Reflecting the Obama legacy and US culture, the Time columnist says: "the bottom line is: 'whose 4-year-olds get killed?'"

On MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning, which focused on Monday's night presidential debate, the former right-wing Congressman and current host Joe Scarborough voiced an eloquent and impassioned critique of President Obama's ongoing killing of innocent people in the Muslim world using drones. In response, Time Magazine's Joe Klein, a stalwart Obama supporter, offered one of the most nakedly sociopathic defenses yet heard of these killings. This exchange, which begins at roughly the 7:00 minute mark on the video embedded below, is quite revealing in several respects.

The defense bill that lets the government indefinitely detain any US citizen without charge or trial wasn't mentioned once during the three presidential debates, but that didn't stop activists from sounding off: #StopNDAA went worldwide Monday night.

A campaign aimed at drawing awareness to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 and a draconian provision that provides the government the power to lock-up any person on mere suspicion of terrorist ties succeeded during Monday's third and final presidential debate. "#StopNDAA" was among the most popular hashtags included in messages sent over Twitter Monday night, at one point entering the list of top worldwide trends.

Former CIA agent John Kiriakou pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to crimes related to blowing the whistle on the US government's torture of suspected terrorists and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Kiriakou, 48, agreed to admit to one count of disclosing information identifying a covert agent early Tuesday, just hours after his attorney entered a change of plea in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom outside of Washington, DC.

Kiriakou was originally charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 after he went public with the Central Intelligence Agency's use of waterboarding on captured insurgents in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. On Monday morning, though, legal counsel for the accused former CIA agent informed the court that Kiriakou was willing to plead guilty to a lesser crime.

Initially, Kiriakou pleaded not guilty to the charge that he had outted two intelligence agents directly tied to the drowning-simulation method by going to the press with their identities.

The United States has blocked a draft statement, proposed by Russia, on the resolution of violence in the Libyan town of Bani Walid, which has been under siege for weeks. The statement called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Russia's envoy to the UN, Vitaly Churkin said the move "can't be serious," reminding the American delegation of the deadly attack in Benghazi that claimed the lives of four US diplomats in September.

"Blocking a draft statement that called to solve the country's political problems without violence is very strange," Churkin said. "This is a case when it is difficult to explain the US delegation's actions in rational terms."

Back in mid September when the gold price was trying to break above $1777 and hold there, something that it attempted several times but eventually failed, we cited the $1720 level as a place where any significant pull-back should be supported:

Should $1770 not hold decent support can be found at the $1720 level.

And that is exactly what has happened. On friday, and as usual just after the jobs report in the States, we got another smash in gold taking the price all the way down to $1720.

This morning there was initial selling but the gold price has turned around and is now holding around the $1727 area.
As you can see on the chart above that $1720 area is also right at the 50 day moving average.

The Lebanese Army announced the capture of foreign terrorists armed with different types of weapons.

The Lebanese media reported that the country's army has arrested large numbers of terrorists who carried foreign nationalities and were armed with various types of weapons.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV said in other operations the Army also arrested a number of armed people affiliated to the March 14th Coalition, an opposition to the Lebanese government, as well as more foreign terrorists in al-Qabbe district and another region where American nationals mostly reside.

The Lebanese army has deployed in the streets of Beirut and Tripoli in a bid to calm tensions.

Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a leader of the Western-backed March 14th opposition bloc, was expected to meet President Michel Suleiman to discuss the latest developments in Lebanon, especially after General Wissam al-Hassan, the intelligence chief of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces, was killed in a blast on Friday.

A deadly bomb attack in the capital on Friday killed eight people, including General Wissam al-Hassan. Scores of others were also wounded.

The explosion occurred in Beirut's Eastern Ashrafiya district, which is a predominantly Christian district, and near the headquarters of the Phalange, a Maronite Christian party. Several buildings were damaged and many cars were set on fire as a result of the blast.

Regional observers blamed the US and Israel for the assassination of a Wissam in Beirut, and dismissed the western media claims against Damascus as a plot to darken the ties between Lebanon and Syria.

"The assassination of Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan was carried out due to his successes and moves against the Zionist regime's intelligence apparatus and the regime's mercenaries in Lebanon," Mohsen Saleh told FNA on Monday, adding that Wissam's stances and role in defusing the Zionist regime's seditious plots in Lebanon angered the Israeli regime and caused his assassination.

He also dismissed the western media allegations about Syria's involvement in the assassination of the Lebanese intelligence official, and said, "They seek to darken the relations between Syria and Lebanon as demanded by the US and the Zionist regime."

I have travelled this world much more extensively than either Obama or Romney, and I still do. I find everywhere, even in areas of conflict and economic difficulty, the vast majority of people are friendly, even kind, and have very similar aspirations, across cultures, to personal development and emotional fulfilment.

The striking thing about last night's US Presidential "foreign policy" debate, is when it did occasionally discuss foreign policy, the world out there was discussed not as a place of vast potential, but as a deeply disturbing place full of foreigners who are, apparently, all evil except the Israelis, who are perfect.

The vast benefits from cooperation and trade with "abroad" were not mentioned once that I noticed (though I confess the thing was so awful my attention wandered occasionally). Europe apparently doesn't exist, other than Greece which is nothing more than a terrible warning of the dangers of not being right wing enough.

One could slash private debt by 100pc of GDP, boost growth, stabilize prices, and dethrone bankers all at the same time. It could be done cleanly and painlessly, by legislative command, far more quickly than anybody imagined.

The conjuring trick is to replace our system of private bank-created money -- roughly 97pc of the money supply -- with state-created money. We return to the historical norm, before Charles II placed control of the money supply in private hands with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.

Specifically, it means an assault on "fractional reserve banking". If lenders are forced to put up 100pc reserve backing for deposits, they lose the exorbitant privilege of creating money out of thin air.

The nation regains sovereign control over the money supply. There are no more banks runs, and fewer boom-bust credit cycles. Accounting legerdemain will do the rest. That at least is the argument.

France is planning to send drones into Mali as part of an international intervention to free the west African country from al-Qaida-backed insurgents who control large swaths of its territory, according to reports.

A French defence official said the country was moving surveillance drones to the region as part of secretive plans with the US, amid increasing fears that, if left unchecked, the crisis could serve as a launchpad for terrorist attacks on its own soil.

Speaking to the Associated Press, the official said on Monday that France was discussing plans with the US for drones, intelligence-gathering and security in Africa's Sahel region. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said that Germany would be prepared to train Malian security forces and would consider providing "material and logistical support".

Read part 1 here.

How did we reach our current state of decline in just eight excruciating years? Aren't we working hard enough? Was there some millennial shift in consciousness and morality? How could we elect leaders like Bush and Cheney and their minions on Capitol Hill?

Mark Crispin Miller's latest book, "Loser Take All," provides an explanation that precedes any other: election fraud. In his collection of essays, Miller shows that the losers took everything in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. That made all the difference.

We're working harder than ever. Citizens are no less concerned and compassionate than they were in 1999. But as Miller demonstrates, the way we elect leaders is inherently unreliable and corrupt. He shows how the current group of extremists who dominate public policy used a loosely regulated, unwatched election system to create the results they willed in order to achieve the power they craved.

Part 1 of this review of "Loser Take All" discussed how Miller's theme showed up in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. In Part II, we'll take a look at Miller's explanation of events in 2006 and the system in place for the November 2008 elections.