Group items tagged

Best Deal You Can Get? Notice the rank and file starting to cave in to Boehner's gaseous proposal. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio called it "the best deal we can get." No it's not. It's not even the best deal you can't get. The Senate will not go along, so there is nothing to get. As long as you are going to submit proposals you can't get, you may as well make it a good one. $950 billion over 10 years is not a good deal. It's not even a down payment on a good deal, and with that, Boehner just pissed away his credibility. In the end, something will pass. But it will not do a damn thing credible to reduce the deficit. Reid's plan and Boehner's plan are both back-loaded. Republicans had a golden opportunity to attempt to extract some major concessions in return for tiny tax concessions. Instead, they are going to settle for nothing. This fiasco is exactly why Republicans need someone like Chris Christie running for president. No one else has managed to show any leadership.

The two presidents have a lot in common. Both inherited an American economy in collapse. And both applied daring, expensive remedies. Mr. Reagan passed the biggest tax cut ever, combined with an agenda of deregulation, monetary restraint and spending controls. Mr. Obama, of course, has given us a $1 trillion spending stimulus. By the end of the summer of Reagan's third year in office, the economy was soaring. The GDP growth rate was 5% and racing toward 7%, even 8% growth. In 1983 and '84 output was growing so fast the biggest worry was that the economy would "overheat." In the summer of 2011 we have an economy limping along at barely 1% growth and by some indications headed toward a "double-dip" recession. By the end of Reagan's first term, it was Morning in America. Today there is gloomy talk of America in its twilight. My purpose here is not more Reagan idolatry, but to point out an incontrovertible truth: One program for recovery worked, and the other hasn't. The Reagan philosophy was to incentivize production-i.e., the "supply side" of the economy-by lowering restraints on business expansion and investment. This was done by slashing marginal income tax rates, eliminating regulatory high hurdles, and reining in inflation with a tighter monetary policy.

(NaturalNews) Due process under the law and assumed innocence before being proven guilty are two concepts that are apparently no longer applicable in the United States of America, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033454_Gibson_Guitar_armed_raid.html#ixzz1Wd8Nf600

Nice catch by Marbux.  A Bloomberg article explains how Bank of America is moving high risk derivatives into the coffers of a federally insured subsidiary.  Meaning, when (not if) the derivatives fail, the tax payers will get stuck with covering the losses and making the Banksters whole. The article also explains the recent GAO audit of the Federal Reserve where it was disclosed that through interlocking directories and shareholdings, the Bankster industry is in control of the Federal Reserve.  Awful, sickening stuff.  But a good catch nevertheless. excerpt: There are two things worth noting in this article. First, according to Bloomberg, "the transfers (of derivatives) are being requested by counterparties." Well, how do you like that? In other words, the investors on the other side of these contracts want Merrill to put them under an insurance umbrella provided by the FDIC. Now, why would that be? The only reason I can come up with, is that they know that a lot of these complex instruments are undercapitalized and ready to implode, so they want to make sure they get their money back any way possible. That means they need to latch on to Uncle Sam without anyone knowing about it. But, like we said, the cat is out of the bag. The other thing worth noting is that the Fed and the FDIC are at loggerheads over the matter. ("The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting.") Now, that's not good at all, in fact, it's a big red flag that suggests the Fed trying to pull a fast one on the American people. One does not have to look too far for other examples of Fed misbehavior; the endless bailouts (TARP, QE1 and 2, Operation Twist, ZIRP, etc) In fact, the Fed's history is a tedious chronicle of one shifty deal after another. This is just more of the same; another gift to big finance at the public'

Are we living in an Information Age or a Media Age? Good question. The Internet offers an Information Age but is the NSA Pandora's Box?

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity call on Obama to sack Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for perjured testimony to Congress and lying to the public, with a nice collection of Clapper's lies. And Sen. Diane Feinstein gets a share of their wrath.  In my book both Clapper and Gen. Keith Alexander must be fired in disgrace else the message to the intelligence community is that there is no penalty for lying to Congress and the People, which can only encourage further lies.  Moreover, it send a message to the People that the President is more loyal to his henchmen than he is to the public's interest.

This is about Obama trying to convince nations bordering Russia that the U.S. still has their backs despite his unwillingness to send U.S. troops into Ukraine. It is not about a serious threat of a military strike into Russia. Russian nuclear missiles stand as a deterrent to such an action that the U.S. is not ready to overcome before its anti-ballistic missile sites are fully deployed, enabling a U.S. first strike. And Russia has responded by beginning to deploy its own missile shield, using weapons far more advanced than those used in the U.S. ABM shield. That was the entirely predictable response; escalation in weapon capability throughout history has resulted in opponents adopting the same or superior weapons. Advanced weaponry is only an advantage against those who lack the preparedness or resources to respond accordingly. So why did the U.S. waste big bucks on that first-strike capability project anyway?  More seriously, fielding a first strike capability was a major setback for nuclear disarmament efforts, which had been proceeding very well. 

While some governments -- my own included -- attempt to impose an Orwellian Dark State of ubiquitous secret surveillance, secret wars, the rule of oligarchs, and public ignorance, the Edward Snowden leaks fanned the flames of the countering War on Ignorance that had been kept alive by civil libertarians. Only days after the U.S. Supreme Court denied review in a case where a reporter had been ordered to reveal his source of information for a book on the Dark State under the penalties for contempt of court (a long stretch in jail), a new web site is launched for communications between sources and journalists where the source's names never need to be revealed. This article is part of the publicity for that new weapon fielded by the civil libertarian side in the War Against Ignorance.  Hurrah!

A historic day indeed. Turkey is a member of both NATO and INTERPOL. Four high-ranking Israeli military officers will be on the INTERPOL arrest list soon, with a network of human rights lawyers around the world on the watch and ready to enforce INTERPOL arrest obligations. In other words, these officers' travel outside Israel will be very unlikely to include INTERPOL treaty nations and European extradition convention nations as either destinations or waypoints. The deterrent effect on Israeli government officials is considerable, particularly with another criminal prosecution pending in Spain. Fittingly, the Turkish court has aimed its message at high military officials who directed the assassinations rather than at the low-ranking soldiers who committed them. Message to high Israeli officials: be nice to Turkish citizens if you want to ever travel outside Israel.  One can only wish that the same message had been delivered about American citizens. The victim shot five times including a point blank shot to the head was an American citizen. Many of the kidnaped human rights people on the Navi Marmara and accompanying boats were Americans. One of the boats was American-flagged. Under international law, these actions were casus belli, a sufficient cause for military retaliation against the government of Israel. But the cowardly Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not so much as lodge a diplomatic protest, so fearful they are of the powerful Israel Lobby. 

By the former president of the Foreign Policy Council. Are we dizzy yet?  He says that Obama has decided to work with Syrian President Assad to root out the real threat, the jihadists. Might it not have saved tens of thousands of Syrian lives to have refused in the first place to assist the Sauds and Qatar in arming the same jihadists and sending them as an invading force to Syria? And yes, it's true; the Sauds have also done a 180-degree turn here. 

Behind the facade of politico-speak of a recovering economy and dedication to growing the economy, the political class in Washington, D.C. has done nothing along those lines that is worthy of mention, not even removing the tax incentives for off-shoring middle class jobs. Unless you live in one of the small pockets of prosperity, reality sets in as soon as you walk out the door; the economy just keeps getting worse rather than better and it shows just about everywhere you go. This article takes a useful look at how the 90th percentile of American workers fared during the recovery from the Great Depression compared to how they fared in the "recovery" from the Great Recession, after adjusting for inflation and what-not. It's dismal reading. But there's a silver-lining on the edge of that tornado. That's the fact that a lot more Americans are now a lot more reality-based in how they view their government: This is not a government of, by, and for the People and it never has been. It's always been a government of, by, and for the oligarchs. So shed a tear for those lies you used to believe; at least you've gained a whole bunch of sanity.    

Interesting essay on the foolishness of the Obama Administrations criminal charges against five Chinese generals for cyber-espionage.