Germinal: News of the Day

Rolling Stone interview with Ron Paul. Ignore the potshots in the intro stating that Paul has "a goofy nostalgia for the gold standard," (wanting our paper money to be backed by something real is goofy?) and "a medieval view on abortion," (he is pro-life, but he would not use federal power to repeal Roe v. Wade, favoring leaving the decision up to the individual states as per the....Constitution of the United States of America). I'm a little surprised a publication like Rolling Stone, who still has a shred of credibility would throw crap like that in, but I think all major publications are required to take shots at him before publishing what he has to say, which is, of course, 100% correct.

George W. Bush still hasn't made a mistake as President. Or at least, he can't think of one. Funny, with all the bafflingly stupid decisions made by the White House since Bush took over, it's still impossible for anyone within the administration to name one. I'm surprised he didn't just go with the standard "I can't comment on that due to national security," or "I don't fully understand the question, so I can't answer it," like we've heard over and over lately from Alberto Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove et al.

The Airline Terrorist Hoax. Makes sense, don't it? Think about this next time you're singled out for an "extra security check" by TSA.

Huge bailout coming for Citigroup. Yep, another billion dollar bailout is on it's way, courtesy of good ol' you and me! Though the writer makes a good point about the fact that the shareholders should have to pay for this, you KNOW that is not about to happen. The taxpayers are going to be stuck with this, just like we were after the Savings and Loan scandal. Citigroup made some bad decisions by buying up Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) at the same time that Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM's) were being promoted hard to the poor and middle class by the Government, the Federal Reserve (not actually a Federal institution, remember) and tons of mortgage/investment firms. Citigroup bought up a ton of the debt that had been taken on via ARM's by the poor and middle class, and now that it turns out a large percentage of those debts can't be paid back (surprise, surprise), Citigroup stands to lose billions of dollars. Instead of letting this happen, the Government will bail them out (a friend of my who works at the Fed called it a "Too big to fail scenario,") and there is a 99.9% chance they'll do it with our tax dollars. So, here's the breakdown: Citigroup makes a bad decision by buying up assets that end up failing and instead of making money on what they bought, they stand to lose billions. But, instead of having to pay the debilitating circumstances since they are one of the world's biggest banks, those costs are going to be foisted on the taxpayers, the same people that Citigroup was trying to make money off of when they bought up RMBS in the first place. Sounds fair, huh?

What We Choose To Ignore: A rundown of Executive Orders that effectively strip American Citizens of all their rights if the President declares and undefined "State of Emergency." This is pretty chilling stuff, and if you're somebody whose been paying attention to the viral rumors regarding the possibility of an American Police State, here's confirmation that it's possible. If you haven't been paying attention to stuff like this, well, now is the time.

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier." Yes, that is a quote from George W. Bush in December of 2000. Another video highlighting our loss of freedom and our spiral towards authoritarian rule.