Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’
(CNSNews.com) – When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
“After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.”
The Great IMF Fire-Sale of the UK has Begun
The British Government is about to sell off over half of all UK Forests that are currently under the control of the Forestry Commission to private corporations as the asset-stripping of the UK is begun on behalf of the International Monetary Fund and the Big Six Beast Banks.
Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, has just announced plans to sell around half of our forests to the mega-corporations – that is 150,000 hectares of prime woodland – as well as numerous other properties. The New Forest, Sherwood Forest, and the Forest of Dean could be targeted for sale.
The Sunday Telegraph provided a map of which forests are owned by the state through the Forestry Commission:
The vast majority of these forests are in Wales, West Scotland and the North East of England.
Body scanners unveiled at JFK Airport; Homeland Security Sect. Janet Napolitano doesn’t volunteer
Airline passengers might want to consider a trip to the gym before heading to the airport now that high-tech body scanners have been unveiled at Kennedy Airport.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday hailed them as an important breakthrough for airport security and the fight against terrorism.
‘Exterminator’ armored truck will watch Illinois neighborhoods
Creative law enforcement isn’t new to St. Clair County Sheriff Mearl Justus.
Last year, the dean of the region’s chief cops sponsored a “haunted crack house” that used an old grange hall to depict the life of a young drug addict.
Before that, Justus publicized a “drug house of the week,” aimed at shaming dealers into leaving town.
Obama’s Approval Rating at New Low in Most Recent Quarter
PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama averaged 44.7% job approval during the seventh quarter of his presidency. His average approval rating has declined each quarter since he took office, falling by more than two percentage points in the most recent quarter to establish a new low.
Hemp Is the Far Bigger Economic Issue Hiding Behind Legal Marijuana
Hemp is the far bigger economic issue hiding behind legal marijuana. If the upcoming pot legalization ballot in California were decided by hemp farmers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, it would be no contest. For purely economic reasons, if you told the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that the nation they were founding would someday make hemp illegal, they would have laughed you out of the room. If California legalizes pot, it will save the state millions in avoided legal and imprisonment costs, while raising it millions in taxes. But with legal marijuana will come legal hemp. That will open up the Golden State to a multi-billion-dollar crop that has been a staple of human agriculture for thousands of years, and that could save the farms of thousands of American families.
Hemp is currently legal in Canada, Germany, Holland, Rumania, Japan and China, among many other countries. It is illegal here largely because of marijuana prohibition. Ask any sane person why HEMP is illegal and you will get a blank stare.
China Said to Widen Its Embargo of Minerals
HONG KONG — China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said on Tuesday.
The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions with the West. Until recently, China typically sought quick and quiet accommodations on trade issues. But the interruption in rare earth supplies is the latest sign from Beijing that Chinese leaders are willing to use their growing economic muscle.
John Hussman on the Fake Recovery
John Hussman had a piece out yesterday that dissects the current economic environment in two parts. In part one, Hussman puts a spotlight on quantitative easing (QE) and why it is unlikely to have the intentioned effect on the U.S. economy. And in part two, Hussman explains how the current technical recovery has been what I call a “fake recovery,” predicated on government backstops, accounting subterfuge, regulatory forbearance and banks’ raising capital. To date, this has worked in buoying both the real economy and financial markets. However, longer-term Hussman remains sceptical both regarding the efficacy of QE and of exit strategies from QE.
Report Shows Drones Strikes Based on Scant Evidence
WASHINGTON, Oct 18, 2010 (IPS) – New information on the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan directly contradicts the image the Barack Obama administration and the CIA have sought to establish in the news media of a programme based on highly accurate targeting that is effective in disrupting al Qaeda’s terrorist plots against the United States.
A new report on civilian casualties in the war in Pakistan has revealed direct evidence that a house was targeted for a drone attack merely because it had been visited by a group of Taliban soldiers.
New War Rumors: U.S. Plans To Seize Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal
Two recent news items emanating from the United States have begun to reverberate in Pakistan and give rise to speculation that growing American drone strikes and NATO helicopter attacks in that country may be the harbingers of far broader actions: Nothing less than the expansion of the West’s war in Afghanistan into Pakistan with the ultimate goal of seizing the nation’s nuclear weapons.
The News International, Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper, published a report on October 13 based on excerpts from American journalist Bob Woodward’s recently released volume “Obama’s Wars” which stated that during a trilateral summit between the presidents of the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan on May 6 of 2009 Pakistani head of state Asif Ali Zardari accused Washington of being behind Taliban attacks inside his country with the intent to use them so “the US could invade and seize its nuclear weapons.” [1]
