Daily Archives: December 14, 2012

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Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke | Matt Taibbi

If you’ve ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you’ve ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or “drug paraphernalia” in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who’s ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a “record” financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

Continued:

via Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke | | Rolling Stone.

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QE 4: Folks, This Ain’t Normal – What You Need To Know About The Fed’s Latest Move | ZeroHedge

Submitted by Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity

QE 4: Folks, This Ain’t Normal

What you need to know about the Fed’s latest move

via QE 4: Folks, This Ain’t Normal – What You Need To Know About The Fed’s Latest Move | ZeroHedge.

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Nobel Peace Prize: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and two other laureates say European Union is not worthy of being given the award | Mail Online

Desmond Tutu has contested the decision to award the prize to the European Union in an open letter to the Nobel Committee

Fellow Peace Prize laureates Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Perez Esquivel also signed the letter, which insisted the EU was not a ‘champion of peace’

The trio said the $1.2million prize money should not be paid out to the bloc, which they claim contradicts the values associated with the prize

The decision to award the prize to the EU in a year marked by rioting amid the ongoing Eurozone crisis has already been widely derided

More:

via Nobel Peace Prize: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and two other laureates say European Union is not worthy of being given the award | Mail Online.

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As Admin Preps “Enduring Presence” in Afghanistan, Peace Activists Build Ties to War Victims – YouTube

Published on Dec 14, 2012

DemocracyNow.org – While the U.S. military is preparing to extend what is already the nation’s longest war, new ties are emerging between the peace movement here and in Afghanistan. The group “Afghan Peace Volunteers” recently invited international peace activists to help launch a campaign called “2 Million Friends for Peace in Afghanistan,” a nod to the number of Afghans killed in the last four decades of war and occupation. We’re joined by two U.S. peace activists recently back from Afghanistan: Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel and former U.S. diplomat who helped oversee the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan in 2001; and John Dear, a Catholic priest and longtime peace activist who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Ben Saunders: Why bother leaving the house? – YouTube

Published on Dec 14, 2012

Explorer Ben Saunders wants you to go outside! Not because it’s always pleasant and happy, but because that’s where the meat of life is, “the juice that we can suck out of our hours and days.” Saunders’ next outdoor excursion? To try to be the first in the world to walk from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back again.

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Keiser Report: Whammies of Wall St. Witches (E378) – YouTube

Published on Dec 11, 2012

In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert look at the latest BIS warning of a global credit bubble caused by zero percent interest rate policies meant to appease the angry hidden people in the shadow banking system. In the second half, Max Keiser talks to David Smith of GenevaBusinessInsider.blogspot.com about the Swiss currency peg, the global game of honesty limbo in the financial sector and hoping that midnight never comes for Alice in Switzer-land.