Sunday, May 31, 2015
Death by cop...
Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide
By Kimberly Kindy, and reported by Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins, Steven Rich, Keith L. Alexander and Wesley Lowery
In an alley in Denver, police gunned down a 17-year-old girl joyriding in a stolen car. In the backwoods of North Carolina, police opened fire on a gun-wielding moonshiner. And in a high-rise apartment in Birmingham, Ala., police shot an elderly man after his son asked them to make sure he was okay. Douglas Harris, 77, answered the door with a gun.
The three are among at least 385 people shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.
“These shootings are grossly underreported,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving law enforcement. “We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to accurately track this information.”
A national debate is raging about police use of deadly force, especially against minorities. To understand why and how often these shootings occur, The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting by police in 2015, as well as of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty. The Post looked exclusively at shootings, not killings by other means, such as stun guns and deaths in police custody.
Using interviews, police reports, local news accounts and other sources, The Post tracked more than a dozen details about each killing through Friday, including the victim’s race, whether the person was armed and the circumstances that led to the fatal encounter. The result is an unprecedented examination of these shootings, many of which began as minor incidents and suddenly escalated into violence.
Among The Post’s findings:
●About half the victims were white, half minority. But the demographics shifted sharply among the unarmed victims, two-thirds of whom were black or Hispanic. Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population of the census tracts where the shootings occurred....
Read the rest here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootings-in-2015-approaching-400-nationwide/2015/05/30/d322256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html
By Kimberly Kindy, and reported by Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins, Steven Rich, Keith L. Alexander and Wesley Lowery
In an alley in Denver, police gunned down a 17-year-old girl joyriding in a stolen car. In the backwoods of North Carolina, police opened fire on a gun-wielding moonshiner. And in a high-rise apartment in Birmingham, Ala., police shot an elderly man after his son asked them to make sure he was okay. Douglas Harris, 77, answered the door with a gun.
The three are among at least 385 people shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.
“These shootings are grossly underreported,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving law enforcement. “We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to accurately track this information.”
A national debate is raging about police use of deadly force, especially against minorities. To understand why and how often these shootings occur, The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting by police in 2015, as well as of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty. The Post looked exclusively at shootings, not killings by other means, such as stun guns and deaths in police custody.
Using interviews, police reports, local news accounts and other sources, The Post tracked more than a dozen details about each killing through Friday, including the victim’s race, whether the person was armed and the circumstances that led to the fatal encounter. The result is an unprecedented examination of these shootings, many of which began as minor incidents and suddenly escalated into violence.
Among The Post’s findings:
●About half the victims were white, half minority. But the demographics shifted sharply among the unarmed victims, two-thirds of whom were black or Hispanic. Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population of the census tracts where the shootings occurred....
Read the rest here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootings-in-2015-approaching-400-nationwide/2015/05/30/d322256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html
It's all part of the plan, folks...
Massive Dirty Bomb Exercise Set For June: “We Are Clearly Seeing An Undeniable Buildup To A So Far Unknown Event”
Alex Thomas
A massive simulated dirty bomb attack exercise is set to take place at the end of June in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Operation Northern Exposure will include over 1,000 Michigan National Guard soldiers and will be the first time in history that local authorities have worked with the National Guard.
According to WoodTV.com, the drill will use a city landfill as the site for the simulated dirty bomb attack and a middle school for the “decontamination center.”
“The public may notice more military vehicles in the area, as well as helicopters bringing crews to and from the sites, but the general public won’t be impacted. Local officials said traffic in the area won’t be affected.”
Hoping to quell any public fears, Kent County Emergency Management Director Lieutenant Jack Stewart told WoodTV that, “It’s all off the beaten path. There are no public highways involved other than transportation to the site and away from the site.”
“They are even taking utility workers and getting them involved in what they are calling a dirty bomb scenario, or a nuclear radiation type of scenario,” reported Dahboo777 in a recent YouTube report on the training...
Read the rest here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/massive-dirty-bomb-exercise-set-for-june-we-are-clearly-seeing-an-undeniable-buildup-to-a-so-far-unknown-event.html
Alex Thomas
A massive simulated dirty bomb attack exercise is set to take place at the end of June in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Operation Northern Exposure will include over 1,000 Michigan National Guard soldiers and will be the first time in history that local authorities have worked with the National Guard.
According to WoodTV.com, the drill will use a city landfill as the site for the simulated dirty bomb attack and a middle school for the “decontamination center.”
“The public may notice more military vehicles in the area, as well as helicopters bringing crews to and from the sites, but the general public won’t be impacted. Local officials said traffic in the area won’t be affected.”
Hoping to quell any public fears, Kent County Emergency Management Director Lieutenant Jack Stewart told WoodTV that, “It’s all off the beaten path. There are no public highways involved other than transportation to the site and away from the site.”
“They are even taking utility workers and getting them involved in what they are calling a dirty bomb scenario, or a nuclear radiation type of scenario,” reported Dahboo777 in a recent YouTube report on the training...
Read the rest here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/massive-dirty-bomb-exercise-set-for-june-we-are-clearly-seeing-an-undeniable-buildup-to-a-so-far-unknown-event.html
This is going to hurt...
NIGHTMARE: Massive Obamacare Price Hikes Coming
Robert Wenzel
This report is coming from mainstream Politico:
The cost of Obamacare could rise for millions of Americans next year, with one insurer proposing a 50 percent hike in premiums, fueling the controversy about just how “affordable” the Affordable Care Act really is.
The eye-popping 50 percent hike by New Mexico insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield is an outlier, and state officials may not allow it to go through. But health insurance experts are predicting that premiums will rise more significantly in 2016 than in the first two years of Obamacare exchange coverage. In 2015, for example, premiums increased by an average of 5.4 percent, according to PwC’s Health Research Institute...
“Insurers seem to be reporting higher trend, which means they are seeing bigger increases in health care costs,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But really what’s going on here is they now have data showing what the risk pool looks like. Initially in 2014 they were completely guessing about who was going to enroll and how much health care they were going to use.”
Many plans haven’t yet made public their proposed rates; Monday is the deadline for publishing and providing an explanation for rate hikes of at least 10 percent. None announced so far is as dramatic as the New Mexico plan, although a few others are also quite sharp. The Blues in Maryland and Tennessee, both with the largest market share on the exchanges in their states, are seeking increases of more than 30 percent. In Oregon, Moda Health Plan — which attracted more than 40 percent of exchange customers in 2015, despite competing against a dozen other health plans — is seeking average rate increases of 25 percent.
And it could get worse:
Hovering over the rate-setting season is the specter of the King v. Burwell lawsuit currently before the Supreme Court. A ruling is expected in late June, and defeat for the White House would mean subsidies would be eliminated in at least 34 states that use the federal health insurance exchange. That would throw the insurance markets into chaos.
Because of the King uncertainty, at least a half dozen states, including Texas, are allowing insurers to submit two sets of rates depending on which way the court rules. But for the most part the proposed 2016 rates don’t account for the possibility that subsidies might disappear for millions of low-income Americans.
“How do you price for the apocalypse?” asks John Gorman, a consultant who works with insurers.
Government involvement in healthcare needs to stop now. Anything government gets involved in from housing to education ends up with soaring prices.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/05/nightmare-massive-obamacare-price-hikes.html
Robert Wenzel
This report is coming from mainstream Politico:
The cost of Obamacare could rise for millions of Americans next year, with one insurer proposing a 50 percent hike in premiums, fueling the controversy about just how “affordable” the Affordable Care Act really is.
The eye-popping 50 percent hike by New Mexico insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield is an outlier, and state officials may not allow it to go through. But health insurance experts are predicting that premiums will rise more significantly in 2016 than in the first two years of Obamacare exchange coverage. In 2015, for example, premiums increased by an average of 5.4 percent, according to PwC’s Health Research Institute...
“Insurers seem to be reporting higher trend, which means they are seeing bigger increases in health care costs,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But really what’s going on here is they now have data showing what the risk pool looks like. Initially in 2014 they were completely guessing about who was going to enroll and how much health care they were going to use.”
Many plans haven’t yet made public their proposed rates; Monday is the deadline for publishing and providing an explanation for rate hikes of at least 10 percent. None announced so far is as dramatic as the New Mexico plan, although a few others are also quite sharp. The Blues in Maryland and Tennessee, both with the largest market share on the exchanges in their states, are seeking increases of more than 30 percent. In Oregon, Moda Health Plan — which attracted more than 40 percent of exchange customers in 2015, despite competing against a dozen other health plans — is seeking average rate increases of 25 percent.
And it could get worse:
Hovering over the rate-setting season is the specter of the King v. Burwell lawsuit currently before the Supreme Court. A ruling is expected in late June, and defeat for the White House would mean subsidies would be eliminated in at least 34 states that use the federal health insurance exchange. That would throw the insurance markets into chaos.
Because of the King uncertainty, at least a half dozen states, including Texas, are allowing insurers to submit two sets of rates depending on which way the court rules. But for the most part the proposed 2016 rates don’t account for the possibility that subsidies might disappear for millions of low-income Americans.
“How do you price for the apocalypse?” asks John Gorman, a consultant who works with insurers.
Government involvement in healthcare needs to stop now. Anything government gets involved in from housing to education ends up with soaring prices.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/05/nightmare-massive-obamacare-price-hikes.html
Saturday, May 30, 2015
OOPS!!!
Global Warming? How About Global Cooling?
Guys like Al Gore have become multi-millionaires by scaring people into thinking the world is burning up; the ice caps are melting; and all of the coastal cities will drown – all because of the cries of “Global Warming.”
But, there’s just one problem. It seems the world’s temperatures haven’t risen in almost two decades and now a new report has findings that point to a future that is just the opposite. Teaparty.org reports:
(Daily Caller) – A new study out of the United Kingdom predicts the Earth is about to go through a major climatic shift that could mean decades of cooler temperatures and fewer hurricanes hitting the United States.
Scientists at the University of Southampton predict that a cooling of the Atlantic Ocean could cool global temperatures a half a degree Celsius and may offer a “brief respite from the persistent rise of global temperatures,” according to their study.
This cooling phase in the Atlantic will influence “temperature, rainfall, drought and even the frequency of hurricanes in many regions of the world,” says Dr. Gerard McCarthy. The study’s authors based their results on ocean sensor arrays and 100 years of sea-level data.
“Sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic vary between warm and cold over time-scales of many decades,” said McCarthy, the study’s lead author. “This decadal variability, called the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), is a notable feature of the Atlantic Ocean and the climate of the regions it influences.”
“The observations of [AMO] from [sensor arrays], over the past ten years, show that it is declining,” Dr. David Smeed, a co-author, said in a statement. “As a result, we expect the AMO is moving to a negative phase, which will result in cooler surface waters. This is consistent with observations of temperature in the North Atlantic.”
Cooler temperatures? How can that be? All the extremist environmentalists’ computer models show the earth’s temperature rising to dangerous levels because of greedy, western, capitalist human activity. We have to stop all fossil fuels, drive electric cars, and live in huts if we want to survive.
Oops! It seems reality – actual ocean water temperature sensor readings – have proven the “green” computer models wrong.
Researchers argue that a negative AMO will bring “drier summers in Britain and Ireland, accelerated sea-level rise along the northeast coast of the United States, and drought in the developing countries of the Sahel region,” according to the study’s press release. Interestingly enough, the study also predicts fewer hurricanes hitting the U.S.– a result of a cooler Atlantic.
Atlantic cooling can impact the climate for decades, according to researchers, on timescales from 20 to 30 years. This means cooler global temperatures and changing weather patterns could unfold over the next two to three decades, possibly extending the so-called “pause” in global warming.
For years, scientists have been debating why satellite temperature data shows there have been about 18 years with no warming trend. Surface temperature data shows a similar pause in warming for the last 10 to 15 years.
Some scientists, however, have been arguing the world is indeed headed for a cooling phase based on solar cycles. Scientists from Germany to India haveargued that weakening solar activity could bring about another “Little Ice Age.”
“The stagnation of temperature since 1998 was caused by decreasing solar activity since 1998,” wrote Jürgen Lange Heine, a physicist with the German-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE).
“From 1900 to 1998, solar radiation increased by 1.3 W / m², but since 1998 it has diminished, and could reach values similar to those of the early 20th century. A drop in global temperature over the next few years is predicted,” Heine wrote.
The Virginia-based Vencore Weather recently reported that “[n]ot since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots.”
Link:
http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2015/05/global-warming-how-about-global-cooling.html
Guys like Al Gore have become multi-millionaires by scaring people into thinking the world is burning up; the ice caps are melting; and all of the coastal cities will drown – all because of the cries of “Global Warming.”
But, there’s just one problem. It seems the world’s temperatures haven’t risen in almost two decades and now a new report has findings that point to a future that is just the opposite. Teaparty.org reports:
(Daily Caller) – A new study out of the United Kingdom predicts the Earth is about to go through a major climatic shift that could mean decades of cooler temperatures and fewer hurricanes hitting the United States.
Scientists at the University of Southampton predict that a cooling of the Atlantic Ocean could cool global temperatures a half a degree Celsius and may offer a “brief respite from the persistent rise of global temperatures,” according to their study.
This cooling phase in the Atlantic will influence “temperature, rainfall, drought and even the frequency of hurricanes in many regions of the world,” says Dr. Gerard McCarthy. The study’s authors based their results on ocean sensor arrays and 100 years of sea-level data.
“Sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic vary between warm and cold over time-scales of many decades,” said McCarthy, the study’s lead author. “This decadal variability, called the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), is a notable feature of the Atlantic Ocean and the climate of the regions it influences.”
“The observations of [AMO] from [sensor arrays], over the past ten years, show that it is declining,” Dr. David Smeed, a co-author, said in a statement. “As a result, we expect the AMO is moving to a negative phase, which will result in cooler surface waters. This is consistent with observations of temperature in the North Atlantic.”
Cooler temperatures? How can that be? All the extremist environmentalists’ computer models show the earth’s temperature rising to dangerous levels because of greedy, western, capitalist human activity. We have to stop all fossil fuels, drive electric cars, and live in huts if we want to survive.
Oops! It seems reality – actual ocean water temperature sensor readings – have proven the “green” computer models wrong.
Researchers argue that a negative AMO will bring “drier summers in Britain and Ireland, accelerated sea-level rise along the northeast coast of the United States, and drought in the developing countries of the Sahel region,” according to the study’s press release. Interestingly enough, the study also predicts fewer hurricanes hitting the U.S.– a result of a cooler Atlantic.
Atlantic cooling can impact the climate for decades, according to researchers, on timescales from 20 to 30 years. This means cooler global temperatures and changing weather patterns could unfold over the next two to three decades, possibly extending the so-called “pause” in global warming.
For years, scientists have been debating why satellite temperature data shows there have been about 18 years with no warming trend. Surface temperature data shows a similar pause in warming for the last 10 to 15 years.
Some scientists, however, have been arguing the world is indeed headed for a cooling phase based on solar cycles. Scientists from Germany to India haveargued that weakening solar activity could bring about another “Little Ice Age.”
“The stagnation of temperature since 1998 was caused by decreasing solar activity since 1998,” wrote Jürgen Lange Heine, a physicist with the German-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE).
“From 1900 to 1998, solar radiation increased by 1.3 W / m², but since 1998 it has diminished, and could reach values similar to those of the early 20th century. A drop in global temperature over the next few years is predicted,” Heine wrote.
The Virginia-based Vencore Weather recently reported that “[n]ot since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots.”
Link:
http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2015/05/global-warming-how-about-global-cooling.html
Death by vaccine...
Newborn baby dies after receiving eight vaccinations on schedule; pathologists confirm vaccines responsible for death
by: Jonathan Benson
A Michigan mother's painful journey to find answers to her son's mysterious death has unearthed yet another case of vaccine-induced early mortality. The untimely fate of Elijah Daniel French, who was born on May 4, 2007, and died just days after receiving eight routine vaccinations in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s recommended vaccine schedule, has been determined by a child death investigator and several pathologists to have been caused by the vaccines.
As originally reported by VacTruth.com (and archived here), young Danny's (as his parents called him) heartbreaking story begins like many others: He was completely healthy, smiling and normal until being jabbed by establishment white-coats with multiple government-recommended vaccines all at once. He quickly digressed into poor health, almost immediately suffering from breathing problems and high fever.
According to the family's account, Daniel was vaccinated for seven different conditions at five-and-a-half months old, including with DTaP, hepatitis B, polio, Hib and pneumococcal vaccines. Despite suffering immediate adverse effects, Daniel was brought back to the doctor's office just a few months later and jabbed again with all the same vaccines. This time his condition worsened, and he quickly developed asthma.
Believing that her child's doctor knew what was best, Daniel's mother brought him back for a third round of vaccines at 14 months old. This time, the boy was given eight vaccines in four separate injections: MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Hib, varicella and DTaP. This is when things for Daniel took a serious turn for the worse.
"That night, Danny was still eating and drinking but was cranky and slept more than usual," his mother reported. "By the next day, he was extremely fatigued, irritable and had a loss of appetite. He did not have a fever at this time. He was red and warm where they injected him. These symptoms only worsened."
"By the third day, Danny was unable to stay awake for longer than thirty minutes, he had zero food intake, his fluid intake diminished and he cried excessively. Seventy-one hours after his doctor visit, Danny developed a fever from the vaccines and was given Children's Tylenol. His doctor was called but there was no answer from him because it was the July 4th holiday, the office was closed."
Three independent pathologists confirm that young Danny's death was caused by vaccines
Long story short, Danny fell asleep not long after being given another round of Children's Tylenol, and when his mother came back a few hours later to check on him, his body was cold and unresponsive: Young Danny had died. And the cause of death, as Danny's mother would only find out years later after conducting her own thorough investigation, was the vaccines he was given.
The initial autopsy report declared that Danny had died from asphyxia in an undetermined manner, but the boy's mother wasn't satisfied with this explanation. She soon discovered that the official death report noted acetaminophen from the Tylenol in Danny's blood, but nothing from the vaccines, pointing to a cover-up.
As it turns out, the medical examiner involved was bent against implicating vaccines as a possible cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Danny's mother decided to consult with other medical experts to gain second opinions, and what they all unanimously determined is that, based on blood and tissue samples taken from Danny's body, the boy had definitely died from the vaccines.
"Everything was reviewed by three separate pathologists," she said. "All three confirmed the same findings. The pathologists stated vaccine-induced hypercytokinemia as the cause of my son's asphyxiation. They were able to determine this in large part to the blood panel taken prior to Danny receiving his vaccines, in contrast with the samples I had stored."
"They also agreed encephalopathy was likely responsible, as it's a cytokine storm syndrome. Danny's pathology report stated his cause of death was asphyxiation, secondary to hypercytokinemia, caused by vaccines received approximately 72 hours prior."
Danny's full story is available here:
VacTruth.com.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049884_Elijah_Daniel_French_vaccine_damage_pathologists.html#ixzz3bd1KYmty
by: Jonathan Benson
A Michigan mother's painful journey to find answers to her son's mysterious death has unearthed yet another case of vaccine-induced early mortality. The untimely fate of Elijah Daniel French, who was born on May 4, 2007, and died just days after receiving eight routine vaccinations in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s recommended vaccine schedule, has been determined by a child death investigator and several pathologists to have been caused by the vaccines.
As originally reported by VacTruth.com (and archived here), young Danny's (as his parents called him) heartbreaking story begins like many others: He was completely healthy, smiling and normal until being jabbed by establishment white-coats with multiple government-recommended vaccines all at once. He quickly digressed into poor health, almost immediately suffering from breathing problems and high fever.
According to the family's account, Daniel was vaccinated for seven different conditions at five-and-a-half months old, including with DTaP, hepatitis B, polio, Hib and pneumococcal vaccines. Despite suffering immediate adverse effects, Daniel was brought back to the doctor's office just a few months later and jabbed again with all the same vaccines. This time his condition worsened, and he quickly developed asthma.
Believing that her child's doctor knew what was best, Daniel's mother brought him back for a third round of vaccines at 14 months old. This time, the boy was given eight vaccines in four separate injections: MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Hib, varicella and DTaP. This is when things for Daniel took a serious turn for the worse.
"That night, Danny was still eating and drinking but was cranky and slept more than usual," his mother reported. "By the next day, he was extremely fatigued, irritable and had a loss of appetite. He did not have a fever at this time. He was red and warm where they injected him. These symptoms only worsened."
"By the third day, Danny was unable to stay awake for longer than thirty minutes, he had zero food intake, his fluid intake diminished and he cried excessively. Seventy-one hours after his doctor visit, Danny developed a fever from the vaccines and was given Children's Tylenol. His doctor was called but there was no answer from him because it was the July 4th holiday, the office was closed."
Three independent pathologists confirm that young Danny's death was caused by vaccines
Long story short, Danny fell asleep not long after being given another round of Children's Tylenol, and when his mother came back a few hours later to check on him, his body was cold and unresponsive: Young Danny had died. And the cause of death, as Danny's mother would only find out years later after conducting her own thorough investigation, was the vaccines he was given.
The initial autopsy report declared that Danny had died from asphyxia in an undetermined manner, but the boy's mother wasn't satisfied with this explanation. She soon discovered that the official death report noted acetaminophen from the Tylenol in Danny's blood, but nothing from the vaccines, pointing to a cover-up.
As it turns out, the medical examiner involved was bent against implicating vaccines as a possible cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Danny's mother decided to consult with other medical experts to gain second opinions, and what they all unanimously determined is that, based on blood and tissue samples taken from Danny's body, the boy had definitely died from the vaccines.
"Everything was reviewed by three separate pathologists," she said. "All three confirmed the same findings. The pathologists stated vaccine-induced hypercytokinemia as the cause of my son's asphyxiation. They were able to determine this in large part to the blood panel taken prior to Danny receiving his vaccines, in contrast with the samples I had stored."
"They also agreed encephalopathy was likely responsible, as it's a cytokine storm syndrome. Danny's pathology report stated his cause of death was asphyxiation, secondary to hypercytokinemia, caused by vaccines received approximately 72 hours prior."
Danny's full story is available here:
VacTruth.com.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049884_Elijah_Daniel_French_vaccine_damage_pathologists.html#ixzz3bd1KYmty
It's all part of the plan, folks...
CO2 is the Demon Because Malthus and Ehrlich Were Wrong About Overpopulation
By Dr. Tim Ball
The world focus on CO2 is simply the end objective of a much larger political agenda. The Club of Rome (COR) and then UNEP’s Agenda 21 under Maurice Strong created a political agenda based on certain assumptions all related to overpopulation.
1. The world and all nations are overpopulated.2. All population growth is at an unsustainable rate.3. All nations are using up resources at an unsustainable rate.4. Developed Nations use resources at a much greater rate than Developing Nations.5. Developed Nations achieved wealth using fossil fuel driven industries.6. Developed Nations must pay compensation to Developing Nations for benefits gained at their expense and for hardships and adaptation costs involved in dealing with climate change created by CO2.7. Reducing activities of Developed Nations and slowing growth of Developing Nations requires a world government.8. Once a world government is established population control can progress.
Global warming and climate change are simply the emotional threats used to confront overpopulation. The problem is the world is not overpopulated nor warming...
Read the rest here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/dr-tim-ball/one-world-government-2/
By Dr. Tim Ball
The world focus on CO2 is simply the end objective of a much larger political agenda. The Club of Rome (COR) and then UNEP’s Agenda 21 under Maurice Strong created a political agenda based on certain assumptions all related to overpopulation.
1. The world and all nations are overpopulated.2. All population growth is at an unsustainable rate.3. All nations are using up resources at an unsustainable rate.4. Developed Nations use resources at a much greater rate than Developing Nations.5. Developed Nations achieved wealth using fossil fuel driven industries.6. Developed Nations must pay compensation to Developing Nations for benefits gained at their expense and for hardships and adaptation costs involved in dealing with climate change created by CO2.7. Reducing activities of Developed Nations and slowing growth of Developing Nations requires a world government.8. Once a world government is established population control can progress.
Global warming and climate change are simply the emotional threats used to confront overpopulation. The problem is the world is not overpopulated nor warming...
Read the rest here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/dr-tim-ball/one-world-government-2/
Get your money out of the bank...
How to Survive a Banking Crisis
By Martin Armstrong
Many in Spain are starting to figure out that the only way to survive is to get your money out of the bank. Accounts can just be frozen as they did to the Russians living in Spain, demanding they prove the source of their funds. Banco Madrid has had its funds frozen while the government tries to figure out if it will rescue the bank or not. Meanwhile, people who saved their money cannot get access to it. People are starting to wise up here and are looking at taking their money out of the banks and placing it in alternatives, such as real estate and stocks, or investments outside of the country.
Europe has routinely cancelled currencies in the past, and they will use that option again if they suddenly decide to move to electronic, perhaps in October. I highly recommend that the cash you hoard not be euros – use U.S. dollars instead. The U.S. has never cancelled its currency, and it may be much harder for the U.S. to cancel currency overnight given the huge amount of U.S. dollars that circulate around the world.
So try to look at alternatives here. If you use U.S. shares, you may want to take possession of the share certificates. The blue chips will be the most liquid, but naturally other aspects of the market may start to outperform the blue chips. You can hoard U.S. dollars and coins, but you cannot leave them in a bank’s safety deposit box.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/no_author/how-to-survive-a-banking-crisis/
By Martin Armstrong
Many in Spain are starting to figure out that the only way to survive is to get your money out of the bank. Accounts can just be frozen as they did to the Russians living in Spain, demanding they prove the source of their funds. Banco Madrid has had its funds frozen while the government tries to figure out if it will rescue the bank or not. Meanwhile, people who saved their money cannot get access to it. People are starting to wise up here and are looking at taking their money out of the banks and placing it in alternatives, such as real estate and stocks, or investments outside of the country.
Europe has routinely cancelled currencies in the past, and they will use that option again if they suddenly decide to move to electronic, perhaps in October. I highly recommend that the cash you hoard not be euros – use U.S. dollars instead. The U.S. has never cancelled its currency, and it may be much harder for the U.S. to cancel currency overnight given the huge amount of U.S. dollars that circulate around the world.
So try to look at alternatives here. If you use U.S. shares, you may want to take possession of the share certificates. The blue chips will be the most liquid, but naturally other aspects of the market may start to outperform the blue chips. You can hoard U.S. dollars and coins, but you cannot leave them in a bank’s safety deposit box.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/no_author/how-to-survive-a-banking-crisis/
Friday, May 29, 2015
" Senator McCain and other .01% “leaders” in government and corporate media should be arrested for treason because according to Article III of the US Constitution, their support for obvious unlawful Wars of Aggression all based on lies directly cause US military to suffer war upon them."
McCain Asks for Strategy to End Terrorism. Here’s One: US Military Arrests .01% War Criminals Like McCain
By Carl Herman
US Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, John McCain, says he prays for the US military to end terrorism in the Middle East.
Those of us awake to the long history of US-initiated Wars of Aggression began on lies share Senator McCain’s prayers. Therefore, we formally request US military to enact their Oaths of Enlistment to refuse all orders related to obviously unlawful armed attacks, and for US military officers to enact their lawful responsibility to arrest those who issue obviously unlawful orders associated with Wars of Aggression.
Senator McCain and other .01% “leaders” in government and corporate media should be arrested for treason because according to Article III of the US Constitution, their support for obvious unlawful Wars of Aggression all based on lies directly cause US military to suffer war upon them. They should also be arrested for the most important War Crime: Wars of Aggression. States should also issue arrest warrants for premeditated First Degree Murder of state-resident US military killed in these unlawful wars.
I support the option of Truth & Reconciliation for Orwellian criminals such as Mr. McCain, whereby they can live the rest of their short lives on a comfortable pension in exchange for the full truth of their crimes. I recommend this option so the 99.99% can learn the full truth, and prevent dangerous responses from the .01% criminals with access to lethal weapons.
How do we know Mr. McCain and cohorts are obvious War Criminals?
It’s as easy as understanding the two simple treaties after each of the two world wars; the most important laws on planet Earth to defend and for which all our families sacrificed:
“No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion.” – President Kennedy, June 10, 1963
Unlawful Wars of Aggression: The US/UK/Israel “official story” is that current wars are lawful because they are “self-defense.” The Emperor’s New Clothes fact here is that “self-defense” means something quite narrow and specific in war law, and US/UK/Israel armed attacks on so many nations in current and past wars are not even close to the definition of “self-defense.”
Addressing three nations and several wars seems ambitious for one article, and again, these are all simple variations of one method:
Ignore war law.
Lie to blame the victim and claim “self-defense.”
“Officials” and corporate media never state the Emperor’s New Clothes simple and obvious facts of war law and war lies.
Proving unlawful wars with massive deception is easier when the scope is broadened to see the same elements in three cases.
Importantly, a nation can use military, police, and civilians in self-defense from any attack upon the nation. This is similar to the legal definition of “self-defense” for you or I walking down the street: we cannot attack anyone unless either under attack or imminent threat. And, if under attack, we can use any reasonable force in self-defense, including lethal.
Two world wars begat two treaties to end nations’ armed attacks forever. They are crystal-clear in content and context:
Kellogg-Briand Pact (General treaty for renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy as official title)
United Nations Charter.
Both are listed in the US State Department’s annual publication, Treaties in Force (2013 edition pages 466 and 493).
Article Six of the US Constitution defines a treaty as US “supreme Law of the Land;” meaning that US policy may only complement an active treaty, and never violate it.
This is important because all of us with Oaths to the US Constitution are sworn to honorably refuse all unlawful war orders; military officers are sworn to arrest those who issue them. Indeed, we suffer criminal dishonor if we obey orders for armed attack when they are not “self-defense,” and family dishonor to so easily reject the legal victory won from all our families’ sacrifices through two world wars.
Treaty 1. Kellogg-Briand: General treaty for renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy:
The legal term renounce means to surrender access; that is, to remove that which is renounced as lawful option. This active treaty (page 466 “Renunciation of War”), usually referenced as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, states:
“ARTICLE I
The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
ARTICLE II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”
Treaty 2. United Nations Charter:
It’s helpful to understand what the UN is not. The only area of legal authority of the UN is security/use of force; all other areas are advise for individual nation’s legislature’s consideration. The UN is not global government. It is a global agreement to end wars of choice outside of a very narrow legal definition of national self-defense against another nation’s armed attack.
The preamble of the United Nations includes to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and… to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used…”
The UN purpose includes: “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace…”
Read more here:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/mccain-asks-for-strategy-to-end-terrorism-heres-one-us-military-arrests-01-war-criminals-like-mccain.html
By Carl Herman
US Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, John McCain, says he prays for the US military to end terrorism in the Middle East.
Those of us awake to the long history of US-initiated Wars of Aggression began on lies share Senator McCain’s prayers. Therefore, we formally request US military to enact their Oaths of Enlistment to refuse all orders related to obviously unlawful armed attacks, and for US military officers to enact their lawful responsibility to arrest those who issue obviously unlawful orders associated with Wars of Aggression.
Senator McCain and other .01% “leaders” in government and corporate media should be arrested for treason because according to Article III of the US Constitution, their support for obvious unlawful Wars of Aggression all based on lies directly cause US military to suffer war upon them. They should also be arrested for the most important War Crime: Wars of Aggression. States should also issue arrest warrants for premeditated First Degree Murder of state-resident US military killed in these unlawful wars.
I support the option of Truth & Reconciliation for Orwellian criminals such as Mr. McCain, whereby they can live the rest of their short lives on a comfortable pension in exchange for the full truth of their crimes. I recommend this option so the 99.99% can learn the full truth, and prevent dangerous responses from the .01% criminals with access to lethal weapons.
How do we know Mr. McCain and cohorts are obvious War Criminals?
It’s as easy as understanding the two simple treaties after each of the two world wars; the most important laws on planet Earth to defend and for which all our families sacrificed:
“No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion.” – President Kennedy, June 10, 1963
Unlawful Wars of Aggression: The US/UK/Israel “official story” is that current wars are lawful because they are “self-defense.” The Emperor’s New Clothes fact here is that “self-defense” means something quite narrow and specific in war law, and US/UK/Israel armed attacks on so many nations in current and past wars are not even close to the definition of “self-defense.”
Addressing three nations and several wars seems ambitious for one article, and again, these are all simple variations of one method:
Ignore war law.
Lie to blame the victim and claim “self-defense.”
“Officials” and corporate media never state the Emperor’s New Clothes simple and obvious facts of war law and war lies.
Proving unlawful wars with massive deception is easier when the scope is broadened to see the same elements in three cases.
Importantly, a nation can use military, police, and civilians in self-defense from any attack upon the nation. This is similar to the legal definition of “self-defense” for you or I walking down the street: we cannot attack anyone unless either under attack or imminent threat. And, if under attack, we can use any reasonable force in self-defense, including lethal.
Two world wars begat two treaties to end nations’ armed attacks forever. They are crystal-clear in content and context:
Kellogg-Briand Pact (General treaty for renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy as official title)
United Nations Charter.
Both are listed in the US State Department’s annual publication, Treaties in Force (2013 edition pages 466 and 493).
Article Six of the US Constitution defines a treaty as US “supreme Law of the Land;” meaning that US policy may only complement an active treaty, and never violate it.
This is important because all of us with Oaths to the US Constitution are sworn to honorably refuse all unlawful war orders; military officers are sworn to arrest those who issue them. Indeed, we suffer criminal dishonor if we obey orders for armed attack when they are not “self-defense,” and family dishonor to so easily reject the legal victory won from all our families’ sacrifices through two world wars.
Treaty 1. Kellogg-Briand: General treaty for renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy:
The legal term renounce means to surrender access; that is, to remove that which is renounced as lawful option. This active treaty (page 466 “Renunciation of War”), usually referenced as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, states:
“ARTICLE I
The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
ARTICLE II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”
Treaty 2. United Nations Charter:
It’s helpful to understand what the UN is not. The only area of legal authority of the UN is security/use of force; all other areas are advise for individual nation’s legislature’s consideration. The UN is not global government. It is a global agreement to end wars of choice outside of a very narrow legal definition of national self-defense against another nation’s armed attack.
The preamble of the United Nations includes to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and… to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used…”
The UN purpose includes: “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace…”
Read more here:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/mccain-asks-for-strategy-to-end-terrorism-heres-one-us-military-arrests-01-war-criminals-like-mccain.html
What do you think???
Idle Hands Do Time
By Gavin McInnes
Abolish prison and give everyone a gun. The end. Good night. Oh wait, that’s not enough for a column? Okay, how about legalize drugs too? I’m not kidding. I know it sounds outrageous but hate facts often are.
Look, I’m not suggesting we send all the guards home and open up the gates tomorrow. America is too ensconced in prison culture. Most prisoners today have become bad people and it’s because of prison. So, for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend a massive plague killed everyone in prison. It’s a horrific tragedy beyond our control and conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day but it happened. Now can we legalize drugs, abolish prison, and give everyone a gun?
I asked More Guns Less Crime author John Lott about it and his answers were disappointing. Empiricists are no fun. “I don’t know,” he replied. “We don’t have the data.” He did concede that America has an intense prison culture with “38% of black males having a felony background.” He also backed up Bill Whittle’s claim that the remarkably gun-heavy Plano, Texas has pretty much the lowest crime rate in the world (0.4 homicides per 100,000). Lott is a human Google machine when it comes to guns and crimes and I learned a lot from our conversation. I learned the black family was far more intact in the 1950s and their propensity for crime back then was actually similar to whites. I learned almost nobody gets arrested simply for marijuana possession (0.3% in Arizona) and the vast majority of drug offenses involve trafficking.
He told me the closest we have to my bizarre hypothetical was New York City during the American Revolution when the British banned the NYPD from existing because they were scared it would morph into a militia. This didn’t turn the city into a war zone. Shopkeepers simply hired private security guards with guns and everything turned out fine (until the Civil War).
I’m reminded of the “Baltimore Batman” who fended off looters with a machete last month. Unarmed business owners tend to do really badly during riots. It seems like every time there’s a major shooting, it happens in a gun-free zone. The Batman shooter chose a theater that was very public about its hatred of guns. New York City is about as gun-free as it gets. You go straight to jail whether your gun is bb, paint, or scuba in this town. We’re still at about a murder a day. New York is a perfect example of what happens when only the bad guys have guns...
Read the rest here:
http://takimag.com/article/idle_hands_do_time_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz3aupIVvEP
By Gavin McInnes
Abolish prison and give everyone a gun. The end. Good night. Oh wait, that’s not enough for a column? Okay, how about legalize drugs too? I’m not kidding. I know it sounds outrageous but hate facts often are.
Look, I’m not suggesting we send all the guards home and open up the gates tomorrow. America is too ensconced in prison culture. Most prisoners today have become bad people and it’s because of prison. So, for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend a massive plague killed everyone in prison. It’s a horrific tragedy beyond our control and conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day but it happened. Now can we legalize drugs, abolish prison, and give everyone a gun?
I asked More Guns Less Crime author John Lott about it and his answers were disappointing. Empiricists are no fun. “I don’t know,” he replied. “We don’t have the data.” He did concede that America has an intense prison culture with “38% of black males having a felony background.” He also backed up Bill Whittle’s claim that the remarkably gun-heavy Plano, Texas has pretty much the lowest crime rate in the world (0.4 homicides per 100,000). Lott is a human Google machine when it comes to guns and crimes and I learned a lot from our conversation. I learned the black family was far more intact in the 1950s and their propensity for crime back then was actually similar to whites. I learned almost nobody gets arrested simply for marijuana possession (0.3% in Arizona) and the vast majority of drug offenses involve trafficking.
He told me the closest we have to my bizarre hypothetical was New York City during the American Revolution when the British banned the NYPD from existing because they were scared it would morph into a militia. This didn’t turn the city into a war zone. Shopkeepers simply hired private security guards with guns and everything turned out fine (until the Civil War).
I’m reminded of the “Baltimore Batman” who fended off looters with a machete last month. Unarmed business owners tend to do really badly during riots. It seems like every time there’s a major shooting, it happens in a gun-free zone. The Batman shooter chose a theater that was very public about its hatred of guns. New York City is about as gun-free as it gets. You go straight to jail whether your gun is bb, paint, or scuba in this town. We’re still at about a murder a day. New York is a perfect example of what happens when only the bad guys have guns...
Read the rest here:
http://takimag.com/article/idle_hands_do_time_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz3aupIVvEP
Thursday, May 28, 2015
From the Boston Globe no less...
The world of threats to the US is an illusion
By Stephen Kinzer
When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.
In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.
Geography is our greatest protector. Wide oceans separate us from potential aggressors. Our vast homeland is rich and productive. No other power on earth is blessed with this security.
Our other asset is the weakness of potential rivals. It will be generations before China is able to pose a serious challenge to the United States — and there is little evidence it wishes to do so. Russia is weak and in deep economic trouble — not always a friendly neighbor but no threat to the United States. Heart-rending violence in the Middle East has no serious implication for American security. As for domestic terrorism, the risk for Americans is modest: You have more chance of being struck by lightning on your birthday than of dying in a terror attack.
Promoting the image of a world full of enemies creates a “security psychosis” that misshapes our view of the world. It tempts us to interpret defensive steps taken by other countries as threatening. In extreme cases, it pushes us into wars aimed at preempting threats that do not actually exist.
Arms manufacturers profit from the security psychosis even more directly than militarists. Americans take our staggeringly large defense budget almost for granted, and lament continuously that other countries do not build as many exotic weapons systems as we do. Finding new threats is always good business for someone.
With the United State so dominant in global politics, it’s time to secure this low-threat world. Our strategic goal should be to keep our country as safe as it is now. That means bringing troublemaking countries out of their isolation. Ignoring their interests, or seeking “full-spectrum dominance” to assure that they cannot rise, provokes reactions that will be bad for us in the long run.
Last year, after Russia began encouraging upheaval in Ukraine, NATO decided to “suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation” with Russia. Moments of crisis, however, are precisely the times when contact is most urgent. We took advantage of Russia when it was powerless a quarter-century ago. Future peace requires taking its security concerns seriously rather than treating the country as an enemy that is always seeking to best us.
Our policy toward China is less aggressive, but beneath its surface is often a presumption that one day there must be a showdown between our two countries. The recent deal between Western nations and Iran is being sold as the taming of an enemy — although Iran is not our enemy. Neither is Cuba, despite the warnings of revanchists in Washington and elsewhere. Nor are most of the enemies-for-a-day that we eagerly seek, from Sandinistas in Nicaragua to Houthis in Yemen.
I recently asked a United States Navy officer what threats he believed the United States might confront in the future. To my astonishment, he answered, “Venezuela.” The South American country is in political crisis and careening toward bankruptcy. Its combat navy counts six frigates and two submarines, none of them seaworthy. Yet last month President Obama designated Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to US national security.” The search for enemies can lead to odd places.
This impulse is not peculiarly American. Feeling threatened strengthens group solidarity. Some thinkers have gone so far as to suggest that since societies become more united and resolute in the face of enemies, those that have none should find some.
“It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love,” Freud wrote, “so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.” Nietzsche believed the nation-state’s “profound appreciation of the value of having enemies” produced a “spiritualization of hostility.” A young country especially, he said, “needs enemies more than friends: in opposition alone does it feel itself necessary.”
When Americans see threats everywhere, we fall into this trap. Believing we are besieged is strangely comforting. To recognize how safe we are would require a change of national mindset that we seem reluctant to make.
Link:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/04/11/have-seen-enemies-and-they-weak/Cho9J5Bf9jxIkHKIZvnVTJ/story.html#
By Stephen Kinzer
When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.
In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.
Geography is our greatest protector. Wide oceans separate us from potential aggressors. Our vast homeland is rich and productive. No other power on earth is blessed with this security.
Our other asset is the weakness of potential rivals. It will be generations before China is able to pose a serious challenge to the United States — and there is little evidence it wishes to do so. Russia is weak and in deep economic trouble — not always a friendly neighbor but no threat to the United States. Heart-rending violence in the Middle East has no serious implication for American security. As for domestic terrorism, the risk for Americans is modest: You have more chance of being struck by lightning on your birthday than of dying in a terror attack.
Promoting the image of a world full of enemies creates a “security psychosis” that misshapes our view of the world. It tempts us to interpret defensive steps taken by other countries as threatening. In extreme cases, it pushes us into wars aimed at preempting threats that do not actually exist.
Arms manufacturers profit from the security psychosis even more directly than militarists. Americans take our staggeringly large defense budget almost for granted, and lament continuously that other countries do not build as many exotic weapons systems as we do. Finding new threats is always good business for someone.
With the United State so dominant in global politics, it’s time to secure this low-threat world. Our strategic goal should be to keep our country as safe as it is now. That means bringing troublemaking countries out of their isolation. Ignoring their interests, or seeking “full-spectrum dominance” to assure that they cannot rise, provokes reactions that will be bad for us in the long run.
Last year, after Russia began encouraging upheaval in Ukraine, NATO decided to “suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation” with Russia. Moments of crisis, however, are precisely the times when contact is most urgent. We took advantage of Russia when it was powerless a quarter-century ago. Future peace requires taking its security concerns seriously rather than treating the country as an enemy that is always seeking to best us.
Our policy toward China is less aggressive, but beneath its surface is often a presumption that one day there must be a showdown between our two countries. The recent deal between Western nations and Iran is being sold as the taming of an enemy — although Iran is not our enemy. Neither is Cuba, despite the warnings of revanchists in Washington and elsewhere. Nor are most of the enemies-for-a-day that we eagerly seek, from Sandinistas in Nicaragua to Houthis in Yemen.
I recently asked a United States Navy officer what threats he believed the United States might confront in the future. To my astonishment, he answered, “Venezuela.” The South American country is in political crisis and careening toward bankruptcy. Its combat navy counts six frigates and two submarines, none of them seaworthy. Yet last month President Obama designated Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to US national security.” The search for enemies can lead to odd places.
This impulse is not peculiarly American. Feeling threatened strengthens group solidarity. Some thinkers have gone so far as to suggest that since societies become more united and resolute in the face of enemies, those that have none should find some.
“It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love,” Freud wrote, “so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.” Nietzsche believed the nation-state’s “profound appreciation of the value of having enemies” produced a “spiritualization of hostility.” A young country especially, he said, “needs enemies more than friends: in opposition alone does it feel itself necessary.”
When Americans see threats everywhere, we fall into this trap. Believing we are besieged is strangely comforting. To recognize how safe we are would require a change of national mindset that we seem reluctant to make.
Link:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/04/11/have-seen-enemies-and-they-weak/Cho9J5Bf9jxIkHKIZvnVTJ/story.html#
It's all part of the plan, folks...
The TPP, Monsanto, Rockefeller, Trilateral Commission, Brzezinski
Jon Rappoport
There are dots to connect here. They’re real, and they’re spectacular.
Let me begin with a brief exchange from a 1978 interview, conducted by reporter Jeremiah Novak. He was speaking with two American members of the Trilateral Commission (TC), a group founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and his intellectual flunkey, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
NOVAK: Yes, but why doesn’t President Carter come out with it and tell the American people that [US] economic and political power is being coordinated by a [Trilateral Commission] committee made up of Henry Owen and six others? After all, if [US] policy is being made on a multinational level, the people should know.
RICHARD COOPER [Trilateral Commission member]: President Carter and Secretary of State Vance have constantly alluded to this in their speeches.
KARL KAISER [Trilateral Commission member]: It just hasn’t become an issue.
Source: “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management,” ed. by Holly Sklar, 1980. South End Press, Boston. Pages 192-3.
This through-the-looking-glass moment summed up the casual arrogance of Trilateral members: of course US government policy was in the hands of Trilateralists; what else would you expect?
US government policy most certainly covers the area of international trade—and Cooper and Kaiser were foreshadowing blockbuster trade treaties to come: e.g., NAFTA, GATT (which established the World Trade Organization), CAFTA, and now, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is being negotiated in secret among 12 nations responsible for a major amount of world trade and world GDP.
Here are two key Trilateral quotes that reflect this global outlook—by which I mean a world dominated by mega-corporations:
“The nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” — Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1969.
Brzezinski was Obama’s foreign policy mentor after Obama won the Presidency in 2008.
Any doubt on the question of Trilateral Commission goals is answered by David Rockefeller himself, the founder of the TC, in his Memoirs (2003):
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
“Integrated global political and economic structure” means: domination of populations via giant corporations.
Here is the payoff. The current US Trade Representative (appointed by Obama in 2013), who is responsible for negotiating the TPP with 11 other nations, is Michael Froman, a former member of the Trilateral Commission. Don’t let the word “former” fool you. TC members resign when they take positions in the Executive Branch of government. And when they serve in vital positions, such as US Trade Representative, they aren’t there by accident. They’re TC operatives with a specific agenda.
The TPP IS a major item on the Trilateral to-do list. Make no mistake about it.
Let’s move along to Monsanto, one of those mega-corporations the Trilateralists fervently favor.
From 2001 to 2008, a man named Islam Siddiqui was a staunch US lobbyist for, and vice president of, CropLife America. Siddiqui represented Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta—the biggest and most aggressive biotech GMO corporations in the world.
On October 21, 2011, Siddiqui’s new appointment (by Obama) was confirmed. He became the federal government’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator, and served in that position until he resigned on December 12, 2013. During his tenure, Siddiqui, Monsanto’s man, was up to his ears in negotiating the TPP.
On April 22, 2009, Siddiqui had addressed the press in a US State Dept. briefingdisingenuously titled “Green Revolution”:
“What we need now in the 21st century is another revolution… you would not do it just by conventional breeding. You need to have use of 21st century technologies, including biotechnology, genetic [GMO] technology… And these molecules, which are being used (inaudible), they are state-of-the-art technologies, using molecular biology. Especially in chemicals [pesticides], they have less harsh footprint on the environment, they are more green, in terms of the adverse effects and ecological effects. They are also tested more thoroughly.”
Siddiqui is a disinformation pro. For example, the most widely used pesticide in the world, deployed in conjunction with Monsanto’s GMO crops, was tested so “thoroughly” for safety that it is now declared a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. You may have heard of it: Roundup.
Siddiqui’s tenure negotiating US interests in the TPP surely favored big biotech, and all the companies who make their living selling GMO crop-seeds and pesticides.
The predicted outcome of the TPP vis-à-vis GMOs? It’s obvious. Nations who resist the importation of GMO food crops will be sued, in private tribunals, for interfering with “free trade.”
This is the future writ large, unless the TPP is derailed.
Consider the local movement in Hawaii’s Maui County, where in the last election, citizens voted to block long-standing Monsanto/Dow experimentation with GMOs and their attendant pesticides, until an independent investigation could assess the health effects of those reckless open-air activities.
Monsanto immediately sued to suspend the force of the vote, successfully obtained an injunction, and the case has been hung up in federal court ever since.
Under the TPP, all successful local community actions against GMOs and their pesticides, anywhere in the 12-member countries, would be viewed per se as obstructions to free trade; and instead of engaging in a public and messy court battle, corporations could simply sue (or threaten to sue) the offending member country in a private tribunal, automatically defeat the local communities, and win a cash judgment.
Attempts to label GMOs, and previous laws allowing labeling in various countries, could be arbitrarily canceled.
Consider the recent astounding action of US Trade Representatives in Europe. Using yet another disastrous trade treaty under negotiation, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), US Trade Reps pressured the European Union (EU) to modify its stance on pesticides.
The Guardian (May 22, 2015) headline and tag says it all:
“EU dropped pesticide laws due to US pressure over TTIP, documents show… US trade officials pushed EU to shelve action on endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility to facilitate TTIP free trade deal”.
Note: this repressive and criminal action didn’t even involve a treaty that had been ratified. The pressure was all about the so-called positive economic impact the TTIP would have, when passed, for Europe. And in the face of that money benefit, and the threat of its removal (by ditching the TTIP negotiations), who would dare curb the import and use of chemicals that achieve something as “minor” as disrupting human endocrine systems and causing male infertility and cancer?
This is the sort of judgment we can look forward to, if and when the TTP and the TTIP are ratified.
This is the face of corporate Globalism. This is the face of the Globalist Trilateral Commission.
Recently, US Senator Jeff Sessions broke the code of silence on what is in the forbidden-to-be-disclosed TPP Treaty. His most pungent revelation concerned “living agreements.”Thus giving new meaning to the term bait-and-switch.
Living agreements are arbitrary changes that can be made to the treaty, by Presidential fiat, without consulting Congress, after the treaty has been ratified.
That’s right. In other words, the treaty is the treaty until it isn’t, until it’s something more, something different, something worse, something that empowers mega-corporations to a greater degree than previously negotiated.
Because those corporations, those Monsantos and Dows and Syngentas, wouldn’t want to miss a trick, wouldn’t want to forego suddenly realizing how they can exert even more dominance, would they?
Barbara Chicherio offers a powerful clue about what’s to come if the TPP is ratified (“Trans-Pacific Partnership and Monsanto,” occupy-monsanto.com):
“Trade agreements have a history of displacing small farmers and destroying local food economies. Ten years following the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 1.5 million Mexican farmers became bankrupt because they could not compete with the highly subsidized US corn entering the Mexican market.
“In the same 10 years Mexico went from a country virtually producing all of its own corn to a country that now imports at least half of this food staple. Mexican consumers are now paying higher prices for Monsanto’s GMO corn.”
It isn’t just GMOs. Suppose a US pharmaceutical company decides to export a new drug to Japan or Australia or Canada, all members of the TPP. And suppose the drug is highly toxic. And suppose the governments of those nations object. The US company could sue, win a huge $$ judgment, and force the export to go through anyway.
As I’ve written in previous articles, the details of the TPP negotiations and the text of the TPP are secret. Government officials in the member nations are not allowed to know all the details of the treaty, nor are they permitted to reveal what they know to the public.
This is an oligarchic dictatorship of corporations on a global scale. Along with a purposeful dumb-show, played out by government officials: “I don’t even know much about what’s in the trade treaty. And if I did, I couldn’t tell you.” So far, Senator Sessions is the only exception.
Those people who still believe that One World United, delivered to us by the powers-that-be, will lead to a better life for all, need to put that fairy tale away and see the underlying framework and the underlying betrayal.
The Globalist/Trilateral Community aims to destroy the rights and power of all communities, and ultimately, destroy all people who still have a grip on the word freedom.
This is the grinning nightmare descending in the long night, professing to help us all, claiming to know the details of better living through chemistry, asserting that trade treaties couldn’t harm a flea…and television news assures us that, at worst, this is just another he-said he-said debate, nothing to worry about, be happy, march forward, eyes closed, mouths shut, mind quiet.
Link:
Jon Rappoport
There are dots to connect here. They’re real, and they’re spectacular.
Let me begin with a brief exchange from a 1978 interview, conducted by reporter Jeremiah Novak. He was speaking with two American members of the Trilateral Commission (TC), a group founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and his intellectual flunkey, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
NOVAK: Yes, but why doesn’t President Carter come out with it and tell the American people that [US] economic and political power is being coordinated by a [Trilateral Commission] committee made up of Henry Owen and six others? After all, if [US] policy is being made on a multinational level, the people should know.
RICHARD COOPER [Trilateral Commission member]: President Carter and Secretary of State Vance have constantly alluded to this in their speeches.
KARL KAISER [Trilateral Commission member]: It just hasn’t become an issue.
Source: “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management,” ed. by Holly Sklar, 1980. South End Press, Boston. Pages 192-3.
This through-the-looking-glass moment summed up the casual arrogance of Trilateral members: of course US government policy was in the hands of Trilateralists; what else would you expect?
US government policy most certainly covers the area of international trade—and Cooper and Kaiser were foreshadowing blockbuster trade treaties to come: e.g., NAFTA, GATT (which established the World Trade Organization), CAFTA, and now, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is being negotiated in secret among 12 nations responsible for a major amount of world trade and world GDP.
Here are two key Trilateral quotes that reflect this global outlook—by which I mean a world dominated by mega-corporations:
“The nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” — Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1969.
Brzezinski was Obama’s foreign policy mentor after Obama won the Presidency in 2008.
Any doubt on the question of Trilateral Commission goals is answered by David Rockefeller himself, the founder of the TC, in his Memoirs (2003):
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
“Integrated global political and economic structure” means: domination of populations via giant corporations.
Here is the payoff. The current US Trade Representative (appointed by Obama in 2013), who is responsible for negotiating the TPP with 11 other nations, is Michael Froman, a former member of the Trilateral Commission. Don’t let the word “former” fool you. TC members resign when they take positions in the Executive Branch of government. And when they serve in vital positions, such as US Trade Representative, they aren’t there by accident. They’re TC operatives with a specific agenda.
The TPP IS a major item on the Trilateral to-do list. Make no mistake about it.
Let’s move along to Monsanto, one of those mega-corporations the Trilateralists fervently favor.
From 2001 to 2008, a man named Islam Siddiqui was a staunch US lobbyist for, and vice president of, CropLife America. Siddiqui represented Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta—the biggest and most aggressive biotech GMO corporations in the world.
On October 21, 2011, Siddiqui’s new appointment (by Obama) was confirmed. He became the federal government’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator, and served in that position until he resigned on December 12, 2013. During his tenure, Siddiqui, Monsanto’s man, was up to his ears in negotiating the TPP.
On April 22, 2009, Siddiqui had addressed the press in a US State Dept. briefingdisingenuously titled “Green Revolution”:
“What we need now in the 21st century is another revolution… you would not do it just by conventional breeding. You need to have use of 21st century technologies, including biotechnology, genetic [GMO] technology… And these molecules, which are being used (inaudible), they are state-of-the-art technologies, using molecular biology. Especially in chemicals [pesticides], they have less harsh footprint on the environment, they are more green, in terms of the adverse effects and ecological effects. They are also tested more thoroughly.”
Siddiqui is a disinformation pro. For example, the most widely used pesticide in the world, deployed in conjunction with Monsanto’s GMO crops, was tested so “thoroughly” for safety that it is now declared a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. You may have heard of it: Roundup.
Siddiqui’s tenure negotiating US interests in the TPP surely favored big biotech, and all the companies who make their living selling GMO crop-seeds and pesticides.
The predicted outcome of the TPP vis-à-vis GMOs? It’s obvious. Nations who resist the importation of GMO food crops will be sued, in private tribunals, for interfering with “free trade.”
This is the future writ large, unless the TPP is derailed.
Consider the local movement in Hawaii’s Maui County, where in the last election, citizens voted to block long-standing Monsanto/Dow experimentation with GMOs and their attendant pesticides, until an independent investigation could assess the health effects of those reckless open-air activities.
Monsanto immediately sued to suspend the force of the vote, successfully obtained an injunction, and the case has been hung up in federal court ever since.
Under the TPP, all successful local community actions against GMOs and their pesticides, anywhere in the 12-member countries, would be viewed per se as obstructions to free trade; and instead of engaging in a public and messy court battle, corporations could simply sue (or threaten to sue) the offending member country in a private tribunal, automatically defeat the local communities, and win a cash judgment.
Attempts to label GMOs, and previous laws allowing labeling in various countries, could be arbitrarily canceled.
Consider the recent astounding action of US Trade Representatives in Europe. Using yet another disastrous trade treaty under negotiation, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), US Trade Reps pressured the European Union (EU) to modify its stance on pesticides.
The Guardian (May 22, 2015) headline and tag says it all:
“EU dropped pesticide laws due to US pressure over TTIP, documents show… US trade officials pushed EU to shelve action on endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility to facilitate TTIP free trade deal”.
Note: this repressive and criminal action didn’t even involve a treaty that had been ratified. The pressure was all about the so-called positive economic impact the TTIP would have, when passed, for Europe. And in the face of that money benefit, and the threat of its removal (by ditching the TTIP negotiations), who would dare curb the import and use of chemicals that achieve something as “minor” as disrupting human endocrine systems and causing male infertility and cancer?
This is the sort of judgment we can look forward to, if and when the TTP and the TTIP are ratified.
This is the face of corporate Globalism. This is the face of the Globalist Trilateral Commission.
Recently, US Senator Jeff Sessions broke the code of silence on what is in the forbidden-to-be-disclosed TPP Treaty. His most pungent revelation concerned “living agreements.”Thus giving new meaning to the term bait-and-switch.
Living agreements are arbitrary changes that can be made to the treaty, by Presidential fiat, without consulting Congress, after the treaty has been ratified.
That’s right. In other words, the treaty is the treaty until it isn’t, until it’s something more, something different, something worse, something that empowers mega-corporations to a greater degree than previously negotiated.
Because those corporations, those Monsantos and Dows and Syngentas, wouldn’t want to miss a trick, wouldn’t want to forego suddenly realizing how they can exert even more dominance, would they?
Barbara Chicherio offers a powerful clue about what’s to come if the TPP is ratified (“Trans-Pacific Partnership and Monsanto,” occupy-monsanto.com):
“Trade agreements have a history of displacing small farmers and destroying local food economies. Ten years following the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 1.5 million Mexican farmers became bankrupt because they could not compete with the highly subsidized US corn entering the Mexican market.
“In the same 10 years Mexico went from a country virtually producing all of its own corn to a country that now imports at least half of this food staple. Mexican consumers are now paying higher prices for Monsanto’s GMO corn.”
It isn’t just GMOs. Suppose a US pharmaceutical company decides to export a new drug to Japan or Australia or Canada, all members of the TPP. And suppose the drug is highly toxic. And suppose the governments of those nations object. The US company could sue, win a huge $$ judgment, and force the export to go through anyway.
As I’ve written in previous articles, the details of the TPP negotiations and the text of the TPP are secret. Government officials in the member nations are not allowed to know all the details of the treaty, nor are they permitted to reveal what they know to the public.
This is an oligarchic dictatorship of corporations on a global scale. Along with a purposeful dumb-show, played out by government officials: “I don’t even know much about what’s in the trade treaty. And if I did, I couldn’t tell you.” So far, Senator Sessions is the only exception.
Those people who still believe that One World United, delivered to us by the powers-that-be, will lead to a better life for all, need to put that fairy tale away and see the underlying framework and the underlying betrayal.
The Globalist/Trilateral Community aims to destroy the rights and power of all communities, and ultimately, destroy all people who still have a grip on the word freedom.
This is the grinning nightmare descending in the long night, professing to help us all, claiming to know the details of better living through chemistry, asserting that trade treaties couldn’t harm a flea…and television news assures us that, at worst, this is just another he-said he-said debate, nothing to worry about, be happy, march forward, eyes closed, mouths shut, mind quiet.
Link:
"...the U.S. government should just liberate the American people to trade with whomever they wish to trade. People’s trading decisions are no business of government. Nothing needs to be negotiated."
Free Trade Means Free Trade
by Jacob G. Hornberger
There is a lot of controversy over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a big trade agreement that is being negotiated between the United States, Canada, and a number of Asia-Pacific countries. What is most amusing about the controversy is how the mainstream press, as well as D.C. politicians and bureaucrats, describe the agreement. They call it a “free trade” agreement. That’s funny.
For example, last Sunday the Washington Post carried an editorial entitled “Free Trade Advances,” in which the Post’s editorial board praised the Senate for voting to give President Obama’s negotiators “trade-promotion authority” to complete the deal. The Post said that the Senate’s actions “returned U.S. negotiators to the bargaining table to cut their best deal on behalf of the American people.”
Let’s be clear about terminology.
Free trade is not a government-negotiated trade agreement and it’s also not government-managed or government-controlled trade. It is not a reduction in tariffs. It is not less government interference with trade.
Free trade is free trade. Free in the sense that trade is free from government control, regulation, taxation, and interference.
The problem is really one of indoctrination. From the first grade on up, American schoolchildren are inculcated with the notion that the United States is a “free enterprise” country. By the time kids graduate high school, they have no doubt that what they’ve been taught is true, and the last thing they ever think is that they have been indoctrinated. Unless they encounter libertarianism, they end up carrying their mindsets with him through adulthood, sometimes until the day they die.
We see this phenomenon most especially with the term “free enterprise.” I’ll bet that if you did a survey of Americans and asked them what type of economic system the United States has, the overwhelming majority would answer “free enterprise.”
And if you then asked them why they believe they live in a free-enterprise country, most of them would undoubtedly reply with some variation of the following, “Because we have an economic system that includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, income taxation, tariffs, minimum-wage laws, price controls, insider-trading laws, economic regulations, government-business partnerships, and corporate bailouts.”
It would never occur to them that it’s precisely those things that are contrary to the principles of free enterprise. Genuine free enterprise means that enterprise is free from government control, regulation, and plunder.
Are there examples of genuine free trade in the world? Yes! Right here in the United States! Notice that there are no trade restrictions between the respective states, thanks to the Framers who used the Constitution to bar such restrictions. People are free to trade their goods and services across state lines without any government interference, regulation, or tariffs. It’s the biggest free-trade zone in history (also the biggest free-movement of people zone in history).
Notice something important here: No one, as far as I know, is pacing the floor over whether there is a trade “imbalance” between his state and other states. For example, I don’t know of anyone here in Virginia who paces the floor worrying about the trade imbalance between Virginia and Florida. Everyone just operates on the assumption that it will all work out, even if the people of Virginia are spending more in Florida than Floridians are spending here, or vice versa.
That principle of free trade applies internationally as well, only you’d never know it from the managed trade crowd. How many of them live their lives in anxiety or depression over a “trade imbalance” that exists between the United States and other countries? (Or they live in exultation when the balance of trade is “favorable,” while people in the other nation live in anxiety and depression for being on the losing end of the balance of trade.)
That’s undoubtedly why the Post editorial board feels good about giving U.S. negotiators additional power to “cut their best deal on behalf of the American people.” They’re counting on their government officials to make sure that Americans come out a “winner” in the trade negotiations. Of course, the negotiators for foreign countries are doing the same thing.
This is all just statist nonsense and tripe. A government that is genuinely committed to the principles of free trade doesn’t need to negotiate anything with foreign regimes. All it has to do is unilaterally drop all restrictions on trade and all tariffs (including sanctions and embargoes) on its own citizens.
In other words, the U.S. government should just liberate the American people to trade with whomever they wish to trade. People’s trading decisions are no business of government. Nothing needs to be negotiated.
Does this mean that foreign regimes will drop their trading restrictions? Of course not. They might but they might not. But that’s a problem for citizens in those countries. If foreign regimes place restrictions on the ability of Americans to trade with their citizens, that’s something that American business people have to deal with. It’s none of the federal government’s business.
The U.S. government’s role with respect to trade is: Butt out of people’s business. Leave them alone. Or as the French once put it, Laissez faire, laissez passer. Let it be. Let it pass. That’s what free trade really means.
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/28/free-trade-means-free-trade/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
There is a lot of controversy over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a big trade agreement that is being negotiated between the United States, Canada, and a number of Asia-Pacific countries. What is most amusing about the controversy is how the mainstream press, as well as D.C. politicians and bureaucrats, describe the agreement. They call it a “free trade” agreement. That’s funny.
For example, last Sunday the Washington Post carried an editorial entitled “Free Trade Advances,” in which the Post’s editorial board praised the Senate for voting to give President Obama’s negotiators “trade-promotion authority” to complete the deal. The Post said that the Senate’s actions “returned U.S. negotiators to the bargaining table to cut their best deal on behalf of the American people.”
Let’s be clear about terminology.
Free trade is not a government-negotiated trade agreement and it’s also not government-managed or government-controlled trade. It is not a reduction in tariffs. It is not less government interference with trade.
Free trade is free trade. Free in the sense that trade is free from government control, regulation, taxation, and interference.
The problem is really one of indoctrination. From the first grade on up, American schoolchildren are inculcated with the notion that the United States is a “free enterprise” country. By the time kids graduate high school, they have no doubt that what they’ve been taught is true, and the last thing they ever think is that they have been indoctrinated. Unless they encounter libertarianism, they end up carrying their mindsets with him through adulthood, sometimes until the day they die.
We see this phenomenon most especially with the term “free enterprise.” I’ll bet that if you did a survey of Americans and asked them what type of economic system the United States has, the overwhelming majority would answer “free enterprise.”
And if you then asked them why they believe they live in a free-enterprise country, most of them would undoubtedly reply with some variation of the following, “Because we have an economic system that includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, income taxation, tariffs, minimum-wage laws, price controls, insider-trading laws, economic regulations, government-business partnerships, and corporate bailouts.”
It would never occur to them that it’s precisely those things that are contrary to the principles of free enterprise. Genuine free enterprise means that enterprise is free from government control, regulation, and plunder.
Are there examples of genuine free trade in the world? Yes! Right here in the United States! Notice that there are no trade restrictions between the respective states, thanks to the Framers who used the Constitution to bar such restrictions. People are free to trade their goods and services across state lines without any government interference, regulation, or tariffs. It’s the biggest free-trade zone in history (also the biggest free-movement of people zone in history).
Notice something important here: No one, as far as I know, is pacing the floor over whether there is a trade “imbalance” between his state and other states. For example, I don’t know of anyone here in Virginia who paces the floor worrying about the trade imbalance between Virginia and Florida. Everyone just operates on the assumption that it will all work out, even if the people of Virginia are spending more in Florida than Floridians are spending here, or vice versa.
That principle of free trade applies internationally as well, only you’d never know it from the managed trade crowd. How many of them live their lives in anxiety or depression over a “trade imbalance” that exists between the United States and other countries? (Or they live in exultation when the balance of trade is “favorable,” while people in the other nation live in anxiety and depression for being on the losing end of the balance of trade.)
That’s undoubtedly why the Post editorial board feels good about giving U.S. negotiators additional power to “cut their best deal on behalf of the American people.” They’re counting on their government officials to make sure that Americans come out a “winner” in the trade negotiations. Of course, the negotiators for foreign countries are doing the same thing.
This is all just statist nonsense and tripe. A government that is genuinely committed to the principles of free trade doesn’t need to negotiate anything with foreign regimes. All it has to do is unilaterally drop all restrictions on trade and all tariffs (including sanctions and embargoes) on its own citizens.
In other words, the U.S. government should just liberate the American people to trade with whomever they wish to trade. People’s trading decisions are no business of government. Nothing needs to be negotiated.
Does this mean that foreign regimes will drop their trading restrictions? Of course not. They might but they might not. But that’s a problem for citizens in those countries. If foreign regimes place restrictions on the ability of Americans to trade with their citizens, that’s something that American business people have to deal with. It’s none of the federal government’s business.
The U.S. government’s role with respect to trade is: Butt out of people’s business. Leave them alone. Or as the French once put it, Laissez faire, laissez passer. Let it be. Let it pass. That’s what free trade really means.
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/28/free-trade-means-free-trade/
"...though the FBI tripled its bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act between 2004 and 2009, no major cases were broken as a result."
FBI Report Adds Fuel to Fire Over Expiring Patriot Act Snooping Powers
Written by Raven Clabough
Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act, which would renew some of the “less controversial” expiring portions of the Patriot Act, but also would end the government’s bulk collection of phone data. That bill is now facing resistance in the Senate, where Republican leaders assert that a full extension on the Patriot Act provisions should be granted without any changes. However, an FBI report admitting that no major cases have been cracked with surveillance powers authorized by the Patriot Act provides fodder to fuel the fight against extending the Patriot Act's bulk data collection.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act, slated to expire on June 1, authorizes the government to collect “any tangible things” that the government proves are “relevant to” an investigation into suspected terrorists. It permits government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents of Americans who have no official ties to terrorist organizations.
The NSA’s unconstitutional, warrantless phone snooping program operates under Section 215. Supporters of the program claim it is critical in the fight against terror.
In a surprising bipartisan vote of 338-88, members of the House approved the USA Freedom Act, which would extend most of the powers except for the bulk collection of data. Under the USA Freedom Act, the government would have to ask phone companies to store the data, and agents would have to apply for a particular number if they believed it was associated with terrorism.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the USA Freedom Act, believing that if he did not provide his colleagues any other choice, they would have to extend all of Section 215, including bulk collection.
McConnell has defended the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone data as “an important tool to prevent the next terrorist attack,” despite the unconstitutionality and the lack of evidence that the program has helped to foil terrorism.
McConnell proposed extending the Patriot Act another two months, in order to avoid the provisions lapsing on June 1, but the proposed extension only got support from 45 senators, with 54 voting against it, falling well short of the 60-vote threshold needed to limit debate and bring the extension itself to a vote.
McConnell then proposed shorter renewal periods, ranging from one day to one week, in order to prevent the law from expiring, but Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of the NSA program, blocked those attempts.
McConnell dismissed the Senate for a Memorial Day vacation, but he intends to bring members back on May 31, hoping to have struck a deal by then.
“This is a high-threat period. We know what is going on overseas. We know what has been tried here at home. Do we really want this law to expire?” McConnell asked. “We better be ready next Sunday afternoon to prevent the country from being in danger by the total expiration of the program we are all familiar with.”
But a report released last week by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz undermines McConnell’s claims. The report states that though the FBI tripled its bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act between 2004 and 2009, no major cases were broken as a result.
“The agents we interviewed did not identify any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained in response to Section 215 orders,” the inspector general concluded — though he said agents did view the material they gathered as “valuable” in developing other leads or corroborating information.
In the report, Horowitz also admits that it took the FBI far too long to create procedures to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets.
These revelations could further fuel the already increased opposition to the government’s surveillance powers.
“This report adds to the mounting evidence that Section 215 has done little to protect Americans and should be put to rest,” said American Civil Liberties Union Staff Attorney Alex Abdo.
According to Stephen Kohn, attorney at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, bulk data collection does more harm than good, by creating false leads and tying up investigative resources. Kohn also contends that the FBI’s dependency on bulk data collection is an indication that the agency does not have the appropriate resources to engage in counterterrorism operations.
“They have a large amount of agents who are working counterterrorism that have no human resources, no leads, no infiltrations, so they have nothing else to do,” he said. “In other words, when they staffed up and made [counterterrorism] a major priority, these agents need to do something. And they’re doing what they know to do, and that’s electronic surveillance.”
Of course, trying to find a needle in a haystack by adding more hay does not make sense if the purpose is to find a needle — or in this case, a terrorist. But it surely must keep busy those who dig through the haystack of surveillance information looking for a needle.
A ruling out of a federal appeals court earlier this month lends credence to the arguments against the NSA program.
In the sweeping decision from the Second Circuit Court, Judge Gerard Lynch wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel that the NSA program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized.”
The law “cannot be interpreted in a way that defies any meaningful limit,” he added. The government’s rationale for the program represents “a monumental shift in our approach to combating terrorism,” Lynch notes.
Judge Lynch elaborates that allowing the bulk collection of data creates a slippery slope.
“If the government is correct, it could use § 215 to collect and store in bulk any other existing metadata available anywhere in the private sector, including metadata associated with financial records, medical records, and electronic communications (including e‐mail and social media information) relating to all Americans,” Lynch wrote.
What will come of the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act remains to be seen.
President Obama has encouraged the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act and do whatever it takes to prevent the Patriot Act provisions from expiring on Sunday night.
“Our intelligence communities are confident that they can work with the authorities that are provided in that act,” Obama said Tuesday. “It passed on a bipartisan basis and overwhelmingly. It was then sent to the Senate. The Senate did not act.”
“This needs to get done,” Obama added. “And I would urge folks to just work through whatever issues can still exist, make sure we don't have, on midnight Sunday night, this task still undone, because it's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.”
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/20956-fbi-report-adds-fuel-to-fire-over-expiring-patriot-act-snooping-powers
Written by Raven Clabough
Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act, which would renew some of the “less controversial” expiring portions of the Patriot Act, but also would end the government’s bulk collection of phone data. That bill is now facing resistance in the Senate, where Republican leaders assert that a full extension on the Patriot Act provisions should be granted without any changes. However, an FBI report admitting that no major cases have been cracked with surveillance powers authorized by the Patriot Act provides fodder to fuel the fight against extending the Patriot Act's bulk data collection.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act, slated to expire on June 1, authorizes the government to collect “any tangible things” that the government proves are “relevant to” an investigation into suspected terrorists. It permits government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents of Americans who have no official ties to terrorist organizations.
The NSA’s unconstitutional, warrantless phone snooping program operates under Section 215. Supporters of the program claim it is critical in the fight against terror.
In a surprising bipartisan vote of 338-88, members of the House approved the USA Freedom Act, which would extend most of the powers except for the bulk collection of data. Under the USA Freedom Act, the government would have to ask phone companies to store the data, and agents would have to apply for a particular number if they believed it was associated with terrorism.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the USA Freedom Act, believing that if he did not provide his colleagues any other choice, they would have to extend all of Section 215, including bulk collection.
McConnell has defended the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone data as “an important tool to prevent the next terrorist attack,” despite the unconstitutionality and the lack of evidence that the program has helped to foil terrorism.
McConnell proposed extending the Patriot Act another two months, in order to avoid the provisions lapsing on June 1, but the proposed extension only got support from 45 senators, with 54 voting against it, falling well short of the 60-vote threshold needed to limit debate and bring the extension itself to a vote.
McConnell then proposed shorter renewal periods, ranging from one day to one week, in order to prevent the law from expiring, but Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of the NSA program, blocked those attempts.
McConnell dismissed the Senate for a Memorial Day vacation, but he intends to bring members back on May 31, hoping to have struck a deal by then.
“This is a high-threat period. We know what is going on overseas. We know what has been tried here at home. Do we really want this law to expire?” McConnell asked. “We better be ready next Sunday afternoon to prevent the country from being in danger by the total expiration of the program we are all familiar with.”
But a report released last week by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz undermines McConnell’s claims. The report states that though the FBI tripled its bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act between 2004 and 2009, no major cases were broken as a result.
“The agents we interviewed did not identify any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained in response to Section 215 orders,” the inspector general concluded — though he said agents did view the material they gathered as “valuable” in developing other leads or corroborating information.
In the report, Horowitz also admits that it took the FBI far too long to create procedures to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets.
These revelations could further fuel the already increased opposition to the government’s surveillance powers.
“This report adds to the mounting evidence that Section 215 has done little to protect Americans and should be put to rest,” said American Civil Liberties Union Staff Attorney Alex Abdo.
According to Stephen Kohn, attorney at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, bulk data collection does more harm than good, by creating false leads and tying up investigative resources. Kohn also contends that the FBI’s dependency on bulk data collection is an indication that the agency does not have the appropriate resources to engage in counterterrorism operations.
“They have a large amount of agents who are working counterterrorism that have no human resources, no leads, no infiltrations, so they have nothing else to do,” he said. “In other words, when they staffed up and made [counterterrorism] a major priority, these agents need to do something. And they’re doing what they know to do, and that’s electronic surveillance.”
Of course, trying to find a needle in a haystack by adding more hay does not make sense if the purpose is to find a needle — or in this case, a terrorist. But it surely must keep busy those who dig through the haystack of surveillance information looking for a needle.
A ruling out of a federal appeals court earlier this month lends credence to the arguments against the NSA program.
In the sweeping decision from the Second Circuit Court, Judge Gerard Lynch wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel that the NSA program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized.”
The law “cannot be interpreted in a way that defies any meaningful limit,” he added. The government’s rationale for the program represents “a monumental shift in our approach to combating terrorism,” Lynch notes.
Judge Lynch elaborates that allowing the bulk collection of data creates a slippery slope.
“If the government is correct, it could use § 215 to collect and store in bulk any other existing metadata available anywhere in the private sector, including metadata associated with financial records, medical records, and electronic communications (including e‐mail and social media information) relating to all Americans,” Lynch wrote.
What will come of the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act remains to be seen.
President Obama has encouraged the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act and do whatever it takes to prevent the Patriot Act provisions from expiring on Sunday night.
“Our intelligence communities are confident that they can work with the authorities that are provided in that act,” Obama said Tuesday. “It passed on a bipartisan basis and overwhelmingly. It was then sent to the Senate. The Senate did not act.”
“This needs to get done,” Obama added. “And I would urge folks to just work through whatever issues can still exist, make sure we don't have, on midnight Sunday night, this task still undone, because it's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.”
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/20956-fbi-report-adds-fuel-to-fire-over-expiring-patriot-act-snooping-powers
The Deep State is worried...
Surplus Repression and the Self-Defeating Deep State
By Charles Hugh Smith
The nation is wallowing self-piteously in a fetid trough of denial and adolescent rage/magical thinking now that the nation’s bogus, debt-based “prosperity” has crashed and cannot be restored.
If you type Deep State into the custom search window in the right sidebar, the search results fill 10 pages. I think it is fair to say I have long had a deep interest in the Deep State.
The Deep State is generally assumed to be monolithic: of one mind, so to speak, unified in worldview, strategy and goals.
History suggests that this low-intensity conflict within the ruling Elite is generally a healthy characteristic of leadership in good times. As times grow more troubled, however, the unity of the ruling Elite fractures into irreconcilable political disunity, which becomes a proximate cause of the dissolution of the Empire if it continues.In my view, this is an over-simplification of a constantly shifting battleground of paradigms and power between a number of factions and alliances within the Deep State. Disagreements are not publicized, of course, but they become apparent years or decades after the conflict was resolved, usually by one faction consolidating the Deep State’s group-think around their worldview and strategy.
I recently proposed the idea that Wall Street now poses a strategic threat to national security and thus to the Deep State itself: Who Gets Thrown Under the Bus in the Next Financial Crisis? (March 3, 2014)
Many consider it “impossible” that Wall Street could possibly lose its political grip on the nation’s throat, but I suggest that Wall Street has over-reached, and is now teetering at the top of the S-Curve, i.e. it has reached Peak Wall Street.
Have We Reached Peak Wall Street?
Consider what the extremes of Wall Street/Federal Reserve predation, parasitism, avarice and power have done to the nation, and then ask if other factions within the Deep State are blind to the destructive consequences.
Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)
Frequent contributor B.C. recently submitted two working papers from the Deep State network that suggested rampant financialization was harming the real economy. This is powerful evidence that the corrosive consequences of financialization on the stability of the real economy is filtering into the group-think hive of the Deep State Network:
Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth? (Bank for International Settlements) After studying how financial development affects aggregate productivity growth, we concluded that the level of financial development is good only up to a point, after which it becomes a drag on growth, and that a fast-growing financial sector is detrimental to aggregate productivity growth.
Rethinking Financial Deepening: Stability and Growth in Emerging Markets (International Monetary Fund)
Here is a sketch of The Deep State Network, which includes not only the nodes of centralized power but of the institutions that feed and support the Deep State’s decisions and policies. These include Ivy League and federally funded research universities, the Mainstream Media, think-tanks, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the spectrum of institutions that influence the public’s ability to frame and contextualize events, i.e. the institutions of propaganda...
Read the rest here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/charles-hugh-smith/is-the-deep-state-worried/
By Charles Hugh Smith
The nation is wallowing self-piteously in a fetid trough of denial and adolescent rage/magical thinking now that the nation’s bogus, debt-based “prosperity” has crashed and cannot be restored.
If you type Deep State into the custom search window in the right sidebar, the search results fill 10 pages. I think it is fair to say I have long had a deep interest in the Deep State.
The Deep State is generally assumed to be monolithic: of one mind, so to speak, unified in worldview, strategy and goals.
History suggests that this low-intensity conflict within the ruling Elite is generally a healthy characteristic of leadership in good times. As times grow more troubled, however, the unity of the ruling Elite fractures into irreconcilable political disunity, which becomes a proximate cause of the dissolution of the Empire if it continues.In my view, this is an over-simplification of a constantly shifting battleground of paradigms and power between a number of factions and alliances within the Deep State. Disagreements are not publicized, of course, but they become apparent years or decades after the conflict was resolved, usually by one faction consolidating the Deep State’s group-think around their worldview and strategy.
I recently proposed the idea that Wall Street now poses a strategic threat to national security and thus to the Deep State itself: Who Gets Thrown Under the Bus in the Next Financial Crisis? (March 3, 2014)
Many consider it “impossible” that Wall Street could possibly lose its political grip on the nation’s throat, but I suggest that Wall Street has over-reached, and is now teetering at the top of the S-Curve, i.e. it has reached Peak Wall Street.
Have We Reached Peak Wall Street?
Consider what the extremes of Wall Street/Federal Reserve predation, parasitism, avarice and power have done to the nation, and then ask if other factions within the Deep State are blind to the destructive consequences.
Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)
Frequent contributor B.C. recently submitted two working papers from the Deep State network that suggested rampant financialization was harming the real economy. This is powerful evidence that the corrosive consequences of financialization on the stability of the real economy is filtering into the group-think hive of the Deep State Network:
Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth? (Bank for International Settlements) After studying how financial development affects aggregate productivity growth, we concluded that the level of financial development is good only up to a point, after which it becomes a drag on growth, and that a fast-growing financial sector is detrimental to aggregate productivity growth.
Rethinking Financial Deepening: Stability and Growth in Emerging Markets (International Monetary Fund)
Here is a sketch of The Deep State Network, which includes not only the nodes of centralized power but of the institutions that feed and support the Deep State’s decisions and policies. These include Ivy League and federally funded research universities, the Mainstream Media, think-tanks, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the spectrum of institutions that influence the public’s ability to frame and contextualize events, i.e. the institutions of propaganda...
Read the rest here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/charles-hugh-smith/is-the-deep-state-worried/
"The government’s bulk collection of data must go. It assaults freedoms, and it fails to enhance our safety."
Saving the Fourth
By Andrew P. Napolitano
The Patriot Act has a bad pedigree and an evil history. In the fearful days immediately following 9/11, the Department of Justice quickly sent draft legislation to Congress that, if enacted, would have permitted federal agents to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution by writing their own search warrants. The draft subsequently was revealed to have been written before 9/11, but that’s another story.
The House Judiciary Committee reviewed the legislation and revised it so that it would meet Fourth Amendment norms. The revised version permitted federal agents to write their own search warrants for business records, but the warrants could be challenged by the custodian of the records or by the person whose records were being sought. Because the records were in the hands of a third party, they were in no danger of destruction.
The Fourth Amendment was written largely to assure that the general warrants British soldiers used to search the colonists’ homes would never be lawful in the United States. General warrants were issued by secret courts in London based on the government’s needs, not on evidence of wrongdoing. They authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found.
In order to protect the natural right to be left alone — privacy — the Framers enacted standards in the Fourth Amendment that required the government to produce evidence about the person whose records it wants — called probable cause — and present that evidence to a judge when it wants a search warrant. If granted, the Constitution requires that the warrant particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized.
After the House Judiciary Committee took all this into account in its redrafting of the proposed Patriot Act, the House Republican leadership and the George W. Bush White House pulled a fast one. They switched the painstakingly negotiated version of the Patriot Act for the original version and posted the original version on the House intranet, and leadership scheduled a vote within the hour of posting.
It is safe to say that no member of the House read the Patriot Act in that hour. It takes about 20 hours to read, as it is hundreds of pages in length, and it amends dozens of prior statutes that also must be read. Most House members clearly never knew what they were authorizing. The only negotiated-for provision that survived the switch was the sunset provision of section 215.
Section 215 only authorizes the feds to write their own search warrants for business records and for surveillance of so-called lone-wolf terrorists no matter what telephone they may use. The Bush and Obama administrations secretly persuaded the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that somehow section 215 also permitted the NSA to acquire bulk data from telephone and computer use based on the government’s needs, not based on probable cause.
Bulk data is undifferentiated as to persons. Rather, it is collected by zip code or area code or service provider customer base. Section 215 expires at the end of this week.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the second highest court in the land, declared the collection of bulk data under section 215 to be illegal. The court ruled that the language of section 215 does not authorize bulk data collection, and no section of the Patriot Act does. That court gave Congress until June 1 to clarify the language. If Congress fails to do so by June 1, the court will entertain applications to bar the NSA from collecting bulk data, and it indicated it would likely grant those applications.
Last week, the House voted to revise section 215, and the Senate did not. Thus, it is likely to expire on Sunday night.
President Obama, who falsely claims to be opposed to the collection of bulk data, can stop it with his signature, but he has not done so. He claims to favor the House version of surveillance, which has ridiculously been dubbed the Freedom Act.
The Freedom Act would get the NSA’s computer geeks physically out of the facilities of telecoms and computer servers, but would let them back in digitally with the FISA court’s approval, and that approval is not conditioned on probable cause. Rather, it is to be granted whenever the NSA needs the data. In the 14 years of all this spying, the NSA has made more than 34,000 requests of the FISA court; only 12 have been denied.
If section 215 expires next week, the feds will need individualized search warrants in order to listen to phone calls. They already have been getting individualized search warrants for the phone calls and emails of potential lone-wolf terrorists and for the business records of suspected terrorist groups and those whom they have successfully prosecuted for terrorist acts.
If all of the above is not enough to induce anyone in Congress faithful to the Constitution to reject extending section 215, perhaps the findings of the inspector general of the Department of Justice itself will. Late last week, he released a report in which he found that the bulk collection of data has not stopped a single act of terror or aided a single federal terrorism prosecution since the Patriot Act became law on October 26, 2001.
The government’s bulk collection of data must go. It assaults freedoms, and it fails to enhance our safety.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/andrew-p-napolitano/throw-it-out/
By Andrew P. Napolitano
The Patriot Act has a bad pedigree and an evil history. In the fearful days immediately following 9/11, the Department of Justice quickly sent draft legislation to Congress that, if enacted, would have permitted federal agents to violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution by writing their own search warrants. The draft subsequently was revealed to have been written before 9/11, but that’s another story.
The House Judiciary Committee reviewed the legislation and revised it so that it would meet Fourth Amendment norms. The revised version permitted federal agents to write their own search warrants for business records, but the warrants could be challenged by the custodian of the records or by the person whose records were being sought. Because the records were in the hands of a third party, they were in no danger of destruction.
The Fourth Amendment was written largely to assure that the general warrants British soldiers used to search the colonists’ homes would never be lawful in the United States. General warrants were issued by secret courts in London based on the government’s needs, not on evidence of wrongdoing. They authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found.
In order to protect the natural right to be left alone — privacy — the Framers enacted standards in the Fourth Amendment that required the government to produce evidence about the person whose records it wants — called probable cause — and present that evidence to a judge when it wants a search warrant. If granted, the Constitution requires that the warrant particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized.
After the House Judiciary Committee took all this into account in its redrafting of the proposed Patriot Act, the House Republican leadership and the George W. Bush White House pulled a fast one. They switched the painstakingly negotiated version of the Patriot Act for the original version and posted the original version on the House intranet, and leadership scheduled a vote within the hour of posting.
It is safe to say that no member of the House read the Patriot Act in that hour. It takes about 20 hours to read, as it is hundreds of pages in length, and it amends dozens of prior statutes that also must be read. Most House members clearly never knew what they were authorizing. The only negotiated-for provision that survived the switch was the sunset provision of section 215.
Section 215 only authorizes the feds to write their own search warrants for business records and for surveillance of so-called lone-wolf terrorists no matter what telephone they may use. The Bush and Obama administrations secretly persuaded the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that somehow section 215 also permitted the NSA to acquire bulk data from telephone and computer use based on the government’s needs, not based on probable cause.
Bulk data is undifferentiated as to persons. Rather, it is collected by zip code or area code or service provider customer base. Section 215 expires at the end of this week.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the second highest court in the land, declared the collection of bulk data under section 215 to be illegal. The court ruled that the language of section 215 does not authorize bulk data collection, and no section of the Patriot Act does. That court gave Congress until June 1 to clarify the language. If Congress fails to do so by June 1, the court will entertain applications to bar the NSA from collecting bulk data, and it indicated it would likely grant those applications.
Last week, the House voted to revise section 215, and the Senate did not. Thus, it is likely to expire on Sunday night.
President Obama, who falsely claims to be opposed to the collection of bulk data, can stop it with his signature, but he has not done so. He claims to favor the House version of surveillance, which has ridiculously been dubbed the Freedom Act.
The Freedom Act would get the NSA’s computer geeks physically out of the facilities of telecoms and computer servers, but would let them back in digitally with the FISA court’s approval, and that approval is not conditioned on probable cause. Rather, it is to be granted whenever the NSA needs the data. In the 14 years of all this spying, the NSA has made more than 34,000 requests of the FISA court; only 12 have been denied.
If section 215 expires next week, the feds will need individualized search warrants in order to listen to phone calls. They already have been getting individualized search warrants for the phone calls and emails of potential lone-wolf terrorists and for the business records of suspected terrorist groups and those whom they have successfully prosecuted for terrorist acts.
If all of the above is not enough to induce anyone in Congress faithful to the Constitution to reject extending section 215, perhaps the findings of the inspector general of the Department of Justice itself will. Late last week, he released a report in which he found that the bulk collection of data has not stopped a single act of terror or aided a single federal terrorism prosecution since the Patriot Act became law on October 26, 2001.
The government’s bulk collection of data must go. It assaults freedoms, and it fails to enhance our safety.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/andrew-p-napolitano/throw-it-out/
In support of Walter Block...
Who Do You Believe? The New York Times, or Walter Block and Your Own Lying Eyes?
By Thomas DiLorenzo
“Those people who owned slaves in the pre-Civil War U.S. were guilty of the crime of kidnapping.”
Professor Walter Block, Human Rights Review, July-Sept. 2002, p. 55
Most readers of LewRockwell.com are probably aware of the facts that: 1) A New York Times reporter maliciously libeled Professor Walter Block in a hit piece on Senator Rand Paul by claiming that Professor Block, who has supported Senator Paul, supposedly said that slavery was “not so bad”; 2) that Professor Block sued the New York Times for libel; 3) an establishment judge (the only kind) ruled against Professor Block; and 4) Professor Block has appealed the judge’s outlandish ruling.
It is not surprising that an establishment government lawyer in a black robe would support the views of “the” establishment government propaganda rag in its quest to discredit and smear an ever-so-slightly anti-establishment politician, Senator Rand Paul, by libeling one of his academic supporters. What is surprising is how the federal judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle, did not even bother to document or support with evidence his dismissive statement that “Perceptions about Block’s notion of race related issues were largely fueled and published by Block himself,” as he dismissed the lawsuit. He either made no attempt to determine what Professor Block actually said, or he intentionally and dishonestly ignored it.
What Professor Block said to the New York Times hatchet man “reporter” was that, philosophically speaking, there is a difference between voluntary and involuntary slavery. An example of the former is indentured servitude. About half of all the European immigrants to the original thirteen American colonies were indentured servants. These were mostly poor youth who, in return for passage to America, voluntarily contracted to work for a number of years for the person or business that paid for their voyage. After the period of indentured servitude expired (five years, for example), he was usually given a stipend and became an accepted member of American society with no further work obligations to his previous “employer.” This is the kind of “slavery” that Professor Block, with tongue in cheek, said “was not so bad” compared to real, involuntary slavery. It was a voluntary work contract that was very different from real slavery, which involved the crime of kidnapping, and much worse. At no time has Professor Block ever said that slavery was anything but a moral abomination and an economic drag on the rest of society – the long-standing view of all libertarians.
It does not take much brain power to discern this distinction between voluntary and involuntary servitude. Thus, it is impossible to believe that either the New York Times “reporter” and his editors, or Lemelle, did not understand it. Moreover, the judge’s snide comment that “perceptions” about Professor Block’s “notion of race related issues” are “fueled and published by Block himself” is unequivocally false, as anyone who has spent even a few minutes reading Professor Block’s writings on the subject would conclude.
Professor Block has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, for example, on the subject of reparations for slavery. Like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and various other black political activists, Professor Block is on record as being in favor of reparations for slavery – as long as a black person today can prove that his ancestor(s) was/were indeed enslaved, and as long as the reparation can somehow be paid by the descendants of the slave owner(s), not the general taxpaying public.
It would have taken Lemelle or the New York Times only a minute or two to do an internet search and find Professor Block saying such things as “those people who owned slaves in the pre-Civil War U.S. were guilty of the crime of kidnapping” (Walter Block, “On Reparations to Blacks for Slavery,” Human Rights Review, July-Sept. 2002, p. 55). Calling slavery “the crime of kidnapping” cannot be construed by anyone as consistent with saying that is was “not so bad.” Or, “Were justice fully done in 1865 these people [i.e., slave owners] would have been incarcerated, and that part of the value of their holdings attributed to slave labor would have been turned over to ex-slaves.”
Once again in the same publication, Professor Block wrote that in “a regime of justice the farms would [in the present day] be in the hands of the great grandchildren of slaves” instead of the descendants of the slave owners. He then goes on to say that he personally favors a policy that would “return these specific lands to those blacks in the present day who can prove their ancestors were forced to work on these plantations . . .” He, goes even further, writing on page 56 that: “Were justice to have reigned [in 1865], the product of their [i.e., the slaves] entire output would have been given to them, [and] none of it would have remained in the slave masters’ hands.”
In the Spring 2001 issue of the Journal of Markets and Morality (pp. 83-93), Professor Block wrote that “Full compensation [for slavery] might even have contemplated enslaving these former masters to the newly-freed slaves – a sort of poetic justice” (p. 89). Contrary to the lying New York Times, Professor Block is on record as saying that slavery was so bad that its demise justified enslaving the former slave masters as a form of compensation for the crime.
Professor Block’s lawyer surely must have made Lemelle (I don’t call him “Judge Lemelle” since the ill-mannered judge himself did not use the language of “Professor Block,” “Dr. Block,” or even “Mr. Block,” but just “Block”) aware of all of this. He chose not only to ignore it, but to lie about it and claim that Professor Block’s writings show exactly the opposite of what they do in fact show.
As despicable as Lemelle and the New York Times have been in this sordid affair, Professor Block’s employer, Loyola University-New Orleans president Kevin Wildes, was even sleazier and more immoral in his handling of the libeling of one of his faculty members. And he is a Catholic priest. Like almost all modern-day Jesuits, Kevin Wildes conducts himself more like a cultural Marxist ideologue hiding behind a priest’s collar than a holy man. University presidents these days have small armies of assistants, assistant vice presidents, deans, assistant deans, assistants to the assistants, etc. They also conscript faculty in myriad faculty committees to do the work that all the highly-paid assistants and assistant-to-the-assistants are unwilling or unable to do. Rather than asking at least one of his subordinates to look into the New York Times smearing of one of his faculty members – or better yet, talking to Professor Block himself about it — Kevin Wildes immediately condemned Professor Block on his university Web site. His fellow Jesuits at Loyola University-New Orleans then recruited some of their more feeble-minded students to pile on with ignorant and hateful comments on the university Web site condemning Professor Block, who they had never met and whose writings they had never read. (This is a good illustration of what much of the business of American universities in the social sciences and the humanities is about today: producing infantile-minded, politically-correct, left-wing ideologues and blabbermouths in the image of Kevin Wildes and his ilk).
Professor Block has appealed Lemelle’s ruling to another government lawyer in a black robe. One thing this whole sorry episode shows is that there is nothing the statist establishment in America hates and fears more than a well-educated libertarian with a word processor and internet access.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/thomas-dilorenzo/anti-libertarian-outrage/
By Thomas DiLorenzo
“Those people who owned slaves in the pre-Civil War U.S. were guilty of the crime of kidnapping.”
Professor Walter Block, Human Rights Review, July-Sept. 2002, p. 55
Most readers of LewRockwell.com are probably aware of the facts that: 1) A New York Times reporter maliciously libeled Professor Walter Block in a hit piece on Senator Rand Paul by claiming that Professor Block, who has supported Senator Paul, supposedly said that slavery was “not so bad”; 2) that Professor Block sued the New York Times for libel; 3) an establishment judge (the only kind) ruled against Professor Block; and 4) Professor Block has appealed the judge’s outlandish ruling.
It is not surprising that an establishment government lawyer in a black robe would support the views of “the” establishment government propaganda rag in its quest to discredit and smear an ever-so-slightly anti-establishment politician, Senator Rand Paul, by libeling one of his academic supporters. What is surprising is how the federal judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle, did not even bother to document or support with evidence his dismissive statement that “Perceptions about Block’s notion of race related issues were largely fueled and published by Block himself,” as he dismissed the lawsuit. He either made no attempt to determine what Professor Block actually said, or he intentionally and dishonestly ignored it.
What Professor Block said to the New York Times hatchet man “reporter” was that, philosophically speaking, there is a difference between voluntary and involuntary slavery. An example of the former is indentured servitude. About half of all the European immigrants to the original thirteen American colonies were indentured servants. These were mostly poor youth who, in return for passage to America, voluntarily contracted to work for a number of years for the person or business that paid for their voyage. After the period of indentured servitude expired (five years, for example), he was usually given a stipend and became an accepted member of American society with no further work obligations to his previous “employer.” This is the kind of “slavery” that Professor Block, with tongue in cheek, said “was not so bad” compared to real, involuntary slavery. It was a voluntary work contract that was very different from real slavery, which involved the crime of kidnapping, and much worse. At no time has Professor Block ever said that slavery was anything but a moral abomination and an economic drag on the rest of society – the long-standing view of all libertarians.
It does not take much brain power to discern this distinction between voluntary and involuntary servitude. Thus, it is impossible to believe that either the New York Times “reporter” and his editors, or Lemelle, did not understand it. Moreover, the judge’s snide comment that “perceptions” about Professor Block’s “notion of race related issues” are “fueled and published by Block himself” is unequivocally false, as anyone who has spent even a few minutes reading Professor Block’s writings on the subject would conclude.
Professor Block has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, for example, on the subject of reparations for slavery. Like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and various other black political activists, Professor Block is on record as being in favor of reparations for slavery – as long as a black person today can prove that his ancestor(s) was/were indeed enslaved, and as long as the reparation can somehow be paid by the descendants of the slave owner(s), not the general taxpaying public.
It would have taken Lemelle or the New York Times only a minute or two to do an internet search and find Professor Block saying such things as “those people who owned slaves in the pre-Civil War U.S. were guilty of the crime of kidnapping” (Walter Block, “On Reparations to Blacks for Slavery,” Human Rights Review, July-Sept. 2002, p. 55). Calling slavery “the crime of kidnapping” cannot be construed by anyone as consistent with saying that is was “not so bad.” Or, “Were justice fully done in 1865 these people [i.e., slave owners] would have been incarcerated, and that part of the value of their holdings attributed to slave labor would have been turned over to ex-slaves.”
Once again in the same publication, Professor Block wrote that in “a regime of justice the farms would [in the present day] be in the hands of the great grandchildren of slaves” instead of the descendants of the slave owners. He then goes on to say that he personally favors a policy that would “return these specific lands to those blacks in the present day who can prove their ancestors were forced to work on these plantations . . .” He, goes even further, writing on page 56 that: “Were justice to have reigned [in 1865], the product of their [i.e., the slaves] entire output would have been given to them, [and] none of it would have remained in the slave masters’ hands.”
In the Spring 2001 issue of the Journal of Markets and Morality (pp. 83-93), Professor Block wrote that “Full compensation [for slavery] might even have contemplated enslaving these former masters to the newly-freed slaves – a sort of poetic justice” (p. 89). Contrary to the lying New York Times, Professor Block is on record as saying that slavery was so bad that its demise justified enslaving the former slave masters as a form of compensation for the crime.
Professor Block’s lawyer surely must have made Lemelle (I don’t call him “Judge Lemelle” since the ill-mannered judge himself did not use the language of “Professor Block,” “Dr. Block,” or even “Mr. Block,” but just “Block”) aware of all of this. He chose not only to ignore it, but to lie about it and claim that Professor Block’s writings show exactly the opposite of what they do in fact show.
As despicable as Lemelle and the New York Times have been in this sordid affair, Professor Block’s employer, Loyola University-New Orleans president Kevin Wildes, was even sleazier and more immoral in his handling of the libeling of one of his faculty members. And he is a Catholic priest. Like almost all modern-day Jesuits, Kevin Wildes conducts himself more like a cultural Marxist ideologue hiding behind a priest’s collar than a holy man. University presidents these days have small armies of assistants, assistant vice presidents, deans, assistant deans, assistants to the assistants, etc. They also conscript faculty in myriad faculty committees to do the work that all the highly-paid assistants and assistant-to-the-assistants are unwilling or unable to do. Rather than asking at least one of his subordinates to look into the New York Times smearing of one of his faculty members – or better yet, talking to Professor Block himself about it — Kevin Wildes immediately condemned Professor Block on his university Web site. His fellow Jesuits at Loyola University-New Orleans then recruited some of their more feeble-minded students to pile on with ignorant and hateful comments on the university Web site condemning Professor Block, who they had never met and whose writings they had never read. (This is a good illustration of what much of the business of American universities in the social sciences and the humanities is about today: producing infantile-minded, politically-correct, left-wing ideologues and blabbermouths in the image of Kevin Wildes and his ilk).
Professor Block has appealed Lemelle’s ruling to another government lawyer in a black robe. One thing this whole sorry episode shows is that there is nothing the statist establishment in America hates and fears more than a well-educated libertarian with a word processor and internet access.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/05/thomas-dilorenzo/anti-libertarian-outrage/
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Sounds familiar...
The Fable of the Chickens
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a flock of chickens. They were the happiest chickens in the whole world. There was always plenty to eat and the chickens were free to range wherever they wanted. Eggs were plentiful and the happy flock was always growing.
One day, however, those happy chickens met with disaster. A group of very mean raccoons attacked, killed, and ate some of the birds.
The chickens went into a panic. They all began running around the yard as if their heads had been cut off.
“The raccoons are coming to get us! They’re coming to get us! Woe is us! We are lost.”
One chicken, however, kept her cool. She said, “Maybe something in the forest just stirred up the raccoons. Why don’t we just fortify our defenses and see how things develop.”
But the other chickens were much too frightened to listen. They just kept running around in circles, peeping, “The raccoons are coming to get us. They’re coming to get us. Woe is us! We are lost!”
Suddenly, one of the chickens got a brainstorm. “Why don’t we ask Mr. Fox to guard us” the chicken asked?
That hit a chord within that group of chickens. “Yeah, that’s the solution! We’ll get Mr. Fox to watch over us and protect us from the raccoons.”’
So, the chickens approached Mr. Fox, explained to him what happened, and asked for his help.
Mr. Fox said: “I am a good creature. Of course, I will help you. I’ve already got a plan for protecting your from the raccoons. It will require all of you to give up a tiny bit of your freedom to roam but this will only be temporary. Once the crisis is over, your freedom will be restored to you.”
The chickens were ecstatic. “We’ll do anything to be kept safe. We certainly don’t mind surrendering our freedom if it means being protected from the raccoons. Anyway, it will only be for a short period of time.”
One chicken — the same one, in fact, who had suggested that the chickens fortify their defenses against the raccoons — said, “Do you think we can trust Mr. Fox?”
The other chickens were outraged. “Mr. Fox is our friend. He’s willing to help us. Of course, we can trust him. Get with the plan. Be a patriot!”
On the day Mr. Fox’s plan was to go in effect, there was a big celebration in the yard. The chickens even dressed Mr. Fox in military garb and took turns passing in front of him, bowing, and peeping, “Thank you, Mr. Fox. Thank you for keeping us safe. We will praise you and glorify you for rest of our lives.”
At the conclusion of the celebration, Mr. Fox announced, “It is now time to implement my plan to keep you safe. Everyone will march into this big chicken coop that I have constructed. I can assure you that it is 100 percent raccoon-proof.”
The chickens, who would still become extremely frightened over the mere mention of the word “raccoon,” dutifully marched into the coop. When the last chicken had filed in, Mr. Fox closed the door, pulled down the latch, and locked it. Mr. Fox was now in charge of guarding the chicken coop.
And that’s the end of this tale, except to say that Mr. Fox, who had stirred up those mean raccoons in the first place, lived happily ever after.
Also, see: A Foreign-Policy Primer for Children: The Fable of the Hornets by Jacob G. Hornberger.
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/26/fable-chickens/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a flock of chickens. They were the happiest chickens in the whole world. There was always plenty to eat and the chickens were free to range wherever they wanted. Eggs were plentiful and the happy flock was always growing.
One day, however, those happy chickens met with disaster. A group of very mean raccoons attacked, killed, and ate some of the birds.
The chickens went into a panic. They all began running around the yard as if their heads had been cut off.
“The raccoons are coming to get us! They’re coming to get us! Woe is us! We are lost.”
One chicken, however, kept her cool. She said, “Maybe something in the forest just stirred up the raccoons. Why don’t we just fortify our defenses and see how things develop.”
But the other chickens were much too frightened to listen. They just kept running around in circles, peeping, “The raccoons are coming to get us. They’re coming to get us. Woe is us! We are lost!”
Suddenly, one of the chickens got a brainstorm. “Why don’t we ask Mr. Fox to guard us” the chicken asked?
That hit a chord within that group of chickens. “Yeah, that’s the solution! We’ll get Mr. Fox to watch over us and protect us from the raccoons.”’
So, the chickens approached Mr. Fox, explained to him what happened, and asked for his help.
Mr. Fox said: “I am a good creature. Of course, I will help you. I’ve already got a plan for protecting your from the raccoons. It will require all of you to give up a tiny bit of your freedom to roam but this will only be temporary. Once the crisis is over, your freedom will be restored to you.”
The chickens were ecstatic. “We’ll do anything to be kept safe. We certainly don’t mind surrendering our freedom if it means being protected from the raccoons. Anyway, it will only be for a short period of time.”
One chicken — the same one, in fact, who had suggested that the chickens fortify their defenses against the raccoons — said, “Do you think we can trust Mr. Fox?”
The other chickens were outraged. “Mr. Fox is our friend. He’s willing to help us. Of course, we can trust him. Get with the plan. Be a patriot!”
On the day Mr. Fox’s plan was to go in effect, there was a big celebration in the yard. The chickens even dressed Mr. Fox in military garb and took turns passing in front of him, bowing, and peeping, “Thank you, Mr. Fox. Thank you for keeping us safe. We will praise you and glorify you for rest of our lives.”
At the conclusion of the celebration, Mr. Fox announced, “It is now time to implement my plan to keep you safe. Everyone will march into this big chicken coop that I have constructed. I can assure you that it is 100 percent raccoon-proof.”
The chickens, who would still become extremely frightened over the mere mention of the word “raccoon,” dutifully marched into the coop. When the last chicken had filed in, Mr. Fox closed the door, pulled down the latch, and locked it. Mr. Fox was now in charge of guarding the chicken coop.
And that’s the end of this tale, except to say that Mr. Fox, who had stirred up those mean raccoons in the first place, lived happily ever after.
Also, see: A Foreign-Policy Primer for Children: The Fable of the Hornets by Jacob G. Hornberger.
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/05/26/fable-chickens/
"There are no free financial markets in America..."
Free Financial Markets Are A Hoax
Paul Craig Roberts
There are no free financial markets in America, or for that matter anywhere in the Western word, and few, if any, free markets of any other kind. The financial markets are rigged by the big banks, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury in the interests of the profits of the few big banks and the dollar’s exchange value, which is the basis of US power.
There is a contradiction between a strong currency on one hand and on the other hand massive money creation in order to sustain zero and negative interest rates on the massive debt levels. This inconsistency is revealed by rising gold and silver prices.
When gold hit $1,900 an ounce in 2011 the Federal Reserve realized that the precious metal market was going to limit its ability to provide enough liquidity to keep the thoughtlessly deregulated financial system afloat. The rapid deterioration of the dollar in terms of gold and silver would sooner or later spill over into the exchange value of the dollar in currency markets. Something had to be done to drive down and to cap the gold price.
The Fed’s solution was to take advantage of the fact that the prices of gold and silver are determined in the futures market where paper contracts representing gold and silver are traded, and not in markets where the physical metal is actually purchased by people who take possession of it. The Fed realized that uncovered short sales provided enormous leverage over the prices of the metals and that it would be profitable for the bullion banks, such as JPMorgan, Scotia, and HSBC, to short the market heavily and then cover their shorts at lower prices produced by selling as a result of triggering stop-loss orders and margin calls.
Dave Kranzler and I have shown on numerous occasions that the bullion banks and the Federal Reserve make profits and protect the dollar by suppressing the prices of gold and silver. They do this by illegally selling huge numbers of uncovered shorts in the futures market. This illegal operation is supported by the so-called “regulatory authorities” who steadfastly refuse to intervene.
It has just happened again. Dave Kranzler describes it in detail here:http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/bullish-news-for-precious-metals-and-goldsilver-get-paper-smashed/
If memory serves, Matt Taibbi explained a few years ago how Goldman Sachs got position limits removed from speculators, so that now speculators can dominate market forces.
Neoliberal economists in service to the financial sector have created a rationale for why interest rates can be negative in the face of massive debt and money creation and a slew of troubled financial instruments from corporate junk bonds to sovereign debt. The rational is that there is too much saving: The excess of savings over investment forces down interest rates. The negative interest rates will discourage people from saving and encourage them to spend, because the price of consumption in terms of foregone future income from saving is zero. It even pays to consume, because saving costs more than it earns.
Economists argue this even though the Federal Reserve reported that a majority of Americans are so low on savings that they cannot raise $400 without selling personal possessions.
That economists would concoct such an absurd explanation for negative interest rates, an explanation obviously contradicted by empirical evidence, shows that economists are now prostitutes just like the media. The economists are lying in support of a Federal Reserve policy that benefits a handful of mega-banks at the expense of the rest of the world.
The absence of integrity in Western institutions and politicized professions is proof that Western civilization has declined into total decadence just as Jacques Barzun said.
It is amazing that there still are some Russians and some Chinese who want to be part of the sordid decadence that is the Western world.
It is just as amazing that Americans and Europeans are so trapped in The Matrix that they have no inkling that their future has been destroyed.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/free-financial-markets-are-a-hoax.html
Paul Craig Roberts
There are no free financial markets in America, or for that matter anywhere in the Western word, and few, if any, free markets of any other kind. The financial markets are rigged by the big banks, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury in the interests of the profits of the few big banks and the dollar’s exchange value, which is the basis of US power.
There is a contradiction between a strong currency on one hand and on the other hand massive money creation in order to sustain zero and negative interest rates on the massive debt levels. This inconsistency is revealed by rising gold and silver prices.
When gold hit $1,900 an ounce in 2011 the Federal Reserve realized that the precious metal market was going to limit its ability to provide enough liquidity to keep the thoughtlessly deregulated financial system afloat. The rapid deterioration of the dollar in terms of gold and silver would sooner or later spill over into the exchange value of the dollar in currency markets. Something had to be done to drive down and to cap the gold price.
The Fed’s solution was to take advantage of the fact that the prices of gold and silver are determined in the futures market where paper contracts representing gold and silver are traded, and not in markets where the physical metal is actually purchased by people who take possession of it. The Fed realized that uncovered short sales provided enormous leverage over the prices of the metals and that it would be profitable for the bullion banks, such as JPMorgan, Scotia, and HSBC, to short the market heavily and then cover their shorts at lower prices produced by selling as a result of triggering stop-loss orders and margin calls.
Dave Kranzler and I have shown on numerous occasions that the bullion banks and the Federal Reserve make profits and protect the dollar by suppressing the prices of gold and silver. They do this by illegally selling huge numbers of uncovered shorts in the futures market. This illegal operation is supported by the so-called “regulatory authorities” who steadfastly refuse to intervene.
It has just happened again. Dave Kranzler describes it in detail here:http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/bullish-news-for-precious-metals-and-goldsilver-get-paper-smashed/
If memory serves, Matt Taibbi explained a few years ago how Goldman Sachs got position limits removed from speculators, so that now speculators can dominate market forces.
Neoliberal economists in service to the financial sector have created a rationale for why interest rates can be negative in the face of massive debt and money creation and a slew of troubled financial instruments from corporate junk bonds to sovereign debt. The rational is that there is too much saving: The excess of savings over investment forces down interest rates. The negative interest rates will discourage people from saving and encourage them to spend, because the price of consumption in terms of foregone future income from saving is zero. It even pays to consume, because saving costs more than it earns.
Economists argue this even though the Federal Reserve reported that a majority of Americans are so low on savings that they cannot raise $400 without selling personal possessions.
That economists would concoct such an absurd explanation for negative interest rates, an explanation obviously contradicted by empirical evidence, shows that economists are now prostitutes just like the media. The economists are lying in support of a Federal Reserve policy that benefits a handful of mega-banks at the expense of the rest of the world.
The absence of integrity in Western institutions and politicized professions is proof that Western civilization has declined into total decadence just as Jacques Barzun said.
It is amazing that there still are some Russians and some Chinese who want to be part of the sordid decadence that is the Western world.
It is just as amazing that Americans and Europeans are so trapped in The Matrix that they have no inkling that their future has been destroyed.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/free-financial-markets-are-a-hoax.html
The end of cash...
Secret Meeting in London to “End Cash”
Central banks aim to institute “governmental approval” for all purchases and sales
Paul Joseph Watson
Economist Martin Armstrong claims there is a “secret meeting to end cash” set to take place in London before the end of the month involving representatives from the ECB and the Federal Reserve.
Armstrong, who is known for successfully predicting the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse, expressed his shock that no news outlet has reported on this upcoming conference.
“I find it extremely perplexing that I have been the only one to report of the secret meeting in London. Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Willem Buiter, the Chief Economist at Citigroup, will address the central banks to advocate the elimination of all cash to bring to fruition the day when you cannot buy or sell anything without government approval,” writes Armstrong.
“When I googled the issue to see who else has picked it up, to my surprise, Armstrong Economics comes up first. Others are quoting me, and I even find it spreading as far as the Central Bank of Nigeria, but I have yet to find any reports on the meeting taking place in London, when my sources are direct.”
Armstrong first brought attention to the alleged meeting earlier this month when he revealed that representatives from the Federal Reserve, the ECB as well as participants from the Swiss and Danish central banks would all be attending a “major conference in London” at which Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Willem Buiter, the Chief Economist at Citigroup, would give presentations.
“We better keep one eye open at night for this birth of a cashless society that is coming in much faster than expected. Why the secret meeting? Something does not smell right here,” concludes Armstrong.
Discussions and moves towards banning cash have repeatedly cropped up in recent weeks.
Willem Buiter, who Armstrong claims is speaking at the secret meeting, recently advocated abolishing cash altogether in order to “solve the world’s central banks’ problem with negative interest rates.”
Last year, Kenneth Rogoff also called for “abolishing physical currency” in order to stop “tax evasion and illegal activity” as well as preventing people from withdrawing money when interest rates are close to zero.
Striking a similar tone, former Bank of England economist Jim Leaviss penned an article for the London Telegraph earlier this month in which he said a cashless society would only be achieved by “forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank,” which would be, “monitored, or even directly controlled by the government.”
Big banks in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. are already treating the withdrawal or depositing of moderately large amounts of cash as a suspicious activity. Reports emerged in March of how the Justice Department is ordering bank employees to consider calling the cops on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more.
Meanwhile in France, new measures are set to come into force in September which will restrict French citizens from making cash payments over €1,000 euros. Armstrong suggests that “financial police” could enforce this new law by, “searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize.”
As Armstrong notes, banning cash in order to eviscerate what little economic freedoms people have left to avoid disastrous Keynesian central bank policy is nothing short of economic totalitarianism.
“In the mind of an economic tyrant, banning cash represents the holy grail,” writes Michael Krieger. “Forcing the plebs onto a system of digital fiat currency transactions offers total control via a seamless tracking of all transactions in the economy, and the ability to block payments if an uppity citizen dares get out of line.”
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/secret-meeting-in-london-to-end-cash.html
Central banks aim to institute “governmental approval” for all purchases and sales
Paul Joseph Watson
Economist Martin Armstrong claims there is a “secret meeting to end cash” set to take place in London before the end of the month involving representatives from the ECB and the Federal Reserve.
Armstrong, who is known for successfully predicting the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse, expressed his shock that no news outlet has reported on this upcoming conference.
“I find it extremely perplexing that I have been the only one to report of the secret meeting in London. Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Willem Buiter, the Chief Economist at Citigroup, will address the central banks to advocate the elimination of all cash to bring to fruition the day when you cannot buy or sell anything without government approval,” writes Armstrong.
“When I googled the issue to see who else has picked it up, to my surprise, Armstrong Economics comes up first. Others are quoting me, and I even find it spreading as far as the Central Bank of Nigeria, but I have yet to find any reports on the meeting taking place in London, when my sources are direct.”
Armstrong first brought attention to the alleged meeting earlier this month when he revealed that representatives from the Federal Reserve, the ECB as well as participants from the Swiss and Danish central banks would all be attending a “major conference in London” at which Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Willem Buiter, the Chief Economist at Citigroup, would give presentations.
“We better keep one eye open at night for this birth of a cashless society that is coming in much faster than expected. Why the secret meeting? Something does not smell right here,” concludes Armstrong.
Discussions and moves towards banning cash have repeatedly cropped up in recent weeks.
Willem Buiter, who Armstrong claims is speaking at the secret meeting, recently advocated abolishing cash altogether in order to “solve the world’s central banks’ problem with negative interest rates.”
Last year, Kenneth Rogoff also called for “abolishing physical currency” in order to stop “tax evasion and illegal activity” as well as preventing people from withdrawing money when interest rates are close to zero.
Striking a similar tone, former Bank of England economist Jim Leaviss penned an article for the London Telegraph earlier this month in which he said a cashless society would only be achieved by “forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank,” which would be, “monitored, or even directly controlled by the government.”
Big banks in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. are already treating the withdrawal or depositing of moderately large amounts of cash as a suspicious activity. Reports emerged in March of how the Justice Department is ordering bank employees to consider calling the cops on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more.
Meanwhile in France, new measures are set to come into force in September which will restrict French citizens from making cash payments over €1,000 euros. Armstrong suggests that “financial police” could enforce this new law by, “searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize.”
As Armstrong notes, banning cash in order to eviscerate what little economic freedoms people have left to avoid disastrous Keynesian central bank policy is nothing short of economic totalitarianism.
“In the mind of an economic tyrant, banning cash represents the holy grail,” writes Michael Krieger. “Forcing the plebs onto a system of digital fiat currency transactions offers total control via a seamless tracking of all transactions in the economy, and the ability to block payments if an uppity citizen dares get out of line.”
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/secret-meeting-in-london-to-end-cash.html
No surprise here...
U.S. Intel: Obama Coalition Supported Islamic State in Syria
Written by Alex Newman
A newly released intelligence report from the Pentagon shows that the U.S. government knew that supporting jihadists in the fight against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would produce a fundamentalist Islamic State in Eastern Syria — and that Obama’s supposed “anti-ISIS” coalition knowingly backed ISIS and other Islamic terrorists for precisely that purpose. The heavily redacted Defense Department report, obtained by watchdog Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, shows once again that, contrary to the false narrative peddled by the establishment press, the rise of the savage terror group known as ISIS was actually deliberate policy. Now, the fruits of that plot are becoming clearer as the body count continues to skyrocket.
The 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report is very blunt about the objectives. “The West, Gulf countries [the Islamic regimes ruling Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, etc.], and Turkey support the Syrian opposition,” it explains, adding that, as The New American reported at the time, al-Qaeda supported the Syrian uprising from the beginning as well. “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist [fundamentalist Islam] principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.” (Emphasis added.) Of course, that is also exactly what happened when ISIS declared the establishment of its “caliphate” in Eastern Syria and parts of Iraq.
The DIA report also exposes the lies propagated by the Obama administration, senior U.S. lawmakers, and foreign leaders to dupe Americans into allowing the U.S. government to support non-existent “moderate” rebels in Syria. According to the classified document, which was released by a court order, U.S. authorities were well aware of the fact that, as reported by The New American shortly after it began, the rebellion against Assad was being led by radical jihadists — including many of the same forces the U.S. government was ostensibly fighting against in the terror war. “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” stated the report, which was dated August 12, 2012, long after The New American and other media outlets exposed that same fact.
The Defense Department’s intelligence analysts also warned of the consequences all of the machinations could have on Iraq. “This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al-Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters,” the report explained, pointing to two cities in Iraq that are now under ISIS control. “ISI [Islamic State in Iraq] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”
The New American magazine and many other sources have been reporting much of that information almost since the start of the Western establishment-backed “rebellion” against the Syrian regime. However, some analysts are now calling the DIA report a “smoking gun.” Among other points, the documents offer further proof that the rise of ISIS, due largely to the foreign policy of the Obama administration and its allies, was not the result of an accident or stupidity — but of deliberate planning. However, Vice President Joe Biden and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey had already let the cat at least partially out of the bag.
Speaking at Harvard last year, Biden directly contradicted the Obama administration’s propaganda about arming “moderate” rebels in Syria. “The fact is, the ability to identify a moderate middle in Syria, um, was, uh — there was no moderate middle,” he explained, adding that Obama’s anti-ISIS coalition had armed, trained, and funded al Qaeda and ISIS to wage war on Assad. General Dempsey, meanwhile, responding to a question by pro-Syrian jihad senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) about U.S. allies supporting ISIS, explained: “I know of major Arab allies who fund them.” Of course, the CIA, the U.S. Defense Department, and the U.S. State Department were also instrumental in the fomenting the rise of ISIS.
Similarly, as is now common knowledge, the Obama administration, acting under United Nations orders rather than a declaration of war from Congress as required by the Constitution, backed self-styled al-Qaeda leaders in the war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. Analysts and even top U.S. military officials blasted it as “switching sides” in the terror war. The fruits in Libya are clear, too — the nation has become what Senator Rand Paul referred to as a “jihadist wonderland,” a failed state in which terrorist groups run wild. Gadhafi, of course, despite being a brutal dictator, was a U.S. government ally in its terror war prior to being targeted for “regime change” and summary execution by Western-backed jihadists.
Other newly released official U.S. documents obtained by Judicial Watch also show that the Obama administration was fully aware that weapons were being shipped from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists — another story that the alternative media broke years ago. The U.S. government reports also show that the Obama administration knew the assault on the secret U.S. compound in the Libyan city was a well-planned terror attack, even as officials were falsely claiming otherwise on television. “These documents are jaw-dropping,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them.”
“If the American people had known the truth — that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go — and yet lied and covered this fact up — Mitt Romney might very well be president,” he said, adding that the documents prove an ongoing cover-up surrounding Benghazi. “And why would the Obama administration continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood even after it knew it was tied to the Benghazi terrorist attack and to al Qaeda? These documents also point to connection between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war — and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists.”
Unsurprisingly, while the explosive revelations are receiving a great deal of attention in the alternative press — much of which had already been exposing the machinations for years — the establishment media has barely uttered a word about it. ZeroHedge, Infowars, The Levant Report, Lew Rockwell, the Ron Paul Liberty Report, and others have all highlighted the contents. In the “mainstream” press, though, the only notable exception to the bizarre silence was the U.K. Sunday Times, which reported on May 24 that the DIA report “has prompted accusations that President Barack Obama lied when he claimed to have been blindsided by an intelligence failure after Isis swept into Iraq early last year.”
Analysts suggested that the media silence may be related to the establishment press’s bizarre parroting of outlandish and easily discredited Obama administration talking points in the run up to the attempted “regime change” war on Syria. “Throughout the early years of the Syria crisis, the U.S. and U.K. governments, and almost universally the West’s mainstream media, promoted Syria’s rebels as moderate, liberal, secular, democratic, and therefore deserving of the West’s support,” former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge told Nafeez Ahmed with Insurge Intelligence. “Given that these documents wholly undermine this assessment, it’s significant that the West’s media has now, despite their immense significance, almost entirely ignored them.”
The DIA document was widely circulated throughout the U.S. government — the State Department, Central Command, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies would have all seen it, according to media reports. That means its contents, and therefore, the engineered rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) to “isolate” Assad, would not have been a surprise to U.S. officials. In other words, in addition to supporting the most violent and barbaric jihadists on the planet while ostensibly waging a liberty-crushing “terror war,” top-level government officials have been lying to the American people and the world. It is time for the perpetrators to be held accountable.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/20943-u-s-intel-obama-coalition-supported-islamic-state-in-syria
Written by Alex Newman
A newly released intelligence report from the Pentagon shows that the U.S. government knew that supporting jihadists in the fight against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would produce a fundamentalist Islamic State in Eastern Syria — and that Obama’s supposed “anti-ISIS” coalition knowingly backed ISIS and other Islamic terrorists for precisely that purpose. The heavily redacted Defense Department report, obtained by watchdog Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, shows once again that, contrary to the false narrative peddled by the establishment press, the rise of the savage terror group known as ISIS was actually deliberate policy. Now, the fruits of that plot are becoming clearer as the body count continues to skyrocket.
The 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report is very blunt about the objectives. “The West, Gulf countries [the Islamic regimes ruling Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, etc.], and Turkey support the Syrian opposition,” it explains, adding that, as The New American reported at the time, al-Qaeda supported the Syrian uprising from the beginning as well. “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist [fundamentalist Islam] principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.” (Emphasis added.) Of course, that is also exactly what happened when ISIS declared the establishment of its “caliphate” in Eastern Syria and parts of Iraq.
The DIA report also exposes the lies propagated by the Obama administration, senior U.S. lawmakers, and foreign leaders to dupe Americans into allowing the U.S. government to support non-existent “moderate” rebels in Syria. According to the classified document, which was released by a court order, U.S. authorities were well aware of the fact that, as reported by The New American shortly after it began, the rebellion against Assad was being led by radical jihadists — including many of the same forces the U.S. government was ostensibly fighting against in the terror war. “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” stated the report, which was dated August 12, 2012, long after The New American and other media outlets exposed that same fact.
The Defense Department’s intelligence analysts also warned of the consequences all of the machinations could have on Iraq. “This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al-Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters,” the report explained, pointing to two cities in Iraq that are now under ISIS control. “ISI [Islamic State in Iraq] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”
The New American magazine and many other sources have been reporting much of that information almost since the start of the Western establishment-backed “rebellion” against the Syrian regime. However, some analysts are now calling the DIA report a “smoking gun.” Among other points, the documents offer further proof that the rise of ISIS, due largely to the foreign policy of the Obama administration and its allies, was not the result of an accident or stupidity — but of deliberate planning. However, Vice President Joe Biden and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey had already let the cat at least partially out of the bag.
Speaking at Harvard last year, Biden directly contradicted the Obama administration’s propaganda about arming “moderate” rebels in Syria. “The fact is, the ability to identify a moderate middle in Syria, um, was, uh — there was no moderate middle,” he explained, adding that Obama’s anti-ISIS coalition had armed, trained, and funded al Qaeda and ISIS to wage war on Assad. General Dempsey, meanwhile, responding to a question by pro-Syrian jihad senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) about U.S. allies supporting ISIS, explained: “I know of major Arab allies who fund them.” Of course, the CIA, the U.S. Defense Department, and the U.S. State Department were also instrumental in the fomenting the rise of ISIS.
Similarly, as is now common knowledge, the Obama administration, acting under United Nations orders rather than a declaration of war from Congress as required by the Constitution, backed self-styled al-Qaeda leaders in the war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. Analysts and even top U.S. military officials blasted it as “switching sides” in the terror war. The fruits in Libya are clear, too — the nation has become what Senator Rand Paul referred to as a “jihadist wonderland,” a failed state in which terrorist groups run wild. Gadhafi, of course, despite being a brutal dictator, was a U.S. government ally in its terror war prior to being targeted for “regime change” and summary execution by Western-backed jihadists.
Other newly released official U.S. documents obtained by Judicial Watch also show that the Obama administration was fully aware that weapons were being shipped from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists — another story that the alternative media broke years ago. The U.S. government reports also show that the Obama administration knew the assault on the secret U.S. compound in the Libyan city was a well-planned terror attack, even as officials were falsely claiming otherwise on television. “These documents are jaw-dropping,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them.”
“If the American people had known the truth — that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go — and yet lied and covered this fact up — Mitt Romney might very well be president,” he said, adding that the documents prove an ongoing cover-up surrounding Benghazi. “And why would the Obama administration continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood even after it knew it was tied to the Benghazi terrorist attack and to al Qaeda? These documents also point to connection between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war — and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists.”
Unsurprisingly, while the explosive revelations are receiving a great deal of attention in the alternative press — much of which had already been exposing the machinations for years — the establishment media has barely uttered a word about it. ZeroHedge, Infowars, The Levant Report, Lew Rockwell, the Ron Paul Liberty Report, and others have all highlighted the contents. In the “mainstream” press, though, the only notable exception to the bizarre silence was the U.K. Sunday Times, which reported on May 24 that the DIA report “has prompted accusations that President Barack Obama lied when he claimed to have been blindsided by an intelligence failure after Isis swept into Iraq early last year.”
Analysts suggested that the media silence may be related to the establishment press’s bizarre parroting of outlandish and easily discredited Obama administration talking points in the run up to the attempted “regime change” war on Syria. “Throughout the early years of the Syria crisis, the U.S. and U.K. governments, and almost universally the West’s mainstream media, promoted Syria’s rebels as moderate, liberal, secular, democratic, and therefore deserving of the West’s support,” former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge told Nafeez Ahmed with Insurge Intelligence. “Given that these documents wholly undermine this assessment, it’s significant that the West’s media has now, despite their immense significance, almost entirely ignored them.”
The DIA document was widely circulated throughout the U.S. government — the State Department, Central Command, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies would have all seen it, according to media reports. That means its contents, and therefore, the engineered rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) to “isolate” Assad, would not have been a surprise to U.S. officials. In other words, in addition to supporting the most violent and barbaric jihadists on the planet while ostensibly waging a liberty-crushing “terror war,” top-level government officials have been lying to the American people and the world. It is time for the perpetrators to be held accountable.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/20943-u-s-intel-obama-coalition-supported-islamic-state-in-syria
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