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In the Name of the People

“It is, perhaps, a fact provocative of sour mirth that the Bill of Rights was designed trustfully to prohibit forever two of the favorite crimes of all known governments: the seizure of private property without adequate compensation and the invasion of the citizen’s liberty without justifiable cause…It is a fact provocative of mirth yet more sour that the execution of these prohibitions was put into the hands of courts, which is to say, into the hands of lawyers, which is to say, into the hands of men specifically educated to discover legal excuses for dishonest, dishonorable and anti-social acts.

______ H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: A Selection, pp. 180-82

The American experiment in liberty has failed.  It is only a matter of time before people realize it. Official dogma exulting over the U.S. Constitution, which for so long was propagated through public schools, churches and government mouthpieces, will not forever withstand the exposure of the truth about American democracy now readily available on the Internet.

The greatest fear of America’s Founding Fathers has been realized: The U.S. Constitution has been unable to thwart the corrosive dynamics of majority-rule democracy, which in turn has mangled the Constitution beyond recognition. The real conclusion of the American Experiment is that democracy ultimately undermines liberty and leads to tyranny and oppression by elected leaders and judges, their cronies and unelected bureaucrats.  All of this is done in the name of “the people” and the “general welfare,” of course.  But in fact, democracy oppresses the very demos in whose name it operates, benefiting string-pullers within the Establishment and rewarding the political constituencies they manage by paying off special interests with everyone else’s money forcibly extracted through taxation….”

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Bad and Getting Worse: Violent Far Right Groups on the Rise

“The heirs of Timothy McVeigh are busy. Violence perpetrated by individuals and groups affiliated with far-right groups is bad and getting worse, according a report released last week by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, a privately-funded, independent institution located at the Army academy.

Not only is right-wing violence claiming more victims every year, the main ideological strands within it—white supremacy, anti-federalism, and Christian fundamentalism—which are united by a common American nationalism, link violent conduct to their underlying ideology and “reinforce one other in the organizational frameworks of the American violent far right.”

To understand the American violent far right, the report analyzes 4,420 violent incidents that occurred between 1990 and 2012 in the United States, and which caused 670 deaths and 3,053 injuries. All the incidents were perpetrated by groups or individuals affiliated with far-right associations or were intended to promote ideas compatible with far-right ideology.

The report found a “very clear” overall trend of increasing attacks from the early 1990s onward, with the average number of attacks rising from 70.1 in the 1990s to 307.5 in the 2000s, a jump of more than 400%. Fourteen of the 21 years covered saw an increase in attacks over the previous year. Other findings include the following…”

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Weidmann Warns of Currency War Risk

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The erosion of central bank independence around the world threatens to unleash a round of competitive exchange rate devaluations, which leading economies have so far avoided during the financial crisis, the president of Germany’s Bundesbank warned on Monday.

Jens Weidmann, whose institution’s own fierce independence from political influence was the model for the European Central Bank when it was founded, said Stephen King, the chief economist at HSBC, was “perhaps right” in forecasting an end to the era of central bank independence.

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“It is already possible to observe alarming infringements, for example in Hungary or in Japan, where the new government is massively involving itself in the affairs of the central bank, is emphatically demanding an even more aggressive monetary policy and is threatening an end to central bank autonomy,” Mr Weidmann said in a speech in Frankfurt.

“Whether intended or not, one consequence could be the increased politicisation of the exchange rate,” he said, according to a text of his speech provided by the Bundesbank. “Until now the international monetary system got through the crisis without competitive devaluations and I hope very much it stays that way.”

Both the Bundesbank and later the ECB were founded on mandates that gave them wide powers and freedom from political interference in return for focusing solely on keeping inflation in check. Some observers argue that the ECB now faces a challenge if other central banks ditch their own inflation targets and act to lower exchange rates against the euro, making exports from the embattled eurozone economies less competitive.

Asked about the trend for central banks to look less at inflation-targeting and more at policy areas that affect exchange rates, Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, said earlier this month that the exchange rate was very important “as far as growth and stability” were concerned but was not a policy target for the ECB.

He also noted that the Group of 20 leading industrial nations had pledged not to undertake competitive currency devaluations as such action undermines economic and financial stability.

Mr Weidmann said the period in the 1980s and 1990s during which central banks around the world had been made independent had heralded a period of “great moderation” during which inflation fell. But the outbreak of the financial crisis and the growing energy and raw materials demand from fast-growing economies had put rising prices back on the agenda and complicated the job of a central bank….”

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Many EU States Receive Approval to Start Taxing Trading

“(Reuters) – GermanyFrance and nine other euro zone countries got a go-ahead on Tuesday to implement a tax on trading, despite the reservations of financial centers such as London and Luxembourg that are worried it could drive business out of Europe.

EU finance ministers gave their approval at a meeting in Brussels, allowing 11 states to pursue a financial transactions tax. The 11 are: Germany,FranceItaly, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The levy, based on an idea proposed by U.S. economist James Tobin more than 40 years ago but little considered since, is symbolically important in showing that politicians, who have fumbled their way through five years of financial crisis, are getting to grips with the banks blamed for causing it.

“This is a major milestone in tax history,” Algirdas Semeta, the European commissioner in charge of tax policy, told reporters after ministers backed the scheme.

Under EU rules, a minimum of nine countries can cooperate on legislation using a process called enhanced cooperation as long as a majority of the EU’s 27 countries give their permission.

Britain, which has its own duty on the trading of shares, abstained in the vote, along with Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and Malta, said an EU official attending the meeting….”

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Your Tax Dollars at Work: U.S. Paid $6.8 Million to “Maintain” Non-Functioning Afghan Police Vehicles

Source

“Wasteful spending on Afghanistan’s security has continued to plague the U.S. government, with the latest revelation of nearly $7 million spent to maintain police vehicles that either were destroyed or inoperable.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) conducted an audit of a $350 million contract awarded to the Dubai-based firm Automotive Management Services (A-M-S). SIGAR uncovered $6.8 million was reportedly spent performing maintenance on 7,324 Afghan police vehicles that were not in service.

SIGAR did not report finding evidence of willful misreporting, “a common occurrence in Afghanistan, which is among the world’s most corrupt countries,” wrote Ernesto Londoño in The Washington Post.

“The taxpayers and the success of our mission are at risk when contracts such as this are executed without proper planning and oversight,” SIGAR chief John F. Sopko said in a statement….”

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Privatized Prisons: A Human Marketplace

“IN THEORY, PRIVATELY RUN PRISONS are simply another municipal resource that for-profit management companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group believe can be run cheaper and more efficiently than in the hands of government agencies: a free market alternative to the bureaucratic red tape of waste and regulation in the world of penitentiary administration. But running a penitentiary is not the same as running a municipal sewage authority. Having a monetary value tied to human incarceration and justice creates a deeply perverse incentive that should not exist in the world of commerce. When the for-profit prison industry places the iron fist of criminal justice in the invisible hands of the market and sells it as a cost-cutting measure, it is hard not to interpret as anything but the predatory capitalism of a self-perpetuating slave state.

¤

Most criticisms of privatizing prisons have come in the form of labor, management, and financial issues. This is an argument of numbers in which critics hope to show that the same cost-cutting measures that enable private prisons to be profitable are also to blame for subverting the security, accountability, and quality of life standards of those facilities. The promise of a more efficient penitentiary runs in stark contrast to various, well-publicized examples of private prisons accused of devolving into “gladiator schools” of violence and decay, run by fewer, inexperienced, undertrained, and underpaid staff who may not respond to such chaos responsibly. Cost overruns, sometimes well above what any state-run facility would charge, often eliminate any pretense of a financial benefit. Accusations of corruption, cronyism, and excessive CEO pay are commonplace.

One private prison has been accused of colluding with gang members to help manage inmates and save on staffing costs. Others have actively avoided housing sick inmates, leaving the higher medical care costs that those patients might incur to the state and federal penitentiaries. The legalization of interstate prisoner exchanges has only enabled this practice further. Private prisons can now cherry-pick low-cost, low-threat inmates, not just from other state-run prisons nearby, but also from across the country, to fill empty beds and maximize cell occupancy. Prisoners can be transferred to the state with the fewest regulations on prisoner treatment and facility standards.

Private prisons have also been able to profit off of their captive audience by overcharging on prison services such as interstate phone calls. Not just an overpriced luxury, phone access can be the sole source of communication between inmates and their family, friends, and legal representation, especially if they have been transferred far from the state that originally imprisoned them. The end result being that prisoners can find themselves out of contact with anybody who can advocate on their behalf, hindering the appeals process and giving them little recourse against abuse.

Still, numerous studies detailing the failings of private prisons have not stood in the way of their development, largely because there is such a desperate need for prison space in the United States. America’s outsized prison population is the largest in the world, easily dwarfing that of various totalitarian regimes across the globe. The sheer quantity and percentage of those behind bars in America has grown exponentially ever since the initiation of the War on Drugs in the 1970s. The overcrowded conditions exacerbate violence on prisoners and staff alike. The prevalence of rape that has resulted, often dismissed in popular culture as an extension of justice served, is a horrible standard for any society….”

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UN Launches New Attempt to Control the Interwebs

“Only weeks after a meeting of the International Telecommunication Union in Dubai sparked worldwide outrage, the UN’s telecom branch remains adamant about re-writing the rules of the Web.

Following a meeting of ITU members last year, participants involved in the United Nation’s telecom group announced that they hoped to re-write a multilateral communications treaty, in turn causing a whole new set of international laws to structure the way the Internet works.

Although the United States and dozens of other countries have refused to sign the proposal, the ITU is nevertheless powering through with plans to put new rules and regulations on the world’s Internet, including implement sweeping deep-packet inspection powers and other efforts that could censor the Web.

With the US contributing the lion’s share of the organizations funding, advocates for an open Internet are asking for all that to change.

According to the just-launched website defundtheitu.org, the UN group currently spends around $180 million annually to advocate for that revamped treaty. But while the United States opposes the very actions the ITU seeks, they at the same time contribute a massive amount of the group’s resources.

“The ten most oppressive countries in the Open Net Initiative’s ranking of online freedom all sided against the Internet, and none of them are giving the ITU as much as the US is,” the site claims. In fact, insists the site, the US government gave nearly $11 million to the ITU in 2010 — almost 8 percent of its total budget — all the while opposing the group’s attempt at creating a bill that some say would change the Web as we know it.

“It’ll be the biggest power grab in the UN’s history, as well as a perversion of its power,” blogger Arthur Herman wrote for Fox News last month.

Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, the general secretary of the ITU, has said his group has no interest in threatening free speech and instead insists a new treaty is a “chance to chart a globally-agreed roadmap to connect the unconnected, while ensuring there is investment to create the infrastructure needed for the exponential growth in voice, video and data traffic.” US lawmakers say the ITU would do so much more, though — censor the Web, in fact — which caused the US House of Representatives to unanimously agree to reject the proposal.

“The unanimous vote is meant to send a signal – as a show of strength – to other countries meeting at the telecommunications summit that both the White House and its lawmakers oppose any role the U.N. might take in Internet governance or regulation,” ZDNet reported in December….”

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Prejudice Against Law Abiding Citizens: New York Gun Law to Exempt Retired Law Enforcement

This article speaks of law enforcement being in violation of Cuomo’s new gun laws and how the PBA and state government are ironing out the kinks to allow the police to have the current magazines that hold 15 bullets. The problem here is that retired law enforcement will be included which in my mind is predjudice against law abiding citizens.

After all a retired officer of the law is a citizen and should be subject to the laws created for all citizens.

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Taxpayers Get Hosed Again as Big Banks Get a Sweet Tax Deal on Foreclosures

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer advocates have complained that U.S. mortgage lenders are getting off easy in a deal to settle charges that they wrongfully foreclosed on many homeowners.

Now it turns out the deal is even sweeter for the lenders than it appears: Taxpayers will subsidize them for the money they’re ponying up.

The Internal Revenue Service regards the lenders’ compensation to homeowners as a cost incurred in the course of doing business. Result: It’s fully tax-deductible.

Critics argue that big banks that were bailed out by taxpayers during the financial crisis are again being favored over the victims of their mortgage abuses.

“The government is abetting the behavior by not preventing the deduction,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “The taxpayers end up subsidizing the Wall Street banks after the headlines of a big-dollar settlement die down. That’s unfair to taxpayers.”

Under the deal, 12 mortgage lenders will pay more than $9 billion to compensate hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were seized improperly, a result of abuses such as “robo-signing.” That’s when banks automatically approved foreclosures without properly reviewing documents….”

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Activist Investor Asks $SD’s Board to Investigate CEO Ward and Front Running

” A top SandRidge Energy Inc investor called on the company’s board to investigate allegations that Chief Executive Tom Ward and a company run by his son engaged in “persistent front running of the company.”Mount Kellett Capital, which holds about 4.5 percent in SandRidge, said in a letter on Thursday that it was reviewing allegations by another investor, TPG-Axon, that Ward and his son acquired mineral rights and sold them to SandRidge or other oil and gas companies at a profit.It said the company’s board should hire an independent law firm and a forensic law firm to look into the allegations, and that Ward should be suspended until completion of the probe.WCT Resources – an Oklahoma company owned by trusts benefiting Ward’s three adult children and run by his son, Trent – is a business partner with SandRidge, according to SEC filings…”

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Pass or Fail: Levees Still Not Fixed Seven Years After Katrina

“NEW ORLEANS — Inspectors taking the first-ever inventory of flood control systems overseen by the federal government have found hundreds of structures at risk of failing and endangering people and property in 37 states.

Levees deemed in unacceptable condition span the breadth of America. They are in every region, in cities and towns big and small: Washington, D.C., and Sacramento Calif., Cleveland and Dallas, Augusta, Ga., and Brookport, Ill.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to issue ratings for a little more than 40 percent of the 2,487 structures, which protect about 10 million people. Of those it has rated, however, 326 levees covering more than 2,000 miles were found in urgent need of repair.

The problems are myriad: earthen walls weakened by trees, shrubs and burrowing animal holes; houses built dangerously close to or even on top of levees; decayed pipes and pumping stations.

The Associated Press requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, details on why certain levees were judged unacceptable and how many people would be affected in a flood. The Corps declined on grounds that such information could heighten risks of terrorism and sabotage…”

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Low Down Dirty Shame: Horse Meat Passed Off as Beef Burgers (Video)

“The discovery of horse and pig meat in “beef” burger products sold in both Britain and Ireland has sparked widespread outrage, as politicians and religious leaders in both countries wrangle over questions of food safety and misdescription.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the burger discovery “extremely disturbing” and “completely unacceptable,” announced Wednesday that an “urgent probe” has been launched to thoroughly investigate the claims, the Telegraph reports….”

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State of the Union: Pool of Workers 75 or Older Has Skyrocketed

“More Americans are working well past the normal retirement age of 65.

Research from the AARP Public Policy Institute shows the number of people aged 75 or older who are still working has skyrocketed, USA Today reports. This pool of workers has grown more than 76 percent in 20 years and made up 7.6 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2012.

Though most people clearly still retire before 75, research confirms that there is a growing trend of people working longer.

The average retirement age for men has increased to 64, and the average age for women has increased to 62, according to data from Center for Retirement Research at Boston College cited by The New York Times.

Some individuals are postponing retirement because they feel that they have to. As the nation recovers from a recession and the cost of living rises, many who are old enough to retire feel that they cannot afford it.

Findings from a Gallup poll last year revealed only 38 percent of respondents believed that they would have enough money to retire comfortably. That was a new low….”

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Sand Aid Bill May Still Face Budget Deficit Hurdles

 

“Northeastern lawmakers hoping to push a $50.7 billion Superstorm Sandy aid package through the House face roadblocks by fiscal conservatives seeking offsetting spending cuts to pay for recovery efforts as well as funding cuts for projects they say are unrelated to the Oct. 29 storm.

The amendments by budget hawks set up a faceoff Tuesday, with Northeast lawmakers in both parties eager to provide recovery aid for one of the worst storms ever to strike the region as the House moves toward expected votes on the emergency spending package.

The base $17 billion bill by the House Appropriations Committee is aimed at immediate Sandy recovery needs, including $5.4 billion for New York and New Jersey transit systems and $5.4 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief aid fund….”

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Younger Generations Carry More Debt Than Previous, “Many Will Die With Debt”

“American credit card holders in their late 20s and early 30s have more debt than older consumers, repay it more slowly and risk dying in debt if they don’t curb their spending habits, a new study showed on Monday.

Researchers that people born between 1980 and 1984 have on average $5,689 more debt than their parents had at the same stage of their lives, and $8,156 more than their grandparents.

“If what we found continues to hold true, we may have more elderly people with substantial financial problems in the future,” said Lucia Dunn, a co-author of the study and a professor of economics at Ohio State University.

“Our projections are that the typical credit card holder among younger Americans who keep a balance will die still owning money on their cards,” she added in a statement….”

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Experts Say The $ORCL Java Updates Still Fail to Prevent Cyber Crimes

Oracle released an emergency update to its Java software for surfing the Web on Sunday, but security experts said the update fails to protect PCs from attack by hackers intent on committing cyber crimes.

The software maker released the update just days after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged PC users to disable the program because of bugs in the software that were being exploited to commit identity theft and other crimes.

Oracle’s failure to quickly secure the software means that PCs running Java in their browsers remain vulnerable to attack by criminals seeking to steal credit-card numbers, banking credentials, passwords and commit other types of computer crimes.

Adam Gowdiak, a researcher with Poland’s Security Explorations who has discovered several bugs in the software over the past year, said that the update from Oracle leaves unfixed several critical security flaws.

“We don’t dare to tell users that it’s safe to enable Java again,” said Gowdiak….”

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$ORCL Promises to Fix the Java Security Bug Identified for Leaving Open Doors for Hackers to Drop Malware Into Your PC

Oracle said it is preparing an update to address a flaw in its widely used Java software after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable the program in web browsers because criminal hackers are exploiting a security bug to attack PCs.

“A fix will be available shortly,” the company said in a statement released late on Friday.

Company officials could not be reached on Saturday to say how quickly the update would be available for the hundreds of millions of PCs that have Java installed.

The Department of Homeland Security and computer security experts said on Thursday that hackers figured out how to exploit the bug in a version of Java used with Internet browsers to install malicious software on PCs. That has enabled them to commit crimes from identity theft to making an infected computer part of an ad-hoc computer network that can be used to attack websites.

Java is a computer language that enables programmers to write software utilizing just one set of codes that will run on virtually any type of computer, including ones that use Microsoft’s Windows, Apple‘s OS X and Linux, an operating system widely employed by corporations.

It is installed in Internet browsers to access web content and also directly on PCs, server computers and other devices that use it to run a wide variety of computer programs.

Oracle said in its statement that the recently discovered flaw only affects Java 7, the program’s most-recent version, and Java software designed to run on browsers.

Java is so widely used that the software has become a prime target for hackers. Last year, Java surpassed Adobe Systems Inc’s Reader software as the most frequently attacked piece of software, according to security software maker Kaspersky Lab.

Java was responsible for 50 percent of all cyber attacks last year in which hackers broke into computers by exploiting software bugs, according to Kaspersky.

That was followed by Adobe Reader, which was involved in 28 percent of all incidents. Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer were involved in about 3 percent of incidents, according to the survey.

The Department of Homeland Security said attackers could trick targets into visiting malicious websites that would infect their PCs with software capable of exploiting the bug in Java….”

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#18

The human race is scary! #18 on the list was just plain sickening for me….

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CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION PRESIDENT TALKS ABOUT BEHEADING THE RICH; CROWD LAUGHS, APPLAUDS

“Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union: “At this very moment I still believe there is one party in this country – that is, the party of money, with two branches. Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them. Please understand that. However, we are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very reminiscent of the robber baron ages. The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just – off with their heads. They were seriously talking about that. I don’t think we’re at that point, The key is that they think nothing of killing us, They think nothing about putting us in harm’s way.”

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