9/11: Miss Teen USA models next-gen’s unpreparedness to uphold liberty – Video

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9/11: Miss Teen USA models next-gen #39;s unpreparedness to uphold liberty
http://DemocracyBroadcasting.TV High-school senior, Savanah Palacio, (Miss Teen USA contestant from Beverly Hills in 2013) explains what high-school has taught her about the identity and intention...

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9/11: Miss Teen USA models next-gen's unpreparedness to uphold liberty - Video

Liberty Reserve Employee Pleads Guilty in Black-Market Bank Case

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The former chief technology officer of Liberty Reserve SA, described by the U.S. as a black-market bank that masked more than $6 billion in criminal proceeds, became the third person to plead guilty to helping run an illegal money remitting business.

Mark Marmilev, 35, of Brooklyn, New York, who helped design and maintain the operations technological infrastructure, faces a maximum five-year prison term when hes sentenced by U.S. District JudgeDenise Cote in Manhattan on Jan. 20.

Marmilev told Cote that he provided technical support to the site, helping to protect it from hackers and identity thieves, and acknowledged that he suspected that most of the funds coming into Liberty Reserve were the proceeds of a Ponzi scheme.

I believed a substantial amount of the funds from the U.S. moving through Liberty Reserve came from high-yield investment programs that I believe had a high probability of being fraudulent but I consciously avoided obtaining confirmation, Marmilev said.

Liberty Reserve, incorporated in Costa Rica, was one of the worlds most widely used digital currency services, according to the U.S. The company was created and structured as a criminal business venture, one designed to help criminals conduct illegal transactions, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. Federal prosecutors in New York shut down the company last year.

Marmilev, one of seven people charged last year by Bhararas office, had also been accused of one count of conspiring to launder money, which carries a maximum 20-year prison term and with operating an unlicensed money remitting business, which carries a maximum five-year term.

Azzeddine El Amine, a principal deputy to the companys founders, pleaded guilty in August to a conspiracy count and Cote said he is cooperating with the U.S.

Marmilevs lawyer, Seth Ginsberg, said after court that his client is an Israeli citizen and faces deportation after he completes his term. Ginsberg withdrew a request to have Marmilev released on bond.

I think that the plea is in the best interests of Mr. Marmilev, Ginsberg said.

Another defendant, Arthur Budovsky, is in Spain where his extradition is pending, prosecutors have said. Marmilev had been scheduled to go to trial in April with Maxim Chuckharev, who was Liberty Reserves designer, according to the government.

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Liberty Reserve Employee Pleads Guilty in Black-Market Bank Case

Liberty Global CEO: No Big Acquisitions on Horizon

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Liberty Global recently acquired a small stake in U.K. broadcaster ITV

John Malone's international cable giant Liberty Global is not planning big acquisitions of content companies, CEO Mike Fries told an investor conference in New York on Friday.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, he said recent deals, such as one to acquire U.K. production firm All3Media in a joint deal with Discovery Communications, have been small, high-return and strategic. They "don't portend anything bigger or grander," Fries said. But he reiterated that the idea that a big company like Liberty Global wouldn't have its fingers in some content pots would be "crazy."

Summarized Fries: "We don't have any big transaction on the horizon."

Could Liberty Global acquire a big broadcaster after buying a free-to-air broadcaster in Belgium? Fries said that deal was small and had unique benefits.

Discussing the recent acquisition of a small stake in ITV, he said it was "just an opportunistic investment that gives us a seat at the table" and "does not portend anything with that company." He added that "owning a broadcaster would be a big step for us and is not one we are contemplating today."

Asked about U.K. pay TV giant BSkyB's plan to acquire Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland and how it would affect Liberty Global, Fries said: "I don't think it changes anything at all. I think they have just taken a page out of our playbook."

Calling it a "smart" transaction, he said the companies are mostly partners even though they also compete for pay TV subscribers.

Asked if he was concerned about a significant increase in programming costs in Europe similar to U.S. trends, Fries told the Goldman conference that the U.S. and Europe were very different markets. Liberty Global spends about $2 billion per year on content, "roughly $8 a subscriber, I think that's 80 percent less per sub than Comcast spends, and I don't see that rising," he said. "Europe is different." Comcast reported 2013 programming costs of $9.1 billion for its cable business.

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Liberty Global CEO: No Big Acquisitions on Horizon

Liberty Global (LBTYB) Upgraded From Sell to Hold

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Editor's Note: Any reference to TheStreet Ratings and its underlying recommendation does not reflect the opinion of TheStreet, Inc. or any of its contributors including Jim Cramer or Stephanie Link. TheStreet Ratings quantitative algorithm evaluates over 4,300 stocks on a daily basis by 32 different data factors and assigns a unique buy, sell, or hold recommendation on each stock. Click here to learn more.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Liberty Global (LBTYB) has been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings from Sell to Hold with a ratings score of C. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate LIBERTY GLOBAL PLC (LBTYB) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed - some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, good cash flow from operations and increase in stock price during the past year. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, generally higher debt management risk and disappointing return on equity."

Must Read: Warren Buffett's 25 Favorite Stocks

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Liberty Global (LBTYB) Upgraded From Sell to Hold

Vodafone CEO Says Liberty May Be Good Fit for Right Price

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Vodafone Group Plc (VOD) Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao, asked today whether John Malones Liberty Global Plc (LBTYA) might be a good fit for the U.K. wireless carrier, said he would consider it for the right price.

Colao made the comments in a brief interview with Bloomberg News after making a presentation to investors at a conference organized by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York. Goldman analyst Tim Boddy, citing the closed-door presentation, said in a note that Vodafone may consider a transformational M&A deal in the longer term.

Vodafone, the second-largest mobile-phone carrier by subscribers, spent the past two years acquiring cable and broadband providers in Germany and Spain to help stem declining wireless service revenue. That has put more pressure on Liberty Global, which owns cable assets in Vodafones European markets including Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands.

Liberty Global jumped 4.2 percent to $43.86 at the close today in New York, the biggest gain since February. The London-based company ended the day with a market value of $33.2 billion. Including debt, the cable companys enterprise value is almost $74 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Vodafone, based in Newbury, England, fell as much as 2.7 percent. It closed 0.8 percent lower at 203.45 pence in London, valuing the carrier at 53.9 billion pounds ($87.5 billion).

Vodafone Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao. Close

Vodafone Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao.

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Vodafone Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao.

Marcus Smith, a Liberty Global spokesman, declined to comment.

As more consumers download and watch videos on smartphones and tablets, putting strain on carriers networks, Vodafone is adding faster mobile technology and broadband Internet lines -- spending a total of 19 billion pounds through March 2016 -- in a network-improvement plan called Project Spring. The investment is funded with cash from the sale of its stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion.

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Vodafone CEO Says Liberty May Be Good Fit for Right Price

Catholicism and libertarianism clash over property and the common good

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Editor's note: Michael Sean Winters is on vacation this week. Filling in for him are various writers from Millennial, a journal featuring the writing of millennial Catholics. Winters will be back next week.

It seems our ongoing religious consideration of the merits of libertarianism has come at precisely the right time. With The New York Times wondering if the "libertarian moment" has come -- and substantially lesser venues hoping that it has -- now is the time for a definitive Christian ethical case to be taken up with regard to libertarianism. Such a case is being mounted with increasing vigor. Yet while Vatican officials disown libertarianism and all Pope Francis' statements on politics militate firmly against it, a loud portion of American Catholics in the political realm seem doggedly committed to it. Why?

One source of libertarian sentiment among Catholics is likely, as argued by Meghan Clark, the popularity of a certain mistaken anthropology. By this, Clark means a story about what type of creature man is and what his purpose is that has been fundamentally divorced from the biblical narrative and tradition by vested political interests. Clark points out that the chief feature of this warped anthropology is its naked individualism and its inability, therefore, to grasp the necessity of solidarity in producing whole and morally upright people. For the radically individualistic libertarian, solidarity is a burden, not a boon. If it is a boon, it is only so insofar as it produces certain desired outcomes for the individual -- but this utilitarian understanding of solidarity is, as Clark demonstrates, a far cry from the real thing.

Clark is right to note the failed anthropology at the heart of libertarianism. But yet another thematic failure animates libertarian philosophy as well: a vital misapprehension of the nature and purpose of property.

One thing to note about libertarianism is that it is first and foremost liberal, in the sense of classical Enlightenment liberals like John Locke. Liberalism arose as a political philosophy at a time when hostility to the Catholic church was well received, and many assumptions that contradict truths held obvious and foundational by the Catholic church remain tied up in liberal, and therefore libertarian, reasoning. Chief among them is the philosophical preference for the primacy of private property rights over all other institutions or conditions, including the common good. Consider Murray Rothbard, arguing that all rights disputes are little more than disputes of private property:

There are other vexed problems which would be quickly cleared up in a libertarian society where all property is private and clearly owned. In the current society for example, there is continuing conflict between the "right" of taxpayers to have access to government-owned streets, as against the desire of residents of a neighborhood to be free of people whom they consider "undesirable" gathering in the streets. ... They are, in brief, complaining about the "human right" of certain people to walk at will on the government streets. But as taxpayers and citizens, these "undesirables" surely have the "right" to walk on the streets, and of course they could gather on the spot, if they so desired, without the attraction of McDonald's. In the libertarian society, however, where the streets would all be privately owned, the entire conflict could be resolved without violating anyone's property rights: for then the owners of the streets would have the right to decide who shall have access to those streets, and they could then keep out "undesirables" if they so wished.

It is a foregone conclusion in Rothbard's ethics that owners of property have the absolute right to exclude people from what they own, be it land or material objects, even in the case of individuals who have nowhere else to go -- as "undesirables" here surely refers to homeless people who congregate in or near fast food restaurants for warmth and shelter. Rothbard flatly does not see the need to argue for such a right on behalf of owners, but smoothly progresses from the problem of "undesirables" to the "cure" of private property ownership: If only land held in common were held privately, he laments, you would presumably never have to see another "undesirable" for any longer than it took you to banish them. That your ownership claim supersedes their right to shelter, warmth, perhaps even food -- is simply assumed.

Libertarian luminary Hans Hermann Hoppe makes this claim explicit, writing:

It becomes apparent that nothing could be further from the truth as soon as one explicitly formulates the norm that would be needed to arrive at the conclusion that the state has to assist in the provision of public goods. The norm required to reach the above conclusion is this: whenever one can somehow prove that the production of a particular good or service has a positive effect on someone else but would not be produced at all or would not be produced in a definite quantity or quality unless certain people participated in its financing, then the use of aggressive violence against these persons is allowed, either directly or indirectly with the help of the state, and these persons may be forced to share in the necessary financial burden.

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Catholicism and libertarianism clash over property and the common good

Libertarian mood in GOP wanes as Mideast concern rises

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The Republican Party's libertarian tide, which waxed strongly over the last four years, has begun to recede in the face of growing public fears about Islamic militancy in the Mideast.

The latest evidence of the shift comes from a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday that shows, among other things, fewer conservatives are worried that government anti-terrorism activities will lead to violations of civil liberties. Concern over the tradeoff between civil liberties and security had risen sharply after Edward Snowden's revelations of the widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency, for which he had been a contractor.

Just a little more than a year ago, 47% of Americans said they were more concerned that government anti-terrorism policies had gone "too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties" compared with 35% who said they were more concerned those policies "have not gone far enough to adequately protect the country." A second Pew poll later in the fall found a similar result.

Now, however, only 35% say they are concerned that anti-terrorism policies have gone "too far" and 50% say their greater worry is that the policies will not go "far enough."

The Pew survey, conducted Sept. 2-9, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The shift in public opinion comes mostly from the GOP side. Republicans went from an almost even division in November, 43% "too far" and 41% "not far enough," to a lopsided 24% "too far," 64% "not far enough" response in the current survey. Among Republicans, the shift was particularly strong among those who said they identify with the tea party movement.

Democrats remain closely divided on the issue, with self-identified liberals more likely to say they fear the government has gone "too far."

The split among Democrats has been notable in Congress, where a group of mostly western Democratic senators, led by Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, have been prominent critics of the NSA and the Obama administration's continuation of some surveillance policies adopted during the George W. Bush administration.

Among Republicans, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has led the critics of the NSA. His denunciations of government surveillance, highlighted by a 13-hour filibuster against the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan in March 2013, catapulted him into the first ranks of Republican presidential prospects.

But if the shift in the Republican mood persists, with growing support for the use of military force overseas and declining concern over civil liberties, Paul's appeal could wane. Notably, the senator has appeared to shift ground in recent days. Wednesday night, after Obama's speech, he said in an interview on Fox News that he was "all in for saying we have to combat ISIS.

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Libertarian mood in GOP wanes as Mideast concern rises

Former Roanoke Republican now serving as Sarvis campaign manager

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Senate campaign of Libertarian Robert Sarvis has a strong connection to the Roanoke Valley. Caleb Coulter (Cole-ter) is a Roanoke native who has been active in Republican politics. Last year, he sought the gop nomination for the 11th district seat in the House of Delegates. But recently, he left the gop and signed on as manager of the Sarvis campaign. Caleb Coulter/Sarvis Campaign Manager: i was attempting to be a part of a change for the better for the Republican party, that i think they could use if they want to stay valid in today's politics, and there's a lot of resistance to that change. And i think I'm a lot more comfortable with the Libertarian party. Sarvis is making his second run for statewide office in the last two years. Coming up at six, Political reporter Joe Dashiell will profile his Senate campaign.

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Former Roanoke Republican now serving as Sarvis campaign manager