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Gary Edwards

I Am a Peaceful AR-15 Assault Rifle Owner by Marc J. Victor - 0 views

www.lewrockwell.com/...victor7.1.1.html

Libertarian Guns Culture-of-Violence

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • "Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurances and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." ~ George Washington
  • I am an American. As such, none of my rights depend on a showing of need. I am a free man who has the right to define and pursue my happiness in any peaceful way I see fit. The government does not grant me rights. I was born free. The legitimate role of government is to act as my agent to protect my rights; which exist independent of government. Americans do not beg the government for rights nor are they required to demonstrate a "need" for rights.
  • Government never has a more tempting opportunity to increase its size, power and scope, and to curtail the liberties of free people, than during or immediately after a crisis. Indeed, crisis is so tempting an opportunity for government that governments invent crisis whenever possible. This is why "emergency acts" and "wars" on anyone and anything are so popular for governments. Nothing entices people to stop thinking, act impulsively, and to relinquish liberties so easily as a "crisis" or a "tragedy" or an "emergency." We need to be smarter if liberty is to survive.
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • Banning Guns is Un-American and Immoral "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …" ~ Samuel Adams
  • The Idea of Banning Guns is Foolishness "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Ben Franklin
  • The single biggest contributing factor to our culture of violence is that our society no longer adheres to the once basic notion that initiating force against non-aggressors is wrong
  • Although President Obama appears excited about the notion of banning guns, I have not heard him order a ban on the very guns used to protect him. Apparently, when it comes to his protection, President Obama prefers to be protected by people armed with guns. Indeed, I suspect none of these gun ban advocates would hesitate to call 911 and request help from people armed with guns if they were faced with an intruder in their homes in the middle of the night. I fail to understand why we can’t all agree that guns save lives.
  • Our Culture of Violence
  • "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" ~ Benjamin Franklin
  • Gun Regulations Never Reduce Gun Violence and Usually Increase Violent Crime "The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that … it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; … " ~ Thomas Jefferson
  • Our laws are replete with instances of legal trespass against peaceful people.
  • I prefer that my children are no longer unprotected sitting ducks at a federally mandated gun free zone in school.
  • We no longer recognize the sovereignty of the individual.
  • democracy is akin to mob rule.
  • Our spending on the drug war will soon be approaching 100 billion dollars per year.
  • Not only do guns remain widely available in Mexico, but their gun related homicide rate outpaces ours. The same can be said of all these drug war countries.
  • Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. Its laws effectively prohibit gun ownership.
  • Rather than living in a democratic republic where most decisions are left to the property owner, we now have an unfettered democracy where anything goes so long as the majority of voters agree
  • "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." ~ Richard Henry Lee
  • Indeed, this law may have encouraged Mr. Lanza to work his horrific violence at the Sandy Hook Elementary School knowing federal law provides that nobody could have the capacity to stop him.
  • One unintended consequence of this federal law has been to create a guaranteed victim zone, comprised of children, who are unprotected sitting ducks for any deranged lunatic such as Mr. Lanza.
  • Our culture of violence is more directly attributable to anti-freedom government policies which diminish and disrespect the rights of the individual.
  • Here is a short list of some notable examples compiled by the Libertarian Party:
  • A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck. A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun. A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard. A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Virginia came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter. A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened. A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas was halted by two co-workers who carried concealed handguns. A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colorado was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun. At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Oregon the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.
  • Three Reasons Americans Have a Right to Own Guns "Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" ~ Patrick Henry
  • First, free people have a right to self defense.
  • The second reason for a right to keep and bear arms is to deter possible foreign invasions.
  • The founders of our nation believed people must always preserve their right to resistance and revolution against their own government. "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~ Thomas Jefferson.
  • Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
  • The third reason for a right to keep and bear arms is, as Thomas Jefferson stated, "The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
  • "When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
  • "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass"
  • In the 20th century alone, the death toll resulting from governments murdering their own disarmed citizens after guns were legally banned is estimated at 56 million.
  • "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." ~ Samuel Adams
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Dec 12
     
    Excellent article on the importance of gun ownership in America.  The author is a defense attorney practicing law in Arizona.  He's also a war veteran and well versed libertarian.   Excerpts: "I am an American. As such, none of my rights depend on a showing of need. I am a free man who has the right to define and pursue my happiness in any peaceful way I see fit. The government does not grant me rights. I was born free. The legitimate role of government is to act as my agent to protect my rights; which exist independent of government. Americans do not beg the government for rights nor are they required to demonstrate a "need" for rights." "Government never has a more tempting opportunity to increase its size, power and scope, and to curtail the liberties of free people, than during or immediately after a crisis. Indeed, crisis is so tempting an opportunity for government that governments invent crisis whenever possible. This is why "emergency acts" and "wars" on anyone and anything are so popular for governments. Nothing entices people to stop thinking, act impulsively, and to relinquish liberties so easily as a "crisis" or a "tragedy" or an "emergency." We need to be smarter if liberty is to survive." "Although President Obama appears excited about the notion of banning guns, I have not heard him order a ban on the very guns used to protect him. Apparently, when it comes to his protection, President Obama prefers to be protected by people armed with guns. "
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Jan 13
     
    Excellent article other than the fact that the author erred in referring to the AR-15 as an "assault rifle." It is not. It is an "assault weapon," a semi-automatic rifle with only a cosmetic resemblance to the M-16 fully automatic "assault rifle." "Assault rifles" have been outlawed in the U.S. for decades. The U.S. had a complete ban on "assault weapon" rifles from 1994 to 2004. It did not affect gun violence rates at all, because semi-automatic rifles that lacked the cosmetic resemblance to "assault rifles" remained on the market. The distinction between the two terms is critical to understanding the current gun debate. Those who propose a ban on "assault weapons" are offering only a cosmetic sop to the anti-gun crowd, banning a sub-set of semi-automatic rifles whilst leaving equally capable semi-autos on the market. The correct question to ask is "why bother?" One might as well ban toy guns that bear a resemblance to assault weapons; other toy guns remain unaffected. For a more in depth discussion of "assault weapon" vs. "assault rifle" with references see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon
Paul Merrell

It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors | WEB OF D... - 0 views

webofdebt.wordpress.com/...anned-for-us-and-uk-depositors

financial-collapse Cyprus banksters U.S. confiscation

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.  
  • Although few depositors realize it, legally the bank owns the depositor’s funds as soon as they are put in the bank. Our money becomes the bank’s, and we become unsecured creditors holding IOUs or promises to pay. (See here and here.) But until now the bank has been obligated to pay the money back on demand in the form of cash. Under the FDIC-BOE plan, our IOUs will be converted into “bank equity.”  The bank will get the money and we will get stock in the bank. With any luck we may be able to sell the stock to someone else, but when and at what price? Most people keep a deposit account so they can have ready cash to pay the bills.
  • No exception is indicated for “insured deposits” in the U.S., meaning those under $250,000, the deposits we thought were protected by FDIC insurance. This can hardly be an oversight, since it is the FDIC that is issuing the directive. The FDIC is an insurance company funded by premiums paid by private banks.  The directive is called a “resolution process,” defined elsewhere as a plan that “would be triggered in the event of the failure of an insurer . . . .”
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  • The 15-page FDIC-BOE document is called “Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions.”  It begins by explaining that the 2008 banking crisis has made it clear that some other way besides taxpayer bailouts is needed to maintain “financial stability.” Evidently anticipating that the next financial collapse will be on a grander scale than either the taxpayers or Congress is willing to underwrite, the authors state: An efficient path for returning the sound operations of the G-SIFI to the private sector would be provided by exchanging or converting a sufficient amount of the unsecured debt from the original creditors of the failed company [meaning the depositors] into equity [or stock]. In the U.S., the new equity would become capital in one or more newly formed operating entities. In the U.K., the same approach could be used, or the equity could be used to recapitalize the failing financial company itself—thus, the highest layer of surviving bailed-in creditors would become the owners of the resolved firm. In either country, the new equity holders would take on the corresponding risk of being shareholders in a financial institution.
  • If our IOUs are converted to bank stock, they will no longer be subject to insurance protection but will be “at risk” and vulnerable to being wiped out, just as the Lehman Brothers shareholders were in 2008.  That this dire scenario could actually materialize was underscored by Yves Smith in a March 19th post titled When You Weren’t Looking, Democrat Bank Stooges Launch Bills to Permit Bailouts, Deregulate Derivatives.  She writes: In the US, depositors have actually been put in a worse position than Cyprus deposit-holders, at least if they are at the big banks that play in the derivatives casino. The regulators have turned a blind eye as banks use their depositaries to fund derivatives exposures. And as bad as that is, the depositors, unlike their Cypriot confreres, aren’t even senior creditors. Remember Lehman? When the investment bank failed, unsecured creditors (and remember, depositors are unsecured creditors) got eight cents on the dollar. One big reason was that derivatives counterparties require collateral for any exposures, meaning they are secured creditors. The 2005 bankruptcy reforms made derivatives counterparties senior to unsecured lenders.
  • Smith writes: Lehman had only two itty bitty banking subsidiaries, and to my knowledge, was not gathering retail deposits. But as readers may recall, Bank of America moved most of its derivatives from its Merrill Lynch operation [to] its depositary in late 2011. Its “depositary” is the arm of the bank that takes deposits; and at B of A, that means lots and lots of deposits. The deposits are now subject to being wiped out by a major derivatives loss. How bad could that be? Smith quotes Bloomberg: . . . Bank of America’s holding company . . . held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June . . . . That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
  • $75 trillion and $79 trillion in derivatives! These two mega-banks alone hold more in notional derivatives each than the entire global GDP (at $70 trillion).
  • Smith goes on: . . . Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. . . . Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral. But it’s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors. Perhaps, but Congress has already been burned and is liable to balk a second time. Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act specifically prohibits public support for speculative derivatives activities.
  • An FDIC confiscation of deposits to recapitalize the banks is far different from a simple tax on taxpayers to pay government expenses. The government’s debt is at least arguably the people’s debt, since the government is there to provide services for the people. But when the banks get into trouble with their derivative schemes, they are not serving depositors, who are not getting a cut of the profits. Taking depositor funds is simply theft. What should be done is to raise FDIC insurance premiums and make the banks pay to keep their depositors whole, but premiums are already high; and the FDIC, like other government regulatory agencies, is subject to regulatory capture.  Deposit insurance has failed, and so has the private banking system that has depended on it for the trust that makes banking work.
  • The Cyprus haircut on depositors was called a “wealth tax” and was written off by commentators as “deserved,” because much of the money in Cypriot accounts belongs to foreign oligarchs, tax dodgers and money launderers. But if that template is applied in the US, it will be a tax on the poor and middle class. Wealthy Americans don’t keep most of their money in bank accounts.  They keep it in the stock market, in real estate, in over-the-counter derivatives, in gold and silver, and so forth. Are you safe, then, if your money is in gold and silver? Apparently not – if it’s stored in a safety deposit box in the bank.  Homeland Security has reportedly told banks that it has authority to seize the contents of safety deposit boxes without a warrant when it’s a matter of “national security,” which a major bank crisis no doubt will be.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Apr 13
     
    Time to get your money out of the bank and into gold or silver, kept somewhere other than in a bank safety deposit box. 
Paul Merrell

security theater, martial law, and a tale that trumps every cop-and-donut joke you've e... - 0 views

www.popehat.com/...nd-donut-joke-youve-ever-heard

security state risk-assessment donuts

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • First, just in case it's not utterly obvious, I'm glad that the two murderous cowards who attacked civilians in Boston recently are off the streets. One dead and one in custody is a great outcome. That said, a large percent of the reaction in Boston has been security theater. "Four victims brutally killed" goes by other names in other cities. In Detroit, for example, they call it "Tuesday". …and Detroit does not shut down every time there are a few murders.
  • "Then why the hell do you care, Clark?" First, the unprecendented shutdown of a major American city may have increased safety some small bit, but it was not without a cost: keeping somewhere between 2 and 5 million people from work, shopping, and school destroyed a nearly unimaginable amount of value. If we call it just three million people, and we peg the cost at a mere $15 per person per hour, the destroyed value runs to a significant fraction of a billion dollars. "Yeah, maybe…but in this day and age where the federal government is borrowing an extra $3.85 billion per day, a couple of hundred million doesn't sound like much. After all, if we're borrowing money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back to fund Cowboy Poetry Festival and military golf courses, then what's another $200 or $400 million to keep people safe?"
  • Second, the cost isn't just measured in dollars – it's measured in the degree to which it trains a population to freak out over minor risk and to trust blindly in authorities. Third, keeping citizens off the street meant that 99% of the eyes and brains that might solve a crime were being wasted. Eric S Raymond famously said that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". It was thousands of citizen photographs that helped break this case, and it was a citizen who found the second bomber. Yes, that's right – it wasn't until the stupid lock-down was ended that a citizen found the second murderer
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  • We had thousands of police going door-to-door, searching houses…and yet not one of them saw the evidence that a citizen did just minutes after the lock-down ended. "But Clark," you protest, "you may not trust the government to decide what's risky and what's not, but I do. If it saves even one life, then shutting down a major city is the right move. That's obvious!" But the Boston police didn't shut down an entire city. They shut down an entire city except for the donut shops. boston.com Law enforcement asked Dunkin' Donuts to keep restaurants open in locked-down communities to provide… food to police… including in Watertown, the focus of the search for the bombing suspect.
  • The government and police were willing to shut down parts of the economy like the universities, software, biotech, and manufacturing…but when asked to do an actual risk to reward calculation where a small part of the costs landed on their own shoulders, they had no problem weighing one versus the other and then telling the donut servers "yeah, come to work – no one's going to get shot." And they were right.
Gary Edwards

Rand Paul's Tea Party Response: Full Text - 0 views

www.newsmax.com/...490118

Rand-Paul Libertarian USA-Constitution

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • With my five-year budget, millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, by creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and by cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.
  • America has much greatness left in her. We will begin to thrive again when we begin to believe in ourselves again, when we regain our respect for our founding documents, when we balance our budget, when we understand that capitalism and free markets and free individuals are what creates our nation’s prosperity.
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Feb 13
     
    Outstanding statement about what made America great, an dhow are government is destroying that greatness.  This is the full Text of Sen. Rand Paul's Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union Address: I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work. We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation. Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem. Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt. What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous. What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness. All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and ea
Gary Edwards

Liberty in the Breach | The End of the American Dream - 0 views

bayareapatriots.wordpress.com

Alexis-de-Tocqueville freedom-liberty Banksters Globalist-Elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jul 13
     
    This link will take you to a public blog, the content of which comes from the collaborative work of the Diigo group, "Socialism and the End of the American Dream". The content for the Liberty in the Breach (http://goo.gl/AAFJ9) blog is posted directly from a Diigo.com group called "Socialism and the End of the American Dream". So yes, this groups bookmarking efforts are public.  The way this works is easy for anyone to to do, and I encourage everyone to make use of blog and RSS posts. The Diigo bookmark service enables groups of people to share tagged and categorized lists of bookmarks, but the only way to take these group collaborations truly public is through the blog and RSS posting mechanisms. There are also select sharing methods.  Each Group of bookmarks and comments can have any number of "Lists". A list is a subset of a group, but it can stand on it's own or serve many groups. The difference is that Groups have members and lists do not.  The effect of this separation is that you can publish or RSS any list to a Web Site or Reader, and not be concerned about errant group membership comments and posts. Fortunately we not encountered that problem with the End of the American Dream group.  The "Socialism and the End of the American Dream" group contains two prominent "lists": Banksters and USA-Constitution. There are other lists, but over time these two became dominant.  I started the "Socialism and the End of the American Dream" group in August of 2008 as part of my research and attempt to understand the financial collapse of 2008. What I found was quite chilling, and has nothing to do with "Socialism" or it's many forms.  I came to understand that socialism in it's many forms (liberalism, Progressivism, Marxism, Naziism, and Communism), is used the same as conservatism and corporate facism by a wealthy globalist elite to seize the instruments and resources of government for their own purposes.  So yeah, if I had the chance to rename to group, I
Paul Merrell

Clinton backs Obama's move to keep US forces in Afghanistan - 0 views

bigstory.ap.org/...ove-keep-us-forces-afghanistan

war & peace Auction 2016 Hillary Afghanistan U.S. foreign policy boots-on-the-ground

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she supports President Barack Obama's decision to keep 5,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when he leaves the White House in 2017. Clinton said in an interview with CNN that Obama's moves were an example of "a leader who has strong convictions about what he would like to see happen but also pays attention to what's going on in the real world." The president had originally planned to keep only a small U.S. military presence by the end of his presidency. But military leaders have said the Afghans need more support from the U.S. to fight the Taliban and maintain gains made during the past 14 years. Clinton, who served as Obama's secretary of state during his first term, said the U.S. wants to bring its troops home and "we certainly don't want them engaged in on-the-ground combat. We want them to help support and train the Afghan army." "So I can't predict where things will be in January of 2017. But I support the president's decision," she said.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Oct 15
     
    Wrong on Iraq, wrong on Libya, wrong on Syria, wrong on Afghanistan. Hillary is another American psychopath who loves foreign wars.
Gary Edwards

Hillary Clinton Email -- Classified Information Was Obvious to Her, and She Lied | Nati... - 1 views

www.nationalreview.com/...rmation-fbi-justice-department

General-Cartwright Hillary

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Oct 16
     
    "For mishandling 'top secret' information and lying about it, she should be prosecuted. So now Hillary finally knows what the "(C)" stands for in government documents: It's Cartwright . . . as in four-star Marine General James E. Cartwright, the retired 67-year-old former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the expendable federal official against whom laws protecting classified information actually get enforced. (C), see? Oh wait - sorry. I don't mean to confuse Mrs. Clinton by starting this second paragraph with "(C)". After all, as she diva-'splained to the FBI, she could only "speculate" that "(C)" must have something to do with organizing paragraphs "in alphabetical order." Speculation was necessary, she said, apparently with a straight face, because she didn't really know what "(C)" meant. The question arose because the "(C)" designation - applicable to classified information at the confidential level - turned up in at least one of Clinton's personal e-mails. Those would be the e-mails that, she repeatedly insisted, never, ever contained classified information. Or at least, that's what she insisted until government agencies confessed that hundreds of the e-mails do contain classified information. Then Clinton's "never, ever" tale morphed into the more narrowly tailored lie that there were no e-mails "marked classified." Alas, that claim could not withstand examination of the e-mails, during which the "(C)" markings were found . . . whereupon the explanation underwent more, shall we say, refining. Thus the final, astonishing claim that she didn't know what the markings meant, along with the laugh-out-loud whopper that maybe it was all about alphabetical order. Yeah, that's the ticket! In case you're keeping score: When a person being prosecuted for a crime changes her story multiple times, as if she were playing Twister (kids, ask your parents), the prosecutor gets to prov
Paul Merrell

The Early Edition: September 9, 2016 | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...early-edition-september-9-2016

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Iraq boots-on-the-ground Mosul-offensive mission-creep

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • The US has sent 400 additional troops to bolster Iraqi forces preparing to retake the Islamic State-held city of Mosul, report Ben Kesling and Gordon Lubold at the Wall Street Journal.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Sep 16
     
    More U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq and more mission creep. I'll take an informed guess that these will be mostly forward troops whose mission will be coordinating the targeting of U.S. coalition airstrikes. As such, they're likely to experience casualties among them. So much for Bush2's "mission accomplished" and Obama's "no-ground-troops," which is also one of Hillary's campaign promises. The Mosul offensive has been delayed for nearly two years because those billions of dollars we spent "building" the Iraqi Army forces mostly went into the pockets of government officials, with nearly all units consisting mostly of "ghost" soldiers who had no existence other than a name so officers could pocket their pay. But keep in mind that the U.S. goal in Iraq is not to win a war, but instead to keep Iraq and Syria in a state of destabilization, a war without end. That blocks the Iran-Iraq-Syria Friendship Pipeline and serves Israel's empirical ambitions.
Gary Edwards

The Trump Bubble - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...the-trump-bubble-3

Trump Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel wall-street

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 17
     
    "Donald Trump has a plan for dealing with the stock market bubble. Make it bigger. Before the election candidate Trump blasted Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen for keeping interest rates too low for too long to keep the economy humming along while Obama was still in office. The president elect accused Yellen of being politically motivated suggesting that the Fed's policies had put the country at risk of another stock market Crash like 2008. "If rates go up, you're going to see something that's not pretty," Trump told Fox News in an interview in September. "It's all a big bubble." Yellen of course denied Trump's claims saying, "We do not discuss politics at our meetings, and we do not take politics into account in our decisions." As we shall see later in this article, Yellen was lying about the political role the Fed plays in setting policy, in fact, last week's FOMC statement clearly establishes the Fed as basically a political institution that implements an agenda that serves a very small group of powerful constituents, the 1 percent. If serving the interests of one group over all of the others is not politics, than what is it? The problem we have with Trump is not his critique of the market or the Fed. The problem is his remedy which can be sussed out by reviewing his economic plan. Trump wants to slash personal and corporate taxes in order to put more money into the economy to increase business investment, boost hiring, and rev up growth. Regrettably, his tax plan achieves none of these. First of all, slashing taxes for the wealthy does not boost growth. We know that. It doesn't work. Period."
Gary Edwards

FBI Source: Clinton Foundation Can Bring Down Entire Government » Alex Jones'... - 1 views

www.infowars.com/n-bring-down-entire-government

Hillary

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jul 16
     
    "The Clinton Foundation is a "massive spider web of connections and money laundering implicating hundreds of high-level people," according to an anonymous insider who revealed why the FBI stopped short of indicting Hillary Clinton. Before FBI Director James Comey announced the FBI wouldn't recommend pressing charges against Clinton, an insider with "intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Clinton case" hosted an little-publicized AMA session on 4Chan, and the statements he made on July 2 corroborate with later developments of the scandal. "There is enough for her and the entire government to be brought down," he revealed. "People do not realize how enormous this whole situation actually is." "Whether she will be [indicted] or not depends on how much info others involved gets out, and there are a lot of people involved." Since then, both the FBI and the DOJ declined to press charges against Clinton, and other sources revealed the Clinton Foundation is now under scrutiny. "The problem is with the Clinton Foundation as I mentioned, which you should just imagine as a massive spider web of connections and money laundering implicating hundreds of high-level people," the source said. "Though I do not have a high opinion of Hillary, she is just a piece - albeit a big piece - of this massive sh*tstorm." Those implicated extends to the Justice Dept. "The DOJ is most likely looking to save itself," he continued. "Find everyone involved in the Clinton Foundation, from its donors to its Board of Directors, and imagine they are all implicated." This would explain why Bill Clinton forced himself on Attorney General Loretta Lynch's plane at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport last week; Clinton insider Larry Nichols said blackmail was likely involved. "Bill Clinton met with Lynch, and he was there to assure her that when Hillary gets to be president she'll be able to keep her job," said Nichols on the Alex Jones Sh
Gary Edwards

Byron York: Justice Department demolishes case against Trump order | Washington Examiner - 1 views

www.washingtonexaminer.com/...2613988

Byron-York Trump-Immigration-Order

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Feb 17
     
    "James Robart, the U.S. district judge in Washington State, offered little explanation for his decision to stop President Trump's executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terror-plagued countries. Robart simply declared his belief that Washington State, which in its lawsuit against Trump argued that the order is both illegal and unconstitutional, would likely win the case when it is tried. Now the government has answered Robart, and unlike the judge, Justice Department lawyers have produced a point-by-point demolition of Washington State's claims. Indeed, for all except the most partisan, it is likely impossible to read the Washington State lawsuit, plus Robart's brief comments and writing on the matter, plus the Justice Department's response, and not come away with the conclusion that the Trump order is on sound legal and constitutional ground. Beginning with the big picture, the Justice Department argued that Robart's restraining order violates the separation of powers, encroaches on the president's constitutional and legal authority in the areas of foreign affairs, national security, and immigration, and "second-guesses the president's national security judgment" about risks faced by the United States. Indeed, in court last week, Robart suggested that he, Robart, knows as much, or perhaps more, than the president about the current state of the terrorist threat in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and other violence-plagued countries. In an exchange with Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett, Robart asked, "How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?" "Your Honor, I don't have that information," said Bennett. "Let me tell you," said Robart. "The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, you're here arguing on behalf of someone [President Trump] that says: We have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and there's no support for that."
Paul Merrell

Pentagon Officials: No Actionable Intelligence From Yemen Raid - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...225453

war & peace Trump-administration Yemen mission-failure

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • The Trump Administration’s decision to continue hyping a failed Yemeni raid, despite all evidence to the contrary, as having netted a trove of intelligence continues to blow up in their face tonight, as Pentagon officials once again affirmed that the information gathered was minimal, and things they already knew about. Some equipment was recovered giving them some insight into tactics, but so far none of the laptops and cellphones seized has any useful information on it. This is in keeping with what other US officials said just two days prior, that no “actionable” intelligence was gathered in the raid, but is in direct contradiction to claims by President Trump last night at the Congressional address, and Vice President Mike Pence today, that “significant” intelligence was obtained. The first major foreign military operation on his term, President Trump has invested a lot of effort into portraying the operation as an unquestioned success. Repeated concessions from the military that there were myriad problems, and things didn’t go nearly as well as intended, have all been dismissed, with Trump continuing on with the success claims.
  • That we never really get good information on what the source of intelligence is for future raids means it’s likely impossible to ever conclusively prove no actionable intelligence came from Yemen, though the fact that the Pentagon keeps saying this is the case certainly lends credence to the idea that the operation, on top of all of its other failures, didn’t accomplish anything intelligence-wise.
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 17
     
    The Deep State keeps lobbing more shells at Trump.
Gary Edwards

KeepTheWebOpen.com - 0 views

keepthewebopen.com/open

OpenWeb ACTA

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 17 Mar 12
     
    Keep the Web Open and out of the hands of Agenda 21 UN socialists and the tyranny of ACTA. California Representative Darryl Issa has proposed  OPEN - the Online Protection & ENforcement of Ditital Trade Act.  Join the movement to keep the Web Open and sign on today. The background to this urgency is that Obama is trying to run an end around Congress, claiming that he has the authority to sign ACTA: From the Vanguard of Freedom: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA is supposed to strengthen intellectual property rights; that is, the rights of artists to protect their creations from being copied and counterfeited, essentially stolen and reproduced without consent. However, many including Congressman Darrel Issa (via his website on this subject) has called ACTA "an unconstitutional power grab started by President George W. Bush and completed by President Barack Obama - despite the White House's January 14 criticism of legislative solutions that harm the Internet and erode individual rights." Says Issa: "…The Constitution gives Congress the power to pass intellectual property legislation - like SOPA and PIPA - and gives the Senate the power to ratify treaties. But the Obama Administration maintains that ACTA is not even a treaty, justifying the exclusion of both American citizens and their elected representatives. It is a practice Vice President Joe Biden decried as a U.S. Senator…" Maira Sutton and Parker Higgins, writing for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an "electronics" rights advocacy organization, say in an article they authored, that "…We Have Every Right to Be Furious About ACTA." Sutton and Higgins write: "…Negotiated in secret, ACTA bypassed checks and balances of existing international IP norm-setting bodies, without any meaningful input from national parliaments, policymakers, or their citizens. Worse still, the agreement creates a new global institution, an 'ACTA Committee' to ove
Gary Edwards

Robosigning Credit Cards: The Next Major Bank Scandal? | The Reformed Broker - 0 views

www.thereformedbroker.com/...ds-the-next-major-bank-scandal

robosigning-mortgages robosigning-credit-cards Banksters Joshua-M-Brown Foreclosure-Gate Credit-Card-Debt-Collection

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Jan 12
     
    This article is definately a "must read".  The summary is that the credit card debt mess is far worse than the mortgage foreclosure mess.  The Banksters are guilty of massive illegal activities in foreclosure gate, including forging documents and signatures.  Apparently the same thing has happened with Credit Card Debt Collection!!!! excerpt:   From American Banker: "If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it's 100 times bigger in credit card accounts," says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Worse than mortgages, even? Let's just review the mortgage situation: Robosigning consists of blatantly illegal practices in which banks and mortgage companies had their employees sign affidavits and other documents without verifying the information therein; forge signatures on documents; backdate documents; falsely notarize documents; create new documents to replace missing ones; or some combination of all the above. Did I mention that all of this is illegal? Contrary to what the banks would have you believe, robosigning was not a one-off - it happened on a systematic level. So much so that some of the nation's largest banks (including Bank of America Corp. and  JPMorgan Chase & Co., ) were forced to halt foreclosures to "review" these practices in late 2010. The companies that did this claimed that they had to cut corners because they couldn't keep up with all of the paperwork created by the housing boom last decade. But we now know that this is not true - there's evidence that robo-signing goes back all the way to at least 1998. This all means that thousands of Americans were foreclosed upon erroneously and that even homebuyers and sellers in good standing may be unable to prove their rightful ownership. The problem is so big that Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, acknowledged that they don't even know how big it is. It's so big that the b
Gary Edwards

How can Obama say the economy is getting better? | Western Free Press - 0 views

www.westernfreepress.com/...-the-economy-is-getting-better

Banksters Economy Great-Recession Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Feb 12
     
    Devastating charts comparing the percentage of Americans in the work force from January 2000 through February 2012.  The most interesting numbers show that the recession began in December of 2007, and ended in June of 2009 - yet it is after that June 2009 date that the % of Americans in the workforce begins to drop like a rock!  This is after the Obmaulous stimulous $1.2 Trillion, the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartels secret $16.1 Trillion, and, the magnificent cash-for-clunkers crap. Meanwhile, back in la la land, Obama thinks the problem is that we all need free contraceptives, free abortions and free sex-change coverage in our health insurance.  The Obama Spend-Borrow-Bail train has left the station.  Next stop?  War with Iran.  More powerful a phony narrative than contraceptives, abortions, and fear of a conservative repubican praying in the White House.  Besides, those bastards are refusing to use the dollar as the settlement currency for their oil sales!  Time to put them in the dirt along with that rogues gallery of tyrants who also defied the Federal Reserve International Bankster Cartel, demanding settlement currencies measured in GOLD instead of paper dollars; gallery includes notables such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and the Shah of Iran. Nothing like the Marines and the Seventh Fleet being unleashed to turn around the dismal poll numbers stubbornly connected to the even more dismal disaster known throughout the hinterland of bitter clingers as the economic truth. excerpt: Is President Obama relying on the Bureau of Labor statistics to manipulate the unemployment numbers to make them look better than they are? The real rate is probably more like 11.5%, and we have seen analyses that indicate that unemployment hasn't actually fallen at all under Obama: So what is going on here? The big problem is that people are giving up. Obama and the Democrats' job-killing regulations and climate of uncertainty are stifling innovation and inv
Paul Merrell

​Syria and the Geneva 2 charade - RT Op-Edge - 0 views

rt.com/...syria-geneva-two-charade-015

war & peace Syria negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In the summertime, people flock to Montreux, Switzerland, to follow the jazz festival. This week, though, the 'performance' is by a positively un-swinging lot, part of the (in theory) very serious Geneva 2 conference on Syria. What is Geneva 2 for? It has nothing to do with 'peace' . It won't yield an international deal to end the Syrian tragedy. The horrible war facts on the ground will remain facts, and horrible; many perpetrators won't be gathering in Montreux. Syrian civil society has not even been invited. And then the whole charade degenerated into pitiful parody even before it started.
  • Meet 'good' and 'bad' Al-Qaeda Time to break it down. Washington ruled that Iran cannot be in Montreux because it supports Assad. It's as simple as that. Washington dictating to the UN is the norm. Washington dictating to the Exiled Syrian 'Opposition' is Also the norm. Everyone is a puppet in this lethal comedy. As for Western spin doctors, they are dizzier than flies over corpses. As Part of the New Western Myth That the Saudi Arabia-Sponsored Islamic Front - Last September Formed Against the US-backed Supreme Military Council - are nothing but 'Al-Qaeda good' , now we have TOP 'Rebels' routinely acknowledging to Western corporate media they are, well, Al-Qaeda. Tens of thousands of foreign jihadis using Al-Qaeda's network of safe houses in Turkey - well, that's not such a big deal. As the Narrative Goes, 'our New friends' in the Islamic Front are just 'conservative Salafi Muslims' . What if they are fond of the odd torture binge and will think nothing of slaying the odd Shiite or Christian? Not such a big deal. As for the 'bad' Al-Qaeda gang - from Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - They are on A roll. After all, they are the ones with fighting experience / leverage on the ground. And when push comes to shove, they just run yet another ring around clueless Western necks. Take Ahrar al-Sham. They now lead the Islamic Front - and talk to the Americans. And guess what; they're going to Montreux! The icing on this cake is Takfiri That, Ultimately, Their "interests" are Being Defended by no less than US Secretary of State John Kerry. Washington promoting al-Qaeda? Well, we've seen that movie before.
  • Washington is the Selling Fiction it is 'leading' Geneva 2 to 'reconstruct' Syria. This is utter nonsense. Theoretically - and even that is still extremely debatable - the Obama administration's core interest in Southwest Asia is to negotiate a very complex deal with Iran, which will take most of 2014. Ultimately, this whole charade is between Washington and Tehran. The US Navy will not make Assad 'go' Anytime soon - or Ever; everything so, in Theory, Remains on the table.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • And everyone else, the UN, the Holy See, the House of Saud, are just onlookers, even as several players, from the EU to India, China and Japan, can think of nothing but finally normalizing everything with Iran. The Syrian government, for its part, will be in Montreux; it had agreed to the conference long ago. Yet President Assad Laid down ; he will not 'Leave' , as President Barack Obama US demanded The. He will not Let the foreign-Sponsored 'Opposition' Take over. And he may even contest the next presidential elections. Assad went for the jugular when he said Geneva 2 Should be About His own 'War on Terror' . Terror, incidentally, widely supported by the West. So under this perspective, even Washington needs Assad not to go. The bottom line is that the only players who really want Assad to go are the House of Saud and the House of Thani in Qatar. Many in the West have now Realized Assad must Fight to Stay 'the Terrorists' .
  • What's even more farcical is what Ford may have told the SNC stalwarts - still subject to much debate across the Middle East. If Ford really Said That Bandar Bush's Strategy has Been A Total Failure (in Fact turning Syria into an Al-Qaeda Hub) then this points to the Obama Administration, for All Practical Purposes, Sharing the Same Objective as Assad's: Fighting 'Terror' . Still, Geneva 2 will not 'Solve' anything. Iran and Russia will keep supporting Damascus. The desert wasteland from Syria to Iraq will keep being occupied by Bandar Bush-supported and Gulf-supported hardcore sectarian jihadis. The war will keep spreading deeper into Lebanon. The government in Damascus won't collapse. The refugee crisis will soar. And the West Will Keep Striking A pose of Being Concerned with 'Terror' .
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Jan 14
     
    What a hoot! Hillary's Free Syrian Army defected to the jihadis after the missile strikes on Syria did not happen. Now Obama and Kerry are trying to sell the spin of "good" vs. "bad" Al Qaeda, a fact that in itself underscores that Al Qaeda are a bunch of mercenaries whose services go to the highest bidder.  
Paul Merrell

Turkish PM replaces 10 ministers amid graft inquiry | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...rruption-idUSL6N0K40YF20131225

war & peace Turkey purge

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he replaced ten cabinet ministers, half of his total roster, after three ministers resigned over a high-level graft inquiry on Wednesday. The replaced ministers included EU Minister Egemen Bagis, who was allegedly named in the corruption probe but had not resigned yet, and key positions such as the Economy and justice ministers.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 13
     
    It appears that a large-scale purge is under way in NATO member and E.U. candidate nation Turkey, ostensibly based on corruption and graft charges. Score card so far: ten cabinet ministers fired, three more resigned. More than 500 police officers in the Istanbul area have been fired. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-334870-400-more-police-officers-in-istanbul-removed-from-duty.html The purge of police appears to be largely aimed at upper ranks. More than 110 police chiefs have lost their posts and journalists are in an uproar because of a new directive " banning journalists from entering police department buildings." It appears that a large-scale purge is under way in NATO member and E.U. candidate nation Turkey, ostensibly based on corruption and graft charges. Score card so far: ten cabinet ministers fired, three more resigned. More than 500 police officers in the Istanbul area have been fired. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-334870-400-more-police-officers-in-istanbul-removed-from-duty.html The purge of police appears to be largely aimed at upper ranks. More than 110 police chiefs have lost their posts and journalists are in an uproar because of a new directive " banning journalists from entering police department buildings." It appears that a large-scale purge is under way in NATO member and E.U. candidate nation Turkey, ostensibly based on corruption and graft charges. Score card so far: ten cabinet ministers fired, three more resigned. More than 500 police officers in the Istanbul area have been fired. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-334870-400-more-police-officers-in-istanbul-removed-from-duty.html The purge of police appears to be largely aimed at upper ranks. More than 110 police chiefs have lost their posts and journalists are in an uproar because of a new directive " banning journalists from
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 13
     
    "The United States has demanded the Turkish government condemn false news reports about US Ambassador Francis J. Ricciardone and urged Ankara to protect the strong partnership between the two countries, a Turkish daily reported on Tuesday. Jen Psaki, US State Department Spokesperson, said in a press conference that the ongoing false allegations against US ambassador is disturbing. "On Saturday, several pro-government newspapers accused the US ambassador of being behind a recent wave of arrests as part of the corruption investigation. Pro-government Yeni Şafak wrote on its front page: "Get out of this country," a headline that was apparently directed at the US ambassador. "The US Embassy denied the accusations as "lies and slander." It said through Twitter in Turkish: "No one should jeopardize Turkish-US relations through baseless claims." http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action;jsessionid=1F7B777659D734167420623A648E1335?newsId=334788&columnistId=0
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 13
     
    Another reaction came from the Contemporary Journalists Association (ÇGD) on Tuesday. The president of the ÇGD's western Central Anatolia branch, Can Hacıoğlu, said the decisions to ban journalists from entering police departments and the closure of press rooms at those departments are unacceptable. He added that the fact that police departments prefer censorship in a period when Turkey has been discussing opening press agencies at police departments and prosecutor's offices as part of the EU harmonization process is very challenging. "We journalists find this situation very odd," Hacıoğlu said. Hacıoğlu also harshly criticized Turkish Airlines (THY) for stopping the distribution of the Zaman, Today's Zaman, Bugün and Ortadoğu dailies to business class passengers on its planes on Monday without providing any explanation, though other dailies are still being handed out onboard. "Hacıoğlu accused THY of discriminating against the dailies for their coverage of the major corruption scandal involving numerous bureaucrats and the sons of three ministers." "Access to Taraf journalist Mehmet Baransu's website was blocked to users in Turkey by the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) as of Wednesday evening for publishing photos and tapes about the recent graft investigation. The website, yenidönem.com, is still blocked." http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action;jsessionid=1F7B777659D734167420623A648E1335?newsId=334831&columnistId=0
Paul Merrell

AT&T stores either five or twenty-six years of our data, not really sure which | Privac... - 0 views

www.privacysos.org/1262

surveillance state telecoms data-storage-length AT&T

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • In the age of nearly unlimited, cheap data storage, how long do the companies keep this private information about us, their customers? The details vary by company and by data type, ranging from no storage at all (AT&T says it doesn’t keep text messages) to seven years (the length of time AT&T keeps subscriber information, after you’ve canceled your service).  In its letter to Senator Markey, AT&T claims that it keeps call detail records (CDRs) for five years. These are the records the NSA and FBI routinely suck up with a FISC-authorized vacuum cleaner — records showing who we call and when, and how long our calls last. Five years is a long time. Just imagine how surprised you’d be to see the details of your former life — friends from another city, old jobs and acquaintances, your former lovers — if you were handed a social map created by mining your call detail records over a five year period. 
  • But I digress. No, the significance of this data isn’t what has me confused. I’m confused because according to a New York Times report from September 2013, AT&T pays employees to sit with Drug Enforcement Agency units, where the company provides drug warriors with access to “phone data from as far back as 1987.” According to the Times, this program “The Hemisphere Project”, “covers every call that passes through an AT&T switch — not just those made by AT&T customers — and includes calls dating back 26 years.”  Wait a second. Which is it, AT&T? Do you retain call detail records for five years, or forever? 
Paul Merrell

2014 Press Release - NSA Announces New Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer" - 0 views

www.nsa.gov/...iberties_privacy_officer.shtml

surveillance state NSA Civil-Liberties-&-Privacy-Officer Rebecca-Richards

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • GEN Keith Alexander - Commander, U.S. Cyber Command/Director, NSA/Chief, CSS - announced today that well-known privacy expert Rebecca Richards will serve as the National Security Agency's new Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer. She most recently worked as the Senior Director for Privacy Compliance at the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Selected to lead the new NSA Civil Liberties and Privacy Office at the agency's Fort Meade headquarters, Ms. Richards' primary job will be to provide expert advice to the Director and oversight of NSA's civil liberties and privacy related activities. She will also develop measures to further strengthen NSA's privacy protections.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 14
     
    Softball Interview here. . I wasn't really expecting Obama to reach out to the ACLU and EFF for a good civil liberties lawyer recommendation, but this appointment is lame, the former Director of Privacy for Dept. of Homeland Security, those wonderful folk who keep the homeland safe from terra-ists. The airport gropers, secret no-fly listers, and masters of border protection, where all Constitutional privacy rights do not apply, per the Supreme Court., the coordinators of our glorious "fusion centers," the provisioners of funding for armored cars and surveillance equipment for local police, etc. A sample from her interview linked above that I transcribed (omitting all the umhs and ahs): "When you think about NSA, privacy there for them was privacy of its employees, about contractors, about the average person walking down the street - it was not as concentrated on, this is the big collection that we're getting through these means, and so what this job does is that it brings it up under direct reports to the director of NSA and it is just as a focal point, to bring all of those and -- I walked in the building and people were already asking questions so ..." Heaven help us; has this lassie's brain yet matured to the point of completing her first sentence? This is the lady who is going to keep Admiral Rogers on the straight and narrow path of respecting our civil liberties? I suspect not.  I may return to this inarticulate and non-assertive young lady in later posts. Let it suffice for now to observe that the Dept. of Homeland Security, whose raison d'etre is a virtually non-existent terrorist threat manufactured by the politics of fear, has not exactly been a champion of the People's civil liberties. Moreover, I've had recent occasion to dig rather deeply into exactly what it is that Privacy Officers do and don't do. Telling heads of agencies that they cannot lawfully do what they want to do is no
Paul Merrell

Scottish independence: Forget Yes and No - what about a United Kingdom of Independent S... - 0 views

cms-ind.prod.indes.firstclarity.com/...ndependent-states-9735702.html

UK Scottish-independence

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Let’s face up to the facts – the majority of Scots want to be independent. They really do – whatever way they vote come Thursday. And this is dead clear from the poll of polls: which shows the Unionists winning to keep us together by only one per cent. Let’s be honest: that one per cent lead is not really a majority for the Union. That one per cent lead is all the No Campaign could muster for the Union, despite throwing the entire arsenal of City of London financial fear at Scotland. Those terrifying threats of collapsing banks and mystery currencies and runaway businessmen – well, they have only convinced a mere one per cent of Scots we are better together.It's clear that without fear, there would be a Scottish majority ready to go. And that means the current Union 1.0 looks illegitimate. That works the other way too: any sudden surge for the No Campaign  would hardly be lead to a legitimate Union either.
  • Now what do they want down South? The real English thinking about why Scotland leaving is bad for England – though people seem unwilling to say it outright – is that severing the Union is a huge blow for our stature in the world.  This is something to take very seriously. The wars happening right now in Eastern Europe and the Middle East are every bit as geopolitically significant as the collapse of the Soviet Union. And a weak, wounded Britain is exactly what Vladimir Putin and the Islamic State would want. Do Scots want that? I think no.
  • From what I can see, both options currently on the table look set to make millions angry. So what options are there that would work out in a way that made the most Scotsmen and Englishmen happy? The main argument coming out of Scotland is they want to be a nation again – they want the symbolic side of independence – and they want complete freedom to build the more social Scotland the way they have always wanted. They hate neo-liberalism. And I’m convinced the majority of Scottish voters would choose to go if they knew there was a safe way to maintain a currency Union with England. And it’s fair to say: England doesn’t want to pay for this socialism
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • So are there ways we could give the Scots  and English what they both want? This seems contradictory. The Scots want to be independent but what to keep the pound; the English want to keep the Foreign Office and the British Army but don’t want to pay for any of Scotland’s wasteful social welfare.  And everyone, somehow, wants to keep being British.I think there is a third way for Scotland and England. The funny thing about the whole referendum on Scottish independence and the breathless debate about the Union is that it appears to be taking place without any reference to what being independent actually means these days in the Europe of the European Union.
  • Were both Edinburgh and London to be interested in working something out that would make the maximum number of happy Englishmen and Scotsmen they would probably do something like this. Whatever the result on Thursday they would declare a constitutional convention to dissolve Union 1.0 and set about creating a Union 2.0. But what might that United Kingdom look like?
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Sep 14
     
    Scots vote on Thursday, September 18. The polls have it neck-and-neck, with independence within the margin of error. If the vote goes for independence, that begins a disengagement process is scheduled to see an independent Scotland in May of 2016.
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