Obama’s Authoritarian Adviser Sunstein Steps Down

[Ed Jewett]

Obama's Authoritarian Adviser Sunstein Steps Down

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
August 3, 2012

Cass Sunstein, Obama's administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, has announced his departure. He will leave later this month and return to Harvard Law School.
Sunstein gained notoriety on a number of fronts. He called for dispatching government agents to sabotage individuals and groups opposed to government most notably those at odds with the official 9/11 narrative and suggested the government hold people responsible for the information they post on the internet.
In May of 2011, former president Bill Clinton adopted Sunstein's idea of creating an internet Ministry of Truth.
"Couching the idea in the kind of doublespeak rhetoric that would make George Orwell roll in his grave, Clinton said that the agency would have to be independent' and transparent,' but that it would be created and run by the federal government a complete oxymoron," Paul Joseph Watson wrote at the time.
In addition to proposing a new COINTELPRO to attack enemies of the state on the internet, Sunstein worked to craft minutiae of the emerging globalist order. In April of this year, he penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal calling for an attack on national sovereignty. He wrote that "unnecessary regulatory differences across nations" are harmful to the "interdependent global economy," in other words the globalist dream of a one-world economic dictatorship driven by the elite and their unelected apparatchiks.
"President Obama has worked closely with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to create High-Level Regulatory Cooperation Councils with both countries," Sunstein wrote, lauding the effort to fashion a North American Union. "The councils are developing and implementing plans to eliminate or prevent the creation of unnecessary burdens on cross-border trade, streamline regulatory requirements, and promote greater certainty for the general public and for businesses in the regulation of food, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology and other areas." He also noted that work continues to "harmonize" one world government in partnership with the European Union.
Boris Bershteyn, the budget office's general counsel, will replace Sunstein as acting director. Bershteyn is a natural choice. He was born in the Soviet Union, earned his law chops at Yale, and was selected as a "fellow" by the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Paul Soros is the elder brother of the notorious globalist and darling of the financial class, George Soros.

[Peter Lemkin]

So, this fascist goes back to teach students his rotten theses and a new fascist with the same ideas replaces him.....this is how American government works....faces change, the seats are shuffled; nothing really changes. Why is he leaving, I wonder....certainly no one in power objected to his ideas...perhaps he was just too 'honest' and 'open' about them...who knows...we likely will never. Obama's advisors and 'crew' are a really sickening lot, who could have [and some did] work for W just as easily. One Party State....like the FSU

[Jan Klimkowski]

So this particular Sunsteinian psyop proposes that The Man himself is returning to Academia.


:flypig: :unclesam: :flypig:

[Ed Jewett]

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August 3-5, 2012 -- OFF-TOPIC WEEKEND FORUM

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http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20120803_2


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[TD]Evelyn (CA)

Cass Sunstein Leaves White House Post: Mr. Sunstein will depart this month for Harvard, where he will rejoin the law school faculty as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy.

His wife, Samantha Power, recently gave birth to their second child, a baby girl. She, too, has been on leave from Harvard to work in the National Security Council. The pair met while working on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.

Ms. Power plans to return to her NSC post from maternity leave shortly, a White House official said.



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[TD]Silvija (☺)
Evelyn, interesting info on Sunstein. The Felix Frankfurter academic post he will occupy is enlightening also.

Who was Felix Frankfurter? A Vienna-born immigrant Jew who grew up making his money in chess and running crap shoots in the streets of NYC. In the course of his education, he aligned himself strongly with the Rothschild-zionist brand of socialism and communism during an era when Rothschild-sponsored totalitarian communism was in vogue and in its infancy. Frankfurter later was a fervent supporter of Roosevelt and the concomitant Keynesian economics (perhaps a logical step for someone who had handled crapshoot economics in the streets, no?).

Frankfurter was appointed by Stimson (Taft's War Secretary) to the Bureau of Insular Affairs (part of the War Department which oversaw US imperialist policy in Cuba, Phillipines and Puerto Rico which was run directly by the War Department by Frankfurter himself) - the cradle of today's mil-industrial-directed imperialist gunboat diplomacy - Frankfurter was instrumental in aiding the growth of the mil-industrial complex to the monstrosity it is today.

Frankfurter was a fervent Jewish zionist and served in many functions - among others, serving as official "Zionist delegate" to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference which served to impose stiff reparations and economic sanctions on post-WW-I Germany and ensured bankster profits. He was not merely Jewish - he was a professional zionist Jew equipped with very sharp elbows and anointed with every zionist trick known to the House of Rothschild.

Frankfurter was given what amounted to a zionist and Jews-only chair at Harvard which was reserved for "ethnic and religious minorities" (i.e. - "Jews only") and he used this position to lift restrictions on how many Jews could attend Harvard law school, a previous measure which had been implemented to keep Jews or any other minorities from taking over Harvard.

He made it all the way to a Supreme Court post as Associate Justice. On the anecdotal end, he also made revealing history by defending the Dupont family in a case before the Supreme Court which was based on insider cronyism alleged against the Duponts - Frankfurter was instrumental in helping the Duponts win and get away with it.

Noteworthy also is the fact that "Frankfurter" is one of the original offshoots of the Rothschild family going back to the days of Mayer Amschel Rothschild. While I have not studied how he fits into the family tree, his key position in rothschildian zionist core interests and peculiarly being promoted to be in the right place at the right time along with this Rothschild-cousin last name suggests there is some joint genealogy here which is worthy of further examination.

Keeping the above in mind, there could hardly be a better candidate to fill the shoes of Frankfurter in the Hononary Frankfurter Chairmanship at Harvard than our most loyal zionist fellow Jew Cass Sunstein (remember, being Jewish is also a REQUIREMENT for this Harvard academic chair since its inception), Sunstein being the latest rothschildian political reincarnation of the late Asst Justice Frankfurter himself.

And the title of the chairmanship - "behavioral economics" - aaah, Applied Rothschildonomics at its finest...with a zionist-Jew-mandate for the bearer of the Frankfurter torch. I am beginning to see "A Thousand Points of Light" here...

Who better than Cass Sunstein for this post indeed....



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[Adele Edisen]

So, this fascist goes back to teach students his rotten theses and a new fascist with the same ideas replaces him.....this is how American government works....faces change, the seats are shuffled; nothing really changes. Why is he leaving, I wonder....certainly no one in power objected to his ideas...perhaps he was just to 'honest' and 'open' about them...who knows...we likely will never. Obama's advisors and 'crew' are a really sickening lot, who could have [and some did] work for W just as easily. One Party State....like the FSU

From Ed Jewett's article #1:

Boris Bershteyn, the budget office's general counsel, will replace Sunstein as acting director. Bershteyn is a natural choice. He was born in the Soviet Union, earned his law chops at Yale, and was selected as a "fellow" by the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Paul Soros is the elder brother of the notorious globalist and darling of the financial class, George Soros.

I wonder if there had been some effort on the part of Obama to 'arrange' this early departure of Sunstein so that he could appoint a different permanent director after he's re-elected to the presidency. Sunstein didn't win too many friends, even though it is said that he made some government agencies more effective by eliminating archaic rules and making other changes. His efforts to control 'conspiracy' ideas were anti-First Amendment....

In optimism still,

Adele

[Adele Edisen]

The New York Times
August 3, 2012

owerful Shaper of U.S. Rules Quits, With Critics in Wake
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON Cass R. Sunstein, who wielded enormous power as the White House overseer of federal regulation, came to Washington to test his theories of human behavior and economic efficiency in the laboratory of the federal government. Now he is departing with a record that left many business interests disappointed and environmental, health and consumer advocates even more unhappy.

Mr. Sunstein, 57, who projected an air of disheveled academic detachment while becoming one of the Obama administration's most provocative figures, announced Friday that he was leaving government to return to Harvard Law School.

Applying a cost-benefit analysis to his reviews of proposed rules, he said his goal was simply to make the nation's regulatory system "as sensible as possible."

His critics saw it differently.

"Cass Sunstein is the most well-connected and smartest guy who's ever held the job," said Rena Steinzor, president of the Center for Progressive Reform and a professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. "But he's also done untold damage."

As administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, he reviewed the rules implementing President Obama's health care act and the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform law. He backed major environmental initiatives, including higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and new toxic emissions rules for power plants. He approved the revamping of the decades-old food pyramid (it is now a "plate"), the tightening of salmonella rules for eggs and a crackdown on prison rape. He midwifed a deal between appliance manufacturers and the Department of Energy to make refrigerators more energy efficient.

A close friend of President Obama's from their days on the University of Chicago Law School faculty, Mr. Sunstein had his choice of high-profile positions in the administration. He opted for the obscure Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (familiarly known as OIRA, pronounced "oh, Ira"), a unit of the White House Office of Management and Budget that reviews every regulation proposed by an executive branch agency.

Few proposed rules escaped his gaze or his editor's pen. Of the hundreds of regulations issued by the administration as of late last year, three-quarters were changed at OIRA, often at the urging of corporate interests, according to an analysis from the Center for Progressive Reform, a liberal-leaning group that monitors federal regulation. For rules from the Environmental Protection Agency, the figure was closer to 80 percent, the group found. In virtually every case, the rule was weakened, the group claimed.

Professor Steinzor cited Mr. Sunstein's role in the killing of the E.P.A.'s proposed tightening of the standard for ozone pollution, the indefinite delay of rules governing coal ash disposal and the withdrawal earlier this year of a proposed update of child agricultural labor standards.

Mr. Sunstein's recommendations carry extraordinary weight, White House officials said, but the ultimate decisions in those cases were made by the president, his senior political advisers or cabinet officers.

The White House offered no explanation for the timing of Mr. Sunstein's departure. He declined to comment for this article.

Under Mr. Sunstein, the Obama administration has issued fewer regulations at this point in the president's term than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton did. But compared with Mr. Bush's first term, the Obama administration has finalized roughly 30 more "economically significant" regulations those costing $100 million or more.

Mr. Sunstein emphasizes the economic benefits of the regulations he has vetted, saying the net benefits have exceeded $91 billion, a figure he says far surpasses the benefits of rules issued by previous administrations.

"Careful analysis of costs and benefits can help show when regulation is good, and when regulation isn't so good," he said in a recent interview. Any cost-benefit analysis, of course, includes subjective judgments about costs and difficult calculations, like the value of a human life.

These statistics can be misleading because the raw number of regulations an administration implements does not necessarily indicate whether the administration is more or less in favor of restraints on business.

Mr. Obama credited Mr. Sunstein with putting in place a regulatory system that protected Americans while eliminating "tens of millions of hours of paperwork burdens" for businesses and citizens.

"Cass has shown that it is possible to support economic growth without sacrificing health, safety and the environment," the president said in a statement on Friday.

In addition to reviewing proposed rules, Mr. Sunstein's office also conducted a "look back" at every regulation already on the books, with an eye toward slashing outdated rules and streamlining the system. The initiative has already started to bear fruit. Federal agencies have so far proposed 500 changes, with 100 enacted or close to being finalized.

Business lobbies and Republicans in Congress complain frequently about "job-killing" regulations, citing rules like the E.P.A.'s new standard for carbon emissions from power plants (recently upheld by a federal appeals court) and the Department of Labor's new worker-safety rules. But Mr. Sunstein won grudging praise from conservatives, who said he was more approachable and realistic about the costs of doing business than many top officials in federal agencies.

"Cass Sunstein appeared to recognize the harm overly burdensome regulations inflict on economic growth and job creation although he was not able to stop the tsunami of regulations enacted by the Obama administration," Representative Darrell Issa of California, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement.

Over the past year, as the election neared, the issuance of new regulations slowed and many of them appeared to be designed to please business, or at least not alienate it.

Bill Kovacs, a senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said he was skeptical of the administration's motives but gratified nonetheless. "It's probably the political season," he said. "But I think we are hopeful that the administration is beginning to understand that the regulatory process has consequences."

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has accused Mr. Obama of causing business uncertainty and stifling economic growth through overzealous regulation. He promised to repeal the Obama-era regulatory laws and hold the cost of new regulations at zero.

The polymathic Mr. Sunstein has written or co-written dozens of books and articles on subjects ranging from climate change to animal rights and is one of the most frequently cited legal thinkers in America. One of his most influential popular works, written with Richard H. Thaler, the behavioral economist, was "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness." The book's thesis is that gentle, low-cost signals like putting fruit at the beginning rather than the end of a cafeteria line, or making participation in retirement savings plans the default position rather than an option are more effective than the heavy hand of government regulation.

In returning to Harvard Law School, Mr. Sunstein will direct the new Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy.

Mr. Sunstein's wife, Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize winner for her writing on genocide, also works at the White House, as a senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights. She said she still planned to return to the post after a maternity leave.

The White House said Boris Bershteyn, the budget office's general counsel, will serve as interim regulatory chief.

Annie Lowrey and Ian Urbina contributed reporting.

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

So, this fascist goes back to teach students his rotten theses and a new fascist with the same ideas replaces him.....this is how American government works....faces change, the seats are shuffled; nothing really changes. Why is he leaving, I wonder....certainly no one in power objected to his ideas...perhaps he was just too 'honest' and 'open' about them...who knows...we likely will never. Obama's advisors and 'crew' are a really sickening lot, who could have [and some did] work for W just as easily. One Party State....like the FSU

From Ed Jewett's article #1:

Boris Bershteyn, the budget office's general counsel, will replace Sunstein as acting director. Bershteyn is a natural choice. He was born in the Soviet Union, earned his law chops at Yale, and was selected as a "fellow" by the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Paul Soros is the elder brother of the notorious globalist and darling of the financial class, George Soros.

I wonder if there had been some effort on the part of Obama to 'arrange' this early departure of Sunstein so that he could appoint a different permanent director after he's re-elected to the presidency. Sunstein didn't win too many friends, even though it is said that he made some government agencies more effective by eliminating archaic rules and making other changes. His efforts to control 'conspiracy' ideas were anti-First Amendment....

In optimism still,

Adele

Ah, an optimist - a rare species these days for sure! Well, I do believe the President still retains some authority over his staff [within limits]; and he may well have decided to send Sunstein packing back to academia [to try to poison minds of budding students to fit into the corporate machine]....but the replacement has the Soros taint and while we don't know much about him [I don't], I don't have any high hopes. Yes, his efforts to control 'conspiracy' and neutralize [if not criminalize] those who speak of it ARE anti-First Amendment, anti-intellectual, anti-logical, and just plain authoritarian containment. While some 'conspiracy theories' are nutty, many others are the suppressed truth - desperately in need of some sunshine! Even the nutty ones need not be suppressed, as they will fall on their faces on their own accord. The man is a fascist propagandist and shame on Obama for letting him stay ONE day after his pronouncement about fighting 'conspiracy' [he should have been fired with a clear pronouncement as to WHY!]. Adele, I'm afraid I don't share you optimism, EVEN if it is Obama who is making this move. Even if his replacement is benign on this matter, great damage has been done...the seeds have been sown and no doubt many 'agencies' are busy at work on Sunsteinian countermeasures [the software especially designed to aid in this has been mentioned several times on this Forum]. I hope I'm wrong and your optimism has some basis in fact....but that is more of a tribute to you, than my belief in my President and government. While there are enormous pressures on this and any President to do the bidding of the Elites, I can't convince myself that were the pressure less or his fortitude greater, that this President has it in him to make any substantial positive change [as his campaign theme endlessly pronounced]. I believe he was carefully vetted, selected and trained for his position and positions - and then further put in the vice that all Presidents are, to stay in line...or else. While we'll never know what is in his heart of hearts, I had 'hope' only for a few weeks into his campaign, then lost it all when I saw who he had surrounded himself with [or been forced to be surrounded by - the usual criminals from Wall Street to J Street and Pentagon/Langley]. In the end it is not a person - even a President [we haven't had a real one since they murdered JFK, IMHO - even though he wasn't perfect - he was good enough for the slime that runs American to want to and succeed in murdering him!], but the SYSTEM that needs replacement. I no longer believe it can be reformed - it is like asking a cancerous tumor to go back to being benign. Radical political and ethical surgery is needed or the 'patient' will die, IMO. That must be bottom-up. It will never change within this system top-down. Superficial changes will only pacify temporarily the restless Public. Sunstein may go, but I fear his policies will continue. The damage has been done and is not about to be undone. When Obama announces that what he proposed was wrong, not the policy of his Administration and punishable, I'll become a believer he has a tad of the fighter for our freedoms in him. He's a nice guy; an intelligent guy; a good speaker; but he is following the polices that have been in place since JFKs assassination and even before. Sadly. One would hope an African-American President might 'get it'. Sadly, like Clarance Thomas, I fear he doesn't, or is so controlled by forces around him, he can't express them. I have moved quickly from the second position, to the first. He just doesn't get it. He is a Constitutional lawyer who is helping dismantle and castrate/eviscerate/negate the Constitution...not uphold it and reinforce it. While I hold my nose and hope Obama wins over Romney, it is a false choice we are forced to make between bad and worse. I'd like to see a Green or a Democratic Socialist or some other Progressive party run and win and not have their candidate assassinated before or after the election. Now, that is impossible. For this form of government I have no hope anymore, I still have a modicum for the People, if [and only if] they will awake SOON and act together to forge a new one. It has happened over and over again in history and this country is desperately in need of such now. It really won't disturb as much as some fear, only the Elites will suffer - as well they should - as they built this onerous unethical, unequal, unlawful, untruthful, neo-fascist, imperialist, and murderous - often genocidal mess. Rant over. Again, may your optimism prevail over my cynicism - nearly complete at this stage.

[Adele Edisen]

I would like to answer your concerns about my optimism, Peter.

It was a very long time ago when I read Webster Tarpley's two books on Obama and his ties to Zbigniew Brzezinski who was his professor in the last two years of his sollege career in International Relatuions studies. And I knew of Zbigniew Brzezinski's co-founding of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, and other such links to the bankers of the world. So, I am not so naive in my optimism as you appear to think. That was before the November 2008 election, too.

I am also aware of the changes experienced by John Kennedy as he matured during his shortened term as president of the United States, and the many battles he had to fight with Wall Street traitors and his own Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA. Presidents cannot always have the upper hand in leadership and in governance over a large bureaucratic government and a population of a nation of, say as of now, 310 Million people, with many different views, and a mass media which is not always truthful in their journalistic duties. Presidents have always been subjected to compromises with no help from their advisers; even their advisers can be of poor quality. And every president since November 22, 1963, knows that they can be eliminated easily and with no justice to be provided the citizens with the truth of the murder.

Yet look at what Obama has tried to do. He's proposed and supported legislation in various forms, such as his Jobs Act, early and higher education, gender equality in various forms, health care, etc., to improve the economic, political, cultural life, and well-being of the citizens. His opposition in Congress has been strong because of corporate lobbying and the unelected Grover Norquist, and because of Supreme Court rulings (Citizens United Vs. Federal Election Commssion ruling) and other forces that are broadly undemocratic.

That's why I retain some sense of optimism about Obama because the will of the majority of the people is still to be known on November 6, 2012.

That's all for now, but I still like you, Peter, and respect your views. Don't forget that.

Adele

[Adele Edisen]

Peter said:

Sadly. One would hope an African-American President might 'get it'. Sadly, like Clarance Thomas, I fear he doesn't, or is so controlled by forces around him, he can't express them. I have moved quickly from the second position, to the first. He just doesn't get it. He is a Constitutional lawyer who is helping dismantle and castrate/eviscerate/negate the Constitution...not uphold it and reinforce it. While I hold my nose and hope Obama wins over Romney, it is a false choice we are forced to make between bad and worse. I'd like to see a Green or a Democratic Socialist or some other Progressive party run and win and not have their candidate assassinated before or after the election. Now, that is impossible. For this form of government I have no hope anymore, I still have a modicum for the People, if [and only if] they will awake SOON and act together to forge a new one. It has happened over and over again in history and this country is desperately in need of such now. It really won't disturb as much as some fear, only the Elites will suffer - as well they should - as they built this onerous unethical, unequal, unlawful, untruthful, neo-fascist, imperialist, and murderous - often genocidal mess. Rant over. Again, may your optimism prevail over my cynicism - nearly complete at this stage.

None of us have to walk on egg shells as a president does. And I have no dispute with your hopes for the future in this country. One need only to study the changes that have occurred in many European nations, some of which had been dictatorships 75 years ago (Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal were not the only ones). But it is important to understand that the United States is probably going to be the last vestige of an undemocratic economy and that elites will not go down without fighting to their last breath to try to maintain their power.

You speak of the US Constitution (and the Declaration of Independence?) Did you know that the words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were originally intended to be "life, liberty, and the pursuit of PROPERTY"? Yet, someone in the writing of this document, probably Jefferson, realized that the term "Property" was not the real goal of a democratic peoples. He/they knew what had happened to Greece thousands of years before when their wealthy elites destroyed the fledging Greek democracy. Greek economy was an early form of private ownersip of the means of production (capitalism).

If John Kennedy had survived the assassination and then gone on to win with Lyndon Johnson, his choice of Vice-President, it could have become a far different country than what it is today, I believe. They would have received the overwhelming mandate from the nation's people in November 1964, as that which Lyndon Johnson received and which gave him the will to get legislation passed to achieve so many democratic goals, many of which we enjoy today (although efforts are going on to remove them). It is the will of the people that a president can use and should use to achieve such goals. As long as we still have the teeniest vestige of democracy left to vote in the candidate who just might give us some progress for a truly democratic nation, I think the choice is already being made for us in this year's campaign, and it is up to the American people however it turns out.

I don't expect to see it in my lifetime, but I hope my children just might. And I hope the change to a full democracy would not be violent, although I do fear that it may be. I still feel optimistic that it can be done, but the steps have to be small ones at each time, and it will take time. It has happened in our lifetimes in other countries already; I just want it to happen here, too, as I am sure you do, as well.

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

I would like to answer your concerns about my optimism, Peter.

It was a very long time ago when I read Webster Tarpley's two books on Obama and his ties to Zbigniew Brzezinski who was his professor in the last two years of his sollege career in International Relatuions studies. And I knew of Zbigniew Brzezinski's co-founding of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, and other such links to the bankers of the world. So, I am not so naive in my optimism as you appear to think. That was before the November 2008 election, too.

I am also aware of the changes experienced by John Kennedy as he matured during his shortened term as president of the United States, and the many battles he had to fight with Wall Street traitors and his own Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA. Presidents cannot always have the upper hand in leadership and in governance over a large bureaucratic government and a population of a nation of, say as of now, 310 Million people, with many different views, and a mass media which is not always truthful in their journalistic duties. Presidents have always been subjected to compromises with no help from their advisers; even their advisers can be of poor quality. And every president since November 22, 1963, knows that they can be eliminated easily and with no justice to be provided the citizens with the truth of the murder.

Yet look at what Obama has tried to do. He's proposed and supported legislation in various forms, such as his Jobs Act, early and higher education, gender equality in various forms, health care, etc., to improve the economic, political, cultural life, and well-being of the citizens. His opposition in Congress has been strong because of corporate lobbying and the unelected Grover Norquist, and because of Supreme Court rulings (Citizens United Vs. Federal Election Commssion ruling) and other forces that are broadly undemocratic.

That's why I retain some sense of optimism about Obama because the will of the majority of the people is still to be known on November 6, 2012.

That's all for now, but I still like you, Peter, and respect your views. Don't forget that.

Adele

Adele, I don't have any 'concern' about your optimism, nor about your ability to see America clearly - and the players and actions within and of it. I said I hope you were right and I wrong and I repeat that. Somewhere between Dallas and today I have grown very cynical about America changing course [the Elites that run America allowing a course change]...but have never given up the fight to bring about such change. It would be lovely if Obama would begin a change as JFK did [and was IMO eliminated for that change], we can always hope. I just don't see many signs of it - and many signs the other direction. More persons have been secretly arrested, imprisoned and tortured than under W; no part of the UnPatriot Act has been deleted or removed or even challenged; His financial advisors are the vampire squid team itself...and I could go on. Yes, Germany 'changed', but not of its own volition. It lost a war. Who can defeat or even threaten the USA into sanity?! Only the American People, and half of them are brainwashed and the other half too frightened to act. Only a small % dare to speak up and act and are often brutally attacked - physically, with their jobs, or in other ways. As long as one doesn't give up the Good Fight, I thnk it matters little if we are 'optimistic' or 'pessimistic'. Despite my (growing) pessimism I fight on - or why would I post the kinds of things I do here on this Forum [and I do other things in the real world to try to turn things around]. It is just my own best guess; although no one can see the future. As an Environmental Toxicologist I also see with great sadness the killing of the Environment and all the creatures that make it up - by the same forces and with the same lack of moral principles that destroy our polity. A better World IS possible!...and I fight for it anyway I can - mostly to try to awake the sleeping and cowered masses of Americans, and others of developed nations. We're in the same fight. At the EF one of my many signatures under my posts was the quote of Margaret Mead: 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." I guess I'm of the 'constructive cynicism' school of philosophy at this point in my life. I personally have lost most everything and suffered greatly at the hands of the bad guys - and perhaps that makes me more the curmudgeon than I would be had I not suffered and lost so much. I'm glad you have hope. I have a little and I fight on, in case I'm wrong and we can pull it off...there really is NO alternative but to try with all out might.