Welcome to Sott.net
Tue, 26 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Puppet Masters
Map

Cow

The debate over Idaho's new Ag-Gag Law is headed for the courts

Willy Blackmore
TakePart.com
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 19:21 UTC
Image
© Flickr/UGA College of A
Not even a month after Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed it, Idaho's freshly minted ag-gag law is already facing a legal challenge. A coalition of animal rights, environmental, labor, and civil rights groups, along with journalist Will Potter, is suing the state, claiming that Senate Bill 1337 violates the First Amendment.

"These ag-gag laws are turning my sources into criminals, they are placing journalists like me in the legal crosshairs, and they are chilling a vibrant national discussion about animal protection, food safety, the environment, and workers' rights," Potter wrote on his website, Green Is the New Red, this morning.

His announcement of the Idaho suit echoes what he told me last summer, when he became a plaintiff in a similar lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Utah's farm protection law.

Comment: Prime example of the following: ALEC - State by State: Ag-Gag Laws silence whistleblowers

Shocking: Reporting factory farm abuses to be considered "Act of Terrorism" if new laws pass
Ag-Gag laws passed 20 years ago were focused more on deterring people from destroying property, or from either stealing animals or setting them free. Today's ALEC-inspired bills take direct aim at anyone who tries to expose horrific acts of animal cruelty, dangerous animal-handling practices that might lead to food safety issues, or blatant disregard for environmental laws designed to protect waterways from animal waste runoff. In the past, most of those exposes have resulted from undercover investigations of exactly the type Big Ag wants to make illegal.
Wave of "ag gag" bills threaten food safety and freedom of the press
In the modern era, effective enforcement of food safety and the humane treatment of animals has long relied on undercover video investigations by reporters and citizens. The footage and images gained can serve as proof of criminal wrongdoing or lay ugly practices bare. Such images can vindicate whistleblowers who otherwise risk retaliation when speaking up. Now this practice, which has time and time again exposed hidden dangers -- including downer cows linked to Mad Cow disease in the food supply -- is under threat by a series of state bills dubbed "ag gag" bills.
"Big Farma" still trying to hide their dirty secrets

      Read More...
Rose

Why I am a Bennite - A Eulogy to the Rt Hon Tony Benn by George Galloway MP

George Galloway
Red Molucca
Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:34 UTC
Image
I was a "Bennite" (which became a considerable term of abuse in the 1980s) since the 1960s. I was brought up in a Labour household in which the premiership of Harold Wilson was the sun and in his constellation Mr Benn was the brightest of the many stars clustered around that Labour cabinet. There were so many stars - James Callaghan Roy Jenkins Barbara Castle Tony Crosland Richard Crossman Dennis Healey George Brown - but even in that company, the young, fresh-faced, bursting with ideas Wedgwood-Benn (as he was then known) stood out.

For us he seemed to exemplify the "white-hot heat" of the "technological revolution" - Mr Wilson's wheeze for disguising his socialist purpose from a hostile media and the "Gnomes of Zurich" who, even then with their financial power had the means of destroying any real Labour government. Mr Benn was brimful of innovative unorthodoxy, and seemed just what the doctor ordered.

From his heroic ( and successful) fight to remain in the Commons upon the death of his father Viscount Stansgate - a Viscountcy which Mr Benn was to be forced to inherit - through to the Hovercraft, Concorde, TSR2, nuclear power, special edition postage stamps, tape-recording (we'd scarcely heard of it) his own interviews and speeches, he was every inch the "young Lochinvar". Dashing, romantic, eloquent, unafraid.

      Read More...
Airplane

Isolating Venezuela: Air Canada suspends Venezuela flights over 'civil unrest'


BBC
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 17:38 UTC
Image

Steven Harper, Canada's Bush
Air Canada has suspended flights to and from Venezuela, citing concerns over security.

The airline said it would consider resuming operations once the situation in Venezuela had stabilised.

It operated three return flights between Toronto and Caracas per week.

Twenty-nine people - from both sides of the political divide - have been killed in six weeks of protests against high inflation, crime and the shortage of many staples in Venezuela.

"Due to ongoing civil unrest in Venezuela, Air Canada can no longer ensure the safety of its operation and has suspended flights to Caracas until further notice," says the Canadian airline in a statement.

Comment: So, which is it? Is it the civil unrest, or the 'debt' the Venezuelan government allegedly owes these private corporations that has led to them cancelling flights?

Incidentally, not a single international airline cancelled a single flight to Kiev, despite parts of that city being burned to the ground by a hired mob.

So what gives here? Is the 'civil unrest' merely another pretext with which the Western corporate elites continue their efforts to physically isolate Venezuela?

      Read More...
Light Saber

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro: 'A certain transnational elite seeks to encircle Russia in order to weaken and eventually destroy it'


RT
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:50 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / Leo Ramirez
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused both the US and the EU of "double standards" over Crimea and recalled the Kosovo and Falkland Islands referendums as evidence. Maduro says the West is seeking to "eventually destroy" Russia.

"There is a certain transnational elite that has been cherishing this dream for 300 years," Nicolas Maduro said.

The Venezuelan leader criticized "the anti-Russian policy of the US and some European countries," saying the crisis in Ukraine comes as a response to that.

"What has happened in Crimea is a response to the format that made Ukrainian democracy collapse. And there is only one reason for this: the anti-Russian policy of the US and some European countries. They seek to encircle Russia in order to weaken and eventually destroy it," he said.

His statement comes amid deteriorating relations between Russia and both the US and the EU. The latter imposed first sanctions against Russian officials as the Crimean Peninsula sought to separate from Ukraine. The West threatened that more sanctions would follow after the March-16 referendum in Crimea, in which over 96 percent of its citizens voted to join Russia. The treaty was signed between the two sides on Tuesday.
      Read More...
Dollar

Proxy war: Drowning in debt, Ukraine regime takes first billion$ from West... to build a new army

Anthony Faiola
Washington Post
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:23 UTC
Image

"Now boys, forget any ideas you had about actually doing anything useful for Ukrainians, first order of business is to fire the generals and build an army that's actually loyal to you. Here's the number of my contact at Academi (aka Blackwater) for starters..."
Ukraine's government mobilized reservists and approved an emergency military buildup a day after the disputed province of Crimea voted to secede from the country and become part of Russia.

But with its armed forces woefully ill-trained and poorly equipped after years of underfunding, a frustrated Ukraine continued to focus on diplomacy first.

Political leaders here hurled harsh words at Moscow and refused to give up Crimea as lost. But even as the government in Kiev took steps to shore up national defenses, it renewed calls for a diplomatic solution. Amid concerns about possible further Russian intervention in Ukraine's restive east and south, Kiev hoped for the best - ­progress in efforts to resolve the crisis - while also preparing for the worst.

Parliament approved a presidential decree mobilizing some of the country's 40,000 reservists and agreed to divert $600 million from other parts of Ukraine's budget to buy weapons, repair equipment and boost training over the next three months - a major commitment for a cash-strapped country.
      Read More...
Wall Street

Federal Reserves's Yellen outlines stimulus end, U.S. stocks drop

Callie Bost
Bloomberg News
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:29 UTC
Image
© AP
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen
U.S. stocks fell for the first time in three days as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the central bank's stimulus program could end this fall and benchmark interest rates could rise six months later.

Walt Disney Co., General Electric Co. and Boeing Co. lost at least 1.4 percent to lead the Dow (INDU) Jones Industrial Average lower. Consolidated Edison Inc. led utilities to the biggest decline among 10 groups in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Newmont Mining Corp. lost 3 percent as gold tumbled the most in six weeks after the Fed's decision to reduce asset purchases.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.6 percent to 1,860.77 at 4 p.m. in New York. The Dow slid 114.02 points, or 0.7 percent, to 16,222.17. About 6.7 billion shares changed hands in the U.S., in line with the three-month average.

"The pace of tightening, once the Fed starts tightening, is a little bit faster than thought before and I think that's why we're getting this market reaction,"John Canally, an economic strategist at LPL Financial Corp., said in a phone interview from Boston. His firm oversees about $438.4 billion. "Being reminded that the Fed will eventually raise rates is getting traders' attention."
      Read More...
Piggy Bank

Russia suspected of pulling billions of foreign owned currency holdings out of the Fed's rapacious grasp

Grae Stafford
The Daily Caller
Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:13 UTC
Image
© Daily Caller
Billions of dollars in foreign owned currency holdings have been pulled out of the United States and there's growing suspicion that the culprit is Russia attempting to circumvent any sanctions that the US may levy against the nation over the intensifying Ukrainian situation.

The Federal Reserve custody holdings report which documents "Foreign central banks' holdings of U.S. marketable securities" has fallen to the lowest level since December 2012 with more than $100 billion being removed in the week ending on Wednesday, March 13.

The Federal Reserve has not divulged the party or parties responsible, but insiders believe that there is enough circumstantial evidence to point to it being Russia - even though the amount withdrawn hasn't yet appeared in Russian hands.

Instead of selling US backed treasury bonds that they own, Russia has chosen to remove them from US banks in advance of any sanctions.
      Read More...
Boat

Russian forces enter Ukraine navy's Black Sea Headquarters

Shaun Walker and Ian Traynor
The Guardian
Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:05 UTC
Image
© Itar-Tass/Barcroft Media
Russian president Vladimir Putin attends celebrations in Red Square on Tuesday following the Crimea referendum.
Russian flag flies above Sevastopol after Putin hails Crimea annexation and Ukraine accuses Moscow of war crime

Pro-Russian self-defence forces have entered the Ukrainian navy's Black Sea headquarters in Sevastopol and raised the Russian flag above the building less that 24 hours after Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Crimea in a searing speech to political elites in Moscow.

In an hour-long speech in the Kremlin on Wednesday - likely to go down as one of the defining moments of his long rule over Russia - Putin said western politicians "call something white today and black tomorrow" and aired a long list of foreign policy grievances going back to 2000, saying "we were cheated again and again, with decisions being taken behind our back".

Crimean authorities have said that all Ukrainian military installations on the peninsula, including several bases, are now illegal and the soldiers must leave. Many have done so, but some remain.

Ukrainian and Russian troops had agreed a ceasefire until Friday, and the circumstances of the shootout on Tuesday remain murky
      Read More...
Clipboard

New doomsday poll: 99.9% risk of 2014 crash

Paul B. Farrell
Market Watch
Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:14 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Global risks are accelerating. This is our fourth major poll update of industry leaders: A critical review of their warnings from early last year when we first predicted a 87% risk of a crash: Bernanke's Fed saw an "unsustainable bubble" ... Gross: "credit supernova" ... Gundlach: "kaboom ahead" ... Ellis: "Don't own bonds" ... Shilling: "shocker" ... Roubini: "Prepare for perfect storm" ... Shiller: "Irrational exuberance is back" ... Schiff: "Doubling down" on "doomsday" prediction ... InvestmentNews' warning 90,000 advisers: "tick, tick ... boom!"

A few weeks later the crash risk was up to 98%. Then a dramatic preholiday uptick in investor sentiment. America's collective unconscious tired of negativity after a Halloween headline: "Economic guillotine dead ahead." A week later, 2014 became the "Year of the Boom." Bank of America's chief strategist screamed: "Bet on the bulls now." The Great Gatsby spirit was celebrating the holidays: "Even old grumpy Dr. Doom, celeb economist Nouriel Roubini, began humming a happy tune all over television: "A global recovery is going to occur, get into equities."

What really happened? Fed politics. Short-term, Larry Summers withdrew as a candidate for the Fed chairman's job. Dark cloud lifted as Janet Yellen become the pick. Wall Street cheered, Bernanke's easy-money printing presses would not screw up their year-end bonuses. Plus Main Street was mentally exhausted, tired of the bad news, relentless political drama. We needed a holiday break.
      Read More...
Bomb

Israel bombs Syrians in retaliation for alleged roadside bombing on Golan Heights

Reuters
The Guardian
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:43 UTC
Image
© Jinipix/AP
A wounded soldier is carried to a helicopter after a roadside bomb hit an Israeli patrol on the Golan Heights.
Israel attacked several Syrian military sites in retaliation for a roadside bombing that wounded four of its troops on the occupied Golan Heights the previous day, the Israeli military has said.

The targets included a Syrian military headquarters, a training facility and artillery batteries. Aircraft carried out the attack early on Wednesday, said Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman. He described targets as military facilities on the Syrian-held side of the Golan.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognised abroad. Tuesday's wounding of the soldiers as they patrolled the separation line on the strategic plateau marked Israel's worst casualties there since an insurgency erupted in Syria more than three years ago.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts