News Items

Obama Administration Denied or Censored Information in 77% of FOIA Requests During 2015

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Least transparent ever.

The Associated Press reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration set a record for the number of times its federal employees told disappointed citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page requested under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a new Associated Press analysis of government data.

In more than one in six cases, or 129,825 times, government searchers said they came up empty-handed last year.Such cases contributed to an alarming measurement: People who asked for records under the law received censored files or nothing in 77 percent of requests, also a record. In the first full year after President Barack Obama’s election, that figure was only 65 percent of cases.

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Leaked Documents Expose the TTIP Trade Deal as a Subversive Imperial Scam

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At least 150,000 people marched in Berlin on Saturday in protest against a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States that they say is anti-democratic and will lower food safety, labor and environmental standards.

Organizers – an alliance of environmental groups, charities and opposition parties – said 250,000 people had taken part in the rally against free trade deals with both the United States and Canada, far more than they had anticipated.

Opposition to the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has risen over the past year in Germany, with critics fearing the pact will hand too much power to big multinationals at the expense of consumers and workers.

– From the post: Merkel “Surprised” as Hundreds of Thousands March in Berlin Against TTIP “Corporate Dictatorship”

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is under total assault here in these United States, as the general public has become aware that these fake trade deals are merely oppressive power grabs written by lobbyists to benefit multinational corporations at the expense of the general public.

Less well known to the American public is a similar scam targeting Europe, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Recently leaked documents have highlighted its profound dangers.

The Independent reports:

The European Commission will be obliged to consult with US authorities before adopting new legislative proposals following passage of a controversial series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret.

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Japan’s Bond Market is One Gigantic Joke – “No One Judges Corporate Credit Risks Seriously Anymore”

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While anyone paying attention is well aware how much of a farce central bank driven financial markets have become, the following paragraphs are still downright terrifying.

From a just published article at the Nikkei Asian Review:

TOKYO — Fixed-income investors in Japan are increasingly assessing bonds based on their likelihood of being bought by the central bank, rather than the creditworthiness of the issuers.

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Unintended Consequences – Mortgage Borrowing Costs Rise in Switzerland Despite Negative Interest Rates

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Wait a minute, this wasn’t supposed to happen…

From Business Insider:

Remember back in December when we highlighted that one of the responses to central banks’ introduction of negative interest rates might actually be a raising of interest rates by banks to borrowers?

The bank’s preferred solution then might be to keep income up by widening the spread between deposit rates and borrowing rates by increasing the interest rate charged to borrowers. And thus dropping into negative interest rates on deposits can lead to a rise in interest rates for borrowers.

Well, that apparently is happening in Switzerland, whose central bank has had negative interest rates for over a year.

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Tech Civil Disobedience – Will Apple Engineers Refuse to Follow Unethical Government Orders?

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Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?  Why has every man a conscience then?  I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.  It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

– Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience (1849)

Yesterday, the New York Times published an extremely important article examining whether Apple engineers are prepared to potentially refuse government orders they deem unethical. If so, it would represent a historical and courageous moment of civil disobedience in the spirt of Edward Snowden, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry David Thoreau and countless others forgotten by the fog of history. Indeed, if we are to regain any semblance of freedom and liberty, we must rediscover our proud heritage of civil disobedience.

In the modern world, with so much government surveillance being done behind the scenes and via technology, we’ve become increasingly dependent on individuals within the tech sector to stand up and do the right thing. This puts us in a precarious situation, which is why we must be prepared to stand by and support any and all Apple employees who defend our civil liberties against the unconstitutional surveillance leviathan.

We learn from the New York Times:

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One Nation Under Surveillance – U.S. Government Pushed Tech Companies to Hand Over Source Code

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Our founding fathers studied power structures over the millennia and knew exactly what they were doing when solidifying the Bill of Rights into the U.S. Constitution. All it took was a couple hundred years, an extraordinarily ignorant and apathetic American public, and a major terror attack to roll back this multi-generational gift.

For many years, I and countless others have been screaming from the rooftops that a society should never trade civil liberties for security. Life on earth has always been dangerous for us humans, and what has historically separated free and noble civilizations from stunted tyrannies is a willingness to acknowledge such a precarious existence while at the same time demanding and defending one’s dignity and liberty. In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, the American public has demonstrated no such strength of character or historical maturity, thus allowing a corrupt, deceptive and lawless government to run roughshod over freedom with very little resistance.

– From the post: War on Terror Turns Inward – NSA Surveillance Will Be Used Against American Citizens

Freedom? Liberty? Don’t be ridiculous.

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated readers on the shady, shameless surveillance practices of the U.S. government. As usual, it’s worse than we thought.

ZDNet reports:

NEW YORK — The US government has made numerous attempts to obtain source code from tech companies in an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations.

The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. We’re not naming the person as they relayed information that is likely classified.

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Latest WSJ/NBC Poll – 33% of Sanders Supporters Won’t Vote for Clinton

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While it might sound strange, a coronation of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary will mark the end of the party as we know it. There’s been a lot written about the “Sanders surge,” with much of it revolving around Hillary Clinton’s extreme personal weakness as a candidate. While this is indisputable, it’s also a convenient way for the status quo to exempt itself from fault and discount genuine grassroots anger. I’m of the view that Sanders’ support is more about people liking him than them disliking Hillary, particularly when it comes to registered Democrats. He’s not merely seen as the “least bad choice.” People really do like him.

The Sanders appeal is twofold. He is seen as unusually honest and consistent for someone who’s held elected office for much of his life, plus he advocates a refreshingly anti-establishment view on core issues that matter to an increasing number of Americans. These include militarism, Wall Street bailouts, a two-tiered justice system, the prohibitive cost of college education, healthcare insecurity and a “rigged economy.” While Hillary is being forced to pay lip service to these issues, everybody knows she doesn’t mean a word of it. She means it less than Obama meant it in 2008, and Obama really didn’t mean it.

– From the post: It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

This is a theme I’ve been writing about for months now. Many Sanders supporters don’t merely see Hillary Clinton as a slightly watered down version of the Vermont Senator; rather, they accurately see her as both a neocon war criminal and corrupt Wall Street puppet. A significant percentage of them will never vote for her.

According to a recent WSJ/NBC poll, that number is 33%. While I’m not convinced it’ll end up being that high, it could easily end up being at least 25%.

For more, check out the video below:

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Wall Street Bankers and Lobbyists Move to Ensure Industry Continues to Regulate Itself

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Not content with continued prosecutorial immunity and trillions in taxpayer bailouts and backstops, Wall Street banksters are making moves to ensure they regulate themselves.

In case you’re still wondering who the real owners of this country are…

The Wall Street Journal reports:

ORLANDO, Fla.—Wall Street’s top lobbying group wants a closer relationship with the policy makers that oversee its member firms.

John Rogers, chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and a top official at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., on Tuesday called for a standing body made up of bankers and regulators to discuss developments in policy, examination and enforcement. A key responsibility for the panel would also involve regularly providing guidance on postcrisis rules and other issues to financial firms.

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Former Federal Reserve Employee Who Leaked Information to Goldman Sachs Avoids Jail

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“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
– George Orwell’s Animal Farm

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has allowed its employees to stay on the job despite internal investigations that found they had distributed drugs, lied to the authorities or committed other serious misconduct, newly disclosed records show.

Lawmakers expressed dismay this year that the drug agency had not fired agents who investigators found attended “sex parties” with prostitutes paid with drug cartel money while they were on assignment in Colombia. 

Of the 50 employees the DEA’s Board of Professional Conduct recommended be fired following misconduct investigations opened since 2010, only 13 were actually terminated, the records show. And the drug agency was forced to take some of them back after a federal appeals board intervened.

In one case listed on an internal log, the review board recommended that an employee be fired for “distribution of drugs,” but a human resources official in charge of meting out discipline imposed a 14-day suspension instead. The log shows officials also opted not to fire employees who falsified official records, had an “improper association with a criminal element” or misused government vehicles, sometimes after drinking.

– From the post: Two-Tiered Justice: How DEA Agents Commit Egregious Acts with Zero Accountability

If you attempted to create the ideal privileged, untouchable, crony mutant in a test tube you might come up with a Federal Reserve employee who stole government information and leaked it to Goldman Sachs. You’d assume that someone with such a pedigree couldn’t possibly be sent to jail under America’s two-tiered Banana Republic justice system — and you’d be absolutely right.

Reuters reports:

A former Federal Reserve Bank of New York employee was spared prison on Wednesday, disappointing prosecutors who said his leaking of confidential documents to a friend at Goldman Sachs Group Inc justified time behind bars.

Jason Gross, 37, was fined $2,000 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein in Manhattan and sentenced to a year of probation with 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of theft of government property.

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Joseph Stiglitz – “American Inequality Didn’t Just Happen…It Was Created.”

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Yesterday, I came across an excerpt from a book written by economist Joseph Stiglitz, which touched upon many crucial points regarding the U.S. economy. I think it’s an important read since it helps explain the roots of the current rebellion taking place within the political system.

Americans aren’t angry because other Americans are fabulously wealthy. Americans are angry because the economy is intentionally rigged to benefit a small group of individuals known as “insiders.” They’re angry because rather than add value to society, these insiders parasitically take from society. Rent-seeking is what economists call their destructive behavior, and the public is fed up with it.

No one would be outraged if genuinely innovative entrepreneurs and creators were the ones cleaning up in the modern economy. Unfortunately, this is not the way things work. Indeed, it’s an unfortunate fact that a disturbingly large number of America’s so-called “economic winners” in 2016 are little more than corrupt, scheming hacks and political types unconscionably profiting from the ongoing destruction of the Republic. “The people” have finally started to wake up.

Now here are a few excerpts from Evonomics:

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created. Market forces played a role, but it was not market forces alone. In a sense, that should be obvious: economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American “achievement.” That outsize inequality is not predestined offers reason for hope, but in reality it is likely to get worse. The forces that have been at play in creating these outcomes are self-reinforcing.

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