Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Military May Prosecute Troops Who Try To Commit Suicide

Submitted by go213mph on Wed, 11/28/2012 - 12:46
Peace / War

(Tim Dominick) Marine Corps Pvt. Lazzaric T. Caldwell slit his wrists and spurred a legal debate that’s consuming the Pentagon, as well as the nation’s top military appeals court.

On Tuesday, the court wrestled with the wisdom of prosecuting Caldwell after his January 2010 suicide attempt. Though Caldwell pleaded guilty, he and his attorneys now question his original plea and the broader military law that makes “self-injury” a potential criminal offense. The questions resonate amid what Pentagon leaders have called an “epidemic” of military suicides.

“If suicide is indeed the worst enemy the armed forces have,” Senior Judge Walter T. Cox III said, “then why should we criminalize it when it fails?”

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http://govtslaves.info/military-may-prosecute-troops-who-try...

Military May Prosecute Troops Who Try To Commit Suicide | Peace . Gold . Liberty

Pimco: No Recovery Until 2022!

Submitted by P.Au.L on Wed, 11/28/2012 - 02:22
Economy
Quicklink

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Big money managers are warning investors. They’re now citing the Bible: “Seven lean years.” No recovery till 2016. That was Jeremy Grantham back a few years ago. His GMO firm manages $104 billion.

Now Bill Gross and Mohamed El-Erian, the co-CEOs at the $2 trillion Pimco money managers, are citing the same biblical warning to jar investors awake and prepare for the coming lean years of slow, low growth and austerity. Except in Pimco’s new warning, the future just got much, much darker for investors — no recovery until 2022.

Earlier in the summer — back when most investors were totally distracted by campaign drama and betting heavily on a new president, anticipating a post-election bull market — many were expecting Corporate America would unleash trillions in hoarded reserves, stimulate a recovery and new bull.

Back then, Reuters, Forbes, CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and rest of the obsessed media simply yawned at Gross and El-Erian’s warning that equities hit a “dead end in terms of significant appreciation.”

“Dead end?” No recovery till after the 2020 elections? Yes, one angry headline even said Gross was “faithless” with stocks. Why? Conventional wisdom tells us markets run in cycles. So investors believe it’s now time for a new bull. Gross and El-Erian disagree.

Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle first mentioned a “new normal” with slow, low growth back in 2002. It fell on deaf ears. Since the 2008 meltdown the same warnings are coming from gurus like Grantham, Gross, El-Erian and others. Ignore their warnings at your peril.

Continue reading at MarketWatch

Pimco: No Recovery Until 2022! | Peace . Gold . Liberty

Private Prison Company Muscles into Law Enforcement, Creating Occupants for Its Prisons

Submitted by go213mph on Mon, 12/03/2012 - 12:54in
Politics, General + Law(s)

On Halloween morning this year, the 1,776 students at Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande, Arizona, were ordered on “lock down,” at the start of the first “drug sweep” in the school’s four-year history. Although school Principal Tim Hamilton admits the school had no drug problem, drug sniffing dogs were brought in, and lockers, backpacks and the students themselves were searched. In the end, only three students were arrested, two of them for possession of less than half a gram of marijuana (0.017 oz., the equivalent one marijuana cigarette or “joint”).

Fittingly for Halloween, some of the “law enforcement” personnel conducting the searches were neither police officers nor Sheriff’s deputies, but employees of a private prison company dressed up in police-like uniforms.

In fact, for several years Arizona law enforcement has been using private prison employees in law enforcement operations, which critics say is not only illegal but creates a disturbing conflict of interest, since for-profit prisons make money when more people are arrested, convicted and sentenced to serve time, regardless of whether they are guilty or not.

“To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the ‘schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen,” opined Caroline Isaacs, program director at the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker social justice group that urges criminal justice reform.

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/private-prison-comp...

Private Prison Company Muscles into Law Enforcement, Creating Occupants for Its Prisons | Peace . Gold . Liberty