This thread is great and I hope that the long-time members that show up here will come and hang out in the speculation subforum.

Ya, the OP is taking a major chance on this thread by making such an ignorant assumption at this point. I can't comprehend anyone that thinks that bitcoin stops under the 300 mark. This height will melt soon.

This better not come down on the united shits of america or there'll be more war talk going forward. It's likely to just see an ocean drop and that will be it.

Originally, it was thought that the blade was legal and now illegal. This guy Gray was not an angel which is why I'm not having this protesting crap atm. It's all about race at this point but shouldn't be.

This is just a friendly credibility build up by trollchop but is easily seen through. Earth to those that can't see it yet.

Seriously, who are the 11 buttfarts that are spacing on sub-180s? I hope they went short on heroin leverage and the fix will never come. I'm just here to say that people should no longer swap coins for current crap interest rates on tha Fin any longer.

That's where the original term of 'highway men' came into being. In these days it's wise to fly like a butterfly and carry something other than cash/fiat, likely bitcoin. Even if you hold money on an exchange across the world, you can send it anywhere once you've reached your destination.

Are you taking on a new persona these days or is Gavin giving up his account for something else? True story

The best thing about Coinbase is that it makes it easy for everyday folks in the USA to buy/sell bitcoin. I remember when bitinstant was the only option but now CB makes life way easier to purchase bitcoin by hooking up one's checking account. I bet the lion's share of US interests of normal types are buying on CB.

EXCLUSIVE — RAND PAUL: WE’RE GOING TO TAKE NSA ALL THE WAY TO SUPREME COURT. AND WIN

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is celebrating the news a federal appeals court rejected President Barack Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program on Thursday. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Paul says he can’t wait for the Supreme Court to eventually rule it unconstitutional.

“We initiated a lawsuit on this over a year ago, and we are excited that the appeals court agrees with us,” Paul said.

Now, they’re saying it’s illegal in that Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act doesn’t authorize that—that the government has gone too far—I think that’s a good first step. We want the Supreme Court to eventually rule on whether this is Constitutional or not. Our main complaint, or one of our main arguments is, the Fourth Amendment says you have to name the person who you want to get a warrant—but not naming anyone and putting “Mr. Verizon” down and saying you can get the records of millions of people, you’re not writing a specific warrant.

You’re writing a generalized warrant. This is one of the things that we fought against that the British were doing to us. James Otis famously argued in court that the writs of assistance that the British were using were non-specific and didn’t use the person’s name—and so we wrote the Fourth Amendment to try to stop this kind of stuff. I guess it’s gratifying that the courts are beginning to recognize the problem. We are anticipating and eager for this to get to the Supreme Court.

More...http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/07/exclusive-rand-paul-were-going-to-take-nsa-all-the-way-to-supreme-court-and-win/

Police officers are more likely to be struck by lightning than be held financially accountable for their actions.—Law professor Joanna C. Schwartz (paraphrased)

“In a democratic society,” observed Oakland police chief Sean Whent, “people have a say in how they are policed.”

Unfortunately, if you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is never held accountable for violating your rights and his oath of office to serve and protect, never forced to make amends, never told that what he did was wrong, and never made to change his modus operandi, then you don’t live in a constitutional republic.

You live in a police state.

It doesn’t even matter that “crime is at historic lows and most cities are safer than they have been in generations, for residents and officers alike,” as the New York Times reports.

What matters is whether you’re going to make it through a police confrontation alive and with your health and freedoms intact. For a growing number of Americans, those confrontations do not end well.

As David O. Brown, the Dallas chief of police, noted: “Sometimes it seems like our young officers want to get into an athletic event with people they want to arrest. They have a ‘don’t retreat’ mentality. They feel like they’re warriors and they can’t back down when someone is running from them, no matter how minor the underlying crime is.”

Making matters worse, in the cop culture that is America today, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much. Unless, that is, it’s the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBoR), which protects police officers from being subjected to the kinds of debilitating indignities heaped upon the average citizen.

More...http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/may/06/in-a-cop-culture-the-bill-of-rights-doesn-t-amount-to-much/

State Department will not review Clinton ethics pledge breaches

(Reuters) - The U.S. State Department will not review the breaches of the 2008 ethics agreement Hillary Clinton signed in order to become secretary of state after her family's charities admitted in March that they had not complied, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Clinton, now the Democratic front-runner in the 2016 presidential election, had promised the federal government that the Clinton Foundation and its associated charities would name all donors annually while she was the nation's top diplomat.

She also promised that the charities would let the State Department's ethics office review beforehand any proposed new foreign governments donations.

More...http://news.yahoo.com/state-dept-not-review-clinton-ethics-pledge-breaches-204846487.html

Marco Rubio Campaigns on His Immigrant Story, Cautiously

...
As Mr. Rubio has introduced himself to curious, and overwhelmingly Caucasian, Republican audiences from Iowa to New Hampshire, he has vaulted to the front ranks of the early pack of likely presidential candidates, partly because of his natural political talent. But it may owe just as much to the combination of his personal story and the balm it offers to a party that has been repeatedly scalded by accusations of prejudice.

He says he is highlighting his background only to share his own twist on the American dream — not out of any desire to make history on behalf of Hispanics. But Mr. Rubio and those around him are also acutely aware of the sometimes raw tensions in his party, between those unsettled by an increasingly diverse society and those who say Republicans must embrace the multihued America of 2015.

To the party operatives and donors who have placed long bets on him, and to the rank-and-file primary voters he has impressed, Mr. Rubio’s candidacy seems to affirm the idea that in a free market, anyone can rise without the benefit of connections or wealth. That he did so as the child of Latin American parents who fled an autocratic government and toiled in the humblest of jobs — maid and bartender — has sent some Republicans swooning.
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/us/politics/marco-rubio-campaigns-on-his-immigrant-story-cautiously.html

EXCLUSIVE — RAND PAUL: WE’RE GOING TO TAKE NSA ALL THE WAY TO SUPREME COURT. AND WIN

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93%
 is celebrating the news a federal appeals court rejected President Barack Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program on Thursday. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Paul says he can’t wait for the Supreme Court to eventually rule it unconstitutional.

“We initiated a lawsuit on this over a year ago, and we are excited that the appeals court agrees with us,” Paul said.

Now, they’re saying it’s illegal in that Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act doesn’t authorize that—that the government has gone too far—I think that’s a good first step. We want the Supreme Court to eventually rule on whether this is Constitutional or not. Our main complaint, or one of our main arguments is, the Fourth Amendment says you have to name the person who you want to get a warrant—but not naming anyone and putting “Mr. Verizon” down and saying you can get the records of millions of people, you’re not writing a specific warrant.

You’re writing a generalized warrant. This is one of the things that we fought against that the British were doing to us. James Otis famously argued in court that the writs of assistance that the British were using were non-specific and didn’t use the person’s name—and so we wrote the Fourth Amendment to try to stop this kind of stuff. I guess it’s gratifying that the courts are beginning to recognize the problem. We are anticipating and eager for this to get to the Supreme Court.

More...http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/07/exclusive-rand-paul-were-going-to-take-nsa-all-the-way-to-supreme-court-and-win/

Santorum to make campaign announcement May 27 in Pittsburgh

Santorum attended school in Pittsburgh and spent several years there as a lawyer before being elected to Congress.

Santorum set up a testing-the-waters campaign account earlier this month to help finance his trips to the early-voting states, where he’s been meeting with local activists and party leaders to gauge support ahead of what appears to be another run at the Republican presidential nomination.

Last week, Santorum attended three events in South Carolina, and he held three events in Iowa the week prior. He’ll head back to Iowa on May 16 for one of the state party’s biggest fundraisers, the Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines.

...

Santorum is currently buried in the polls in 11th place nationally and taking only 2 percent support, according to the RealClearPolitics average. He’s only doing a little bit better in Iowa, pulling 2.7 percent support, according to RCP.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-primaries/241288-santorum-to-make-2016-announcement-may-27

Carly Fiorina Is Not the Anti-Hillary

As an advocate of a stateless society, I don’t want anyone to be president. Nevertheless, someone will be chosen to live in the White House next year. Will it be a woman?

Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina hope so. But these two women are essentially indistinguishable from each other and from their male rivals. Style must not overshadow substance. Really, what’s the point?

Clinton is a well-known champion of the all-state. To her the U.S. government is the source of order both domestic and foreign. Her fondness for social engineering is indisputable. Domestically, she likes corporatism, which comes down to bureaucrats and big business—with input from big official labor unions—running "the economy." [That’s in quotation marks because an economy is just people: we’re the economy the ruling elite wants to regulate.] Little is to be left to the spontaneous process that arises from peaceful social cooperation and mutual aid in the marketplace and the wider society. In foreign affairs, Clinton has a preference for military intervention. She certainly demonstrated this as secretary of state under Barack Obama. She is an enthusiast for the conceit known as "American exceptionalism."
...
How about Fiorina? If you’re looking for the anti-Hillary, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Fiorina will play up the fact that she comes out of the world of (big) business. She ran Hewlett-Packard (unsuccessfully by many accounts) and held executive positions in other large companies. This may thrill fans of "private enterprise," but beware. Corporate America is no place to find advocates of freed markets, as opposed to capitalism or corporatism. When have you heard the CEO of a major company call for laissez faire—that is, the radical separation of the people and state?
...
Fiorina sees a world full of enemies—Russia and Iran head the list—and shows no understanding that the U.S. government has gratuitously created enemies for the American people. [She’s been on the CIA External Advisory Board.] At this late date she still does not know—or more likely, mind—that free markets don’t coexist with an interventionist foreign policy, and she thinks the world is in turmoil because the U.S. government is not interventionist enough under Obama: "American leadership matters in the world. American strength matters in the world."
...

http://reason.com/archives/2015/05/07/fiorina-is-not-the-anti-hillary

Jeb Bush leads GOP pack in New Hampshire

Jeb Bush leads the pack among Republican presidential hopefuls in New Hampshire, according to the latest WMUR Granite State Poll.

The former Florida governor nabbed 15 percent among likely Republican primary voters, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio close behind with 12 percent. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker follows with 11 percent, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul attracted 10 percent. Others in the mix include Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (6 percent); Donald Trump (5 percent); and Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry (4 percent each).

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has pinned his presidential hopes on New Hampshire, picked up just 3 percent.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/poll-jeb-bush-gop-new-hampshire-117726.html#ixzz3ZTL9UYJD

According to reports, Rand Paul will be opening his long awaited office in California this weekend, as part of a visit to San Francisco. Dr. Paul will be attending an event entitled "Disrupting Democracy: Growing a New Generation of Voter Engagement" on Saturday, May 9. Opening an office in the San Francisco Bay Area has been touted as way to gain access to a tech-savvy demographic of libertarian-minded supporters and voters. Rand's trip follows on the heels of a visit by Hillary Clinton, who has also joined in the competition to establish a NorCal supporter and donor base.

Get tickets...https://www.eventbrite.com/e/disrupting-democracy-growing-a-new-generation-of-voter-engagement-tickets-16652020642

Rand Paul Slams Jeb Bush For Agreeing With Obama’s NSA Data Collection

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, slammed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—a likely 2016 candidate who hasn’t announced yet that he’s running—for agreeing with President Barack Obama on the National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program. The program was ruled illegal by a federal appeals court on Thursday, prompting a likely Supreme Court battle soon—something Paul expects to win.

“Well I think I’m the only Republican or Democrat candidate for the presidency who has said that I would end the bulk collection of records on day one,” Paul said in his interview with Breitbart News on Thursday.

It was started by executive order and I would do it by executive order. The thing that’s been disingenuous by the president is his privacy committee says he should end it, and he says “okay, I’ll end it when Congress does it.”

Well, it was started by executive order—it can be ended by executive order. I’m the only presidential candidate who has said that I would do this. There are in fact some that are completely the opposite. Jeb Bush has said that he’s basically so much in love with the program that he’s complimenting the president and saying this is the best thing President Obama ever did. So if Jeb Bush and President Obama are in complete agreement on this, I think it’s important that maybe we talk about a Republican candidate who would be opposed to President Obama on this.
Back in February in a foreign policy speech in Chicago, Jeb Bush sided with Obama in favor of the NSA data collection program.

...

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/07/exclusive-rand-paul-slams-jeb-bush-for-agreeing-with-obamas-nsa-data-collection/

Rand Paul Apparently Paid $100,000 for RandPaul.com

Days before Paul launched his bid for president, his campaign shelled out more than $100,000 to a domain-buying firm to purchase a "domain name." Soon after, RandPaul.com, which had previously been a pro-Paul site run by his fans, emerged as the official portal for the campaign.

Federal campaign records show Paul used his Senate reelection committee to pay $100,980 to Escrow.com, a domain service, on March 27 for what is described as a "domain name." Previously, Paul's political homepage was RandPaul2016.com, an address that now automatically redirects to his RandPaul.com page.

The payment is an enormous sum even in the murky world of political cybersquatting. "Holy crap," a top Republican digital strategist said when informed of the price. "That's a ton."

Patrick Ruffini, a veteran GOP digital strategist, said that he had never heard of a campaign paying so much for a URL, though he was not shocked. "It's very much a seller's market," Ruffini said, adding that owning a candidate's "FirstnameLastname.com" was the gold standard in the digital world. "I would argue that almost nothing else matters."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/rand-paul-apparently-paid-100-000-for-randpaul-com-20150506