End Gun Free Zones

Note: This is an editorial for a local newspaper. They limit submissions to 250 words.

Another horrific tragedy has started the blaming the inanimate object game instead of the laws, or rules at certain establishments, that prevented anyone from stopping psychopaths doing these deeds. The laws I blame for these tragedies are the ones that create gun free zones. These types of laws make it so law-abiding citizens are disarmed; therefore, preventing them from defending themselves or others in situations which with a gun they could have prevented the deaths of my innocent individuals.

Let us take a look at the most recent school shooting. It claimed the lives of 20 children and 6 adults. Schools are, obviously, gun free zones due to laws and regulations that prevent teachers and faculty from carrying firearms for defense. While this recent shooting had an unexpected variable (the perpetrator being a student’s father) if teachers were allowed to carry firearms for the defense of themselves and their students, there would have been less innocent lives lost. This is true for all school shootings.

The infamous Colorado theater shooting, and all shootings in general, could have easily been prevented if firearms were allowed. Theater guests (overzealous law-abiding citizens) voluntarily disarmed themselves to follow the theater’s posted rule. This rule unfortunately prevented the ability for disarmed citizens to defend against the attack. If someone had a concealed weapon few would have been killed by the shooter.

These are just two examples of why Gun free Zones should be abolished. Blame these laws for the loss of innocent lives.

Update 9/15/2012 - School and Liberty

Hello readers!

 Sorry for the slight inactivity. I will continue to post news pieces and give opinions on them as I can. College classes and homework has taken up a good percentage of my time, and I have been asked to take an even greater role in creating an official local charter of the Libertarian Party.

Since I am in a speech class, I think I will post the speeches here. Kind of as a helpful example for those taking Public Speaking, those looking for speech samples, or generally just interested in a reading a random speech. The first speech will probably be posted Tuesday. It is just a basic introduction speech, but it does have my political, journalistic history, and some self-education discussion within,

Thanks for reading my blog and your continued support!

With Liberty,
- Matt Schnackenberg

Fed will do whatever it takes to get hiring going

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Fed up with the anemic pace of hiring, the Federal Reserve promised Thursday that it would do whatever it takes to reduce unemployment. 

The Fed stepped up its efforts to boost economic growth, opting for a round of quantitative easing, in a meaningful change in its tactics. 

The Federal Open Market Committee said it would buy an additional $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds, above and beyond the bonds it is now buying as a part of Operation Twist. 

This is the QE3 that’s been talked about so much. 

 

Significantly, the new bond-buying plan is open-ended, meaning that the Fed will keep buying long-term bonds until it sees a substantial improvement in the job market. If hiring doesn’t pick up, the Fed could step up the pace of bond-buying until it does. 

The key phrase in the Fed’s statement was this: “If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability.”

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The Federal Reserve has basically declared that QE3 will happen. While Bernanke stated he will only do it if the labor market doesn't improve, there is no way it can while interest rates are artificially low. The economy is in shambled because of his/their actions and therefore needs to be ended, not encouraged. Sadly, there is no way to stop this from happening at this current moment. Expect another depression much deeper than the one the Fed originally created in the 30s.

Some Of The Really Bad Things That Could Happen If You Do Not Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse

Most people just assume that since things have always been a certain way that they will always be that way in the future.  Most people just have blind faith that the people running our government and our financial system know exactly what they are doing and that they are doing their best to take care of us.  In fact, once upon a time I was fully convinced of that.  When I was a kid I quickly realized that my elementary school teachers really didn't have the answers, but I had total faith that those running society at the highest levels were "experts" that were looking out for our best interests.  As time went on I kept progressing in my education, and by the time I was finished with law school I came to understand that none of our "experts" really know what they are doing, and they are definitely not looking out for our best interests.  The blind are leading the blind and we all need to finally admit that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.  Unfortunately, most Americans will repeat the mantra of "if that was true I would have heard about it on the news" until it is way too late.  Most people are waiting for the "authorities" to tell them what to do instead of thinking for themselves.  Sadly, time is rapidly running out and a lot of people are going to end up getting totally blindsided by what is coming.

The man in charge of our financial system, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, is not going to save our economy.  He didn't see the last financial crisis coming, and even after things started falling apart he continued to insist that housing prices would not go down and that we would not have a recession.

Well, it turned out that we had the worst housing crash and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

But still millions of Americans are trusting him to save us this time around.
It isn't going to happen.

The truth is that the design of the Federal Reserve system itself is fundamentally flawed.
The biggest reason why the U.S. government is 16 trillion dollars in debt is because the system is designed to create gigantic amounts of government debt.

Yes, without a doubt the vast majority of our politicians are corrupt and/or incompetent, but even if we replaced every single one of them our economic problems would still persist until the underlying structural problems were addressed.

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All I have to say to this is that I agree completely. Those who are unprepared for the crash that will happen needs to get moving and set themselves up for the hard times ahead.

RNC Day 3 - Titanic Act 3

Yesterday was a very interesting day at the final day at the RNC. The speeches were extremely statist. If the Republican Party actually thinks the liberty movement would be attracted to the cold reception and statism on show, they are insane.

Condoleezza Rice basically gave a giant war propaganda speech. She hailed how we are doing good around the world, and that we should be at war with even more nations to farther promote democracy. Because democracy and bombs go so well together. Guess she wants it all to blowback in our face with an incredible force.

Marco Rubio's speech was also interesting. He actually straight-up stated America chose more government versus more freedom. I don't think they chose, but rather were brainwashed into accepting it, but whatever helps him sleep at night.

After these two, and a number of other, clowns, it was was the ringleader Mitt Romney's turn to speak. His speech just cemented his idiocy on so many levels. He cheered empire abroad, and imagined unity at home. He attacked Obama on things that he himself supports. He believe not changing anything but the letter of behind the president's name will so how allow economic stability. Of course as one of the walls stated: US Debt 16~ trillion, We Built That. And it was built and grown by both parties.

Overall these three days have displayed why neither Romney or Obama should be president. Neither are qualified for the job. The corruption of the GOP, and Obama's failures during his first term, display this country is heading towards dark times before we accomplish re-achieving liberty in this country.

Feds Are Cutting Social Security Benefits From Retirees Who Can't Pay Back Student Loans

While most attention in the ongoing student debt crisis narrative has focused on new graduates, it turns out the federal government has been quietly targeting a different group of debtors: retirees.

The Treasury Department has been withholding as much as 15 percent of Social Security benefits from "a rapidly growing number of Social Security recipients who have fallen behind on federal student loans," Smart Money's Annamaria Andriotis reports:

"From January through August 6, the government reduced the size of roughly 115,000 retirees' Social Security checks on those grounds. That's nearly double the pace of the department's enforcement in 2011; it's up from around 60,000 cases in all of 2007 and just 6 cases in 2000...

The amount that the government withholds varies widely, though it runs up to 15%. Assuming the average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker of $1,234, that could mean a monthly haircut of almost $190."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-feds-are-garnishing-social-security-benefits-from-retirees-who-cant-pay-back-student-loans-2012-8#ixzz2494XYFaB

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This is far from unexpected, many financial experts have warned of government roll backs of pensions, social security, etc to pay back debts. Gerald Celente especially warned of this. This is how government enslaves its people, making them more needy to government financial assistance. Eventually they will start cutting off aid to the older "useless" tax slaves when they people get accustom to government ending people's support after a certain age due to debt accumulation, so they'll say.

Human tax farming at its best.

$200 million in upgrades planned at idle Crystal River nuclear power plant

In a move that flabbergasts its critics, Progress Energy Florida plans to spend more than $200 million of its customers' money to upgrade the Crystal River nuclear power plant.

This is the same plant that:
 • Broke three years ago during another upgrade project.
 • Has not produced a kilowatt of power since.
 • Would cost at least $3 billion to repair including related power expenses.
• May never be restarted.

Nevertheless, Progress has budgeted millions to increase the plant's potential power output. To pay for it, customers' power bills will increase an estimated $51.5 million this year, $110.2 million next year and $64.5 million in 2014.

And that's not all.

Progress plans to spend hundreds of millions more on the plant for equipment and safety upgrades through 2014. The utility won't be able to charge customers for those expenditures at least until after 2017 because of an agreement with state regulators.

Critics equate it to replacing the drive-train on an aging, broken-down car that is more likely headed to the junkyard than back onto the street.

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This is a pointless amount of money for a dormant powerplant that frankly should be torn down and replaced with a thorium based generation 5 nuclear plant.

The argument from the clean energy person is a bit questionable, while its great that she is questioning the point, she misses the boat arguing against a nuclear plant that is still cleaner than coal plants. She should support a tear-down and massive upgrade to new technology considering the price tag is so far has been over $2 billion dollars; not just giving up.

Also, the costs should not be put on the taxpayers, especially since no one asked for the constant failures revolving around the upgrades.

Ron Paul wants to make his presence known at RNC

Congressman Ron Paul has used much of the $2.5 million that his campaign had at the end of July towards his rally that will be held next week, Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said.  The event will be held a day before the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

The Paul-led event is called “Rally for the Liberty Delegates” and it will run simultaneously with a pro-Ron Paul rally in Tampa called “Paul Festival,” which is being organized by Paul supporters.

As Rep. Paul explains, “Our theme for this event will be, ‘We Are the Future – A Rally for the Liberty Delegates’. I’m sure it will not only be a great time, but it will also go a long way to proving you and I are the future of the Republican Party.”

Dr. Paul, an eleven-term congressman from Texas, has continued his campaign for the presidency despite strong signs that the GOP will make Mitt Romney their candidate in this election.

“Our team has been very busy working to plan our ‘Rally for the Liberty Delegates’ event in Tampa and setting up our convention plans, including the fight to seat as many of our delegates as possible,” Mr. Benton said in an email.

Read more: http://www.capitolcolumn.com/news/ron-paul-wants-to-make-his-presence-known-at-rnc/#ixzz23vIVxM6D

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The more noticeable Dr. Paul is the better. He can drive a stack through the hearts of the establishment by having a bigger presences than the RNC, again.

Ferg's cancels Ron Paul RNC party

The Ron Paul party scheduled to take place at Ferg's in downtown St. Petersburg has been cancelled.

The organizers of the event told Ferg's the roadblocks and security put in place for the RNC Welcome Party at the Trop Sunday night have made it too difficult for people to access the area.

The City of St. Petersburg has announced an "event zone" that is closing off traffic and prohibiting certain items  during the event and the days leading up to it.


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Since there are hundreds of other locations better suited, this just means that RP's party will get a better location away from the headache that is the RNC.

Ep7: the Media

A short discussion about mainstream media.