NDAA: Chances of Central New York drone flights improve as new law allows six national test sites

Syracuse.com

The Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing is a step closer to gaining federal permission to fly unmanned Reaper drones out of its base at Hancock Field, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.

The National Defense Authorization Act signed into law last week by President Barack Obama allows for the establishment of six national test sites where drones could fly through civil air space.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday he pushed for the establishment of six spots, instead of the planned four, to improve the chances that Hancock Field would be included. The 174th Fighter Wing has been trying for almost five years to convince the Federal Aviation Administration to allow flights of the MQ-9 Reaper drones out of Hancock Field.

The FAA bans such unmanned flights because of concerns about the remotely piloted drones flying through civil airspace used by commercial aircraft at Syracuse’s Hancock International Airport.

Schumer said he sent a letter Tuesday to FAA Acting Commissioner Michael Huerta, asking for Hancock to be one of the national test sites.

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CFR: The Failure of the Euro

The euro should now be recognized as an experiment that failed. This failure, which has come after just over a dozen years since the euro was introduced, in 1999, was not an accident or the result of bureaucratic mismanagement but rather the inevitable consequence of imposing a single currency on a very heterogeneous group of countries. The adverse economic consequences of the euro include the sovereign debt crises in several European countries, the fragile condition of major European banks, high levels of unemployment across the eurozone, and the large trade deficits that now plague most eurozone countries.

The political goal of creating a harmonious Europe has also failed. France and Germany have dictated painful austerity measures in Greece and Italy as a condition of their financial help, and Paris and Berlin have clashed over the role of the European Central Bank (ECB) and over how the burden of financial assistance will be shared.

The initial impetus that led to the European Monetary Union and the euro was political, not economic. European politicians reasoned that the use of a common currency would instill in their publics a greater sense of belonging to a European community and that the shift of responsibility for monetary policy from national capitals to a single central bank in Frankfurt would signal a shift of political power.

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Senator Wellstone: They Killed Him For 9/11 Questions

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Hour of the time

Ron Paul May Have Secretly Won The Iowa Caucuses

DES MOINES — Ron Paul may have officially come in third , but if the campaign's caucus strategy went off as planned, then Paul may actually be the real winner of the first Republican voting contest.

That's because Paul's massive organizational push in Iowa focused on both winning votes, and also on making sure that Paul supporters  stuck around after the vote to make sure they were selected as county delegates — the first step towards being elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

That's because Iowa's Republican caucuses are non-binding — they are technically just a straw poll, so once selected, delegates are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they choose.

"Part of what we've been training the Ron Paul people to do is not to leave after the vote," Dan Godzich, a senior campaign advisor, told BI. "Stay and get elected to the conventions and get us those delegates."

Godzich and Sydney Hay, another Paul advisor, crisscrossed Iowa in the weeks leading up to the caucuses, making sure precinct leaders knew what to do and organizing slates of delegates that would ensure Paul walked away with a strong majority, even if he lost the caucus' straw poll vote.

By the eve of Election Day, Hay said she was confident that Paul would come away from Iowa with a strong majority of the state's delegates. It's a good first step toward making sure that Paul has a strong presence on the floor in Tampa this summer — something that his supporters believe will help force the Republican party to start reckoning with their Movement.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-paul-winner-iowa-caucuses-strategy-201201#ixzz1iVxqIsWf

Gloom and doom by fall of 2012, Governments will print a lot of money: Rogers

New Asian Union Means The Fall Of The Dollar

One of the most frustrating issues to haunt the halls of alternative economic analysis is the threat of misrepresentative terminology. For instance, when the U.S. government decided to back the private Federal Reserve in lowering the interest rates on lending windows to European banks last month, they did not call this a bailout, even though that’s exactly what it was. They did not call it quantitative easing, or fiat printing, or a hyperinflationary landmine; rarely does bureaucracy ever apply honest terminology to their subversive activities. False terminology is the bane of every honest analyst, because in order for them to educate and awaken those who are unaware of the truth, they must first battle through the daunting muck of the general public’s horrifically improper perceptions and vocabulary.

The chain of financial events taking place over the past decade in Asia have been correspondingly mislabeled and misunderstood. What some economists see as total collapse is actually a new and decidedly prophetic (or engineered) transition. What some naively see as the “natural” progression of globalism, is actually a distinctly deliberate program of centralization meant to further the goals of world economic and political totalitarianism. Asia, and most especially China, is a Petri dish for elitist psychopaths. What we see as suffocating collectivism in this region of the world today is the exact social schematic intended for the West tomorrow. Call it whatever you will, but on the other side of the Pacific, like the eerie smile of a sinister clown, sits fabricated fate.

The genius of globalization is not in how it “works”, but in how it DOESN’T work. Globalization chains mismatched cultures together through circumstance and throws us into the deep end of the pool.

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Inside Capitol, Investor Access Yields Rich Tips

When Senate Democrats finally brokered a compromise over the proposed health-care law, a group of hedge funds were let in on the deal, learning details hours before a public announcement on Dec. 8, 2009.

The news was potentially worth millions of dollars to the investors, though none would publicly divulge how they used the information. They belong to a select group who pay for early, firsthand reports on Capitol Hill.

More from the Capital Gains Series

• Investors Bullish on Fed Tips 11/23/2011)
• Hedge Funds Pay Top Dollar for Washington Intelligence (10/4/2011)

Seeking advance word of government decisions is part of a growing, lucrative—and legal— practice in Washington that employs a network of brokers, lobbyists and political insiders who arrange private meetings between hedge funds and officials, including lawmakers and their aides.

With markets moving sharply on actions in Washington, hedge funds and other big Wall Street players are willing to pay for access. News tips, combined with data and analysis, help steer firms to profitable investment decisions.

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Whether Permit Is Approved Or Not, ‘Occupy Congress’ Will Still Happen On National Mall In January

One of the biggest conservative criticisms of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it has been too focused on protesting corporations and not focused enough on protesting Congress. Well, OWS protestors are now calling for a massive occupation of the National Mall when Congress returns from its winter recess on January 17th. The Occupy movement has been revitalized by recent outrages over the National Defense Authorization Act and the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act.

The group’s official Facebook page not only provides information about what they will be protesting, but transportation information for Occupiers all over the country to convene on the mall together. But this week, the Occupy Congress movement took another step towards organizing the protest by applying for a permit to camp out on the National Mall. The group posted a copy of the permit to the Facebook page. The permit states that the protest would be held from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM, and the purpose of the protest would be to organize “peaceful 1st Amendment demonstrations including holding signs and group speaking.”

As of Wednesday, the National Park Service said they had not received the application, but an update to the group’s Facebook page on Thursday said the Interior Department had confirmed receiving it. However, if the permit is denied, it will not necessarily stop the protest from happening. From the Facebook page:

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A quote from Ron Paul

"Ideas spread - They can't stop them! An idea whose time has come can not be stopped by any army or any government!"


Ron Paul

Obama's Сhange: From kidnapping & torture to assassination

The NDAA's historic assault on American liberty

President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment, to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country … and citizens partied in unwitting bliss into the New Year.

Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely (see the text of the statement here).

Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the president would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Senator Carl Levin (Democrat, Michigan) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House and insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.

The latest claim is even more insulting. You do not "support our troops" by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the president. The "American way of life" is defined by our constitution and specifically the bill of rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.

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President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Into Law

ACLU

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) today, allowing indefinite detention to be codified into law. As you know, the White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use it and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations.

The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. 

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again.  The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA.  In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

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Argentina: Pulling YOUR money out of the bank could get you 15 years

(Reuters) - Argentina enacted a law on Wednesday providing a wide definition of terrorism that critics fear will allow the state to jail people for up to 15 years for activities as diverse as marching in protests or pulling money out of banks.

The law, approved by Congress last week, seeks to punish anyone who "terrorizes" the population, leaving the definition of the term open.

The government of recently re-elected President Cristina Fernandez says the measure is needed to meet anti-money-laundering standards set forth by the Financial Action Task Force, a multinational policy-making body.

Argentine anti-money-laundering chief Jose Sbatella said recently the measure sought to prevent "any group of economically powerful people from working in concert to wipe out the country's reserves or from terrorizing the population in a way that it induces them to withdraw all their deposits."

Legal experts in Argentina says the law's language leaves the definition of terrorism so open that local courts are sure to strike it down.

"The problem is in the ambiguity," constitutional lawyer Felix Lon told Reuters.

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Gun sales at record levels, according to FBI background checks

December holiday shoppers were not just interested in buying the hottest electronics and toys -- they also were purchasing record numbers of guns, according to the latest FBI figures on background checks required to buy firearms.

With a few days left in December, the FBI reports the number of background checks has already topped the previous one-month record -- set only in November -- of 1,534,414 inquiries by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System also known as NICS. Almost half a million checks were done in just the last six days before Christmas.

Two days before Christmas, NICS ran 102,222 background checks, which was the second-busiest day in history. The one-day record was set this year on Black Friday, the big shopping day following Thanksgiving, with 129,166 searches. By comparison, the previous one-day high was set November 28, 2008, when gun dealers made slightly less than 98,000 requests for background searches.

It's not possible to tell exactly how many guns have been purchased because buyers often take home more than one gun. But most people pass the background checks. Only 1.3% of the searches result in people being denied permission to buy a weapon, said FBI spokesman Steve Fischer.

FBI officials did not offer a theory on the spike in gun sales. It's also not clear how many of the background checks were for people who never had owned guns before and how many were for gunowners adding to their collections.

The National Rifle Association says the figures indicate more people feel they need guns for self defense.

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Depeche Mode: John the revelator

9/11 Cop Who Arrested Dancing Israelis Speaks

#OpBlackout: Stop SOPA - YOUTUBESTORM

How many U.S. soldiers were wounded in Iraq? We have no idea!

Niemanwatchdog.org

The true number of military personnel injured in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you just go a bit beyond the Pentagon's narrowly-tailored definition of 'wounded in action'. So why isn't anyone keeping track?

Reports about the end of the war in Iraq routinely describe the toll on the U.S. military the way the Pentagon does: 4,487 dead, and 32,226 wounded.

The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American servicemembers who have come back from Iraq less than whole.

The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you take into account all the men and women who returned from their deployments with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term health problems.

We don't have anything close to an exact number, however, because nobody's been keeping track.

The much-cited Defense Department figure comes from its tally of "wounded in action" -- a narrowly-tailored category that only includes casualties during combat operations who have "incurred an injury due to an external agent or cause."

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Tax Benefits From Options as Windfall for Businesses

The stock market’s rebound from the financial crisis three years ago has created a potential windfall for hundreds of executives who were granted unusually large packages of stock options shortly after the market collapsed.

Now, the corporations that gave those generous awards are beginning to benefit, too, in the form of tax savings.

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