“I think Abigail Doolittle just secured herself a position in the next Peter Schiff ‘I told you so’ video. She laughs when Peter says gold is going thousands of dollars higher. Abigail, never laugh at Peter when you are being videotaped. It will come back to haunt you.”
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/08/peter-schiff-versus-abigail-doolittle.html
[Proof of financial dictatorship.] “Nobody ever said reading the Federal Reserve was easy. On Wednesday, the Fed appeared to suggest it was closer to taking additional steps to help the U.S. economy. Stocks rallied as a result and finished the day well off their lows. But the prospect of Fed help seemed much less certain Thursday, and stocks fell.”
“According to GovTrack.us, during the time Paul Ryan served along side then-senator Joe Biden from 1999 to 2008, they voted the same way on 52 substantive bills including the No Child Left Behind Act, the Patriot Act, and TARP. And some people still think there is a difference between the two parties?”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/118748.html
“I am not making this up. Certain assets at one time were allowed to be considered of zero value, when being placed in a family trust. I’m all for tax loopholes, but the point here is that the politically active super-wealthy have edges written into the law that give them tax breaks that the rest of us will never see. There is a growing elite in this country that are above all laws and regulations, laws and regulations that anchor down the rest of us.”
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/08/how-romney-was-able-to-put-100-million.html
“After eleven years, nearly two thousand Americans killed, sixteen thousand Americans wounded, nearly four hundred billion dollars spent, and more than twelve thousand Afghan civilians dead since 2007, the war in Afghanistan has come to this. The Taliban will not be defeated. A Western-style democracy will not be in place. The economy will not be self-sustaining. No senior Afghan official will likely be imprisoned for any crime, no matter how egregious. And it’s a good bet that, in some remote mountain valley, even Al Qaeda, which brought the United States to Afghanistan in the first place, will be carrying on.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/07/09/120709fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all
“Instability, insecurity and uncertainty, in turn, create a clamor for yet more government. On its own, this non-virtuous cycle can only lead to a steady degradation in the rights of individuals and corporations. But should the constant meddling lead to a blowback such as 9/11, then the speed at which things degrade could be breathtaking. Is it time to at least begin thinking about becoming familiar with other countries where the citizenry hasn’t yet been trained to look to the government as the panacea for everything?”
http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/wolf-and-lamb
“Security-conscious authorities will be using a wide variety of devices and technology to monitor the skies, streets and waterways around Tampa during next week’s Republican National Convention. Cameras, helicopters and law enforcement officers all will be employed to help look for suspicious activity and possible threats. Add to that mix one more technology: drones. This will mark the first time unmanned aerial vehicles will patrol the skies over a national convention, according to an engineer with a Naples company that builds and will operate the drones.”
“The Cuban embargo demonstrated one of the core principles of the national-security state: that the end, which was the preservation of ‘national security,’ justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it. If national security required the government to inflict great suffering on the Cuban people, then that’s just what would have to be done. Nothing could be permitted to stand in the way of protecting national security, whatever that term meant. What mattered was that the national-security establishment — i.e., the military and the CIA — knew what national security meant and had the ultimate responsibility for protecting it.”
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd1205a.asp
“In this Op-Doc, Mr. Binney explains how the program he created for foreign intelligence gathering was turned inward on this country. He resigned over this in 2001 and began speaking out publicly in the last year. He is among a group of N.S.A. whistle-blowers, including Thomas A. Drake, who have each risked everything — their freedom, livelihoods and personal relationships — to warn Americans about the dangers of N.S.A. domestic spying.”
“The Drug Enforcement Agency and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) signed a memorandum of understanding authorizing the sharing of license plate reader data. This means tracking information on motorists who drive through border checkpoints — many of which are located on travel routes far from the actual border — are shared with DEA agents. The information will be further spread to ‘intelligence, operations and fusion centers’ as well as state and local law enforcement, as desired. The data is stored for two years, unless transferred to another system with a longer data retention policy.”
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/38/3877.asp
