Home · News · News Jun 2015
Tuesday June 30, 2015
News Articles

The Rise of Violent Right-Wing Extremism, Explained
MotherJones | Jaeah Lee | 06/30/15

The US law enforcement community regards homegrown violent extremists, not radicalized Islamists, as the most severe threat from political violence in the country, according to a new study from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. Released late last week, the report comes amid renewed focus on the problem ever since a 21-year-old avowed white supremacist carried out a mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. There is a growing body of research highlighting the threat from right-wing extremists, but who or what exactly does that term encompass, and how big really is the problem? Mother Jones examined various reports and contacted experts to find out more. Read more

What are "far-right" or "right-wing" extremists?
While there is no uniform definition, these terms loosely encompass individuals or groups associated with white supremacist, antigovernment, sovereign citizen, patriot, militia, or other ideologies that target specific religious, ethnic or other minority groups.

Think Today's Refugee Crisis Is Bad? Climate Change Will Make It a Lot Worse
HP | Elliott Negin | 06/30/15

Last year was the worst year on record for refugees. The number of people fleeing war and persecution jumped to nearly 60 million, the highest figure since the United Nations' refugee agency began keeping records 50 years ago, and that doesn't even include people driven from their homes by poverty, gang violence or natural disasters.

Smugglers are preying on refugees, social services in poor Middle Eastern and African countries have been stretched to the limit, and Europe and Australia are turning back exiles at their borders. António Guterres, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, acknowledged that relief agencies are overwhelmed. "We don't have the capacity and we don't have the resources to support all the victims of conflict around the world to provide them with the very minimal level of protection and assistance," he told reporters at a mid-June press conference. ... Read more

Gross Says Hold Cash, Prepare For "Nightmare Panic Selling"
ZeroHedge | author | 06/30/15

... Some have suggested, for instance, that if corporate bond fund managers were suddenly inundated with a cascade of redemptions, the absence of dealer liquidity in the secondary market could create the conditions for a firesale.

The problem, as we've been keen to point out, is that when fund flows are one-way (i.e. everyone is selling), fund managers must either i) meet redemptions with cash, or ii) trade the underlying securities. Note that the latter option is so undesirable in illiquid markets (indeed, trading large blocks into illiquid markets poses a systemic risk), that some fund managers are now lining up emergency liquidity lines with banks so that they can at least meet an initial wave of selling with cash and avoid, for a time at least, sparring with illiquidity. ... Read more

Don't Blame Austerity: Five "Dastardly" Ways Italy (& Greece) Burned Through Taxpayer Money
ZeroHedge | author | 06/30/15

It took years (after our initial report in 2011) but finally the Greeks realized that the main reason the Troika had been fleecing them all along, is that of the €227 billion in bailout funds disbursed to Greece, the amount that actually reached the Greek population was... 11%. The rest went back to repaying Greek creditors in some form.

So what was really going in Europe over the past 5 years, if the debt load kept creeping higher, and yet little money was actually making its way to the broader population?

The answer is simple: abuse of taxpayer funding, also known as fraud and corruption. And while it may come as a surprise, more European tax money has been lost to fraud in Italy than in any other European country, Greece included (perhaps because most of the free cash was already earmarked for creditor repayment). ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, June 30 [7:11]
*DN | As Greece Heads for Default, Voters Prepare to Vote in Pivotal Referendum on More Austerity (06/30/15) [13:32]
*DN | Historic Iran Nuclear Deal Hangs in the Balance as Talks Enter Final Round (06/30/15) [7:50]
*TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 8 (06/30/15) [27:11]

*TRNN | UMKC's Bill Black and Michael Hudson: US Hedge Funds Get Bailed Out if Greeks Pass Bailout Referendum (06/30/15) [8:22]
TRNN | Technicalities are slowing it down but the bulk of the deal is most likely already complete, say National Iranian American Council's Jamal Abdi and University of Minnesota Economics Professor Cyrus Bina (06/30/15) [9:41]
TYT | Five Black Churches Have Burned To The Ground In One Week (06/29/15) [5:18]
TYT | MSNBC Pathetically Cowers To Bill O'Reilly Over Flag Flap (06/29/15) [8:10]
TYT | Supreme Court EPA Ruling Is A Big Polluted Kiss To Conservatives (06/29/15) [5:22]
TYT | Should Greece Answer The Debt Crisis By Pulling A Trump? (06/29/15) [6:59]
RT | CrossTalk: Minsk 2.0 RIP? (06/29/15) [24:09]
RT | Keiser Report: IMF failed Greece long before bailout (E776) (06/27/15) [25:37]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Reaganism...A Failure From Kansas to Greece (06/30/15) [4:50]
ThomHartmann | Greece vs. Europe...Day of Destiny Approaches (06/30/15) [11:25]

06.30.2015. 12:58

Monday June 29, 2015
News Articles

The Next Few Days Have the Potential to Transform Greece and Europe
NYTimes | Neil Irwin | 06/28/15

It has been easy to ignore the doings in Greece for the last few years, with the perpetual series of summits in Brussels that never seem to resolve anything. But it's time to pay attention. These next few days are shaping up to become a transformational moment in the 60-year project of building a unified Europe. We just don't yet know what sort of transformation it will be.

The immediate headlines that got us to this point are these: After an intractable series of negotiations over a bailout extension with Greece's creditors, the nation's left-wing government left the table Friday and said it would hold a referendum on July 5. Greek leaders think the offer on the table from European governments and the International Monetary Fund is lousy, requiring still more pension cuts and tax increases in a depressed economy ... Read more

It was more or less impossible for Greek banks to open on Monday, once the European Central Bank announced it was turning off emergency lending to them.

Because in the absence of any increase in this so called Emergency Liquidity Assistance, the banks had no way to supply cash to Greek depositors who have been anxiously withdrawing their savings.
Update 21:10
Greek banking sources tell me that the banks have been instructed to close for at least a week and a day.

And during that period of closure the following capital controls will be imposed:

a) a maximum of 60 euros can be withdrawn per bank card per day or per account per day;

b) no cash can be moved abroad at all, except for vital commercial transactions that would have to be pre-approved.

The Hidden Intelligence Breakdowns Behind the Mumbai Attacks
propublica.org | Sebastian Rotella | 04/21/15

This story was co-published with PBS Frontline.

After Edward Snowden, the government said its controversial surveillance programs had stopped a terrorist -- David Coleman Headley. In "American Terrorist," ProPublica and PBS "Frontline" show why the claim is largely untrue.

In a rush to provide success stories, senior officials cited the capture of an American terrorist whose case I knew well. I had spent several years reporting about David Coleman Headley, whose reconnaissance for Pakistani spymasters and terrorist chiefs was crucial to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six Americans. Now the intelligence community was claiming the National Security Agency had played a key role in preventing Headley's follow-up plot against a Danish newspaper in 2009. ... Read more

Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley, Honduras (trailer) (2009) [1:29]
Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley by Jesse Freeston on the plantation occupation movement that rose up in response to the 2009 coup d'etat in Honduras. (full) (2009) [1:31:38]
A date that marks both the sixth anniversary of the military coup in Honduras and the sixth birthday of the national resistance that is still struggling to overthrow the coup regime.

An unprecedented nationwide resistance movement is born, known simply as La Resistencia. Without question, the most daring arm of the movement is that of the farmers of the Aguan Valley. With the president that promised to help them get their land back overthrown, they decide to take control of their own destiny. In a matter of minutes they seize control over 10,000 acres of palm oil plantations belonging to the country's most powerful landowner. Located on some of the most fertile land in all of Central America, the farmers announce that they have no plans of ever giving the plantations back.

Why You Should Care About Greece's Impending Meltdown... And don't forget Puerto Rico.
MotherJones | Max J. Rosenthal | 06/29/15

... After months of failed negotiations with its creditors, the government of Greece now has 24 hours to pony up a $1.8 billion loan payment to the International Monetary Fund. With the country out of money and the European Union unwilling to soften its stance on Greek debt, finding that much cash is about as likely as it sounds.

If Greece does default on its loans, there are plenty of terrible consequences potentially in store for the country itself: it could be forced to leave the euro, get cut off from international capital markets, and see its already-hurting economy--around a quarter of Greeks are unemployed--shrink even further. But the United States might also suffer. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, June 29 [10:03]
DN | Love Wins: After Decades of Struggle, Marriage Equality Now the Law of the Land (06/29/15) [13:48]
DN | "This Flag Comes Down Today": Bree Newsome Scales SC Capitol Flagpole to Remove a Symbol of Hate (06/29/15) [17:55]
John Oliver
*John Oliver on The Charleston Shooting and Russia's Crazyness (06/22/15) [11:29]
Jon Stewart
*Jon Stewart | Fox News criticizes politicians on the left for using the church shooting in South Carolina to advance their liberal narrative. (06/27/15) [9:13]
PBS Frontline
*PBS Frontline | American Terrorist: In collaboration with ProPublica, the film reveals how secret electronic surveillance missed catching the Mumbai plotters, and how Headley planned another Charlie Hebdo-like assault against a Danish newspaper. (04/21/15) [1:23:15]
*PBS Frontline | The Fight for Yemen: President Obama has pointed to Yemen as a model for the U.S.'s counter-terrorism strategy. But now, an anti-American rebel group known as the Houthis has ousted the president and thrown the country into turmoil. As a Saudi-led military campaign bombards Yemen... (04/07/15) [54:34]
TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 7 (06/29/15) [23:08]
| All previous Episodes
TRNN | Saqib Bhatti argues: Why Chicago Won't Go Bankrupt - And Detroit Didn't Have To (06/29/15) [9:47]
TYT | Global Wave Of Terror Rips Through Several Countries (06/27/15) [12:43]
TYT | Right Wing Terror Kills Way More Americans Than Jihadis (06/28/15) [7:23]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/

06.29.2015. 12:25

Friday June 26, 2015
News Articles

Bernie Sanders Surges In New Hampshire Polls
HP | Marina Fang | 06/25/15

A CNN/WMUR poll released Thursday shows that Sanders is just 8 percentage points behind Clinton. Among Democratic primary voters surveyed, 45 percent said that Sanders "cares the most about people like you," while 24 percent said the same about Clinton. When asked which Democratic candidate "best represents the values of Democrats like yourself," 41 percent said Sanders, and 30 percent said Clinton.

The results are consistent with other recent polling in New Hampshire. Two polls last week had Sanders within 10 points of Clinton's lead, suggesting that Clinton, the presumptive favorite, may be vulnerable in the Granite State. ... Read more
CNN Pool - Click picture to zoom in

Here's how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill
TheGuardian | C Robert Gibson | 05/27/15

The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) -- the fast-tracking bill -- by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close.

Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world's most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts. Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate: ...

  1. Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 "yea" votes.
  2. The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
  3. The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.
Read more

[Greece] Tsipras Rejects Ultimatums, Says "Won't Be Blackmailed"
magazine | author | date

On Friday, the German press reported (and Bloomberg later confirmed) that Greece's creditors had presented PM Alexis Tsipras with a document (essentially an outlining the following available funds that could theoretically be part of either an extension of the country's second bailout or a third program (with the latter having been previously ruled out by the IMF and German lawmakers). The details are as follows: ... Read more

The Single Biggest Driver For Stocks Is Collapsing
ZeroHedge | author | 06/26/15

Earnings are what drive stocks. Investors sometimes forget this during periods of speculative manias such as the one we're experiencing today. But the reality is that there is no rational reason to buy a stock (company) other than to share it its profits via Earnings or Dividends.

Earnings Per Share or EPS leads stock prices as the below chart shows. Note the large divergence that occurred in 2007 at a time when EPS rolled over (EPS is the blue lines). We all know what came after this (2008). Now look at the massive divergence occurring today (the right black square). It makes the 2007 divergence look small by comparison!

Stocks are more stretched than at any point in the last 10 years. At the very least we should see a 10-15% correction if not an outright Crash in the coming months. ... Read more

Click picture to zoom in
Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Kim Kardashian To Deliver Speech About Objectification Of Women

Let us remind ourselves that the individual below -- whose only achievement to date has been having a large posterior and appearing in amateur sex videos -- has a disturbingly large portion of society captivated day after day, year after year.



Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, June 26 [6:19]
DN | "The 9/11 of the Black Church": Mourners Flock to SC as Funerals Begin for Emanuel Massacre Victims (06/26/15) [10:57]
60 Minutes
*60 Minutes | Clarissa Ward speaks with Islamic radicals in London about accusations they recruit British citizens for battlefields in Syria and Iraq. (06/14/15) [13:45]
60 Minutes | Lesley Stahl reports on how Duke Energy is handling over 100 million tons of coal ash waste in North Carolina. (06/14/15) [14:15]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Has A Blast With GOP Response To Pope's Climate Change Encyclical (06/25/15) [6:09]
*TRNN | Professor Gerardo Ceballos explains: Human Survival in The Sixth Extinction (06/26/15) [8:07]
*TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 6 (06/26/15) [19:09]
| All the Episodes
TRNN | Alvatore Babones: Sixteen Proposals for Effective Solutions in '16, Part 4 (06/26/15) [13:52]
TYT | Conservatives Pout About Obamacare Ruling (06/25/15) [11:18]
TYT | Conservative Pundits Say Removal Of Confederate Flag Will Destroy The South (06/25/15) [8:32]
TYT | Kim Kardashian To Deliver Speech About Objectification Of Women (06/25/15) [5:05]
*RT | CrossTalk: Greek pain (06/26/15) [24:06]
RT | Keiser Report: Grexodus, Brexit & Too-Big-To-Fail (E775) (06/25/15) [25:31]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/

06.26.2015. 10:27

Thursday June 25, 2015
News Articles

Supreme Court Rejects Obamacare Lawsuit, Preserving Insurance For Millions
HP | Jonathan Cohn | 06/25/15

he latest and possibly the last serious effort to cripple Obamacare through the courts has just failed. On Thursday, for the second time in three years, the Supreme Court rejected a major lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act -- thereby preserving the largest expansion in health coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid half a century ago.

The stakes of the case, King v. Burwell, were enormous. Had the plaintiffs prevailed, millions of people who depend upon the Affordable Care Act for insurance would have lost financial assistance from the federal government. Without that money, most of them would have had to give up coverage altogether. And the loss of so many customers would have forced insurers to raise premiums, seriously disrupting state insurance markets. ... Read more

Merkel "Won't Be Blackmailed By Greece", Demands Deal Before Market Open On Monday.
Grexident Looming: Eurogroup Meeting Ends Prematurely With No Deal.

CEO pay at US's largest companies up 54% since recovery began in 2009
TheGuardian | Suzanne McGee | 06/25/15

According to the latest annual survey by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, CEOs at the 350 largest companies in the country pocketed an average of $16.3m in compensation each last year. That's up 3.9% from 2013, and a whopping gain of 54.3% since the recovery began in 2009.

The average annual earnings of employees at those companies? Well, that was only $53,200. And in 2009, when the recovery began? Well, that was $53,200, too. In other words, while the CEOs have seen their compensation soar by 54%, the typical worker's paycheck hasn't budged. Read more

Click picture to zoom in

These Three Events Will Shatter "Liquidity Illusion", Trigger Crisis, OECD Says
ZeroHedge | author | 06/25/15

The OECD has released its first Business and Finance Outlook which the organization describes as "an annual publication that presents unique data and analysis that looks at what might affect and change.. tomorrow's world of business finance and investment."

Over some 250 pages, the first edition offers a sweeping look at the global financial landscape and outlines, in excruciating detail, many of the major themes we've built on in these pages including companies' propensity to spend on buybacks and dividends at the expense of capex, the dangers of employing unrealistic pension fund investment return assumptions in a ZIRP world, and, of course, the liquidity paradox, wherein trillions in central bank cash injections mask underlying illiquidity -- especially in bond markets. Here's how Reuters summarizes the report: Read more

Business and Finance Outlook by OECD
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, June 25 [8:26]
*DN | The Death Penalty is Revenge, Not Healing: Father of OKC Victim on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Sentencing (06/25/15) [11:41]
*DN | Does U.S. Ignore Right-Wing Terror? More Killed by White Extremists Than Jihadists Since 9/11 (06/25/15) [17:42]
Short, Thought Provoking Videos
*TRNN | Alvatore Babones: Sixteen Proposals for Effective Solutions in '16, Part 3 (06/25/15) [18:08]
TRNN | Dimitri Lascaris: Greek Pensioners Demonstrate Against Inhumane Austerity Demands (06/25/15) [13:53]
TYT | The Right Declares War On The Pope (06/24/15) [2:08]
TYT | Kill More Civilians, Rages Blood-Starved Warmongers (06/24/15) [8:41]
TYT | What Exactly Are Confederate Flag-Lovers Defending? (06/24/15) [7:49]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
*ThomHartmann | Economist Dr. Richard Wolff: The Greek Implosion (06/24/15) [12:16]
ThomHartmann | Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear: The worst nuclear accident in recent history wasn't unexpected (06/24/15) [6:23]

06.25.2015. 11:46

Wednesday June 24, 2015
News Articles

The Bush Family Goes for Number Three (With the Help of Its Bankers)
HP | Nomi Prins | 06/24/15

This piece has been adapted and updated by Nomi Prins from her book All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power

It's happening. As expected, dynastic politics is prevailing in campaign 2016. After a tease about as long as Hillary's, Jeb Bush (aka Jeb!) officially announced his presidential bid last week. Ultimately, the two of them will fight it out for the White House, while the nation's wealthiest influencers will back their ludicrously expensive gambit.

And here's a hint: don't bet on Jeb not to make it through the Republican gauntlet of 12 candidates (so far). After all, the really big money's behind him. Last December, even though out of public office since 2007, he had captured the support of 73% of the Wall Street Journal's "richest CEOs." Though some have as yet sidestepped declarations of fealty, count on one thing: the big guns will fall into line. They know that, given his family connections, Jeb is their best path to the White House and they're not going to blow that by propping up some Republican lightweight whose father and brother weren't president, not when Hillary, with all her connections and dynastic power, will be the opponent. That said, in the Bush-Clinton battle to come, no matter who wins, the bankers and billionaires will emerge victorious. ... Read more

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power by Nomi Prins

Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. These families and individuals recycle their power through elected office and private channels in Washington, DC.

All the Presidents' Bankers sheds new light on pivotal historic events--such as why, after the Panic of 1907, America's dominant bankers convened to fashion the Federal Reserve System; how J. P. Morgan's ambitions motivated President Wilson during World War I; how Chase and National City Bank chairmen worked secretly with President Roosevelt to rescue capitalism during the Great Depression while J.P. Morgan Jr. invited Roosevelt's son yachting; and how American financiers collaborated with President Truman to construct the World Bank and IMF after World War II.
Fox News Dumps Sarah Palin
Big Picture: Get Big Money Out of Politics (06/23/15) [2:59]

Greece Rejects "Totally Unacceptable" IMF Counterproposal Demanding Pension Cuts: Full Redline Comparison
ZeroHedge | author | 06/24/15

The renewed optimism that's surrounded Greek debt negotiations since Monday evening evaporated like deposits on a hot summer day in Athens this morning as the IMF has indicated it will stick to its "red lines" on pension cuts and the VAT, meaning PM Alexis Tsipras will either surrender unconditionally or embrace an EMU exit. ... Read more

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More News
  1. Greece Handed New Terms as Tsipras Approaches Decision Time (BBG)
  2. As U.S. Probes $12.7 Trillion Treasury Market, Trader Talk Is a Good Place to Start (BBG)
  3. Signs Swedish QE Backfiring as Liquidity Evaporates (BBG)
  4. ECB approves ELA funding requested by Greece- banking source (Reuters)
  5. Greek Millennials Can't Find Work But Actually Want to Keep the Euro (BBG)
  6. Greek deal or not, the euro is now a different beast (Reuters)
  7. Promoter's Arrest Sheds Light on Cynk's $6 Billion Surge (BBG)
  8. The World's Biggest Economies Are About to Feel the Impact of China's Slowdown (BBG)
  9. Senate Clears Trade Bill's Way to Passage (WSJ)


Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, June 24 [12:02]
*DN | Celebration Day at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? A Debate on Who Benefits from the TPP (06/24/15) [6:28]
DN | "I Am Not Nonviolent": New Nina Simone Film Captures Singer and Activist’s Uncompromising Voice (06/24/15) [9:10]
Edward Snowden
*Edward Snowden Censored 9/11 & Boston Bombing on NBC (05/29/14) [3:23]
*TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 5 (06/24/15) [19:35]
*TRNN | Salvatore Babones: Sixteen Proposals for Effective Solutions in '16, Part 2 (06/24/15) [17:16]
TYT | Disturbing Racism Behind The Confederate Flag, Bill O'Reilly Disagrees (06/23/15) [8:49]
TYT | Apparently Corporations Are People BUT FEC Commissioners Aren't (06/23/15) [2:22]
A recent decision by the Federal Election Commission that Commissioner Ellen Weintraub was not able to enforce campaign finance rules because "the rules say any person can file a petition, that we weren't actually persons." The Federal government continues to rule that corporations are people and have the same rights as people, but apparently people aren't people.
RT | CrossTalk: Kiev Cul-de-sac (06/24/15) [24:06]
Ukraine on Wikipedia
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
Shara Palin - Game Change
*Sarah Palin: HBO movie Game Change (excerpt) [0:59]
Everything That Is Wrong With The Republican Party in 1:48 [1:48]
Matt Damon Slams Sarah Palin (08/27/10) [1:42]
HBO | Game Change 2012 () [1:57:52]
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.

06.24.2015. 11:01

Tuesday June 23, 2015
News Articles

Earth Has Entered First 'Mass Extinction' Since Dinosaurs, Study Warns
HP |Lydia O'Connor | 06/22/15

The Earth has entered its sixth mass extinction phase, a new study warns, and the time we have to avoid dramatic consequences is rapidly running out. Vertebrates -- which include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish -- are disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal, according the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. The study, led by Stanford, Princeton and the University of California-Berkeley, stated the number of vertebrate species that have gone extinct in the last century normally take 800 to 10,000 years to disappear under natural extinction rates.

"These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way," the researchers wrote. The last such extinction was 65 million years ago, The Telegraph noted, when dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the planet. ... Read more

On TPP, Congress's Cat Burglars Are Pulling a Fast One
HP | Bill Moyers | 06/22/15

"With cat-like tread upon our foes we steal." So boasted Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance as they decided to try a little burglary for a change. And "steal" is the appropriate word. It's hardly a surprise that Republican congressional leaders and their cadre of Democratic allies spurred on by Barack Obama are resorting to a bagful of parliamentary tricks to put the Trans-Pacific Partnership on a "take it or leave it but you can't change it" fast-track to enactment by Tuesday.

No sooner had the first round gone to pro-democracy forces than Speaker Boehner -- forever remembered as the man who handed out tobacco lobby checks to members on the House floor -- promptly scheduled a new vote allowing time to bring pressure on naysayers. ... Read more

Corporations Win Again: Senate Passes Obamatrade Fast-Track Bill.

Making the Economy Work for the Many and Not the Few #11: Medicare Isn't the Problem; It's the Solution
Robert Reich | Robert Reich | 06/22/15

Again and again the upcoming election you'll hear conservatives claim that Medicare -- the health insurance program for America's seniors -- is running out of money and must be pared back. Baloney. Medicare isn't the problem. In fact, Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance.The real problem is that the costs of health care are expected to rise steeply.

Medicare could be the solution -- the logical next step after the Affordable Care Act toward a single-payer system. ... Read more
The Big Picture: The Medicare Solution (06/17/15) [2:21]

The Unspoken Tragedy In The Upcoming Greek Bailout
ZeroHedge | author | 06/23/15

Of this touted 35 billion euro in bailout funding which Greece finally admitted it will cross "red lines" to obtain, the country will be lucky to pocket a little over 3 billion euro. However, considering that is how much the Greek government has already extracted out of various public pensions and municipalities as part of its quasi-capital controls unrolled previously to preserve the illusion of solvency, after the hard fought "deal" finally is inked, the Greek population will be left with... 0 euro!!! Read more



Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, June 23 [9:08]
*DN | "Perpetrator Has Been Arrested, But Killer is Still at Large": Calls Rise to Remove Confederate Flag (06/23/15) [17:24]
*DN | Domestic Terrorism: From the Charleston Massacre to 1964 Slaying of Mississippi Civil Rights Workers (06/23/15) [9:23]
*TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 4 (06/22/15) [17:54]
TRNN | alvatore Babones: Sixteen Proposals for Effective Solutions in '16, Part 1 (06/23/15) [18:46]
TYT | Republicans Awash In White Supremacist Money (06/22/15) [10:29]
TYT | Dylann Roof And Michael Slager Are Neighbors In Jail (06/22/15) [7:29]
TYT | Erick Erickson Blames Charleston Massacre On Caitlyn Jenner (06/22/15) [6:50]
Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV (06/22/15) [29:00]
  1. Private prisons have a disastrous record when it comes to safety, but their record for prison escapes is even worse -- we'll bring you the details.
  2. The fossil fuel industry has poured $125 million into climate change denial in the last three years, but that money is no longer enough to sway public opinion.
  3. And Donald Trump has officially hit a new low by paying people to attend his presidential launch event -- more details on that in tonight's Backstory.
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Unregulated Capitalism Is Destroying The Planet (Six Massive Extinction) (06/23/15) [4:20]
*ThomHartmann | How Is Roof's Manifesto Different From Isis Recruiting? (06/23/15) [11:26]
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.

06.23.2015. 11:57

Monday June 22, 2015
News Articles

This How We Should Actually Punish Bank Felons
TruthDig & Robert Reich | Robert Reich | 06/22/15

What exactly does it mean for a big Wall Street bank to plead guilty to a serious crime? Right now, practically nothing.

But it will if California's Santa Cruz County has any say.

First, some background.

Five giant banks -- including Wall Street behemoths JPMorgan Chase and Citicorp -- recently pleaded guilty to criminal felony charges that they rigged the world's foreign-currency market for their own profit.

This wasn't a small heist. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars worth of transactions every day.

The banks altered currency prices long enough for the banks to make winning bets before the prices snapped back to what they should have been.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch called it a "brazen display of collusion" that harmed "countless consumers, investors and institutions around the globe -- from pension funds to major corporations, and including the banks' own customers."

The penalty? The banks have agreed to pay $5.5 billion. That may sound like a big chunk of change, but for a giant bank it's the cost of doing business. In fact, the banks are likely to deduct the fines from their taxes as business costs.

The banks sound contrite. After all, they can't have the public believe they're outright crooks.

It's "an embarrassment to our firm, and stands in stark contrast to Citi's values," says Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat.

Values? Citigroup's main value is to make as much money as possible. Corbat himself raked in $13 million last year.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon calls it "a great disappointment to us," and says "we demand and expect better of our people."

Expect better? If recent history is any guide -- think of the bank's notorious "London Whale" a few years ago, and, before that, the wild bets leading to the 2008 bailout -- JPMorgan expects exactly this kind of behavior from its people.

Which helped Dimon rake in $20 million last year, as well as a $7.4 million cash bonus. ...
Read more

America's CEOs Now Make 303 Times More Than Their Workers
MotherJones | Jaeah Lee | 06/22/15

The US economy is rebounding for the nation's top income earners, but not for everyone else, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. The study, published Sunday, finds that chief executives at the country's 350 biggest firms earned an average of $16.3 million in 2014, marking a 54.3 percent increase since 2009. Meanwhile, compensation for typical workers in the same industries as those CEOs fell 1.7 percent over the same time period.

"Those at the top of the income distribution, including many CEOs, are seeing a strong recovery, while the typical worker is still experiencing the detrimental effects of a stagnant labor market," the study authors, Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis, found. ... Read more

Newsflash: Groundwater Running Out,
uprisingradio.org/ | author | 06/17/15

Two studies published by the American Geophysical Union today, have identified the most stressed ground water systems in the world. Researchers concluded that one-third of the biggest groundwater reserves are in serious trouble. The Arabian Aquifer System was the worst off -- a source of water for 60 million people. Closely following is the Indus Basin aquifer underneath northwestern India and Pakistan, followed by the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa. The water system under drought-stricken California also made the list but is not as stressed. The research is based on data from two NASA satellites that "measure dips and bumps in Earth's gravity, which is affected by the weight of water." The scientists worry that climate change and population growth will only exacerbate the problems. They ask the important question: "What happens when a highly stressed aquifer is located in a region with socioeconomic or political tensions that can't supplement declining water supplies fast enough?" - See more at: http://uprisingradio.org/home/2015/06/17/newsflash-groundwater-running-out-new-plan-for-tpa-sanders-and-trumps-candidacies/#sthash.YNUewzMd.dpuf ... Read more

Crossing The Event Horizon On 50 Years Of A Financially-Engineered Black Hole
ZeroHedge | author | 06/22/15

Nobody knows what will happen next in the struggle to wring some kind of debt repayment promises out of poor Greece. Without "restructuring" -- a virtual national bankruptcy proceeding -- there can be no plausible promises of repayment. Both sides seem to have exhausted their abilities to juke their way out. The European Union and its wing-men at the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) can only pretend to kick that fabled can down the road because it has turned into a cement-filled 50-gallon drum. The Greek government can only pretend to further dismantle its civil service and pension systems lest angry citizens toss it out and replace it with a new government, perhaps an ugly and pugnacious one made up of Golden Dawn party Nazis. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, June 22 [11:01]
DN | Exclusive: Green Party's Jill Stein Announces She Is Running for President on Democracy Now! (06/22/15) [13:09]
DN | Dylann Roof's White Supremacist Views, Links to Hate Group Revealed After Charleston Church Massacre (06/22/15) [13:54]
John Oliver
*HBO | John Oliver: Online Harassment (06/21/15) [16:49]
Middle East | Iraq in Particular
I like Vice videos because they actually talk to the common people of the country (topic) they are covering. Look at the summary I posted and then if you are interested look at the full video.
*Vice | In Saddam's Shadow: Baghdad 10 Years After the Invasion (Summary) [4:00]
Vice | In Saddam's Shadow: Baghdad 10 Years After the Invasion (03/22/13) [27:38]
BBC | Daylight Robbery: What Happened to the $23billion? (older,2008) [58:32]
TRNN | Pope Francis Goes Green, Balancing Science and Religion, Part 2 (06/22/15) [14:14]
TRNN | Ukraine gets debt reduction and additional loans from IMF, Greece gets further squeezed, this is a despicable demonstration of the geo-strategic games being played (06/22/15) [13:41]
TYT | The Most Dangerous Cops On The Planet Live In... (06/21/15) [8:44]
*TYT | TPP Grants Banks Terrifying Secret Powers. (06/21/15) [8:30]
TYT | Rand Paul's Huge Gift To The Wealthy (06/21/15) [5:02]
RT | CrossTalk: Whose propaganda should we be worried about? (06/22/15) [35:30]
RT | Keiser Report: Craft beer & crowdfunding (E772) (06/18/15) [24:16]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | NSA surveillance Shorts... (06/19/15) [6:52]
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.
Operation Desert Storm: "Winds of the Storm" 1993 US Air Force First Gulf War () [37:26]
The Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 -- 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 -- 28 February 1991) commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a UN-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.

06.22.2015. 10:47

Friday June 19, 2015
News Articles
Brunch with Bernie
ThomHartmann | Brunch with Bernie (06/18/15) [31:08]

The Fed is Now Officially in VERY Serious Trouble
ZeroHedge | author | 06/19/15

The market action of the last 24 hours can be summated as thus:

The Fed didn't raise rates, so the US Dollar fell and all risk rallied hard.

The fact the Fed didn't raise rates is not important. Interest rates have not been at zero for six years. And the last real period of tightening ended in 2006, nearly a full decade ago.

In the simplest of terms, for the Fed not to be raising rates is not interesting. What IS interesting is WHY the Fed is not raising rates.

Of course there are many reasons why: the economy is not strong enough to handle it, the Fed missed its chance to raise rates in 2011-2012, etc.

However, there is only one REAL reason why rates remain so low:

Actually it's $555 trillion reason: and they are derivatives based on interest rates.

That is not a typo. $555 trillion... as in an amount greater than 700% of global GDP.


This is the REAL issue with interest rates, NOT the economy. The Fed cannot and will not raise rates any significant amount without risking a Crisis that would make 2008 look like a picnic (the CDO market which caused 2008 was a mere $50-60 trillion in size by comparison).

This is why Ben Bernanke told a group of hedge fund managers behind closed doors "rates will not normalize in my lifetime." Rates CANNOT normalize because this would instantly implode the financial system.
Read more

And that is how you get to where we are today: with a global bond bubble with over $555 trillion in derivatives trading based on it.

California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude -- And The Worst Is Yet To Come
ZeroHedge | author | 06/19/15

Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis. At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all. As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain. ... Read more
Click picture to zoom in

Who Is Stoking The Trillion Dollar Student Debt Bubble?
ZeroHedge | author | 06/19/15

There's a very serious debate raging in America about whether it's appropriate for the federal government to forgive student loans. Some commentators rightfully assert that when it comes to federal loans made to students who attend public schools -- where, even if the education they receive doesn't exactly prepare them for the jobs market, graduation rates are at least respectable and the admissions process is not riddled with fraud -- personal responsibility should be taken into account and borrowers should be expected to pay off their debt.

The argument changes a bit when the conversation shifts to for-profit schools. In many cases, these institutions employ deceptive recruiting practices including falsified graduation and job placement rates to lure students who, once accepted, are encouraged to lie about their circumstances in order to maximize the amount of government aid they're eligible to receive. These schools live and die by federal student loans as around 90% of students pay for their 'education' with debt. And while the government (i.e. the taxpayer) keeps the doors open, CEOs (in many cases the schools are publicly traded) reap millions in compensation. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, June 19 [11:31]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Loses His Cool in a Gut-Wrenchingly Honest Monologue on the Charleston Shooting (06/18/15) [5:48]
Jon Stewart | Author and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai talks about the documentary "He Named Me Malala," which chronicles her experience as an advocate for girls' education. (06/18/15) [8:18]
*TRNN | Pope Francis Goes Green Balancing Science and Religion. Janet Redman and Blase Bonpane weighs in on this defining moment for the Catholic Church (06/19/15) [19:45]
TRNN | Efia Nwangaza discusses: People Congregated in Prayer After the Church Shooting in Charleston SC, But Were Dispersed Quickly Because of Bomb Threats (06/19/15) [10:21]
TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 3 (06/19/15) [20:35]
TYT | Right-wing Terrorists Kill More Americans Than Islamic Extremists (06/18/15) [6:33]
TYT | Charleston Shooter Given Gun On 21st Birthday (06/18/15) [9:39]
TYT | Charleston Shooting Not Racially Motivated Conservatives Say (06/18/15) [19:32]
TYT | Donald Trump Paid Actors To Attend Rally (06/18/15) [5:02]
TYT | Donald Trump's Bullsh*t Speech Wasn't Politics, It Was Worse (06/18/15) [11:58]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Brunch with Bernie (06/18/15) [31:08]

06.19.2015. 10:15

Thursday June 18, 2015
News Articles

Charleston Church Shooting: 9 Dead At Historic Black Church
HP | Ed Mazza | 06/17/15

Nine people were shot to death by a white man at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night, the Charleston Police Department confirmed at a news conference early Thursday.

Calling it "the worst night of my career," Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said the gunman entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a prayer meeting and opened fire. Eight people were found dead at the scene. Two others were transported to a hospital, where one later died.

None of the victims has been named by police. However, State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford said the church's pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed, according to the Associated Press. ... Read more

Another Day, Another US Dollar Flash Crash
You know things are illiquid, turmoiling, insane, entirely non-human odd, when the world's reserve currency flash-crashes on a regular basis... Graph

Pope Francis Releases 'Laudato Si' Encyclical And Lays Out Moral Case For Addressing Climate Change
HP | Jaweed Kaleem | 06/18/15

In a highly anticipated papal letter released Thursday, Pope Francis called on Catholics worldwide to make safeguarding the environment and battling climate change an urgent and top priority of the 21st century.

In the lengthy treatise, more broadly addressed to "every person" who lives on Earth, the pope lays out a moral case for supporting sustainable economic and population growth as part of the church's mission and humanity's responsibility to protect God's creation for future generations. While saying that there were natural causes to climate change over the earth's history, the letter also says in strong words that human activity and production of greenhouse gases are to blame. ... Read more

Greek Central Bank: "Greece will leave the European Union"
The Forecaster (trailer) [10:30]

THE FORECASTER is a feature documentary about Martin Armstrong a financial guru who used the number pi in the nineties to predict economic turning points with precision. With his secret knowledge Martin Armstrong predicted the exact date of the October crash in 1987, the decline of the dollar in 1986 and the Nikkei crash in 1989. He was named economist of the decade. The Japanese just called him Mr. YEN. When the FBI stormed his offices in 1999 forcing him to hand over his secret model a few weeks later he was incarcerated for seven years for contempt of court without a trial. Now Martin Armstrong is back -- released from prison after 12 years. He agreed to be the focal point of this movie - a piece on the Financial Crisis we are facing -- the Sovereign Debt Crisis.

The Forecaster | Martin Armstrong Use FXS4CAST14 as a discount code
Martin Armstrong The Stock Market Will Double By 2015 (05/29/15) [46:05]

Jeb Bush Slams Washington's Pampered Elites...But Enlists Them for His Campaign
MotherJones | AJ Vicens | 06/18/15

Jeb Bush launched his campaign on Monday with a sharp jab at the Washington establishment. "We don't need another president who merely holds the top spot among the pampered elites of Washington," huffed this member of a political dynasty that has often held power in DC. "We need a president willing to challenge and disrupt the whole culture in our nation's capital." Yet, as Bush embarks on his presidential bid, he has surrounded himself with Beltway insiders who have long been part of what he calls the "mess in Washington." Many of his advisers served in the presidential administrations of his father and brother. Others were senators and representatives. Of course, several are lobbyists. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for THursday, June 18 [9:30]
*DN | Pope Francis: "Bold Cultural Revolution" Needed to Save Planet from Climate Change & Consumerism (06/18/15) [11:12]
*DN | Massacre in Charleston: 9 Shot Dead at Historic Black Church, Police Search for White Gunman (06/18/15) [24:37]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Still Can't Get Enough Trump Stupidity -- "Am I Dreaming"? (06/17/15) [10:44]
CP | Cops Eat Pot Edibles After Raiding Marijuana Dispensary (06/17/15) [1:02]
TRNN | Investigative journalist Gareth Porter: U.S. Counter-Terrorism and the Saudi-Turkish-Israeli Strategic Alliance to Overthrow Assad, Part 1 (06/18/15) [9:40]
TYT | GOP Attacks Pope Francis For Caring About The Planet (06/17/15) [6:08]
TYT | Snowden Smear Piece Sums Up Journalism's Sad State (06/17/15) [5:38]
TYT | Osama Bin Laden's Porn Stash Debunked By BroBible (06/17/15) [3:54]
TYT | Trump Speech Full Of Lies, Fibs And Flat Out Nonsense (06/17/15) [4:09]
RT | Keiser Report: Pick a pocket or two (E771) (06/16/15) [25:40]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Rumble: Why The GOP is Supporting ObamaTrade (TPP)
ThomHartmann | The Greek Crisis - Is There a Way Forward? (06/17/15) [7:33]

06.18.2015. 12:12

Wednesday June 17, 2015
News Articles

Another Fed "Insider" Quits, Tells The Truth
ZeroHedge | author | 06/17/15

Once more, an "insider" from The Fed exposes the reality of an academic ivory tower clueless of the real financial markets. Former adviser to Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher, Danielle DiMartino Booth speaking in a CNBC interview slams The Fed for "allowing the [market] tail to wag the [monetary policy] dog," warning that "The Fed's credibility itself is at stake... they have backed themselves into a very tight corner... the tightest ever." ... Read more
ZH | Another Fed "Insider" Quits, Tells The Truth (06/17/15) [7:08]

It is high time central bankers acknowledge their complicity in enabling Congress to fiddle while the country burns. As was the case with the revelation that the Great Moderation was but a myth, it is crucial that our leaders retake the country's reins thus also bringing to an end the deeply damaging era of The Great Abdication.

RIP TPP?
TRNN | William K. Black | 06/14/15

My answer to the question I pose in my title is 'no.' The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is far from dead and can only be defeated by heroic efforts by a broad coalition of Americans dedicated to the interests of our Nation and its people and willing to pay the price to oppose the triumph of corporate interests. The focus of this column, however, is on the New York Times' coverage of Friday's vote on a key component of President Obama and the Republican leadership's efforts to make the TPP law. That focus requires some tangential discussion of the substantive arguments for and against TPP but I will minimize that discussion because I have explained previously in greater detail why I oppose the TPP and urge Americans to make our efforts to defeat it one of our highest priorities. ... Read more

The True Story of the Bilderberg Group

Delving into a world once shrouded in complete mystery and impenetrable security, this investigative report provides a fascinating account of the annual meetings of the world's most powerful people--the Bilderberg Group. Since its inception in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in the small Dutch town of Oosterbeek, the Bilderberg Group has been comprised of European prime ministers, American presidents, and the wealthiest CEOs of the world, all coming together to discuss the economic and political future of humanity. The working press has never been allowed to attend, nor have statements ever been released on the attendees' conclusions or discussions, which have ramifications on the citizens of the world. Using methods that resemble the spy tactics of the Cold War--and in several instances putting his own life on the line--the author did what no one else has managed to achieve: he learned what was being said behind the closed doors of the opulent hotels and has made it available to the public. This second edition includes an entirely new chapter and updated information on topics such as an earlier attempt to break up Canada and the portents of a North American union.

Bilderberg looks to the future but is stuck in the past
TheGuardian | Charlie Skelton | 06/15/15

... Equally anachronistic is the heavy-handed policing: the checkpoints, the armoured snowploughs, the harassment, the helicopter patrols with itchy-fingered cops. The obstinate refusal to engage in proper press relations. It's just a physical extension of Wolfensohn's 'I wasn't there ... I didn't attend'. A denial of reality, a denial of change: and it's no kind of long-term strategy. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, June 17 [8:31]
Financial
The Forecaster - Trailer (2014) [3:25]

MARTIN ARMSTRONG, once a US based trillion dollar financial adviser, used the number pi to predict economic turning points with precision. When some big New York bankers asked him to join the club to help them to take over Russia, he refused to join the manipulation. A few days later the FBI stormed his offices accusing him of a 3 billion dollar Ponzi Scheme - an attempt to stop him talking about the real Ponzi Scheme of debts that the US has build up over the years and which he thinks starts to collapse after October 1, 2015, a major pi turning point he is predicting.

The story of finance whiz Martin Armstrong reads like a movie script: a man designs a model that can predict the future. He calculates developments in the world economy with eerie accuracy and even the outbreak of wars. Until the FBI is on his doorstep and he is sent to prison. A free man again, he shares his views on the financial crisis and offers his solutions to governments.
The Forecaster website
Infowars | Martin Armstrong: US Economy Collapse 2015-2016! Why An Economic Crash Is Coming! (06/13/15) [12:54]
Bilderberg
I don't normally use Alex Jones videos, but I looked for other (current) sources and couldn't find much. The question is; how can a group of 150 of the most wealthiest, powerful people get together to strategies the worlds future... and do it all in complete secrecy!!
Secret Bilderberg Group Meeting Draws Powerful People (06/10/15) [1:35]
Bilderberg website
Bilderberg Wikipedia (article)
Review | The True Story of the Bilderberg Group by Daniel Estulin (article)
TRNN | Vijay Prashad, says: Israel's Foreign Ministry Report Says Attacks on Palestinian Children and Civilians Were "Legitimate" (06/17/15) [10:48]
TYT | Hillary's Bernie Problem Just Got WAY Worse (06/16/15) [7:44]
TYT | Donald Trump's Bullsh*t Speech Wasn't Politics, It Was Worse (06/16/15) [11:58]
RT | CrossTalk: Whose propaganda should we be worried about? (06/17/15) [24:15]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
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.

06.17.2015. 11:46

Tuesday June 16, 2015
News Articles

Elizabeth Warren
Mother Jones | Inae Ohr | 06/02/15

Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren participated in a conference hosted by tech website Re/Code, where she was asked a policy question about infrastructure spending. What followed was an incredibly powerful response that touched upon the Massachusetts senator's signature issues--student loans, misplaced Washington interests, and the systematic problems hurting middle class Americans.

"The only way we get change is when enough people in this country say, 'I'm mad as hell and I'm fed up and I'm not going to do this anymore,'" Warren said. "'You are not going to represent me in Washington, DC, if you are not willing to pass a meaningful infrastructure bill. If you are not willing to refinance student loan interest rates and stop dragging in billions of dollars in profits off the backs of kids who otherwise can't afford to go to college. If you don't say you're going to fund the NIH and the NISF, because that is our future.' We have to make these issues salient and not just wonky." ... Read more
Senator Elizabeth Warren on big money in Washington (current) [2:22]

Jeb Bush Is Officially Running for President. Here's What You Need to Know About Him.
MotherJones | Allie Gross | 06/15/15

Well, today's the day. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is expected to finally announce that he is running for president. After months of mounting a not-very-shadow campaign and raising money (almost $100 million since January for his super-PAC Right to Rise), his official leap into the crowded Republican field is no surprise. As the third Bush to run for president in 35 years, he is already considered the top choice for the GOP establishment.

But the GOP establishment no longer rules the party as it once did, so the road to the nomination, much less to the White House, is filled with land mines for Bush. Tea partiers and the Christian right are powerful Bush antagonists. Before he made his candidacy official, a tea party-aligned group called Constitutional Rights PAC started promoting the website EndJeb2016.com, which accuses Bush of being "anything but a 'conservative.'" ...
| Bush Baggage

  1. ...
  2. The fortunate son: Cuban American real estate developer Armando Codina was the Florida chair of George H.W. Bush's unsuccessful 1980 bid for the GOP presidential nomination. He loved the Bush family so much that when Jeb first moved to Miami in the early 1980s, he made Bush a partner in his real estate company and gave him 40 percent of the profits--even though Jeb had no real estate experience or money to invest. In 1985, Bush and Codina bought an office building partially financed by a savings and loan that later failed. The $4.56 million loan went into default, but federal regulators gave Bush and his partner a pass. Instead of foreclosing, they merely asked them to repay $500,000 of the loan. Taxpayers picked up the rest. In 1991, Bush and Codina sold the building for $8 million.
  3. The shady company: In 2007, Bush joined the board of InnoVida, a building materials-manufacturing startup founded by a businessman whose previous company had gone bankrupt under suspicious circumstances. Bush and his fellow board members subsequently failed to notice that InnoVida officials had used forged documents to fake solvency, hidden the company's financial problems, and misappropriated $40 million. The company's Maserati-driving founder eventually went to jail for money laundering, and investors lost their shirts when the company went bankrupt in 2011. Last year, Bush agreed to repay the $270,000 he was paid by the company as a consultant to reimburse defrauded investors.
  4. The Big Finance fail: Bush signed on as a paid adviser to the financial giant Lehman Brothers in 2007, just as the firm was on the brink of collapse. The company hoped he would use his political ties to rescue it, but he couldn't even convince Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to throw some money into that pit.
  5. The terrorist: In 1989, Bush successfully lobbied his father, who was then serving as president, for the release of Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, who allegedly orchestrated the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in 1976 and other terrorist attacks. Bosch, who was in a federal prison on an immigration violation and dubbed an "unrepentant terrorist" by then-Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, was a cause célèbre for Miami's influential Cuban population--a voting bloc that Jeb needed to launch his political career.
  6. The black vote: During his first failed campaign for governor in 1994, Bush was asked in a debate what he would do to help African Americans. "Probably nothing," he replied. In 2000, his administration purged 12,000 eligible voters from the rolls because they were incorrectly identified as convicted felons. More than 40 percent of them were African Americans.
  7. The welfare wife: During his 1994 campaign, Bush said that women on welfare "should be able to get their life together and find a husband."
  8. The Playboy bunny: In 1999, Bush appointed Cynthia Henderson as his secretary of business regulation. Bush later transferred Henderson, who had worked her way through law school as a bunny at the St. Petersburg Playboy club, to another job in his administration, after she got caught taking a trip to the Kentucky Derby on a corporate jet owned by a company she regulated and accepting lodging and tickets to the event from an association of race track regulators. (Henderson's boyfriend, a Florida real estate developer, eventually paid the cost of the trip.) Rumors that Henderson and Bush were having an affair forced him to publicly deny philandering.
  9. The socialist: While at the elite prep school Andover, Bush was briefly a member of the socialist club. He also smoked pot.
  10. The failed charter school: After wining just 4 percent of the black vote in his first failed run for governor, Bush teamed up with the Greater Miami Urban League to start Florida's first charter school. In 1999, the state implemented a school grading system at Bush's insistence. His own charter school received a D. By 2008, the school had earned a C- and was $1 million in debt; the state shut it down that year.
  11. The shady charter school operator: In 2010, Bush gave the commencement speech for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an Ohio online charter school owned by William Lager, a big GOP donor who has served on Bush's Digital Learning Council, which promotes for-profit online schools like ECOT. (Lager's companies have also sponsored conferences hosted by Bush's education foundation.) The school was far from a model for the future. At the time Bush gave his speech, ECOT's graduation rate had never exceeded 40 percent. A 2001 state audit found that though the state had paid the school tuition for more than 2,000 students one month, only seven students had logged on to ECOT's computer system. When state auditors couldn't find the rest of the school's alleged student body, ECOT was forced to repay Ohio $1.7 million. School founder William Lager's private companies have earned more than $100 million from online schools that perform worse than any of Ohio's worst brick-and-mortar public schools.
  12. The cheaters: In 2010, Bush and his education reform organization, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, created a group of school superintendents and other high-ranking officials called "Chiefs for Change" to advance the Florida model of education, which emphasizes accountability and emphasized giving schools letter grades based on performance, especially standardized test scores. One of the original eight chiefs was accused of inflating the grade of a lackluster charter school funded by a Republican donor. The office of another was caught manipulating test score data.
  13. The IRS complaint: In October, a New Mexico advocacy group filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education failed to disclose thousands of dollars it paid to bring public school superintendents, education officials, and lawmakers to the group's events, where they had private "VIP" meetings with the foundation's for-profit ed-tech company sponsors. The complaint alleges that Bush's foundation disguised travel payments as "scholarships" to hide the fact that the nonprofit was facilitating lobbying between big corporations and public officials. The IRS has not commented on the complaint. Bush's foundation issued a statement dismissing the allegations as politically motivated.
  14. The immigration book: Last year, Bush published Immigration Wars, a book that took a hardline position against a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. After going on TV to push the book's anti-path-to-citizenship position--and being accused of having changed his position to avoid offending the tea party--he quickly reverted to his previous stance of supporting citizenship.
  15. The Reagan comment: In 2012, Bush said publicly that Ronald Reagan would have had trouble getting his party's presidential nomination today--meaning that the tea party had driven the GOP too far too the right. He told editors at Bloomberg, "Back to my dad's time and Ronald Reagan's time--they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support." Reagan "would be criticized for doing the things that he did."
  16. The mother: In April, former First Lady Barbara Bush appeared on the Today Show and said that her son would be "by far the best qualified man, but...we've had enough Bushes."
Read more

Bush Family Legacy
Gulf War 1 - Wikipedia
Operation Desert Shield (08/02/90-02/28/91)
*The Gulf War 1991 () [6:09]
Gulf War 2 - Wikipedia
Iraq War (2003 - 2011) - WMD
*George W. Bush & Administration Lie about WMD () [9:00]
The Bush Administration's 935 LIES about Iraq war, Part 1 (2008) [9:53], Part 2 [8:34]
A STUDY from the Center for Public Integrity has revealed President Bush and top administration officials made a total of 935 false public statements about Iraq's alleged national security threat in the two years following the 9/11 attacks. President Bush made the most false statements -- 260. Colin Powell, his then-secretary of state, made 254 false statements. We speak with the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, Charles Lewis.
*George W. Bush - jokes about WMD () [0:28]
*Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy [1:01:10]
*Michael Moore | Farenheit 911 [1:58:29]
*Truthloader | What you're not being told about Booz Allen Hamilton and Edward Snowden (10/07/13) [11:47]
*Truthloader | Who are The Carlyle Group, and what is their relationship with Booz Allen Hamilton? (08/16/13) [9:18]
The Carlyle Group, the Bush family and 9/11 [25:43]

Five Million Reasons Why China Could Go to War
Bloomberg | David Tweed | 06/16/15

With five million citizens to protect and billions of investment dollars at stake, China is rethinking its policy of keeping out of other countries' affairs.

China has long made loans conditional on contracts for its companies. In recent years it has sent an army of its nationals to work on pipelines, roads and dams in such hot spots as South Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan. Increasingly, it has to go across borders to protect or rescue them. ... Read more
Reasons Why China Could Go to War (06/16/15) [3:46]

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, June 16 [8:54]
*DN | As Yemenis Suffer from Strikes, Conflict and Siege, Will Geneva Peace Talks Offer Any Relief? (06/16/15) [20:11]
*DN | Bombing the Arctic: US Navy War Games in Gulf of Alaska Threaten One of World's Most Pristine Areas (06/16/15) [11:53]
John Oliver
HBO | John Oliver: Torture (06/14/15) [15:12]
*TRNN | UMKC professor of economics Michael Hudson explains: Should Fed Taper QE If Banks Get Most of the Benefits? (06/15/15) [10:44]
TRNN | Dimitri Lascaris and Leo Panitch discuss: Drip Feeding Greece Will End in Default (06/16/15) [25:33]
*TYT | Billionaires Unite To Bribe Their Way To Even More Power (06/15/15) [14:51]
TYT | Hillary Clinton Populist Speech Hides Who She Really Is (06/15/15) [9:01]
TYT | California Drought Is God's Punishment For Abortion Laws (06/15/15) [5:34]
It's Time to Start Sweating Climate Change (06/15/15) [5:54]
GOP Trash Economics Send Kansas Back To Dust Bowl Era (06/15/15) [4:24]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Caller: The Public Needs to Know the Real Reason for the Iraq War... (06/15/15) [2:09]
ThomHartmann | Tax the Rich! How Minnesota Fixed it's Economy... (06/15/15) [8:21]

06.16.2015. 11:24

Monday June 15, 2015
News Articles

Finding the truth in 935 lies about war with Iraq
publicintegrity.org | Bill Buzenberg | older, 06/20/14

Center for Public Integrity founder Charles "Chuck" Lewis has just published a new book with the provocative title, "935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity." I can highly recommend this work.

Chuck tells the story of the founding of The Center for Public Integrity in 1989, after he had worked in television with ABC News and then CBS News, including producing investigative reports for the late Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. ... Read more

935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity

An epiphanic, public comment about the Bush "war on terror" years was made by an unidentified White House official revealing how information is managed and how the news media and the public itself are regarded by those in power: "[You journalists live] "in what we call the reality-based community. [But] that's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality ... we're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." And yet, as aggressive as the Republican Bush administration was in attempting to define reality, the subsequent, Democratic Obama administration may be more so.

Into the battle for truth steps Charles Lewis, a pioneer of journalistic objectivity. His book looks at the various ways in which truth can be manipulated and distorted by governments, corporations, even lone individuals. He shows how truth is often distorted or diminished by delay: truth in time can save terrible erroneous choices. ...

"Climate change poses a massive threat to the world."
climate25.com | climate25.com | date

Henry Paulson, who served as Secretary of the Treasury in George W. Bush's administration from 2006 to 2009, believes that in regards to climate change "it's going to be an even bigger problem if we wait."

In addition to his tenure in the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis, Paulson is also a former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs and is currently the chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago, "which conducts projects and research on economics and the environment in the United States and China." ... Read more
Climate change poses a massive threat to the world (current) [2:25]

Global Warming & Climate Change - Chronology of Coverage

Watch Out, Dems: Sheldon Adelson And The Koch Brothers Are Closer Than Ever
HP | Peter H. Stone | 06/14/15

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (left) and billionaire industrialist David Koch (right) are both deeply committed to making sure a Republican wins the White House in 2016.

In late April, some 700 conservative luminaries, including presidential contenders, donors, fundraisers and former President George W. Bush, gathered at the Venetian casino and resort in Las Vegas for the Republican Jewish Coalition's spring meeting, where Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul and GOP megadonor, was holding court. ... Read more

With Stocks 3% Off Record Highs, Investor Confidence Crashes To "Extreme Fear"
ZeroHedge | author | 06/15/15

You know The Fed has suppressed vol too low for too long when stocks drop 3% from their all-time record-est highs and sentiment collapses into "Extreme Fear"... Read more
Click picture to zoom in

Will The ECB Finally Use The Greek "Nuclear Option" This Wednesdsay?
ZeroHedge | author | 06/15/15

With both sides digging in and unwilling to budge, will Europe revert back to its strategy from day 1, namely creating a slow initially, then fast bank run in Greece, one which leads to gradual then sudden capital controls, resulting in civil discontent and disobedience and ultimately, a violent overthrow of the Greek government. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, June 15 [9:55]
DN | As Democrats Walk Out on Obama's TPP Deal, Where Does Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Stand? (06/15/15) [16:57]
Do All Politicians Lie? | And Why Can't We Get Better Politicians?
Gulf War 1 - Wikipedia
Operation Desert Shield (08/02/90-02/28/91)
*The Gulf War 1991 () [6:09]
Gulf War 2 - Wikipedia
Iraq War (2003 - 2011) - WMD
*George W. Bush & Administration Lie about WMD () [9:00]
The Bush Administration's 935 LIES about Iraq war, Part 1 (2008) [9:53], Part 2 [8:34]
A STUDY from the Center for Public Integrity has revealed President Bush and top administration officials made a total of 935 false public statements about Iraq's alleged national security threat in the two years following the 9/11 attacks. President Bush made the most false statements -- 260. Colin Powell, his then-secretary of state, made 254 false statements. We speak with the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, Charles Lewis.
*George W. Bush - jokes about WMD () [0:28]
Shara Palin - Game Change
*Sarah Palin: HBO movie Game Change (excerpt) [0:59]
Everything That Is Wrong With The Republican Party in 1:48 [1:48]
Matt Damon Slams Sarah Palin (08/27/10) [1:42]
*HBO | Game Change 2012 () [1:57:52]
WTC Bombing 1993 - Wikipedia
*Was The 1993 WTC Bombing An Inside Job? () [2:10]
1993 WTC Bombing - FBI Operative Emad Salem Makes Terrorist Bombs At The FBI Bomb Factory () [9:32]
*HBO | Path to Paradise - WTC 1993 Bombing () [1:34:16]
NYTimes | Bomb Informer's Tapes Give Rare Glimpse of F.B.I. Dealings (10/31/93) (article)
WhatReallyHappened | The FBI Allowed the 1993 WTC Bombing to Happen (10/28/93) (article)
9/11
9/11 Exposed 2nd Edition (2015) [1:50:00]
TRNN | Journalist Paul DeRienzo discusses: America's Nuclear Waste: A Forgotten Ticking Timebomb (06/15/15) [8:15]
TYT | Bernie Sanders On How We Should Pay For War (06/12/15) [3:34]
TYT | George W. Bush Cashes HUGE Check From Homeless Shelter (06/13/15) [4:49]
TYT | Black vs White Murder Victims (06/14/15) [8:46]
RT | CrossTalk: NATO vs Russia (06/15/15) [24:40]
RT | Keiser Report: Beware Bankers Bearing Debt Crack! (E770) (06/14/15) [25:40]
Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV - 06/11/2015 [28:48]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
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.
Political Lies
Bush laughs at no WMD in Iraq (03/23/07) [10:17]
WMD LIES - Bush Cheney Rumsfeld (07/31/08) [5:56]
Bush Jokes about WMD [1:41]
Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Reacts to George W. Bush Joke About Missing WMDs (03/21/13) [3:25]
Reasons for The Gulf War 1 () [6:09]
Faked Kuwaiti girl testimony () [6:07]
Steve Bridges - As George W. Bush with George W. Bush! (08/21/11) [11:05]
War with Iraq
Rachel Maddow | "Hubris" Iraq War (02/18/13) [44:11]
**Seymour Hersh interviews Scott Ritter author "Chain of Command" & "Iraq Confidential" | Why Did the Iraq War Start? The Untold Story (10/19/05) [1:22:50]
Why WE Went to... The Iraq War, Part 1 () [9:40], Part 2 [8:31]
Bush | Cheney | Rumsfeld
Unauthorized Biography of D!ck Cheney (01/22/11) [42:57]
NEOCONs
Neoconservative Think Tank Influence on US Policies (Timeline)
Capitalism
Capitalism: A Love Story () [2:07:20]
Corporation
The Corporation () [2:25:16]
CORPORATE FASCISM: The Destruction of America's Middle Class (08/30/11) [1:41:51]
AMERICA -- From Freedom To Fascism () [1:49:28]
Conspiracy | 9/11
9/11 Exposed 2nd Edition (2015) [1:50:00]
Game Change Shara Palin
Sarah Palin: HBO movie Game Change (trailer) [0:59]
Game Change 2012 () [1:57:52]
Everything That Is Wrong With The Republican Party in 1:48 [1:48]
Matt Damon Slams Sarah Palin (08/27/10) [1:42]
CBS | Katie Couric: exclusive interviews with Gov. Sarah Palin (10/31/08) [28:33]
WTC Bombing 1993
HBO | Path to Paradise - WTC 1993 Bombing () [1:34:16]
Was The 1993 WTC Bombing An Inside Job? () [2:10]
1993 WTC Bombing - FBI Operative Emad Salem Makes Terrorist Bombs At The FBI Bomb Factory () [9:32]
FED
Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve () [1:43:42]
History | Conspiracy
NWO: Secret Societies and Biblical Prophecy Vol. 1 () [2:25:10]
Other
Elysium /w Matt Damon & Jodie Foster (2013) [2:11:30]

06.15.2015. 11:59

Friday June 12, 2015
News Articles

Iceland Jailed Bankers and Rejected Austerity -- and It's Been a Success
TruthDig | Roisin Davis | 06/11/15

When the global economic crisis hit in 2008, Iceland suffered terribly--perhaps more than any other country. The savings of 50,000 people were wiped out, plunging Icelanders into debt and placing 25 percent of its homeowners in mortgage default.

Now, less than a decade later, the nation's economy is booming. And this year it will become the first culturally European country that faced collapse to beat its pre-crisis peak of economic output. That's because it took a different approach. Instead of imposing devastating austerity measures and bailing out its banks, Iceland let its banks go bust and focused on social welfare policies. In March, the International Monetary Fund announced that the country had achieved economic recovery "without compromising its welfare model" of universal health care and education. ... Read more

They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy by Robert Scheer

They Know Everything About You is a groundbreaking exposé of how government agencies and tech corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce defense of privacy and democracy.

The revelation that the government has access to a vast trove of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a surveillance society. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government. Intelligence agencies such as the NSA and CIA are using Silicon Valley corporate partners as their data spies. Seemingly progressive tech companies are joining forces with snooping government agencies to create a brave new world of wired tyranny.

Life in the digital age poses an unprecedented challenge to our constitutional liberties, which guarantee a wall of privacy between the individual and the government. The basic assumption of democracy requires the ability of the individual to experiment with ideas and associations within a protected zone, as secured by the Constitution. The unobserved moment embodies the most basic of human rights, yet it is being squandered in the name of national security and consumer convenience.

Robert Scheer argues that the information revolution, while a source of public enlightenment, contains the seeds of freedom's destruction in the form of a surveillance state that exceeds the wildest dream of the most ingenious dictator. The technology of surveillance, unless vigorously resisted, represents an existential threat to the liberation of the human spirit.
Nearly 75 years ago to the day,Winston Churchill made his famous speech expressing gratitude to our brave airmen by saying,"never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"....now however,since 2008 we have seen a massive redistribution of wealth from the 1% to the 0.1%.The middle class has been destroyed to pay for the folly that caused the initial crisis in 2008.

Greek Stocks, Bank Bonds Battered As Deal Hope Fades
ZeroHedge | author | 06/12/15

Read more

Every 2016 Presidential Candidate From Most Liberal to Most Conservative
Click picture to zoom in

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, June 12 [8:57]
The IMF Walks Out of Greece Bailout Talks (06/11/15) [1:52]
Politics
Is Bush Ready to Announce His Candidacy? by Mark Fiore
Unending War | Does the Government Lie?
ISIS boasts US-made Humvee war spoils, Iraq loses 2,300 vehicles in Mosul alone (06/01/15) [5:35]
Zero Dark Thirty () [2:36:59] *TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 1 (06/09/15) [26:48]
TRNN | Robert Scheer: Plundering Our Freedom with Abandon, Part 2 (06/12/15) [18:54]
TRNN | Bill Black Report: Murdoch: Among The Most Corrupt Oligarchs in the World (06/12/15) [12:21]
*TYT | Jamie Dimon Talks Sh*t On Elizabeth Warren (06/11/15) [6:49]
RT | Keiser Report: Debauchery Against Money (E769) (06/11/15) [25:44]
In the second half (move Progressbar to 1/2 way), Max continues his interview with Ross Ashcroft of RenegadeInc.com about crowdfunding, Greece and more.

*FOUR HORSEMEN is an independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works. [1:38:54]

Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
*ThomHartmann | RT Big Picture | Mike Papantonio on Bernie Sanders; Wikileaks Releases More Secret TPP Documents; etc. (06/11/15) [57:19]

06.12.2015. 10:48

Thursday June 11, 2015
News Articles

Jamie Dimon Wants To Mansplain Banking To Elizabeth Warren
HP | Amanda Terkel | 06/10/15

There are few people in Congress who criticize big Wall Street banks more than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) does. A former Harvard bankruptcy law professor, she is the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and chaired the government panel that oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out the financial sector in 2008. But according to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, she really doesn't know what she's talking about.

"I don't know if she fully understands the global banking system," Dimon said on Wednesday at a luncheon in Chicago, according to Bloomberg. ... Read more

"You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy, but you cannot have both."
-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

Bernie Sanders 'Surprised' By Size Of Crowds At His Campaign Rallies
HP | Igor Bobic | 06/11/15

The number of adoring supporters who have shown up at presidential campaign events for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is bigger than even the candidate himself expected.

The self-described democratic socialist, who has presented himself as a champion of the working class against the interests of big business and corporate America, has drawn sizable crowds, far exceeding the numbers of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who maintains a large lead in the polls. Last month, several thousand people turned out to hear Sanders speak in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And in New Hampshire, the Vermont senator has attracted more interest, at least in sheer numbers, than much of the 2016 Republican presidential field. ... Read more

Economist Cover: "Watch Out"
ZeroHedge | author | 06/11/15

One of the recurring explanations given why the Fed is eager to hike rates is so it has some dry powder ahead of the next recession which, some 6 years after the last one ended is overdue (especially with a negative GDP Q1). Which, incidentally, is just the topic of the next Economist cover titled simply "Watch out" adding that the world is not ready for the next recession...

There is, of course, the question of just how much dry powder does a 25 bps increase in the Fed Funds rate provide, especially considering that Europe tried precisely that in the summer of 2011 only to unleash a crippling recession on the continent that required yet another Fed bailout in November 2011. ... Read more

The Economist

Rental America: Why the poor pay $4,150 for a $1,500 sofa
WashingtonPost & ZeroHedge | author | 06/11/15

The love seat and sofa that Jamie Abbott can't quite afford ended up in her double-wide trailer because of the day earlier this year when she and her family walked into a new store called Buddy's. Abbott had no access to credit, no bank account and little cash, but here was a place that catered to exactly those kinds of customers. Anything could be hers. The possibilities -- and the prices -- were dizzying.

At Buddy's, a used 32-gigabyte, early model iPad costs $1,439.28, paid over 72 weeks. An Acer laptop: $1,943.28, in 72 weekly installments. A Maytag washer and dryer: $1,999 over 100 weeks.

By the next day, the Abbotts had a remade living room, two companion pieces, both of the same blended material, 17 percent leather. The love seat and sofa retailed, together, for about $1,500. Abbott would pay for hers over two years, though she still had paying the option to pay monthly or weekly. The total price if paid weekly: $4,158. ... Read more or the original article Here

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, June 11 [9:34]
*DN | Backlash Against TPP Grows as Leaked Text Reveals Increased Corporate Control of Public Health (06/11/15) [7:48]
*DN | After Iraq-Syria Takeover, the Inside Story of How ISIL Destroyed Al-Qaida from Within (06/11/15) [16:36]
FED - Federal Reserve
Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. (older) [5:24]
Rep. Alan Grayson: $12 Trillion Gone and No One Punished (older) [5:04]
Bloomberg | Fed Loan Disclosures (articles)
CNN | Fed made $9 trillion in emergency overnight loans (article)
*TRNN | Environmental activist Josh Fox: How the Media & EPA Mislead the Public on Fracking (06/11/15) [19:13]
TYT | Fox Host Called A Liar, His Reaction Is Pure Fracking Fun (06/10/15) [11:50]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
*ThomHartmann | The War Crimes Cleanup Begins (06/11/15) [4:43]
ThomHartmann | Bernie Sanders May Win The White House (06/10/15) [10:43]
ThomHartmann | Lookout For The Wall Street Time-Bomb (06/10/15) [9:55]

As mentioned in an interview from last year, Serfdom is the New Normal. Don't forget to send out your thank you notes:


06.11.2015. 11:42

Wednesday June 10, 2015
News Articles
How Your Tax Dollars are Being Extracted!!
Overview - Infographic
Click to zoom - for Full Image
National Debt - TILLIONS
*Demonocracyinfo | US Debt in Physical $100 bills [2:10]
Trade Imbalance (TPP, TTIP, NAFTA, Secret Trade Deals)
*U.S. Trade Deficit: Before and After "Free Trade" (current) [9:00]
http://tradetreachery.com/ website
US Federal Budget
Click picture to zoom in
How Your Taxes are Being Spent
Click picture to zoom in
How the American War Machine Is Sucking Up Vast Amounts of Cash to Screw Up the World Daily Ticker | Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For (2014) [5:32]

The Job Market Will Get Much Worse, JPMorgan Warns
ZeroHedge | author | 06/10/15

As Zero Hedge reports every month, the labor force participation rate is at multi-decade lows. Michael Feroli, a JPMorgan economist, said the economy will produce even fewer jobs in the future.

In the last ten years, the U.S. saw 68,000 new jobs per month. Meanwhile, the population grew by over 200,000 per month. The last decade's data was marred by severe job losses in 2008. From 1995 - 2005, it was normal to see 300,000 new jobs per month in good years, and the bad years didn't come close to the 2008 horror show. ... Read more

US Will Send 400 More Troops To Iraq Bringing Total To 3,500; Open New Military Base
ZeroHedge | author | 06/10/15

As reported yesterday, in the latest escalation of the "war on ISIS", Obama - winner of the Nobel peace prize for pulling US soldiers out of Iraq - was said to be sending even more US soldiers, pardon military advisors, to Iraq to halt the inexplicable, constant expansion of ISIS, now deep in Syrian territory. Earlier today, this was confirmed when Reuters reported that, as expected, the US will announce on Wednesday plans for a new military base in Iraq's Anbar province and the deployment of around 400 additional U.S. trainers to help Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State, citing an unnamed U.S. official. ... Read more

More News
  1. Pressing for Greek concessions, Merkel and Hollande keep Tsipras waiting (Reuters)
  2. Treasuries Extend Slump as Pimco Dumps Two-Thirds of Holdings (BBG)
  3. U.S. prepares plans for more troops, new base in Iraq: officials (Reuters)
  4. Texas policeman resigns after video shows him toppling teen (Reuters)
  5. Kuroda Says Hard to See Yen Dropping More, Spurring Surge (BBG)
  6. Tech Startups Woo Investors With Unconventional Financial Terms -- but Do Numbers Add Up? (WSJ)
  7. Putin is a 'bully', U.S. needs to respond resolutely: Jeb Bush (Reuters)


Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, June 10 [11:23]
*DN | War for Decades to Come? 1 Year After ISIL Advance, U.S. Could Send Hundreds More Troops to Iraq (06/10/15) [14:18]
*DN | SDS Leader Tom Hayden on Vietnam: We Must Challenge the Pentagon on the Battlefield of Memory (06/10/15) [18:33]
Yemen
Untold History of United States by Oliver Stone
*Untold History of United States - Bush & Obama: Age of Terror, Part 10 () [59:00]
MORE Untold History Of The United States

*TRNN | John Weeks: author of The Economics of the 1%, says it's really the German government that is flexing its muscles regarding Greece despite that the IMF recognizes the entire Greek debt can never be paid in full (06/10/15) [9:39]
*TYT | America Is Broken, Here's How To Fix It (06/09/15) [7:40]
TYT | The Enraging Reason Americans Are So Misinformed About Obamacare (06/09/15) [7:47]
TYT | McKinney Cop Defenders Are Ugly, Racist & Worse Than You Think (06/09/15) [21:23]
TYT | Unarmed Man Dies In His Own Blood Thanks To A Well-Trained Cop (06/09/15) [7:50]
RT | Keiser Report: Grexit already happened? (E768) (06/09/15) [25:45]
In the second half, Max interviews Ross Ashcroft of RenegadeInc.com about crowdfunding his own content in order to educate the population about the economic news the BBC refuses to tell and they discuss the fact that there has already essentially been a Grexit, Greece is gone. What else can be done.

*FOUR HORSEMEN is an independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works. [1:38:54]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/

06.10.2015. 10:40

Tuesday June 09, 2015
News Articles

The Bomb Iran Lobby Gears Up For 2016
BillMoyers | Sina Toossi | 06/08/15

In a recent TV ad, a van snakes its way through an American city. As the driver fiddles with the radio dial, dire warnings about the perils of a "nuclear Iran" spill out of the speaker from Senator Lindsey Graham and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The driver then steers the vehicle into a parking garage, drives to the top level and blows it up in a blinding flash of white light. Words shimmer across the screen: "No Iran Nuclear Treaty Without Congressional Approval." ... Read more
Special Delivery (03/04/15) [0:30]

HSBC To Fire 50,000, One In Five Jobs, To Fund Dividends To Shareholders
ZeroHedge | author | 06/09/15

Just days after JPMorgan revealed it would fire another 5,000 by the end of the year in a "scalpel" headcount reduction, overnight the world's favorite drug money laundering bank HSBC unleashed the "machete" and announced it would cut almost 50,000 workers, or one in five bankers, a move which would shrink the investment bank division by one-third. The reason: the same why US corporations are laying off tens of thousands so they can fund record stock buybacks and enrich their shareholders - to boost profits so that more money can be channeled in the form of dividends. ... Read more

*U.S. Trade Deficit: Before and After "Free Trade" () [9:00]
http://tradetreachery.com/ website

Leak Critics Ask Judge Not To Send Petraeus To Jail For Unauthorized Disclosures
firstlook.org/theintercept | Cora Currier | 06/08/15

Senators, generals, ambassadors, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the owner of The Atlantic were in the roster of powerful voices who wrote to a federal judge to ask him to go easy on former CIA director and retired general David Petraeus, who admitted to giving classified information to his mistress and biographer.

Petraeus pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information and was sentenced to two years probation and a $100,000 fine. The punishment stands in contrast to far harsher penalties sought for whistleblowers and leakers in less prominent positions. ... Read more

John Oliver - Bail
HBO | John Oliver: Bail (06/07/15) [17:49]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart | Blasts Texas Cop's Violent Response to Teen Pool Party (06/09/15) [3:17]
More News
  1. Greece Said to Submit Revised Budget Plan in Bid for Funding (BBG)
  2. Protesters seek firing of Texas officer who threw girl to ground (Reuters)
  3. HSBC to cut 50,000 jobs in quest for higher dividends (Reuters)
  4. U.S. base shipped live anthrax to 19 states plus D.C.: Pentagon (Reuters)
  5. Obama Administration Opens Door for More Student-Debt Forgiveness (WSJ)
  6. China Said to Weigh Margin Finance Rule Change Amid Stock Boom (BBG)
  7. Doctor who trained U.S. troops suspended for macabre techniques (Reuters)
  8. Exxon to Face Regulators' Questions Over Quakes (WSJ)
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, June 09 [11:38]
DN | Pulling a Gun on a Pool Party? Texas Cop Suspended After Manhandling Bikini-Clad Black Teen (06/09/15) [18:24]
DN | The Arctic 30: How Greenpeace Activists Risked All to Stop Oil Drilling in New Climate Battleground (06/09/15) [11:45]
Katie Couric - Bernie Sanders
*Bernie Sanders Speaks With Katie Couric (06/02/15) [39:43]
Bill Moyers - The Secret Government
*BillMoyers | The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis (11/04/87) [1:26:40]
Vice News - Cost of War
*Vice | The Business of War: Privatization, Surveillance & Millennial Veterans (06/08/15) [23:28]
TYT | Electile Dysfunction In America - 2016 Campaign Update (06/08/15) [3:47]
TYT | Rick Santorum Spanked Hard By Fox News (06/08/15) [5:32]
TYT | Facebook Melts Bill O'Reilly's Ancient Brain (06/08/15) [7:07]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | MORE Damning TPP Secrets Revealed... (06/05/15) [4:37]
ThomHartmann | Congressman Grayson on The TPP and Its Evil Cousin TISA (06/05/15) [7:41]

06.09.2015. 11:46

Monday June 08, 2015
News Articles

Deutsche Bank CEOs "Shown Door" -- World's Largest Holder of Derivatives In Trouble?
ZeroHedge | author | 06/08/15

The joint CEO's of Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, the twelfth largest bank globally in terms of assets, unexpectedly announced their resignation over the weekend. Anshu Jain will resign at the end of this month, almost two years ahead of schedule while Juergan Fitschen will stay on until May of next year. It is believed they resigned but some media reported that the CEOs heads had "rolled", they were "shown the door" and Reuters reporting that Deutsche had "purged its leadership."

... In the past year Deutsche, like many international banks, have been found to have been engaged in a slew of corrupt practices from manipulation of interest rates, for which the firm was fined $2.5 billion in April, to tax evasion and money laundering to "mis-selling" of derivatives. Deutsche Bank's derivatives position is truly enormous. It was recently estimated to be around $54 trillion. Germany's GDP, the fourth largest in the world, was a mere $3.64 trillion in 2015. Were Deutsche Bank caught off-side in its derivatives positions there is not a government or institution on earth that could bail it out and it could lead to contagion in the German financial system and indeed in the global financial system. ...

Deutsche co-CEOs announce "resignation" nine months before their contracts expire
  1. Only two weeks ago, CEO Anshu Jain was given more power to reorganise the bank
  2. Deutsche have been engaged in money laundering, tax evasion, derivative and manipulation scandals
  3. Deutsche is world's largest holder of financial weapons of mass destruction (FWMD)
  4. Deutsche Bank's derivatives position almost 15 times as large as Germany's GDP
  5. Announcement follows Greek failure to pay IMF on Friday and growing financial risk
Read more

The Derivative Bomb!

The Non-GAAP Revulsion Arrives: Experts Throw Up All Over "Made Up, Phony, Smoke And Mirrors" Numbers
ZeroHedge | author | 06/08/15

One of the recurring stories on Zero Hedge has been the increasingly more blatant fabrication of corporate bottom line "earnings" with the explicit blessing of both accountants and regulators, in the form of non-GAAP results. Our most recent observation conducted two months ago showed that the variation between GAAP and non-GAAP EPS has stretched to the widest degree since the financial crisis. ...

Key findings
  1. Seventy-two percent of the companies reviewed by AP had adjusted profits that were higher than net income in the first quarter of this year. That's about the same as in the comparable period five years earlier, but the gap between the adjusted and net income figures has widened considerably: adjusted earnings were typically 16 percent higher than net income in the most recent period versus 9 percent five years ago.
  2. For a smaller group of the companies reviewed, 21 percent of the total, adjusted profits soared 50 percent or more over net income. This was true of just 13 percent of the group in the same period five years ago.
  3. Quarter after quarter, the differences between the adjusted and bottom-line figures are adding up. From 2010 through 2014, adjusted profits for the S&P 500 came in $583 billion higher than net income. It's as if each company in the S&P 500 got a check in the mail for an extra eight months of earnings.
  4. Fifteen companies with adjusted profits actually had bottom-line losses over the five years. Investors have poured money into their stocks just the same.
  5. Stocks are getting more expensive, meaning there could be a greater risk of stocks falling if the earnings figures being used to justify buying them are questionable. One measure of how richly priced stocks are suggests trouble. Three years ago, investors paid $13.50 for every dollar of adjusted profits for companies in the S&P 500 index, according to S&P Capital IQ. Now, they're paying nearly $18.
Read more

At one of every five companies, these "adjusted" profits were higher than net income by 50 percent or more. Many more companies are in that category now than there were five years ago.

Experts worry that 'phony numbers' are misleading investors
Yahoo & AP | Bernard Condon | 06/08/15

Those record profits that companies are reporting may not be all they're cracked up to be. As the stock market climbs ever higher, professional investors are warning that companies are presenting misleading versions of their results that ignore a wide variety of normal costs of running a business to make it seem like they're doing better than they really are.

What's worse, the financial analysts who are supposed to fight corporate spin are often playing along. Instead of challenging the companies, they're largely passing along the rosy numbers in reports recommending stocks to investors. ... Read more

With Greece "Everything Must Go Right From Now On" To Avoid Market Shock
HP | author | 06/08/15

"A positive scenario requires almost everything to go right from now on," BofAML says, adding that "Greece needs to receive new funding before the end of June, otherwise it will not be able to repay the IMF on June 30 ... which would put ELA access of Greek banks at risk." ... Read more

More News
  1. White House denies Obama said strong dollar a problem (Reuters)
  2. Lira Falls to Record Amid Stock Rout as AK Party Loses Majority (BBG)
  3. Bond-Market Game of Chicken With Fed Is Riskier Than Ever (BBG)
  4. Xetra Dax enters correction territory (FT)
  5. China trade shrinks amid slowing demand (FT)
  6. Greek government eyes compromise with lenders, rules out snap polls (Reuters)
  7. If You Think Greece's Crisis Will End Soon, Think Again (BBG)
  8. China growth data 'overstated' due to data error (FT)
  9. Calpers to Cut External Money Managers by Half (WSJ)
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, June 08 [12:13]
*DN | From Historic California Drought to Deadly Indian Heatwave, Global Warming is Wreaking Havoc (06/08/15) [13:50]
*DN | A Fossil Fuel Free World is Possible (06/08/15) [14:55]
*DN | Protesters Press Secluded G7 Leaders on Harmful Policies, from Crippling Austerity to Dirty Coal (06/08/15) [19:05]
All Wars Are Bankers' Wars
*Original | All Wars Are Bankers' Wars by Michael Rivero () [41:21]
All Wars Are Bankers' Wars by Michael Rivero (full article)
UFOTV® | All Wars Are Bankers Wars (newer, fancier graphics) (04/28/15) [45:21]
*JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick (11/19/14) [3:27:55]
*TRNN | Cambridge University Professor Lord Martin Rees: Renewable Energy Can Be Competitive with Fossil Fuels by 2025, Says New Report (06/08/15) [6:16]
*TYT | Work Hard? Jeb Bush Has A Plan For You & You're Not Gonna Like It (06/07/15) [4:42]
TYT | Investigation Proves TSA Screeners Are HORRIBLE At Their Jobs (06/07/15) [4:57]
TYT | Rick Santorum Disagrees With The Pope On Climate Change (06/07/15) [4:26]
RT | Status Quo Act (06/08/15) [24:15]
RT | Keiser Report: UK Property Puzzle (E767) (06/07/15) [24:45]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Bernie Sanders: I Won't Give the TPP Credibility... (06/06/15) [2:29]
ThomHartmann | Brunch with Bernie: (06/05/15) [44:33]
Bernie Sanders: Not Enough Democratic Debates... (06/05/15) [3:33]
Megyn Kelly Jill and Jessa Duggar sisters Full Interview - The Kelly File (06/05/15) [28:12]

06.08.2015. 10:57

Friday June 05, 2015
News Articles

Federal Government Suffers Massive Hacking Attack
AP & HP | Ken Dilanian | 06/04/15

China-based hackers are suspected of breaking into the computer networks of the U.S. government personnel office and stealing identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers, American officials said Thursday.

... Collins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said the breach was "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances." ... Read more

Scott Walker: The First ALEC President?
HP | Mary Bottari | 06/03/15

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will address the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in San Diego this July.

Walker's speech at ALEC will be a reunion of sorts. Walker was an ALEC member as a state legislator in the 1990s, and the agenda that Walker has championed throughout his long political career has closely tracked the policies promoted by ALEC and its corporate funders, despite public opposition to many of those measures.

More than 200 corporations and a quarter of state legislators belong to ALEC, where corporations vote as equals with state legislators on "model" bills before they are introduced in legislatures to become binding law. The group receives 98 percent of its funding from corporations like Shell, Peabody Energy, and Altria/Philip Morris, and from sources like the Koch family foundations, and many of the "model bills" that it has promoted -- from prison privatization to environmental deregulation -- directly benefit the financial interests of its funders. ... Read more
Scott Walker: The First ALEC President?

Congress Slyly Changed Campaign Finance Rules. Now the GOP Is Cleaning Up.
MotherJones | Russ Choma | 06/04/15

After watching the biggest donors increasingly shun the major political parties and send their six-figure checks to super-PACs and other outside spending groups, Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress made a sly bid last December to bring billionaires and millionaires back into the party fold. They slipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that rewrote campaign finance rules to raise contribution limits for donations to the national parties. Under the old rules, an individual could give up to $33,400 a year to the Republican or Democratic national committees. The new rule allows donors to give 10 times that amount. And just months into the new election cycle, the effort is paying off -- at least for Republicans. The RNC is pulling down big money from a who's who of conservative megadonors. Democrats? Not so much. ... Read more

Where The May Jobs Were: Teachers, Waiters, Retail, And Temp Help
ZeroHedge | author | 06/05/15

One of the defining features of jobs "recovery" and the main reason why wage growth has been so far below the Fed's expectations for years it has prevented wage inflation from appearing despite years of QE, is that the quality of jobs added month after month has disappointing. May was no difference. Yes, the headline print of 280K job additions was great, but a quick look at how the BLS got there shows that nothing has changed because four of th ... Read more
Click picture to zoom in

WikiLeaks Releases 'Largest Leak of Trade Negotiations in History'
TruthDig | author | 06/04/15

WikiLeaks has posted 17 documents about the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a giant, controversial global trade deal being negotiated among the U.S. and 23 other countries. TISA is a lesser-known relative of the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a deal that President Barack Obama has been actively campaigning for in Washington.

The 24 countries in the deal together comprise two-thirds of global GDP. "Services" now account for nearly 80 per cent of the US and EU economies and even in developing countries like Pakistan account for 53 per cent of the economy. While the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become well known in recent months in the United States, the TISA is the larger component of the strategic TPP-TISA-TTIP 'T-treaty trinity'. All parts of the trinity notably exclude the 'BRICS' countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, June 05 [5:57]
Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go? () [4:49]
TRNN | Patrick Bond says: What Does the FIFA Scandal Mean for South Africa? (06/05/15) [12:00]
TYT | The REAL definition of Terrorism And Why The Word Should Be Retired (06/04/15) [6:03]
TYT | Does Your Job Lean Democrat Or Republican? (06/04/15) [6:13]
TYT | Ted Cruz Mocks Joe Biden On The Eve His Son's Funeral (06/04/15) [6:34]
TYT | Duggars Defend Their Son On Molestation Charges (06/04/15) [11:38]
ALEC Trying To Slash Your Paycheck (06/04/15) [10:01]
ALEC - Your Tax Dollars Are Going to Corporate Lobbyists (06/03/15) [10:27]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | China...If They Pull the Plug, We're Screwed (06/04/15) [4:15]
ThomHartmann | Can Bernie Sanders Start a Revolution? (06/04/15) [7:53]
Corbett Report - corbettreport.com
The Globalization of War: America's "Long War" against Humanity

America s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the Globalization of War whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine --coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of regime change- is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.

This Long War against Humanity is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history. It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.

Corbett Report | Michel Chossudovsky: The Globalization of War () [19:53]
Oklahoma City Bombing
corbettreport | The Secret Life of Timothy McVeigh (05/11/15) [58:16]
60Minutes | The Execution of Timothy McVeigh () [12:44]
Timothy McVeigh. We've been told so much about him, the Oklahoma City bombing, and what it meant for America. But what if it's all a lie? Join us today for this special Corbett Report podcastumentary as we examine the multiple trucks, multiple bombs, government informants, faked executions and other pieces of information suggesting that McVeigh was not a "lone wolf bomber" at all but a sheepdipped special forces operative working for the government, exactly as he claimed.

06.05.2015. 09:43

Thursday June 04, 2015
News Articles

Man Carries Fully Loaded AR-15 Into World's Busiest Airport
HP | author | 06/04/15

A Georgia man openly carried a fully loaded AR-15 semiautomatic rifle into Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest in the world.

Jim Cooley was armed with the weapon -- complete with an extended capacity 100-round drum -- when he went to drop his daughter off for a flight last Friday. Following the enactment of new state legislation in 2014, it's actually legal to carry a rifle in the open in the airport, so long as the holder doesn't attempt to pass through airport security.

Multiple police officers approached Cooley while he was in the airport and asked about the weapon, after which he replied he was carrying it for safety. Officers can be heard talking with Cooley in videos of the interactions he later uploaded to YouTube. ... Read more

Greece: Out Of Cash, Out Of Time, Out Of Options
ZeroHedge | author | 06/04/15

Most commentary still appears predicated on the idea that there will be some last-minute deal - either because the creditors will back down and give Greece some more money without requiring it to be paid back or because the Greek government will back down if it understands that not doing so would ultimately mean leaving the euro. On the other hand, some believe neither side is particularly interested in achieving a deal. ... Read more

"A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy."

IMF Panics - Slashes US Growth Forecasts, Demands Fed Stay On Hold For Another Year
ZeroHedge | author | 06/04/15

Anxiety over financial stability and shadow banking risks appear to have force Christine Lagarde and her fellow extrapolators to hit the panic button:

IMF CUTS U.S. 2015 GROWTH FORECAST TO 2.5% FROM 3.1%, URGES FED TO DELAY FIRST RATE INCREASE UNTIL 1H 2016

Adding that they viewed the Dollar as "moderately overvalued" and any more appreciation would be "harmful," it seems global disinflationary pressures have left the IMF no choice but to say publicly what everyone has uttered under their breath. Now Yellen is really cornered.. and just exactly how are the talking heads going to spin this as positive? ... Read more

Glacier Loss Raises High Concern Over Water Supplies
TruthDig | Tim Radford | 06/03/15

The glaciers of the Everest region of the Himalayan massif--home to the highest peak of all--could lose between 70% and 99% of their volume as a result of global warming.

Asia's mountain ranges contain the greatest thickness of ice beyond the polar regions. But new research predicts that, by 2100, the world's highest waters--on which billions of people depend for their water supply--could be at their lowest ebb because of the ice loss. Many of the continent's great rivers begin up in the snows, fed by melting ice in high-peak regions such as the Hindu Kush, the Pamir and the Himalayas. ... Read more

Why Do So Many Obvious Losers Think They Can Be President?
MotherJones | Kevin Drum | 06/03/15

My body is continuing its revolt against all things good and true, so my mental acuity is scattered at best. But here's something I've wanted to get out of my brain and onto pixels for a while. It's based on nothing at all except my personal opinion. It's not based on polls, nor anything the candidates have said, nor any detailed analysis of which blocs of voters each one will appeal to. It's just my gut feeling. So here it is: my ranking of the 2016 Republican presidential field: ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, June 04 [7:02]
*DN | "These are War Crimes": Shocking Details Emerge of U.S. Resident Majid Khan's Torture by CIA (06/04/15) [17:59]
Senator Elizabeth Warren on big money in Washington (05/26/15) [2:22]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Learns How Muslims Can Be Less Scary And More American (06/04/15) [4:19]
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Reminded Caitlyn Jenner Why Being Herself Is Wonderful But Being A Woman Can Suck (06/03/15) [3:48]
*TRNN | Christian Appy: The Vietnam Syndrome and the Project for a New American Century, Part 5 (06/04/15) [14:03]
TRNN | Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah says: Israel Fears the Boycott Movement (BDS) as an 'Existential Threat' (06/04/15) [16:07]

Untold History of United States by Oliver Stone
*Untold History of United States - Bush & Obama: Age of Terror, Part 10 () [59:00]
MORE Untold History Of The United States

*TYT | Man Exercises Open-Carry Rights By Carrying Loaded Assault Rifle In Airport (06/03/15) [5:25]
TYT | Horrific Depths Of CIA Torture Exposed (06/03/15) [9:07]
TYT | U.S. Finally Respected Again And Fox News Can't Stand It (06/03/15) [7:08]
TYT | Duggar Molestation Victims To Be Interviewed On Fox (06/03/15) [5:27]
RT | CrossTalk: Russia's Economy, What Crisis? (06/03/15) [24:31]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/

06.04.2015. 09:32

Wednesday June 03, 2015
News Articles

Dick Cheney and Daughter Push Hawkish Stances for G.O.P. Hopefuls
NYTimes | Jonathan Martin | 06/02/15

The rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East has pushed Republicans toward embracing a more interventionist foreign policy, and now one prominent Republican family wants to be sure the party stays that way.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney are planning to make their presence felt in the 2016 presidential campaign through their advocacy group, Alliance for a Strong America. ... Read more

Greece Admits It Will Not Make IMF Payment On Friday, No Deal Expected Wednesday.

As Hope Lifts Athens Stocks, German Vice Chancelleor Warns Of "Gigantic Consequences" If Greek Talks Fail
ZeroHedge | author | 06/03/15

Despite all the reassurances by various leaders that any Grexit or Greek bankruptcy would be 'contained', Sigmar Gabriel - vice-chancellor and economic minister of Germany's SPD party - unleashed some uncomfortable truthiness yesterday. With Greek stocks up almost 5% today as hope springs eternal, Gabriel warned of nothing less than "gigantic consequences" for Europe in case of a Greek bankruptcy. ... Read more

One Small Step For NSA Reform, One Giant Leap For Congress
firstlook.org/theintercept | Dan Froomkin | 06/02/15

Exactly two years after journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras traveled to Hong Kong to meet an NSA whistleblower named Edward Snowden, Congress has finally brought itself to reform one surveillance program out of the multitude he revealed -- a program so blatantly out of line that its end was a foregone conclusion as soon as it was exposed.

The USA Freedom Act passed the House in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote three weeks ago. After hardliner Republicans lost a prolonged game of legislative chicken, the Senate gave its approval Tuesday afternoon as well, by a 67 to 32 margin. The bill officially ends 14 years of unprecedented bulk collection of domestic phone records by the NSA, replacing it with a program that requires the government to make specific requests to the phone companies. ... Read more

The Forgotten Pentagon Papers Conspirator
MotherJones | Barbara Myers | 06/02/15

The witness reported men being hung by the feet or the thumbs, waterboarded, given electric shocks to the genitals, and suffering from extended solitary confinement in what he said were indescribably inhumane conditions. It's the sort of description that might have come right out of the executive summary of the Senate torture report released last December. In this case, however, the testimony was not about a "black site" somewhere in the Greater Middle East, nor was it a description from Abu Ghraib, nor in fact from this century at all.

The testimony came from Vietnam; the year was 1968; the witness was Anthony J. Russo, one of the first Americans to report on the systematic torture of enemy combatants by CIA operatives and other US agents in that long-gone war. The acts Russo described became commonplace in the news post-9/11 and he would prove to be an early example of what also became commonplace in our century: a whistleblower who found himself on the wrong side of the law and so was prosecuted for releasing the secret truth about the acts of our government. ... Read more

9 Outrageous Ways the Rich Spend Their Money the Rest Of Us Could Only Dream About
AlterNet | Kali Holloway | 05/30/15

"Rich People--They're Just Like Us!" tabloid magazines assure us, and that's true, at the mitochondrial level. Otherwise, F. Scott Fitzgerald got it right the first time: Rich people are not like the rest of us, and they've put a lot of stopgaps in place to make sure it stays that way. I don't even mean the way they own 43 percent of the country's wealth domestically and more than 40 percent globally, or how they control the political process, or even how they've managed to jigger the justice system so they can literally get away with murder ...

  1. Trophy "Wife Bonuses."
  2. Hunting endangered animals.
  3. Buying up private islands.
  4. Creating their own special healthcare system.
  5. Buying art at absurd prices and destroying the art market for everyone else.
  6. Space Tourism.
  7. Trying to live forever.
  8. Secretly planning their escape from civil uprisings by the angry non-rich.
  9. Donating crazy amounts to colleges so their kids can go to the schools of their choice.
Read more

More News
  1. Obama signs bill reforming surveillance program (Reuters)
  2. Tsipras to meet Juncker in Brussels for talks on agreement (AFP)
  3. Spot the irony: OECD cuts global growth forecast, says recovery taking hold (Reuters)
  4. The Secret Money Behind Vladimir Putin's War Machine (BBG)
  5. Companies' Borrowing Spree Darkens Stock Market Future (BBG)
  6. How OPEC Hurt Big Oil (WSJ)
  7. What's OPEC Going to Do With Iran's Million Barrels a Day? (BBG)
  8. Draghi's Europe Looks Healthiest for Years Despite Greece (BBG)
  9. Bund yields inch higher, euro holds ahead of ECB (Reuters)
DN | Australian Whistleblower Who Took on FIFA Corruption: Sepp Blatter's Resignation Long Overdue (06/03/15) [15:10]
DN | "Cultural Genocide": Landmark Report Decries Canada's Forced Schooling of Indigenous Children (06/03/15) [21:29]
Good Short Videos
*Represent.us| Have you ever felt like the government doesn't really care what you think? (current) [5:50]
Robert Reich | The Big Picture: Strengthen Unions (05/28/15) [2:44]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Definitive Takedown of Our Endless Middle East Stupidity' (06/03/15) [9:29]
President Bush: Progress in Iraq? (2007) [1:08]
TRNN | 3 Ways USA Freedom Act Fails to Stop FBI Spying on Americans (06/03/15) [4:09]
TRNN | David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation says: NSA Bulk Data Collection Curtailed by Senate (06/03/15) [7:33]
*TYT | Police Kill Americans At Stunning Rates, Here Are The Numbers (06/02/15) [11:28]
TYT | People Who Exercise & Bike Are The Problem Says Giant Talking Chin (06/02/15) [5:45]
TYT | Religious Website On What To Do When Your Wife Denies You Sex (06/02/15) [9:37]
RT | Keiser Report: Fake It 'Til You Make It (E765) (06/02/15) [24:04]
In the second half, Max interviews Mitch Feierstein of PlanetPonzi.com about make believe economic growth and real debt problems as economies around the world shrink, housing bubbles blow and the war sector grows.
RT: CrossTalk Islamocracy (older, but interesting 01/01/15) [25:58]
Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV (06/02/15) [29:00]
Here's what's happening tonight:
  1. The American Legislative Exchange Council has been writing pro-business legislation all while scamming the IRS. We'll bring you the details on that story ...
  2. Jeb Bush is trying desperately to rewrite the history of his brother's disastrous presidency, but the American public isn't buying it. Could Jeb's campaign be over before it even begins?...
  3. And our Republican-controlled Congress is completely defective -- its time to issue a mandatory recall of our elected leaders.
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Fukushima Leak Could Cause an Explosion? (06/02/15) [6:28]
Check out these pictures of Fukushima

06.03.2015. 10:35

Tuesday June 02, 2015
News Articles

Elizabeth Warren Has Had It With The SEC's Aid To Wall Street Lawbreakers
HP | Zach Carter | 06/02/15

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White on Tuesday, criticizing White's leadership as "extremely disappointing," and accusing the regulator of "misleading" her about a rule on CEO pay.

"You have now been SEC Chair for over two years, and to date, your leadership of the Commission has been extremely disappointing," Warren wrote. "I am disappointed by the significant gap between the promises you made during and shortly after your confirmation and your performance as SEC Chair." ... Read more

TSA Agents Failed To Catch 95% Of Mock Bombs And Weapons.

This Is The Hourly Wage You Need To Afford A 2-Bedroom Apartment Around The U.S.
HP | Carly Ledbetter | 06/01/15

The National Low Income Housing Coalition released its annual housing report "Out of Reach" earlier this month. The organization calculated the hourly wage a resident would need to earn to afford a moderate, two-bedroom apartment -- and the outlook is grim. The report found that a person earning minimum wage in each state cannot afford to spend only 30 percent of income on such an apartment in the U.S. Out of Reach found that the average hourly wage needed to rent a $1,006 two-bedroom unit in the United States is $19.35 -- or $40,240 per year. That's more than two and a half times the federal minimum wage, the report noted, and $4 over the estimated average wage of $15.16 that renters earn nationwide. ... Read more
Click picture to zoom in

Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master
ZeroHedge | author | 06/02/15

Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine. In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine," expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, "with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force," and finally explained Poroshenko's "first priority must be to regain control of financial markets," which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding "I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement." ... Read more

More News
  1. Greece, creditors exchanging documents to reach deal - Commission (Reuters)
  2. Greece's Creditors Reach Consensus on Proposal to Athensa (WSJ)
  3. Greece calls on lenders to accept 'realistic' plan sent on Monday (Reuters)
  4. Hundreds missing, many elderly tourists, after ship capsizes on China's Yangtze (Reuters)
  5. Oil up ahead of OPEC meeting as dollar slips (Reuters)
  6. U.S. Met Secretly With Yemen Rebels (WSJ)
  7. Euro zone back to inflation as May prices beat forecast (Reuters)
  8. Patients Get Extreme to Obtain Hepatitis Drug That's 1% the Cost Outside U.S. (BBG)
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Patriot Act and an NSA 'Emergency' (06/02/15) [6:09]
Jon Stewart | Lindsey Graham Enters the Presidential Race (06/01/15) [4:25]
Jon Stewart | Retired Army general Stanley McChrystal talks about adapting to military and regional instability in the Middle East (06/01/15) [7:21]


Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, June 02 [8:24]
*DN | WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 "Bounty" for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters (06/02/15) [11:41]
DN | As U.S. Drops Havana from Terror List, Cuba Aims to Preserve Sovereignty & Independence (06/02/15) [8:52]
Older Videos
BBC | Daylight Robbery: What Happened to the $23billion? (older, but good 2008) [58:32]
*CorbettReport & BFP | Corporatocracy: How the Corporate Welfare State Divides and Conquers (02/11/14) [14:05]
*TRNN | Christien Appy: Vietnam - Body Counts and America as Victim, Part 4 (06/02/15) [24:13]
*TRNN | Marcy Wheeler examines: Vast Majority of Spying Will Continue Despite Expiration of Patriot Act Provisions (06/02/15) [8:45]
*TYT | Rand Paul Causes A Vicious Senate Cat Fight Over Patriot Act (06/01/15) [8:49]
TYT | Huge Bernie Sanders Crowds Surprise Everybody -- Hillary Worried? (06/01/15) [8:09]
TYT | TV Station Refuses To Air War Veteran/Republican Ad Because He's Gay (06/01/15) [4:58]
TYT | Bruce Jenner To Reveal Himself As A Woman On Cover Of Vanity Fair (06/01/15) [10:52]
TYT | His Hate Rally Failed, Now He's Sorry, Then A Shocking Ending (06/01/15) [8:53]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
*ThomHartmann | How to Prevent the Next Global Recession (05/28/15) [57:28]

06.02.2015. 10:52

Monday June 01, 2015
News Articles

Challenging Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Gains Momentum in Iowa
NYTimes | Trip Gabriel | 05/31/15

A mere 240 people live in the rural northeast Iowa town of Kensett, so when more than 300 crowded into the community center on Saturday night to hear Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, many driving 50 miles, the cellphones of Democratic leaders statewide began to buzz.

Kurt Meyer, the county party chairman who organized the event, sent a text message to Troy Price, the Iowa political director for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Price called back immediately. "Objects in your rearview mirror are closer than they appear," Mr. Meyer said he had told Mr. Price about Mr. Sanders. "Mrs. Clinton had better get out here." ... Read more

Seven Years Later, Wall Street Hasn't Learned Anything
TheAtlantic | Bourree Lam | 05//15

It's been said many times, in many places, even well before the Great Recession: The culture on Wall Street is terrible. It encourages bad behavior. More recently, there are concerns that the Wall Street that caused the financial crisis is back.

A new report by The University of Notre Dame, commissioned by the law firm Labaton Sucharow, which represents whistleblowers, has some alarming numbers to add to this well-trodden narrative. The report surveyed more than 1,200 people in the financial-services industry--account executives, wealth advisors, financial analysts, investment bankers, operations managers, and portfolio managers--in both the U.S. and the U.K. ...

Report/Survey Results
  1. 47% of respondents find it likely that their competitors have gaged in unethical or illegal activity in order to gain an edge in the market. This represents a spike from the 39% who reported as such when surveyed in 2012. This figure jumps to 51% for individuals earning $500,000 or more per year.
  2. More than one-third (34%) of those earning $500,000 or more annually have witnessed or have first hand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace.
  3. 23% of respondents believe it is likely that fellow employees have engaged in illegal or unethical activity in order to gain an edge, nearly double the 12% that reported as such in 2012.
  4. 25% would likely use non-public information to make a guaranteed $10 million if there was no chance of getting arrested for insider trading. Employees with less than 10 years' experience are more than two times as likely as those with over 20 years' experience, reporting 32% and 14% respectively.
  5. In the UK, 32% of individuals said they would likely engage in insider trading to earn $10 million if there was no chance of getting arrested, compared to 24% of respondents from the US.
  6. Nearly one in five respondents feel financial services professionals must at least sometimes engage in illegal or unethical activity to be successful.
  7. 27% of those surveyed disagree that the financial services industry puts the best interests of clients first. This figure rises to 38% for those earning $500,000 or more per year.
  8. Nearly one-third of respondents (32%) believe compensation structures or bonus plans in place at their company could incentivize employees to compromise ethics or violate the law.
  9. 33% of financial services professionals feel the industry hasn't changed for the better since the financial crisis.
Read more

Wall Street Is Using the Power of Dodd-Frank Against Itself
NYTimes | author | 05/27/15

Regulating Wall Street is an Old Testament sort of affair: Like Leviticus, it is all about the persnickety details. But politicians try to talk about it in New Testament terms, with sinners and saints, salvation and damnation. Only they can't agree on who the sinners are -- the bankers or the bureaucrats -- and wherein lies salvation. Such moralizing, however, does very little to shine light on the benefits and drawbacks of the byzantine 2010 banking regulations known as Dodd-­Frank.

Dodd-­Frank is a sprawling piece of legislation, divided into 16 sections that together represent the most drastic change in financial regulation since the Great Depression. The law created multiple government bodies tasked with monitoring and intervening in financial markets. In the event of crisis, it stipulates new ways to dissolve large banks without requiring government bailouts. The law also created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, increases the regulation of hedge funds and does several thousand other things, big and small. ... Read more

BillMoyers: Morning Reads
  1. On Thursday, Pataki said, "Today, there is one former member of Congress lobbying for every current member and the first thing I would do is ban members of Congress from ever lobbying. If you serve one day, you are banned, go home."
  2. On Wednesday, Rick Santorum said, "American families don't need another president tied to big government or big money."
  3. On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders said, "American democracy is not about billionaires being able to buy candidates and elections... we need one person, one vote.
  4. Will Martin O'Malley continue the trend this weekend? Previously, he has called for overturning Citizens United and endorsed the Government By the People Act.
  5. Campaign Finance/Elections
  6. Wall Street Journal: Former SEC Officials Want Disclosure of Corporate Political Donations (here)
  7. Free Speech for People: Actress Debra Winger Joins Congressman Jim McGovern in Cambridge Calling for a 28th Amendment to Reclaim Democracy (here)
  8. New York Times: Polluted political games (here)
  9. Texas Tribune: Ethics Reform: A Guide to What's Still Alive (here)
  10. Campaign Legal Center: New Litigation Summary from CLC Reveals Ongoing Flood of Challenges to Campaign Finance Laws (here)
  11. Brennan Center: Courts Shine Light on Dark Money (here)
  12. The Nation: The Conservatives Who Gutted the Voting Rights Act Are Now Challenging 'One Person, One Vote' (here)
  13. The Atlantic: Could Hillary Clinton Be the Champion Campaign-Finance Reform Needs? (here)
  14. Congress/Admin/2016
  15. CNN: Congress flocks to Taylor Swift concert (here)
  16. Buzzfeed: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Indicted On Federal Charges (here)
  17. Heh. RT @DavidAxelrod: One irony of Hastert's statement to FBI about not "trusting banks" is that the lobbying firm for which he worked represents them. (here)
  18. National Journal: Jeb Bush's History of Outsourcing His Campaign So He Can Raise Big Money (here)
  19. Buzzfeed: Hillary Clinton Campaign Outlines Plans For Fundraising and First Big Speech (here)
  20. Washingtonian: Metro Bans Political Advertisements for the Rest of the Year (here)
  21. CNN: Will Democrats keep hammering the Kochs? (here)
  22. POLITICO: Rand Paul's money problem (here)
  23. Bloomberg: Chris Christie and Ted Cruz Slam Iran at Adelson Event (here)
  24. QC Times: Sanders: 'It's not about me...it's about you' (here)
  25. Yahoo: Here's where George Pataki will look for campaign money (here)
  26. Yahoo: Here's where Rick Santorum gets his campaign money (here)
  27. The Hill: Bush 41 fundraises for Jeb super-PAC (here)
  28. National Journal: Lindsey Graham Allies Form Super PAC Ahead of 2016 Run (here)
  29. NYT: Gay Hotelier Who Hosted Ted Cruz Made a Campaign Donation, Too (here)
  30. OpenSecrets: Chemical safety law rewrite triggers strong reactions (here)
  31. On June 17th, you can have a "Conservation with John Podesta" at this Clinton campaign fundraiser hosted by the PAC of lobby firm McGuire Woods and former Senator Evan Bayh. (here)
  32. AJC: Private fundraiser serves as Clinton's campaign debut in Atlanta (here)
  33. NYT: On Trade, Unions Open Aggressive Ad Campaign Against Democrats (here)
  34. Good point on Foster Friess saying he'll give to dark money groups to help Rick Santorum: RT @NickConfessore: Consider: a donor says he wants to give money to elect a candidate but will give through groups that claim not to be electing candidates. (here)
  35. POLITICO: Ex-Schock aide dishes to FBI (here)
More News
  1. Senate lets NSA spy program lapse, at least for now (Reuters)
  2. Draghi Deflation Relief Means Little With Greek Threat Unsolved (BBG)
  3. Tepid factory data add to Asian gloom (FT)
  4. Citigroup Likely to Close Banamex USA (WSJ)
  5. Frugality of High Earners in U.S. Shows Long Shadow of Recession (BBG)
  6. Greece's Tsipras Warns Bell May Toll for Europe (BBG)
  7. Carnegie Mellon Reels After Uber Lures Away Researchers (WSJ)
  8. Romário leads drive for Brazilian probe into Fifa (FT)
  9. Faster than China? India's road, rail drive could lay doubts to rest (Reuters)


Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, June 01 [10:39]
*DN | Glenn Greenwald: As Bulk NSA Spying Expires, Scare Tactics Can't Stop "Sea Change" on Surveillance (06/01/15) [11:48]
DN | Gay High School Student Delivers Valedictorian Speech He Was Barred from Giving (06/01/15) [18:02]
Good & Great Documentaries
*PBS Frontline | Obama at War (05/26/15) [54:14]
Untold History of United States by Oliver Stone
*Untold History of United States - Bush & Obama: Age of Terror () [59:00]
MORE Untold History Of The United States
Four Horsemen
*Four Horsemen - is an independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works. [1:38:54]
TRNN | Shir Hever says: Israel Second Most Unequal Economy in World (06/01/15) [8:20]
TRNN | Professor Edward Hanna says: New Evidence Linking Climate Change to Extreme Weather (05/31/15) [6:34]
TRNN | Prabir Purkayastha and Seema Mustafa discuss: Unresolved Economic and Geopolitical Issues in India-China Relations (06/01/15) [10:07]
TYT | What Will Change If The Patriot Act Expires? (05/31/15) [4:26]
*TYT | Saudi Arabia + ISIS -- It's Complicated (05/31/15) [7:15]
*TYT | Why Do We Tolerate Wall Street's Epic Corruption? (05/31/15) [6:12]
*TYT | Wall Street Is FIFA On Steroids (05/31/15) [10:23]
"It's been said many times, in many places, even well before the Great Recession: The culture on Wall Street is terrible. It encourages bad behavior. More recently, there are concerns that the Wall Street that caused the financial crisis is back.

A new report by The University of Notre Dame, commissioned by the law firm Labaton Sucharow, which represents whistleblowers, has some alarming numbers to add to this well-trodden narrative. The report surveyed more than 1,200 people in the financial-services industry--account executives, wealth advisors, financial analysts, investment bankers, operations managers, and portfolio managers--in both the U.S. and the U.K. to look at whether increased regulations, along with calls for a cultural change, have had any demonstrable effects.

So how does the financial-services industry view its own behavior, legally and ethically? Not so great, it turns out. Nearly half of the respondents felt that it was likely that a competitor has engaged in unethical or illegal activity in order to gain an edge."
*RT | CrossTalk: Empire USA (05/27/15) [24:40]
RT | Keiser Report: We Are All Greeks Now (E764) (06/01/15) [25:25]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/

06.01.2015. 11:15



Special Interest Important stuff
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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 | AI - Artificial Intelligence
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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