Anadolu Agency via Getty Images‘…BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE WE ARE’
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/19/2014
In the Land of the Free, people grow up hearing a lot of things about their freedom. You’re told that you live in the freest country on the planet. You’re told that other nations ‘hate you’ for your freedom. And you’re told that you have the most open and fair justice system in the world. This justice system is supposedly founded on bedrock principles– things like a defendant being presumed innocent until proven guilty. The right to due process and an impartial hearing. The right to counsel and attorney-client privilege. Yet each of these core pillars has been systematically dismantled over the years…
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/13/2014
UPDATE: The BLM has ceased rounding up Bundy’s cattle – because of safety concerns
If you haven’t been following the unfolding drama at the Bundy Ranch about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas you need to start now. The escalating confrontation between irate local residents and federal agents of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has the potential to take a very dangerous turn for the worse at any moment, as hundreds of militia members from states across the country are expected to descend upon the area and make a stand with 67-year-old Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. The kindling for social upheaval has been growing in America for quite some time.Disrespectful and ignorant statements from billionaire oligarchs only make it worse. The question in my mind has always been what will the catalyst be to spark the brushfire? Will it be the Bundy Ranch? We’ll have to wait and see.
Heritage Images via Getty ImagesREPORT: CIA Misled Everyone… Used Torture Methods Not Approved By CIA OR Justice Department… Casts Doubt On Legal Foundation…
Every couple of years, a mega-flaw is discovered in some key part of the Internet’s… Read More
Finding a software bug such asHeartbleed is the hard part. Pushing out the fix is relatively easy. But forcing people to update their machines? Total crapshoot.
Every couple of years, a mega-flaw is discovered in some key part of the Internet’s infrastructure. Despite the attention those vulnerabilities get, consumers and small businesses are notorious for not applying security patches.
We wonder: why does the truth about the broken system, as witnessed and experienced by individual employees, always wait until said employee is about to depart their employer or just after? Obviously that is rhetorical. However, it is worth mentioning, because in the latest such revelation, a retiring SEC trail attorney veteran, James Kidney, who had been with the agency since 1986 and retired this month, just crucified his now former employer for doing precisely all those thing that outside critics – notably Zero Hedge – have accused the most coopted, clueless, corrupt and criminal regulators of doing. Only he said it in a way that not even we could have phrased. The SEC has become “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,” Kidney said, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by Bloomberg News. “On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening.”
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Supremes Leave Congressional Corruption All But Impossible To Prosecute…DIONNE: ‘Republican Supreme Court’ Creating American ‘Oligarchy’…
Lead Attorney In Case Admits: Money Isn’t Speech…
From the White House to Capitol Hill to the campaign trail, Democrats are planning an across-the-board push on paycheck equality on Tuesday, the party’s first large-scale coordinated effort
4/4/20 – BY NICO HINES
Drew Anthony Smith via Getty ImagesIraq War Vet… Said He Had Traumatic Brain Injury… Saw No Combat… Army: No ‘Injury That Might Lead Us To Investigate’… Top Army Official: Suspect Had ‘Clean Record’… 4 Dead, Including Suspect… 16 Injured… At Least 3 Still In Critical Condition… No Further Fatalities Expected… Bought Gun At Same Store As First Ford Hood Shooter… Obama: ‘Heartbroken’…
Full ArticleThe Associated Press
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images - A Huawei store in Beijin
MARCH, 2014
Big changes are coming to the labor market that people and governments aren’t prepared for, Bill Gates believes. Speaking at Washington, D.C., economic think tank The American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, Gates said that within 20 years, a lot of jobs will go away, replaced by software automation (“bots” in tech slang, though Gates used the term “software substitution”).
This is what he said:
“Software substitution, whether it’s for drivers or waiters or nurses … it’s progressing. … Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. … 20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don’t think people have that in their mental model.”
He’s not the only one predicting this gloomy scenario for workers. In January, the Economist ran a big profile naming over a dozen jobs sure to be taken over by robots in the next 20 years, including telemarketers, accountants and retail workers.
Gates believes that the tax codes are going to need to change to encourage companies to hire employees, including, perhaps, eliminating income and payroll taxes altogether. He’s also not a fan of raising the minimum wage, fearing that it will discourage employers from hiring workers in the very categories of jobs that are most threatened by automation.
He explained:
“When people say we should raise the minimum wage. I worry about what that does to job creation … potentially damping demand in the part of the labor spectrum that I’m most worried about.”
Submitted on 03/14/2014 – 15:20
An American scout-attack drone, “almost invisible at a height of 4000 meters” has, according to AFP, been intercepted in the Crimean sky. Reports from the Russian state arms and technology group Rostec stated, judging by side-markings it was an MQ-5B drone – which is likely part of the 66th US Recon Brigade based in Bavaria. It was possible to break the drone’s link with its American operators with the help of the EW (electronic warfare) complex Avtobaza. As a result, the device made an emergency landing and passed into the possession of the self-defense forces almost unbroken.” It is perhaps ironic that the US is complaining abouit Russia’s military presence in Ukraine even as its own equipment is reportedly operating in the country.
From the president of the United States to the heads of some of the biggest financial institutions in the world, Harvard University graduates have established themselves in powerful positions.
Harvard—which was recently named the university with the best reputation in the world—is known as being one of the best academic institutions in the America. Both its undergraduate and graduate programs consistently top many higher education rankings.
For this list, we’ve included any living person who has a degree from one of Harvard’s schools. We looked for those who are currently in positions of major power and influence on both a national and global stage.
Full ArticleThe Times of India
Full ArticleSan Francisco Chronicle
Third World America – The Big Fix: The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Coverup
Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places.
Michael Parenti
As we approach the fourth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Disaster, perhaps it is a good time to remember the great success it represents, the success in shifting the thoughts of attention deficient Americans from the things that really matter, like honest and accountable government.
Is anything really different, or have we just been prompted to move on and think about something else? Will the US be better prepared to deal with the next financial or environmental crisis?
Are portions of the US any different from other third world countries that are sacked of their resources, their people impoverished, their quality of life ruined, and their children left with little or no hope for the future?
Hope and Change.
In a night of the anti-apartheid leader’s favorite songs, a lifetime of photos, and his best speeches, former pal President Clinton and Morgan Freeman paid tribute to Mandela.
02-12-2014
GettyCongress Cuts Benefits As Unemployed Struggle… ‘I Just Want Someone To Have A Freaking Heart’
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Kercher’s lifeless half-nude body was found with two stab wounds to her neck in a locked bedroom in the student apartment she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007.
Kercher’s lifeless half-nude body was found with two stab wounds to her neck in a locked bedroom in the student apartment she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007. Five days later, Knox, Sollecito and Patrick Lumumba, Knox’s boss at the pub where she worked, were in jail on suspicion of murder. During an intense interrogation, Knox had admitted to being in the house when Kercher was killed and accused Lumumba of the murder. Two weeks later, Lumumba was released from jail due to lack of evidence. Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast native who worked odd jobs and peddled dope to students, including those who lived in the apartment below Kercher and Knox, was arrested in Germany after his DNA was found in Kercher’s room and on her body. In October 2008, Guede was convicted of Kercher’s murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison in a fast-track trial on the same day Knox and Sollecito were indicted. They were kept in protective custody because Knox was deemed a flight risk, according to the judge who denied her request for bond. In December 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of Kercher’s murder and sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison. The same month, Guede’s sentence was reduced to 16 years on appeal. In October 2011 the former lovers’ convictions were overturned on appeal. In March 2013, Italy’s highest court overturned those convictions and ordered a new appellate trial, which began in September 2013 and concludes today. The new appellate trial was not a replica of the first two trials. The court did not ask to rehear and rehash all of the evidence presented in the first two trials. Instead, the court homed in on key evidence like the knife the prosecution maintains is the murder weapon, and asked for clarification on key witnesses that were used to convict Knox and Sollecito in the first instance, and then acquit them on appeal. Knox was not present in court, but she sent an email in which she said she was “afraid” the judicial panel would make a mistake and uphold their convictions. After reading the letter for the court record, Judge Nencini commented that receiving an email was highly irregular. “If you want to speak in court, you should come to court,” he said. Sollecito attended several hearings, including the final rebuttals by Knox’s lawyers on the morning of the verdict. “We are nervous,” Sollecito’s father Francesco Sollecito told The Daily Beast the night before the verdict. “We have faith but we are afraid.” Kercher’s siblings Stephany and Lyle came from London to hear the verdict in the case, accompanied by a representative from the British Consulate. They have been present for each of the court rulings. Patrick Lumumba was also in court on verdict day, telling reporters, “If Amanda was innocent, she would be here, too.”
SAUL LOEB via Getty ImagesObama Calls For Modest Changes To Surveillance State… Intel Groups Will Need Permission To Search Phone Data… Headed For Supreme Court?…OBAMA: Some Countries Loudly Criticizing NSA Use NSA Data, Spy On U.S….
Full ArticleNew Straits/Business Times
APGov. Addresses NJ: ‘Mistakes Were Made’… Vows Cooperation With Probes…DRIP: CHRISTIE CAUGHT WITH CAPO DURING BRIDGE DEBACLE… GOV. LAST WEEK: ‘I Have Had No Contact With Him In Long, Long Time’…Adviser: Christie Will Keep Fundraising Throughout U.S…. NYT: ‘Fired Aide Called Loyal Team Player, Not Rogue Operative’… New Investigation Sought…
By Patrick Morris January 14, 2014
Target (NYSE: TGT ) provided the latest update about the theft of its customers’ information on Friday, and nearly doubled the amount of affected individuals hit by its data breech from 40 million to 70 million. Names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses were all stolen.
Source: MoneyBlogNewz on FlickrWhile there is often a lot of guidance on why customers shouldn’t use credit cards, this latest news from Target shows why using a debit card may in fact be a worse idea. And while in the example of Target both credit and debit cards were affected, and it has assured that its customers “will not be held financially responsible for any credit card or debit card fraud,” it brings into question whether or not debit cards should be used at all. The case against debit cards While some say credit cards are dangerous because of the potential to rack up massive amounts of debt, it isn’t as though debit cards should be used without caution or concern. With debit cards, consumers have fewer rights when it comes to unauthorized purchases, greater potential liabilities, longer potential resolution times, and even less protection on the purchases they do make.
1.14.2014
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Full ArticleThe New York Times
Brutal weather claims several lives as wind-chill readings plunge as low as -23C in parts of the US.
Full ArticleThe Salt Lake Tribune
Federal Reserve Balance Sheet and S&P 500 – The Financial Times
December 15, 2013
The Associated Press today is publishing an article about serious blunders at the Central Intelligence Agency and an effort to cover them up. At the heart of the story is a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, who was recruited as a spy by a rogue group of analysts inside the CIA. Without any authority to do so, the analysts sent Levinson into Iran, where he disappeared in 2007. His condition and whereabouts are not known and the Iranian government says it has no information. Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explains why AP decided to publish this story: Publishing this article was a difficult decision. This story reveals serious mistakes and improper actions inside the U.S. government’s most important intelligence agency. Those actions, the investigation and consequences have all been kept secret from the public. Publishing articles that help the public hold their government to account is part of what journalism is for, and especially so at The Associated Press, which pursues accountability journalism whenever it can. This seems particularly true on this subject at a time when the decisions of intelligence agencies are being extensively debated. The AP has been seeking information on Levinson’s whereabouts from governments, agencies and any other source possible for several years. Government officials tell us that they, too, have hit a wall, though their efforts continue. In the absence of any solid information about Levinson’s whereabouts, it has been impossible to judge whether publication would put him at risk. It is almost certain that his captors already know about the CIA connection but without knowing exactly who the captors are, it is difficult to know whether publication of Levinson’s CIA mission would make a difference to them. That does not mean there is no risk. But with no more leads to follow, we have concluded that the importance of the story justifies publication.
December 13
December 8, 2013
Full ArticleThe New York Times
Video: The National Security Agency gathers location data from around the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones.
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December 1st,
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Eugene Gologursky via Getty Images
November 26
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GettyObama To Meet With Insurance CEOs Atter One-Year Fix Proposal…Doubts Raised About Whether It Can Work… Chait: GOP Alternative Far Worse… GOP Advances Bill To Undermine Law… More Bad News: Young People Not Signing Up…
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By Kim GhattasBBC state department correspondent, Riyadh
The praise was effusive, disputes and abuses papered over and differences about vision dismissed as mere disagreements over tactics.
From Egypt to Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State John Kerry was on a mission to put the relationship with two of his country’s traditional allies in the region back on track after a difficult summer.
In Egypt, Mr Kerry praised what he said was progress made so far on the road map towards a new constitution and elections; he made no reference to the violent crackdown by the security forces this summer that left several hundred people dead.
Across Egypt, the US has been accused both of being in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood and of conniving with the military for the removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
The US feels political transformations in the region are too costly and undermine their regional interests”
Emile HokayemInternational Institute for Strategic Studies
After two years of upheaval in Egypt and in Washington’s relationship with Cairo, the Obama administration seems intent to just move on and get down to work with the country’s generals and the civilian rulers they installed.
Secretary of State John Kerry made a short stop in Egypt as the first visit senior U.S. official to visit the country since the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian officials are saying it could be too little too late.posted on
John Kerry and Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy at a news conference in Cairo Sunday. Jason Reed / Reuters
Seahawks/Broncos
