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On Fuel Economy Efforts, U.S. Faces an Elusive Target

April 7, 2016

On Fuel Economy Efforts, U.S. Faces an Elusive Target

One of President Obama’s signature achievements on climate has been strict new standards aimed at improving fuel efficiency to nearly 55 miles per gallon by 2025. But credits and loopholes, coupled with low gas prices, may mean the U.S. will fall well short of this ambitious goal.

Five years ago, flanked by auto industry executives at a Washington, D.C. auto show, President Obama announced a historic agreement to increase fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions for cars and light-duty trucks. “By 2025,” the President said, “the average fuel economy of their vehicles will nearly double to almost 55 miles per gallon.” The White House predicted the new rules would save car buyers about $1.7 trillion at the pump and eliminate about 6 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the program. That’s more than a year’s worth of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide.

Ford F-150 light-duty trucks roll off the assembly line in Kansas City, Missouri.

If only it were so simple. But nothing is simple about the government’s sweeping attempt to curb climate emissions and oil imports by requiring auto companies to sell cars that are cleaner and more efficient.

Start with that frequently quoted 54.5 mile-per-gallon projection, which is not even close to the miles-per-gallon estimates pasted on the windows of new cars in dealer showrooms today, let alone the fuel economy that drivers would experience on the road in 2025. The government’s calculations take into account a dizzying array of adjustments and credits, for everything from electric cars, flex-fuel vehicles, energy-efficient air conditioning, and rooftop solar panels. Automakers also get credits for outperforming the standards in the years before they took effect in 2012.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rothschild Humiliates Obama, Reveals That “America Is The Biggest Tax Haven In The World”

April 6, 2016

Rothschild Humiliates Obama, Reveals That “America Is The Biggest Tax Haven In The World”

In his speech yesterday, following the Treasury’s crack down on corporate tax inversions, Obama blamed “poorly designed” laws for allowing illicit money transfers worldwide. Since the speech came at a time when the entire world is still abuzz with the disclosure from the Panama Papers, Obama touched on that as well: “Tax avoidance is a big, global problem” he said on Tuesday, “a lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the problem” because a lot of it is also illegal.

There is one major problem with that: of all the countries in the world, it is none other than the country of which Obama is president, the United States, that has become the world’s favorite offshore “tax haven” destination.

As Bloomberg, which first broke the story about Nevada’s use as a prominent tax haven early this year, writes, “Panama and the U.S. have at least one thing in common: Neither has agreed to new international standards to make it harder for tax evaders and money launderers to hide their money.”

Over the past several years, amid increased scrutiny by journalists, regulators and law enforcers, the global tax-haven landscape has shifted. In an effort to catch tax dodgers, almost 100 countries and other jurisdictions have agreed since 2014 to impose new disclosure requirements for bank accounts, trusts and some other investments held by international customers — standards issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a government-funded international policy group.

In short: while Obama is complaining about corporate tax avoidance and slamming Panama, he is encouraging it in the U.S.

Places like Switzerland and Bermuda are agreeing, at least in principle, to share bank account information with tax authorities in other countries. Only a handful of nations have declined to sign on. The most prominent is the U.S. The other ona is, of course, Panama, and we just saw what happened there.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

A Key Similarity Between Snowden Leak and Panama Papers: Scandal Is What’s Been Legalized

April 4, 2016

FROM THE START of the reporting based on Edward Snowden’s leaked document archive, government defenders insisted that no illegal behavior was revealed. That was always false: Multiple courts have now found the domestic metadata spying program in violation of the Constitution and relevant statutes and have issued similar rulings for other mass surveillance programs; numerous articles on NSA and GCHQ documented the targeting of people and groups for blatantly political or legally impermissible purposes; and the leak revealed that President Obama’s top national security official (still), James Clapper, blatantly lied when testifying before Congress about the NSA’s activities — a felony.

But illegality was never the crux of the scandal triggered by those NSA revelations. Instead, what was most shocking was what had been legalized: the secret construction of the largest system of suspicionless spying in human history. What was scandalous was not that most of this spying was against the law, but rather that the law — at least as applied and interpreted by the Justice Department and secret, one-sided FISA “courts” — now permitted the U.S. government and its partners to engage in mass surveillance of entire populations, including their own. As the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer put it after the Washington Post’s publication of documents showing NSA analysts engaged in illegal spying: “The ‘non-compliance’ angle is important, but don’t get carried away. The deeper scandal is what’s legal, not what’s not.”

Yesterday, dozens of newspapers around the world reported on what they are calling the Panama Papers: a gargantuan leak of documents from a Panama-based law firm that specializes in creating offshore shell companies. The documents reveal billions of dollars being funneled to offshore tax havens by leading governmental and corporate officials in numerous countries (the U.S. was oddly missing from the initial reporting, though journalists vow that will change shortly).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Friday Five: Obama, Snowden and PDC?

April 3, 2016

Frida-Five-Geoff-Lawton

FRIDAY FIVE: OBAMA, SNOWDEN AND PDC?

Our April 1st edition of the “Friday Five” went out to all our subscribers earlier today. Some of you wanted to sign up but didn’t have a chance to, so I’ve included it below. Moving forward, the Friday Five and my social media accounts will be the main ways I share with you key updates, new videos, and the like. If you enjoy these and don’t want to miss any in the future, sign up here. It’s free, and takes 10 seconds.

Let’s jump right in:

World-changing: Are President Obama, Edward Snowden, Steph Curry, Taylor Swift, and Donald Trump all coming to our next Permaculture Design Course?

Worldwide water shortage? That certainly seems to be the dominant narrative. But permaculture suggests otherwise, that there is only a shortage of design understanding of how many times we can repurpose water: The longest path, the longest time, the most beneficial life connections and mechanical action, all extend the potential of water.

Worth checking out: For a A DIY chicken tractor, a “ChickShaw,” or anything else related to chickens, you have to love what one of my students, Justin Rhodes, is doing on his farm in North Carolina. Brilliant, funny, down-to-earth, and a daily video from someone who is living the permaculture dream.

Absolutely beautiful. Brett Pritchard, a permaculturist since 1991, put together something that really caught my eye: A 21 card set of the original permaculture ethics and principles. Many of the illustrations were painted by one of Bill Mollison’s daughters, Frances, and the entire set is free to download.

California, Saudi Arabia, and dairy? Again, water and “California’s crisis” are the connection between this strange trio. But perhaps we’ve defined the California water crisis in a fundamentally incorrect way…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Xi warns Obama against threatening China’s sovereignty & national interests

April 1, 2016

Xi warns Obama against threatening China’s sovereignty & national interests

US President Barack Obama(not shown) and China's President Xi Jinping take part in a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on March 31, 2016 in Washington, DC. © Mandel Ngan
US President Barack Obama(not shown) and China’s President Xi Jinping take part in a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on March 31, 2016 in Washington, DC. © Mandel Ngan / AFP
China has warned the US that it will protect its sovereignty in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and rejects attempts to use international laws and freedom of navigation as a pretext to undermine its national security interests.

In a meeting with US President Barack Obama at the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping said that while he believes in the peaceful resolution of conflicts through direct talks, China will take steps to protect its national interests and sovereignty.

“China will firmly safeguard the sovereignty and related rights in the South China Sea,” Xi said in a meeting, according to Xinhua news.

While acknowledging that Beijing “respects and safeguards the freedom of navigation and overflight other countries are entitled to under international law,” Xi stressed that China will “not accept any freedom of navigation as an excuse to undermine China’s sovereignty and national security interests.”

The US has been taking steps to counter China’s growing influence in the region and has increased its regular naval patrols in the South China Sea as part of “freedom of navigation” drills near the disputed islands chain.

Washington has also increased air surveillance in addition to stepping up US-led war games with its Asian allies. In response China deployed its surface-to-air missile systems on Woody Island earlier this year, in addition to military aircraft.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 1

April 1, 2016

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 1

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I’ll confess that I hesitated before starting this series. It was too easy to again just dive into mockery and sarcasm over pieces written several weeks ago by those who refuse to give credence to the concept of peak oil and/or its implications. [It’s also the gateway to yet another round of verbal grenade lobbing which generates a lot of high-five’s with fellow ideologues, but little else.]

I’ve contributed my share of mocking on numerous occasions, to be sure. It’s just part of the ongoing Left-Right hostilities….Tiresome. Pointless. Embarrassing. Damaging … always.

That exercise would have been gratifying to me, but only me. I need to have a more enlightened response to the question posed above. Doing more of the same will produce more of the same, and few of us seem to be benefitting from that strategy these days.

At first glance the subject matter of this series [Friday-only, and for a number of weeks to follow] may seem to be yet another opportunity to take down yet another [two, actually] light-on-facts, right-wing Happy Talk offerings generated for public consumption. Like so many others of similar content and intent, they played well to the far reaches of the Right, judging by most of the comments, and they were consistent with the messages offered in opposition to all things Obama and/or progressives.

Neither those comments nor the material offered by the two writers for their respective conservative publications [American Thinker and Townhall, to be discussed later in this series] were much different than countless others supporting the same essential message: but for President Obama, America would be great, yadda, yadda, yadda; and we have more than enough energy resources available to us for almost forever, yadda, yadda, yadda.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Must Watch Video – “The Veneer of Justice in a Kingdom of Crime”

March 21, 2016

Must Watch Video – “The Veneer of Justice in a Kingdom of Crime”

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All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him…The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.

– H.L. Mencken

It does not take a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

– Samuel Adams

Fiat justitia ruat caelum
“Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

I believe it is the duty of every single American citizen to sit down and watch the following mini-documentary. In just 45 minutes, you will learn more about the state of the union and the the world around you than decades of schooling and mainstream media could ever provide. Ignorance is not bliss, and if it weren’t for the blinding levels of ignorance pervasive in modern society, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this current deplorable state — on a knife’s edge between manageable serfdom and intolerable tyranny.

No one in American society is supposed to be immune from criminal prosecution, yet the Justice Department within the Obama administration took it upon themselves to grant such immunity to the mega banks and their employees. This is a tale of the traitors operating within the highest levels of U.S. government, and it is a saga of how the rule of law was openly torched in front of our very eyes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Democracy Ends in Turkey

March 6, 2016

Democracy Ends in Turkey

On Saturday March 5th, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (German Economic News) headlined “Turkish Police Storm Newspaper Office Zaman” and reported that, “Turkish police entered the editorial offices of critical newspaper Zaman on Friday night.” Accompanying videos there showed a police-state in which ‘security’ forces stormed through a crowd of protesters (readers of the newspaper) outside, into Turkey’s leading opposition newspaper, which is also Turkey’s leading English-language newspaper, Zaman, and arrested staffers there, taking them away, to who-knows-what fates.

There’s nothing like Zaman  in just about any country: for examples, the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, and Guardian, aren’t “opposition newspapers,” though they used to cover the opposition in a moderately fair way, prior to the George W.  Bush Administration, 9/11, and “regime change in Iraq.” By contrast, Zaman  has constantly been very bold in exposing truths that the regime doesn’t want the public to know. But that’s all past history now — it’s at least as radical a change for Turkey as occurred in America with the Bush regime, which controlled the media as effectively as its successor-regime, Obama’s, has done, and which never needed to employ such blatantly police-state methods as Turkey now is clearly doing.

On Thursday March 4th, Tayyip Erdoğan, the Islamist President of U.S. ally and NATO member-nation Turkey, took over Zaman  or Today’s Zaman, where the headline on Friday was: “Court appoints trustees to take over management of Zaman, Today’s Zaman.” Until after that report was filed, this was only a court matter, not a blatantly police-state one — using physical forms of force, including armed ‘security’ forces inside, and water-cannons against demonstrators outside.

Here was that Zaman  news-report’s opening:

An İstanbul court has appointed trustees to take over the management of the Feza Media Group, which includes Turkey’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Zaman daily, as well as the Today’s Zaman daily and the Cihan news agency, dealing a fresh blow to the already battered media freedom in Turkey.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama to Expand Surveillance State Powers by Signing a 21 Page Memo

February 27, 2016

Obama to Expand Surveillance State Powers by Signing a 21 Page Memo

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As the Apple vs. FBI battle rages in the court system and throughout the halls of Congress, Obama decides to do what he does best. Using “his pen” to make consequential decisions unilaterally.

Just another day in the American banana republic.

The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is on the verge of permitting the National Security Agency to share more of the private communications it intercepts with other American intelligence agencies without first applying any privacy protections to them, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The change would relax longstanding restrictions on access to the contents of the phone calls and email the security agency vacuums up around the world, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies.

The idea is to let more experts across American intelligence gain direct access to unprocessed information, increasing the chances that they will recognize any possible nuggets of value. That also means more officials will be looking at private messages — not only foreigners’ phone calls and emails that have not yet had irrelevant personal information screened out, but also communications to, from, or about Americans that the N.S.A.’s foreign intelligence programs swept in incidentally.

Robert S. Litt, the general counsel in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that the administration had developed and was fine-tuning what is now a 21-page draft set of procedures to permit the sharing.

Until now, National Security Agency analysts have filtered the surveillance information for the rest of the government. They search and evaluate the information and pass only the portions of phone calls or email that they decide is pertinent on to colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Profits for the Economic Club: How US Military Spending Benefits the Few

February 16, 2016

Profits for the Economic Club: How US Military Spending Benefits the Few

In his January 2016 State of the Union Address, President Obama smugly declared that “We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined,” which was a startling and repulsive boast.  What is less surprising is the Pentagon’s decision to refocus military spending, thus boosting profits for military industry companies.

Then on February 2 Obama’s Defence Secretary Ashton Carter gave a speech on defense affairs at the Economic Club in Washington, which is proud of the fact that it provides “a forum for prominent business and government leaders who have influenced economic and public policy both here and abroad. Members represent over 600 businesses and organizations [in Washington, DC] that are at the forefront of the private sector economy.”

Having no sense of humor, Mr Carter would fail to see the wonderful irony in choosing that location to define his priorities in national military affairs,  but its significance didn’t escape the financial market’s wheeler dealers, and values of defense industry corporations received a hike all round.

In his speech Carter said that “the Pentagon plans to spend about $2 billion over the next five years to buy more Raytheon Company Tomahawk missiles and upgrade their capabilities, bringing the inventory of the missiles to above 4,000.”  At midday on February 2, Raytheon shares stood at 123.47.  By 4 p.m. next day they had increased to 128.07.

After his comforting chat to the Club of “prominent leaders” of military-focused commercial enterprises, Reuters reported that Mr Carter “flew to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California to get updates on new high-end weapons being developed and tested there, including precision Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles built by Lockheed Martin Corp. He said the [defense] department would spend nearly $1 billion over the next five years to buy the new missiles.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Repricing Reality

February 15, 2016

Repricing Reality

It ought to be a foregone conclusion that Mr. Obama’s replacement starting January 20, 2017 will preside over conditions of disorder in everyday life and economy never seen before. For the supposedly thinking class in America, the end of reality-optional politics will come as the surprise of their lives.

Where has that hypothetical thinking class been, by the way, the past eight years? Don’t look for it in what used to be called “the newspapers.” The New York Times has become so reality-averse that the editors traded in their blue pencils for Federal Reserve cheerleader pompoms after the Lehman incident of 2008. Every information-dispensing organ has followed their lede: The Recovery Continues! It’s a sturdy plank for promoting the impaired asset known as Hillary.

Don’t look for the thinking class in the universities. They’ve surrendered their traditional duties to a new hybrid persecution campaign that is equal parts Mao Zedong, the Witches of Loudon, and the Asylum at Charenton. For instance the President of Princeton, Mr. Eisgruber, was confronted with a list of demands that included 1) erasure of arch-segregationist Woodrow Wilson’s name from everything on campus, and 2) creation of a new all-black (i.e. segregated) student center. He didn’t blink. Note: nobody in the media asked him about this apparent contradiction. That’s how we roll these days.

Don’t look for the thinking class in business. The C-suites are jammed with people still busy buying back stock in their own companies at outlandish prices with borrowed money. Why? To artificially boost share price and thus their salaries and bonuses. Does it do anything for the fitness of enterprise? No, in fact it makes future failure more likely. Why is their no governance of their insane behavior?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Compare Mike Whitney’s Truthful Account Of Syria With The Disinformation Published By The Washington Post

February 12, 2016

Compare Mike Whitney’s Truthful Account Of Syria With The Disinformation Published By The Washington Post

Compare Mike Whitney’s Truthful Account Of Syria With The Disinformation Published By The Washington Post

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44174.htm 

vs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-era-of-us-abdication-on-syria-must-end/2016/02/09/55226716-ce96-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html 

There is no such thing as “the Syrian opposition.” The “opposition” consists almost entirely of the Washington-backed ISIS, which Washington sent to Syria to topple the government when Russia blocked the neoconized Obama regime from its plan to invade Syria. Washington, the presstitute media and various bought-and-paid-for “experts” pretend that ISIS is not really ISIS but a “democratic Syrian opposition.” Only an utter fool could believe this fantasy lie.

Total Incompetence of Career Politicians

February 9, 2016

Total Incompetence of Career Politicians 

Bubble-Gum Machine

Someone really needs to do a study on people who seem to want to rule the world yet have absolutely no clue what they are doing, which is really 98% of all politicians. What drives these people? Is it just greed to sell influence and get outrageous speaking fees? Until we end career politicians, we will never achieve peace economically or militarily. I have stated before, ALL Republics degenerate into oligarchies. They do not call Goldman Sachs “Government Sachs” for no reason. Goldman buys government to further their special interests and to ensure no banker will ever go to jail. What they paid Hillary for three speeches is more than Bernie Sanders’ entire net worth.

I have criticized those in government for being totally incompetent to the point that they could not manage a bubble gum machine. Some comments said I have been too hard on them. Well, I reported that Germany could not account for 600,000 of the 1.1 million refugees that they let into Europe. Now, they cannot account for 5,000 children who entered the country unaccompanied, 400 of whom are under the age of 13. We are in such trouble with government incompetence it is not even a joke.

Obama wants to impose a $10 per barrel tax on oil. He is so dishonest that it is beyond comprehension. He claims the energy companies will pay it as if the consumer will not. If he really believes this nonsense, it proves he seriously needs a mental examination for he has lost all sanity, if he ever had it to start with.

Mandatory Depression Screening is A Depressing Thought

February 8, 2016

Mandatory Depression Screening is A Depressing Thought

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The United States Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended mandatory depression screening for all Americans. The task force wants to force health insurance companies to pay for the screening. Basic economics, as well as the Obamacare disaster, should have shown this task force that government health insurance mandates harm Americans.

Government health insurance mandates raise the price of health insurance. Consumers will respond to this increase by either choosing to not carry health insurance or by reducing their consumption of other goods and services. Imposing new health insurance mandates will thus make consumers, many of whom are already suffering from Obamacare’s costly mandates, worse off by forcing them to deviate from their preferred consumption patterns.

Mandatory depression screening will not just raise insurance costs. In order to ensure that the screening mandate is being properly implemented, the government will need to create a database containing the results of the screenings. Those anti-gun politicians who want to forbid anyone labeled “mentally ill” from owning a firearm will no doubt want to use this database as a tool to deprive individuals of their Second Amendment rights.

If the preventive task force has its way, Americans could lose their Second Amendment, and possibly other, rights simply because they happened to undergo their mandatory depression screening when they were coping with a loved one’s passing or a divorce, or simply having a bad day. As anyone who has been mistakenly placed on the terrorist watch list can attest, it is very difficult to get off a government database even when the government clearly is in error. Thus, anyone mistakenly labeled as depressed will have to spend a great deal of time and money in what may be a futile attempt to get his rights back.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Congress Declaring War on ISIS…or on You?

February 1, 2016

Is Congress Declaring War on ISIS…or on You?

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Passage of Senator Mitch McConnell’s authorization for war against ISIS will not only lead to perpetual US wars across the globe, it will also endanger our civil and economic liberties. The measure allows the president to place troops anywhere he determines ISIS is operating. Therefore, it could be used to justify using military force against United States citizens on US territory. It may even be used to justify imposing martial law in America.

The President does not have to deploy the US military to turn America into a militarized police state, however. He can use his unlimited authority to expand programs that turn local police forces into adjuncts of the US military, and send them increasing amounts of military equipment. Using the threat of ISIS to justify increased police militarization will be enthusiastically supported by police unions, local officials, and, of course, politically-powerful defense contractors. The only opposition will come from citizens whose rights have been violated by a militarized police force that views the people as the enemy.

Even though there is no evidence that the government’s mass surveillance programs have prevented even a single terrorist attack, we are still continuously lectured about how we must sacrifice our liberty for security. The cries for the government to take more of our privacy will grow louder as the war party and its allies in the media continue to hype the threat of terrorism. A president armed with the authority to do whatever it takes to stop ISIS will no doubt heed these calls for new restrictions on our privacy.

Following last year’s mass shooting in California, President Obama called for restricting the Second Amendment rights of any American on the “terrorist watch list.” The president also used the attacks to expand the unconstitutional gun background check system via executive action.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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