July 7, 2012

Reuters: Dismal hiring shows economy stuck in low gear

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/07/us-usa-economy-idUSBRE86504K20120707


(Reuters) - U.S. employers hired at a dismal pace in June, raising pressure on the Federal Reserve to do more to boost the economy and dealing another setback to President Barack Obama's reelection bid.

The Labor Department said on Friday that non-farm payrolls grew by just 80,000 jobs in June, the third straight month below 100,000.

Job creation was too weak to bring down the country's 8.2 percent jobless rate and the report fueled concerns that Europe's debt crisis was shifting the U.S. economy into low gear.

"We're just crawling forward here," said Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

While Obama holds a narrow lead in most national polls, many voters are critical of his handling of the economy. Speaking at a campaign rally in Ohio, Obama said the pace of job creation needs to pick up.

"It's still tough out there," he said.

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If the size of the labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office (65.7% then v 63.8% now), the U3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. Even if you take into account that the rate should be declining as the population gets older, the U3 unemployment rate would be 10.5%.

In addition, a record 8,733,461 workers took federal disability insurance payments in June 2012, according to the Social Security Administration. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/cgi-bin/currentpay.cgi That was up from 8,707,185 in May.

Bernanke and the Fed have roughly a 30 to 50 day period to do QE3 or inject some other form of stimulus into the economy. The absolute drop dead date for Fed action would be their annual Jackson Hole meeting at the end of August.

Anything after that will cause a shitestorm in Congress, as the Fed will be seen as making a purely political move, and the Fed will not allow that to occur, as they need the support of both parties to continue the central bankster shell game of incremental theft and currency destruction.

July 7, 2012

Israel Won’t Cooperate With UN Probe of West Bank Settlements, Slams Idea on Principle

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=276527

Israel reiterated Friday that it would refuse cooperation with a a UN Human Rights Council fact finding mission to probe Israeli West Bank settlement activity and Jewish building in east Jerusalem.

The Geneva-based council appointed three international jurists to the mission on Friday, eliciting a rebuke from Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.



The three jurists are: Christine Chanet of France, Unity Dow of Botswana and Asma Jahangir of Pakistan. “I have appointed three highly distinguished individuals to carry out the Council’s fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem,” said UNHRC President Laura Dupuy Lasserre.

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Israel: UN council probe on West Bank settlements 'flawed and biased'

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-un-council-probe-on-west-bank-settlements-flawed-and-biased-1.449327

A UN Human Rights Council mission on West Bank settlements is "flawed and biased," Israel said Friday, accusing the rights body of corruption for again singling out Israel while "systematically ignoring massive human rights violations" elsewhere.

The UN's top human rights body appointed three officials Friday afternoon to conduct a fact-finding mission on how Israel's West Bank settlements affect the lives of Palestinians. The Council president, Uruguay Ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre, named three women to the panel: Christine Chanet of France, Unity Dow of Botswana and Asma Jahangir of Pakistan. Dupuy Lasserre said their mission will be to look how the Israeli settlements impact "the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people."

Israel called the action "flawed and biased" and said it will not cooperate with the mission.

"The mission's existence embodies the inherent distortion that typifies the UNHRC treatment of Israel and the hijacking of the important human rights agenda by non-democratic countries," Israel's foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

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Israeli noncooperation not to affect UN probe on settlement activities: Palestinian envoy

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-07/07/c_131701477.htm

Israel's refusal to cooperate with a UN probe panel on Jewish settlements on its occupied land will not affect the committee's work, a Palestinian diplomat said Saturday. Ibrahim Khrishi, the Palestinian envoy to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), told Xinhua that the mission will start its work by the end of July.

The United States and Israel pressured the Geneva-based council to delay the appointing of the panel and thus deferred the process, Khrishi said. However, the top UN rights body named three women on Friday to lead the panel, which will look into the effects of the settlements on the lives of the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Israel cut its relations with the UNHRC when it called for the forming of such an investigative committee in March. The panel should submit its report at the council's 22nd meeting in March 2013.

The Palestinians will use the panel's conclusions "in all international institutions to support the Palestinian quest against the settlement activities, and will submit it to the UN Security Council," Khrishi said.


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Israel telling the UN that it should focus its investigations on non-democratic countries. Pot meet kettle.

July 6, 2012

Amnesty International: Libyan militias are spiraling out of control

Download the report here: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE19/012/2012/en
During a visit to Libya in May and June, Amnesty International found that hundreds of armed militias continue to act above the law, many refusing to disarm or join the national army or police force. The Ministry of Interior told the organization that it has been able to dismantle four militias in Tripoli, a tiny proportion of the total number.

In a new report 'Libya: rule of law or rule of militias?', the organization says that nearly a year after Tripoli fell to the revolutionary fighters (thuwwar), ongoing violations -- including arbitrary arrests and detention, torture including to death, impunity for unlawful killings and forcible displacement -- are casting a shadow over the country's first national elections since the fall of al-Gaddafi's regime.
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flashback:

Mass Murder of Blacks In Libya



Not To Be Shown on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC or FOX - NATO's Crimes in Libya

&feature=related

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NATO-backed Rebels with black Libyan prisoners:





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What is being done is a massive transition in the Middle East from secular US/UK-sponsored (Muburak, Ben Ali, etc) or tolerated (Ghaddafi) thug Arab dictatorships to a Qatar/Saudi-approved Sunni 'controlled fundamentalist' model that uses the Muslim Brotherhood as its template. The Muslim Brotherhood was a creation of the British Intelligence back in the mid 1920's, and has been used as a foil and source of purposeful internal tensions ever since.

Notice that in Egypt for example, it came down to 2 choices for president, one being the former underling of Mubarak (Shafiq) and the Brotherhood's candidate (Morsi). Either way, both sides have origins of support from the empiric West. Both sides (Military v Brotherhood) will be played off against each other, in a constant dialetical struggle that guarantees no pan-Arabist such as Nassar will arise to threaten the new power structure.

Plus, as mentioned above NATO/US/UK are doing the dirty work for Saudi Arabia and Qatar, et al, of clearing out all the barriers to their desired march of Sunni domination of all the historical caliphate. Thus you have the attacks on Syria (Allawite), and then Iran (Shi'ite).

The ironic thing is that Bush's murderous war in Iraq (driven by neo-con greed for power and oligarchic control) actually succeeded in doing IRAN a huge favour, by removing their most hated enemy, and installing a Shia-led government. Ahmed Chalabi (an Iranian double agent) conned the neo-cons.

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I have posted on this for so long, this was so predictable.

If you think Libya is bad, wait till the empire busts up Syria. For a clue as to how that will look, study the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990).

And in closing, as soon as Syria is finished being blown apart by the war pigs, it's on to the real target, Iran.

If Obama is still the president, how many will fall in lock-step behind the Iran War?

Will Democrats simply pull the mirror-image of Rethug support for Bush's Iraqi slaughter?

July 5, 2012

WSJ: Cities Consider Seizing Mortgages (eminent domain to help those who are underwater)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303933404577505013392791018.html

A handful of local officials in California who say the housing bust is a public blight on their cities may invoke their eminent-domain powers to restructure mortgages as a way to help some borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth.

Investors holding the current mortgages predict the move will backfire by driving up borrowing costs and further depress property values. "I don't see how you could find it anything other than appalling," said Scott Simon, a managing director at Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco, a unit of Allianz SE.

Eminent domain allows a government to forcibly acquire property that is then reused in a way considered good for the public—new housing, roads, shopping centers and the like. Owners of the properties are entitled to compensation, which is usually determined by a court.

But instead of tearing down property, California's San Bernardino County and two of its largest cities, Ontario and Fontana, want to put eminent domain to a highly unorthodox use to keep people in their homes. The municipalities, about 45 minutes east of Los Angeles, would acquire underwater mortgages from investors and cut the loan principal to match the current property value. Then, they would resell the reduced mortgages to new investors.

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July 5, 2012

The Alyona Show: Glenn Greenwald: "Zero question we live in a surveillance state."

This Monday, Twitter released it's first ever transparency report. It revealed that just in the first six months of 2012, they've received more demands from governments for user data, than all of last year. And surprise, surprise, the United States made up the majority of the 849 requests, with a whopping 679. Alyona talks to Salon's Glenn Greenwald about the growing surveillance state and what can be done about it.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/18/tsa-mission-creep-us-police-state

The Guardian UK: The TSA's mission creep is making the US a police state. The out-of-control Transportation Security Administration is past patdowns at airports – now it's checkpoints and roadblocks

Ever since 2010, when the Transportation Security Administration started requiring that travelers in American airports submit to sexually intrusive gropings based on the apparent anti-terrorism principle that "If we can't feel your nipples, they must be a bomb", the agency's craven apologists have shouted down all constitutional or human rights objections with the mantra "If you don't like it, don't fly!" This callous disregard for travelers' rights merely paraphrases the words of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano, who shares, with the president, ultimate responsibility for all TSA travesties since 2009. In November 2010, with the groping policy only a few weeks old, Napolitano dismissed complaints by saying "people [who] want to travel by some other means" have that right. (In other words: if you don't like it, don't fly.)

But now TSA is invading travel by other means, too. No surprise, really: as soon as she established groping in airports, Napolitano expressed her desire to expand TSA jurisdiction over all forms of mass transit. In the past year, TSA's snakelike VIPR (Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have been slithering into more and more bus and train stations – and even running checkpoints on highways – never in response to actual threats, but apparently more in an attempt to live up to the inspirational motto displayed at the TSA's air marshal training center since the agency's inception: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control."

Anyone who rode the bus in Houston, Texas during the 2-10pm shift last Friday faced random bag checks and sweeps by both drug-sniffing dogs and bomb-sniffing dogs (the latter being only canines necessary if "preventing terrorism" were the actual intent of these raids), all courtesy of a joint effort between TSA VIPR nests and three different local and county-level police departments. The new Napolitano doctrine, then: "Show us your papers, show us everything you've got, justify yourself or you're not allowed to go about your everyday business."



Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee praised these violations of her constituents' rights with an explanation asinine even by congressional standards:



See, if you don't support the random harassment of ordinary people riding the bus to work, you're a callous bastard who doesn't care about little old ladies.

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July 5, 2012

Police State Update: Passengers could be asked to give drink samples to TSA (post-checkpoint)

http://www.kjct8.com/news/Passenger-could-be-asked-to-give-drink-samples-to-TSA/-/163152/15394098/-/2eprat/-/index.html

Passengers say their problem is not with the rules at the airport. They understand why drinks are not allowed through security, but when they buy one while they wait for their flight, they say the TSA should not ask to test it. Passengers say traveling is a big enough stress, but now some are worried the drinks they are getting are not safe. The TSA would not say what they are testing for or why they are doing it, but travelers say they have a right to know.

"I'm always glad that my safety is a priority, I just think testing drinks after they've already been bought might be a little extreme," infrequent flyer Jennifer Smart said. "The water or or the juices or anything you buy here in the airport, TSA is going to come over and look and check and test it? That's just ridiculous," world traveler Thomas Burgard said.

We asked the TSA about the drink testings and they said, "TSA employees have many layers of security throughout airports. Passengers may be randomly selected for additional screening measures at the checkpoint or in the gate at any time."

Passengers we spoke to also said they think the price of drinks are too expensive. If security is going to test them, it should be before they are purchased, so they do not waste their money.

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At what point do you draw a line in the sand and just say 'NO MORE' to the goons?

July 5, 2012

Petite Noir - Till We Ghosts (brand new from South Africa)

Till We Ghosts is the stunning debut single on Bad Life from Capetown based producer Yannick Iluga aka Petite Noir. A unique concoction of influences, Petite Noir is able to seamlessly fuse intricate contemporary electronics with his stirring, soulful vocal and African shuffles that echo his homeland. Haunting and commanding, a voice that sounds like it carries the ghostly tales of centuries before, billowing through a beautifully lit electronic menagerie of shimmering guitar riffs weaved through drums, clunking percussion, and reverbed effects all draped across a distant clap that keeps the beat alive from a distance. The ability to meld traditional South African sounds of the past with future-thrusting production, whilst picking up bits of influence from across the genre spectrum, is truly an art. Seriously, mind has been blown.

To quote The Guardian on this one, “The first three words are Oh my God, which is exactly how we felt when we heard this.”

“Till We Ghosts” single drops 8/13 via Bad Life. http://bad-life.com/

July 4, 2012

Diane Feinstein,a prime defender of the Surveillance State, renews her assault on the 1st Amendment

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/02/dianne_feinstein_targets_press_freedom/

The supreme Senate defender of state secrecy and the Surveillance State, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, yesterday issued a statement to Australia’s largest newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-senator-calls-to-prosecute-assange-20120701-21b3n.html demanding (once again) the prosecution of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. To see how hostile Feinstein is to basic press freedoms, permit me to change “Assange” each time it appears in her statement to “The New York Times“:




As EFF’s Trevor Timm noted, there is no sense in which Feinstein’s denunciation applies to WikiLeaks but not to The New York Times (and, for that matter, senior Obama officials http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/us/politics/accidental-path-to-record-leak-cases-under-obama.html?pagewanted=all ). Indeed, unlike WikiLeaks, which has never done so, The New York Times has repeatedly published Top Secret information. That’s why the prosecution that Feinstein demands for WikiLeaks would be the gravest threat to press freedom and basic transparency in decades. Feinstein’s decades-long record in the Senate strongly suggest that she would perceive these severe threats to press freedom as a benefit rather than drawback to her prosecution designs.

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Given all of that, it looks like the Observer‘s British neocon warcheerleading columnist, Nick Cohen, picked a really bad week to write an entire column mocking concerns that the U.S. would seek to prosecute and extradite Assange as “paranoia.” Only wilful ignorance would lead someone to claim that such evidence is nonexistent. Indeed, the evidence has long been overwhelming that the U.S. is eager to prosecute him and is actively seeking to do so. That’s because it’s filled with people like Dianne Feinstein, whose supreme loyalty is to the National Security State which enriches them, and who are plagued by a demonstrated willingness to trample on basic Constitutional protections in order to protect it.

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July 3, 2012

Bankers constantly lying, defrauding; most still not in jail

Barclays, JPMorgan and the rest of the megabanks reach new heights in malfeasance, suffer few consequences

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/02/bankers_constantly_lying_defrauding_most_still_not_in_jail/

Has there ever been a better time to be a disastrously inept banker? Well, probably — over the course of human civilization it’s almost always been a pretty good time to be a banker — but today’s finance titans seem uniquely immune to punishment of any sort. Remember how JPMorgan Chase accidentally lost $2 billion in a “hedge”-slash-huge stupid bet placed by a guy in the Chief Investment Office? Funny story, it will actually end up closer to $6 billion http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-jpmorgan-loss-idUSBRE85R1HZ20120629 , or maybe like $9 billion http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/jpmorgan-trading-loss-may-reach-9-billion/ — who can be sure, math is pretty complicated, it’s all imaginary money anyway — as the bank attempts to extricate itself from the insanely complex losing trade made by the office that is supposed to manage the bank’s risk.

Funnier story: Remember when Mr. Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase and the World’s Sagest Banker, was asked to sit before the Senate Banking Committee and be repeatedly complimented and praised? And remember how he kept mentioning “claw-backs,” the weird bank term for taking bonuses away from people who screw up? Turns out Ina Drew, the former head of the Chief Investment Office — the one who lost somewhere between more money than you’ll ever see in your entire life and more money than God has ever seen in His entire life — will not have any of her money clawed back. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/06/29/what-happened-to-ina-drews-clawback/

Here’s Felix Salmon explaining how the job creators of high finance successfully created one really good job in this particular instance:

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July 3, 2012

Telegraph UK:Barclays libor scandal: lock 'em up - it's the only way of dealing with abuse like this

Virtually all financial scandals follow the same pattern. First there is the initial exposure of wrong doing, then comes the mitigating claim that it was common practice and everyone was up to it, and finally it emerges that the regulators knew all along but failed to act.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/9371250/Barclays-libor-scandal-lock-em-up-its-the-only-way-of-dealing-with-abuse-like-this.html


The only bit of the generally repeated sequence of events missing in the Barclays case is the one I haven't mentioned – the cover-up. As the crisis develops, someone, often the chief executive, is nearly always caught attempting to destroy the evidence. Barclays did at least manage to avoid that one; emails are not so easily shredded as the paper work of old. But the other two elements are now fast snowballing; as is now apparent, manipulation of interbank interest rates appears to have been endemic at a number of banks and what's more, regulators repeatedly ignored warnings of it.

Regulatory failure is as much a part of this story as the mischief itself. To state this reality is not to absolve Barclays or anyone else from blame, but merely to point out that such scandals tend invariably to occur against a backdrop of poor standards, lack of vigilance and a general climate of regulatory tolerance.

Much as David Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, would like to load responsibility for this culture of light touch regulation on to their predecessors, many in their own Government are as guilty as Labour in this regard. At the time all this nonsense was building up, they were cheering on from the sidelines. Light touch was widely applauded as part of London's competitive advantage.

Repeated attempts on both sides of the House to score party political points out of the Barclays scandal are frankly pitiful. All are culpable in this failure.

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Keiser Report: Barclays' Bad Bet (E308)



In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss 'big boys' and carding crimes, marmite pots and Olympic has-beens, wash trades and perfect games. In the second half of the show Max talks to former commodities analyst and blogger, Michael Krieger, about the meaning of the escalating and blatant financial crime wave.