P.W. Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at The Brookings Institution.
Posted at Defense Tech - January 3, 2007 05:37 PM | War Update
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003123.html

Since the start of the Iraq war, tens of thousands of heavily-armed military contractors have been roaming the country -- without any law, or any court to control them. That may be about to change, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow P.W. Singer notes in a Defense Tech exclusive. Five words, slipped into a Pentagon budget bill, could make all the difference. With them, "contractors 'get out of jail free' cards may have been torn to shreds," he writes. They're now subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the same set of laws that governs soldiers. But here's the catch: embedded reporters are now under those regulations, too.

Over the last few years, tales of private military contractors run amuck in Iraq -- from the CACI interrogators at Abu Ghraib to the Aegis company's Elvis-themed internet "trophy video" —- have continually popped up in the headlines. Unfortunately, when it came to actually doing something about these episodes of Outsourcing Gone Wild, Hollywood took more action than Washington. The TV series Law and Order punished fictional contractor crimes, while our courts ignored the actual ones. Leonardo Dicaprio acted in a movie featuring the private military industry, while our government enacted no actual policy on it. But those carefree days of military contractors romping across the hills and dales of the Iraqi countryside, without legal status or accountability, may be over. The Congress has struck back.

By Gene Arensberg
24 Dec 2006 at 09:11 AM EST
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=27509

HOUSTON (ResourceInvestor.com) -- What is the big news in this issue of the Got Gold Report? It is the stunning 325 tonnes of new silver added to Barclay�s iShares Silver Trust [AMEX:SLV], the U.S. silver ETF. For details see the Silver ETF section below.

Typically thin holiday trading and a lack of marquee gold-moving news had the ancient standard of wealth moving sideways more or less for most the week. Ho, ho, ho hum.... That is to be expected in the last full trading week before Christmas, especially when the holiday falls on a Monday.

Since gold put in an interim high on December 1 in the $650s it has now retreated to the lower edge of an up-trending channel and tantalizingly close to what bears would view as a chance for gold breakdown pay dirt.

What better a week than this or next to attempt to crash the obvious implied support indicated on this graph. (See the close-together popular moving averages). For more see the Gold Charts section below.

20 December 2006 — GoldMoney Alert from James Turk
http://goldmoney.com/en/commentary.php#current

The markets are winding down for the year-end holidays, and as a consequence, little consideration or attention is being paid to three events, each of which adds another nail to the dollar's coffin.

1) Iran and euros

Though it has been given scant coverage in the US, Iran's decision to drop the dollar in favor of the euro has been receiving widespread attention in Europe. As reported by Agence France-Presse on Monday, Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told news reporters: "The [Iranian] government has ordered the central bank to replace the dollar with the euro…in commercial transactions," repeating exactly what Saddam Hussein did in September 2000. Lest there be any misunderstanding, Elham went on to say: "Foreign income sources and oil revenues will be calculated in euros, and we will receive them in euros in order to put an end to our dependence on the dollar."

Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2006-12-21 22:18. Section: Daily Dispatches, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee
http://www.gata.org/node/4638

By James K. Galbraith
The Guardian, Manchester, England, UK
Monday, December 18, 2006

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_k_galbraith/2006/12/clueless_i...

Speaking as I rarely feel entitled to do, on behalf of all my fellow professional economists, I felt true, true sympathy last week for Ben Bernanke, as he trailed after Henry Paulson in China.

Paulson's China policy is easily understood. In the United States government the Treasury represents the interests of Wall Street, as Joe Stiglitz has written eloquently from direct observation. An alumnus of Goldman Sachs, Secretary Paulson is ideally suited to his job.

And what Wall Street wants from China is what Wall Street always wants: the freedom to speculate (excuse me, invest) in currency, corporate stocks and bonds, and real estate. Wall Street loves risk, uncertainty and volatility. The Chinese don't. This is a conflict. It is not in any sense a complicated question.

BLOG: Another Day In The Empire
Thursday December 21st 2006, 10:21 pm
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=699

If talk radio host Mike Gallagher has his way, Matt Damon, Joy Behar, Keith Olbermann, and any number of dedicated or casual readers of this blog will be shipped off to a FEMA camp for the crime of exercising their once respected right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment. According to Gallagher, the above “traitors” should be incarcerated for the duration of the “war on terror,” promised to last a couple generations, possibly a hundred years or more. In other words, Gallagher is calling for life in prison for disagreeing with the unitary decider and his minions, such as Donald Rumsfeld, a malicious war criminal who would, during normal times, stand accused of murdering 650,000 Iraqis.

It seems Gallagher, the 6th most listened-to radio talk show host in the United States, currently tied with Neal Boortz, who tells his listeners Rep. Cynthia McKinney “looks like a ghetto slut,” at about 3,750,000 listeners, is clueless when it comes to natural rights, George Mason’s 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and the bedrock philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, all increasingly under attack. Gallagher, and no shortage of other “conservatives,” in essence authoritarian thugs, including Newt Gingrich, who has called for the First Amendment be struck, lest the “terrorists” use the internet and attack us, are routinely provided with substantial airtime to push their fascistic ideas, especially over at the unitary decider network, Fox News, where the Führer Principle (Führerprinzip) is on display 24/7.

From the Center for Responsible Lending:

A new CRL study reveals that millions of American households will lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market.

The “Losing Ground” study is the first comprehensive, nationwide review of millions of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the third quarter of 2006. CRL finds that despite low interest rates and a favorable economic environment during the past several years, the subprime market has experienced high foreclosure rates, and we project that one out of five (19.4%) subprime loans issued during 2005-2006 will fail.

More after the jump.

By Joseph L. Galloway
(December 19, 2006)
E&P - The president looks like he wants to send a new "surge" of troops to Iraq. Should the press go along with the gamble? Or is it just throwing good money after bad?

Will Rogers said that the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is quit digging. All the signs out of the nation’s capital indicate that President George W. Bush -- who's in a very deep hole of his own making in Iraq -- is about to ask for a bigger shovel.

The word is that Bush is tilting toward the most dangerous option of all the recommended moves he has on his desk: A temporary "surge" of an additional 20,000 to 30,000 American troops thrown into the bloody agony that's Iraq today.

THE UNITED STATES IS INSOLVENT
by Dr. Chris Martenson
The End of Money
December 17, 2006
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/martenson/2006/1217.html

Prepare to be shocked.
The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our federal deficits alone now total more than 400% of GDP.
That is the conclusion of a recent Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government that was quietly slipped out on a Friday (12/15/06), deep in the holiday season, with little fanfare. Sometimes I wonder why the Treasury Department doesn’t just pay somebody to come in at 4:30 am Christmas morning to release the report. Additionally, I’ve yet to read a single account of this report in any of the major news media outlets but that is another matter.

Chinese tell visiting Bush administration officials they will not sit back and lose their shirts as U.S. Dollar collapses; they are getting out fast and large.

HalTurnerShow.com
12-15-6
Posted on RENSE Blog: http://rense.com/general74/report.htm

BEIJING -- Sources with a U.S. Delegation in Beijing have told The Hal Turner Show the Chinese government has informed visiting Bush Administration officials they intend to dump One TRILLION U.S. Dollars from China's Currency Reserves and convert those funds into Euros, gold and silver!

China was allegedly asked to withhold the announcement until Bullion Markets closed for the weekend to prevent an instant spike in gold and silver prices. This delay will give the world the weekend to consider appropriate actions rather than have a knee-jerk reaction which could see the U.S. Dollar totally collapse in value Monday.

Think deep recession likely regardless of Fed's actions

Posted: December 13, 2006 By Jerome R. Corsi
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53350

Two analysts who have reconstructed money supply data after the Fed stopped publishing it argue a coming dollar collapse will set the stage for creating the amero as a North American currency to replace the dollar. The reconstructed M3 data – the broadest measure of money – published on econometrician Gary Kuever's website, NowAndFutures.com, shows M3 increased at a rate of 11 percent in May, compared to 9 percent when the Federal Reserve quit publishing M3 data earlier this year.

Asked why the Fed decided to stop publishing M3 data, Kuever told WND, "The Fed probably wants to hide how much liquidity is being pumped into the market, and I expect the trend to keep pumping liquidity into the market will continue, especially since the economy is slowing down."

TomDispatch.com BLOG
Tom Engelhardt
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=135352

The evil nature of our enemies has, it turns out, certain advantages -- at least when secret imprisonment and torture are at stake. The Bush administration has proved adamantly unwilling to talk to, or deal with, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, except when it came to parking terror suspects we wanted tortured on his lot. In fact, the Syrians proved so handy and so eager to be good allies in the shadow world of global incarceration that U.S. officials turned over at least 7 of their prisoners to Syrian ministrations, according to a recent piece in the British Guardian.

Whiskey Bar Blog
Posted by billmon at November 2, 2006 10:47 PM
http://billmon.org/archives/002922.html

Tsunamis, they say, can be deceptive. Out in the deep ocean, travelling at 400 to 500 mph, they may appear on the surface to be nothing more than just a large swell -- like the wake of a large ship. While sensors can estimate the wave's size and power, it's true destructive force doesn't become visible until it reaches shallower water and all that energy is compressed and forced towards the surface. Then it hits, at which point the last place you want to be is on the beach.
//SNIP//
Which is why if the Dems do win on Tuesday, and win big, they better get the celebrating out of the way fast, and start thinking about how they're going to handle a very angry, very rejected but still very powerful president with points to prove and scores to settle.Because if he goes critical on them (and us) the next big wave could wash us all out to sea. http://billmon.org/archives/tsunami.jpg

The Huffington Post
The Blog: Brad Friedman
11.02.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman/here-ae-go-again-just-p_b_33109.htm

New Vulnerability Discovered on Systems Made by One of Country's Largest Voting Machine Companies Will Affect Elections in Dozens of States!

California's Secretary of State Bruce McPherson Denies Knowledge of Vulnerability Well After His Office Had Been Notified...

"Just push the yellow button and you can vote as many times as you want," Tom Courbat, an Election Integrity advocate from Riverside County, California informed The BRAD BLOG tonight. Not that we're in any mood to report more such stories, but this seems to be a big one. A very big one.

rense.com (http://www.rense.com/general73/voting.htm)
By Angry Girl of Nightweed.com
9-27-6

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

http://en.wikipedia org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

Friday October 27, 2006
posted by Glenn Greenwald | 9:10 AM
Unclaimed Territory Blog

The new documentary, Shut Up & Sing, chronicles the hostile and sometimes threatening conduct directed towards The Dixie Chicks after one of the group's members criticized the Commander-in-Chief, President George W. Bush, during a 2003 concert. The documentary is being distributed by Harvey Weinstein's film company, and a preview for the film can be seen here.

According to Matt Drudge (a phrase that does not roll out of one's mouth easily), both NBC and the CW Television Network (the joint venture of CBS and Warner Brothers that combines the WB and UPN Networks) are refusing to air ads promoting Shut Up & Sing on the ground that the ads are "disparaging" to our President:

Press Release

Today, the Ministry for Natural Resources of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq published a final draft of a Petroleum Act for the Region for consideration by the Kurdistan National Assembly, the Region's parliament.

“Though the draft Petroleum Act is for the Kurdistan Region, it is indeed a model for Iraq,” said Dr. Ashti Abdullah Hawrami, Minister for Natural Resources. “It is modern, investor-friendly and transparent. It is a great step forward for the recovery, and prosperity, of Iraq.”

The Petroleum Act is designed to attract private investors with competitive production sharing agreements (PSAs). The Ministry has already issued four PSAs in the Kurdistan Region, and expects a large scale licensing round following the passage of the Act.

Paul Craig Roberts | Oct 26

If Enron's Skilling Gets 24 Years in Prison, How Many Should Bush and Cheney Get?

During my professional lifetime, liberals and the left-wing have focused on failures and misdeeds of the private sector, while libertarians and conservatives have focused on the failures and misdeeds of the public sector or government. It turns out that both sides are right.

The Enron case and the other accounting scandals of this new century are testimony to misdeeds driven by private sector greed, just as the unjustifiable war in Iraq is testimony to the abusive behavior of government.

Susan Bradford | October 24, 2006

Following the release of a House of Representatives report documenting super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's contacts with the White House, Rep. Henry Waxman, (D-CA), who serves as ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform, said that "there is evidence that White House officials at the most senior levels of our government repeatedly took actions that benefited Mr. Abramoff and his clients."

The Government Reform Committee report provided evidence that Abramoff and his team logged 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials between January 2001 and March 2004, demonstrating that their relationship with the lobbyist was far more extensive than previously acknowledged. Yet, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino has confidently asserted that there will be "no further fallout" from the House document. How could this be? As Waxman has said, "it is ludicrous for the White House to say it considers the review of the Committee report 'complete' when it has not provided answers to any of the most important questions involving (former Director of Political Affairs Ken) Mehlman and other senior White House officials."

Given that there was so much interest in my Daniel Ellsberg: Hastert got suitcases of Al Qaeda heroin cash, should be in jail post over the weekend, I thought it might be a good idea to detail the specific, multiple, separate claims of bribery against Dennis Hastert.

The short version: Hastert took the following bribes:

The giddiness among Democrats about their prospects for a sweep in both Houses of Representatives has reached a level of absolute euphoria. But what exactly are the voters are hoping for?

A speedy exit from Iraq?

Think again.

John Walsh posted a great article on CounterPunch.org; "Election 2006: The Fix is already In", which outlines the grim facts about "candidate selection" in the Democratic Party. The Democratic leadership has no intention of extracting us from the bloody mess in Babylon and they have methodically rooted-out the bothersome antiwar-types from their pool of potential candidates. As Walsh points out, nearly 8 out of every 10 Democrats (78%) want an immediate or partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq. That, of course, makes no difference to the DLC-powerbrokers who have thrown their bucks behind candidates who are completely divorced from the convictions of the party faithful.

Forget the presidential campaign. Can he still win his Senate race?

In recent weeks, Allen has gone from presidential contender to embattled senator. His mishandling of a name-calling incident, and his ham-handed denial and subsequent revelation that his mother was raised Jewish, have almost eliminated him from the field of serious presidential candidates and even jeopardized his Senate seat. While still trailing in the polls, Allen's Democratic opponent, the author and former secretary of the Navy James Webb, has pulled within striking distance. This reflects a substantial swing in public opinion; until recently Allen's lead over Webb was in double digits. Also until recently, a group of senior Republican consultants met regularly to discuss Allen's strategy for the upcoming presidential campaign. Today, those meetings are devoted exclusively to helping the senator win reelection. Having just stepped out upon the national stage, George Allen now finds himself in danger of being shuffled off of it.

Debkafile | Caracas | Sep 20

Debkafile - While the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement nations were making speeches at the 14th conference of their movement in Havana in mid-September, three groups of intelligence experts were off in a well-guarded corner next door to talk about matters far from the conference’s main theme of how to develop backward economies and societies.

Iranian, Cuban and Venezuelan teams were putting their heads together on ways of translating their leaders' hostile rhetoric and slogans into effective war action against the United States.

DEBKAfile’s Exclusive intelligence and counter-terror sources disclose that the three teams were made up of intelligence officers and civilian officials on the staffs of the three rulers; their job is maintaining clandestine ties with underground and terrorist organizations.

Ronald Kessler | Washington DC | Sep 21

NewsMax - In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional elections.

President Bush's political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the elections.

The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses.

Rove is not saying what the October surprise will be. Asked if he would elaborate and give his thinking about the coming elections, Rove told NewsMax that his take largely parallels what RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman said in a Sept. 5 NewsMax story.

As of last week, President Bush’s tenure as president had resulted in zero vetoes. That might seem outlandish, considering the fact that the man has been in office for six years, but then again, his House and Senate have always been Republican, and conservatively Republican at that. In short, the president’s politics were too closely allied with Congress’s to require any real executive intervention.

Or so we thought. After a bill was introduced and passed regarding funding for stem cell research, the President used his first veto to send the legislation packing. In a news conference at which he highlighted the importance of protecting life and likened stem cell harvesting to murder, Bush surrounded himself with a hoard of in vitro babies. It was a publicity stunt gone terribly, terribly awry.

Kate-bashing bandwagon: It’s really difficult to refrain from piling on Katherine Harris’ Senate campaign when she continually provides incentives like her diatribes about religion, morality and politics delivered last week that seem designed to make folks wonder if her relationship with reality is a bit tenuous at times. It just provides plenty of fodder for pundits to play with.

For instance, here are some examples from today’s Tampa Tribune:

Would anyone be surprised to discover Harris staffers tunneling under West Shore Boulevard, hoping to make a run for it before the candidate goes into another of her meltdowns that make Joan Crawford look like Miss Piggy?