Heartland Coin Gallery - Economic & Financial News Headlines

HEADLINE Economic, Financial & Global News...
every weekday, to keep you better informed.

Friday 04.27.2012

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Gold to $10,000 oz.?
JESSE'S CAFÉ AMÉRICAIN
In general I do not like to post flat out projections for anything at much higher than the current market price, but directionally I think we might be facing a market dislocation in the metals to the upside for some fairly well identified fundamental and technical reasons.
I do not think that a domestic US gold standard is inevitable at all. I think it is still rather unlikely.
But I do believe that gold and possibly silver will have an important role to play in international trade.
But first things first. Gold must break up and take out the small and then the larger symmetrical triangles and retest the previous high.

Is gold going to spike to $3,000 on a short squeeze
as China uses gold to buy oil from Iran?
By: Peter Cooper - GoldSeek.com
Legendary gold trade Jim Sinclair is seriously suggesting that gold could spike to $3,000 in a short squeeze because of the Chinese decision to pay for oil in gold bullion (listen here). Basically there will be a sudden demand for physical gold that cannot be met and short sellers will be forced to cover and buy gold at higher prices.
He told King World News: 'You have seen in the last month, a phenomena. If you have eyes in your head, you have to know when the gold banks enter into the gold market, offering more for sale than would be mined in the next five years, they are not in there to sell anything. They are in there to manipulate the price.

Comex Gold boosted by softer dollar, technical buying
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Comex gold is stronger as the dollar index softens, and the yellow metal is also getting some support on the technical side, said Charlie Nedoss, senior market strategist with Olympus Futures.
The June dollar index tested support around the 200-day moving average. "If we close below the 200-day, it's pretty negative for the dollar, so that kind of got things going (in gold) and the weak jobless claims kept us up here," Nedoss added.

Gold bounces after FOMC,
stable ETF demand are favorable signs: HSBC
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Gold's ability to hold up despite no indications of further Federal Reserve easing on the horizon, coupled with steady exchange-traded-fund holdings despite price declines in the last two months, are favorable signs for the metal, said HSBC in a commodity research note.
Gold initially fell after a Federal Open Market Committee statement Wednesday did not hint at further quantitative easing. "Although the Fed did not announce another round of easing, intentions to keep monetary policy at highly accommodative levels are a bullish case for gold prices, we believe," HSBC added.

Equities Will Catch Up to Higher Gold Price
GoldSeek.com
Ongoing inflation pressures and China's investments in the African gold supply chain point to a higher gold price according to Matt Badiali of Stansberry & Associates. In this exclusive Gold Report interview, Badiali says bullion in all its forms belongs in every portfolio and when it comes to equities, investors have their choice of business models—dividend payers, prospect generators and royalty companies.
The Gold Report: Matt, in the February 2012 edition of Stansberry'sInvestment Advisory, Porter Stansberry predicted gold would hit $9,600 an ounce (oz) someday. How should investors protect themselves from this coming crisis?
Matt Badiali: In general, I agree with Porter's thesis. Bullion—gold, silver coins or bars—should be part of everyone's portfolio. It is one of the best anchors against inflation. Gold and gold stocks also are important holdings because as the value of paper money falls, the value of gold rises.

Gold still 'significantly under owned': Sharps Pixley
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Ross Norman, CEO of Sharps Pixley, describes gold as "under-owned" and sees potential for another wave of retail investment demand on the horizon, particularly amid worries about an economic collapse in Europe and the future of the euro.
He points out that "tsunamis" of physical gold buying occurred in Europe and 2008 and 2010 during previous financial crises.
"In the year that we commemorate the (100-yaer anniversary of the) loss of Titanic, it is worth reflecting the crucial role of lifeboats in a crisis," Norman said.

The Silver Megathrust
Stephan Bogner - SilverSeek.com

"History does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme." (Mark Twain)

Between 1970 and 1979, the silver price was increasing steadily from $1.50 to $6, before taking off in September 1979 from $10 to $50 within 5 months. During that bull cycle, demand for silver did not increase but actually declined (sharply in 1979). It was as late as 1983 when demand increased confidently from 12,000 to 27,000 tons per year until 2000 – yet the silver price was in a 20 year bear market during that time. In 2003, when silver started its new bull market, the demand actually dropped to 23,000 tons until 2005 – during which 2 years silver almost doubled from $4.50 to $8. Since 2005, demand is rising stronger than ever, having reached 33,000 tons in 2010, whereas the silver price is rising strongly as well.
The initial comparisons indicate one important phenomenon in the silver market, namely that (industrial) silver demand is "price inelastic": that is, changes in price have a relatively small effect on the quantity demanded. The demand for other commodities is known to be "price elastic": that is, changes in price have a relatively large effect on the quantity demanded (if tomato prices blow up, go bananas).

Derivatives: The Unregulated Global Casino for Banks
9 Biggest Banks' Derivative Exposure - $228.72 Trillion
Demonocracy.info
SHORT STORY: Pick something of value, make bets on the future value of "something", add contract & you have a derivative.
Banks make massive profits on derivatives, and when the bubble bursts chances are the tax payer will end up with the bill.
This visualizes the total coverage for derivatives (notional). Similar to insurance company's total coverage for all cars.
LONG STORY: A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else. Ex- A derivative buys you the option (but not obligation) to buy oil in 6 months for today's price/any agreed price, hoping that oil will cost more in future. (I'll bet you it'll cost more in 6 months). Derivative can also be used as insurance, betting that a loan will or won't default before a given date. So its a big betting system, like a Casino, but instead of betting on cards and roulette, you bet on future values and performance of practically anything that holds value. The system is not regulated what-so-ever, and you can buy a derivative on an existing derivative.

5 New Lies That The Federal Reserve
Is Telling The American People
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The Federal Reserve says that everything is going to be okay. The Fed says that unemployment is going to go down, inflation is going to remain low and economic growth is going to steadily increase. Do you believe them this time? As you will see later in this article, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been dead wrong about the economy over and over again. But the mainstream media and many Americans still seem to have a lot of faith in the Federal Reserve. It doesn't seem to matter that Bernanke and other Fed officials have been telling the American people lies for years. As I always say, most people believe what they want to believe, and many people seem to want to have blind faith in the Federal Reserve even when logic and reason would dictate otherwise. The truth is that things are not going to be getting much better than they are right now. When the next wave of the financial crisis hits, the U.S. economy is going to fall back into recession, financial markets are going to crash and unemployment is going to absolutely skyrocket. But you will never hear any of that from the Federal Reserve.

Bernanke says bond purchases still an option
By Martin Crutsinger - AP - WashingtonTimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal ReserveChairman Ben S. Bernanke said Wednesday that further bond purchases by the Fed remain "very much on the table" if the economy needs further support.
Mr. Bernanke said the central bank is prepared to take additional actions, referring to a possible third round of bond buying. Two now-expired programs of Fed bond purchases were intended to push down long-term interest rates to encourage borrowing and spending.

Jim Grant On The Monetary Priesthood's "Atlas Complex"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The bow-tie-and-bespectacled Jim Grant once again takes the centrally-planned 'Office of Unintended Consequence' (aka The Fed) to task in a thoughtful exchange with Capital Account's Lauren Lyster. Reflecting on his recent opportunity to speak directly to various Fed officials, he found one particular question (on the perceived 'mass starvation' that occurred in the brutal earlier Depression beginning in 1920 which ended rapidly without the need for monetary stimulation) most disturbing in its summation of the central bank's 'Atlas Complex' - or how would we get up and go to work in the morning without them. The attitude of our Monetary Priesthood, he analogizes, is that unless they are active in their prayers and devotions, who knows what might happen? Grant goes on to discuss the hypocrisy of Bernanke (noting the importance of free market prices to his students and yet controlling interest rates overtly in the market-place) and highlights interest rates role as the traffic light signal in a market economy providing a critical input to our perception of value in stocks, bonds, real estate, Silicon Valley Startups, and so on andbecause these rates are manipulated we live and invest in a hall-of-mirrors leaving us with a distorted vision of the real-world.

Jim Grant explains how Central Banks
are Waging War on Supply and Demand
interview with Jim Grant begins at around 4:30

The Road to Surfdom
Storied Hatteras Island is threatened
with depopulation the modern way.
By SCOTT HOGENSON - The American Spectator.org
America's roads connect us with our lives. They carry us on mundane trips to work and school, adventurous treks to parts unknown, visits to friends and family. Roads are the arteries of the American Body, providing the lifeblood of commerce and recreation. But one road in particular has become the target of environmental tyranny, posing a grave threat to the people who rely on it for their livelihood and safety.
It is called Highway 12, a simple two-lane affair that serves as the lifeline for the villagers who live on Hatteras Island, situated among North Carolina's fabled Outer Banks. A narrow barrier island anchored many miles in the North Atlantic Ocean -- some refer to it as a giant sandbar -- Hatteras has but one main road which is the only way on or off the island other than boat or private aircraft. It is a necessity of life for the sturdy fishermen, shopkeepers, and tradesmen whose families have lived on Hatteras for generations

Spain Cut by S&P for 2nd Time This Year on Banks, Economy
By Cordell Eddings and Cheyenne Hopkins - Bloomberg.com
Concerns that Spain will have to provide further fiscal support to the banking sector as the economy contracts prompted Standard & Poor's to cut the nation's sovereign credit rating to BBB+ from A.
Spain's short-term rating was lowered to A-2 from A-1, while the outlook on the long-term rating is negative, New York- based S&P said in a statement yesterday.
The nation's 10-year borrowing costs have climbed about 70 basis points this year as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy struggles to convince investors he can control public finances amid soaring unemployment and a contracting economy. Banks threaten to disrupt the premier's efforts as bad loans reach the highest levels in almost two decades.

Milwaukee Red Cross Told To Prep
For Chicago Evacuation During NATO Summit
By Mike Parker - CBSChicago
CHICAGO (CBS) – Is there a secret plan to evacuate some residents of Chicago in the event of major trouble during the NATO summit next month? CBS 2 has uncovered some evidence that there is. It comes from the Milwaukee area branch of the American Red Cross.
CBS 2 News has obtained a copy of a Red Cross e-mail sent to volunteers in the Milwaukee area.
It said the NATO summit "may create unrest or another national security incident. The American Red Cross in southeastern Wisconsin has been asked to place a number of shelters on standby in the event of evacuation of Chicago."

Dr Deagle Show 2012/04/24 -
DR MIKE COFFMAN PhD - AMERICA PLUNDERED

Bill Gross On Europe's Dysfunction And US Double-Dips
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
PIMCO's Bill Gross spent a longer-than-soundbite period discussing QE3, the chance of a US double-dip, and Europe's ongoing dysfunction with Trish Regan on Bloomberg Television this afternoon. Given more than his typically limited-to-ten-second thoughts some other media outlets appear to prefer, the old-new-normal-bond-king believes theFed will resist another round of quantitative easing in the short-term but "if unemployment begins to rise for two-to-three months then QE3 is back on". Noting that investors should focus on nominal GDP growth tomorrow, he goes on to dismiss the idea that the US can decouple from a troubled Europe pointing the political dysfunction between the Germans and the rest as greater than the polarity between Democrats and Republicans here at home. Preferring to play a slightly levered long bet on low rates holding for a longer-period, he like MBS (as we have discussed in the past) but does not see the 10Y yield dropping precipitously from here though he does echo our thoughts entirely in his view of the 'flow' being more critical than the 'stock' when it comes to the Fed's balance sheet and hence the June end-of-Twist may be a volatile period for all asset classes.

Gross Cuts Treasuries, Raises Mortgages in Fed Buy Bet
By Susanne Walker and Trish Regan - Bloomberg.com
Pacific Investment Management Co.'s Bill Gross said that while more monetary stimulus isn't likely at the moment, additional quantitative easing remains an option for the Federal Reserve if employment growth is sluggish.
"The chairman has not ruled it out," Gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund, said during a Bloomberg Television "Street Smart" interview with Trish Regan. "If we see some weak employment reports over the next few months, then QE3 is back on."

Keiser Report "Tainted Sinkholes Of Fraud"
Further informations about topics addressed are available in favourites, play lists on my channel and complementary video responses. RT "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss the fact that the economy is naked with tainted sinkholes of fraud and ex-Citigroup board member, Richard Parsons, is blaming Glass Steagall. In the second half of the show Max talks to activist Reverend Billy about living in public, taking action and casting out Blythe's demons."

Bernanke Takes On Krugman's Criticism Ignoring Own Advice
By Jeff Kearns and Craig Torres - Bloomberg.com
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke took on Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman yesterday and called his advice to reduce unemployment by boosting inflation "reckless."
"The question is, does it make sense to actively seek a higher inflation rate in order to achieve" a slightly faster reduction in the unemployment rate, Bernanke said yesterday to reporters after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting. "The view of the committee is that that would be very reckless."

A Time for Choosing
By JAMES PIERESON - The American Spectator.org
Better that we become a nation of choosers rather than beggars. An introduction to our special symposium.
When the Soviet empire collapsed 25 years ago, many believed that the battle for liberty and limited government had been won. It was only a matter of time, they thought, until America's centrally planned welfare state would give way to a more rational system based upon competition and citizen choice in areas such as education, health care, and retirement planning. They were wrong. Government has continued to grow at all levels in the United States since the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall came down, consuming more resources, imposing ever more burdensome regulations on business, and running up unprecedented levels of debt. While our leaders cheered the collapse of socialism abroad, they still supported highly centralized government programs at home.

Child agricultural regulations withdrawn
Michael McGuire - US Senate Examiner
A controversial move to curb young people under 16 from working in agricultural settings was dropped Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
"The decision to withdraw this rule – including provisions to define the 'parental exemption' – was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small family-owned farms," theLabor Department said. "To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration."

Student Loan Debt Slaves In Perpetuity -
A True Story Of "Bankruptcy Hell"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The numeric implications as well as the magnitude of the student loan bubble have been discussed extensively before. Yet just like most people's eyes gloss over when they hear billions, trillions or quadrillions, so seeing theexponential chart of Federal Student debt merely brings up memories of a math lesson from high school, or at best, makes one think of statistics. And as we all know statistics are faceless, nameless and can never apply to anyone else. It is the individual case studies that have the most impact. Which is why we would like to introduce you to Devin and Sarah Stang - student loan debt slaves in perpetuity.
First, for those who are still unfamiliar with the brush strokes, here is the big picture, courtesy of AP:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates 37 million Americans have student loan debt, totaling $870 billion. The average balance is around $23,000 (though that partly reflects a relatively small number of very large balances; the median is $12,800). Only 39 percent are paying down balances. An estimated 5.4 million borrowers have at least one student loan account past due.

Student loan subsidies in a tangled budget web
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times
Student loans versus oil companies. Or student loans versus high-paid lawyers and consultants. Or student loans versus Democrats' health care law.
While Capitol Hill spars over how to pay for the $6 billion cost, Republicans and Democrats made one thing clear this week: College students will get a helping hand from the government in the form of continued subsidies for their student loans.
But along the way, each party is offering up one of its favorite political targets in an effort to frame the debate as a choice between young college students and others whom each side paints as less worthy.

Dr. Bill Deagle w/ Jeff Rense 2012/04/24 - Multiple Updates

Cooling Job Market Takes Toll on U.S. Confidence: Economy
By Timothy R. Homan and Shobhana Chandra - Bloomberg.com
More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week andconsumer confidence declined by the most in a year, signaling that a cooling labor market may restrain household spending.
Jobless claims fell to 388,000 from a revised 389,000 the prior week that was the highest since early January, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index declined to minus 35.8 from minus 31.4 the previous week.

A farewell to U.S. factories
Calls to address decline in manufacturing misguided
By Gary Becker
BEIJING ( Caixin Online ) — Manufacturing employment as a fraction of total employment has been declining for the past half century in the United States and the great majority of other developed countries. A 1968 book about developments in the American economy by Victor Fuchs was already entitled "The Service Economy."
Although the absolute number of jobs in American manufacturing was rather constant at about 17 million from 1969 to 2002, manufacturing's share of jobs continued to decline from about 28% in 1962 to only 9% in 2011.

Foreclosures rose in major metro areas
in first quarter; jobless claims data mixed
By Brady Dennis - WashingtonPost.com
The number of foreclosures rose during the first three months of the year in more than half of the nation's metropolitan areas, even as such activity dipped from the previous year in many of those cities, according to a report released Thursday by the research firm RealtyTrac.
The numbers show that foreclosures increased during the first quarter in 26 of the country's 50 largest metro areas, with the highest jumps in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Philadelphia. The most significant decreases came in Portland, Las Vegas and Providence, R.I.

Insurance rebates totalling $1.3 billion
could be on the way this summer, study says
By N.C. Aizenman - WashingtonPost.com
This summer millions of Americans could find a check in the mail from an unexpected source: their health-insurance company.
Consumers and businesses will receive about $1.3 billion by this August from insurance plans that failed to meet a new standard in the 2010 health-care law, according to estimates released Thursday by the independent Kaiser Family Foundation. (That's assuming the law, or at least the portion of it containing the rule, is upheld by the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue its decision in late June.)

The Bailout Of The US Postal Service Begins:
Cost To Taxpayers -
$110,000 Per Union Vote "Saved Or Gained"
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
A week ago, when reading between the lines of what had heretofore been considered an inevitable USPS episode of austerity in which hundreds of thousands of labor union workers would lose their jobs but in the process would streamline a thoroughly outdated and inefficient US Postal Office bureaucracy, we asked if a US Postal Service bailout was imminent, focusing on the following: "Enter Ron Bloom, Lazard, and the very same crew that ended up getting a taxpayer funded bailout for GM. From the WSJ: "The Postal Service's proposal to close thousands of post offices and cut back on the number of days that mail is delivered "won't work" and would accelerate the agency's decline, according to the six-page report by Ron Bloom, President Barack Obama's former auto czar, and investment bank Lazard Ltd., LAZ who were hired by the union in October." That's right: after all the huffing and puffing about "sacrifice" and austerity, the labor union took one long look at the only option... and asked what other option is there." The other option, it turns out courtesy of news from AP, is the first of many incremental bail outs of the US Postal Office, better known in pre-election circles as hundreds of thousands of unionized votes up for the taking, and which could be bought for the low low price of $11 billion in taxpayer money, or $110,000 per vote! And so the latest bailout of yet another terminally inefficient and outdated government entity begins.

Senate OKs Postal Service overhaul bill:
What's at stake for small businesses?
By J.D. Harrison - WashingtonPost.com
The Senate has approved a plan to overhaul the government's efforts to rescue the United States Postal Service, but the cost of the measure may make it a tough sell in the House.
On Wednesday, Senators voted 62 to 37 to approve the bill, which would give the deeply indebted agency nearly $11 billion toward buyouts and early retirement incentives for thousands of workers, simplify the process for closing post offices and mail distribution centers, and establish several new service standards.

Ken Salazar's Fairy Tale Energy PolicyOil
InstituteForEnergyResearch.org
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar trumpeted the Obama Administration's "all-of-the-above" energy policies at the National Press Club yesterday –policies that exclude oil and natural gas drilling on many federal lands and that kill coal production and consumption. Instead of making federal lands and waters owned by America open to oil and gas drilling and removing onerous regulations on fossil fuel industries, particularly coal, Secretary Salazar lashed out at Congress tantrum-like and demanded they pass legislation he wants.

Salazar: 'No one knows' if US headed to $9/gal gas
byJoel Gehrke - WashingtonExaminer.com
Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that "no one knows" if gasoline prices in the United States will reach $9 per gallon, and acknowledged that the possibility is outside his control.
"I don't think anyone can speculate what will happen with respect to oil prices and gas prices because they are set on the global economy," Salazar told reporterswhen asked if gas prices could reach $9 per gallon, as they have been in Greece. "Where it will all end, no one knows.

Interior Secretary:
'Not Even Harry Potter' Can Bring Down Gas Prices
By Matt Cover - CNSNews.com
(CNSNews.com) – "Not even Harry Potter" can bring down rising gas prices and nobody knows when they will stop rising, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday.
"No one has the ability – not even Harry Potter – to simply wave a magic wand and say that we're going to have gas prices at $2 or $2.50 or $3. It just doesn't work that way," said Salazar, whose department controls oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
The comments came after a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on energy issues.

Salazar: House Republicans live in "imagined energy world,"
says they are members of a "flat earth" society
By ALLISON SHERRY - The Denver Post
WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar sharply rebuked House Republicans Tuesday, calling them "charter members of the flat earth society" and saying they are living in an "imagined energy world … of fairy tales" in striking a balance between energy development and preserving lands.
"It's an invention of campaign years and political rhetoric. It's a place where you hear cries of drill, drill, drill, not withstanding the fact that most of the outer continental shelf resources are open for business," Salazar said in a speech at the National Press Club. "It's a place where up is seen as down, where left is seen as right, where oil shale seems to be mistaken every day in the U.S. House of Representative for shale oil, where record profits justify billions of dollars in subsidies."

High Court Skeptical of Obama's Use of Power
as Campaign Starts
By Greg Stohr - Bloomberg.com
President Barack Obama faces the specter of twin setbacks at the U.S. Supreme Court in the middle of his re-election campaign with justices questioning his assertion of federal power on both health care and immigration.
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, the president's top courtroom lawyer, met resistance across ideological lines yesterday as he called on the court to strike down Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants. Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's only Hispanic and an Obama appointee, told Verrilli his argument is "not selling very well."

Pentagon preps chopping block for next round of base closures
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times
Defense Department officials are quick to say the formal process of selecting U.S. military bases for closure will not begin until Congress says so.
But people inside the Pentagon already are talking about candidates for the politically charged process that often triggers intense opposition from governors, mayors and local business leaders.
Defense sources say, for example, that the Air Force has too many pilot training centers and can consolidate some to save money. It has retired 500 aircraft since the last round of closings in 2005, yet maintains about the same base infrastructure.

Rense and Michael Collins
Fukushima Radiation Update 23rd April 2012

A Spanish Company Known As Scytl
Will Be Reporting Election Results
For Hundreds Of U.S. Jurisdictions On Election Day
By Michael Snyder - EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
Do you know who is going to be counting the votes on Election Day 2012? Most Americans never even think about this. Most Americans just assume that their votes will count and that the government will ensure that the counting process is done honestly and fairly. But is this really the case? Sadly, the vast majority of people never take the time to "look behind the curtain" to see how things really work. If they did, they might find themselves extremely upset about what they would find. The integrity of our voting process is of the utmost importance. If we do not have the ballot box, then what avenues for changing our government do we have left? Unfortunately, the integrity of our elections has been called into question quite a few times in recent years, and now a Spanish company known as Scytl will be involved in reporting election results for hundreds of jurisdictions across the United States this upcoming election day. Will those election results be accurate?

Feds' Use of Fake Cell Tower: Did it Constitute a Search?
By Kim Zetter - Wired.com
Federal authorities used a fake Verizon cellphone tower to zero in on a suspect's wireless card, and say they were perfectly within their rights to do so, even without a warrant.
But the feds don't seem to want that legal logic challenged in court by the alleged identity thief they nabbed using the spoofing device, known generically as a stingray. So the government is telling a court for the first time that spoofing a legitimate wireless tower in order to conduct surveillance could be considered a search under the Fourth Amendment in this particular case, and that its use was legal, thanks to a court order and warrant that investigators used to get similar location data from Verizon's own towers.

9 Reasons Wired Readers Should Wear Tinfoil Hats
By David Kravets - Wired.com
Fake Cell Phone Towers
You make a call on your cellphone thinking the only thing standing between you and the recipient of your call is your carrier's cellphone tower. In fact, that tower your phone is connecting to just might be a boobytrap set up by law enforcement to ensnare your phone signals and maybe even the content of your calls.
So-called stingrays are one of the new high-tech tools that authorities are using to track and identify you. The devices, about the size of a suitcase, spoof a legitimate cellphone tower in order to trick nearby cellphones and other wireless communication devices into connecting to the tower, as they would to a real cellphone tower.

Hands Off the Internet!
By Ron Paul
Dear Colleagues:
Please join me in opposing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR 3523), which will create a monstrous coalition of big business and big government to rob Americans of their protections under the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.
CISPA permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight, provided they merely do so in the name of "cybersecurity." But America is a constitutional republic, not a surveillance state-- and the wildly overhyped need for security does not trump the Constitution we all swore to uphold.

Another Bait and Switch? Obama Opposes CISPA. Yeah, Right
Even as drones are deployed domestically to spy on American citizens, Barack Obama is posing as a champion of privacy and civil liberties by threatening to veto the CISPA web snooping bill, just as his administration pretended to be hostile to the National Defense Authorization Act before signing it anyway.

CISPA battlefield: Facts & Figures
RT.com
The House of Representatives has approved CISPA, a controversial bill that will give the government additional levers to monitor the Internet. But what are its chances of being passed into law, and what will it mean for Internet users?
In spite of protest from the Obama administration that CISPA encroaches on the civil liberties of Americans, the House of Representatives is marching ahead with the legislation. It met on Thursday to discuss the controversial act ahead of Friday's decision.
In addition, the House Rules Committee dismissed a list of changes to the legislation suggested by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). The amendments would have potentially limited private companies from sharing cyberthreat data with US government bodies.

Cybersecurity Measure Heads to House Floor
Despite Privacy Fears
By David Kravets - Wired.com
The House is scheduled as early as Thursday to begin debating cybersecurity legislation that privacy groups warn is a threat to civil liberties.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, is sponsored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland). Its stated goal is a more secure internet, but privacy groups fear the measure breaches Americans' privacy along the way. The White House weighed in on Wednesday, threatening a veto unless there were significant changes to increase consumer privacy.

House Passes CISPA: Red Alert!
So this is how freedom dies.

U.S. Drones Can Now Kill Joe Schmoe Militants in Yemen
By Noah Shachtman - Wired.com
In September, American-born militant Anwar al-Awlaki and his son were killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. In the seven months since, the al-Qaida affiliate there has only grown in power, influence, and lethality. The American solution? Authorize more drone attacks — and not just against well-known extremists like Awlaki, but against faceless, nameless, low-level terrorists as well.
A relentless campaign of unmanned airstrikes has significantly weakened al-Qaida's central leadership in Pakistan, American policymakers say. There, militants were chosen for robotic elimination based solely on their intelligence "signatures" — their behavior, as captured by wiretaps, overhead surveillance and local informants. A similar approach might not work in this case, however. "Every Yemeni is armed," one unnamed U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal. "So how can they differentiate between suspected militants and armed Yemenis?"

Federal Govt Attempts
to Seize Control of Food Retail System
An InfoWars exclusive interview with Kristen Canty, the director and producer of the new hard hitting documentary Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms. Includes theatrical trailer of the film and video footage of armed authorities raiding family farms and stores.

State Officials In Alabama Close Gulf Shrimping After Scientists Find Severe Deformities
Submitted by George Washington - ZeroHedge.com
After scientists and fishermen have found severe deformities in a substantial percentage of Gulf seafood, the State of Alabama have moved to shut down shrimping.
WERC-FM local news reports:
Some area waters along the Gulf Coast will close to shrimping starting today. The areas closed are all waters in the Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay, areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay, and Little Lagoon. The closure comes after scientists found smaller than average population of shrimp and lesions. They say the plan to test the water and will continue to run samples until the waters are re-opened. There is no set time when the waters will be open for shrimping again.

NORAD and USNORTHCOM Conduct ARDENT SENTRY 2012
TheIntelHub.com
USNORTHCOM
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. - The North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command will conduct a major exercise, ARDENT SENTRY 2012, focused on Defense Support of Civil Authorities, May 2 – 9, 2012.
The exercise will be primarily a Command Post Exercise, but there will be field training events within the exercise. Those events will take place in North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Alaska, Connecticut and Nova Scotia and involve United States and Canadian military units.
- North Dakota, the Air Force Global Strike Command will respond to a simulated Nuclear Weapons Incident (NUWAIX) on Minot Air Force Base.

Russian Troops To Target Terrorists in America
As Part of Drill Joint U.S.-Russian anti-terror exercise
stokes fears of martial law
Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.com
Russian airborne troops are set to train how to target terrorists in America as part of a joint anti-terror drill with the United States which will take place in Fort Carson, Colorado at the end of next month.
"Airborne troops from Russia and the United States would hold joint anti-terror drills in the U.S. state of Colorado between May 24 and 31," reports the Xinhua news agency, citing Russian Defense Ministry Col. Alexander Kucherenko. The story was also reported by Russian news outletRIA Novosti.

Red Dawn - Russia - America -
1980's Movie Opening Scenes - World War 3

The Middle East Quartet
An institutionalized failure sustained by U.S. complicity.
By DANIEL MANDEL - The American Spectator.org
Strange as it might seem, U.S. policy defers to others -- sometimes, more than is good for it. Thus, for some time, there has been not been much of a U.S. policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. There has been a Middle East Quartet policy. And it has taken the U.S. into an expensive dead-end.
The Quartet is a decade-old, hastily conceived grouping of the European Union, the Russian Federation, the United Nations, and the United States. It includes entrenched pro-Arab bureaucracies. Unsurprisingly, it has adopted policies that prolong rather than mitigate the Palestinian/Arab war on Israel -- while America funds both the Israelis and the PA.

International military operation looms for Syria
The new ceasefire set for May 5 could prove a turning point in the Syrian conflict. If the truce fails, an international peacekeeping intervention might become a reality.
Growing frustration over ongoing violence in spite of a recent ceasefire agreement is pushing world powers to search for new means to influence the confrontation.
A new ceasefire date, May 5, has been set to give mediation a chance. The peace process has been "severely compromised" recently, said Alain Juppe, French Foreign Minister on Wednesday.
As the UN Security Council has authorized the deployment of 300 international observers to monitor the situation, Juppe believes the new ceasefire will become a "moment of truth" to define whether mediation can resolve the conflict.

Gantz: IDF and other armies ready
to strike Iran's nuclear capabilities
DEBKAfile.com
Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu acted Thursday, April 26, to correct the damaging impression of divided and uncertain perceptions of the Iranian nuclear threat left by statements delivered in the last two days by himself and Defense Minster Ehud Barak.
Israel's chief of staff Gen. Benny Gantz rallied to the task with an unambiguous comment that "other countries have readied their armed forces for a potential strike against Iran's nuclear sites to keep Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The military force is ready. Not only our forces but other forces as well," he said without elaborating.
"We all hope it will not be necessary to use this force, but we are absolutely sure of its existence."
DEBKAfile reports from Washington that Gen. Gantz's words were seen in US official circles as the strongest affirmation yet from Jerusalem that Israel has partners for a direct attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

'US not ready to wage war against Iran'
RT.com
Despite conflicting statements from top Israeli officials on Iran's nuclear program, the threat of war remains high. US Colonel Douglas McGregor told RT that after an Israeli strike, Tehran won't need to build nuclear bombs - it will be given them.
Russia Today: President Obama has put forward an ultimatum for Iran: either make progress with negotiators or face consequences, meaning war. Some say a strike [on Iran] may happen within the next few months. In your opinion, how realistic is that? Should we expect a war in summer?
Douglas McGregor: A topical question right now in Washington DC. I think the answer right at the moment is no. President Obama is not remotely interested in waging war against Iran, so let's be clear about that. No one at the top of the United States military establishment is interested in waging war against Iran, and the intelligence community has made it abundantly clear that Iran is nowhere near the development of a nuclear warhead or the capacity to deliver one. So when you add those things up, it's very, very obvious, at least in the places that count, the White House and the Department of Defense, there is no interest in waging a war on Iran.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Archived Page Link
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -