Eeyores News and a View

Sheriff Joe makes the news again
Protest against Sheriff's immigration policy heats up
Reported by: Tony Arranaga
PHOENIX -- Tensions rose between two large groups of protesters in downtown Phoenix on Saturday afternoon.
At issue, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's stand on immigration and his policy to detain undocumented immigrants.
A group of about 1,000 people turned out to march from Steele Indian School Park, along Central Avenue to protest Arpaio's practices.
According to Sheriff's Office spokesman Doug Matteson, one man was cited for carrying a concealed weapon after he made verbal threats against Arpaio. He reportedly was also carrying handcuffs and a Los Angeles police department badge.
Deputies are investigating whether the man was permitted to carry the handgun.
The route continued downtown to the Wells Fargo building where Arpaio's offices are located. There is no word on whether the Sheriff was there.
The mostly-peaceful march suddenly turned tense, as a group of Arpaio supporters numbering in the hundreds began to shout at protestors along their route.
Phoenix police officers were posted along the route to keep both sides safe.
“We are excited to see such a strong and peaceful showing of opposition to the wrong-headed policies of Sheriff Joe Arpaio,” Salvador Reza of Puente said in a news release after the march. “... 5,000 marched today to make sure that the abuses that we’ve suffered under for far too long move from the local to being dealt with on the national level as well.”
Arpaio said that if the feds want to change the laws, he's still got two state laws on the books to support his efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants.
marchers arrived at the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Building at about 1:30 p.m.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/story/Protest-against-Sheriffs-immigration-policy-heats/Vyv7DAtHPEm7MOXPV9zIew.cspx

Semi-Automatic Rifle Ban Would Reduce Jobs, Not Crime
NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Responding to Attorney General Eric Holder's comment yesterday that the Obama Administration will attempt to reinstate a ban against semi-automatic rifles, the National Shooting Sports Foundation reminded Congress and all Americans that such a ban would cause jobs to be lost in a difficult economy, have no effect on reducing crime and would deprive millions of law-abiding sportsmen and gun owners of their Constitutional right to own the firearm of their choice.
Holder made his comments in connection with criminals supplying illegal guns from the United States to drug dealers in Mexico.
"The problem of criminals breaking the law to acquire firearms and illegally smuggling them across the border is not remedied by legislation that would violate the rights of Americans to own semi-automatic firearms," said Steve Sanetti, president of NSSF, the trade association of the firearms industry.
"These types of firearms, which are erroneously called 'assault weapons,' are used by millions of Americans for hunting, sporting and personal defense purposes," Sanetti added. "We can only conclude that certain officials are waiting for any politically advantageous excuse to announce the intention to seek a new ban on sporting rifles, a ban that would break the president's campaign promise to gun owners that 'I'm not going to take away your guns.'"
The industry and firearms owners were understandably outraged by Holder's comments yesterday, and today even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed away from the idea of a new gun ban. "On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now," said Pelosi, surprisingly taking the position of pro-gun advocates.
Holder's use of the inaccurate term "assault weapons" is one that is deliberately used by gun-ban advocates to create confusion between legally sold, semi-automatic rifles and look-a-like, fully automatic military versions. While the civilian version of these rifles may resemble their military counterparts, the civilian rifle fires only one round with each pull of the trigger. Additionally, these rifles fire ammunition calibers no more powerful than traditional-looking sporting arms. Civilian access to fully automatic machine guns has been severely restricted since 1934.
Studies show that the ban against sporting firearms, known as the Assault Weapons Ban, that was in place from 1994 to 2004 did not reduce crime. Furthermore, there has been no increase in crime involving these types of firearms since Congress allowed the ban to expire.
A ban on sporting firearms also would have a severe effect on jobs and the economy. Sales of semi-automatic rifles have been strong over the last several months -- overall sales of firearms have increased as much as 42 percent -- and have allowed companies in the firearms industry to withstand, to some extent, the downturn in the economy.
"These semi-automatic rifles are the most popular rifle in America today and they are largely behind the recent increase in firearms sales," said Sanetti. "This is a bright spot in our economy and has helped save jobs in our industry."
Since the election last November gun owners have feared the Obama Administration would seek legislation that would infringe on their Second Amendment rights. "It appears gun owners' fears were well-founded given Attorney General Holder's comment that the Obama Administration will seek new restrictions on gun owners. A new gun ban would fly in the face of last year's Supreme Court decision in the Heller case that reaffirmed the Second Amendment right of all Americans to keep and bear arms," said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel.
http://www.nssf.org/news/PR_idx.cfm?PRloc=share/PR/&PR=022609.cfm&CFID=4370336&CFTOKEN=4ec9be7ee4146df3-B7DF39EF-F7BF-B802-F55FABA960F1BCB6&jsessionid=f03026464e39ae9a23632f7655122e84197b

CIA Denies Helping Nazi Adolf Eichmann
March 01, 2009 12:33 PM ET By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
A gripping new book about the hunt and seizure of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, implementer of the "final solution," includes this stunning charge: The CIA knew his alias and his Argentina address but didn't tell Israel. Hunting Eichmann by Neal Bascomb says the CIA balked to protect Nazis working for it. Not exactly, Langley tells Whispers: "CIA did not, contrary to legend, know Eichmann's precise alias or whereabouts. We even got a tip in the 1950s that he could be at large in Jerusalem!"

The U.S. Government: Devious or Just Plain Stupid...
You Make the Call
Ben Bernanke - the "Sultan of Spin" himself - came out this morning and echoed the misguided hopes of CNBC's Trillion Dollar Survey from January. He optimistically believes that the crisis will be resolved before the end of 2009...that 2010 will be a year of recovery.
His hopeful yet empty words caused me to reflect on the progress of government intervention through this crisis so far. And I can come to only one conclusion;
I'm praying that they're devious.
That their measures are intended to fail. That they've got some secret plot...a conspiracy going on. Otherwise it means our leaders - political and economic - are just plain obtuse - complete with dunce caps.
Because there's no other way to explain the abysmal failure of rhetoric and 'policy' over the course of the last year. It's either deliberate or just thanks to incompetence. And with a darkening future ahead of us, we can only hope that it isn't the latter.
So I'm done holding it in. I've been watching this farce play out for months and it's time to let loose the broadside on these fools...smashing their misconceptions, half-truths and lies of omission to little bits.
Enough with the talk...it's time for the fireworks.
The Free Market Didn't Fail; The Regulations Did
Truthfully, every time I hear some politician talk about how this is an example of the failure of free markets, I want to whack the guy on the head with a rubber mallet.
There's a fine line between free markets and the deregulation that's allegedly intended to create a 'free-er' market...and that's a distinction most fail to notice.
And in the last few decades we haven't had anything even closely resembling a free market. Instead, we've had a 21st century banking system that's governed by a gutted 1940s regulatory structure.
I'm talking about some of more dangerous "free market reforms" of the Clinton/Bush era. The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act - which kept the banking system functional from the Great Depression through the end of the 20th century - and the 2004 decision to lift leverage limitations on American banks.
Were these regulations removed with the intention of creating a free-er marketplace? In my humble opinion; absolutely not.
These were crucial safety nets for our highly-regulated economic system that got in the way of bankers' profits. Removing them wasn't a free market initiative, and it didn't create a free market. It just made the whole situation far more dangerous.
If anything, the massive amounts of lobbyist money that made this deregulation possible prove - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that the U.S. government is too compromised to properly manage the economy.
Meanwhile, the government-mandated ratings agencies continued to stamp their seal of approval on questionable mortgage-backed securities. And the SEC continued to let Madoff and Stanford go about their business, long after they were warned of Madoff's shenanigans.
You're probably starting to see that it wasn't the free market that created today's problems, but the false sense of security brought on by "strict" government regulations.
So yeah, let's go ahead and build a bigger safety blanket. One that costs more, makes the market even less efficient, and ultimately proves to be as dodgy and inconsistent as the existing regulatory system. Now that's genius.
Taking it a step further; the size and scope of this crisis could be pinned directly on the Federal Reserve. That's right; Greenspan's 'liquidity experiment' and years of rock-bottom interest rates were the lungs blowing up the bubble. But that's a different story altogether.
Moving on to Lie # 2...
A Novel Idea for Politicians: Quit Lying and Make up Your Mind
This is a big one.
Asking a politician to tell the truth or actually make up his mind...well that's like asking a teenager to drive 20 miles under the speed limit. It's just not going to happen.
Generally, that's because telling the truth is bad for a politician's business. No problem there...I can respect that. But what about when it's actually a good thing for the country?
Take right now for instance. The markets are running scared. They're beaten down and oversold, waiting for a single ray of hope or even just some consistency. What do they get instead?
They get bald-faced lies like the most recent joint statement from the Treasury, FDIC, OTS, OCC and the Fed...one that macroeconomist Mike Shedlock calls "a Purposeful Joint Lie." A document so filled with puffery and damage control that it could make Ben Bernanke blush.
They get a government that fails to warn them that one of the people's newest acquisitions - AIG - is set to declare the single largest loss in corporate history. They get a President who tells the press that years of trillion dollar deficits are on the way...only to backpedal a few weeks later and promise deficits half that size by the end of his first term.
Hey government; I've got a novel idea. How 'bout you pick a story, and stick to it?
Want another shining example? Look no further than "illiquid assets." Know why they're illiquid? Because the government won't pick a value and stick to it.
The "illiquid assets" aren't worth face value, and they'd fetch maybe a third of their value in the secondary market (for sake of argument). But ever since Paulson's "Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit" (MLEC) in the summer of 2007, the government's been waffling back and forth with half-hearted promises to pay 75% of face value...perhaps more...perhaps less. They just haven't made up their minds.
So instead of having the market's clearing mechanism do its magic, working out deals and determining a fair market value for these securities - so that we can all move on with the lengthy road to recovery - we've got the government in there gummin' up the works.
Faced with the decision of either shaking the rotten apples out of the tree or forcing taxpayers to pay for those rotten apples, they've chosen indecision. And the market's not happy about that.
Paving the Road to Great Depression II
Remember, sequels are always bigger, more violent and less entertaining than the original. Oh, and they also have a knack for rehashing the worst parts of the original.
But seriously folks, let's set the stage before I'm dismissed as a 'fearmonger' by people that don't know all the facts. It surprises me that so much of the news media has reverted to questioning whether this is even the biggest slump since the Great Depression. Have they been reading the same news I have?
Both George Soros and Nassim Taleb have gone on record as saying that we're facing a bigger slump than the Great Depression. In a little-known interview regarding his interest rate policy, Greenspan warned that this event could make the Great Depression, "look like a Sunday Picnic." And at least nominally speaking, you can safely say that this is the biggest asset price bubble in the history of human civilization. So yes, it can be a little unnerving.
And yes; a full-blown Depression is in the range of possible outcomes.
Especially if bumbling politicians and the Fed keep themselves firmly lodged between the economy and a recovery. Just look at 1990s Japan or 1929 America. In both cases, authorities got involved and mucked up the works. Unlike the barely-remembered 1920-21 slump, a deep recession that quickly corrected itself thanks to non-intervention.
Not that they couldn't be helping if they wanted to. They'd just have to make up their minds, quit pandering to their "sponsors" or just plain get out of the way. But that's not likely any time soon.

Russian bomber neared Canada before Obama visit
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian fighters scrambled to intercept an approaching Russian bomber less than 24 hours before U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa last week Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said on Friday.
The Bear bomber did not enter Canada's Arctic airspace but the two Canadian F-18 fighters had to order the plane to turn back, MacKay told a news conference.
Obama spent a few hours in the Canadian capital on February 19 on his first foreign trip since becoming president.
"I'm not going to stand here and accuse the Russians of having deliberately done this during the presidential visit but it was a strong coincidence, which we met with the presence, as we always do, of F-18 fighter planes ... and sent a strong signal that they should back off and stay out of our air space," MacKay said.
He also said Russia had stepped up its bomber flights toward the Canadian Arctic in the last few years, reviving a practice that was common during the Cold War.
MacKay did not say exactly when the incident occurred or how close the bomber came to Canadian airspace.
"It's not a game. It's not a game at all. These aircraft approaching Canadian or U.S. airspace are viewed very seriously," he said.
"We have asked on a number of occasions ... that we are given a heads up when this type of air traffic is to occur and to date we have not received that kind of notice."
In Moscow, a spokesman for Russia's defense ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
MacKay spoke after a meeting with U.S. General Gene Renuart, commander of the binational North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
"They (the Russians) have been professional in the way they have conducted their aircraft operations," Renuart said.
Canada's minority Conservative government has promised to spend billions of dollars boosting Canada's presence in the Arctic, which scientists believe has vast reserves of oil and natural gas.
"Our intention is very much to demonstrate our sovereignty, our capability to protect our territory, our airspace, our water (and) our people in the Arctic and that includes our resources," MacKay said.
Five countries with an Arctic coastline -- Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway, and Denmark through its control of Greenland -- have competing claims to the region.
Scientists say oil and gas exploration could begin during the summer months within decades.
Russia said this week it would respond to any moves to militarize the Arctic.
Ottawa -- which plans to build a deep water port in the region -- has stepped up sovereignty patrols in the Arctic and last August it said it would toughen reporting requirements for ships entering its waters in the Far North.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE51Q2W220090227?sp=true