Home · News · News Mar 2014
Monday March 31, 2014
News Articles

Donald Rumsfeld: Up Close and Creepy
MotherJones | David Corn | 03/27/14

Not too long into Errol Morris' new documentary on Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, the viewer learns almost all he or she needs to know about the former defense secretary who helped President George W. Bush lead the nation into war in Iraq. After a short recap of the initial US military action in Afghanistan following the horrific September 11 attacks, Morris notes that a "confusion" set in, with many Americans believing Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, was involved in 9/11. Morris puts this to Rumsfeld during the Q&A that makes up the spine of the film. Rumsfeld, in his familiar know-it-all way, dismisses the premise: "I don't think the American people were confused about that." Morris, who is not on screen, counters by citing a 2003 poll showing that 69 percent of Americans said it was "likely" that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the assault. Rumsfeld responds, "I don't remember anyone in the Bush administration saying anything like that, nor do I recall anyone believing that."

Really? Rumsfeld is not acknowledging a known known. Within hours of the Al Qaeda attack, according to now-public memos, Rumsfeld was asking if Saddam Hussein could be hit in response, and for weeks afterward, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, repeatedly said during administration meetings that the Iraqi leader might have been behind the 9/11 plot. ... Read more

Why the US Turned Vladimir Putin into a Villain
AlterNet | Tariq Ali | 03/30/14

Once again, it seems that Russia and the United States are finding it difficult to agree on how to deal with their respective ambitions. This clash of interests is highlighted by the Ukrainian crisis. The provocation in this particular instance, as the leaked recording of a US diplomat, Victoria Nuland, saying "Fuck the EU" suggests, came from Washington.

Several decades ago, at the height of the cold war, George Kennan, a leading American foreign policy strategist invited to give the Reith Lectures, informed his audience: "There is, let me assure you, nothing in nature more egocentric than embattled democracy. It soon becomes the victim of its own propaganda. It then tends to attach to its own cause an absolute value which distorts its own vision … Its enemy becomes the embodiment of all evil. Its own side is the centre of all virtue."

And so it continues. Washington knows that Ukraine has always been a delicate issue for Moscow. The ultra-nationalists who fought with the Third Reich during the second world war killed 30,000 Russian soldiers and communists. They were still conducting a covert war with CIA backing as late as 1951. Pavel Sudoplatov, a Soviet intelligence chief, wrote in 1994: "The origins of the cold war are closely interwoven with western support for nationalist unrest in the Baltic areas and western Ukraine." ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, March 31 [12:10]
DN | Exclusive: Egyptian Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah on Prison, Regime's "War on a Whole Generation" (03/31/14) [15:37], Part 2 [15:37]
TRNN News
TRNN | Though President Obama attempts to justify Iraq's invasion, Iraqi civilians and Iraq war veterans share their stories on the lasting environmental, social, and health effects of the U.S. occupation still being felt today (03/28/14) [8:54]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Jeremy Rifkin: "The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet Of Things, The Collaborative Commons, And The Eclipse Of Capitalism" (03/31/14) [1hr]
Economist Jeremy Rifkin argues capitalism is waning worldwide. How advances in technology and communications are creating a new economic system based on the sharing of goods and services.
One of the Commenters: I Personally am looking forward... ... to the imminent future in which ubiquitous balloons, drones, satellites, and the myriad of other connectivity technologies will tap wirelessly, directly, and seamlessly into our brains, enabling us to overpopulate the planet, living in our own filth, completely unaware of our physical reality; for by then we will all live completely in virtual reality, like the Borg Entity of Star Trek fame -- presuming of course that we do not first microwave our brains, our bodies, and our atmosphere into microwavable dishes for the fishes and for any plants and animals and other creatures that may somehow survive to feed on us. Myself?
Climate Change
BBC | Earth: The Climate Wars (Ep01) () [58:59]
BBC | Earth: The Climate Wars (Ep02) () [59:01]
BBC | Earth: The Climate Wars (Ep03) () [58:49]
Gwynne Dyer on Climate Wars (2008) [56:14]
Author, journalist and historian, Gwynne Dyer, delivers a lecture based on his book Climate Wars.
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.
Webster Tarpley
*Webster G Tarpley: The Next Decade (02/12/12) [1:01:44]
Webster G Tarpley: 9/11 Synthetic Terror - Made in USA (04/14/12) [1:05:46]
Webster G Tarpley: The Elite's Plan for Global Extermination (06/04/11) [55:09]
Max Keiser
Max Keiser: No Planet for Young People (E581) (12:50) (03/29/14) [25:45]
Max interviews Telegraph journalist, Liam Halligan, about the cost of Russian sanctions to European and American corporations; the lobbying war between the Defense Lobby and the Retail Lobby. The switch from the War on Terror to the New Cold War. Note: starts at 12:50. Click the progressbar about 50% of the way across.
Banksters are in Trouble
Max Keiser: "20 Bankers Have Been Recently Found Dead" (02/20/14) [4:48]
Gerald Celente: Banker Suicides the Prequel to Global Collapse (03/03/14) [22:26]
Steve Quayle: The Banksters Are In Serious Trouble (The Guerrilla Economist) (02/18/14) [33:31]
Other Trends
China Says U.S. Economy Is Fake And Nothing Backs The Dollar (02/17/14) [37:19]
UK home ownership is at a record low. Best Buy, Wells Fargo are laying off more employees. The housing market is plummeting and Wells Fargo along with JPM are laying off mortgage employees. China stood up to the US and said the US economy is fake, the dollar is backed by nothing and the US has no manufacturing to support its economy. According to Edward Snowden trolls do exist and the government pays them to place comments on alternative media sites on the internet. Crimea is discussing to separate from the Ukraine. John Kerry wants a discussion between the US and Russia on Ukraine's future. DHS is now warning that Boston Bombing might be the sign of the future for terrorist attacks.

03.31.2014. 19:48

Friday March 28, 2014
News Articles

Bernie Sanders: Citizens United Is Creating An 'Oligarchic Form Of Society'
HP | Natasha Bach | 03/27/14

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spoke out against the rise of the wealthy in United States politics from the Senate floor Thursday, saying the rise of the billionaire class leads to a discussion of "whether or not this nation is going to become an oligarchic form of society."

"We have a nation in which the economics and politics are controlled by a handful of billionaire families, [where] it doesn't matter what party is in power because the real power rests with a billionaire class," he said. "Unless we act boldly to reverse that trend, we're seeing this country moving in exactly that direction."

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, Sanders argued, "allows the super wealthy to spend as much as they want on elections," meaning that the "billionaire party is now in fact the major political force in this country ... led by people like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson." ... Read more
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Citizens United Is Creating An 'Oligarchic Form Of Society' (short version) (03/28/14) [1:45]

Robert Reich: Billionaires are Poisoning American Democracy
AlterNet | Robert Reich | 03/27/14

Charles and David Koch should not be blamed for having more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans put together. Nor should they be condemned for their petrochemical empire. As far as I know, they've played by the rules and obeyed the laws. They're also entitled to their own right-wing political views. It's a free country

But in using their vast wealth to change those rules and laws in order to fit their political views, the Koch brothers are undermining our democracy. That's a betrayal of the most precious thing Americans share. ... Read more

*Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos
MotherJones | H.H. Bhojani | 03/26/14

Between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped around 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos. While the American public was focused on the war in neighboring Vietnam, the US military was waging a devastating covert campaign to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines through the small Southeast Asian country.

The nearly 600,000 bombing runs delivered a staggering amount of explosives: The equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years, or a ton of bombs for every person in the country--more than what American planes unloaded on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. Laos remains, per capita, the most heavily bombed country on earth. .. Read more
Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos

The map above, created by photographer Jerry Redfern, provides another view of the massive scale of the bombing. Each point on the map corresponds to one US bombing mission starting in October 1965; multiple planes often flew on missions.
Secret War in Laos
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, March 28 [12:58]
*DN | A Debate on Torture: Legal Architect of CIA Secret Prisons, Rendition vs. Human Rights Attorney (03/28/14) [9:34], Part 2 [24:24], Part 3 [9:41]
US is an Oligarchy not a Democracy
Sen. Bernie Sanders: Citizens United Is Creating An 'Oligarchic Form Of Society' (full version) (03/28/14) [22:11]
Bill Moyers | How the Cradle of Labor Turned Into a Right-to-Work State (2014) [1:58]
TRNN News
TRNN | Though President Obama attempts to justify Iraq's invasion, Iraqi civilians and Iraq war veterans share their stories on the lasting environmental, social, and health effects of the U.S. occupation still being felt today (03/28/14) [8:54]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Domestic News - Friday (03/28/14) [1hr]
International News - Friday (03/28/14) [1hr]
TYT News
TYT | Factory Farms Threatened... By The Press - 'Ag Gag' Rules Exposed (03/27/14) [5:18]
TYT | Obama: Don't Compare Ukraine Invasion To Iraq (03/27/14) [5:44]
*TYT | Why Is This MSNBC Host Kissing Ass? (03/27/14) [10:49]
TYT | NSA Spying On Former Presidents? (03/27/14) [6:48]
TYT | 8-Year-Old Girl Disappoints God, Told To Be More Feminine (03/27/14) [4:16]
"The family of an eight-year-old girl in Lynchburg, Va. has withdrawn her from a Christian school after administrators told her she wasn't feminine enough.

Sunnie Kahle enjoys what are traditionally considered "boy hobbies" as well as "girl hobbies", reports CBS affiliate WDBJ. She collects coins, hunting knives and baseballs along with stuffed animals and colorful bracelets."
TYT | Fox News Attacks Obama With March Madness (03/27/14) [3:56]
Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann | Did the Banksters write a Foreclosure Fraud How to? (03/28/14) [9:17]
Click picture to zoom in
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.

03.28.2014. 13:27

Thursday March 27, 2014
News Articles

GOP States Are The Most Dependent On Government
HP | Benjamin Hallman | 03/26/14

If we learned nothing else during the 2012 election, it is that some of us are makers, hard-working folk solely responsible for America's prosperity, and others are takers, who want the federal government to pay for luxuries like food and health care.

What may come as some surprise is where these two warring tribes tend to live. The states with elected officials most likely to espouse anti-taker sentiments -- i.e., Republican-dominated states -- are the most dependent on federal spending, while returning the least to Washington in the way of tax dollars. ... Read more

Bank Of America To Pay $9 Billion To Settle Mortgage Securities Suit
AP & HP | author | 03/27/14

Bank of America will spend $9.33 billion to resolve a dispute over mortgage securities with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Bank of America said that it will make cash payments of roughly $6.3 billion and also purchase securities from Fannie and Freddie worth more than $3 billion. It is one of several banks to settle with the FHFA, which announced the agreement Wednesday.

Fannie and Freddie don't directly make loans to borrowers. They buy mortgages from lenders, package them as bonds, guarantee them against default and sell them to investors. That helps make loans available and gives Fannie and Freddie a huge role in the housing market. They own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages. ... Read more

*Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos
MotherJones | H.H. Bhojani | 03/26/14

Between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped around 2.5 million tons of bombs on Laos. While the American public was focused on the war in neighboring Vietnam, the US military was waging a devastating covert campaign to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines through the small Southeast Asian country.

The nearly 600,000 bombing runs delivered a staggering amount of explosives: The equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years, or a ton of bombs for every person in the country--more than what American planes unloaded on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. Laos remains, per capita, the most heavily bombed country on earth. .. Read more
Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos

The map above, created by photographer Jerry Redfern, provides another view of the massive scale of the bombing. Each point on the map corresponds to one US bombing mission starting in October 1965; multiple planes often flew on missions.

Russia To Create Own National Payment System In "Bid To Reduce Dependence On The West"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/27/14

The more the West attempts to "isolate" Russia and pushes it away from its "core values" and of course the US Dollar, the more Russia will seek the safety of a non-dollar based system. We have previously described how Putin has been scrambling to enmesh Russia in tight bilateral commodity-based trade with both China and India, and now it is Russia's turn to announce it would seek its own "national payment settlement system" following last week's surprising and unmandated service halts by both Visa and MasterCard, which as Vladimir Putin said earlier today, will be a "bid to reduce economic dependence on the West." ... Read more



DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, March 27 [10:37]
*DN | The Unknown Known: Errol Morris' New Doc Tackles Unrepentant Iraq War Architect Donald Rumsfeld (03/27/14) [9:35], Part 2 [3:37]
TRNN News
TRNN | Juan Parras: Oil Spill Threatens Wildlife and Local Economy (03/27/14) [5:25]
More News
Walmart Owners Make $91 Million a Day But Can't Afford to Pay Workers 25 Thousand a Year?! (03/27/14) [2:58]
Walmart Costs U.S. 1 Billion in Foodstamps for Workers Not to Starve to Death (06/19/13) [1:52]
Ring of Fire
*Ring of Fire | Pap and Seder: Where to Find a Missing $2 Trillion (03/24/14) [8:05]
Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder discuss an article from Bloomberg News that reports how 307 companies now hold a combined $1.95 trillion off-shore.
Thom Hartmann
Exxon Valdez disaster...25 years later (03/26/14) [7:19]
Hope Dies Last: Thom Hartmann says its time for mankind to envision a world without carbon-based energy. (03/26/14) [6:19]
Shouldn't There be a Separation of Corporations and Religion? (03/26/14) [8:50]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Western Powers Weigh Responses To Russia's Next Moves (03/27/14) [1hr]
MSNBC Chris Hayes - All In
Chris Hayes | The unending war on Obamacar (01/26/14) [14:49]
Chris Hayes | Koch-backed group in small town, USA (01/26/14) [3:39]
Chris Hayes | Deconstructing a 'race hustler' (01/26/14) [9:41]
Chris Hayes | Handicapping the 2014 elections' (01/26/14) [5:47]
MSNBC Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow | Mudslide tragedy prompts review of past studie (03/26/14) [17:13]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
Jon Stewart | Jesus Christ Superstore (03/26/14) [2:22]

03.27.2014. 12:44

Wednesday March 26, 2014
News Articles

Qaeda Militants Seek Syria Base, U.S. Officials Say
NYTimes | Eric Schmitt | 03/25/14

Dozens of seasoned militant fighters, including some midlevel planners, have traveled to Syria from Pakistan in recent months in what American intelligence and counterterrorism officials fear is an effort to lay the foundation for future strikes against Europe and the United States.

"We are concerned about the use of Syrian territory by the Al Qaeda organization to recruit individuals and develop the capability to be able not just to carry out attacks inside of Syria, but also to use Syria as a launching pad," John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, told a House panel recently. ... Read more

Another Financial Crisis Is Looming--Here's Why and How It Will Play Out
Bloomberg & AlterNet | Bob Ivry | 03/26/14

So are we on the precipice of another financial crisis, and what will it look like? To be sure, danger still lurks in the mortgage market. The latest get-rich-quick scheme, with private equity firms buying up foreclosed properties and renting them out, then selling bonds backed by the rental revenue streams (which look suspiciously like the bonds backed by mortgage payments that were a proximate cause of the last crisis), has the potential to blow up. And continued shenanigans with mortgage documents could lead to major headaches. A new court case against Wells Fargo uncovered a bombshell, a step-by-step manual telling attorneys how they can fake foreclosure papers on demand; the fallout could throw into question the true ownership of millions of homes. Even subprime mortgages are in the midst of a comeback, because what could go wrong? ...

... That's not to say that Wall Street firms have been choir boys. The risk is merely harder to see, and you can't just look at the banks. In fact, banks have reduced their stake in many normal banking activities, leaving things like small business lending to the shadow banking system. This is the broad term given to hedge funds, private equity firms and the labyrinthine deals they initiate to move money around. These less-regulated entities have increased their overall portfolios 60 percent over the past five years, bingeing on subprime loans to businesses that could not otherwise access traditional credit. Nontraditional leveraged loans, issued to companies that end up with large amounts of debt, have fewer protections for lenders and carry much more risk. ... Read more

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 02/12/14

Call it the loophole that destroyed the world. It's 1999, the tail end of the Clinton years. While the rest of America obsesses over Monica Lewinsky, Columbine and Mark McGwire's biceps, Congress is feverishly crafting what could yet prove to be one of the most transformative laws in the history of our economy -- a law that would make possible a broader concentration of financial and industrial power than we've seen in more than a century. But the crazy thing is, nobody at the time quite knew it. Most observers on the Hill thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 -- also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act -- was just the latest and boldest in a long line of deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years. ...

... Wall Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all the world's banking business. So through legislative lackeys like red-faced Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation. ...

... All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation -- till now, basically -- to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally." ... Read more

The Bigger Dog Whistle Bogeyman: Liberal Government
Salon & Bill Moyers | Ian Haney López | 03/24/14

While attention focuses on Paul Ryan's remarks about inner city culture, another dog-whistle theme continues its slow roil: food stamp abuse. More even than Ryan's twisting narrative, the brouhaha around food stamps helps make clear that conservatives seek to conjure a much bigger bogeyman than "lazy" minorities.

Ostensibly worried that too many people prefer welfare to work, House Republicans this January stripped $8.6 billion from the food stamp program. This threatened to reduce monthly food assistance by an average of $90 per family -- from households that are barely hanging on, with average gross monthly incomes of just $744. Yet far from conceding defeat, states are joining battle by adjusting their programs in ways that evade the cuts, bringing the food stamp debate back.

Just last week, House Speaker John Boehner warned that "states have found ways to cheat, once again, on signing up people for food stamps," and he implored his colleagues "to stop this cheating and this fraud from continuing." Cheating and fraud constitute stock themes in the conservative assault on food stamps -- tropes applied indiscriminately to both recipients and government. And therein lies a clue to the real target. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, March 26 [14:08]
*DN | Obama to Visit Saudi Arabia, Key Source of Funding for Growing Jihadi Militarism in Middle East (03/26/14) [17:19]
Despite Saudi Arabia's funding and arming of militants in Syria, Iraq and beyond, President Obama is set to visit the kingdom this week to meet with King Abdullah. It's the only Middle Eastern or Gulf nation on Obama's overseas itinerary. Many analysts say the conflict in Syria has grown into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia's links to jihadist groups go back decades. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi. The 9/11 Commission report identified Saudi Arabia as the main source of al-Qaeda financing. And in 2010, WikiLeaks published U.S. diplomatic cables which identified Saudi Arabia as the world's largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups. Members of Congress and human rights organizations have also been calling on Obama to address the kingdom's treatment of women, religious minorities and political activists. We are joined by Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the Independent. Cockburn wrote the Independent's recent five-part series examining the resurgence of jihadists across the Middle East, "Al-Qa'ida's second act -- Why the global 'war on terror' went wrong."
DN | The Right to Heal: 11 Years After Iraq Invasion, U.S. Urged on Reparations for War's Enduring Wounds (03/26/14) [8:13]
Eleven years ago this month, the U.S. invaded Iraq. Today, a group of Iraq civilians and U.S. veterans of the war are coming together in Washington to demand the U.S. government be held accountable for the lasting effects of war at home and abroad. We are joined by two members of "The Right to Heal" coalition: Joyce Wagner, co-director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who served two tours in Iraq; and Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq. She recently gathered thousands of signatures in Baghdad to request a hearing before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights -- a request that was denied.
TRNN News
*TRNN | Larry Wilkerson: What's Driving Putin & Obama's Posturing on Ukraine? (03/26/14) [7:03]
*TRNN | Dmytri Kleiner: Obama's Proposal To End NSA Bulk Data Collection Won't Protect Privacy Because Corporations Still Retain Data (03/26/14) [6:02]
TRNN | Pando Daily Senior Editor Mark Ames describe: How Google, Apple & the Biggest Tech Companies Colluded to Fix Wages (03/26/14) [9:34]
*Ring of Fire
*Papantonio: Tax Wall Street to Save The Economy (03/25/14) [5:44]
Countries in the European Union are working on implementing a financial transaction tax that would charge a fraction of a cent for every stock trade. Here in the United States, the push for a financial transaction tax has been met with harsh opposition, but the benefits far outweigh the cost.
*Papantonio: The Wall Street Secret Society (02/21/14) [8:51]
Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio and progressive radio host David Pakman discuss the story of a New York Magazine reporter that crashed a 'Kappa Beta Phi' meeting of Wall Street tycoons.
*Papantonio: The Horrifying New Wall Street Scam (08/14/13) [12:20]
Wall Street bankers have a new scam, where they drive up the price of consumer goods, and rake in billions in additional profits for greedy bankers. Investigative journalist David Dayen joins Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio to explain how this scam works, and why nobody is doing anything to stop it.
*Papantonio: Dumbing Down America For Political Gain (01/28/14) [10:20]
There's no question that Americans as a whole are getting dumber. And now we're beginning to see that the dumbing down of the population is becoming a huge benefit for the Republican Party.
*Papantonio: The Shadow Government That Runs Washington (03/06/14) [12:12]
As Americans gear up for another round of midterm elections this year, there's another, secret group in Washington that isn't up for re-election, and they are the ones calling the shots. Ring of Fire's Mike Papantonio discusses this shadow government with Mike Lofgren, author of the book The Party is Over.
*Papantonio: The GOP Fear Machine (03/06/14) [10:50]
Mike Papantonio fills in for Thom Hartmann on The Big Picture to discuss the GOP's fear machine with progressive radio host David Pakman.
Cool Ideas
A Disposable Coffee Cup Has Inspired An Indispensable Idea (current) [2:25]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm President Jimmy Carter: "A Call To Action" (03/26/14) [1hr]
MSNBC Chris Hayes - All In
MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show
Jon Stewart - Daily News
Jon Stewart | A couple of weeks ago, Jon Stewart set the social media world on fire when he created #McConnelling, where you take a recent Mitch McConnell campaign ad featuring the Senate minority leader and add some new music to it. (03/25/14) [3:43]

03.26.2014. 14:57

Tuesday March 25, 2014
News Articles

What's The Primary Cause of Wealth Inequality? Financialization
ZeroHedge | author | 03/24/14

What is the primary driver of this era's widening wealth inequality? Thomas Piketty's new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century provides an answer: financialization. Financialization is the mass commodification of debt and debt-based financial instruments collaterized by previously low-risk assets, a pyramiding of risk and speculative gains that is only possible in a massive expansion of low-cost credit and leverage.

... When the profits from financializing collateral and leveraging those bets to the hilt far exceed generating wealth by creating products and services, the economy is soon hollowed out as the perverse incentives of financialization start driving every business decision and strategy. ... Read more

Monster Storm Expected to Miss Most Major Eastern Cities
Bloomberg | Brian K. Sullivan | 03/25/14

One to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters) of snow may fall starting today from Philadelphia to New York, with eastern Long Island, Boston and coastal Massachusetts getting more, the National Weather Service said. A blizzard watch was posted for Cape Cod and the Massachusetts Islands. Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia may get more than 10 inches, Environment Canada said in a special weather statement. ...

... A warning for hurricane-force wind has been issued in the Atlantic off Massachusetts and Maine, the weather service said. Mariners could encounter waves as much as 37 feet high. .... Read more

Who Controls the Kochs’ Political Network? ASMI, SLAH and TOHE
ProPublica & Bill Moyer | Kim Barker | 03/19/14

Libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch were among the first to grasp the political potential of social welfare groups and trade associations -- nonprofits that can spend money to influence elections but don’t have to name their donors. The Kochs and their allies have built up a complex network of such organizations, which spent more than $383 million in the run-up to the 2012 election alone.

Documents released in recent months show the Kochs have added wrinkles to their network that even experts well versed in tax law and campaign finance say they’ve never seen before -- wrinkles that could make it harder to discern who controls each nonprofit in the web and how it disperses its money. ... Read more

Koch Brothers: Using Wealth Against 'Free' Elections to Turn Democracy into Fascism
cps-news.com | author | 03/00/14

Tom Perkins, a very wealthy venture capitalist, proposed the following: "You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes"; suggesting, in essences, that only the wealthy should elect our officials. What Perkins isn't saying is that's basically already happening --- his alternative simply allows the rich to keep the money they're currently using to buy elections. And nobody buys elections better than David and Charles Koch.

During the 2012 elections, the Koch's pledged $200 million to get the 'black Democrat' voted out of office. Because of current laws - mainly Citizens United vs. the FEC - no one really knows how much they actually spent. However, we do know that political networks linked to the Koch's spent more on the 2012 election ($407 million) than all the candidates spent on the entire 2000 Presidential Election. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, March 24 [13:09]
TRNN News
*TRNN | George Irvin: Has Anglo-America Capitalism Run Out of Strategies? (03/25/14) [9:42]
TRNN | University of Southern Maine student Meagan LaSala and professor Rachel Bouvier explain how cuts disproportionately target faculty and will trigger a decline in quality public eduction (03/25/14) [6:59]
Climate Change News
Bloomberg | Monster Storm Expected to Miss Most Major Eastern Cities (03/25/14) [4:04]
AP | Huge Flood Insurance Premiums Hitting Americans (03/25/14) [1:42]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm The Global Rise In Drug-Resistant Strains Of Tuberculosis (03/25/14) [1hr]
*Kock Brothers - Kochtopus Network

How Dark Money Flows Through the Koch Network
Click picture to zoom in
Interactive: "How Dark Money Flows Through the Koch Network" at ProPublica website

Click picture to zoom in
ABC News | Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales () [2:40]
Bloomberg | Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales.pdf
Jon Stewart - Daily News
Jon Stewart | America Stands Its Ground (03/24/14) [5:05]
Jon Stewart | Arianna Huffington (03/24/14) [6:27]

03.25.2014. 12:02

Monday March 24, 2014
News Articles

U.S. Military Nuclear Material Unaccounted For: Missing in Action or Just Sloppy Practices?
fas.org | Katie Colten | 03/19/14

The United States has the gold standard when it comes to accounting for fissile materials especially in the military sector. Yet, for more than 30 years, government reports have sounded the alarm that the accounting system for these materials is not adequate. The United States is still not meeting its most stringent standards. If the nuclear material accounting system is not adequate, what does it imply for nuclear-armed states that are still manufacturing and remanufacturing warheads more frequently than the United States? ...

CHAPTER 1

U.S. MILITARY NUCLEAR MATERIAL UNACCOUNTED FOR: MISSING IN
ACTION OR JUST SLOPPY PRACTICES?
Charles D. Ferguson

The standard story is that there is not much to worry about: the United States has the gold standard when it comes to accounting for fissile material especially in the military sector. Although the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has acknowledged that almost six metric tons of fissile material, including plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and uranium- 233 -- enough for at least several hundred nuclear explosives -- is unaccounted for, this discrepancy mostly occurred during the rush to produce fissile material during the first few decades of the Cold War when the emphasis was on fast production rather than accurate accounting.
Dr. Charles Ferguson new book "Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach?"
Read more

Climate Change Dangers Here Now, Will Worsen Many Human Ills, UN Panel Warns
AP & HP |Seth Borenstein | 03/24/14

If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you're mistaken. That's the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming. In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human.

... The key message from leaked drafts and interviews with the authors and other scientists: The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought. It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, March 24 [13:09]
*DN | "Dear White People" a Film Tackles Racial Stereotypes on Campus & Being a "Black Face in a White Space" (03/24/14) [31:56], Part 2 [12:59]
Bill Moyers
*Bill Moyers | Who's Buying our Midterm Elections? (03/21/14) [24:30]
Two investigative journalists talk to Bill about the role of dark money -- and the wealthy donors behind it -- in this year's midterm elections.
TRNN News
*TRNN | Dahr Jamail: NASA Climate Predictions Show Serious Threat To Humanity (03/24/14) [9:09]
TRNN | NSA whistleblower Russ Tice: describes his evolution from being a staunch believer in the mission of the NSA to being the first insider to expose the surveillance state (03/24/14) [11:48]
Interesting Documentaries
Rule from the Shadows - The Psychology of Power [37:23], Part 2 []??????
State of Mind MOVIE (02/19/14) [1:50:03]
The Great Culling: Our Water Official (02/19/14) [1:32:31]
Comedy News
Real Time with Bill Maher: Overtime - Episode #309 (03/10/14) [5:21]
Real Time with Bill Maher (03/22/14) [8:02]
Real Time with Bill Maher: Would Make the Best Republican Candidate for 2016! (03/21/14) [1:35]
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.
Infowars | Alex Jones
Infowars | Alex Jones | State Of Mind Film, plus a full interview of the makers (09/03/13) [3:14:28]
From cradle to grave our parents, peers, institutions and society inform our values and behaviors but this process has been hijacked. State Of Mind examines the science of control that has evolved over generations to keep us firmly in place so that dictators, power brokers and corporate puppeteers may profit from our ignorance and slavery. From the anvil of compulsory schooling to media and entertainment, we are kept in perpetual bondage to the ideas that shape our actions.

State Of Mind delves into the abyss to expose the true agendas at work. This film reveals the secret manipulations at work and provides shocking and suppressed historical and current examples. From the ancient roots of the control of human behavior to its maturity in the mind control experiments of intelligence agencies and other organs of manipulation, State Of Mind reveals a plan for the future that drives home the dreadful price of our ignorance.
Infowars | Alex Jones
Infowars | Alex Jones | Globalists To Seize The Internet (03/17/14) [21:53]
Infowars | Alex Jones | Infowars Blows The Lid Off TPP Agreement (11/13/13) [45:49]
Infowars | Alex Jones | The Stars Align For War On The Horizon (03/17/14) [18:34]
Alex Jones News Hour
Infowars | The Alex Jones Show Friday George Galloway t (03/21/14) [2:14:56]
Art of War
HC | The Art of War Sun Tsu [1:30:33]
Other Videos
PBS | Radioactive Wolves Of Chernobyl - Scary Mutations (2014) [55:59]
The Publicly Uknown & Secret Forest of Russia (2014) [47:17]

HC | Top Secret Kapustin Yar -- Russia's Area 51 () [44:33]

Illuminati The freemasonry and Zionism - The Master Plan To Rule the World () [6:25], Part 2 [6:19]

03.24.2014. 16:51

Friday March 21, 2014
News Articles

Koch Brothers Are The Largest Land Owners Of Canada's Tar Sands
thinkprogress.org/ | author | date

The Koch Brothers are known for many things -- their vast financial empire, their conservative political ideology, their active political involvement, their support of the Keystone XL pipeline -- but their Alberta, Canada land ownership has not been as widely discussed. A Washington Post feature has brought this subject back to attention as the Keystone XL debate heats up and discussion over the relationship between the Koch Brothers and their Republican allies takes on even greater significance in an important election year.

According to the Washington Post, which uses a report from the activist group the International Forum on Globalization as a foundation, a Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres in the northern Alberta oil sands, an area nearly the size of Delaware. The Post confirmed the group's findings with Alberta Energy, the provincial government's ministry of energy. ... Read more

The biggest lease holder in Canada's oil sands isn't Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It's the Koch brothers.
WashingtonPost | Steven Mufson | 03/20/14

You might expect the biggest lease owner in Canada's oil sands, or tar sands, to be one of the international oil giants, like Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell. But that isn't the case. The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David.

The Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres -- an area nearly the size of Delaware -- in the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, according to an activist group that studied Alberta provincial records. ... Read more

Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China
ZeroHedge | author | 03/21/14

While Europe is furiously scrambling to find alternative sources of energy should Gazprom pull the plug on natgas exports to Germany and Europe (the imminent surge in Ukraine gas prices by 40% is probably the best indication of what the outcome would be), Russia is preparing the announcement of the "Holy Grail" energy deal with none other than China, a move which would send geopolitical shockwaves around the world and bind the two nations in a commodity-backed axis. One which, as some especially on these pages, have suggested would lay the groundwork for a new joint, commodity-backed reserve currency that bypasses the dollar, something which Russia implied moments ago when its finance minister Siluanov said that Russia may regain from foreign borrowing this year. Translated: bypass western purchases of Russian debt, funded by Chinese purchases of US Treasurys, and go straight to the source. ... Read more

It Starts Early: Black Preschoolers Suspended at Much Higher Rate Than Whites
AlterNet | Aaron Cantú | 03/21/14

Across institutions, economic indicators and rates of crime, racial gaps abound. Now, new data from the US Department of Education reveals that unequal treatment can begin as early as preschool.

Of the 8,000 toddlers suspended from preschool in 2011--a surreal factoid in and of itself--roughly 45 percent of them were black and 26 percent were white, even though rates of enrollment were nearly the reverse. Latino children were also suspended at a higher rate to whites relative to their enrollment. ... Read more
Click picture to zoom in

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, March 21 [12:08]
*DN | As Surveillance Costs Fall, Could the NSA Gain Ability To Record & Replay Every Call, Everywhere? (03/21/14) [20:08]
The latest disclosures from Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency is recording every single phone call made in an undisclosed foreign country. A surveillance system called MYSTIC stores the billions of phone conversations for up to 30 days. Agents are able to rewind and review any conversation within the previous month using a tool codenamed RETRO. One senior manager for the program compared it to a time machine. We speak to Ashkan Soltani, who co-wrote the Washington Post exposé on MYSTIC, and has closely studied the cost of surveillance. He has co-written a series of other exposés for the Post that revealed how the NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking and how the NSA secretly broke into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world.
*DN | As Wells Fargo is Accused of Fabricating Foreclosure Papers, Will Banks Keep Escaping Prosecution? (03/21/14) [15:43]
TRNN News
TRNN | NSA whistleblower Russ Tice: NSA Records All Calls From U.S. to Abroad (03/21/14) [6:47]
*TRNN | Burt Wides, a former chief investigator for the Church Committee. CIA and NSA Wrong Doing Requires Independent Investigation (03/21/14) [17:03]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Domestic News - Friday (03/21/14) [1hr]
International News - Friday (03/21/14) [1hr]
TYT News
TYT | Politician That Shouted Nazi Salute Continues Bad Behavior (03/20/14) [5:43]
*TYT | Guess Why He Wants To Ban Online Gambling (03/20/14) [5:11]
TYT | Why Obama Won't Get Tough On Putin (03/20/14) [6:31]
TYT | Radical Christian Wins GOP Nomination For Congress (03/20/14) [6:10]
*Tiny House Builder.com
Steve's Dome Home (2012) [4:28]
Debt/car-free tiny house couple: simple living + resilience (2013) [17:34]
Learn how to make a rain gutter garden on your yard fence (2014) [1:58]

03.21.2014. 12:34

Thursday March 20, 2014
News Articles

*Supreme Court Ruled In Favor Of The Nation's Top Corporate Interest Group In 7 Of 8 Cases This Term
thinkprogress.org | Ian Millhiser | 03/13/14

So far this term, the Supreme Court handed down eight cases where the United States Chamber of Commerce filed a brief -- and a majority of the justices sided with the Chamber in all but one of these decisions. The one outlier decision was a case involving anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers where the justices votes broke down along unusual lines, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writing the majority opinion and Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissent.

Read more
*TYT | Really Depressing News About The Supreme Court (03/18/14) [8:05]

*Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?
TheGuardian | Nafeez Ahmed | 03/17/14

Our runaway consumption habits and growing inequality could lead to the collapse of Western civilization according to a new NASA-funded study written up at The Guardian's Earth Insight blog. Noting that warnings that the end is near are often "controversial" and "fringe," the interdisciplinary study looked at the factors that have caused civilizations to collapse in the past and makes a compelling argument that we may be headed in that direction.

By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilizational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy. ... Read more or here

3 Reasons Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos"
AlterNet | Chris Mooney | 03/19/14

Not surprisingly, those who deny the theory of evolution were not happy with this. Indeed, the science denial crowd hasn't been happy with Cosmos in general. Here are some principal lines of attack:

1. Denying the Big Bang
2. Denying evolution
3. Denying climate change
Read more
watch the full episode here


DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, March 20 [10:00]
*DN | Former U.S. Ambassador: Behind Crimea Crisis, Russia Responding to Years of "Hostile" U.S. Policy (03/20/14) [19:25]
*DN | Georgia Activists Confront GOP Rejection of Medicaid as Moral Mondays Spread Across South (03/20/14) [14:51]
DN | DREAM Act Narrowly Fails in NY Senate After Gov. Andrew Cuomo Failed To Push Passage (03/20/14) [3:33]
1000 years of Changing Boarders in Europe
1000 years of European borders change [3:23]
TRNN News
TRNN | Journalist Cherri Foytlin: BP Spills Gulf residents are still experiencing health problems and a depletion of wildlife due to the aftermath of the BP oil spill (03/20/14) [8:14]
TRNN | Shaghayegh Tajvidi: Residents Still Not Drinking Tap Water Two Months After West Virginia Spill (1/2) (03/20/14) [9:25]
TRNN | Vijay Prashad: Libyan politics characterized by instability and the lack of commitment to bolster civil society and protect minority rights (03/20/14) [8:10]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm What's Next For Russia's Relations With The West (03/20/14) [1hr]
Health Care Discussion
The below video is a little older, and the speaker is a little younger, but the information is good and well presented.
*Why Are American Health Care Costs So High? (2013, older but good) [7:52]
TYT News
*TYT | Rich Family Of 'Affluenza Teen' Proves What Hurts To Admit (03/19/14) [6:14]
TYT | Police 'Retaliation' Bill - It'd Be Funny If It Wasn't So Scary (03/19/14) [4:09]
*TYT | You'll Never Guess Who Loves Putin (03/19/14) [5:56]
TYT | Blame Muslims For Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Say Fox News Hosts (03/19/14) [5:21]
TYT | Big Problem For Two States Wooing Tesla (03/19/14) [4:49]
Infographics on Resources
Click picture to zoom in

03.20.2014. 11:01

Wednesday March 19, 2014
News Articles

Bill Moyers
progressive.org | Peter Dryer | recent

We are this close to losing democracy to the mercenary class. Last October, Bill Moyers announced that he was retiring and that his weekly show, Moyers & Company, would end January 3. Three weeks later, in response to an outpouring of e-mails, letters, and Facebook comments urging him to reconsider, Moyers recanted. He will continue to host the show. His only pushback was to recast the show from an hour to a half-hour format. ... Read more

Is Paul Ryan Racist?
Politico | Ian Haney Lopez | 03/14/14

Paul Ryan triggered a firestorm of recrimination this week. Speaking recently on Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio program, the Wisconsin Republican and self-styled budget wonk linked poverty to "this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work."

Setting aside the factual claim -- the notion that poverty is especially concentrated in America's inner cities is an increasingly antiquated one -- these comments elicited a quick and forceful rebuke from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who decried them as "a thinly veiled racial attack." She explained: "[W]hen Mr. Ryan says 'inner city,' when he says, 'culture,' these are simply code words for what he really means: 'black.'" ... Read more

Meet Paul Ryan's 'Inner City Expert' Who Claims Blacks and Latinos Have Lower IQs
AlterNet | Joan Walsh | 03/18/14

Charles Murray says it's not racist to suggest that some ethnic groups are genetically inferior to others.article

I should no longer be shocked at the intellectual dishonesty of Charles Murray, but I am. On Tuesday Murray made a brief reply to his critics, most notably Paul Krugman, who have accused Murray of racism for much of his work, but especially his 1994 book, "The Bell Curve." Murray rejoined the news cycle last week, when Rep. Paul Ryan cited him as an expert on poverty and the troubles of "inner city" men, who, in Ryan's words, are "not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work." ... Read more

*Why 'Paid-What-You're-Worth' Is a Toxic Myth
AlterNet | Robert Reich | 03/17/14

It's often assumed that people are paid what they're worth. According to this logic, minimum wage workers aren't worth more than the $7.25 an hour they now receive. If they were worth more, they'd earn more. Any attempt to force employers to pay them more will only kill jobs.

According to this same logic, CEOs of big companies are worth their giant compensation packages, now averaging 300 times pay of the typical American worker. They must be worth it or they wouldn't be paid this much. Any attempt to limit their pay is fruitless because their pay will only take some other form.

"Paid-what-you're-worth" is a dangerous myth. Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today's dollars. Today, America's largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour.

Does this mean the typical GM employee a half-century ago was worth four times what today's typical Walmart employee is worth? Not at all. Yes, that GM worker helped produce cars rather than retail sales. But he wasn't much better educated or even that much more productive. He often hadn't graduated from high school. And he worked on a slow-moving assembly line. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, March 19 [14:07]
*DN | Fukushima Fallout: Sick U.S. Sailors Sue TEPCO After Exposure to Radiation 30x Above Normal (1/2) (03/19/14) [17:01], Part 2 [11:29]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Gareth Porter: Why Didn't Bush/Cheney Attack Iran and Can Obama Make and Sell a Deal? Part 3 (03/18/14) [20:16]
TRNN | Bob Pollin: The Congressional Progressive Caucus's budget would increase spending on education, healthcare and the green economy while rolling back cuts against social services (03/14/14) [6:43]
Click picture to zoom in
Bill Moyers
*Bill Moyers | Investigative reporter Julia Angwin talks to Bill about how America has become a dragnet nation where mass surveillance rules. (03/14/14) [24:30]
Bill talks with investigative reporter Julia Angwin, author of Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.

The book chronicles the indiscriminate tracking of our everyday lives -- where government and business are stockpiling data about us at an unprecedented pace. Reporters are a prime target for Internet snooping, says Angwin, "Journalists are the canary in the coal mine. We're the first ones to seriously feel the impact of total surveillance, which means we can't protect our sources. But what happens next? What happens next is we're not good watch dogs for democracy. And that's a very worrisome situation."
TYT News
*TYT | Really Depressing News About The Supreme Court (03/18/14) [8:05]
*TYT | Putin Is Like 'Game Of Thrones,' Obama Is like 'Downton Abbey'? (03/18/14) [6:15]
TYT | Nonsense Argument By MSNBC Host Deconstructed (03/18/14) [9:35]
MSNBC Lawrence O'Donnell
Sen. Diane Feinstein makes a shocking accusation against the CIA. Lawrence O'Donnell talks with David Corn and Julian Epstein (03/12/14) [14:49]

03.19.2014. 10:09

Tuesday March 18, 2014
News Articles

*Science Deniers Are Freaking Out About "Cosmos"
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 03/17/14

If you think the first episode of the new Fox Cosmos series was controversial (with its relatively minor mentions of climate change, evolution, and the Big Bang), Sunday night's show threw down the gauntlet. Pretty much the entire episode was devoted to the topic of evolution, and the vast profusion of evidence (especially genetic evidence) showing that it is indeed the explanation behind all life on Earth. At one point, host Neil deGrasse Tyson stated it as plainly as you possibly can: "The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact." ... Read more

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey - Premiere Pre-Screening (interviews) [1:00:03]
*Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Part 1 [hr]
*Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Part 2 [hr]
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey website

The NSA's Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program
firstlook.org/theintercept/ | Jeremy Scahill | 02/10/14

According to a former drone operator for the military's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target's identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC's High Value Targeting task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere. ... Read more

New York Attorney General Is Investigating High-Speed Trading: Bloomberg
HP & Reuters | author | 03/18/14

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating whether U.S. stock exchanges and alternative trading venues provide improper advantages to high-frequency traders, Bloomberg reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Schneiderman's office is examining the sale of products and services that offer faster access to data and richer information on trades than what is typically available to the public, the report said. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, March 18 [8:34]
*DN | A Sliver of Light: Freed U.S. Hikers on Captivity in Iran & Solitary Confinement (03/18/14) [10:09], Part 2 [27:00], Part 3 [12:07]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Professors Nicolai Petro & Tarik Cyril Amar give their reactions: Crimea Referendum: Self Determination or Big Power Manipulation? , Part 1 (03/18/14) [19:09], *Part 2 [18:12]
TRNN | Leo Panitch on the death of Tony Benn: Saw Socialism as the Culmination of Democratization (03/18/14) [14:17]
TYT News
TYT | Head Of Russia Today Makes Scary Threat On-Air (03/17/14) [2:36]
TYT | Crimea Votes To Join Russia. US & EU Responds With Sanctions (03/17/14) [9:41]
TYT | Drone Flies Into Senator's House! (03/17/14) [3:50]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Battle For Control Of The Senate And Outlook For Midterm Elections (03/18/14) [1hr]
Update On Diagnosing And Treating Lyme Disease (03/18/14) [1hr]
Click picture to zoom in
Assorted 9/11 Infographics
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.

03.18.2014. 13:57

Monday March 17, 2014
News Articles

*HOW CORPORATIONS ARE THE BIGGEST TAX DODGERS
progressive.org | author | 03/17/14

The term "corporate social responsibility" is fast becoming an oxymoron. A new report on how little big companies pay in taxes is further proof. "A comprehensive, five-year study of 288 profitable Fortune 500 companies finds that twenty-six paid no federal corporate income tax over the five-year period; 111 paid no federal corporate income tax in at least one of the last five years, and one-third paid a U.S. tax rate less than 10 percent over the same period," says a recent study by Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based group. Among the companies that paid not a single penny over five years, despite making huge profits, are household names such as Boeing, General Electric, Priceline.com, and Verizon. ... Read more
*TYT | Corporate Taxes HUGE Under Obama, Right? Wrong, Here Are The Facts (03/16/14) [6:28]

Feinstein accuses CIA of spying on Senate panel as dispute escalates
mcclatchy |Ken Dilanian | 03/13/14

Feinstein also sharply criticized the CIA's acting general counsel, Robert Eatinger, who she said had alleged to the Justice Department that Senate staffers may have committed a crime.

Without naming Eatinger, she said the acting general counsel had been a lawyer in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, which managed and carried out the interrogation program from mid-2004 until it officially ended in January 2009.

"He is mentioned by name more than 1,600 times in our study," Feinstein said.

"And now this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff - the same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers - including the acting general counsel himself - provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program." ... Read more

9 Facts About Factory Farming That Will Break Your Heart
HP | author | 03/17/14

On the surface, a package of small-farm, grass-fed beef may look entirely identical to a packet of generically-raised beef. Both are wrapped with cellophane and snugly stacked in the open meat fridge, labeled with the price, cut and weight of the meat. But these packages likely have drastically different backstories. Ninety-nine percent of the meat in the US comes from factory farms, a large-scale production that is more akin to a cracker factory than the rolling, green livestock farms you see in the movies.

Factory farms dominate the meat industry, thanks to a focus on efficiency and profits above all else. Although many individual farmers follow humane practices, these large-scale operations not only cause severe distress for the animals that live there, but create a product that is riddled with chemicals, antibiotics, and yes, sometimes disease. ... Read more
For more startling videos look at the following

GM Recalls Another 1.5 Million Cars; Halts Sales Until "Solution" Completed
ZeroHedge | author |03/17/14

General Motors is in trouble. On the heels of a 1.3 million car recall over fault ignition switches (that allegedly caused 12 deaths and could have been fixed with a $1 part), the bailed-out car maker has announced it will take a $300 million charge in Q1 to cover costs associated with this and 3 new recalls covering an additional 1.5 million cars. As Reuters reports, unsold vehicles will be placed on a stop-delivery until development of a solution has been completed. Why is this such a problem? Because GM's channel-stuffed dealer inventory is already at all-time record highs as the entire industry projected the sales to continue ad infinitum and inventory-to-sales surged to near-record highs. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, March 17 [10:36]
*DN | After Crimea Votes to Secede, How Will U.S. & Russia Handle Gravest Crisis Since Cold War? (03/17/14) [16:58], Part 2 [11:57]
*DN | Endless War? As Syria Conflict Enters 4th Year, Deadly Stalemate Favors Assad Regime (03/17/14) [11:30]
*DN | Snowden Docs Expose How the NSA "Infects" Millions of Computers, Impersonates Facebook Server (03/17/14) [5:47]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Gareth Porter: I Grew Up Believing in Time Magazine's Version of America, Part 1 (03/16/14) [20:35]
*TRNN | Gareth Porter: New book "Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare", Part 2 (03/17/14) [14:50]
*TRNN | Sen. Graham: President Must Side with Openness About CIA and 9/11 (03/17/14) [22:51]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Crisis In Ukraine: A Vote On Crimea's Future (03/17/14) [1hr]
Simon Schama: "The Story Of The Jews" (03/17/14) [1hr]
Historian Simon Schama's latest book, "The Story of the Jews," is also a five-part documentary series airing on PBS. Schama talks with guest host Frank Sesno about his chronicles of the 3,000-year-old history and what being Jewish means to him.
TYT News
*TYT | Corporate Taxes HUGE Under Obama, Right? Wrong, Here Are The Facts (03/16/14) [6:28]
TYT | Why The Hell Are Rape Kits Not Getting Processed? (03/16/14) [5:29]
*TYT | 'Heads Should Roll' - Senators Love Spying, But Not Being Spied (03/16/14) [2:56]
TYT | HUGE Money Stolen From MegaChurch, But That's Not The OMG Moment (03/16/14) [1:57]
*TYT | Heart-Breaking Anti-Obamacare Ad Shows Woman Suffering From Bullsh*t (03/15/14) [5:13]
Chris Hayes - All In
Chris Hayes | Deliberate change of course for Flight MH370? (01/14/14) [14:03]
More videos fro the website
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.
Videos
Fall of the Republic (2009) [2:24:18]
Webster Tarpley
Webster Tarpley: 9/11 Synthetic Terror (09/06/13) [2:00:54]
Webster Tarpley: The men behind Barack Hussein Obama, Part 1 (09/06/13) [9:05], Part 2 [10:04]
Webster Tarpley: The Elite's Plan for Global Extermination (06/04/11) [55:09]
Webster Tarpley: Ideologies of Oligarchies (11/08/11) [1:01:44]
Webster Tarpley: March 8, 2014 - World Crisis Radio (03/08/14) [1:14:16]
Dark Legacy George Bush and the murder of John Kennedy (2009) [1:43:07]
HAARP
Jessy Ventura | Conspiracy Theory: Project HAARP () [45:18]
HAARP (the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) in Gakona, Alaska to uncover the truth behind rumors that it is being used as a weather modification weapon, an instrument for mind control, or both.

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It has allowed the US military to communicate with its fleet of submarines by sending radio signals over long distances, via the ionosphere. The ocean acts as the antenna, and submarines are able to pick up the signal.

Designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies (BAEAT), its purpose is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. The HAARP program operates a major sub-arctic facility, named the HAARP Research Station, on an Air Force--owned site near Gakona, Alaska.

The most prominent instrument at the HAARP Station is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency (HF) band. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the Ionosphere. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde (an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, are used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region.

Work on the HAARP Station began in 1993. The current working IRI was completed in 2007, and its prime contractor was BAE Systems Advanced Technologies.[1] As of 2008, HAARP had incurred around $250 million in tax-funded construction and operating costs.

HAARP has been blamed by conspiracy theorists for a range of events, including numerous natural disasters, outbreaks, global warming, global cooling, volcanoes, even assassinations of individuals. Commentators and scientists say that proponents of these theories are "uninformed" as most theories put forward fall well outside the abilities of the facility and often outside the scope of natural science and defy physics.

03.17.2014. 16:48

Friday March 14, 2014
News Articles

Wall Street Plays 2016 Dating Game as Christie Stumbles
Bloomberg | Max Abelson | 03/12/14

Billionaire Wilbur Ross invited Paul Ryan over for lunch. Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) bankers met with Rand Paul at a fundraiser in Atlanta. Investor Rob Arnott dropped in on Ted Cruz.

Wall Street Republicans have begun their White House dance less than halfway into a second Barack Obama term they tried to prevent with record donations to Mitt Romney. As investigations slow Chris Christie, whose backers have included a troop of billionaires, donors are looking for a candidate who can replace the constraints they detest with appreciation they think is due. ... Read more

*How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware
firstlook.org/theintercept/ | Ryan Gallagher | 03/12/14

... The NSA began rapidly escalating its hacking efforts a decade ago. In 2004, according to secret internal records, the agency was managing a small network of only 100 to 150 implants. But over the next six to eight years, as an elite unit called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) recruited new hackers and developed new malware tools, the number of implants soared to tens of thousands.

To penetrate foreign computer networks and monitor communications that it did not have access to through other means, the NSA wanted to go beyond the limits of traditional signals intelligence, or SIGINT, the agency's term for the interception of electronic communications. Instead, it sought to broaden "active" surveillance methods -- tactics designed to directly infiltrate a target's computers or network devices. ... Read more

Complete Breakdown Of Financial Controls In US Government, Says Austin Fitts
ZeroHedge | author |03/13/14

Former HUD Assistant Housing Secretary and investment advisor Catherine Austin Fitts reveals her thoughts on the ever-rising debt ceiling… what Obamacare is really about (and that's not socialized healthcare)… why over $4 trillion missing from federal programs may not be incompetence, but a covert strategy…

"Well, you have a complete breakdown of internal financial controls in the US government. … You had over $4 trillion of what is called undocumentable adjustments and to this day, [these agencies] have never, as required by law, produced audited financial statements." "In my experience, government is not incompetent at all. … Gridlock is a cover story, incompetence is a cover story. There is a plan, you just can't see what it is." ... Read more
podcast audio below [20:00] (no video)

Here is a map showing the latest distribution of Russian military forces on the Ukraine borders. Click picture to zoom in
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, March 14 [12:39]
DN | "Utah's Carbon Bomb": State Plots Massive Tar Sands & Oil Shale Projects Despite Climate Concern (03/14/14) [9:56]
DN | "A Slow Genocide of the People": Uranium Mining Leaves Toxic Nuclear Legacy on Indigenous Land (03/14/14) [17:30]
TRNN News
TRNN | Elizabeth Goitein: CIA vs. Senate: Who Is Obama Protecting? (03/14/14) [14:04]
TYT News
*TYT | NSA Spying Tricks Include Fake Facebook - Tool Or Weapon? (03/13/14) [7:10]
*TYT | Guess Who's Picking The 2016 Presidential Candidates? (03/13/14) [8:06]
*TYT | Absurd Argument Against Overtime Pay By Fox News Host (03/13/14) [8:29]
TYT | Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - The "News" Has Become "Speculation" (03/13/14) [5:37]
TYT | Lady Gaga's Charity Spends 2.1 Million, But only 5 Thousand to the charities... (03/13/14) [3:53]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Domestic News - Friday (03/14/14) [1hr]
International News - Friday (03/14/14) [1hr]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
*Jon Stewart | 2014: Fox News holds America's poor and its corporations to different standards, and JPMorgan Chase makes a quick buck in the food stamp debit card business (03/13/14) [5:33]
MSNBC Chris Hayes
*Chris Hayes | Wall Street bonuses exceed all minimum wage pay (01/13/14) [6:57]
Chris Hayes | The mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (01/13/14) [5:39], Part 2 [8:00]
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.

03.14.2014. 16:07

Thursday March 13, 2014
News Articles

How the NSA Plans to Infect 'Millions' of Computers with Malware
The Intercept | Ryan Gallagher & Glenn Greenwald | 03/12/14

The classified files -- provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden -- contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware "implants." The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.

The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic. ... Read more

Stat of the day: $1.95 trillion -- the amount of cash the 307 biggest US-based multinationals are holding offshore and out of sight of the IRS, according to Bloomberg.

*There's Something Very Wrong with the Official Story About the Boston Bombings
AlterNet | Russ Baker |03/11/14

An exclusive WhoWhatWhy investigation has found serious factual inconsistencies in accounts provided by the only witness to the alleged confession of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Why does this matter? Because this witness is the sole source for the entire publicly accepted narrative of who was behind the bombing and its aftermath -- and why these events occurred. ...

... Thus, the problems we have uncovered with the witness's testimony (as represented by law enforcement) now raise questions about almost everything concerning what has been described as the largest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. ... Read more

The Most Evil And Disturbing NSA Spy Practices To-Date Have Just Been Revealed
ZeroHedge | author | 03/12/14

In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target's computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer's microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites

The man-in-the-middle tactic can be used, for instance, to covertly change the content of a message as it is being sent between two people, without either knowing that any change has been made by a third party. From Glenn Greenwald's latest article: How the NSA Plans to Infect Millions of Computers with Malware. ... Read more

Ohio Fracking Operation Halted Following Area Earthquakes
HP | Hunter Stuart | 03/12/14

A series of earthquakes in Ohio has led officials to order a local fracking operation to halt while state inspectors investigate whether the drilling is linked to the tremors. Five earthquakes were felt by residents of Mahoning County in northeastern Ohio on Monday and Tuesday, bringing the total number of area earthquakes in the past several days to 11, local paper the Tribune Chronicle reports.

The U.S. Geological Survey pinpointed the epicenters of some of these quakes to be in the vicinity of seven oil and gas production wells in Poland Township, Ohio, that are owned by Houston-based company Hilcorp Energy, according to the Business Journal Daily. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, March 13 [11:42]
DN | "Obama Is Trying to Vanish Us": Immigrants Fight Record Deportations With Protests, Hunger Strikes (03/13/14) [10:26]
TRNN News
TRNN | Historian Per Anders Rudling traces the rise of Ukrainian right-wing party Svoboda from the nationalist myth-making of the post-Soviet diaspora, Part 2 (03/13/14) [14:52]
TYT News
TYT | President Obama's recent appearance on Zach Galifianakis' fake interview show (03/12/14) [3:50]
TYT | Creationist Outrage Over Cosmos With Neil DeGrasse Tyson (03/12/14) [6:33]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Congressional Oversight Of Top-Secret Operations (03/13/14) [1hr]
Climate Change
PBS Newshour | Historic drought strains California's towns and farms (02/14/14) [8:04]
yaleclimateforum | California Drought: Natural or Man Made? (03/13/14) [8:34]
PBS Newshour | Sign of Things to Come?: Great Lakes 92.2% covered by ice, second-highest level on record (03/12/14) [5:47]
MSNBC News
Dick Cheney Talks from the Clown Car (03/10/14) [15:19]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
Jon Stewart | The Senate finally gets around to investigating the CIA's use of torture, only to have damnable data disappear from the committee's computer (03/12/14) [6:18]
Health Care Issues
C-Span3 | Senate Health Subcommittee on Universal Health Care (03/12/14) [1:38:35]
The countries in question have successful and popular government-sponsored single-payer systems, provide universal coverage and match or outdo the United States on numerous measures of medical outcomes -- for far less money than the U.S. spends. To explain this, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asked seven experts to testify before his subcommittee on primary health and aging.
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.

03.13.2014. 11:31

Wednesday March 12, 2014
News Articles

Senators Okay With Spying On Citizens, But Outraged It Happened To Congress
HP | Sabrina Siddiqui | 03/11/14

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a staunch defender of government surveillance of ordinary citizens, took to the Senate floor Tuesday with the stunning accusation that the Central Intelligence Agency may have violated federal law to spy on Congress.

Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, railed against the CIA for compromising the legislative branch's oversight role -- a theme echoed by many of her Senate colleagues throughout the day. The outrage was palpable among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and some suggested CIA Director John Brennan should resign if the allegations are true. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has stuck up for intelligence agencies in the past, declared a potential war. ... Read more

Report on CIA Black Sites and Torture May Provoke a Constitutional Crisis
Bill Moyers | Joshua Holland | 03/11/14

On Tuesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) accused the Central Intelligence Agency of violating federal law and undermining Congress' constitutional oversight powers. She alleges that CIA officials monitored secure computers used by Capitol Hill staffers to prepare a report that reveals the agency's Bush era legacy of black detention sites and enhanced interrogation programs -- methods many have denounced as torture.

This is the latest development in a long-standing feud between the intelligence agency and Congress. Wrangling over the report, which runs over six thousand pages and cost the government $42 million to prepare, has led to what some are calling a "constitutional crisis." ... Read more

Our Chat With Edward Snowden's Legal Counsel
Bill Moyers | Michael Winship | 03/11/14

On Monday, via teleconference, whistleblower Edward Snowden addressed a crowd at SXSW, the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Speaking from Russia, it was Snowden's first public address to people in the United States since he fled the country last June and the revelation that he possessed thousands of secret documents obtained while a subcontractor with the National Security Agency (NSA). Reporting based on those leaked documents has made headlines around the world, revealing a depth of government mass surveillance heretofore denied by official Washington. ... Read more

Osteen's Lakewood Church Suffers Theft Of Over $600,000, Shocking Texas Megachurch
magazine | author | date

The safe of Lakewood Church in Houston, Tex., was burgled on Sunday, to the tune of over $600,000 in cash, checks, and credit card information, reports The Chronicle. Joel and Victoria Osteen discovered the theft on Monday, and informed churchgoers of the burglary via email. Funds contributed on March 8 and 9 were taken. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, March 12 [11:19]
DN | "A Culture of Timidity": Ralph Nader on How Regulators Ignored a GM Safety Defect Tied to 13 Deaths (03/12/14) [11:39]
*DN | Nader on Senate's Climate Stance, "Insanity" of U.S. Nukes, & Why Obama's Min. Wage Hike Falls Short (03/12/14) [13:55]
*DN | "Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name": NSA-Backing Senate Intel Chair Blasts CIA for Spying on Torture Probe (03/12/14) [19:42]
TRNN News
*TRNN | whistleblower William Binney: Sen. Feinstein "Hypocritical" For Blasting CIA For Spying (03/12/14) [7:41]
TRNN | Is the Democrats' Talkathon on Climate Change Just Talk? (03/12/14) [13:56]
*NYT | $5.3 Trillion a Day: Is the Foreign Exchange Market Rigged? | David Gillen (03/12/14) [2:33]
Security, Surveillance State
Ben Wizner on the Surveillance State (audio) (03/10/14) [35:52]
Edward Snowden and ACLU at SXSW (03/10/14) [1:01:22]
Climate Change
Michael Mann: The Hockey Stick and Climate Wars (03/07/12) [10:16]
TED | James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change (03/07/12) [17:51]
*StanfordUniversity | Climate Change: Is the Science "Settled"? (05/13/10) [1:39:48]

Jon Stewart - Daily News
Jon Stewart | Author Paul Taylor: elucidates salient characteristics of the millennial generation in his book "The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown." (03/10/14) [6:04]
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.

03.12.2014. 12:30

Tuesday March 11, 2014
News Articles

Pacific Ocean Earthquake Recorded 50 Miles Off The Coast Of Northern California
HP & AP | author | 03/10/14

A strong earthquake was recorded at 9:18 p.m. PDT on Sunday night in the Pacific Ocean near northern California, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The 6.9-magnitude temblor hit about 50 miles west of Eureka, Calif., at a depth of 4.3 miles. ...

... "This lasted longer than any earthquake I've ever felt," Raquel Maytorena, 52, who lives about a mile from the coast in Ferndale near Eureka, told The Los Angeles Times. "It just kept going and going, very slowly and softly. It was not violent. It almost felt like you were in a boat that was rocking." ... Read more

Democrats Clock All-Nighter With Talk Of Climate Crisis
magazine | Donna Cassata | 03/11/14

Democratic senators clocked an all-nighter, working in shifts into Tuesday morning to warn of the devastation from climate change and the danger of inaction.

Addressing a nearly empty chamber and visitor gallery, more than two dozen speakers agreed with each other about the need to act on climate change. Naysayers -- Republicans -- largely stayed away, arguing hours earlier that regulation would cost Americans jobs in a sluggish economy. ... Read more

Ukraine: A Geopolitical Choke Point
ZeroHedge | author | 03/10/14

In trying to put the fast-moving events in Ukraine in perspective, we are equally prone to lose our way in simplistic reductions or obfuscating complexities. Many commentators reduce the many dynamics in play to a conventional binary conflict: Russia vs. the U.S. (Cold War redux), Russia vs. Europe, neo-fascist nationalists vs. leftists, western Ukraine vs. eastern Ukraine, etc.

We also need to talk about:
1. Energy
2. Transport routes
3. Military control transport and geographical chokepoints
4. The support or resistance of resident populaces
Read more
UKRAINE: Energy, Economic & Military Choke Point (03/04/14) [21:42] (start at 2:35 minutes)

Detroit Suburbs Devise Ways to Dodge Takeovers as Decay Widens
Bloomberg | Chris Christoff | 03/10/14

Sandwiched between bankrupt Detroit and two foundering cities that fell under state control, Lincoln Park is trying to avoid the same fate.

The bungalow suburb of 37,000 residents asked Michigan for a review of its finances, which are so shaky that it diverted $2.5 million to pensions from a water and sewer account. The audit, due by April 11, could prompt Governor Rick Snyder to appoint an emergency manager -- a fate the town wants to avoid. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, March 11 [14:24]
*DN | Ex-Japanese PM: Fukushima Meltdown Was Worse Than Chernobyl & Why He Now Opposes Nuclear Power (03/11/14) [24:02], Part 2 [13:24]
*DN | Chomsky: From Hiroshima to Fukushima, Vietnam to Fallujah, State Power Ignores Its Massive Harm (03/11/14) [6:08]
CNN | 21 years as an exec and can't find work (03/07/14) [1:58]
TRNN News
TRNN | whistleblower Kirk Wiebe: says potential whistleblowers will be silenced with new mass surveillance system (03/11/14) [4:41]
*TRNN | Arnie Gunderson and journalist Chiho Kaneko: Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Three Years Later, Who is Responsible? (03/11/14) [11:35]
TRNN | Historian Per Rudlging: Svoboda and the History of Ukrainian Nationalism (03/11/14) [11:42]
Fukushima
PBS Newshour | Fishing for data in the radioactive waters off Fukushima [8:53]
TYT News
Jon Stewart - Daily News
Jon Stewart | CPAC brings together conservative leaders each hoping to win followers with heartfelt anecdotes, colorful musical entrances and fear-inducing depictions of America (03/10/14) [5:51]
Some Perspective on our National Budget
The U.S. Budget - A Visual Perspective [5:00]
How Big is a Trillion Dollars? [9:14]
Some other Videos
The family of Trillionaires and the Rothschild Conspiracy [55:17]
DC | The Secret Intelligence Agency NSA (2013) [46:25]
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.

03.11.2014. 13:40

Monday March 10, 2014
News Articles

Conservative group Alec trains sights on city and local government
TheGuardian | Ed Pilkington | 03/06/14

The rightwing group Alec is preparing to launch a new nationwide network that will seek to replicate its current influence within state legislatures in city councils and municipalities.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, founded in 1973, has become one of the most pervasive advocacy operations in the nation. It brings elected officials together with representatives of major corporations, giving those companies a direct channel into legislation in the form of Alec "model bills". ... "stand-your-ground" laws, being one of them ... Read more

Exploring a 'Deep Web' That Google Can't Grasp
NYTimes | Alex Wright | 02/22/08

One day last summer, Google's search engine trundled quietly past a milestone. It added the one trillionth address to the list of Web pages it knows about. But as impossibly big as that number may seem, it represents only a fraction of the entire Web.

Beyond those trillion pages lies an even vaster Web of hidden data: financial information, shopping catalogs, flight schedules, medical research and all kinds of other material stored in databases that remain largely invisible to search engines. ... Read more

Tor Browser (Project)

The Ultimate Guide To The Deep Web
sickchirpse.com | author | 09/10/13

There's a part of the internet known as the deep web. The deep web is called the deep web because of its massive size, it's literally 'deep'. According to The Guardian, you can only access 0.03% of the internet via search engines like Google and the rest is what makes up the deep web. The deep web is truly anonymous -- you can't even get on it unless you yourself are anonymous.

You can't just access the deep web from a normal web browser -- like Firefox for example -- you can only access the deep web through a deep web browser. The most famous of these deep web browsers is called Tor and this is the one we recommend you get if you're looking to get onto the deep web. ... Read more

the Hidden Wiki.net
thehiddenwiki.net | author | website

For many who do not know, the deep web is a tremendous section of the world wide web that isn't accessible via regular queries through yahoo, google or various other search engines.

Doing a search online these days can be compared to pulling a net across the surface of the sea. Even though a large amount may possibly be captured in this net, there's still a great deal of info which is deep, and for that reason,it will be missed. ...

  1. General public info on the deep Web is actually 4 hundred to 5 hundred times larger compared to generally characterized as World-wide-web
  2. The deep Web consists of 6,500 terabytes of information in comparison to 20 terabytes of information that is accessible in the surface Web
  3. The deep Web is made up of closely 550 billion unique records and documents in contrast to the 1 billion from the surface Web
  4. A lot more than 200,000 deep Internet sites currently are present
  5. 60 of the largest deep-Websites mutually consist of 750 terabytes of data -- enough by themselves in order to surpass the size of the public Web by 40 times
  6. The deep Web is actually the largest expanding division of fresh information on the Internet
  7. Deep Websites are usually narrower, along with much deeper content material, as compared to regular surface sites
  8. Overall quality content material from the deep Web is 1,000 to 2,000 times better than that of the surface Web

Climate buffoons' real motives: 5 reasons they still spout debunked garbage
Salon | Lindsay Abrams | 03/06/14

The overwhelming majority of Americans, and nearly all scientists, believe that climate change is real and caused by human activity. Yet some very loud, very wrong people continue to insist otherwise. The drought and the floods have both become excuses to debate whether climate change was responsible, and from there, to question the legitimacy of climate science. The heat wave Down Under was ignored in favor of the United States' chilly weather -- and yet, per Rush Limbaugh, the polar vortex itself was a "hoax" created by the left. In the wise words of Pat Robertson, it's "idiocy" to believe in global warming because it's cold outside. ...

Theory 1: They don't understand science
Theory 2: Big industry is pulling their strings
Theory 3: Deniers hate regulations, and they really hate the EPA
Theory 4: They're unable to grasp the big picture
Theory 5: They just don't want to believe it
Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, March 07 [15:05]
DN | Ukraine's Longtime Divisions & NATO's Eastern Expansion to Russian Border Lay Ground for Crimea Vote (03/10/14) [16:01]
DN | War Workers: Vulnerable Foreign Laborers Swindled & Exploited to Toil on U.S. Bases in Afghanistan (03/10/14) [20:50]
TRNN News
TRNN | Zach Baddorf: travels to the Crimea peninsula to talk to local residents and protesters about the Euromaiden, the overthrow of Yanukovich, and the region's relationship to Russia (03/10/14) [9:06]
TRNN | Professor Aleksandr Buzgalin: continues his explanation of historical relations between the Crimea region of Ukraine and Russia. A Struggle Amongst Oligarchs in Ukraine, Part 2 (03/10/14) [10:14]
Note: more interviews can be found
under the The Real News button

Deep Web
Tor Browser Tutorial [6:32]
How Tor Works - A ComputeCycle Deep Dive [10:10]
The Deep Web: Digging Deeper [8:25]
The Silk Road: The Rise and Fall of the World's Largest Online Black Market [14:09]
About Tor | Tor: Overview
Onion Network
Center for High Assurance Computer Systems: U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Quote of the Day
"If the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts." ----George H.W. Bush
Military Industrial Complex
The Iron Triangle - The Carlyle Group Exposed () [46:42]
The Carlyle Group is a massive "private equity firm," which raises money from wealthy individuals and companies, and then reinvests the money into private defense companies with extremely high profit margins. It is made up of well known politicians such as George Bush, Sr. and James Baker, and it is one of the most powerful elements of the "military industrial complex," which is a business built around the defense industry being so large and powerful that it able to influence the politics of war. This video discusses the structure of the group and explains its history of many abuses.
Climate Change

Climatologist Who Predicted California Drought 10 Years Ago Says It May Soon Be 'Even More Dire'
thinkprogress.org | Joe Romm | 03/07/14

... First, though, as I've reported, scientists a decade ago not only predicted the loss of Arctic ice would dry out California, they also precisely predicted the specific, unprecedented change in the jet stream that has in fact caused the unprecedented nature of the California drought. Study co-author, Prof. Lisa Sloan, told me last week that, "I think the actual situation in the next few decades could be even more dire that our study suggested."

"Where the sea ice is reduced, heat transfer from the ocean warms the atmosphere, resulting in a rising column of relatively warm air," Sewall said. "The shift in storm tracks over North America was linked to the formation of these columns of warmer air over areas of reduced sea ice." In January, Sewall wrote me that "both the pattern and even the magnitude of the anomaly looks very similar to what the models predicted in the 2005 study. ... Read more

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

03.10.2014. 16:09

Friday March 07, 2014
News Articles

New Government Report Warns of 'Cascading System Failures' Caused By Climate Change
HP | Kate Sheppard | 03/06/14

From roads and bridges to power plants and gas pipelines, American infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a pair of government reports released Thursday.

The reports are technical documents supporting the National Climate Assessment, a major review compiled by 13 government agencies that the U.S. Global Change Research Program is expected to release in April. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory put together the reports, which warn that climate-fueled storms, flooding and droughts could cause "cascading system failures" unless there are changes made to minimize those effects. Island Press has published the full-length version of the reports, which focus on energy and infrastructure more broadly. ... Read more

The Propaganda and Nonsense Masking America's Noxious Role in the World
AlterNet | Patrick Smith | 03/06/14

“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext.” Thus spoke Secretary of State John Kerry on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday, just as Russia took control of Crimea in the latest escalation of the Ukraine crisis.

This extraordinary remark appears to have gone briefly viral. And surely I am not alone in requiring time to recover from the sheer ignorance and presumption of it. Ignorant because even by the standards at State, where the past must evaporate on an almost daily basis, it is hypocrisy unlimited on the very face of it. Presumptuous because it implies a degree of stupidity among us that not even P.T. Barnum would dare take for granted. ... Read more

Cutting Through Fukushima Fog: Radiation in US?
Truthout | Bernard Weiner | 03/03/14

Governments cite "national security" concerns and "official secrets" as their justification for withholding information from the public. Corporations rationalize their secrecy behind concerns about "patent infringement," shielding their trademarked "proprietary" secrets from competitors. But most of the time, such obfuscation is really derived from the time-honored villains of systemic corruption and what is politely known as CYA in military and bureaucratic slang. Which brings us to Fukushima.

From the very beginning of this catastrophic emergency -- the earthquake/tsunami off the Japanese coast in March of 2011, when nuclear reactors at a power plant were flooded and then exploded and began their meltdowns -- the public in Japan and around the world have not been told the full story of what's been happening at the Dai-ichi nuclear-power plant in Fukushima province. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, March 07 [13:12]
*DN | Roundtable: As Crimea Threatens Succession, Does East-West Split Hasten Ukraine's Polit. Divide? (03/07/14) [9:13], Part 2 [20:52]
DN | Debate: Do Venezuelan Protests Reflect Popular Discontent, or the Old Qualms of a Divided Elite? (03/07/14) [12:10]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Gerry Epstein: President Obama's budget would slash the Commodity Futures Trade Commission budget to about $200 million, which will make regulating the $400 trillion derivatives market even more challenging (03/07/14) [4:33]
TRNN | Professor Aleksandr Buzgalin: explains historical relations between the Crimea region of Ukraine and Russia, ahead of a referendum vote which could bring Crimea under greater Russian control (03/07/14) [12:06]
Note: more interviews can be found
under the The Real News button

I was going to add some Fox News segments here, but then I realized Jon Stewart - Daily News was 1000 times more informative and accurate.
Jon Stewart - Daily News
*Jon Stewart | Third World Health Care: Aasif Mandvi highlights the quality of the best health care system in the world by visiting a clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee. (03/06/14) [6:10]
Jon Stewart | Barnard Professor Kimberly Marten examines the growing crisis in Ukraine and attempts to understand Vladimir Putin's rash behavior. (03/06/14) [5:49], Part 2 [6:50]
Jon Stewart | Big Vladdy - As troops enter Crimea, Vladimir Putin explains how easy it is to acquire Russian military uniforms (03/06/14) [3:19], Part 2 [5:26]
*Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Domestic News - Friday (03/07/14) [1hr]
International News - Friday (03/07/14) [1hr]
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.

03.07.2014. 11:10

Thursday March 06, 2014
News Articles

A Healthy Economy Requires Fewer People Working on Wall Street, Making Much Less Money
AlterNet | Les Leopold | 03/05/14

"I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth -- one shred of evidence." -- Paul Volker (2009)

... Check out this chart: Between WWII and 1980, the wages of financial workers were the same as those who worked in non-financial industries. Then the two lines split apart with Wall Street extracting an enormous premium. Do the financiers deserve it? And how would we know if they do or don't? The answer should depend on how much value the financial sector, in fact, produces for our economy. Is there a correlation between the explosion in Wall Street incomes and economic growth? ... Read more

Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn
HP | Ben Hallman | 03/04/14

Housing and consumer activists warn that Wall Street is about to crash the housing market -- again. The activists said they are particularly concerned about the growing number of companies looking to issue bonds backed by rental properties -- bonds that a coalition of groups described as "eerily like" those mortgage-backed securities that helped fuel the last housing bubble.

"We are poised to experience another crisis if federal regulators fail to recognize and take corrective action to address red flags that are all too familiar," more than 75 housing and consumer groups wrote in a letter Tuesday to federal bank and housing regulators. ... Read more

Breaking News in Moscow
Slate | Christian Caryl | 03/06/14

The bizarre, mixed-up world Russians see when they watch the latest news on Crimea.

Another day of crisis in Ukraine, another day of Vesti, one of the flagship news programs on Russian state TV. Wednesday's broadcast led off with a report from the newborn "Autonomous Republic of Crimea," where, as the voice-over intones, "state institutions are rapidly taking shape." The new republic's armed forces and the new border guard service (who are both equipped and uniformed exactly like Russia's) are getting down to work. All this is happening, apparently, entirely spontaneously--there's nary a mention of the involvement of Russian troops or officials. All is calm in Crimea, apparently: As the camera pans over tidy buildings and happy passersby in the capital of Simferopol, the commentator is at pains to contrast the scene with the burnt-out buildings and smoldering barricades in Kiev.

Next there's footage of Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Kiev, where, we're told, "The United States is unreservedly supporting those who came to power through a coup." After Kerry's meeting with the leaders of Ukraine's interim government, we see him shaking hands with leaders of the Euromaidan protest movement; the commentator pointedly notes that Kerry's encounter with these "ultrarightists" is even "friendlier" than his session with the representatives of the government. ... Read more

U.S. Provokes Russia, Acts Surprised to Get Nasty Reaction
AlterNet | William Boardman | 03/06/14

If too many people get sucked in by the current, distorted media coverage of events unfolding now in Ukraine, then there's a good chance life will get very ugly for a lot of innocent people, since one of the logical end points is the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone in power knows that's a potential reality, but the urge to demagogue the Russians is presently overwhelming honesty and caution.

Ukraine is NOT a real place. Ukraine has never been a real place, not in the sense that Madascar or Cuba are both undeniably real places with real edges. Ukraine has no real edges, just lines on a map imposed by some treaty or army over the past several thousand years. To speak, as the more pompous do, of Ukraine's "territorial integrity" is to speak of an imaginary construct, useful for blurring people's minds for political purposes.

Ukraine in recent years has been what the power brokers of the disintegrating Soviet Union decided to let it be in 1991. Ukraine has no coherent history as a nation. First inhabited some 44,000 years ago, most of the region's history is as occupied territory. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, March 06 [14:51]
DN | Senate Race-Baiting? Dems Join GOP to Block Obama DOJ Pick Tied to Legal Defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal (03/06/14) [22:06]
DN | Angela Davis on Prison Abolition, the War on Drugs and Why Social Movements Shouldn't Wait on Obama (03/06/14) [10:58]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Kate Sinding and Adam Scow: L.A. Moves Towards Ratifying Fracking Ban, But Is Federal Regulation Possible? (03/06/14) [9:28]
*TRNN | Phyllis Bennis: AIPAC Is Losing Influence Over U.S. Foreign Policy (03/06/14) [13:16]
TRNN | Michael Ratner: MLK and a Radicalizing Moment in American History, Part 3 (03/06/14) [21:06]
The first two interviews can be found on the TRNN Button
TYT News
Fukushima
Moxnews | How Dangerous Is Fukushima To The World? (02/28/14) [25:03]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm The Crisis In Ukraine And President Obama's Foreign Policy (03/06/14) [1hr]
Climate Change
*Climate change is not debatable (02/23/14) [8:56]
Something's Alive in the Siberian Permafrost [1:29]
Click picture to zoom in
Click picture to zoom in
Jon Stewart
*Jon Stewart | MSNBC Rachel Maddow shares her motivations for delving back into the sordid past of the Iraq War in the documentary "Why We Did It." (03/05/14) [6:58]
*Jon Stewart | Senators attempt to attach Iran sanctions to a veteran benefits expansion bill and military sexual assault debates, making the national shame-o-meter go to 11 (03/05/14) [5:29]
Click picture to zoom in
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.

03.06.2014. 12:32

Wednesday March 05, 2014
News Articles

Russia Unlikely To Pull Back In Crimea, Analysts Say
HP & AP | Julie Pace | 03/05/14

Russia is unlikely to pull back its military forces in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, analysts and former Obama administration officials say, forcing the United States and Europe into a more limited strategy of trying to prevent President Vladimir Putin from making advances elsewhere in the former Soviet republic.

It's an unsettling scenario for President Barack Obama, who is under pressure to show he has leverage over Putin in a deepening conflict between East and West. The threat of economic sanctions, along with a series of modest measures that include canceling trade talks with Moscow and suspending plans to attend an international summit in Russia, have so far done little to persuade the Russian leader to pull his forces back from Crimea. ... Read more

Bernanke Finally Reveals, In One Word, Why The Financial System Crashed
ZeroHedge | author | 03/04/14

Now that Ben Bernanke is no longer the head of the Fed, he can finally tell the truth about what caused the financial crash. At least that's what a packed auditorium of over 1000 people as part of the financial conference staged by National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the UAE's largest bank, was hoping for earlier today when they paid an exorbitant amount of money to hear the former chairman talk (Bernanke received at least $250,000 for his appearance, or in other words, more than he was paid for one full year as Fed chairman.).

... "Overconfidence." "This is going to sound very obvious but the first thing we learned is that the U.S. is not invulnerable to financial crises," Bernanke said. ... Read more

*Acidic ocean deadly for Vancouver Island scallop industry
cbc.ca | author | 02/26/14

The deteriorating health of B.C.'s oceans is impacting not only the province's marine life, but also its economy. Millions of shellfish are dying off before they can be harvested at Island Scallops, near Parksville, B.C., due to increased acidity levels in the ocean.

One-third of the workforce at Island Scallops -- 20 people -- are being laid off because the business has lost more than 10 million scallops before they were able to reach maturity since 2009. ... Read more

*The U.S. Military is the largest single consumer of energy on the planet
askville.amazon.com/ | author | older, but good facts

As the saying goes, facts are many but the truth is one. The truth is that the U.S. military is the single largest consumer of energy in the world. But as a wise man once said, don't confuse facts with reality. The reality is that even U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) does not know precisely where and how much energy it consumes.

FACT 1: The DoD's total primary energy consumption in Fiscal Year 2006 was 1100 trillion Btu. It corresponds to only 1% of total energy consumption in USA. U.S. military consumes as much energy as Nigeria, with a population of more than 140 million. The DoD per capita energy consumption (524 trillion Btu) is 10 times more than per capita energy consumption in China, or 30 times more than that of Africa. ...

... FACT 11: Since the military's war machines burns fuel at such intense rates, it becomes impractical to talk about consumption in miles per gallon. That is why fuel use in military applications is shown in "gallons-per-mile," "gallons-per-hour," and "barrels-per-hour."

Here are some examples: Flying gas-guzzling bomber B-52 burns about 3300 gallon per hour, flying gas stations KC-135 and KC-10 (aerial refueling tankers) burn on average 2650 and 2070 gallons per hour respectively. Famous F-15 and F-16 fighter aircrafts burn about 1580 and 800 gallons per hour respectively.

Armored vehicles have very low fuel efficiency. For instance the Abrams tank can travel less than 0.6 mile per gallon of fuel, and Bradley fighting vehicle less than 2 miles on a gallon of fuel.

High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (often called Humvee in military circles), which replaced World war II ear Jeep two decades ago, gets as few as 4 miles per gallon in city driving and 8 miles per gallon on the highway. ...
Read more here or here

  1. High Stakes Limit Bid to Cow Putin (WSJ)
  2. Russia says can't control Crimea troops ahead of U.S. talks (Reuters)
  3. Crimea Crisis Haunted by Ghosts of Bungled World War I Diplomacy (BBG)
  4. Putin's Ukraine Gambit Hurts Economy as Allies Lose Billions (BBG)
  5. Germany Says It Provided Equipment and Training to Ukraine's Riot Police (WSJ)
  6. China signals focus on reforms and leaner, cleaner growth (Reuters)
  7. China Shares in Hong Kong Decline Amid Default Concern (BBG)
  8. Beijing Signals New Worry on Growth (WSJ)
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, March 05 [10:02]
DN | Exclusive: Freed Ex-Black Panther Marshall "Eddie" Conway on 44 Yrs in Prison, FBI Surveillance (03/05/14) [12:58], Part 2 [20:57]
DN | "The Death Penalty is a Hate Crime": Bob Autobee Speaks Out to Spare Life of Son's Killer (03/05/14) [12:36]
TRNN News
TRNN | Jeffrey Sommers & John Quigley: Is Russian-Ukraine Intervention Illegal? (03/05/14) [20:24]
Climate Change News
Click picture to zoom in
*Sign of Things to Come?: Acidic Ocean Kills Millions Of Shellfish In Vancouver Canada (03/04/14) [2:16]
*TED | The rise of deadly ocean acidification (older, but good) [18:45]
Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification (09/17/09) [21:34]
IPCC | Climate Change 2013 Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis (11/21/13) [9:19]
The Great Debate: CLIMATE CHANGE - Surviving The Future (02/15/13) [1:31:42], Part 2 [51:43]
U of Edinburgh | Dr Richard Milne: Critical Thinking on Climate Change: Separating Skepticism from Denial (10/24/11) [1:19:54]
Global Temperature Anomalies: 1880 to 2012 (01/23/13) [0:51]
US Military and its contribution to Climate Change
*Click picture to zoom in
Iran : U.S. Military to deploy Direct Energy Laser Weapons to the Persian Gulf (04/08/13) [2:19]
Department of Defense Websites
Operational Energy Strategy: Implementation Plan DOD (03/2012).pdf
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm The Political Divide Over How Best To Reduce Poverty (03/05/14) [1hr]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart mocks Fox News' food stamp freakout (03/05/14) [4:08]
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.

03.05.2014. 13:43

Tuesday March 04, 2014
News Articles

Ukraine Conflict: Vladimir Putin Said He Hopes Russia Won't Have To Use Force In Ukraine
HP | author | 03/04/14

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow reserves the right to use all means to protect Russians in Ukraine, but hopes Russia won't have to use force. "If I decide to use armed forces it will be in line with international law," Putin said.

During a news conference on Tuesday, Putin described the recent turmoil in Ukraine as an anti-constitutional coup, and said that while the Ukrainian parliament was legitimate, acting President Olexander Turchynov was not. Putin also noted that if Ukraine holds new elections, the results will not be acknowledged by Russia. ... Read more

*Just 90 Companies Caused Two-Thirds of Man-Made Global Warming Emissions
MotherJones & The Guardian | Suzanne Goldenberg | 2013 older

The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.

... "There are thousands of oil, gas, and coal producers in the world," climate researcher and author Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in Colorado said. "But the decision makers, the CEOs, or the ministers of coal and oil if you narrow it down to just one person, they could all fit on a Greyhound bus or two." .. Read more
Click picture to go to interactive graph

Rush Limbaugh: "12 Years a Slave" only won because of its title
Salon | Elias Isquith | 03/03/14

What is wrong with this guy????

Speaking on his radio show on Monday, right-wing pundit and provocateur extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh informed his audience that there was never any chance of "12 Years a Slave" not winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Why? Because the film's title, according to Limbaugh, had that "magic word": slave. ... Read more

Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn
HP | Ben Hallman | 03/04/14

Housing and consumer activists warn that Wall Street is about to crash the housing market -- again. The activists said they are particularly concerned about the growing number of companies looking to issue bonds backed by rental properties -- bonds that a coalition of groups described as "eerily like" those mortgage-backed securities that helped fuel the last housing bubble.

"We are poised to experience another crisis if federal regulators fail to recognize and take corrective action to address red flags that are all too familiar," more than 75 housing and consumer groups wrote in a letter Tuesday to federal bank and housing regulators. ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, March 04 [15:29]
*DN | Are Any Plastics Safe? Industry Tries to Hide Scary New Evidence on BPA-Free Containers (03/04/14) [19:57], Part 2 [7:38]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Investigative journalist Robert Parry: Did the U.S. Carry Out a Ukrainian Coup? (03/04/14) [15:03]
TRNN | Michael Ratner: From a Zionist Youth to Outspoken Critic of a Jewish State, Part 2 (03/04/14) [17:24]
*TRNN | Bill Nye and Jeffrey Sachs Talk About Fossil Fuel Industry Influence on Climate Debate and Obama's Lack of Action (current) [14:11]
Truthloader
I like the short, but really informative videos from the people at Truthloader. I like the way they giving enough background to help spotlight how the current issues should be framed.
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm U.S. And E.U. Response To The Crisis In Ukraine (03/04/14) [1hr]
TYT News
*TYT | Glen Greenwald: How The Government Can Destroy Your Reputation (Report) (03/03/14) [11:12]
TYT | Ukraine, Russia On The Brink Of War - Blame Bush? (03/03/14) [5:50]
TYT | Why Wall Street Just Threatened Republicans (03/03/14) [6:27]
TYT | Freedom Is Ugly, Say Ugliness, Freedom Experts (03/03/14) [7:53]
Energy Consumption Worldwide
Click picture to zoom - Energy Consumption
Addicted to War by Joel Andreas (illustrated book)







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.

03.04.2014. 16:18

Monday March 03, 2014
News Articles

*Steve McQueen Dedicated His "12 Years a Slave" Best Pic Oscar to Victims of Modern-Day Slavery
MotherJones | Asawin Suebsaeng | 03/02/14

The powerful drama 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards. During his acceptance speech, director Steve McQueen dedicated the award to the tens of millions of people still in slavery today:

Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live. This is the most important legacy of Solomon Northup. I dedicate this award to all the people who have endured slavery, and the 21 million people who still suffer slavery today. Read more
Steve McQueen Dedicated His "12 Years a Slave" Best Pic Oscar to Victims of Modern-Day Slavery (03/02/14) [2:45]

Oscar Nominee Lupita Nyong'o Speech on Beauty (03/01/14) [4:54]

*Former Central Banker Admits "[They] Are Making It Up As They Go Along"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/03/14

A few weeks ago, William White (former economist at the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, and Bank of International Settlements) made a frank admission.

"The analytical underpinnings of what we [mainstream economists] do are actually pretty shaky...I'm becoming more and more convinced that all of the models we use are basically useless... We've got the potential to do so much harm by not getting the creation of fiat credit and money right." Doctors at least have the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. If only economists and central bankers had a similar ethic. But they don't. So they continue 'making it up as they go along', as Mr. White suggests, applying failed ideas with impunity and continued authority to an unquestioning public. ... Read more

The War on the Poor and Working Families (02/06/14) [2:25]
A 13-Year-Old Girl Changed Matt Damon's Perspective (01/22/14) [1:44]

Presenting the US car market this cold, stormy winter day:"

The Haves...

  1. FERRARI POSTS RECORD SALES IN U.S. AND U.K. IN 2013
  2. MASERATI GLOBAL SALES MORE THAN DOUBLE IN JAN
  3. PORSCHE REPORTS RECORD FEB. SALES (UP 15%)
  4. MERCEDES REPORS HIGHEST JAN SALES IN HISTORY
  5. LAMBORGHINI SEES 2014 HURACAN DELIVERIES EXCEEDING 1,800

And The Have-Nots...

  1. FORD FEB U.S. LIGHT-VEHICLE SALES FALL 6.1%
  2. GM FEBRUARY U.S. SALES FALL 1%
  3. TOYOTA U.S. FEB SALES DOWN 4.3%
  4. VOLKSWAGEN OF AMERICA FEB. VEHICLE SALES DOWN 13.8%
  5. HONDA FEB. U.S. VEHICLE SALES FELL 7%

It appears the 1% don't feel the cold (or wet) weather? What is supremely clear from this data is - if you want to sell cars, raise prices...
*Climage Change
Click picture to zoom in to the talks



DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, March 03 [14:06]
*DN | Who Is Provoking the Unrest in Ukraine? A Debate on Role of Russia, U.S. in Regional Crisis (03/03/14) [8:22], Part 2 [27:57]
*Big Oil's Keystone PipeLIES Exposed: The Truth About the Alberta Tar Sands (03/01/14) [23:06]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Kevin Roose: Inside the Secret Wall Street Society of the 1% (03/03/14) [8:19]
TRNN | Hundreds of Keystone XL Protestors Arrested, Look to Influence Obama's Final Decision on Pipeline (03/03/14) [9:00]
TRNN | Michael Ratner: The Vietnam War was a Seminal Event for Me (03/03/14) [22:54]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm The Political Crisis In Ukraine (03/03/14) [1hr]
Renewed Debate Over Common Core Standards And Testing (03/03/14) [1hr]
Truthloader News
Truthloader | Who are the Russian Oligarchs and why are they so rich? (06/24/13) [5:05]
Truthloader | Ukrainian president flees, NSA spies on 320 German officials and Mexico captures drug lord (02/24/14) [5:15]
In this week's Monday Show we take a look at the latest from Ukraine, revelations that the NSA is now spying on 320 German politicians and business leaders after being ordered to stop spying on the German Chancellor Angela Merkel by the US President Barack Obama, news that Mexico has captured the world's most wanted drug lord after more than a decade on the run, and claims that the Egyptian military has invented a new device to detect AIDS and Hepatities C without taking a blood sample.
*Spy Factory
PBS NOVA | The Spy Factory by James Banford (02/03/09) [52:43]
If the above link doesn't work try this one
PBS NOVA | The Spy Factory by James Banford (02/03/09) [52:43]
NSA's Largest Spy Center Located in Utah (What you need to know) () [47:20]
DC | Inside the Top Secret NSA America's Cyber Secrets () [46:25]
White House
NatGeo | Inside the US Secret Service () [1:29:13]
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers | Bill recommends investigative journalist Julia Angwin's new book, "Dragnet Nation", and reflects on the striking similarities between some classic dystopian novels, i.e. "1984" and America today. (02/27/14) [2:24]
"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture....."
Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace (05/18/58) [28:42]
Bill Moyers | Ian Haney López on the Dog Whistle Politics of Race (02/28/14) [24:30]
What do Cadillac-driving "welfare queens," a "food stamp president" and the "lazy, dependent and entitled" 47 percent tell us about post-racial America? They're all examples of a type of coded racism that this week's guest, Ian Haney López, writes about in his new book, Dog Whistle Politics.
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.

03.03.2014. 17:56



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

Note: To view a video, click on code at left of the title

I'm still working on this

GOOD Short Videos
Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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I'm still working on this

Newer Documentaries
Documentaries You've Never Seen

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Documentaries (small | pop-up)
Documentaries (big | full screen)
Good YouTube Documentaries

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Great YouTube Docs. (small | pop-up)
Good YouTube Docs. (big | full screen)

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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I am one of those "once" middle class, over 60, over educated, under-employed, semi retired, soon to be poor workers, that everyone is talking about. 
But I have a modest standard of living so I plan to give all extra donation, beyond my immediate needs, to several of my favorite charities.

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