SAR #14177

Our war against the jihadists is not nearly as important as the one we are waging against ourselves.

In Defense Of... Obama is looking for $500 million to send to the “moderate” armed rebels in Syria, as opposed to the ISIS type. Chump change, in more ways than one.

Criminal Conspiracy: The Supremes have ruled that Presidents Reagan (240 times), Bush I (77), Clinton (139), Bush Junior (171) and The Current Guy (32) all violated the Constitution repeatedly by making recess appointments when the Senate was pretending not to be in recess. The Republicans view this as a victory, but their relentless obstructionism that lead to Obama's few recess appointments were what drove Harry Reid to change the 'consent' requirement from 60 votes to a simple majority – thus neutering GOP's long-standing gambit.

Essay Question: Will the world's food system collapse from global warming, pesticide abuse, or GM crops?

Nag, Nag, Nag: Soon your doctor or your insurance company will call you up and remind you to get down to the gym because your attendance has been dropping off, or to lecture you about the size of your liquor bill, or for buying those cigarettes at the Grab and Run yesterday. It's called data mining, and they are doing it a) to protect your health and/or b) to increase their profits. Pick one.

Serving And Protecting: In Massachusetts, smaller police departments band together to collectively form SWAT teams. They incorporate these outfits as 501(c)3 tax exempt organizations and claim that this protects them from having to tell the citizenry anything about their training, use, or expenses. Sure they are cops, carry guns, have the power to arrest, injure or kill you, and draw a public paycheck, but they are also immune to requests for any information about them and thus any supervision by their supposed employers.

Where Housed? Over $15 billion in Chinese loans were (are?) backed by falsified gold transactions – either the gold doesn't exist or has been pledged multiple times. This goes along with the empty warehouses at Qingdao Port where it appears that copper and aluminum stockpiles may have been seriously over-used as collateral.

Headline of the Day: Greed Drove Barclays to Lie to Clients. Well, that explains it. 
 
Trading Secrets: The Red Cross says that giving money is your job, spending it is theirs. They don't ask you where you got your money and they are damned well not going to tell you where they spent it. It's a 'trade secret', as is how much they are paying their lawyers to keep it that way.

Porn O'Graph: Chickens, roosting.

The Parting Shot: