News Items

Rapper and Actor Mos Def Undergoes Force Feeding Procedure Used at Guantanamo Bay

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Back in May, I covered the hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay, which at the time consisted of 100 of 166 detainees.  I noted how the American Medical Association (AMA) expressed concern that the force feeding of many of these detainees was contrary to medical ethics.  A lawyer for one of the detainees described the force feeding practice … Read more

Stage Two of the Housing Bubble Begins: Blackstone to Lend to Others for “Buy to Rent”

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As we all know, any good ponzi scheme needs a continued stream of new investors in order to keep it going otherwise the whole thing falls apart.  We also know that the current rebound in the U.S. housing market is a centrally planned monster, led by private equity firms with access to cheap money and laundered foreign capital flooding into depressed markets, crowding out American families looking to purchase a home. Well now that Blackstone has spent more than $5 billion in its “buy-to-rent” scheme, it wants others to be able to “participate” in this wonderful investment opportunity (after them of course).  Oh and by the way, one of the most common ads on the local radio here in Boulder as of late explains to people how they too can “get in” on the buy-to-rent trade.  Best of luck. From Bloomberg:

Blackstone Group LP, the private-equity firm that has spent $5 billion on more than 30,000 distressed houses, is preparing to expand its bet on the housing recovery by lending to other landlords.

The firm, which already owns more rental homes than any other investor, has set up B2R Finance LP to offer loans starting at $10 million, according to four people who reviewed the terms. B2R is reaching out to landlords with portfolios of properties seeking to grow in the burgeoning industry for single-family homes to rent, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

At least five rental companies have received non-binding term sheets from B2R, according to the people. Jeffrey Tennyson, the former chief executive officer of mortgage originator EquiFirst Corp., is running the firm, which stands for buy-to-rent. He previously led EquiFirst to become the 12th-largest wholesale subprime lender in the U.S. by 2007, when Barclays Bank PLC bought it. The London-based bank closed the business two years later after the market collapsed.

Tennyson didn’t return phone messages seeking comment on his role at B2R. Peter Rose, a spokesman for Blackstone, declined to comment.

So basically we continue to recycle the same characters from the last housing bubble to come on in and do it again.

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University of Denver Plans to Give George W. Bush the “‘Improving Human Condition” Award

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One of the more bizarre trends that I have covered this year has been the distribution of phony awards to high level crony political oligarchs either for PR purposes or for money.  I thought I had seen it all a couple of weeks ago when I read that Jeb Bush was set to present the “Liberty Medal” to Hillary Clinton.

Apparently the University of Denver was not to be outdone, as they planned to give the “Improving Human Condition” award to none other than George W. Bush! Thankfully, considerable outrage has led the University to rethink its choice, but it is inexcusable to begin with.  It is not only an embarrassment to the University of Denver, but also to the entire state of Colorado, my adopted home. From the Huffington Post:

Hundreds of students, staffers and alumni are protesting the University of Denver’s decision to honor former President George W. Bush with an award traditionally recognizing recipients for their work on behalf of humanity.

“It’s been mostly just a lot of surprise,” Seth Masket, associate professor of Political Science said of the award to be bestowed by the University’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

The school hosts the Korbel Dinner to present the award each year. In June, the Sept. 9 dinner was announced and invitations circulated both by mail and on the school’s website, pictured below, saying the 43rd president would be welcomed and honored as the 2013 recipient of the “Improving the Human Condition Award.”

On June 25, award protestor Taylor Gibson signed the petition and beseeched Korbel Dean Christopher Hill, “Don’t make a mockery of my degree.” The next day, Kiela Parks, an alumna and former employee at the University’s Office of Alumni and External Relations employee who worked at the 2011 and 2012 Korbel dinners, signed onto the movement.

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Meet the Secret Supreme Court of the United States

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This program, by the way, is fully overseen not just by Congress, but by the FISA Court — a court specially put together to evaluate classified programs to make sure that the executive branch, or government generally, is not abusing them, and that it’s being carried out consistent with the Constitution and rule of law.

– President Barack Obama on June 7, 2013 (transcript here)

Unlike the Supreme Court, the FISA court hears from only one side in the case — the government — and its findings are almost never made public. A Court of Review is empaneled to hear appeals, but that is known to have happened only a handful of times in the court’s history, and no case has ever been taken to the Supreme Court. In fact, it is not clear in all circumstances whether Internet and phone companies that are turning over the reams of data even have the right to appear before the FISA court.

– From the July 6, 2013 New York Times article: In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A.

One of the most incredible things that has occurred in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks has been President Barack Obama’s laughable attempt to justify the spying by claiming the process has judicial oversight, as he did in the quote above. What he fails to mention of course is the fact that the FISA court that signs off on all these activities is a secret court, the opinions of which are never made public. Does he think the American public is so brain-dead it is incapable of recognizing the difference between a regular court of law and a secret one? Apparently he does.  For those of you that have yet to get up to speed on America’s “parallel Supreme Court,” which also disturbingly happens to constructs its own laws, please read the article below from The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say.

The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court’s classified decisions.

The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said.

Unlike the Supreme Court, the FISA court hears from only one side in the case — the government — and its findings are almost never made public. A Court of Review is empaneled to hear appeals, but that is known to have happened only a handful of times in the court’s history, and no case has ever been taken to the Supreme Court. In fact, it is not clear in all circumstances whether Internet and phone companies that are turning over the reams of data even have the right to appear before the FISA court.

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Extremely Powerful Video: Happy 4th of July from a Police State Checkpoint

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The following is a very powerful video taped yesterday when a simple citizen had the nerve to assert his constitutional rights in front of a power hungry storm trooper in the state of Tennessee.  Minute five is particularly telling when the officer seems to lament the fact that “he’s perfectly innocent, he knows his rights, he knows what the Constitution says.”  Also notice that when the citizen claims his 4th Amendment rights to not have his vehicle searched, the officer creates a scene where his canine supposedly “smells drugs in the car” as an excuse to search it.  Of course, no drugs were found and the deputy was demonstrating that he can do whatever he wants to a mere slave in a vehicle traversing the “free” highways of America.  This is a must watch.  USA! USA!

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The Declaration of Independence

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In case it’s been a while…

The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America

In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

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New Report: Drone Strikes 10x More Deadly to Civilians than Manned Aircraft

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Conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and likely to cause more civilian casualties and local outrage.

– Barrack Obama in a May, 23 2013 speech

I’ve never witnessed a bigger pathological liar in my entire life than U.S. President Barack Obama.  Not only has pretty much every word out of his mouth been a complete and total deception since he took office, I firmly believes he fundamentally loves the act of lying.  This post covers one of the biggest lies Obama has told the American public, and indeed the world, with regard to drone strikes.  This lie is particularly important since I would guess at least 90% of the public believes it to be true.

A recent study by a U.S. military advisor shows that not only are drone strikes more likely to harm civilians per incident, but they are 10x more likely to do so. This lie is right up there with Obama’s recent statement that he “won’t scramble jets to capture Edward Snowden.” Of course, that’s precisely what he did yesterday. Now, from The Guardian:

A study conducted by a US military adviser has found that drone strikes in Afghanistan during a year of the protracted conflict caused 10 times more civilian casualties than strikes by manned fighter aircraft.

The new study, referred to in an official US military journal, contradicts claims by US officials that the robotic planes are more precise than their manned counterparts.

It appears to undermine the claim made by President Obama in a May speech that “conventional airpower or missiles are far less precise than drones, and likely to cause more civilian casualties and local outrage”.

Drone strikes in Afghanistan, the study found, according to its unclassified executive summary, were “an order of magnitude more likely to result in civilian casualties per engagement.”

Larry Lewis, a principal research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group with close ties to the US military, studied air strikes in Afghanistan from mid-2010 to mid-2011, using classified military data on the strikes and the civilian casualties they caused. Lewis told the Guardian he found that the missile strikes conducted by remotely piloted aircraft, commonly known as drones, were 10 times more deadly to Afghan civilians than those performed by fighter jets.

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Chinese Malls Waive Rents Due to Soaring Vacancies

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I was writing about the ultimate pain coming to China’s crony, liquidity fueled, ponzi economy way before it was cool.  In fact, all the way back in 2009 when I was still working on Wall Street I wrote a piece for clients titled “The Emerging China Risk.”  Last year, I highlighted some of the country’s fraudulent “wealth products” in the post: China to Boost the Global Economy? Nope it’s also a Total Ponzi.  Well now we see that the overbuilding of ghost malls in the middle of nowhere is finally coming home to roost.  We learn from Bloomberg that:

Chinese landlords are forgoing rent and paying to outfit stores for mass-market fashion brands including Zara and H&M, a bid to blunt the impact of a boom in shopping-mall construction that threatens to push up vacancies.

Chinese developers built more malls and expanded into smaller cities as consumer spending and incomes grew, elevating China’s economy to the largest in the world after the U.S.

Half of the 32 million square meters (344 million square feet) of shopping centers under construction around the world are in China, according to CBRE Group Inc. (CBG) About 21 million square meters of retail space is expected to be completed by next year, a 38 percent increase in supply, according to broker Cushman, which tracks 20 cities in China.

Vacancy rates in some less affluent cities could surge to more than 30 percent by next year from as low as 6.8 percent in the first quarter this year, Cushman forecasts.

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Ray McGovern: “Obama is Afraid of the C.I.A.”

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Many people have speculated that Obama is a direct operator for the C.I.A., which explains the complete cronyism and deception in his every act as President.  This wouldn’t surprise me. Others speculate that he is just an empty-suit political hack who was informed about “how things work” by the shadow government after he was sworn in.  This wouldn’t surprise me either.  More importantly, what we can all agree on now is that it is certainly one or the other. Retired C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern has come out and given his opinion in a recent interview.  His best line, and one that sums it up perfectly is:

I think he’s just afraid and he shouldn’t have run for president if he was going to be this much of a wuss. 

More from Mondoweiss:

Obama has abandoned progressive principles, such as stopping drone attacks and shutting down Guantanamo, because he is afraid of being assassinated, telling friends, “Don’t you remember what happened to Martin Luther King Jr.?” retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern said today. 

McGovern spoke on WBAI’s show Law and Disorder this morning. He was talking about his recent article calling Obama “a wuss” and speculated that Obama had also placed John Brennan as head of the CIA out of fear that the CIA might turn on him, as it had on John Kennedy. 

During his CIA career, Ray McGovern prepared daily briefings for the president and chaired the National Intelligence Estimates. He is now a leading antiwar activist.

Ratner then said, “I represent Guantanamo people. I thought the biggest lie in the speech was—’I have tried to close Guantanamo.'” There are half a dozen ways in which Obama “has actually sabotaged the closing of Guantanamo. Straight lie.”

McGovern goes on to state:

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Senator Dick Durbin: “It’s Time to Say Who’s a Real Reporter”

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If you study the American criminal class long enough, it becomes quite easy to anticipate its next move in almost any serious situation.  This is precisely what I did last week in my piece: It’s Acts of Journalism that Matter Not People Called “Journalists.”  By watching the mainstream media’s reaction to Edward Snowden’s leaks, it became pretty obvious that what the power structure would attempt to do is pass a federal law that would ostensibly protect free speech and journalism, but in reality would allow the “authorities” to define who is and who isn’t a journalist.  That way they can create distinct groups of people with distinct rights.  One group would be permitted to share valuable information with the public, and the other would not.  Of course, only compliant lapdogs to the state would be granted such privileges and we will end up rather quickly with no free press in America.  Such a law should be resisted at all costs. Specific groups of people should not be carved out and granted specific rights, specific actions must be protected.  Such as the act of journalism, not so called “journalists.”

Last week, the Senatorial spokesperson for the Ministry of Information, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, wrote the following fascist op-ed in the Chicago Sun Times. Some key excerpts:

Is each of Twitter’s 141 million users in the United States a journalist? How about the 164 million Facebook users? What about bloggers, people posting on Instagram, or users of online message boards like Reddit?

But who should be considered to be a journalist?

Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive.

I’m confused.  We’ve survived as a country without making such definitions just fine for the past 223 years under The Constitution.  Seems to me you and your crony friends are just concerned you are losing your grip on power.

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