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Tuesday 09.25.2012

"Do You Own Gold?" Ray Dalio at CFR: "Oh Yeah, I Do"
BY MARK O'BYRNE - FinancialSense.com
....Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, L.P. and one of the most successful hedge fund managers of all time told Maria Bartiromo last week that he owns gold and that he sees no "sensible reason not to own gold".
The interview was part of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Corporate Program's CEO Speaker Series, which provides a forum for leading global CEOs to share their priorities and insights before a high-level audience of wealthy and influential CFR members.

Manipulation of the Gold Price & the Crash of Paper Gold
By Jeff Thomas - GoldSilverWorlds.com
There is much discussion these days as to whether the price of gold is being manipulated. The answer is simply "yes."
It is likely that most potential gold investors would agree that the major financial institutions have theability to influence the gold price. They would also agree that to do so would be of benefit to those institutions. Yet, many investors still have difficulty making the final leap to agree that, if the institutions can manipulate the gold price and, by doing so, will profit from it, they will actually manipulate the price. Odd, as this would seem to me to be the easiest of the three premises to accept.

Don't Miss the Big Show in Silver
By John Thomas - OilPrice.com
Those transfixed by gold blasting through the $1,750 level have been missing the real action in silver. The white metal has soared 34% to $34 since the beginning of the year, compared to only a 14% move for the barbaric relic, an outperformance of 2.4 to one. I have been a raging bull on the precious metals space since early August. Silver gives you additional diversification into the space with that extra bit of spice on the volatility side.

Does China Plan a Gold-backed Renminbi?
By Ronald-Peter Stoeferle - GoldSilverWorlds.com
We expect the Chinese central bank to continue gradually accumulating gold, and we think that it might be planning a gold backing for the renminbi. If that were to happen, international acceptance would soar. Not for nothing was the enormous amount of gold reserves in the United States (N.B. the US reserves were at 29,663 tonnes in 1953) along with military dominance a central reason for the US dollar becoming the global reserve currency.

G-20 Agree
More Government Action Needed for World Recovery
By Nacha Cattan and Eric Martin - Bloomberg.com
Group of 20 officials meeting in Mexico City agreed that the latest monetary easing by developed nations will buy time for the global economic recovery and that governments must do more to boost growth, Mexican central bank Deputy Governor Manuel Ramos Francia said.
Ramos Francia spoke at a news conference following the end of a two-day meeting of deputy finance ministers and central bank officials from G-20 nations in Mexico City. Mexico is presiding over the group this year.

Jim Grant offers his Observations on QE to Infinity
and the Great Levitation!

QE3, Deleveraging, and Radical Monetary Management
BY DOUGLAS NOLAND - FinancialSense.com
"De-leveraging" discussions have been intriguing. Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio has been public with his framework. According to Mr. Dalio, deleveraging can be broken down into three processes: Austerity, debt restructuring and money printing. He has even referred to the ongoing "beautiful deleveraging" here in the U.S. that has supposedly found the right mix of austerity, restructuring and printing appropriate to ward of deflation while promoting slow growth.

Fed May Need to Boost QE 'Dramatically' This Year: Pros
By: Jeff Cox - CNBC.com
The Federal Reserve's latest easing move has been nicknamed everything from "QE3" to "QE Infinity" to "QEternal," but some on Wall Street question whether the unprecedented move will be QEnough.
With unemployment remaining high and the effects of previous Fed-sponsoredquantitative easing programs a matter of debate, the central bank is embarking on a round of mortgage-backed securities purchases that will last until the jobless rate comes down to acceptable levels.
From Morgan Stanley chief equity strategist Adam Parker's point of view, the Fed soon will find its new program inadequate.

QE4? The Big Wall Street Banks
Are Already Complaining That QE3 Is Not Enough
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
QE3 has barely even started and some folks on Wall Street are already clamoring for QE4. In fact, as you will read below, one equity strategist at Morgan Stanley says that he would not be "surprised" if the Federal Reserve announced another new round of money printing by the end of the year. But this is what tends to happen when a financial system starts becoming addicted to easy money. There is always a deep hunger for another "hit" of "currency meth". Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was probably hoping that QE3 would satisfy the wolves on Wall Street for a while. His promise to recklessly print 40 billion dollars a month and use it to buy mortgage-backed securities is being called "QEInfinity" by detractors. During QE3, nearly half a trillion dollars a year will be added to the financial system until the Fed decides that it is time to stop. This is so crazy that even former Federal Reserve officials are speaking out against it. For example, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker says that QE3 is the "most extreme easing of monetary policy" that he could ever remember. But the big Wall Street banks are never going to be satisfied.

Paul Volcker: ring-fencing banks is not enough
Ring fencing Britain's banks will not protect taxpayers in the event of another financial crisis, according to Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and the architect of the "Volcker Rule".
By Helia Ebrahimi - Telegraph.co.uk
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Volcker said that plans to force banks in the UK to ring-fence their traditional retail arms from "casino" investment divisions would not work in the event of a bail out. Ringfencing, he said, would only work in "fair-weather" conditions but not when banks were under pressure.
"In my experience ring-fencing is not terribly effective," said Mr Volcker. "It only works in fair-weather. But doesn't work in foul weather. They have already run into problems and they are bound to run into more."

IMF chief Lagarde warns of renewed global downturn,
urges U.S., Europe to act
By Howard Schneider - WashingtonPost.com
The United States and Europe need to speed key political decisions to help keep the weakening global economy from sinking under high debt and unemployment, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Monday.
The ongoing crisis in Europe, U.S. fiscal problems and a developing slowdown in Asia are threatening even deeper problems, Lagarde said, and have triggered new worries about waning momentum for action still needed to address some of the issues behind the 2008 financial crisis.

Václav Klaus warns that the destruction
of Europe's democracy may be in its final phase
'Two-faced' politicians have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy, Václav Klaus, the veteran Czech statesman, tells Bruno Waterfield.
By Bruno Waterfield, Prague - Telegraph.co.uk
The new push for a European Union federation, complete with its own head of state and army, is the "final phase" of the destruction of democracy and the nation state, the president of the Czech Republic has warned.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Václav Klaus warns that "two-faced" politicians, including the Conservatives, have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy, in a flight from accountability and responsibility to their voters.

Bundesbank castigates IMF for saving Europe
Germany's central bank has launched a blistering attack on the International Monetary Fund, accusing officials of spraying around money like confetti and overstepping their legal mandate.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"The IMF is evolving from a liquidity mechanism into a bank. This is neither in keeping with the legal and institutional role of the IMF or with its ability to handle risks," said the Bundesbank in its monthly report.
The bank said the Fund was right to help rescue Greece, Ireland and Portugal but said monitoring levels were slipping and there had been a "watering down" of standards. The scale of loans risks "overwhelming the IMF's institutional structure".

IMF hints at more time for Greece to implement hardline austerity
Managing director Christine Lagarde says IMF 'prepared to be flexible' – saying both growth and austerity are necessary
By Larry Elliott and Giles Tremlett - The Guardian
The International Monetary Fund dropped the broadest of hints on Monday night that it would give Greece more time to implement its hardline cuts programme as it warned that Europe posed a "critical risk" to a weakening global economy.
Christine Lagarde, the Fund's managing director, said the Washington-based institution was "prepared to be flexible" and said both growth and austerity were needed to put an end to a crisis which will next month again force the IMF to cut its global growth forecasts.

The Road to Serfdom in Venezuela
BY JR NYQUIST - FinancialSense.com
For the past thirteen years Venezuela has been moving away from a market economytowards a socialist economy under the leadership of Hugo Chavez. And now the future of Venezuelan socialism hangs in the balance. Or does it? A few days ago I spoke with Eric Ekvall, an American political consultant who has lived and worked in Venezuela since that country's 1982 presidential election. Ekvall has helped with the election campaigns of such notables as Venezuela's Jaime Ramón Lusinchi in 1983, Costa Rica's Oscar Arias in 1985, and Brazil's Lula da Silva in 1993. I asked Ekvall about the ongoing re-election bid of Venezuela's ailing Hugo Chavez, especially as President Chavez has been in power for thirteen years and continues to build socialism there. Given the downgrading of the country'seconomy, how could Chavez possibly expect to win yet another election?

Crisis Replay… Soon Argentina Will Be on Sale Again
By Ronan McMahon - DailyReckoning.com
09/20/12 Just over a decade ago Argentina spectacularly unraveled with the biggest default in history — $100 billion. Dollar deposits were converted to pesos. Then, overnight, the peg of one-to-one with the dollar was broken. The unpegged currency immediately devalued. Savings were wiped out. Banks were set alight and locals took to the streets in protest.
That crisis created the biggest buying opportunity of a decade. During the fire sales you could have picked up a historic, high-end property in Buenos Aires or a vineyard in Mendoza for a song.
Today, Argentina is back in a bind. There is a strong possibility of another crack-up within the next year. And then we'll have the same opportunity we had a decade ago. The signs are all there. The streets of Buenos Aires have recently seen the return of the backstreet currency exchange.

Liking It Or Not, States Prepare for Health Law
By: Abby Goodnough - NYTimes - CNBC.com
Like many Republican governors, Jan Brewer of Arizona is a stinging critic of President Obama's health care law. When the Supreme Court upheld it in June, she called the ruling "an overreaching and unaffordable assault on states' rights and individual liberty."
Yet the Brewer administration is quietly designing an insurance exchange — one of the most essential and controversial requirementsof the law. Officials in a handful of other Republican-led states say they are also working to have a framework ready by Nov. 16, the deadline for states to commit to running an exchange or leave it to the federal government to run it for them. That is just 10 days after Election Day, which is likely to decide the future of the law.

The Fed's US Land-Grab
Hidden Within Purchase of Mortgage-Backed Securities
By Susanne Posel - Infowars.com
As of August 9th of this year, the banks are legally allowed to co-mingle customer segregated funds with their own if the financial institution is insolvent, under duress or in bankruptcy. In other words, the technocrats have made the theft that Jon Corzine committed a non-criminal offense.
The latest scheme of the banking cartels has been introduced as QE3, which is nothing more than a massive land-grab in the domestic US by the technocrats under the guise of purchasing the mortgage-backed securities through the Federal Reserve to alleviate the pressure the banks are feeling from the bait-and-switch they caused.

Americans Are Literally Being Worked To Death
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Are you constantly tired and do you feel incredibly stressed almost all the time? Well, that means that there is a really good chance that you are a typical American worker. Even though our incomes are going down, Americans are spending more time at work than ever before. In fact, U.S. workers spend more time at work than anyone else in the world. But it was not always this way. Back in 1970, the average work week for an American worker was about 35 hours. Today, it is up to 46 hours. But there are other major economies around the globe that are doing just fine without burning their workers out. For example, the average American worker spends 378 more hours working per year than the average German worker does. Sadly, for many Americans work is not even finished once they leave the office. According to one recent survey, the average American worker spends an extra seven hours per week on work tasks such as checking emails and answering phone calls after normal work hours have finished. Other Americans are juggling two or three jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Americans are busier than ever and work is often pushing the other areas of our lives on to the back burner.

In Stamps We Trust:
Paving the Road to Prosperity with Food Stamps
By Eric Fry - DailyReckoning.com
...."SNAP [i.e. food stamps] is the only public benefit program which also serves as an economic stimulus," the FNS asserts, "creating an economic boost that ripples throughout the economy when new SNAP benefits are redeemed. By generating business at local grocery stores, new SNAP benefits trigger labor and production demand, ultimately increasing household income and triggering additional spending… Increases in food stamp benefits can stimulate additional economic activity. Every five percentage point increase in the national participation rate [in food stamp usage] would generate a total of $2.2 billion in economic activity."
The FNS calls the economic benefit of its activities the "multiplier effect." We call it the "broken window fallacy." Fixing a broken window generates "economic activity." But that doesn't mean breaking windows produces prosperity. Likewise, feeding the poor creates economic activity, but that doesn't mean increasing the number of people who receive food stamps produces prosperity.

GAO: Obama Administration Flip-Flopping
on Welfare Waiver Authority
By Matt Cover - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – A new reportfrom the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had previously stated that it did not have the legal authority to waive the work requirements of welfare, precisely the opposite of what the Obama administration now claims.
The finding comes from a Sept. 19 report issued to Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) examining if there was any precedent for the Obama administration's July announcement that it would begin issuing waivers of the work requirements for welfare.

Education Nation: Rural Arkansas Town Rethinks High School
By: Jane Wells - CNBC.com
A group of students in a high school gym hovers over a remote controlled robot while it shoots basketballs from the free throw line with better precision than Dwight Howard. They built and programmed the robot themselves, and it won first prize in a global robotics competition.
In a classroom nearby, other students are studying leeches recently used in microsurgery to reattach a severed hand.
And down the hall, a third group of students is working on a team building exercise—competing against each other to build the tallest tower using nothing more than marshmallows and toothpicks. "We need to break these right here," says one student, as the exercise tests their communication skills and math.

Olive oil prices to soar after Spanish drought devastates crop
Loss of 600,000 tonnes of olives will force huge price rise on British shoppers
By Rupert Neate, The Observer - Guardian.co.uk
A fresh oil crisis is brewing. However, this time it won't be hitting the garage forecourts but the nation's kitchens.
The wholesale price of extra virgin olive oil has jumped 62% in three months after a severe drought in Spain, the world's largest producer, wiped out an estimated 600,000 tonnes of production.

Curing Diabetes with "Self Cell Therapy"
By Patrick Cox - DailyReckoning.com
09/21/12 Marco Island, Florida – My publisher tells me that I should focus on writing dramatic headlines. Is "Curing Diabetes" dramatic enough?
If you've studied diabetes, you have almost certainly "learned" that there is no cure for the disease. Stem cell scientists, in fact, have encountered particular challenges trying to create the pancreatic beta cells that naturally produce insulin. This has led many observers to conclude that diabetics are doomed to the daily routine of glucose monitoring and insulin injections.

Feds scramble to halt stink bug invasion
by Paul Bedard - WashingtonExaminer.com
The stink bug is back and in much bigger numbers than last year, giving fear to a potentially historic outbreak next year that has federal officials scrambling to deploy a killer that will stop the Chinese import's march into 38 states so far.
While last year's breakout was described as mild due to unfriendly weather, this fall's explosion of the brown marmorated stink bug is the second this year, a rare "second generation" of the bug that is now pouring into homes looking for a safe haven until they can emerge next spring to lay eggs.

Washington state's first 'zombie bees' reported;
parasite causes bees to fly erratically, die
AP - WashingtonPost.com
SEATTLE — The infection is as grim as it sounds: "Zombie bees" have a parasite that causes them to fly at night and lurch around erratically until they die.
And experts say the condition has crept into Washington state.
"I joke with my kids that the zombie apocalypse is starting at my house," said Mark Hohn, a novice beekeeper who spotted the infected insects at his suburban Seattle home.

Chinese electronics factory closed after 2,000 riot
By Maxim Duncan and Clare Jim
TAIYUAN, China/TAIPEI | Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:16pm EDT
(Reuters) - About 2,000 Chinese employees of an iPhone assembly company fought a pitched battle into the early hours of Monday, forcing the huge electronics plant where they work to be shut down.
Authorities in the northern city of Taiyuan sent 5,000 police to restore order after what the plant's Taiwanese owners Foxconn Technology Group said was a personal dispute in a dormitory that erupted into a mass brawl.

Caterpillar Cuts 2015 Outlook as Mining Spending Falls
By Shruti Date Singh and Liezel Hill - Bloomberg.com
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT), the world's biggest construction and mining equipment maker, cut its forecast for 2015 earnings after commodity producers reduced capital expenditure.
Caterpillar said profit will be $12 to $18 a share, compared with a previous projection of $15 to $20. While a global recession remains possible, Caterpillar is forecasting moderate and "anemic" growth through 2015, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman said today in a presentation to analysts at the MINExpo industry conference in Las Vegas. Construction activity in emerging markets will probably show modest improvements, he said.

Fiat to make U.S. cars in Italy as government mulls incentives
By Paola Arosio and Jennifer Clark
MILAN/TURIN | Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:43am EDT
(Reuters) - Italian carmaker Fiat (FIA.MI) plans to start making cars at its idled Italian factories to sell in the United States, a source close to the matter said on Monday, as the government mulls fiscal and other incentives to help the group's exports.
Chief executive Sergio Marchionne, who also runs majority-owned U.S. carmaker Chrysler, met Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Saturday to discuss how Fiat can keep its factories open at a time when car sales have plunged to their lowest level in 40 years.

Toyota drops plan for widespread sales of electric car
By Yoko Kubota
TOKYO | Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:09am EDT
(Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands.
Toyota, which had already taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars than rivals General Motors Co and Nissan Motor Co, said it would only sell about 100 battery-powered eQ vehicles in the United States and Japan in an extremely limited release.

Iran accuses Germany's Siemens of alleged nuclear sabotage, company denies ties to project
AP - WashingtonPost.com
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran accused Germany's Siemens on Saturday of implanting tiny explosives inside equipment the Islamic Republic purchased for its disputed nuclear program, a charge the technology giant denied.
Prominent lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation, adding that authorities believe the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts.

Coal and Nuclear Power Can't Substitute for Pricey Oil
By Jeff Rubin - Bloomberg.com
About 40 percent of the world's electric power is generated from burning coal, which is second only to oil in contributing to global energy use.
And affordable coal may soon be running out just as fast as affordable oil is.
No resource can withstand the pressure of an exponential growth in demand. China burned 3.7 billion tons of coal in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, compared with 1.2 billion tons in 2000. Today, China uses almost twice as much coal as the U.S. while possessing only half of its reserves.

Blind, Deaf and Ignorant: 5 Recipes for US Intelligence Failure
By Jen Alic - OilPrice.com
It was so much easier when it was just the Soviet Union, a clear enemy, even a fun game. So with the 9/11 disaster, America's spy agencies were made to understand that there was a new single enemy in town—Osama bin Laden. The only way to advance your career as a spy was to focus on bin Laden, or at least on al-Qaeda. Countless intelligence failures later, we have Libya.

19 Signs That America Is Being Systematically
Transformed Into A Giant Surveillance Grid
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
You are being watched. The control freaks that hold power in the United States have become absolutely obsessed with surveillance. They are constantly attempting to convince the American people that we are all "safer" when virtually everything that we do is watched, monitored, tracked and recorded. Our country is being systematically transformed into a giant surveillance grid far more comprehensive than anything George Orwell ever dreamed of. If you still believe that there is such a thing as "privacy" in this day and age, you are being delusional. Every single piece of electronic communication is monitored and stored. In fact, they know that you are reading this article right now. But even if you got rid of all of your electronic devices, you would still be constantly monitored. As you will read about below, a rapidly growing nationwide network of facial recognition cameras, "pre-crime" surveillance devices, voice recorders, mobile backscatter vans, aerial drones and automated license plate readers are constantly feeding data about us back to the government. In addition, private companies involved in "data mining" are gathering literally trillions upon trillions of data points about individual Americans each year.

Globalists Want Chinese-Style Control
for Americans Under Agenda 21
While major metropolitan cities including San Francisco and New York are rolling out tiny micro-apartments, local and rural areas are working by stealth across the United States heartland to implement Agenda 21 containment policies by stealth.
Under HUD grants driven by President Obama's Partnership for Sustainable Communities, regional governments are implementing "smart growth" and "sustainable" policies to force the population into concentrated development patterns that favor insider profits and "green"-branded solutions-- it is a "planned-opolis" vision for the future where the State is God and the individual is subservient to the "greater good."

The Power of the Mormon Church Over Mitt Romney
By William John Cox - GlobalResearch.ca
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's candidacy is only the last in a series of powerful "callings" to the members of his Mormon royal family, extending from his great-great-grandfather Miles Romney, who helped build Joseph Smith's second temple, through his great-great-grandfather Pratt, who was one of Joseph Smith's first Apostles, through his cousin Marion Romney, who served in the First Presidency of the Church, and through his father Michigan Governor George Romney, who tried and failed to be elected president.
Not only because of his royal family, or because of the high positions he and his family have held in the Church and government, Mitt Romney is no ordinary Mormon because he is what is known as an "iron-rodder" in the Church. These are the members who follow "a straight and narrow" path and who "are certain that prophetic revelation and scriptural instruction … will lead them toward a righteous life and, eventually, godhood."

Romney's nightmare scenario
Posted by Ezra Klein - WashingtonPost.com
If things don't start looking better for Mitt Romney soon, they're going to get a lot worse for him, and very quickly.
To understand the Romney campaign's nightmare scenario, you need to understand the Romney campaign's much-vaunted finances. It's become conventional wisdom that the Romney campaign has more money than the Obama campaign. But that's not quite right.

Obama's AARP Speech Broke My BS Detector
The President told so many whoppers last Friday
that it fried the machine's circuits.
By DAVID CATRON - Spectator.org
President Obama spoke via satellite to the AARP "Life@50+" convention last Friday morning and I was foolish enough to turn on my patented BS Detector during the event. Unlike the "fact checkers" employed by the MSM, its special BUNK software was written such that it could recognize White House talking points and separate such input from actual facts. It turns out, however, to have had a fatal design flaw. Although I had successfully tested it on several pathological liars, and even a couple of lawyers, it simply didn't have the capacity to process the volume of BS contained in a typical Obama speech. The machine was a smoking hulk by the time the President finished answering the final question from the AARP audience.

Dalio Fears Social Unrest That Led to Hitler's Rise
By: Maneet Ahuja - CNBC Hedge Fund Specialist
Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, thinks it's likely the euro will survive; however, he does predict a "10 to 15 year managed depression" in Southern Europe. In a worst case scenario, he painted a much darker picture.
"When people get at each other's throat, the rich and the poor and the left and the right and so on, and you have a basic breakdown, that becomes very threatening," Dalio told CNBC in an exclusive interview on"Squawk Box." "For example, Hitler came to power in 1933, which was the depth of the Great Depression, because of the social tension between the factions. So I think it very much is dependent on how the people work this through together and worry about the social elements."

Former US President Carter:
Venezuelan Electoral System "Best in the World"
By Ewan Robertson GlobalResearch.ca
Former US President Jimmy Carter claimed Venezuela's electoral system is "the best in the world" (agencies).
Mérida, 21st September 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Former US President Jimmy Carter has declared that Venezuela's electoral system is the best in the world.
Speaking at an annual event last week in Atlanta for his Carter Centre foundation, the politician-turned philanthropist stated, "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world."

Something Is Wrong
Don't look now, but Islam is becoming
the MSM's official religion of America.
By BEN STEIN - Spectator.org
Don't look now, but Islam is becoming the MSM's official religion of America.
Now, it's not just that no one bats an eye at the amazing truth that the United States is beaming TV ads all over Pakistan apologizing for a derogatory Internet trailer for a nonexistent movie demeaning the being that Muslims call "The Prophet Mohammed." No one in the MSM even slightly hints that doing the kowtow in the same country that sheltered Osama bin Laden to a group that reveled in, delighted in the terrorism against American civilians and still provides the framework for the terrorist Haqqani network, might be humiliating and an insult to the memory of the great Americans who were murdered just last week in Libya.

Obama Cancels Meeting With Muslim Brotherhood...But, Why?
By Alex Cortes - CNSNews.com
In July, President Obama invited Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi to the United States and the two were set to meet. But now, when Morsi is actually here, Obama is suddenly cool to meeting with him, so they aren't.
One has to wonder why Obama is suddenly averse to meeting the leader of the government he gave $1.5 billion to and had over to the White House a few months ago?

Obama to address Middle East unrest in UN keynote speech
President's speech to general assembly on Tuesday 'a moment for US to assert its values and leadership', White House says
By Ewen MacAskill in Washington - Guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama will use his keynote speech to the United Nations on Tuesday to confront the violent unrest in the Muslim world in the wake of a US-made anti-Islamic video – and to insist he will not be deflected from support for the Arab spring.
Amid attacks from Mitt Romney and the Republicans on Obama's Middle East record, the White House said the UN speech offered a chance for the president to address the issues raised by the unrest.

House members push Obama
to prevent Ahmadinejad UN speech on Yom Kippur
By Pete Kasperowicz - WashingtonPost.com
A bipartisan group of House members put forward a resolution that calls on the Obama administration to pressure the United Nations to prevent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, which is Yom Kippur.
"An outspoken, anti-Semitic Iranian leader should not be given the opportunity to criticize a Jewish person's right to freely practice religion or denounce Israel's right to exist on the largest international stage," reads the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and is co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 14 House members.

In New York, defiant Ahmadinejad
says Israel will be "eliminated"
By Louis Charbonneau
(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated," ignoring a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric ahead of the annual General Assembly session.
Ahmadinejad also said he did not take seriously the threat that Israel could launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, denied sending arms to Syria, and alluded to Iran's threats to the life of British author Salman Rushdie.

Kudlow: This Issue Could Trump Economy with Voters
By: Lee Brodie, Producer - CNBC.com
Until quite recently, it looked as if the economy was going to be the deciding factor in the election. But that may be about to change.
If new developments are any indication, national security could move front and center with trouble in the Mideast seeming to escalate by the day.
The latest tensionsinvolved Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made inflammatory remarks about Israel, ahead of an annual UN meeting, saying that Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated."

Ryan says under Obama, Middle East looks like '1979 Tehran'
By Daniel Strauss - TheHill.com
Paul Ryan delivered a blistering speech against President Obama on foreign policy Monday, saying because of the president's policies, the Middle East looks like Tehran during the mob protests on the U.S. embassy in 1979.
Ryan, speaking in Lima, Ohio, was referencing Nov. 4, 1979, when Islamic revolutionaries in Iran attacked the U.S. embassy and took more than 50 Americans hostage. Ryan said that Obama has failed to fulfill promises to bring peace to the Middle East.

Tehran says new drone can reach most Mideast destinations
Unmanned airplane design copied from downed American RQ-170 Sentinel, says Iranian general
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A senior Iranian commander says the country's newly produced missile-carrying drone has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), which puts much of the Middle East within operating distance of Iranian territory.
The Monday report by the semiofficial Fars agency quoted Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is aerospace chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.
His description of the aircraft, which Iran first announced last week, is like that of the American RQ-170 Sentinel, one of which went down in Iranian territory last year. Iran said it was building a copy of the RQ-170 in April.

Iranian general threatens pre-emptive strike against Israel, attacks on US bases
Head of Revolutionary Guards missile command says confrontation will become World War III
By JOSHUA DAVIDOVICH and AP - Times ofIsrael.com
Israeli preparations to attack Iran could trigger a pre-emptive attack and "World War III," a top-ranking Iranian general told a TV station in the Islamic Republic Sunday.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the missile command for the Revolutionary Guards, told the country's Arabic-language Al-Aram that as things stood now Iran would not attack, but that could change.

Senate Iran Resolution: De Facto Declaration of War?
Written by Joe Wolverton, II - TheNewAmerican.com
For 26 minutes last Friday night, the sound of war drums reverberating through the Senate chamber were silenced as Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stood and delivered a speech that served as a vehicle for filibuster and a voice of warning against military intervention in yet another Middle Eastern country. "I think a vote for this resolution is a vote for the concept of preemptive war," Paul said.
Senate Resolution 41 is a non-binding measure originally introduced in February and sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bob Casey (D-Penn.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). The Senate passed the resolution late Friday night/early Saturday morning by a vote of 90-1. Senator Paul was the lone dissenting voice.

Hamas signs binding military commitment
to Iran-led war on Israel
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar and deputy commander of its military arm, Marwan Issa, spent the second week of September in Beirut and Tehran finalizing and signing protocols covering a binding commitment by the radical Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to join Iran, Syria and Hizballah in a war on Israel, DEBKAfile's exclusive military sources disclose.
The protocols set out in detail the circumstances, procedures and terms governing Hamas's participation in a conflict, whether it arises from an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program or the involvement of Iran's allies, Syria and Hizballah, in comprehensive or partial hostilities against Israel. Hamas agreed to obey any orders to attack the Jewish state coming from Tehran, Damascus or Beirut.

Big War of 21st Century Has Begun Gerald Celente

New York Times a "Propaganda Megaphone" for War,
Says Former Reporter
Written by Alex Newman - TheNewAmerican.com
The New York Times has essentially become a "propaganda megaphone" to peddle the establishment's narrative — especially when it comes to war — charged foreign correspondent Daniel Simpson, who resigned from the paper in disgust. According to Simpson, the paper, which is often lambasted and ridiculed by conservatives and libertarians for its blatant "liberal" bias, is actually just a propaganda tool for the ruling establishment.

Ahmadinejad Tells the New York Press
that he Wants the Elimination of Israel
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, and rather than be on his best behaviour, he has used this event to make another verbal threat against Israel.
On Sunday the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned Ahmadinejad that he should refrain from making any statements that could ignite tensions in the Middle East, yet on Monday the Iranian told reporters that "Iran has been around for the last seven, 10 thousand years. They (the Israelis) have been occupying those territories for the last 60 to 70 years, with the support and force of the Westerners. They have no roots there in history."

Syrian jets bomb Aleppo
as envoy says Bashar al-Assad rejects reforms
Opposition sources report 15 people killed in the northern city, and a total of 58 across the country
By Ian Black - The Guardian
Syrian air force planes bombed targets in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 15 people, including three children from one family, according to opposition sources. Fighting was also reported around Damascus and elsewhere across the country.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition network, reported on Monday that at least 58 people had died, including the 15 in Aleppo, where two buildings were hit by bombs dropped by government planes in the southern suburb of Maadi. Video posted online showed people digging through rubble searching for survivors.

Ahmadinejad Meets With 'Useful Idiots' Of 'Occupy'
To Share Anti-Semitic, Anti-American Values
By Dan Gainor - CNSNews.com
The Iranian leader must be running out of anti-capitalists at home, so he comes to New York to find more.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is coming to America to both attend a UN General Assembly meeting and to meet with "American university students, artists, intellectuals and elites, including Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protestors."
Where else can he find people who are just as anti-American as he is, except American universities and Occupy Wall Street?

Iran could launch pre-emptive Israel strike-commander
(Reuters) - Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state was preparing to attack it, a senior commander of its elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the comments to Iran's state-run Arabic language Al-Alam television.

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