The Fed Invents $3 Trillion and That's OK (I Guess?)

This episode of the Planet Money podcast was really fun (as many of them are), but the first segment was particularly concerning. They talk about how the Fed (literally) conjured $3 trillion from the aether and banks didn't bother loaning it out. All this money is just sitting there, doing nothing. Hopefully, the banks won't loan it out all at once, which would seem, to me, like a reeeally bad idea (steroidal inflation!). In fact, the banks just sitting on it seems like a bad idea, too. I mean, the point was to stimulate the economy. However, according to the experts, it is recovering just fine.

$3 trillion just seems like a LOT of money to wish in from the Cornfield Bank. It's not as bad as that one time, but still. The fact that the Fed can invent money at all is irksome and with everything the USG, banks, and corporations have done over the last ten years, it's hard to trust them.
Just on principle, think about how the Fed works.

They help keep our economic system stable by creating money from nothing. But who benefits the most from our economic system? The 1%. And who runs the Fed? Members of the 1%. So, really, it's just the rich protecting the rich while making sure we get enough table scraps to survive, but not enough to get into a position of power so we can do something to stop this lop-sided system.

If you think about just how much money is in our economy, you realize that a ton of problems that America is dealing with could go away. Do you know how many homeless people that $3 trillion could house? How many it could feed? How many medical bills it could pay?

Ugh... I feel gross just thinking about it.

Yet, all this money exists and is moved around in circles you and I will never experience.
Then again, here is a segment of the Daily Show from January of 2015 that reports on how Salt Lake City, Utah, solved its homeless problem by giving the homeless homes. That's right, they gave them homes.

The Daily Show
Daily Show Full Episodes,  More Daily Show Videos,  Comedy Central Full Episodes

The clip is really funny, but the gist is this: it's cheaper to house everyone who can't house themselves. Between law enforcement costs, medical costs and other costs that occur thanks to people being homeless, it's cheaper to just put them in apartments. Meanwhile, the rest of the country still has this lopsided system.

So much emphasis is put on making money and spending money that we don't even think about the fact that there are other ways our system can work. Should we get away from Capitalism altogether? I don't think so. But the idea that some of us should suffer for not being able to play the game as well as some? Yeah, that's not right. We can certainly use a combination of both capitalism and socialism to the benefit of all citizens, except the 1%, of course. But I think they've gotten most of the benefits over the last 20 years.  I think they'll survive.

Help my personal economics and go buy a Ballpoint Adventures T-shirt or my novel from Amazon!

AMERICA: where we spy on ourselves and lock up 83 year-old anti-war activist nuns for sabotage. A land of the free.

[caption id="attachment_13117201831" align="aligncenter" width="768"] 83 year-old nuns: the real threat to America![/caption]

This is kind of insane. I mean, I know she broke the law, but is it fair to really call her a "saboteur"? I mean, she's an 83 year-old nun! I really don't think she's going to be a threat to America. And the fact that she is being treated like one really tells you something about our country. Something really bad and deeply hypocritical.

Read the original AP article.

AP reports: NSA phone record collection ruled unconstitutional. I love how we need a judge to tell us this.

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Yeah, this is just sad. You know who is supposed to enforce the law first? Nooo, not the police--the individual. You and me and our leaders, we all have to enforce the law. The law isn't there for people to ignore it until they get caught--it's there as the last level of protection against the criminal act being committed. In our every day lives, we (hopefully) ask ourselves if what we are doing is wrong in anyway. Our leaders, when deciding to collect our phone call info in bulk, CLEARLY did not ask this question of themselves.

And if they did, you seriously have to wonder how they could have answered "Yes, I believe that collecting the phone records of MILLIONS OF AMERICANS is perfectly moral and legal."

Now, more than ever, it's painfully obvious how corrupt our leaders are. I mean, if we live in a free country, that means that we can generally do what we want and that our government CANNOT.

Anyway, check out the original AP article for the details.

Amazingly, Congress held a hearing back on 12/4/13 on alien life. Yep, they actually spoke with scientists and everything. via io9

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the original post on io9

Honestly, the fact that this happened at all should have been headline news on every news website in the world. In our "Christian" nation, it's a shock when any of our leaders actually give a scientist the time of day, let alone ask them questions. Of course, if you read the original io9 post, you can tell that the politicians really don't have any reasonable knowledge of what the search for alien looks like outside of a science fiction film. But hey, I give them points for trying. Let's hope this wasn't just a flash in the pan and that they ask about aliens again some time.

TechDirt.com reports on how Lavabit founder may end up arrested for shutting down his service.

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OK, this is really starting to get creepy now. The USG may arrest a guy for closing down his business? A business he shut down because he didn't want to comply with a request by the USG he felt was wrong?

America: Land of the (not) free!

If you haven't already seen it, check out the interview That the founder of Lavabit did on Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/exclusive_owner_of_snowdens_email_service

My favorite bit was when he is asked if he recieved a National Security Letter from the USG and he explained that he wasn't allowed to say.

AMERICA

Monopolies hate competition: NYTimes reports (poorly) on USG investigation virtual currencies. Article reads like gov propaganda.

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From the article:

State and federal officials are starting broad investigations into shortcomings in the oversight of upstart virtual currencies like bitcoin.

Ah yes, because state and federal governments do such a good job of overseeing their own currency!

TheAtlantic.com: big Internet companies are being commandeered by the USG.

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From the opinion piece:

We're already starting to see that. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others are pleading with the government to allow them to explain details of what information they provided in response to National Security Letters and other government demands. They've lost the trust of their customers, and explaining what they do -- and don't do -- is how to get it back. The government has refused; they don't care.

Read the whole piece: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/the-nsa-is-commandeering-the-internet/278572/

This is seriously scary stuff and is right on the money. Corporations and the USG are beholden to each other in a way us normal civilians once were but can now never be. We don't have the money to be important enough to the USG. The USG is too corrupt and, by definition, corporations are only in it for the money, so... we're screwed.

I feel strongly that we need an Independent Internet--a network of devices that link together and don't necesarily rely on a mega-corporation to provide a "backbone" of hardware or of services. I think it's well within the abilities of technology available to us to create a new Internet that could function outside of the control of both corporations AND the USG or any government for that matter.

@NYTimes reports on how JPMorgan can, effectively, bribe the USG to avoid trials or, you know, consequences.

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From the article:

JPMorgan Chase is pulling out its checkbook to help mend frayed relationships with the government.

More:

The hefty payouts started on Tuesday when JPMorgan struck a $410 million settlement with the nation’s top energy regulator, which had accused the bank of devising “manipulative schemes” to transform “money-losing power plants into powerful profit centers.” The agreement was a record fine for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, whose most recent settlement with a big bank totaled only $1.6 million.

More:

The bank’s new approach comes down, at least in part, to dollars and cents. While the settlements are expensive, they pale in comparison to the sort of legal bills that come with long — and embarrassing — legal battles.

More:

The conciliatory tack also reflects a growing recognition among bank executives that JPMorgan was swiftly losing credibility in Washington. At least eight federal agencies are investigating the bank, and some regulators have portrayed JPMorgan as something of a bully.

Wow. Seems like bribing the government is a great way to avoid accountability--not to mention a jail term!

Life is so much easier when you're rich!

Read the whole article: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/30/jpmorgan-to-pay-410-million-in-power-market-manipulation-case/

NYTimes reports on Federal Judge Rosemary M. Collyer challenging the Obama Admin's policy on drones killing Americans.

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Read the whole article (it's really good!): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/us/politics/judge-challenges-white-house-claims-on-authority-in-drone-killings.html

Here's an excerpt:

Judge Collyer said she was “troubled” by the government’s assertion that it could kill American citizens it designated as dangerous, with no role for courts to review the decision.

“Are you saying that a U.S. citizen targeted by the United States in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?” she asked Brian Hauck, a deputy assistant attorney general. “How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?”

She provided her own answer: “The limit is the courthouse door.”

SWEET! It's so nice to see someone in power have the same feelings as me. Hell, I think she should be saying this even if there had been no Americans killed. All humans are created equal, right? So they deserve a trial before they are found guilty, sentenced to death and executed, right? Just because there's an (undeclared) war on terror going on doesn't mean their are no rules.

Another gem from the article:

Mr. Hauck acknowledged that Americans targeted overseas do have rights, but he said they could not be enforced in court either before or after the Americans were killed. Judges, he suggested, have neither the expertise nor the tools necessary to assess the danger posed by terrorists, the feasibility of capturing them or when and how they should be killed.

“Courts don’t have the apparatus to analyze” such issues, so they must be left to the executive branch, with oversight by Congress, Mr. Hauck said. But he argued, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has in the past, that there are multiple “checks” inside the executive branch to make sure such killings are legally justified.

Judge Collyer did not buy it. “No, no, no,” she said. “The executive is not an effective check on the executive.” She bridled at the notion that judges were incapable of properly assessing complex national security issues, declaring, “You’d be surprised at the amount of understanding other parts of the government think judges have.”

This is what "abuse of power" looks like. Right here. When one branch of government stops another branch from doing it's job. This is also a great example of what "undermining the United States Government" looks like. The Obama Admin needs to stop trying to sabotage how our government is supposed to work.

NYTimes reports on FISA Court giving the NSA even more power to amass private data related to non-terror cases. Did the USG start a new war and not tell us?

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From the article:

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.

I mean, seriously, did the USG start a war and not tell us? What is all this data for? Last time I checked, the vast majority of us are not invovled in nuclear proliferation or cyberterrorism. I also don't remember the Fourth Amendment being suspended. Soooo... WTF, USG? Why so serious?

NYTimes.com reports on the USPS photographing the outside of every piece of paper mail sent in the US. You know, so they can track who you've communicated with. Happy #4thofjuly!

From the article:

As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.

Why does the USG need to know so much about us? They're snoping on our email AND our snail mail.

If this were really the land of the free this kind of surveillance would not be going on.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! >_<

My pal Mari needs some surgery--help her out with a couple bucks, wouldja? http://mariadkins.com

I posted this on my Tumblr yesterday but since Mari is still a hundred bucks short, I thought I should post it again... read on or just go here and give her a hand if you can with the Chip-In widget at the top of her sidebar, or, like I said, read on:

mariadkins:

i need a hysterectomy

And most of you are probably looking at that and thinking, “Duh, we know you and know that.” But here’s what you don’t know. I’m pasting in a note I sent around via e-mail and Facebook, and please excuse the lack of caps use. As I stated in the note, I hesitated to start another ChipIn, but I did it anyway; the link is at the bottom. Also, if you’d like to copy my widget to your website, please use this link. (by the way, Preston said my note sounded pitiful lol)

i called robin, the surgeon’s nurse, back *again* this morning because i’d never heard from her. she called me about half an hour ago and said that the clinic can’t schedule my hysterectomy until i pay a deposit. (i have medical financial aid through UK because i don’t qualify for medicaid and preston couldn’t ever afford to add me to his insurance) she said the medical aid office should have called me, and i told her that this is the first time i’d heard from anybody since connie called me on the tenth. she told me who to call and gave me the direct number.

i called and left a message, which seems to be what my life is made of any more – leaving messages.

shannon called me back, and we talked, and she said she hadn’t even received my paperwork until half an hour before. i checked the call log on my phone – that would have been when i talked to robin and around the time i left the message for shannon. anyway, shannon pulled up my records and said that i have to pay a $470 deposit. we discussed that and when my aid expires, and she told me to keep her number, etc, etc.

so i’ve sat here and absolutely bawled and have given myself a killer headache in the process, of course. i have no idea where we’re going to find $470.

i did that chip-in thing for my new computer last month so i’m very hesitant to turn around and start another one for something that’s this serious.

any suggestions, advice, help any of y’all can give me/us would be a blessing. otherwise, the way things looks, this is something i’m just going to be stuck with for the rest of my life. i just want to sit and scream.

http://mariadkins.com/i-need-a-hysterectomy

Here's where I came in with my standard rant on our wonderful health care system that requires people to *always* have a job with health benefits if they want to actually have health care:

Why is the most basic human right the first to be overlooked our society?  The right to health care is a fundamental need every single human on the planet will eventually require and yet, it's not guaranteed in the country that claims it is the most free of all the countries.

Mari is a really great person and needs a hand.  If you can help, please click the link above and give her chip-in fund a few bucks.  Anything can help.

I just get so angry that good people can't just get the health care they need.  No one's perfect and we can't all have jobs all the time.  Society is simply too flawed to guarantee employment for all, so what are the folks without a stable dayjob to do?  What good is society if it can't serve all of its members?

You must admit that forcing people to always have jobs with benefits is not fair and does not match up with our promised right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I mean, how can you pursue happiness if you're sick? How can you live if you're dying? How can you be free if you're forced to have a job at all times?

Worse yet, we live in a society that does not guarantee a job for every last one of us. Therefore, our society doesn't guarantee our health. And since we are under a much bigger threat from things like cancer and heart disease than we are from foreign invaders or terrorists, what the hell is our government really doing for us, anyway?

We are supposed to live in a free market country--how come the USG has such shitty customer service?

So if you agree with me and want to help my pal Mari, head over to http://mariadkins.com and check out the Chip-In widget in her sidebar. I'm sure she'll appreciate it!

#SOPA/PIPA vs #NDAA Part Two: Chasing the Phantom Menace (I'm NOT talking Star Wars)

Yesterday, I posted part one of my 3-part SOPA/PIPA Vs NDAA series (read it) in which I suggest that all these sites going dark to protest SOPA/PIPA was just misplaced efforts and energy (the indefinite-detention-legalizing NDAA of 2012 is much more worthy of protest, harms more of our core human rights, and is already a law!). Last night over at Mandommag.com, my third post for them went into more detail explaining just how the NDAA is much more of a threat than the SOPA/PIPA bills (read it). But in my post, here on thepete.com yesterday, I also suggested that the reason this movement had gotten so big was not because of how much a threat SOPA or PIPA are (they haven't even passed either house of Congress yet) but because big Internet companies stand to lose a lot of money if they get blocked in the US (aka they're only doing it for the money).  Today I'm going to suggest that protesting SOPA/PIPA actually helps the bad guys.

Irresponsible Democrats and Republicans need a bill in order to keep the USG "operating" Past this Weekend

Irresponsible Democrats and Republicans need a bill in order to keep the USG "operating" Past this Weekend, a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

What a state the USA is in. I grabbed this screencap from Google News in the middle of the night last night. When I went back to Google News just now, ten hours(ish) later, the top story was how CNN's iReport was letting USGIs coming back from Iraq tell their stories. Even Google News' algorithm is biased against important news! >_< Anyway, so here's where we are in America today. Partisan bickering means the USG may shut down in three days. I doubt it will, but the fact is, unless they print more money, it appears that they'll be out of it. What the hell are our leaders doing to let America fall into such a state? We spend over a trillion on wars chasing a tiny threat while our country faces bigger threats domestically, from crumbling infrastructure, to health care problems and an economy that is not doing it's job of supporting all (or even most) Americans.

While our leaders are bickering about keeping the government operating, the country it's supposed to protect is falling to pieces. Lovely. You know what? I'd be curious to what difference it would make if they DID shut down on Monday. I wonder if things would really be better or worse.

Senate passes bill that removes the most basic human right AND reminds us: only Americans are human.

Senate passes bill that removes the most basic human right AND reminds us: only Americans are human., a photo by thepetecom on Flickr.

Capped this last night (source: bit.ly/tRP0Vr):

"The Senate on Thursday passed a giant defense bill that includes a new policy for detaining and trying suspected al Qaeda terrorists"

That was CNN's simple explanation of the bill, but if you continue to read a few paragraphs in you get to see, not only how the US Senate is pissing the US Constitution down their leg, but also how the media is still just repeating what they are told and not actually doing any challenging of our leaders. Hell, they don't even question things in the article where no politician can directly challenge them back--but I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's a cutting from the article that shows us how the US Senate agrees that if you're not American, you're not human:

"This country is special because we have certain values, and due process of law is one of those values," Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, argued on the Senate floor.  "I object to holding American citizens without trial. I do not believe that makes us more safe."

Pretty neat, huh? Feinstein, a Democrat, does not object to holding non-Americans without trial despite our founding documents declaring that all humans are created equal. I guess Senator Feinstein believes that if you're not American you're not human. Why else shouldn't all people have the right to be free from unlawful imprisonment?

More from the article:

"You have people on the left who hate saying 'the war on terror,'" responded Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina. "They would never ever use the military and always insist the law enforcement be used because they don't buy into the idea that we're at war. They want to criminalize the war."

HA! The phrase "criminalize the war" is laughingly nonsensical enough but the straw-man argument Graham spins is laughably typical. As though the legal system is somehow inadequate for keeping Americans safe. Apparently, the FBI and the cops and the judicial system sucks so much ass, America would fall apart if it was trusted with going after terrorists. No, WE NEED A WAR!

It's politicians like Feinstein and Graham that totally miss the point of OUR FOUNDING PRINCIPLES and make me want to give up on "America" as a concept. I mean, seriously--what the ability to hold anyone indefinitely does is remove the first human right (essentially) ever established: the right of Habeas Corpus. Going back as far as the 1300s, Habeas Corpus is the right that everyone needs guaranteed because it allows a prisoner to challenge their detention. And EVERYONE needs this right, not just Americans--why? Because of mistakes.

Let's say Diane Feinstein or Lindsey Graham were mistaken for Canadians who inadvertently supported a pro-Palestinian terrorist group. How would they be able to challenge their detention?

Read more about Habeas Corpus on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

Read the rest of the CNN article to see how wonderful a job they do of contextualizing this bill in a way that allows you to see how unConstitutional it is: bit.ly/tRP0Vr OH WAIT, they don't do that at all, instead, completely ignoring it's obvious conflicts with our founding documents.

Just a quick reminder: 1 in 2 adult men will get cancer. The craziest, most extreme Al Qaeda guy only wishes he was that effective. How about a War on Cancer, Senators Graham and Feinstein, hmmm? I'm totally down with indefinite detention of cancer tumors, in fact, let's kill them on sight.

"...What we learned was that the Fed provided $16 trillion in secret, low-interest loans" to every major US bank

I posted this over on my contrarian blog, website666.com but thought it was important enough to post it here, too:

From a great WaPo op-ed by indy Senator Bernie Sanders (it’s on Sanders’ site, too):

Trust in government is at an all-time low. That’s not because Washington is too heavy-handed with Wall Street. Quite the contrary! The American people are angry and disillusioned because they see our government act boldly to protect Wall Street CEOs but not ordinary Americans. When Wall Street needed a $700 billion bailout, the government was there for them. When working families need an end to excessive oil speculation and real relief at the gas pump, the government has failed to act.

The same Dodd-Frank bill that required commodity regulators to limit speculators included my amendment calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve from Dec. 1, 2007, to July 21, 2010, the period of the financial crisis. What we learned was that the Fed provided $16 trillion in secret, low-interest loans to every major American financial institution and to other central banks, large corporations and wealthy individuals. The audit provision was vigorously opposed by the Federal Reserve chairman. It was right, however, that the veil of secrecy at the Fed was lifted and the American people learned about its actions.

This sums it up. The USG effectively fails to oversee the Fed and giving out loans of $16 trillion seriously fucks with our economy.  Think about it: 16 trillion new dollars injected into our economy.  It’s a miracle the USD is worth anything at this point.  It’s like we’re injecting water into our bloodstream because we think the more liquid is in our veins and arteries the more blood we have.  So, when the USG doesn’t bother to audit the Fed like they’re supposed to and when the USG openly bails out big businesses and banks, it makes We, The People, wonder just what the hell government is there for.

“…for the people, by the people,” my ass.  More like “for banks and corporations, by the guys who used to run them.”

Read the rest of Sanders’ piece on his website and learn about how oil prices are being artificially hiked by excessive futures speculation.

It really seems like the US government is indirectly rebelling against the American people, doesn't it?

"...What we learned was that the Fed provided $16 trillion in secret, low-interest loans to every major American financial institution..."

From a great WaPo op-ed by indy Senator Bernie Sanders (it’s on Sanders’ site, too):

Trust in government is at an all-time low. That’s not because Washington is too heavy-handed with Wall Street. Quite the contrary! The American people are angry and disillusioned because they see our government act boldly to protect Wall Street CEOs but not ordinary Americans. When Wall Street needed a $700 billion bailout, the government was there for them. When working families need an end to excessive oil speculation and real relief at the gas pump, the government has failed to act.

The same Dodd-Frank bill that required commodity regulators to limit speculators included my amendment calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve from Dec. 1, 2007, to July 21, 2010, the period of the financial crisis. What we learned was that the Fed provided $16 trillion in secret, low-interest loans to every major American financial institution and to other central banks, large corporations and wealthy individuals. The audit provision was vigorously opposed by the Federal Reserve chairman. It was right, however, that the veil of secrecy at the Fed was lifted and the American people learned about its actions.

This sums it up. The USG effectively fails to oversee the Fed and giving out loans of $16 trillion seriously fucks with our economy.  Think about it: 16 trillion new dollars injected into our economy.  It’s a miracle the USD is worth anything at this point.  It’s like we’re injecting water into our bloodstream because we think the more liquid is in our veins and arteries the more blood we have.  So, when the USG doesn’t bother to audit the Fed like they’re supposed to and when the USG openly bails out big businesses and banks, it makes We, The People, wonder just what the hell government is there for.

“…for the people, by the people,” my ass.  More like “for banks and corporations, by the guys who used to run them.”

Read the rest of Sanders’ piece on his website and learn about how oil prices are being artificially hiked by excessive futures speculation.

Yet another supposed "terrorist plot" has been "foiled."

One thing I've noticed about the various terrorist plots foiled by the USG is that they've all involved undercover USG-types posing as Al Qaeda or someone else.  When those dudes in Florida wanted to blow up the Sears Tower, they were to get everything from weapons to boots (BOOTS!) from their Al Qaeda guy.  Their Al Qaeda guy was actually FBI.  Turns out they had zero means to do what they wanted to do.

Likewise, that kid who wanted to leave a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon (I think) a year or two ago--he was a kid who was dealing with, who he thought was an Al Qaeda guy, but was actually an FBI guy.  This was a kid who had no means to commit his act of terror.

And again, recently with this supposed Iranian plot.  Check out what Reuters reported:

U.S. court documents accuse Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen with an Iranian passport, of paying $100,000 to an informant, who had posed as an associate of a Mexican drug cartel but in fact worked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and alerted the authorities to the plot.

Now, there aren't enough specifics here to say it's essentially a case of entrapment (like we can say about the previous two examples), but if the USG is sticking to form, we can certainly consider it a strong possibility until we know for sure.  But seriously, we really shouldn't be surprised if suddenly this story drops out of the media entirely in a few days like those previous stories I mentioned.

It's just another example of this trumped up (non-)war on terror.

Time to Get Pissed About the USG Again: Scahill Reveals Secret Prisons in Somalia

In case you missed it, back on July 13, 2011 DemocracyNow reported:

Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation

In a new investigative report published by The Nation magazine, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the CIA is using a secret facility in Somalia for counterterrorism as well as an underground prison in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Scahill says the CIA is training a new Somali force to conduct operations in the areas controlled by the militant group, Al Shabab, and in Mogadishu. While a U.S. official told The Nation that the CIA does not run the prison, he acknowledged the CIA pays the salaries of Somali agents.

Seems like the only change Obama has brought to the United States Government is skin color.  Read the rest at DemocracyNow.org.

EFFYOU.ORG: EFFYOU to alleged terrorism fighters who don't go after ACTUAL terrorists.

EFFYOU.ORG: EFFYOU to alleged terrorism fighters who don't go after ACTUAL terrorists.

effyouorg:

All of the folks out there that are going after Al Qaeda or other extremist-types with the actual means to cause physical harm, GOOD ON YOU!  Keep up the good work!!  All the other folks out there who go after pissed off kids and other losers who have precisely zero means to commit the acts they say they want to commit: EFF YOU.

Among the principles the United States was founded on, none of them encourages or condones the arrest of people who would LIKE to harm others but can’t actually do it.  In fact, one of the most basic concepts behind our country is the idea that every human is entitled to freedom of thought.

What happens when you find a 21 year-old guy or a 19 year-old kid who are pissed off at the government and dream of killing people?

Nothing.

Well…

Read the rest at http://effyou.org