Half of American Adults Exist in a Government Accessible Facial Recognition Network

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This is a topic I’ve written about occasionally over the years. A recent article published by Vocativ adds some interesting information to the discomforting trend.

Vocativ reports:

Half of all American adults are already in some sort of facial recognition network accessible to law enforcement, according to a comprehensive new study.

Conducted over a year and relying in part on Freedom of Information and public record requests to 106 law enforcement agencies, the study, conducted by Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, found American police use of facial recognition technology is a scattered, hodgepodge network of laws and regulations.

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1 in 4 Young Americans Prefer a Giant Meteor to Trump or Clinton as President

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Can’t really blame them, can you.

Reuters reports:

Young Americans are so dissatisfied with their choices in this presidential election that nearly one in four told an opinion poll they would rather have a giant meteor destroy the Earth than see Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the White House.

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Internal Anger at the FBI Over Clinton Investigation Continues to Grow

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This is a story that refuses to go away. Recall the post from earlier this month, Backlash Grows Months After the FBI’s Sham Investigation Into Hillary Clinton, in which we learned:

Feeling the heat from congressional critics, Comey last week argued that the case was investigated by career FBI agents, “So if I blew it, they blew it, too.”

But agents say Comey tied investigators’ hands by agreeing to unheard-of ground rules and other demands by the lawyers for Clinton and her aides that limited their investigation.

“In my 25 years with the bureau, I never had any ground rules in my interviews,” said retired agent Dennis V. Hughes, the first chief of the FBI’s computer investigations unit.

Instead of going to prosecutors and insisting on using grand jury leverage to compel testimony and seize evidence, Comey allowed immunity for several key witnesses, including potential targets.

What’s more, Comey cut a deal to give Clinton a “voluntary” witness interview on a major holiday, and even let her ex-chief of staff sit in on the interview as a lawyer, even though she, too, was under investigation.

Agreed retired FBI agent Michael M. Biasello: “Comey has singlehandedly ruined the reputation of the organization.”

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‘With Her’ – Lobbyists Raise $20 Million for Clinton vs. Zero For Trump

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With so much mud being slung from all directions in this circus of an election, it’s often hard to separate fact from fiction. However, on one particular topic there is little doubt. When it comes to the big money crowd, they are definitely “with her.”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Not a single registered lobbyist has raised a substantial amount of money for Republican nominee Donald Trump‘s campaign, according to campaign-finance disclosures filed over the weekend.

Democrat Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has drawn more than $20 million over the course of her race for her campaign and joint Democratic Party accounts through funds raised by registered lobbyists, according to her disclosures.

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ECB’s First Chief Economist Warns – The EU is a ‘House of Cards’

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None of the following about the EU will come as a surprise to most of you, but the language used by Otmar Issing is nevertheless pretty remarkable.

The Telegraph reports:

The European Central Bank is becoming dangerously over-extended and the whole euro project is unworkable in its current form, the founding architect of the monetary union has warned.

“One day, the house of cards will collapse,” said Professor Otmar Issing, the ECB’s first chief economist and a towering figure in the construction of the single currency.

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Liberty Links 10/15/16

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Two weeks worth of links today. Opinion/Must Reads Aide Planted Anti-Bank Comments in One Paid Clinton Speech to Throw Reporters Off the Scent (The Intercept) The Press Buries Hillary Clinton’s Sins (The Wall Street Journal) The Disastrous Failure of Lesser Evilism (CounterPunch) Trump May Not Win, but He’s Not Going Away (Bloomberg) The Long History of the … Read more

Obama Enters the Media Wars – Why His Recent Attack on Free Speech is So Dangerous and Radical

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Control of the news media is an instrumental, key feature to any totalitarian government. In contrast, the primary reason this experiment known as the United States has lasted so long under relatively free conditions is due to the preservation of free speech (and press) via the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In case you haven’t read it in a while, here’s the text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nowhere in there do I see an exception for “conspiracy theories,” but apparently Constitutional scholar Barack Obama has an alternative interpretation.

As reported by AFP:

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Video of the Day – The Pentagon Warns of a Dystopian Future of ‘Megacities’

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The Intercept dug up quite a gem from the Pentagon via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Here’s what we learned:

The year is 2030. Forget about the flying cars, robot maids, and moving sidewalks we were promised. They’re not happening. But that doesn’t mean the future is a total unknown.

According to a startling Pentagon video obtained by The Intercept, the future of global cities will be an amalgam of the settings of “Escape from New York” and “Robocop” — with dashes of the “Warriors” and “Divergent” thrown in. It will be a world of Robert Kaplan-esque urban hellscapes — brutal and anarchic supercities filled with gangs of youth-gone-wild, a restive underclass, criminal syndicates, and bands of malicious hackers.

At least that’s the scenario outlined in “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” a five-minute video that has been used at the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations University. All that stands between the coming chaos and the good people of Lagos and Dhaka (or maybe even New York City) is the U.S. Army, according to the video, which The Intercept obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

Watch the video below:

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Must Read of the Day – ‘The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation’

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In a press release, the groups highlighted the links between Citigroup—which has lobbied extensively on the TPP, TTIP, and Fast Track authority—and Froman, who they note “received a more than $4 million golden parachute from Citigroup upon leaving the large financial institution to join the Obama administration in 2009.”

In particular, the letter’s signatories are concerned that provisions in proposed trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the TransAtlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) would weaken or rollback existing U.S. financial regulations, for the benefit of big banks.

– From How Obama’s Top Trade Representative, Michael Froman, Received Millions from Citigroup During the Financial Crisis

As many people have accurately noted, what’s far more important than the President him or herself, is the people who end up surrounding the executive. These are the people who will formulate and implement various policies of national importance, particularly when it comes to enforcing, or not enforcing, the rule of law (Justice Department) and whether or not to start yet another war (Congress has abdicated its Constitutional role).

Indeed, appointing Eric Holder to head up the Department of Justice guaranteed that Wall Street criminals would never be prosecuted and led to America’s justice system rapidly devolving into Banana Republic territory.

So how did Obama end up choosing the various banker-coddling professional cronies to make up his administration? The Wikileaks Podesta email leak shines a very disturbing light upon the process, which was led by then Citigroup executive, Michael Froman. Moreover, as current U.S. trade representative, this ex-TBTF bank executive is currently the nation’s top proponent of the sovereignty-killing Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

As David Dayen reports over at the New Republic:

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Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Admits – Obamacare ‘No Longer Affordable’

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An architect of the federal healthcare law said last year that a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” helped Congress approve ObamaCare.

He suggested that many lawmakers and voters didn’t know what was in the law or how its financing worked, and that this helped it win approval. 

– From the post: Video of the Day – Obamacare Architect Credits “Lack of Transparency” and “Stupidity of the American People” for Passage of Healthcare Law

Obamacare is now such an obvious failure and disaster, even some of its staunchest Democratic supporters can longer deny reality.

The Star Tribune reports:

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota’s Democratic governor said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act is “no longer affordable” for many, a stinging critique from a state leader who strongly embraced the law and proudly proclaimed health reform was working in Minnesota just a few years ago.

Gov. Mark Dayton made the comments while addressing questions about Minnesota’s fragile health insurance market, where individual plans are facing double-digit increases after all insurers threatened to exit the market entirely in 2017. He’s the only Democratic governor to publicly suggest the law isn’t working as intended.

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