Sen. Sessions: Immigration Reform Won’t Pass As Long As Admin Defies Existing Law

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee and former Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement on the new push for comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty:

“Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration. They have pleaded with Congress to end the mass illegality for decades to little avail. All the while, millions have been added to the total of those illegally here.

It’s time to [...]

THE PR MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN: GREG SMITH VS. GOLDMAN SACHS & MSM

Former Deutsche Bank managing director Stephanie Rhule interviewed former Goldman Sachs Managing Director Greg Smith on Bloomberg this week. From start to finish, the interview represents perfectly what you can and cannot expect from mainstream financial news outlets. You may get great coverage of the markets, but what you will not get is hard hitting interviews that expose fraud, illegality, corruption and unethical behavior on Wall Street. MF Global coverage [...]

REVERSAL: German gov’t to legalize circumcision

Legalize ritual circumcisions if they are performed by a medical professional, allowing local Jews to breathe a sigh of relief three months after a local court criminalized the rite and criminal charges were filed against two rabbis.

German-Jewish leaders welcomed the bill, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times of Israel. The cabinet in Berlin will discuss the 26-page bill next Wednesday, after which it will proceed to [...]

Obama Seeks to Criminalize Linking to Online Piracy Websites

Richard Silverstein
Sunday, July 15, 2012

At first blush, this story may not appear terribly relevant to national security blogs, democracy or human rights, but here me out.

It concerns a 24 year-old British citizen whose website has acted as a go-between for other sites which allegedly infringe music and movie copyrights of U.S. entertainment companies.  Richard O’Dwyer ran the site, TVShack.net, which linked to others accused of online piracy.  Instead of going after the [...]

“Legalizing marijuana would help fight the lethal and growing epidemics of crystal meth and oxycodone abuse, according to the Iron Law of Prohibition”

Much like pinatas, there are a plethora of reasons to legalize marijuana.  There’s the fact that it’s easier for American teens to buy than alcohol anyways, the fact that legalizing marijuana alone would raise nearly $20 billion in taxes and savings, the fact that its illegality helps directly fund the muderous multi-billion dollar international drug trade, the fact that scientifically it’s markedly less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco:

http://tremblethedevil.com/?p=2777

Virginal young girls in South Africa ‘kidnapped and forced to marry older HIV-positive men to cure them of the disease’

Innocent young girls are being ‘kidnapped’ and forced to ‘marry’ older HIV-positive men because of the myth that having sex with a virgin will cure them of the disease.

An investigation into South Africa’s rural Eastern Cape revealed how children as young as 12, from the Xhosa people, are being pressured into premature nuptials.

CNN discovered how the tradition of Ukuthwala, translated to ‘to pick up’ or ‘to take’, was used as an [...]

How does Greece exit the euro? Here’s ‘s an excellent comprehensive take from a few weeks ago

As global companies draw up contingency plans for a Greek exit from the euro, we examine the feasibility of Athens’ departure – from new drachmas to illegality and €1 trillion costs.

By Alistair Osborne

 

It’s a tradition of Greek theatre that the real action takes place off-stage. Much the same might be said of the euro drama.

A second bailout and last week’s repayment of a €14.5bn (£12.1bn) bond has produced a dramatic lull [...]

Delusions of Freedom: Standing Still Silences your Shackles

4-21-2012

Surveillance State evils

“Th[e National Security Agency's] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. [If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A.] could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.“

_____________

That dramatic warning comes [...]

“There Is No Chinese Wall. Please. Come On. This Is Wall Street”

Remember the look on one’s face when one hears there is no Santa Claus, or tooth fairy? That, more or less, is what the visage on everyone’s favorite CNBC anchors Becky Quick, Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin was, when Chris Whalen matter of fact (because it is a fact) let a rare glimpse of reality on the NBC Universal distraction and entertainment show, when he said “There is no [...]

Record High Jet Fuel Prices Cause Spike in Airline Fares

WASHINGTON, D.C.(CBSDC) – For many Americans, the lamentation of rising gas costs is nothing new. It’s an everyday reality to see prices at the pump going up.

But now, those looking to get away from it all may encounter further troubles doing so, thanks to gas price hikes that have the potential to curb holiday travel and drive up the cost of plane tickets.

Travel buffs are just beginning to solidify their spring [...]

Taibbi comes out swinging and says that Obama & Geithner are “acting like Lehman or Enron executives before Lehman collapsed,” and that they are lying about the financial and banking sector massive fraud pandemic in order to try and maintain what’s left of whatever confidence some imbeciles apparently still have in the system.

It’s all a big sack of shit, and everyone and their dog knows it.

Obama and Geithner: Government, Enron-Style

RollingStone.com

Geithner and Obama are behaving like Lehman executives before the crash of Lehman, not disclosing the full extent of the internal problem in order to keep investors from fleeing and creditors from calling in their chits. It’s worth noting that this kind of behavior – knowingly hiding the derogatory truth from the outside world in order [...]

Robert Fisk: Why Torturers Film Their Handiwork

Robert Fisk: Why Torturers Film Their Handiwork (November 26, 2011)
“When prisoners were brought to Saddam Hussein’s intelligence service for interrogation, their torturers often videotaped the torment. In the years after his downfall, I lectured around the world on the illegality and the immorality and the outrageous civilian slaughter of the invasion of Iraq by George W Bush and Lord Blair… But I also carried with me extracts from those obscene [...]

Jane Mayer on the Obama War on Whistle-Blowers

Glenn Greenwald

In a just released, lengthy New Yorker article, Jane Mayer — with the diligence and thoroughness she used to expose the Bush torture regime — examines a topic I’ve written about many times here: the Obama administration’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers generally, and its persecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake in particular (Drake exposed massive waste, excess and perhaps illegality in numerous NSA [...]

Gamblers are simply moving over to other tables which are not affected by QE2, currency movements, or inflation/deflation debates.

by RobotTrader

Ergo, hot money is now fleeing commodity plays and piling into the SOX.

As long as Interactive Brokers continues to offer 1.4% margin interest rates, the action junkies will NEVER leave the casino.

We are now seeing what I predicted a week ago. They have rallied the market on rhetoric for months now of QE and now in order to feign a surprise in order to keep the momentumenomics [...]