News Commentary

Two-Track Corporate Justice Is Not the American Way

"State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world's largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system. Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. The bank faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries. The case raises questions about whether certain financial institutions, having grown so large and interconnected, are too big to indict." Continue reading →

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Ron Paul: Expanding Covert Warfare Makes Us Less Safe

"Earlier this month we learned that the Obama Administration is significantly expanding the number of covert Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) agents overseas. From just a few hundred DIA agents overseas today, the administration intends to eventually deploy some 1,600 covert agents. The nature of their work will also shift, away from intelligence collection and more toward covert actions. This move signals a major change in how the administration intends to conduct military and paramilitary operations overseas. Unfortunately it is not a shift toward peace, but rather to an even more deadly and disturbing phase in the 'war on terror.'" Continue reading →

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Glenn Greenwald: AP’s dangerous Iran hoax demands an accounting and explanation

"AP helped perpetrate a dangerous hoax, and owes an explanation and accounting for what took place, including identifying the 'officials from a country critical of Iran's atomic program' who made false claims about what this is. To begin with, the graph AP touted as reflecting some sort of nefarious, highly threatening and complex nuclear calculation is, in fact, widely available all over the Internet in the most innocuous places. At the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), Yousaf Butt and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress on Wednesday night wrote: 'Graphs such as the one published by the Associated Press can be found in nuclear science textbooks and on the Internet.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: AP’s dangerous Iran hoax demands an accounting and explanation

3 Myths About Secession

"The latest secession petition phenomenon sure has a lot of people talking about secession, which shows that the idea of it remains an important part of the American political consciousness. But, in response, most of the comments coming from political hacks display a deep, deep ignorance of the history of secession and the Constitutional realities behind it. In response, I thought I'd list some retorts to the basic myths which most of the anti-secession screeds are intent on perpetuating." Continue reading →

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The “Essential” Role of Tax Havens

"So-called tax havens are necessary to restrain the compulsive tendency of 'onshore' politicians to over-tax and over-spend. For all intents and purposes, the existence of tax havens makes tax competition more robust. And we need vigorous tax competition because politicians – without some sort of external constraint – will drive their nations into Greek-style fiscal chaos. The real outrage in this issue is that American taxpayers are subsidizing the international bureaucracy [the OECD] that is trying to kill tax competition. So if Republicans on Capitol Hill are looking for some much-needed budget cuts, that’s a good place to start." Continue reading →

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Obama’s Hammer and the Progress of The Daily Bell

"If both the political and economic legs of the US republic's three-legged 'stool' are eroding, that leaves one sturdy leg, the US military. There's no doubt in my mind that as political consensus continues to erode and the US economy continues to grow worse in many ways that the powers-that-be will lean more and more on US civil and military policing to provide 'social glue.' The US, under Obama's next four years, may become increasingly militarized and even more aggressive, if that's possible, from an interventionist standpoint. It is possible in four years time we may not recognize what the US has become." Continue reading →

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Lines … Lines … Everywhere There’s Lines

"What's a common thread that runs through everything that government touches? Lines...and lots of waiting. Go to a DMV...you're waiting. Go to a Post Office...you're waiting. Social Security Office?...Dreadful wait. Ever have to go to court?...You're better off settling. TSA?....Your wait is rewarded with a shot of radiation and a genital grab. Drive on a 'public road'?...You get to wait at the unnecessary lights and stand in unnecessary traffic jams. Feel like renovating 'your' house? Wait for a 'permit'. You'd think....YOU'D THINK..that maybe this doofus institution could get counting down without any problems or waiting. Well you'd be wrong." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLines … Lines … Everywhere There’s Lines

I apologize for what you’re about to read

"Even when I was in Myanmar ten days ago, local pundits were engaged in the Obamney debate. Chile. Spain. Germany. Finland. Hong Kong. Thailand. Singapore. It was inescapable. The entire world seems fixated on this belief that it actually matters who becomes the President of the United States anymore… or that one of these two guys is going to ‘fix’ things. Fact is, it doesn’t matter. Not one bit. And I’ll show you mathematically." Continue reading →

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Petraeus Resignation Smells Funny

"What could be so bad and threatening that a 'national hero' like General David Petraeus would admit to the horribly embarrassing and personal extra-marital affair just to divert attention and thus exit the game relatively intact? (Sometimes admitting to something terribly personal can provide a kind of vaccine against further probes). Seems right-wingers feel it is a way to avoid having to testify over CIA failures in Benghazi in September. Possible. I wonder whether that horse is indeed cold after Republican beatings. And I am a bit skeptical that Benghazi was anything resembling what it was portrayed." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPetraeus Resignation Smells Funny

Neo-Con Revenge: Post-Election ‘Attack Iran’ Machine on Overdrive

"US sends drone to spy on Iran, as it has done continuously for years, no doubt collecting targeting data to assist in US/Israeli attack on Iran. Iran reportedly fires at drone gathering targeting data to assist US in bombing Iran. US astonished at Iran's 'aggression' toward US drone gathering intelligence to assist a US attack on Iran. US shocked that the Iranians would have the gall to respond to US hostile gestures in the region. Oh but it was in international waters! Imagine the US response to an Iranian drone operating in international Gulf of Mexico waters off of Florida." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNeo-Con Revenge: Post-Election ‘Attack Iran’ Machine on Overdrive