While this is hugely objectionable and certain economic suicide, it should be noted the problem in this situation is the government guaranteeing bank deposits. It creates a situation where the economic incentive is for the banks to engage in all sorts of risky behavior in order to maximize profits because if they lose money they know the government will just bail them (and their depositors) out. See this clip from Peter Schiff. - Chris
Alec Baldwin showed up Tuesday night at Occupy Wall Street and talked to Luke Rudkowski, Rob, and Matt of We Are Change about Ending the Federal Reserve Banking System.
Interesting video, he's clearly pro-capitalism but wrongly thinks the Fed is needed to provide money to markets. All that does is distort markets and exasperate the business cycle. See Austrian Business Cycle Theory.
Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein has declined to hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videos that it had been ordered by the courts to preserve.
The case revolves around 92 videos, depicting hundreds of hours of interrogations of detain... (more)
(CN) - A group of Chicago police officers armed with weapons and a warrant violated the Constitution and may face sanctions for barging into the wrong house and threatening to shoot a mother and her kids, a federal judge ruled.
On June 7, 2009, Officer Billy Gonzales applied for a warrant to search the first floor of 3811 West Diversey Ave., based on the tip that it was a Chicago crack house. The application was granted.
DEA agents conducted raids on two more California medical marijuana dispensaries Monday, according to local press reports. Monday's targets were the Medizen dispensary on Northgate Boulevard in Sacramento and the Central Valley Caregiver's Co-operative in nearby Stockton.
The raids are only the latest evidence of the Obama administration's ramped war on medical... (more)
President Obama says Americans want to go to work. Unemployed Americans don't want a handout he says, each time he proposes extending unemployment benefits. Republican Senate leaders, he said, “are advancing a misguided notion that emergency relief somehow discourages people from looking for a job should talk to these folks.”
“That attitude, I think, reflects a lack of faith in the American people,” says Mr. Obama. “Because the Americans I hear from... (more)
It’s no secret the Obama administration has a close relationship with the big media companies when it comes to making “intellectual property” policy.
In 2010 Joe Biden — formerly Senator from MBNA, now Vice President from Disney — hosted a “Piracy Summit” consisting entirely of content industry representatives, where he stated that “stealing” content was no different from a “smash-and-grab at Tiffany’s.” ... (more)
As hundreds of "Occupy Wall Street" protesters marched to the Manhattan District Attorney's office on Tuesday to demand prosecution of alleged police brutality against demonstrators, a police officer who was seen on video using pepper spray on a protester last month was found to have violated city guidelines.
Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, seen above,... (more)
Herman Cain has been gaining much traction with his 9-9-9 Plan, a bold proposal to replace our dysfunctional tax code with what could be a simpler, less invasive, and more economically stimulative alternative. While I don't agree with the full spectrum of Mr. Cain's policy choices, I applaud his courage on the tax front. Judging by his rising poll numbers, this appreciation is widely shared. However, the plan has deep flaws, the most glaring of which is its creation of a hidden payroll tax which... (more)
Being innocent does not matter. Not being arrested or convicted of a crime is no protection. With amazing ease, the government can take everything you own. And to recover it, you must prove your innocence through an expensive and difficult court proceeding in which a severely lowered standard of evidence favors the government. This is civil asset forfeiture.
Russell and Patricia Caswell of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, know the process well. For the last two years they have batt... (more)
A federal judge on Tuesday told police temporarily to stop issuing tickets to Occupy Cincinnati demonstrators camping out in a city park, while the protesters’ lawyers and city leaders try to hammer out an agreement on issues in the protesters’ federal lawsuit against the city.
[...]On Monday, the group filed for a court order blocking the city from enforcing rules that ban people from the park after it closes at 10 p.m. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott issu... (more)
[The following is a report from Occupy Denver sent to us by Colorado attorney Gary D. Fielder detailing police abuse at the protest. - InfoLib]
Disgraceful. That’s the only way to describe the provocative conduct of the Denver Police Department, at an otherwise peaceful gathering over the weekend in Denver’s Civic Center Park.
The following events happened just prior to this footage being captured:
After a lively march around downtown, encircling the Federal Reserve Denver Branch, thousands of people from all walks of life, flooded back onto the park in the front of the Colorado State Capitol building. Someone had set up a tent providing food and water to the crowd. It was a s... (more)
United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.
Democracy Now! broadcasts video footage of the New York City Police Department using officers on horseback to keep Occupy Wall Street demonstrators within a barricaded area on Saturday in Times Square during a massive protest. Tens of thousands of people joined the march from Zuccotti Park in Manhattan's Financial District — the home of the month-long encampment ... (more)
"On July 29, 2008, my family and I were terrorized by an errant Prince George's County SWAT team. This unit forced entry into my home without a proper warrant, executed our beloved black Labradors, Payton and Chase, and bound and interrogated my mother-in-law and me for hours as they ransacked our belongings… As I was forced to kneel, bound at gun point on my living room floor, I recall thinking that there had been a terrible mistake. However, as I have learned more, I have to
PRINCETON, NJ -- A record-high 50% of Americans now say the use of marijuana should be made legal, up from 46% last year. Forty-six percent say marijuana use should remain illegal.
When Gallup first asked about legalizing marijuana, in 1969, 12% of Americans favored it, while 84% were opposed. Support remained in the mid-20s in Gallup measures from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but has crept up since, pa... (more)
STATE Parliament is set to pass new legislation making it a criminal offence to "insult" Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien.
Fines of up to $11,945 will be given to anyone found guilty of upsetting the minister and his staff under the extraordinary new offence.
The Baillieu Government is seeking changes to the Gaming Regulation Act which it says are "reasonably necessary to respect the rights and reputation of the minister and authorised persons". If passed, the ruling... (more)
That Anonymous Coward alerts us to the news that DC federal appeals court has issued a ruling (pdf) in the case of Gitmo detainee Adnan Farhan Abd Al Latif, but the entire ruling is classified, so the public has no idea what it says.
... (more)
When Republicans took control of the House in January, they pledged to make deep cuts in federal spending, and in April they succeeded in passing a bill advertised as cutting $38 billion from fiscal 2011's budget. Then in August, they pushed for a deal to cut an additional $2.4 trillion over the next decade.
Some analysts have blamed these spending cuts for this year's economic slowdown.
But data released by the Treasury Department on Friday show that, so far, there... (more)
Vast cities are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost uninhabited ghost towns. It's estimated there are 64 million empty apartments.
Support for redistribution, surprisingly enough, has plummeted during the recession. For years, the General Social Survey has asked individuals whether "government should reduce income differences between the rich and the poor." Agreement with this statement dropped dramatically between 2008 and 2010, the two most recent years of data available. Other sur
(NaturalNews) If you buy or sell secondhand goods and live in the state of Louisiana, you can no longer use legal tender to complete such transactions. Ackel & Associates LLC (A&A), a professional law firm, explains that House Bill 195 of the 2011 Regular Session (Act 389), which was recently passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal, prohibits anyone who "buys, sells, trades or otherwise acquires or disposes of junk or used or secondhand property [from entering] i... (more)
