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Wednesday 03.21.2012

A Massive Spike In The Price of Silver Is Imminent
Hubert Moolman - SilverSeek.com
Gold and silver are very close to entering the mania phase of this bull market. In order for gold and silver to go into the mania phase, value has to be diverted from somewhere, and that "somewhere" is most likely stocks. Since 2000, there has been a correction in stock values, in real terms; however, nominally, stocks are still significantly high (close to its all-time highs).
I expect that significant value will soon be diverted from the general stock market, to silver and gold, causing prices to rally significantly, until these metals also become overvalued.

Ben Bernanke blasts gold standard
at George Washington class
By JOSH BOAK - Politico.com
Ben Bernanke’s first lesson on economics: Forget about the gold standard.
Opening the first of four lectures to an undergraduate class at George Washington University, the Federal Reserve chairman Tuesday dismissed the idea voiced by many critics that he should stop inflation by re-tethering the currency to the country’s gold reserves.

With college kids, Bernanke gets away with dissing gold
By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA - GoldSeek.com
Dow Jones Newswires reports below how Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke criticized the gold standard during a lecture today at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. While GATA is not a gold standard advocacy organization, we can only wish that Bernanke would engage this subject where he risked a more informed and critical audience.
This is not just because we'd love the chairman to be asked how he squares the Fed's "transparency" campaign with its refusal to provide public access to the central bank's records involving gold:

Fed Liquidity: Good as Gold
By Scott Silva, Editor, The Gold Speculator - GoldSeek.com
We all have experienced that sinking feeling when in difficult times; we seem to have run out of options. Sometimes our frustration gets the better of us as we lash out at anyone or anything however innocent. But kicking the dog is no solution to our problems.
Chairman Bernanke is acting beyond reason lately. He has realized what others have known for some time--his monetary stimulus has failed to jump start the economy. The Fed is now grabbing at straws, hoping that "increased visibility" into Fed forecasts, and "closer communication" with the public will somehow reverse the ebbing economic tide. The Fed chief seems at ends, ready to point the blaming finger at unsustainable fiscal spending and Congressional gridlock, and phantom "headwinds" as the culprits for the stalled economy.

Dark Clouds for Gold Seem to Have Been Dispersed
By P. Radomski - GoldSeek.com
According to a Bloomberg survey at a precious metals conference this week, gold is poised for a 21 percent gain in 2012, extending its bull market to 12 consecutive years. Bullion may rise to $1,897 an ounce in New York by Dec. 31 from $1,566.80 at the end of 2011.
They have plenty of reasons for optimism, despite the recent drops in price. Demand for gold has strengthened as Europe seeks to contain its debt crisis and China has displayed a growing appetite for gold. Governments have kept interest rates at all-time lows to shore up growth. Central banks have been net buyers for three straight years, the longest stretch since 1973, according to World Gold Council data.

Iran Says "Gold Is Money"
By Louis James, Casey Research - TheBurningPlatform.com
Economic crises signal that the current system isn’t working as expected and needs improvement. When it comes to monetary systems, questioning their fundamentals can lead to doubts about whether the preferred medium of exchange will continue to be preferred for long. The large-scale whirlwind of economic trouble around the globe has pushed some to rethink the role of gold in the economy – and to actually move toward bringing it back.

President Obama's Debt Plan? More Debt.
By Peter Suderman - Reason.com
President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal is primarily a political document — built to highlight the president’s priorities and outline a vision for the country. No one expects it to pass.
But here’s what would happen if it did,according to the Congressional Budget Office: The 2012 deficit would be $1.3 trillion—8.2 percent of gross domestic product and $82 billion higher than the current budget baseline. Next year, the deficit would decline, but still clock in at $977 billion, meaning that federal borrowing would account for more than 6 percent of the country’s total economy. In the following years, deficits would continue to decline, but will still be higher than the budget office baseline by between 1.4 and 1.9 percent of GDP each year.

Don't believe the hype --
the U.S economy is not recovering, it's getting sicker.

John Williams: The Devil’s Choice−Inflation or Deflation
Beyond Control−Why hyperinflation is inevitable by 2014
James J Puplava CFP with John Williams - FinancialSense.com
Jim welcomes economist John Williams, Executive Editor at Shadow Government Statistics. John discusses how we face a "devil’s choice" between inflation and deflation, and why he believes that hyperinflation is inevitable by 2014.

Why is Obama Lying About US Oil Reserves?
By. E. Calvin Beisner, MasterResource - OilPrice.com
"With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,”President Barack Obama said in his weekly address March 10. “Not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil."
The claim is, if not blatantly false, at best grossly misleading. If the President didn’t know this, some advisors should be dismissed. If he did, he needs to accept the blame and formally correct it.

IMF warns of oil risk from Iran
France24.com
AFP - IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned Tuesday that crude oil prices may spike by up to 30 percent if Iranian supplies were disrupted, causing "serious consequences" for the global economy.
The standoff between Iran, the world's second-largest supplier of oil, and the West over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is seen as a flashpoint that could sharply increase world crude prices.

Iran's Oil Fields are in Rough Neighborhoods
By Daniel J. Graeber - OilPrice.com
Tehran this week said that if its "positive diplomacy" wasn't reciprocated by the Kuwaiti government, it would work to develop its section of a shared oil field alone. Tehran, OPEC's No. 3, said oil production from shared oil fields was on the rise. The Islamic republic, facing isolation in the international community, is unlikely to broker any grand oil deal with Kuwait given arch-foe Riyadh's interest in the region, however.

The oil price is the new eurozone crisis
No sooner has the pressure on markets from the eurozone crisis begun to ease than investors have found something else to worry about – the oil price.
By Tom Stevenson - Telegraph.co.uk
If, as they say, bull markets "climb a wall of worry" then the seamless shift from fretting about Greece to today’s focus on Iran may be no bad thing. But with the memories still fresh of what the rising price of crude did for the global economy in 2008 and 2011, it is hard to be too relaxed. There are a number of reasons why the oil price has pushed above $120 for a barrel of the costlier Brent variety. Stocks are low and production has been below expectations in a number of countries around the world. Libya has only partially restored production, Syrian output is under embargo, while conflict has pared production in Yemen and South Sudan.

IMF sees $160 oil risk despite Libyan boost
Libya's oil exports have rebounded much faster than expected and will exceed pre-Arab Spring levels as soon as April, plugging a crucial gap in world crude supply as the Iranian crisis comes to the boil.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
The Libyan state oil company NOC said it will export almost 1.4m barrels a day (b/d) next month as key oil fields come back on stream.
The announcement came after Saudi Arabia said it had boosted output to a near record level of 9.87m b/d in January and stood ready to cover any shortfall as European sanctions against Iran bite deeper.

Jim Rogers - 2013 Will Be a Disaster

How Likely is a Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz?
By Ronald Stoeferle - OilPrice.com
The more and more explicit nuclear rhetoric and the threats of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz may soon cause the conflict to escalate. We described two years ago what the temporary shutdown of this neuralgic location of global energy trade would entail. The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf in the West with the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean in the East. The strait is about 180km long and, at its narrowest point, only 55km wide. Almost 35% of the oil shipped by sea and 20% of global oil production is transported through this maritime eye of a needle on a daily basis.

Europe faces 'long, hard road' to recovery,
US treasury secretary says
Tim Geithner warns against draconian spending cuts and calls on better-off European countries to help their neighbours
By Dominic Rushe in New York and agencies - Guardian.co.uk
Europe is only at the beginning of a "very tough, very long, hard road" to recovery and its future is still a threat to the US economy, Timothy Geithner, the treasury secretary, warned on Tuesday.
In testimony to the House financial services committee on the state of the international financial system, Geithner warned against draconian spending cuts by heavily indebted countries and called on better-off European countries to help their neighbours.

Karl Denninger–EU Debt Crisis and Coming Financial Crash
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Plenty of financial news was made last week which gave us lots of questions for Karl Denninger. It seems almost every week, there is a major story coming out of Wall Street, Washington D.C. or from the other side of the Atlantic. Greg Hunter talks to Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.com to get some answers. Denninger is no stranger to covering the real financial news the mainstream media (MSM) won’t touch. According to his bio, "Mr. Denninger received the 2008 Reed Irvine Accuracy In Media Award for Grassroots Journalism for his coverage of the 2008 market meltdown. In 2011, Wiley published his book "Leverage," detailing the causes of the 2008 financial collapse along with analysis and policy prescriptions for the future."

Eurozone banks and contagion risk
By Alasdair Macleod - GoldMoney.com
Greece has now defaulted, and other eurozone governments as well as agencies such as the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Investment Bank have retrospectively inserted themselves as senior creditors, a precedent that should be of great concern and which has profound implications for private sector banks.

Europe's fiscal pact in disarray as even Dutch break the rules
The Netherlands, one of the eurozone's "hardliners" on financial discipline, has the "same problems as Italy and Spain" and is on track to break Europe's three-week old fiscal pact, its own officials have warned.
By Louise Armitstead - Telegraph.co.uk
The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) said the country's budget deficit could increase to 4.6pc of GDP during this year and next year - a level that far exceeds the 3pc ratio that 25 European Union countries pledged to meet by next year.
In a report that will embarrass the Dutch government but delight Club Med countries, the CPB said: "The Netherlands is confronted with the same problems as Italy and Spain."

Pimco chief Mohamed El-Erian
expects 'second Greece' in Portugal
The giant bond fund Pimco said Europe has not yet tamed its debt crisis and will soon face a "second Greece" in Portugal as the country’s economy spirals downwards.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco’s chief executive, said Portugal will need a second rescue as the original package of €78bn (£65bn) falls short, setting off a political storm over EU rescue costs.
"Unfortunately, that is how it will be. It will make the financial markets nervous because they are worried about a participation of the private sector," he told Der Spiegel over the weekend.

Obama's Executive Order Greases The Skids
for America's Greece-Style Meltdown

Senate to vote on STOCK Act
By Paul Kane - WashingtonPost.com
The Senate will move ahead later this week with the House version of a congressional ethics package, including a formal ban against insider trading on Capitol Hill, but jettisoning tough provisions that had won bipartisan approval in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), in a Tuesday afternoon floor speech, announced that he would not compel a conference committee to hash out the differences between the two chambers’ approaches to the STOCK Act, setting up likely final passage of the legislation by early next week.

China Quietly Relaxes Controls on Foreign Capital
By KEITH BRADSHER - NYTimes.com
HONG KONG — The Chinese government has begun making it much easier for foreign investors to put money into China’s stock market and other financial investments, in a slight relaxing of more than a decade of tight capital controls.
The move, not publicly announced but disclosed by some private money managers, indicates that Chinese officials are eager to counter a rising flight of capital from the country, a worsening slump in real estate prices, a weak stock market and at least a temporary trade deficit caused by a steep bill for oil imports.

The JOBS Act and the Maxine Waters Test
Key Senate Democrats do a job on small business startups that even Maxine Waters and Barney Frank support.
By JOHN BERLAU - The American Spectator.org
Call it the Maxine Waters test of political moderation. Late last week, this test was failed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
They comprise, as Politico writes, "a chorus of Democratic senators… raising objections to a bill designed to help small businesses -- throwing bumps in the road to passage of the legislation that had sailed through the GOP-led House and won President Barack Obama's endorsement." And this bill, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, also won the endorsement of 158 House Democrats who voted "aye" on Mar. 8, including Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)

The JOBS Act Is So Criminogenic
That It Guarantees Full-Time Jobs for Criminologists
William K Black Co-written with Henry N. Pontell
and Gilbert Geis - HuffingtonPost.com
As white-collar criminologists (and a former financial regulator and enforcement head) and experts in ferreting out sophisticated financial frauds, our careers and research focus on financial fraud by the world's most elite private sector criminals and their political cronies. Therefore, we write to thank Congress and the President for preparing to adopt a JOBS Act that will provide us with job security for life. We will be the personal beneficiaries of Congress' decision to adopt the law without the pesky hearings that would allow critics to launch devastating attacks on the proposed bill based on a brutally unfair tactic - the presentation of facts. Unfortunately, in our professional capacities, we must oppose the bill. This bill is an atrocity.

Architects of Economic Ruin
They can take our jobs, but they'll never take… our… diet soda.
By JACK RAFUSE - The American Spectator.org
Like a delusional fast food customer who orders a triple bacon cheeseburger and smugly asks for a "diet" soda, Obama administration policies that aim to promote economic health actually threaten economic ruin for the country.
Consider the president's insistence on cutting so-called "subsidies" for the oil and natural gas industry. The president pledges to eliminate Section 199 of the Tax Code -- but for oil companies only. The section 199 manufacturer's deduction has been a central focus in trips to Iowa, Wisconsin, and other states where he touts it as a jobs creating measure. So, is the deduction not creating oil and natural gas industry jobs? Is the president right in wanting to eliminate it for the U.S. oil and natural gas industry? According to new research, the answer is a resounding no.

Welcome to the Predatory State of California -
Even If You Don’t Live There
BY CHARLES HUGH SMITH - FinancialSense.com
Theft has been "legalized" for governments and banks in America.
Every once in a while an event crystallizes the stark reality behind the lacy curtain of propaganda and artifice. Here is one such event.
Correspondent R.T. is a retired accountant who has resided in Arizona since 2001. Prior to 2001, he resided in California.
On March 14, he received a letter from the California Franchise Tax Board (the agency that collects income taxes) claiming that he owed $1,343 for the tax year 2006. This was the first notification he'd ever received of this claim. This was an interesting claim given that R.T.:

Jim Rogers - Everything Financial Radio

The Main Event
By Cal Thomas - Townhall.com
Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear three days of oral arguments in the healthcare lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, otherwise known as "Obamacare."
We now know the law was based on phony predictions about its cost. After promising the price would be under $940 billion over 10 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has issued a correction of its initial estimate, which appears to have been based on sleight of hand accounting tactics by congressional Democrats and the White House. CBO now projects the measure will cost taxpayers at least $1.76 trillion over a decade.

Health Insurers: We'll Deny Coverage
for Pre-Existing Conditions if Health Mandate Is Repealed
by: Fatima Najiy, ThinkProgress | Report - Truth-Out.org
Health insurers and supporters of the Obama administration’s health-care reform law are currently in the midst of drawing uppossible contingency plans in case the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.
The insurance industry argues that premiums are likely to skyrocket without the individual mandate in place to aid in pushing millions of new enrollees into the marketplace, as healthy people will be less likely to buy insurance, while insurers will still be required to sell policies to all applicants. In fact, a repeal of the individual mandate would increase insurance premiums by 25 percent, according to a study released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Ultimate Agenda of The Medical Cartel

ObamaCare's Flawed Economic Foundations
The insurance mandate has almost nothing to do with remedying costs imposed on the system by those without coverage.
By DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN AND VERNON L. SMITH - WSJ.com
ObamaCare will be argued next week in the Supreme Court. While the justices will consider the intricacies of constitutional law, at their heart the arguments in favor of the legislation have to do with the economics of health care.
Consider the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. The Obama administration defends the mandate on the ground that a person's decision to not buy health insurance affects commerce by materially increasing the costs of others' health insurance. The government adds that health care is unique and therefore can be regulated constitutionally in ways other markets cannot.

Supreme Court faces an unprecedented healthcare frenzy
By Sam Baker - TheHill.com
The frenzy generated by the Supreme Court’s arguments on the healthcare reform law next week is likely to dwarf anything the court has ever seen.
Lawmakers and interest groups plan to stage protests and events outside the court nearly nonstop, creating a circus-like atmosphere for a case that could redefine the limits of federal power.
A throng of lawyers and reporters, meanwhile, are practically beating down the court’s doors to try and secure a seat inside the chamber to witness the historic arguments on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Fracking: Pennsylvania Gags Physicians
This is Part One of a Three-Part Series
by: Walter Brasch, Dissident Voice | News Analysis - Truth-Out.org
A new Pennsylvania lawendangers public health by forbidding health care professionals from sharing information they learn about certain chemicals and procedures used in high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The procedure is commonly known as fracking.
Fracking is the controversial method of forcing water, gases, and chemicals at tremendouspressure of up to 15,000 pounds per square inch into a rock formation as much as 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface to open channels and force out natural gas and fossil fuels.

At two-year mark, health law’s legacy is confusion
States and employers wait for guidance
By Paige Winfield Cunningham - The Washington Times
Two years after congressional Democrats squeezed out enough votes to pass President Obama’s health care overhaul, confusion still reigns among the states, insurers and average Americans struggling to comply with the hundreds of pages in the law.
Some states say they can’t move forward until the government issues more rules to clarify exactly what kinds of services need to be covered, while other states dispute that, saying enough information is available to plow ahead.
Insurance companies are biting their nails over how the requirements will affect their bottom lines.

Medicare Costs Too Much and They Better Not Cut It
by: Dean Baker, Truthout.com
There is an old story about two men in a retirement home. The first declares, "the food in this place is poison." His friend agrees and adds, "and the portions are so small." This exchange perfectly captures the Republican approach to Medicare.
The Republicans, led by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have argued that Medicare threatens to bankrupt the country. They have pointed to cost projections showing the program more than doubling relative to the size of the economy over the next three decades. The Republicans say that the country cannot afford this expense and scream about huge debt burdens for our children.

New Scientific Data Forces Government
to Reverse Its Stance on Fluoride in the Water Supply
ANH-USA.org
Why are some states simply ignoring the latest studies, and passing new laws that will hurt your teeth and harm your health? Action Alert!
Water fluoridation was introduced to the United States in the 1940s as a way to use waste product from the manufacture of aluminum, a waste product that was expensive to dispose of and which was harming cattle and farmland. Since then, the federal government has taken the stance that the fluoridation of drinking water, which conveniently disposed of the waste, is vitally important to help prevent tooth decay; the CDC called it one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century. But the the latest scientific studies have finally made the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) change their tune on how much fluoride is safe.

Holy Cow! How Senators and Movie Stars
Use Livestock to Game the Tax Code
Bigwigs are using sheep and cows to gain big tax benefits for themselves at our expense. These loopholes must end.
By Pat Garofalo - Alternet.net
There are plenty of ways in which members of the 1 percent are able to game the tax code to their advantage. But not many involve cows.
Thanks to a half-dozen heifers he keeps on his land, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, is a 1 percenter whose livestock helps him gain a tax benefit. As the Miami Herald reported, Nelson was able tosave tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes due to the presence of a few cows on property that he owns. Nelson has banked millions of dollars selling parcels of the land, the whole time paying taxes that were far below what he should have paid (according to the market value of the land) because of farm tax credits he was able to claim after letting cows graze on his grass.

FORECASTING THE OBAMA COLLAPSE
By Steven Hayward - PowerlineBlog.com
In my podcast with Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis the other day, Joel took me to task for describing Obama as our first affirmative action president, as he should as a representative of the blue side of his and Ben’s red-blue tag team. I parried by saying that I thought it was doubtful that Democrats would have nominated a first-term U.S. Senator with such a thin record if he was white. And just as Obama’s mixed race helped him in 2008, it may still be a factor in why his approval ratings have held up higher than they ought to given the objective conditions of things.

Marc Faber
The Perils of Money Printings Unintended Consequences

The Budget Wars:
Why Obama and the GOP Are Light-Years Apart
If it seems like Republicans and Democrats are on different planets with their approach to budgeting, it's because they really are providing answers to completely different questions.
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
"This isn't just about math, this is a cause," Republican Rep. Paul Ryan told the audience at the American Enterprise Institute this morning, on the release of 2013 budget. And he's absolutely right. Budgets aren't just a mess of paragraphs and numbers. Budgets are statements of values. They tell us what our leaders think is important for the country.

7.6-magnitude temblor shakes Mexico City
By Katherine Corcoran - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
MEXICO CITY — A strong 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Mexico on Tuesday, shaking central and southern parts of the country, sending a pedestrian bridge crashing atop a transit bus and swaying high-rises in Mexico City. At least one building in the capital appeared on the verge of collapse.
More than 60 homes were damaged near the epicenter in Ometepec in southern Guerrero state, though there were no reports of death or serious injury. Fear and panic spread as a less powerful, magnitude-5.1 aftershock was also felt in the capital, where there were also no reports of deaths.

100 million TVs will be Internet-connected by 2016
By Dawn C. Chmielewski - LATimes.com
Soon, the living room TV will become as hyper-connected as the people watching it.
A new report from researcher NPD In-Stat predicts that 100 million homes in North America and Western Europe will own television sets that blend traditional programs with Internet content by 2016. These new hybrid devices, capable of displaying interactive content related to TV shows, are a bid to hold the viewer's attention in a device-cluttered world.
"The TV people figured out nobody's just watching TV anymore," said Gerry Kaufhold, NPD In-Stat's digital entertainment research director. "They're watching TV with a tablet or a smartphone or a laptop in their hands. They've completely lost control."

Nokia patents a tattoo that vibrates when you get a call
By Deborah Netburn - LATimes.com
Nokia is taking steps to make sure you never miss another phone call, text or email alert again: The company has filed a patent for a tattoo that would send "a perceivable impulse" to your skin whenever someone tried to contact you on the phone.
Talk about letting technology get under your skin!
According to the patent filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the phone would communicate with the tattoo through magnetic waves. The phone would emit magnetic waves and the tattoo would act as a receiver. When the waves hit the tattoo, it would set off a tactile response in the user's skin.

Obama's Daughter Vacations in Mexico,
But Let's Not Discuss It.
In Fact, Let's Not Even Ever Have Discussed It
Brian Doherty - Reason.com
Completely divorced from the question of whether a politician's children are fair game for political attack, or even having their existence and life mentioned, this unfolding incident--stories from earlier today about Malia Obama and a gaggle of buddies spring breaking in Mexico (a place normal American kids are advised to avoid) with Secret Service protection disappearing from news sites--seems to indicate the White House can get a wide range of sites to take down stories, even if it is just with gentle persuasion or appeals to some higher standard. And that is highly unnerving.

Bonnie and Clod Clinton in the air again
By Wesley Pruden - The Washington Times
Good ol’ Bubba. He never disappoints. He’s always reaching for something new to feed his ravenous ego, now that age has withered, among other things, his ravenous libido.
He has persuaded the real-estate hustlers, small-town hucksters and dime-store merchants who mismanage things in Little Rock to rename the municipal airport to carry his name — and Miss Hillary‘s, of course — unto the next millennium. Or at least until someone else runs things.

Mein Amerikampf: The Hidden Liberal Doctrine
By Robert H. Meredith - PatriotPost.us
To not be a student of history, is a destiny to repeat it. The United States is not experiencing this second great depression just because of a typical economic cycle of boom and bust. The country has experienced recessions and times of great growth in the past, however this depression happened at the perfect time and in the perfect country for those that dislike our way of life to capture the moment of fundamental change.
History tells us that the dictators of the world, i.e. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, etc., all knew that to take complete control of the people you must first destroy the economy. The economy, money, gives the people the power to fight, due to optimism in their lives. All of the dictators took away the people's optimism and replaced it with government propaganda and preached the gospel that the government would take care of the needs of the people.

Keiser Report: Guns vs Gadgets (E264)

ECO-FASCISTS DON THEIR JACKBOOTS
By Steven Hayward - PowerlineBlog.com
I tend not to traffic too much in the "eco-fascist" theme, preferring to stick more narrowly to the substance of particular aspects of particular issues like climate change or air pollution. But sometimes the jackboot fits, and they should have to wear it.
I have noted at some length in the Claremont Review of Books a while ago the openly anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian views of some eco-alarmists, but that only makes them just like Thomas (China-Is-Awesome) Friedman, who for some reason is a respected figure. I quote, for example, a British analyst who said in a press interview a few years back that “When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it.” And also two Australian political scientists who wrote, among other things, “To retain an inhabitable earth we may have to compromise the eternal vicissitudes of democracy for an informed leadership that directs.” I love that euphemism “an informed leadership that directs” bit. And who would do the “informing”? So much for government by consent of the governed. Perhaps the movie version will be called An Inconvenient Democracy.

Can the Secret Service tell you to shut up?
New law protecting officials
from hearing criticism is unconstitutional
By Andrew P. Napolitano-The Washington Times
The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the government from infringing upon the freedom of speech, the freedom of association and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Speech is language and other forms of expression; and association and petition connote physical presence in reasonable proximity to those of like mind and to government officials, so as to make your opinions known to them.

Judge Napolitano -
Obama Makes Free Speech A Felony!!! BILL H.R. 347

Troops stressed to breaking point
Report cites sustained combat, redeployments
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times
A recent Army health report draws an alarming profile of a fighting force more prone to inexcusable violence amid an “epidemic” of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the mental breakdown attracting speculation as a factor in a massacre of Afghan civilians this month.
Based on an exhaustive study of nearly 500,000 soldiers, reservists and veterans, the report finds that troops are more likely to commit suicide and violent sex offenses, and notes that as many as 236,000 suffered from PTSD since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama to Iranian people in holiday message:
'Americans seek a dialogue'
By Scott Wilson - WashingtonPost.com
President Obama delivered his annual message to the Iranian people on Tuesday, using a far more confrontational tone than usual to say that he will seek ways to break through the "electronic curtain" that Tehran has thrown over the Internet and other forms of communication.
"I want the Iranian people to know that America seeks a dialogue to hear your views and understand your aspirations," Obama said in his message to mark Nowruz, the Persian new year.

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