Freedomshift

JERUSALEM — The head of Israel ’s intelligence agency says that a nuclear-armed Iran does not necessarily pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, according to Israeli ambassadors. Mossad chief Tamir Pardo addressed a conclave of Israeli ambassadors in Jerusalem on Thursday, saying that Israel ’s existence is not inevitably endangered by Iran acquiring an atomic weapon, even as Israel has tried to disrupt Iran ’s nuclear program. “What is the significance of the term ‘existential?’” Mr. Pardo was quoted as saying by several ambassadors. “If you said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an ‘existential’ threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop. That’s not the situation. The term is used too freely.” The intelligence chief did not comment on an Israeli attack on Iran ’s nuclear facilities, which the Islamic republic has said is engaged only in peaceful research. Read More: here

Responding to a hypothetical question about whether the United States should support an attack against Iran by Middle East-ally Israel, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann noted that Iran already has announced plans to strike Israel. "They've stated, as recently as August just before President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad came ... to the U.N. General Assembly. He said that he wanted to eradicate Israel from the face of the Earth," Bachmann said during the Nov. 22, 2011, CNN debate. "He has said that if he has a nuclear weapon he will use it to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. He will use it against the United States of America." The claim from Bachmann isn’t new -- she said something similar during an Iowa campaign event in October. But is it correct? Read more: Here

http://twitter.com/#!/RonPaul/status/147854123990130688/photo/1

Slanted coverage on a recent event that I attended, but at least the win is being reported. - Silentboom DADE CITY -- Texas Congressman Ron Paul may be polling in the single digits nationally, but his Florida supporters were passionate enough to travel for hours to propel their candidate to a win in Pasco County's first-ever Republican Party straw poll. Paul's supporters drove from Orlando, Sarasota, even Miami, to the Pasco County Fairgrounds to cast a ballot for their candidate, virtually guaranteeing a win for Paul. With 171 votes, the Paul campaign more than tripled the showing for second-place candidate Newt Gingrich, who polled at 51. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was a distant third, with 30 votes. "This is what Ron Paul does all over the state," said Bill Bunting, Pasco's GOP state committeeman. "They're organized and passionate. We had people here from as far away as Volusia County. I think it's unethical, persona...

http://www.whyronpaul.com/

Paul only candidate in GOP field to best the President LAKE JACKSON, Texas  - In a new  Public Policy Poll , 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul bests President Obama 48 to 39 percent among independent voters. The poll also showed Paul as the only Republican candidate leading President Obama among independents. “This is yet another poll that clearly shows how competitive Ron Paul is against the sitting President,” said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton.  “Dr. Paul is making strides not just among Republicans, but independent voters as well. This broad base of increasing support proves that the American people are looking for conviction instead of the typical status quo rhetoric being offered by establishment candidates.” These results follow an earlier  Bloomberg News poll  showing Paul in a statistical first place finish in Iowa, a key early voting state.  Furthermore, a late October  CNN/Time poll  s...

<br>http://news.goldseek.com/EuroCapital/1319986800.php Read: In Defense of the 1%

by Paul Craig Roberts September 30, 2011 was the day America was assassinated.Some of us have watched this day approach and have warned of its coming, only to be greeted with boos and hisses from "patriots" who have come to regard the US Constitution as a device that coddles criminals and terrorists and gets in the way of the President who needs to act to keep us safe. In our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions , Lawrence Stratton and I showed that long before 9/11 US law had ceased to be a shield of the people and had been turned into a weapon in the hands of the government.  The event known as 9/11 was used to raise the executive branch above the law. As long as the President sanctions an illegal act, executive branch employees are no longer accountable to the law that prohibits the illegal ...

Hollywood actor Vince Vaughn will be appearing at a upcoming libertarian conference, but he won’t be crashing the event or protesting. Vaughn will introduce GOP presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul at the Liberty Political Action Conference this Friday in Reno, Nevada, according to a release by the Paul campaign. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/16/vince-vaughn-to-introduce-ron-paul-at-libertarian-conference/#ixzz1YC5oBHjZ

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

(Smithtown, N.Y.)   Many contend that Ron Paul, although an honest, plain-talking man, comes to the 2008 presidential campaign podium without a lot of achievement.  While in office, he hasn’t steer-headed proposed legislation into law, or galvanized broad-based support for this national agenda or that, or even been on board with most post-911 bills and actions.  For almost twenty years, he’s been a dedicated representative for his Texas District and has not a potpourri of achievements about which to boast on the presidential campaign trail.  Is this exactly true?  How could someone serve for so long, and have so little to show for it? At this time, I should share a story I heard from two entertainers at my son’s grade school.  The entertainers were turning books from different parts of the world into short, little plays, in order to spark the children’s interest in reading.  The following story took place centuries ago in the Far East. ...

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed. Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models. "The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer sa...

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775 No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should conside...

Ann Coulter, that warmongering demagogue of Conservatism, has declared war on Ron Paul. Naturally, she hates Paul because he stands for peace, free markets and the rule of law. Coulter hates of all of these things since she loves war, the police state, and the destruction of the constitution in pursuit of untrammeled political power for Conservative nationalists. In other words, like most Conservatives, she loves socialism, although she prefers to cloak her socialism in words like "national greatness," "secure borders" and "family values." In a recent column , Coulter attacks Paul for a variety of his pro-freedom positions. In this column, however, I’ll focus only on her wildly inaccurate claims about how marriage is a "legal construct" ...

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." -Ayn Rand

Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.  To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis, you might think that anything the government fails to provide is something that people will be deprived of.  In other words, if you cut spending on school lunches, children will go hungry. If you fail to subsidize housing, people will be homeless. If you fail to subsidize prescription drugs, old people will have to eat dog food in order to be able to afford their meds.  This is the vision promoted by many politicians and much of the media. But, in the world of reality, it is not even true for most people who are living below the official poverty line.  Most Americans living below the official poverty line own a car or truck – and government entitlement programs seld...

George Orwell, the pen name by which Eric Blair is known, had the gift of prophecy, or else blind luck. In 1949 in his novel, 1984, he described the Amerika of today and, I fear, also his native Great Britain, which is no longer great and follows Washington, licking the jackboot and submitting to Washington’s hegemony over England and Europe and exhausting itself financially and morally in order to support Amerikan hegemony over the rest of the world. In Orwell’s prophecy, Big Brother’s government rules over unquestioning people, incapable of independent thought, who are constantly spied upon. In 1949 there was no Internet, Facebook, twitter, GPS, etc. Big Brother’s spying was done through cameras and microphones in public areas, as in England today, and through television equipped with surveillance devices in homes. As everyone thought what the government intended for them to think, it was easy to identify the few who had suspicions. Fear and war were used to keep everyo...

The White House's 'death of bin Laden' story has come apart at the seams. Will it make any difference that before 48 hours had passed the story had changed so much that it no longer bore any resemblance to President Obama's Sunday evening broadcast and has lost all credibility? So far it has made no difference to the once-fabled news organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which on May 9, eight days later, is still repeating the propaganda that the SEALs killed bin Laden in his Pakistani compound, where bin Laden lived next door to the Pakistani Military Academy surrounded by the Pakistani army. Not even the president of Pakistan finds the story implausible. The BBC reports that the president is launching a full-scale investigation of how bin Laden managed to live for years...

More than 28 percent of U.S. homeowners owed more than their properties were worth in the first quarter as values fell the most since 2008, Zillow Inc. said today.      Homeowners with negative equity increased from 22 percent a year earlier as home prices slumped 8.2 percent over the past 12 months, the Seattle-based company said. About 27 percent of homes with mortgages were “underwater” in the fourth quarter, according to Zillow, which runs a website with property-value estimates and real-estate listings.  Home prices fell 3 percent in the first quarter and will drop as much as 9 percent this year as foreclosures spread and unemployment remains high, Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said. Prices won’t find a floor until 2012, he said.      “We get tired of telling such a grim story, but unfortunately this is the story that needs to be told,” Humphries said in a telephone interview. “Demand is still quite anemic due to unemployment...

There has never been such an opportunity for the US government to stage a false flag event in order to start yet another war as there is today. The set up is obvious to libertarians and some sane others, but it eludes most all Americans who are busy dancing in the street after the so-called killing of Osama bin Laden. Consider the timing of this attack by US Navy SEALs, and then consider recent events. First, the economy is in shambles, unemployment is sky high, price inflation is excessive, and the US military has been bombing civilians in an attempt to assassinate Gaddafi, including murdering innocent little children. Our money is being destroyed before our eyes. The wars are not going well for the ruling elite, and Obama’s ratings are horribly low at the beginning of his presidential crusade. One very important factor is that criticism of these wars has been growing at an accelerated pace. Hatred of the insidious TSA is also becoming much more evident. While civil libe...

Politically speaking, the Obama administration’s double feature in the last week – first, the revelation of the long-form birth certificate and now the announced killing of Osama bin Laden – could not have come at a better time. The president’s approval rating was sinking. His entire approach to domestic central planning was falling under scrutiny. His wars were unpopular, especially among his own party. But now two points of detraction, one rather superficial and the other cutting more to the heart of the regime, have seemingly been swept aside. Most folks are fairly sure Obama was born in the USA. And it’s harder for anyone to question his credentials as a war president or, more fundamentally, the warfare state in general. Most Birthers missed the big picture. First of all, I’d be just as i...

In a propaganda piece reeking of US Triumphalism, two alleged journalists, Adam Goldman and Chris Brummitt, of the Associated Press or, rather, of the White House Ministry of Truth, write, or copy off a White House or CIA press release that "Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago (emphasis added) from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclosed Monday." How many Americans will notice that the first paragraph of the "report" justifies CIA prisons and torture? Without secret prisons and torture "the terror mastermind" would still be running free, despite having died from renal failure in 2001. ...

WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden was unarmed when Navy SEALs burst into his room and shot him to death, the White House said Tuesday, a change in the official account that raised questions about whether the U.S. ever planned to capture the terrorist leader alive. The Obama administration was still debating whether to release gruesome images of bin Laden's corpse, balancing efforts to demonstrate to the world that he was dead against the risk that the images could provoke further anti-U.S. sentiment. But CIA Director Leon Panetta said a photograph would be released. "I don't think there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public," Panetta said in an interview with "NBC Nightly News." Asked again later by The Associated Press, he said, "I think it will." Asked about the final confrontation with bin Laden, Panetta said: "I don't think he had a lot of time to say anything." The CIA chief told...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A woman killed during the raid of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan was not his wife and was not used as a human shield by the al Qaeda leader before his death, a U.S. official said on Monday, correcting an earlier description. John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counter- terrorism adviser, told reporters earlier that the slain woman had been one of bin Laden's wives and had been used -- perhaps voluntarily -- as a shield during the firefight. Read more: Here

Drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain La dee da dee dee La dee da dee da The beat goes on! Here’s the world’s most successful investor talking about our favorite metal: Warren Buffett on gold: “You can fondle it, you can polish it, you can stare at it. But it isn’t going to do anything.” Except protect you from losing every dime! “Gold really doesn’t have utility,” the 80-year old told shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting. “I’d bet on a good producing business to outperform something that doesn’t do anything.” Yes, so would we. And we’d usually rather have a jacket from Ralph Lauren…or Brooks Brothers…than a Life Jacket. And we’d usually like to see a pick-up truck or a delivery truck in our driveway, rather than a fire truck. And we’d much rather spend the night with Julia Roberts stark naked than with a heart surgeon in full medical regalia. But hey…guess what? There’s a time and a place for everything. Why did God bother to create gold, a...

Gold rose as high as $1,518.30 (£918.70) an ounce during morning trading in Europe, before falling back. Silver briefly reached an all time high of $49.79 an ounce before retreating to $49, still the highest since 1980. Investors have been buying precious metals as a haven against inflation and recent geopolitical turmoil. Analysts say gold could even trade even higher. "We as a company believe that we may see $1,600 an ounce by the end of the year," said Angelos Damaskos, a fund manager at Sector Investments, which specialises in gold and oil investments. Read more: Here

Gold hit an all-time high this week—again.  The yellow metal briefly topped $1,500 an ounce before falling back down a few dollars.  The world has become increasing nervous about the size of the growing U.S. debt.  Just this week, America’s debt topped $14.3 trillion (also an all-time high) which is close to the limit Congress can legally borrow. A recent CNSNews.com report shows why the $38 billion, that was just cut, is a drop in the budgetary bucket.  The report said, “Friday’s $34.54-billion jump in the national debt almost equaled the $38.5 billion the Republican House leadership said would be cut from spending for the remainder of this fiscal year by the continuing resolution that the Congress passed on Thursday and President Obama signed Friday.  The federal government is now perilously close to hitting its legal limit on debt.”  (Click here for the complete CNSNews.com story.) Odds are the debt ceiling will be raised by more than $1 tr...

The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company.  Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants.  They sure do get a lot done.  What a skilled bunch of rebels – they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever.  If only the rest of us were so versatile!  But isn’t forming a central bank something that could be done  after the civil war is over?   According to Bloomberg , the Transitional National Council has “designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”...

From GoldCore.com Gold Just 1% From Record Nominal High of $1,444/oz – Risk of Dollar Crisis Increases By Day The U.S. dollar and yen are under pressure again today while gold and silver have taken breathers after yesterday’s gains (see table). Rather than gold and silver rising in price, we are seeing the continual devaluation of the U.S. dollar, the yen and all fiat currencies and thus their prices falling against the precious metals. Incredibly, the dollar has lost 7.5% of its value in less than 3 months (since January 7th 2011) and more than 17% in just 8 months since August 2010. Hence the nominal record highs in gold and silver. The volatility and sharp falls in the dollar are leading to deepening inflation throughout the world (as seen in the UK inflation rate of 4.4% today). Read more: Here

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement. Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data. “The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients. “Consumption supported by wages and salaries is a much stronger foundation for economic growth than consumption based on social welfare benefits.” The economist gives the country two stark choices. In order to get welfare back to its pre-recession ratio of 26 percent of pay, “either wages and ...

When our founding fathers established this nation, they did so with the intention that government would be very limited and that there would be a tremendous amount of liberty and freedom.  But today that is such a distant memory that we don't even remember what "the land of the free and the home of the brave" actually means anymore.  Our lives are constrained by literally millions of laws, rules and regulations and it gets worse every single day.  The federal government, state governments, local governments and even homeowners associations have become absolutely tyrannical.  There is a "law" or a "rule" for almost everything now, and many of them are absolutely ridiculous.  Big Brother is ripping our liberties and freedoms away from us at a blistering pace.  Just about any activity that you can think of other than sitting completely still in utter silence in your own home is tightly regulated by government.  This is not what our founding ...

Comparing imagery of January arctic sea ice from 2009 to 2011 sourced from the U.S. Navy Polar Ice Prediction System, it appears as though the ice sheet has thickened substantially. That is, the arctic ice during January 2009 compared to January 2010 compared to January 2011, all purposefully compared during the same month of each year. This observation is looking at ice thickness – not surface area – although some retreat of 1 meter ice can be seen in the Labrador Sea. Up to 500,000 square miles of the arctic sea region may have thickened from approximately 5 feet thick during January 2009 to approximately 10 feet thick during January 2011. Read more: Here

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura is suing the TSA and Homeland Security for humiliating and ‘offensive’ pat-down procedures he’s been subjected to during airport security checks that included ‘warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of his body.’ Ventura, who had a hip replacement procedure in 2008, says he was unduly targeted due to his disability. His lawsuit , filed yesterday in Minnesota, claims the pat-downs violated his privacy, his 4th Amendment right and legally meet ‘the definition for an unlawful sexual assault’.” Alex Jones, who traveled with Ventura last September during the production of his “Conspiracy Theory” TV show over the course of multiple flights, witnessed the former governor being groped and inappropriately touched in a pat-down procedure that Ventura faces everytime he travels. “That’s why I want to leave the United States,” Ventura had told Jones at the time. “This...

Utah police shot and killed a man within seconds of storming his parents' home, video of the raid shows. The police had a warrant to search for drugs, but found only a small amount of pot and an empty vial that had apparently contained meth.  Local media report that Todd Blair, 45, was a drug addict rather than a dealer, according to friends and family.  In the video , Blair can be seen holding a golf club above his head as police smash through his door. Within seconds, without demanding Blair drop the iron or lay down, Weber-Morgan Strike Force Sgt. Troy Burnett fires three shots into him. The local prosecutor has deemed the killing justified, but his family is planning a federal lawsuit, arguing that police had plenty of alternatives.  Blair's death raises the question of why multiple heavily-armed officers were sent to raid a drug addict -- and why Weber and Morgan counties in Utah would even need a "Narcotics Strike Force." Read More: Here

While not quite a supporter of economic freedom, the anti-war message in this speech is a reminder of some of the lessons we have forgotten today.

While the application of scientific knowledge creates technology, sometimes the technology is later redefined by science. Such is the case with terahertz (THz) radiation, the energy waves that drive the technology of the TSA: back scatter airport scanners. Emerging THz technological applications THz waves are found between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum. This type of radiation was chosen for security devices because it can penetrate matter such as clothing, wood, paper and other porous material that’s non-conducting. This type of radiation seems less threatening because it doesn’t penetrate deeply into the body and is believed to be harmless to both people and animals. THz waves may have applications beyond security devices. Research has been done to determine the feasibility of using the radiation to detect tumors underneath the skin and for analyzing the chemical properties of various materials and compounds. The potential marketplace for THz driven te...

Bank industry expert Chris Whalen is the subject of a good interview with CNBC coming conveniently in the aftermath of the possibly earth-moving Ibanez decision out of Massachusetts. First, he says, the ruling has been misunderstood in that the homeowners are ultimately not going to win loan forgiveness merely because of errors in the handling of the loan. Read more: Here