At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist.
The Republican Jewish Coalition is the same organization that recently hired former Sen. Norm Coleman. Bachmann’s appearance on Feb.1 is part of a whirlwind of national events for Bachmann in February. Next up: she’s keynoting the Take Back Washington North Dakota event in Bismarck this Friday night.

Here’s a transcript of some of her remarks at the RJC event:

I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.

Right now in my own private Bible time, I am working through Isaiah . . . and there is continually a coming back to what God gave to Israel initially, which was the Torah and the Ten Commandments, and I have a wonderful quote from John Adams that if you will indulge me [while I find it] . . . [from his February 16, 1809 letter to François Adriaan van der Kemp]:

I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

. . . So that is a very long way to answer your question, but I believe that an explicit statement from us about our support for Israel as tied to American security, we would do well to do that.

City Council Meetings to Begin with Muslim Prayers

In the wake of the battle over a mosque at Ground Zero, a move by the Hartford City Councilis sure to have its critics.

The Council announced Tuesday that it has invited local imams to perform Islamic invocations at the beginning of the Council meetings in September.

An e-mail from the Common Council called it "an act of solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters."

The email even referenced the ongoing issue in New York. "One of the goals of the Council is to give a voice to the many diverse peoples of the City, which is especially important given the recent anti-Islam events throughout the country."

Council President rJo Winch called it an important move for the Council.

"I feel it is very important that, as a Council, we project a culture of inclusiveness in the City of Hartford. Too often it is our differences that divide us. In my opinion, it is our combination of differences that makes us strong," Winch said.

On Facebook, Council Minority Leader Luis Cotto wrote: "We start every single council meeting with a prayer. 99% of the prayers are Christian based, and in three years I recall one Rabbi coming through."

PARIS – Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force.

This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene.
It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts of the French government continue to give Islam a privileged status.

An ordinary French citizen who has been watching the Islamization of Paris decided that the world needed to see what was happening to his city. He used a hidden camera to start posting videos on YouTube. His life has been threatened and so he uses the alias of “Maxime Lepante. ”

This is chilling... In 1952, President Truman established one day a year as a National Day of Prayer.

In 1988, President Reagan designated the First Thursday in May of each year as the National Day of Prayer.

In June 2007, Presidential Candidate Barack Obama declared that the USA was no longer a Christian nation.

This year, President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House under the ruse of "not wanting to offend anyone."

On September 25, 2009 from 4 am until 7 pm, a National Day of Prayer for the ISLAM was held on Capitol Hill, beside the White House.

There were over 50,000 Muslims that day in D.C.



HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS! (no surprise here....)

It doesn't matter if "Christians" are offended by this event. We obviously don't count as "anyone" anymore. The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim religion believes that if Christians cannot be converted, they should be annihilated.

This is not a Rumor ...

The words of 2 Chronicles 7:14
"If my people, Who are called by my Name,
Will humble themselves And pray,
And seek my face, and Turn from their Wicked ways,
Then will I hear from Heaven
And will forgive their Sin and will heal Their land."

We must pray for Our nation, our communities,
Our families, and especially our children.
They are the ones who are going to suffer the most.

If we don't PRAY
May God have Mercy.

IN GOD WE TRUST.

PEACE BE UPON YOU

The objective of this gathering is to invite the Muslim Communities and friends of Islam to express and illustrate the wonderful diversity of Islam. We intend to manifest Islam's majestic spiritual principals as revealed by Allah to our beloved prophet Muhammad (PBUH) of Arabia. Likewise; we intend to inspire a new generation of Muslim to work for the greater good of all people. We shall serve all people, regardless of race, religion or national origin.

Matthew 24:24 (King James Version)

24For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Tammy wrote:So what does a person do? Money is know longer any good but you can't have gold and silver. I really don't think having foreign currencies will help if this is a global collapse. So how do you pay for things?

Adoration wrote:If what Chang is saying is correct (and I assume it is, from all the research and articles I've read), I'm amazed this government can continue to prop itself up and continue the charade.

Here's the million dollar question: What will the final straw be before the bank-runs and laws on restricting your money all-together happen? People have predicted it incorrectly since 2007, each year saying the currency would fail, martial law would be in place, etc. None of this has happened...yet.

I'm waiting to read what these financier's think is the end game, and even more importantly...with all that's in place, WHY aren't we there yet? What is keeping this charade up and running?

Death By Globalism—Economists Haven’t A Clue

By Paul Craig Roberts

Have economists made themselves irrelevant? If you have any doubts, have a look at the current issue of the magazine, International Economy, a slick endorsed by former Federal Reserve chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, by Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, by former Secretary of State George Shultz, and by the New York Times and Washington Post, both of which declare the magazine to be “ahead of the curve.”

The main feature of the current issue is “The Great Stimulus Debate” [PDF] Is the Obama fiscal stimulus helping the economy or hindering it?

Princeton economics professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman [Email him] and Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi [Email him] represent the Keynesian view that government deficit spending is needed to lift the economy out of recession. Zandi declares that thanks to the fiscal stimulus, “The economy has made enormous progress since early 2009″[PDF], an opinion shared by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and the Congressional Budget Office.

The opposite view, associated with Harvard economics professor Robert Barro and with European economists, such as Francesco Giavazzi and Marco Pagano and the European Central Bank, is that government budget surpluses achieved by cutting government spending spur the economy by reducing the ratio of debt to Gross Domestic Product.

This is the “let them eat cake” school of economics.

Barro says that fiscal stimulus has no effect, because people anticipate the future tax increases implied by government deficits and increase their personal savings to offset the added government debt. Giavazzi and Pagano reason that, since fiscal stimulus does not expand the economy, fiscal austerity consisting of higher taxes and reduced government spending could be the cure for unemployment.

If one overlooks the real world and the need of life for sustenance, one can become engrossed in this debate. However, the minute one looks out the window upon the world, one realizes that cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and housing subsidies when 15 million Americans have lost jobs, medical coverage, and homes is a certain path to death by starvation, curable diseases, and exposure, and the loss of the productive labor inputs from 15 million people. Although some proponents of this anti-Keynesian policy deny that it results in social upheaval, Gerald Celente’s observation is closer to the mark: “When people have nothing left to lose, they lose it.”

The Krugman Keynesian school is just as deluded. Neither side in “The Great Stimulus Debate” has a clue that the problem for the U.S. is that a large chunk of U.S. GDP and the jobs, incomes, and careers associated with it, have been moved offshore and given to Chinese, Indians, and others with low wage rates. Profits have soared on Wall Street, while job prospects for the middle class have been eliminated.

The offshoring of American jobs resulted from (1) Wall Street pressures for “higher shareholder returns”, that is, for more profits, and from (2) no-think economists, such as the ones engaged in the debate over fiscal stimulus, who mistakenly associated globalism with free trade instead of with its antithesis—the pursuit of lowest factor cost abroad or absolute advantage, the opposite of comparative advantage, which is the basis for free trade theory. Even Krugman, who has some credentials as a trade theorist, has fallen for the equation of globalism with free trade.

As economists assume, incorrectly according to the latest trade theory by Ralph Gomory and William Baumol, that free trade is always mutually beneficial, economists have failed to examine the devastatingly harmful effects of offshoring. The more intelligent among them who point it out are dismissed as “protectionists.”

The reason fiscal stimulus cannot rescue the U.S. economy has nothing to do with the difference between Barro and Krugman. It has to do with the fact that a large percentage of high-productivity, high-value-added jobs and the middle class incomes and careers associated with them have been given to foreigners. What used to be U.S. GDP is now Chinese, Indian, and other country GDP.

When the jobs have been shipped overseas, fiscal stimulus does not call workers back to work in order to meet the rising consumer demand. If fiscal stimulus has any effect, it stimulates employment in China and India.

The “let them eat cake school” is equally off the mark. As investment, research, development, etc., have been moved offshore, cutting entitlements simply drives the domestic population deeper in the ground. Americans cannot pay their mortgages, car payments, tuition, utility bills, or for that matter, any bill, based on Chinese and Indian pay scales. Therefore, Americans are priced out of the labor market and become dependencies of the federal budget. “Fiscal consolidation” means writing off large numbers of humans.

During the Great Depression, many wage and salary earners were new members of the labor force arriving from family farms, where many parents and grandparents still supported themselves. When their city jobs disappeared, many could return to the farm.

Today farming is in the hands of agribusiness. There are no farms to which the unemployed can return.

The “let them eat cake school” never mentions the one point in its favor. The U.S., with all its huffed up power and importance, depends on the U.S. dollar as reserve currency. It is this role of the dollar that allows America to pay for its imports in its own currency.

For a country whose trade is as unbalanced as America’s, this privilege is what keeps the country afloat.

The threats to the dollar’s role are the budget and trade deficits. Both are so large and have accumulated for so long that the prospect of making good on them has evaporated. As I have written for a number of years, the U.S. is so dependent on the dollar as reserve currency that it must have as its main policy goal to preserve that role.

Otherwise, the U.S., an import-dependent country, will be unable to pay for its excess of imports over its exports.

“Fiscal consolidation,” the new term for austerity, could save the dollar. However, unless starvation, homelessness and social upheaval are the goals, the austerity must fall on the military budget.

America cannot afford its multi-trillion dollar wars that serve only to enrich those invested in the armaments industries. The U.S. cannot afford the neoconservative dream of world hegemony and a conquered Middle East open to Israeli colonization.

Is anyone surprised that not a single proponent of the “let them eat cake school” mentions cutting military spending? Entitlements, despite the fact that they are paid for by earmarked taxes and have been in surplus since the Reagan administration, are always what economists put on the chopping block.

Where do the two schools stand on inflation vs. deflation? We don’t have to worry. Martin Feldstein, [Email him] one of America’s pre-eminent economists, says: “The good news…is that investors should worry about neither.” His explanation epitomizes the insouciance of American economists.

Feldstein says that there cannot be inflation because of the high rate of unemployment and the low rate of capacity utilization. Thus, “there is little upward pressure on wages and prices in the United States.” Moreover, “the recent rise in the value of the dollar relative to the euro and British pound helps by reducing import costs.”

As for deflation, no risk there either. The huge deficits prevent deflation, “so the good news is that the possibility of significant inflation or deflation during the next few years is low on the list of economic risks faced by the U.S. economy and by financial investors.”

What we have in front of us is an unaware economics profession. There may be some initial period of deflation as stock and housing prices decline with the economy, which is headed down and not up. The deflation will be short lived, because as the government’s deficit rises with the declining economy, the prospect of financing a $2 trillion annual deficit evaporates once individual investors have completed their flight from the stock market into “safe” government bonds, once the hyped Greek, Spanish, and Irish crises have driven investors out of Euros into dollars, and once the banks’ excess reserves created by the bailout have been used up in the purchase of Treasuries.

Then what finances the deficit? Don’t look for an answer from either side of The Great Stimulus Debate. They haven’t a clue—despite the fact that the answer is obvious.

The Federal Reserve will monetize the federal government deficit. The result will be high inflation, possibly hyper-inflation and high unemployment simultaneously.

The no-think economics establishment has no policy response for economic Armageddon, assuming they are even capable of recognizing it.

Economists who have spent their professional lives rationalizing “globalism” as good for America have no idea of the disaster that they have wrought.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

Recalls of prescription and over the counter drugs are surging in the U.S. The FDA reported more than 1,700 recalls last year, compared to less than 430 in 2008.

One single company, drug repackager Advantage Dose, accounted for more than 1,000 of those recalls. But even excluding Advantage Dose, recalls jumped 50 percent last year.

CNN reports:

“The fast pace of drug recalls seems to be continuing in 2010 ... High-profile recalls of Tylenol and other products ... have drawn attention to quality concerns in manufacturing ...

The spike in recalls, especially of generic and over-the-counter drugs, is being driven by manufacturing lapses, experts say. Some of the biggest culprits: the quality of raw materials, faulty labeling and packaging and contamination.”

Sources:
CNN August 16, 2010

MAG        DATE        TIME                      REGION                     DEPTH
===    ==========    ========    =======================================    =====
3.2    2010/09/07    22:47:21    MONA PASSAGE, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC           92.3
2.6    2010/09/07    21:08:45    CENTRAL ALASKA                             11.2
4.9    2010/09/07    20:51:03    SOUTHERN QINGHAI, CHINA                    47.5
5.2    2010/09/07    19:54:30    SOUTHERN EAST PACIFIC RISE                 15.5
5.0    2010/09/07    19:49:57    SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND                1.0
3.1    2010/09/07    19:20:05    ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA    22.2
2.7    2010/09/07    18:50:43    SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA                        7.8
3.5    2010/09/07    17:29:14    SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA                        4.5
3.1    2010/09/07    17:08:19    ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA    16.5
6.3    2010/09/07    16:13:32    FIJI REGION                                10.0
5.3    2010/09/07    15:41:42    KYRGYZSTAN                                 39.7
2.7    2010/09/07    13:07:21    SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA                        3.6
2.5    2010/09/07    13:06:57    NORTHERN CALIFORNIA                        8.2
5.4    2010/09/07    12:49:02    FIJI REGION                                35.5
5.0    2010/09/07    11:30:53    KURIL ISLANDS                              30.3
2.7    2010/09/07    10:08:26    WESTERN MONTANA                            5.7
2.7    2010/09/07    08:40:35    ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA    20.1
4.9    2010/09/07    07:22:13    SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA            35.0
3.1    2010/09/07    06:59:26    CENTRAL CALIFORNIA                         8.4
4.2    2010/09/07    05:54:04    KODIAK ISLAND REGION, ALASKA               25.0
3.4    2010/09/07    04:43:36    ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA    16.9
3.6    2010/09/07    03:43:43    ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA    39.0
5.3    2010/09/07    02:11:08    SOUTHERN IRAN                              27.9
4.9    2010/09/07    01:42:40    FIJI REGION                                390.4
5.8    2010/09/07    00:57:27    SOUTHWEST OF SUMATRA, INDONESIA            34.1

MAG       DATE         TIME                      LOCATION                     DEPTH
===    ==========    ========    =========================================    =====
3.2    2010/09/07    22:47:20    37 mi SE of La Romana, Dominican Republic    92.3
3.1    2010/09/07    19:20:05    44 mi SE of Adak, AK                         22.2
3.5    2010/09/07    17:29:13    23 mi E of Trona, CA                         4.5
3.1    2010/09/07    17:08:19    59 mi SSE of Adak, AK                        16.5
3.1    2010/09/07    06:59:25    5 mi ENE of Pinnacles, CA                    8.4
4.2    2010/09/07    05:54:04    48 mi SSE of Chiniak, AK                     25.0
3.4    2010/09/07    04:43:36    58 mi SSE of Adak, AK                        16.9
3.6    2010/09/07    03:43:43    29 mi S of Adak, AK                          39.0

MAG       DATE         TIME              LOCATION           DEPTH
===    ==========    ========    =======================    =====
No quakes reported for the Arkansas New Madrid area on 9/7/10 at this time.

MAG       DATE         TIME                 LOCATION               DEPTH
===    ==========    ========    ==============================    =====
2.7    2010/09/07    10:08:26    26 mi SSE of Virginia City, MT    5.7
1.6    2010/09/07    05:28:34    28 mi SSE of Virginia City, MT    0.0
1.5    2010/09/07    03:00:34    11 mi ENE of Alton, UT            7.8

MAG       DATE         TIME                LOCATION               DEPTH
===    ==========    ========    =============================    =====
1.3    2010/09/07    23:20:22    10 mi WSW of Toms Place, CA      7.7
1.1    2010/09/07    15:13:03    7 mi SSW of Round Valley, CA     16.0
1.9    2010/09/07    15:06:23    8 mi SSW of Round Valley, CA     17.2
1.0    2010/09/07    10:47:24    3 mi WSW of Mammoth Lakes, CA    1.7
===    ==========    ========    =============================    =====
1.2    2010/09/06    19:56:59    1 mi SW of Mammoth Lakes, CA     2.1

Tropical Storm Igor
by weather.com
Tropical Storm Igor has formed in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean near the Cape Verde Islands. After passing through the Cape Verde Islands, Igor will head westward across the open Atlantic Ocean with no impacts to land for several days.

At this time, it is far too early to know what, if any, impacts this newest storm would have on the Leeward Islands or the United States.

. . . more at link above

Igor Forms in the Atlantic

The ninth tropical storm of the 2010 Atlantic season, Igor, has formed in the Atlantic, just south of the Cape Verde Islands.

While Igor is many days away from any influence on the Antilles, it will strengthen.

As of the midday hours Wednesday, Igor was producing sustained winds of 40 mph.

People on the Cape Verde Islands can expect tropical storm conditions into early Thursday with locally gusty winds, building seas and drenching downpours.

Igor is forecast by AccuWeather.com meteorologists to become the next hurricane, as the train of systems from Africa remains active.

Igor could continue to plow westward toward the Antilles into next week, or could be picked up and turned northward by a trough of low pressure expected to drop in off the East Coast of the U.S.

Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss

PARIS (AFP) - – Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists.

In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica around 132 gigatonnes annually.

Together, that would account for more than half of the annual three-millimetre (0.2 inch) yearly rise in sea levels, a pace that compares dramatically with 1.8mm (0.07 inches) annually in the early 1960s.

. . . more at link above

Drought Building in the Eastern U.S.

A number of short-term and long-term factors are resulting in building drought conditions over a large part of the East.

More than half of the 50 states are experiencing abnormally dry to drought conditions according to the U.S. Drought Monitors Aug. 31 release.

On the Eastern Seaboard, Virginia and North Carolina were experiencing the worst of the dry weather. However, recent dry conditions have a number of states creeping from abnormally dry conditions to moderate drought status.



Very low humidity, combined with an active wind and little or no rainfall, is the more noticeable trigger.

The low humidity and wind raise evaporation rates, while there is no rain to replenish the moisture.
However, abnormal warmth since the spring may also be contributing significantly to the situation at the present time.

When temperatures are higher, evaporation rates are higher. Additionally, demand typically increases.

Much of the East has experienced average temperatures of 2 to 6 degrees above normal since the spring.

While some areas have had near-normal rainfall over the long haul, a number of areas have now slipped significantly below average in the rainfall department in recent weeks, and the above-normal warmth continues.

Pittsburgh, Pa., continues to experience above-normal warmth and below-normal rainfall. Temperatures have averaged 3 degrees above normal, while rainfall is just over 50 percent of normal, since Aug. 1.

Similarly, Charlottesville, Va., has been averaging around 3 degrees above normal for the same period. However, rainfall is under 50 percent of normal.

Portions of New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama were included in the building dry or drought conditions.

Fronts and large-scale storm systems typically start to bring large areas of rain this time of the year. However, we have not really had much of this in the East so far.

Air mass thunderstorms, which typically decline in August due to the diminishing sun angle, become non-existent during September.

A batch of rain is forecast to move eastward from the Plains late in the week, reaching the East Coast later this weekend.

Potentially some of Tropical Rainstorm Hermine's moisture may be involved, especially in the central Appalachians.

It remains to be seen if this moisture fizzles as suggested by computer models, upon reaching the mountains.

The effects of the dry conditions go beyond low stream levels and brown lawns.

Some states and communities are asking people to voluntarily to conserve water usage.

Wind will be a problem in the Northeast into Thursday, which could quickly fan any brush fire that get going. Be careful when using outdoor power equipment, grills, open flames and outdoor smoking.

BP: Multiple Companies, Teams Contributed to Spill

NEW ORLEANS-- Oil giant BP PLC said in an internal report released Wednesday before a key piece of evidence has been analyzed that multiple companies and work teams contributed to the massive Gulf of Mexico spill that fouled waters and shorelines for months.

. . .

BP spread the blame around, and even was critical of its own workers' conduct, but it defended the design of its well and it was careful in its assessments. It already faces hundreds of lawsuits and billions of dollars of liabilities. In public hearings, it had already tried to shift some of the blame to rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton. BP was leasing the rig from Transocean and owned the well that blew out.

. . . more at link above

Judge Won't Let Stem Cell Money Keep Flowing

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has turned down the Justice Department's request to temporarily delay his order that could shut down federal funding for some stem cell research.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on Tuesday turned down federal officials' request for a stay.

Lamberth blocked federal dollars from going to certain stem cell research on grounds the research could violate a law prohibiting use of taxpayer dollars in work that destroys a human embryo.

. . . more at link above

Chris Dodd's last act: 'Control the people'
Alarms raised over Democrat senator's likely final major piece of legislation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 07, 2010
9:52 pm Eastern


By Brian Fitzpatrick
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON – Alarms are being raised over what probably is retiring Sen. Christopher Dodd's last major piece of legislation – the Livable Communities Act, which has been approved by the Senate Banking Committee and now is heading to the Senate floor – for its likely U.N. inspiration and goal of controlling people.

The plan would create a new federal bureaucracy, the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, armed with some $4 billion in federal grants, to pressure local communities into a more "green" development agenda.

Detractors say its priorities can be traced back to the U.N., which at an Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 adopted Agenda 21, outlining the goal of having government control over people.

On its face, the program would have grants to underwrite local community planning efforts that direct actions toward a "sustainable development."

Dodd, a scandal-plagued Connecticut Democrat, decided last year not to run for re-election in 2010.

The law is promoted as an effort to fight traffic congestion, strip malls and ugly urban sprawl. It would "encourage" local communities to create high-density population centers linked by mass transit networks.

Michael Shaw of Freedom Advocates, a pro-constitutional rights group, told WND, "They call it 'smart growth.' It literally means they draw a circle around the community and say nothing will be developed outside of this wall. Land inside the wall goes up in price as shortages develop. You end up with highrises, with people living on the top floors, stores on bottom floors and offices in the middle. Humans wind up living in the sky. They never touch the ground or leave the building."

The bill, approved by the Senate Banking Committee on a party-line vote in August, "is on a fast track," said Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots group promoting free markets and limited government.

"The Democrats are doing everything they can before they lose power in the next election. They're working on a plethora of environmental bills we've been fighting for years, things that we thought were dead," he said.

DeWeese added, "What makes the Dodd bill unique is they've mostly done this through executive orders or grant programs, but now this is the first time they've put together a federal bill to put this stuff in place."

Shaw and DeWeese warn of numerous unpublicized consequences of the Livable Communities Act and similar "sustainable development" legislation.

It's a "socialist trap," DeWeese said.

"The Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities would end up overseeing development in every community," he said. "They say it's voluntary, but it really isn't. The $4 billion in grants will be used by radical green groups, who helped write it, to force your city council to comply. If your city says no to the pressure to take the grant money, the radical greens will tell your citizens that their city officials are losing them millions of dollars that is owed to the community. Then, when the council caves into the pressure and takes the money, it will force compliance. That is not voluntary, it is blackmail."

Homeowners would end up paying exorbitant costs and losing control over their own homes, according to DeWeese.

"To get the money, a community must meet environmental standards," he said.
"That requires houses to be equipped with new roofs, new windows, and efficient appliances. They did this last year in Oakland. It costs an estimated $35,000 to make a house comply with the environmental regulations. They say homeowners can't sell their houses if they don't meet these standards."

Shaw warned of its Big Brother-type impact.

"It's the application of new technological breakthroughs to control people," he said. "Look at the new smart meters sweeping the nation."

The devices are being marketed as methods for reducing electricity expenses, but Shaw points out that energy companies and bureaucrats end up controlling the temperature in private homes.

Shaw believes the legislation traces back to Agenda 21, the U.N.-sponsored environmental initiative revealed at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. According to Shaw, Agenda 21 has three main goals: "1. Abolition of private property. 2. Education for global citizenship. 3. Control over human action."

Shaw, whose organization was created to inform the public about Agenda 21, said, "It originated in the U.N. 178 nations have signed onto it, including the U.S. in 1992. It's not a treaty, it's a soft law agreement, so it doesn't require treaty ratification. George H.W. Bush infused every federal department with sustainable development principles, and they've been followed by all three presidents since."