Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Thirty Million Gallons Under the Sea
Harpers Magazine | Antonia Juhasz | June 2015

One morning in March of last year, I set out from Gulfport, Mississippi, on a three-week mission aboard the U.S. Navy research vessel Atlantis. The 274-foot ship, painted a crisp white and blue, stood tall in the bright sunlight. On its decks were winches, cranes, seafloor-mapping sonar, a machine shop, and five laboratories. Stowed in an alcove astern was Alvin, the federal government's only manned research submarine. "Research vessel Atlantis outbound," A. D. Colburn, the ship's captain, reported into the ship radio.

The water was calm and the bridge crew quiet as they steered us into open water. For the next fourteen hours, we would sail toward the site of BP's Macondo well, where, in April 2010, a blowout caused the largest offshore-drilling oil spill in history. Once there, Atlantis's crew would launch Alvin and guide it to the bottom of the ocean, reaching depths as great as 7,200 feet below the surface. Over the next twenty-two days they would send the submersible down seventeen times, to gather animal, plant, water, and sediment samples. Their goal was to determine how BP's spill had affected the ocean's ecosystem from the seabed up. I would get the chance to join them in the submarine as they went closer to the Macondo wellhead than anyone had gone since the blowout. ...

Jeb Bush Confronted By College Student: 'Your Brother Created ISIS'
HP | Marina Fang | 05/13/15

A college student told likely GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Wednesday that his brother, former President George W. Bush, was to blame for the rise of the Islamic State.

The heated confrontation took place at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada, according to The New York Times. Ivy Ziedrich, 19, a student at the University of Nevada, approached the former Florida governor to question him about comments he had made during the event. Bush had argued that the Obama administration's weak foreign policy was responsible for the rise of the terrorist group, also known as ISIS, in the Middle East. ... Read more

The $60 Billion Question: Can Afghanistan Take The Taliban And ISIS On Its Own?
HP | Akbar Shahid Ahmed | 05/13/15

American taxpayers have spent $62.5 billion on Afghanistan's military and police forces since the U.S. invaded that country in 2001. It could all go to waste -- or, worse, to extremists -- if the Afghan and U.S. governments don't increase their vigilance, according to the top watchdog for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

"The evidence strongly suggests that Afghanistan lacks the capacity -- financial, technical, managerial or otherwise -- to maintain, support and execute much of what has been built or established during more than 13 years of international assistance," said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday. ... Read more

*Why There Has Been No Recovery (In One Simple Chart): A Harvest Of Corruption
ZeroHedge | author | 05/14/15

Who Is The Biggest Energy Company in the World?
ZeroHedge | author | 05/14/15

PetroChina just surpassed Exxon Mobil to become the largest energy company in the world, on a market cap basis. Now the question becomes: can PetroChina retain its status as the world's largest energy company? ... Read more
Click picture to zoom in