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Financial blockade on marijuana needs to end now - Mormon GOP Chair

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Thu, 01 Aug 2019 21:35 UTC
Mike Crapo

Senate Banking Committee chair Mike Crapo
Owners of marijuana-based businesses may have another reason to spark one up - this time from an unlikely source; Senate Banking Committee chair Mike Crapo (R-ID), a 68-year-old Mormon who thinks it's time to end the financial blockade on the cannabis industry, according to an exclusive interview with the Senator by Wikileaf.
Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo is no fan of marijuana - after all, he represents one of the mere three states that still don't allow medicinal marijuana (or even CBD for that matter). Still, the Republican chair of the Senate Banking Committee tells Wikileaf for the first time that it now seems evident that Congress needs to stop its blockade and finally allow federally prohibited, though locally legal, pot businesses to use banks like every other business in the nation.

"I think so," Crapo told Wikileaf at the Capitol when asked if legislation is needed to end the federal hurdles that have forced cannabis retailers to run as all-cash businesses. "Yeah." -Wikileaf

Comment: While marijuana as a medicine is likely to suffer as a result of it's absorption into big business, the relaxation of laws surrounding hemp and marijuana, from decriminalization to the opening up of hemp as a valuable, multi-purpose resource, will be highly worthwhile: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: The Highs and Lows of Cannabis as Medicine

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Penis Pump

US considers further blockade of Venezuela - Trump - UPDATE: Venezuela is "prepared for battle" - Maduro


Reuters
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 11:10 UTC
Maduro
© Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with military high command members in Caracas, Venezuela July 24, 2019.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was considering a quarantine or blockade of Venezuela, as the United States steps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to relinquish power.

Trump did not elaborate on when or how such a blockade could be imposed, and his administration has so far focused on diplomatic and economic pressure against Maduro while steering clear of any military action.

Asked by a reporter whether he was considering such a measure, given the amount of involvement by China and Iran in Venezuela, Trump said: "Yes, I am." He gave no details.

Comment: Meanwhile in Venezuela: 'We Are The Vaccine Against The Cancer of Unilateralism' - Delegates From 120 Nations Meet in Venezuela to Plot Escape From U$ Hegemony

UPDATE 3rd August 2019 @ 13:20:

RT reports Maduro's response:
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his country was "prepared for battle" if the US imposes a quarantine, and said his envoy to the UN would denounce the "illegal" threat before the Security Council.

"We are all prepared for battle if anyone tries to impose a quarantine or blockade on Venezuela," Maduro said, speaking at an event in the state of La Guaira on Friday afternoon, adding that the threat only shows the "desperation and irritation" of the US government.

"Not in Venezuela! is my message to criminal imperialism," Maduro said.

He was responding to a remark by US President Donald Trump from Thursday, when he told reporters outside the White House he was considering a blockade of Venezuela due to "foreign involvement" of Russia, China and Iran.

"Yes, I am," Trump said, repeating it several times before boarding a helicopter.

Samuel Moncada, Venezuela's ambassador to the UN, has been instructed to denounce the threat to the Security Council, Maduro said, vowing that Venezuela will remain "free and independent" despite US pressure.

Claiming it sought to "restore democracy" in Venezuela, the US recognized opposition politician Juan Guaido as "interim president" in January and demanded Maduro's resignation. Guaido's repeated attempts to install himself in the presidential palace have failed, however, culminating in the April 30 military uprising that ended in total fiasco.


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War Whore

Real threat to democracy: Media meddle in Democrat debate by siding with Harris, demonizing Gabbard


RT
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 20:58 UTC
Kamala Harris Tulsi Gabbard
© Reuters / Lucas Jackson
Kamala Harris (L) and Tulsi Gabbard (R) argue with Andrew Yang in the middle
Why would the most talked-about candidate at the Democratic Party debate be almost entirely invisible on Twitter and attacked on cable networks afterward? Perhaps because the establishment protects its own.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) was the most searched-for candidate in every single state after Wednesday night's second Democratic debate, according to Google trends. Conservative news outlets Breitbart and the Drudge Report also declared her the victor, with 50 and 39 percent of the vote respectively.

However, you wouldn't know that if you had been watching CNN or MSNBC. While Gabbard is a foreign-policy focused candidate who has repeatedly stated her opposition to "regime change wars" abroad and her appetite for criminal justice reform at home, MSNBC couldn't move past a meeting Gabbard had with Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017, in a bid to bring a resolution to the county's long conflict.


Comment: See also:

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Arrow Up

Creating artificial scarcity!

James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 02:13 UTC
In Rumpelstiltskin, the miller's daughter can rely on the magical dwarf to help her to spin straw into gold for the king. In reality there are no magical dwarves, but there are monopolistic cartel capitalists who have found the way to make the public pay through their nose for commonplace items. Welcome to the realm of artificial scarcity.
Artificial Scarcity
© Assignment Point
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Bizarro Earth

'We have a problem': Top Navy SEAL tells commanders following high-profile scandals

Russ Read
Washinton Examiner
Thu, 01 Aug 2019 06:08 UTC
Collin P. Green
© U.S. Army/Staff Sgt. Osvaldo Equite/RELEASED
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Collin P. Green gives remarks Dec. 1, 2017, during a promotion ceremony at Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida, where he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral (upper half).
The head of the Navy's SEAL Teams sent a letter to his commanders telling them "We have a problem" in bold type following reports of disciplinary problems across the elite force.

Rear Adm. Collin Green's letter, dated July 25, gave his subordinates until Aug. 7 to detail any problems and offer recommendations on how they will improve discipline and ethics across their teams, according to CNN.

"I don't know yet if we have a culture problem, I do know that we have a good order and discipline problem that must be addressed immediately," Green wrote.

Comment: When the majority running the country and its institutions are ponerized, it should be no surprise its foot soldiers are too: Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

See also:

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Hammer

Judge's ruling throws huge spanner into US extradition proceedings against Assange

Tom Coburg
The Canary
Wed, 31 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Assange
A US judge has ruled that WikiLeaks was fully entitled to publish the Democratic National Congress (DNC) emails, which means no law was broken. The ruling is highly significant as it could impact upon the US extradition proceedings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as well as the ongoing imprisonment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The ruling

On 30 July, federal judge John G. Koeltl ruled on a case brought against WikiLeaks and other parties in regard to the alleged hacking of DNC emails and concluded that:
If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC's political financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them 'secret' and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet.
In other words, if WikiLeaks is subject to prosecution, then every media outlet in the world would be. The judge argued that:
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Eye 1

'Disturbing': Pentagon launches mass surveillance balloons across US


Sputnik
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 22:32 UTC
US Federal Communications Commission
© Flickr/ CreativeTime
The US military is testing high-altitude, solar-powered balloons to "provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats," according to documents filed with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).


Comment: And the FBI just added those who question the official narrative as potential domestic terrorists.


So far, 25 balloons, equipped with sophisticated radars that can be used to track vehicles or boats in a 25-mile field, have been launched from South Dakota and will pass through parts of US states Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri before being grounded in Illinois. The balloons are traveling at altitudes as high as 65,000 feet and are equipped with a video capture system called Gorgon Stare, which was developed by the US military and described by the US Air Force as a "wide-area surveillance sensor system."

The balloons are being flown by the US Southern Command, one of the 10 Unified Combatant Commands in the US Department of Defense, and will be able to communicate with each other through networking technologies. While some of the flights were approved by the FCC last year, the most recent FCC filing made by aerospace and defense company Sierra Nevada Corporation appears to approve a set of flights taking place between mid-July and September.

Comment: See also:

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Question

Don't worry, be happy: Everybody will benefit from Brexit long-term - British American Business Association


RT
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 20:29 UTC
brexit british flag piggy banks
© Reuters / Andrew Winning
Smiling Union Jack piggy banks are lined up for sale in the window of a souvenir store on Oxford Street in central London
The Bank of England has cut its forecast for UK growth over the next two years, warning that a no-deal Brexit would hit the economy and trigger a further drop in the value of the pound.

If Brexit goes smoothly, the bank expects it will have to increase interest rates to balance out a potential price rise in goods and services in order to keep inflation at 2 percent.

RT's Boom Bust welcomes Hilary Fordwich of the British American Business Association to find out what benefits there may be from a bumpy Brexit.

Comment: Economic predictions for the outcome of Brexit (hard or soft) are all over the map, though it seems to be the big institutions screaming 'disaster' the loudest.

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Chess

The US-UK 'special relationship' is collapsing... and that's fine

Matthew Ehret
The Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 01 Aug 2019 19:33 UTC
US UK flags
© Oliver Brandt / Global Look Press
British Ambassador Kim Darroch's return to London from his failed mission in America is being hailed by many naïve commentators as yet another proof that President Trump is a crazed ego-maniac who cannot take criticism from a seasoned professional diplomat.

During the weeks since the "Darroch memo" scandal erupted, mainstream media has totally mis-diagnosed the nature of the breakdown in US-British relations, and has brushed over the most relevant evidence that has been brought to light by Darroch's cables. This spinning of the narrative has made it falsely appear that the Ambassador merely criticized the President as "clumsy, diplomatically inept, unpredictable and dysfunctional" and was thus unjustly attacked by the President causing the poor diplomat to resign saying "the current situation is making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like." Former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt went so far as to say that Darroch was "the best of Britain" and encouraged all diplomats to continue to "speak truth to power." International press on both sides of the ocean followed suit portraying Darroch as a hero among men.

Hog wash.

The reality is that Darroch's messages to the British Foreign Office go much deeper and reveal something very ugly that challenges the deepest assumptions about recent history and modern geopolitics.

Comment:

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Attention

Gorbachev says US decision to quit INF will result in 'chaos'


RT
Fri, 02 Aug 2019 19:59 UTC
Gorbachev
© REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin 905
Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has lamented the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which he once signed with US counterpart Ronald Reagan, saying it would undermine international security.

The first and only president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, said that by pulling out of the 1987 treaty, the US is dealing a potentially crushing blow not only to European security, but to the entire international security system.

"The termination of the treaty will hardly be beneficial for the international community, this move undermines security not only in Europe, but in the whole world," Gorbachev, 88, told Interfax on Friday.
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