Riot police fire tear gas at protesters in Rome

 Protests are now taking place on a global scale, protesting against  corporate greed and  banking systems.

Yahoo News

October 15, 2011

ROME (AP) — Italian police fired tear gas and water cannons asprotesters in Rome turned a demonstration against corporate greed into a melee Saturday, smashing shop and bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles.

The protest in the Italian capital was part of "Occupy Wall Street"demonstrations against capitalism and austerity measures that went global Saturday, leading to dozens of marches and protests worldwide.

Black smoke billowed into the air in downtown Rome as a small group broke away from the main demonstration and wreaked havoc in streets closed to the Colosseum.

Protesters clad in black with their faces covered threw rocks, bottles and other objects at police in riot gear. Some had held clubs, others had hammers. They threw an incendiary devices and firecrackers at banks, destroyed bank ATMs and set trash bins on fire, news reports said.

Two news crews from Sky Italia were assaulted.

TV footage showed police in riot gear charging the protesters and firing water cannons at them.

The ANSA news agency said some protesters trashed offices of the Defense Ministry and of a labor agency, smashing windows with clubs and setting cars on fire.

Police were out in force as up to 100,000 protesters were expected a day after Premier Silvio Berlusconi barely survived a confidence vote in Parliament. Italy is rapidly becoming a focus of concern in Europe's debt crisis.

"People of Europe: Rise Up!" read a banner in Rome. Some peaceful demonstrators turned against the violent group and tried to stop them, hurling bottles, Sky Italia and ANSA said. Others fled, scared by the violence.

At least one man was injured as he tried to stop some protesters from hurling bottles.

Anarchist groups have often infiltrated demonstrations in Italy in the past. ANSA said four people from an anarchist group were arrested Saturday morning before the demonstration, with police seizing helmets, anti-gas masks, clubs and hundreds of bottles in their car.

___

Selva wrote from London.

Americans in Denial: Futile Elections and Teflon Candidates

Scott Lazarowitz
LewRockwell.com
October 15, 2011

If these talk radio shows I listen to are indicative of the American population in general, and Republicans and conservatives in particular, then, stop the world, I’m getting off. The statists among the Republican field of presidential candidates propose to change things a little bit here and there, but in them and their supporters there is a severe psychological denial and stubborn refusal to recognize that the entire system of central planning in Washington needs to go. It is inherently flawed.

The deniers and fantasizers are saying that, as long as anyone but Barack Obama is elected in 2012, then things will get better. No, they won’t. Many people are fixated on making sure that the Republicans choose someone who is “electable,” and they actually think that the Teflon Guy, Mitt Romney, is that candidate. However, one talk show caller to the Howie Carr show in Boston this week had it right: Romney will be just like McCain was in 2008, handing the election over to Obama on a silver platter.

But, even if Romney does get elected, and given that many of these pundits and political junkies are statists and think only in the short term, they never seem to be considering what happens after Romney’s inauguration. Will he do anything about the Federal Reserve, or Wall Street? Or stop the murderous warmongering? Nope. These statist candidates who love their central planning bureaucracies will not change a thing in Washington, even though it is those very central planning bureaucracies, especially the Fed and the national security-military complex, that have been destroying America.

Read the entire article at Infowars

U.S. Catholic bishop charged in alleged porn cover-up

Reuters

Bishop Robert Finn

October 15, 2011

KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - Kansas City's Roman Catholic bishop has been charged with failing to promptly report pornography on a priest's computer, prosecutors said, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. church official charged in long-running clergy abuse scandals.

Prosecutors in Jackson County, Missouri, said on Friday thatBishop Robert Finn, 58, became aware of child pornography images on the laptop computer of Reverend Shawn Ratigan in December 2010 but failed to appropriately notify police or state child abuse authorities for five months.

Finn's lawyer entered a not guilty plea in court on Friday and the bishop issued a statement saying he would fight the misdemeanor charge -- which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine -- "with a steady resolve and a vigorous defense."

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Was Obama illegally placed on Indiana’s 2008 Democratic primary ballot?

The Ticket

October 15, 2011

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton may have qualified for Indiana's 2008 presidential primary ballot as a result of fake petition signatures, the South Bend Tribune reported this week, following a joint investigation by The Tribune and Howey Politics Indiana.

The former governor Joe Kernan, a Democrat, on Wednesday became one of more than 40 people to come forward to say the signatures bearing their names to place Obama or Clinton on the 2008 Democratic primary ballot were forged.

"No, not at all," Kernan told the newspaper when asked if the signature attributed to him was similar to his actual signature. "Nor does the printing look like mine."

Possibly hundreds of signatures from residents of St. Joseph County were fake, the Tribune reported Sunday. The Indiana Republican Party has called for a federal investigation into the matter and county prosecutor Michael Dvorak has launched his own investigation. The state Democratic party says they support these attempts.

Debris of 'Doomsday' Comet Elenin to Pass by Earth Sunday

Yahoo News

October 15, 2011

The moment long feared by conspiracy theorists is nearly upon us: The "doomsday comet" Elenin will make its closest approach to Earth Sunday (Oct. 16). Or what's left of it will, anyway.

Comet Elenin started breaking up in August after being blasted by a huge solar storm, and a close pass by the sun on Sept. 10 apparently finished it off, astronomers say. So what will cruise within 22 million miles (35.4 million kilometers) of our planet Sunday is likely to be a stream of debris rather than a completely intact comet.

And the leftovers of Elenin won't return for 12,000 years, astronomers say.

"Folks are having trouble finding it, so I think it's probably dead and gone," said astronomer Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. [Gallery: Comet Elenin in Pictures]

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Scientific Study Confirms Ron Paul Being Given LEAST Face Time In Debates

Even less than Santorum, Huntsman, Gingrich

Steve WatsonInfowars.com
October 14, 2011

Despite being consistently ranked in the top three in GOP presidential candidate preference polls, Ron Paul has been given the least time to speak OUT OF ALL THE CANDIDATES at the debates that have taken place thus far.

Confirmation of this fact comes in the form of a study from the University of Minnesota, published to the Smart Politics blog.

The study has tallied the total face time that candidates were afforded during the last three debates. The results speak for themselves.

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US to Play 'Very Major Role' In Helping Europe: Geithner

CNBC

October 14, 2011

The U.S. plans on being an active partner as efforts intensify to get Europe get back on its feet financially, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNBC Friday.

Getty Images U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

With global leaders preparing for next month's Group of 20 nations (G20) summit in Cannes, France, the International Monetary Fund — of which the U.S. is the greatest contributor — is being relied on to help underwrite whatever efforts are needed to backstop toxic Europeansovereign debt  .

Geithner said the International Monetary Fund (IMF)  has "very substantial" resources to fund a device that could look like the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which helped navigate American financial institutions through the crisis in 2008 and 2009.

"Through the IMF, of course, we're already playing a very major role," he said in a live interview in Paris. "We're happy to see the IMF continue to play that role in support of a more forceful, comprehensive strategy where Europe's own resources—very ample resources—are deployed on a much more substantial scale."

The comments give a lift to U.S. stocks, which have been highly volatile in the past several months as proposed solutions have come and gone for the euro crisis.

Geithner declined to give a specific number on what would be required to aidGreece and any other potential countries that need help meeting their obligations.

Estimates have run as high as $2 trillion for a liquidity fund, and Geithner said that whatever the figure is, it should leave no doubt that there will be more than enough.

"A basic rule of financial crises management is you want to make sure you have a level of resources that are larger than the potential need you face," he said. "If markets see that then they'll have the incentive to continue to lend, invest, to get more exposure to those countries."

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U.S. deaths in drone strike due to miscommunication, report says

Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, of Arlington, Texas, was killed along with a Navy medic on April 6 in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The Pentagon says Smith and Navy Hospitalman Benjamin Rast, 23, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired by a U.S. drone in a friendly fire incident.(unknown / October 14, 2011

By David Zucchino and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

October 14, 2011, 4:41 p.m.

Reporting from Washington— 

A Marine and a Navy medic killed by a U.S. drone airstrike were targeted when Marine commanders in Afghanistan mistook them for Talibanfighters, even though analysts watching the Predator's video feed were uncertain whether the men were part of an enemy force.

Those are the findings of a Pentagon investigation of the first known case of friendly fire deaths involving an unmanned aircraft, the April 6 attack that killed Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, 26, and Navy Hospitalman Benjamin D. Rast, 23.

The 381-page report, which has not been released, concludes that the Marine officers on the scene and the Air Force crew controlling the drone from half a world away were unaware that analysts watching the firefight unfold via live video at a third location had doubts about the targets' identity.

The incident closely resembles another deadly mistake involving a Predator in early 2009. In that attack, at least 15 Afghan civilians were killed after a Predator crew mistook them for a group of Taliban preparing to attack a U.S. special forces unit.

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Obama: Most Warmongering President of Modern History

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
October 13, 2011

Now that Obama appears ready to start World War III – or IV, depending if a neocon is doing the recounting – we should take a stroll down memory lane and take a look at the record.

It turns out Obama is more of a warmonger than his predecessor, not that diehard Democrat supporters are paying much attention (they only hate it when establishment Republicans are killing women and children).

Lord Mockton: End of Democracy in England

The Alex Jones Channel
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Lord Monckton discusses the tyrannical over reach of the EU.

Obama's Jobs Bill Fails to Advance in Senate Despite White House Push

President Barack Obama speaks at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local No. 5 Training Center in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011

Fox News

October 12, 2011

President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill failed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Democratic-controlled Senate Tuesday night despite a White House push that accelerated in the 11th hour.

The bill received 50 votes falling short of the necessary 60 to end debate. Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana were the only Democrats to vote against the bill. Both of them are facing tough re-election campaigns next year.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., had said earlier that although he intended to vote in favor of ending the Republican filibuster, he did not intend to support the bill if it reached a final vote.

Now that it has failed, both the House and Senate are expected to turn this week to approving U.S. trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, one of the few areas of agreement between Republicans and the administration on boosting the economy. And Senate Democrats are looking at ways of breaking the jobs bill into pieces that would be easier to pass.

Obama declared earlier Tuesday that the U.S. Senate faced a “moment of truth” when it voted on the bill, calling it "gut check time." He later issued a statement accusing Republicans of obstruction.

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You Know That Your City Has Become A Hellhole When….

Economic Collapse

October 12, 2011

All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes.  The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome.  The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country.  Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive.  Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent.  That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen a decline.  Meanwhile, costs associated with health care, pensions and virtually everything else continue to explode.  So what are cities doing to make ends meet?  Well, one big trend that we are now witnessing is that many U.S. cities have been getting rid of huge numbers of employees.  If you can believe it, 72 percent of all U.S. cities are laying workers off this year.  Social services and essential infrastructure programs are also being savagely cut back in many areas of the country.  The cold, hard truth is that most of our cities are flat broke and things are going to get even worse in the years ahead.

So how do you know if your own city has become a hellhole?

Well, a few potential "red flags" are posted below....

You know that your city has become a hellhole when most of the street lightsget repossessed because of unpaid electric bills.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it announces that it will no longer prosecute domestic violence cases in order to save money.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it simply stops sending out pension checks to retired workers.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it rips up asphalt roads and replaces them with gravel because gravel is cheaper to maintain.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it eliminates the entire public bus system.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when nearly half of all the people living there can't read.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when one out of every ten homes sells for under $10,000.

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Ron Paul to Herman Cain at Bloomberg Debate: “Spoken Like a True Insider!

YouTube
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Rep Ron Paul, champion of the message of liberty, the U.S. Constitution and his lifelong goal of exposing then eliminating through competition the Federal Reserve System, a private cabal of international bankers, calls out Presidential candidate Herman Cain, ex-Chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank in the 1990′s, in response to Cain choosing Alan Greenspan as an example of what Cain’s appointment to Fed Chair would look like should he win the presidency.

Here, Paul can be seen shaking his head and smiling to himself as Cain gives an answer that will be the impetus to the collapse of his campaign. Paul then accurately explains that Greenspan is personally responsible for the largest artificial bubbles ever perpetrated on the American economy and the middle class workers who comprise that economy, and therefore, he is responsible for the lowered standard of living, high unemployment, rising prices, housing collapse and the recessions / depessions that followed the collapse of each of Greenspan’s artificial bubbles (NASDAQ and Housing).

Netanyahu to 'Post': I haven't set pre-conditions for talks

In an exclusive interview, PM says Palestinians have taken settlement issue and put it up as a pre-condition, obstructing a return to peace talks.

Jerusalem Post

October 12, 2011

Israel has refrained from setting pre-conditions for a return to direct negotiations with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. He added in a interview with the Post ­ for the Jewish New Year just hours after returning from his five-day trip to the US, that issue of settlements would have to be discussed in direct negotiations, which he called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume.

"What the Palestinians have done is cherry-pick one of the final core issues and put [it] up front as a pre-condition. I could do the same. I could do it with rehabilitating a refugee camp, I could do it with demanding recognition of the Jewish state," said Netanyahu.
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The wonder years – over 70 percent of GDP comes from personal consumption. For the past decade home equity and credit from other sources fueled growth because of falling household incomes. What happens when credit contracts and home equity evaporates?

MyBudget360.com

October 11, 2011

In a debt based economy a credit crisis is similar to an uncontrollable virus spreading from house to house.  The slow infection hibernated for decades until it went into a pandemic.  It is troubling to see how the middle class is slowly being dismantled.  However there is one silver lining of the home price correction.  Americans spend most of their money on housing as we will highlight later in this article.

The media never bothers showing a detailed budget to Americans since the average per capita income is $25,000 and they don’t want to scare off people from purchasing that new trinket.  Over 70 percent of our annual GDP comes from personal consumption expenditures.  We are a spending nation but for the last decade, much of that spending came from the phony equity brought on by the housing bubble.  Inflated home values really only benefit the banks at this point in time.  With smaller incomes Americans would receive an automatic boost if they spent less of their smaller paycheck on housing.  With credit contracting and home prices moving lower, there is little reason to believe that we will suddenly see a resurgence of debt based spending.

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VeriSign Demands Power To Kill “Abusive” Websites

Manager of all .com internet addresses seeks authority to terminate domains on government order without legal oversight

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The global authority over all .com domain names, VeriSign, is demanding the power to terminate websites deemed “abusive” when ordered to by government without a court order or any kind of oversight whatsoever.

“The company said today it wants to be able to enforce the “denial, cancellation or transfer of any registration” in any of a laundry list of scenarios where a domain is deemed to be “abusive,”reports the UK Register.

Not only is VeriSign seeking the power to kill websites when ordered to by governments, but also by “quasi-governmental agencies,” which could extend as far as lobbying organizations and special interests.

VeriSign has asked the domain name industry overseer ICANN to grant it the power to kill a .com or .net domain in order to comply with “applicable court orders, laws, government rules or requirements,” and believes the authority should be global to allow the company to shut down websites “without a court order” if any government agency merely requests it do so.

“The company has already helped law enforcement agencies in the US, such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, seize domains that were allegedly being used to sell counterfeit goods or facilitate online piracy, when the agency first obtained a court order,” states the report.

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Darrell Issa Talks Fast and Furious Fallout

Fox News
October 9, 2011

What Investors Don't Know about Europe

New York Times

October 10, 2011


“THE direct exposure of the U.S. financial system to the countries under the most pressure in Europe is very modest.” 

That’s what Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, told Congress last week, trying to allay concerns that American banks might be hurt by the escalating crisis in Europe.

Investors have heard such assurances before, and they have learned to take them with a barrel of salt. Remember how the subprime crisis was going to be “contained”?

As the situation in Europe deteriorates, our own financial institutions are coming under growing scrutiny from investors. American banks have made loans to European ones. Some have also written credit insurance on the debt of European institutions and troubled nations like Greece. So if a default were to occur, some banks here would be on the hook.

Last week, officials at Morgan Stanley worked overtime trying to calm investors about the bank’s exposure to Europe. The company had $39 billion in exposure to French banks at the end of last year, not counting hedges and collateral. (Some analysts argue that the amount today is far lower, and at the end of the week, Morgan Stanley appeared to have relieved investor fears.)

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Supercommittee Struggles to Find Deal As Clock Ticks Down to Automatic Spending Cuts

FILE 2011: Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who is not a member of the supercommittee but as chairman of the House Budget Committee is a leading Republican voice on fiscal policy, said he believes something can get done by the supercommittee.

Fox News

October 10, 2011

The 12-member deficit-cutting panel established last summer to come up with $1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years has until Thanksgiving to reach a proposal to maximize that goal, but observers are growing increasingly nervous about where compromise can be found. 

The battle lines remain the same -- Democrats want to raise taxes and oppose cutting entitlements, while Republicans refuse to curb tax carve-outs without a guarantee of lower tax rates overall.

The impasse has lobbyists and aides in Washington -- traditionally stuck in gridlock -- increasingly skeptical.

Set aside for the moment that additional pressures have already been put on the supercommittee to go big, and come up with something much greater than $1.2 trillion over 10 years.

And forget for a second that Washington is up to its eyeballs in investigating growing scandals like the loan to bankrupt solar power company Solyndra or Operation Fast and Furious.

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