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The Senate's filibuster rule, particularly since abandonment of the requirement that the filibustering Senator must keep talking so long as the filibuster continues, has seemed more and more an anachronism to me as I age. Its use to indefinitely block an up or down vote on a legislative measure -- in essence granting each Senator veto power over proposed measures seems fundamentally at odds with democratic principles to me. Certainly during my lifetime, the filibuster rule has been abused by both major parties, transforming a mere rule of procedure into an individual veto power nowhere set forth in the Constitution, in effect requiring a 60 per cent super-majority to pass a controversial measure. The Constitution is not silent on the subject of super-majorities in the Senate, specifying a super-majority to override a presidential veto and to remove a federal official from office by impeachment. Therefore, one might argue that the Founders knew how to write a super-majority requirement but did not see fit to require a supermajority to close debate and bring a measure to a vote. In other words, I favor abolishing the filibuster rule entirely and making "the nuclear option" standard procedure except where the Constitution establishes a super-majority requirement. To me it is not important that this limitation of the filibuster rule occurred when the Democrats had the majority in the Senate; whenever it were to happen, some party would be in the minority. And I do not believe that the People of this nation will be disadvantaged by up or down votes on Senate measures.  Now can we please get rid of the filibuster rule entirely?

Is the ObamaCare train wreck a wreck by design? Another notch in the Bankster belt marking another step in the bankrupting of America? Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan October 26, 2013  //  By: Eric Odom  //   The ObamaCare train wreck - it's awful, possibly purposeful, certainly useful for team Obama and its growing army of community activists and organizers. In a previous report, we explored the question, "What if the ObamaCare debacle is really a diversion, using a military term a "feint" - a tactical distraction to draw our attention, our focus and our fire away from the real point of attack on liberty?" Remember that horrible train wreck in Spain not long ago, captured on video? As tragic as it was, watching the crash and its gruesome aftermath was almost irresistible, wasn't it? Well, what if the disastrous rollout of the President's signature legislative achievement - what if this spectacular slow motion ObamaCare train wreck has been and is being allowed to happen so that what's going on around the bend from the fiery crash site gets little attention, from the public, from the media or from Congressional investigators? Think about it, friends. How could Barack Obama and his celebrated team of incredibly proficient, plugged in techies - the team that twice got him elected - be behind the utterly disastrous launch of the ObamaCare online storefront, healthcare.gov - arguably the biggest website failure in history? How could so much money have been spent to produce such a problem-plagued site that apparently was doomed in its developmental confusion? And how to fix this monumental mess, well, there doesn't seem to be any clear plan…other than hope. And now we learn that many, if not most, of the people actually signing up for ObamaCare through the website are enrolling in Medicaid, not signing up for private insurance policies they pay for, but adding their names onto government roll

There is no doubt in my mind that corporations (and their Chamber of Commerce boot licking lackys) believe that employer provided healthcare benefits was a HUGE MISTAKE. The key feature of ObamaCare is that of ENDING the HMO-Employee Healthcare profit draining quagmire these corporations somehow stumbled into. (Hint: they traded healthcare benefits for wide open government assisted Globalization - the new world order Merchantilism). IMHO, the insurance companies know full well that the entire HMO-Employee Healthcare bandwagon is going to end. Not because of socialism; because of profit hungry out of control mercantilism. So they are trying to cut the best deal possible with the government. The merchantilist doesn't care that their employees are going to suffer. They only care that this cost and the blame for losing the benefit is moved from their books to the government. Nor does the merchantilist care about protecting our borders. They want cheap labor. Even if the social cost of that cheap labor lands on the government and destroys the nation. That's why the merchantilist and his Bankster financiers support Open Borders. The merchantilist could care less about the trade deficit and the massive transfer of American manufacturing jobs overseas. As long as they can sell their junk back into the USA market without a 33% import tax these bastardos are happy to destroy their country. I wonder whose army and navy will secure their investments when the USA no longer can? Are their private armies enough? Just wondering.

Optimistic news on the ISP data-retention law front. If the data retention directive is found unlawful in the E.U., the ability of law enforcement and the spy agencies to access retained data is limited to what is retained voluntarily by ISPs. 

I don't agree that whistleblowers need a secret system for their complaints. Secrecy is the problem, not the solution.In a supposedly democratic republic, every bit of government secrecy runs directly contrary to the citizen's right to be know what their government is up to.  All of the NSA reform measures in Congress share a fundamental flaw: they focus on what the NSA is allowed to do in secret. Any sane legislative approach would begin by identifying and clarifying what digital privacy rights citizens have and the obligation of government agencies and the private sector to report violations to their victims. Then one can proceed to examine how intelligence agencies might function within those parameters.  But the approach in Congress has been a catfight over "NSA reform" with secrecy accepted as the norm and without consideration of citizens' privacy rights, not even their Constitutional rights. But it is our privacy laws and their enforcement that needs attention, not directions to the Dark Government that is still allowed to remain in the dark. In other words, it is the public that should be informed of whistleblowers' revelations, not selected members of Congress, not secret courts, not some Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board whose public reports are only summaries with all data they examine hid from view.  Bring that Dark Government into the sunlight and then real reform can happen but not before.

+1 The Constitutional and Natural rights of citizens come first. The legality of the NSA activities as well as other gov ops follows. This is an excellent point you make Paul! I hope others take up the cross and realize what an important point you are making in your comment.

Robert Parry lands another major scoop. But beware of government officials who leak government plans because they do not invariably speak the truth.  I am particularly wary of this report because Obama's planned arming and training of the "moderate Syrian opposition" was such a patent lie. The "moderate Syrian opposition" disappeared over two years ago as peaceful protesters were replaced by Saudi, Qatari, Turkish, and American-backed Salafist mercenaries took their place. Up until this article, there has been every appearance that the U.S. was about to become ISIL's Air Force in Syria. In other words, there has been a steady gushing of lies from the White House on fundamental issues of war and peace. In that light, I do not plan to accept this article as truth before I see much more confirmation that ISIL rather than the Assad government is the American target in Syria. We have a serial liar in the White House.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz takes on the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) trade agreement, explaining how corporations will use the agreement to side step environmental and regulatory laws of sovereign nations. Amazing stuff. No doubt Wall Street Money is behind these trade agreement. The Banksters are said to own over 40% of the world's corporations and these agreements are designed to establish corporate sovereignty while greatly diminishing state sovereignty. It's the New World Order. "Terms such as 'investor' and 'partner' are taking on new meanings as multinationals manipulate deals to take legal action against sovereign states"

"Doug Casey: I don't see a real recovery until they stop debasing the currency, radically cut government spending and taxation and eliminate most regulation. In other words, cease doing the things that caused this depression. And that's not going to happen until there's a collapse of the current order. Things have cyclically improved since the height of the crisis of 2008-09. The trillions of currency units created by the Federal Reserve have jammed the stock market higher and kept the big banks from going under. What surprises me is that retail prices have not moved as significantly as I would have expected. The reason, I believe, is that most of that money is still sitting in financial institutions. It has gone into cash out of fear, into stocks because they represent real wealth with earning power and into various speculative assets like artwork and collectible cars. Real estate has recovered somewhat, not because of strong fundamentals but strictly because of money creation. This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference - not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save - when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better. They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be. Although, I hasten to add, I hate to pontificate on what the Fed "should" do. In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy. In fact, if it wasn't for the state, I suspect we'd all have a vastly higher standard of living, and would be colonizing the Moon, Mars and

Nixon's psychopathy was not unique. Indeed, it seems that psychopathy is a threshold requirement for elibility to assume the office of the U.S. Presidency. And it is a fundamental reason the U.S. government is so bellicose in its foreign policy. See discussion of definition at https://goo.gl/6w0Hj6

This is the article that has set the Web on fire.  Thomas Sowell takes the recent Obama shakedown of BP and cast these unconstitutional actions against the historical background of how tyrants go about the business of crushing constitutional liberty.  The first to go is the "rule of Law", as the crisis of the moment is used as an excuse to suspend the rule of Law for the good of the people. excerpt: "In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it. The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies. Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere. But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men." If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion - or $50 billion or $100 billion - then so be it. But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law." With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution. If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government. And, without constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis" - which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's p

Excellent discussion about the difference between Health Care and Health Benefits, and who is covered by which. excerpt:  Except of course, for the fundamental difference, which remains the same -- Republicans want to reform and improve health care without destroying its free-enterprise base, while Democrats would be very happy to see the entire thing absorbed into a government-controlled system, as half of it has been already through the extension of Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs. What became most outstanding is that President Obama and his teammates still do not have any real understanding of how the current system works..... Only 6 percent of the population actually buys their own insurance. (And for this, we are painting the insurance companies as the villains of this melodrama?) Fourteen percent of the population is on Medicare, 14 percent on Medicaid. The other 66 percent do not have insurance but health benefits¸, which is not the same thing. Nine percent gets its benefits from government employment, 4 percent from the military and the remaining 43 percent get their benefits from private employment. The last 15 percent (there is some overlap) has no coverage at all. President Obama kept talking about how it is these "large pools" in big companies that make insurance cheap, but that is not true. Large pools are only part of the equation. Equally important is that these employees are getting their benefits tax-free. This is a huge advantage not available to the uninsured population. Because the government is not getting its cut, employers are also eager to convey benefits to their employees instead of wage increases because they have more value. This is why, for many people, health benefits constitute the major reason for employment. Wages transfer easily from job to job but benefits do not. Yet another advantage of company-run health benefits programs is that they are exempt from state regulations. ....... 

America needs an alternative. For that reason, I have reintroduced my plan to tackle our nation's most pressing domestic challenges-updated to reflect the dramatic decline in our economic and fiscal condition. The plan, called A Road Map for America's Future and first introduced in 2008, is a comprehensive proposal to ensure health and retirement security for all Americans, to lift the debt burdens that are mounting every day because of Washington's reckless spending, and to promote jobs and competitiveness in the 21st century global economy. The difference between the Road Map and the Democrats' approach could not be more clear. From the enactment of a $1 trillion "stimulus" last February to the current pass-at-all costs government takeover of health care, the Democratic leadership has followed a "progressive" strategy that will take us closer to a tipping point past which most Americans receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes-a European-style welfare state where double-digit unemployment becomes a way of life. Americans don't have to settle for this path of decline. There's still time to choose a different future. That is what the Road Map offers. It is based on a fundamentally different vision from the one now prevailing in Washington. It focuses the government on its proper role. It restrains government spending, and hence limits the size of government itself. It rejuvenates the vibrant market economy that made America the envy of the world. And it restores an American character rooted in individual initiative, entrepreneurship and opportunity. Here are the principal elements:

I've been reading John Mauldin's newsletter for some time now.  The guy is so grounded, and his writing style is fluid.  Mostly though i appreciate the depth of background information that surrounds the simplicity of his explanations.  Note his connections to George Friedman, Niall Ferguson David Rosenberg, Lacy Hunt and Gary Shilling.  Quite a murders row of economic thinking.  anyway, John's newsletter has become the bottom line of my economic thinking. excerpt:     "Our immersion in the details of crises that have arisen over the past eight centuries and in data on them has led us to conclude that the most commonly repeated and most expensive investment advice ever given in the boom just before a financial crisis stems from the perception that 'this time is different.' That advice, that the old rules of valuation no longer apply, is usually followed up with vigor. Financial professionals and, all too often, government leaders explain that we are doing things better than before, we are smarter, and we have learned from past mistakes. Each time, society convinces itself that the current boom, unlike the many booms that preceded catastrophic collapses in the past, is built on sound fundamentals, structural reforms, technological innovation, and good policy." - This Time is Different (Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff) When does a potential crisis become an actual crisis, and how and why does it happen? Why did most everyone believe there were no problems in the US (or Japanese or European or British) economies in 2006? Yet now we are mired in a very difficult situation. "The subprime problem will be contained," said now controversially confirmed Fed Chairman Bernanke, just months before the implosion and significant Fed intervention. I have just returned from Europe, and the discussion often turned to the potential of a crisis in the Eurozone if Greece defaults. Plus, we take a look at the very positive US GDP numbers released this morning. Are we final

Obama and the Federal reserve are out of bullets......... The only thing that will work is Cut, Cap and Balance - the TEA Party Patriot formula that passed the House during the run up to the Natioanl Debt Limit SCAM, only to be immediately tabled and discarded by the ruling elites in the Bankster, Democrat and Repubican establishment.  With 69% of the taxpaying public in support of the Balanced Budget Amendment, one would have thought the ruling elites would have shown a bit more respect for Cut, Cap & Balance.  What we got however was anything but.   In this article Long time liberal - big government - let me into the elite ruling class advocate Henry Blodgett looks into the chasm, wondering how to pull back from the brink impending disaster. excerpt:  there are also several very important differences between this market crash and the ones a few years ago: ........... The Fed has fired most of its bullets (interest rates are already at zero) ............. Our budget deficit is already out of control, and Congress has had it with "stimulus" ............... The public has had it with bailouts That means the government's ability to do anything about this market crash is severely limited. Yes, we'll almost certainly have a "QE3." And maybe that will prop things up a bit. But it won't fix the fundamental problems clogging the economy, just as QE1 and QE2 didn't permanently fix anything. (The only thing that will fix our economy is debt-reduction, discipline, and time.)............

 the underlying issue is that the U.S. has borrowed too much, and now has a higher debt to GDP ratio than it has ever -- and because the U.S. will inevitably borrow even MORE because 1. everyone believes that lower taxes and stimulus are needed to stimulate growth and 2. if we don't, growth in the U.S. will depress -- the reality is that our lifestyle (individuals and the government spending what they don't have) is unsustainable. He says: "In addition to balancing the budget and growing the economy, I think we have to accept that the coming decades are likely to see U.S. standards of living decline relative to the rest of the world. Unless our goods offer a better cost/benefit bargain, there's no reason why American workers should continue to enjoy the same lifestyle advantage over workers in other countries. I just don't expect to hear many politicians own up to this reality on the stump." His other big points: ..... "The dollar can no longer be the reserve currency" without unflinching adherence to the associated responsibilities. ..... The debt ceiling "solution" is unlikely to represent much fundamental progress; for the most part it'll just kick the can down the road because politicians are too concerned about getting re-elected to compromise....... "We have no choice but to raise the debt ceiling and keep borrowing in the short-term."....... "Washington's spending has recently been higher as a percentage of the nation's economic output than at any time since World War II. But by the same measure, Washington's revenues are the lowest in more than 60 years." ..... When asked about conservatives' insistence on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, President Obama replied, "We don't need a constitutional amendment to do that [balance the budget]; what we need to do is to do our jobs." But clearly we do need some enforced discipline, because the years in which we haven't run a deficit have been by far the exception of late, n

A system where bank lobbyists have been spending in record numbers to make sure it stays that way. A system that corrupts the most basic principles of competition and fair play, principles upon which this country was built. It is a system that so far has forced the taxpayer to provide the banks with the use of $14 trillion from the Federal Reserve, much of the $7 trillion outstanding at the US Treasury and $2.3 trillion at the FDIC. A system partially built by the very people who currently advise our President, run our Treasury Department and are charged with its reform. And most stunningly -- it is a system that no one in our government has yet made any effort to fundamentally change.

Bob Moriarty from 321 Energy provides a brief explanation of the fundamentals -  excerpt: I've made it clear for a year that I believe we have entered what will be the most serious depression in history. It also will involve the greatest transfer of wealth in history. There are two basic classes of assets. There are paper assets and real assets. An ounce of gold is a real asset. A copper mine is a real asset. A house is a real asset. An oil field is a real asset. Over the counter derivatives now total over $596 trillion dollars, (click here [pdf]) ten times the size of the world economy. Those are paper assets, their value is derived from some other asset. That derivative size is what is going to destroy the world's financial system, it's all fraud. A mortgage is a paper asset. A T-Bill or T-Bond is a paper asset. A $100 bill is a paper asset. It's pretty easy to see that a $500,000 mortgage on a house now worth $250,000 isn't worth very much. Latest figures show 9.6 million homes in the US have negative equity. How many of those loans are going to be paid back? According to an ex-Fed Director, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are bankrupt. They were leveraged 65-1. For those comforted by the thought of the FDIC bailing you out should the banking system fail entirely, you need to realize the FDIC is leveraged at 130-1. We are told that the collapse of Washington Mutual alone could bankrupt the FDIC. In a depression, no real assets appear or disappear. Paper assets, on the other hand, turn to vapor. But the ownership of real assets will change as the real assets move from weak hands into strong hands.

quote from global warming hoax advocate Stephen H. Schneider: "as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but--which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts." So let me get this straight.  Scientist who support the global warming hoax are lying.  That puts them at odds with the most fundamental of scientific requirements - don't lie.  So therefore, global warming hoaxsters have disqualified themselves as legitimate scientists.  At best, they are dissembling practitioners of "political science". So, if we disqualify the scientific posers who are lying about global warming, and then take a look at the consensus of real scientist left (truth tellers), we have an interesting fact.  100% of legitimate scientists do not believe in the global warming hoax.   100% consensus!!! Bastardos.  Potemkin villages.  Show trials. 5 year plans.  Where have we seen this before?

I wound up joining this campaign at the urging of the ACLU after checking the Privacy Policy. The Reset the Net campaign seems to be endorsed by a lot of change-oriented groups, from the ACLU to Greenpeac to the Pirate Party. A fair number of groups with a Progressive agenda, but certainly not limited to them. The right answer to that situation is to urge other groups to endorse, not to avoid the campaign. Single-issue coalition-building is all about focusing on an area of agreement rather than worrying about who you are rubbing elbows with.  I have been looking for a a bipartisan group that's tackling government surveillance issues via mass actions but has no corporate sponsors. This might be the one. The reason: Corporate types like Google have no incentive to really butt heads with the government voyeurs. They are themselves engaged in massive surveillance of their users and certainly will not carry the battle for digital privacy over to the private sector. But this *is* a battle over digital privacy and legally defining user privacy rights in the private sector is just as important as cutting back on government surveillance. As we have learned through the Snowden disclosures, what the private internet companies have, the NSA can and does get.  The big internet services successfully pushed in the U.S. for authorization to publish more numbers about how many times they pass private data to the government, but went no farther. They wanted to be able to say they did something, but there's a revolving door of staffers between NSA and the big internet companies and the internet service companies' data is an open book to the NSA.   The big internet services are not champions of their users' privacy. If they were, they would be featuring end-to-end encryption with encryption keys unique to each user and unknown to the companies.  Like some startups in Europe are doing. E.g., the Wuala.com filesync service in Switzerland (first 5 GB of storage free). Compare tha