Exploration and discovery. Fun stuff-
Thank You
Earl

Robert Plant , Jimmy Page (Featuring Najma Akhtar). Here's to the legends. Celestial Minstrels.

Najma’s unique fusion and distinctive sound, has led to continuous new waves of inspired Asian artists, musicians and composers of Indian, Bengali and Pakistani decent following in her footsteps. She became, a role model, inspiration, a subject of curiosity as to ‘ was she come from India or Pakistan’, campaigner for various charities and much more. Along with the Indian semi-classical, Folk, Sufi, Bollywood, Indian underground and trance styles Najma’s ability allows her to perform not only in a multi-lingual capacity but also able to work and collaborate with artists from genres varying from the Rock world to Jazz, DJ’s and Western folk.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najma_Akhtar

www.lyrics.com/battle-of-evermore-lyrics-led-zeppelin.html

Led Zeppelin- The Battle of Evermore 1994 (MTV Unplugged)

Earl, nothing hurts worse than seeing your own "backyard" turned from a paradise into a landfill.

Here in B.C.. it's been hacking-down the (magnificent) Old Growth rainforests. And now it's (likely) some leaky pipeline hauling tar-sand crude from Alberta -- so that we can (permanently) risk the relatively non-toxic coastline via oil super-tankers cruising up and down the coast.

You have my sympathies, as it appears that your backyard is being despoiled more rapidly than my own. But none of us can escape the Oligarchs' environmental rape.

Having a tendency to "stand my ground" (whenever I'm convinced of a particular viewpoint); some readers may interpret this as a "lack of flexibility" in my thinking. Well for those readers I offer my recent flip-flopping on Turkey's Prime Minister as a rebuttal.



Here I've gone from full-fledged "Erdogan bashing" to (today) pulling out my own pom-poms and cheering him on.



What do we have? The Leader of a major nation OPENLY claiming that the banking cabal is secretly orchestrating the unrest in his nation. I would have been encouraged to see this under any circumstances. However, after receiving my historical education on Bankers via "The Money Masters"; I have a much greater appreciation for Erdogan's present stance.

Less than a century ago; even U.S. politicians still had the courage/integrity to OPENLY accuse Bankers of seeking to manipulate the U.S. electorate or economy -- or BOTH. It's only the descendants of these generations who have turned into Cowardly Drones -- too afraid of speaking the Truth to expose the banking cabal for what it really is.

Tayyop Erdogan may be far from perfect (after all, he is a politician - lol). However; as a notable Truth-Teller, he has now risen considerably in my own estimation. Let's hope he doesn't get the usual bullet-between-the-eyes "reward" which Bankers usually award to such Truth-Tellers...



So why is Bloomberg covering this story at all? Same answer as always: Controlling The Message. However; they're playing a very dangerous game here -- as they may actually help to cause the Sheep to remember that Bankers are "the Root of all Evil."




Erdogan Casts Bankers as Villain of Turkish Protests

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-19/erdoga...boosting-yields.html

As Turkey’s government seeks to rally support by identifying culprits behind the unprecedented explosion of anger that erupted in recent weeks, one group has featured on almost every list: bankers.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan began blaming a so-called “interest-rates lobby” in the first week after anti-government protests spread nationwide on May 31. Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan said “blood-sucking” financiers, seeking to push Turkey’s interest rates back up, helped provoke the movement that ignited over a police crackdown against people opposed to development plans in Istanbul’s Taksim Square.

The rhetoric resonates in a majority Muslim country where many remember skyrocketing borrowing costs that undermined the economy in the pre-Erdogan decade. In 2001, the year before his party came to power, the government spent more on interest payments than it earned in tax income. In the last two years the Islamist-rooted Erdogan, 59, and his ministers have frequently accused a rates lobby of working to undermine the economy.

That’s “very divisive and unproductive language from a country trying to break through the middle-income trap,” Murat Ucer, a former official at Turkey’s central bank who now works at New York-based economic advisory firm GlobalSourcePartners, wrote in e-mailed comments on June 15. The Turkish economy, which grew 2.2 percent last year, “is having hard time gaining traction” even with record-low interest rates, he said...

agau121 wrote:
samix wrote:
The more I see observe western governments function and I compare the situation with times gone by, it becomes more and more clear to me that this is clearly a crusade. The parallels are just so stark.


I'm not certain I understand you. In what sense are you saying there is a crusade? I am not necessarily disputing your statement, only saying that I am uncertain if I entirely understand your meaning.


I'm going to jump in and reply to this (lol!!).

Yes, one PATH which all the lies and dastardly deeds brings us to is some (global) Holy War waged (once again) by the Christians against the Muslims. We not only see the endless rhetoric demonizing Muslims/Islamic culture at every turn; we ALSO see the efforts to turn the Sheep into loyal Nazi Drones -- who would follow orders without question or thought.

But we also see a parallel -- and equally disturbing -- potential destination for all the lies, destruction, and war-mongering: internal wars, waged by these Fascist governments against their own people.

I won't argue against either suggestion as to where things are heading; since all indicators are that BOTH of these Paths are being aggressively promoted/pursued by the Western cabal.

However, ultimately it can't go an some global, anti-Muslim Crusade and (literally) wage war against its own people simultaneously. Indeed, it's quite possible that both Paths are being prepared because the Oligarchs themselves geniunely don't know which Path they will be FORCED to (ultimately) turn to.

Global Crusade or Civil War(s)? Looks like an even-money bet if I were a "bookie"...

It's Wednesday June 19th; and today's theme is Big Lies and the impact/consequences of those lies.

The "news of the day" being trumpeted by the propaganda machine is that supposedly U.S. inflation is at a 53-year low. In the global economy, there is a "food price-inflation crisis; yet despite living in an era of "globalization" we're supposed to believe U.S. inflation is near-zero. I talked about this further on our Hyperinflation Thread.



The newer lie -- now being repeated thousands of times per day -- is that (yet again) the Fed is supposedly just about ready to/thinking about/on the brink of yet another Exit Strategy. But because no one would believe any more promises of an "exit strategy"; the propaganda machine has given it a new name -- and so this time the Sheep are (apparently) taking the Exit Strategy lie seriously.



They are calling this Exit Strategy "tapering" (lol); but as noted at the beginning of today's edition, lies have consequences. And the CONSEQUENCE of Bernanke's latest Exit Strategy lie is higher interest rates (and thus higher interest payments) on the U.S.'s $15+ trillion national debt.

So while we're "forced" to pay lower prices for our bullion right now because of Bernanke's latest lies about an Exit Strategy; the U.S. government (and entire U.S. economy) are paying-through-the-nose for those lies via higher interest payments. I discuss this in greater detail in an earlier post.

What's interesting is when we put these two, huge lies together. We have the U.S. government paying a heavy price because of its Exit Strategy lie; while claiming out of the other side of its mouth that it can "afford" to do lots, lots more money-printing because inflation is "too low" (lol).

Surely readers can write the rest of this Script themselves? At the proverbial Last Minute -- when his Exit Strategy blather gets to put-up-or-shut-up time -- we will have Bernanke "reluctantly" concluding that the U.S. bond market needs his money-printing to continue (lol).

And then we get the additional lies to "justify" both continued money-printing and breaking yet another Exit Strategy promise. Bernanke the (supposed) Job-Creator will tell us that he's "unwilling to risk" the negative impact on "job-creation" caused by higher interest. And because inflation is "so low" (too low) he can continue his record/extreme/insane money-printing with absolutely no consequences of any kind.

At that point the band starts playing yet another chorus of "Don't Worry, Be Happy"...



Since we have seen this identical Script trotted out several times already in Bernanke's 4+ year Exit Strategy Tango; one would hope that even some of the dim-witted Drones in the mainstream media might actually spot a pattern here. But clearly I expect too much from them.



And for us, what are the consequences when Bernanke (or his Successor) breaks yet another Exit Strategy promise? Yet another powerful, upward driver on bullion prices. This would appear to be timed to coincide with the returning "seasonal strength" of the bullion market which always occurs in the fall.

In other words; from my perspective it appears that the Banksters have conceded a (massive) move higher in bullion markets to coincide with the Fall Rally. Their short-term stalling tactics all seem ready to expire at roughly that time, and the Great Paper Liquidation is already showing signs of winding down.

The other possibility is that the Banksters are planning to BLOW UP bullion markets this fall. Create massive upward pressure; while continuing to hold prices down -- resulting in an inventory default (or Decoupling) event. Either way, this suggests to us that we should be doing our bullion-buying sooner rather than later.

Either bullion prices will be much, much higher this fall; or there simply won't be any real bullion around to buy -- period.

I've made a point of doing my posts about the BIGGEST LIES about U.S. inflation in our Hyperinflation Thread. Why? Because it takes more than just lots and lots and lots of money-printing to end up with hyperinflation. It also takes gigantic lies.

People (even the Sheep of our own societies) won't passively sit around while governments (i.e. bankers) totally destroy their own currency...unless they don't know/understand what is actually taking place. Thus hyperinflation is only possible in nations which tell really, really, really BIG lies about inflation.

With the U.S. (unquestionably) being the global leader in telling the largest lies about inflation; this strongly implies that the U.S. is the most likely place for any hyperinflation to begin. Headlines such as this are convincing evidence:

Inflation at 53-Year Low Gives Bernanke Time to Press on With QE

Note that we get both the lie, and the reason for the lie in one convenient headline. The U.S. govrernment lies about inflation to allow it to get away with its extreme money-printing -- because the American Sheep are oblivious to the actual harm (i.e. currency-destruction) caused by all this money-printing.

‘Zero Inflation’ in U.S. = Hyperinflation Warning?

Understand that the U.S. government doesn't need to tell a lie nearly this big (today) to "justify" all its other corrupt policies. So why exaggerate the lie to such an absurd extreme right now -- where even the Sheep will start to question the phony numbers?

Because the U.S. government knows that much, much HIGHER inflation is coming very soon. The lies needed to be bigger today so that when even higher inflation hits the U.S. economy in the not-too-distant future that its lies will still show "acceptable" levels of inflation -- without having to make any sudden/extreme adjustments in its statistical techniques for lying.

Again, this is a headline which reeks of desperation. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. It wpuld be absurd for the U.S. government to simply claim that "inflation is low" when we see food prices spiraling and food quality plummeting. But to go to the extreme of claiming a "53-year low" in inflation -- with the world clearly in an inflation-spiral -- merely insults our intelligence.

And paying equivalent (or higher) prices for slop barely fit for animals is yet another way of hiding (real) inflation. Not only are Food-Producers reducing the size of packages (while keeping prices the same); but they're dramatically reducing the quality of the ingredients. Yet another Race to the Bottom caused by the bankers' money-printing.

So the Sheep can munch on their 100%-GMO "Big Macs", thinking that inflation is still low -- and then watch as their physical health is destroyed by our Fascist governments just as fast as they are destroying our financial health.

You are what you eat. Which goes a long way toward explaining the saturation apathy and total lack of brainwave activity amongst the Sheep. "Protest"? They can barely find the energy to waddle to the refrigerator...



The only thing at a "53-year low" (and in fact an all-time low) is food quality. As far as prices go; anyone who still shops for food (real food) knows what the Truth is there.



P.S. Note the audacity of the Liars: U.S. inflation is supposedly too low. Or in other words; the bankers "need to" destroy the value of the dollar even faster.





Inflation at 53-Year Low Gives Bernanke Time to Press on With QE

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-19/inflat...ress-on-with-qe.html

The lowest inflation since the brink of the Kennedy-era economic boom in the 1960s is buying time for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to press on with the central bank’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases.

A gauge of consumer prices excluding food and energy that is watched by the Fed rose 1.1 percent in the year through April, matching the smallest gain since records started in 1960. With inflation below the Fed’s 2 percent long-run goal and the jobless rate at 7.6 percent, the Fed is falling short of its mandate to ensure stable prices and maximum employment...

Action have consequences. One of the great successes of the propaganda machine has been to create the appearance that they can lie and manipulate and pervert markets, get what they want, and produce no adverse consequences for themselves (only us).

This is absurd. I continue to remind people that having full control over the levers of Power in no way allows one to repeal the Laws of Arithmetic -- i.e. supply and demand. And we get another clear illustration of that today.

The context? Everyone knows (and the Corporate Media admits) that the only thing propping up U.S. bond prices to record levels (and interest rates to record lows) is the bond-buying/money-printing of the Fed. So now the propaganda machine (and Bernanke) have talked themselves into a corner (again); and so now we see more absurd double-talk -- with the propaganda machine literally talking out of both sides of its mouth in the same sentence.



...Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has repeatedly said a reduction in the Fed’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases wouldn’t mean an end to record easing.

Translation: the Fed is going to stop/slow down its bond-buying; (but) it's going to keep propping-up the bond market with record money-printing. In its simplest form; B.S. Bernanke is promising that as he ENDS one bond-buying program with one hand (and thus "tapers" - lol); he will begin some bond-buying program with the other.

Of course what Bernanke could be talking about is going back to EXACTLY what I accused the Fed of doing before: secretly buying U.S. bonds -- i.e. counterfeiting U.S. currency in order to prop-up the U.S. bond market covertly. That is the only possible way in which the statement above can be interpreted in order not to be an absolute self-contradiction.

And this is the inevitable problem with Liars who try to be "all things to all people." Bernanke can't openly come out and admit he's going to counterfeit U.S. dollars to buy U.S. bonds -- or it's no longer "secret" and thus no longer counterfeiting. It becomes official money-printing.

This leaves Bernanke with only three choices:

1) Stop the Exit Strategy lies, and maintain the status quo.
2) Genuinely follow through on his "tapering" (lol), and watch the bond market blow-up (and the U.S. deficit explode higher).
3) Pretend to cut back on the bond-buying, but revert to secretly buying the bonds with counterfeit currency.

Understand that in both (2) and (3) supposedly everyone believes that the U.S. bond market has to support itself; so in BOTH those scenarios "bond yields" (i.e. interest rates) are pushed higher.

What does that translate into in the real world? With nothing having been done so far, only talk, the Bernanke Blather is already costing the U.S. government more than $10 billion per month (over $150 billion/year) in extra interest payments on the U.S. government's $15+ TRILLION national debt.

Should Bernanke actually follow through with some token Exit Strategy; that price-tag can only soar considerably higher, at least over the short term. Eventually all the secret bond-buying would bring interest rates close to previous (fraudulent) lows, but it's unclear how long the U.S. government would have to pay the Bernanke Penalty until the fraud kicked-in.

This is one facet of the "cost" of gold-manipulation to the U.S. government, and all it is doing is DELAYING the Next Rally (at the cost of an even bigger rally). What "price" are we paying for all the current lies/manipulation?

We're forced to buy our bullion at lower prices.



Live "long", and prosper.


Bernanke’s Tapering Talk Backfires Amid Bond Yield Surge

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-13/bernan...ond-yield-surge.html

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has repeatedly said a reduction in the Fed’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchases wouldn’t mean an end to record easing. Investors are behaving as if they don’t believe him.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has risen to 2.15 percent, an almost 14-month high, from 1.63 percent on May 2 as investors bet the Fed will begin trimming bond buying. The surge is undermining Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to hold down borrowing costs and combat 7.6 percent unemployment...

Jeff,

This is obviously my hometown and birthplace. A river that means very much to me personally. East Coast Florida

I took a dose of learning from you and others in the BBC community.
I know the local paper is Gannet (USA Today).

Earl, I'm not familiar with the entity which produced this article

The Hungarian National Association of Radio Distress-Signalling and Info communications (RSOE) operates Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS)

They gave the best details.

Local-
www.floridatoday.com/article/20130410/NE...-Indian-River-Lagoon

West Coast Florida press-

The Indian River Lagoon on Florida's east coast has long been known as the most diverse ecosystem in North America.

Its 156 miles of water boast more than 600 species of fish and more than 300 kinds of birds.

The lagoon is not just an ecological treasure. To the towns along its edge — Titusville, Cocoa, Melbourne, Vero Beach and Stuart, among others — it accounts for hundreds of millions in revenue from angling, boating, bird-watching, tourism and other waterfront activities.
Related News/Archive

Scientists puzzled by manatee deaths on Florida's east coast

But these days the Indian River Lagoon has become known as a killing zone.

Algae blooms wiped out more than 47,000 acres of its sea grass beds, which one scientist compared to losing an entire rainforest in one fell swoop.

Then, beginning last summer, manatees began dying. As of last week, 111 manatees from Indian River Lagoon had died under mysterious circumstances. Soon pelicans and dolphins began showing up dead too — more than 300 pelicans and 46 dolphins so far.

How bad is it? In the past week, a dolphin a day has turned up dead in the lagoon, said Megan Stolen, a research scientist at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute.

"When you lose the manatees, pelicans and dolphins, you know something is going on," said Marty Baum of Indian Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group that tries to act as a steward for the lagoon and the Indian River that flows into it.

Yet so far nobody can name the killer. Biologists have some suspicions but are baffled about any connection among the species' problems. The diets are different: Manatees are vegetarians, while pelicans and dolphins eat fish. The symptoms are different: The manatees' stomachs are stuffed, while the pelicans and dolphins are emaciated.

Baum's family has lived around the lagoon since the 1860s, but he can't remember anything like this ever happening.

The lagoon has had algae blooms before. None of them were like the one that hit it in 2011. Experts called the explosion of the greenish Resultor species a "superbloom" because it covered nearly 131,000 acres and lasted from early spring to late fall.

Then came the "brown tide" algae bloom last summer, tinting the water a chocolate brown. The algae, Aureoumbra lagunensis, have been a recurring problem in Texas. Why it suddenly showed up in Florida is another mystery.

The algae blooms shade out sunlight needed by sea grass. By the time the algae was done, the lagoon had lost more than half its sea grass, essential to nurturing fish and other marine species.

Then came what Pat Rose of the Save the Manatee Club called "a cascade of events."

The mysterious manatee die-off began in the northern part of the lagoon last July, hit its peak around March and now produces another dead manatee about every two weeks, said Martine DeWit of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Biologists at a state laboratory in St. Petersburg examine every dead manatee that's found in Florida for a cause of death. But the Indian River Lagoon manatees have them stumped. The manatees appeared to have abruptly sickened and drowned.

Normally manatees eat sea grass. With much of the sea grass gone, the manatees turned to eating a red sea weed called gracilaria. But so far there is no sign that played any role in their deaths, DeWit said. The lab is continuing to test for viruses, pollutants or something else.

Similar tests are being run on the dead pelicans and dolphins. Stolen of Hubbs-SeaWorld said the dolphin die-off first became evident in January and has not let up since.

And the lagoon's 700 dolphins are already somewhat beleaguered. They tend to suffer from high levels of mercury. In fact, research by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution at Florida Atlantic University has found that there's so much mercury in the lagoon's fish that people who eat them have higher mercury concentrations in their tissues than those who eat imported fish.

Scientists caught a break Friday when a kayaker discovered an ailing, sunburned, underweight dolphin stranded in the shallows, Stolen said. Rescuers were able to capture it for rehabilitation, and they hope it offers clues to what killed the others.

When it comes to naming the cause, the list of suspects rivals a game of Clue. Stormwater runoff filled with fertilizer and other nutrient pollution has been blamed for fueling the algae blooms. Other theories point to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dumping polluted water from Lake Okeechobee, changes in water temperature or salt levels, overflow from contaminated mosquito-control ditches, even climate change, which is boosting the acidity of the world's oceans.

The Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute had hoped for $2 million in state money this year for a study of the lagoon's water chemistry, but Gov. Rick Scott vetoed the appropriation.

There are a few hopeful signs. The pelican die-off appears to have ended. As for the sea grass, "we're starting to see some regrowth in certain areas, but not as much as we'd hoped," said Tony Rice of the Indian River Lagoon Estuary Program, a government-sponsored partnership among local and state agencies.

Meanwhile, a new brown tide bloom was spotted last month. If the lagoon hasn't hit a point where it's sliding toward oblivion, said Rose, of the Save the Manatee Club, a return to normal is a long way off. "I'm thinking it's seven, eight, nine years," he said. "We could be looking at a decade before it recovers."

www.tampabay.com/news/environment/die-of...ins-manatees/2127017

Pandora's Box

There are many poster children for your message. Trust me, I know all about this. This one hits home-

Thank You
Earl

PS- I appreciate your reply. You pegged it.

agau121 wrote:
As I see it, when stripped to their bare essentials, all of the arguments advanced by governments for their anti-terrorist activities amount to some version of "trust us," but this is not an argument; it's a command.

But again, that summary still presumes the validity of the War on Terror itself. Given that this is a contrived/phony/immoral/eternal "war"; I would suggest that the words "trust us" should be replaced with "bend over"...

agau121 wrote:
I have been under the impression that "tapering" is the new exit strategy. In other words, the terms have just been swapped.

That's precisely my point: for four years the propaganda machine has used the term "exit strategy" to describe the reduction of the money-printing; much like it uses the euphemism "quantitative easing" to describe the money-printing itself.

WHY suddenly invent a new buzzword for the same thing...unless you were simply too ashamed/embarrassed to continue to use the old label.

Observe the parallel with another, ultra-popular euphemism from the Corporate Media:

the New Normal

All that "the New Normal" represents is a restatement of the cliche "this time it's different". So why did the propagand machine consider it essential to take a popular, well-known cliche; and simply re-write it as a vague euphemism?

Because if they had trotted out "this time it's different" again and again and again and again; not only would everyone laugh at the propagandists, they would immediately realize the invalidity of "the New Normal."

Similarly; the Fed-heads, politicians, and media shills all say "tapering" instead of "exit strategy"; because if they said "exit strategy" not only would people laugh, but no one would take them seriously.

Thus the need for a NEW LABEL -- and a new Snake-Oil Salesman to sell the New Label. Again, we have an obvious stupidity test: how many people inside and outside the mainstream media will adopt the word "tapering" -- since that implies being fooled by this simplistic ruse.

When do we have to be most on our guard for Disinformation? When we see seemingly "friendly" titles/articles, which (on the surface at least) appear to roughly coincide with the attitudes of Citizens toward any particular issue. The most insidious propaganda always comes from those claiming to agree with us.

Thus I looked over this opinion piece at Reuters very carefully in attempting to:

a) define its message
b) identify the agenda

Here readers must be careful to read both the title and the text carefully. This writer is NOT giving the thumbs-up to Whistleblowers in general. Rather, she is identifying the SEPARATE issue of freedom to publish what is produced by Whistleblowers -- the very core of "freedom of the press."

So in this respect we see a generally benign article. There is nothing earth-shattering here; in that all it does is summarizes the existing constitutional rights of the press, and provides a brief explanation of the reasons/needs for this freedom. Pretty much "ABC" stuff.

This brings us to the agenda behind the article. Here I am much less-convinced of benign intent. As is often the case; the most-revealing line of this article is the concluding sentence:

...The impact of Snowden’s leak provides a compelling example of what University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone was talking about when he told the House Judiciary Committee that the solution to reconciling government secrecy and press freedom was to guarantee “both a strong authority of the government to prohibit leaks and an expansive right of others to disseminate them.” Someone should read those words to Peter King.

Again, looking at the surface of this, it seems to be a benign/progressive opinion:

"...an expansive right of others to disseminate"

But again, all this does is state the rights we have always had. Look what ACCOMPANIES the affirmation of an existing right:

"...the solution to reconciling government secrecy and press freedom was to guarantee “both a strong authority of the government to prohibit leaks and an expansive right of others to disseminate them.”

How can a government exert "strong authority to PROHIBIT leaks"? By harshly punishing Whistleblowers. And thus we see the writer's real agenda: allow the press (for now) to keep "its right to publish" -- while APPLAUDING more Draconian laws aimed at Whistleblowers.

This has two long-term effects:

1) (Obviouly) discourages more Whistleblowers from coming forward.
2) Demonizes Whistleblowers.

Why is (2) so important? Because after spending a year or two demonizing Whistleblowers (and likely equating them with "terrorists" - lol); THEN we will see the government Thugs and Corporate Media arguing that it's time to take away the FREEDOM TO PUBLISH...what is being distribuited by "Terrorists."



We see this sort of Two-step all the time. Beware those Friendly Faces in the media who "stand up" for some of our liberties -- as a device for selling us out on other fronts.



There can be no justification for the media proclaiming "a strong authority of the government to prohibit leaks" in a supposedly free-and-democratic society. Look at how this piece potentially raises the bar for Whistleblowers:

...Some Snowden critics have attempted to deny him the mantle of “whistleblower” because he leaked information about a program that was being overseen by the FISA courts. They maintain that a true whistleblower would only sound the alarm against an illegal program. However, just because a program is being overseen by a secret court doesn’t guarantee that it is constitutional. Only the Supreme Court can decide that. But as long as a program remains secret, there’s a Catch-22 in effect: The Supreme Court can’t review the constitutionality of the program until someone sues to challenge it, but if nobody knows they’ve been targeted by a secret program, nobody has standing to bring a lawsuit.

What is being done here? Framing the issue: should Whistleblowers be tolerated only if they provide concrete proof of "illegal activity"? Or will they avoid persecution for revealing merely "secret" programs? Again; the writer refuses to take a stand here; indicating a willingness to concede ground.

Understand the slippery slope. It is the government which creates/passes the laws which tell us what is OFFICIALLY legal/illegal. However, much of the content of those laws is essentially completely unknown to the general public -- because our "representatives" refuse to properly disclose/explain their own laws AND because the statutes themselves are nearly incomprehensible to ordinary people.

So given that we don't even know what sort of dastardly deeds can be LEGALLY perpetrated by our governments (for example; "bail-ins" are LEGAL); imagine how we would be throttling our own access to the Truth if we allow the government to (literally) snuff-out any/all Whistleblowers who don't produce evidence of officially "illegal" conduct?

Put another way; if we ultimately find out that everything the NSA has done here is "legal"; should this in way be determinative as to whether Snowden has committed a crime in revealing this massive spying on us?

Simply: no. What we have here is an act which (much like Watergate) justifies itself by virtue of the FACTS disclosed. Whether or not those facts disclose "illegal conduct" is absolutely irrelevant to the OUTRAGE people are feeling about having their privacy violated in this manner.

At best; the failure of this writer to make this obvious point is cowardly. At worst; it is deliberate: a Disinformation piece aimed at helping us down the slippery slope.

This is not (in net terms) a "defense of liberty". Rather, it is typical Corporate Media treachery. Chipping-away at our rights/liberties; and with each successful stripping of our rights that becomes a PRECEDENT for taking away even more rights in the future.



Zero tolerance for ANY further restrictions on our personal liberties.




In defense of publishing leaks

blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/06/1...of-publishing-leaks/

Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) wants Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald locked up for publishing the classified information leaked to him by Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former security contractor who divulged details of the NSA’s PRISM data mining program to the Guardian and the Washington Post.

“No right is absolute. And even the press has certain restrictions,” King told Fox News’s Megyn Kelly on Wednesday, “I think it should be very targeted, very selective, and certainly a very rare exception, but in this case, when you have someone who has disclosed secrets like this and threatens to release more, then to me, yes, there has to be, there should be legal action taken against [Greenwald].”

For all King’s bluster, he knows perfectly well that the U.S. is unlikely to prosecute Greenwald. No U.S. journalist has ever been successfully prosecuted for publishing classified information. This may seem counterintuitive. If it’s against the law to leak classified information, why is it legal for journalists to publish it?

The answer lies in a carefully engineered balance between the government’s prerogative for secrecy and the press’s freedom to report the news. Many core government functions, like national defense, depend on the state’s ability to maintain control of sensitive information. Officials and contractors with security clearances take an oath to keep the secrets they are shown and they are warned that if they fail to do so, they may be prosecuted.

Journalism is constitutionally protected because it serves as a check on power of all kinds. We count on journalists to expose wrongdoing and force transparency on the institutions that affect our lives. We want to live in a world where every decision maker knows that, at least in principle, her orders could end up on the front page of tomorrow’s paper, because the mere possibility of accountability serves as a check on abuse of power. Every decision maker needs to know that if she pushes her underlings to violate their core values, she is ultimately at their mercy.

In practice, not many people are willing to risk jail time in order to expose wrongdoing. However, if a figure like Snowden feels so strongly about an alleged injustice that he’s willing to risk jail time to reveal it, the public ought to be able to hear what he has to say. That’s why journalists need broad legal leeway to publish leaked information.

If a government has too much power to enforce secrecy it becomes unaccountable to its people. This lack of accountability increases the risk that the government will break the law behind closed doors and it also stunts the public’s ability to decide what the law should be. In the post-9/11 era, our leaders have assembled a huge and largely opaque national security bureaucracy that is supposedly tasked with keeping us safe from terrorism. The American people are largely left in the dark about how well these programs work, how much they cost, and what tradeoffs are being made between liberty and security. When secrecy is taken to extremes, it becomes paternalistic and anti-democratic. We couldn’t have a national conversation about whether the NSA should be tracking the metadata of our phone calls until journalists revealed that the program existed...

agau121 stated,

This is part of the Koch brothers' agenda, which is being strategically advanced at the state level throughout states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan. Governor Rick Scott is widely believed to be one of the Koch brothers' henchmen. I do not recall for certain off the top of my head, but I do believe, and would not be the least bit surprised to learn for certain, that the Koch brothers are one of Governor Scott's major sources of campaign contributions (bribes).

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a 501(c) American organization composed of legislators, businesses and foundations which produces model legislation for state legislatures and says it promotes free-market and conservative ideas. According to the organization's website, members share a common belief that "government closest to the people" is "fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C." In a Dec. 2011 opinion piece critical of ALEC which appeared in The Nation magazine, John Nichols described ALEC as a "collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators."

ALEC provides a forum for state legislator and corporate members to collaborate on "model bills"—draft legislation which the members would like to become law. Some of the model bills are then brought back to their respective home states and introduced by ALEC's legislative members. Approximately 200 per year become law. ALEC has produced model legislation on issues such as reducing corporate regulation and taxation, tightening voter identification rules, streamlining or minimizing environmental protections (depending on how one looks at it), and promoting gun rights. ALEC also serves as a networking tool among state legislators, allowing them to research the handling and "best practices" of policy in other states.

ALEC's membership list and the origin of its model bills are kept secret and they have been criticized for this. BusinessWeek wrote that "part of ALEC's mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work."

Assertions about ALEC's origin and funding

In 2012, Walter Mondale, former Democratic Vice President of the United States, and Arne Carlson, former Republican governor of Minnesota, referred in an op-ed piece to the political activities of the Koch family and ALEC, saying:

"[ALEC] is the creation of the Koch brothers who amassed their fortunes in oil and who live in Florida. The goal of ALEC is to influence legislators across the nation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council

While I'm sure that there are a few Members who could come up with worthy candidates of their own; to me the worst of the propaganda lies surrounding the phony War on Terror are the phony claims of "attacks prevented" by the lawlessness, murder, and Fascist authoritarianism of our governments.

This bullshit is impossible to stomach for two reasons. First of all; it is NEVER possible for our governments to ever prove that even ONE "terrorist attack" has ever been successfully prevented. Why not? Because the secrecy-obsessed Fascists would never release enough information to provide REAL proof.

But there is an even better reason to be entirely disgusted with any/every lie that the War on Terror has "prevented" terrorism. This phony War was invented for to CREATE terrorism. The proof is the evidence. In relative terms there was ZERO terrorism in the world when the U.S. staged the 9/11 false-flag attack -- and invented this phony war.

Now, following 12 long years of fighting this war; (supposedly) "terrorism" is all around us. And the liars in the Corporate Media pretend this is a surprise, when we have 2,000 years of history proving that when you point an ARMY at (supposed) "terrorists" you ALWAYS create more terrorists than you kill.

And as I have explained before; this manufactured terrorism has a very distinct purpose: to supposedly "justify" also the Nazi "anti-terrorist" machinery/institutions/Laws being created for this imaginary threat.

This is because when our governments have FINISHED the looting/destruction of our economies that they intend to use all this Fascist machinery against their own people. And as we have seen in recent, staged events; the U.S. is to be birthplace for the West's DOMESTIC War on Terror (i.e. civil war).




NYSE Attack Said Prevented by U.S. Surveillance Program

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-18/more-t...by-nsa-programs.html

Intelligence-gathering efforts by the U.S. have prevented more than 50 terrorist attacks in more than 20 countries, including one planned at the New York Stock Exchange, government officials said.

Sean Joyce, deputy FBI director, told the House intelligence committee today that surveillance of a Yemeni man allowed the U.S. to “detect a nascent plot” to bomb the exchange and arrest those involved.

General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, said it was one of two incidents that will be described publicly.

The NSA tomorrow will give documents to the intelligence committee in a classified setting describing more than 50 other “potential terrorist events” thwarted by surveillance programs since Sept. 11, 2001, Alexander said.

“These programs were approved by the administration, Congress and the courts,” Alexander told members of the intelligence committee.

The exposure of NSA programs collecting data on telephone and Internet communications by Edward Snowden, a technology contractor working for Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. (BAH), has sparked a criminal inquiry by the Justice Department as well as a review by U.S. intelligence agencies of how the leak occurred.

Snowden, 29, fled to Hong Kong last month before revealing himself as the source, and U.S. lawmakers said they want to know more about what led him to act.

“This widespread leak by a 29-year-old American systems administrator put our country and our allies in danger by giving the terrorists a really good look at the playbook that we use to protect our country,” Representative C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger of Maryland, the intelligence committee’s top Democrat, said.

Follow the insanity here. We began with "competitive devaluation": governments around the world "competing" to see which could drive the value of their own currency toward zero -- the fastest.

But this wasn't good enough for the rapacious bankers; who STEAL via the "inflation" created by competitive devaluation. So now we have a full-fledged "Currency War": governments fighting to see which can drive the value of their own currency toward zero the fastest.

And should your currency not "keep up" with the Currency Assassins of other nations; in the Orwellian world of the Banksters and their Corporate Media lackeys; this means you are "losing the war".

"Look! Our currency only fell in value by 10% this year. What a catastrophe!"



As a reminder; with wage-increases essentially non-existent for the Working Poor; the inflation-rate (i.e. the speed of currency-destruction by our Traitor Governments) translates percent-for-percent into PAY CUTS for all the Workers.

So what is the real translation of the article below? Bloomberg and the Banksters lamenting the fact that (for the moment) Europeans are getting poorer at a slower rate than the rest of the Serfs.



Come on Mario Draghi! Get back to stealing like a Banker...


Draghi Loses War for Growth With Euro Beating Peers

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-18/draghi...o-beating-peers.html

The euro has overtaken Sweden’s krona as this year’s best performing major currency, revealing how far European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is falling behind his contemporaries in the foreign-exchange wars.

The euro has strengthened 4.6 percent in 2013, the most among 10 developed-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes and outpacing the krona’s 3.1 percent gain. Strategists are raising their forecasts for the 17-nation currency, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

While the gains show investors are confident that Draghi and government officials are doing enough to hold the euro region together, they threaten the ability of member nations to export their way out of the longest recession on record. Goods sold to countries outside the region fell 0.8 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months, the European Union’s statistics office said June 5.

“The euro is confounding all its critics once again,” said David Bloom, the global head of currency strategy at HSBC Holdings Plc in London. With the threat of the ECB turning to negative interest rates, “Draghi had a dabble in the war,” though “everyone else is cutting rates or intervening, and they’re all seeing their currencies weaken,” he said.
Raising Estimates

Strategists are having a hard time keeping up with the gains. The composite estimate in a Bloomberg survey is for the euro to end the first quarter of next year at $1.27. While that’s below today’s level of $1.3352 as of 8:47 a.m. in New York, it’s up from the forecast of $1.26 in May.

The euro touched a four-month high of $1.3390 last week, and is about 10 percent above its lifetime average of $1.2141. It’s 7.2 percent too strong against the dollar, based on an index by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris that uses relative costs of goods and services.

While Draghi cut the euro region’s main interest rate in May to a record 0.5 percent and said policy makers were considering a negative deposit rate, the bond-buying program the central bank unveiled in 2012 is yet to be activated. Draghi said today that the central bank may use other tools.

“There are numerous other measures – standard interest rate policy and non-standard measures – that we can deploy and that we will deploy if circumstances warrant,” Draghi said in a speech in Jerusalem. “Monetary policy will remain accommodative for as long as necessary.”

European banks have paid back about 300 billion euros of the 1 trillion euros of three-year loans granted under its Longer Term Refinancing Operations in 2011, leaving the Frankfurt-based ECB’s balance sheet 18 percent smaller than at its peak in June 2012.
Buying Bonds

The U.S. Federal Reserve is purchasing $85 billion of Treasuries every month, boosting its balance sheet assets to $3.41 trillion from about $2.91 trillion in September. The Bank of Japan announced an unprecedented stimulus package this year that includes a plan to double the nation’s monetary base in two years, while the Bank of England has also bought debt.

The euro’s strength has made Stephen Jen, the managing partner at SLJ Macro Partners LLP in London and the former head of foreign-exchange strategy at Morgan Stanley, reluctant to sell the currency, even though he thinks it should fall based on the performance of the economy.

“The ECB has been harder to read than the Fed, the BOJ or the BOE,” Jen said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The euro is agitating to push lower, I believe. It’s been very hard to trade.” Though a decline to $1.17 would represent a “reasonable level” for the euro, Jen said he doubts “it will fall that far.”
Shrinking Economy

Gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent in the first quarter, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said on June 5. Investment as measured by gross fixed capital formation dropped 1.6 percent, subtracting 0.3 percentage points off GDP.

Futures traders have decreased their bets that the euro will decline against the U.S. dollar to the lowest level since Feb. 19, figures from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission released on June 14 showed.

The difference in the number of wagers by hedge funds and other large speculators on a decline in the euro compared with those on a gain -- known as net shorts -- was 7,533 contracts, compared with 51,621 a week earlier.

The shared currency also has been buoyed by gains in the region’s government bonds from Spain to Italy. The yield on Spain’s (GSPG10YR) 10-year bond fell to 3.94 percent on May 3, the lowest since May 2010, from 5.27 percent at the end of last year.
Bond Rally

“As risky assets do well, the euro does well,” said Bill Street, the global co-head of active fixed income at State Street Global Advisors, which oversees about $2 trillion in assets. “Selling the euro was the classic de-risker, and this has been unwound. The euro’s strength can continue.”

Much of the euro’s gains in 2013 have come this quarter, with the Bloomberg index trading at 99.5227 today from 95.1156 at the end of March. This quarter would be the best for the currency since the index jumped 7.9 percent in the final three months of 2008.

The last time the currency appreciated for a full year was also in 2008, when the index gained 10 percent to 118.8433.

While the economies of Italy and Spain have contracted every quarter since the period ending September 2011, the slowdown is spreading to richer countries such as Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

The weak economy will weigh on the currency and force the central bank to take more measures, according to Societe General SA. France’s second-biggest bank recommends selling the shared currency against the U.S. and Australian dollars.

“The rise in the euro isn’t welcome in an environment where the economy is lagging,” Vincent Chaigneau, the bank’s global head of rates and foreign-exchange strategy in Paris, said. “I don’t think it’s sustainable and, fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense.”

I'm sorry if I come across as the proverbial "broken record" with many of my pet-themes; however, as one of my own education mantras is repetition (lol), my defense is simple: necessity.

One of the themes I stress regularly is Controlling The Message. As long as our Fascists regime pretend to still have a "free press" they will be forced to defuse/explain the small amounts of Truth which leak through the saturation propaganda. This is where Controlling The Message becomes such a crucial tactic.

Being fascist regimes; our governments are (will be) inevitably caught doing indefensible things. And so if it's absolutely impossible to (fully) "justify" one of our government's crimes then the Corporate Media's spin doctors go to work in the following manner:

1) "Re-defining" the issues
2) Creating irrelevant distractions
3) Spouting their own (asburd) "conclusions" on what is supposedly 'right' or 'wrong' in a particular scenario; and then REPEATING THAT CONCLUSION literally millions of times in order to pound it into the thick skulls of the Serfs.

It's a relatively simple Formula, and we will rarely see a clearer illustration of Controlling The Message than with the Snowden Saga in general; and the article below in particular. Read it through, and identify for yourselves how virtually every line serves one of the three purposes above.

Note the enormous CONTRAST between the Snowden Saga and the Wikileaks Hoax. There has been no relentless propaganda campaign to demonize/discredit Wikileaks -- indeed, precisely the opposite. Thanks to the mainstream media it has achieved quasi-official status.

And where are the LEGIONS of blood-thirsty U.S. Neo-Cons demanding that Assange be "brought to justice"? There was just enough feigned outrage to allow the Corporate Media to portray Assange as some Information Renegade, but NEVER and serious attempt to prosecute him, nor have there been nearly as much demonizing.

There has been more shrill/absurd rhetoric directed at Snowden in the few weeks since he surfaced than at Assange (and Wikileaks itself) in all the years of its own existence.

Ironically, what I'm doing here is analyzing METADATA. I am observing behavioral data and drawing (rational) conclusions from it. The cumulative metadata which contrasts Wikileaks/Assange and Snowden strongly suggests Snowden is legitimate -- and strongly suggests that Wikileaks isn't.

Indeed; one of the indirect contributions being made by Snowden is in helping to expose the Wikileaks Hoax. We now can see the different manner in which our governments (and Corporate Media) respond to a REAL WHISTLEBLOWER (the Iron Fist); versus the Velvet Glove approach they have taken with Wikileaks -- despite the huge QUANTITY of information it has propagated.

Use Snowden as your own compare-and-contrast tool here. I'm confident that the only conclusion people will reach is that Assange is an Establishment Tool -- and Snowden is the Real Deal.

We see Snowden being treated like gold and silver (constant attacks/demonization), and Assange being treated like a Banker: "too big to jail".




Obama Vies with Snowden for Public Support on NSA Leaks

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-17/obama-...rt-on-nsa-leaks.html

President Barack Obama and former national security contractor Edward Snowden are mounting public relations campaigns over a classified U.S. surveillance program leaked by Snowden, with Obama promising to declassify details and Snowden seeking vindication of his motives.

Obama, in an interview with Charlie Rose taped June 16 and airing last night, said the intelligence community, acting on his direction, is in the process of determining “how much of this we can declassify without further compromising the program.”

Snowden pushed to rally support for his cause yesterday in a public online question-and-answer session.

While Obama is trying to assure Americans that the telephone and e-mail surveillance programs targeting terrorists and overseen by a secret court aren’t an undue invasion of the average citizens’ privacy, he said people need a fuller picture than what Snowden has provided.

“Frankly, if people are making judgments just based on these slides that have been leaked, they’re not getting the complete story,” the president said.

The president has asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to determine what additional information to make public about the programs, according to an administration official who shared the information on condition of anonymity. Obama plans to meet within days with a privacy and civil liberties oversight board he designated as part of an outreach on privacy protection in the digital age, the official said.
Snowden’s Chat

Snowden spent more than 90 minutes answering questions on the website of the UK newspaper, The Guardian, with criticism for Obama’s policies, a rebuke of the policy restrictions on domestic surveillance and jabs at the media and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Intentional or not, it also may have served a legal purpose: the softening of a potential jury pool should Snowden be charged and extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

“He’s going to argue he was a whistleblower and try to get out from the legal technicalities of being found guilty,” said Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor now with international investigations firm Kroll Inc. “That’s an argument to the jury to not send this man to jail, even though technically what he did was against the law.”

Snowden, a former Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp (BAH). contractor, is facing parallel investigations by the Justice Department and the intelligence community for his decision to disclose two wide-ranging classified surveillance programs. Lawmakers have called for his prosecution and Attorney General Eric Holder has said he would “hold accountable” the individual responsible for the leaks.
Public Opinion

A USA Today/Pew Research Center poll found that 54 percent of those surveyed said Snowden should be prosecuted for disclosures to two newspapers that lifted the veil on two National Security Agency surveillance programs, compared with 38 percent who said he shouldn’t face charges.

Snowden, 29, said yesterday that statements by public officials may be an effort to deliberately sabotage his chances at a fair trial in the U.S.

“The U.S. government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime,” Snowden said, according to the Guardian-sponsored online chat.

He also defended and justified his actions, saying he didn’t release details on U.S. operations or assets dealing with “legitimate targets” and that he has no plans to provide information to the Chinese or other foreign governments.
Little Impact

Snowden’s effort to paint the U.S. jury pool as tainted would likely have little impact on any extradition proceedings or decisions in Hong Kong, where he traveled on May 20 in advance of stories published based on his leaks, according to Jacques Semmelman, a partner at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP in New York.

“It’s on very weak grounds trying to argue that a U.S. jury cannot be fairly selected for his case,” Semmelman, a former federal prosecutor, said in a telephone interview. “That’s not his most compelling argument to avoid extradition.”

Instead, Semmelman said, Snowden’s best defense from an extradition request under the treaty signed between the U.S. and Hong Kong would be for his case to be considered a political offense -- something that Hong Kong officials could cite in a rejection of the request.
Overcoming Hurdles

Any request will have to wait for the filing of charges -- something American prosecutors are in the midst of assembling, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the matter. Though prosecutors are aiming for a quick process, there are hurdles to overcome, including the need to file all charges before the extradition request. Prosecutors rarely can file new or amended charges once an individual has been extradited, the people said.

The Obama administration has confirmed the existence of a program compelling Verizon Communications Inc (VZ). to provide the NSA with data on all its customers’ telephone use.

The administration also has confirmed the existence of a separate program, called Prism, that monitors the Internet activity of foreigners believed to be located outside the U.S. and plotting terrorist attacks.

Once charges are filed, the U.S. can ask Hong Kong to detain Snowden for as many as 60 days before making a formal extradition request, according to a treaty between the two governments.
Mustering Support

In advance of those charges, Snowden may be trying to “drum up” public support because he realizes the U.S. will probably accuse him of breaking the law and seek to extradite him, said Eric Fiterman, a former FBI agent who founded Washington-based cybersecurity company Spotkick.

“Defendants rarely do themselves any good by speaking too much, but his is surgical,” said Cramer, who runs Kroll’s Chicago office. “It’s clearly meant to get out from under treason.”

Snowden criticized Cheney and U.S. lawmakers who have denounced the leaks. He called on Obama to “appeal for a return to sanity” and said he would “advise he personally call for a special committee to review these interception programs.”

“There can be no faith in government if our highest offices are excused from scrutiny -- they should be setting the example of transparency,” Snowden said.
Disclosures Protested

The disclosures, however, have drawn the ire of U.S. lawmakers and Obama administration officials, even as they have raised questions about the programs they uncovered.

Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, said the former government contractor ought to “look an American jury in the eye” and explain why he disclosed details of secret programs.

“If he’s not a traitor, then he’s pretty darned close to it,” Chambliss, of Georgia, said June 16 on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “We know now that because of his disclosure the terrorists, the bad guys, around the world are taking some different tactics and they know a little bit more about how we’re gathering information on them.”

For the moment, Snowden remains free, telling participants in the question-and-answer session yesterday that he chose Hong Kong as his destination in part because he believed the legal structure would allow him to stay out of custody, at least for a time.

“It would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it,” Snowden said.

It's almost surreal watching Barack Obama and Bloomberg lionizing B.S. Bernanke -- while he still remains as Chief Manure-Shoveler at the Fed:

Obama Says Bernanke Has Been at Fed ‘Longer Than He Wanted’

Oh what a Noble Warrior! Reluctantly remaining at the Federal Reserve...to lie to the people day after day while aiding his Bankster buddies in totally destroying them all financially. And continuing onward -- even after he stopped loving his work!



Talk about a Lame Duck! What's incredible here is that now, with EVERYONE knowing that Bernanke is on the way out -- and has absolutely no role/influence in FUTURE monetary policy -- the Sheep will be told that they should STILL listen to his every word as the Gospel.



Of course the propaganda machine is supply the Sheep with a reason for continuing to listen to the Lame Duck:

...“It’s really hard to believe the next chairman would change the course of monetary policy,” said Roberto Perli, a partner at Cornerstone Macro LP in Washington and a former economist for the Fed’s division of monetary affairs.

So what we're going to be told is that even though this Great Monetary Sage is about to fade away into the sunset that his Invisible Hand will remain behind -- to guide whatever Lesser Mortal is assigned to attempt to fill his enormous shoes.



Sir Alan Greenspan was a despicable Traitor in his term as Fed-head -- but at least he was an intelligent Traitor. With the clod Bernanke; it's been one, long exercise in insulting our intellects with his endless, ridiculous drivel.

But we were forced to watch the Corporate Media pretend that Bernanke's lies represented some pinnacle of economic understanding. He would have been no less legitimate had he spent the last 7 years attempting to convince people that the Earth was flat.

But now we'll go through an equally painful charade where the Traitor who will replace Bernanke will be portrayed as some well-meaning Apprentice vainly attempting to duplicate the Lore of Bernanke.

And then the propaganda machine will express its "surprise" that amazingly EVERYTHING the Apprentice will be exactly the right thing to do (lol!!). And then we'll be forced to listen to the propaganda machine "concede" that -- somehow -- the Apprentice has actually managed to equal the Master.



...and of course we'll be forced to listen to this rhetoric while the Apprentice completes the total destruction of the U.S. economy...



P.S. We were treated to a little outright comedy:

...Investors were more divided over who would be the best successor. Asked who would make the best Fed chairman, Yellen was named by 26 percent, followed by former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, 51, favored by 11 percent, and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, 69, a Bernanke mentor, with 7 percent. Former White House adviser and ex-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, 58, was selected by 6 percent, and 3 percent named former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, 61.




Obama Says Bernanke Has Been at Fed ‘Longer Than He Wanted’

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-18/obama-...an-he-wanted-1-.html

President Barack Obama said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has stayed in his post “longer than he wanted,” one of the clearest signals the central bank chief will leave when his current term expires next year.

“Ben Bernanke’s done an outstanding job,” Obama said in an interview with Charlie Rose that aired yesterday, when asked about nominating him for another term subject to Senate approval. “He’s already stayed a lot longer than he wanted or he was supposed to.”

Obama likened Bernanke’s tenure to that of outgoing Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller, who stayed on for two years after his term expired in 2011 and is leaving his post in September. Bernanke’s second four-year stint at the central bank ends Jan. 31.

Bernanke, like Mueller, was initially nominated to the post by former President George W. Bush. Obama asked Bernanke to serve another term as chairman, which he began on Feb. 1, 2010. The 59-year-old former Princeton University professor and Great Depression scholar also served on Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment. A White House official declined to comment until the president has made a decision and is ready to announce it, adding that Obama’s remarks were intended to express admiration for Bernanke.
Tapering Debate

Treasuries were little changed after the news, which came on the eve of a two-day meeting of the Fed’s policy-setting Open Market Committee. Yields on benchmark 10-year notes rose to 2.20 percent at 8:17 a.m. in New York from 2.18 percent late yesterday. Fed officials in recent months have debated whether to scale back, or taper, their purchases of Treasuries as the U.S. economy extends its recovery.

“It’s really hard to believe the next chairman would change the course of monetary policy,” said Roberto Perli, a partner at Cornerstone Macro LP in Washington and a former economist for the Fed’s division of monetary affairs. At the same time, “it doesn’t help make the Fed’s communications easier if Obama is talking about Bernanke in the past tense,” he said.

Using extraordinary powers, Bernanke took the assets of troubled financial firms Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. onto the Fed’s balance sheet and rolled out several emergency lending facilities to pump cash into a banking system where confidence had been shattered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008.
Recession Damage

The 18-month recession was the longest and deepest since the Great Depression, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index reached a 12-year low in March 2009. Joblessness peaked at a quarter-century high of 10 percent in October 2009. By March 2010, 10.1 percent of all mortgage loans were delinquent, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“He has been an outstanding partner along with the White House, in helping us recover much stronger than, for example, our European partners, from what could have been an economic crisis of epic proportions,” Obama said in the interview.

Bernanke’s actions attracted the ire of Republicans. After a protracted debate, the Senate approved the second-term nomination on Jan. 28, 2010, by a 70-30 vote, the narrowest margin for any Fed chairman.

In August 2011, Texas Governor Rick Perry said it would be “almost treacherous -- or treasonous” for Bernanke to step up central bank support for the economy before the 2012 presidential election. Perry was contending for the Republican presidential nomination at the time.
Romney Opposed

Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ eventual nominee, said during the campaign that he opposed a third term at the Fed for Bernanke. The former Massachusetts governor criticized Bernanke for printing too much money without reducing unemployment.

While neither the White House nor Bernanke have said definitively that the Fed chairman won’t seek a third term, there have been some signals that the chairman would like to leave.

Bernanke broke with tradition and decided not to attend the Fed’s annual central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this year.

“The odds of Bernanke staying on were pretty low,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “This will confirm one aspect of the story and allow people to think of the other scenarios -- somebody else will be taking the helm.”

Bernanke told reporters in March that he’s “spoken to the president a bit” about his future and felt no personal responsibility to stay at the Fed and oversee the reversal of its policies.
Other Options

“I don’t think that I’m the only person in the world who can manage the exit,” Bernanke said at the March news conference in Washington.

As the financial crisis waned and the emergency lending programs were wound down, the Fed chairman faced a new challenge: A recovery hobbled by tight credit, a lackluster housing market and financial turmoil in Europe that left the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent two years after the expansion began.

With the central bank’s benchmark lending rate cut close to zero in December 2008, the Fed chairman began once again to marshal the central bank’s balance sheet. This time, the FOMC began to press down longer-term interest rates with direct purchases of debt.

The strategy, called quantitative easing by economists, is now in its third round with the Fed purchasing $85 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. The Fed’s assets now total $3.41 trillion compared with $877 billion at the end of August 2007.
Influencing Economics

“He has bridged the gap between academic analyses of monetary policy and the practical requirements of a running a central bank,” said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. “He is in a unique position to redefine the way we think analytically about how monetary policy operates in the real world and to do it in a way that other academics will have to pay attention to.”

Still, the Fed is far from its congressional mandate to achieve maximum employment and stable prices.

Inflation rose 0.7 percent for the 12 months ending April, below the 2 percent goal of the FOMC. The unemployment rate stood at 7.6 percent in May, compared with the Fed’s 5.2 percent to 6 percent estimate of a jobless rate that corresponds to efficient use of labor resources.
Global Poll

A majority of investors expect Bernanke will leave office in January, according to the latest Bloomberg Global Poll of investors on May 14. A third of those surveyed expect he’ll be succeeded by Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, 66, according to the poll of investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers.

Investors were more divided over who would be the best successor. Asked who would make the best Fed chairman, Yellen was named by 26 percent, followed by former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, 51, favored by 11 percent, and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, 69, a Bernanke mentor, with 7 percent. Former White House adviser and ex-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, 58, was selected by 6 percent, and 3 percent named former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson, 61.

“At some point you have to make a transition,” Feroli said, noting that there has never been an ideal time to announce a transition “in the past five years.”

Florida’s Governor Signs Business-Backed Bill Banning Paid Sick Leave
thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/17/216...ott-paid-sick-leave/
By Bryce Covert on Jun 17, 2013 at 9:38 am

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a bill on Friday that blocks local governments from implementing paid sick leave legislation, the Orlando Sentinel reports. He made his decision quickly, only taking four of the 15 days he legally had to review the bill before he signed it.

In signing the bill, Scott sided with big business interests including Disney World, Darden Restaurants (owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster), and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The bill is part of a national effort to pass so-called “preemption bills” that would block paid sick leave legislation that is backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that coordinates conservative laws across states. The state’s House Majority Leader, Steve Precourt (R), who was instrumental in putting forward the preemption bill, is an active ALEC member.

The bill has made moot a 2014 referendum in Orange County that would have decided whether to require paid sick leave. More than 50,000 voters had tried to get the measure on the November 6 ballot but the County Commission voted it off. It made it on the ballot in 2014 thanks to a three-judge panel.

Florida follows a rash of preemption bills in the states, which cropped up in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Mississippi. These bills are part of ALEC’s efforts to weaken wage and labor standards: Since 2011, 67 such ALEC-affiliated bills have been introduced in state legislatures, 11 of which had been signed into law before Scott signed this bill.

Big business stood in opposition to the Orange County effort on paid sick leave because it claimed such a bill would drive up costs. Yet a study of San Francisco, which enacted a paid sick leave policy in 2007, showed that a majority of businesses saw either no impact or a positive one on profitability. Other research has shown such policies to be good for business and job growth.

Pandora's Box

Biological Hazard in USA on Monday, 17 June, 2013 at 03:25 (03:25 AM) UTC.

hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/?pageid=event...H-20130617-39639-USA

The Indian River Lagoon on Florida's east coast has long been known as the most diverse ecosystem in North America. Its 156 miles of water boast more than 600 species of fish and more than 300 kinds of birds. The lagoon is not just an ecological treasure. To the towns along its edge — Titusville, Cocoa, Melbourne, Vero Beach and Stuart, among others — it accounts for hundreds of millions in revenue from angling, boating, bird-watching, tourism and other waterfront activities. But these days the Indian River Lagoon has become known as a killing zone. Algae blooms wiped out more than 47,000 acres of its sea grass beds, which one scientist compared to losing an entire rainforest in one fell swoop. Then, beginning last summer, manatees began dying. As of last week, 111 manatees from Indian River Lagoon had died under mysterious circumstances. Soon pelicans and dolphins began showing up dead too — more than 300 pelicans and 46 dolphins so far. How bad is it? In the past week, a dolphin a day has turned up dead in the lagoon, said Megan Stolen, a research scientist at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute.

"When you lose the manatees, pelicans and dolphins, you know something is going on," said Marty Baum of Indian Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group that tries to act as a steward for the lagoon and the Indian River that flows into it. Yet so far nobody can name the killer. Biologists have some suspicions but are baffled about any connection among the species' problems. The diets are different: Manatees are vegetarians, while pelicans and dolphins eat fish. The symptoms are different: The manatees' stomachs are stuffed, while the pelicans and dolphins are emaciated. Baum's family has lived around the lagoon since the 1860s, but he can't remember anything like this ever happening. The lagoon has had algae blooms before. None of them were like the one that hit it in 2011. Experts called the explosion of the greenish Resultor species a "superbloom" because it covered nearly 131,000 acres and lasted from early spring to late fall. Then came the "brown tide" algae bloom last summer, tinting the water a chocolate brown. The algae, Aureoumbra lagunensis, have been a recurring problem in Texas. Why it suddenly showed up in Florida is another mystery. The algae blooms shade out sunlight needed by sea grass. By the time the algae was done, the lagoon had lost more than half its sea grass, essential to nurturing fish and other marine species.

Then came what Pat Rose of the Save the Manatee Club called "a cascade of events." The mysterious manatee die-off began in the northern part of the lagoon last July, hit its peak around March and now produces another dead manatee about every two weeks, said Martine DeWit of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Biologists at a state laboratory in St. Petersburg examine every dead manatee that's found in Florida for a cause of death. But the Indian River Lagoon manatees have them stumped. The manatees appeared to have abruptly sickened and drowned. Normally manatees eat sea grass. With much of the sea grass gone, the manatees turned to eating a red sea weed called gracilaria. But so far there is no sign that played any role in their deaths, DeWit said. The lab is continuing to test for viruses, pollutants or something else. Similar tests are being run on the dead pelicans and dolphins. Stolen of Hubbs-SeaWorld said the dolphin die-off first became evident in January and has not let up since.

And the lagoon's 700 dolphins are already somewhat beleaguered. They tend to suffer from high levels of mercury. In fact, research by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution at Florida Atlantic University has found that there's so much mercury in the lagoon's fish that people who eat them have higher mercury concentrations in their tissues than those who eat imported fish. Scientists caught a break Friday when a kayaker discovered an ailing, sunburned, underweight dolphin stranded in the shallows, Stolen said. Rescuers were able to capture it for rehabilitation, and they hope it offers clues to what killed the others. When it comes to naming the cause, the list of suspects rivals a game of Clue. Stormwater runoff filled with fertilizer and other nutrient pollution has been blamed for fueling the algae blooms. Other theories point to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dumping polluted water from Lake Okeechobee, changes in water temperature or salt levels, overflow from contaminated mosquito-control ditches, even climate change, which is boosting the acidity of the world's oceans. The Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute had hoped for $2 million in state money this year for a study of the lagoon's water chemistry, but Gov. Rick Scott vetoed the appropriation.

robinsld wrote:
The problem here, agau, is that the people are sheeple. Too many just accept what's going on, and even more are either totally oblivious or think it's all just conspiracy theory stuff. Until the sheeple awake, noone will do anything about this, and this will likely continue until it's too late to do anything about it. At some point it will become irrelevant whether or not some representative can be voted out of office. At that point, it has become too late. One needs to rally the citizens out of their sheep, er.., sleep. Only then can something be done. Trying to do anything without waking the sheeple first is just fighting windmills.


Yes Robinsld; we're facing a learning-curve here in TRAINING the Serfs how to act like Citizens again. EXTREME poverty is a very powerful motivator in encouraging such an education.

So one way or another Citizens will return to our societies, since only Citizens can/will depose the Fascists -- and unless/until they are deposed it is a CERTAINTY that the vast majority will be destroyed financially.

Thus places like BBC and other alternative "beacons of enlightenment" (lol) need to begin that process now; so that when the Motivated Masses are ready to learn there are already places to look to, to speed-up that education...

Pure U.S. blood-sucking off the Canadian economy. So no worries about Stephen Harper saying/doing anything about this.



Thanks for the post Earl!

Earl wrote:
I'd like to ask about one observation-


1) Why did you choose Hong Kong to go to and then tell them about US hacking on their research facilities and universities?
Answer:

1) First, the US Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it.

For "Booz" I could see this as almost "patent" theft, sold to some oligarch, federally funded. Just kinda hit me that way. Could it be any,"research facilities and universities"???

Two favorite quotes-

All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American

Appreciate the feedback

Thank You
Earl


Another thing which can/will make Snowden less "reluctant" as a Hero is defending his integrity.

When you have pond scum like Dick Cheney taking shots at your character; that's pretty powerful incentive to respond.

It's Monday June 17th, and there are two interesting themes to discuss today, based on the most recent propaganda at Basher Central (and around the 'Net).

The first (and rapidly growing) propaganda imperative are attempts to dupe the world's largest gold-producers that "hedging" large quantities of their production (at absurdly low prices) is somehow a "good idea". There isn't enough space in this daily column to explain all the ridiculous ramifications of this propaganda. I got into some of the dynamics in today's commentary.

Note the continuation of a general pattern of desperation. First the Banksters (and their Servants) focused their efforts on trying to sabotage demand -- by attacking the world's largest gold market: India. I've covered that in numerous recent commentaries; so readers should already be familiar with the intensity of desperation on display there.

Now we see a similar level of intense desperation on display with respect to supply: attempting to temporarily boost supply -- by getting the large miners to sell onto the market "gold" which hasn't even been dug out of the ground yet. For those who don't understand hedging (forward-selling) this is all that it amounts to: selling future production at a fixed (low) price.

It was what CAUSED a lot of the damage to the slavish miners back when the Banksters had complete control over bullion markets (because inventories were plentiful). With that complete control gone forever (or until some Bullion Confiscation event); the Banksters are how hoping they can simply bully/jaw-bone the miners into sabotaging themselves with a new wave of hedging.

This brings us to the second, and newer propaganda theme; one with much more ominous undertones.

Gold Ends Weaker; Volatility Collapse Suggests Bigger Daily Price Move Coming
Gold Mixed, Sees Mild Safe-Haven Demand; Collapse In Volatility In Silver Suggests Bigger Move Soon

With the minds of the Sheep having been numbed into a virtual coma by saturation-propaganda; there are no longer even attempts at "subtlety" here.



At this point analysis becomes simple. Would Basher Central ever tip-off bullion investors that a Big Rally was about to hit the market?



So we have only two, possible interpretations of this very obvious message from the propaganda machine: we're about to see one, last ambush on gold/silver markets; OR this is just another propaganda bluff -- intended to keep investors WAITING for some decisive move.

I'm strongly leaning to the former interpretation. Regular readers know that I've suggested all along there could be still be "one last ambush" before the Next Rally begins. While such an ambush would lead to a V-bottom followed by a violent explosion higher in prices; the "violent explosion" is now coming whether the Banksters like it or not.

The VALUE in staging one, last ambush is that then the Revisionists in the propaganda machine can point to how their own Stooges "called the prices" in their absurd warnings about the gold market. Forget about the fact that those low prices would only exist for a matter of days (or possibly a few weeks). Forget about the fact that there would be little (if any) real bullion for sale at those fantasy prices.



The Revisionists would simply point to how they "called the bottom" in the gold market; in order to attempt to rehabilitate these clowns as credible commentators. My expectation would be that the last ambush would be staged with to be launched with the U.S. jobs report at the beginning of July -- which would also coincide with the 4th of July U.S. holiday.

This is a favorable time for an ambush as (next to Christmas) it represents about the LOWEST level of market activituy, and active traders being present in the market. Such times are easy pickings for manipulation operations; as there are literally few bodies around to bid prices higher as they are driven DOWN by the Banksters' brute-force manipulation.

I say again to readers (and the Community here as a whole): don't bet on buying bullion at lower prices. I issue such warnings not to discourage people from buying bullion TODAY; but to prepare them should there be a very short (and totally absurd) further plunge in prices.

Fear of the unknown is a powerful psychological tool. If we're ready for the Banksters' next "shock and awe" nonsense; that alone minimizes its impact. I caution people again that "lower bullion prices" does NOT necessarily mean being able to BUY bullion at those lower prices.

Between exploding premiums and dealers who (at least claim they ) are "out of inventories"; attempting to stock up on bullion at some panic-low is never the "easy money" which naive investors believe it to be. The "best time" for people to buy their bullion remains TODAY.

Live "long", and prosper.

Earl wrote:

Colossus Minerals Inc. Completes C$28.75 Million Bought Deal Financing

finance.yahoo.com/news/colossus-minerals...tes-c-124800738.html

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - June 12, 2013) -

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Colossus Minerals Inc. (CSI.TO)(COLUF) (the "Company" or "Colossus") announced today that it has closed the previously announced offering with GMP Securities L.P. and Dundee Securities Ltd., as co-lead underwriters (the "Co-Lead Underwriters"), on their own behalf and on behalf of a syndicate of underwriters which included Canaccord Genuity Corp., Clarus Securities Inc. and TD Securities Inc. (together with the Co-Lead Underwriters, the "Underwriters"), with PowerOne Capital Markets Limited acting as a selling group member, pursuant to which a total of 17,968,750 common shares of the Company ("the "Offered Shares"), including those issued pursuant to the exercise, in full, of an over-allotment option granted to the Underwriters, were issued and sold at a price of C$1.60 per Offered Share for aggregate gross proceeds of C$28,750,000 (the "Offering"). The Underwriters were paid a cash commission by the Company equal to 5.0% of the gross proceeds of the Offering.

The net proceeds are intended to be used to fund development expenditures on the Serra Pelada gold-PGM mine and general working capital.

The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.



Thanks for the post Earl.

Thought the "news" makes me want to vomit; there's no point in "shooting the messenger" (lol). This is nothing less than an act of corporate rape: banksters STEALING millions of shares from this company -- in return for their own worthless paper.

This financing should be taking place at at least five times the present share price -- or to put this another way; the banksters have stolen FIVE TIMES as many shares as they should have been able to get for their stack of debauched banker-paper.

My only consolation (as a shareholder) is that this is likely the LAST time the Banksters will ever be able to steal from this Company in this manner -- as this should be enough financing to carry it through to when it is cash-flow positive, and no longer requires any additional financing.

For those with some buying-power AND wanting to put at least a portion of that into one or more miners; here is one where the "bottom" now appears to be carved in stone. Once Colossus is producing there will be nothing which the Banksters can do to stop the share price from correcting to a rational valuation.

Auriferous wrote:
Thanks Jeff,

NAN.V raised $4.4m about a month ago, out of a $7.5m PP. VMS.V & The Sentient Group took most if not all of the first tranche of $4.4m.

Drills should be operating this month along with other activities as reported by NAN.V

All the best,

Auriferous


There are a LOT of gold juniors who would drool in envy at those numbers...

Immigration bill would let Canadian snowbirds stay in Florida longer

www.floridatoday.com/article/20130617/NE...ay-in-Florida-longer

WASHINGTON — Florida already is the top destination for Canadian snowbirds, and more could flock to the Sunshine State soon.

Tucked into the massive immigration reform bill being debated in the Senate is a provision that would allow retirees from Canada to stay up to eight months in the United States -- two months longer than current law allows.

Realtors, tourism officials and lawmakers say the change could provide a tremendous boost to the Florida economy still recovering from the Great Recession.

"That's a 30 percent increase in the potential amount that Canadians could spend on everything from accommodations to dining and grocery stores," said Will Seccombe, president and CEO for VISIT FLORIDA, the state's official tourism marketing corporation. "When you get a long length of stay, it has exponential impacts in spending throughout the entire community."

In 2012, Canadians made nearly 4 million visits to Florida and spent about $4.4 billion, according to the Canadian embassy in Washington. Canadian visitors represent about a third of all foreign tourists to Florida, Seccombe said.

The immigration provision, sponsored by New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, would allow retired Canadians 55 or older to get a Canadian Retiree Visa allowing them to stay in the United States up to eight months if they own a second home in the U.S. or they have a rental agreement or hotel reservation.

More than 500,000 Canadians own property in Florida -- more than any other state -- according to the Canadian Snowbird Association. Tens of thousands more rent.

Canadian citizens do not need visas to visit the U.S., but their stay is limited to six months minus one day (generally 182 days) within any 12-month period. That means Canadians who head to popular destinations in Arizona, California, Florida or Texas at the beginning of November need to get back home by late April.

"A lot of people want to stay longer,'' Bob Slack, president of the Canadian Snowbird Association said. "They'd like seven months if they can.''

The Canadian government didn't ask for the measure, according to embassy spokesman Chris Plunkett.

"But we certainly support anything that can improve trade and tourism between Canada and the U.S.,'' he said.

The impetus for the change came from the Canadian Snowbird Association based in Toronto, which estimates snowbirds made 1.08 million trips to the U.S. in 2011. The association defines a snowbird as someone 55 or over who spends 31 or more consecutive days in the U.S.

Steve Romano, a real estate broker in Cocoa Beach with RE/MAX Elite, said poor exchange rates often deter Canadians from buying second homes along the Space Coast.

"But a big part of it (also) was the fact that because they were only allowed here so much time, they couldn't justify the outlay of money," he said. Adding two months, he said, would help the second-home market, "no doubt about it."

Canadians already are the largest group of foreigners who purchase homes in the United States. They accounted for 24 percent of international investors in U.S. real estate in 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But letting Canadians stay longer wouldn't automatically boost sales because of other factors, experts and advocates say.

Snowbirds want Canadian provinces to relax restrictions requiring them to spend at least six months of every year at home in order to qualify for national health insurance.

Only one of Canada's 10 provinces -- Newfoundland and Labrador -- allows eight months abroad without losing health coverage. Three others -- Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba -- permit a maximum seven months out of the country.

Snowbirds also want a change in U.S. tax laws that would let Canadians who spend up to eight months in the U.S. avoid paying income tax here, but Schumer does not plan to pursue that.

Then there's the pull of family north of the border.

About a quarter of the 417 families living at the Ameri-Cana Resort mobile home park on U.S. 1 just north of Pineda Causeway are Canadian, according to Carol Strader, treasurer for the park's board of directors.

She thinks the Canadian residents would appreciate being able to stay longer. Whether they would is another matter, she said.

"They're only going to come down for a certain amount of time so they can go up and see them grandkids," Strader said.

Jesse "Jay" Parrish III, president of the Space Coast Realtors, said he hopes the extension is granted.

"There's definitely a change in the economy when the Canadians leave," he said. "And it's not a happy change."

samix wrote:
From twitter.



The 20th century "Marie Antionette"...