Federal Shield Bills Offer Rival Takes On Who’s A Journalist; Bloggers Could Be Left Unprotected
Posted February 23rd, 2009
by Michael Lindenberger
The question of what makes a journalist is due for yet another round of debate, now that Congress is weighing two competing versions of a federal shield law for reporters.
Last Friday, the Senate introduced its own version of the Free Flow of Information Act, a follow-up to the House’s action two days before. Both versions would provide new — if limited — protection against subpoenas for journalists, and both version contain a range of exceptions. Both bills were introduced in 2007 as well, with the House version passing overwhelmingly despite a veto threat. The Senate bill was passed easily out of committee only to die without a vote of the full chamber as the session ran out of time. (For details on the previous bills, see previous CMLP posts here, here, here, and here.)
CNBC Analyst: Global Bank, Global Currency Within 15 Years
Globalists exploit financial crisis to pose as saviors and achieve new world economic order
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, February 27, 2009
Head of market analysis for Schneider Foreign Exchange Stephen Gallo told CNBC yesterday that the financial crisis will lead to the creation of a global central bank and a global single currency within 15 years, echoing the call of top globalists who have exploited the problems they created to push for a new world financial order.
Highlighting the significance of the introduction of the Euro, Gallo said that the single currency was “where we are headed globally on a monetary basis over the course of the next 10 to 15 years.”
View CNBC clip below:
Stating that one of the things that caused the financial crisis was an over expansion of the money supply on a global basis, Gallo said, “Over the course of the next couple of decades central banks are going to need to pay more attention to what’s going on with the global money supply rather than the money supply just in their own borders,” a necessity that, “might call into question the need for some kind of global central bank or a global central bank that’s united by central banks for bigger monetary areas underneath that global central bank.”
Historic Victory for DC Voting Rights
Senate Approves Bill to Give DC Residents Vote in the House
February 26, 2009
Washington, DC – After a centuries-long struggle, DC residents may finally get their vote in Congress. In a vote of 61-37, the Senate has passed the DC House Voting Rights Act (S.160).
“This is a historic moment for DC Vote and all who have worked on this issue,” said Ilir Zherka, DC Vote Executive Director. “Through the efforts of our coalition, volunteers, donors and supporters across the nation and world – we did it.”
“We are so grateful to Senators Lieberman and Hatch for their unwavering support of the bill,” added Zherka. “Their commitment to democracy for DC is undeniable; we couldn’t have come this far without their help.”
The bill provides the District of Columbia with a voting member in the House of Representatives. Currently, the District is represented by a non-voting delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who can vote in committee but not on the House floor. The Senate version of the bill was passed with a controversial amendment attached to repeal DC’s current gun laws – a measure added by Senator John Ensign (R-NV).
“Our opponents thought that they would either defeat our bill or diminish our victory by adding this gun bill amendment. They didn’t,” emphasized Zherka. “We passed a significant hurdle in our fight for full democracy for DC residents.”
Taxing pot could become a political toking point
An Assemblyman from San Francisco argues that it’s time to tax and regulate the state’s biggest cash crop in the same manner as alcohol. Opponents say it would create new costs for society.
By Eric Bailey
Hat tip: The LA Times
February 24, 2009
Buoyed by the widely held belief that cannabis is California’s biggest cash crop, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano contends it is time to reap some state revenue from that harvest while putting a damper on drug use by teens, cutting police costs and even helping Mother Nature.
“I know the jokes are going to be coming, but this is not a frivolous issue,” said Ammiano, a Democrat elected in November after more than a dozen years as a San Francisco supervisor. “California always takes the lead — on gay marriage, the sanctuary movement, medical marijuana.”
Anti-drug groups are anything but amused by the idea of California collecting a windfall from the leafy herb that remains illegal under federal law.
Obama’s War Machine Needs $800 Billion For 2009
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Barack Obama’s election promise to bring “change” to Washington and reverse the juggernaut of the Bush war machine has proven to be nothing more than a cruel hoax, emphasized by his recent actions on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and his latest demand for a total of around $800 billion in war funds and subsidiary costs just to cover the rest of 2009.
“According to the US defense officials, Obama needs USD 75.5 billion for 2009 to cover the cost of the additional troops deployed in to Afghanistan this year and an another USD 130 billion for the rest of fiscal 2009,” reports Press TV.
An additional $534 billion is required for the Defense Department, added to another figure of $65.9 billion that has already been approved by Congress, bringing the total figure to over $805 billion dollars.
We Can’t Make It Here Anymore
“We Can’t Make it Here”
Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one’s paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget’s stretched so thin
And there’s more comin’ home from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore
That big ol’ building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can’t make it here anymore
High Noon: Geithner v. the American Oligarchs
t r u t h o u t
Friday 13 February 2009
The Bill Moyers Journal
Former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), MIT Sloan School of Management professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Simon Johnson examines President Obama’s plan for economic recovery.
Bill Moyers: Welcome to the Journal.
The battle is joined as they say – and here’s the headline that framed it: “High Noon: Geithner v. The American Oligarchs.” The headline is in one of the most informative new sites in the blogosphere called: baselinescenario.com. Here’s the quote that grabbed me:
“There comes a time in every economic crisis, or more specifically, in every struggle to recover from a crisis, when someone steps up to the podium to promise the policies that – they say – will deliver you back to growth. The person has political support, a strong track record, and every incentive to enter the history books. But one nagging question remains. Can this person, your new economic strategist, really break with the vested elites that got you into this much trouble?”
And here’s the man who asked that question. Simon Johnson is former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He now teaches global economics and management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and is a senior fellow of the Peterson Institute. He is co-founder of that website I quoted – baselinescenario.com – where he analyzes the global economic and financial crisis.
Welcome, Simon Johnson to the Journal.
Simon Johnson: Nice to be here.
Bill Moyers: What are you signaling with that headline, “Geithner vs. the American Oligarchs”?
Simon Johnson: I think I’m signaling something a little bit shocking to Americans, and to myself, actually. Which is the situation we find ourselves in at this moment, this week, is very strongly reminiscent of the situations we’ve seen many times in other places.
But they’re places we don’t like to think of ourselves as being similar to. They’re emerging markets. It’s Russia or Indonesia or a Thailand type situation, or Korea. That’s not comfortable. America is different. America is special. America is rich. And, yet, we’ve somehow find ourselves in the grip of the same sort of crisis and the same sort of oligarchs.
The Stimulus Bill is like telling a fat person to eat more Ho Ho’s and Ding Dong’s
Hat tip: Dave Ranallo
Guest contributor for the Liberty Voice
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
Newsweek put it best on their latest issue – “We’re all Socialists Now.” And indeed it’s true now and has been true to some degree since since WWI. After that war and especially after WWII, triumphalism and patriotism in our government swelled to the point of utopia (Anyone up for a “Great Society”?). The confidence in central planning and government was all the rage at the turn of the 20th century as witnessed by the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and even in Russia with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Every US administration since that time has increased the size of government represented as either a % of GDP or increase in the Federal Register.
And yes, even Reagan admitted that he was only able to decrease the RATE at which govt increased. It still swelled to outrageous numbers due his exorbitant funding of the military-industrial complex, which Eisenhower warned about during his farewell address.
This trend is troublesome to say the least and has arrived at our doorsteps like a flaming turd burger.
I’m fiscally conservative, socially liberal and a believer in empirical truth. This means my beliefs tick off everyone. Liberals get upset when I say central planning of an economy destroys individual freedom, is exceptionally wasteful and eventually leads to abuses of power by seemingly well-intentioned people. While many conservatives would heartily agree with that last statement, they can’t quite see their own hypocrisy when people like me say you can’t legislate morality or that spreading the message of freedom by gunpoint only generates hate for the U.S. Until both these groups and the rest of us understand that control over millions or, really, numbers greater than one are impermanent illusions, then we’ll continue to debate the same insipid arguments forever.
Let’s just call me an equal opportunity irritant.
