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Date Sent: 2009-08-03
Freedom's Phoenix Global Edition for Monday, August 3, 2009 PM edition |
Tax revenues post biggest drop since Depression -- Refusing vaccination labels you a "criminal"
Apple tried to silence owner of exploding iPod with gagging order -- Vaccination Myths and Truths - by Stephen Lendman -- Foreign Investment in the U.S. Going Down, Down, Down -- SEC Charged Bank Of America With Making False & Misleading Statements -- Do Idiots Dream of Organic Dogs? - by L. Neil Smith -- Long Islanders: Why we're getting more guns -- [Editor recommended] What A Waste (Cash For Clunkers) -- Greece To Enforce Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccinations --
Banks Reopen Global Casino -- Credit card debt rises faster for those
65 and older -- Cash From Clunkers Let’s have a $4,500 subsidy for
everything -- GDP Worse, Not Better,Than Expected -- Don't give in to the state - by Garry Reed -- Is the Housing Bottom in, or is this just a Seasonal Uptick? -- Scientists fear a revolt by killer robots -- The National ID Bracelet -- Torrent of racist posts traced to DHS -- Video: How to Protest Your Congressman -- The U.S. government is continuing to prepare for an eventual popular uprising
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News Link • Police State
Refusing vaccination labels you a “criminal”, so says WHO
07/30/2009
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Farm Wars
The World Health Organization determined in 2005 it has the authority to dissolve sovereign governments and take control should there be a “pandemic”. This applies to any country signed onto WHO….which of course we are. The WHO just raised this non-existent pandemic to level 4.
From the WHO 2005 declaration: (excerpted) “ Under special pandemic plans enacted around the world including the USA, in 2005, national governments are to be dissolved in the event of a pandemic emergency and replaced by special crisis committees, which take charge of the health and security infrastructure of a country, and which are answerable to the WHO and EU in Europe and to the WHO and UN in North America.
If the Model Emergency Health Powers Act is implemented on the instructions of WHI, it will be a criminal offence for Americans to refuse the vaccine. Police are allowed to use deadly force against “criminal” suspects.
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Radio/TV Show • Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock - Radio
Host:
Ernest Hancock
"Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock" - August 3rd 2009
Electronic Frontier Foundation's Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director - The Internet & Free Speech / Vaccines - Powell Gammill In Studio - Fmr. Arizona Department of Health BioTerroism Lab manager (and current Senior Editor of FreedomsPhoenix)
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News Link • Gun Rights
CNN American Morning: Missouri Car Dealership Gives Away an AK47 with Each Truck Purchase!
08-03-2009
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CNN YouTube
CNN really does its best to demonize this guy but he holds his own :)
http://max71.com Mark Muller,'s motto is "God, Guns, Guts and American pick-up trucks" A true defender of Liberty.
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Reported by:
Ernest Hancock
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News Link • Techno Gadgets
Apple tried to silence owner of exploding iPod with gagging order
08-03-2009
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Times Online
Apple attempted to silence a father and
daughter with a gagging order after the child’s iPod music player
exploded and the family sought a refund from the company.
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Reported by:
Jim Stachowiak
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
Mike Whitney: This Depression is just beginning
08-03-2009
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Informationclearinghouse.info/
What does all this mean? It means the consumer is down-for-the-count. His credit lines have been cut, his home equity eviscerated, and his checking account swimming in red ink.
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Bill of Rights
NEW JERSEY’S WAR ON LEGAL GUN OWNERS - Live Tonight 9pm est.
08-03-2009
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ARM
Brian has been falsely imprisoned,
charged and indicted of a crime he did not commit. If found guilty he
faces seven (7) years in jail. There is reason to believe his 2nd, 4th
and 5th Amendment Rights have been violated… and he needs your help.
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Reported by:
Jim Stachowiak
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News Link • Corruption
SEC Charged Bank Of America With Making False & Misleading Statements
08-03-2009
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ZeroHedge.com
Update: All is now taken care of - BAC settles with the SEC for $33 million, less than an hour after the suit becomes public. And... it's gone. The market ramp can now continue with commercial interruptions from the Federal Reserve...
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Economy - International
Foreign Investment in the U.S. " Going Down, Down, Down
08-03-2009
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gold-prices.biz
Foreign Investment in the U.S. " Going Down, Down, Down according to Bud Conrad and David Galland, Editors, of The Casey Report.
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Depression
Tax revenues post biggest drop since Depression
08/03/2009
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SFGate
The recession is starving the government of tax revenue, just as the president and Congress are piling a major expansion of health care and other programs on the nation's plate and struggling to find money to pay the tab.
MORE NEWS
Obama officials: Taxes may rise to pay health care 08.03.09
Startup's stickers identify the source of food 08.02.09
Offshore windmills hold clean-energy promise 08.02.09
The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.
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News Link • Propaganda
Pandemic Billboard Propaganda in Kalamazoo, Michigan
08-03-2009
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InfoWars.com
“There are at least two of these billboards on display in Kalamazoo, Michigan,” writes an Infowars reader. “Things are looking ominous.”
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Military
Enlisting in the Military and the Decision To Kill
08-03-2009
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LewRockwell.com
And to top things off, those people I had never met who would have the right to tell me when to kill were politicians " the very same slippery scoundrels I had heard lying to me with a straight face my entire life. It was truly bone chilling...
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Outdoor Survival
Do Idiots Dream of Organic Dogs?
08-03-2009
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Libertarian Enterprise / L. Neil Smith
Take them away from the forest, farm, mountains, or the prairie for a few decades, and
good Americans turn into something so pathetic, so worthy of contempt,
that words fail even someone like yours truly who has written three
million of them in the vitally human cause of self-defense and self-
reliance.
They turn into ... Europeans.
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Reported by:
Brock Lorber
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News Link • Foreign Policy
Foreign policy fizzling
08/03/2009
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Boston Herald
With dictators on the rise, democracy under assault and foreign powers making inroads in Latin America, it’s not clear the Obama administration has a plan for dealing with it - other than more of its “Have a Coke and a Smile” brand of foreign policy.
Unfortunately, considering the challenges we’re facing, relaxed soft-drink diplomacy just isn’t going to cut it.
Topping the list is Venezuela, a major thorn in our side for some time now, but which has, remarkably, only gotten worse since President Barack Obama took office.
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News Link • Depression
2007-09: Household Net Worth Drops $13.8 Trillion a 21 Percent Drop
08-03-2009
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DoctorHousingBubble.com
Americans in the peak year of 2007 had a net worth of $64.2 trillion. A sizeable portion of that net worth has evaporated. In fact, that $64.2 trillion is now valued at $50.3 trillion. A 21 percent cut to the American household balance sheet.
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Bill of Rights
Long Islanders: Why we're getting more guns
08/01/2009
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News Day
As questions about gun rights swirl around the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice, and debate continues over attempts in Congress to make it easier to carry concealed weapons state-to-state, an increasing number of Long Islanders are applying for pistol permits.
The reasons? Those interviewed at local shooting ranges and gun shops say they are anxious about the possibility of stricter gun laws under a new Administration, and about their personal safety in a weakened economy.
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
Extended Benefits and Exhaustion Rate (Updated)
08-03-2009
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Ritholtz.com/blog
The Extendees " which consists of soon-to-be-Exhaustees " gained 25k, raising the total unemployed receiving extended benefits to about 2.66 million people. One year ago, there were only 127 thousand receiving extended benefits.
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Obama Administration
What A Waste (Cash For Clunkers)
08-03-2009
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Market-ticker.denninger.net
Destroyed the engine (the most valuable part) of that older vehicle, thereby trashing the business of both used car lots and automotive recyclers and used parts dealers (very bad.)
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
Credit card debt rises faster for those 65 and older
08-03-2009
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ABCnews.go.com/
Cash-strapped older Americans are racking up credit card debt faster than other consumers amid dwindling retirement portfolios and rising medical costs, a study shows.
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Federal Reserve
Why Is Barney Frank Stalling Ron Paul's Audit the Fed Bill?
08/03/2009
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The Golden Truth
Ron Paul's HR 1207 has 278 House co-sponsors. A House Bill only needs 218 votes to pass a House vote. How come Barney Frank will not let HR 1207 out of the House Financial Services Committee, of which he is the Chairperson, and go before a vote of the whole House of Representatives?
I would like to point out that, for those who do not know, the Fed has hired a full staff of lobbyists, headed by Linda Robertson, who was the chief lobbyist for Enron. I find incredible irony in this move, given that Enron turned out to be one big fraud. Is the Federal Reserve one big fraud? There's no question whatsoever the Fed is spending millions on lobbying and public relations in order to try and squash the movement for an audit of the Fed.
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News Link • Bailouts
How Wall Street Is Generating Trading Profits
08/03/2009
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The Golden Truth
The more alert blogs have finally figured out how Goldman Sachs, et. al. are creating enormous trading profits, especially at a time when trading volumes in most securities have seriously declined. These Wall Street firms are buying toxic, illiquid garbage which institutional investors (read: your pension fund or insurance company) have marked at low levels (yet still not low enough) and selling these securities into the Fed at the Fed's inflated bid levels. This is one way in which the Fed is injecting liquidity into the big banks - at the taxpayers' and pension investors' expense. It is also a primary reason the Fed refuses to disclose what it its paying for these toxic assets and why the Fed is spending millions in lobbying to prevent an audit.
Here's the mechanics, and it's a trading ruse that was being used when I was trading junk bonds back in the 1990's: Naive pension fund has toxic crap asset marked down to 20 cents. Snake Wall Street firm has bid from
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News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology
Greece To Enforce Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccinations
08-03-2009
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InfoWars.com
Despite the fact that there have been no deaths whatsoever from swine flu in the Mediterranean country, the Greek government has resolved to immunize its entire population of 12 million...
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Federal Reserve
Banks Reopen Global Casino
0803/2009
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Der Spiegel
Investment banks, of all things, are making serious money again, thanks in part to government aid. Ironically, they are benefiting from the crisis they helped to create. As profits go up, so do salaries -- only this time, it's the taxpayers who are shouldering the risks
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News Link • Federal Reserve
Fed Independence Is A Myth
08/03/2009
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Forbes
The Constitution didn't intend it to be autonomous.
In a recent opinion piece on the Federal Reserve for the Wall Street Journal, authors R. Glenn Hubbard, Hal Scott and John Thornton argued that the "Fed must above all maintain its political independence in conducting monetary policy." What the authors missed is that the Fed has never been non-political or independent, nor was it intended to be autonomous.
The Fed is not an independent body free of political coercion, but rather an institution whose actions have long been dictated by the president and politicians in power. More important, since Congress is empowered through the Constitution "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof," it's folly for general defenders of central bank independence to presume that this applies to our own Federal Reserve
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Feature Article • Health and Physical Fitness
SWEET MISERY: A POISONED WORLD - Aspartame Warning
Ernest Hancock
Video Chronicles Medical Horrors of Aspartame
An industry case study of a food supply in crisis
Aspartame Warning
This page exists solely to try and
spread the word about the numerous & serious dangers of regular
aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal) consumption. Currently the 100+ articles
on this page contain facts & opinions from over 50 doctors & nutritionists,
many of which have each "cured" their patients of many symptoms
(including weight gain) simply by removing aspartame from their diet.
These 50+ doctors strongly recommend avoiding all aspartame products.
Numerous articles detailing the unbelievable history of the aspartame
approval are also provided, along with thousands of testimonials from
former users. Some info. on the new sweetener Splenda (sucralose) found
in Diet Rite soda is also provided.
The multi-billion dollar aspartame industry would like you believe that "aspartame kills" is an "urban legend"
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News Link • Constitution
Lou Dobbs Right on Obama Birth Certificate
08/03/2009
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Newsmax
The Associated Press is wrong and Lou Dobbs is right.
This past weekend, the AP published a story entitled "CNN's Dobbs Under Fire for Hosting 'Birthers'".
The AP began their highly critical story on Dobbs: "He's become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network's 'no bias' brand."
And what is Dobbs' "crime?" He has said on air that Obama should release his birth certificate and has had on his show guests who suggested Obama was born outside the U.S.
As it stands, Obama is the only president in history whose birthplace is unknown to the public " a fact that would be stated on the actual birth certificate. Interestingly, his family has mentioned two different hospitals in Hawaii as the place of birth.
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News Link • Corruption
James Howard Kunstler: Hunky Dory
08-03-2009
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Kunstler.com/blog/
Here, in the dog days of summer, it seems to me that the situation in the USA is so fundamentally bad, so unpromising, so booby-trapped for failure, that I wonder if there has ever been a society so badly deluded as ours. We're prisoners of our wishes...
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Constitution
BORN IN THE USA?
Is this really smoking gun of Obama's Kenyan birth?
Attorney files motion for
08/03/2009
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WND
WASHINGTON " California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication.
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
Bill Bonner: We Are All Jackasses Now
08-03-2009
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DailyReckoning.com
But we do not have to go to Youtube to enjoy the Jackass genre. We have only to read the news. All over the world the authorities are strapping on their absurd parachutes…and climbing to very high places.
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Obama Administration
Non-Denial Denial: Higher Taxes
08-03-2009
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theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
This week's Sunday morning shows brought out the big guns, Geithner, Summers, Greenspan. Because they had a big new idea to non-deny deny. Raising taxes.
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Health and Physical Fitness
SHOULD YOU GET THE FLU SHOT?
08-03-2009
•
www.advancedhealthplan.com
Get the REAL Flu Facts before you decide.
"Look, first of all you have 2/3rds of the population on aspartame
which interacts with all vaccines. Secondly, the CDC has admitted
this is not the same strain as the flu that is here. Of course it
couldn't be, its made from last year's flu vaccine. So even if
someone wasn't using aspartame,
all it can do is give you the flu. On an Ohio radio show Nov.
25,2003, a doctor stated 'If you have taken the flu shot more than 8
times in the last 10 years you have an 80% chance of getting
Alzheimers'. Since aspartame is escalating Alzheimers anyway, and
memory loss is so prevalent with aspartame its like #9 on the FDA list
of 92 symptoms, people won't have a chance.
&n
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Ernest Hancock
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News Link • Bailouts
$100 Million Payday Poses Problem for Pay Czar
08/03/2009
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Yahoo
In a few weeks, the Treasury Department's czar of executive pay will have to answer this $100 million question: Should Andrew J. Hall get his bonus?
Mr. Hall, the 58-year-old head of Phibro, a small commodities trading firm in Westport, Conn., is due for a nine-figure payday, his cut of profits from a characteristically aggressive year of bets in the oil market.
There is little doubt that Mr. Hall is owed the money under his contract. The problem is that his contract is with Citigroup, which was saved with roughly $45 billion in taxpayer aid
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
ISM Manufacturing Shows Contraction in July
08-03-2009
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CalculatedRiskblog.com
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector failed to grow in July for the 18th consecutive month...
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Cost of Empire
The End Of Obama's Honeymoon
08/03/2009
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CBS
We are six months into the Obama reign, and he surely did have a good thing going until very recently. He pushed through what voters thought was a stimulus bill. He held numerous press conferences at which an adoring media allowed him to display his rhetorical skills. No mumbling George W. Bush, he. He toured the world, to the applause of adoring masses from London to Paris to Cairo. He fulfilled a campaign promise to tackle perceived global warming and lead the world to a cooler, greener future by urging Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill aimed at cutting CO2 emissions. He bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, rewarding the United Auto Workers for delivering key states to him in last year's election.
Then he made the mistake about which Sondheim wrote and Sinatra sang -- he wanted too much. He attempted to push through Congress a so-called reform of the nation's health care industry -- a $1 trillion restructuring that would turn effective control of one-sixth of the ec
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News Link • Bailouts
Cash From Clunkers
Let’s have a $4,500 subsidy for everything.
08/03/2009
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WSJ
Americans are streaming back into auto showrooms, and one reason is the “cash for clunkers” subsidy. Democrats are naturally claiming this is a great success, while Republicans are claiming that because the program has run out of clunker cash so quickly, this proves government can’t run the health-care system. How do we elect these people? What the clunker policy really proves is that Americans aren’t stupid and will let some other taxpayer buy them a free lunch if given the chance.
All of Washington professes to be surprised that the $1 billion allocated to the subsidy has been used up so quickly, but giving away money is one thing government knows how to do. The Clunkers who are in Congress are now patting themselves on the back for their great success, and the House quickly voted to pass out another $2 billion in clunker coupons. With a $1.8 trillion budget deficit, who’s going to notice this pocket change?
Clearly, we spoilsports need an attitude adjustment to Washington’s ne
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News Link • Energy
The Electricity in Your Garbage
08-03-2009
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Truthdig.com
Among the prime fodder of biomass scientists are hundreds of substances that aren’t bashful about giving off sinus-clearing scents. Yes, many of today’s biomass pioneers just love castoffs that reek.
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
Employment: Not a Lagging Indicator at these Levels
08-03-2009
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benbittrolff.blogspot.com/
When job losses are severe enough, as they most definitely are now, the loss in purchasing power to the economy is so great that employment becomes a coincident and even a leading indicator. Simply put, people can't spend until...
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
GDP Worse, Not Better,Than Expected
08-03-2009
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Ritholtz.com/blog
The 0.5% GDP beat comes on top of a 0.9% downward revision. Hence, the net surprise was a compounded negative 0.4%. And that’s before the likely downward revisions to Q2 . . .
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Crony Capitalism
Goldman's Brand Is Officially Trashed (GS)
But shareholders keep laughing all the way to the ba
08/03/2009
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The Business Insider
Goldman Sachs' reputation among both the general public and financially sophisticated Americans has been damaged by the events of the past year. Meanwhile, Goldman shares look set to open around $165 today, over 300% off their lows from the crisis. If this reputational hit mattered, nobody bothered to tell paid-up Goldman Sachs shareholders.
The report doesn't quantify the decline, but we can surmise that it's significant.
Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source"Goldman Sachs $542,252.00"than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/
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News Link • Housing
Is the Housing Bottom in, or is this just a Seasonal Uptick?
08-03-2009
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Michael Shedlock / Mish
I surmise in real terms housing will be negative for a decade given the last bubble is never reblown. Look at the Nasdaq for a prime example.
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Drug War
Don't give in to the state
08-03-2009
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Examiner / Garry Reed
Libertarians
who fight for marijuana rights should never compromise on rights. They
should never meekly beg to be legalized and taxed and regulated. They
should never give in to the state. It's the state, after all, who's in
the wrong, so make the state give in to you.
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Reported by:
Brock Lorber
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News Link • Robots and Artificial Intelligence
Scientists fear a revolt by killer robots
08-03-2009
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technology.timesonline.co.uk/
Advances in artificial intelligence promise many benefits, but scientists are privately so worried they may be creating machines which end up outsmarting " and perhaps even endangering " humans that they held a secret meeting to discuss...
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Jack Gregson
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News Link • Corruption
Pump Monkey Orgasms
08-03-2009
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Market-ticker.denninger.net
The economy is "improving" because the government showered borrowed money in the form of massive handouts into the economy. However, the government also allowed banks to hide stupendous losses - a trillion dollars or more...
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Reported by:
Jack Gregson
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News Link • Federal Reserve
Yep, The Bailout Was Based On A Big Fat Lie
08/03/2009
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The Business Insider
Remember also the Fed is paying lenders not to loan!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkf8VG3HL_8
Sophisticated people have a hard time understanding popular outrage about the banking bailout. Indeed, the TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky's complaints that most TARP dollars were used to increase capital cushions and pay bonuses rather than increase lending strikes many as a silly complaint. Of course banks needed to recapitalize themselves before they could start lending, the sophisticates say.
In fact, some people insist on claiming that the purpose was always a recapitalization of the banks.
That might be true. But it certainly was not what the American people were told over and over again. They were told, unequivocally, that the bailout would increase lending.
When he first explained that the TARP would be used for capital injections, then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said the purpose of the program was to get banks to “deploy, not hoard, their capital.”
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News Link • Communications
Live EFF Web Event - Safe Technology for Dissidents
07-31-2009
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Boing Boing
Tonight, Aug 3 - 7-9pm PDT. Iranians protesting the results of the recent election found an outlet
and a means of organizing with the Internet, and showed that new
digital media can help free speech and fight repression globally. But
what happens now the headlines and the Twitter trends have died down?
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Brock Lorber
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News Link • Cost of Empire
Obama’s Pledge to Tax Only the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything, Analysts Say
07/30/2009
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NYT
Behind Democrats’ struggle to pay the $1 trillion 10-year cost of President Obama’s promise to overhaul the health care system is their collision with another of his well-known pledges: that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” during his term.
Enlarge This Image
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama has promised that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” in his term.
Blog
The Caucus
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.
More Politics News
This will not be the last time that the president runs into a conflict between his audacious agenda and his pay-as-you-go guarantee, when only 5 percent of taxpayers are being asked to chip in. Critics from conservative to liberal warn that Mr. Obama has tied his and Congress’s hands on a range of issues, including tax reform and the need to reduce deficit
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News Link • Constitution
Is Economic Equality Worth the Loss of Prosperity?
08/03/2009
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Real Clear Markets
As our nation remakes itself into a European social democracy, bidding farewell to American Exceptionalism, we hear constant calls for "sacrifice." Have you wondered exactly what it is that we've been asked to give up?
The radical idea that all men should be equal before the law, each free to pursue happiness using his own means, created a nation of innovators that transformed the world. American culture had little tolerance for hereditary privilege, instead celebrating the self-made man accepting unequal outcomes as the price society pays to motivate entrepreneurial risk. Our founding social contract gave almost everyone a shot at riches but guaranteed outcomes for none. The system lasted 200 years because the same market that rewarded innovation eventually spread its fruits to even life's laggards. In the historical blink of an eye material luxuries became necessities became basic human "rights."
Has there ever been a more rapid increase in living standa
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News Link • Constitution
The Prez, The Press, The Pressure
08/03/2009
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Washington Post
Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, the company spun off from Viacom.
Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the current economic downturn.
The networks "absolutely" feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS's senior vice president: "It's an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used."
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News Link • Corruption
On The Triviality Of Campaign Promises And "Letting The Process Work Its Way Through"
08/02/2009
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Zero Hedge
Watch BO Lie again and again! Videos at site. [There is nothing like watching it said on camera--ed.]
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News Link • Economy - Economics USA
California's Reckoning -- and Ours
08/03/2009
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Washington Post
California's budget debacle holds a lesson for America, but one we will probably ignore. For years, state leaders papered over the contradiction with loans and modest changes. By overwhelming these expedients, the recession triggered an inevitable reckoning.
Here's the national lesson. There's a collision between high and rising demands for government services and the capacity of the economy How to produce the income and tax revenue to pay for those demands. That's true of California, where poor immigrants and their children have increased pressures for more government services. It's also true of the nation, where an aging population raises Social Security and Medicare spending. California is leading the transformation of politics into a form of collective torture: pay more (higher taxes), get less (lower services).
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News Link • Constitution
A Liberty Issue
08/01/2009
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National Review
Government health care would be wrong even if it “controlled costs.”
How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?
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News Link • Crony Capitalism
So This Is How You Make Huge Trading Profits...
08/03/2009
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Economic Policy Journal
Wall Street banks are reaping outsized profits by trading with the Federal Reserve, raising questions about whether the central bank is driving hard enough bargains in its dealings with private sector counterparties, officials and industry executives say.
The Fed has emerged as one of Wall Street’s biggest customers during the financial crisis, buying massive amounts of securities to help stabilise the markets. In some cases, such as the market for mortgage-backed securities, the Fed buys more bonds than any other party.
However, the Fed is not a typical market player. In the interests of transparency, it often announces its intention to buy particular securities in advance. A former Fed official said this strategy enables banks to sell these securities to the Fed at an inflated price.
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News Link • Police State
The National ID Bracelet
08-03-2009
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Jim Kirwan
"A piece of legislation entitled the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) was introduced in the US Congress. The bill calls for the establishment of six national emergency centers in major regions in the US to be located on existing military installations, which could be used to quarantine people in the case of a public health emergency or forced vaccination program.
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Dave Hodges
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News Link • Homeland Security
Torrent of racist posts traced to DHS
08-03-2009
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NY Times
Racism in law enforcement? Why, No Sir, Never. Most of the posts were made anonymously. But in reviewing the logs of its Internet server, the paper, The Wayne County Star in Wolcott, traced three of them to Internet protocol addresses at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border protection.
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Jim Stachowiak
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News Link • Free Speech
Video: How to Protest Your Congressman--Townhall Gone Wild
8/01/09
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Youtube
People in New York State letting their voices be heard to Congressman Tim Bishop in Setauket, N.Y see video
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Anonymous Watchman
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News Link • Propaganda
American Traffic Solutions’ Useless Red Light Cams
08/02/2009
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CameraFRAUD
Q: What’s a great way to promote your automated ticketing scam to the public?
A: Release compilation videos of horrific accidents that weren’t prevented by your cameras.
(You can always call ATS’ Josh Weiss and ask him if a video showing one of his family members involved in a serious accident (God forbid) would be an ideal marketing opportunity. His number is (480) 596-4613.)
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Camera FRAUD
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News Link • Revolutions, Rebellions & Uprisings
The U.S. government is continuing to prepare for an eventual popular uprising.
08-02-2009
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www.roguegovernment.com
The Army National Guard is now recruiting individuals to fill job positions described as an internment/resettlement specialist according to job postings on Monster.Com
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Jim Stachowiak
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| Tags: freedoms, phoenix, archives, politics, libertarian, alternative, government, freedom |
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