GATA Claims To Have Evidence Of "Massive Physical Short Gold And Silver Positions That Can Not Be Covered"

GATA Claims To Have Evidence Of "Massive Physical Short Gold And Silver Positions That Can Not Be Covered": "

In a letter to the CFTC's Chairman, Gary Gensler, GATA Chairman William Murphy shares the following bombshell:

'GATA has evidence that there are enormous physical short positions in the gold and silver markets that cannot be covered.'

Even as the CFTC is meeting later this month to establish position limits in the gold, silver, and other precious metals' markets, it could be none other than the CFTC's core banks, and Mr. Gensler's former Goldman bosses, that form the very core of the biggest market manipulation collusion syndicate in the history of the commodity markets.

Source

Citizen's Arrest of Alleged War Criminal George W. Bush in Canada: Trial Underway

"...From the Attica Rebellion to Gustafen Lake to Calgary in 2009, when he attempted a citizen’s arrest of George W. Bush, “Dac” has consciously taken a leadership role to politically challenge the powerful forces that dominate the North American continent. Brutally arrested for his action, he earned his “day in court” to voice not only his defense, but “to highlight the hypocrisy and criminality of the Canadian government for allowing Bush into Canada, and to firmly establish the legal defense of ‘civil resistance’, the duty of citizens to act when our governments and their agents are derelict in their duty. This will be very useful in the future to rein these criminals in.”

Prior to Bush’s visit, the group Lawyers Against the War asked Canadian officials to bar entry or try Bush for his suspected crimes since Canadian Law prohibits “people suspected of any involvement in torture or other war crimes and crimes against humanity from entering Canada for any period and for any purpose. The most recent report of the War Crimes Program affirms the necessity of barring war crimes suspects from Canada: ‘The most effective way to deny safe haven to people involved or complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity is to prevent them from coming to Canada.’”... Read all

"At this pace, every bank in the country will be on the problem list by the fourth quarter of 2012"

A sublime poetic snip from the latest Mogambo:

"...“On top of that, the FDIC’s list of ‘problem banks’ grew during the fourth quarter from 552 to 702” he says! Yikes!

A long, haunting howl of dismay escapes my lips, perhaps not unlike the sound of ravenous, starving wolves howling, “oooOOOOOOooooooooh!” as they close in on your bloody trail as you crawl along, dressed in rags, wounded, bleeding, in the snow, at night, in the mountains, in a snow storm, with freezing sleet, and you realize that you can’t buy them off with your paper fiat money..." Read all

"Hope" of "Change", or just Plain Old Fascism? Obama Employs Bush Administration Tactic, Blocks Torture Photos

From Salon.com:

On Wednesday, Obama said he “would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners.” The release, which was to be the result of a Freedom of Information Act request made by the ACLU, had been reasonable in the final weeks of April, but today, Obama chose to come out against the release.

According to the Associated Press, “out of concern [that] the pictures would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan” Obama planned to block them.

Obama intends to block the release of the photos because they may negatively impact American empire and American military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gen. Ray Odierno, a prime architect of “the surge” in Iraq, and Gen. David Petraeus influenced Obama’s decision after informing the administration that they were afraid the photos will “cost American lives.”

Obama suggested that the “photos had already served their purpose in investigations of "a small number of individuals” and "the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken."

Also, Obama made the argument that "these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

When choosing to make a “mockery” out of his “promise of transparency and accountability” (as one member of the ACLU put it), Obama is fine with contending that if information requested does not show something worse than said previous atrocity or does not show that something more inhumane happened the information should not be released.

Even if the information would give further credence to the argument that the Bush Administration tortured (which many in the corporate news media are still reluctant to outright accept as they continue to cling to the “enhanced interrogation technique” euphemism when discussing “torture”), the fact that it does not top the brutality of a batch of previous photos means that the ACLU’s FOIA request should not be fulfilled.

The ACLU released a response to Obama’s decision, which was written by Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU:

The Obama administration's adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president's stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government. This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department's failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration.

"It is true that these photos would be disturbing; the day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one. In America, every fact and document gets known – whether now or years from now. And when these photos do see the light of day, the outrage will focus not only on the commission of torture by the Bush administration but on the Obama administration's complicity in covering them up. Any outrage related to these photos should be due not to their release but to the very crimes depicted in them. Only by looking squarely in the mirror, acknowledging the crimes of the past and achieving accountability can we move forward and ensure that these atrocities are not repeated.
"If the Obama administration continues down this path, it will betray not only its promises to the American people, but its commitment to this nation's most fundamental principles. President Obama has said we should turn the page, but we cannot do that until we fully learn how this nation veered down the path of criminality and immorality, who allowed that to happen and whose lives were mutilated as a result. Releasing these photos – as painful as it might be – is a critical step toward that accounting. The American people deserve no less."

Obama said of the Freedom of Information Act in a January 21 memo, “The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

But, on matters of American empire or “state secrets,” the administration is as bad as Bush if not worse.

Robert Gibbs’ press briefing on the reversal shows just how poor a case the administration has for keeping these photos from being released:

QUESTION: Can you go over the sequence of events that led to this thought process? Because, on April 24th, when the Pentagon was explaining its decision to release the photos, it said that -- the spokesman said that there was a feeling that the case had pretty much run its course.
GIBBS: Uh-huh.
QUESTION: And now you’re saying that the president feels that there’s a strong argument to be made...
GIBBS: Because the argument that the president has asked his legal team to make is not an argument that the previous legal team made in that case. They argued a couple of different things, including, a law enforcement exception. And the judge ruled that, to seek a law enforcement exception, you have to -- you have to disclose the name of the person that would be -- that harm would be derived for in seeking that exception. This is a different argument that the president thinks is compelling.
QUESTION: Well, when did he decide that it was important to make that argument? Did one of the lawyers come to him and say...
GIBBS: No. He came to the lawyers.
QUESTION: And when did all that...
GIBBS: That was a meeting that was held last week in the Oval Office.
QUESTION: Robert, if that was such a compelling case, why was that not weighed in April then? Because it seems like -- was there a failure here at the White House in the first go-round in April to fully weigh the national security implications?
GIBBS: The argument that the president seeks to make is one that hasn’t been made before. The -- I’m not going to get into blame for this or that. Understanding that there was significant legal momentum in these cases prior to the president entering into office, we are now at a point where it is likely that some stay will be asked to prevent the release of these photos. And I believe the date -- I think we have until June 8th to appeal -- to seek review of those decisions by the Second Circuit.
QUESTION: But on April 24th, you also said, quote, “The Department of Justice decided, based on the ruling, the court ruling, is that it was, quote, hopeless to appeal.”
GIBBS: Right. QUESTION: Now you’re saying it’s not hopeless. GIBBS: Well, based on the argument that -- yes, I said that it was hopeless based on the argument that was made during the course of the original FOIA lawsuit, the appeal, the three-judge ruling, and the decision to decline the full circuit to make that -- to make those determinations. The president isn’t -- what I’m saying to you, Ed, is the president isn’t going back to remake the argument that has been made. The president is going -- has asked his legal team to go back and make a new argument based on national security.
QUESTION: This new argument -- if you’re saying, basically, that this could put troops in further harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan, Former Vice President Cheney, General Hayden, others have made the same argument about releasing the so-called torture memos. Do you have any regrets about putting those memos out? They’ve made the same argument about them?
GIBBS: No. Well, I’ll use the example I’ve used on this before, Ed. You didn’t begin to report on enhanced interrogation techniques at the release of the OLC memos, did you?
QUESTION: No.
GIBBS: OK. The -- I’m saying...
QUESTION: (Inaudible)
GIBBS: Hold on. I’m also sensing that the graphic that CNN uses to denote what happens when somebody gets waterboarded wasn’t likely developed based on reading memos that were released three weeks ago. The existence of enhanced interrogation techniques were noted by the former administration in speeches that they gave. You read about the enhanced interrogation techniques in autobiographies written by members of that former administration. The notion...
QUESTION: The graphics would not also be based on any prisoner photos you might release because we already know that people were abused in prisons. So why not put them out there?
GIBBS: I’m not sure that you’d do a graphic of a photo.
QUESTION: No. A graphic of someone being abused. We’ve all seen Abu Ghraib photos, and you were saying about the photos back in April, lack, it’s already exhausted and, essentially, these photos are going to come out anyway.
GIBBS: Based on the previous legal argument, yes. The previous legal argument denoted that the case had been lost. There’s a new legal argument that’s being made. My sense is, Ed, why do you do a graphic on CNN?
QUESTION: We’re trying to show people -- explain to people...
GIBBS: OK. The president believes that the existence of the photos themselves does not actually add to the understanding that detainee abuse happened, was investigated, that actions were taken by those that did, indeed, or might have undertaken potential abuse of detainees. And those cases were all dating back to finishing in 2004.
GIBBS: The president doesn’t believe the release of a photo surrounding that investigation does the anything to illuminate the existence of that investigation, only to provide some portion of sensationality.
QUESTION: Robert, is that really his role to decide whether or not it illuminates? That’s not the president of the United States’ role to decide, well, this is information will illuminate for the people, and this information isn’t.
GIBBS: No, the -- the -- the role of the president in this situation is as commander-in-chief. And if he determines that, through the release of these photos, that they pose a threat to those that serve to protect our freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan through the illumination of whatever, he can make a determination to ask his legal team to go back to court and make a legal argument that he doesn’t believe was made and provides the most salient case and most important points for not releasing these photos.
Those determinations are, indeed, made by this president and -- and -- and are being made.
QUESTION: The Bush administration has obviously made the argument that releasing these specific photographs will endanger troops, and they did so in the way that you described, with -- with seeking the FOIA exemption for law enforcement personnel.
GIBBS: Right.
(interruption)
QUESTION: The specific avenue that your -- that your legal team’s going to go, you’re not sure if it’s going to be going back to the district court or...
GIBBS: I don’t know the -- I’ll check with -- put that -- we’ll check with -- with those guys specifically. I think, in some ways, they’re looking at whether it is to go to a lower court or to go to the Supreme Court.
QUESTION: And then just to follow up on the new argument, so are there specific -- is there specific case law arguments that the president knows that exist that were not used? Because it’s -- I find it hard to believe that the Bush administration didn’t turn under every rock to try to find an argument to do this.
GIBBS: Well, the president doesn’t believe that was the case. And the president, after reviewing the case, believes that -- that we have a compelling argument. [emphasis added]

Already reluctant to have the Justice Department enforce the rule of law and hold investigations and prosecutions for torture and crimes against humanity, how do arguments that the president can decide what illuminates a situation and what doesn’t, that the president didn’t misjudge the national security implications of the photos, and that the press doesn’t need these photos to report on treatment of detainees help the administration at all?

Of course, the press needs these photos to be released so they can cover the issue of torture and war crimes, which were part of Bush Administration policy. What else is going to motivate them to cover the issue? Ethics and morals?

This reversal is just one event in a series of events that have occurred in relation to state secrets, accountability, and transparency since Obama was inaugurated.

Obama’s vow “to open government more than ever” was sharply contradicted by his Justice Department which chose to “defend Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists.”

In March, the Obama administration continued a tradition of the Bush Administration and, citing state-secrets privileges, they, like the Bush Administration, continued to stall a suit brought by the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which claimed that the government illegally wiretapped and violated the charity’s right to due process and freedom of speech because the government thought the charity was funding terrorism.

The Justice Department defended torture memo author John Yoo and Attorney General Eric Holder defended the decision claiming that it was in “the best interest of the United State.”

To mark Obama’s 100days in office, Sen. Russ Feingold released a “report card” on “actions to restore the rule of law.” Obama’s actions on state secrets earned him the worst grades.

Feingold cited the fact that Obama had “invoked the state secrets privilege in three cases in the first 100 days -- Al Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama, Mohammed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, and Jewel v. NSA” and had not taken a position on the State Secrets Protection Act.

Obama “issued an immediate halt to the military commission proceedings for prosecuting detainees and filed a request in Federal District Court in Washington to stay habeas corpus proceedings there.” But, most recently, the administration is seriously considering reviving military commissions for prosecuting Guantanamo detainees.

Even worse, Obama is considering “indefinite detention” for Guantanamo prisoners.

Now, Larisa Alexandrovna has compiled an article that suggests the “Obama Justice Department is continuing to cover up Bush-Era crimes.”

The decision to hold back the photos is another blow to freedom and democracy that follows a plethora of blows which have occurred in this decade.

The logic that these photos will create terrorism is patently false. It’s not the photos of torture that kill our soldiers, but the fact that the U.S. military and CIA tortures or tortured that creates or created terrorism.

We as a people must seriously consider how this decision to hide photos reflects our society’s values and how it shows our unwillingness to demand accountability and the enforcement of the rule of law.

What does the Obama Administration really want? The American people and its military forces to be safe from “terrorism” or the American people to stop demanding that the Obama Administration investigate and prosecute Bush Administration officials for torture and crimes against humanity?

http://open.salon.com/blog/kevin_gosztola/2009/05/14/obama_employs_bush_administration_tactic_blocks_photos

Gates: "I worry people think things are better than they actually are."

By Joe Kishore

March 9, 2010 - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Monday to discuss preparations for a major military offensive against Kandahar, the country’s second largest city. At a joint press conference in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Gates warned of a new round of bloody violence against the Afghan people. "People do need to understand there is some very hard fighting and some very hard days ahead," he said. "I worry people will get too impatient and think things are better than they actually are." [He will help them to get real making things even worse, if possible] The US is in the midst of a "surge" in southern Afghanistan, under the direction of the Obama administration. The main target will be Kandahar, a city of some 900,000 people and the birthplace of the Taliban... Read all

Mozambique: the ‘paradox’ of rising chronic child malnutrition in the face of rapid GDP growth

By *Joseph Hanlon* and *Milton Keynes*

March 5, 2010 -- // A return to war in Mozambique is highly unlikely, but the widening chasm between rich and poor and growing social exclusion are creating a ‘serious risk’ of conflict. This was the warning issued by the Peer Review Mechanism Forum in Mozambique’s self-evaluation report to the African Union Peer Review in February 2009.[1]

Similarly, Mozambique’s Institute for the Promotion of Peace—an association of former fighters from both sides in the 1981–92 war— remarked in March 2009 that Mozambique seems at peace, but growing economic disparities and socioeconomic injustice are weakening the peaceful transition.[2] Mozambique’s peace has been remarkable—without any truth commission or international courts, the 1992 peace accord has held without retributions and with former foes
serving together in parliament and the army.

One result is that Mozambique has become a ‘donor darling’, with relatively high levels of aid. In 2007 the World Bank talked of Mozambique’s ‘blistering pace of economic growth’,[3] while the IMF said ‘Mozambique is a success story in Sub-Saharan Africa, benefiting from sustained large foreign aid inflows, strong and broad-based growth and deep poverty reduction’.[4] Despite this apparent success, both the World Bank and UNICEF have pointed to the ‘paradox’ of rising chronic child malnutrition in the face of rapid GDP growth,[5] and in a 2006 survey three quarters of Mozambicans stated that in the past five years their economic position had remained the same or become worse.[6]

Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1541

The New Jim Crow - How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste

by Michelle Alexander - Published on Monday, March 8, 2010 by TomDispatch.com
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/08-6

Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its 44th president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's "triumph over race." Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.

Obama's mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that "the land of the free" has finally made good on its promise of equality. There's an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.

Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.

Most people don't like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the "era of colorblindness" there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have "moved beyond" race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:

*There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

*As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.

* A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.

*If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste -- not class, caste -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

Excuses for the Lockdown

There is, of course, a colorblind explanation for all this: crime rates. Our prison population has exploded from about 300,000 to more than 2 million in a few short decades, it is said, because of rampant crime. We're told that the reason so many black and brown men find themselves behind bars and ushered into a permanent, second-class status is because they happen to be the bad guys.

The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years. Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades -- they are currently are at historical lows -- but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population.

The drug war has been brutal -- complete with SWAT teams, tanks, bazookas, grenade launchers, and sweeps of entire neighborhoods -- but those who live in white communities have little clue to the devastation wrought. This war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies consistently show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. In fact, some studies indicate that white youth are significantly more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth. Any notion that drug use among African Americans is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data. White youth, for example, have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African American counterparts.

That is not what you would guess, though, when entering our nation's prisons and jails, overflowing as they are with black and brown drug offenders. In some states, African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.

This is the point at which I am typically interrupted and reminded that black men have higher rates of violent crime. That's why the drug war is waged in poor communities of color and not middle-class suburbs. Drug warriors are trying to get rid of those drug kingpins and violent offenders who make ghetto communities a living hell. It has nothing to do with race; it's all about violent crime.

Again, not so. President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war in 1982, when drug crime was declining, not rising. From the outset, the war had little to do with drug crime and nearly everything to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a grand and highly successful Republican Party strategy of using racially coded political appeals on issues of crime and welfare to attract poor and working class white voters who were resentful of, and threatened by, desegregation, busing, and affirmative action. In the words of H.R. Haldeman, President Richard Nixon's White House Chief of Staff: "[T]he whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."

A few years after the drug war was announced, crack cocaine hit the streets of inner-city communities. The Reagan administration seized on this development with glee, hiring staff who were to be responsible for publicizing inner-city crack babies, crack mothers, crack whores, and drug-related violence. The goal was to make inner-city crack abuse and violence a media sensation, bolstering public support for the drug war which, it was hoped, would lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it.

The plan worked like a charm. For more than a decade, black drug dealers and users would be regulars in newspaper stories and would saturate the evening TV news. Congress and state legislatures nationwide would devote billions of dollars to the drug war and pass harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes -- sentences longer than murderers receive in many countries.

Democrats began competing with Republicans to prove that they could be even tougher on the dark-skinned pariahs. In President Bill Clinton's boastful words, "I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I'm soft on crime." The facts bear him out. Clinton's "tough on crime" policies resulted in the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. But Clinton was not satisfied with exploding prison populations. He and the "New Democrats" championed legislation banning drug felons from public housing (no matter how minor the offense) and denying them basic public benefits, including food stamps, for life. Discrimination in virtually every aspect of political, economic, and social life is now perfectly legal, if you've been labeled a felon.

Facing Facts

But what about all those violent criminals and drug kingpins? Isn't the drug war waged in ghetto communities because that's where the violent offenders can be found? The answer is yes... in made-for-TV movies. In real life, the answer is no.

The drug war has never been focused on rooting out drug kingpins or violent offenders. Federal funding flows to those agencies that increase dramatically the volume of drug arrests, not the agencies most successful in bringing down the bosses. What gets rewarded in this war is sheer numbers of drug arrests. To make matters worse, federal drug forfeiture laws allow state and local law enforcement agencies to keep for their own use 80% of the cash, cars, and homes seized from drug suspects, thus granting law enforcement a direct monetary interest in the profitability of the drug market.

The results have been predictable: people of color rounded up en masse for relatively minor, non-violent drug offenses. In 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, only one out of five for sales. Most people in state prison have no history of violence or even of significant selling activity. In fact, during the 1990s -- the period of the most dramatic expansion of the drug war -- nearly 80% of the increase in drug arrests was for marijuana possession, a drug generally considered less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and at least as prevalent in middle-class white communities as in the inner city.

In this way, a new racial undercaste has been created in an astonishingly short period of time -- a new Jim Crow system. Millions of people of color are now saddled with criminal records and legally denied the very rights that their parents and grandparents fought for and, in some cases, died for.

Affirmative action, though, has put a happy face on this racial reality. Seeing black people graduate from Harvard and Yale and become CEOs or corporate lawyers -- not to mention president of the United States -- causes us all to marvel at what a long way we've come.

Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. Nearly a quarter of African Americans live below the poverty line today, approximately the same percentage as in 1968. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that's with affirmative action!

When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our "colorblind" society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure -- the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.

This is not Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream. This is not the promised land. The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.

© 2010 TomDispatch.com
Michelle Alexander is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, 2010). The former director of the Racial Justice Project of the ACLU in Northern California, she also served as a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court. Currently, she holds a joint appointment with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. To listen to a TomCast audio interview in which Alexander explains how she came to realize that this country was bringing Jim Crow into the Age of Obama, click here.