Nation Of Change has the article Spying Scandal Engulfs Other US Agencies.

Earlier this month, Reuters revealed that a special division within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been using intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a mass database of telephone records to secretly identify targets for drug enforcement actions.

In the wake of these revelations, a former prosecutor tells IPS he believes he and his colleagues may have been unwitting pawns in the federal government’s effort to deceive defendants and the court system, thereby violating citizens’ constitutional rights.

The article goes on to discuss the Special Operations Division (SOD) comprised of federal agencies including Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency (NSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Department of Homeland Security.

Fakhouri says the SOD program is unconstitutional because of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments combined.

Full and fair disclosure is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as part of the Sixth Amendment, which states, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right… to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”

The Fifth Amendment provides, “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

It is getting harder and harder for me to make excuses for what the NSA is doing in gathering information about people’s phone calls.

New Economic Perspectives has the article Mobilization and Money. The discussion is about how the government paid for the war build-up and execution of the war, and how did it prevent inflation when there were few civilian goods to buy.  The summary at the end is as follows:

By my calculations, the fiat money flowed like this: First, the sovereign government issued and paid the people dollars to build the war machine; second, the people paid the sovereign government back some portion of the dollars they’d earned by purchasing War Bonds and paying taxes; third, the sovereign government destroyed the dollars it received in taxes and for War Bonds, thus enabling it to pay the people even more dollars to produce ships and bombers without creating a spiraling inflation; fourth, the sovereign government redeemed the War Bonds with interest, paying the people with new fiat money—but rather than being inflationary, these new dollars were absorbed by the rapidly growing post-war economy, the people using the money to buy the newly abundant goods and services produced by what was now the most technologically sophisticated, creative, well educated, productive and equitable social economy in world history.

But now, somehow, we’ve lost our way and our momentum. We’ve convinced ourselves that our sovereign monetary system works by a different logic—a logic that leads inexorably to a perpetual and growing shortage of Federal spending power. Given the real threats now racing our way with the same inevitability as was Nazism in 1938—climate change, rising sea levels, super-storms, extended droughts, gigantic forest fires, loss of fisheries and ocean acidification, water and food shortages, nuclear terrorism, and the possible failure of democracy itself—it seems we might want to consider another great mobilization to defend ourselves—if we can ever remember how to do it.

Of course there was rationing and price controls, but that does not detract from the part  war bonds and taxes played in taming inflation.  It just proves that there can be more than one thing going on in the economy at one time.  You don’t have to restrict yourself to using only one tool in the tool box to solve a problem.

The question is, “What economic principle allowed us to do this in World War II, but does not allow us to do it now?”  Anyone care to hazard a guess?  We had a gold standard then, but we don’t have one now. That should make it easier to do now what we did in WW II. Our current  foreign creditors do not seem to be complaining about our monetary policy. So that can’t be what is stopping us.

The Consortium News has the story A CIA Hand in an American ‘Coup’? by Robert Parry.

It has taken six decades for the CIA to formally acknowledge that it undertook a coup against Iran’s elected government in 1953, but the spy agency might never concede that some of its officers joined in a political strike against a sitting U.S. president in 1980, yet that is what the evidence now indicates.

This story would be absolutely unbelievable were it not for the fact that it is confirming what anybody with a brain suspected in 1980.  The Iranians released the U.S. hostages just as Ronald Reagan was sworn into office after he defeated Jimmy Carter and after they had held the hostages for over a year.  What sane person who was not a Republican would have chalked that up to coincidence.  There was even a Congressional investigation, which this story explains was subverted by the CIA, The Reagan administration, and George H. W. Bush himself.  Remember that George W. Bush, the son, wondered why “they” hate us.  He thought it was for our freedom.  I wonder if the CIA let him in on the secret?

It’s a good thing they never put Ronald Reagan’s face on Mount Rushmore.  After the facts become known about what he did before and after his election, they would have had to erase him from the monument. Do you think that negotiating with the enemy to the detriment of the sitting President would come under the Constitution’s definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors”? How about if the conspiracy and coverup continued while the perpetrator was in office?

Think of the implications for what the Republican Party and the CIA may be doing to President Obama.  Also remember this as we gear up for a war with Syria.  And remember what part Israel played in the plot to get rid of Carter.

I found it hard to isolate (see) all the links in the above quoted article to follow them up. For your and my convenience, I have extracted those links in the quotes below:

a secret CIA document

key evidence was hidden

internal doubts were suppressed.

[For details on the case, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative and Secrecy & Privilege.]

Beach noted in a “memorandum for record” dated Nov. 4, 1991. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Second Thoughts on October Surprise.“]

Americans meeting with Iranians in Paris in October 1980. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden.”]

on May 14, 1992, a CIA official ran proposed language past

The CIA’s persistent document-production delays finally drew a complaint

In a June 18, 1992, cable from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul

In a June 24, 1992, letter to White House counsel Boyden Gray

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Talking Points Memo has the article Colin Powell Calls Zimmerman Verdict ‘Questionable’ (VIDEO) which shows the following video:

The TPM headline trivializes what Powell has to say. His take on Egypt and Syria was much more important than what they chose to headline. It’s not whether or not you agree with what he has to say about many of these issues, but that he invites you to think rationally about what you can and cannot accomplish.

I just wish that Powell did not have such a strong sense of loyalty or unwillingness to rid himself of a decision he made early in life that he cannot divorce himself from the Republican Party. Whatever his reasons for clinging to the Republican Party and not shifting to some other party, it would be enlightening to hear what they are. Perhaps it is one of these factors that led him make his U.N. speech about Iraq that I hope he rues.

Aljazeeera America has the article US: ‘Very little doubt’ of Syria gas attack; UN inspectors to visit site.

The White House said Sunday it had “very little doubt” that the Syrian government was responsible for the assault that killed hundreds of civilians, as U.N. inspectors prepared to access the Damascus suburb where the purported nerve gas attack took place on Monday.

But a senior Obama administration official treated the Syrian decision with skepticism, saying it was “too late to be credible.”

“If the Syrian government had nothing to hide and wanted to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons in this incident, it would have ceased its attacks on the area and granted immediate access to the UN – five days ago,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

I have been hearing what I would call knee-jerk reactions to the opening of the Aljazeeera America cable network.  People have been voicing what I assume is their assumption that a non-Israeli source from the middle east could not possibly do even-handed reporting.  You can read the above article to see for yourself what you think.  Do you think Faux Noise would have reported it as well?  What do you think the Arab population thinks about Americans who get their news from Faux Noise? What do you think about handling of this story by Israeli news sources?  Do not assume you know how I would answer the previous questions.  They are not rhetorical, but something worth thinking about.

Crooks and Liars has the article KY Gov Praise of Obamacare Leaves McConnell, Rand Dumbfounded.

Speaking to a crowd of Kentucky voters at a fundraising breakfast, Beshear took the opportunity to praise the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) to the overwhelming support of the audience and take subtle jabs at those who were opposing Obamacare, which include Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul who were also attending.

Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, also attending, weren’t expecting the onslaught. Jill Lawrence reported, “It was not what anyone expected—least of all Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, who sat stone-faced onstage with Beshear as he unloaded on them without using names.”

Beshear finished with a stab to the heart of GOP’s NoCare, no alternative. “It’s amazing to me how people who are pouring time and money and energy into trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act sure haven’t put that kind of energy into trying to improve the health of Kentuckians,” according to the National Journal.

I more Democrats got out there and spoke up, the Presiden wouldn’t have to be the only one trying to get the truth out.

I noticed today that on the NBC news, while we have a Democrat as President and the Senate majority is Democratic, the foreign policy experts they had on telling us how our government should and would behave in Syria were Republicans.
For a left leaning media, they sure give Republicans more coverage than they deserve. Senator Corker of Tennessee isn’t even noted for his foreign policy expertise and NBC was reporting on his appearance on Faux Noise. Surely the head of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, a Democrat, could have been featured on one of the three real networks.

New Economic Perspectives has the post Bullet-Pointing the Big Bank Bamboozlement by Dan Kervick.  I have said before on this blog that there are usually many economic forces pulling on the economy, but the trick is to figure out what forces are dominating at any given time and what forces are so small that they can be ignored for the time being.

I liked this article because it mentioned a number of forces that I had never considered.  I’ll quote a few of the bullet points on only the topic of low interest rates.  For the rest, you’ll have to read the article itself.

But at this point, does anybody really know what central bank policy would actually be most conducive to getting back to trend growth? Let’s run it down, PowerPoint style, shall we?

• Are Fed asset purchases holding long-term interest rates down? Certainly.
• Are those low rates leading to a healthy situation in the housing market, or to another dangerous bubble?  An open question.
• Are asset purchases injecting money into the bank accounts of the affluent and large financial institutions? Yes.
• Are asset purchases also draining interest income from the economy? Yes.
• Are asset purchases contributing to a wealth effect by boosting the prices of equities? Possibly.
• Are asset purchases contributing to a negative wealth effect by suppressing the interest earnings of retirement savings and other long-term assets? Possibly.

I knew I was going to make a post about these ideas because of the reasons mentioned above even before I saw this last throw-away bullet point.

Oh, and one other random point to note:

• Is Lawrence Summers, a crony capitalist insider and a virtual poster boys for everything we have done wrong in America over the past 30 years, a leading candidate to take over the central bank? Yes.

Shortly after I posted the cartoon in the previous post Handy comparison chart: Janet Yellen vs. Larry Summers, I read the letters to editor in The Boston Globe.

The letters were Comparison of Bulger, Summers was insensitive, not clever and Cartoon crossed the line.

Here is the cartoon in question:

The sad part of it is that these letter writers do not understand how appropriate the cartoon is. If you measure the total pain inflicted on the world, Larry Summers may have Whitey Bulger beat by orders of magnitude. In our society we don’t seem to understand the damage white collar crime does.

What does the press have to do to get people to see the problem? Neither serious articles nor cartoons seem to be reaching people.

The Daily Kos has the article Handy comparison chart: Janet Yellen vs. Larry Summers.

It’s the simple unfairness of of having to work so much harder to reach the top, and if you do, you’re seen as the “gendered” pick. It’s symbolic of every time a highly-qualified woman hits the glass ceiling when forced to compete with a loud, arrogant blowhard with a strong sense of self-entitlement and undeserved mystique of greatness.

Since I have not written enough on this topic lately, I leave you with this cartoon that the article used.

At Reader Supported News, I read the article Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis by Greg Palast.

When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn’t believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers.

Don’t let the style of the article fool you.  Though Greg Palast doesn’t use the serious tone that we have come to expect from reporters, he is a very serious reporter and investigative journalist with the credentials to back him up.

What could President Obama be thinking when he puts forward Larry Summers for Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board? That is not a rhetorical question, and the answers that come to mind are truly frightening.