Sunday, November 20, 2011

America: Freedom to Fascism

  • Tax protestor
  • IRS
  • 16th amendment
  • Ron Paul
  • Constitution
Controversial and throught-provoking are two words that describe one of the most talked-about documentaries of 2006.

Determined to find the law that requries American citizens to pay income tax, producer Aaron Russo (Bette Midler'sThe Rose, Trading Places) set out on a journey to find the evidence.

Neither left nor right-wing, this startling examination of government exposes the systematic erosion of civil liberties in America since 1913 when the Federal Reserve system was fraudulently created. Through interviews with two U.S. Congressmen, former IRS Commissioner and former IRS and FBI agents, tax attorneys and authors, Russo connects the dots between money creation, federal income tax, and the national identity card, which becomes law in May 2008 and will use Radio Frequency Identificat! ion (RFID) technology. Could this be a precursor to an impending police state in America? Watch the film and make your own conclusions.Controversial and throught-provoking are two words that describe one of the most talked-about documentaries of 2006. Determined to find the law that requries American citizens to pay income tax, producer Aaron Russo (Bette Midler'sThe Rose, Trading Places) set out on a journey to find the evidence. Neither left nor right-wing, this startling examination of government exposes the systematic erosion of civil liberties in America since 1913 when the Federal Reserve system was fraudulently created. Through interviews with two U.S. Congressmen, former IRS Commissioner and former IRS and FBI agents, tax attorneys and authors, Russo connects the dots between money creation, federal income tax and an ever increasing movement to keep tabs on American citizens at all costs.

The Count of Monte Cristo

  • Jim Caviezel (High Crimes) and Guy Pearce (The Time Machine) give sizzling performances in The Count Of Monte Cristo - the greatest tale of betrayal, adventure and revenge the world has never known. When the dashing and guileless Edmond Dantes (Caviezel) is betrayed by his best friend (Pearce) and wrongly imprisoned, he becomes consumed by thoughts of vengeance. After a miraculous escape, he trans
Jim Caviezel (HIGH CRIMES) and Guy Pearce (THE TIME MACHINE) give sizzling performances in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO -- the greatest tale of betrayal, adventure, and revenge the world has ever known. When the dashing and guileless Edmond Dantes (Caviezel) is betrayed by his best friend (Pearce) and wrongly imprisoned, he becomes consumed by thoughts of vengeance. After a miraculous escape, he transforms himself into the mysterious and wealthy Count of Monte Cristo, insinuates himself into the French! nobility, and puts his cunning plan of revenge in action. This swashbuckling thriller will have you sitting on the edge of your seat until the last ounce of revenge is exacted.Revenge rarely gets sweeter than it does in The Count of Monte Cristo, a rousing, impeccably crafted adaptation of Alexandre Dumas père's literary classic. Filmed countless times before, the story is revitalized by director Kevin Reynolds (rallying after Waterworld) and screenwriter Jay Wolpert, who wisely avoid the action-movie anachronisms that plagued 2001's dubious Dumas-inspired The Musketeer. Leading a superior cast, Jim Caviezel (Frequency) expresses a delicate balance of obsession and nobility as Dantes, the wrongly accused Frenchman who endures 13 years of prison and torment, then uses a hidden treasure to finance elaborate vengeance on those who wronged him. Memento's Guy Pearce is equally effective as Dantes's betraying nemesis, and Richard Harris tops h! is Harry Potter wizardry with a humorous turn as Dantes! 's fello w prisoner and mentor. Filmed on stunning locations in Ireland and Malta, The Count of Monte Cristo easily matches Rob Roy for intelligent swashbuckling entertainment. --Jeff Shannon

Steven Seagal Collection: 4 Film Favorites - Under Siege / The Glimmer Man / Above the Law / Fire Down Below

  • Under Siege The Glimmer Man Above the Law Fire Down Below Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R Age: 085391174226 UPC: 085391174226 Manufacturer No: 117422
EPA Marshal Taggert tries to ferret out who is responsible for dumping toxins into abandoned mines and why the locals don't talk about it.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-FEB-2004
Media Type: DVDHere's a movie that only a Steven Seagal fan could love. It's not nearly as good as Under Siege (the movie destined to remain Seagal's high-water mark), but not any worse than Above the Law. This time ol' Steve is an agent of the Environmental Protection Agency who's busting heads in Kentucky. He's on good terms with the local yokels (including Marg Helgenberger and Harry Dean Stanton), but locks horns with a slimy mogul (Kris Kristofferson) who'! s using abandoned mines to dump toxic waste. Along with an ecological message, Seagal serves up several broken limbs, cracked skulls, and bloody noses, and he even finds time to do some guitar picking with country boys such as Travis Tritt and Randy Travis. Once you've heard Seagal crooning a country tune, you'll be eager to see him go back to whuppin' the bad guys. --Jeff ShannonCan-do hero. Can't-miss action. Steven Seagal stars in and directs On Deadly Ground (Disc 1/Side A). He plays Forrest Taft, the roughest of Alaska's oil roughnecks...and bad news to a corporate big shot (Michael Caine), who put profits over environmental safety. Then he fires up Fire Down Below (Disc 1/Side B) as an EPA officer headed for an eco-showdown in Appalachian mining country. Co-stars include Kris Kristofferson and CSI Crime Scene Investigation's Marg Helgenberger. A gangster who leaves corpses as his calling cards runs up against Brooklyn cop Gino Felino (Seagal) in the thriller Ou! t for Justice (Disc 2), co-starring Jerry Orbach (Law & Order)! .Under S iege The Glimmer Man Above the Law Fire Down Below

Big Stan

  • In this hilarious and outrageous, marital arts comedy, Rob Schneider stars as Stan Minton a two bit con man that is found guilty of cheating mostly elderly women out of their retirement saving on fraudulent vacation properties. With the help of his crooked lawyer, Lew Popper (M. Emmet Walsh), Stan is able to postpone his jail sentence for six months in order to tidy up his affairs. Stan quickly go
In this hilarious and outrageous, marital arts comedy, Rob Schneider stars as Stan Minton a two bit con man that is found guilty of cheating mostly elderly women out of their retirement saving on fraudulent vacation properties. With the help of his crooked lawyer, Lew Popper (M. Emmet Walsh), Stan is able to postpone his jail sentence for six months in order to tidy up his affairs. Stan quickly goes into a depression that not even his gorgeous and bubbly wife, Mindy (Jennifer Morrison), can pull h! im out of. However, when Stan receives news from an ex-prison inmate that his frail and weak body will be targeted and "loved" by all of the large men in jail, Stan realized his "tender parts" are on the line and as a last ditch effort he enlists the help of a mysterious martial arts guru know only as The Master (David Carradine). Over the course of the remaining months, The Master transforms Stan into a lean and mean fighting machine much to the dismay of Mindy who cannot see past The Master's other "abilities" such as eating Scorpions at the dinner table and smoking a hundred cigarettes a day. Stan is finally shipped off to jail and he soon realizes that prison is not at all like he imagined it's worse! Thankfully Stan has been trained well and he soon brings the warring gangs together and establishes peace inside the prison walls. This is much to the disgust of the prisons Warden Gasque (Scott Wilson) who has been hatching an evil plan to shut the prison down and sell of! f the land to a Vietnamese development company that he just so! happens to be a silent partner in. Gasque offers Stan a deal that will get him out of prison far ahead of schedule if he'll help him with his diabolical plan. With the clock ticking, Stan must decide between his own freedom and protecting the lives of the inmates that he has grown to respect.Big Stan, Rob Schneider’s Kung Fu spoof, is about as hilarious as one can get without some hardcore stunts such those seen in Kung Fu Hustle. Big Stan is Schnieder, starring as Stan Minton, a lowbrow, too-tan real-estate con artist who, in the opening scene, is scamming an elderly woman out of her savings for a fake timeshare. From here, he’s busted and sentenced to prison, and the film’s setting is split between Minton’s gaudy mansion, in which he attempts to toughen up before serving, and a jail ripe with gangs split by race and undersexed men. Stan is a character whose strength and confidence grows throughout the story, initially thanks to the cheerleading of his! doormat wife, Mindy (Jennifer Morrison), but mostly because The Master (David Carradine) trains him in a combo martial-arts style that is as absurd as the idea of Carradine chain-smoking while reviving his Shaolin monk persona from the old TV show. Carradine is funny in Big Stan, though it’s Schneider’s timing and slapstick physical comedy that carries the movie. Does he really learn how to break through wood blocks with his middle finger? One may never know. Strange, unlikely plot twists, like one involving prison Warden Gasque (Stan Wilson), are totally corny. But there are sublime moments, such as those when Stan is able to unite warring teams of buff men long enough to perform choreographed dance numbers, that make the whole film worth watching. Gay jokes abound in Big Stan, but not the calloused kind; in fact, the whole film is aimed at portraying a fantasy in which prison is a safe haven for guys of all sorts, a men’s club as pleasant as a spa. It’s a ! revelry that may never materialize but it never hurts to imagi! ne. --Trinie Dalton

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

  • Paperback in colors of white, green and black.
A landmark exploration of the way out of extreme poverty for the world’s poorest citizens

Among the most eagerly anticipated books of any year, this landmark exploration of prosperity and poverty distills the life work of an economist Time calls one of the world’s 100 most influential people. Sachs’s aim is nothing less than to deliver a big picture of how societies emerge from poverty. To do so he takes readers in his footsteps, explaining his work in Bolivia, Russia, India, China, and Africa, while offering an integrated set of solutions for the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that challenge the poorest countries. Marrying passionate storytelling with rigorous analysis and a vision as pragmatic as it is fiercely moral, The End of Poverty is a truly indispensable work.Celebra! ted economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education. The goal is to help these people reach the first rung on the "ladder of economic development" so they can rise above mere subsistence level and achieve some control over their economic futures and their lives. To do this, Sachs proposes nine specific steps, which he explains in great detail in The End of Poverty. Though his plan certainly requires the help of rich nations, the financial assistance Sachs calls for is surprisingly modest--more than is now provided, but within the bounds of what has been promised in the past. For the U.S., for instanc! e, it would mean raising foreign aid from just 0.14 percent of! GNP to 0.7 percent. Sachs does not view such help as a handout but rather an investment in global economic growth that will add to the security of all nations. In presenting his argument, he offers a comprehensive education on global economics, including why globalization should be embraced rather than fought, why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in this effort, and the reasons why extreme poverty exists in the midst of great wealth. He also shatters some persistent myths about poor people and shows how developing nations can do more to help themselves.

Despite some crushing statistics, The End of Poverty is a hopeful book. Based on a tremendous amount of data and his own experiences working as an economic advisor to the UN and several individual nations, Sachs makes a strong moral, economic, and political case for why countries and individuals should battle poverty with the sa! me commitment and focus normally reserved for waging war. This important book not only makes the end of poverty seem realistic, but in the best interest of everyone on the planet, rich and poor alike. --Shawn Carkonen

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