Finance is the new form of warfare - without the expense of a military overhead and an occupation against unwilling hosts. It is a competition in credit creation to buy foreign resources, real estate, public and privatized infrastructure, bonds and corporate stock ownership. Who needs an army when you can obtain the usual objective (monetary wealth and asset appropriation) simply by financial means?

Dr. Michael Hudson, Counterpunch, October 2010

When the US Federal Reserve bought an 80% stake in American International Group (AIG) in September 2008, the unprecedented $85 billion outlay was justified as necessary to bail out the world's largest insurance company. Today, however, central banks are on a global corporate buying spree not to bail out bankrupt corporations but simply as an investment, to compensate for the loss of bond income due to record-low interest rates. Indeed, central banks have become some of the world's largest stock investors.

This is a rather alarming development. Central banks have the power to create national currencies with accounting entries, and they are traditionally very secretive. We are not allowed to peer into their books. It took a major lawsuit by Reuters and a congressional investigation to get the Fed to reveal the $16-plus trillion in loans it made to bail out giant banks and corporations after 2008.

Another deeply troubling story about the failure of our government leaders to protect Americans from the consequences of fracking is coming out of Pennsylvania. A blistering investigation from StateImpact Pennsylvania reports that two retired employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Health were instructed by their bosses to systematically ignore residents who reported health concerns they thought were related to natural gas development. The retirees claim they were ordered not to take or return calls on fracking-related health reports and were barred from attending community meetings on the topic without permission.

Fracking-related pollution has been linked to a wide range of health concerns around the country - including respiratory and neurological problems, birth defects, and cancer. People in Pennsylvania and in fracking communities all around the country have reported a wide range of health issues when fracking comes to town - rashes, respiratory problems, nose bleeds, headaches. (This "List of the Harmed" maintained by the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air documentss more than 6,000 reports from around the country: (pdf)

The fact that the state health department - the state officials tasked with safeguarding public health - not only failed to investigate reports, but were directed to ignore them, is inexcusable.

This is one of the most troubling - but unfortunately, not surprising - examples of how our leaders at the state and federal levels have been failing to put the health of Americans over profits for powerful oil and gas interests. And if it was happening here unreported for so long, how are we to know it's not happening in other states?

Our federal leaders have let the American people down as well. EPA dropped an investigation into drinking water contamination in Dimock, PA - as well as in Texas and Wyoming - without sufficient explanation, despite evidence of lingering fracking-related contamination and health concerns.

Avoiding investigation of health complaints provides enough cover for frackers to continue claiming there's "no proof" of health impacts. This is backwards. It's the responsibility of our public officials to act in the public interest - not to benefit the oil and gas industry's bottom line.

Nato chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, says Moscow mounting disinformation campaign to maintain reliance on Russian gas

The head of one of the world's leading groups of democratic nations has accused Russia of undermining projects using hydraulic fracturing technology in Europe.


Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), and former premier of Denmark, told the Chatham House thinktank in London on Thursday that Vladimir Putin's government was behind attempts to discredit fracking, according to reports.

Rasmussen said: "I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations - environmental organisations working against shale gas - to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas."

He declined to give details of those operations, saying: "That is my interpretation."

Let's cut to the chase. As in chasing that Zara outdoor summer collection, complete with state of the art assault rifles, brand new white Nike sneakers and brand new, unlimited mileage white Toyotas crossing the Syrian-Iraqi desert; the Badass Jihadis in Black.

Once upon a (very recent) time, the US government used to help only "good terrorists" (in Syria), instead of "bad terrorists". That was an echo of a (less recent) time when it was supporting only "good Taliban" and not "bad Taliban".

So what happens when Brookings Institution so-called "experts" start blabbering that the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) is really the baddest jihadi outfit on the planet (after all they were cast out of al-Qaeda)? Are they so badass that by warped newspeak logic they're now the new normal?

Since late last year, according to US government newspeak, the "good terrorists" in Syria are the al-Qaeda spinoff gang of Jabhat al-Nusra and (disgraced) Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, the Islamic Front (essentially a Jabhat al-Nusra multiple outlet). And yet both Jabhat and ISIS had pledged allegiance to Ayman "the doctor" al-Zawahiri, the perennial gift that keeps on giving al-Qaeda capo.

That still leaves the question of what Men in Black ISIS, the catwalk-conscious beheading stormtroopers for a basket of hardcore tribal Sunnis and Ba'ath party "remnants" (remember Rummy in 2003?) are really up to.

We interrupt this desert catwalk to announce they will NOT invade Baghdad. On the other hand, they are busy accelerating the balkanization - and eventual partition - of both Syria and Iraq. They are NOT a CIA brainchild (how come Langley never thought about it?); they are in fact the bastard children of (disgraced) Bandar Bush's credit card largesse.

Megyn Kelly: In your op-ed, you write as follows: 'Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.' But time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well, sir. You said there were no doubts that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the Iraq insurgency was in its last throes back in 2005. And you said after our intervention, extremists would have to "rethink their strategy of jihad." Now with almost a trillion dollars spent there with 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney: Well, I just fundamentally disagree, Megyn. You've got to go back and look at the track record. We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody's mind about the extent of Saddam's involvement in weapons of mass destruction. We had a situation where if we -- after 9/11, we were concerned about a follow-up attack, it would involve not just airline tickets and box cutters as the weapons, but rather something far deadlier, perhaps even a nuclear weapon.

Saddam Hussein had a track record that nearly everybody agreed to. We had an overwhelming vote of approval from the Congress. More votes for the action than we'd had in Desert Storm some ten years before. Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, numerous others, spoke to the difficulties of the intelligence that all of us saw with respect to the threat that Saddam Hussein represented.


It would have been irresponsible for us not to act. We did do the right thing, and I think the troops performed magnificently, and now we're in a situation where what Liz and I posted in our op-ed this morning is it's not just Iraq, but it's a whole pattern of behavior over the last six years that has refused to recognize that there is a War on Terror, that we've got to move very aggressively to be able to deal with that, and this administration has repeatedly demonstrated that they don't believe it.

Barack Obama has stated repeatedly that the terrorist threat is gone, we've got bin Laden. That's clearly not the truth. And in fact, we have a situation tonight where terrorism is potentially in charge of a larger part of the Middle East than ever before in our history.

The Financial Times did a story over the weekend entitled "Central banks shift into equities". Zero Hedge put this up Monday morning in response. The Official Monetary and Institutional Forum now says that central banks have invested $29.1 trillion into the global equity markets. Before going in to this, now we have a better understanding of how or "why" stock markets are "up". We wondered how the markets were going up because everyone, EVERYONE so far this year has been reported to be a seller. We wondered where the money was coming from to propel prices higher is everyone was selling, now we know.
I will give you a little perspective on this $29 trillion dollar figure because big numbers are thrown around like penny candy these days and we have become numbed (dumbed) down by such huge numbers. My point is this, there is no longer any shock value to any number no matter how large it is.

What would happen if the Federal Reserve was shut down permanently? That is a question that CNBC asked recently, but unfortunately most Americans don't really think about the Fed much. Most Americans are content with believing that the Federal Reserve is just another stuffy government agency that sets our interest rates and that is watching out for the best interests of the American people. But that is not the case at all. The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel that has been designed to systematically destroy the value of our currency, drain the wealth of the American public and enslave the federal government to perpetually expanding debt. During this election year, the economy is the number one issue that voters are concerned about. But instead of endlessly blaming both political parties, the truth is that most of the blame should be placed at the feet of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has more power over the performance of the U.S. economy than anyone else does. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply, the Federal Reserve sets the interest rates and the Federal Reserve hands out bailouts to the big banks that absolutely dwarf anything that Congress ever did. If the American people are ever going to learn what is really going on with our economy, then it is absolutely imperative that they get educated about the Federal Reserve.

The following are 10 things that every American should know about the Federal Reserve....

The interplay between Ukraine and Russia when it comes to gas geopolitics goes far beyond economic negotiations and development. It lies at the heart of what has been fairly inaccurate or uninformed media reporting in the West. This aspect of the conflict has been so poorly documented in the West, while being exhaustively reported in Russia, that it is time to provide some English language background to this underappreciated aspect still powering the conflict in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia today.

Earlier this week the head of Russia's Gazprom, Aleksei Miller, commented that the three-sided gas negotiations (Ukraine-EU-Russia) had broken down largely because Kievan authorities had staked out positions that were 'absurd and not constructive, basically devolving into ultimatums.' On the heels of this declaration the gas debt owed by Ukraine to Russia ballooned from 2 billion dollars up to nearly 4.5 billion. Kiev of course claims it is simply not wanting to acquiesce to Russia's position, but the consequence of these negotiations breaking down could be the interruption and unstable provision of Russian gas through Ukrainian territory westward to the European Union. To understand how we arrived at this barrier means we must go back to 2009, far before the Maidan revolution was even a twinkle in Kiev's eyes.

Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrey Deshchitsa, who called President Putin a "f**ker" in a chat with protesters who vandalized the Russian embassy last week, has been fired. His new posting, however, could be as ambassador, perhaps even to Moscow.

A total of 319 Ukrainian MPs voted in favor of firing Deshchitsa on Thursday, well above the required simple majority of 226 votes. Meanwhile, newly-elected President Petro Poroshenko declared that he wanted to thank the former FM by offering him another diplomatic posting.

"I want to separately thank Andrey Bogdanovich Deshchitsa. I can say that I offered him to head one of Ukraine's foreign diplomatic missions and he accepted the offer," Poroshenko said after the parliamentary vote.

Poroshenko did not specify which country Deshchitsa would be sent to, however.

"Russia, Russia!" Ukrainian MPs started calling out in parliament, along with other suggested destinations.

"Please do not insist on the country, we will pick one together with Deshchitsa," the president replied.

Ukrainian exports to Russia will no longer be zero-rated should Kiev sign the economic part of a free-trade agreement with the EU, said President Vladimir Putin.

"Some economic problems may appear for us, and we will be unable to keep a zero import duty for certain," he said late Wednesday at a meeting on agriculture development.

In the first place, the limitation would concern agricultural products, the President explained.

As reported, the EU and Ukraine plan to sign the Association Agreement during the EU summit in Brussels on June 27.

The move would further damage Russia-Ukraine economic relations, that were most recently hit by Russia's decision to move Kiev's gas giant Naftogaz to a prepayment system.

The political part of the Association Agreement between Kiev and the EU was signed on March 21.

The economic part of the EU will imply that Ukraine would gain tariff-free access to the large European market as well as European goods, which the union expects will promote trade and investments and encourage labor flow. Meanwhile, the average unemployment in the eurozone is 12 percent.

The Association Agreement with Europe lies at the heart of the Ukraine's half-year-long turmoil. People in Kiev started to flood Kiev's Maidan square right after then President Yanukovich chose to put off the final decision on the economic integration with the EU, saying he needed time to weigh possible gains and losses.