Rand Paul Tries to Have Abby Martin Fired From RT For Daring To Ask Him Questions

Federal Jack
Popeye

(WAC NYC) Luke Rudkowski talks with Abby Martin of MediaRoots.org and RT about U.S. Senator Rand Paul’s attempt to get her arrested and stripped of her press credentials for asking him tough questions in the Capitol building. A week after our video with Abby Martin came out on YouTube, the RT office, where Abby works, got an ominous phone call from the Senate Media Relations Committee. The Committee was acting on behalf of Rand Paul and threatened both Abby and the entire RT news organization. The threats included ambiguous “charges” for violating the rules of the Committee floor, Abby’s possible arrest and the termination of her and the entire office’s press credentials. After a month of meetings and deliberation, the Senate Media Relations office backed down and did not make good on any of their threats.

Rand and Ron Paul denounce net neutrality and the public domain

BoingBoing
Cory Doctorow

Rand and Ron Paul have penned an Internet Freedom manifesto that is pretty terrible. It pans the idea of net neutrality, arguing that the phone companies who receive gigantic government handouts in the form of cheap (or free) rights of ways and hold natural monopolies over our connectivity should be able to use that government largesse to run a protection racket in which any website that doesn't pay for "premium carriage" will be slowed down when you or I try to visit them. They also denounce the public domain as a collectivist plot, and argue that government monopolies over knowledge should be extended, and that tax-dollars should be used to enforce them. TechDirt's Mike Masnick has some choice words for the Pauls:

To them, any support of a neutral internet must be about "coercive state actions" and "collective rule" over "privately owned broadband high-speed infrastructure." This makes me curious if the Pauls spoke out against the billions and billions in subsidies and rights of way grants that the government provided the telcos and cable providers to build their networks. Once again, I am against regulating net neutrality -- because it's obvious that the telcos will control that process and the regulations will favor them against the public -- but pretending that broadband infrastructure is really "privately owned" when so much of it involved tax-payer-funded subsidies and rights of way is being in denial.
Then there's the following, where they claim that these evil "collectivists" want to limit "private property rights on the internet" and are saying that "what is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded." Considering the Pauls were both instrumental in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, you would think that the two of them understood how copyright law is massively abused and how beneficial the public domain is. But apparently not. To them it's all part of this "collectivist" plot. Earth to the Pauls: copyright is a massive government-granted monopoly privilege. That's the kind of thing we thought you were against, not for. In this document, you seem to be arguing for one of the largest programs in the world of a centralized government handing out private monopoly privileges.

Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan Exposed as Bilderberg Genocide, and Libertarian Anarchism Refuted

IRAN MUST COMPLY OR ELSE...: Obama gives Green Light for Punishing Economic Sanctions on Iran

Global Research

Bill Van Auken

 

President Barack Obama has issued the green light for punishing new US economic sanctions directed at forcing the Iranian government to submit to Western pressure over its nuclear program by starving the country of oil revenues.

These new sanctions, which go into effect on June 28, aim to impose a warlike blockade of the Iranian economy by penalizing any government or private entity that carries out financial transactions with the country’s central bank.

Western Europe is preparing its own new sanctions, which are to include a European embargo on Iranian oil purchases, beginning in July.

The official memorandum authorizing the US sanctions affirmed, as required by the legislation creating them, that given existing oil supplies internationally, “the market can continue to accommodate” the cutting off of petroleum from Iran.

The theory is that Saudi Arabia can make up the difference in reduced oil supplies from Iran, and that in an emergency, the US and other oil consuming countries could tap into their strategic reserves. However, such safeguards may well prove ineffective in the face of a speculative bidding up of oil prices under conditions in which the margin of excess supply has been significantly reduced. The effect could prove a dizzying rise in gasoline prices, spelling sharp reductions in living standards internationally and the threat of an intensified economic downturn.

The ratcheting up of US sanctions came together with confirmation that the so-called P5+1 talks on Iran’s nuclear program are to be renewed in the middle of this month. The talks include the Iranian government together with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the US, Britain, China, France and Russia—plus Germany.

Senator Rand Paul Wants FBI Director Robert Mueller to Respond to Some Questions Before His Re-Confirmation

9/11 Blogger

"Why did FBI supervisors and lawyers block the search warrant sought by field agents in Minnesota who believed that Zacarias Moussaoui was a terrorist who might use a commercial airplane as a weapon in the weeks before September 11th? Why did the so--called "Phoenix memo," written by FBI agent Kenneth Williams in July of 2001, which warned of an unusual number of young Arab men seeking flight training in the U.S., never reach the highest levels of the FBI? Was anyone ever disciplined, fired, or their career ended for these errors in judgment?"

Here's a link to Senator Rand Paul's letter:

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/216473-rand-paul-letter-to-f-b-i-director-robert-mueller.html

Related:

9/11 Isn't Going Away

Shock employment figures: Fewer than 46% of Americans have jobs

Raw Story
David Edward

The percentage of Americans who have jobs has fallen to the lowest point in three decades and now hovers just above 45 percent of the total population, according to an analysis of labor data published by USA Today.

The report, based on figures provided by the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that at 36.7 percent, Mississippi had the lowest percentage of population working.

Employment rates were also low in California and Arizona, where just over 37 percent had jobs. At 55.8 percent, North Dakota had the highest rate of employed residents.

Overall, 45.4 percent of Americans were working, the lowest since 1983. Employment peaked at 49.3 percent in 2000.

"The bad economy, an aging population and a plateau in women working are contributing to changes that pose serious challenges for financing the nation's social programs," the paper noted.

The news comes at a time when Republican senators have unveiled a plan to raise the retirement age, which would force more Americans to search for jobs that just aren't there.

Freshman tea party-backed Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) -- along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- have joined the call, seeking to raise the retirement age to 70 in the next 20 years.

"If you talk to young people in America - they've already accepted this," Paul said Wednesday.

USA Today featured an interactive chart showing every individual state's total employment figures. Click here for the whole article.