While the United states Armed Forces (private mercenaries) are stationed at 737 bases, in 130 nations around the world, defending “all freedom-loving people everywhere in the world,” the Federal Open Market Committee, of the privately owned Federal Reserve System of (central) Banks, unanimously votes to implement the two-pronged “Bernanke Doctrine,” in an effort to deal with the Great Recession.  Named after its creator, Benjamin S. “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the FRSB, will drastically lower interest rates using its three traditional monetary policy tools: open market operations (buying Federal Treasury Bills (debt obligations) to increase the money supply, and selling FTBs to decrease the money supply), raising or lowering the Discount Rate (the rate paid to the FRSB by commercial banks to borrow Federal Reserve Notes, and raising or lowering the Reserve Requirement (the amount of physically existing FRNs that commercial banks must have in their vaults every Wednesday.  The other part of the Bernanke Doctrine will be the creation of new windows (similar to the Discount Window) as the needs arise to focus on specific area of the nation’s financial markets that it wishes to address.  Also, the Federal Open Market Committee, reacting to concerns about the subprime lending crisis, cuts its Discount Rate half a percentage point to 5.75 percent.

       Postscript: Over the next two years the FRSB lent over 1,000,000,000,000 “dollars” through 17 newly created programs that were typically referred to by their acronyms: TAF, TSLF, PDCF, etc.  The FRSB also entered into three joint programs with either the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the department of the Treasury, or both.  The FRSB also lowered the DR to zero percent, and completely eliminated member-commercial banks from having to maintain any cash reserves.

       [restored 5/4/2024] Thanks to Jim Lorenz for this entry.

       The Superior of Los Angeles County, california hands down people v. Rubin: judge Mary J. Stroebel sentences Craig X Rubin, founder of Temple 420, to four years and eight months in prison for selling marijuana from his church.

       NOTE: During the trial, Stroebel disallowed Rubin (who represented himself “pro se” (Latin for “on one’s own behalf”) from mentioning medicinal marijuana, the Constitution for the united States, the california constitution of 1879, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the Holy Bible.

       [added 5/4/2024] Thanks to Freedom’s Phoenix for this entry.