An Act to Reduce the Number of Executive Positions Subject to Senate Confirmation.
Here are the particulars of the Presidential appointments being removed from Senate approval.
Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011
Bill Summary & Status
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for Beginners
From a Solari Report Subscriber
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is the most expensive weapons program in US Defense Department history, costing almost 1.5 trillion dollars for around 25…
Paul Moore on Financial Holocaust
[CAF Note: Actually, if you estimate for the full financial coup d’etat following the GATT adoption of the Uruguay Round and the creation of the WTO combined with the “strong dollar policy,” the numbe…
Mars Rover Curiosity: Images From the Red Planet
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground. The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle sho…
The Consumer Price Index:Measuring the Changing Value of Money
Source: qrc.depaul.edu
Think back a few years. How much did a gallon of gasoline cost then? A loaf of bread? A 10 inch sausage pizza? A movie ticket? Almost undoubtedly these items now cost m…
They Say
By The Thinking Moms’ Revolution
They say high-pitched screams, fevers and swelling at the injection site are all common, harmless, insignificant side-effects of responsible, preventative medical c…
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
By Mat Honan
Meet Mat Honan. He just had his digital life dissolved by hackers.
In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted…
Please Join Me in Support of Congresswoman Kaptur
By Catherine Austin Fitts
One of the most important things we can each do is to support excellent leaders.
I have made a campaign contribution to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s (D-Ohio) campaign thi…
Brutal July Heat A New U.S. Record
By The CNN Wire Staff
The July heat wave that wilted crops, shriveled rivers and fueled wildfires officially went into the books Wednesday as the hottest single month on record for the continental …
NYSE in Talks with SEC to Settle Data Probe
[Note from CAF: What are the private contractors who manage information and payments systems for the SEC and NYSE? It is not clear to me that any agreement between the two will solve the leakage, espe…
Talk to Me, One Machine Said to the Other
By Kevin J. O’Brien
Ocado, an online grocery store in England, prides itself on its delivery of refrigerated foods: When the company says the goods will arrive at a certain temperature, they mean i…
Rover Curiosity Lands Safely: ‘Wheels down on Mars’
By Scott Gold
Curiosity, the largest and most advanced spacecraft ever sent to another planet, stuck its extraordinary landing Sunday night in triumphant and flawless fashion, and is poised to begi…
HNC’s Military-Industrial Context
By Phyllis D. James of Synthetic Thinking
James Eagen Holmes’ interest in synthetic thinking, more commonly known as artificial intelligence, was handed down to him by his father, Robert Milton Holme…
Insight from Europe
By an American Traveler
So my family and I recently traveled to Germany and Switzerland during the last five weeks. It gave me a really different perspective, as I expected, but not in the directio…
Lesta Frank Workshop: Painting Faces in Watercolor
By Lesta Frank
When: Saturday, August 11 , 10:00- 4:00 and Sunday, August 13, 11:00-5:00
Sign up for one or both days.
Where: Lesta’s studio, 135 Evans Ave, San Antonio, TX
Bring:
1. Your own photo…
Donald Trump is Trumped: The Film he Does NOT Want You to See.
YouTube
July 26, 2012
Related reading:
youvebeentrumped.com
Economic Resurrection for My Neighbors at Easter Time
[CAF Note: I originally published this is April 2003. I am republishing as we explore ideas to rebuild income and employment.]
“Arise, shine: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is ris…
IRS Missing Billions in ID Theft
By Josh Lederman
Washington – The Internal Revenue Service may have delivered more than $5 billion in refund checks to identity thieves who filed fraudulent tax returns for 2011, Treasury Departmen…
Cybercrime: Black Hat Edition
By Willie Jones
How secure do you feel about the wireless router you use at home? Maybe more than you should. Researchers at AppSec Consulting Inc., in San Jose, Calif., reported new vulnerabilitie…
Transformations & Renewals – October 12-14 in Tennessee
Every day Franklin Sanders and I meet and work with great people—people who are hard working and industrious, people who take time to care for others—their family, their communities, their co…
CA CAFR: Parks Dept. ‘Found’ $54 Million, $2.3 Billion More Now ‘Found;’ Full $600 Billion Next?
By Carl Herman
For five weeks I journalistically hammered that California’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) reveals $600 billion in surplus taxpayer assets, and the various local gov…
Control Files
By Catherine Austin Fitts
A “control file” is a private record that contains secret information or pictures that are the basis of threatening and blackmailing a person. Perhaps the most famous histor…
The US Garbage Indicator Is Sending An Ominous Sign For The Economy
Among the 21 categories of items shipped by rail, none have a tighter correlation to GDP than waste.
According to a 2010 piece on Bloomberg, economists Michael McDonough and Carl Riccadonna note th…
EU may criminalize commodities price distortion
Reuters 26 July 2012
By Barbara Lewis
Manipulating international commodity benchmarks such as Brent crude oil would be a criminal offence, punishable by jail, under a set of reforms the EU Commissi…
The Greater Good Movie
THE GREATER GOOD looks behind the fear, hype and politics that have polarized the vaccine debate in America today. The film re-frames the emotionally charged issue and offers, for the first time, …
Letters from Fleurette: December 2011
Dear Catherine,
You have been very much in my thoughts and prayer as I anticipate writing to celebrate your birthday.
I am deeply aware that this is your first birthday since Georgie’s death. This…
Travel Changes You
“I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesti…
The Man Nobody Knew
[Note from Catherine Austin Fitts: I disagree with the conclusion of this new documentary. IMO, Bill Colby was most certainly assassinated. Whatever, the truth of his death, this new documentary …
Living History
~originally published in 2006~
By Catherine Austin Fitts
I resisted learning real history for many years. Instead I satisfied my curiosity about the past with the socially acceptable versio…
Stockton Reveals Bondholder Offers From Mediation
By Stephen Church
Stockton, one of a growing number of California cities in financial collapse, said it asked bondholders and other lenders owed more than $300 million to take less than full repaym…
A Sneaky Way to Control Guns
Travelers Today 20 July 2012
By John Bolton, July 18th
Gun-control advocates and the Obama administration are rushing to complete negotiations in New York on a proposed international agreement call…
Marc Dann (Former Ohio Attorney General) Was Shafted, IMHO
By a Reader
Even though he may not be a very good lawyer. I assumed (incorrectly, it appears) from news accounts that Dann was corrupt and that the case against him had a modicum of legitimacy. T…
Some Sideways Thinking About Cyberwarfare
By Tim O’Reilly
When we hear the term “cyberwarfare” we think of government-backed hackers stealing data, or releasing viruses or other software exploits to disrupt another country’s capabiliti…
Where the Money Went
Source: tax justice network
Revealed: global super-rich has at least $21 trillion hidden in secret tax havens.
At least $21 trillion of unreported private wealth was owned by wealthy individuals v…
Shock Doctrine: Clinton Prepares Greek Shopping Trip
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is meeting with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to discuss foreign investment in Greece.
Clinton is in Greece to promote the “Hellenic Initiative,” an initia…
Genetically Modified Human Babies: Early Reports and Disorders… And Patent Possibilities
By Joseph P. Farrell
Both alchemy and transhumanism aim for the transformation of mankind. There, perhaps, all resemblance ends (though, as my co-author Scott D. de Hart and I point out in the fort…
California Parks Department Finds $54-Million Surplus
[Note from Catherine Austin Fitts: Keep an eye out for fire sale leasing and transfer of valuable state assets to insiders at below market prices on the pretext of budget woes. Some smart folks in Cal…
A Conversation about the Popsicle Index
[CAF Note: I first published this in 1999. I thought I would update it and republish.]
By Catherine Austin Fitts
When I was a child, the way our neighborhood would figure things out was by sitting o…
Catherine’s Latest Kiva Loan (July 2012)
Nazih is a 55-year-old married man and father of four children. He has more than 35 years of unique experience in agriculture with a deep knowledge in the growing of various products and plant root…
DARPA: Biofuel From Algae Could Cost Only $1 Per Gallon
By Michael Hoven
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an office of the US Department of Defense, will soon be producing jet fuel made from algae at a price comparable to that of p…
Consciousness Beyond Chemtrails
The Largest Stand Ever Against Chemtrails
August 17th – 19th , 2012Live Conference in LA & Global WebcastEbell Theatre743 S Lucerne BlvdLos Angeles, CA 90010323-931-1277
15 Experts in Chemt…
LIBOR Scandal: Let’s Play 20 Questions
Art by William Banzai
By Catherine Austin Fitts, Published July 12
Basic Facts:
LIBOR = London Interbank Offered Rate See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor
LIBOR is an estimate set daily in L…
Libor Rigging: The Tip of the Iceberg
By Rob Kirby
GATA was born in the late 1990’s – primarily on the back of fundamental research by Frank Veneroso regarding Central Bank Gold Leasing. Veneroso’s intellectual curiosity was arouse…
U.S. Drought Worst Since Mid-’50s
The Seattle Times 17 July 2012
By Jim Suhr and Steve Karnowski
The Associated Press
The nation’s widest drought in decades is spreading, with more than half of the continental United States in some…
The Singapore Dollar
Our favorite substitute for the euro while we ride out the storm in the Eurozone is the Singapore dollar. While commodity currencies might be prime beneficiaries of the increased trigger friendline…
Insights From Ingo Swann
Ingo Swan
“It’s unkind to point out the Obvious
To those who don’t want to see it.
But it’s worse to point out the Invisible
To those convinced it doesn’t exist.”
“What, When, and Who are important…
A Day Made of Glass
Watch “A Day Made of Glass” and take a look at Corning’s vision for the future with specialty glass at the heart of it.
Letters from Fleurette: Mary’s Mosaic
[ CAF Note: I have asked Fleurette to allow me to publish her letters to me for subscribers.Fleurette is a dear friend, subscribe and force of nature from Vancouver, British Columbia.]
Dear Catheri…
Dozens of Genetically Modified Babies Already Born – How Will They Alter Human Species?
By Dr. Mercola
When I first read that genetically modified humans have already been born, I could hardly believe it. However, further research into this story featured in the UK’s Daily Mail1 prove…
2012: Pain Killers Outperform Precious Metals
Source: Yahoo Finance
click on the image for a larger version
Continue reading the article . . .
The Real Deal on Outsourcing
By Peter Morici
No issue is more misunderstood, or been more purposefully confused by the Romney and Obama campaigns, than outsourcing.
Outsourcing is merely the importing side of international tra…
If You Have Guns, Who Needs Banks?
By Staff Writers
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) is considering launching its own bank to better manage its accounts, the new chief of subsidiary Airbus said in an intervie…
Market Savior? Stocks Might Be 50% Lower Without Fed
By John Melloy
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that the bulk of equity returns for more than a decade are due to actions by the US central bank.
Theoretically, the S&P …
Ordinary Americans Lose Political Influence
By Barry Ritholtz
by JLMC. Browse more data visualizations.
Continue reading the article . . .
Branson’s Virgin Galactic ‘Spaceship’ in UK Debut
By Graham Ruddick
Speaking at the Farnborough Airshow, Sir Richard said Virgin Galactic wants to “revolutionise the way we get to space” and that he and his children will be the first passenger…
Seeds of Freedom
The story of seed has become one of loss, control, dependence and debt. It’s been written by those who want to make vast profit from our food system, no matter what the true cost. It’s time to c…
“Frightening Factoid”
Wal-Mart now sells to the citizens of the United States more than one-fifth of their food, which is more than the combined sales of its three largest competitors.
Related reading:
Walmart
From Wikip…
UFOs Over The UK
(CAF Note: Is the LIBOR scandal sufficiently frustrating that the UK Defense establishment thought we needed some light reading for the weekend?)
By Ed Krayewski
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of…
Lloyds Could Face £1.5bn Claim Over Libor
Lloyds Banking Group could have to pay out more than £1bn over claims it was involved in the manipulation of Libor, according to City analysts.
By Harry Wilson, Banking Correspondent
Lloyds Bank…
Mandelman Matters, with Catherine Austin Fitts: LBO AMERICA
“Catherine Austin Fitts has perspective on the housing and mortgage meltdown like no other. Under President George Herbert Walker Bush, she was Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Com…
The Post-Employee Economy
[click on the image for a larger version]
By Conor Sen
Robots have come to destroy our way of life, just as we saw in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, though not as we expected. They’re taking our jobs,…
Oil: The Next Revolution
Published by Harvard University
Whatever the future, the analysis reported in this paper reveals some important points:
• Oil is not in short supply. From a purely physical point of view, ther…
Stanley Sporkin: We Globalized the Jobs While Issuing More Debt
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin talk about the JOBS Act
Judge Stanley Sporkin
Stanley Sporkin (born February 7, 1932) is a former judge of the United States District Court for the District of Col…
Healthcare Spending Around the World, Country by Country
How do healthcare costs compare around the world? Photograph: Alamy
By Simon Rogers
The US spends more than any other country in the world on healthcare – but how does it really compare? Every count…
U.S. to Open Regional U.S. Patent Offices: Dallas, Denver, Detroit & Silicon Valley
By Sarah Horowitz
For the First Time, USPTO Will Expand Operations Outside Washington, DC, to Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley, in Addition to Detroit, Which Opens July 13
“Intellectual proper…
Andy Griffith, 6/1/1926 – 7/3/2012
Andy Griffith, who made homespun Southern wisdom his trademark as the wise sheriff in “The Andy Griffith Show” and the rumpled defense lawyer in “Matlock,” died Tuesday. He was 86.
Continue reading t…
The Rotten Heart of Finance
[click on the image for a larger version]
Source: The Economics
A scandal over key interest rates is about to go global.
THE most memorable incidents in earth-changing events are sometimes the mos…
Solving Mortgage Fraud With Fraud
[ CAF Note: We created a mortgage bubble by fraudulent means. When the bubble burst, we solved the banks problem with fraudulent means at taxpayers expense. Now the question is if and how will we …
NAFTA on Steroids
Farmers from Miyagi prefecture raise their fists along with other farmers from across Japan during a rally against Japan participating in rule-making negotiations for the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partne…
Denmark Financing at Negative Interest Rates
By John Acher and Ole Mikkelsen
* Central bank cuts main policy rate by 25 bps to 0.20 pct
* Cuts CD rate by 25 bps to negative 0.20 pct
* Keeps current account rate unchanged at 0.0 pct
* Lifts cu…
What is the Higgs Boson?
By Soren Dreier
Scientists at Cern, the Geneva-based European laboratory for particle physics, are revealing their latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson.
Video
the guardian…
Collaborative Consumption
A social and economic system driven by network technologies that enable the sharing and exchange of all kinds of assets from spaces to skills to cars in ways and on a scale never possible before
Abou…
Right to Know Label GMO Foods
Stand Up For Your Right To Know
The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act of 2012
We All Have a Right to Know What’s in Our Food
Consumers have a right to know what’s …
Higgs Boson Fever Fills Cern With 24-hour Particle People
The home of the Large Hadron Collider is hot with excitement about what two teams of physicists will report this week
By Ian Sample
The teams have been searching for the Higgs boson using the giant…
Landing Looms for Mars Probe
By Robert Lee Hotz
The biggest and best-equipped robotic rover ever launched to another planet is hurtling toward a rendezvous with Mars, in a $2.5 billion mission that tests the engineering limits…
Glencore Whac-a-mole
Anyone notice a pattern?
By Ben Deighton
A Belgian court convicted a subsidiary of commodities trader Glencore (GLEN.L) and others on Wednesday of bribing a European Union official in retur…
Obama Has a Good Day, But Liberty Has a Bad One
By Peggy Noonan
It is a big victory for the White House.
ObamaCare, including the insurance mandate, was upheld. What would have been a political disaster for President Obama has been averted. He …
Is This The Next Bubble?
By Chuck Gibson
Buried underneath last week’s news about the Supreme Court’s ruling on “Obamacare”, the House of Representatives passed a transportation bill that included an extension of the…
DOJ: Eliminating Marijuana Competition In California
[CAF Note: When John Gotti, Jr. was asked by the press whether or not the Gotti crime family was trafficking in narcotics, he denied the allegation saying “who can compete with the government?” My r…
Hubble Ultra Deep Field 3D
Source: Flixxy.com
What happens when you point the Hubble Space Telescope to a seemingly blank patch of sky? A view that takes you to the edge of the universe!
Continue reading the article . ….
Obama’s Health-Care Overhaul Upheld by U.S. Supreme Court
[CAF Note: I don’t love Obamacare!]
By Greg Stohr
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the core of President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul in an opinion that held two surprises: Chief Justice J…
Federal Court Affirms Significant New Powers for EPA
[CAF Note: I’m a skeptic. Get ready for this to be seriously misused]
A federal court decision on Tuesday upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark rulings to control greenhouse ga…
Regulators to Classify Gold as Zero-Risk Asset?
Image: Stuart Niles / freedigitalphotos.net *
By John Butler
In what might be the most underreported financial story of the year, US banking regulators recently circulated a memorandum for comment,…
Medical Terrorism’s on the Prowl
[Note from CAF: Here it comes again. A new effort to push pandemics and vaccines. If ever there is a sign of real weakness in the global economy, medical terrorism is it. For more on swine flu, che…
Radical Openness
Photo: James Duncan Davidson
Source: TED
In pictures, quotes and more.
As the world becomes interconnected, the ways we relate and learn about one another (and the rules about what we share…
Iceland De-zombifies-While Americans Fork Over $14 billion a Year for JPMorgan Salaries
By Dave Gonigam
Hooray for Iceland. The nation has effectively purged an entire class of zombies.
Late on Friday, the Icelandic government repaid $483.7 million in loans to the International Moneta…
Pentagon Lists 110 Potential Drone Bases in U.S.
[click on the image for a larger version
By Steven Aftergood
The Department of Defense has identified 110 sites in the United States that could serve as bases for military unmanned aerial systems …
The World at War, $20 at a Time
by Catherine Austin Fitts
In April, I dropped into the Verizon Store in Corte Madera, California. I was headed to Portugal. My iPhone did not work globally. On my last few trips to Europe, Verizon ha…
Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership
From Wikipedia
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), also known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, is a multilateral free trade agreement that aims to further liberalize…
Million Dollar Blocks
[CAF Note: Like Curtis Mayfield sang, “It’s like one way in and no way out.”]
By Spatial Information Design Labs
The United States currently has more than 2 million people locked up in jails and p…
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
By Adam Curtis
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a series about how humans have been colonised by the machines they have built — “Although we don’t realise it, the way we see ev…
Consumer Credit Impaired By Under-45 Job, Debt Woes
By Jed Graham
Nearly four years after a borrowing binge gave way to financial crisis, have households slashed enough debt to take on new credit and start spending again?
Continue reading the artic…
GMO Myths and Truths
Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the GM crop industry and its supporters. They say that GM crops:
Are an extension of natural bree…
Family Net Worth Plummets Nearly 40%
By Charles Riley
The average American family’s net worth dropped almost 40% between 2007 and 2010, according to a triennial study released Monday by the Federal Reserve.
[click on the image for a l…
U.S. and Switzerland Reach Deal on Sharing of Financial Account Data
By David Jolly
Paris — Washington gained another victory on Thursday in its push to extend surveillance over Americans’ financial dealings when Switzerland joined the list of countries that hav…
Centralization Has Failed
By Charles Hugh Smith of two minds.com
The Master Narrative Nobody Dares Admit
All centralized systems, open and shadow alike, act as heavy taxes on the society and economy. This is why they canno…
Bank Investors Dismiss Moody’s Cuts as Years Too Late
By Dakin Campbell and Michael J. Moore
Moody’s Investors Service suffered a downgrade of its own as markets responded to the company’s rating cuts yesterday of 15 of the world’s largest bank…