On judicial oversight of drone assassinations: ‘worst thing in the world’ says Sen. Lindsey Graham

By Madison Ruppert: Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said that judicial oversight of drone assassinations would be the “worst thing in the world” in response to the many people calling for some kind of court overseeing the so-called targeted killing program.
Unfortunately, many of the recommendations for oversight are essentially calling for another secret court to oversee the killings, a situation which is far from ideal.
Still, one might argue that anything is better than the current system wherein anyone can be targeted for assassination, even without clear evidence, according to a leaked Justice Department white paper, based on a secret executive branch review – all built on a secret legal justification which never has to be publicly revealed.
Graham – the same individual who revealed that the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA indeed apply to Americans way back in 2011 – made the statements in response to calls for oversight by Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican.
It is important to point out that Paul is among the few in Washington who have actually been quite open in questioning the drone program, especially surrounding President Barack Obama’s nominee for director of the CIA, John Brennan.
These questions, among others, have led to delays which the White House chief of staff has called “a grave concern,” according to the Associated Press.
“Senate Republicans are also talking about holding up the nomination of John Brennan, the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser, to head the CIA and Rand Paul […] says one of the things he wants to ensure is that a president can’t order a drone attack against an American citizen without a judicial review,” Chris Wallace said on Fox. “Is Senator Paul wrong?”

Debt Despair: UK plagued by suicides as banksters show no mercy

RT: Suicide rates are soaring in the UK, with money worries pushing many over the edge. Cuts to our 'mental health services' (mental refers to the health services themselves, e.g. £1000's for minerals that cost pennies to produce often unnecessary pills pushed by corporate giants. Health is another one with only catch it in hospital super duper bugs. Self 'services'), help but aggressive debt-collecting is cited by experts as the major factor aggravating the situation. RT's Andrew Farmer met one mother, who lost her child over debt despair.

Norway Enters The Currency Wars

Submitted by Tyler Durden: While the G-20 and the G-7 haggle among each other, all (with perhaps the exception of France) desperate to make it seem that Japan's recent currency manipulation is not really manipulation, and that the plunge in the Yen was an indirect, "unexpected" consequence of BOJ monetary policy (when in reality as Richard Koo explained it is merely a ploy to avoid the spotlight falling on each and every other G-7/20 member, all of which are engaged in the same type of currency wars which eventually will all morph into trade wars), Europe's energy powerhouse Norway quietly entered into the war. From Bloomberg: "Norges Bank is ready to cut interest rates further to counter krone gains that interfere with the inflation target, Governor Oeystein Olsen said. “If it gets too strong over time, leading to inflation that’s too low, we will act,” Olsen said yesterday in an interview at his office in Oslo.

The problem for Norway is that on one hand it, too, seeks to boost its export-business in an imitation of the beggar-thy-neighbor policies adopted by every other government, or artificial monetary union, with a printing press, while on the other, its property market which is overheating due to Norway's perceived status as one of Europe's safest money parking locations (alongside Switzerland) will merely heat up even more should the Norges Bank cut rates as it appears set to do, in order to preserve its front in the global currency war.

Olsen and his colleagues are torn between protecting exporters through lower rates that stem krone gains, and a policy that addresses an overheated property market. Western Europe’s largest oil exporter, which boasts the biggest budget surplus of any AAA rated nation, has emerged as a haven from the euro area’s debt crisis.

The Syrian People In 'The International Struggle Against Imperialism and Zionism'

At last, having failed with their clandestine operations and spin 

aka propaganda, 'world powers seek dialogue in Syria'. 

A political analyst says the situation in Syria is beginning to turn around in the political domain and the calls for a political solution and a political dialogue are making sense to the global powers as well as the opposition within Syria. According to the United Nations, nearly 70,000 people have been killed in 22 months of conflict between the Syrian government forces and the foreign-backed opposition groups. Several international human rights organizations have accused foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.

Catastrophic spiral in Mali - Afshin Rattansi with Alice Ukoko

President Obama may be talking about guns at the State of the Union address but he is not talking about the US Department of Justice kill list memo. We talk to a member of Women of Africa, Alice Ukoko, about another military intervention by NATO countries in Africa. These and much more are all reviewed in this edition of Double Standards with Afshin Rattansi. Source

The Construction of Ex-Cop Chris Dorner - Neil Sanders + We Have Been Hoaxed - Morris

Morris: People are taking sides in the debate surrounding Chris Dorners actions but where is the information, on which people are basing their views, coming from? The information is coming from the media.

Let's try $25 minimum wage

By Michael Hicks: Among President Obama's recommendations in the State of the Union address to Congress was an increase in the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 to $9 an hour. This is not the first time he has done so. In 2008, Senator Obama called for the minimum wage to rise to $9.50. Now, I am uncertain just what has transpired over the past five years to lead him to lower his target, so I'll just mark it up to bad memory. Still, thinking about the economics of the matter is useful.
As the president noted, no one should doubt that raising a family while earning the minimum wage is a hard business; perhaps that is why almost nobody does it. In fact, only about 1 percent of adult workers actually earn the minimum wage (another 1 percent or so are wait staff earning tips). Indeed, for every one minimum wage adult worker, ten work in the shadow economy, outside the view of tax collectors.
As difficult as it may be for many folks to understand, labor markets are subject to the laws of supply and demand. The inability to find a job above the minimum wage means that the market does not value your skills at that level. For an adult worker, this is a damning market assessment of one’s labor value. Still nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into this category since Mr. Obama proposed a $9.50 minimum wage. To be sure, labor markets are imperfect, but minimum wage laws do nothing to improve them.

Companies fire back in U.S. nationwide 2nd Amendment debate

By Brent Daggett: While President Barack 'baby bomber' Obama is continually putting pressure on Congress to pass a new wave of gun control laws and with various states advocating similar policies, some firearm manufacturers are peacefully rebelling.
Firearm manufacturer Olympic Arms Inc. will no longer sell to New York law enforcement and government agencies in order to protest their recent gun control laws (for more details on that legislation view my article: New York Safe Act has citizens up in arms).
“Legislation recently passed in the State of New York outlaws the AR15 and many other firearms, and will make it illegal for the good and free citizens of New York to won a large selection of legal and safe firearms and magazines.  We feel as though the passage of this legislation exceeds the authority granted to the government of the New York citizens, and violates the Constitution of the United States, ignoring such SCOTUS rulings as District of Columbia v. Heller,-554, U.S. 570 of 2008, McDonald v. Chicago-561 U.S. 3025 of 2010, and specifically the case of United States v. Miller -307 U.S. 174 of 1939.”
Olympic Arms further elaborated.
“In short, Olympic Arms will no longer be doing business with the State of New York or any governmental entity or employee of such governmental entity within the State of New York-henceforth and until such legislation is repealed, and an apology made to the good people of the State of New York and the American people.”
If Olympic Arms stance was too short and to the point, check out the video Olympic Arms talks politics, embedded below:

Penis of TERROR! + Typical Feminist Comments

Dean Esmay: This is a radio show. Links to all stories discussed in the show are below:

The Dangers of the Age of Delusion - James Howard Kunstler

"Accounting fraud is now the basis for banking and finance, and it's certainly the basis for (U.S.) government." ChrisMartenson: A conversation between Chris Martenson and James Howard Kunstler.

Currency Wars Are Trade Wars - azizonomics

Aziz: Paul Krugman is all for currency wars, but not trade wars:

"First of all, what people think they know about past currency wars isn’t actually true. Everyone uses some combination phrase like “protectionism and competitive devaluation” to describe the supposed vicious circle of the 1930s, but as Barry Eichengreen has pointed out many times, these really don’t go together. If country A and country B engage in a tit-for-tat of tariffs, the end result is restricted trade; if they each try to push their currency down, the end result is at worst to leave everyone back where they started.
And in reality the stuff that’s now being called “currency wars” is almost surely a net plus for the world economy. In the 1930s this was because countries threw off their golden fetters — they left the gold standard and this freed them to pursue expansionary monetary policies. Today that’s not the issue; but what Japan, the US, and the UK are doing is in fact trying to pursue expansionary monetary policy, with currency depreciation as a byproduct.

There is a serious intellectual error here, typical of much of the recent discussion of this issue. A currency war is by definition a low-level form of a trade war because currencies are internationally traded commodities. The intent (and there is much circumstantial evidence to suggest that Japan at least is acting with mercantilist intent, but that is another story for another day) is not relevant — currency depreciation is currency depreciation and still has the same effects on creditors and trade partners, whatever the claimed intent.

UK Party Politics Is Dying - George Galloway