"In an open letter released today, eight former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), four former drug czars, and assorted anti-drug groups urge the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to hear testimony from Attorney General Eric Holder tomorrow, to grill him about why he is not stopping Colorado and Washington from legalizing marijuana." Continue reading →
"Before marijuana legalization spreads from Washington and Colorado to other states, it will have to get past a group of hardened drug warriors, many of whom have developed a personal interest in maintaining prohibition. While most of these ideologues lack the authority to actually change laws, their larger purpose is to maintain the marijuana propaganda machine and push back against pro-legalization rhetoric. Here are the top five people threatening to halt the state-by-state legalization domino effect that many pot activists hope is coming soon." Continue reading →
"The U.S. military spent about $3 billion on drone programs last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. And as government spending cuts threaten to pinch some of that money, defense contractors are looking for ways to expand the drone market domestically to law enforcement agencies, universities and border patrols. According to HuffPo, here are 12 major corporations making money off of drones." Continue reading →
"The mercenary group formerly known as Blackwater worked as a 'virtual extension of the CIA,' the company’s former CEO revealed to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake. It has long been known that Blackwater, now called Academi, worked with the CIA, and there were even some pretty straightforward clues that former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was an agency asset. That relationship is strongly clarified by the company’s own legal defense in a three-year prosecution that collapsed in February, wrapping up with a guilty plea from two men punishable by probation, house arrest and a $5,000 fine." Continue reading →
"The Expo began on Tuesday and concludes today. About 185 companies are showcasing everything from gates to guns, drones to portable toilets. A stall offering self-heating meals was next to a table of firearms. Two themes emerged from a day at the Expo: equipment and technology used by the US military is increasingly becoming available to domestic entities. And software is now easy to use and more powerful. Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) software potentially gives officials huge surveillance powers whether in a desert or a metropolis." Continue reading →
"A Hamilton County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas judge put a stop to it on Thursday with a permanent injunction prohibiting photo radar contractor Optotraffic from issuing $105 photo tickets in the village of Elmwood Place. In Baltimore County, Maryland last month, a circuit court judge ruled that the county has been violating state law by paying Xerox a bounty for every ticket the private company drops in the mail. Judge Susan Souder ruled local jurisdictions cannot evade the ban on contingent fees simply by claiming that Xerox and other firms do not 'operate' the cameras." Continue reading →
"'Secret friends' is essentially the arrangement that the president has kept with several corporate executives. Clearly, the president likes them: they include American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, as well as, on a more fitful basis, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. But before the executives even have time to source Washington DC real estate, their names are taken out of the running. The administration rejects being associated with them, in favor of long-serving veterans who are already in the White House cool kids' club." 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 →
"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 →
"More than a decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a set of extraordinary and secretive surveillance programs conducted by the National Security Agency has been institutionalized, and they have grown, reports Shane Harris at the Washingtonian. These special programs are conducted under the codename 'Ragtime,' and they are divided into several subcomponents, according to the new book Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, by Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady." Continue reading →