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Business as Usual – Paul Ryan Pushes Through Multiple Wall Street Giveaways in the Highway Bill

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It was always going to be a seamless transition from John Boehner to Paul Ryan. These men are cut from the exact same cloth, which is worshipping at the altar of crony capitalism. They talk a good game about about “free markets” and “entrepreneurship,” but at the end of the day, are both staunch defenders of statist, centrally planned economies, as long as the subsidies go to mega-corporations.

David Dayan, who’s excellent work I’ve covered many times here at Liberty Blitzkrieg, just published an article at the Fiscal Times outlining the plethora or Wall Street giveaways recently added onto the “Highway Bill.” One of these relates to something I’ve covered previously, the 6% annual dividend paid by the Federal Reserve to its member banks. Here’s some background from a previous post, Banks Squirm as Congress Moves to Cut the 6% Dividend Paid to Them by the Federal Reserve:

Have you looked at your checking or money market bank statement lately from JPMorgan Chase or Citibank? How about the statement showing the interest you’re earning on your mortgage escrow account with the big banks? While the country suffers through the lingering effects of the Great Recession caused by the biggest Wall Street banks, the public typically receives less than 1 percent on their deposits at the big banks, while the government has legislated a permanent, risk-free 6 percent guarantee to the Wall Street banks for their capital on deposit at the Fed.  Now that’s an entitlement program that needs to die!

This corporate welfare program gets even better: if the shares of stock were acquired prior to March 28, 1942, the 6 percent risk-free dividend is tax exempt and the bank doesn’t have to pay corporate taxes on it.

There had been a Senate proposal in the Highway Bill to reduce this payout to 1.5% for all banks with more than $1 billion in assets. Naturally, the Republicans in the House, led by Paul Ryan, killed it. Wall Street always gets it way in Congress. Always.

From the Fiscal Times:

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Vaccine Whistleblower Gave Congress Thousands of Documents, Claims CDC Destroyed Proof of MMR-Autism Link

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I want to start off this post by making it clear that I’m not remotely anti-vaccine. Personally, I chose to receive a Hepatitis A shot prior to my Asia travels last winter, and I also recently received a TDAP booster in order to reduce the risk of transferring pertussis to my newborn son, which can be quite dangerous if contracted by babies.

While I’m not anti-vaccine, I am anti-ignorance, and there’s a lot of ignorance and bluster out there when it comes to this subject. I know this, because I spent a lot of time researching the topic over the past nine months, after finding out that my wife was pregnant. It’s a complicated topic, which is why this is the first time I’ve ever written about it.

I came to realize that what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote in an Alternet article earlier this year is undoubtably true. He noted:

Vaccines are big business. Pharma is a trillion dollar industry  (1) with vaccines accounting for $25 billion in annual sales. (2) CDC’s decision to add a vaccine to the schedule can guarantee its manufacturer millions of customers and billions in revenue (3) with minimal advertising or marketing costs and complete immunity from lawsuits. High stakes and the seamless marriage between Big Pharma and government agencies have spawned an opaque and crooked regulatory system. Merck, one of America’s leading vaccine outfits, is currently under criminal investigation for fraudulently deceiving FDA regulators about the effectiveness of its MMR vaccine. Two whistleblowers say Merck ginned up sham studies to maintain Merck’s MMR monopoly. (4)

Big money has fueled the exponential expansion of CDC’s vaccine schedule since 1988, when Congress’ grant of immunity from lawsuits (5) suddenly transformed vaccines into paydirt. CDC recommended five pediatric vaccines when I was a boy in 1954. Today’s children cannot attend school without at least 56 doses of 14 vaccines by the time they’re 18. (6)

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The Dissident Dad – “But Why Can’t We Do Those Things….”

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I thought we were free to choose, Dad. Why can’t we do those things? Also, Mom is forcing me to read. Please talk to her about not forcing people to do things

— The Dissident Dad’s Son

Oh, the irony. All I want to do is be the freedom dad. To raise a family that is a beacon for liberty, grounded on principles of non-aggression, cooperation, and respecting individual sovereignty.

But the truth is, what I face as a parent day in and day out is extremely difficult. It’s not just the statists and their incessant propaganda, it’s also the dereliction of duty by many modern-day parents.

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A Warning to Indian Citizens – Your Government Wants Your Gold

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The notion that the Indian government considers its citizens’ gold “idle” and would like to get its hands on personal holdings of the metal, as well as bullion held in temples, has been circulating in the media for several years now. What’s interesting about today’s article, is that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has introduced concrete plans to make it happen.

Bloomberg reports:

There’s about 20,000 metric tons of gold stashed away in India’s temples and households — more than four times the amount that’s held in Fort Knox in Kentucky — and Narendra Modi wants to get his hands on it.

India’s prime minister on Thursday unveiled three state-backed plans to try to tap the stockpiles of the precious metal to trim physical demand and reduce imports by providing people with alternative avenues for investment. At an event in New Delhi, Modi announced the formal start of a gold-deposit plan, a sovereign-bond program linked to the metal’s price and introduction of locally minted coins, some bearing the face of Mahatma Gandhi.

Also known as the “please trade in your gold for paper promises and government tokens” plan.

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God’s Work – How Goldman Sachs Scammed a Utah Program Meant to Help Preschool Children

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Goldman Sachs announced last month that its investment in a Utah preschool program had helped 109 “at-risk” kindergartners avoid special education. The investment also resulted in a $260,000 payout for the Wall Street firm, the first of many payments that is expected from the investment.

Yet since the Utah results were disclosed, questions have emerged about whether the program achieved the success that was claimed. Nine early-education experts who reviewed the program for The New York Times quickly identified a number of irregularities in how the program’s success was measured, which seem to have led Goldman and the state to significantly overstate the effect that the investment had achieved in helping young children avoid special education.

Goldman said its investment had helped almost 99 percent of the Utah children it was tracking avoid special education in kindergarten. The bank received a payment for each of those children.

The big problem, researchers say, is that even well-funded preschool programs — and the Utah program was not well funded — have been found to reduce the number of students needing special education by, at most, 50 percent. Most programs yield a reduction of closer to 10 or 20 percent.

– From the New York Times article: Success Metrics Questioned in School Program Funded by Goldman

Just when you think “Too Big to Fail and Jail” Wall Street can’t stoop any lower, they go ahead and exceed expectations. The following story is so base, so disgusting, and so completely void of any semblance of ethics, it could only have been achieved by the Vampire Squid itself.

The scheme revolves around a crony practice that is increasingly being embraced within our Banana Republic economy: Public-Private Partnerships. I’ve warned about these previously, for example, in the post, Meet Cyber P3 – The U.S. Military’s Public-Private Partnership to Create Corporate/Government “Cyber Soldiers,” I wrote:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that whenever you hear the term “public-private” partnership, brace yourself for a screw job of epic proportions.

It makes perfect sense if you think about it. If you’re a large corporation, there’s nothing better than guaranteed profits; and there’s no better way to guarantee profits than by going into business with the one entity that can do this: government. On the other hand, if you are an ambitious and greedy politician, what better way to earn a fortune while ostensibly engaging in “public service” than by lining the pockets of big corporations, which will then line your pockets in return in various opaque ways. Extraordinary fees for speeches is one preferred way of doing this, as is the classic revolving door that gives the person a cushy corporate job after leaving government.

Or put more simply, these “partnerships” are merely schemes by which clever corporate executives figure out how best to loot taxpayers without anyone noticing. Enter Goldman Sachs.

From the New York Times:

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FHFA Head Warns Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac May Need a Capital Injection from the U.S. Treasury

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Earlier today, we learned that Fannie Mae recently rolled out a new program known as “Home Ready,” which would allow borrowers to obtain a 3% downpayment mortgage with no minimum cash contribution.

Now we learn this.

From MarketWatch:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at risk of needing an injection of Treasury capital after the latter reported its first quarterly loss in four years, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Tuesday.

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UK Introduces Legislation Requiring Tech Companies to Spy on Their Users

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In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations detailing pervasive secretive and unconstitutional government spying, many tech companies have taken steps to secure users privacy via end-to-end encryption.

Of all the world’s “leaders,” one person has stood out from the crowd by consistently advocating the most destructive, ignorant and authoritarian solutions. That man is UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

I’ve highlighted this fact time and time again here at Liberty Blitzkrieg. Here are a few examples in case you need some context:

David Cameron Attacks Twitter Users, Following in the Footsteps of the Saudi Religious Police Chief

Top Computer Security Expert Warns – David Cameron’s Plan to Ban Encryption Would “Destroy the Internet”

Britain’s “War on Terror” Insanity Continues – David Cameron Declares War on Encryption

All his insane ramblings have finally culminated in a piece of legislation currently being introduced, called the Investigatory Powers Bill, aka the “Snoopers Charter.” The Telegraph has done a great job highlighting some its more egregious aspects. Here are a few excerpts:

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How a Rural Community in Washington State Created its Own Internet Service

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The following story exemplifies the human spirit at its best, and provides an example of the kinds of things communities can achieve when they bound together to overcome adversity. The sky really is the limit, and as Doe Bay Internet Users Association founder, Chris Sutton, defiantly proclaims:

I think relying on corporate America to come save us all is just not going to happen, but if we all get together and share our resources, communities can do this themselves and be more resilient.

Here are excerpts from the excellent ArsTechnica article, How a Group of Neighbors Created Their Own Internet Service:

When you live somewhere with slow and unreliable Internet access, it usually seems like there’s nothing to do but complain. And that’s exactly what residents of Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, were doing in late 2013. Faced with CenturyLink service that was slow and outage-prone, residents gathered at a community potluck and lamented their current connectivity.

“Everyone was asking, ‘what can we do?’” resident Chris Brems recalls. “Then [Chris] Sutton stands up and says, ‘Well, we can do it ourselves.’”

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U.S. Military Spent $43 Million on a Gas Station in Afghanistan that Should Have Cost $500,000

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Earlier today, we learned that the U.S. government had raided a citizens victim fund to the tune of $1.5 billion in order to use the money for general expenses. It’s all starting to make sense now. When you’re spending $43 million on gas stations that should cost $500K, it doesn’t take long to run out of money.

Taxpayers lose. Again.

Reuters reports:

The U.S. Department of Defense spent nearly $43 million on a gas station in northern Afghanistan and has been unable to explain why it cost so much, a U.S. special inspector reported on Monday.

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How the U.S. Government is Raiding a Citizen Victim Relief Fund to Pay for General Expenses

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One of the primary “talking points” used by the Department of Justice to defend its practice of systematically deeming corporate criminals above the law via its used of deferred prosecution agreements, has been an emphasis on how much money it has earned in fines from criminal corporations. These fines were supposed to be distributed to help victimized American citizens. Not any more.

The Wall Street Journal reports that:

WASHINGTON—The government’s just-approved budget deal takes $1.5 billion from a fund for crime victims and uses it instead to help pay for federal spending, drawing on a growing reserve collected from settlements with banks and major corporations.

The unprecedented transfer, part of closed-door negotiations between the Obama administration and congressional leaders, has raised the ire of advocates. They say it violates the integrity of a decades-old program that funds safe havens for domestic violence victims, counseling for abused children and financial aid for murder victims’ families, among other programs.

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