The Fed will credit the receiver’s account even if the sender doesn't have enough money of its own at the time of the transfer. This is an element of what the Fed calls ‘finality.’ Once its account is credited by the Fed, the receiver (Citibank, for example) is insulated if the sender (say, Chase) does not have the funds at the end of the day. If Chase can’t pay, however, the U.S. taxpayer effectively will.

Video Blog with John Whitehead

Hersh says the U.S. has been "pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight" for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to "stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence." Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of "three Sunni jihadist groups" who are "connected to al Qaeda" but "want to take on Hezbollah."

There are two major values of public schooling, from the perspective of government officials. One, this institution provides the means by which government officials can slowly but surely, over a period of 12 years, mold the mindsets of children into one of conformity and obedience to authority. Second, public schooling enables government officials to fill children’s minds with officially approved political, historical, and economic doctrine.

Clifford Thies surveys the American economy and sees growth and prosperity despite the bleak outlook others have described. He gives an economist’s view of minimum wage increases, free trade, and the divide between rich and poor. Theis describes his view of the Federal Reserve, the gold standard, and makes a (tentative) nomination for “Greatest Living Economist.” He also argues for an incrementalist approach to fighting for liberty and explains that the political calculations which are made in a democratic society must represent the views of average people as well as free-market economists.

Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday.

“Mandatory HPV vaccination for school aged girls is a gross overreach of government authority.” continued Ostrolenk. “The Parental Right to Decide Act will send a strong message that Americans cherish our rights to make private medical choices and will not surrender them to the State.”

“The Federal Government may have used a procedural end-around to slip REAL ID past the American People, but the battle is not over,” said Liberty Coalition National Director Michael Ostrolenk. “Citizens across the nation know that a national identification card is unacceptable and that the REAL ID Act is unconstitutional. The Liberty Coalition calls on defenders of freedom across the country to block the implementation of this national identification system.”

Dane vonBreichenruchardt of the US Bill of Rights Foundation introduces the Liberty Coalitoin Patient Quality Care Project. He describes how a failure to protect good doctors for a faulty peer review process destroys careers and endangers patients.

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school.