Politics and Legislation
Britain pushes for mass surveillance society
Uploaded by RTAmerica on Mar 15, 2012
Soon you can be watched everywhere you go in the UK. All your emails, texts and phone calls will be monitored and you can even be seen where cameras can’t. This could all be possible with a new anti-terrorism spy plan. Security companies will have real time access to all your personal happenings at the click of a button. Here is our report.
N.Y. Passes DNA Requirement For Convicted Criminals
Early on Thursday, lawmakers in New York approved a bill that will make the state the first to require DNA samples from almost all convicted criminals — and make its DNA database one of the largest in the nation.
http://www.nhpr.org/post/ny-passes-dna-requirement-convicted-criminals
GOP: Obama, Dems need to do more to fight high gas prices
By Molly K. Hooper
Republicans attacked President Obama’s energy policies as the cause of high gas prices in Saturday’s weekly address.
http://thehill.com/video/house/216505-gop-obama-needs-to-do-more-to-fight-high-gas-prices
White House looks to change the optics in debate over rising gas prices
By Amie Parnes
The White House is shifting its optics on gas prices after struggling in recent days to win the public debate over the issue.
Obama: Fight high gas prices by ending subsidies, fraud
By Jamie Klatell
While saying there is no “silver bullet,” President Obama said Saturday that regulating energy markets and cutting government subsidies to big oil firms will help control spikes in the prices of gas.
http://thehill.com/video/administration/216507-obama-fight-high-gas-prices-by-ending-subsidies-fraud
White House: Colleges must cover birth control for students
By Sam Baker
Most universities will have to cover birth control in their students’ health plans, the Obama administration said Friday.
GOP split on health-law repeal strategy
By Julian Pecquet
Two conservative Republicans on Friday blasted House leaders for scheduling a vote to repeal an unpopular provision of the healthcare reform law.
If You Took the Greed Out of Wall Street, All You’d Have Left Is Pavement
Robert Reich, Op-Ed:
The Street has only itself to blame. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it lobbied intensely against the new Dodd-Frank Act and refused to resurrect Glass-Steagall. The cost of such cynicism has leached deep into America, finding expression in Tea Partiers and Occupiers and millions of others who think the Street has sold us out.
The Power of Recalls in Wisconsin
John Nichols, Op-Ed:
With Wisconsin recall elections looming against four Republican state Senators — as well as Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch — the state’s politics was thrown for another loop Friday when a targeted senator up and quit. State Senator Pam Galloway, a Tea Party favorite and one of Walker’s steadiest backers in the legislature, announced her immediate resignation from the legislature and her decision not to contest the recall election.
http://www.nationofchange.org/power-recalls-wisconsin-1331997712
Economy
Five Charts That Prove We’re in a Depression and That the Federal Reserve and Washington Are Wasting Money
By Graham Summers
Wall Street and mainstream economists are abuzz that we’re seeing a recovery in the US due to the latest jobs data. These folks are not only missing the big picture, but they’re not even reading the fine print (more on this in a moment).
The reality is that what’s happening in the US today is not a cyclical recession, but a one in 100 year, secular economic shift.
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1331571258.php
Gas prices still climbing, top $4 in 6 states
Pump prices click higher to national average of $3.83 a gallon, with 6 states above $4.00
Gasoline prices rose again Friday and are now averaging more than $4 in six states and Washington, D.C. Oil had its biggest gain in three weeks and natural gas prices also rose.
Retail gasoline prices were up a penny on Friday to a national average of $3.831 per gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gas-prices-still-climbing-top-165457157.html;_ylt=Ao1Q5Ln8g6oB0Kdt8qRBnJSiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ0dnFmNjdlBG1pdANGaW5hbmNlIEZQIFRvcCBTdG9yeSBSaWdodARwa2cDYzVlMDc2YjMtNWRmNS0zMmUzLWE5YzgtNjI0NzA1ZWRhOGNiBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN0b3Bfc3RvcnkEdmVyAzI3NGFjZTk5LTZmYTAtMTFlMS1iZjdhLWM0YTZhNDQyZTAyZA–;_ylg=X3oDMTFvdnRqYzJoBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3
Oil hits $107 after US denial of crude release
Oil rises past $107 a day after US denies plan to release crude supplies
NEW YORK (AP) — Crude oil prices rose Friday, a day after the government denied reports that the U.S. and the U.K. plan to release some of their strategic crude reserves.
In New York trading, benchmark oil for April delivery rose $1.95 a barrel, or about 2 percent, to finish at $107.06, the biggest gain since Feb. 24.
Doomsday Survey: 51% of Americans Believe a Financial Collapse Is Imminent; 85% Say Country Is Overwhelmingly Under-Prepared
A recent survey of 1,007 nationally representative Americans ages 18 and over suggests that most of us believe a doomsday scenario of some kind will occur in the next twenty five years.
With three million preppers in the U.S. getting ready for widespread disaster, gun sales sky rocketing, and retail precious metals purchases at unprecedented levels, the results of the survey performed by Kelton Research on behalf of National Geographic shouldn’t be surprising.
The Fed Isn’t Providing Monetary Morphine; Its Spreading Financial Cancer That Is Killing the Markets And Democratic Capitalism In General
CONTRIBUTOR: Graham Summers.
~ Phoenix Capital Research While the vast majority of commentators look at the market action of the last three months and celebrate, I cannot help but shudder. The reason is that the stock market has been propped up solely by Central Bank and/or Federal Government intervention or the hope…
Preventing the Fall of Rome
Gar Alperovitz, Op-Ed:
How far continuing financial and political pressures may lead other officials to attempt to secure revenues by selling off public assets is an open question. Public resistance to such strategies, although less widely publicized, has been surprisingly strong in many areas. Toll road sales have been held up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and newly elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently voiced his opposition to an attempt to privatize Midway Airport as previously attempted by Daley.
http://www.nationofchange.org/preventing-fall-rome-1331994900
Senate Bill Could Roll Back Consumers’ Health Insurance Savings
Lena Groeger, News Report:
This is the first year that companies are required to send out rebates. According to a report by state insurance commissioners, if rebates had been handed out last year, insurers would have had to pay consumers almost $2 billion. If they had carved out the broker fees, as proposed in the two current bills, consumers would have gotten only about $800 million. The rebates have gotten relatively modest attention. Only 38 percent of the public is even aware of the rule’s existence, according to a Kaiser poll.
Wars and Rumors of War
Panetta Disarms Marines in Afghanistan Amid Fears of Possible Rogue Marine Shooting
Uploaded by ObamaBC on Mar 14, 2012
It has been denied that Secretary of Defense Panetta’s disarming of Marines in Afghanistan March 14 had anything to do with a rogue Army sniper’s killing of sixteen Afghan civilians earlier in the week, but many are calling the move highly unusual, and one source states disarming Marines in a combat zone is contrary to military protocol. Approximately two hundred Marines were told to leave their weapons outside a tent while listening to Panetta’s speech, but many state disarming the Marines will lead to a morale problem due to a high official distrusting his own troops. Sources state the Marines felt uncomfortable being without their weapons in what is essentially a war zone. What many considered a rush to judgement given the the rogue U.S. sniper’s history of PTSD and TBI (traumatic brain injury), Leon Panetta had stated almost immediately that the soldier could face the death penalty. This was odd and hypocritical to many, given that many feel the Obama administration ostensibly armed drug cartels with Fast and Furious weapons that were used to kill hundreds of Mexican citizens, and at least two U.S. citizens, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata, and no one has called for the death penalty in these cases, let alone actual charges being filed.
3/14/12 By Kris Zane
How Mossad Justified Its Murder of an Innocent Iranian Electrical Engineer
By Gareth Porter
On July 23, 2011, a 35-year-old Iranian electrical engineering student named Darioush Rezaeinejad was gunned down as he and his wife, who was also wounded in the attack, waited for their child in front of a kindergarten in Tehran.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30850.htm
America and the Middle East:
Psycho Warriors Who Deceive Humanity
By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD
Global peace, humanity and security of the Middle East region are the net causality of Obama’s egomaniac rhetoric.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30849.htm
Top diplomat: Saudi Arabia is smuggling arms to Syria:
Arab diplomat says Saudi Arabia is delivering military equipment to Free Syrian Army ‘to stop bloodshed by Assad’s regime’.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=51267
U.S. ‘Concerned’ About Iranian Flights to Syria:
The United States has expressed concern that Iranian cargo planes overflying Iraq may be shipping weapons to Syria.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20120317/172223863.html
Turkey urges citizens to leave Syria, set to cut consular services:
Move comes as reports indicate 4 members of the Gulf Cooperation Council will close their embassies in Syria over the ongoing political crisis.
Environmental
The Department of Homeland Security Plans to Build a High-Risk Virus Research Center in the Heart of America
J. D. Heyes, News Report:
“The United States works on the frontline of livestock animal health research to defend against foreign animal, emerging, and zoonotic diseases that could threaten the U.S. livestock industry, food supply, and public health,” says Homeland Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology Tara O’Toole, in a departmental risk assessment posted online. “To address congressional requirements, this detailed, updated risk assessment reaffirms that we can build a safe and secure facility to meet this important mission.”
The True Cost of the Tar Sands
Video Report:
“Garth Lenz is an award winning conservation photographer whose work has been seen in shows around the globe. Recently he appeared at a TEDx event in Victoria, BC Canada with his exhibition, The True Cost of Oil. Through Lenz’s photography, this exhibit showcases the beauty of some of Canada’s pristine environments—and the dire impact that tar sands oil extraction has on them.”
http://www.nationofchange.org/photos-true-cost-tar-sands-1331993923
Misc
‘Kony 2012′ director hospitalized
Published on Mar 16, 2012 by CNN
CNN’s Erin Burnett reports that one of the men behind the “Kony 2012″ video was found in the street in his underwear.
US soldier accused of shooting Afghan civilians identified
By Carlo Munoz
The U.S. soldier accused of going on a shooting rampage that left 16 Afghan civilians dead on Sunday has been identified as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a U.S. official confirmed to The Hill.
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/army/216503-us-soldier-accused-in-afghan-shootings-identified
Big Pharma’s Evil Motives Exposed (video)
CONTRIBUTOR: BARRACUDA.
Former Scientist, and Pharma Executive Speaks Out On The True Motives of Big Pharma Dr. John Virapen has worked more than three decades in the pharmaceutical industry. As an insider, former scientist and whistleblower, he is now dedicated to expose and create awareness on how the pharmaceutical industry is operating with…
Democrats Push New Obama US Flag: Here Is A Picture Of It (Shocking?) (Shocking?)
CONTRIBUTOR: RidgeRunner.
Some Democrats are flying, selling and proposing an Obama faced American Flag. How do you feel about this? What feeling does this picture evoke in you as an American? …
Foreclosure Victim Wins $18 Million as Part of Federal Mortgage Settlement
Travis Waldron, News Report:
“Fraudulent foreclosures have reached near-pandemic levels since the collapse of the housing market. At banks like Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America, fraudulent practices like robo-signing were approved by upper-level management, and employees with no banking experience were given vice-president level titles so they could sign foreclosure documents (one Wells Fargo ‘Vice President’ came to the bank from a pizza restaurant).”
