take into account the 30+ years of ethanol subsidies to the corn industry nor export subsidies to U.S. farmers issued by the USDA.)
The government never properly explains why this is. Certainly small farmers are growing their crops at enormous risk. However, it’s not clear that agriculture is any different than other high-risk industries – especially because the United States is blessed with some of the most fertile farmland in the world, and a highly skilled labor force.
Subsidies don’t just cost taxpayers, an expense that might properly be justified by showing a return on investment. Subsidies also provide powerful disincentives against innovation, as well as cost effectiveness and diversification of land use.
There is also a strong case to be made that farm subsidies are a major driver of the obesity and cancer epidemic in the United States. Every time Washington interferes in the private sector, they are picking winners and losers. The winners chosen are companies producing food that’s high in calories and low in nutritional density – and that helps make Americans sick and fat, because it distorts what food is available at what price.
While President Trump has sometimes discussed reducing farm subsidies, the solution to the problem is much more radical – the total elimination of all farm subsidies from the federal budget.
There have long been federal programs in the United States propping up the agricultural sector. For example, the Morrill Act of 1862 established land-grant universities with a focus on agricultural education. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 similarly provided funding for agricultural education.
The first program similar to the farm subsidies of today was the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916. This still exists in the form of the Farm Credit System, which currently holds $280 billion in assets. This Act came out of a study done by progressive Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. At this time, rural Americans made up the bulk of the United States’ population.
The Act allowed farmers to borrow 50 percent of the value of their land and 20 percent of the value of their improvements. Loans were available between $100 and $10,000 and amortized between five and 40 years. It was intended to provide poor farmers with an alternative source of credit from large banks. The successor of this Act, the Farm Credit System, currently provides approximately a third of the credit in rural America.
As with many other aspects of American economic life, farming changed with the advent of the Great Depression and the New Deal, which, at least it was argued, sought to minimize the impact of the worst parts of the Depression.
The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 was passed on the watch of Republican President Herbert Hoover, widely blamed for the Depression and maligned as having “done nothing” to protect Americans from it. This Act created the Federal Farm Board, which was itself a modification of the Federal Farm Loan Board.
Hoover believed that he could halt the collapse of agricultural prices by buying, selling and storing surplus grains. Another method to prevent the collapse was to lend to farmers on generous terms. Farmers used the loans to purchase seed and feed. This was particularly important in the South, where farmers were just getting over a drought.
This had a very predictable effect: Farmers began raising more crops than they knew they could sell. They knew the government would buy whatever they produced, and the bill contained no production limit. Deflation was not countered and the Depression worsened for American farmers. The federal government spent $500 million before the program was abolished in 1933.
The real expansion of federal subsidies for the American farmer began under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Programs enacted under FDR’s New Deal included price supports for commodities, regulations on the supply of farm commodities, barriers to prevent importation of farm commodities, and crop insurance programs. These programs, while modified and greatly expanded, form the basis of current federal farm policy. There is no other way to describe this than central planning.
The first major program passed by FDR as part of the New Deal was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. This was the somewhat infamous program that had the government paying farmers to not plant crops, to dump out milk and the like when people were going hungry in the streets. Not only did it look bad, it was also declared unconstitutional in 1936, in the United States v. Butler case, on the grounds that the Constitution made agricultural regulations a state matter. This was in the ancient days, when the Supreme Court declared acts unconstitutional when the Constitution did not authorize them to do so.
The first replacement was the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936. This paid farmers to plant fewer crops on the basis that it was preventing topsoil erosion. A more straightforward replacement, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, preserved many of the earlier provisions of its 1933 cousin, and was passed at a time when the Supreme Court was more amenable to the wishes of President Roosevelt following his proposed threat to pack the court with up to 15 judges. This new version of the Agricultural Adjustment Act mandated price supports for broad sections of American agriculture. When challenged in court, the Supreme Court ultimately upheld it under (what else) the commerce clause.
Commodity price and income supports are now a staple in the federal budget. But what does the money go toward?
Farm subsidies are often painted as the last refuge of the American small farmer. But even a close examination of where farm subsidies go reveals that nothing could be further from the truth. The 10 largest recipients of aid receive between $14 million and $23.7 million, averaging $18.2 million, or approximately $1.8 million per year for what are giant agricultural combines. Part of this is a deliberate result of United States agricultural policy – after the Second World War, farmers were told to “get big or get out.”
Let’s look at some startling facts about U.S. farm subsidies:
All of this adds up to underscore the true nature of America’s food subsidy system: It’s a massive welfare program directed at the rich and affluent, which artificially distorts food prices for everyone.
Perhaps worst of all, the massive farm subsidies aren’t keeping people out of debt. American farmer debt currently stands at $409 billion. Wheat is receiving $45.9 billion in subsidies while corn is getting $112 billion. Farmers received $12 billion in aid from the Trump Administration to help hedge against potential losses from the trade war with China. While it’s difficult to say to what extent any of this is vote-buying, it is worth noting that Iowa is the second-largest recipient of USDA subsidies, only slightly behind Texas.
But if the story here were simply one of government largesse, this would be a very short article, indeed. The story is much deeper, and goes to the heart of health and wellness in the United States.
The subsidy system might have had its problems, but the system really went off the rails with the advent of Earl Butz as Secretary of Agriculture under both President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford. He was the one who pioneered the fundamental change in farm subsidies. No longer would farmers be paid to take fields out of production. Instead they would be paid for producing absolutely insane amounts of corn.
He was the man who coined the term “get big or get out.” He also urged farmers to use every available square inch of land – to plant “from fence post to fence post.” This change in policy had a dramatic impact on the world of American agriculture. Small family farms were crushed and big agribusiness became the norm rather than the exception.
Part of the change was due to the high cost of food during the early 1970’s. The Nixon Administration (and thus, Butz) were taking heat over soaring food prices. Thus, Butz decided to switch from paying people not to grow food to paying them to grow it. He brokered the sale of 30 million tons of grain to the Soviet Union to keep prices afloat. This was not simply to help farmers, but also to keep them in the Nixon fold – there was a strong fear that they would vote for 1972 Democratic Party candidate George McGovern.
Butz argues in the documentary King Corn that he provided a valuable service to both the American consumer and the American farmer: both the dramatic reduction of the cost per calorie of food and also the dramatic increase in the efficiency of farming techniques. Indeed, this generation spends less feeding itself than any other in human history.
Still, as we will discuss in greater detail below, one of the unintended side effects of the newly crowned “King Corn” was the development of high fructose corn syrup – the consequences of which have been a disaster for the American diet.
Everyone is familiar with the food pyramid, the alleged template for a healthy diet produced by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1992. The original Food Pyramid urged Americans to eat as many as 11 servings of carbs per day, in addition to another four servings of fruit (i.e., more carbs). Meat, poultry, eggs, fish, beans and nuts were to total only two to three servings per day between all of them.
Fats – even healthy ones like avocados and olive oil – were to be “used sparingly.” They were lumped into the same group as sugars and sugary snacks. Healthy plant-based oils like olive or avocado oil were not separated from less healthy processed plant-based oils like canola or corn oil.
The USDA’s latest version of the Food Pyramid is known as MyPlate, and some insight into how it was created and what purpose it serves can be found with the previous pyramid (the Eating Right Pyramid) and why it was discontinued. The Eating Right Pyramid, the original Food Pyramid, was replaced due to industry concerns from beef and poultry farmers that their product was not being presented properly.
An alternative to MyPlate is the Healthy Eating Plate from the Harvard School of Public Health. This stresses whole grains, healthy proteins and fats, drinking water and other sugar-free drinks, and adequate amounts of vegetables.
Harvard School of Public Health Department of Nutrition Chair Walter Willett claimed that, “like the earlier U.S. Department of Agriculture pyramids, MyPlate mixes science with the influence of powerful agricultural interests, which is not the recipe for healthy eating”.
Dr. Marion Nestle, former chair of the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University stated that, “There’s a great deal of money at stake in what these guidelines say.”
A lot of money is in the subsidies themselves, but there is also a trickle-down effect. Cheap corn, for example, has totally changed the world of agriculture and food. Cows never ate corn until farmers started getting money to grow it everywhere. This is what makes the 99-cent hamburger possible. Fish, likewise, are another animal that would never eat corn if left to its own devices, but humans have trained them to eat corn because it is arguably the world’s cheapest and most plentiful food source – not due to naturally occurring market forces, but because of corn subsidies.
If you’re horrified by factory farming – the penning in of tons of cows, pigs and other animals in tiny spaces – you can lay the blame right at the feet of farm subsidies. Such practices are simply not economically viable or sustainable without massive subsidies or corn. Ethanol is another creation of the agriculture-industrial complex.
The bottom line is that the USDA Food Pyramid and its antecedents and successors have more to do with feeding money into the agricultural system – where the subsidies are – than it does with teaching Americans proper nutrition.
Corn subsidies are big business in the United States, and this can be seen in the explosion of a simple ingredient now found in everything from soda pop to hot dogs – high fructose corn syrup, also known as HFCS.
Between the development of HFCS in 1970 and 1990, the consumption of HFCS skyrocketed by 1,000 percent. It’s not just that HFCS is in just about everything. It’s also that HFCS makes a number of things possible that otherwise wouldn’t be – think the now ubiquitous 99-cent three-liter bottle of soda pop available at every big-box supermarket around the country.
The New York Times reported that junk food is the largest source of calories in the United States. The top 10 calorie sources in the United States are, according to Harvard Medical School:
This means that at least four out of the 10 top calorie sources in the American diet are junk food. Most of them are based on ingredients from highly subsidized food groups like corn, soybeans, wheat, and rice. Barely any subsidies exist for fruit and vegetables, the foods that Americans are ostensibly supposed to fill half of their plates with.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in JAMA Internal Medicine in August 2016, was able to document a connection between heavily subsidized food sources and obesity. The study found that those subsisting on a diet of heavily subsidized foods were 37 percent more likely to be obese than those who did not. Belly fat, abnormal cholesterol, and high blood sugar levels were likewise linked to a diet heavy in foods subsidized by the federal government.
Fruits and vegetables are called, in a typical act of government doublespeak, “specialty crops.” They claim approximately 75 percent of all farmland in the United States, but net a scant 14 percent of all subsidies. These are primarily grown by small family farmers. Some subsidy bills stipulate that farms receiving subsidies for commodity crops like corn and wheat cannot grow “specialty crops.”
Meat, in particular red meat, has long been maligned as a source of unhealthy calories. However, the Paleo movement, the low-carb movement, and the extreme carnivore diet movement have all championed meat, in particular red meat, as the healthiest thing you can possibly eat. Most health conscious people these days are, at the very least, avoiding simple sugars and opting for healthy complex carbohydrates in their diet, if not drastically reducing the number of calories they get from carbs.
Whether or not carbs are good for you or not is a source of continued debate, and largely centers around which carbs and how much of them. Likewise, dairy is enjoying a renaissance among people who tout the health benefits of whole milk and raw milk.
Taxing meat in the manner of cigarettes and sugar, however, is becoming an increasingly mainstream idea. The proposal is linked not just to a desire to exert even more control over what Americans eat, but also with (of course) carbon emissions and saving the environment.
Beyond the simple fact that a tax on meat would be yet another example of government overreach, there are other problems with a meat tax. It is also based on a subjective and dubious interpretation of the effects of meat on both the environment and on personal health. Such a tax would, like existing taxes on sugar and tobacco products, disproportionately impact the poorest Americans.
Given the poor job that the United States Department of Agriculture has done with attempting to dictate what people eat with the Food Pyramid, it’s unlikely that they’re going to hit pay-dirt with a meat tax.
The consequences of subsidies are far reaching when one considers the correlation with obesity. While tobacco use is responsible for one-third of all cancer cases, obesity is considered responsible for another third. Put more directly, there is a health epidemic in the United States similar to tobacco, but rather than a public campaign against it, it’s subsidized by the federal government.
This is what led a presidential report commission on cancer to attack food subsidies in much the same way that it did tobacco.
There is another aspect to subsidizing unhealthy food, which will become increasingly expensive: healthcare. As the federal government creeps more into healthcare, the more you and other taxpayers will be subsidizing (again) by paying for treatments for those who are clinically obese, diabetic, or otherwise unhealthy from the nutrient-poor foods promoted by the United States government through its subsidies. This creates a maniac cycle, whereby the federal government subsidizes foods that make people sick and fat, then subsidizes the healthcare of sick and fat people. In all likelihood, this will all be paid for disproportionately by people who are neither sick nor fat.
It’s important to point out that more government intervention, in the form of taxation or subsidizing “healthy” (according to some) foods, is not the answer – it’s the problem. Subsidies and other government handouts are invariably shaped by those with the most political influence. The ultimate programs always bear little resemblance to how they are touting through what are effectively PR campaigns in the nominally independent media.
In the age of digital media, it has never been easier for the average person to learn what they need to know about feeding themselves and their family in the most healthy way possible. Government subsidies are not required for this and, as we have shown, have very much the opposite impact on public health. It is time for a revolution in the world of food subsidies – one of drastic reduction and ultimately the elimination of these wasteful and counterproductive programs.
By: T F Stern | Self-Educated American
Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave these last few months then one of the topics being talked about is how Congress has been involved in trying to impeach President Trump for an as yet imprecise violation of law that would fit the definition of high crimes worthy of removal from office.
Before going into any of the details put forth by those making a mockery of our system of justice; try to define, in such a way that Noah Webster’s dictionary will, in some way, validate your idea of Truth. Is truth a collection of facts, observations or the result of beliefs which fit your opinion; exactly what is the truth?
The other night there was a movie on, Absence of Malice, which got my attention as it presented a believable scenario showing how Truth is obtained or perceived. There’s a short synopsis available at Wikiquote’s page; “…a film about the son of a deceased criminal who awakes one day to find himself a front-page story in the local newspaper, incorrectly indicating that he is being investigated in the murder of a local longshoreman union official.”
That short statement really doesn’t explain enough about the film. It fails to identify that the story that made its way into the newspaper was due to an intentional leaking of information by a government official to a reporter looking to find a good story, and, since the information being leaked came from a supposedly reliable source, it must be true.
As the movie unfolded, having seen it many years ago, the idea occurred to me that current political events could have easily been used as a backdrop for the story; but I’m getting ahead of myself…
The main character, played by Paul Newman, confronted the reporter, played by Sally Field, who had basically destroyed his business and ability to mingle in society. She attempted to justify her actions as ‘just doing her job’; but he tells her, “…You don’t write the truth. You write what people say. What you overhear, you eavesdrop. You don’t come across truth that easy.”
The news media doesn’t have to prove anything they print or share, as the movie’s newsroom editor explained, “…That as a matter of law, the truth is irrelevant. We have no knowledge the story is false, therefore we’re absent malice. We’ve been both reasonable and prudent, therefore we’re not negligent.”
Isn’t that how Congress has been moving forward with its investigation of President Trump? They let stories leak to the media, a media that has already proven it’s really nothing more than a propaganda machine for leftist politicians, constantly inundating the public with half-truths, innuendo and presumptions based on what some have properly called ‘Nothing Burgers’. A lie told often enough becomes the same as truth to a gullible public.
But; all their sources are reliable. Reminds me of Marc Anthony referring to Caesar’s accusers as Honorable Men…Yes, our sources are all reliable. As far as Congress is concerned, all of their sources are pure with no axes to grind; a few knives to jab President Trump in the back perhaps, but no axes to grind.
As we’re finding out through multiple sources, other than the main stream media outlets, the reliable sources sharing dirt on President Trump just happen to be associated with the Democrat Party, their failed attempt to get Hillary Clinton elected to the Oval Office and the never-ending attempt to remove a duly elected President from office.
If Congress really was looking for truth then it would have been investigating the top most leaders in the Democrat Party, those who have been running a criminal enterprise for several years proving that they are above the law. Don’t quote me on that; the only reliable sources to validate such an incredulous statement are from conservative pundits; but at the same time, I’m free to make that statement since I can prove… absence of malice.
Discovered by Biff Spackle (@BiffSpackle on Twitter)
Name [will be held absolutely confidential until it’s necessary we leak it]:
Email address:
Cell number:
Type of Complaint:
Note: if the nature of your complaint has to do with Trump’s tweets, please use form TDS-69.9)
Trump executed Muslims and put alligators in the Rio Grande to bite border-crossers
I am repulsed by Trump’s tweets
I’d like to find a way to stop Trump, can you connect me with a New York Times reporter
Adam Schiff is an inspiration, I would like to help him however I can
Orange Man Bad
Trump is investigating the origins of the 2016 Russia hoax
I’ll come up with something, trust me
Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the media?
Yes
Yes
Are you, or have you ever been, a Democrat member of Congress or a Staffer in Congress?
Yes
Maybe
Are you a firsthand witness to the acts described in the complaint?
As far as you know
Maybe
No, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night
Sure
Loyalty Test #1:
If Trump Were drowning in a swimming pool and you could jump in and rescue him, would you?
I would jump in with large rocks and place them in his shorts
I would wave goodbye while whispering ‘buh by’
I would call 9-1-1
I would call 4-1-1
None of the above
What is your party affiliation?
Democrat Party
Green Party
Communist Party
All of the above
How did you first become aware of the complaint?
I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend
I leaked it to The New York Times, and they reported it, so I could cite it in my complaint
Adam Schiff told me, verbatim, what the President said and did
I received an encrypted email from John Brennan, who seems very anxious of late
During the course of doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, the conspiracy became obvious to me
Loyalty Test #2:
Hillary’s deleted emails were
A national scandal
About yoga workouts
About Huma’s yoga workouts
About Chelsea’s yoga workouts to prepare for her wedding
What deleted emails?
When Donald Trump won in 2016, what was your first reaction?
I knitted a pussyhat
I screamed at the sky
I started shredding documents
I called James Comey and asked him what to do about our failed coup attempt
I began plotting his impeachment
If Biden Warren Clinton were to win in 2020, would you ever file a whistleblower complaint against that administration?
No
Hell, no
I’m with her
Under penalty of running afoul of AOC, Tlaib, Omar, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler, I assert that the prior answers are truthful to the best of my knowledge, so help me Gaia.
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