Home · News · News Nov 2013 · Nov 21 2013
Thursday November 21, 2013
News Articles

Who Buys the Spies? The Hidden Corporate Cash Behind America's Out-of-Control National Surveillance State
Bill Moyers | Thomas Ferguson | 10/23/13

Long before President Obama kicked off his 2008 campaign, many Americans took it for granted that George W. Bush's vast, sprawling national security apparatus needed to be reined in. For Democrats, many independents and constitutional experts of various persuasions, Vice President Dick Cheney's notorious doctrine of the "unitary executive" (which holds that the president controls the entire executive branch), was the ultimate statement of the imperial presidency. It was the royal road to easy (or no) warrants for wiretaps, sweeping assertions of the government's right to classify information secret, and arbitrary presidential power. When Mitt Romney embraced the neoconservatives in the 2012 primaries, supporters of the president often cited the need to avoid a return to the bad old days of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld National Security State as a compelling reason for favoring his reelection. Reelect President Obama, they argued, or Big Brother might be back. ... Read more

What Wal-Mart Could Learn From Henry Ford
Bill Moyers | Robert Reich's blog. | 11/18/13

Wal-Mart just reported shrinking sales for a third straight quarter. What's going on? Explained William S. Simon, the CEO of Wal-Mart, referring to the company's customers, "their income is going down while food costs are not. Gas and energy prices, while they're abating, I think they're still eating up a big piece of the customer's budget."

Wal-Mart's CEO gets it. Most of Walmart's customers are still in the Great Recession, grappling with stagnant or declining pay. So, naturally, Wal-Mart's sales are dropping.   But what Wal-Mart's CEO doesn't get is that a large portion of Walmart's customers are lower-wage workers who are working at places like … Walmart. And Walmart, not incidentally, refuses to raise its median wage (including its army of part-timers) of $8.80 an hour. Read more

What You Need to Know About Fukushima
Bill Moyers | John Light | 11/18/13

All eyes are on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as major cleanup efforts are set to begin later this month, in the most significant test of the operator's ability to manage the threats resulting from one of the biggest nuclear disasters ever. For two years now, the plant's operator and the Japanese government have struggled to contain an ongoing series of crises at the devastated facility. But the situation has the potential to get worse. Here's what you need to know. ...

... Nuclear facilities in Japan lie near 14 active fault lines; Tepco's Fukushima facilities are along five. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) says the utilities are capable of withstanding another earthquake. But last month, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki expressed his fears that further damage to the Fukushima facility could prove catastrophic. "Three out of the four plants were destroyed in the earthquake and in the tsunami. The fourth one has been so badly damaged that the fear is, if there's another earthquake of a seven or above, that building will go and then all hell breaks loose."

The Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo said earlier this year that there's a 70 percent chance a 7.0-magnitude or higher quake will strike Tokyo, near Fukushima, by 2016. Should the fourth reactor collapse, Suzuki said, it would be "bye bye Japan," and "everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate. Now if that isn't terrifying, I don't know what is." ... Read more

Why Does the Media Ignore Timothy Geithner's Disastrous Leadership of the NY Fed?
TRNN | William K. Black | 11/18/13

Remember nine months ago when Timothy Geithner assured us that it was "extremely unlikely" he would take a position on Wall Street?   The media meme when Geithner announced that he was stepping down as Treasury Secretary and taking a position as a "senior fellow" with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was what a superior human he was for not taking a job with Wall Street. The "extremely unlikely" (to no one's surprise) was announced nine months later. The private equity firm Warburg Pincus has hired Geithner as its President. ... Read more

Solar activity has ramped up in the past several months as the sun reaches the peak of its 11-year solar cycle. At that point in time -- expected to be soon -- the sun's magnetic field will undergo a complete reversal, with its north and south poles essentially "flipping."
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, November 21 [8:01]
DN | "Nature Does Not Negotiate": Environmentalists Walk Out of U.N. Climate Summit in Warsaw (11/21/13) [4:00]
DN | Greenpeace: In Opposing Oil Drilling, Detained "Arctic 30" Are Standing Up for Planet's 7 Billion (11/21/13) [13:49]
*DN | "We Have To Consume Less": Scientists Call For Radical Economic Overhaul to Avert Climate Crisis (11/21/13) [25:47]
A pair of climate scientists are calling for what some may view as a shocking solution to the global warming crisis: a rethinking of the economic order in the United States and other industrialized nations. Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows-Larkin of the influential Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in England say many of the solutions proposed by world leaders to prevent "runaway global warming" will not be enough to address the scale of the crisis. They have called for "radical and immediate de-growth strategies in the United States, EU and other wealthy nations." Anderson says that to avoid an increase in temperature of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the world would require a "revolutionary change to the political and economic hegemony."
DN | "Polluters Talk, We Walk": Civil Society Groups Abandon Warsaw Talks Over Inaction on Global Warming (11/21/13) [4:23]
*Fukushima
Harvey Wasserman: Risky Operation at Fukushima Demands World Action (11/20/13) [12:57]
Harvey Wasserman on Continuing Fukushima Crisis: The amounts of radiation are lethal on a global scale (10/10/13) [9:51]
*Fukushima The Worst Nuclear Disaster The World Has Ever Seen (2013) [12:55] Interesting overview!
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm The JFK Assassination Anniversary: Public Perceptions And Political Realities (11/21/13) [1hr]
Fiftieth Anniversary Of President Kennedy's Assassination (11/21/13) [1hr]
MSNBC Chris Hayes - All In
Chris Hayes | Still no fix for military sexual assault (11/20/13) [14:39] Part 2 [9:11], Part 3 [5:18]
More segments on the MSNBC website
MSNBC Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow | Dems bet economic populism trumps culture war (11/20/13) [19:16]
Rachel Maddow | This is why Democrats want Warren to run (11/20/13) [9:07]
More segments on the MSNBC website
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
Jon Stewart | Legendary newsman Tom Brokaw examines the ways in which John F. Kennedy's assassination profoundly changed America (11/20/13) [6:51]
Stephen Colbert Report
Stephen Cobert | Florida Congressman Trey Radel is arrested after buying cocaine from an undercover officer, but he's definitely not a hypocrite (11/20/13) [2:58]
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.

11.21.2013. 11:55



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

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GOOD Short Videos
Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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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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