NaturalNews.com | Of all the sneaky tactics practiced in Washington D.C., this recent action by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is one of the most insidious: While no one was looking, he injected amendment language into the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173) that would expand the powers of the FTC (not the FDA, but the FTC) to terrorize nutritional supplement companies by greatly expanding the power of the FTC to make its own laws that target dietary supplement companies.

PrisonPlanet.com | European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet’s announcement that the Bank for International Settlements is to become the primary engine for global governance is a shocking admission given the fact that this ultra-secretive menagerie of international bankers was once controlled by top Nazis who, in collusion with global central banks, funneled money through the institution which directly financed Hitler’s war machine.

NewsWithViews.com | As a math teacher, I can verify that when a student works the equation correctly, he or she discovers the right answer. When students work all the questions correctly, they enjoy a 100% perfect grade. That means they understand, extrapolate and engage in the learning process. They advance their minds. It’s called ‘education’ and it forms the foundation of a successful personal life and ultimately affirmative civilization.

CFP | Adolfo Carrion, Aneesh Chopra, Ear; Devamey, Kenneth Feinberg, Carol Browner, Ed Montgomery, Todd Stern, Cass Sunstein, Ron Bloom, and John Brennan. If none of them ring a bell, it is because they and others are all part of a shadow government of some thirty “czars”; advisers to President Obama who did not submit to the Senate confirmation process and are exempt from Congressional oversight.

Washington's Blog | Cosponsor H.R. 5159 – The Safe, Accountable, Fair and Efficient Banking Act of 2010

MotherJones.com | The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America—what Republicans might call an idiosyncratic bastion of socialism. It also earned a record profit last year even as its private-sector corollaries lost billions.

Register | No public complaints against the Metropolitan Police's elite counter-terrorism squad have been upheld since the unit was formed three and a half years ago, new figures reveal. Data on complaints against the Counter Terrorism Command, SO15, were released to The Register under the Freedom of Information Act. Since the beginning of 2007, 167 public allegations of misconduct have been made against SO15 officers, including perjury, corruption, assault and sexual assault. All were written off, according to the Met's own records.

MSNBC | DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - A former Pakistani intelligence officer abducted by an alleged militant group last month was found shot dead Friday in a northwest tribal region, officials said. Khalid Khawaja went missing in late March with another ex-intelligence official called Sultan Amir Tarar and a filmmaker. There was no word on the fate of the two others.

WND | "On the other hand, when the citizens are all more or less equal, it becomes difficult to defend their freedom from the encroachments of power. No one among them being any longer strong enough to struggle alone with success, only the combination of the forces of all is able to guarantee liberty. But such a combination is not always forthcoming." (Tocqueville, "Democracy in America," Part I, Chapter 3)

Bar Code Blog |  Laptop computers and other personal electronic devices such as cell phones, I-phones and Blackberries are increasingly attractive to government agents because of the vast amounts of data users store on them.  Unfortunately, in the absence of federal law protecting them from government searches without warrants or even reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, federal courts are permitting such warrantless searches.

Times Online | Greece plunged deeper into financial turmoil last night after its government bonds were rated as junk by financial markets. The Portuguese government debt also took a hammering after panic spread that a Mediterranean virus of insolvency and bad debts would infect the rest of Europe.

Rawstory | As senator, Barack Obama called the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program illegal, and demanded greater transparency from government. But as president, he's strongly defended large components of the program, which involved major telecommunications companies providing the government access to their networks without a warrant to allegedly thwart terrorist plots.

iwpr.org | Landowner Hajji Fateh Khan lives in one of the most violent districts in Afghanistan, but this spring he says is a happy man as deep-pocketed buyers eye the imminent opium yield from his poppy plantations.

Upi.com | Seven in 10 U.S. adults support arresting people who can't prove they're in the United States legally, a poll about Arizona's new immigration law indicated.

RawStory.com | The US's unofficial program of targeted killings against terrorist suspects could result in the CIA's drone operators being prosecuted for war crimes, a prominent law professor told a congressional hearing Wednesday.