Quietly, behind the scenes, the groundwork is being laid for federal government confiscation of tax-deferred retirement accounts such as IRAs. Slowly, the cat is being let out of the bag.

Last January 18th, in a little noticed interview of Richard Cordray, acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Bloomberg reported "[t]he U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB] is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency's first foray into consumer investments." That thought generates some skepticism, as aptly expressed by the Richard Terrell cartoon published by American Thinker.

Days later On January 24th President Obama renominated Cordray as CFPB director even though his recess appointment was not due to expire until the end of 2013.

One day later, in the first significant resistance to President Obama's concentration of presidential power, a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC unanimously said that Obama's Recess Appointments to the National Labor Relations Board are unconstitutional. Similar litigation testing the Cordray appointment to the CFPB is in the pipeline.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the 2,319 page Dodd-Frank legislation is a new and little known bureau with wide-ranging powers. Placed within the Federal Reserve, a corporation privately owned by member banks, the CFPB is insulated from oversight by either the President or Congress, its budget not subject to legislative control. It is not even clear that a new President can replace the CFPB director on taking office.

Unusual legal and political environments have a significant impact on the CFPB. With Cordray's recess appointment in doubt several questions remain unanswered.

1) What will become of the CFPB when Cordray's appointment is found invalid? An indicator comes from the NRLB, which operated unconstitutionally for years without a quorum. In 2007 the Senate threatened no NLRB nominations reported out of committee.

The NLRB continued operating with two members. Then a Supreme Court ruling in June of 2010 invalidated the NLRB decisions for lack of a quorum. Fisher & Phillips give the details about what was done next.

But recovery from the Supreme Court's sting was quick, with Liebman and Schaumber still on the Board and with two new Members confirmed, ... the suddenly full-strength Board simply added a new Member to the "rump panel" of the original decisions and managed to rubber-stamp many of the disputed Orders - at a record-setting pace - with the same result...

This may explain why President Obama renominated Cordray a year early. Once confirmed Cordray can rubber-stamp decisions made while he was unconstitutionally appointed. Otherwise those decisions will be invalidated.

2) What will the CFPB do with your money? The CFPB incursion into individual personal savings, in order to control how you invest your money, isn't a new idea. Current proposals grew from a policy analysis as disclosed by Roger Hedgecock.

On Nov. 20, 2007, Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, presented a paper proposing that the feds eliminate the tax deferral for private retirement accounts, confiscate the balance of those accounts, give each worker a $600 annual "contribution," assess a mandatory savings tax on every worker and guarantee a 3 percent rate of return on the newly titled "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts," or GRAs.

How Hollywood has played a dirty role in the smuggling of American spies from Iran during the early years of the Islamic revolution. The latest movie shows the tight relationship between the CIA and Hollywood.

Staff writers Zainab Cheema and Maksud Djavadov review the recently released Hollywood film, Argo, based on an account by CIA operative Tony Mendez.

The presidential season is moving apace, so sluggishly that even robo-Romney, the personality-challenged Republican candidate, is outshining the hapless Barack Obama. It is times like these when Hollywood must step in to ramp up the drama and adrenaline - the result is Pentagon-funded Argo, the movie adaptation of the memoir published by ex-CIA operative Tony Mendez on the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

Manipulating History to Suit an Insidious Anti-Iran Agenda

I have to admit that the numerous times I saw the trailer for Ben Affleck's Argo (too many to count!), I wasn't very enthusiastic about it. I wondered who the hell would want to watch this movie about the 1979 Iran hostage crisis as seen through a Hollywood-CIA covert operation. I tend to enjoy historical movies, but this one just looked so weird, scattered and unsure of its message. After seeing it the other night, I can say that while the movie is indeed a little weird, it is far from scattered. Its message is pretty clear and insidious. In fact, Argo is so un-scattered and linear that it is boring while also being politically dubious.

I checked out the reviews of the film before deciding to watch it. Metacritic turns up with an astonishing number of 100s from all the main press, and Rottentomatoes gives the film a 95% positive rating. I thought that maybe my initial impressions from the trailer were wrong. Given the overwhelming positive responses to the film, maybe Argo really is a good movie. So I went to see it. I should have trusted my initial instincts. As a movie, Argo is a total dud. Besides the fact that it is an exercise in problematic revisionist history, it's just a crappy movie. I'm fine with using historical material to create a movie that is not wedded to being accurate, but at least the movie should be good, interesting or entertaining. Argo is none of these things. It is a crappy movie with an insidious political agenda. It turns a fascinating "real historical event" into a lousy and tedious screenplay. It is so wedded to its CIA-Hollywood patriotic narrative that the film completely lacks complexity and tension. Its tiresome linear progression mirrors the film's "Middle of the Road" politics and ultimately left me both bored and bugged at the same time.

In this edition of the show Faiza Ahmed reviews the film; Argo, directed by Ben Affleck.

In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans are taken hostage.

However, six manage to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA is eventually ordered to get them out of the country.

With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devises a daring plan: to create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew.

With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez creates the ruse and proceeds to Iran as its associate producer.

However, time is running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House have grave doubts about the operation themselves.

Watch 'local news outlets' parrot the exact same lines about rising gas prices.

Source: http://teamcoco.com/video

Team Coco is the official YouTube channel of late night host Conan O'Brien.

Now that she's out as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton isn't going to be hurting for money, thanks to speaking fees of more $200,000 per speaking appearance, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The fee puts Clinton in the upper echelons of the speaking industry. Those who make six figures per speech include Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush; those who make more than $200,000 include Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Clinton (see this chart for reference).

Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday he was instructed to deny the administration's use of targeted drone strikes against suspected terrorists.

"When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was you're not even to acknowledge the drone program," he explained on MSNBC. "You're not even to discuss that it exists."

"Here's what's inherently crazy about that proposition," Gibbs continued. "You're being asked a question based on reporting of a program that exists. So you're the official government spokesperson acting as if the entire program - pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

Hamid Karzai orders US elite force to leave Maidan Wardak province after local reports of disappearance of nine people

The Afghan government has ordered US special forces to leave one of Afghanistan's most restive provinces, Maidan Wardak, after receiving reports from local officials claiming that the elite units had been involved in the torture and disappearance of Afghan civilians.

US military officials have rejected the allegations but President Hamid Karzai, who convened a meeting of the Afghan national security council on Sunday, appears to believe the evidence was strong enough to demand US special forces leave Maidan Wardak within two weeks.

Security in the province bordering Kabul has deteriorated over the past year, and it has become a focus of US-led efforts to stop insurgents reaching the capital. The decision could have implications for relations with Washington and for US plans to maintain a counter-terrorist force in Afghanistan after Nato combat troops leave in 2014.

The provincial governor and other officials from Maidan Wardak presented evidence against US forces at the national security council meeting. The presidential palace later issued a statement saying: "After a thorough discussion, it became clear that armed individuals named as US special forces stationed in Wardak province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.

Family of Arafat Jaradat claim traces of blood found on the body; Israeli Health Ministry says results of autopsy inconclusive.

Palestinian Authority Minister for Prisoners Affairs, Issa Qaraqi, claimed Sunday that Arafat Jaradat, the Palestinian prisoner who died in Meggido Prison on Saturday, had been subjected to severe torture.

Qaraqi told reporters in Ramallah that an autopsy performed earlier on Jaradat's body "proved that he had been severely tortured" while in detention.

Qaraqi claimed that the autopsy did not provide any evidence that Jaradat had died of a heart attack, as announced by the Israeli authorities.

Qaraqi said that the Israeli version regarding Jaradat's death was a "lie" and held Israel fully responsible for "this cruel crime."

Israel, he added, "must be held fully accountable for this war crime." Qaraqi reiterated his call for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to investigate Jaradat's death.

Baluchistan, Pakistan - long target of Western geopolitical interests, terror wave coincides with Gwadar Port handover to China.

Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people. According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a "Sunni extremist group," it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran's Islamic Revolution in the 1980's, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran's influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself.

The US-Saudi Global Terror Network

While the United States is close allies with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is well established that the chief financier of extremist militant groups for the past 3 decades, including Al Qaeda, are in fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While Qatari state-owned propaganda like Al Jazeera apply a veneer of progressive pro-democracy to its narratives, Qatar itself is involved in arming, funding, and even providing direct military support for sectarian extremists from northern Mali, to Libya, to Syria and beyond.