TANYA SOMANADER, - Think Progress
Stephan: A sure sign of fascism is the drive to control and limit media access. Go back and read any history of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco.
As the backlash against the GOP’s plan to end Medicare grows, so does the attempt to block reporters from covering it. As ThinkProgress has reported, several Republicans are clamping down on citizen journalists at their events. But this weekend, the Tea Party of West Michigan took this to the next level.
At the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids Saturday evening, the Tea Party group hosted a fireside chat with Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) for Tea Party supporters. The event was not open to the public, though numerous senior citizens were told the event was a town hall and were turned away at the door. A few seniors gathered outside on the sidewalk to discuss the various issues they had hoped to discuss with Amash, including their disapproval of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare privatization plan. While seniors spoke with ThinkProgress and a reporter from the Michigan Messenger, organizers from the Tea Party group called campus security, summoning eight officers to force six seniors and two reporters off the premises.
According to security, the people who called them said the seniors had thrown things at the Tea Party organizers. Watch it:
According to multiple members inside, no objects were ever […]
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PAUL KRUGMAN, Nobel Laureate - Op-Ed Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: I agree with this assessment, and continue to believe that the financial crisis is far from over because governments in many countries, including the U.S. are still enthrall to profit as the only priority, and spending cuts as the only strategy. This has been shown to be completely wrong, but facts don't matter when ideology lights your way.
I often complain, with reason, about the state of economic discussion in the United States. And the irresponsibility of certain politicians – like those Republicans claiming that defaulting on U.S. debt would be no big deal – is scary.
But at least in America members of the pain caucus, those who claim that raising interest rates and slashing government spending in the face of mass unemployment will somehow make things better instead of worse, get some pushback from the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration.
In Europe, by contrast, the pain caucus has been in control for more than a year, insisting that sound money and balanced budgets are the answer to all problems. Underlying this insistence have been economic fantasies, in particular belief in the confidence fairy – that is, belief that slashing spending will actually create jobs, because fiscal austerity will improve private-sector confidence.
Unfortunately, the confidence fairy keeps refusing to make an appearance. And a dispute over how to handle inconvenient reality threatens to make Europe the flashpoint of a new financial crisis.
After the creation of the euro in 1999, European nations that had previously been considered risky, and that therefore faced limits on the amount they could borrow, began […]
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NATHAN KOPPEL, - The Wall Street Journal
Stephan: In the end Justice Prosser wins. This will have long term judicial consequences, because of his judgments. But as a measure of the political trend it shows clearly that there is a shift in the zeitgeist.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Republican David Prosser and his Democratic challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg practically had more twists and turns than Bush v. Gore.
Click here for LB background on the nail-biter race that was considered a proxy for the state electorate’s views on the recent legislation limiting the rights of unions to organize.
The final vote tally last month left Prosser ahead by about 7,300 votes. After a recount, Prosser’s lead fell to 7,004 votes, out of 1.5 million votes cast, prompting the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board today to certify Prosser the winner, AP reports.
‘I look forward to taking the oath of office and continuing to serve in a fair and independent manner as a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,
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JOSH LOFTIN, - The Associated Press
Stephan: This is a quite disturbing part of the growing States Rights trend. The regulation of currency the Founders saw as one of the most fundamental duties of the Federal government, and wrote it into Clauses 5 and 6 of the Constitution.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah legislators want to see the dollar regain its former glory, back to the days when one could literally bank on it being ‘as good as gold.’
To make that point, they’ve turned it around, and made gold as good as cash. Utah became the first state in the country this month to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. The law also will exempt the sale of the coins from state capital gains taxes.
Craig Franco hopes to cash in on it with his Utah Gold and Silver Depository, and he thinks others will soon follow.
The idea is simple: Store your gold and silver coins in a vault, and Franco issues a debit-like card to make purchases backed by your holdings.
He plans to open for business June 1, likely the first of its kind in the country.
‘Because we’re dealing with something so forward thinking, I expect a wait-and-see attitude,’ Franco said. ‘Once the depository is executed and transactions can occur, then I think people will move into the marketplace.’
The idea was spawned by Republican state Rep. Brad Galvez, who sponsored the bill largely to serve as a protest against Federal Reserve monetary policy. Galvez says Americans […]
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DOMINIC BASULTO, - big think
Stephan: This could get very interesting, if it gets traction.
The same people who brought you Wikileaks are back, and this time, they’ve created a virtual currency called Bitcoin that could destabilize the entire global financial system. Bitcoin is an open-source virtual currency generated by a computer algorithm that is completely beyond the reach of financial intermediaries, central banks and national tax collectors. Bitcoins could be used to purchase anything, at any time, from anyone in the world, in a transaction process that it is almost completely frictionless. Yes, that’s right, the hacktivists now have a virtual currency that’s untraceable, unhackable, and completely Anonymous.
And that’s where things start to get interesting. Veteran tech guru Jason Calacanis recently called Bitcoin the most dangerous open source project he’s ever seen. TIME suggested that Bitcoin might be able to bring national governments and global financial institutions to their knees. You see, Bitcoin is as much a political statement as it is a virtual currency. If you think there’s a shadow banking system now, wait a few more months. The political part is that, unlike other virtual currencies like Facebook Credits (used to buy virtual sock puppets for your friends), Bitcoins are globally transferrable across borders, making them the perfect instrument to finance any […]
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