"A decent compilation. Sen. Paul referenced at least two videos during his speech. Here are two of them. Progressive WH spokesman Gibbs says that the president should be free to murder children. And Lindsay Graham of the Great State of South Carolina declares the Fifth and Sixth Amendments null and void." Continue reading →
"Until the filibuster staged by Senator Paul – who, despite his plentiful shortcomings, has proven that he has learned much from his heroic father – no Senate Republican had rejected the Stalinist premise that the President can order the summary execution of U.S. citizens. What about the Professional Left – the people who, like then-Senator Obama, were so agitated over the Bush administration’s crimes against the Bill of Rights? They’re too busy debating such weighty matters as the proper honorific by which to address the Dear Leader, or helping the Southern Poverty Law Center draw up 'kill lists' of domestic 'extremists.'" Continue reading →
"US corporate-financier funded think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), declared in its 'post-Chávez checklist for US policymakers,' that the US must move quickly to reorganize Venezuela according to US interests. In reality, AEI is talking about dismantling entirely the obstacles that have prevented the US and the corporate-financier interests that direct it from installing a client regime and extracting entirely Venezuela's wealth. US military contractors and special forces had been caught operating in and around Venezuela. The US' intentions of provoking bloodshed and regime change in Venezuela stretch back as far as 2002." Continue reading →
"At an airline security conference, Luke Rudkowski asked Janet Napolitano about the Department of Homeland Security's purchase of 2,700 armored trucks that will be deployed to local law enforcement agencies around the country. It is extremely difficult for anyone to have the opportunity to talk to Napolitano as she has a large number of Secret Service around her at all times that does not allow media anywhere near her." Continue reading →
"The supposed 'countervailing power' of Big Government against Big Business turned out to be as genuine as the conflict between 'good cop' and 'bad cop' interrogators. Historian Gabriel Kolko showed that the primary force behind the much-vaunted 'progressive' regulatory agenda at the turn of the 20th century was the regulated industries themselves. Major portions of the New Deal regulatory/welfare state were backed, even drafted, by the most powerful factions of corporate capital. Don’t fall for the line that state functionaries 'work for us.' Take a look at where they worked before they entered 'public service' and watch where they go back to afterward." Continue reading →
"The previously confidential agreement spells out the terms of a deal in which the New York Fed received $43 million from Bank of America’s Countrywide unit. The money changed hands to settle a narrow dispute involving cash flows on several mortgage securities held by an investment vehicle, known as Maiden Lane II. That vehicle was created by the New York Fed as part of the rescue of A.I.G., which had held the Countrywide securities. But in exchange for that $43 million, the New York Fed did something else for Bank of America. It agreed to testify on behalf of the bank in its legal battle against A.I.G. over fraud claims." Continue reading →
"The state—the organization of the political means—is the institution that allows an idle, unproductive class of parasites to live at the expense of ordinary, working people, whose means are industrious activity and consensual exchange in the marketplace. We ought not assume, however, that the indigent segment of society, those who receive social welfare aid from the state, are necessarily foremost among the parasites of the political means. Rather, free-market libertarians have demonstrated that in the statist economy of theft and wealth redistribution, it is the elite—powerful, entrenched commercial players—who most benefit." Continue reading →
"Rhamaland-based billionaire Penny Pritzker, who was the first to back President Obama's initial run for the presidency, has emerged as the leading candidate to become the next commerce secretary. Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, is the 263rd richest person in the U.S., estimated net worth of US $1.7 billion. Pritzker has contributed to the presidential campaigns and exploratory committees of George W. Bush, Joe Lieberman, Bill Bradley, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain (2000), Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Pritzker was chairman of a Chicago-area bank that collapsed because of the aggressive subprime home mortgages it made before the crash." Continue reading →
"In the 1930s, internationalists in the U.S. Treasury Department were determined to resolve the flaws in the international economic system once and for all. In the words of Harry Dexter White, a then little-known Treasury official who became the unlikely architect of the Bretton Woods system, it was time to build a 'New Deal for a new world.' Working with his British counterpart, the revolutionary economist John Maynard Keynes, White set out to create the economic foundations for a durable postwar global peace. Despite having never held any official title of importance, White had by 1944 achieved implausibly broad influence over U.S. foreign and economic policy." Continue reading →
"It didn’t take long for opponents of the market to pounce after the events of 2008. The crash was said to prove how destructive 'unregulated capitalism' could be and how dangerous its supporters were – after all, free-marketeers opposed the bailouts, which had allegedly saved Americans from another Great Depression. In The Great Deformation, David Stockman – former US congressman and budget director under Ronald Reagan – tells the story of the recent crisis, and takes direct aim at the conventional wisdom that credits government policy and Ben Bernanke with rescuing Americans from another Great Depression." Continue reading →