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Activist Post: An Important Federal Bitcoin Decision Happened Today

Activist Post: An Important Federal Bitcoin Decision Happened Today

An Important Federal Bitcoin Decision Happened Today

By Luke Rudkowski



Luke Rudkowski covers the sentencing of Charlie Shrem, a well known
bitcoin entrepreneur who received two years in federal prison because
his company BitInstant sold bitcoins to a user who then sold them to
Silk Road users. Apparently this is considered money laundering in the
Bitcoin world. Rudkowski explains why this precedent-setting case is so
important.

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Yellen Press Conference Translated from Fedspeak into English - Campaign for Liberty

Yellen Press Conference Translated from Fedspeak into English - Campaign for Liberty


By Megan Stiles on December 18, 2014 in National Blog

Our friend Paul-Martin Foss has a fun article over at the Carl Menger Center for the Study of Money and Banking on Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen’s press conference yesterday:


In case you haven’t gotten enough of Janet Yellen’s press conference today, here’s the transcript translated from Fedspeak into plain English. Any errors in the translation are solely the fault of the Federal Reserve. Enjoy!

QUESTION: How worried are you that Audit the Fed is going to pass in the next Congress, now that Republicans have taken over? Would you fight against the bill, push for a veto maybe?

YELLEN: Congress has assigned us some important tasks in monetary policy and other roles that we perform and I wish they would leave us alone so we could just do what we want to do without having to answer to them. “Independent” central banks have been proven to make effective monetary policy decisions, as long as you ignore all the “independent” central banks who destroyed their currencies and economies through hyperinflation. We’re very accountable to Congress, I go up their twice a year to testify and not answer their questions directly, and I’m firmly committed to transparency, if by transparency you mean Congress never finding out what exactly we’re doing.

QUESTION: Would you push for a veto of Audit the Fed?

YELLEN: Of course I would. Do I look like an idiot? But I can’t say that publicly so I’ll tell you to go ask the President.

The Feds Want to Replace Your Driver’s License with a National ID Card – Feature – Car and Driver | Car and Driver Blog

The Feds Want to Replace Your Driver’s License with a National ID Card – Feature – Car and Driver | Car and Driver Blog.



From the January 2015 issue of Car and Driver

If you live in Arizona, Louisiana, New York, or one of more than a dozen other states, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has bad news for you. Come January 19, your driver’s license will no longer allow you access to certain federal facilities. Unless DHS changes its mind. Again.

In 2005, Congress passed a bill called the Real ID Act, based upon recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. Whether or not you’ve heard of the law depends largely upon how in tune you are with conspiracy theories. Where you live matters, too, because nearly a decade after the law’s passage, only 19 states actually comply with its standards.

Real ID’s stated intent is to ensure that all jurisdictions issuing driver’s licenses and other identification meet federal stand­ards, “which should inhibit terrorists’ ability to evade detection by using fraudulent identification.” Basically, the government is upping the ante on what it will accept as valid forms of ID at federal facilities, nuclear power plants, and—here’s the biggie—federally regulated airline flights (i.e., most of them).

Opponents fear that Real ID will lead to a national identity card like those issued by “totalitarian” governments and that its requirement that states share data from their department of motor vehicle databases is an invasion of privacy. Others object because Congress didn’t offer financial backing to help states implement Real ID. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contends that the program wastes state resources while doing little to combat terrorism, calling it a “bureaucratic nightmare.”



For its part, Homeland Security promises that Real ID will leave states with control over the look and administration of driver’s licenses, and, more important, over the information they collect to issue them. “There is no federal database of driver information,” the agency says on its website, although the ACLU contends that the law says otherwise. What does non-compliance mean for residents of those states? Most states have been granted extensions, although many have passed legislation that amounts to a promise not to comply.

For most Americans, that flight restriction is the big worry. But DHS says that any state driver’s license will be accepted as a valid ID at airports until at least 2016. And after that, passports and other federal IDs will work. The ACLU doesn’t put much stock in DHS deadlines either way, including the latest one. “We know how it’s going to play out because it’s played out three times already,” says Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU. “They give a deadline, the deadline goes, and then they give an extension. The states know that DHS isn’t going to keep all the residents from non–Real ID states from boarding airplanes.” Which means that those refusing to play along might just achieve the goal of dooming Real ID to failure.
Screen-Plate Club: How License-Plate Scanning Compromises Your Privacy
Don’t Tear Up Your License Yet: Here’s Why Autonomous Driving Is Still a Long Way Off
Tested: Dodge Charger Police Package (Yes, We Played with the Lights)

Rand Paul wins victory for parents - Campaign for Liberty

Rand Paul wins victory for parents - Campaign for Liberty

By Norm Singleton on December 18, 2014 in National Blog



Newborn
screening for medical disorders is becoming an increasingly common
practice. This seems like a good thing; however, along with the
potential benefits of screening, there are concerns that some states are
not obtaining parental consent before doing the screening. There are
also legitimate concerns that state governments will store the child’s
DNA in a database.



No one should be surprised to learn that
there is a federal program funding newborn screening, and readers of
this blog should not be surprised to learn that legislation extending
this program was rammed into law in the lame duck session of Congress.



However,
Senator Rand Paul was successful in getting a victory for parents’
rights by attaching an amendment to the bill forbidding the use of a
newborn’s blood spots in federally funded medical research without
parental consent.



http://www.worldmag.com/2014/12/expanded_newborn_screening_raises_privacy_concerns



Expanded newborn screening raises privacy concerns
By Daniel James DevinePosted Dec. 16, 2014, 08:30 a.m.



President Barack Obama is expected this week to sign into law a $100 million bill
renewing federal funding for newborn screening. Involving a pinprick to
a baby’s heel and a few drops of blood, newborn screening is intended
to identify serious disorders within a few days of birth. But privacy
advocates worry about the government collection and long-term storage of
newborn DNA.



The federal law, first authorized in 2008, now
includes for the first time an amendment acknowledging privacy concerns
over dried blood spots stored on cards
and kept on file by state governments: For blood spots used in
federally funded research, scientists must obtain a consent form signed
by the parents. (The consent requirement will remain in place for up to
two years, until the Department of Health and Human Services updates
rules governing research on human subjects.)



Citizens’ Council
for Health Freedom, a patient privacy group in St. Paul, Minn., helped
craft the language of the amendment, which was introduced by Sen. Rand
Paul, R-Ky. “Most parents don’t know newborn screening happens,” said
Twila Brase, president of the organization. “Some states have been
keeping the blood, the DNA of the child, indefinitely.” Brase is happy
the amendment was included in the bill but still has concerns about the
screenings’ potential implications for genetic privacy. 



The
Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act, which unanimously
passed the U.S. House on Wednesday, provides funding to support newborn
screening programs already required by law in every state.



Newborn screening
has existed for more than 50 years but has grown more comprehensive in
the past decade. Around 2003, most states only tested for six treatable
disorders. Today, most states require testing for at least 29 disorders,
such as sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, or various vitamin or
protein disorders. Parents may refuse the tests on religious grounds,
but 98 percent of U.S. newborns ultimately are screened.



According to the March of Dimes, 1 in 300 infants has a disorder that
can be identified by screening. It’s important for doctors to find the
disorders within a few days of a child’s birth, since early treatment
may prevent serious harm.



A news investigation last year by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found widespread delays
in lab testing of newborn blood samples, sometimes because hospitals
were trying to save on postage costs. The delays resulted in children
going untreated for serious genetic diseases within the first days after
birth, sometimes resulting in disability or death. Following the
investigation, dozens of states made changes to their screening programs
to minimize delays.



The new federal law requires the U.S.
Government Accountability Office to report within two years on the
timeliness of newborn blood testing across the United States.



Brase acknowledged screening is beneficial in allowing early treatment
of certain disorders, but she wants parents to be adequately informed
and to understand how their state handles the blood samples. Some states
retain the samples for just three months, others for 25 years or
longer. Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom keeps a list of state retention policies.



The group is concerned about federal and state involvement in the
screening programs: “The best way that this should be run is that the
hospitals should do it, like every other test that they do on the mother
and child,” Brase said. “The state should be completely out of it.”

Activist Post: This Is What a Currency Collapse Looks Like: Shopping Frenzy in Russia

Activist Post: This Is What a Currency Collapse Looks Like: Shopping Frenzy in Russia
This Is What a Currency Collapse Looks Like: Shopping Frenzy in Russia
Mac Slavo
Activist Post

Russians have seen the writing on the wall and they know that they’re economy and currency are in serious trouble. Though the Russian central bank has pledged to protect and stabilize the Ruble, which has collapsed by nearly 50% versus the dollar in the last several months, people aren’t taking any chances.

It’s a scenario we’ve seen repeated throughout history when a nation’s currency was threatened with destruction and it’s one we may soon witness in America should confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency ever be lost.

This is what a currency collapse looks like:

“It is a real panic,” said Kirill Rogov, an independent political and economic analyst who is often critical of the Putin administration. “The ruble is being devalued by 5 or 6 percent every day, and nobody knows how to stop it.”

The ruble has lost 50 percent of its value since the beginning of the year. Russian consumers afraid of losing their savings, as happened in a financial crisis in 1998, flooded stores, rushing to dump rubles that seemed to shrink in worth by the minute.

Source: New York Times

“I don’t need this car,” he said with a shrug. He already owns two Porsches and a Land Rover. But, he figured the prices will soon go up and the ruble will probably go down. “We are headed for a crisis,” he said.

[…]

Electronics stores were packed late into the evening as shoppers scooped up iPhones and iPads at prices over $100 lower than what they cost in the United States. Apple’s Russian website halted online sales “due to extreme fluctuations in the value of the ruble… while we review pricing.”

[…]

“We came here because we have a problem. We have a lot of rubles which are losing value every second and we were too late to buy dollars at good price. We came here because prices on cars will increase tomorrow,” Katya said.

Source: ABC NewsWhat’s happening in Russia with the collapse of the Ruble is that merchants are being forced to raise their prices on goods every day. If the slide in the Ruble continues that could turn to hourly adjustments as was seen in Zimbabwe when their dollar crashed.

It’s a scenario that closely mimics the Argentine hyperinflation of the early 2000s. As noted by author Fernando “Ferfal” Aguirre in his first-hand account The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving The Economic Collapse, when the country’s currency collapsed citizens had no choice but to spend their money immediately on anything they could get their hands on. Failure to do so would cut their purchasing power in half within a matter of hours.

Ferfal explains:

The banks had closed, and no one knew how much the paper currency was going to be worth tomorrow, or even in the next couple of hours.
I vividly remember being at the local Home Depot (called "Easy" in Argentina), and buying a few tools. The clerks would run around like crazy, replacing the old prices with the new ones, which sometimes changed within the same hour.
It was depressing to see a price and notice that after peeling it off, the old price was still there. There was no time for the clerks to remove them. There would be a five layer sandwich of ever increasing prices that were maybe just a couple of days old.
After a few months, people found that they were in a very delicate position. Many were without a job, and those who had a job were paid in a currency where the value was dropping by the hour. Sometimes you had the problem of reaching the cash register and finding out that the price had already changed.
Excerpted From: The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving The Economic CollapseThis isn’t some theoretical forecast of what might happen during a currency crisis. This is how it was for people in Argentina in 2001-2002.

People didn’t believe it was happening at first and figured their government would save them. Of course, government officials saved themselves and their rich cohorts, but left the people with nothing. Eventually the banks shut down, ATMs ran out of money and cash became scarce. As Ferfal recollects, the economy quickly turned into a barter system where currency became physical assets like gold, silver, food, real estate and cars.

Russia is yet another warning sign of what’s to come for the United States.

The timeline for the collapse of the U.S. dollar is unclear. But that it will happen is an inevitable fact of life. And given the current national debt, long-term liabilities, economic malaise and deteriorating wages, it is only a matter of time.

When that time comes it is in your best interests to already positioned for it. You need to answer the question: What is money when the system collapses?

The answer, when you think about it, is pretty simple. When currency becomes worthless, physical assets will become money.

In her book The Prepper’s Blueprint Tess Pennington outlines some key “assets” that will still have value – both for your use and as barter – should your dollars become worthless.

Things like foods that last a lifetime, precious metals, fuel, clothing, footwear and firearms will be essential. Beyond that are other consumables that we take for granted today but will be worth a great deal should the currency collapse and stores run out of offerings. Cigarettes, alcohol, lighters, hygiene products, over the counter medicines, antibiotics and as Ferfal noted, hardware tools, are all worthwhile investments that will pay off in the future.

While most Americans refuse to even contemplate the possibility of something like this happening in the United States, history has proven that every fiat paper currency ever invented has eventually fallen. We can pretend that this time is different, but we’d only be deluding ourselves.

Confidence is a very fragile thing and given the economic, financial and monetary troubles we face, it wouldn’t take a whole lot to crush the world as we have come to know it. When it starts it will happen fast.

Be prepared for it or face the horrific consequences that will follow.

Related Resources:

Collapse Investing: Money and Wealth Preservation During Times of Uncertainty and Instability
A Free Falling Economy Makes Bartering Go Boom
The Prepper’s Blueprint: Prepare For Any Disaster

IMF Now Ready To Slam The Door On The U.S. And The Dollar

IMF Now Ready To Slam The Door On The U.S. And The Dollar
Wednesday, 17 December 2014 06:29 Brandon Smith



As I write this, the news is saturated with stories of a hostage situation possibly involving Islamic militants in Sydney, Australia. Like many, I am concerned about the shockwave such an event will create through our sociopolitical structures. However, while most of the world will be distracted by the outcome of this crisis (for good or bad) for at least the week, I find I must concern myself with a far more important and dangerous situation.

Up to 40 people may be held by a supposed extremist in Sydney, but the entire world is currently being held hostage economically by international banks. This is the crisis no one in the mainstream is talking about, so alternative analysts must.

As I predicted last month in “We Have Just Witnessed The Last Gasp Of The Global Economy,” severe volatility is now returning to global markets after the pre-game 10 percent drop in equities in October hinted at what was to come.

We expected such destabilization after the wrap-up of the Fed taper, and the markets have not disappointed so far. My position has always been that the taper of QE3 made very little sense in terms of maintaining the manipulated illusion of economic health — unless, of course, the Federal Reserve was implementing the taper in preparation for a renewed financial catastrophe. That is to say, the central bankers have established the lie of American fiscal recovery and then separated themselves from blame for the implosion they KNOW is coming. If the markets were to collapse while stimulus is officially active, the tragedy would be forever a millstone on the necks of the banksters. And we can’t have that now, can we?

This is not to say that individual central banks and even currencies are not expendable in the grand scheme of things. In fact, the long-term goal of globalists has been to consolidate all currency systems and central banks under the outward control of the International Monetary Fund and the Bank Of International Settlements, as I outlined in “The Economic Endgame Explained.”

That particular article was only a summary of a dangerous trend I have been concerned about for years; namely the strategy by international financiers to create a dollar-collapse scenario that will be blamed on prepositioned scapegoats. I have no idea what form these scapegoats will take - there are simply too many possible triggers for fiscal calamity. What I do know, though, is the goal of the endgame: to remove the dollar’s world reserve status and to pressure the American people into conforming or even begging for centralized administration of our economy by the IMF.

The delusion perpetuated in the mainstream is that the IMF is a U.S.-dominated institution. I have outlined on many occasions why this is false. The IMF like all central banks is dominated by the international corporate banking cartel. Central banks are merely front organizations for globalists, and I am often reminded of the following quote from elitist insider Carroll Quigley when I hear people suggest that central banks are somehow independent from one another or that the Federal Reserve is itself the singular “source” of the world’s economic ills:

It must not be felt that these heads of the world’s chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down.

The substantive financial powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers (also called “international” or “merchant” bankers) who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks.

No one can now argue against this reality after we have witnessed hard evidence of Goldman Sachs dictating Federal Reserve policy, as outlined here.

And, most recently, we now know that international bankers control political legislation as well, as Congress passed with little resistance a bill that negates the Frank-Dodd restrictions on derivatives and places the U.S. taxpayers and account holders on the hook for more than $303 trillion in toxic debt instruments. The bill is, for all intents and purposes, a “bail-in” measure in disguise. And it was pushed through with the direct influence of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

The Federal Reserve, the U.S. government and the dollar are as expendable to the elites as any other economic or political appendage. And it can be replaced at will with yet another illusory structure if this furthers their goal of total centralization. This has been done for centuries, and I fail to see why anyone would assume that globalists would change their tactics now to preserve the dollar system. They call it the “New World Order,” but it is really the same old-world monetary order out of chaos that has always been exploited. Enter the IMF’s old/new world vision.

While the investment universe has been mesmerized by the deterioration of the Russian Ruble and oil prices, the IMF has been a busy little bee hive...

In articles over the past year, I have warned that the plan to dethrone the dollar and replace it with the special drawing rights basket currency system would be accelerated after it became clear that the U.S. Congress would refuse to pass the IMF reforms of 2010 proclaiming “inclusiveness” for developing economies, including the BRICS nations. The latest spending bill removed any mention of IMF reforms. The IMF, under Christine Lagarde, has insisted that if the U.S. did not approve its part of the reforms, the IMF would be forced to pursue a “Plan B” scenario. The details on this “plan B” have not been forthcoming, until now.

The Financial Times reported on the IMF shift away from the U.S. by asserting the authority to remove the veto power America has always enjoyed over the institution. This action is a stark reminder to mainstream talking heads and to those who believe the U.S. is the core economic danger to the world that the IMF is NOT an extension of American policy. If anything, the IMF and the U.S. are extensions of international banking power, just as the BRICS are nothing more than puppets for the same self-serving financial oligarchy clamoring for the same IMF-controlled paradigm, as Vladimir Putin openly admitted:

"In the BRICS case we see a whole set of coinciding strategic interests. First of all, this is the common intention to reform the international monetary and financial system. In the present form it is unjust to the BRICS countries and to new economies in general. We should take a more active part in the IMF and the World Bank’s decision-making system. The international monetary system itself depends a lot on the US dollar, or, to be precise, on the monetary and financial policy of the US authorities. The BRICS countries want to change this…"

And of course the Chinese have pronounced their fealty to the IMF global currency concept:

The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up of a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help "to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability."

The BRICS are not the only nations demanding the U.S. lose its supposed "influence" over the IMF. Germany, the core economic pillar of the EU, called for America to relinquish its veto power back in 2010 just as the reforms measure was announced.

The IMF decision to possibly eliminate U.S. veto power and, thus, influence over IMF decisions may come as early as the first quarter of next year. This is the great “economic reset” that Largarde has been promoting ad nauseam in multiple interviews and speeches over the past six months. All of these measures are culminating in what I believe will be a more official announcement of a dump of the U.S. dollar as world reserve currency.

Along with the imminent loss of veto power, I have also written on the concerns of the coming SDR conference in 2015. This conference is held only once every five years. My suspicion has been that the IMF plans to announce the inclusion of the Chinese yuan in the SDR basket and that this will coincide with a steady dollar dump around the globe. Multiple major economies have already dropped the dollar in bilateral trade with China, and engineered tensions between the U.S. and the East have exacerbated the issue.

The timing of the SDR conference has now been announced, and the meeting looks to be set for October of 2015. Interestingly, this linked article from Bloomberg notes that China has a “real shot” at SDR inclusion and official “reserve status” next year, but warns that the U.S. “may use its veto power” to stop China’s membership. I have to laugh at the absurdity of it all, because there are many people in the world of economic study who still believe the developments of globalization and fiscal distress are all “random.” I suppose that if it is all random, then it is a rather convenient coincidence that the U.S. just happens to be on the verge of losing veto power in the IMF just before they are about to bring the BRICS into the SDR fold and supplant the dollar.

This is it, folks; this is the endgame right in front of our faces. The year of 2014 is the new 2007, with all the negative potential but 100 times more explosive going into 2015. Our nation has wallowed in slowly degrading financial conditions for years, hidden by fake economic statistics and manipulated stock prices. All of it has been a prelude to a much more frenetic and shocking event. I believe that we will see continued market chaos from now on, with a steep declining trend intermixed with brief but inadequate “dead cat” stock bounces. I expect a hailstorm of geopolitical crises over the next year to provide cover for the shift away from the dollar.

Ultimately, the death of the dollar will be hailed in the mainstream as a “good and necessary thing.” They will call it “karma.” They will call it “progress.” They will even call it “decentralization” and a success for the free market. But it will not feel like a positive development for the American public, who will suffer greatly as the dollar crumbles. Only those educated in the underpinnings of shadow banking will understand the whole thing is a charade designed to hide the complete centralization of sovereign economic governance into the hands of the globalists, using the IMF and BIS as “fiscal heroes,” saving the world from a state of economic destruction the elites themselves secretly created.

Judge declares Obama immigration action unconstitutional

Judge declares Obama immigration action unconstitutional
Tue, Dec 16 15:44 PM EST


By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's new plan to ease the threat of deportation for 4.7 million undocumented immigrants violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge found on Tuesday, handing down the first legal ruling against the plan.

The ruling has no immediate impact, with the government saying there was no reason for Judge Arthur Schwab of the Western District of Pennsylvania to address the issue in the case, which concerns 42-year-old Honduran immigrant Elionardo Juarez-Escobar.

Schwab is the first judge to rule on the legality of the plan Obama announced on Nov. 20. The executive action by the Democratic president is opposed by Republicans and is already subject to other legal challenges.

Schwab ruled that the executive action violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of separation of powers and the separate "take care clause," which requires the president to faithfully execute laws passed by Congress.

Schwab says he ruled on the executive action issue because he concluded that Juarez-Escobar could be eligible for relief under the executive action.

Government lawyers told Schwab that Juarez-Escobar, who has pleaded guilty to re-entering the country, was not eligible because Obama's order does not affect criminal proceedings.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Lisa Von Ahn)

Supreme Court rules an officer’s misunderstanding of a law is protected
By: Zach McAuliffe Dec 16, 2014


A Supreme Court ruling on Monday found police officers who pull over a car for a traffic stop can search and seize the vehicle, even if the officer does not have a full understanding of the law used to pull the vehicle over.

The ruling comes after Nicholas Heien, a North Carolina resident, was pulled over in 2009 on the premise of a single broken taillight. After being pulled over, the officer searched the vehicle and found a baggie of cocaine, and the officer then arrested Heien.




However, North Carolina law only requires one working taillight, so when the officer pulled over Heien, it would appear he had no legal right to do so.

The case was brought up to a North Carolina appeals court who, according to VOX, agreed the stop was unlawful. The case was then heard by the state’s highest court and the Supreme Court, who both ruled in favor of the officer, saying even if the officer does not know the technical aspects of a law, a search and seizure is still constitutional.

“This Court held that reasonable mistakes of law, like those of fact, could justify a certificate of probable cause,” reads the Court’s ruling. The vehicle search, therefore, does not violate the Fourth Amendment, as was argued by Heien, which protects citizens from unlawful searches and seizures without probable cause. The Court said, “a search or seizure may be permissible even though the justification for the action includes a reasonable factual mistake.”

Ultimately, the Court found the Fourth Amendment requires officers to act reasonably, but not perfectly, since officers are human and make mistakes as well. Chief Justice John Roberts said, according to the AP, an officer’s mistake of fact can rightly justify a traffic stop and therefore that misunderstanding can also satisfy the Constitution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only member of the Court to disagree with the decision, saying an officer’s mistake or misunderstanding of a law, “no matter how reasonable, cannot support the individualized suspicion necessary to justify a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.”