Home · News · News Jul 2014
Thursday July 31, 2014
News Articles

*Nomi Prins Author of “All the Presidents Bankers“ on Upcoming Collapse
Greg Hunter | older interview, but good

Best-selling author Nomi Prins warns, “Never before have the Government and the Fed collaborated so extensively by propping up the banking system to the detriment of the population.” Prins lays out a long history of the relationships between U.S. Presidents and bankers that date back to Teddy Roosevelt and JP Morgan. On her new book titled “All the Presidents’ Bankers,” Prins contends, “That connection with Teddy Roosevelt was a very powerful established entity between two people that has allowed all this stuff that has happened in the last hundred years to really happen. The friendships, the social ties, the idea that the bankers could sort themselves out with Treasury Department help if it needed to. ... Read more
*Nomi Prins-Financial Crash-Collapse Coming, It Should Have Happened Already (older, but I like Nomi Prins) [19:40]

Iraq Crisis-$150 to $200 Oil Might Seem Cheap-Chris Martenson
Greg Hunter | older interview, but good

... Martenson, who holds a PhD in pathology and an MBA, contends 2008 was just a warm up to a much bigger calamity. Martenson says, “2008 was the shot across the bow. That’s when our credit experiment broke, and we have been doing everything possible to paper over it since. . . . When you take real stuff out of the ground, you grow food, you take oil out of the ground, you process ore into steel and you manufacture real things–that’s real wealth. The claims (such as stocks, bonds and currencies) have to be in proportion to the real wealth. The claims have been growing and growing and growing for so long that they are way out of balance to the real stuff, and the real stuff isn’t growing like it used to. You can see that in the GDP numbers for the U.S. or the world at large. Growth is slowing, slowing, slowing, and the claims are getting larger and larger. ... Read more

*Chris Martenson-People Will Be Wiped Out In Coming Crash (older, but I like Chris Martenson) [30:09]
*Chris Martenson | This 'Accelerated' Crash Course video condenses over 4.5 hours' worth of detailed material on the trends most likely to shape your future into an easy-to-follow exploration that takes less than an hour to view. () [56:25]
*Albert Bartlett | Sustainability 101: Exponential Growth - Arithmetic, Population and Energy () [1:13:54]
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, July 31 [9:27]
DN | "Enough Blood Has Been Spilled": Israel Condemned For Striking U.N. Shelter as Death Toll Tops 1300 (07/31/14) [10:01]
DN | U.S. Jewish Leader Henry Siegman to Israel: Stop Killing Palestinians and End the Occupation (07/31/14) [7:40]
DN | Iron Dome or Iron Sieve? Evidence Questions Effectiveness of U.S.-Funded Israeli Missile Shield (07/31/14) [11:39]
TRNN News
TRNN | PERI Co-Director Robert Pollin and Prof. Chris Williams discuss the feasibility of shifting to a green economy (07/30/14) [12:33]
*TRNN | Heiner Flassbeck: Racing to a Dead End (07/30/14) [19:16]
Mr. Flassbeck, former head of UNCTAD, says current economic policy is heading back to the 1930s, a race to the bottom, they have no solution at all, we will end up again in trade wars or other wars, Part 2 (07/31/14) [19:16]
TRNN | Prof. John Weeks and Prof. Trevor Martin discuss British PM David Cameron's call for a referendum vote to decide whether the UK remains a part of EU (07/31/14) [11:51]
TRNN | Human rights activist Omar Barghouti says: the UN has failed its duty to speak out against civilian deaths in Gaza (07/31/14) [6:52]
Thom Hartmann
*Thom Hartmann: shares that the American Legislative Exchange Council is working to craft legislation that would make it illegal for local communities to take action against fossil duel pollution. (07/30/14) [2:52]
Thom Hartmann: exposes the big banks' latest scheme that will crash our economy. (older, but informative) [6:43]
Ring of Fire
Papantonio: Obama Gets Tough Against Immigration Obstruction (07/30/14) [4:35]
*Ring of Fire | Private Equity STILL Screwing Middle Class (07/30/14) [7:16]
*Ring of Fire | What Is Monsanto Hiding This Time? (07/29/14) [2:48]
Ring of Fire | Cliven Bundy Ignited a Hellstorm of Right Wing Hate (07/29/14) [9:27]
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.

07.31.2014. 11:46

Wednesday July 31, 2014
News Articles

GDP Deja Vu Stunner: Over Half Of US Growth In The Past Year Is From Inventory Accumulation
ZeroHedge | author | 07/30/14

As we showed in December of 2013, where the scramble to accumulate inventory in hopes that it will be sold, profitably, sooner or later to buyers either domestic or foreign, is most visible, is in the data from the past 4 quarters, or the trailing year starting in Q2 2013 and ending with the just released revised Q2 2014 number. The result is that of the $675 billion rise in nominal GDP in the past year, a whopping 52%, or over half, is due to nothing else but inventory hoarding. ... Read more

Earth Is In The Early Days Of A New Mass-Extinction Event, Researchers Warn
HP | author | 07/25/14

Scientists have previously classified five large-scale losses of animal life as mass-extinction events, all of which occurred millions of years ago. In recent years, the planet has seen the loss of hundreds of species of animals, and according to a new analysis from an international team, the planet may be in the early days of its sixth mass-extinction event.

As part of the study, researchers analyzed previous studies and scientific data to draw their conclusion that human activities and population surges worldwide -- not a catastrophic event, like an asteroid impact, for example -- are responsible for the drastic decline of animal life. Lead author Rodolfo Dirzo, a biology professor at Stanford University, cites actions like overexploitation of resources and habitat destruction as examples of harmful human activities. ... Read more

The Deadly Spread Of Ebola Mapped
AP & HP | author | 07/30/14

The doctor who lead Sierra Leone's fight against Ebola died of the disease on Tuesday, according to local authorities.

The death of Sheik Umar Khan, who was hailed as a national hero by Sierra Leone's health ministry, comes as more than 670 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have died of Ebola since it broke out in February. Read more
Fears ebola virus could spread to U.S. (07/30/14) [2:43]
Click to zoom - Ebola Map

The Fed's Failure Complicates Its Endgame
ZeroHedge | author | 07/30/14

That the Federal Reserve's policies have failed is now so painfully evident that even the political class is awakening to this truth. Rather than re-ignite broad-based, self-sustaining economic growth, the Fed's loose-money policies (zero-interest rate policy a.k.a. ZIRP, and quantitative easing a.k.a. QE or free money for financiers), have perversely distorted the economy and widened wealth and income inequality.

After six long years of unprecedented monetary expansion and intervention--more than enough time to have succeeded in its stated purpose of restarting the real economy-- political and financial blowback is forcing the Fed to withdraw its monetary heroin. ... Read more

Zoom - US Wealth Income Pyramid
Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, July 30 [7:16]
*DN | "They Thought They'd Be Safe. They Were Wrong": 20 Gazans Killed in Israeli Bombing of U.N. Shelter (07/30/14) [9:42]
*DN | Rabbi Henry Siegman, Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry, on Gaza: "A Slaughter of Innocents" (07/30/14) [6:11]
*CNN | Jake Tapper Asks Israeli Spokesman About Palestinian Children Killed In Gaza (07/30/14) [8:27]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Shir Hever: Who's Profiting from Israel's Offensive in Gaza? (07/30/14) [6:01]
Shir Hever: Israel continues to reject Hamas's offer of a ten-year ceasefire because it would undermine Israeli arms sales, which reached $7 billion in 2012.
*TRNN | Historian Ilan Pappe argues: Who Bears Responsibility for Civilian Deaths in Gaza? (07/30/14) [14:58]
Israeli scholar and historian Ilan Pappe argues the media's demonization of Hamas provides Israel cover for continuing its siege and occupation of Palestinian territories.
TYT News
*TYT | Tiny Gaza Visualized Shows There’s Nowhere To Run (07/29/14) [12:41]
*TTYT | US Politicians Agree: Israel Is The Real Victim (07/29/14) [10:09]
*TTYT | US Rep Has No Idea He’s Speaking To Americans (07/29/14) [3:36]
TYT | Why Bill O’Reilly Fears ‘The Machines’ - Especially The Evil Ones (07/29/14) [3:53]
TYT | ‘Ghetto Culture’ Gets Black 9-Year-Olds On Pot Says Ghetto Expert Bill O'Reilly (07/29/14) [5:23]
TYT | Turkish Politician Goes Too Far During Eid Speech (07/29/14) [6:05]
TYT | Infants Contract Herpes From Oral Suction During Jewish Circumcision (07/29/14) [3:54]
60 Minutes
60 Minutes | July 2014 Breaking News Wall Street crash even worse than 1987 is coming says Marc Faber (04/02/14) [14:55]
Nomi Prins: Financial Crash-Collapse Coming, It Should Have Happened Already (04/15/14) [19:40]
Geoengineering
NASA | Geoengineering and Climate Intervention: What We Need to Know (01/05/14) [1:27:27]
Geoengineering And The Collapse Of Earth () [1:17:19]
Note: I don't agree with all the dialog. What I found interesting were the pictures.
Shocking Before and After Photos of California Mega Drought! (2014) [4:00]
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Cobert | Colbert Mocks Kim Kardashian's New Video Game, Introduces One Of His Own (07/29/14) [4:02]

07.30.2014. 11:29

Tuesday July 29, 2014
News Articles

A Dangerous Idea: The Progressive Vision of American Exceptionalism
Bill Moyers | Harvey J. Kaye | 07/29/14

American exceptionalism sounds like a very conservative idea, right?

But you know what? For more than 200 years, American exceptionalism was a radical idea. It was an idea of liberals and progressives. It was an idea that didn’t say “we are superior” — that we have all the answers. No, it was an idea about what America could be, should be and, if we act on it, would be.

Think back to the words of someone like Thomas Paine — “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” — and to his call for the creation of an unprecedented democratic republic. Think about the Founders and the writing of the US Constitution. We hear about the Constitution’s conservatism. And yet those first words, “We the People.” Those are radical words. Those kinds of words provided American life with democratic imperative. They embedded a democratic impulse in American life. ... Read more

Anti-Poverty Leaders Respond to Paul Ryan
Bill Moyers | author | 07/27/14

TalkPoverty.org believes that if we are to dramatically reduce poverty in the United States we will need a strong and diverse movement that is led by people who know poverty firsthand.

Yesterday, Representative Paul Ryan’s unveiling of his new proposal to address poverty offered the opportunity to gather responses from some of the people who might lead such a movement. Here is what they had to say: ... Read more

Original Paul Ryan Talk:
Yesterday, Representative Paul Ryan’s unveiling of his new proposal to address poverty at American Enterprise Inststute (AEI) (07/26/14) [56:06]
One of the Responses:
Bill Moyers | Kristi Jacobson and Mariana Chilton on How Hunger Hurts Everyone (current) [40:44]
New Documentary: "A Place at the Table"
Documentary Calls for "A Place at the Table" for Hungry (PBS Review) [7:37]

Blacklisted: The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist
firstlook.org/theintercept | Jeremy Scahill | 07/23/14

... The rulebook, which The Intercept is publishing in full, was developed behind closed doors by representatives of the nation’s intelligence, military, and law-enforcement establishment, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Emblazoned with the crests of 19 agencies, it offers the most complete and revealing look into the secret history of the government’s terror list policies to date. It reveals a confounding and convoluted system filled with exceptions to its own rules, and it relies on the elastic concept of “reasonable suspicion” as a standard for determining whether someone is a possible threat. ... Read more

166 Page Watchlist RuleBook.pdf
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, July 29 [6:56]
DN | "Nowhere to Go": Gaza Suffers One of Deadliest Days so Far as Israel Vows "Protracted" Assault (07/29/14) [10:40]
*DN | Jeremy Scahill: Leaked U.S. Terrorist Watchlist Rulebook Reveals "Global Stop and Frisk Program" (07/29/14) [8:04]
*DN | Mass U.S. Surveillance Targeting Journalists and Lawyers Seen As Threat to American Democracy (07/29/14) [7:33]
NYTimes Videos
*NYTimes | Predatory Banks and the New Subprime Bubble: Car Loans (07/29/14) [6:07]
NYTimes | California's Extreme Drought, Effects Felt Nationally With Rising Food Costs (07/24/14) [3:36]
NYTimes | BP and Exxon Mobil Worried Russian Sanctions Will Hurt Their Interests? (07/29/14) [1:24]
California Drought 2014 (05/20/14) [28:01]
Bill Moyers
A Dangerous Idea: The Progressive Vision of American Exceptionalism
Bill Moyers | Harvey J. Kaye, author of The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great (older) [13:40]
TRNN News
TRNN | Lia Tarachansky and Phyllis Bennis respond to a poll: Despite Growing International Condemnation, No End to Gaza Violence in Sight (07/28/14) [10:02]
As the death toll in Gaza passes 1,000 Lia Tarachansky and Phyllis Bennis respond to a poll which found 86% of Israelis reject a ceasefire, while a growing number of Americans want the Israeli offensive to stop.
TRNN | Heiner Flassbeck: Reaganism and Thatcherism were Intellectually Dishonest (07/29/14) [19:11]
TYT News
TYT | Hypocrites? New York Times Support Marijuana But Drug Tests (07/28/14) [4:38]
TYT | Should Israel Exist? Hamas Leader’s Dumb, Damaging Answer (07/28/14) [11:53]
TYT | Fox News Propaganda Misleads, Confuses & Lies (07/28/14) [4:53]
Humor | Comics
Zoom - Life of a Typical American, Expressed in Blocks
Zoom - Too Big To Fail Banks

07.30.2014. 06:24

Monday July 28, 2014
News Articles

Mapping Africa's "Totally Out Of Control" Ebola Epidemic
ZeroHedge | author | Last month

"The epidemic is totally out of control," warns medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières of the deadly Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. "There is a real risk of it spreading to other areas...Ebola is no longer a public health issue limited to Guinea: it is affecting the whole of West Africa." As of Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the number of cases at 362 -- more than any other outbreak on record. Here's everything you need to know about Ebola...

Ebola has a fatality rate of up to 90 percent and there is no vaccine and no known cure. The virus initially causes raging fever, headaches, muscle pain, conjunctivitis and weakness, before moving into more severe phases with vomiting, diarrhoea and haemorrhages. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Ebola's Spread

Ebola Victim On The Run In West Africa Capital
ZeroHedge | author | 07/25/14

It's gone from bad (Mapping Africa's "Totally Out Of Control" Ebola Epidemic) to worse, (Head Doctor Fighting Africa's "Out Of Control" Ebola Epidemic Contracts The Virus), to much worse (Liberian Man Tested For Ebola In World's Fourth Most Populous City), to having run out of comparaitves - although we are leery of using a superlative just yet as we have a feeling Africa's Ebola's epidemic will deteriorate before it gets better. But the latest news is bad enough: as Reuters reported moments ago, Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease. ... Read more

Corporate Welfare
Welfare Spending Nearly Half What U.S. Forked Out In Corporate Subsidies In 2006: Study

Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies than Social Welfare Programs
thinkbynumbers.org | author | older, but good

About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006. Before we look at the details, a heartfelt plea from the Save the CEO's Charitable Trust:

There's so much suffering in the world. It can all get pretty overwhelming sometimes. Consider, for a moment the sorrow in the eyes of a CEO who's just found out that his end-of-year bonus is only going to be a paltry $2.3 million. ... Read more

Ten Examples of Welfare for the Rich and Corporations
HP | Bill Quigley | older

Here are the top 10 examples of corporate welfare and welfare for the rich. There are actually thousands of tax breaks and subsidies for the rich and corporations provided by federal, state and local governments, but these 10 will give a taste.

  1. State and local subsidies to corporations: An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest, at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states, but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over $1 billion each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.
  2. Direct federal subsidies to corporations: The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations cost taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.
  3. Federal tax breaks for corporations: The tax code gives corporations special tax breaks that have reduced what is supposed to be a 35-percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
  4. Federal tax breaks for wealthy hedge fund managers: Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only a 15-percent rate while the people they earned the money for usually pay a 35-percent rate. This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary. The National Priorities Project estimates this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually, and 68 percent of those who receive this special tax break earn more than $462,500 per year (the top 1 percent of earners).
  5. Subsidies to the fast food industry: Research by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley documents that taxpayers pay about $243 billion each year in indirect subsidies to the fast food industry because they pay wages so low that taxpayers must put up $243 billion to pay for public benefits for their workers.
  6. Mortgage deduction: The home mortgage deduction, which costs taxpayers $70 billion per year, is a huge subsidy to the real estate, banking and construction industries. The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that 77 percent of the benefit goes to homeowners with incomes over $100,000 per year.
  7. The billions above do not even count the government bailout of Wall Street, while all parties have done their utmost to tell the public that they did not need it, that they paid it back, or that it was a great investment. The Atlantic Monthly estimates that $7.6 trillion was made available by the Federal Reserve to banks, financial firms and investors. The Cato Institute estimates (using government figures) the final costs at $32 to $68 billion, not including the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which alone cost more than $180 billion.
  8. Each major piece of legislation contains new welfare for the rich and corporations. The Boston Globe analyzed the emergency tax legislation passed by Congress in early 2013 and found it contained 43 business and energy tax breaks, together worth $67 billion.
  9. Huge corporations that engage in criminal or other wrongful activities protect their leaders from being prosecuted by paying huge fees or fines to the government. You and I would be prosecuted. These corporations protect their bosses by paying off the government. For example, Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase, which made a preliminary $13-billion mortgage settlement with the U.S. government, is allowed to write off a majority of the deal as tax deductible, saving the corporation $4 billion.
  10. There are thousands of smaller special breaks for corporations and businesses out there. There is a special subsidy for corporate jets, which cost taxpayers $3 billion a year. The tax deduction for second homes costs $8 billion a year. Fifty billionaires received taxpayer-funded farm subsidies in the past 20 years.

If you want to look at the welfare for the rich and corporations, start with the federal Internal Revenue Code. That is the King James Bible of welfare for the rich and corporations. Special breaks in the tax code are the reason that there are thousands of lobbyists in the halls of Congress, hundreds of lobbyists around each state legislature and tens of thousands of tax lawyers all over the country.
Read more

Iraq War Facts, Results & Statistics at January 31, 2012
usliberals.about.com | Deborah White | older 05/19/14

... Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.

Lost and Reported Stolen - $6.6 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money earmarked for Iraq reconstruction, reported on June 14, 2011 by Special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen who called it "the largest theft of funds in national history." (Source - CBS News) Last known holder of the $6.6 billion lost: the U.S. government. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, July 28 [9:16]
DN | During Brief Lull, Gazans Return to Neighborhoods Destroyed & Bodies Beneath the Rubble (07/28/14) [15:17]
*DN | Professor Ilan Pappé: Israel Has Chosen To Be A "Racist Apartheid State" With U.S. Support (07/28/14) [8:05]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Michael Ratner: UN's Investigation of Israel Should Go Beyond War Crimes to Genocide (07/27/14) [8:17]
TRNN | UNICEF's Gaza field chief Pernille Ironside: 15 Killed after Israel Bombs UN School in Gaza (07/27/14) [1:26]
ReasonTV | Author Frank Buckley: Presidential Power and the Rise of American Monarchy (07/28/14) [5:27]
Income Inequality
Zoom - Income Growth by Groups, 1993-2010
Click to zoom - Global Wealth Share
Corporate Welfare
The NYTimes analyzed more than 150,000 awards and created a searchable database of incentive spending.
Michigan spends at least $6.65 billion per year on incentive programs, according to the most recent data available. That is roughly: $672 per capita or 30¢ per dollar of state budget.
Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget
GAO | Corporate Income Tax: Effective Tax Rates Can Differ Significantly from the Statutory Rate.pdf
2013 Budget of the U.S. Government.pdf
Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Rule.pdf
The few: A special report on global leaders.pdf (01/22/11)
The 'Rothschild Connection': The House of Rothschild and the Invasion of Iraq.pdf
Zoom - Corporate Welfare
Global Power Elite and World Crisis
Jeremy Scahill
Jeremy Scahill: The One Party State, The War Party (03/02/14) [5:31]
Pirate Television: Inside America's Secret Wars with Jeremy Scahill (01/14/14) [58:03]
David Rothkopf - Superclass - The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Iraq.pdf
Brookings Institute: Center for Middle Eastern Policy website
Zoom - Corruption Perceptions Index 2013
Transparency website
Humor | Comic Strips
Zoom - Where You Are
Zoom - Wealth Inequality
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.

07.28.2014. 12:01

Friday July 25, 2014
News Articles

Liberian Man Tested For Ebola In World's Fourth Most Populous City
ZeroHedge | author | 07/25/14

Yesterday, when reporting on the latest tragic development in the wost ever Ebola outbreak to sweep through west Africa, namely that the head doctor tasked with containing the virus had himself contracted it, we commented that the "only good news, if any, is that even as the epidemic which has raged for months, and now appears to be out of control, it has not spilled out of Africa into other continents yet." That may not be the case for much longer following an update earlier today by Reuters that a Liberian man in his 40s is being tested for the deadly Ebola virus in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, a megacity of 21 million people, the Lagos State Health Ministry said on Thursday. ... Read more

Bank of America and Other Megabanks Say They Want to Make Nice With Poor People: Don't Buy It
AlterNet | Lynn Stuart Parramore | 07/24/14

How do we hate thee, Bank of America? Let us count the ways. We hate thee for thy mortgage misdeeds, foreclosure frauds and grotesque fees. For unnecessarily kicking people out of their homes, extorting money from military families through predatory loan rates, and treating thy customers like garbage. For basically being too-big-to-fail/too-big-to-jail blight on the economy and society thou hast proven to be, time and again.

Under increasing pressure from regulators and widely despised by the public, Bank of America now wants us to believe hat it will make nice with poor people. In a recent report in the New York Times, we learn that BofA and other giant banks are trying to launder their public images by talking about offering low-fee services to people who have been left out of the banking system. BofA has launched a banking account it claims is intended to prevent troubled customers from running up fees for overdrawing their balances. Read more

Can a University Transform a City?
Politico | Mark Peterson | Photo Essay

What happens when a university begins to transform the city around it? Just look at Powelton Village, Philadelphia. Fashioned as an upscale, Gilded Age suburb for wealthy industrialists looking to cross the Schuylkill River and escape the clamor and the grime of Center City, Powelton is an architectural gem, still packed with the three-story Italianate villas and Victorian twins its prosperous settlers built 150 years ago. Now a national historic district, the neighborhood has survived a rocky evolution—from tycoon stomping ground, though depression-driven decline and 1950s gang violence, to 1960s countercultural hub—only to be rediscovered in the 1980s by upper-middle-class Philadelphians with the money to refurbish Powelton’s stately homes. Now, the area is in transition once again—into the backyard of fast-growing and ambitious Drexel University. ... Read more

No Safe Place in Gaza: How Silence Encouraged a Genocide
TRNN News | Yousef Al-Helou | 07/25/14

As the Israeli military offensive on Gaza entered its third week, there's been more horrific mass killings committed because of indiscriminate Israeli tank shelling and bombardment throughout the besieged Gaza Strip.

After the massacres in Shujaeyyah and Khoza, now the supposedly safe United Nations-run schools have also become targets. A school in the northern Gaza strip town of Beit Hanon, which sheltered hundreds of displaced people who thought they would be safe on United Nations-controlled premise, came under Israeli fire. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least thirteen civilians were killed and more than 200 were injured. UNRWA spokesman said that his agency was not warned. ... Read more



DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, July 25 [9:00]
DN | Sharif Abdel Kouddous: In Gaza, Unrelenting Israeli Assault Causes "Grave Humanitarian Crisis" (07/25/14) [9:46]
DN | "No Safe Place": After Deadly Attack on Gaza School, U.N. Warns 150,000 Seeking Shelter Are at Risk (07/25/14) [14:16]
DN | Turning Point? Largest West Bank Protest in Decades Raises Spectre of a 3rd Intifada (07/25/14) [10:22]
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers | The Conscience of a Compassionate Conservative (07/25/14) [24:29], Part 2 [18:52]
This week on the show, Bill spoke with the president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Arthur C. Brooks. Their conversation was so interesting that they kept talking, and we kept our cameras rolling after the broadcast interview ended. In this web extra, the two talk about the failures of capitalism, who is to blame for the 2008 financial crash, food stamps and a whole lot more.
Comments
Bill Moyers | Greg Kaufmann on the Truth About American Poverty (06/28/14) [12:01]
TRNN News
TRNN | BDS Movement Founder Omar Barghouti discusses: Israel Boycott Gains Traction As Gaza Assault Continues (07/25/14) [10:13]
TYT News
TYT | 'Modern Family' Star On Anti-Gay Politician Rick Santorum (07/24/14) [3:44]
TYT | Rising HIV Rates Among Gay & Bisexual Men In America (07/24/14) [6:22]
TYT | Two More Planes Down - Is Flying No Longer Safe? (07/24/14) [5:38]
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Rick Scott's Private Prison Cesspool (07/23/14) [3:51]
Chris Hayes - All In
Chris Hayes | Did a third intifada begin tonight? As the death toll continues to mount in Gaza, thousands of protesters marched from the West Bank to Jerusalem, where they clashed with Israeli security forces. (07/24/14) [14:58]
Chris Hayes | With Cruz’s criticism of the FAA’s ban on flights to Israel, he’s seizing the opportunity to show the pro-Israel GOP base that he’s their guy (07/24/14) [5:07]
Where Your Tax Dollars Go
Click to zoom - Where Your Tax Dollars Go

07.25.2014. 08:46

Thursday July 24, 2014
News Articles

Why The World Is Spinning Into Crisis Everywhere
HP | Howard Fineman | 07/23/14

Israel vs. Hamas. Ukraine vs. Russia. Unaccompanied minors at the Texas border. Syria in flames, with a militant “caliphate” at the door. Iran stalling for time on nukes. A rising China sowing fear throughout the rest of Asia. The world seems dangerously unmanageable these days.

President Barack Obama is paying a political price at home, with 55 percent of Americans polled by Pew now disapproving of his handling of foreign affairs -- a dramatic reversal from 2009, when his approval rating was 56 percent. While experts argue about how much Obama and his policies are really to blame, the truth is that he occupies the Oval Office at a time of historic flux and of diminished clout, not only for the U.S. but also for the idea of a dominant global power.

To understand that, you need to revisit an influential article published in Foreign Affairs in 2008 by Richard Haass. It’s called “The Age of Nonpolarity,” and Haass wrote it as he was advising presidential candidates behind the scenes in both parties.

Haass, the longtime president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations (and before that a staffer for President Jimmy Carter and the two Bushes), painted a grim picture of an unsettled, chaotic and dangerously diffuse world Familiar methods of diplomacy, statecraft and war had become feeble, if not useless, in the 21st century, he wrote. The ages of “unipolar” power (i.e., a dominant United States) were over; so were the times of “multi-polar” power, such as the first half of the 20th century.

Now the world faced a free-for-all in which “non-state actors” -- terrorists, global corporations, religious and ethnic tribes, sovereign wealth funds and nonprofit charities, to name a few -- were as crucial as countries in shaping the order of a “nonpolar” world. ... Read more
Why The World Is Spinning Into Crisis Everywhere

AIPAC Is the Only Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy
HP | Stephen M. Walt | 07/22/14

The official name for Israel's latest assault on Gaza is "Operation Protective Edge." A better name would be "Operation Déjà Vu." As it has on several prior occasions, Israel is using weapons provided by U.S. taxpayers to bombard the captive and impoverished Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 500. As usual, the U.S. government is siding with Israel, even though most American leaders understand Israel instigated the latest round of violence, is not acting with restraint, and that its actions make Washington look callous and hypocritical in the eyes of most of the world. ... Read more

How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza
The Jewish Daily 'Forward.com' | J.J. Goldberg | 07/10/14

In the flood of angry words that poured out of Israel and Gaza during a week of spiraling violence, few statements were more blunt, or more telling, than this throwaway line by the chief spokesman of the Israeli military, Brigadier General Moti Almoz, speaking July 8 on Army Radio’s morning show: “We have been instructed by the political echelon to hit Hamas hard.”

That’s unusual language for a military mouthpiece. Typically they spout lines like “We will take all necessary actions” or “The state of Israel will defend its citizens.” You don’t expect to hear: “This is the politicians’ idea. They’re making us do it.”

Admittedly, demurrals on government policy by Israel’s top defense brass, once virtually unthinkable, have become almost routine in the Netanyahu era. Usually, though, there’s some measure of subtlety or discretion. This particular interview was different. Where most disagreements involve policies that might eventually lead to some future unnecessary war, this one was about an unnecessary war they were now stumbling into. ... Read more

Don’t Tell Anybody About This Story on HFT Power Jump Trading
ZeroHedge & Bloomberg | Saijel Kishan | 07/23/14

Far from Wall Street in a Chicago neighborhood once synonymous with urban blight, two futures industry veterans are using secrecy and speed to mint fortunes.

Their firm, Jump Trading LLC, was all but invisible until it was among six companies subpoenaed in April by New York prosecutors. Jump has ascended the ranks of high-frequency traders during the past 15 years to become one of the top firms on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where $925 trillion of derivatives changed hands last year. Its annual revenue has exceeded half a billion dollars. ... Read more

Is There a Connection Between CEOs’ Narcissism and Corporate Tax-Dodging?
BillMoyers | Sam Pizzigat | 07/23/14

... This new research — out of the University of Southern California and the University of Arizona — examines the impact of CEO narcissism on corporate tax policies. That impact turns out to be fairly robust. The corporations that America’s most narcissistic CEOs run seem to be prone to engaging in highly risky corporate tax-avoidance maneuvers.

How did the authors of this new research, Kari Joseph Olsen and James Stekelberg, identify the narcissists in America’s top CEO suites? They used a variety of yardsticks, everything from the pay gap between CEOs and their fellow execs to the prominence of CEO photos in corporate annual reports. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, July 24 [9:00]
DN | A Debate on Gaza: Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada vs. J.J. Goldberg of the Jewish Daily Forward (07/23/14) [19:18]
*DN | MSNBC's Sole Palestinian Voice Rula Jebreal Takes on Pro-Israeli Gov't Bias at Network & in US Media (07/23/14) [15:23]
*DN | Sharif Abdel Kouddous: Bombed in Their Homes and in the Streets, Where Can Gazans Flee? (07/24/14) [7:44]
*DN | "Brutal Operation Taking Place In Our Name," Israeli Military Reservists Refuse to Serve (07/24/14) [20:44]
DN | Katrina vanden Heuvel: With 100,000+ Displaced, Why is U.S. Ignoring Ukraine's Civil War? (07/24/14) [12:31]
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prison (07/20/14) [17:42]
TRNN News
TRNN | TRNN correspondent Lia Tarachansky reports: Is Israeli Public Opinion Turning after 700 Palestinian Deaths? (07/23/14) [8:11]
TRNN | Middle East correspondent Yousef Al-Helou shares his story of how his home was targeted by an Israeli airstrike (07/23/14) [5:38]
TYT News
TYT | It's Official, Kim Jong-un Is A Crybaby. This Viral Video Is Hilarious! (07/22/14) [4:05]
TYT | Is E.T. In Hell? Creationist Ken Ham Thinks So (07/22/14) [4:38]
TYT | Adam Carolla Against Feeding Kids, Wonders Why Conservatives Get Bad Name (07/22/14) [9:49]
TYT | Obamacare Emergency After GOP Judges Gang Up In Devastating Ruling (07/22/14) [9:25]
TYT | Israeli PM: We Kill Palestinians Because Hamas Wants 'Telegenically Dead' (07/21/14) [11:12]
TYT | Netanyahu Bragged He Has America Wrapped Around His Finger (07/21/14) [5:53]
TYT | Why The Media Loves Conservatives And Hates Liberals (07/21/14) [5:45]
Ring of Fire News
Ring of Fire | Thom Hartmann talks about how nothing has changes in the way banks operate (07/23/14) []
Scottish Deerhound vs Irish Wolfhound
The Scottish Deerhound

Resembling a larger, coated Greyhound, the Scottish Deerhound is a keen and alert sight hound. One of the oldest breeds, the Deerhound possesses a preeminent hunting ability, and is often seen at lure coursing events. The hair on the body and neck is harsh and wiry, while the coat on the head, breast and belly is much softer.

Known centuries ago as the Scotch Greyhound, Rough Greyhound and Highland Deerhound, the Scottish Deerhound became a clearly identified breed in the 16th and 17th centuries. He was the best breed to use for the pursuit and killing of deer, and at the time, could be owned by no one of rank lower than an earl. While he possesses a quiet and dignified personality in the home, the Scottish Deerhound may try to chase any furry animals that run past him. For that reason, the breed should be exercised on leash or in a fenced area. The breed’s crisp, somewhat wiry coat, however, is exceptionally easy-care, requiring only brushing and occasional bathing.

The Irish Wolfhound

An Irish Wolfhound must be of great size and commanding appearance. He has a large, muscular greyhound-like shape, and he is the tallest of dogs, but not the heaviest. A superb athlete and an endurance runner, an old Irish proverb describes him perfectly: “Gentle when stroked, fierce when provoked.”

One of the earliest recorded references to Irish Wolfhounds is in Roman records dating to 391 A.D. Often used as royal gifts, they hunted with their masters, fought beside them in battle, guarded their castles, played with their children, and lay quietly by the fire as family friends. They were fierce hunters of wolves and the oversized Irish elk, so good in fact that their prey disappeared from Ireland and the hounds fell upon hard times. By the 19th Century there were few Irish Wolfhounds left in Ireland. Although now primarily a family companion, the Irish Wolfhound will still instinctively give chase to fleeing prey. His large size commands more room, more exercise, and a bigger car. The breed’s harsh, natural coat requires regular brushing.


07.24.2014. 11:12

Wednesday July 23, 2014
News Articles

A Revolving Door Farce: CFTC Commissioner Bails To Head Regulator's Biggest Opponent
ZeroHedge | author | 07/23/14

There is no better way to describe what the recently departed CFTC commissioner Scott O'Malia just did when he bailed from the commodity watchdog to become the new head of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, aka ISDA, the biggest banking group that has constantly opposed every intervention and attempt to regulate the swaps market by the CFTC since the Lehman crisis, than an epic farce.

For those who are unaware ISDA is a global OTC derivative lobby group, counting the world's largest investment banks among its members, and has frequently fought regulatory efforts to reform the market after the financial crisis. ISDA itself was exposed as a complete joke during the European crisis when due to the overhang of avoiding Europe's insolvent reality, it made CDS protection obsolete as protection from sovereign restructurings and credit events, in the process crushing one of the key ways to hedge for credit event risk. ... Read more

Getting Rid of Cable TV: The Smartest Ways to Cut the Cord
WSJ | author | 07/15/14

Going without cable—or at least with considerably less of it—is easier than you think. Last week, I sliced my bill from $212 to $75 without giving up the stuff I really watch. Yes, cable and satellite companies lock away some content for subscribers. But you don't have to be an online pirate to see what you want.

Broadcasters give away the most popular HD channels free over the air, and Internet video services like Hulu, "smart" TVs and streaming boxes make it possible to remain a full-fledged couch potato. None of this is as simple as clicking channel up and down on your cable remote. But for the app-savvy, Internet streaming wins not just because of price, but because of convenience. ... Read more

State of the Climate in 2013 Report Release
NOAA | author | 07/17/14

In 2013, the vast majority of worldwide climate indicators—greenhouse gases, sea levels, global temperatures, etc.—continued to reflect trends of a warmer planet, according to the indicators assessed in the State of the Climate in 2013 report, released online July 17, 2014, by the American Meteorological Society.

Scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., served as the lead editors of the report, which was compiled by 425 scientists from 57 countries around the world (highlights, visuals, full report). It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments on air, land, sea, and ice. ... Read more

The 10 Best Small Cities in America
HP |David Jefferys, CNTraveler.com | 07/22/14

These spots, voted among the best in the U.S. by Condé Nast Traveler's readers, have plenty of cultural attractions, stylish hotels, and charm to spare. ... Read more

State of the Climate Change
CBS | Wildfire plows through Washington (07/18/14) [1:41]
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) website

Click to zoom - Why it matters
NOAA Climate.gov | 2013 State of the climate: Mountain glaciers
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, July 23 [7:16]
DN | Not In Our Name: Jewish Activists Arrested in Sit-in at Friends of Israel Defense Forces NYC Office (07/23/14) [6:43]
DN | MSNBC's Sole Palestinian Voice Rula Jebreal Takes on Pro-Israeli Gov't Bias at Network & in US Media (07/23/14) [15:23]
DN | A Debate on Gaza: Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada vs. J.J. Goldberg of the Jewish Daily Forward (07/23/14) [19:18]
DN | "Growing Humanitarian Crisis": Palestinian Toll Tops 650 as Israel Attacks Gaza's Sole Power Plant (07/23/14) [6:42]
TRNN News
TRNN | Sarit Michaeli says: Israeli Human Rights Spokesperson: Attacks on Civilians Unjustifiable (07/23/14) [10:00]
Chris Hedges Interviews Noam Chomsky (06/27/14) [17:59], Part 2 [17:03], Part 3 [20:56]
Part 1: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges speaks with Professor Noam Chomsky about working-class resistance during the Industrial Revolution, propaganda, and the historical role played by intellectuals in times of war
Part 2: Chomsky: The system we have now is radically anti-capitalist, radically anti-democratic, opposed to markets, and in favor of concentrating wealth and power.
Part 3: Noam Chomsky says Occupy challenges the atomization of society, and also discusses how the media obstructs meaningful action to address climate change.
More News
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Big Banks Spend $1 Million a Day to Fight Financial Reform (07/22/14) [33:50]
Jump to 15:00 to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren's inspiring speech.
Robert Reich on 6 Things That Do NOT Go Better With Koch (Brothers) (07/22/14) [3:01]
Koch Brothers Exposed 2014 [55:56]
Thom Hartmann News
Thom Hartmann | What Would Happen if we Wiped out the Debt? (07/21/14) [7:42]
Thom Hartmann: National debt held by the public was approximately $12.6 trillion or about 74% of Q1 2014 GDP Intragovernmental holdings stood at $5.1 trillion (30%), giving a combined total public debt of $17.6 trillion or about 104% of Q1 2014 GDP. As of January 2013, $5 trillion or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public was owned by foreign investors, the largest of which were the People's Republic of China and Japan at just over $1.1 trillion each. (07/30/14)
Jon Steawart - Daily News
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Learns What Happens When You Talk About Israel (07/22/14) [2:00]
Jon Stewart |Jon Stewart Blows The Lid Off Reagan's 'Immediate' Response To Russian Crisis (07/22/14) [5:39]

07.23.2014. 15:24

Tuesday July 22, 2014
News Articles

The World Just Had Its Hottest June On Record
AP & HP |Seth Borenstein | 07/22/14

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month's average global temperature was 61.2 degrees, which is 1.3 degrees higher than the 20th century average. It beat 2010's old record by one-twentieth of a degree.

While one-twentieth of a degree doesn't sound like much, in temperature records it's like winning a horse race by several lengths, said NOAA climate monitoring chief Derek Arndt.

And that's only part of it. The world's oceans not only broke a monthly heat record at 62.7 degrees, but it was the hottest the oceans have been on record no matter what the month, Arndt said. "We are living in the steroid era of the climate system," Arndt said. Arndt said both the June and May records were driven by unusually hot oceans, especially the Pacific and Indian oceans. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Hottest June on Record
NOAA - State of the Climate, June 2014

9/11 Commission Report A Decade Later: Threats Have Evolved, U.S. Hasn't
HP | Sam Stein | 07/22/14

The report, released Tuesday, praises some federal actions for making the country "better equipped to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks than in 2001." The commission, led by Chairman Tom Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, points to the federalization of airport security, upgraded security at ports of entry, and the devotion of hundreds of billions of dollars to the intelligence community as policy movements in the right direction

Yet the report finds foreboding gaps. The authors argue that the U.S. remains under-resourced on cyber-terrorism and under-appreciative of emerging threats, predominantly in the Middle East. They note that while core al Qaeda "has been damaged in recent years, its affiliates and associated groups … now have a presence in more theaters of operation than they did half a decade ago, operating today in at least 16 countries." ... Read more

The New Scariest Chart In America
ZeroHedge | author | 07/22/14

For the last few years, the 'scariest' chart for Europeans has been the unending surge in youth unemployment. However, amid all the sound and fury of mainstream US media discussions of the 'recovery' in America and the President's employment track record, Constantin Gurdgiev notes another 'scariest chart of the US recovery' that remains in full 'crisis mode'... Read more
Click to zoom - New Scariest Chart In America

Lots More News
  1. EU Works to Punish Russia as MH17 Bodies Leave Rebel Area (BBG)
  2. Bodies From Malaysia Airlines Flight Begin Long Trip to Netherlands (WSJ)
  3. Israel pounds Gaza as Kerry arrives (Reuters)
  4. U.S. judge dismisses Republican lawsuit over Obamacare subsidy for Congress (Reuters)
  5. Israel Soldier Missing Amid Assault on Hamas in Gaza (WSJ)
  6. Detroit Retirees Vote in Favor of Pension Cuts (WSJ)
  7. Russia Axes 1st Bond Sale in 3 Months as Ukraine Drives Up Yield (BBG)
  8. Wall Street Cut From Guest List for Jackson Hole Fed Meeting (BBG)
  9. Credit Suisse to Exit Commodities, Posts Big Quarter Loss (BBG)
  10. Draghi Cedes Euro Control to Yellen on Fed Rate Wagers (BBG)
DemocracyNow Daily News
DN | Max Blumenthal: With "Hollow Diplomacy," U.S. Created Political Space for Israeli Assault on Gaza (07/21/14) [7:15]
DN | Israeli Peace Demo Violently Disrupted, Dozens Injured as Counterprotesters Yell "Death to Arabs" (07/21/14) [5:46]
DN | Palestinian Human Rights Lawyer Raji Sourani Likens Netanyahu to Bin Laden For Killing Civilians (07/21/14) [5:55]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Vijay Prashad says: Lack of International Pressure Permits Endless Assault On Gaza (07/21/14) [10:47]
*TRNN | "We Are Going Through Hell" - Report from Gaza (07/21/14) [15:23]
On the 14th day of Operation Protective Edge, Gazan blogger Nalan al-Sarraj and TRNN Correspondent Yousef al-Helou discuss how Palestinians are responding to the massacre in Shujaiyeh, as well as the widespread support for the resistance against the siege.
*TRNN | Gerald Epstein says: Dodd-Frank Still Not Fully Implemented Four Years Later (07/22/14) [10:21]








Where Your Tax Dollars Go
Click to zoom - Where Your Tax Dollars Go
Click to zoom - US Defense Spending

07.22.2014. 07:49

Monday July 21, 2014
News Articles

Israel-Gaza Conflict: Gaza Suffers Its Deadliest Day After 'Heinous Massacre'
AlterNet | Kim Sengupta | 07/20/14

A night and day of ferocious violence has resulted in more than 100 deaths in Gaza, with Palestinian accusations that a bloody assault on the town of Shuja'iya by Israeli forces, leaving bodies on the streets and buildings destroyed, was motivated by revenge for the deaths of 13 soldiers

The Israeli losses were one of the largest in one operation suffered in recent times by the Jewish state. Al Quds Force, the military wing of Hamas, had claimed that it had lured troops into a minefield. But the Israeli military stated that the deaths came in separate incidents overnight involving improvised explosive devices and a firefight. ... Read more

This Is Where You Don't Want Your Tax Dollars Going
HP | Danielle Higgins | 07/19/14

I'll admit, that moment that I received my first paycheck from my first real-world, post-college job, I was stunned that the amount I calculated I would have for rent, loan payments and happy hours was much less than I thought.

However, my instinct was not, and still is not, that there should be no health care, no social security, no public benefits, or any of the number of expenditures that conservatives protest against paying for with their tax dollars.

It is entirely possible to be critical of where your tax money is going without "becoming conservative" and letting go of the liberal notion that higher tax rates -- when allocated effectively -- can create a more even playing field, domestically through welfare programs and abroad through foreign aid. ... Read more

Click to zoom - Where Your Tax Dollars Go!
Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes.pdf
WarResisters.org website

Women's Rowing Team's Naked Calendar Briefly Banned On Facebook
HP | Nina Bahadur | 07/18/14

Students from the Warwick women's rowing team decided to strip down for charity -- and found themselves held up to a double standard.

This week, Facebook banned the group's page citing "inappropriate content" -- but allowed an identical page for the men's team's naked calendar to remain. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, July 21 [9:54]
DN | Stephen Cohen: Downed Malaysian Plane Raises Risk of War Between Russia and the West (07/21/14) [2:38]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Phyllis Bennis: "U.S. Complicity Brought Up to Date" in Israel's War against Gaza (07/21/14) [12:10]
*TRNN | Larry Wilkerson: All Parties Involved to Blame for Malaysian Aircraft Disaster in Ukraine (07/21/14) [11:03]
TRNN | Jeff Cohen discusses several freedom of information issues, including a new campaign encouraging whistleblowing, the case of journalist James Risen, and net neutrality (07/21/14) [11:29]
ExposeFacts.org
RootsAction.org

07.21.2014. 09:33

Friday July 18, 2014
News Articles

Cost Of Military Jet Could House Every Homeless Person In U.S. With $600,000 Home
HP | author | date

Just days before its international debut at an airshow in the United Kingdom, the entire fleet of the Pentagon’s next generation fighter plane — known as the F-35 II Lightning, or the Joint Strike Fighter — has been grounded, highlighting just what a boondoggle the project has been. With the vast amounts spent so far on the aircraft, the United States could have worked wonders, including providing every homeless person in the U.S. a $600,000 home. ... Read more

Cheney Never Shoots Straight
HP | Joe Peyronnin | 07/16/14

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is trying hard to salvage his legacy, so he is resorting to spin, distortion and lies. But why is the media paying attention to him? Not even Cheney himself could erase from history the devastating record he has amassed, especially working with President George W. Bush.

A 2012 New York Times report revealed all of the warnings the Bush/Cheney administration received in the spring and summer of 2001 of a terrorist threat against the United States from within. On May 1, 2001, the CIA warned Bush a "group presently in the United States" was planning an attack. In July, the CIA warned that the attacks could be "imminent." On August 6, Bush received a classified document entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." None of the dots were connected by the White House, which dismissed criticism by saying they were not told when or where the attacks would occur. The attacks occurred on September 11, with devastating consequences. ... Read more

NBC News Pulls Veteran Reporter from Gaza After Witnessing Israeli Attack on Children
The Intercept | Glenn Greenwald | 07/17/14

Ayman Mohyeldin, the NBC News correspondent who personally witnessed yesterday’s killing by Israel of four Palestinian boys on a Gazan beach and who has received widespread praise for his brave and innovative coverage of the conflict, has been told by NBC executives to leave Gaza immediately. According to an NBC source upset at his treatment, the executives claimed the decision was motivated by “security concerns” as Israel prepares a ground invasion, a claim repeated to me by an NBC executive. But late yesterday, NBC sent another correspondent, Richard Engel, along with an American producer who has never been to Gaza and speaks no Arabic, into Gaza to cover the ongoing Israeli assault (both Mohyeldin and Engel speak Arabic). ... Read more

Ukraine says Malaysian airliner shot down, 295 dead: agency
Reuter | author | 07/17/14

A Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by militants on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard, a Ukrainian interior ministry official was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

The aircraft, which other sources said was a Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came down near the city of Donetsk, stronghold of pro-Russian rebels, Anton Gerashchenko said, adding that it was hit by a ground-to-air missile. ... Read more

Click to zoom - Defense Spending
Click to zoom - Where Your Tax Dollars Go!
Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes.pdf
WarResisters.org website
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, July 18 [9:35]
DN | "A Terrifying Night in Gaza": Sharif Abdel Kouddous Reports on Israeli Ground Invasion (07/18/14) [6:41]
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers | The Crusade Against Reproductive Rights. (07/18/14) [24:26]
Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision establishing a woman’s right to an abortion, was issued 41 years ago. Despite consistent public opinion to the contrary, conservatives and the religious right have patiently and relentlessly campaigned against it for decades. And recently, their efforts are finding some success. Two major rulings by the Supreme Court this last session limited health insurance coverage for contraception and gave protesters increased rights to demonstrate outside abortion clinics. Several states — especially in the South — in the name, legislators say, of women’s health, have passed regulations that creatively use technicalities to force clinics to close.

Bill Moyers talks about the politics of reproductive freedom with Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. For nearly a century, Planned Parenthood has been the leading advocate for reproductive health care in the United States, with 69 affiliates nationwide, operating more than 700 health centers.

“It’s better to be a corporation today than to be a woman in front of the Supreme Court,” Richards tells Bill. “I think that the Hobby Lobby decision is just the beginning of giving corporations free license to obey those rules and laws that they agree with, and not ones that they don’t.”
TRNN News
TRNN | Blogger Nalan al Sarraj and TRNN's Lia Tarachansky report: "Evacuate to Where?" - Report from Gaza and Israel (07/18/14) [19:06]
TRNN | Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch discuss: Is the New BRICS Bank a Challenge to US Global Financial Power? (07/18/14) [27:27]
Thom Hartmann News
Welcome to the New Bubble.... (07/17/14) [8:24]
Stop Corporate Corruption: Get the Money of of Politics (07/17/14) [7:21]
Crony Capitalism Enabled by the Supreme Court (07/17/14) [8:36]
TYT News
TYT | This 'Controversy' Is Ridiculous! Pearl Jam Singer Criticized For Anti-War Statements (07/17/14) [6:56]
TYT | Following Bombed Kids, NBC Pulls Reporter For Reporting Truth (07/17/14) [9:47]
TYT | Malaysian Airliner Shot Down Over Ukraine - Russia's Doing? (07/17/14) [8:15]
TYT | Bill O'Reilly Wants The Berlin Wall Back, Only MUCH Bigger (07/17/14) [4:38]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Domestic News - Friday (07/18/14) [1hr]
International News - Friday (07/18/14) [1hr]
Jon Stewart - Daily News
Jon Stewart | interviews Hillary Clinton, Part 1. (07/16/14) [7:27]
Click to zoom - US Budget

07.18.2014. 10:09

Thursday July 17, 2014
News Articles

Microsoft To Lay Off Up To 18,000 Workers Over Next Year
AP & HP | author | 07/17/14

Microsoft has announced the biggest layoffs in its history, saying it will cut up to 18,000 jobs or 14 percent of its staff as it works to cut down on management layers and integrate the Nokia cellphone business it bought in April. The news sent Microsoft's stock up 3 percent in morning trading.

Although the job cuts had been expected, the extent of them was a surprise. It's the boldest move by CEO Satya Nadella since he took the reins from Steve Ballmer in February. In a public email to employees Thursday, he said the changes were needed for the company to "become more agile and move faster. ... Read more
Microsoft to cut up to 18,000 jobs in next year, CEO says in message to employees (07/17/14) [1:37]

Capitalism's Deeper Problem
Bill Moyers | Richard Wolff | 07/15/14

Recent press reports refer to troubling price increases for such assets as real estate, government bonds, companies targeted for acquisition and artwork. A New York Times front-page headline read "The Everything Boom, or Maybe the Everything Bubble."

Yet while asset prices soar, the production of goods and services, employment and workers' incomes are not recovering and resuming growth. Instead, Western Europe, North America and Japan are stuck in a longer, deeper crisis than almost anyone expected. Millions have left the labor force. Wages, benefits and job security are declining; the so-called "middle classes" are evaporating. Having promised "recoveries," desperate governments inject massive new quantities of money into their economies. What they accomplish most are fast-rising asset prices. ... Read more

Bill Moyers | Richard Wolff on Curing Capitalism (older) [30:22]
Click to zoom - US Drought Monitor
Grand Designs - "The Cob Castle" (01/30/14) [46:55]
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, July 17 [7:28]
DN | Horror on Gaza Beach: New York Times Photographer Witnesses Israeli Killing of 4 Palestinian Boys (07/17/14) [7:41]
*DN | U.S. Turns Back on Child Migrants After Its Policies in Guatemala, Honduras Sowed Seeds of Crisis (07/17/14) [17:41]
*DN | Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz Hails New BRICS Bank Challenging U.S.-Dominated World Bank & IMF (07/17/14) [7:06]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Hedges and Lessig on Money and Politics, Part 3 (07/17/14) [18:46]
TRNN | Occupation of Palestinian Territories Likely to Intensify in Coming Months (07/17/14) [14:49]
Ring of Fire
Papantonio: Religious Promotion Will Backfire on Republicans (07/17/14) [9:34]
TYT News
*TYT | Kids Playing On Beach Shelled By Israeli Navy (07/16/14) [8:16]
TYT | Jon Stewart Enrages Right Winger, First Over Gaza, Then It Gets Personal (07/16/14) [8:12]
*TYT | Dick Cheney The Living Embodiment Of Eisenhower's Greatest Fear (07/16/14) [4:50]
John Oliver
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Hobby Lobby (06/30/14) [6:09]
HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Monarchy (06/28/14) [5:54]

07.17.2014. 12:58

Wednesday July 16, 2014
News Articles

Rupert Murdoch Is Trying To Buy Time Warner For A Huge Pric
HP | Jack Mirkinson | 07/16/14

Rupert Murdoch has made an ambitious play to buy media giant Time Warner, setting in motion a potentially massive merger. The New York Times was the first to break the news about Murdoch's plans. The paper said that 21st Century Fox, one of the two huge media conglomerates owned by Murdoch, offered to purchase Time Warner for $80 billion, but was turned down.

21st Century Fox eventually confirmed that it had made an offer, but said it was not currently in discussions with Time Warner. That could easily change, though. Murdoch is used to such rejection and may have even expected it. After all, others, such as the former owners of the Wall Street Journal, have also pushed away his initial takeover offers. Murdoch now owns the Journal. ... Read more

Hottest March-June On Record Globally, Reports Japan Meteorological Agency
Click to zoom - Hotest June on Record
thinkprogress.org/ | Joe Romm | 07/15/14

You may recall that the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reported last month that March-May was the hottest in more than 120 years of record-keeping. Well, the JMA reported Monday that last month was the hottest June in more than 120 years of record-keeping. That makes 3 straight record-breaking months for JMA -- the hottest second quarter on record. It also means we had the hottest March-June on record.

And these records occurred despite the fact we're still waiting for the start of El Niño. It is usually the combination of the underlying long-term warming trend and the regional El Niño warming pattern that leads to new global temperature records. ... Read more

California Braces for the Worst: El Niño May Be Too Little, Too Late to Save It From Drought
AlterNet | author | 07/16/14

California has imposed statewide water-use regulations for the first time as its three-year drought worsens. Yesterday, state regulators approved stringent new measures limiting outdoor water, which include $500 fines for using an outdoor hose without a shut-off nozzle.

Meanwhile, hopes that the drought would break by autumn have been tempered. The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center downplayed the help that El Niño may bring to the drought-plagued West in its monthly report of Pacific Ocean weather patterns. While the Center is still projecting that sea surface temperatures will be warmer than usual--a phenomenon known as El Niño--it is now saying that the effect will be only "weak to moderate." ... Read more

Israeli Arms Company Plans 'Star Wars' Style Laser Defense System
JNS.org. | author | 02/14/14

Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems unveiled its latest missile defense system, called Iron Beam, which uses lasers to destroy incoming rockets and mortars.

According to Rafael, the Iron Beam system is designed to intercept super close-range drones, rockets, and mortars that aren't in the air long enough for the Iron Dome system to pick up. Military experts agree that it will be a potentially effective addition to Israel's battlefield-tested Iron Dome system. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, July 16 [10:46]
*DN | Live Report From Baghdad: Despite Threat by ISIS, Life in Iraqi Capital Feels "Deceptively Calm" (07/16/14) [12:58]
*DN | "Iraq Has Already Disintegrated": ISIS Expands Stronghold as Leaks Expose US Doubts on Iraqi Forces (07/16/14) [8:17]
DN | Is an Iran Nuclear Deal Within Reach? Dissecting the Latest Talks over a "Manufactured Crisis" (07/16/14) [4:28]
John Oliver
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Wealth Gap (07/13/14) [14:09]
TRNN News
TRNN | Hedges and Lessig on Money and Politics, Part 2 (07/16/14) [18:39]
Larry Lessig is calling a MayDay on our democracy
TRNN | The Real News speaks to Gaza-based blogger Nalan al Sarraj about the Israeli bombardment campaign on the strip and why Hamas rejected a proposed ceasefire (07/16/14) [4:34]
TRNN | East correspondent Lia Tarachansky discusses Operation Protective Edge after Hamas rejected the Egyptian ceasefire proposal (07/16/14) [9:00]
Lia Tarachansky: On The Side Of The Road | Israel/Palestine | Hebrew & Arabic (trailer) (2013) [1:23:00]
Ring of Fire
Papantonio: Obama Fails Miserably on Disclosure (07/16/14) [8:54]
President Obama has tools at his disposal that could pull back the curtain on big money campaign donors. But instead of forcing companies to disclose which candidates they are supporting, Obama has decided to let them continue to operate in the dark.
Papantonio: Eric Holder is Obama's Biggest Failure (07/16/14) [5:47]
Papantonio: Republicans Fight Over Who's The Biggest Idiot (07/16/14) [6:53]
TYT News
TYT | Is It Ever Okay To Criticize Israel? (07/15/14) [6:34]
TYT | Customer Service Rep Recorded Yelling At Customer (07/15/14) [5:34]
"We all know that it takes strength to call a utility or telecom. But the patience of two customers was seriously tested recently when they had the audacity to contact Comcast and make a simple request. Writer Veronica Belmont and her husband Ryan Block, a product manager at AOL (parent company of The Huffington Post), called Comcast last week to disconnect their service. The couple planned to switch to another cable and Internet provider, but the customer service representative who handled their call had no intention of letting them do so."
*TYT | Is It Ever Okay To Criticize Israel? (07/15/14) [6:34]
*TYT | Ceasefire Hopes Dashed As Rockets Fall & Deaths Rise (07/15/14) [6:11]
*TYT | What is Israel Supposed to Do? (07/15/14) [10:57]
*TYT | The Establishment Should Fear Elizabeth Warren (07/15/14) [9:00]
Nuclear Blasts
"1945-1998 Nuclear Blasts" by Isao Hashimoto [14:25]

07.16.2014. 13:18

Tuesday July 15, 2014
News Articles

Environmental Crime: The Prosecution Gap
The Crime Report.org | Graham Kates | 07/14/14

... Although the federal government extolled the win against BP Gulf oil spill as the start of a new era of environmental policing, an analysis by The Crime Report of thousands of records compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reveals that enforcement of corporate environmental crime remains extremely rare.

More than 64,000 facilities are currently listed in agency databases as being in violation of federal environmental laws, but in most years, fewer than one-half of one percent of violations trigger criminal investigations, according to EPA records. ... Read more

An Exceptional Decline for the Exceptional Country?
Bill Moyers | Tom Engelhardt | 07/14/14

For America's national security state, this is the age of impunity. Nothing it does -- torture, kidnapping, assassination, illegal surveillance, you name it -- will ever be brought to court. For none of its beyond-the-boundaries acts will anyone be held accountable. The only crimes that can now be committed in official Washington are by those foolish enough to believe that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth. I'm speaking of the various whistleblowers and leakers who have had an urge to let Americans know what deeds and misdeeds their government is committing in their name but without their knowledge. They continue to pay a price in accountability for their acts that should, by comparison, stun us all.

As June ended, the New York Times front-paged an account of an act of corporate impunity that may, however, be unique in the post-9/11 era (though potentially a harbinger of things to come). In 2007, as journalist James Risen tells it, Daniel Carroll, the top manager in Iraq for the rent-a-gun company Blackwater, one of the warrior corporations that accompanied the US military to war in the twenty-first century, threatened Jean Richter, a government investigator sent to Baghdad to look into accounts of corporate wrongdoing. ... Read more

What It's Like On The Ground In Gaza
HP | Sophia Jones | 07/15/14

Headless bodies. Screaming children. Entire neighborhoods fleeing on foot. The unmistakable sounds of Hamas rockets and the booms of Israeli strikes. It's been a bloody week here in Gaza, with the death toll now at more than 190 people, the majority of them civilians. While Palestinians here decry the number of deaths, Israel says it doesn't target civilians and that the deaths are unavoidable if Hamas launches rockets from heavily populated areas. There have been no reported deaths in Israel, largely due to the Iron Dome rocket interceptor, although some Israelis have been injured.

On Tuesday, Israel agreed to ceasefire terms brokered by Egypt, but Hamas rejected the proposal on the grounds that it had not been consulted. There remains little hope here that a lasting ceasefire will take effect. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, July 15 [11:00]
NSA JTRIG Tools-Techniques - Cryptome.pdf
DN | With 192 Dead in Gaza, Is True Ceasefire Possible Under Israeli Occupation, Palestinian Resistance? (07/15/14) [6:18]
DN | After Palestinian Unity Deal, Did Israel Spark Violence to Prevent a New "Peace Offensive"? (07/15/14) [9:21]
DN | Green Scare: Animal Rights Activists Face Terrorism Charges for Freeing Minks From Fur Farm (07/15/14) [3:09]
DN | The Prosecution Gap: Corporate Polluters Rarely Criminally Charged for Violating Environmental Law (07/15/14) [2:52]
A new investigation by The Crime Report published Monday documents how corporations almost never face criminal investigations for violating environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. A survey of environmental violations tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency shows just one-half of one percent of them trigger criminal prosecution. Joining us to describe his investigation, The Crime Report's Graham Kates describes how one company, Alpha Natural Resources, faced only civil fines after it racked up more than 6,000 violations between 2007 and 2013. Kates say prosecutions are hampered by limited government resources in pursuing corporate polluters. The EPA has just 200 agents nationwide, and the Environmental Crime section of Department of Justice has just 38 prosecutors.
TRNN News
*TRNN | Bill Black: Who Is the Unsung Hero of the $7 Billion Citigroup Settlement? (07/15/14) [6:53]
WORONCZUK: And, Bill, can you put this $7 billion, this settlement, in context? How does this compare to the profit that Citibank made off of the mortgage-backed security, as well as to the damage they did to the U.S. economy?

BLACK: Well, Citicorp doesn't necessarily make profit out of all of this. As I've tried to explain many times, many of these fraud mechanisms involved looting the corporation, which is, again, another reason why the prosecution should center on the individuals, not on Citicorp. After all, this fine is not going to be paid by the officers who are made wealthy by the fraud; it's going to be payed by the shareholders. And the shareholders frequently already lost money because of the looting.

But if you ask me what was the damage done by these kinds of frauds, the best estimate of economists right now is that we lost $21 trillion--a trillion is a thousand billion--$21 trillion in lost productivity as a result of the Great Recession that is a direct result of this epidemic of these kinds of fraud. And we lost 10 million American jobs. Now, that's just the American story. In Europe, both of those numbers are significantly larger.
*TRNN | Hedges and Lessig on Money and Politics, Part 1 (07/15/14) [18:38]
TYT News
TYT | Strong Words From The Latest Sane Person Run Out Of The Republican Party (07/15/14) [3:32]
Humor
Hottest Year On Record? (07/15/14) [2:21]
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.
The Dark Ages (10/17/13) [1:30:44]
The Crusades: Crescent & The Cross (09/06/13) [3:00:27]
Napoleon's Secrets Revealed (07/11/14) [50:30]
Napoleon Bonaparte, born 15 August 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, died on 5 May 1821 on the island of Saint Helena, was First Consul, then Emperor of the French. He was a conqueror of Europe. A general of the French Revolution of 24 years, he accumulated spectacular victories in Italy during the campaign in Egypt, then took power by coup d'état in November 1799.

He headed the French from the end of 1799 and was the first consul from November 1799 to May 1804 and then Emperor of the French under the name Napoleon I from May 1804 to April 1814. He reorganized and reformed the state and society. He was also President of the Italian Republic from 1802 to 1805, then king of Italy, from March 1805 to April 1814, as well as the mediator of the Swiss Confederation from 1803 to 1813 and protector of the Confederation of the Rhine from 1806 to 1813. He conquered and ruled most of continental Europe and placed several members of his family on the thrones of several European kingdoms.

Napoleon tried to put an end to the series of wars undertaken by European monarchies against France beginning in 1792. He led the men of the Great Army. Despite many initial victories with various coalitions assembled and financed by Great Britain (now the United Kingdom in 1801), the imperial era ended in 1815 with the defeat of Waterloo.

Napolean played a major role in the history of Europe having been a great general and later in life a monarch. No doubt his existence had played a great role in the evolution of France and it's capital Paris. Many monuments in Paris showcase his accomplishments and highlight his life and history.
HC | World War I: The Necessary War (06/07/14) [58:35]
HC | World War II From Space (06/07/14) [1:28:31]

07.16.2014. 07:46

Monday July 14, 2014
News Articles

Citigroup Will Pay $7 Billion To End DOJ Mortgage Investigation
HP & Reuters | author | 07/14/14

July 14 (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc said it agreed to pay $7 billion to settle a U.S. government investigation into mortgage-backed securities the bank sold in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The settlement figure was more that twice what many analysts expected earlier this year but less than the $12 billion the government had sought in negotiations with the bank.

Citigroup said on Monday it would pay $4.5 billion in cash and provide $2.5 billion in consumer relief.

The bank said it would take a related pre-tax charge of about $3.8 billion in the second quarter. The bank is scheduled to report results before the market opens on Monday.
Read more

Mission Accomplished: Retail Piles In To Stocks As Pros Pile Out
ZeroHedge | author | 07/14/14

With year-end target after year-end target having been met and raised by the oh-so-ethical sell-side strategists and asset-gatherers, it appears the Fed's grand plan of dragging every bit of cash into the increasingly more risky equity markets is working. After a rally driven more by financial engineering that real sustainable growth, Bloomberg reports, individual investors are plowing money back into the U.S. stock market just as professional strategists say gains for this year are over. As one senior equity manager warned, "if Wall Street, after poring over all known data, comes up with a target and we're already there, and you still see individual investors buying and they're typically the ones that are late to the party, it would seem there is limited upside," but that didn't stop about $100 billion being added to equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the past year, 10 times more than the previous 12 months. We have found this cycle's greater fool and once again it is the retail investor. ... Read more

Still Think First Quarter Earnings Were Strong? Then Look At This Chart
Click to zoom - Chart of the Day
ZeroHedge | author | 07/14/14

Contribution to annualized nominal 1Q GDI growth: Real Gross Domestic Income plunged 2.6% in 1Q, nearly matching the decline in GDP. Looking at the components (only available in nominal terms), the biggest driver of the decline was a collapse in corporate profits, which offset a trend-like increase in wages and salaries. The decline in corporate profits is indicative of weaker aggregate demand and a drop in productivity. ... Read more

Have We Gone From a Post-War to a Pre-War World
HP | Walter Russell Mead | 07/07/14

On June 28, 1914, a chauffeur panicked after a failed bomb attack on his boss, took a wrong turn and came to a complete stop in front of a café in Sarajevo where Gavrilo Princip was sitting. Princip, discouraged at the apparent failure of the planned murder, seized the unexpected opportunity and fired the shots that began the First World War, a cataclysm which claimed over nine million lives, ended four empires and set in motion events from the Communist Revolution in Russia to the rise of Nazi Germany.

One hundred years later, the world is nervously keeping its eyes peeled for misguided chauffeurs and asking itself whether history could repeat. The great powers are at peace, and trade and cultural ties between nations seem closer than ever before, yet the international scene is in many ways surprisingly brittle. In particular, a rising naval power is challenging an established hegemon, and a "powder keg" region replete with ethnic and religious quarrels looks less stable by the day.

In 1914, Germany was the rising power, the U.K. the weary hegemon and the Balkans was the powder keg. In 2014, China is rising, the United States is staggering under the burden of world leadership and the Middle East is the powder keg. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, July 14 [14:35]
DN | "Israel Targets Civilians, the Casualties Speak Volumes": Int'l Protection Urged for Besieged Gaza (07/14/14) [7:01]
DN | Norwegian Physician Treating Wounded Civilians: Stop the Bombing, End Israeli Impunity in Gaza (07/14/14) [4:04]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Shir Hever: An Occupier's Peace or a Just Peace, Part 4 (07/13/14) [19:21]
TRNN | Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy: A Ground Invasion of Gaza Will Achieve Nothing but More Bloodshed (07/14/14) [7:50]
Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy says the people of Gaza are victims of Israeli domestic politics and treated like hostages by Hamas.
Heist
Heist: A Who Done It On The Economy (shortened version) [27:57]
*Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? (full) (2012) [1:26:21]
TYT News
TYT | ISIS Dominates Iraq Using Sophisticated Social Media Tactics (07/13/14) [6:41]
*TYT | Cyber? Bankers & Gov Officials Steam Up Revolving Door (07/13/14) [6:05]
TYT | Fox News Has Typical Ironic B*tchfest Over Atheist Ad (07/13/14) [7:15]
TYT | Honey Boo Boo, Kardashians, Duck Dynasty - Victims Of A Grim New Reality (07/13/14) [7:15]
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire | Abby Martin: Blackwater's Criminal History (07/11/14) [10:51]
The private mercenary firm Blackwater is finally on trial for committing some of the worst atrocities during the Iraq War. Reports show that the company knowingly killed innocent, unarmed Iraqi civilians -- women and children -- and so far they haven't been held accountable. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for Blackwater's crimes.
*Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Jesus Was NOT A Republican (07/14/14) [10:04]
FRAUD and GREED (also see Sticky News)

07.14.2014. 11:53

Friday July 11, 2014
News Articles

10 Supreme Court Rulings -- Before ‘Hobby Lobby’ -- That Turned Corporations Into People
Bill Moyers & MotherJones | author | 07/11/14

Last week’s Hobby Lobby ruling charted new legal territory by granting corporations the same religious rights as real people. The rationale behind the decision — that expanding constitutional rights to businesses is necessary to “protect the rights of people associated with the corporation” — is far from novel. A line of Supreme Court rulings stretching back 200 years has blurred the distinction between flesh-and-blood citizens and the businesses they own, laying the groundwork for Hobby Lobby and the equally contentious Citizens United ruling. Here’s a timeline of the corporation’s human evolution:

  1. 1809 (Bank of the United States v. Deveaux): In the early days of the republic, when state and federal courts were still working out their jurisdictions, the Bank of the United States — a precursor to the US Treasury — sued a Georgia tax collector named Peter Deveaux for property he had seized when the bank failed to pay state taxes.
  2. 1844 (Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad v. Letson): he Supreme Court shifted course, ruling that corporations were “citizens” of the states where they incorporated. Still, it was difficult for a corporation to sue or be sued in federal court unless all its shareholders lived in the same state.
  3. 1853 (Marshall v. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad): The Supreme Court later upheld the notion that corporations were citizens, but only for the purposes of court jurisdiction; they did not have the same constitutional rights as actual people.
  4. 1886 (County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad): Now that corporations were legally citizens, corporate attorneys worked to expand their rights.
  5. 1898 (Smyth v. Ames): Building on the Santa Clara decision, the court voided a Nebraska railroad tax, ruling that it was akin to the government taking a corporation’s property without due process — a violation of its 14th Amendment rights.
  6. 1906 (Hale v. Henkel): Having blocked unlawful seizures of corporate property, the court went on to shield companies from other kinds of intrusion. Writing for the majority, Justice Henry Billings Brown found that corporations, like people, are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.
  7. 1931 (Russian Volunteer Fleet v. United States): A Russian shipbuilder, Russian Volunteer Fleet, sued the US government, claiming that government officials had unlawfully seized property worth more than $4 million.
  8. 1977 (United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co.): After a criminal trial for two linen companies and their owner was dismissed due to jury deadlock, federal prosecutors appealed the decision. The Supreme Court ruled that a second trial violated the companies’ rights to be tried only once, expanding the double jeopardy rule to include both humans and corporations.
  9. 2010 (Citizens United v. FEC): In the run up to the 2008 election, the Federal Elections Commission blocked the conservative nonprofit Citizens United from airing a film about Hillary Clinton based on a law barring companies from using their funds for “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.
  10. 2014 (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby): Corporations are legally people with the right to free speech, but do they have religious rights? Apparently, they do.
Read more

CEO Of Europe's Largest Insurer Pops The Utopia Bubble: "Nothing Is Solved And Everybody Knows It"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/11/14

“The fundamental problems are not solved and everybody knows it,” Maximilian Zimmerer, CEO of Allianz, said at Bloomberg LP’s London office. The “euro crisis is not over,” he said. “There is only one country where the debt level last year was lower than 2012 and this is a signal the debt crisis can’t be over, only a recognition of the debt crisis has changed,” Zimmerer said on July 9. “If the debt levels are not going down in the end we will have a problem, that is for sure.” ... Read more

Are “failed U.S. policies” to blame for the rise in unaccompanied Central American migrant children?
borderfactcheck.org | author | 07/10/14

The Facts: It’s unlikely that Central American families are paying such close attention to discussions of administrative changes within the U.S. executive branch. Even leaving this aside, there are at least four reasons why the House members’ letter’s claims are inaccurate.

  1. The administrative changes cited in the letter had not yet occurred when the so-called “surge” of unaccompanied minors began.
  2. It’s not just minors. Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran adults are leaving too. And the exodus is going to other countries.
  3. There is no “surge” of unaccompanied Mexican minors.
  4. While violence and poverty are the main drivers, something did happen in late 2013 and early 2014 to increase still further the rate of unaccompanied minors arriving in the United States.
Read more
BorderFactcheck.org website
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) website
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, July 11 [7:16]
*DN | "We Should Be Protecting Children": Rep. Gutiérrez Supports Funds for Humanitarian Crisis at Border (07/11/14) [11:52]
DN | "Worst of the American Spirit": Advocates Decry Anti-Immigrant Protests, Urge Asylum for Children (07/11/14) [7:10]
DN | Gaza Debate: As Palestinian Deaths Top 100, Who's to Blame For Escalating Violence? What Can Done? (07/11/14) [8:48]
Bill Moyers
*Bill Moyers | Bill speaks to NY Times columnist Linda Greenhouse and Slate's Dahlia Lithwick about the agenda of the Roberts court. (07/11/14) [36:38], Part 2 [16:13]
*Bill Moyers | Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court (older 2012) [37:25]
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin, constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator, join Bill to discuss how the uncontested power of the Supreme Court is changing our elections, our country, and our lives. The two joined forces for a special upcoming issue of The Nation entitled “The One Percent Court.”

“We wanted to bring attention to how this court has empowered the 1% at the expense of the 99%,” says vanden Heuvel. “How it is now working for big business, for corporate power against the interests of ordinary citizens in this country.”
Justice for Sale, Bill examines the impact of campaign financing on the judicial election process. (really old, but good) [56:37]
The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations (2012)
Lewis Powell Memo.pdf
Heist
Heist: A Who Done It On The Economy (shortened version) [27:57]
Heist - Who Stole the American Dream? (full) (2012) [1:26:21]
TRNN News
TRNN | Shir Hever: Israel -- World Capital of Homeland Security Industries, Part 3 (07/11/14) [19:19]
*TRNN | The Strategic Goal of Israeli Offensive against Gaza Is Revenge (07/11/14) [16:38]
TRNN | Todd Miller: Security, Refugees, and Profit at the U.S. Border (07/11/14) [16:38]
Todd Miller: As record numbers of child migrants from Central America arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, the crisis should be a treated as a refugee issue, not a security issue.
US Senator Bernie Sanders
Government Spending and Demand Side of Economics (07/11/14) [3:22]
Bernie Sanders on the Plutocratic Society (older, but good) [3:39]
TYT News
TYT | Rick Perry Chewed Alive By His Own Words, Oops (07/10/14) [6:16]
TYT | Mistakes Are One Thing But What ABC News Did Is Journalistic Negligence (07/10/14) [4:16]

07.13.2014. 07:41

Thursday July 10, 2014
News Articles

Congress' Leaders Showed Exactly How Broken They Are In Just 10 Minutes
HP | Michael McAuliff | 07/09/14

Like the base ball bawlers, Reid said, the GOP's tirades are just for show, a way to distract from other problems and perhaps give their team a lift.

"It was a gimmick many times, a distraction meant to sidetrack one side and rally the other," Reid said. "In the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership in the House are trying a similar tactic by threatening to bring suit against the president of the United States. They're searching desperately for something -– anything -– to keep the radicals within their own caucus over there, to keep 'em happy. That's hard to do as we've seen. They want to do this to divert the American people's attention from their very own inaction." ... Read more
Congress' Leaders Showed Exactly How Broken They Are In Just 10 Minutes (07/10/14) [2:31]

Salon
Salon & AlterNet | author | 07/02/14

The British government dealt a strong blow to creationists last week when they clarified and extended their laws banning creationism in the classroom to not only free schools, but to academies as well.

Academies, including free schools, are the UK’s version of the charter schools in the US, and there were concerns that, since academies are often run by religious organizations who taught and endorsed creationism in the classroom, kids who attend them were not being taught actual science. ... Read more

Futures Tumble, Bunds Soar To Record, Gold Surges As Europe Is Broken Again; Espirito Santo Halted
ZeroHedge | author | 07/10/14

But... but... the VIX said everything is ok, and European rates were the lowest they have been in centuries... How can something possibly go wrong? It just did.

The scandal which we first reported yesterday, after observing the record collapse in the bonds of troubled Portuguese lender Espirito Santo International following the failure to make a bond payment, has quickly escalated and overnight went nuclear. ... Read more
Click to zoom - European Stocks

The Great Barrier Reef Will Be Ravaged By El Niño
MotherJones | Oliver Milman | 07/08/14

The Great Barrier Reef is set to be ravaged by the expected El Niño weather phenomenon and scientists warn that similar warming events have significantly impacted upon the reef’s coral.

Research by the University of Queensland studied large Porites coral colonies, a type of coral considered more resistant than others to changes in the environment.

By analysing and dating coral samples, researchers found there was a significant correlation between mass coral mortality events and spikes in sea surface temperature over the past 150 years. ... Read more

The Giant Methane Monster That Can Wipe Out the Human Race
AlterNet | Thom Hartmann | 07/04/14

Underneath the frozen Arctic are 1,000 gigatons of the world's most deadly greenhouse gas.

... Methane is one of the strongest of the natural greenhouse gases, about 80 times more potent than CO2, and while it may not get as much attention as its cousin CO2, it certainly can do as much, if not more, damage to our planet.

That's because methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and there are trillions of tons of it embedded in a kind of ice slurry called methane hydrate or methane clathrate crystals in the Arctic and in the seas around the continental shelves all around the world. ... Read more

Tiny Houses Big With U.S. Owners Seeking Economic Freedom
Bloomberg | Nina Glinski | 07/09/14

“I wanted to have an edge against career vagaries,” said Immel, a former real estate appraiser. A dwelling with minimal financial burden “gives you a little attitude.” He invests the money he would have spent on a mortgage and related costs in a mutual fund, halving his retirement horizon to 10 years and maybe even as soon as three. “I am infinitely happier.”

Dramatic downsizing is gaining interest among Americans, gauging by increased sales of plans and ready-made homes and growing audiences for websites related to the niche. A+E Networks Corp. will air, beginning today, “Tiny House Nation” a series on FYI that “celebrates the exploding movement.” ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, July 10 [11:10]
DN | Spied on for Being Muslim? NSA Targets Named in Snowden Leaks Respond to U.S. Gov't Surveillance (07/10/14) [5:37]
A new report by The Intercept has identified five prominent Muslim Americans who were spied on by the National Security Agency. It cites an NSA spreadsheet leaked by Edward Snowden that shows nearly 7,500 email addresses monitored between 2002 and 2008, including addresses that appear to belong to foreigners the government suspects of ties to al-Qaeda, along with Americans accused of terrorist activity. But it also lists the email addresses of a former Republican operative and one-time political candidate, a professor at Rutgers University, and the head of the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country. We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story for The Intercept based on documents leaked by Snowden. "The only thing they really had in common is that they are all politically active Americans Muslims," Greenwald says. "And that seems to be enough in the intelligence community to render these people suspicious." We are also joined by two people Greenwald names in the article: Asim Ghafoor, a prominent civil rights attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases; and Faisal Gill, an attorney and former senior policy director with the Department of Homeland Security. When asked what needs to be done in response to the revelations, Gill argues Congress should step in and exercise its authority over how the FISA courts approve surveillance. "In our cases I don't think there is probable cause ... so the entire system needs to be examined," Gill says. "What happens is you paint somebody with a broad brush and they're tainted for life ... Nobody wants a lawyer that the government suspects of being involved in these type of activities."
DN | "Indonesia is on a Different Path": U.S.-Trained General Defeated After Alleged Plot to Rig Vote (07/10/14) [4:27]
An initial count in Indonesia's hotly contested presidential election shows Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo has a several-point lead over former army general Prabowo Subianto. Prabowo has refused to concede defeat, and official results won't be known until after July 20. The American journalist Allan Nairn recently reported Indonesian forces tied to Prabowo have waged a campaign to rig the election in his favor, including "ballot tampering, street violence and threats" against rivals. Prabowo, who received military training by the United States, has been accused of mass killings when he headed the Indonesian special forces in the 1990s. Nairn's reporting on Prabowo became a major issue in the campaign, and Prabowo has filed criminal charges against him for inciting hatred against the Indonesian military. Joining us from Indonesia, Nairn argues that despite supporters that include "killer generals," Widodo will be more responsive to calls to reform the country's corrupt political system if popular movements pressure him to do so. "It is very unlikely [Widodo] would respond by opening fire as the Indonesian army has in the past, and as Prabowo undoubtedly would," Nairn says. "He would probably respond by sitting down with people and say, 'Let's work something out.'"
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers | Is the Supreme Court Out of Order? (preview) (07/09/14) [0:29]
The latest session of the US Supreme Court was especially contentious, with important decisions on the separation of church and state, organized labor, campaign finance reform, birth control and women’s health, among others, splitting the court along its 5-4 conservative — liberal divide.

On the other hand, nearly two-thirds of the court’s decisions this term were unanimous — the first time that’s happened in more than 60 years. But there’s more to that seeming unanimity than meets the eye: in some instances, conservative justices went along but expressed their wish that the court had gone even further to the right, and many believe that some of the decisions might simply be a preliminary step toward a more significant breaking of legal precedent in years to come.
TRNN News
TRNN | Investigation Proves NSA Spies on Americans beyond Metadata Collection (07/10/14) [8:23]
A four month long investigation by The Washington Post has found that nine out of ten (yes, 90 percent) of all NSA-intercepted data are from ordinary citizens. These folks were not the intended surveillance targets, yet the NSA was able to intercept Facebook messages, photos, and more. The information for the report was based on revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
TRNN | Shir Hever: Growing Up Privileged in Apartheid, Colonial Israel, Part 1 (07/09/14) [21:42]
TRNN | Shir Hever: Fear and Loathing in Israel, Part 2 (07/10/14) [21:14]
Truth Out
Greg Hunter: We don't have real markets, we have a massive manipulation scheme (older 2013) [27:29]
Larry Lessig MayDay.us SuperPAC
Will you support the MayDay PAC? (07/03/14) [5:10]
MayDay.us website
MoveOn.org Poll website
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Dark Money Poisoning Politics (07/09/14) [8:02]
Ring of Fire | Pap and Seder: Southern States Are Keeping Children Stupid (07/09/14) [7:28]
TYT News
TYT | Outrageous Claim By Republican To Justify Doing Nothing (07/09/14) [2:40]
TYT | Tens Of Thousands Poisoned & The Fine Is So Small It Insults Human Decency (07/09/14) [5:04]
TYT | Bible-Toting, Gun-Wielding Woman Gets Big Wet Kiss From Fox News (07/09/14) [5:18]
Remarkable Animal Stories
Many years ago I had a dog that developed cancer in one of her front legs. After talking to the vet I thought I had three choices, 1) do nothing and tend to the dogs needs, 2) Chemotherapy which might or might-not work, and 3) cut the limb off. I chose the first option and had three to four more months of loving and careing for the dog. If given the choice today... I would have remove the limb and helped Lacy through recovery!
AP | Cute Dog Story (06/22/14) [1:13]
Amazing Two Legged Dog (2008) [5:41]
Two Legged Boxer Duncan Lou Who - First Trip to the Beach (03/22/14) [2:14]

07.10.2014. 11:36

Wednesday July 09, 2014
News Articles

One Company Finally Admits: It Wasn't The "Harsh Weather" After All
ZeroHedge | author | 07/09/14

Yesterday we heard from the CEO of the world's biggest company that the exuberant jobs data did not reflect any economic reality Wal-Mart was seeing. Overnight, William Arthur Tindell, CEO of The Container Store, further destroyed the myth of a 'recovery' stalled by 'weather' and threw the rest of his 'retailer' brethren under the bus: "We thought our sluggish sales were all because of weather and calendar shift...but now we've come to realize it's more than that, consistent with so many of our fellow retailers, we're experiencing a retail funk." ... Read more

The Psychology of the Sunni-Shia Divide
Politico | David Myers | 07/06/14

Why is there so much animosity between groups that seem so similar?

More than a decade after the Iraq war began, it still boggles our minds: Sunni and Shia--both revering the Quran, following Muhammad and praying to Allah--killing one another. It brings to mind the 3,500-plus dead from the clashes between Northern Ireland's Protestants and Catholics--all, at least nominally, following the same Prince of Peace

One wonders: Why such animosity among those so ethnically and religiously similar? Certainly, Sunni-Shia violence has deep historical-political roots. Ditto the Protestant-Catholic clashes. As the late Ed Cairns, leader of the University of Ulster's Peace and Conflict Research Group, once explained to me, religious labels can sometimes be markers for just those kinds of deep cultural divisions. ... Read more

2,500 Oklahoma Earthquakes Linked To Fracking, Scientists Say
ThinkProgress.org | Emily Atkin | 07/07/14

More than 2,500 small earthquakes have hit Oklahoma in the past five years, and nearly all of them can be linked to the process of drilling for oil and gas, according to a recent study published in the journal Science.

The study, led by Cornell University geophysics professor Katie Keranen, is the latest of many scientific studies showing a probable connection between earthquakes and drilling-related activity across the country. Specifically, the quakes are linked not to the fuel extraction itself, but to a process called "wastewater injection," in which companies take the leftover water used to frack wells and inject it deep into the ground. ... Read more

Federal judge says Supreme Court should "stfu"
Salon | Elias Isquith | 07/07/14

In the wake of the Hobby Lobby ruling, George H.W. Bush appointee Judge Richard George Kopf has some advice for how the Supreme Court can guard against losing even more prestige and legitimacy in the eyes of the public: STFU.

"[T]his term and several past terms has proven that the court is now causing more harm (division) to our democracy than good by deciding hot button cases that the court has the power to avoid," Kopf writes at his personal blog, Hercules and the Umpire. Read more

5 of the Worst Pundits Spreading Propaganda About the Middle East
AlterNet | Alex Kane | 07/08/14

From CNN to Time to ABC , the mainstream media is absolving the U.S. of blame for Iraq, and allowing pro-Israel pundits to get away with falsehoods. Here are five of the worst pundits and hosts talking about Middle East crises.

  1. Bill Kristol. The neoconservative scion and 2003 Iraq war booster--who is editor of the Weekly Standard, and a frequent TV pundit on Fox and ABC--is back at it again. Mainstream television networks are all too happy to hear what Kristol has to say, despite his role in constructing the intellectual scaffolding that led to the U.S. war.
  2. Paul Wolfowitz. Bill Kristol isn't the only neoconservative Iraq war booster to get air time in recent weeks. Wolfowitz, as deputy secretary of defense under Donald Rumsfeld, was a key architect of the war. Wi th Iraq in crisis, news outlets have had Wolfowitz on repeatedly, despite his direct role in the mess.
  3. Michael Crowley. On June 19, Time magazine's cover story, "The End of Iraq," was published. Crowley, a foreign affairs correspondent for the magazine, set out to explain the roots of the fighting in Iraq. But as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Peter Hart pointed out, Crowley's piece obscured more than it explained.
  4. Wolf Blitzer. The bearded, bespectacled CNN host of the "Situation Room" has been on top of the recent crises in the Middle East. But he's had on the people who got Iraq wrong--and has also framed fighting in the country as a blow to the U.S., rather than a byproduct of wrongheaded U.S. policy.
  5. Michael Oren. In January, after Oren stepped down as Israeli ambassador to the U.S., he joined CNN as a Middle East contributor. Since then, he has appeared on CNN to shamelessly spin events in favor of Israel.
Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, July 09 [8:42]
DN | WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Responds to Hillary Clinton: Fair U.S. Trial for Snowden "Not Possible" (07/09/14) [4:46]
DN | Julian Assange on Aiding Snowden, Tiff w/ The Intercept & Whether He'll Ever Leave Embassy Refuge (07/09/14) [17:16
TRNN News
TRNN | Shir Hever: Growing Up Privileged in Apartheid, Colonial Israel (07/09/14) [21:42]
TRNN | Middle East Correspondents Yousef al-Helou and Lia Tarachansky discuss: Israeli Press Continues to Coordinate with Military (07/09/14) [11:52]
Bill Moyers | Inequality for All
Bill Moyers | Interview with Robert Reich about his documentary film, Inequality for All (older) [56:12]
Robert Reich | Inequality for All (full) [1:30:11]
*Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]
*Wealth Inequality in the World [3:51]
Ring of Fire | Colonizing America
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Get Angry or Die (07/08/14) [8:36]
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: U.S. Being Colonized by Multinational Corps (07/08/14) [4:58]
TYT News
TYT | Liberal Trolling Gone Wrong (07/08/14) [3:47]
TYT | Koch Bros Hatchet Man Attacks Harry Reid In Politico Chop Job (07/08/14) [13:38]
TYT | Missiles Rain As Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Ignites, More Violence Forecast (07/08/14) [8:27]
Humor
Mark Fiore | Neocon Reunion Tour (07/09/14) [1:56]
Mark Fiore | Create-Your-Own Caliphate (07/05/14) [2:13]

07.09.2014. 11:42

Tuesday July 08, 2014
News Articles

Report Reveals Walmart Cut its Taxes by $104 million by giving Executives Lavish "Performance-Based" Bonuses
Tax Fairness | author | 06/04/14

Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) today released a report revealing that Walmart received $104 million in taxpayer subsidies over a six-year period due to tax deductions for "performance-based" executive compensation. During that time, eight top executives pocketed more than $298 million in "performance pay" that was fully tax deductible.

The study shows that Walmart was able to lower its federal tax payments by $40 million because of lavish pay packages awarded to just one executive -- recently retired CEO Michael Duke. Duke pocketed $116 million in stock options and other performance-based compensation between 2009 and 2014. ... Read more

Why Walgreens Shouldn't Be Allowed to Influence Corporate Citizenship if It Becomes Swiss
Bill Moyers |Robert Reich's blog | 07/07/14

Dozens of big American corporations are considering leaving the United States in order to reduce their tax bills.

But they'll be leaving the country only on paper. They'll still do as much business in the US as they were doing before.

The only difference is they'll no longer be "American," and won't have to pay US taxes on the profits they make.

Okay. But if they're no longer American citizens, they should no longer be able to spend a penny influencing American politics.

Some background: We've been hearing for years from CEOs that American corporations are suffering under a larger tax burden than their foreign competitors. This is mostly rubbish.

It's true that the official corporate tax rate of 39.1 percent, including state and local taxes, is the highest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But the effective rate -- what corporations actually pay after all deductions, tax credits and other maneuvers -- is far lower.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office examined corporate tax returns in detail and found that in 2010, profitable corporations headquartered in the United States paid an effective federal tax rate of 13 percent on their worldwide income, 17 percent including state and local taxes. Some pay no taxes at all. ...
Read more

GOP SET TO SPEND MORE ON BENGHAZI THAN VA! -- House Republicans have requested nearly $3.3 million to operate the select committee investigating Benghazi, which gives the GOP-launched committee a bigger budget than that granted to the committee overseeing the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs. ... Read more

Like His Dad, Charles Koch Was a Bircher
Progressive Magazine | Lisa Graves | 07/08/14

Today, as announced on Amy Goodman's DemocracyNow!, the Progressive Inc. and the Center for Media and Democracy are publishing new information and analysis documenting that billionaire oil industrialist Charles Koch was an active member of the controversial right-wing John Birch Society during its active campaigns against the civil rights movement.

Many commentators have noted that the father of the controversial Koch Brothers, Fred Koch, was a leader of the John Birch Society from its founding in 1958 until his death in 1967. But, in fact, Charles Koch followed his father's footsteps into the John Birch Society for years in Wichita, Kansas, a hub city for the organization in that decade of tremendous societal unrest as civil rights activists challenged racial segregation. ... Read more
Koch Exposed website

A Scary Super Typhoon Is Bearing Down on Japan…and Its Nuclear Plants
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 07/07/14

Japanese forecasters are calling it a "once in decades storm." And at Kadena Air Base, a US military installation on the island of Okinawa, one commander dubbed the storm "the most powerful typhoon forecast to hit the island in 15 years."

Super Typhoon Neoguri, currently sporting maximum sustained winds of nearly 150 miles per hour and just shy of Category 5 strength, is heading straight at Japan's islands, and its outer bands are currently battering the island of Okinawa. Here's the forecast map from the Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center. As you can see, the forecast for tomorrow brings the storm up to maximum sustained winds of 140 knots (161 miles per hour), or Category 5 strength: ... Read more

In NSA-intercepted data, those not targeted far outnumber the foreigners who are
WashingtonPost | Barton Gellman | 07/05/14

Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington Post.

Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else. ... Read more

Top American corporate tax avoiders
Fortune Magazine | author | 07/07/14

The S&P 500 stock index supposedly includes the largest public American companies. It turns out that 28 of them are incorporated in places like Ireland and Switzerland to avoid high U.S. tax rates. These companies sure seem American--except when it comes to paying taxes ... Read more



DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, July 08 [8:24]
DN | Report from Gaza: Israel Launches New Offensive on Besieged Palestinian Territory in Crisis (07/08/14) [10:33]
*DN | "The Incitement Starts at the Top": After Teen's Murder, Israeli Gov't Accused of Fueling Hatred (07/08/14) [19:14]
*DN | The Kochs' Anti-Civil Rights Roots: New Docs Expose Charles Koch's Ties to John Birch Society (07/08/14) [6:17]
TRNN News
TRNN | Political economist Shir Hever: IDF Plans to Intensify Military Operations in Gaza (07/07/14) [8:49]
TYT News
TYT | Cop Brutally Punches Woman On The Highway (07/07/14) [5:13]
TYT | Idiot Coal Rollers Are Smoking Out Environmentalists, Literally (07/07/14) [8:15]
TYT | It's Confirmed, NSA Has Your X-Rated Information (07/07/14) [10:53]
TYT | How Do 18-35 Year Olds Consume Media? (07/07/14) [1:56]
TYT | Ridiculous New TSA Regulations. MUST WATCH Before Heading To The Airport (07/07/14) [4:36]
*TYT | Mayday PAC Scores HUGE Win In Fight For Democracy (07/07/14) [5:44]
Ring of Fire
*Ring of Fire | Papantonio: House GOP Votes For Corruption (07/08/14) [7:17]
House GOP Votes For Corruption." David Haynes talks about a recent House bill that destroys Dodd-Frank protections and gives the Koch brothers everything they've ever wished for. Koch, House, GOP, Republican, Boehner, Lawsuit, Dodd Frank.
*Ring of Fire | Papantonio: DOJ Fails Consumers...Again (07/07/14) [10:15]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
*The Daily Show: Now That's What I Call Being Completely F**king Wrong About Iraq (2014) [8:39]
CORPORATE TAX DODGERS:
10 Companies and their Tax Loopholes for 2013

  1. BANK OF AMERICA: Had $17.2 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Reported it would owe $4.3 billion in U.S. taxes if profits are brought home.
  2. CITIGROUP: Had $42.6 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Reported it would owe $11.5 billion in U.S. taxes if profits are brought home.
  3. EXXONMOBIL: Paid just a 15% federal income tax rate from 2010-2012, less than half the official 35% corporate tax rate -- a tax subsidy of $6.2 billion. Had $43 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes.
  4. FEDEX: Made $5.7 billion from 2010-2012 and didn't pay a dime in federal income taxes. Got a tax subsidy of $2.1 billion. Received $10.3 billion in federal contracts from 2006-2012.
  5. GENERAL ELECTRIC: Made $88 billion from 2002-2012 and paid just 2.4% in taxes for a tax subsidy of $29 billion. Paid no taxes in 4 years. Had $108 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Received $21.8 billion in federal contracts from 2006-2012.
  6. HONEYWELL: Made $5 billion from 2009-2012 and paid just $50 million in federal income taxes -- a tax subsidy of $1.7 billion. Had $11.6 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Received $16.7 billion in federal contracts from 2006-2012.
  7. MERCK: Made $13.6 billion and paid $2.5 billion in federal income taxes from 2009- 2012. Paid an 18.4% federal income tax rate, half the official 35% rate -- a tax subsidy of $2.2 billion. Had $53.4 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Received $8.7 billion in federal contracts from 2006-2012.
  8. MICROSOFT: Saved $4.5 billion in federal income taxes from 2009-2011 by transferring profits to a subsidiary in the tax haven of Puerto Rico. Had $60.8 billion in profits stashed offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes; reported it would owe $19.4 billion if profits are brought home.
  9. PFIZER: Received $2.2 billion in federal tax refunds from 2010-2012 while earning $43 billion worldwide even though 40% of its sales are in America. Had $73 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. income taxes. Received $3.4 billion in federal contracts from 2010-2012.
  10. VERIZON: Made $19.3 billion in U.S. pretax profits from 2008-2012 but paid no federal income taxes during the period; instead got $535 million in tax rebates. Total tax subsidy: $7.3 billion. Received up to $6 billion in federal contracts from 2011 through 2023.
10 Companies and Their Tax Loopholes, 2013 Report.pdf
Americans for Tax Fairness website

07.08.2014. 11:22

Monday July 07, 2014
News Articles

Congress is* in session
Washington Post | Dana Milbank | 07/01/14

The people’s representatives can’t agree on much of anything these days -- even calling a recess. When senators and members of the House went home for their Independence Day break, they didn’t, or couldn’t, agree on an adjournment resolution. So they did what they usually do: They went into “pro-forma session,” a status when they are technically working but don’t actually do anything. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much how it is when they’re in town, too.

Lawmakers are home. Staffers in the Capitol lounge in open-collar shirts. But make no mistake: Congress is in session. President Obama made this mistake. He made recess appointments during a pro-forma session, claiming it was really a recess, and the Supreme Court unanimously smacked him down last week: “The Senate is in session when it says it is, provided that, under its own rules, it retains the capacity to transact Senate business.” ... Read more

What's A Caliphate?
NPR | Greg Myre | 06/30/14

The Islamic caliphates had a long and glorious run, but in the 21st century, they seemed consigned to history. Simply put, a caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader, and it has existed in one form or another for most of the 1,400-year history of Islam.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago marked the end of the last caliphate, an extraordinarily powerful one that had survived for more than four centuries. ... Read more

Bill O’Reilly: Laura Ingraham plan dooms GOP
Politico | Kendall Breitman | 07/04/14

Bill O’Reilly is pegging Laura Ingraham’s opinion of using mass deportation to address illegal immigration as a “draconian” idea that would “destroy the Republican Party.” The heated debate arose on Wednesday after O’Reilly asked on his Fox News show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” what Ingraham would do to address the tens of thousands of children and adults that have been apprehended trying to cross the U.S-Mexico border.

“No. 1, first thing you do is start deporting people, not by the hundreds, not by the dozens, by the thousands,” the conservative radio talk show host said. “That means entire families, not just the father or mother, but we keep families unified by deporting all people who are here illegally.” ... Read more

Chicago Shootings Over July 4th Weekend Leave At Least 9 Dead, Dozens Wounded
HP | Jade Walker | 07/07/14

More than 60 people were shot in the Windy City over the long holiday weekend, leaving at least nine people dead, ABC7 Chicago reported.

The bloody weekend began around 2:30 a.m. Friday when a 34-year-old man was fatally shot in a drive-by. From there, the violence intensified.

A teenager was shot in his car.

A woman in her 60s was grazed in the head by a stray bullet while standing on her front porch.

A man was struck by a falling bullet.

A teen was standing on the sidewalk when her ex-boyfriend allegedly walked up and shot her in the legs.

A man sitting in his car was killed when a gunman fired shots into the vehicle. A woman who was also sitting inside was injured by glass.

Two people were killed and another three wounded in police-involved shootings.

The shootings were so numerous this weekend that the Chicago Tribune ended up publishing a roundup of attacks, focusing on just a four-hour period Sunday afternoon.
... Read more

Yet Another 12 Mind-Blowing Documentaries To Watch On Netflix
HP | Lauren Duca | 07/01/14

  1. "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room"
  2. "The House I Live In"
  3. "Whores' Glory"
  4. "Wal-Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price"
  5. "The Act Of Killing"
  6. "Maxed Out"
  7. "The Institute"
  8. "Bronies"
  9. "Aileen: Life And Death Of A Serial Killer"
  10. "Hoop Dreams"
  11. "For The Bible Tells Me So"
  12. "Solitary Confinement"
... Read more

Whose Security? How Washington Protects Itself and the Corporate Sector
Bill Moyers & TomDispatch | Noam Chomsky | 07/03/14

... There is a “received standard version,” common to academic scholarship, government pronouncements and public discourse. It holds that the prime commitment of governments is to ensure security, and that the primary concern of the US and its allies since 1945 was the Russian threat. ...

Instead, a series of fraudulent pretexts for the invasion were concocted that collapse instantly on examination. The media chimed in enthusiastically, lauding the magnificent achievement of defeating Panama, unconcerned that the pretexts were ludicrous, that the act itself was a radical violation of international law, and that it was bitterly condemned elsewhere, most harshly in Latin America. Also ignored was the US veto of a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning crimes by US troops during the invasion, with Britain alone abstaining. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, July 07 [8:57]
DN | Exclusive: Inside Embassy Refuge, Julian Assange on WikiLeaks, Snowden & His New Bid for Freedomt (07/07/14) [12:40]
In a Democracy Now! exclusive, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange joins us from Ecuador's embassy in London. It is the first time a U.S. news program has gone inside Assange's place of refuge, where he has entered his third year in political asylum while he faces investigations in both Sweden and the United States. In the United States, a secret grand jury is investigating WikiLeaks for its role in publishing a trove of leaked documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as classified State Department cables. In Sweden, Assange is wanted for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct though no charges have been filed. Late last week, there was the first break in the latter case in two years, when a Swedish court announced it would hold a hearing on July 16 about a request by his lawyers for prosecutors to hand over new evidence and withdraw the arrest warrant. In the first of a two-part interview, Assange discusses his new legal bid in Sweden, the ongoing grand jury probe in the United States, and WikiLeaks' efforts to assist National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Click here for full 45 Minute interview
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers | Rising Voices for a New Economy. Two successful community organizers join forces to improve the lives of working Americans and make corporations pay their fair share in taxes. (07/02/14) [8:09]
Click to zoom - Tax Dodgers
Click to zoom - Tax Rate as % of GDP
TRNN News
TRNN | Peter Sinclair: Is This the Dawn of a Renewable Energy Revolution? (07/07/14) [7:59]
Peter Sinclair is a videographer, creator of two video series on climate change, Climate Denial Crock of the Week, and This is Not Cool, which is a regular feature of Yale Climate Connections. He is media director of the Dark Snow Project, an international team of scientists and communicators, which has taken him with scientists to research areas such as the North Cascades Glaciers and the Greenland Ice Sheet. He lives and works in Midland, MI.
TRNN | Rashid Sumaila: World's Oceans Face "Irreparable Damage" (07/06/14) [11:06]
Global Ocean Commission gives world leaders a five-year window for intervention before overfishing and climate change negatively impact the world's food supply, clean air, and climate stability.
TRNN | Glen Ford: ISIS Declares Caliphate as US Middle East Policy Continues to Unravel (07/06/14) [7:07]
Glen Ford: After advancing policies that helped birth groups like ISIS, U.S. imperial policy will no longer stand in the region.
TYT News
TYT | Congress is* in session. Congress Does Nothing, Almost Literally & It's Not Just Republicans (07/05/14) [4:00]
TYT | Ancient Caliphates - They're Not What You Think (07/05/14) [6:11]
"The Islamic caliphates had a long and glorious run, but in the 21st century, they seemed consigned to history. Simply put, a caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader, and it has existed in one form or another for most of the 1,400-year history of Islam.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago marked the end of the last caliphate, an extraordinarily powerful one that had survived for more than four centuries.
TYT | The Best And Worst President Since WW2 Will & Won't Surprise You [POLL] (07/04/14) [3:17]
TYT | Escorts In Santa Hats Just The Beginning Of Goldman Sachs 'Boys Club' (07/04/14) [6:05]
TYT | Bill O'Reilly Downright Sane Next To Laura Ingraham's Vicious Immigration Stance (07/04/14) [6:34]
TYT | Burying Good Job Numbers Isn't Enough For Fox News (07/04/14) [4:06]
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: No Outrage Will Kill Democracy (07/03/14) [42:07]
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Hell on Wheels -- Big Rig Dangers (07/05/14) [9:19]

07.07.2014. 09:58

Friday July 04, 2014
News Articles

Whose Security? How Washington Protects Itself and the Corporate Sector
Bill Moyers & TomDispatch | Noam Chomsky | 07/03/14

... There is a “received standard version,” common to academic scholarship, government pronouncements and public discourse. It holds that the prime commitment of governments is to ensure security, and that the primary concern of the US and its allies since 1945 was the Russian threat. ...

Instead, a series of fraudulent pretexts for the invasion were concocted that collapse instantly on examination. The media chimed in enthusiastically, lauding the magnificent achievement of defeating Panama, unconcerned that the pretexts were ludicrous, that the act itself was a radical violation of international law, and that it was bitterly condemned elsewhere, most harshly in Latin America. Also ignored was the US veto of a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning crimes by US troops during the invasion, with Britain alone abstaining. ... Read more

What’s a caliphate? News puts focus on ancient form of government
McClatchy | Lindsay Wise | 07/03/14

When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria announced Sunday that it was changing its name and reviving the caliphate, the news lit up the Internet and headlined news reports around the world. But what is a caliphate? And what is the self-described Islamic State hoping to achieve with its declaration?

The answers, experts say, have more to do with the Sunni militant group’s rivalry with al Qaida than with any plan to replicate the last caliphate, which was abolished in 1924 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Understanding the history of the caliphate and its powerful symbolism is key to comprehending what the Islamic State’s declaration means. It’s the latest salvo in an inter-Muslim battle for territory and influence in the Middle East and beyond _ a conflict that not only pits Sunnis against Shiites but radical Sunni jihadis against each other. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Caliphate

Nature Is Magical--and These 10 Stunning Photos Prove It. Happy Birthday, Yosemite!
MotherJones | James West | 06/30/14

On this day 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant Act to protect Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove in California. It was the first time the US had set aside wilderness, in this case roughly the size of Rhode Island, especially for preservation. These days, 4 million people enjoy the park every year to marvel at its famous soaring granite peaks and waterfalls, and enjoy a rare serenity. Here are photos of Yosemite's epic landscapes, past and present, to celebrate the its sesquicentennial year. Happy Birthday, Yosemite! ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
DN | After Breaking Gender Barrier, Sweden's 1st Female Archbishop Leads Church into Climate Change Fight (07/04/14) [9:23]
TRNN News
TRNN | The Untold Radical History of Independence Day (07/04/14) [18:34]
TRNN | BNP Paribas Fine Shows Financial Crime Still Pays Big Time (07/04/14) [4:54]
Click to zoom - Noam Chomsky
Click to zoom - Noam Chomsky
Click to zoom - Ugly Proclivities' of Global Capitalism
Click to zoom - Monstantoland

07.04.2014. 10:29

Thursday July 03, 2014
News Articles

This "Tough-As-Nails" Banking Watchdog Isn't That Tough-As-Nails
MotherJones | Erika Eichelberger | 07/03/14

"Mary Jo is…tough as nails." That's just a sampling of the many compliments paid to former Wall Street defense lawyer Mary Jo White in January 2013, when President Barack Obama nominated her to run the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a major banking watchdog. But after more than a year in charge, White hasn't lived up to the hype, instead crafting weak regulations, delaying new rules to rein in the industry, and granting special privileges to a bank involved in fraud.

White has made some aggressive moves--she slapped more than 60 penalties on financial firms for violations including insider trading and refusals to cooperate with investigations. Last year, she announced that the SEC will start to force more bad-behaving banks into admissions of wrongdoing instead of allowing firms to just settle without admitting or denying guilt. But overall, White has not been the hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners reformer Obama and his fellow Democrats promised. Here are five reasons why: ... Read more

The Disaster We've Wrought on the World's Oceans May Be Irrevocable
Newsweek | Alex Renton | 07/11/14

By the end of this century, many fish may be history due to man's reckless abuse of the planet. As we keep dumping greenhouse gases into the air, the oceans keep sucking them up, making the waters deadly to their inhabitants.

... The last is the least understood of these phenomena. Along the coasts and out in the deep, huge "dead zones" have been multiplying. They are the emptiest places on the planet, where there's little oxygen and sometimes no life at all, almost entirely restricted to some unicellular organisms like bacteria. Vast blooms of algae--organisms that thrive in more acid (and less alkaline) seawater and are fed by pollution--have already rendered parts of the Baltic Sea pretty much dead. A third of the marine life in that sea, which once fed all of Northern Europe, is gone and may already be beyond hope of recovery. ...

... Carbon dioxide, one of the key perpetrators in the lineup of man-made greenhouse gases, is absorbed by seawater, causing a chemical reaction near the ocean surface that results in lowered pH levels. And about one-third of all the man-made carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere ends up absorbed by the oceans. Carles Pelejero, a scientist working less than a mile from La Boqueria at the Institut de Cienciès del Mar (ICM), on Barcelona's seafront, calls it "climate change's evil twin." ... Read more

Inside the Struggle to Preserve the World's Data
Newsweek | Newsweek | 07/02/14

When masked gunmen smashed their way into the offices of the Crimean Center for Investigative Journalism, the staff knew what was coming. For years, the center had been a lone crusading voice exposing corruption in Ukrainian government circles while defying threats of violence and attempts to close it down ...

... By the time the center's site was finally shut down in March--albeit put back up soon after--everything it contained, including more than 5,000 videos, had been preserved and made accessible online. It was another coup for Internet Archive's founder, Brewster Kahle, who is also behind the hugely popular Wayback Machine, an enormous online museum that enables users to see what a website looked like at any time since 1996, the year Kahle set up his first commercial web crawl company. Kahle's operation now costs around $10 million a year, covered by revenue generated by web crawling services, grants, donations and a foundation established by Kahle and his wife.

Kahle is a history-maker: on the front line with other archivists around the world deciding what digital artifacts should be gleaned from the universe of information and stored for future generations to access. "Websites disappear into the digital equivalent of a black hole all the time.… Their average online life in the U.K. is just 75 days," says Helen Hockx-Yu, who leads the British Library's web archiving operation, rated by experts in the field as among the best in the business. "A lot of material, including sites dealing with the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 and the 2008 financial crisis, has been lost because we weren't able to capture it in time." ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, July 03 [8:56]
DN | Swedish Left Party Surges in Polls With Focus on Climate Action & Fighting Privatization (07/03/14) [10:09]
DN | As Neo-Nazis Rally, Sweden Poised for Election-Year Shift of Power Balance from Right to Left (07/03/14) [7:01]
*DN | Dennis Kucinich on the Iraq Crisis & What the U.S. Can Learn From Sweden's Political Diversity (07/03/14) [7:31]
TRNN News
TRNN | Author Todd Miller: Corporations Making a Killing as Billions Are Poured into Border Enforcement (07/03/14) [10:47]
The Ocean Is On The Brink OF Collapse, Here's A Rescue Package (07/03/14) [8:32]
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Kochs Buying What's Left of Our Democracy (07/03/14) [6:42]
Ring of Fire | Atrocious SCOTUS Deals Blow to Labor Unions (07/03/14) [6:06]
Ring of Fire | Papantonio: Women Who Vote Republican Are A Pathetic Embarrassment (07/03/14) [9:05]
More News Articles

We're Fishing the Oceans Dry. It's Time to Reconsider Fish Farms.
MotherJones | Maddie Oatman | 07/02/14

... For many consumers, aquaculture lost its appeal after unappetizing news spread about commercial fish farms--like fish feed's pressure on wild resources, overflowing waste, toxic buildup in the water, and displacement of natural species. But consider this: Our appetite for seafood continues to rise. Globally, we've hungered for 3.2 percent more seafood every year for the last five decades, double the rate of our population. Yet more than four-fifths of the world's wild fisheries are overexploited or fully exploited (yielding the most fish possible with no expected room for growth). Only 3 percent of stocks are considered underexploited--meaning they have any significant room for expansion. If we continue to fish at the current pace, some scientists predict we'll be facing oceans devoid of edible marine creatures by 2050.

But unlike alot of fishermen, Belov has a stash of treasure in his warehouse, as he soon shows me: a golf-cart-size container of plump trout, their glossy bodies still taut from rigor mortis. The night before, Belov drove north to Humboldt to help "chill kill" the fish by submerging them live into barrels of slushy ice water. Belov can count on shipments of these McFarland Springs trout every week--because he helped grow them himself on a farm. ... Read more
Farmed Fish That's Better Than Wild? (07/02/14) [3:20]

Forget the Bahamas. Michigan is one of the best places to SCUBA dive
Michigan Radio | author | 2014

When it comes to great places to SCUBA dive, lots of people immediately think of the waters of the Caribbean or Mexico, with lots of amazing underwater life, beautiful coral, gentle warm water.

But there's a hardy group of SCUBA divers who point to Michigan as one of the best places to dive. ... Read more

Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.

07.03.2014. 14:04

Wednesday July 02, 2014
News Articles

Bill Moyers Essay: What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia
Bill Moyers | author | 06/27/14

As fears grow of a widening war across the Middle East, fed by reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) envisions a region-wide, all controlling theocracy, we found ourselves talking about another war. The Great War – or World War I, as it would come to be called — was triggered one hundred years ago this month when an assassin shot and killed Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Through a series of tangled alliances and a cascade of misunderstandings and blunders, that single act of violence brought on a bloody catastrophe. More than 37 million people were killed or wounded.

In America, if we reflect on World War I at all, we think mostly about the battlefields and trenches of Europe and tend to forget another front in that war — against the Ottoman Empire of the Turks that dominated the Middle East. A British Army officer named T.E. Lawrence became a hero in the Arab world when he led nomadic Bedouin tribes in battle against Turkish rule. ... Read more

Now Wall Street Is Calling for Climate Sanity. Don't Expect the Right to Listen.
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 06/30/14

Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin are teaming up to make the business community's case for addressing climate change. But will it matter?

... We'll get to that, but first, witness the latest attempt, which is aimed at swaying the business community. This weekend on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, two former treasury secretaries, Henry Paulson (a Republican) and Robert Rubin (a Democrat), went on the air to discuss climate change and, in particular, the new "Risky Business" report with which they're closely affiliated. The report, emerging from a partnership that also includes Michael Bloomberg and the environmentalist billionaire Tom Steyer, makes the case that climate change will have dire economic costs. On the air, Paulson said point blank that climate inaction entails "radical risk taking." Rubin added that the risk is "catastrophic." ... Read more

*Risky Business report
PBS | Risky Business Project quantifies climate change costs (06/25/14) [9:28]
Risky Business Report Press Conference (06/24/14) [40:34]
Risky Business report press conference webcast. Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, Tom Steyer, Robert Rubin, Henry Cisneros, Greg Page Donna Shalala, and Al Sommer on their involvement with the report which quantifies the economic impacts of climate change in the US.
Risky Business website
Protect the Environment While They Still Can
Truthloader | Kiribati: The country killed by climate change (06/18/14) [5:11]
Kiribati is a tiny nation of 100,000 people living on dozens of islands over a huge area of the South Pacific. And it is set to become the first state completely destroyed by climate change. The government estimates the country will vanish beneath the waves by 2050 due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, and has an official policy of evacuating the native population. At the same time, it is doing everything it can to protect the pristine ocean environments within its territorial waters, so that even once the country is gone the nature will survive. It's a pretty sad story.
Tiny House Builder

Living large in 150 square feet: Why the tiny house movement is taking off
Salon | Lindsay Abrams | 06/28/14

Come across one of the many photos of the “tiny houses” circulating on blogs and Pinterest, and your first reaction will probably be how cute they are — itty, bitty, bite-size domiciles straight out of a fairy tale. Your second reaction, depending on who you are, is either: How do people fit in there? Or simply, why? Or, for a select group of individuals: How do I get one of my own?

Ryan Mitchell became enamored with the idea of tiny houses back in 2008, he tells Salon. He’s been an enthusiastic member of the movement since then, blogging about the homes at TheTinyLife.com and publishing a book, out July 14, that functions both as a treatise of the tiny house lifestyle and how-to guide for “building and living well in less than 400 square feet.” On the eve of — at long last — moving into a 150-square home he’s built himself, Mitchell spoke with Salon about the economic and environmental benefits of tiny living. ... Read more

Tiny House on the Bay
(click picture, then scroll to bottom of article)
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, July 02 [11:13]
TRNN News
TRNN | Michael Hudson: EU Association Agreement with Ukraine Is a Gift to Kleptocrats (07/01/14) [10:58]
TRNN | Aleksandr Buzgalin discusses: Rebellion in Eastern Ukraine: Separatism or Self-Determination? (07/01/14) [9:28]
Bill Moyers
*Bill Moyers | Jim Hightower: Grass Roots Grow Against Greed. (07/02/14) [24:24]
James Allen "Jim" Hightower (born January 11, 1943) is an American syndicated columnist, progressive political activist, and author who served from 1983 to 1991 as the elected commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture.
*Bill Moyers Essay | What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia (06/27/14) [3:48]
Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence Of Arabia (preview [4:45] + rental for $2.99 [3:47:05]) PBS | Lawrence of Arabia The Battle For The Arab World, Part 1 (06/17/14) [54:47], Part 2 [54:49]
Born to unmarried parents in the strict Victorian era, Lawrence is embarrassed by his illegitimacy. He spends most of his childhood alone, driving for physical and academic achievement. At Oxford, his passion for medieval history results in an expedition to study the great crusader castles of Syria, where he gains invaluable knowledge of the Arabs. While employed as an archaeologist, he is recruited by British intelligence to monitor Turkish activities. He also befriends an Arab who will deeply influence his views towards Arabs and their cause. After World War I begins, Lawrence becomes an intelligence officer in the British Army. His mission is to gather information about an Arab Revolt planned against Turkish rulers. In return for a promise guaranteeing their independence, the Arabs join the war on the British side. But a secret agreement between the British and French will shatter this dream. Torn by conflicting loyalties, Lawrence continues to assist the Arabs, becoming more deeply entrenched in their fight. Against all odds, he leads the Arabs in a daring attack on the Turkish port of Aqaba. It is a stunning success and a turning point for Lawrence, the Arabs, and the British.
Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I (2013) [1:53:13]
The Making of the Modern Middle East: Lawrence of Arabia and King Faisal I (04/04/14) [1:28:26]
How much blame for the current troubles in the Middle East lies with the decisions made by the West in 1919 -- when the Ottoman Empire was carved up arbitrarily into the modern states we know today? Is it true that Arab society has tended to define itself less by what it aspires to become than what it is opposed to: colonialism, Zionism, and Western imperialism? That era seems to be coming to an end with the recent Arab Spring movements. As ethnic and religious loyalties intensify, will new lines be drawn? And will they lead to greater harmony in the region or exacerbated conflict?

T. E. Lawrence is one of Britain's most romantic historical figures. In 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria. By 1917 he was battling both the Turks and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people. A new biography of him, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by the American author Scott Anderson, has sold over 150,000 copies in the US and won the New York Times Notable Book award.

Faisal was a battle-hardened military leader who with the help of Lawrence organised the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He went on to become king of both Iraq and the first independent state of Syria. Faisal I of Iraq is the latest book by Ali Allawi, Iraq's first post-war civilian Minister of Defence who has been acclaimed for his knowledge and insight into Islamic society.
The History Of The Ottoman Empire (12/19/13) [1:30:20]
The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish), also historically referred to as the Turkish Empire or Turkey, was an empire founded by Oghuz Turks under Osman Bey in northwestern Anatolia in 1299. With the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453, the Ottoman state was transformed into an empire.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in the world, a multinational, multilingual empire controlling much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. At the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.

With Constantinople as its capital and control of vast lands around the Mediterranean basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for over six centuries. The empire was dissolved in the aftermath of World War I, leading to the emergence of the new state of Turkey in the Ottoman Anatolian heartland, as well as the creation of modern Balkan and Middle Eastern states.
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.
Lawrence of Arabia - Conversation with Stephen Spielberg (08/27/08) [8:49]
A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (1992) [1:43:52]
In 1919, the great English military man T. E. Lawrence tries to help the king of the Syrian in the Conference of Peace in Paris. The film shows the hero of the movie Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in a phase of reflection and politics, defending the Arabs against the pretensions of England and France.
BBC | The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia, Part 1 (2014) [58:53], Part 2 [58:51]
Lawrence of Arabia - Teaser - In Search for Lawrence (2008) [5:00]

07.02.2014. 11:32

Tuesday July 01, 2014
News Articles

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Writes Scathing 35-Page Dissent In Birth Control Case
HP | Laura Bassett | 06/30/14

The Supreme Court delivered a blow to universal birth control coverage on Monday, ruling that closely-held corporations can refuse to cover contraception in their health plans for religious reasons. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sharply disagreed with the five conservatives on the court, delivering a scathing, 35-page dissent and defense of mandatory contraception coverage.

"In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs," Ginsburg wrote. She said she feared that with its decision, the court had "ventured into a minefield." ... Read more

The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies
Bill Moyers | Joshua Holland | 06/27/14

... Across the ideological spectrum, there's broad agreement that the first Gulf War was "worth fighting." The opposite is true of the 2003 invasion, and a big reason for those divergent views was captured in a 2013 CNN poll that found that "a majority of Americans (54%) say that prior to the start of the war the administration of George W. Bush deliberately misled the U.S. public about whether Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction."

But as the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to urge the US to once again commit troops to Iraq, it's important to recall that the first Gulf War was sold to the public on a pack of lies that were just as egregious as those told by the second Bush administration 12 years later. ... Read more

How DC's Political Intelligence Biz Made Fat Cats Fatter
Bill Moyers | Michael Winship | 06/30/14

Looking over the last few weeks of news, if you would seek a single headline that sums up the Hulk-like grip in which corporate America holds the US Congress, this might be it: "Eric Cantor's Loss a Blow to Wall Street."

So wrote The Wall Street Journal, that Pravda of the One Percent, on the day after House Majority Leader Cantor lost his Virginia GOP primary to tea party upstart David Brat. "Since he was first elected to Congress," the Journal noted, "Mr. Cantor has been Wall Street's go-to guy on issues big and small… he was a top recipient of Wall Street donations and he regularly stood up for the banks, securities firms and insurance companies."

So it's actually somewhat heartening that Cantor's loss was due in part to those very same connections. His opponent David Brat told a campaign rally, "All the investment banks up in New York and DC, whatever, those guys should have gone to jail. Instead of going to jail, where'd they go? They went onto Eric's Rolodex."

Brat made particular reference to the Stock Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act -- the STOCK Act -- passed into law in 2012. That's the legislation, authored by Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York, which requires members of Congress and their staffs to disclose all of their stock transactions -- an effort to make sure they're not trading on insider information gleaned from their governmental wheeling-dealings. (This is the bill that languished on the Hill for years until a 60 Minutes report embarrassed Congress into passing it.)

Unfortunately, before it became law, stripped from the legislation were requirements that family members publicly reveal their stock trades as well as disclosure requirements for companies engaged in gathering political intelligence. And guess who was singlehandedly responsible for gutting the bill of these provisions? Yep, Eric Cantor, with the heavy hands of lobbyists pushing from behind. ... Read more

Noam Chomsky: Our Govt. Is Capable of Creating Total Catastrophe for Humankind
AlterNet | Noam Chomsky | 07/01/14

The question of how foreign policy is determined is a crucial one in world affairs. In these comments, I can only provide a few hints as to how I think the subject can be productively explored, keeping to the United States for several reasons. First, the U.S. is unmatched in its global significance and impact. Second, it is an unusually open society, possibly uniquely so, which means we know more about it. Finally, it is plainly the most important case for Americans, who are able to influence policy choices in the U.S. -- and indeed for others, insofar as their actions can influence such choices. The general principles, however, extend to the other major powers, and well beyond. ... Read more

Click to zoom - Death in America
Click to zoom - And Amount We Spend
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, July 01 [11:20]
DN | "It's a Basic Healthcare Issue": Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards Reacts to Birth Control Ruling (07/01/14) [7:20]
*DN | Exclusive: WikiLeaks Editor Sarah Harrison on Helping Edward Snowden, Being Forced to Live in Exile (07/01/14) [9:46]
TRNN News
*TRNN | The Forces Behind SCOTUS Anti-Union Ruling (07/01/14) [7:12]
*TRNN | SCOTUS Reinterprets Religious Liberty to Justify Corporate Discrimination (07/01/14) [9:27]
Bill Moyers
*Bill Moyers | Investigative journalist Charles Lewis talks about why facts, logic and reason are often missing in the rush to war.. (06/29/14) [26:46]
No End in Sight Iraq's Descent Into Chaos by Charles Ferguson (who also did "Inside Job")
No End in Sight by Charles Ferguson (2006) [1:41:53]
Ring of Fire
Papantonio: Another Bush Goes To Washington (07/01/14) [7:10]
Papantonio: Turd Blossom Rewrites History to Smear Obama (07/01/14) [5:05]
Papantonio: Dick Cheney and the Shameless War Pimps (07/01/14) [10:48]
60 Minutes
*60 Minutes | Disability, USA (06/29/14) [13:26]
PBS Frontline
*PBS Frontline | United States of Secrets Part 1 The Program (05/15/14) [1:54:11]
*PBS Frontline | United States of Secrets Part 2 The Program (05/21/14) [53:41]
What's New On Netflix In July?
TV Shows:
  1. "Animorphs: Seasons 1 & 2" available on July 1
  2. "Knights of Sidonia" Season 1 available on July 4
  3. "Hemlock Grove" Season 2 available on July 11
  4. "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" Season 1 available on July 17
  5. "Baby Daddy" Season 3 available on July 18
  6. "Melissa & Joey" Season 3 available on July 18
  7. "Hell on Wheels" Season 3 available on July 19
  8. "Lost Girl" Season 4 available on July 24
  9. "Continuum" Season 3 available on July 26
Movies:
  1. "12 Angry Men" available on July 1
  2. "A Raisin in the Sun" available on July 1
  3. "Bad Santa" available on July 1
  4. "Basic Instinct" available on July 1
  5. "Boyz N the Hood" available on July 1
  6. "City of God" available on July 1
  7. "Dead Man Walking" available on July 1
  8. "Fever Pitch" available on July 1
  9. "Funny Face" available on July 1
  10. "Gandhi" available on July 1
  11. "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" available on July 1
  12. "Legends of the Fall" available on July 1
  13. "Patton" available on July 1
  14. "Philadelphia" available on July 1
  15. "Primal Fear" available on July 1
  16. "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" available on July 1
  17. "The Karate Kid" available on July 1
  18. "The Karate Kid II" available on July 1
  19. The Karate Kid III" available on july 1
  20. "The Manchurian Candidate" available on July 1
  21. "The Parent Trap" available on July 1
  22. "Under the Tuscan Sun" available on July 1
  23. "Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo" available on July 1
  24. "American Ninja" available on July 1
  25. "Ararat" available on July 1
  26. "The Babysitter" available on July 1
  27. "Best Defense" available on July 1
  28. "Blue Chips" available on July 1
  29. "Body of Evidence" available on July 1
  30. "Can't Buy Me Love" available on july 1
  31. "Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke" available on July 1
  32. "Crimson Tide" available on July 1
  33. "Croupier" available on July 1
  34. "The Dark Half" available on July 1
  35. "Don't Look Now" available on July 1
  36. "Eight Men Out" available on July 1
  37. "Halloween: Resurrection" available on July 1
  38. "The Hunt For Red October" available on July 1
  39. "Jersey Girl" available on July 1
  40. "The Keys of the Kingdom" available on July 1
  41. "Madeline" available on July 1
  42. "Mean Girls" available on July 1
  43. "My Girl" available on July 1
  44. "My Girl 2" available on July 1
  45. "People I Know" available on July 1
  46. "Phantoms" available on July 1
  47. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" available on July 1
  48. "Venus" available on July 1
  49. "Renoir" available on July 6
  50. "Homefront" available on July 9
  51. "Out of the Furnace" available on July 9
  52. "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" available on July 11
  53. "Sleeping Beauty" available on July 12
  54. "The Master" available on July 14
  55. "Hitch" available on July 14
  56. "The Last Days" available on July 15
  57. "Christmas with the Kranks" available on July 26

06.30.2014. 19:34



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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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Nukes
Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911
911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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