Tag: news

You know the CIA was involved with some of the least savory aspects of the Iraq War.

But the NSA got its hands dirty, as well.

The Intercept reports:

In the first months of the Iraq War, SIDtoday [an internal NSA newsletter] articles bragged about the NSA’s part in the run-up to the invasion and reflected the Bush administration’s confidence that Saddam Hussein had hidden weapons of mass destruction.

 

At the United Nations, readers were told, “timely SIGINT [signals intelligence – i.e. spying on electronic and related communications, which is what NSA does] played a critical role” in winning adoption of resolutions related to Iraq, including by providing “insights into the nuances of internal divisions among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.”

Specifically:

SIGINT support [by NSA] to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations [i.e. American diplomats] has enabled and continues to enable the diplomatic campaign against Iraq. Your efforts have been essential to the plans of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador John D. Negroponte [a lovely gentleman], as well as to the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative, HMA Sir Jeremy Greenstock.

 

(S//SI) Ambassador Negroponte took time in February 2003 to provide unsolicited feedback on the quality, timeliness, and quantity of NSA reporting. He said that he could not imagine better intelligence support for diplomatic activity than he receives from the daily NSA reporting on Iraq and the UN. He was especially grateful for the timeliness of the information and asked our representative at the U.S. Mission to the UN, … to pass his thanks to the many people involved in its production and delivery. His only complaint was that “there’s just so much good stuff to read and so little time to do it!” Ambassador Negroponte has been an avid user of SIGINT for many years and visited NSA in February 2002, exclaiming that he has never received better support in his 40-year diplomatic career. It is our hope that the Ambassador will visit NSA again when the frenzy of the Iraqi crisis subsides.

 

***

 

For his part, Ambassador Greenstock, on the very day in February that he tabled the UK-US-Spain “second resolution” on Iraq, intrigued by the close UK-US intelligence cooperation, said that SIGINT insights into the nuances of internal divisions among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the “P5”) were highly useful, enabling him to decide what line to take with P5 counterparts in New York and Washington and to temper the language of his diplomatic forays. On 5 February, the day that Secretary of State Powell made his presentation at the UN Security Council and, as a direct result of SIGINT reporting, a last-minute amendment was made to the UK Foreign Secretary’s speech, making the point that UNMOVIC inspections had already been substantially reinforced.

And:

SIGINT support to USUN’s [U.S. ambassadors to the UN] diplomatic efforts concerning Iraq has been exceptional. Timely

 

SIGINT played a critical role in the unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolutions 1441 (strengthened the inspection regime and demanded Iraq disarm or face serious consequences) and 1472 (revised the humanitarian aid program for Iraq).

Remember, the NSA conducts widespread industrial espionage on our allies, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, the Vatican and the Pope, France, the leaders of Germany, Brazil and Mexico, the European Union, the European Parliament, the G20 summit, and at least 35 world leaders.

And the United States Trade Representative is one of the “customers” of NSA data.

As Edward Snowden wrote about mass surveillance by the NSA:

These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power.

Too bad the Iraq War was a total fiasco …

In a separate article, the Intercept notes that the NSA participated in torture:

Personnel from the National Security Agency worked alongside the military, CIA, and other agencies on interrogations at Guantánamo in the early days of the war on terror, new documents show.

 

***

 

The NSA’s liaison, or NSA LNO, would “coordinate” with interrogators “to collect information of value to the NSA Enterprise and Extended Enterprise” and be “responsible for interfacing with the DoD, CIA, and FBI interrogators on a daily basis in order to assess and exploit information sourced from detainees.” In some instances, the relationship would go the other way, with the NSA providing “sensitive NSA-collected technical data and products to assist JTF-GTMO [Joint Task Force Guantánamo] interrogation efforts.”

 

***

 

An NSA liaison reported back on his trip. “On a given week,” he wrote, he would “pull together intelligence to support an upcoming interrogation, formulate questions and strategies for the interrogation, and observe or participate in the interrogation.”

 

Outside work, “fun awaits,” he enthused. “Water sports are outstanding: boating, paddling, fishing, water skiing and boarding, sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and SCUBA.” If water sports were “not your cup of tea,” there were also movies, pottery, paintball, and outings to the Tiki Bar. “Relaxing is easy,” he concluded.

 

***

 

NSA analysts were also intimately involved in interrogations in Iraq; a December 2003 call for volunteers to deploy to Baghdad as counterterrorism analysts with the Iraq Survey Group, which was leading the search for Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, said that “the selectee will, in all likelihood, be involved in the interrogation/questioning of potential leads,” as well as “the evaluation and analysis of interrogation reports and other HUMINT-based reports.”

Too bad torture decreases our national security …

In 2014, the Intercept pointed out that NSA has also been key in targeting people for assassination by drone. Too bad we don’t know who most of the people we’re killing are …

via http://ift.tt/1TnELBe George Washington

Authored by Pepe Escobar, originally posted Op-Ed at SputnikNews.com,

Let’s start by examining what the Dragon himself – President Xi Jinping – has to say about China being largely derided in influential Beltway circles as a House of Cards.

Xi has forcefully dismissed the notion that a House of Cards power struggle has been raging at the rarified heights of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet at the same time he’s adamant; “conspirators”, “careerists”, “cabals” and “cliques” are attempting to undermine the CCP from within.

Thus, with ironic/poetic justice, a 42-part series on corruption in China – titled In the Name of the People and financed by the Middle Kingdom’s top law enforcement agency – is bound to go live before the end of 2016, featuring a CCP stalwart as the bad guy (that’s a first). Call him the Chinese Frank Underwood.

This means that what Xi is saying – and acting — live will be mirrored on hundreds of millions of Chinese screens, pitting conflicting factions within the 88 million-member CCP. Xi’s war on corruption has produced a rash of severely disgruntled CCP officials – to put it mildly.

Xi not only is the Commander-in-Chief in the fight against corruption; he’s now Commander-in-Chief of China’s joint battle command center as well. He monitors a [Central Military Commission] Chairman Responsibility System as well as the central guard corps, which monitors the security of all other CCP heavyweights.Add to these Xi’s status as CCP’s general secretary, chairman of the Central Military Commission, president of the national security commission and head of the top group for reform of the Chinese system, and a Harvard academic who refers to him as “the chairman of everything” does not seem to be that far off the mark.

Yet even this awesome concentration of power does not mean that Xi is an unassailable deity. On the key drama – the state of the economy – it has emerged that in a recent interview by the People’s Daily with an anonymous “authoritative person”, printed on the front page and exposing deep economic divergence among the CCP leadership, the “authoritative person” in question was none other than Xi.

He had to take to the key media read by anyone who’s anyone in China to press his point on how to fix China’s debt-ridden economy; low growth is OK, and the new normal; as for blind credit expansion/monetary easing, that’s not OK. Xi, once again, is adamant; it’s now or never to start a painful restructuring of the Chinese system.

Beware the “nests of foreign spies”

Xi Jinping does wield astonishing power. There can’t be any other way. Imagine the man on top of a civilization-state of 5,000 years who needs, among myriad other crucial issues, to; tweak/manage an economic system that was successful for over 30 years but now needs to be upgraded; shift the system from export-led demand to domestic consumption; manage the aspirations – and broken dreams – of a vast working class including millions of newly unemployed; reorganize monster state-owned enterprises (SOEs); find ways to get rid of Himalayas of bad bank loans and “nonperforming” investments; downsize and at the same time vitally upgrade the Chinese military.

And if that was not enough, Beijing has to be fully alert 24/7 about all those non-stop Pentagon provocations – actual and rhetorical – centered in the South China Sea.

You’ve got to be alert. Full time. All the time. And be alert at “foreign hostile forces” or, more plainly, “nests of foreign spies” who want you to be mired in chaos. Thus the new law on NGOs operating in China. There are too many — over 7,000. And the (hidden) agenda for quite a few – from NED to the Soros gang — is to try to promote pure, unadulterated color revolution, as difficult as that may be in ultra-regimented China.Yet it worked in Brazil – a BRICS weak link. The CCP leadership has carefully – and silently – understood the Brazilian lesson, and is fully aware that Exceptionalistan would stop at nothing to slow down China’s already spectacular global reach. So if you’re a NGO operating in China, from now on you need to find an official Chinese sponsor and register with local police.

Back to the Chinese economy, the mantra across multiple, powerful Beltway factions is that a crash is imminent. Once again; the House of Cards theme.

China’s total debt is now a whopping 280% of GDP. That includes the 115% that apply to SOEs’ debts; in Japan, for instance, that SOE figure is only 31%. Yet what really matters is that only a maximum of 25% of Chinese SOEs’ debts will need to be restructured.

Xi’s strategy is that the Goddess of the Market will turbo-charge those SOEs, not kill them. So forget about the CPP handing out control of the Chinese economy to companies that the CCP itself does not control. No wonder what’s left for US Big Capital’s spokespersons is to carp about a House of Cards.

All eyes on 2021

It’s never enough to remind everyone that absolutely everything that’s happening in China now is subordinated to Xi’s official target of achieving “a moderately prosperous society” (xiaokang shehui) by the 100th anniversary of the CCP’s founding, in 2021.

That’s a mere five years from now. More long term, 2049, is the target of achieving a “socialist modernized society” (shehuizhuyi xiandaihua shehui) with a $30,000 GDP per capita; that should tie in with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Beijing’s army of planners estimate that this overwhelming target is achievable if the Middle Kingdom is able to produce over 30% of global GDP by 2049; for comparison, that’s about 1 and ½ times more than the proportion currently produced by the US (and considering that the US does not manufacture much apart from weapons and infotech.)

As breathtaking as this vision may be, it’s always reduced by the same old catastrophist Western “experts” to variations of Xi being the new Mao Zedong. That’s so pedestrian. The men – and the historical contexts – are radically diverse. Mao decided on a few core issues by himself – and left the rest to his underlings. The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping was a man of consensus. Xi decides by himself on virtually everything – but he does pay attention to some selected advisers. Examples include the Ministry of Trade, which first came up with the concept that developed into the New Silk Roads, and Liu He, the advisor who conceptualized Xi’s current economic strategy.

The fact that Xi is now designated as the “core” (hexin) of the Beijing leadership is not such a big (Maoist) deal. The word in Beijing is that an assembly line of editors is now compiling a book of Xi thought (sixiang) that would make him as crucial as Mao as a contributor to Sino-Marxist theory. So what? Xi is a man in a rush, on a roll and with a mission – and 2021 is just around the corner. House of Cards? No; this looks more like a case of Xi landing a Full House on the table.

via http://ift.tt/1rXRsMn Tyler Durden

Love it or hate it, cash is playing an increasingly less important role in society.

In some ways this is great news for consumers. The rise of mobile and electronic payments means faster, convenient, and more efficient purchases in most instances. New technologies are being built and improved to facilitate these transactions, and improving security is also a priority for many payment providers.

However, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins explains, there is also a darker side in the shift to a cashless society. Governments and central banks have a different rationale behind the elimination of cash transactions, and as a result, the so-called “war on cash” is on.

 

 

ON THE PATH TO A CASHLESS SOCIETY

The Federal Reserve estimates that there will be $616.9 billion in cashless transactions in 2016. That’s up from around $60 billion in 2010.

Despite the magnitude of this overall shift, what is happening from country to country varies quite considerably. Consider the contradicting evidence between Sweden and Germany.

In Sweden, about 59% of all consumer transactions are cashless, and hard currency makes up just 2% of the economy. Yet, across the Baltic Sea, Germans are far bigger proponents of modern cash. This should not be too surprising, considering that the German words for “debt” and “guilt” are the exact same.

Within Germany, only 33% of consumer transactions are cashless, and there are only 0.06 credit cards in existence per person.

THE DARK SIDE OF CASHLESS

The shift to a cashless society is even gaining momentum in Germany, but it is not because of the willing adoption from the general public. According to Handelsblatt, a leading German business newspaper, a proposal to eliminate the €500 note while capping all cash transactions at €5,000 was made in February by the junior partner of the coalition government.

Governments have been increasingly pushing for a cashless society. Ostensibly, by having a paper trail for all transactions, such a move would decrease crime, money laundering, and tax evasion. France’s finance ministerrecently stated that he would “fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy” in order to prevent terrorism and other threats. Meanwhile, former Secretary of the Treasury and economist Larry Summers has called for scrapping the U.S. $100 bill – the most widely used currency note in the world.

“SMOOTHER” AGGREGATE DEMAND?

It’s not simply an argument of the above government rationale versus that of privacy and anonymity. Perhaps the least talked-about implication of a cashless society is the way that it could potentially empower central banking to have more ammunition in “smoothing” out the way people save and spend money.

By eliminating the prospect of cash savings, monetary policy options like negative interest rates would be much more effective if implemented. All money would presumably be stored under the same banking system umbrella, and even the most prudent savers could be taxed with negative rates to encourage consumer spending.

While there are certainly benefits to using digital payments, our view is that going digital should be an individual consumer choice that can be based on personal benefits and drawbacks. People should have the voluntary choice of going plastic or using apps for payment, but they shouldn’t be pushed into either option unwillingly.

Forced banishment of cash is a completely different thing, and we should be increasingly wary and suspicious of the real rationale behind such a scheme.

via http://ift.tt/25cT2fd Tyler Durden

The last time we heard the name Vincent Veneziani was several years ago, when he was at Business Insider, a close friend with all of Henry Blodget’s editors and writers, writing stories about Wall Street criminals and frauds such as “Ponzi Schemer Kenneth Starr’s Super Swanky Upper East Side Condo Just Sold For $5.63 Million” and “The Complete Story Of How Lenny Dykstra Went From The Top Of The World To The Jailhouse.” The inherent irony here will become evident in a few moments.

Shortly thereafter the mid-20s Veneziani disappeared from the media world radar, only to write a book, and then reappear in the financial world, this time as an employee of the always entertaining “paid-to-promote-hedge-fund-research” outfit known as Hedgeye, where according to his bio he worked as an Editor.

 

Unfortunately for Veneziani, he only managed to remain employed at Hedgeye for a little over a year, until the spring of 2013 when things went terribly wrong for the young man, who mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth for the next several years.  The former New Yorker, then reappeared, now as a resident of the poorest city in the US, Camden, NJ, where he wrote the following disturbing story just two months ago on March 9, describing what had happened to him shortly after he left Hedgeye, and Wall Street, for good.

The End of a Long Road of Crime

 

In May of 2013, I was 27-years-old and had just been laid off from a cushy job on Wall Street that I had worked at for a little over a year. I also was about a year into a full blown heroin addiction that drained me of time, energy, and especially money. I was broke and dope sick and not thinking right. After asking everyone I knew for money and coming up short, I decided to rob a small coffee shop on Broadway in West Harlem that was near my apartment. Not only did I rob the cashier at knifepoint, I hit the same spot two weeks later and did it again because it was so easy. I didn’t even realize I was committing armed robbery because I had never committed a (serious) crime before and had never been arrested save for a sealed and expunged DUI I got when I was 19-years-old.

 

I thought I was fine but in the first week of June, I was arrested and the detectives had a mountain of evidence against me. The jig was up. Now I had lost my job, apartment, fiance, family and my spirit. It sucked.

 

I quickly got shipped off to Rikers Island seeing as how I was unable to make $30,000 bail. I would end up spending a total of 18 months on Rikers between 2013 and 2014. It was hell. That place will break any man into pieces and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

 

Thanks to a Legal Aid attorney named Raoul Zaltzberg, who actually gave a shit about my case, and extensive interviews with ADA Tiana Walton and Judge Farber in Manhattan Supreme Court, it was agreed that I was not a menace to society. That yes, I had fucked up royally, but deserved rehabilitation instead of 10 to 30 years upstate in a maximum security prison.

 

I was given a plea deal that called for 18 months of inpatient and outpatient treatment followed by five years probation. Considering that I was indicted on two counts of First Degree Robbery in Manhattan, this is as good as it gets. Once I completed the 18 months of treatment, the two counts would drop to Third Degree Robbery, a non-violent felony that carries significantly less time and repercussions if rearrested but a felony nonetheless.

 

Yesterday, Raoul, who is now a private attorney with his own practice (I was one of his first clients and remain loyal to him), Tiana and I walked into Judge Farber’s court and finalized everything. I had completed the 18 months of treatment despite a hiccup or two and would be starting probation. Five long years of being monitored by the state. It’s quite daunting if you think about it: even getting pulled over for a speeding ticket counts as “Police Contact” and can get you jammed up with your PO.

 

But I fought a long and hard road and lost everything in my life and then some. It’s OK though. I’ve learn to become a better person and in a couple months, I’ll be turning 30-years-old. While getting a decent job has been next to impossible, as has affordable housing, I am lucky enough to have found a woman who loves me for who I am and doesn’t judge me despite my past mistakes and addiction. She is wonderful and nothing short of amazing. I have clothes on my back, gainful employment and even a car to get around South New Jersey and Philadelphia with thanks to my father, who bought it for me knowing that it would improve my chances of succeeding and rebuilding my life. It took me a long time to get over losing a woman I was supposed to marry and my many expensive material objects. I was young, successful, a published author, working in finance and living the dream in New York City. I’m no longer that person, but things happen for a reason and I am fine with all of this change. It’s for the best.

 

2016 is clearly a year for milestones. I can’t even describe how good it feels to finally close the books on this last chapter of my 20s and to move on to my 30s knowing I no longer have to check in with Judge Farber every 45-50 days and spend tons of money on programs and classes that are designed to be Medicaid profit machines. Like I said, five years of probation is a long time but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I have the tools, I have the support system in place and most importantly, I’m happy.

 

I didn’t think I would ever be happy again and didn’t deserve to be happy. I was wrong. Here’s to exploring the next chapter of my life and staying out of trouble.

In other words, Vincent is what, according to some Bloomberg “journalists”, would classify as a credible source.

Sarcasm about “competitors” aside, things were about to truly spin out of control for the now 29-year old Veneziani who as it turned out never learned to become a “better person.” Instead he become a grizzled criminal.

The first hint of this was revealed just over a month after Veneziani wrote the above post, on April 23 when the Evesham Township Police department issued the following request for public help to track down a wanted criminal.

Evesham Township Bank Robbed, Public’s Help Needed

 

The Evesham Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a male who robbed the TD Bank, 336 W. Rt. 70 on April 23, 2016, at approximately 1:19pm Saturday afternoon. The white male entered the bank, approached a teller and handed her a note demanding money. The male then fled the bank on foot towards a nearby Wawa parking lot.

 

 

 

 

If anyone knows the identity of this suspect you are asked to contact the Evesham Police Department at 856-983-1116, the Confidential Tip Line at 856-983-4699 or email at Facebook@Eveshampd.org. Anonymous tips text ETPDTIP to 847411

The identity of the perpetrator was revealed just days later when the bank robber was promptly caught. This is what the Courier-Post wrote:

The same man is behind at least three bank robberies in Camden County this month, prosecutors say.

 

Vincent Venezian[i], 29, was arrested Monday by Cherry Hill Police in connection with a robbery earlier that day at the Wells Fargo Bank on Evesham Road. Police said he entered the bank at about 3:13 p.m. and passed a note to the teller demanding cash; he fled with an undisclosed amount but was [arrested] a short time later.

 

The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said the Cherry Hill man is also responsible for two other robberies earlier this month: one at the Fulton Bank branch in Voorhees on April 4 and another at the TD Bank in Marlton on April 23.

 

Venezian[i] faces robbery and drug charges and is in Camden County Jail on $60,000 bail.

And so ends, this time for good, yet anoter semi-repentant attempt of one former drug-addicted Wall Streeter to get his life, and career, back in order. And failing.

At this point, if we were Bloomberg, we would immediately use this psychologically unstable heroin addict as a source of clickbaiting “information” on either of his prior two employers, whether Business Insider or Hedgeye. But since we realize just how troubled this totally lost this young man is, and since we are not Bloomberg, we won’t.

As for Veneziani, we hope that one day he will put his life back in order and may truly recover.

via http://ift.tt/1sDMa9v Tyler Durden

Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

The state of Rhode Island is considering the legalization of recreational marijuana, and some opponents of legalization have jumped in to demand the status quo continues. 

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday for example, that Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has come out forcefully against the legalization of marijuana claiming that marijuana turns people into "zombie-like individuals." 

Tobin's implied support for breaking up families and jailing fathers, wives, mothers, and husbands — for the "crime" of using a plant that Tobin dislikes — is illustrative. Tobin's positions provide us with a helpful and high-profile example of the flaws in attempts to make moral arguments claiming that non-violent activities should be regulated and punished by states. 

What Prohibition Means 

A call for the continued criminalization of marijuana use and sales necessary implies support for jailing and punishing individuals who deal in the production, use, or distribution of this particular plant. 

This also brings with it tacit approval and support of everything that comes with government prohibition. With every law comes the need to enforce that law. Support for legal prohibition means either explicit or implied support for the following:

• The use of taxpayer funds to support courts for the legal prosecution of drug users including the necessary staff and real estate. These resources are necessarily diverted from being used to prosecute and try perpetrators of violent crime including murderers, rapists, thieves, and other violators of property rights. 
• The use of taxpayer funds to support a police force to apprehend violators, including surveillance equipment, paid informants, police staff, automobiles, and jails. This necessarily draws resources away from police activities designed to capture rapists, murderers, thieves, and other violent criminals. 
• The use of taxpayer funds to build, maintain, and staff a system of jails and prisons for the warehousing of drug-use convicts which also necessitates resources to be provided for food, health care, and other amenities.
• The destruction of marriages and families which results from the incarceration or drug users. 
• An increase in the number of single-parent families (due to one parent being incarcerated), and the resulting increase of poverty. 

Moreover, prohibition leads to the creation of black markets and empowers organized crime outfits and other violent criminals who thrive under the conditions created by prohibition. In response to these side effects, the prohibitionists simply call for even more policing, more public expense, and more incarceration.  

To be fair, it could be that Tobin is actually opposed to harsh penalties for drug use, and that he favors decriminalization. If that is the case, he needs to clarify the difference between this position and his call to "say no to the legalization of marijuana in Rhode Island." But make no mistake, if Tobin takes any position that calls for the sanctioning of private individuals at taxpayer expense, the burden of proof is on him to demonstrate that his preferred course of action — i.e., state coercion — is preferable to people minding their own business. 

Why Not Alcohol? 

Since drug prohibition is such a costly and socially disruptive endeavor, it must be that the costs of drug use are unique in their severity. If they weren't, then it's hard to understand how any humane person could support prohibition. 

So what are the costs of drug usage, according to Tobin? 

Aside from Tobin's second-hand conclusions about zombies based on the highly scientific observations of an unnamed businessman, Tobin also notes that drug use is responsible for "impaired and dangerous driving," and "health problems" including "concerns during pregnancy." Also dangerous, Tobin notes, is the fact that marijuana can offer "an escape" to young people, who, in addition to destructive activities like wearing "hoodies," may be transported by drugs further into "the land of oblivion." 

Reading about Tobin's concern with all of these issues, I naturally wanted to learn more about Tobin's call for the prohibition of alcohol. Given Tobin's lis tof concerns, of course, it logically follows that Tobin must also be in favor of alcohol prohibition. After all, if one is concerned about intoxicating substances that impair health and safe driving, alcohol would be an obvious target for prohibition.  

The health problems related to alcohol, of course have been documented for many years, and in 2013 alone, more than 10,000 Americans died from injuries sustained in alcohol-related auto accidents. Alcohol is also closely linked to domestic abuse and a myriad of social ills. 

So, does Tobin support prohibition on alcohol as well? It appears he does not. 

As with everyone who calls for the abolition of social ills via drug prohibition, yet tolerates the legal selling of alcohol, Tobin must first explain why alcohol-related social ills do not warrant prohibition while he calls for legal action against marijuana users. If Tobin is so ready to imprison people for growing a marijuana plant, why is Tobin not equally set against an intoxicating substance that is shown to increase the likelihood of violent behavior? Without a clear explanation of the distinction here, the rest of Tobin's claims display a damaging inconsistency, and we're forced to conclude his opposition to marijuana is arbitrary.

Moreover, why is Tobin so concerned about the effects of drug use in Colorado? His time might be better spent focusing on the fact that binge drinking is more prevalent in Rhode Island than it is Colorado. And if health is such a great concern of his, he might perhaps better spend his time combating obesity, which is far more damaging to public health overall than is marijuana use. Notably, the obesity rate is substantially higher in Rhode Island than it is in Colorado. 

In his essay, Tobin appears to recognize the need to differentiate between alcohol and drugs in order to sound coherent. However, unable to come up with a scientific, objective, or evidence-based reason for tolerating alcohol, Tobin falls back on an appeal to authority instead. 

To sidestep the argument, Tobin appeals to the Catholic Catechism which states "the use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life…their use … is a grave offense." 

That's fair enough, but what is a drug? Neither Tobin nor the Catechism give any definition and no clarifying footnotes are provided in the Catechism. Any scientific or objective examination of intoxicating substances would include both marijuana and alcohol within this category. Tobin simply ignores this, and in quoting the Catechism, Tobin triumphantly intones: "there is no exception for marijuana." But, as Tobin conveniently fails to mention: there is no reason that alcohol should be excepted either. 

Tobin might protest and say "well, of course by 'drugs' the catechism doesn't mean alcohol" In that case, the question remains: "why not"? By what objective measure does the catechism make this distinction? It remains a mystery. 

Why Not Punish Other Immoral Activities Similarly? 

As a final note, we must ask Bp. Tobin if all activities with harmful social effects should be outlawed? Should adultery be outlawed? If not, why not? Certainly, the social effects of divorce and broken homes are not something to be ignored. If the proper use of public policy is to punish and imprison people for committing a "grave offense" then surely adultery must be punished similarly to marijuana use. Moreover, based on Tobin's arguments, we might also conclude that prostitution is punished too lightly. Given the negative social and health effects of prostitution, it is important that we punish prostitution as we do drug use, with harsh prison terms doled out to prostitutes who engage in the "distribution" of this harmful activity. The grave nature of their offenses surely demands it.

via http://ift.tt/20cVawA Tyler Durden

As the Clinton campaign turns its attention to Donald Trump (or tries to at least), it is encountering one of the many things that makes running against 'The Teflon Don' difficult: With everything he has said and done, how is it possible to focus on only a few key things to attack him on.

"Our problem is a target-rich environment" said one Clinton ally, noting that nearly every day there is a news cycle with damaging headlines about Trump.

Aside from a target rich environment, Trump has been so unpredictable that it's hard to use any one thing and turn it into a narrative strong enough to actually impact voter opinions.

"Right now, they're doing a little bit of everything to see what works. You can spend all day, every day, going after a hundred different things, and those things can add up to less than one hundred. They may not weave into a narrative, or you may not be able to drive any one of them home for long enough. You need discipline." said Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Obama.

As Clinton struggles to define Trump, her campaign has taken the approach of throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks. As Politico reports, first on the list of things to try is the talking point that a Trump presidency would be terrible for women.

“What’s really clear,” Neera Tanden, Clinton’s former top policy adviser, said on a conference call with reporters, “is Donald Trump has made it entirely clear throughout the entirety of his campaign that he would be a terrible choice for women voters.”

The next trial balloon would be to try and play up that Trump would be bad for Latinos and middle-class Americans.

That clarion message, however, was not amplified the next day. Instead, the follow-up was a call with Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who urged reporters to “think about what Trump’s plans mean for Latinos. Middle-class Americans and Latinos would pay the price for his reckless quest to continue enriching the billionaires.”

Finally, Clinton personally picked the fact that Trump will be the first candidate in the past 40 years not to release a tax return as her issue to run up the flag pole. Which is dripping with irony since Clinton herself won't reveal any Wall Street speech transcripts. 

Clinton herself chose to highlight a third issue while stumping in New Jersey, where she surprised her aides by uncharacteristically engaging with an audience member who yelled out a question about Trump’s tax returns.

“You’ve got to ask yourself,” she responded from the stage, “why doesn’t he want to release them? Yeah, well, we’re going to find out.”

While Clinton struggles mightily, Trump himself has been masterful in branding his opponents, as he has proven time and time again. Trump has already selected his narrative when it comes to Hillary, and as his Republican challengers have found out, The Donald knows how to drive his narratives home.

For all his flaws as a candidate, Trump has proved to be incredibly disciplined in branding his rivals. His nickname “Little Marco” skillfully demeaned the presidential qualities of Sen. Marco Rubio. “Low-energy Jeb” planted the idea in Republican primary voters’ minds that Jeb Bush wasn’t up to the job. And his new focus on “Crooked Hillary” plays on one of the Democratic front-runner’s biggest vulnerabilities as a candidate: trust.

* * *

It's clear that the Clinton campaign will have its hands full with the likes of Donald Trump. Not only is The Donald skilled at strategically playing the media to help him build up his narrative and create favorable news cycles, he has the uncanny ability to turn nearly any negative newsflow into something that ultimately ends up helping him with his voting base. As was the case early on in the GOP race, Trump started out behind Hillary in early polls as well. That issue has since been corrected, and he recently has taken his first lead over Hillary. If Clinton continues to fumble the narrative early on, Trump may very well run away with the race, shocking "experts" everywhere.

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Authored by Andrew Napolitano via LewRockwell.com,

Here is a quick pop quiz. What happens if we lie to the government? What happens if the government lies to us? Does it matter who does the lying?

Last year, the Obama administration negotiated an agreement with the government of Iran permitting Iran to obtain certain materials for the construction of nuclear facilities. It also permitted the release of tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets that had been held in U.S. banks and that the courts had frozen, and it lifted trade sanctions. In exchange, certain inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities can occur under certain circumstances.

During the course of the negotiations, many critics made many allegations about whether the Obama administration was telling the truth to Congress and to the American people.

Was there a secret side deal? The administration said no. Were we really negotiating with moderates in the Iranian government, as opposed to the hard-liners depicted in the American media? The administration said yes. Can U.N. or U.S. inspectors examine Iranian nuclear facilities without notice and at any time? The administration said yes.

It appears that this deal is an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and whatever faction he believes is running the government of Iran. That means that it will expire if not renewed at noon on Jan. 20, 2017, when the president’s term ends.

It is not a treaty because it was not ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which the Constitution requires for treaties. Yet the Obama administration cut a deal with the Republican congressional leadership, unknown to the Constitution and unheard of in the modern era. That deal provided that the agreement would be valid unless two-thirds of those voting in both houses of Congress objected. They didn’t.

Then last week, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes, who managed the negotiations with Iran, told The New York Times that he lied when he spoke to Congress and the press about the very issues critics were complaining about. He defended his lies as necessary to dull irrational congressional fears of the Iranian government.

I am not addressing the merits of the deal, though I think that the more Iran is reaccepted into the culture of civilized nations the more economic freedom will come about for Iranians. And where there is economic freedom, personal liberties cannot be far behind.

I am addressing the issue of lying. Rhodes’ interview set off a firestorm of criticism and “I told you so” critiques in Capitol Hill, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee summoned him to explain his behavior. It wanted to know whether he told the truth to Congress and the public during the negotiations or he told the truth to The New York Times last week.

He apparently dreads answering that question, so he refused to appear and testify. One wonders how serious this congressional committee is because it merely requested Rhodes’ appearance; it did not subpoena him. A congressional subpoena has the force of law and requires either compliance or interference by a federal court. Rhodes’ stated reason for not testifying is a claim of privilege.

What is a privilege? It is the ability under the law to hide the truth in order to preserve open communications. It is a judgment by lawmakers and judges that in certain narrowly defined circumstances, freedom of communication is a greater good than exposing the truth.

Hence the attorney/client and priest/penitent and physician/patient privileges have been written into the law so that people can freely tell their lawyers, priests and doctors what they need to tell them without fear that they will repeat what they have heard.

Executive privilege is the ability of the president and his aides to withhold from anyone testimony and documents that reflect military, diplomatic or sensitive national security secrets. This is the privilege that Rhodes has claimed.

Yet the defect in Rhodes’ claim of privilege here is that he has waived it by speaking about the Iranian negotiations to The New York Times. Waiver — the knowing and intentional giving up of a privilege or a right — defeats the claim of privilege.

Thus, by speaking to the Times, Rhodes has admitted that the subject of his conversation — the Iranian negotiations — is not privileged. One cannot selectively assert executive privilege. Items are either privileged or  not, and a privilege, once voluntarily lifted, cannot thereafter successfully be asserted.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee should subpoena Rhodes, as well as the Times reporter to whom he spoke, to determine where the truth lies.

It is a crime to lie to the government when communicating to it in an official manner. Just ask Martha Stewart. One cannot lawfully lie under oath or when signing a document one is sending to the government or when answering questions from government agents. Just ask Roger Clemens. Stated differently, if Rhodes told the FBI either what he told Congress or what he told The New York Times — whichever version was untrue — he would be exposed to the indictment.

Ben Rhodes is one of the president’s closest advisers. They often work together on a several-times-a-day basis. Could he have lied about this Iranian deal without the president’s knowing it?

Does anyone care any longer that the government lies to the American people with impunity and prosecutes people when it thinks they have lied to it? Does the government work for us, or do we work for the government?

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Yesterday we showed something strange: while oil prices have rebounded from multi-year recent lows, gasoline prices have not only rebounded but have done so with a vengeance, sending retail gasoline at the pump is now back to levels last seen just over a year ago, even as WTI (and Brent) is materially lower. As we concluded, “gas prices are unchanged while oil prices are 25% lower.”

 

Something did not add up, which prompted some readers to inquire if this was purely a function of higher gasoline taxes.  We don’t know the answer, and assume it is a deep secret of America’s refiners, but we did find out what the gasoline motor fuel taxes by state are.

Here is the summary from API:

The nationwide average tax on gasoline is 48.04 cpg, up 0.05 cpg from the January 2016 study. A summary of federal and state excise taxes and other taxes collected on gasoline is shown below. The federal tax on gasoline is 18.40 cpg. The average state gasoline excise tax is 20.88, unchanged from the January 2016 study. Other taxes (such as applicable sales taxes, gross receipts taxes, oil inspection fees, county and local taxes, underground storage tank fees and other miscellaneous environmental fees) were 8.76 cpg, up 0.05 cpg from January. Adding these taxes and fees to the state excise taxes results in a volume-weighted average state and local tax of 29.64 cpg.

The regional breakdown of fuel taxes is as follows:

 

And here are the gas tax rates, effective as of April 1, in every US state from the highest (Pennsylvania, Washington, and New York), to the lowest (South Carolina, New Jersey – yes NJ has a low tax for something – and Alaska).

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Authored by Dilbert Creator Scott Adams via Dilbert.com,

Trump has pulled ahead of Clinton nationally in both the new FOX poll and the Rasmussen Poll. And Trump passed Clinton in favorability according to the newest national poll on that topic. The Megyn Kelly interview (including the hyping of it ahead of time) marked Trump’s third-act turn.

By the way, Anderson Cooper of CNN said last night that CNN finds the FOX polling to be reliable and transparent, in case you wondered.

Meanwhile, Clinton is losing one primary after another to a dehydrated dandelion in her own party. That doesn’t bode well for the coming cage fight with Godzilla.

And Godzilla hasn’t even started to punch hard. He’s still looking at the opposition research and humming. So that’s coming.

Clinton is planning to appear on Ellen with the all-female cast of the new Ghostbusters movie. That’s what overplaying the woman card looks like. One wag on Twitter put it this way:

@ScottAdamsSays

Hillary: Women Women Women Women Women
Trump: America America America America America

— ?T?R?U?M?P? (@screenwriter) May 19, 2016

 The New York Times did its best to make Trump look like a sexist , but they only succeeded in destroyed their own credibility when their star witness outed them for making up stuff.

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendel said something that was probably harmless in person, and in the proper context, but taken out of context by outragists it sounded like he was saying Clinton supporters are mostly ugly women. That didn’t help.

Clinton’s team continues to churn out anti-Trump hit pieces that ask you to imagine President Trump in office. By November, voters will think Trump has been running the country for a year and it looked a lot like the Obama administration. That’s called “graduated exposure” and it’s a well-understood psychological phenomenon. The Democrats are working overtime to make Trump feel less scary while believing they are doing the opposite.

Now imagine Clinton and Trump selecting VPs. If Clinton picks a woman, she overplays the woman card to destruction. If she selects a beta male, it will seem cringeworthy to the sexist public. If she selects an alpha male it will annoy her base without gaining a single vote. Clinton loses on every path.

Meanwhile, Trump can pick a man or a woman and it will look natural. No VP will overshadow Trump’s energy. All he needs is a running mate that is competent and a little bit interesting.

Trump announced his list of potential Supreme Court Justices. Republicans seemed to like the list, which makes Trump seem more mainstream even if you don’t like the names on the list.

A jet on the way from France to Egypt has disappeared, and terrorism is the assumed reason. That plays to Trump’s strength, as does every act of terror everywhere.

Trump has gone a few weeks without creating any new provocations on the scale of his 2015 self. The longer he proves he can moderate his behavior to fit the situation – as he did in the Megyn Kelly interview – the more people trust that he isn’t crazy.

Trump’s insults are now understood to be more than random hate. They are weapons-grade persuasion that have been engineered and then A-B tested at rallies. The “Crooked Hillary” harpoon is already doing its damage. If history is our guide, the nickname will bleed her out before November.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, knows how to win. The Clinton campaign doesn’t show the same level of talent, at least in terms of persuasion. Clinton’s logo (the big H) looks like a hospital sign. And their “Love Trumps Hate” slogan is two-thirds “Love Trump.” Any trained persuader knows people put more cognitive weight on the first part of sentences. 

I’m teeming with confirmation bias, but from my kitchen counter, I don’t see how it can go any direction but a Trump landslide from here.

I’ll remind readers that I have disavowed all of the candidates. My political views don’t line up with any of them. My interest is in Trump’s persuasion skills.

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