Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

In what is one of the most disturbing private prison stories you’ll ever hear, a facility in Idaho run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in under investigation by the FBI due to claims it was so violent inmates called it “Gladiator School.” So how does a prison transform into such a place? Apparently, CCA was so eager to cut costs that it chose to understaff the facility and hand over control to prison gangs.

I’ve covered private prisons on many occasions in the past, including this CCA facility in particular. I think private prisons are one of the worst ideas possible in a democratic society. I suggest you read some of my prior articles:

A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry

Idaho Dumps Private Prison Company Due to “Violence, Understaffing and Over-billing”

America in 2013: Florida Football Stadium Named After a Private Prison Company

America in 2013: For-Profit Prisons Get Favorable Tax Breaks

Now from the AP:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The FBI has launched an investigation of the Corrections Corporation of America over the company’s running of an Idaho prison with a reputation so violent that inmates dubbed it “Gladiator School.”

 

The Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA has operated Idaho’s largest prison for more than a decade, but last year, CCA officials acknowledged it had understaffed the Idaho Correctional Center by thousands of hours in violation of the state contract. CCA also said employees falsified reports to cover up the vacancies. The announcement came after an Associated Press investigation showed CCA sometimes listed guards as working 48 hours straight to meet minimum staffing requirements.

 

“The FBI is investigating CCA and looking at whether various federal fraud statutes were violated and possibly other federal statutes connected with the fraud,” Olson said. “They will be working in close consultation with our office. Beyond that I can’t comment.”

 

The understaffing has been the subject of federal lawsuits and a contempt of court action against CCA. The ACLU sued on behalf of inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center in 2010, saying the facility was so violent that inmates called it “Gladiator School” and that understaffing contributed to the high levels of violence there.

 

In 2012, a Boise law firm sued on behalf of inmates contending that CCA had ceded control to prison gangs so that they could understaff the prison and save money on employee wages, and that the understaffing led to an attack by one prison gang on another group of inmates that left some of them badly injured.

 

The Department of Justice requested a copy of a forensic audit done for the Idaho Department of Correction earlier this year. That audit showed that CCA understaffed the prison by as much as 26,000 hours in 2012 alone; CCA is strongly contesting those findings. CCA’s Owen has said the company believes the audit overestimates the staffing issues by more than a third.

 

CCA’s contract with Idaho was worth about $29 million a year. In February the company agreed to pay Idaho $1 million to settle the understaffing claims.

Sound like a JP Morgan type settlement.

Full article here.

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Just when you thought the distractions in Russia, Malaysia, and Libya were enough to take the spotlight off domestic drama, Chris Christie’s BridgeGate scandal bubbles back into the headlines. As WSJ reports, Manhattan federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey related to the business interests of its chairman, David Samson, people familiar with the matter said Monday. Samson, a close ally of Christie, is, according to sources, under investigation for potential conflicts between his private business interests and his actions as chairman of the sprawling bi-state authority, which oversees Hudson River crossings into New York City, airports, the PATH rail system and the World Trade Center complex.

Via The Wall Street Journal,

Manhattan federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey related to the business interests of its chairman, David Samson, people familiar with the matter said Monday.

 

The demand for records comes as scrutiny of Mr. Samson—a close ally of Gov. Chris Christie—has increased since allegations emerged that the Port Authority closed George Washington Bridge access lanes for political purposes.

 

…

 

The scope of the investigation and whether it could grow to include other officials wasn’t clear on Monday.

 

According to people familiar with the matter, Manhattan federal prosecutors were specifically interested in any conflicts between Mr. Samson’s private business interests and his actions as chairman of the sprawling bi-state authority, which oversees Hudson River crossings into New York City, airports, the PATH rail system and the World Trade Center complex.

 

A spokeswoman for Mr. Samson, a former New Jersey state attorney general, declined to comment, passing on a statement from Mr. Samson’s attorney, Michael Chertoff: “We are not commenting on the progress of investigations.”

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While the mystery builds over the still officially unexplained disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370, or just who the two passengers with “stolen” passports may have been although we expect a revelation on this issue shortly, the FT has added yet another twist to what is sure to be a conspiracy thriller for weeks to come: the paper reports that the Thai travel agent who booked the tickets for the men in question said that she had been asked to arrange the travel by an Iranian contact. Adding to the confusion is the revelation that originally the mysterious Iranian, known only as Mr. Ali, tried to reserve seats for the two men on separate flights not to China, but to Europe, one on a Qatar Airways flight, and the other on Etihad. And the punchline: a “friend” of Mr. Ali’s paid for the tickets in cash.

The story as explained by the Financial Times:

Benjaporn Krutnait, owner of the agency Grand Horizon Travel in Pattaya, Thailand, said the Iranian, a long-term business contact who she knew only as “Mr Ali”, first asked her to book cheap tickets to Europe for the two men on March 1. Ms Benjaporn initially reserved one of the men on a Qatar Airways flight and the other on Etihad.

 

But the tickets expired when Ms Benjaporn did not hear back from Mr Ali. When he contacted her again on Thursday, she rebooked the men on the Malaysia Airlines flight through Beijing because it was the cheapest available. Ms Benjaporn booked the tickets through China Southern Airlines via a code share arrangement.

 

A friend of Mr Ali paid Ms Benjaporn cash for the tickets, she said, adding that it was quite common for people to book tickets in Pattaya through middle men such as Mr Ali, who then take a commission.

 

Mr Ali could not immediately be reached for comment on a Tehran mobile number provided by Ms Benjaporn. She added that she had known Mr Ali for about three years, during which time he spent a lot of time in Pattaya and booked travel for himself or his contacts at least once a month on average. There is no evidence that Mr Ali knew the two men were travelling on stolen passports.

Still, before some read into this as an attempt to provoke Iran sentiment, the travel agent said she “did not believe Mr Ali was linked to terrorism, particularly as he had not specified booking the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing flight but had instead asked for the cheapest route to Europe.” Ms Benjaporn said she was speaking about the case because she was concerned over the speculation about a terrorist attack and wanted the facts to be known.

And the final wrinkle in the story came over the weekend, when China Southern, a codeshare partner for the Malaysian Airlines flight, revealed on its Weibo page the following (google translated):

Today, Malaysia Airlines MH370 lost contact is shared by a horse fly with China Southern Airlines flight code. According to preliminary statistics, there are seven Southern Airlines passenger market square, where a Chinese nationals, two Ukrainian nationals, an Austrian, an Italian nationals, a Dutch nationals and one Malaysian. Specific circumstances still verification. After the incident, I immediately started emergency procedures and first time to contact MAS obtain real-time information. For seven passengers on the plane lost contact, we will try to help Malaysia Airlines to do follow-up work.

Two Ukrainians?

So one mysterious accident, which by now appears to almost certainly be a midair “disintegration” that has loose ends linking both Iran and Ukraine? A very unfortunate set of completely unrelated coincidences, or something far more sinister? We expect the full “story”, massaged as it may ultimately be, to be revealed in the coming hours.

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China’s biggest blue-chip stock index – the CSI-300 – dropped over 3% overnight and fell to its lowest level since Feb 2009. Corporate bond and trust defaults (crushing confidence in credit markets), shadow-banking collateral unwinds (crushing commodity prices), and exports collapsing (crushing dreams of a global economic recovery) are all weighing on Chinese stocks. This comes, ironically as the US equity “market” celebrates the 5 year anniversary of the Mar 2009 lows and soars to new highs in the face of turmoil. There is, of course, another outlet for China’s massive money-printing – that dwarfs the Fed’s – its real estate market.. and that is the bubble that the PBOC is trying to tamp down.

Charts: Bloomberg

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Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute,

Officially, US debt stands at more than $17 trillion. In reality, it is many times more. The cost of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq may be more than six trillion dollars. President Obama’s illegal invasion of Libya cost at least a billion dollars and left that country devastated. The costs of US regime change efforts in Syria are likely thus far enormous, both in dollars and lives. That’s still a secret.

So who in his right mind would think it is a good time to start a war with Russia over Ukraine? And worse, who would commit the United States to bail out a Ukraine that will need at least $35 billion to survive the year?

Who? The president and Congress, backed by the neocons and the so-called humanitarian interventionists!

The House voted overwhelmingly last week to provide $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine. That is just the beginning, you can be sure. But let’s be clear: this is not money for the population of that impoverished country. The Administration is sending a billion dollars from US taxpayers to wealthy international bankers who hold Ukrainian debt. It is an international bank bailout, not aid to Ukrainians. And despite the escalating anti-Russia rhetoric, ironically some of that money will likely go to Russia for Ukraine’s two billion dollar unpaid gas bill!

So what happened in Ukraine? The US government and media claims that the US must save Ukrainian democracy from an invading Russian army that is threatening the country’s sovereignty. But in reality the crisis was instigated in part by US meddling. Remember the intercepted telephone call in which two senior Obama Administration officials discussed plans to replace the elected government in Ukraine with US puppets? That is exactly what happened. Is that not a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty? Is that what democracy is all about?
 
The Obama Administration’s policy toward Ukraine is hypocritical. The overthrow of the government in Kiev by violent street protests was called a triumph of democracy, but when the elected parliament in autonomous Crimea voted last week to hold a referendum to decide its future, President Obama condemned it as a violation of international law. What about the principle of self-determination, which is also enshrined in international law?
 
I have long thought that a referendum to reorganize Ukraine into a looser confederation of regions might help reduce tensions. I still believe this could help, but it seems the US government is not so enthusiastic about democracy when there is a chance for an outcome it opposes.

I strongly believe that Crimeans have every right to transfer sovereignty over their peninsula to Russia if they wish. The only question that remains is whether there will there be an honest election, and I don’t see any reason there can’t be.

The US government tells the rest of the world, “We want you to be good democrats and have elections,” but if they don’t elect the right people then we complain about it and throw them out, like we did in Egypt. In Crimea they want to have an election to determine their future. President Obama condemned those plans for a vote by saying, “We are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders.” Does he not remember that the authorities in Kiev were installed just weeks ago after a US-backed coup against the Ukrainian constitution?

Congress next week will likely vote for sanctions against Russia. Though many mistakenly believe that sanctions are a relatively harmless way of forcing foreign countries to do what we say, we should be clear: sanctions are an act of war.
 
Cooler heads in the United States are not currently prevailing. There is a danger of an unimaginable conflict between the US and Russia. We must demand a shift away from a war footing, away from incendiary rhetoric. We are broke and cannot afford to “buy” Ukraine. We certainly cannot afford another war, especially with Russia!

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Two months ago we noted the clashes between the Libyan government and the rebels over selling oil. It appears the rising threats are reaching a crescendo as AABAA reports the Libyan Navy has impounded a North Korean oil tanker trying to export oil from a rebel-held port of Es-Sider, and is on its way to Western Libya. Interestingly this comes just a day after the US issued a statement strongly condemning “illicitly obtained oil from Libya.” We suspect Kim will not be a happy tyrant this evening and also note that the rebels deny the vessel is under government control.

North Korea is trying…

• *UN ENVOY TO LIBYA TAREK MITRI SPEAKS TO SECURITY COUNCIL IN NY
• *LIBYA OIL LOADING ON N. KOREA TANKER IS ‘ILLEGAL,’ MITRI SAYS
• *OIL LOAD ON N. KOREA TANKER VIOLATES LIBYA SOVEREIGNTY: MITRI

The US is concerned its losing its grip on USD-priced oil…

Illicitly Obtained Oil from Libya

 

The United States is deeply concerned by reports that a vessel sailing under the name Morning Glory is loading a cargo of illicitly obtained oil at the Libyan port of As-Sidra. This action is counter to law and amounts to theft from the Libyan people. The oil belongs to the Libyan National Oil Company and its joint venture partners. These partners include U.S. companies in the Waha consortium.  

 

Any oil sales without authorization from these parties places purchasers at risk of exposure to civil liability, penalties and other possible sanctions in multiple jurisdictions.

And the Libyan Navy is clamping down…

• *LIBYA NAVY IMPOUNDS TANKER TRYING TO EXPORT IN ES SIDER: AABAA
• *TANKER WAS SEEKING TO EXPORT OIL FROM REBEL-HELD LIBYAN PORT

Via Reuters,

Libyan government forces on Monday seized a tanker that had loaded crude at a port under the control of rebels who plan to sell oil independently of the Tripoli government, state-owned National Oil Corp (NOC) said.

 

The North Korea-flagged shipped was being escorted to western Libya, NOC spokesman Mohammed El-Harari told Reuters, confirming Libyan media reports.

 

Lawmaker Abdelwahab al-Qaim told Reuters: “The ship has been seized by government forces. There are no damages to the ship.”

 

A rebel spokesman had earlier denied they had lost control of the ship.

Yet another red line for Obama to draw…

Via Bloomberg,

“The government should now actively seek a solution” with rebels in the self-proclaimed eastern region of Barqa, Asma Sraibah, a member of parliament, said yesterday in a telephone interview in the capital city. “It would be a disaster if the government loses its main source of revenue.”

 

…

 

The head of Libya’s General National Congress ordered the creation of a military force to “liberate the oil ports,” congress spokesman Omar Homaidan was cited by state-run LANA news agency as saying today. The mission will begin within a week from March 8, the day the order was issued, according to LANA.

 

…

 

Crude loading from Es Sider “would be significant for the oil market if it becomes regular,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, said yesterday in a phone interview. The eastern government’s goal “is to make this regular, but it will be very difficult as Tripoli will try to interrupt the flow.”

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Bloomberg reports:

The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

Has all that money gone to stimulate the economy?

Nope …

Virtually none of it has.  Instead, governments chose big banks over their own people.  The huge amount of debt was racked up to bail out the big banks.

Central banks have been engaged in the the “greatest backdoor bailout of all time.”

And yet – as Bloomberg notes – everyone else gets austerity:

Concerned that high debt loads would cause international investors to avoid their markets, many nations resorted to austerity measures of reduced spending and increased taxes, reining in their economies in the process as they tried to restore the fiscal order they abandoned to fight the worldwide recession.

In essence, the elite financial players are manipulating the game so that they get the stimulus … and the little guy gets the austerity.

Indeed, the IMF is recommending “financial repression” of the average person, to plug the giant debt holes created by the bank bailouts.

And – whether or not you like Keynesian stimulus (most ZH readers don't!) – you should know that governments never really engaged in meaningful stimulus.

But didn’t we have to do this to save the economy after Lehman crashed?

Nope … top economists say we should instead of done what Iceland did:  let the big banks go bust, and use resources instead to help the people.

Proof can be found in the fact that throwing money at the big banks has led to a  “jobless recovery” – a permanent destruction of jobs – which is a redistribution of wealth from the little guy to the big boys. (And see this.)

Indeed, everything the government has been doing since 2008 has made unemployment much worse. And  here and here.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/NSFqQp George Washington

Submitted by Howard Kunstler of Kunstler.com,

And so it’s back to the Kardashians for the US of ADD. As of Sunday The New York Times kicked Ukraine off its front page, a sure sign that the establishment (let’s revive that useful word) is sensitive to the growing ridicule over its claims of national interest in that floundering, bedraggled crypto-nation. The Kardashians sound enough like one of the central Asian ethnic groups battling over the Crimea lo these many centuries — Circassians, Meskhetian Turkmen, Tatars, Karachay-Cherkessians — so the sore-beset American public must be content that they’re getting the news-of-the-world. Perhaps one of those groups was once led by a Great Kanye.

Secretary of State John Kerry has shut his pie-hole, too, for the moment, as it becomes more obvious that Ukraine happens to be Russia’s headache (and neighbor). The playbook of great nations is going obsolete in this new era of great nations having, by necessity, to become smaller broken-up nations. It could easily happen in the USA too as our grandiose Deep State descends further into incompetence, irrelevance, buffoonery, and practical bankruptcy.

Theories abound about what drives this crisis and all the credible stories revolve around the question of natural gas. I go a little further, actually, and say that the specter of declining energy sources worldwide is behind this particular eruption of disorder in one sad corner of the globe and that we’re sure to see more symptoms of that same basic problem in one country after another from here on, moving from the political margins to the centers. The world is out of cheap oil and gas and, at the same time, out of capital to produce the non-cheap oil and gas. So what’s going on is a scramble between desperate producers and populations worried about shivering in the dark. The Ukraine is just a threadbare carpet-runner between them.

Contributing to our own country’s excessive vanity in the arena of nations is the mistaken belief that we have so much shale gas of our own that we barely know what to do with it. This is certainly the view, for instance, of Speaker of the House John Boehner, who complained last week about bureaucratic barriers to the building of new natural gas export terminals, with the idea that we could easily take over the European gas market from Russia. Boehner is out of his mind. Does he not know that the early big American shale gas plays (Barnett in Texas, Haynesville in Louisiana, Fayettville in Arkansas) are already winding down after just ten years of production? That’s on top of the growing austerity in available capital for the so-far-unprofitable shale gas industry. That’s on top of the scarcity of capital for building new liquid natural gas terminals and ditto the fleet of specialized refrigerated tanker ships required to haul the stuff across the ocean. File under “not going to happen.”

Even the idea that we will have enough natural gas for our own needs in the USA beyond the short term ought to be viewed with skepticism. What happens, for instance, when we finally realize that it costs more to frack it out of the ground than people can pay for it? I’ll tell you exactly what will happen: the gas will remain underground bound up in its “tight rock,” possibly forever, and a lot of Americans will freeze to death.

The most amazing part of the current story is that US political leaders are so ignorant of the facts. They apparently look only to the public relations officers in the oil-and-gas industries and no further. Does Barack Obama still believe, as he said in 2011, that “we have a hundred years of shale gas?” That was just something that a flack from the Chesapeake Corporation told to some White House aide over a bottle of Lalou Bize-Leroy Domaine d’Auvenay Les Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru. Government officials believe similar fairy tales about shale oil from the Bakken in North Dakota — a way overhyped resource play likely to pass its own peak at the end of this year.

If you travel around the upper Hudson Valley, north of Albany, where I live, you would see towns and landscapes every bit as desolate as a former Soviet republic. In fact, our towns look infinitely worse than the street-views of Ukraine’s population centers. Ours were built of glue and vinyl, with most of the work completed thirty years ago so that it’s all delaminating under a yellow-gray patina of auto emissions. Inside these miserable structures, American citizens with no prospects and no hope huddle around electric space heaters. They have no idea how they’re going to pay the bill for that come April. They already spent the money on tattoos and heroin.

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