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The Daily Reckoning | Saturday, March 9, 2013 A pending case of death-by-drone.gov, Readers weigh-in on the disheveled state of American freedom... Plus, all this week’s reckonings archived for your (hopefully) invasion-free weekend... --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally Revealed: the Proven Wealth Secret of a Reclusive Vegan For over a decade, a mild-mannered California vegan has quietly shown people how to crush Wall Street week after week. No other investment analyst can rival his success... but you’ve probably never heard of him until today. Now, in a rare and exclusive interview, he wants to share the secret with you! Discover why he’s breaking his silence... and the incredible strategy that could quickly double your money, regardless of the state of the economy! Joel Bowman, reckoning today from Buenos Aires, Argentina... Poor Rand Paul. He seems like a decent enough fellow, the kind who might stand when a lady joins the table...or sit when a CIA director enters the room. What’s he doing getting mixed up with that seedy D.C. mafia they call Congress? His father might have at least warned him. Nevertheless, the Kentucky senator has been all over the news this week. Social media feeds lit up Wednesday with messages of support for the man many see as the Libertarian Party’s next champion. The hashtag #StandWithRand flashed throughout the Twittersphere. Catchy Rand memes swept across Facebook networks. What exactly had the senator done to inspire such impassioned furor? Filibuster: n. 1. a. The use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action. b. An instance of the use of this delaying tactic. At precisely 11:47am Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul began the act of filibustering. He began talking, in other words, for a very, very long time. “I will speak until I can no longer speak,” he boldly declared. “I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.” Let it never be said that we are opposed to the use of “obstructionist tactics” to delay, preferably indefinitely, “legislative action.” But it’s time to count the chips. To be sure, the CIA’s ongoing drone campaign is a vitally important issue. We’ve reckoned on it many times in these very pages. (See here, here, here and here...for starters.) Still, one can’t help but notice how tightly confined are the terms of the “public debate”...how stymied the “discussion”...how lamentably theatrical the issue has become. Especially in the grandest theatre of them all: Congress. A few things worth noting. Senator Paul was not, in this particular instance, asking that the Obama Administration cease its relentless campaign of murder against non-US citizens on non-US soil. Nor was he here suggesting that US citizens be spared death-by-Hellfire missile should they happen to be outside the fifty states when the thunder begins. Incredibly, he was not even asking that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president rule out killing US citizens with weaponized drones in the United States “without [them] first being found to be guilty by a court.” The man was simply asking whether the State might clarify its position vis-à-vis the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out extrajudicial assassinations of innocent American citizens in their own backyard. Thursday afternoon, the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, replied to Paul’s 13-hour filibuster with a single-paragraph memo: Dear Senator Paul, It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: “Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?” The answer to that question is no. Sincerely, Eric H. Holder Jr. Curiously enough, the Attorney General’s curt response appeared to have all but satisfied Senator Paul. “I’m quite happy with the answer,” he told CNN on Thursday afternoon. “I’m disappointed it took a month and a half and a root canal to get it, but we did get the answer.” Not so fast, senator. Holder’s pithy correspondence might have been vaguely acceptable had it not contained so many conspicuously pregnant caveats, were it not perforated with conveniently malleable terms and had the issuing government not boasted an unwavering historical tendency to “creatively interpret” the letters of its own laws. Take the politically pliable phrase “engaged in combat,” for instance. It doesn’t take much effort to imagine a situation in which it might be deemed expedient for the US government to reclassify domestic political dissidents as “enemies” and, therefore, “engaged in combat.” Presumed “combatants” might include, say, those who openly embrace an anarchist philosophy, one that, by its very definition, squares them off as “enemies of the state.” Or they might simply be civilians caught in the dronefire and reclassified as combatants after the fact. If that last point sounds a bit paranoid, consider that it is exactly the same “trial by fire” process used by the Obama administration when counting the dead in Pakistan and other drone “hot spots” abroad. In May of last year, the New York Times ran a story detailing the government’s despicable accounting trickery (emphasis ours): Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. In the unlikely case that the point here is lost, let us be crystal clear: The Obama administration already retro-classifies any male aged 16-65 who happens to be killed in a drone strike abroad as a “military combatant.” After all, the government argues, why else would they be killed by a drone strike? Though we can’t imagine the posthumous exoneration of a victim to be of any succor to grieving widows and orphans, it does provide convenient political cover for thugs and murderers seeking to extend and expand their lustrously profitable drone wars. The conscientious Reckoner might well be moved to ask what kind of sick, sociopathic germ could stand behind such a heinous campaign of lies and terror. Continued the Times: This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And lo! Here we find the same Mr. Brennan, John Brennan, Obama’s trusted adviser, the man whom Senator Paul was to stand against...and whom was yesterday confirmed, by a Senate vote of 63- 34, as the brand new director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Regards, Joel Bowman, The Daily Reckoning’s Editor at Large Contact via Email: joel@dailyreckoning.com | Follow on Twitter Are You Aware of the “DC Shakedown” Over the last 48 hours a viral phenomenon has been taking place. Seems our web department couldn’t help themselves and decided to come up with their own “Harlem Shake” video...with a hilarious twist... “I laughed so hard,” one reader comments, “watched again, laughed even harder...” “That is the funniest **** I’ve seen all year,” agrees another. “Sums it all up.” “It’s good for multiple viewings,” a viewer of the short wrote soon after the blog site Zero Hedge picked it up last night. “Rat Face Timmy and Blankfein’s s^&t-eating grin, priceless... I laughed.” “Laughed my ass off,” another writes, “but the thought of some of those freaks humping is quite disturbing.” And the list goes on... The response so far has been incredible. It’s already gotten over 15,000 views on YouTube alone! Check it out for yourself right here. “Doomsday Indicator” Predicts It: One More D.C. Debt Battle Could CRASH the US Economy... But it Could Also Make You Rich. Click here to see the proof, and protect yourself before it’s too late. ALSO THIS WEEK in The Daily Reckoning... Shale, the Conquering Hero! By Dan Denning Finally! Something happened recently that had nothing to do with interest rates, monetary policy, or the currency wars! Australia’s Linc Energy’s announced that there could be a whopping $20 trillion worth of oil locked in Australian oil shale formations. The geology looks promising. That is, there is probably oil, or something very much like it trapped in the Ackargina Basin in South Australia. Gold and the Direction of Travel By Adrian Ash Yes, the real rate of interest matters to gold. But not as much as its direction...Wall Street and the City are coming to decide that gold is a sell. Because interest rates, they reason, are set to rise sooner than they used to imagine. This professional money is only half-wrong. Central banks aren’t about to hike the Why Central Planning Fails By Bill Bonner We’re still thinking about how so many smart people came to believe things that aren’t true. Krugman, Stiglitz, Friedman, Bernanke — all seem to have a simpleton’s view of how the world works. They believe they can manipulate the future and make it better. Not just for themselves, but for everyone. Where did such a silly idea come from? Rand Paul’s Drone-a-Thon By Eric Fry Senator Rand Paul conducted a 13-hour filibuster yesterday that finally ended at a little before 1:00 a.m. this morning. Are you still awake? Usually, the mere mention of the word “filibuster” induces narcolepsy...and why not? A filibuster is explicitly about doing nothing for as long as possible. Webster’s defines it as, “The use of extreme dilatory tactics in an attempt to delay or prevent action, especially in a legislative assembly.” The Very Best Advice to Ignore By Jeff Clark Every year since 2007, bank and brokerage analysts have as a group predicted that gold would fall, sometimes dramatically, over the next four-year period. That’s not merely bad advice; that’s flawlessly bad advice. Bank and brokerage analysts certainly know their sectors. But when it comes to helping you make an informed decision about where the gold market is headed, they have “a record unblemished by success,” as resource stock expert, Rick Rule, is fond of saying. How to Get 33 Branches of the US Government to “Pay” You Rent Each year, the government leases millions of square feet to house the growing federal workforce. This demand has now created a rare opportunity. By taking advantage of it, you could get 33 branches of the US government to “pay” you rent up to four times a year. These “rent checks” can be spent on anything you want, no restrictions or penalties. But the opportunity to learn about this won’t last forever. Click here to get all the details. The Weekly Endnote... And now, it’s over to a few readers for some thoughts, ideas and rumors... First up, Reckoner Guy touches base from deep in Southeast Asia... I have, and with some considerable success, managed to avoid most clubs and groupings and am greatly fortunate to experience a grand life where another might see something minimal and small, a joyous life on the banks of the Mekong with not a club in sight, and the look and feel of your anarchic heaven. Now I sense an urge, it is enough to get me to respond, first time ever, a virgin responder in a world where every news report leaves space for readers’ comments. I have to admit that there appears to be a club with a name good enough to pay the entry fee, even if it’s now at $35 and regardless of it turning to dust or taking on the robes of gold. It must surely be worth the price to be an “already boughter”. Thanks for your humour and commentary. DR: Thanks, Guy. Right back at you. As it so happens, the entry fee for the [bitcoin] “club” to which you refer is this week $45. Still, we suspect it’s long before the midnight rush. Next up, a thoughtful letter from BW, who writes from New Zealand... Well done to all of you for raising the issue of Obama’s arrogance in thinking he has the absolute right to spy on, and potentially murder, anyone within the United States of America, just because he is President. I am not a citizen of America and, some may say, have no say in your internal politics (the same could be said for America’s involvement in numerous other countries around the world, so I think we’re even!). However, as a concerned citizen of the world I believe we ALL have the right to condemn the actions of Obama. I have watched from afar at the path successive US governments have taken and am becoming increasingly worried at the implications for not just American citizens, but for citizens all around the world. Under the guise of “terrorism” your government has turned America from “the land of the free” to “the land of the feared”. They now openly terrorise their own citizens in many ways: invasive body searches at international airports (now includes domestic airports, bus & train stations); unwarranted mass “stop & search” on highways and byways across your beautiful country; army exercises within city limits; drones, CIA, FBI, Police (at all levels); spy cameras on every street corner; financial transactions; emails, etc.; the list goes on and on... Because of this, I have decided I will no longer visit your country (I have been a regular visitor over many decades, for legitimate business & vacation reasons and have travelled north to south, east to west, probably visiting far more of your country than many Americans ever will). I will not be subjected to being treated like a criminal for no other reason that your government has decided to treat EVERYONE (US Citizens included) as potential terrorists. How much longer will it be before you require a special pass to travel outside of your own city, or across state lines? How much longer before everyone is required to carry an I.D. card that must be produced, on-demand, by any and every enforcement agency? How long before citizens (and visitors) can be held, without reason or legal representation, on the whim of some petty official who has the power to order this but who, in real life, is a pathetic, ineffectual excuse for a human being? This is how the Third Reich started. This is how Communism rose and thrived in China & Russia. This... is the beginning of the end for life as we knew it. It is sad and depressing, to see that we have learned nothing from the past. All of our fathers and grandfathers who died in the two Great Wars must be turning in their graves in utter, incomprehensible disbelief, at the events of the 21st Century. Did they give their lives for nothing? Did they willingly volunteer to go to war and die for their Countries and for FREEDOM only to have it snatched away by modern day dictators? The most amazing thing about it all is... very few people in America seem to care. HOW CAN THIS BE? There should be mass demonstrations in every city, town, village and rural community, throughout the length and breadth of your once-fine country against the atrocities that are being pushed upon your citizens by your so-called “elected officials” — elected to represent you, the people, NOT to subdue you and take away your freedom and liberties. America is no longer a democracy, but rather, a “benevolent dictatorship”; even that is going to shortly disappear and be replaced by an absolute dictatorship. It has to, as it is the only logical conclusion to the path you are being led down. Terrorism takes many guises. The guise of democracy is the most terrifying of all, as most people trust in their leaders and can’t see what is happening until it is too late. Americans should ask themselves the question, “Why do these people want to harm us?” The answer is quite simple: if you push too hard, expect to be pushed back. America cannot and should not interfere in the internal politics of any sovereign nation, irrespective of any perceived threat but should, instead, protect its own borders. That attitude is very much a sixteenth to eighteenth century mindset where the world was industrialising and countries were expanding their borders as they charted the globe to provide bigger markets for their goods. The Romans were the first, and ruled most of the then known world for over four hundred years. The British followed suit and lasted for two hundred years. Did we learn nothing from this? You cannot subjugate people and not expect a reaction in response. America is trying to control countries it has no right to be involved in. Think of the reaction if these same countries tried to occupy/control the US of A? What would YOUR reaction be? Simple. Not at any price. Same goes for them. You push them, they are going to fight back — that makes them “terrorists” for protecting their own? Think about it. It should be “America, the Proud”, instead, it is “America, the Paranoid”. Help other countries in their times of difficulty, by all means, but don’t force your ideals, or controls, upon them as it will surely backfire in a most spectacular way. America was a great country. Return it to that greatness by returning to ideals of the Founding Fathers who left the tyranny of England for the freedom of the New World. Allowing your government to suppress the people and allow drones to “watch over” the people is a dangerous road to travel. Wake up, before it is too late, and let your leaders know this is unacceptable in any way, shape or form. Go back to core values, reclaim your freedom and be the “big brother” we’re all proud to know and look up to, but don’t let Big Brother take it all away from you. DR: We suspect a few Reckoners might take issue with the term “your government.” This ain’t no government of “ours,” they’ll say. It’s a government for the government, by the government and of the government. Nothing more, nor less. --- What do you reckon? Feel free to email any thoughts you have on the matter to the address below and... ..enjoy your weekend. Cheers, Joel Bowman The Daily Reckoning’s Editor at Large Contact via Email: joel@dailyreckoning.com | Follow on Twitter ---------------------------------------------------------------- Here at The Daily Reckoning, we value your questions and comments. If you would like to send us a few thoughts of your own, please address them to your Editor at Large at joel@dailyreckoning.com Additional articles and commentary from The Daily Reckoning on: Twitter Facebook DR iPhone APP The Daily Reckoning is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. To end your Daily Reckoning e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Daily Reckoning, feel free to cancel your free subscription here. By submitting your email address, you consent to Agora Financial delivering daily email issues and advertisements. Please read our Privacy Statement. For any further comments or concerns please email us at dr@dailyreckoning.com. 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