President Barack Obama was in Riyadh on Tuesday to pay his respects to the late Saudi King Abdullah. His visit, for which he cut short a much-hyped trip to India, underscores how important the U.S.-Saudi relationship remains to the American leadership. On social media, however, much of the attention has focused on something else: His wife's attire.
As noted by the Associated Press, Michelle Obama did not wear a headscarf or veil Tuesday. In Saudi Arabia, that's unusual: The country is one of the few on Earth where women are expected to cover their heads, and most Saudi women wear niqabs.
Exceptions are made for foreigners, however, and Michelle – who did wear loose clothing that fully covered her arms – appears to have been one of them. In photographs from the official events, other foreign female guests are also shown not wearing headscarves.
More... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/michelle-obama-forgoes-a-headscarf-and-sparks-a-backlash-in-saudi-arabia/?tid=pm_popI'm proud of The First Lady for just being her and not subjecting herself to this extremism against women. Don't leave the house if you don't want the public to see your hair and neckline. I can respect others' traditions but don't have to like it nor expect outsiders to follow along. It does go against the "when in Rome..." routine so it is what it is. |
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On Tuesday, news broke that the President is planning to request the largest Pentagon budget in history.
You read that right. President Obama will likely ask for a $534 billion base budget, in a move that’s being sold as part of a strategy to beef up responsiveness to emerging worldwide threats and fund efforts against ISIS and others.
This plan will blow past budget caps to the tune of $34 billion in 2016 and $150 billion over the next five years.
Many in the new Congress, it’s sad to say, are eager to both hike overseas spending and ignore budget controls, with some Republican leaders saying they’ll do anything they can to “fix” sequestration.
The argument that more money – and fast! – is what’s needed to keep us safe is dishonest at best.
For one, when it comes to wars, the money’s already there. It’s in the Overseas Contingency Operations budget. This money is immune to budget caps, and is often used as a slush fund to spend beyond them. OCO got an additional $64 billion in the latest “CRomnibus” budget deal, and now President Obama is set to request about $60 billion more.
It’s hard to imagine that the fund has dried up, or that it needs the extra billions the President wants. Meanwhile, the suggestion that even more base funds are needed to keep us safe is dubious and should be questioned.
This assumption misses a key part of keeping America truly safe: Reforms, streamlining, and a real modernization strategy. Simply piling on more money allows the Pentagon bureaucracy to avoid any tough choices.
As retired Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said in 2013, “We need an effective defense, not an expensive defense. There are tons of cuts we can still make.”
He’s right. Any honest assessment of the Pentagon reveals that it, like any other government agency, is absolutely loaded with waste, fraud, and abuse. Whether we’re talking about over $1 trillion for a jet that barely works or hundreds of millions in excess military-grade equipment controversially gifted to local police forces, it’s clear that there’s no reason to treat this particular bureaucracy with kid gloves.
That’s exactly what the President and likely many Republicans in Congress want to continue doing, though.
More... http://rare.us/story/obama-is-about-to-ask-for-the-largest-pentagon-budget-in-history/The only politician calling for an audit of the Pentagon and focusing expenditures only on defending the nation is Sen. Paul. |
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Billionaire claims world government "badly needed" to save the earthBillionaire Bill Gates called for “a kind of global government” this week, arguing that the creation of such a system would be needed to combat major issues such as “climate change.”
Speaking with Germany’s “Süddeutsche Zeitung” newspaper Tuesday, Gates decried the fact that a proper United Nations system has failed to materialize as planned.
“You can make fun of it, but in truth it was sad how the conference in Copenhagen is run, how individual who behave like the UN system failed,” Gates said according to an English translation in the Huffington Post.
Gates went on to stress his position further, stating that a global government was “badly needed” in order to combat an array of issues ailing the planet.
“Take the UN, it has been created especially for the security in the world. We are ready for war, because we have taken every precaution. We have NATO, we have divisions, jeeps, trained people,” Gates said. “But what is with epidemics? How many doctors do we have as much planes, tents, what scientists? If there were such a thing as a world government, we would be better prepared.”
More... http://www.infowars.com/bill-gates-calls-for-global-government/Can't wait to see how this topic turns out.
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 Don’t take for granted the support for whistleblower Edward Snowden among Millennials. NSA spying receives more support from people under 30 years old than any other age group according to a new Pew Research poll. People aged 18-29 approved of the NSA at a rate of 61 percent compared to just 40 percent from the 65 and older crowd. From the article at Pew Research Center:
Favorability ratings for the National Security Agency (NSA) have changed little since the fall of 2013, shortly after former NSA analyst Edward Snowden’s revelations of the agency’s data-mining activities. About half (51%) view the NSA favorably, compared with 37% who have an unfavorable view.
Young people are more likely than older Americans to view the intelligence agency positively. About six-in-ten (61%) of those under 30 view the NSA favorably, compared with 40% of those 65 and older. More... http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/nsa-spying-has-strong-approval-from-young-people/ |
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The three key components of McCain’s approach are these:
Expand the U.S. force in Iraq from the current 2,300 troops to 10,000 to assist Iraqis troops. Rather than keeping U.S. service members confined to bases and headquarters, many of them would be dispatched to the front lines to direct or call in air strikes and take other steps to assist the Iraqis.
Establish safe zones or no-fly zones in neighboring Syria. McCain initially was reacting to news reports last year that ISIS was attempting to assemble a modest air force with pilots trained by Iraqi military defectors. While that threat has yet to materialize, McCain and administration officials have considered establishing a Syrian no-fly zone to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government.
Expand aid and military assistance to moderate Syrian rebels to help them fight back against ISIS and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. As The Washington Post noted, Assad appears to be buoyed by months of U.S. and allied air strikes against ISIS that have taken enormous pressure off of him while he continues to destroy rebel forces seeking to topple him.
McCain said it’s an outrage that the Obama administration has pulled back and is no longer insisting that Assad step aside, although his regime is responsible for the deaths of over 200,000 Syrian civilians.
More... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mccain-ready-u-troops-ground-175200999.html |
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Hedge fund managers are buying up remote ranches and land in places like New Zealand to flee to in event of wide-spread civil unrest Super rich hedge fund managers are buying 'secret boltholes' where they can hideout in the event of civil uprising against growing inequality, it has been claimed.
Nervous financiers from across the globe have begun purchasing landing strips, homes and land in areas such as New Zealand so they can flee should people rise up.
With growing inequality and riots such as those in London in 2011 and in Ferguson and other parts of the USA last year, many financial leaders fear they could become targets for public fury.
Robert Johnson, president of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, told people at the World Economic Forum in Davos that many hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes.
He said: “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway." More... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/panicked-super-rich-buying-boltholes-5044084
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There's just so much genius in this plan that I'm simply amazed at the brilliance.  But in Japan, the worry is about a libido crisis. The birthrate is falling fast. By 2060, the population is expected to go down by a third, and, by 2100, if trends continue, by 61 percent. In 2011, sales of adult diapers in Japan exceeded those of baby diapers. It’s an urgent national problem: there isn’t enough procreation.
To examine Japanese attitudes toward sex, the Japan Family Planning Association interviewed 3,000 subjects, both male and female, about their sex lives. The group found that 49.3 percent of participants (48.3 percent of men, 50.1 percent of women) had not had sex in the past month. 21.3 percent of married men said they were too tired after work (versus 17.8 percent of women). Of men, 15.7 percent answered that they were no longer interested, after having children. 23.8 percent of women said sex was “bothersome.”
There are a number of diagnoses for this aversion to the bedroom. Morinaga Takuro, an economic analyst and TV personality, believes this has something to do with attractiveness. He has suggested a “handsome tax”: “If we impose a handsome tax on men who look good to correct the injustice only slightly, then it will become easier for ugly men to find love, and the number of people getting married will increase.”
Takuro writes a lament for the men in love with “2D female characters from anime and manga.” He expressed, in the Asahi Shimbun, “I want to tell them that human women are also great fun!” Technology, of course, gets blame: virtual worlds, not to mention porn.
But many, especially alarmed to see that more than 20 percent of men between 25-29 say they have little interest in sex, see the low interest in sex as part of economic depression. A Japanese columnist named Maki Fukasawa observes an increase in a group of men he’s dubbed “herbivores”: heterosexual guys who, in contrast to “carnivorous” businessmen, live without expression of sexuality. Angelika Koch, a Cambridge University scholar, author of Manga Girl Seeks Herbivore Boy, sees “a subversion of the traditional male role of the Japanese 'salaryman': the corporate male in suit and tie who dedicates his life to his company as breadwinner for his family, the sexually assertive man who spends his evenings drinking with colleagues at hostess clubs and bars.”
Whatever the case, it’s an urgent government concern. In 2014, aware of the dangers of becoming a nation of old folks, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set aside 3 billion yen ($30 million) for programs aimed at boosting the birthrate, including matchmaking programs. More... http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-25/the-japanese-government-is-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-get-its-people-to-have-more-sex |
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The German central bank or Bundesbank said Monday that it stepped up the repatriation of its gold reserves from overseas storage last year.
"The Bundesbank successfully continued and further stepped up its transfers of gold," the central bank said in a statement.
"In 2014, 120 tonnes of gold were transferred to Frankfurt from storage locations abroad: 35 tonnes from Paris and 85 tonnes from New York."
Germany's gold reserves are the second-biggest in the world after those of the United States and totalled 3,384.2 tonnes this month, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council.
For decades the Bundesbank's gold holdings have been kept in the treasuries of other central banks -- in Paris, London and New York.
According to the German central bank's own data, 1,447 tonnes are stored at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, 438 tonnes at the Bank of England in London and 307 tonnes at the Banque de France in Paris.
There were historical reasons for this.
After World War II and the export revival of West Germany's "economic miracle" in the 1950s, the central bank accumulated dollars it swapped for gold at the Federal Reserve. With Germany split between capitalist west and the communist East German state until 1990, storing most of the gold abroad was a way to keep it out of Soviet reach during the Cold War.
But surging mistrust of the euro during Europe's debt crisis fed a campaign to bring home Germany's gold reserve from New York and London, with some political parties fuelling fears the gold might have been tampered with.
Under the Bundesbank's new gold storage plan in 2013, it decided to bring back 674 tonnes from abroad by 2020 and store half of its gold in its own vaults.
"Implementation of our new gold storage plan is proceeding smoothly. Operations are running very much according to schedule," said Bundesbank executive board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele.
"We also called on the expertise of the Bank for International Settlements for the spot checks that had to be carried out. As expected, there were no irregularities," Thiele said.
Since the transfers began in 2013, the Bundesbank said it has relocated a total of 157 tonnes of gold to Frankfurt -- 67 tonnes from Paris and 90 tonnes from New York. http://news.yahoo.com/germany-repatriates-more-gold-bundesbank-100251153.html |
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State efforts to stop warrantless NSA spying are off to a fast start in the 2015 legislative session.
Just two weeks into this year's legislative season, and with many legislatures not even in session yet, legislators in four states have already introduced bills to ban material support or resources to any federal agency engaged in warrantless spying.
These bills not only support efforts to turn off NSA’s water in Utah, but would also have practical effects on federal surveillance programs if passed.
Legislators in South Carolina, Missouri, Alaska and Indiana have all filed versions of the Fourth Amendment Protection Act, and representatives in seven other states have committed to introduce similar bills this year. Sources close to OffNow suggest even more bills will get introduced before the legislative season ends in spring.
“To have four bills already filed, and commitments from seven more legislators - on top of having a bill in Utah set to move forward that would set the stage to turn of the water at the Bluffdale data center - this is really beyond our expectations this early in the session,” OffNow executive director Mike Maharrey said. “I think Americans are sick of being spied on, and they are sick of empty reform talk by D.C. politicians. I think this movement at the state level is indicative of the American people saying, 'Fine! If you can’t get things fixed in Washington, we’ll fix it through our states.'”
Following model language drafted by OffNow, the Fourth Amendment Protection Act legislation supports actions in Utah and would have a practical effect in any state that passes it. More... http://www.offnow.org/four_counting_states_consider_bills_turn_off_resources_to_nsa |
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Which happens tonight shortly President Obama will ask Congress to hike capital gains taxes on wealthy Americans and impose a fee on large financial firms in Tuesday's State of the Union address, the White House announced Saturday.
The new taxes and fees, which the administration says will raise $320 billion over 10 years, would be used to finance $235 billion in new spending on community college tuition and targeted tax relief.
Senior administration officials said the proposals are designed to "raise wages and incomes for middle class families in the new economy" and that they'd "make the system more fair" by closing loopholes that primarily benefit top income-earners. Many Democrats have long sought higher taxes on capital gains, or income derived from investments, to make the tax code more progressive.
Of the estimated $320 billion in new revenue the president is seeking, $210 billion would come from a pair of adjustments to capital gains taxes. The first adjustment would close the so-called "trust fund loophole," a feature of the tax code that "lets the wealthy pass appreciated assets onto their heirs tax-free," according to the White House.
The second adjustment would raise capital gains taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners, currently at 15 percent, to 28 percent -- the same level it was at under former President Ronald Reagan, the White House is quick to point out.
An additional $110 billion would come from a new fee on highly leveraged financial services firms (firms bearing a heavy debt load) with more than $50 billion in assets. Roughly 100 firms would be targeted by the new fee, which a White House fact sheet argued would help "discourage excessive borrowing."
In return for those new taxes and fees, the president will ask Congress to set aside $60 billion to offer rebates to states that offer free community college tuition and an additional $175 billion in new tax benefits.
The president would offer a $500 second-earner tax credit that allows spouses in two-earner families to obtain a tax credit now available to the principle earner. That change could benefit 24 million couples.
He would also triple the child care tax credit to $3,000, a move that could benefit 5.1 million families with children under 5 and 6.7 million families overall.
And he'd offer a $2,500 tax credit for college students pursuing a full degree and consolidate the six federal college education tax benefits into only two. The tax credit could reach 8.5 million students and families, and the tax benefits through simplification could benefit 25 million families and students that claim those tax benefits, the White House estimates.
Finally, the president will also call for Congress to allow part-time workers to apply for and eventually receive retirement benefits through automatic enrollment in company-run savings plans. This could benefit up to 30 million workers.
With the president's big speech looming, the White House is hoping the early announcement of the proposals could heighten the visibility of the address and gin up enthusiasm among groups sympathetic to his ideas.
"This is a clearer way for the president to present his vision," a senior administration official said Saturday.
Of course, the call to raise taxes on the wealthy and impose a fee on big financial institutions will likely go over like a lead balloon with Republicans, who now control both houses of Congress. The president has previously proposed hiking capital gains taxes, but the GOP has successfully thwarted any such action, arguing the move would discourage investment and put a crimp in economic growth. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-to-propose-higher-capital-gains-taxes-new-fee-on-big-banks/ |
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Dozens of Syrian civilians died last month after being jailed by ISIS for violating Sharia Law. But it wasn’t Islamic extremists who ended their lives—it was the United States.
An airstrike carried out Dec. 28 on an ISIS headquarters in the northern Syrian town of Al Bab may have killed more than 50 civilians, according to McClatchy. Reports gathered from eyewitness and a Syrian opposition human rights group revealed a death toll ranging between 55 and 61 civilian prisoners inside the building that was demolished by American missiles. Between 13 and 25 ISIS guards also died in the attack. If those numbers are accurate, it would represent the worst case of civilian deaths caused by the U.S. bombing of Syria.
One source told McClatchy that 35 prisoners were imprisoned for minor infractions of Islamic Law, “such as smoking, wearing jeans or appearing too late for the afternoon prayer,” Roy Gutman and Mousab Alhamadee reported.
The U.S. military did not confirm the airstrike until last weekend. An early Pentagon statement said there had been no evidence of civilian casualties but a later email from the Defense Department acknowledged there had been reports of some deaths. http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-bombing-in-syria-kills-dozens-imprisoned-by-isis-for-violating-sharia-law-150114?news=855368 |
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New research from the scientific journal Psychological Science suggests that, in just three hours, an interviewer can convince most people to falsely believe that they committed a crime that never actually took place. Some psychologists have long theorized that it is possible for interrogators to use certain techniques to obtain false confessions from suspects by tricking them into believing that they committed the crime in question. The Association for Psychological Science noted that this phenomenon has been observed in the cases of some wrongfully-accused criminal suspects. However, Julia Shaw of the University of Bedfordshire and Stephen Porter at the University of British Columbia decided to put the theory to the test in a lab setting and conducted a study, which was recently published in the scientific journal Psychological Science. The above-embedded video coverage by Discovery Channel‘s DNews describes their findings.
The study, which included 60 adult college students as participants and was funded by the University of British Columbia’s Lashley and Mary Haggman Memory Research Award and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, demonstrated that 71% of those who were suggestively told that they had committed a crime in their youth developed vivid false memories of the event. As a control, 50% of the participants in the study were told instead that they had experienced an emotionally intense event that never took place using the same techniques. 76.67% of those who were asked to describe the false emotional event were found to have similarly developed false memories.
“Our findings show that false memories of committing crime with police contact can be surprisingly easy to generate, and can have all the same kinds of complex details as real memories… All participants need to generate a richly detailed false memory is 3 hours in a friendly interview environment, where the interviewer introduces a few wrong details and uses poor memory-retrieval techniques,” said Julia Shaw of the study’s findings. More... http://benswann.com/scientific-study-interrogators-can-trick-people-into-falsely-believing-that-they-committed-crimes/
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When it comes to financial stability, black Americans are often in much more precarious financial situations than white Americans. Their unemployment rate is higher, and so is the level of poverty within the black community. In 2013, the poverty rate among white Americans was 9.6 percent, among black Americans it was 27.2 percent. And the gap between the wealth of white families and black families has widened to its highest levels since 1989, according to a 2014 study by Pew Research Center.
The facts of this rift aren’t new, or all that surprising. But perhaps what’s most unsettling about the current economic climate in black America is that when black families attain middle-class status, the likelihood that their children will remain there, or do better, isn’t high.
“Even black Americans who make it to the middle class are likely to see their kids fall down the ladder,” writes Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. In a recent blog post Reeves says that seven out of 10 black children who are born to families with income that falls in the middle quintile of the income spectrum will find themselves with income that's one to two quintiles below their parents' during their own adulthood.
A 2014 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which looked at factors like parental income, education, and family structure, shows a similar pattern: Many black Americans not only fail to move up, but show an increased likelihood of backsliding. According to the study, “In recent decades, blacks have experienced substantially less upward intergenerational mobility and substantially more downward intergenerational mobility than whites.”
The greater probability of slipping back applies to blacks across income groups. According to the Fed study, about 60 percent of black children whose parents had income that fell into the top 50 percent of the distribution saw their own income fall into the bottom half during adulthood. This type of downward slide was common for only 36 percent of white children. More... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/black-middle-class-kids-become-124000819.html |
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Rapid progress in genetics is making "designer babies" more likely and society needs to be prepared, leading scientists have told the BBC.
Dr Tony Perry, a pioneer in cloning, has announced precise DNA editing at the moment of conception in mice.
He said huge advances in the past two years meant "designer babies" were no longer HG Wells territory.
Other leading scientists and bioethicists argue it is time for a serious public debate on the issue.
Designer babies - genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease - have long been a topic of science fiction.
Dr Perry, who was part of the teams to clone the first mice and pigs, said the prospect was still fiction, but science was rapidly catching up to make elements of it possible.
In the journal Scientific Reports, he details precisely editing the genome of mice at the point DNA from the sperm and egg come together.
Dr Perry, who is based at the University of Bath, told the BBC: "We used a pair of molecular scissors and a molecular sat-nav that tells the scissors where to cut.
"It is approaching 100% efficiency already, it's a case of 'you shoot you score'." More... http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30742774Want one of these or do you wanna steer clear of it and taking your chances? Or, if you're like me not want any children at all?
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The German reporter then elaborated on how shocked he was about how “willing to kill” the ISIS fighters are. He said that they were ready to commit genocide. “They were talking about [killing] hundreds of millions. They were enthusiastic about it, and I just cannot understand that,” said Todenhofer
He warned that the Islamic State “is much stronger than we think,” and that their recruiting has brought motivated jihadis from across the globe. “Each day, hundreds of new enthusiastic fighters are arriving,” explained Todenhofer. “There is an incredible enthusiasm that I have never seen in any other war zones I have been to.”
The journalist asserted that the U.S.-led bombing campaign was not going to stop the Islamic State and its continuing jihad. He told Al Jazeera that he believed the terror group would only be stopped if fellow Sunni Iraqis would rise up against them. http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/18/german-embed-reporter-isis-plans-on-killing-hundreds-of-millions-in-religious-cleansing/Somebody paid for the training and arming of these types early on and now the recruitment process is flowing like wine. Bye bye al qaeda, hello isis. Guess who funded and trained the former and now the latter? |
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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran sees no sign of a shift within OPEC toward action to support oil prices, its oil minister said, adding its oil industry could ride out a further price slump to $25 a barrel.
The comments are a further sign that despite lobbying by Iran and Venezuela, there is little chance of collective action by the 12-member OPEC to prop up prices - entrenching the reluctance of individual members to curb their own supplies.
In remarks posted on the Iranian oil ministry's website SHANA, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh called for increased cooperation between members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"Iran has no plan (to hold an emergency OPEC meeting) and is currently in consultations with other OPEC member states in a bid to prevent the sharp fall in the oil price, but these consultations have yet to bear fruit," he said. More... https://ca.news.yahoo.com/iran-oil-minister-says-no-plans-call-emergency-133332881--finance.htmlI'll just say this, this current and potential future pricing of oil is all you need to keep Americans in a happy state of mind to withstand most other government spending, including expanding foreign conflicts. No doubt I'm thrilled about it too despite not being one of the zombies. |
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Lindsey Graham 'definitely' considering 2016 bidAs you'll see, this guy is a neoconservative republican Senator from South Carolina and is the wingman of John McCain, another neocon Senator from Arizona. Both have been for the US funding and training so-called Syrian rebels that eventually aid ISIS in their pursuit of terrorism. Frankly, he/they are both big time interventionists in the vein of Bush et al that the world has come to hate America for. I doubt he's even serious about becoming President, only crowding the debate stages w/ more neocon interventionist rhetoric trying to reclaim the GOP to full blown war hawking and minimizing the likes of Rand Paul. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday said he was seriously considering a White House bid in 2016.
"I am definitely going to look at it," Graham said on Meet the Press.
Graham said he had established a "testing the waters" committee to probe his viability in a GOP primary. The revelation comes after Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush have in recent weeks aggresively maneuvered their way into the race. http://www.theweek.com/speedreads/534329/sen-lindsey-graham-definitely-considering-2016-bidHe just started one of those preliminary presidential PACs to raise money and travel to test the waters. Saw it reported on Fox today. BTW, this will be a running thread showing BTC interested Americans and foreigners what's going on and leading into the presidential primaries of both parties heading into 2016. This will skew on the republican side as there's a current democrat president and currently a nominee in waiting in the form of Hillary Clinton, but I'll showcase the left side to as it heats up.
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“Silk Road was founded on libertarian principles and continues to be operated on them. It is a great idea and a great practical system…It is not a utopia. It is regulated by market forces, not a central power (even I am subject to market forces by my competition. No one is forced to be here). The same principles that have allowed Silk Road to flourish can and do work anywhere human beings come together. The only difference is that the State is unable to get its thieving murderous mitts on it.”
- Dread Pirate Roberts
New York City – On Tuesday the trial of Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht will continue in a federal courthouse in the Southern District of New York City.
Ulbricht is accused of trafficking drugs on the Internet, narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, computer-hacking conspiracy and money-laundering conspiracy for his role as the creator of the Silk Road and for allegedly being the man behind the online persona that ran the marketplace, Dread Pirate Roberts. In the first week of the trial the prosecution attempted to convince the jury that Ulbricht was DPR by showcasing exhibit after exhibit of drugs purchased by undercover officer with the Homeland Security Investigations.
The government claims that Ulbricht was running the administrative side of the website during these and other drug purchases and thus should be held responsible for the purchases. The government is claiming Ulbricht is responsible under something known as “transferred intent”.This doctrine will allow the government to attempt to convince the jury that Ulbricht is responsible for the activities of the website itself, whether or not he was directly involved. Ross’s mother Lyn Ulbricht has said that if the precedent is set during her son’s trial it could “put a chill on the internet.”
Indeed, if the governments arguments convince the jury that Ulbricht is guilty of the crimes by simply hosting them it could create a dangerous situation where website owners could be held responsible for users comments on a site, or for the products sold on ebay or craigslist.
As the IB Times wrote, “If found guilty he will go down as the first person in history to be convicted for the actions of the users of his website, rather than merely his own actions.”
... More... http://benswann.com/the-silk-road-trial-continues-after-dramatic-revelations/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_zz1d6MfAQ |
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According to an article at The Wall Street Journal, President Obama has sided with British Prime Minister David Cameron in saying that police and government agencies should not be blocked by encryption from viewing the content of cellphone or online communications, making the pro-spying arguments everyone has come to expect:
“If we find evidence of a terrorist plot and despite having a phone number, despite having a social media address or email address, we can’t penetrate that, that’s a problem,” Obama said. He said he believes Silicon Valley companies also want to solve the problem. “They’re patriots.” ... The president on Friday argued there must be a technical way to keep information private, but ensure that police and spies can listen in when a court approves. The Clinton administration fought and lost a similar battle during the 1990s when it pushed for a “clipper chip” that would allow only the government to decrypt scrambled messages. More... http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/16/obama-sides-with-cameron-in-encryption-fight/Remember the press conference the other day with the two of them where it was Cameron that was all passionate about fighting radical Islam and Obama beating around the bush calling the situation what it was? Then you had the pundits on panels on the big corporate channels (specifically Fox) whining about how Obama was being so nonchalant on the matter. Turns out he was just playing the script well and loose thus leaving room for these media personalities to gin up the viewers into thinking that the opposite of what Obama was doing or perceived to be doing about the situation was the way to go. Here's the big picture behind the scenes that was being orchestrated for and the rubes were being played for fools. They don't even know they were being swindled to tacitly advocate for more govt surveillance as the NSA not only wants to stem and reverse the anti-NSA sentiments that have been growing amongst the people and boiling over into Congress but to actually use the present situation overseas and the media's presentation that social media and the internet was the problem, to push for and solidify more spying powers for the all seeing eyes at the top of the intelligence food changes in the domestic realm. |
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This might be meaningless to those outside of American but when you consider what goes on or is alleged to go on there and what the penalties are for stepping over the line, I think it's pretty intriguing actually. It's a 12 min clip of some dudes on a spring break of sorts to Vegas when they decide to get up close and personal. They happen upon some elder ladies that are lost but were looking for the gate.. You'll have to watch to see what happens next and then offer some thoughts as to what you think happened if anything. I've watched quite a few times in the past, definitely a good short watch especially if you have any sort of knowledge on the place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Nt0jgGNek |
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