statism watch

Oh, the prosecution accidentally completely violated rules of evidence. That’s not suspicious at all. Think they threw the case? Comment below.

Flashback:CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan | Blackwater guards linked to secret CIA raids | Blackwater’s Erik Prince: Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy | Taliban: Blackwater to blame for Pakistan attacks | Report: Blackwater approved plan to pay off Iraqi officials | Taliban Chief Blames Blackwater, ISI for Peshawar Blast | Ex-employees claim Blackwater pimped out young Iraqi girls | Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Implicated in Murder | Obama’s Blackwater? Chicago Mercenary Firm Gets Millions for Private “Security” in Israel and Iraq | Blackwater, mired in Iraq controversy, changes its name to ‘Xe’ | Official: Blackwater contract for Iraq not renewed | Blackwater Guards facing Charges in Case of 17 Dead Iraqi Citizens | Madsen: CIA collusion with “Al Qaeda” financiers and attack planners | Blackwater-linked firm to train Canadian troops | Canadian troops continue gearing up, to receive US counter-insurgency training | Blackwater Worldwide, Wal-Mart of modern war

Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian
December 31, 2009

US justice department ‘disappointed’ by decision to throw out charges against five guards accused of killing up to 17 Iraqis

So… not only was there no passport involved in all of this international travel, according to eyewitnesses, but Mutallab didn’t even have a Yemeni visa. The official story just gets more and more ridiculous. But the mainstream media has already moved on, and those who simply skim the news are going to be all for drone attacks in Yemen in a few weeks. Sad.

Flashback: US plots retaliatory strikes against al-Qaida in Yemen over plane bomber | Officials Admit Second Man Detained As More Witnesses Emerge in ‘Underwear Bomb’ Case | Detroit bombing: US had received intelligence suggesting Nigerian was planning an attack | US jet plot suspect ‘was in Yemen in December’ | Obama vows to step up terror fight | U.S. quietly takes terror war to Yemen | ‘Al-Qaeda’ in Yemen claims responsibility for attack on plane | Britain ‘barred US air terror suspect’ | Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport | Father of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Nigerian terror suspect in Flight 253 attack, warned U.S. | British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt

Ahmed Al-Haj, Canadian Press
December 31, 2009

The Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner had stayed on in Yemen illegally after his visa expired three months ago and should have been stopped by authorities from leaving the country, Yemeni security officials said Thursday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent time in Yemen on two occasions before the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.

Yemeni officials said Abdulmutallab’s student visa for Yemen, where he studied Arabic at a local language institute, was valid from Aug. 4 to Sept. 21.

After his visa expired, the 23-year-old stayed on in Yemen until the first week in December, they said, but his whereabouts in the country is unknown.

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The following suggests an interesting issue. First, grant that in a rational monetary system, constricted supply of a monetary commodity just means you use less of it to pay for what you need as the value of the commodity – in this case, gold – goes up. So if we’re at a point where we have to destroy our water supply to extract gold, do we not need to say that we are at an end or find a new way of mining that doesn’t cause actual environmental destruction. This sort of environmental destruction is objectively an assault on everyone depending on the watershed. Now, grant that the economic incentives to mine the monetary commodity take us offworld in the future. Gold is a scarce product of supernovae, but what if a rich deposit were found? Would we be forced to move to an alternative, a scarcer metal with the similar monetary characteristics of divisibility and non-reactivity? In either case, the solution certainly is not to move to paper of all things.

Flashback: Gold surges above $1,200 | We’re running out of gold: miners | Gold rallies to record above $1,100 | Gold prices surge as India buys IMF reserves | Plentiful paper currency buffing gold’s shine | Gold continues record-breaking run | Gold price rises to all-time high | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | Gold regains $1,000 | Gold toys with $1000/oz | Industrial demand for silver sharpens bullish view | Global demand for gold investment soars 38% in past year | Bank crisis spawns new kind of gold rush | Gold Tops $1,000, First Time Since March as Recession Deepens | Manipulation Of Gold And Silver Prices Further Exposed | Analysts Predict Hyper-Inflation To Push Gold To $2000, Oil to $300 | Ottawa warns on gold-backed Web trades

Rory Carroll, The Guardian
December 31, 2009

Villagers and NGOs have accused Goldcorp of poisoning people and livestock by contaminating the Siria valley

Authorities in Honduras are investigating claims that one of the world’s biggest gold mining corporations has contaminated a valley with toxic heavy metals. Villagers and non-governmental organisations have accused Goldcorp of killing livestock and making people sick by polluting land and rivers in the Siria valley.

The environmental prosecutor is undertaking an investigation after being presented with evidence that the Canadian corporation’s San Martin opencast mine discharged highly acidic and metal-rich water in 2008. The company has denied wrongdoing.

The inquiry comes at a critical time when record gold prices are encouraging other mining corporations to explore fresh sites in Honduras. Environmentalists fear the impoverished central American country will lift a moratorium on new mining after a new government takes office in January.

Goldcorp is shutting the decade-old San Martin mine after extracting nearly 12,000 tonnes of ore from its forested slopes. The dynamite explosions have stopped and there are no more ore-laden trucks rattling down rutted, dusty roads.

People in villages bordering the site say the damage is done and the fields and streams are poisoned. “The water tastes like acid, like something out of a car battery,” said Roger Abraham, vice-president of the Siria Valley Environmental Committee, an activist group. “It would have been better if the mine never came. It has done more harm than good.”

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Initial jobs claims dropped ‘unexpectedly’ – in the week before Christmas.

Flashback: Economic picture still not very bright, and more layoffs are in store, manufacturers say | U.S. unemployment claims spike | Unemployed to reach postwar high: OECD

CBC News
December 31, 2009

The number of U.S. workers filing initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped unexpectedly last week, a sign the job market is healing as the economy slowly recovers.

The U.S. Labour Department said Thursday that in the week ended Dec. 26, 2009, the number of newly laid-off workers filing for benefits fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000, the lowest since July 2008. That’s much better than the rise to 460,000 that Wall Street economists were expecting.

The four-week moving average was 460,250, a decrease of 5,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 465,750. Many economists pay closer attention to the four-week average because it smooths out fluctuations. The four-week figure has now declined for 17 straight weeks, so its steady decline is an encouraging sign that the labour market is on the mend. [Ed. Note: Now there's a statistic with some credence - but it could also mean, simply that the economy has contracted to a point at which it will remain indefinitely, with massive unemployment. We'll see.]

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To Dalton McGuinty, ‘Progress’ always equals higher taxes and, more, adopting the European VAT system so we can push through another ‘free trade’ agreement, apparently. We don’t need that kind of progress. How about rolling back to the tax system of a hundred years ago, instead, while keeping our new social attitudes. Economic conservativism and social liberalism. And yet we’re being pushed towards the antithesis. As Marvin Gaye asked – what’s going on? If only we would.

Flashback: Lower tax haul helps widen Ottawa deficit, $56.2B shortfall expected | Ottawa on track for largest-ever deficit | Ontario deficit billions more than expected | Economy was a dud in July | Stephen Harper trumpets economic report card | Ontario deficit $2.5B worse than expected due to drop in corporate tax | Ottawa’s deficit plan would hike EI premiums | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Flaherty sees deficit, debt, and timetable to return to surplus all expanding | Federal deficit hits $7.5B in April-May | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | Stimulus cash is flowing – down a hole? | Harper lays out stimulus spending in progress report | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Auto bailout costs soar, contribute to $50B deficit | Federal deficit to top $50B | Ontario facing massive deficit | Flaherty vows short-lived deficit, consults corporate chiefs on spending initiatives | Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion | Deficits ‘essential,’ Harper says | Flaherty eyes sale of Canadian government assets | Flaherty lauds Keynesian global ‘economic stimulus’ strategies

CBC News
December 31, 2009

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says it will likely take more time to eliminate the current deficit than any deficit in the province’s history.

In a year-end interview, the premier told CBC News that finding a way out of the roughly $25 billion funding shortfall brought on by the recession will be one of the province’s biggest challenges in 2010.

“The circumstances that gave birth to this deficit were nothing short of extraordinary, so it would be unreasonably painful for us to say we’re going to get rid of it in three or four years,” McGuinty said.

“We’ve lost thousands and thousands of jobs — some communities have been pretty well devastated — and we’ve lost thousands and thousands of businesses,” McGuinty said.

He said the province tried to react to the global recession quickly by introducing $32 billion in stimulus funding and investing in job creation and second-career programs, but he said slow economic growth will continue to be an issue in the province in 2010.

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Flashback: Officials Admit Second Man Detained As More Witnesses Emerge in ‘Underwear Bomb’ Case | Detroit bombing: US had received intelligence suggesting Nigerian was planning an attack | US jet plot suspect ‘was in Yemen in December’ | Obama vows to step up terror fight | U.S. quietly takes terror war to Yemen | ‘Al-Qaeda’ in Yemen claims responsibility for attack on plane | Britain ‘barred US air terror suspect’ | Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport | Father of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Nigerian terror suspect in Flight 253 attack, warned U.S. | British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt

Chris McGreal, Nasser Arrabyee, Hugh Mcleod, The Guardian
December 30, 2009

The US is planning retaliatory strikes in Yemen against al-Qaida over its attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight on Christmas Day.

American officials say intelligence efforts are focused on identifying and tracking down those who plotted to put Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the plane with enough explosive in his underwear to bring down the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam. But they warn that finding those responsible is unlikely to be swift and say that identifying other “high-value” al-Qaida targets for retaliatory attack would also be a priority.

“First we have to find out who put Abdulmutallab on the plane with the bomb,” said a US official working alongside intelligence organisations. “He’s providing some leads and we’re not dealing with an unknown quantity here. We’ve been watching and listening to what goes on in Yemen and we may have pieces of the puzzle already and just need to fit it together.

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the FBI’s a liar, liar
a patsy caught his pants on fire
how did he ever board that plane?
this story’s going down in flames

Release the security video from Schiphol airport now.

Flashback: Detroit bombing: US had received intelligence suggesting Nigerian was planning an attack | US jet plot suspect ‘was in Yemen in December’ | Obama vows to step up terror fight | U.S. quietly takes terror war to Yemen | ‘Al-Qaeda’ in Yemen claims responsibility for attack on plane | Britain ‘barred US air terror suspect’ | Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport | Father of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Nigerian terror suspect in Flight 253 attack, warned U.S. | British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
December 30, 2009

Two more eyewitnesses contradict FBI’s denial that Abdulmutallab had possible accomplices

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have admitted that a second man possibly carrying explosives was detained after last week’s aborted plane bombing attack, contradicting initial statements by the FBI that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was the only person arrested or charged in relation to Friday’s foiled attack.

As we reported yesterday, attorney and Flight 253 eyewitness Kurt Haskell said that he saw a well-dressed Indian man aid the accused bomber to board the plane despite the fact that he had no passport and was on a terror watch list. After the incident, while the passengers were being detained, Haskell witnessed an Indian man being handcuffed and led away after a bomb-sniffing dog had flagged up his luggage. The FBI then removed the other passengers from the area, strongly indicating that explosive materials had been found in the man’s bag.

Officials have now been forced to acknowledge that a second man was detained despite initial FBI denials after two more witnesses came forward to validate Haskell’s account.

“Daniel Huisinga of Fairview, Tenn., who was returning from an internship in Kenya for the holidays, says he also saw a man being taken away in handcuffs at the airport after a dog search. A third person, Roey Rosenblith, told The Huffington Post on Sunday that he saw a man in a suit being placed into handcuffs and escorted out, as well,” reports Michigan Live.

“Huisinga talked about seeing a man taken away at the airport during an interview Monday on MSNBC. He mentions it at about the 1:25 mark of the video below. The reporter appears to confuse Huisinga’s account with a man who was detained on a separate flight Sunday and deemed not to be a threat.”

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Flashback: Financial reform bill passes U.S. House | Taibbi: Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’ | Fed Sicks Attack Dogs On Ron Paul After Audit Amendment Passes | How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | Federal Reserve Appeals Order to Disclose Emergency Bank Loans | Judge Orders Federal Reserve To Disclose Who Received Bailout Trillions | Geithner lambastes US economic watchdogs resistant to planned transfer of powers to Federal Reserve | Former NY governor Spitzer: Federal Reserve is ‘a Ponzi scheme, an inside job’ | Hands off the Fed, Bernanke warns Congress | US Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting | Taibbi: NYSE ends transparency to protect Goldman Sachs | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | Obama Regulatory Reform Plan Officially Establishes Banking Dictatorship In United States | Obama unveils overhaul of financial system oversight | 10 U.S. banks to repay U.S. bailout money | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | HR 1207: Battle To Audit The Fed Has Only Just Begun | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Barclays, Lloyd’s, RBS join Goldman-Sachs in the black | Goldman-Sachs to repay TARP loan, resume private operations, bonuses, at “earliest time” possible | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Private Federal Reserve Makes Power Grab as Bush, McCain Urge Congress to Approve Plan | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System | Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power | Financial ’super cop’ role for Fed

David Reilly, Bloomberg News
December 30, 2009

To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done — actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill.

Hunkering down by the fire, I snuggled up with H.R. 4173, the financial-reform legislation passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The Senate has yet to pass its own reform plan. The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.

I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this. At 1,279 pages, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is a real slog. And yes, I plowed through all those pages. (Memo to Chairman Frank: “ystem” at line 14, page 258 is missing the first “s”.)

The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.

If you’re a banker, the bill is tastier. While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises.

Nuggets Gleaned

Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank’s handiwork:

– For all its heft, the bill doesn’t once mention the words “too-big-to-fail,” the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery.

– Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate’s health-care bill look minuscule.

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A pipe dream. The actual point is locking down and militarizing North American culture, not ‘preventing terrorism.’ So expect the worst of both worlds, something more along the lines of a Palestinian airport. And in any case, the point isn’t just efficiency – the point is liberty. Canada doesn’t need to become a police state in order to have security. We just need to identify and go after the people that are trying to turn it into one to protect their own interests, through force and fraud, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.

Flashback: Chomsky says Israel, ‘US military base’ | Obama’s Blackwater? Chicago Mercenary Firm Gets Millions for Private “Security” in Israel and Iraq | Israel startup uses behavioral science to identify terrorists | Ontario Police Chiefs travel to Israel to study police tactics

Cathal Kelly, Toronto Star
December 20. 2009

While North America’s airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.

That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel’s, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience.

“It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,” said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He’s worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take s— from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.”

That, in a nutshell is “Israelification” – a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

“The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport,” said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

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Good news for French liberty, at least temporarily. It appears they’ve figured out that the carbon tax is meant to be applied to the citizens of the republic rather than the executive oligarchs. Take note, Canada.

Flashback: Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Framework | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | UK energy smart meter roll-out is outlined | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Leaked G20 Documents Shed Light on Global Carbon Tax | Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’ | Czech President: Copenhagen to be ‘Largest tax increase in world history’ | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda | Sarkozy launches carbon tax to help ’save the human race’ | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Google PowerMeter to track home energy usage in Toronto test drive | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Ontario joins continental WCI cap-and-trade scheme | B.C. carbon tax kicks in on Canada Day | They call it cap and trade, but it’s just another fuel tax | Quebec, Ontario sign historic climate pact | Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs | CEOs call for ‘aggressive’ action on climate change

BBC News
December 30, 2009

A new carbon tax that was supposed to go into effect in France at New Year has been struck down, delivering a blow to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France’s Constitutional Council, a legal compliance watchdog, said there were too many exemptions for polluters in the tax plan.

The body said 93% of industrial emissions, other than fuel use, would be exempt from the tax.

The tax was set at 17 euros (£15) per tonne of emitted carbon dioxide (CO2).

Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said the government will now work on a new law taking account of the legal ruling.

The tax was aimed at encouraging consumers to use less oil, gas and coal. It would have meant a rise in the price of fuel for cars, domestic heating and factories.

But it did not apply to the heavy industries and power firms included in the EU’s emissions trading scheme.

Most electricity in France – excluded from the carbon tax – is nuclear-generated.

According to France’s Le Monde newspaper, the tax would have generated about 4.3bn euros (£3.8bn) of revenue annually.

Commenting on the ruling, French government spokesman Luc Chatel said “France has shown that it is a leader in the fight against climate change and it will remain at the forefront by presenting new legislation on 20 January”.

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