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Tuesday September 30, 2014
News Articles

The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria
firstlook.org/theintercept | Glenn Greenwald | 09/29/14

As the Obama Administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the "homeland." A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.

The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded "The Khorasan Group." After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat -- too radical even for Al Qaeda! -- administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore. ... Read more

Climate Change Is Driving Heat Waves Around The World: Report
HP | Kate Sheppard | 09/29/14

The record-setting heat wave in Australia last year was "largely attributable" to human-caused climate change, according to a synthesis report released Monday. Heat waves in Japan, Korea, China and Europe were also "substantially influenced" by global warming, the report found.

For the synthesis report, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 22 groups of scientists looked at 16 extreme weather events that took place in 2013. The paper concludes that at this time, it is more difficult to discern the human impact on other extreme events, such as the drought in California, extreme rainfall in Colorado, and an early-season blizzard in South Dakota.

This is the third annual report on the connections between individual extreme weather events and climate change, led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. ... Read more

Europe & China Start Direct Trading In Euros & Yuan As De-Dollarization Expands.
Artist's Impression Of The Difference Between ISIS & America's Strategy In The Middle East
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Another Conspiracy Theory Becomes Fact: The Fed's "Stealth Bailout" Of Foreign Banks Goes Mainstream
ZeroHedge | author | 09/30/14

Back in June 2011, Zero Hedge first posted:

  1. "Exclusive: The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign Banks Continues At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy, Or Explaining Where All The QE2 Money Went"

which we followed up on various occasions, most notably with
  1. "How The Fed's Latest QE Is Just Another European Bailout" and
  2. "The Fed's Bailout Of Europe Continues With Record $237 Billion Injected Into Foreign Banks In Past Month."
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Read more

Senate Sponsor Exposes The Real Reason For The Fed (1913)
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Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, September 30 [8:23]
DN | Umbrella Revolution: Hong Kong's Biggest Protests in Decades Challenge China on Political Freedom (09/30/14) [16:23]
*DN | As U.S.-Afghanistan Sign Troop Deal, CIA-Backed Warlord Behind Massacre of 2,000 POWs Sworn-In as VP (09/30/14) [16:12]
*DN | How the U.S. Concocted a Terror Threat to Justify Syria Strikes, and the Corporate Media Went Along (09/30/14) [9:39]
TRNN | Shayana Kadidal of CCR: Eric Holder Continued Bush Legal Policies (09/30/14) [12:54]
*TRNN | Phil Donahue says he believed he was blessed, living in the greatest country on earth, Part 1 (09/30/14) [21:37]
*TRNN | Larry Wilkerson: Underestimating ISIS: An Indictment of Decades of Failed US Policy in the Middle East (09/30/14) [21:37]
TYT | Khorasan Doesn't Exist, They Never Did, You've Been Lied To (09/29/14) [16:45]
YouTube Commenter
BBC's killer documentary called "The Power of Nightmares". Top CIA officials openly admit, Al-qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws so they could go after "the bad guy of their choice" namely laws that had been set in place to protect us from mobs and "criminal organizations" such as the Mafia. They paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government's story of Al-qaeda, a "group" or criminal organization they could "legally" go after.
TYT | Hong Kong Protesters Fight Police Attacks With Umbrellas (09/29/14) [7:34]
TYT | US Commits To More Devastating Failure In Afghanistan (09/29/14) [6:48]
TYT | Obama Underestimated ISIS But He's Got It Now So Don't Worry (09/29/14) [7:54]
TYT | Top Official Explains War Authorization… Except He Doesn't (09/29/14) [4:55]
TYT | Oklahoma Beheading Is NOT Isolated, Insist Frothing Right Wingers (09/29/14) [9:58]

09.30.2014. 09:59

Monday September 29, 2014
News Articles

Stunning Drone Clip Reveals Massive Size Of Hong Kong Protest
ZeroHedge | author | 09/29/14

Ferguson was for amateurs. For those curious why the Hong Kong protests over the weekend have sent shivers across the world's capital markets, pushed the Hang Seng 2% lower, and impacted both European and US futures, not to mention leading to worries that China may get involved any second and result in another Tiananmen square event, the following clip from HK's Apple Daily, taken by a drone, shows just how massive the demonstrations, which according to some estimates involved just why of 100,000 people, taking place in Hong Kong are. ... Read more
Massive Size Of Hong Kong Protest (09/28/14) [1:31]

Why the Showdown with Islamic Extremists Is the War the Pentagon Was Hoping For
AlterNet | Nicholas JS Davies | 09/28/14

As the U.S. escalates its bombing campaign against ISIS (or IS or ISIL), U.S. officials seem to have found an enemy we can all love to hate and fear. ISIS beheads hostages, conducts brutal ethnic cleansing and has links to Al-Qaeda. DC power players have eagerly embraced a small war made to order to restore America's wounded military pride after the first Iraq debacle.

The contrived nature of the narrative presented by U.S. officials was evident from the outset if one cared to look behind the propaganda screen. As the U.S. bombing campaign began, German Left Party MP Ulla Jelpke told a press conference in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) on August 11th that the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar were rescued by the Kurdish PKK, who the U.S. government classifies as "terrorists." Refugees told Jelpke that they were saved by "Allah and the PKK," not by U.S. bombing. ... Read more

The War Without End
AP & HP | author | 09/29/14

Afghanistan To Sign U.S. Security Agreement, Adviser Says

A senior adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday that Afghanistan will sign a deal Tuesday to allow American soldiers to remain in the country past the end of the year. John Podesta, speaking to a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said he didn't know if newly inaugurated President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai would be the official signing the deal for Afghanistan.

The deal will allow about 10,000 American troops to stay in the country after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31. ... Read more

Dead kids and accidental shootouts: A September snapshot of gun violence in America
Salon | Joanna Rothkopf| 09/29/14

How's this for a bleak assessment? "For essentially the last 20 years, there has been almost no federal support for research on a health problem that kills upwards of 30,000 people a year," said Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, in an interview yesterday with NPR.

The health problem he's talking about is, of course, gun violence. Between 2000 and 2010, the rate of gun-related deaths in the United States was 10.21 per 100,000 people, according to a recent study in the journal BMJ Open. Over the 11 years covered by the study, at least 335,609 people were killed by guns in this country, and the researchers conclude that if trends continue, around 336,778 lives will be lost due to gun violence between 2011 and 2020. ... Read more

Naomi Klein: Fossil Fuels Threaten Our Ability to Have Healthy Children
MotherJones | author | 09/29/14

It's self-evident that embryos, fetuses, and babies are vulnerable. We have strict laws protecting children because they cannot fend for themselves. And yet, too often, we ignore the impact that environmental disasters have on the very earliest stages of life. In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein examines the effect that our reliance on fossil fuels has on the most helpless members of the animal kingdom--as well as on our own children.

"In species after species, climate change is creating pressures that are depriving life-forms of their most essential survival tool: the ability to create new life and carry on their genetic lines," Klein writes. "Instead, the spark of life is being extinguished, snuffed out in its earliest, most fragile days: in the egg, in the embryo, in the nest, in the den." ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, September 29 [10:34]
DN | Ferguson Unrest Continues as Police Accused of Incitement & Michael Brown's Killer Remains Free (09/29/14) [9:50]
DN | Soldier's Heart: Remembering Jacob George, Afghan War Vet Turned Peace Activist Who Took Own Life (09/29/14) [4:56]
More News
Japan's Mt Ontake volcano erupts, kills one and over 32 seriously injured (09/28/14) [4:17]
Economist | Quantitative easing (older, but scary 2012) [2:31]
Economist | Why eating insects makes sense (09/25/14) [2:09]
Bill Moyers | America's New War in the Middle East: Two experts on American foreign policy talk to Bill about our deepening engagement in the fight against jihadists in Iraq and Syria. (09/26/14) [25:20]
As Congress skipped town and avoided a vote on war, President Obama announced this week that the US was taking the lead in bombing jihadists in Iraq and Syria, opening what is being widely interpreted as another long and costly American military campaign in the Middle East.

This week, Bill discusses the latest on the conflict with Jonathan Landay, a veteran national security reporter for McClatchy Newspapers and Matthew Hoh, a former Marine and foreign service officer in Afghanistan.

"As much as President Obama wishes we weren't the world's policemen, perhaps we are," Landay tells Moyers. "And there's no escaping that curse."

Hoh, who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over US strategic policy there, adds: "Is this really our model for the Middle East that we are going to bomb countries, continuously, take part in civil wars, sometimes supporting one side, maybe supporting the other, with no means or no real desire or effort to achieve a peace?"
John Oliver
HBO | John Oliver notes that we launched drone strikes against targets in two sovereign states over the weekend and the only report of the attacks his staff could find anywhere was on Iranian television, "buried deep in your cable package…" (09/28/14) [12:56]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
Jon Stewart | Some Folks Asked 'The Daily Show' To Not Air The Clip. They Aired It Anyway. (09/28/14) [7:19]
TYT | US Bombing ISIS-Controlled Oil Refineries In Syria (09/29/14) [4:53]
TYT | "Liberal" Professor Murdered In Pakistan (09/28/14) [6:09]
TYT | Do Americans Think Justice Is Fair To Blacks? POLL (09/28/14) [6:09]
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TYT | Rand Paul Spent His College Years Hating Food Stamps (09/28/14) [6:45]
TYT | Pat Robertson Defends Separation Of Church And Taxes (09/28/14) [4:35]
TYT | Michele Bachmann's Frenzied Bloodlust Delights Values Voters (09/28/14) [17:58]
TYT | The Koch Bros Are Destroying Democracy, This Time Using The Mail (09/28/14) [8:33]
Ring of Fire
Pap and Seder: The World Is Ending and Corporate Media Doesn't Care (09/26/14) [7:24]
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across

09.29.2014. 12:23

Friday September 26, 2014
News Articles

Inside the New York Fed: Secret Recordings and a Culture Clash
ProPublica | Jake Bernstein | 09/26/14

Barely a year removed from the devastation of the 2008 financial crisis, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York faced a crossroads. Congress had set its sights on reform. The biggest banks in the nation had shown that their failure could threaten the entire financial system. Lawmakers wanted new safeguards.

The Federal Reserve, and, by dint of its location off Wall Street, the New York Fed, was the logical choice to head the effort. Except it had failed miserably in catching the meltdown.

New York Fed President William Dudley had to answer two questions quickly: Why had his institution blown it, and how could it do better? So he called in an outsider, a Columbia University finance professor named David Beim, and granted him unlimited access to investigate. In exchange, the results would remain secret.

After interviews with dozens of New York Fed employees, Beim learned something that surprised even him. The most daunting obstacle the New York Fed faced in overseeing the nation's biggest financial institutions was its own culture. The New York Fed had become too risk-averse and deferential to the banks it supervised. Its examiners feared contradicting bosses, who too often forced their findings into an institutional consensus that watered down much of what they did. ... Read more
*NPR | This American Life: 536: The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra (09/26/14) [68:55]

How Goldman Controls The New York Fed: 47.5 Hours Of "The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes" Explain
ZeroHedge | author | 09/26/14

You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.

The only reason you know is that one woman, Carmen Segarra, has been brave enough to fight the system. She has paid a great price to inform us all of the obvious. She has lost her job, undermined her career, and will no doubt also endure a lifetime of lawsuits and slander.

So what are they going to do about it? At this moment the Fed is probably telling itself that, like the financial crisis, this, too, will blow over. It shouldn't. ... Read more

Commenter from the above article
The Federal Reserve should be renamed the Department of Welfare for Wall Street and the Wealthy. The trillions in excess reserves that the Federal Reserve has supplied to banks by buying their mortgaged backed securities that they can't sell to anybody else mostly sits idle on bank balance sheets at the Federal Reserve so that banks can collect billions in risk free interest that they can use to make the Stock Market into an overinflated ponzi scheme. That is why the Stock Market Continues to rise - the Federal Reserve is handing the Wall Street Banks free money to buy stocks.

The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes
Bloomberg | Michael Lewis | 09/26/14

... Our financial regulatory system is obviously dysfunctional. But because the subject is so tedious, and the details so complicated, the public doesn't pay it much attention.

That may very well change today, for today -- Friday, Sept. 26 --- the radio program "This American Life" will air a jaw-dropping story about Wall Street regulation, and the public will have no trouble at all understanding it. ... Read more



Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, September 26 [11:32]
*DN | Eric Holder's Complex Legacy: Voting Rights Advocate, Enemy of Press Freedom, Friend of Wall Street (09/26/14) [11:51]
DN | "We Deserve To Do More Than Just Survive": Marshall Islands Poet's Plea to the UN Climate Summit (09/26/14) [3:52]
On Tuesday, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands read a poem to world leaders, written as a letter to her child. "Even though there are those hidden behind platinum titles who like to pretend that we don't exist," she writes, "that the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Maldives and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and floods of Pakistan, Algeria, and Colombia and all the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidalwaves didn't exist. Still there are those who see us hands reaching out." ...
Information We All Know, But Is Worth Repeating
*KMC | How The Federal Reserve Is Turning Money Into Debt (07/16/14) [4:58]
*KMC | What does OIL have to do with the rise of IS in Iraq (09/15/14) [9:19]
KMC | Wikileaks: 'Weaponised malware' hacking software spying on us (09/24/14) [3:23]
Jon Stewart
*Jon Stewart Schools Congress On Climate Change With A Simple Demonstration (09/24/14) [10:37]
*TRNN | Eric Holder's Record at the Department of Justice. Former prosecutor Bill Black says Holder's legacy on "too big to fail" is "too big to jail" (09/26/14) [12:00]
TYT | Eric Holder Resigns, Obama Loses Long-Serving Ally (09/25/14) [11:30]
TYT | Fox News Leads GOP Bullsh*t Parade Against Eric Holder (09/25/14) [7:23]
TYT | 'Boobs On The Ground?' - Fox Host Sinks To New Low (09/25/14) [6:33]
TYT | Did The NSA Force A School District To Spy On Students? (09/25/14) [8:37]
TYT | Ferguson Police Chief Apologizes To Michael Brown's Family (09/25/14) [7:46]

09.26.2014. 10:21

Thursday September 25, 2014
News Articles

A Look Inside The Secret Deal With Saudi Arabia That Unleashed The Syrian Bombing
ZeroHedge | author | 09/25/14

For those to whom the recent US campaign against Syria seems a deja vu of last summer's "near-war" attempt to ouster its president Bashar al-Assad, which was stopped in the last minute due to some very forceful Russian intervention and the near breakout of war in the Mediterranean between US and Russian navies, it is because they are. And as a reminder, just like last year, the biggest wildcard in this, and that, direct intervention into sovereign Syrian territory, or as some would call it invasion or even war, was not the US but Saudi Arabia - recall from August of 2013 - "Meet Saudi Arabia's Bandar bin Sultan: The Puppetmaster Behind The Syrian War." Bin Sultan was officially let go shortly after the 2013 campaign to replace Syria's leadership with a more "amenable" regime failed if not unofficially (see below), but Saudi ambitions over Syria remained. That much is revealed by the WSJ today in a piece exposing the backdoor dealings that the US conducted with Saudi Arabia to get the "green light" to launch its airstrikes against ISIS, or rather, parts of Iraq and Syria."The process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh U.S. commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority." Read more

The Right's Newest Obama Conspiracy: He Made Up a "New" Terrorist Group to Defeat
MotherJones | Jenna McLaughlin | 09/25/14

... "From what I understand, the [Obama] regime has given this group a new name in order for Obama to be able to continue to say he wiped Al Qaeda out," Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "So you come up with a new name for Al Qaeda, the Kardashians, or Khorasans, or whatever they are, and either way it's defeating…So this new group is essentially just Al Qaeda renamed."

Glenn Beck came to a similar conclusion: "What is Khorasan? [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper mentioned Khorasan for the first time last week. What is it? It's an Al Qaeda splinter group. Notice they're not saying 'Al Qaeda Khorasan.' They're just calling it Khorasan. Why? The Pentagon claimed they have been watching Khorasan for a very long time, but it wasn't too long ago that this administration said Al Qaeda was decimated and on the run. But now they're an imminent threat? It doesn't add up, does it?"... Read more

FBI: U.S. mass shootings more than doubled in past five years

486 people were killed in 160 shootings in the past 14 years

$26 Billion in US Aid Later, the Iraqi Military Is a Total Disaster
MotherJones | Alex Park | 09/25/14

As US bombs rain down on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, analysts agree that this war will ultimately be won on the ground. Too bad the Iraqi defense forces are a shambles. The New York Times reports that the United States still has to train the country's 26 "intact and loyal" brigades. And the Iraqi government has yet to recruit and set up national guard units. "It is not going to be soon," says a State Department official.

Here's where that money went:
  1. Training the Iraqi military: $1.32 billion. SIGIR says: "As with the police force, the number of troops reporting for duty continually fell below desired levels, with AWOL rates exceeding 3% per month."
  2. Providing military, logistical, and maintenance support for the Iraqi military: $2.6 billion
  3. Renovating and building Iraqi military bases: $4.1 billion
  4. Supplying the Iraqi military with aircraft, boats, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other gear: $3.4 billion
  5. Developing an elite counterterrorism force: $237 million* . Maybe: Since the US government did not keep track of this specific expenditure, SIGIR says "the total costs of the program remained unknown."
  6. Training, staffing, and supplying Iraqi police: $9.4 billion
  7. Developing the "Sons of Iraq" program to train to provide jobs for about 100,000 mostly Sunni insurgents: $370 million. SIGIR says: "Financial controls were weak, program managers could not tell whether SOI members received their US-funded salaries, and [the Pentagon] was unable to provide evaluations of the program's outcomes."
  8. Developing other infrastructure security programs: $300 million
  9. Shoring-up Iraq's courts: $681 million. SIGIR says: "The court system contends with human rights issues, including reported acts of torture and retaliatory prosecutions by police and military authorities."
  10. Building prisons, including the never-completed Khan Bani S'ad prison: $165 million
Total cost of rebuilding, training, supplying the Iraqi military, police, and justice system: Around $26 billion
Read more

Obama Expands Pacific Ocean Preserve, Making It Largest In The World
AP & HP | Josh Lederman | 09/24/14

President Barack Obama is carving out a wide swath the Pacific Ocean for an expanded marine preserve, putting the waters off-limits to drilling and most fishing in a bid to protect fragile underwater life.

The revamped expanded Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument will cover 490,000 square miles - an area roughly three times the size of California - and will become the largest marine preserve in the world. Millions of seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals live in the bio-rich expanse included by the new monument, which will also add new protections for more than 130 "seamounts" - underwater mountains where rare or undiscovered species are frequently found. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, September 25 [6:42]
DN | Exclusive: Freed After Hunger Strike, Egyptian Journalist in U.S. to Campaign for Jailed Colleagues (09/25/14) [16:43]
*DN | Listen to the People, Not the Polluters: Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace on the Global Climate Uprising (09/25/14) [11:54]
How Honest Are Our News Agencies?
Viggo Mortensen Calls Fox News "A Brazen Form Of Lying" (09/18/14) [2:59]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart asks: Is Wall Street's favorite new company, Alibaba, just Craigslist with better graphics? (09/24/14) [4:15]
How ISIS | ISIL | IS Is Organized
How IS Is Organized (09/11/14) [3:19] *TRNN | Turkish-Syrian Border "A Great Hole" in Obama's UN Speech (09/25/14) [15:11]
TRNN | US Bombs Syria without Congressional Approval (09/25/14) [8:01]
*TYT | Hidden Camera Reveals Chilling Life Under ISIS Control (09/24/14) [8:17]
*TYT | Students Bravely Fight Back Against 1984-Loving Conservative School Board (09/24/14) [6:26]
"Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, in a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay.
TYT | Obama Salutes With Coffee Cup - Cue Conservative Freak Out (09/24/14) [9:15]
TYT | Obama Pitches ISIS War To The UN - Will The World Say Yes? (09/24/14) [11:39]
TYT | Permanent War In Middle East? Hell Yes Says GOP Hot Shot (09/24/14) [6:20]
???
The militant Islamic State group has released a new video in which a man identifying himself as a British journalist, John Cantlie, says that he will "show you the truth" about ISIS and how western media is manipulating the public. (09/18/14) [2:59]
The militant Islamic State group has released a new video in which a man identifying himself as a British journalist says that he will "show you the truth" about ISIS and how western media is manipulating the public. The chilling video shows a man who says he is John Cantlie. Cantlie, a former reporter for the Sunday Times, the Sun and the Sunday Telegraph, went missing in Syria in 2012, but was later freed by the Free Syrian Army. Cantlie reportedly then returned to Syria in 2012, along with US journalist James Foley. Foley was beheaded by ISIS in August, a horrific killing that was also recorded and released on video.

09.25.2014. 11:00

Wednesday September 24, 2014
News Articles

What Is Khorasan and Why Did the US Just Bomb It?
MotherJones | Jenna McLaughlin | 09/23/14

On Monday night, a US-led coalition launched air strikes in Syria against members of ISIS, the extremist Islamic group occupying territory in Iraq and Syria. As a "last-minute add-on," NBC reports, the United States also targeted a different terrorist group: a little-known outfit called Khorasan. This Al Qaeda affiliate gained some public attention earlier this month after US officials reported that the extremists were plotting to sneak bombs on to US airplanes. Last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper noted that the group "perhaps" posed as great a threat to the United States as ISIS. On Tuesday morning, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby maintained that strikes on ISIS and Khorasan were "very successful." The US targeted Khorasan's "training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building and command and control facilities," the Pentagon told the Washington Post. ... Read more

America Has More Low-Paying Jobs Than Any Other Developed Country
HP | Kevin Short | 09/23/14

America may be exceptional in many ways, but it also tops the charts of a new, troubling ranking. The U.S. has more low-paying jobs than any other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an economic group of 34 developed countries, according to a research note released by Morgan Stanley on Monday.

... The OECD defines "low-paying" as jobs that earn less than two-thirds of a country's median income. On average, around 16 percent of jobs in OECD countries are considered low-paying. In the U.S., over 25 percent of all jobs qualify as such. ... Read more

1 Tomahawk missile = $1.4 million.
47 Tomahawk missiles = $66 million.?
US military Budget, Priceless..

Top Liberian Official Warns Ebola Crisis May Plunge The Country Back Into Conflict
HP | author | date

A top official in Liberia's government warned on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak ravaging through West Africa may have disastrous consequences for the peace and stability of the region. Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown told the Agence France Presse that the slow response to the Ebola outbreak could cause the region to "slip back into conflict."

"Hospitals are struggling, but so too are hotels," Brown said. "Businesses are struggling. If this continues the cost of living will go to the roof. You have an agitated population." ... Read more

How Playing Good Christian Housewife Almost Killed Me
AlterNet | Vyckie Garrison | 09/18/14

Vyckie Garrison was once a minor celebrity in the Quiverfull Movement, made famous by TV's Duggar family. As a devout, Bible-believing Christian and the mother of seven homeschooled children, Garrison spent 16 years, with her husband, publishing a newspaper for families on a similar path. Today, via a website called No Longer Quivering, she publishes resources for women leaving the movement. Recently she addressed American Atheists about her experience. This article is an abridged version of her remarks.

Whenever I talk about my escape from the Quiverfull movement, Christians immediately dismiss my experience by saying, "Your problem was not with Jesus or Christianity. Your problem was that you were following an extreme, legalistic cult. Let me tell you about my personal relationship with Jesus." It can be extremely frustrating. I was in a close, personal relationship with Jesus for over 25 years. But rather than telling you about the beginning of my relationship with this man, I am going to spare you the long story and skip straight to the break up. ... Read more
Salon | All God's children (older) (article)

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, September 24 [9:20]
*DN | Without a Truce in Syrian Civil War, U.S.-Led Strikes Threaten More Chaos for World's Worst Crisis (09/24/14) [11:23]
DN | "We Can't Rely on Our Leaders": Inaction at Climate Summit Fuels Call for Movements to Take the Helm (09/24/14) [12:21]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart described the U.S. military action on terrorist groups operating in Syria as "the iPhone 6 of wars." (09/23/14) [8:10]
*Jon Stewart | General Tony Zinni new book - Before the First Shots Were Fired, Part 1 (09/23/14) [4:44], Part 2 [4:54]
*TRNN | Body of War, a film by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue (09/24/14) [1:27:38]
The above video by Phil Donahue is provided to us by The Real News Network (TRNN). I have added the two videos below, No End in Sight by Charles Ferguson, and Iraq War Documentary - Rachel Maddow because I think it is important to know how we left the country of Iraq, after we didn't win the war.
No End in Sight by Charles Ferguson (2006) [1:41:53]
"Hubris": Iraq War Documentary - Rachel Maddow (02/18/13) [44:11]
TRNN | Lecturer Baris Kaaragaac says: What Role Is Turkey Playing in the War against ISIS? (09/24/14) [18:15]
*TYT | United States Destroys ISIS Targets Throughout Syria (09/23/14) [10:16]
Some interesting YouTube Comments
Commenter 1: We've always been good at killing, but building democratic institutions to replace them, not so much.?

Comment back: You weren't really trying, since those institutions have an unfortunate habit of doing things you don't like - such as nationalizing oil.
Commenter 2: If you were building a Theocracy, a Religious State, would you deluge the world's Super Powers with threats and beheading videos and super slick trailers and warning footage of filming the White House?

This is what I don't get. They went out of their way to invite American intervention in Syria.

Obama went above Congress to launch American intervention with Syria.

Does any of this feel a little bit... contrived??
TYT | Bill O'Reilly Has The Secret To Defeating ISIS & It's Maximum O'Reilly (09/23/14) [9:51]
TYT | "F*ck It, I Quit" Says News Anchor Who Owns Alaska Cannabis Club (09/23/14) [6:17]
If nothing else, watch the News Caster's Internet video on why she quit that starts at 1:37 .
TYT | Is This Blowjob Selfie Child Porn? (09/23/14) [5:41]
Self publishing on the Internet has created a whole new set of problems... I like the way TYT discusses the issues (here and in other videos).

09.24.2014. 11:46

Tuesday September 23, 2014
News Articles

What’s Possible, a New Film for World Leaders on the Urgency of Global Warming
BillMoyers | author | 09/23/14

More than 120 world leaders – including President Barack Obama – kicked off a one-day United Nations’ summit on climate change in New York City by viewing What’s Possible, a short film on the urgency of global warming.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film’s images, some disturbing and some magnificent, are meant to remind them of what’s at stake: global warming will place our planet and all its inhabitants at destruction’s door unless our governments take immediate action. ... Read more
Bill Moyers | What’s Possible, a New Film for World Leaders on the Urgency of Global Warming. (09/23/14) [2:29]

Climate Change You Can Believe In
BillMoyers | Bill Moyers | 09/18/14

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Just as Sunday’s big People’s Climate March and next week’s UN global summit on climate converge here in New York City, the nation and world are experiencing weather of an intensity that should rattle the stubborn false convictions of even the most fervent climate change denier.

Terrible flooding in India and Pakistan, the worst in more than a century, with heavy monsoon rains, 500 lives lost and hundreds of thousands left stranded… thousands of wildfires ignited by severe drought in California and the West… flashfloods in Arizona… the punch of a hurricane pounding Mexico’s Baja coast, the strongest in nearly fifty years, battering locals and trapping tourists in their hotels without electricity. ... Read more

We Brought it on Ourselves: A Timeline of Choices We’ve Made to Increase Inequality
YesMagazine | author | 09/20/14

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*Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]
*Wealth Inequality in the World [3:51]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, September 23 [7:36]
*DN | Expanding U.S. Strikes to ISIS in Syria, Has Obama Opened New Phase of "Perpetual War"? (09/23/14) [19:48]
DN | Vandana Shiva, Winona LaDuke & Desmond D'Sa on a Global, Grassroots Response to U.N. Climate Summit (09/23/14) [13:01]
Bill Moyers | What’s Possible, a New Film for World Leaders on the Urgency of Global Warming. (09/23/14) [2:29]
The new short, narrated by Morgan Freeman, premiered before world leaders this morning at the UN climate change summit. Watch it here, along with an interview with the filmmakers.
*Bill Moyers | Kelsey Juliana, an 18-year-old activist, is fighting climate change in the courts and walking across the country to spread the word on global warming. (09/19/14) [25:26]
TRNN | Peter Sinclair and Cathy Kunkel discuss emerging possibilities for fighting climate change: a combination of locally-owned affordable solar and utility scale wind energy to replace the electrical grid (09/23/14) [13:48]
TYT | Would You Be This Calm If You Received A $117,000 Medical Bill? (09/22/14) [7:51]
TYT | Record-Setting Climate March Proves People Care & The Media Doesn't (09/22/14) [8:49]
TYT | ISIS Wants You & Everybody Else Dead, Especially The French (09/22/14) [10:05]
TYT | Congress About To Take A RIDICULOUSLY Long Vacation (09/22/14) [6:28]
Ring of Fire
RoF | Ring of Fire (09/21/14) [52:58]
00:43 - “The Party of Voter Suppression.” Attorney David Haynes will run down the latest GOP voter suppression efforts. #VoterSuppression

10:13 - "Democrats Can Win on Social Security.” Richard Eskow, host of The Zero Hour in Los Angeles, will tell us how Democrats can win in November by increasing funding to our social safety net programs. #ProtectSocialSecurity

19:58 - “The Dixieland Dilemma.” Attorney Howard Nations will tell us how the Right has destroyed everything in the South – from the environment to economic mobility. #DixielandDilemma

29:21 - “Californians Fight Malpractice Caps.” Attorney Anne Marie Murphy discusses California’s Prop 46, which turns tort reform on its head by addressing the REAL cause of malpractice. #YesonProp46

38:38 - “Labor Can Save The Middle Class.” Attorney Mike Burg will explain how a resurgent labor movement can help save the American middle class. Middle Class, Wages, Minimum Wage, Pay, Gap, Union, Worker. #SaveLabor
48:17 - “The Pap Attack: Democrats – Leave The South NOW!”

09.23.2014. 11:59

Monday September 22, 2014
News Articles

TV News Misses Yet Another Opportunity To Cover Climate Change
HP | By Jack Mirkinson | 09/22/14

The People's Climate March on Sunday was perhaps the largest climate change protest in history. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of New York City. Celebrities and high-profile politicians were among the marchers. The protest was a huge topic on social media. ...

...Well, so much for that idea. It seems climate change remains one potentially world-shattering issue that just can't get any respect on television. No Sunday morning show except MSNBC's "Up" so much as mentioned climate change, or the march, save for one stray reference on "This Week" by The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel. She pointed out that the march was actually gathering right outside the ABC studios in Lincoln Center where the show is taped. ... Read more

Times are a changing. Maybe this is telling us something about who believes in Climate Change.

Rockefellers Divesting From Big Oil
HP | Alana Horowitz | 08/21/14

The Rockefeller family is divesting some of its massive fortune from fossil fuels, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the family's charitable arm, will announce the landmark move in a video conference on Monday along with 49 other foundations. According to USA Today, the 50 groups will divest from 200 major oil and gas companies.

... The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has been a major supporter of environmental advocacy. Last year, the charity gave over $6 million in grants to sustainable development projects. ... Read more

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
TomDispatch | Alfred W. McCoy | older

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003. ... Read more, or Read more here

Apple said it sold 10 million new iPhones over the weekend.

Where The Housing "Recovery" Is, In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 09/22/14

Janet, we have a problem. The Fed's main policy transmission channel, since stock ownership is not widespread enough to affect the real economy's expectations, is via home equity wealth creation and animal spirit exuberance-based borrowing and leverage. As the following chart shows, the much-touted "housing recovery" pillar of the economy - that is set to take off and lift growth to escape velocity - is only evident in one place...
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Read more

California Or Ethiopia? "Families Dream Every Night About Water"
ZeroHedge | author | 09/22/14

It's worst and getting worst-er. Hundreds of domestic wells in California's drought-parched Central Valley farming region have run dry, according to AP, leaving many residents to rely on donated bottles of drinking water to get by. With government set to regulate deeper drilling, hope is plunging that a solution to California's drought will come anytime soon as groundwater levels plunge. The stories of struggle are simply stunning, especially given they are coming from America with Governor Brown signing an executive order that provides money to buy drinking water for residents statewide whose wells have dried up. ... Read more

 Possibly still working on articles.
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, September 22 [4:59]
*DN | Voices from the People's Climate March: Indigenous Groups Lead Historic 400,000-Strong NYC Protest (09/22/14) [7:48]
*DN | Heirs of Billionaire Oil Tycoon John D. Rockefeller Join Growing Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement (09/22/14) [12:57]
John Oliver
You have to watch the whole video to get the sense how we are lied to through mass media. The piece also gets funnier the further along you go.
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Miss America Pageant (09/21/14) [15:24]
And You Thought You Had a Bad Day (09/04/13) [1:04]
California Drought
Police Arrest Wayne Allen Huntsman for Allegedly Sparking California King Wildfire (09/19/14) [2:03]
One of California's Biggest Wildfires this Year
Wayne Allen Huntsman will be arraigned on arson charges related to the fire that threatens thousands of homes.
Ebola
Ebola survivor blood on black market (09/19/14) [2:26]
5,000 Infected | 2,600 Have Died
The WHO says people are turning to the black market to buy blood from Ebola survivors.
Gun Control
History of American Mass Shootings: 10 Facts You Need to Know (older) [5:18]
*TRNN | Professor Chris Williams says: World Leaders To Emit Promises of Hot Air at UN Climate Summit (09/22/14) [15:41]
TRNN | War, Whistleblowing and Independent Journalism Panel (09/22/14) [1:12:30]
Panel includes: William Binney, NSA whistleblower, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, EPA whistleblower, Jessica Desvarieux, journalist [moderator], Phil Donahue, journalist, Thomas Drake, NSA whistleblowr, Kirk Wiebe, NSA whistleblower.
TYT | Study: Who's More Moral, Religious or Non-Religious? (09/20/14) [5:56]
*TYT | How The Koch Brothers Corrupted Florida State University, and 163+ Other Colleges (09/20/14) [7:22]
TYT | Republicans Favorability Highest Level In Years - Blame ISIS? (09/20/14) [2:19]
TYT | Scotland Votes "No" On Independence (09/20/14) [8:22]
Ring of Fire
RoF | Seder: Climate Change Is Killing Us, and We Aren't Stopping It (09/19/14) [6:41]
History Timelines
History Timeline(s)
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.
Train travels through narrow gap inbetween houses in Vietnam (2013) [0:42]
Train travels through market area (2013) [0:42]
DC | The Longest Tunnel in The World () [43:20]
The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) is a railway tunnel in the heart of the Swiss Alps expected to open in 2016. With a route length of 57 km (35.4 mi) and a total of 151.84 km (94.3 mi) of tunnels, shafts and passages, it is the world's longest rail tunnel, surpassing the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.

Its main purpose is to increase total transport capacity across the Alps, especially for freight, notably between Germany and Italy, and more particularly to shift freight volumes from road to rail to reduce environmental damage caused by ever-increasing numbers of heavy lorries. A secondary benefit will be to cut the journey time for passenger trains from Zürich to Milan by about an hour and from Zürich to Lugano to 1-hour 40 minutes.
NatGeo | Documentary | The Deepest Place On Earth () [43:35]

09.22.2014. 11:35

Friday September 19, 2014
News Articles

Scotland Rejects Independence, Votes To Stay In The United Kingdom
Reuters & HP | Alistair Smout | 09/19/14

Scotland spurned independence in a historic referendum that threatened to rip the United Kingdom apart, sow financial turmoil and diminish Britain's remaining global clout.

A vote for the 307-year union is a relief for millions of Britons including Prime Minister David Cameron, whose job was on the line, as well as allies across the world who were horrified at the prospect of the United Kingdom's separation. Opponents of independence won 55 percent of the vote while separatists won 45 percent with all 3.6 million votes - a record 85 percent turnout - counted. But leaders from across the United Kingdom said the union must change if it is to endure. ... Read more

Voters aged 16-17: YES: 71%; NO: 29%
Voters aged 65+: YES: 27%; NO: 73%

Angry With Washington, 1 In 4 Americans Open To Secession
Reuters & HP | Scott Malone | 09/19/14

The failed Scottish vote to pull out from the United Kingdom stirred secessionist hopes for some in the United States, where almost a quarter of people are open to their states leaving the union, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Some 23.9 percent of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion. ... Read more

Sierra Leone's Capital At Standstill As 3-Day Ebola Lockdown Begins
Reuters & HP| Umaru Fofana| 09/19/14

Sierra Leone began a three-day lockdown on Friday in an effort to halt the spread of the Ebola virus, as President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents to comply with the emergency measures.

Streets in the normally bustling seaside capital Freetown were deserted, barring vehicles carrying police officers and health workers. Radio stations played Ebola awareness jingles on repeat and encouraged residents to stay indoors. ... Read more

3 Things Worth Thinking About
ZeroHedge | author | 09/19/14

While we are not predicting that the proverbial "wheels are about the come off the cart," today, this is another in a long list of indications that value in the stock market is no longer present. Of course, this would also suggest this might be, just maybe, a time to start considering "selling high." Of course, such a suggestion is wildly ludicrous and absolutely illogical since it is widely believed that the markets will never go down...ever. ...

... in a consumption based economy excess debt, structural unemployment and stagnant incomes retard economic prosperity. The simple fact is that when it requires roughly $4 of debt to create $1 of "real" economic growth - the engine of growth is broken. ... Read more

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Do we even need the major 24 hour news casts, when we have Stephen Cobert and Jon Stewart??
Stephen Cobert | Stephen Colbert considers our as-yet-unnamed Arab partners in the fight against ISIS -- and tells us it's time to be very afraid... (09/18/14) [8:49]

One-Pot Pasta Recipe
Oprah | Laurie David | date

Directions
Heat a large, heavy-bottomed pot over high heat. Drizzle in the olive oil. When it's hot, add the garlic and let it get nice and golden (this color adds lots of flavor); it will only take about 30 seconds. Add the onion and cook until the onion is translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, kale, basil, pasta, salt and 4 cups water. Bring the mixture to a boil while stirring, then reduce the heat to a simmer.

Cook the whole thing for the amount of time suggested on the pasta package, giving it an energetic stir every few minutes. If it starts to look too dry, add a slosh more water (about 1/2 cup at a time). Once the pasta is al-dente, fold in the Parmesan. Taste! Does it need some red pepper flakes? A pinch of salt? Top with the fresh basil, maybe a shower of Parmesan. Enjoy!
Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, September 19 (full) [58:56]
PBS Documentaries
*PBS | Capturing complicated portraits of 'high-voltage' Roosevelts (09/18/14) [7:44]
Theodore, Franklin, Eleanor -- these three American icons from a single family led and shaped the nation during the first half of the 20th century. But behind their public personas, they lived more complex lives. A new documentary series on PBS, "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," offers an in-depth exploration. Filmmaker Ken Burns joins Margaret Warner to discuss their legacy.

See the Episode in yesterdays News Pages (09/18/14).
*TRNN | Activists Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese discuss the major climate change events taking place this weekend in New york City (09/19/14) [12:10]
*TRNN | Deepa Kumar and Peter Hart say the mainstream media is working to manufacture consent for further military action in Syria and Iraq (09/18/14) [21:43]
TRNN | Vijay Prashad: If the West is serious about tackling ISIS it must lessen the chaos within Syria and seek a political solution (09/18/14) [14:24]
TRNN | Lecturer Peter Watt discusses the issues and history surrounding Scottish Independence (09/18/14) [16:48]
PBS NewsHour
PBS NewsHour | What role should Mideast countries play in Islamic State fight? (09/18/14) [10:04]
*TYT | When Your Workers Want Rights Just Pay Off A Politician (09/19/14) [8:44]
*TYT | Hillary Clinton 2016 Survey Results, TYT's Progressive Petition Update (09/19/14) [6:42]
TYT | Boots on the Ground? Obama Declares War on Ebola (09/17/14) [4:23]
I know Cenk is poking fun at a very serious problem. But, I agree with his argument, that everything in American Foreign (and possibly Domestic) Policy has to framed as a War, i.e. War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on... Why can't we just be a nation of humanitarian relief ??
TYT | Occupy Movement Buys & Forgives $4 Million In Student Loan Debt (09/19/14) [6:17]
TYT | ISIS "Flames of War" Propaganda Tape Released (09/17/14) [4:40]
TYT | Beheaded Journalists' Family "Bullied" By Obama Administration (09/17/14) [7:09]
I'm not sure I totally agree with Cenk on this one. I think the family should be able to pay the ransom. Should the government be involved... probably not.
TYT | ISIS Releases New Hostage Video - British Journalist John Cantlie (09/19/14) [7:40]
TYT | Congress Passes War Funding To Support Obama's ISIS Fight (09/19/14) [7:28]
TYT | Sex Tourist Rush Limbaugh Unclear On Meaning Of Consensual Sex (09/17/14) [6:19]
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 (and old) 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.

09.19.2014. 10:44

Thursday September 18, 2014
News Articles

Scotland Independence Vote Commences
AP & HP | Jill Lawless | 09/18/14

For Scots, Wednesday was a day of excitement, apprehension, and a flood of final appeals before a big decision. In a matter of hours, they will determine whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and becomes an independent state.

A full 97 percent of those eligible have registered to vote -- including, for the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds -- in a referendum that polls suggest is too close to call. ... Read more
PBS NewsHour | Scottish independence vote too close to call on election eve (09/17/14) [5:02]

Goldman's Q&A On What Yellen Really Said (Or Didn't)
ZeroHedge | author | 09/18/14

Since it is the NY Fed, headed by an ex-Goldmanite, which will ultimately be tasked with exiting 6 years of "unconventional monetary policy" - at some point during this "recovery" if not now or any time soon for that matter - it is probably best to listen to Goldman for its post-mortem on what the chairwoman did or did not say. Which is why we present a "Q&A" with Goldman's head economist, Jan Hatzius, known to occasionally exchange a sandwich and the occasional policy guidelene, with NY Fed's Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence, in which he explains how Yellen managed to be both more dovish and more hawkish than the "market" expected. ... Read more

The Trolling Continues: Fed Chairwoman Expresses Her Condolences To America's Poor
ZeroHedge | author | 09/18/14

Janet Yellen released a speech this morning explaining how sorry she is about 'the poor' and why they need to get rich. In the speech below, she stresses, "how important it is to promote asset-building, including saving for a rainy day, as protection from the ups and downs of the economy," despite falling incomes, rising costs, and extending credit, we assume she means. ...

... For lower-income families, what we find is sobering. The median net worth reported by the bottom fifth of households by income was only $6,400 in 2013. Among this group, representing about 25 million American households, many families had no wealth or had negative net worth. The next fifth of households by income had median net worth of just $27,900. These numbers represent declines from 2010. One reason is that income has continued to fall for these families ... Read more

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Five Signs the Dark-Money Apocalypse Is Upon Us
MotherJones | Andy Kroll | 09/18/14

It's the home stretch of the 2014 election season. No single theme or issue has dominated the midterms, but 2014 is on pace to be the Year of Dark Money.

Nonprofit groups, some well-known (such as the US Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity, founded by the Koch brothers) and some obscure (America Inc., anyone?), have dumped huge sums of anonymous money into every competitive Senate race and many House contests. Here are five eye-opening indicators showing the rapid spread of dark money in this year's campaign season--and why it's going to get worse as Election Day approaches. ... Read more

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Dirty Secret of $1 Trillion Loans Is When Do You Get Money Back?
Bloomberg | author | date

Imagine a trillion-dollar market that runs on faxes and phone calls while routinely tying up investors' money for months before they get any return. That's not fiction: It's the unregulated market for leveraged corporate loans. In a financial system that is increasingly automated, the origination and trading of loans is in the relative dark ages while money pours in from mainstream investors such as Kansas and New York pension plans and mutual funds catering to individuals seeking high yields in an era of near-zero interest rates.

The antiquated structure of a market that's ballooned from a mere $35 billion in 1997 poses a growing threat, raising the odds of gridlock in a downturn when investors expect to get their money back with a click of a button. As of yet, no regulators have taken responsibility for fixing the deficiency.

"It's a critical issue," said Beth MacLean, a money manager at Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.97 trillion, including the world's biggest bond mutual fund. "Any single retail fund not being able to meet their redemptions would have a ripple effect on the whole market." ...

... Judith Burns, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has placed a priority on monitoring corporate and municipal bond trading more closely, declined to comment. So did representatives of the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- which have all raised concern that banks are being too lax in their loan underwriting standards. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, September 18 [11:59]
*DN | Capitalism vs. the Climate: Naomi Klein on Need for New Economic Model to Address Ecological Crisis (09/18/14) [8:00], Part 2 [13:20]
Politics
PBS NewsHour | Would America elect a Roosevelt today? (09/17/14) [2:42]
*The Roosevelts
PBS | The Roosevelts - Get Action (1858-1901) Part 1 (09/14/14) [1:54:57]
Examine the early lives of Theodore Roosevelt and his younger cousin, Franklin.
PBS | The Roosevelts - In the Arena (1901-1910) Part 2 (09/14/14) [1:56:20]
Murder brings Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, but in the seven years that follow, he transforms the office and makes himself perhaps the best-loved of all presidents, battling corporate greed, preserving American wilderness, carrying the message of American might around the world. FDR weds Eleanor Roosevelt, and jumps at the chance to run for the New York state senate.
PBS | The Fire of Life (1910-1919) Part 3 (09/14/14) [1:56:30]
Theodore Roosevelt leads a Progressive crusade that splits his own party, campaigns for American entry into World War I -- and pays a terrible personal price. Franklin masters wartime Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, while Eleanor finds personal salvation in war work. Her discovery of Franklin's romance with another woman transforms their marriage into a largely political partnership.
PBS | The Storm (1920-1933) Part 4 (09/14/14) [1:56:40]
Franklin Roosevelt runs for vice president in 1920 and seems assured of a still brighter future until polio devastates him. He spends seven years struggling without success to walk again, while Eleanor builds her own personal and political life of. FDR returns to politics in 1928 and acts with such vigor during the first years of the Great Depression that the Democrats nominate him for president.
PBS | The Rising Road (1933-1939) Part 5 (09/14/14) [1:56:40]
FDR brings the same optimism and energy to the White House that his cousin Theodore displayed. Aimed at ending the Depression, his sweeping New Deal restores the people's self-confidence and transforms the relationship between them and their government. Eleanor rejects the traditional role of first lady, becomes her husband's liberal conscience and a sometimes controversial political force.
PBS | The Common Cause (1939-1944) Part 6 (09/14/14) [1:55:05]
FDR shatters the third-term tradition, struggles to prepare a reluctant country to enter World War II and, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, helps set the course toward Allied victory. Meanwhile, Eleanor struggles to keep New Deal reforms alive in wartime and travels the Pacific to comfort wounded servicemen.
PBS | A Strong and Active Faith (1944-1962) Part 7 (09/14/14) [1:51:33]
Frail and failing but determined to see the war through to victory, FDR wins re-election and begins planning for a peaceful postwar world, but a cerebral hemorrhage kills him at 63. After her husband's death, Eleanor Roosevelt proves herself a shrewd politician and a skilled negotiator in her own right, as well as a champion of civil rights, civil liberties and the United Nations.
Smart People
PBS NewsHour | Malala explains why she risked death for girls' education (09/16/14) [5:58]
Environment
PBS NewsHour | GMO debate grows over golden rice in the Philippines (09/17/14) [8:25]

09.18.2014. 10:06

Wednesday September 17, 2014
News Articles

Naomi Klein: Only a Reverse Shock Doctrine Can Save Our Climate
BillMoyers | Joshua Holland | 09/16/14

In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein argues that if we had taken action years ago when scientists first established that human activities were changing our climate, we might have been able to deal with the problem of global warming with only minimal disruption to our economic system. But as we approach a tipping point, and the consequences of climate change come into sharper focus, that time has passed, and we now have to acknowledge that preserving humans’ habitat requires a paradigm change.

But Klein doesn’t just offer us a depressing litany of the damage we’ve already done. She calls on us to seriously rethink the way our economy is structured to address not only climate change, but also other longstanding social problems like persistent global poverty and rising inequality. ... Read more
*Naomi Klein on Capitalism and Climate Change (older, but she speaks SO well, 11/15/12) [31:51]

Naomi Klein, author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine (Disaster Capitalism), says the tragic destruction of Hurricane Sandy can also be the catalyst for the transformation of politics and our economy. She’s been in New York visiting the devastated areas -- including those where “Occupy Sandy” volunteers are unfolding new models of relief -- as part of her reporting for a new book and film on climate change and the future, and joins Bill to discuss hurricanes, climate change, and democracy.
Facebook for the 1 percent –> An entrepreneur is launching a social media site for rich people “where you could talk about the finer things in life without backlash.” In order to keep out the riffraff, it will cost $9,000 to join and $250 per month for membership. Via: CNN.

Ebola Cases Could Double Every 3 Weeks
AP & HP | author | date

The number of Ebola cases could start doubling every three weeks in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, warning that the outbreak will cost nearly $1 billion to contain so it does not turn into a "human catastrophe."

Even as President Barack Obama is ordering the deployment of 3,000 U.S. military personnel to help provide aid in the region, Doctors Without Borders said the global response to Ebola has been far short of what is needed. ... Read more

Marriott Skewered For Asking Guests To Help Pay Its Hotel Maids
HP | Alexander C. Kaufman | 09/17/14

Hotel behemoth Marriott -- which raked in nearly $13 billion in revenue last year -- wants guests to cough up a little more cash to help pay its hotel maids. Surprising to no one, customers are infuriated.

The company teamed up with TV anchor and activist Maria Shriver to launch a campaign on Monday called “The Envelope Please.” This week, envelopes will be placed in 160,000 Marriott hotel rooms across the U.S. and Canada requesting that guests tip the hotel’s cleaning staff. ... Read more



Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, September 17 [11:56]
*DN | U.S. Ground Troops Back in Iraq? General Hints Broader Military Effort May Be Needed to Fight ISIS (09/17/14) [18:07]
DN | As Activists Gear Up for People's Climate March, Rep. Jim McDermott Pushes Carbon Tax (09/17/14) [3:01]
DN | Debate: Should Scotland Vote for Independence? Musician Billy Bragg vs. Historian Sam Wetherell (09/17/14) [9:58]
*TRNN | Prof. Gerald Epstein comments: on the new Fed rules and the appointment of Federal Reserve's Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer to head the Financial Stability Committee (09/17/14) [10:28]
TRNN | Special Report: Scots in Their Own Words on Independence (09/17/14) [4:48]
TRNN | Andrew Levine says: What Drives American Israel Policy? (09/17/14) [16:56]
ISIS | ISIL | IS
The Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL has released its initial 'rebuff' propaganda response to President Obama's declaration of war against the 'non-islamic' terrorist organization. The brief video entitled "Flames of War" is shot like a blockbuster-movie-style trailer and threatens US troops and the White House. As Politico reports, the militant terror group vows that the “fighting has just begun” in the minute-long video, which features clips of American military forces under fire and a wounded U.S. soldier being taken from the battlefield. The video concludes as the words "Flames of War" flash on the screen, followed by "Fighting has just begun" and ends ominously: "Coming Soon." Even more concerning perhaps is al-Qaeda branches calling for all jihadists to unite against the common threat from a US-led coalition.
New Film Coming from Al Hayat Media, the English-language media arm of ISIS (09/17/14) [128]
Environment | Climate Change
What Climate Change Would Actually Look Like (09/15/14) [2:10]
Interesting
It's a new era for Goodyear's iconic blimp. You could call it the Age of the Zeppelin (04/03/14) [3:19]
The Ohio-based tire and rubber company started testing its next-generation airship last month at Goodyear's airfield near Akron. Yes, this is an actual Zeppelin airship, made in partnership with the German company that dates to before the infamous Hindenburg disaster.

09.17.2014. 10:29

Tuesday September 16, 2014
News Articles

A Wealthy Capitalist on Why Money Doesn't Trickle Down
Bill Moyers | Nick Hanauer | 09/11/14

The fundamental law of capitalism is: When workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers -- not rich businesspeople -- the true job creators. A thriving middle class isn't a consequence of growth -- which is what the trickle-down advocates would tell you. A thriving middle class is the source of growth and prosperity in capitalist economies.

Our economy has changed, lest you think that the minimum wage is for teenagers. The average age of a fast-food worker is 28. And minimum wage jobs aren't confined to a small corner of the economy. By 2040, it is estimated that 48 percent of all American jobs will be low-wage service jobs. We need to reckon with this. What will our economy be like when it's dominated by low paying service jobs? What proportion of the population do we want to live on food stamps? 50 percent? Does this matter? Should we care?

Business people tell me they cannot afford higher wages. Not true. They can adjust to all sorts of higher costs. The minimum wage is much higher here in Seattle than in Alabama, and McDonald's thrives in both places. Businesses adjust to higher costs, even when they say they can't.

Our economy can be safe and effective only if it is governed by rules. Some capitalists actually don't care about other people, their communities or the future. Their behavior, if left unchecked, has a massive effect on everyone else. When Wal-Mart or McDonald's or any other guy like me pays workers the minimum wage, that's our way of saying, "I would pay you less, except then I'd go to prison." ... Read more

Fox News Aired Nearly 1,100 Benghazi Segments Across 5 Programs, Study Finds. Read article here

The Planet Just Had Its Warmest August On Record
HP | Nick Visser | 09/15/14

This past August was the warmest since records began in 1881, according to new data released by NASA. The latest readings continue a series of record or near-record breaking months. May of this year was also the warmest in recorded history.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told The Huffington Post that while the agency's data does indicate that this August was the hottest on record, the difference falls within a few hundredths of a degree compared with previous Augusts. ... Read more
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) - Panoply netCDF, HDF and GRIB Data Viewer

So what is your idea of a hospital?
Please, people around the world need our humanitarian help... not our bombs!!
Monrovia, the Liberian capital, is facing a widespread Ebola epidemic 909/11/14) [3:45]

The Demise of a US Group Backing Moderate Syrian Rebels Is a Bad Sign for Obama's Anti-ISIS Campaign
MotherJones | Dana Liebelson | 09/16/14

Last week, President Barack Obama outlined his plan for expanding military action against ISIS, the murderous Islamic extremist group that controls territory in Iraq and Syria. His beefed-up campaign includes increased funding previously announced (up to $500 million) to train and arm supposedly moderate rebels in Syria who are fighting the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad and also at times battling ISIS. For the past few years, Washington has assisted Syrian opposition forces deemed non-extremist--even though they might be fighting alongside Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels. But the effort has not been a great success, with hawks accusing the Obama administration of not doing enough, and administration officials skeptical about the moderate opposition's cohesion and military effectiveness and wary of doling out weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. In February, the leader of the moderate Free Syrian Army--who was the conduit for US aid to the rebels--was removed by his own council, partly because the FSA had been taking a beating from the regime and Islamist forces. Now Obama intends to boost the US effort to support these moderate fighters in Syria. But this move comes just weeks after the collapse of the Syrian Support Group, a US-based nonprofit backed by the State Department that boasted it delivered millions in dollars of nonlethal supplies to the FSA. According to former officials of the group, it shut down because of funding problems and divisions among rebel forces. Read more

How IS Is Organized (09/11/14) [3:19]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, September 16 [11:44]
DN | A Survivor's Burden: Columbia Student Carries Mattress on Campus Until Alleged Rapist is Expelled (09/16/14) [10:17]
DN | "We Will Not Be Silenced": Students Denounce Rape at Columbia as Schools Face Scrutiny for Inaction (09/16/14) [19:36]
John Oliver
Boy, we should get rid of all the politicians and replace them with comedians. At least we would know what is really happening.
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Scottish Independence (09/14/14) [15:18]
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart broke out his Lindsey Graham impression again -- and this might've been his best one yet.. (09/15/14) [5:29]
*TRNN | Economist Patrick Bond: Breakthroughs Unlikely at Upcoming UN Climate Summit (09/16/14) [12:40]
TRNN | Andrew Levine says: ISIS Wants the US Drawn into a Ground War, Part 1 (older 09/11/14) [17:27]
TRNN | Andrew Levine says: What Drives Obama's Foreign Policy? Part 2 (09/16/14) [21:09]
*TYT | Texas Sheriff Threatens To Send ISIS To Hell on Fox News (09/15/14) [4:19]
TYT | Panicky Republican Senator Says The US Must Invade Syria (09/15/14) [7:38]
As the United States begins to deepen ties with moderate Syrian rebels to combat the extremist group ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, a key component of its coalition appears to have struck a non-aggression pact with the group.

According to Agence France-Presse, ISIS and a number of moderate and hard-line rebel groups have agreed not to fight each other so that they can focus on taking down the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Other sources say the signatories include a major U.S. ally linked to the Free Syrian Army. Moreover, the leader of the Free Syrian Army said Saturday that the group would not take part in U.S. plans for destroying the Islamic State until it got assurances on toppling Assad.

The deal between ISIS and the moderate Syrian groups casts doubt over President Barack Obama's freshly announced strategy to arm and train the groups against ISIS.
TYT | Cenk Offers The "Uygur Maneuver" To Handle ISIS Militants (09/15/14) [9:31]
TYT | Will Rand Paul's ISIS Policy Help Him Beat Hillary in 2016? (09/15/14) [3:53]
John Oliver
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Scottish Independence (09/14/14) [15:18]
Ring of Fire
RoF | The Next Foreclosure Nightmare is Here (09/05/14) [9:46]
I Love Nomi Prins Interviews
usawatchdog.com | Nomi Prins-Financial Crash-Collapse Coming, It Should Have Happened Already (04/15/14) [19:40]

09.16.2014. 10:39

Monday September 15, 2014
News Articles

Finally, Wall Street gets put on trial: We can still hold the 0.1 percent responsible for tanking the economy
Salon | Thomas Frank | 09/07/14

The Tea Party regards Barack Obama as a kind of devil figure, but when it comes to hunting down the fraudsters responsible for the economic disaster of the last six years, his administration has stuck pretty close to the Tea Party script. The initial conservative reaction to the disaster, you will recall, was to blame the crisis on the people at the bottom, on minorities and proletarians lost in an orgy of financial misbehavior. Sure enough, when taking on ordinary people who got loans during the real-estate bubble, the president's Department of Justice has shown admirable devotion to duty, filing hundreds of mortgage-fraud cases against small-timers. ...

...This is a difficult thing to understand--indeed, not understanding it is the stated reason Obama Administration officials have made no effort to send financiers to jail--so let us take this slowly. Executives at the mortgage origination companies got huge bonuses in those days for writing lots of loans. OK? They wanted to write more of them, and the only way to really crank out mortgages on a vast scale was by giving one to anyone who wanted one, regardless of their ability to pay, a feat that is only possible by means of the "liar's loan." So: Liar's loans = rich bankers. ... Read more

CQ Roll Call Unveils the 50 Richest Members of Congress
mediabistro.com | Nick Massella | 09/08/14

At the top of the list this year and last is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) with a net worth of more than $350 million. Rounding out the Top 10 is Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Rep. John Delaney (D-MD), Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA).

At the bottom of the Top 50 is Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) with a net worth of $7.47 million. Roll Call's Top 50 includes 30 Republicans and 20 Democrats, 35 House and 15 Senate members, and 41 men and 9 women. ... Read more

50 Richest Members of Congress

Lindsey Graham Worries Islamic State Will Destroy Americans, Wipe Out Mankind
HP | Jennifer Bendery | 09/14/14

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday slammed President Barack Obama's strategy for combating Islamic State militants and said the president needs to significantly step up military action against the terrorist group before it comes to the United States and "we all get killed."

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Graham said the Obama administration is "delusional" for thinking it can counter the Islamic State, a terrorist group in Syria sometimes called ISIS or ISIL, primarily through expanded air strikes and by training Syrians for ground combat.

"There's no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria to destroy ISIL without a substantial American component," said Graham, a prominent war hawk on Capitol Hill. "This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home." ... Read more

Why Scotland Has All The Leverage, In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 09/15/14

As Scotland prepares to vote for or against Independence from the Union on Thursday, it appears everyone has an opinion on what may, what should and what will happen. At the basis of every such opinion is some basis in fact, misguided as it may be in most cases, about who has all the leverage, with the dominant one being that Scotland would make a horrendous mistake if it says goodbye to the UK and puts a border around what is currently a third of UK's landmass.

Some, such as Deutsche Bank, the bank that has the single greatest derivative exposure in the world and is therefore most leveraged to maintaining the status quo, saw its "Chief Economist & Member, Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG" David Folkerts-Landau personally put pen to paper on Friday and in rambling, demagogic terms, explain why it would be a "Wrong Turn" for Scotland to seek self-determination.

He says that, "A "Yes" vote for Scottish independence on Thursday would go down in history as a political and economic mistake as large as Winston Churchill's decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard or the failure of the Federal Reserve to provide sufficient liquidity to the US banking system, which we now know brought on the Great Depression in the US. These decisions -- well-intentioned as they were -- contributed to years of depression and suffering and could have been avoided had alternative decisions been taken." ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, September 15 [9:20]
DN | Is There a Diplomatic Solution to ISIS Crisis? U.S. Could Turn to Aid, Arms Embargo & Engaging Foes (09/15/14) [19:59]
DN | Who Pays the Pro-War Pundits? Conflicts of Interest Exposed for TV Guests Backing Military Action (09/15/14) [9:26]
DN | Underestimated and Ignored, Growing Ebola Epidemic Requires Unprecedented Global Mobilization (09/15/14) [15:32]
The Dollar as Petro Dollar, as a Reserve Currency
This video examines the history of the dollar, its relation to oil, and the real motives behind the wars of the past two decades. (older) [13:47]
*TRNN | Though Senate Republicans have thwarted a constitutional amendment to rein in campaign contributions, Democrats can pursue alternative strategies to increase transparency without a supermajority (09/14/14) [8:33]
TRNN | The Economic Cost of the Fifty Day War Against Gaza (09/15/14) [16:28]
TRNN | Bill Black says: Attorney General Eric Holder must stop targeting minorities and instead focus on the mortgage fraud of banksters (09/15/14) [6:58]
*TYT | America Ruled By Wealthy Lords (09/13/14) [4:43]
TYT | Michael Moore Puts Obama's Legacy In Sad, Simple Terms (09/13/14) [6:41]
TYT | Wall Street's Lies Brought To Light In Court & The Result Stuns (09/13/14) [7:57]
TYT | Politician Forgets To Lie (09/13/14) [3:00]
Ring of Fire
*RoF | Far Right Groups Pose Serious Security Threats (09/12/14) [10:57]
sovereign-citizenship.net website
Environment | Climate Change | Better Management!
IPCC | Climate Change 2014 Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (04/04/14) [12:02]
The Billionaires
*The rise and role of the new oligarchs and the decline of democracy in the United States (09/13/14) [47:38]
Bloomberg Billionaires
Exponential (hockey stick) growth
Of all the Dooms Day videos I have watched, this one effected me the most. Even though I'm sure he didn't intend his class lecture to be of that gendra, Professor Albert Bartlett has simplified the concept of Exponential Growth (Hockey Stick) down to easy enough terms so we can all be scared out of our wits.
Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of Physics at Univ of Colorado-Boulder, talks about how to view unfettered growth [1:13:54]
Give the above video a chance. Watch the first 10 minutes and see if it doesn't spark an interest. Professor Bartlett has an easy way of explaining exponential (hockey stick) growth that most of us don't understand.
Visualize Your Future
National Debt
*Demonocracyinfo | US Debt in Physical $100 bills [2:10]
Click to zoom - for bigger image
FED - Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve Explained In 7 Minutes [7:06]
Click to zoom - for bigger image
Crash Course - Debt, Chp 13 [14:19]
Banksters | FED | Money | Debt
*Mike Maloney | The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind - Hidden Secrets of Money 4 [29:34]
Derivatives
*Brookley Born: Derivatives still a ticking time bomb! Sept 2011 () [11:42]
Click to zoom - for bigger image
*Derivatives Held by the Different Banks
*DN | All the President's Bankers: Nomi Prins on Secret History of Washington-Wall Street Collusion (04/08/14) [17:47], Part 2 [4:17]
Quarterly Report on Bank Derivatives Activities.pdf
OCC's Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities.pdf
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across

09.15.2014. 08:48

Friday September 12, 2014
News Articles

How Billionaires Like the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and Sam Walton Are Destroying America
AlterNet | Steve Fraser | 09/11/14

George Baer was a railroad and coal mining magnate at the turn of the twentieth century. Amid a violent and protracted strike that shut down much of the country's anthracite coal industry, Baer defied President Teddy Roosevelt's appeal to arbitrate the issues at stake, saying, "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for... not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men of property to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country." To the Anthracite Coal Commission investigating the uproar, Baer insisted, "These men don't suffer. Why hell, half of them don't even speak English."

We might call that adopting the imperial position. Titans of industry and finance back then often assumed that they had the right to supersede the law and tutor the rest of America on how best to order its affairs. They liked to play God. It's a habit that's returned with a vengeance in our own time.

The Koch brothers are only the most conspicuous among a whole tribe of "self-made" billionaires who imagine themselves architects or master builders of a revamped, rehabilitated America. The resurgence of what might be called dynastic or family capitalism, as opposed to the more impersonal managerial capitalism many of us grew up with, is changing the nation's political chemistry. ... Read more

How to Build a Green Economy Without Sacrificing Jobs
Bill Moyers & Boston Review | Robert Pollin | 09/11/14

Here is the fundamental challenge we confront with climate change. As of 2010, total annual greenhouse gas emissions were at 45 billion metric tons of mostly carbon dioxide (CO2), along with smaller amounts of methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that to stabilize the global average temperature at its current level of around 60.3° Fahrenheit, which is 3.6° above the pre-industrial average of 56.7°, total emissions will need to fall by 40 percent by 2030, to 27 billion metric tons annually, and by 80 percent in 2050, to about 9 billion metric tons.

We are not on track to meet these goals. As long as global economic growth proceeds along roughly the trajectory it has taken over the past century, and especially the past fifty years, global emissions will not fall at all, but rather will rise over time as more and more fossil fuels -- oil, coal and natural gas -- are burned to meet increasing demands for energy. The greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning fossil fuels account for nearly 80 percent of all emissions. ... Read more

How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World
MotherJones | Mariah Blake | Oct 2014

One icy morning in February 2012, Hillary Clinton's plane touched down in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, which was just digging out from a fierce blizzard. Wrapped in a thick coat, the secretary of state descended the stairs to the snow-covered tarmac, where she and her aides piled into a motorcade bound for the presidential palace. That afternoon, they huddled with Bulgarian leaders, including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, discussing everything from Syria's bloody civil war to their joint search for loose nukes. But the focus of the talks was fracking. The previous year, Bulgaria had signed a five-year, $68 million deal, granting US oil giant Chevron millions of acres in shale gas concessions. Bulgarians were outraged. Shortly before Clinton arrived, tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets carrying placards that read "Stop fracking with our water" and "Chevron go home." Bulgaria's parliament responded by voting overwhelmingly for a fracking moratorium. Clinton urged Bulgarian officials to give fracking another chance. ... Read more

Transnational Corporations (TNCs) , capitalist network that runs the world
newscientist.com | author | 10/24/11

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. ...

... The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). ... Read more

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies
  1. Barclays plc
  2. Capital Group Companies Inc
  3. FMR Corporation
  4. AXA
  5. State Street Corporation
  6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
  7. Legal & General Group plc
  8. Vanguard Group Inc
  9. UBS AG
  10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
  11. Wellington Management Co LLP
  12. Deutsche Bank AG
  13. Franklin Resources Inc
  14. Credit Suisse Group
  15. Walton Enterprises LLC
  16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
  17. Natixis
  18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
  19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
  20. Legg Mason Inc
  21. Morgan Stanley
  22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
  23. Northern Trust Corporation
  24. Société Générale
  25. Bank of America Corporation
  26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
  27. Invesco plc
  28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA
  29. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
  30. Aviva plc
  31. Schroders plc
  32. Dodge & Cox
  33. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
  34. Sun Life Financial Inc
  35. Standard Life plc
  36. CNCE
  37. Nomura Holdings Inc
  38. The Depository Trust Company
  39. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
  40. ING Groep NV
  41. Brandes Investment Partners LP
  42. Unicredito Italiano SPA
  43. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
  44. Vereniging Aegon
  45. BNP Paribas
  46. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
  47. Resona Holdings Inc
  48. Capital Group International Inc
  49. China Petrochemical Group Company
The network of global corporate control

 Ran out of time, will continue Monday.
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, September 12 [11:01]
*DN | "Insanity": CodePink's Medea Benjamin on Obama Plan to Bomb Syria, Expand Iraq Attacks (09/12/14) [8:32]
*DN | James Foley on the Dehumanization of War: Acclaimed Filmmaker Haskell Wexler Shares 2012 Interview (09/12/14) [20:02]
*DN | The Untold Story of the Shejaiya Massacre in Gaza: A Former Israel Soldier Speaks Out (09/12/14) [14:51]
*Bill Moyers | Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe talks: Climate Change: Faith and Fact. (09/12/14) [25:15]
Environment
*Showtime | Years of Living Dangerously Premiere, Ep1 (full) [59:11]
Peter Hadfield : The Real Consequences of Climate Change (05/30/14) [18:53]
Michael Mann: The irreversible impacts from Climate Change (03/25/14) [11:53]
Yale | Scientists Document Terrifying Greenland Ice Loss (09/12/14) [6:56]
John Perkins : Confessions of an Econmic Hitman () [2:07]
*TRNN | U.S. Intelligence Official: No Evidence ISIL Is Planning Imminent Attack on America1 (09/12/14) [6:48]
Obama's plan to support the Shi'a and Kurds in Iraq could worsen sectarianism fighting, and a new report says arms sent to moderate Syrian rebels have ended up in ISIS's hands.
*TRNN | The Bennis Plan: Here is a Real Strategy for Dealing with ISIS (09/12/14) [15:36]
TRNN | Michael Ratner Report:: The Barbaric World that the United States has Shaped Since 9-11 (09/11/14) [12:11]
TYT | Obama Rallies America To War & Why ISIS Should Be Thrilled (09/11/14) [15:27]
TYT | GOP Hot Shots Distort, Lie & Spread A Slimy New Anti-Obama Talking Point (09/11/14) [7:58]
TYT | ISIS Is Not A Threat To America (But They Soon Will Be) (09/11/14) [7:21]
Inequality
Click to zoom - for Infographics
Walmart
Now I remember why I don't shop at Walmart.

09.12.2014. 11:20

Thursday September 11, 2014
News Articles
President Obama speech on ISIS ISIL - Barack Obama Address US War strategy fight ISIL (09/10/2014) [9:06]

Obama's Broad Coalition Cracks - UK, Germany Won't Support Airstrikes In Syria
ZeroHedge | author | 09/11/14

Well that didn't take long. After espousing his strategy last night of leading a broad coalition against ISIS, it appears President Obama's "allies" are backing away from the plan. As The WSJ reports, Germany and the U.K. on Thursday ruled out carrying out air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria. It appears the Europeans, realizing the ire that these actions will likely cause to Putin, are stepping back - "We haven't been asked, nor will we do it," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters and his U.K. counterpart Philip Hammond explicitly ruled out air strikes in Syria, after the U.K. parliament struck down such a move last year. So that leaves the French? ... Read more

OH My God, what is the world coming to?
Boyack, 91, left, and Dubes, 90, tied the knot Sept. 6 in Iowa.
How can these women corrupt our children?

Obama's Former Chief Economist Calls For An End To US Dollar Reserve Status
ZeroHedge | author | 09/08/14

There are few truisms about the world economy, but for decades, one has been the role of the United States dollar as the world's reserve currency. It's a core principle of American economic policy. After all, who wouldn't want their currency to be the one that foreign banks and governments want to hold in reserve? ... Read more

What Petrodollar: Russia, China To Create SWIFT Alternative
ZeroHedge | author | 09/10/14

According to Itar-Tass, Russia and China are discussing setting up a system of interbank transactions which will become an analogue to International banking transaction system SWIFT, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told PRIME on Wednesday after negotiations in Beijing. "Yes, we have discussed and we have approved this idea," he said. ... Read more

Fed's rate guidance on chopping block, new exit plan nears
Reuters | Ann Saphir | 09/11/14

The U.S. Federal Reserve is facing perhaps its most pivotal meeting of the year next week, as it debates a potential overhaul of its guidance on interest rates and seeks to nail down a plan for exiting its extraordinarily easy monetary policy.

It remains to be seen whether decisions will be taken on either, but it is clear that details on a so-called exit plan are nearly complete, while discomfort is growing internally over a pledge to keep rates near zero for a "considerable time. ... Read more

How IS Is Organized (09/11/14) [3:19]
Syrian Rebel Vetting Questionaire

Welcome to the United States' Moderate Syrian Rebel Vetting Process. To see if you qualify for $500 million in American weapons, please choose an answer to the following questions:

As a Syrian rebel, I think the word or phrase that best describes me is:

A) Moderate
B) Very moderate
C) Crazy moderate
D) Other

I became a Syrian rebel because I believe in:

A) Truth
B) Justice
C) The American Way
D) Creating an Islamic caliphate

If I were given a highly lethal automatic weapon by the United States, I would:

A) Only kill exactly the people that the United States wanted me to kill
B) Try to kill the right people, with the caveat that I have never used an automatic weapon before
C) Kill people only after submitting them to a rigorous vetting process
D) Immediately let the weapon fall into the wrong hands

I have previously received weapons from:

A) Al Qaeda
B) The Taliban
C) North Korea
D) I did not receive weapons from any of them because after they vetted me I was deemed way too moderate

I consider ISIS:

A) An existential threat to Iraq
B) An existential threat to Syria
C) An existential threat to Iraq and Syria
D) The people who will pick up my American weapon after I drop it and run away

Complete the following sentence. "American weapons are…"

A) Always a good thing to randomly add to any international hot spot
B) Exactly what this raging civil war has been missing for the past three years
C) Best when used moderately
D) Super easy to resell online

Thank you for completing the Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form. We will process your application in the next one to two business days. Please indicate a current mailing address where you would like your weapons to be sent. If there is no one to sign for them we will leave them outside the front door.
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, September 11 [9:48]
*DN | Obama Vows to Destroy Islamic State, But Expanded Strikes in Syria & Iraq Point to "Endless War" (09/11/14) [10:48]
Environment - Climate Change
*Time history of atmospheric carbon dioxide, by CIRES & NOAA (current) [1:31]
*TRNN | Vijay Prashad says: American Bombs Will Not Defeat ISIS (09/10/14) [18:50]
Vijay Prashad says the Saudis and Iran must be part of a regional solution that includes ending support for jihadists in Syria; the solution will not come from the US military.
TYT | Media Practically BEGGING For War (09/10/14) [12:03]
TYT | George W. Bush Lives Through Obama's War-Making (09/10/14) [8:58]
TYT | Hillary Clinton Wants War, Lots Of It & That's Why She's Running (09/10/14) [6:08]
TYT | The Terrifying Possibility Of A Saudi Arabia-ISIS Merger (09/06/14) [6:44]
TYT | ISIS Ranks Include 100 Americans Says Secretary Of Defense (09/06/14) [2:52]
TYT | Super Wealthy Spread Money, Politicians Spread Ass Cheeks (09/06/14) [8:22]
TYT | Cantor's Wall Street Bribe Is Hardly Anything, Say Corruption Defenders (09/06/14) [4:32]
Ring of Fire
TYT | GOP Boys Club Doesn't Understand Women (09/10/14) [6:06]
More on the National Debt
National Debt (and the interest) con't
What happens to the interest if interest rates go up, double or triple?? Our interest payment will be in the trillions!


Corporatocracy
Click to zoom - for bigger image
DOD (Department of Defense)
Donald Rumsfeld Admits Day before 911 "2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD" () [3:57]
*Daily Ticker | Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
Click to zoom - for bigger image
*BraveNewFilms | F35, The jet that ate the Pentagon (older, but good 02/03/14) [8:18]
Click to zoom - for bigger image
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across

09.11.2014. 10:56

Wednesday September 11, 2014
News Articles

Murky Special OPS Have Become Corporate Bonanza
The Intercept | Ryan Gallagher | 09/09/14

The U.S. government is paying private contractors billions of dollars to support secretive military units with drones, surveillance technology, and “psychological operations,” according to new research. ...

... Researcher Crofton Black, who also works as an investigator for human rights group Reprieve, was able to dig through the troves of data and identify the beneficiaries of almost $13 billion worth of spending by USSOCOM over the five-year period. He found that more than 3,000 companies had provided services that included aiding remotely piloted drone operations in Afghanistan and the Philippines, helping to conduct surveillance of targets, interrogating prisoners, and launching apparent propaganda campaigns. ...

A separate document related to the same contract noted that one purpose of the effort was to conduct “market research” of al-Qaida and its affiliates in Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Northern Nigeria, and Somalia. Four American companies eventually won the $1.5 billion contract: Tennessee-based Jacobs Technology and Virginia-based Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI-WGI, and SRA International.
Notably, while some 3,000 contractors provided service in some capacity to USSOCOM, just eight of the contractors earned more than 50 percent of the $13 billion total identified in Black’s report. Those were: Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Boeing, Harris Corporation, Jacobs Engineering Group, MA Federal, Raytheon, and ITT Corporation.
Read more

Iraq's Shi'ite militia, Kurds use U.S. air strikes to further own agendas
Reuters | Isabel Coles | 09/09/14

... The unlikely coalition of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Shi'ite militias and the U.S. air force won a major victory when it broke a siege of the Shi’ite Turkman town of Amerli last week and drove Islamic State from 25 nearby Sunni towns and villages.

But the aftermath is far from what the Americans envisioned. Smoke now rises from those Sunni villages, where some houses have been torched by Shi'ite militia. Others are abandoned, the walls daubed with sectarian slogans. ... Read more

Mark Driscoll (pastor)
Wikipedia | author | 09/10/14

Mark A. Driscoll (born October 11, 1970) is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, and preaching pastor of Mars Hill Church, a megachurch in Seattle, Washington.

In 2011, Preaching magazine named Driscoll one of the 25 most influential [English-speaking] pastors of the past 25 years. His influence is polarizing; he is described in a profile by Salon as being the center of a cult of personality, and using controversy to increase his visibility. The New York Times Magazine called him "one of the most admired -- and reviled -- figures among evangelicals nationwide.

Mark Driscoll Ideas
The first thing to know about your penis is, that despite the way it may seem, it is not your penis. Ultimately, God created you and it is his penis. You are simply borrowing it for a while.

While His penis is on loan you must admit that it is sort of just hanging out there very lonely as if it needed a home, sort of like a man wandering the streets looking for a house to live in. Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.

Therefore, if you are single you must remember that your penis is homeless and needs a home. But, though you may believe your hand is shaped like a home, it is not. And, though women other than your wife may look like a home, to rest there would be breaking into another man's home. And, if you look at a man it is quite obvious that what a homeless man does not need is another man without a home.

Paul tells us that your penis actually belongs to your wife, and once you are married she will trade you it for her home (I Corinthians 7:4), and every man knows this is a very good trade for him to make.

With his penis, the man is supposed to learn to please his wife and learn how to be patient, self-controlled and be educated on how to keep his home happy and joyous (I Corinthians 7:3). The man should be aroused by his new home, and the wife should rejoice at seeing his penis rise to greet her (Song of Songs 5:14b).

Mark Driscoll proposes some new words
  1. Pussified: Any man who has lost his rocks and completed the process of remaining biologically male but become female in all other ways.
  2. Male lesbian: Any man who thinks and acts like a woman because he thinks that makes him a better person.
  3. Feman: A woman who thinks and ask like a man because she believes it makes her equal to men.
  4. Serial whacker: A man who uses women for sex and uses their bodies instead of his hand for his masturbation.
  5. Manly man: Any regenerate man who loves God and his neighbors and demonstrates it with grace guided practical living and rigorous theology.
  6. Pitch a tent club: Men who allow their wives to nag them so incessantly that they want to sleep on the roof of their own home.
  7. Rock free: Any man who attends a church with a woman Pastor.
  8. Marty Stuart: Any man who stays at home with his kids while his wife goes off to work to provide for his family.



Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, September 10 [11:45]
*DN | Internet Slowdown: Online Protest Warns Users of What's to Come if Net Neutrality Rules Redrawn (09/10/14) [7:15]
*TRNN | John a. powell explains: Federal Reserve Data Shows Growing Wealth Gap Based on Race (09/10/14) [17:07]
*TRNN | Professor Sabah Alnasseri: New Iraqi PM to Represent Status Quo as US Readies Fight against ISIS (09/10/14) [15:37]
TYT | War Is GREAT For Business (09/10/14) [7:10]
TYT | Bombing ISIS Has Unintended Consequences & They’re Horrifying (09/10/14) [7:31]
TYT | If Terrorists Were As Dangerous As Climate Change... (09/10/14) [3:24]
TYT | Bloodthirsty Conservatives’ ‘Boom Boom Boom’ Strategy On ISIS (09/10/14) [6:20]
RT
*RT | John Pilger [interview 4:00 to 21:00]: Western media has ‘worthy victims and unworthy victims’ (09/02/14) [26:17]
My Quote of the Day
4 Time Bombs in our Economy today: 1) Derivatives, 2) National Debt (and the interst), 3) HFT (High Frequency Trading), 4) Naked Shorts
Thoughts About the National Debt
US Revenue
Click to zoom - for bigger image
National Debt (and the interest)
What happens to the interest if interest rates go up, i.e. double, triple?? Our interest payment will be in the trillions!


Possible Reasons
Click to zoom - for bigger image
Maybe we could close some of the Corporate Tax Loopholes? Or, raise corporate taxes altogether .
Maybe we could reduce the Security State a little? Homeland Defense and the DOD.
Click to zoom - for bigger image
Click to zoom - for bigger image
 Ran out of time, will continue tomorrow.


09.10.2014. 12:40

Tuesday September 09, 2014
News Articles

Photos Capture Amazon Tribe As They Beat And Strip Illegal Loggers
HP | author | 09/08/14

This is not a bad way of solving disputes. Maybe we should give Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld some sticks and let then chase after ISIS.
Read more

Noam Chomsky: The Real Reason Israel "Mows the Lawn" in Gaza
AlterNet & TomDispatch.com | Noam Chomsky | 09/09/14

Like other states, Israel pleads "security" as justification for its aggressive and violent actions. But knowledgeable Israelis know better.

On August 26th, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) both accepted a ceasefire agreement after a 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza that left 2,100 Palestinians dead and vast landscapes of destruction behind. The agreement calls for an end to military action by both Israel and Hamas, as well as an easing of the Israeli siege that has strangled Gaza for many years.

This is, however, just the most recent of a series of ceasefire agreements reached after each of Israel's periodic escalations of its unremitting assault on Gaza. Throughout this period, the terms of these agreements remain essentially the same. The regular pattern is for Israel, then, to disregard whatever agreement is in place, while Hamas observes it -- as Israel has officially recognized -- until a sharp increase in Israeli violence elicits a Hamas response, followed by even fiercer brutality. These escalations, which amount to shooting fish in a pond, are called "mowing the lawn" in Israeli parlance. The most recent was more accurately described as "removing the topsoil" by a senior U.S. military officer, appalled by the practices of the self-described "most moral army in the world." ... Read more

Chomsky: U.S. Plunges the Cradle of Civilization into Disaster, While Its Oil-Based Empire Destroys the Earth's Climate.

Hustle and Flow: Here's Who Really Controls California's Water
MotherJones | author | date

"Water flows uphill towards money," a source told Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert, the seminal book on California water politics. Today the complex web of political interests that Reisner detailed some 30 years ago has become even more arcane and intertwined. As California confronts its worst drought in years, these power brokers will largely determine who gets water, and who gets left high and dry:

DIANNE FEINSTEIN: The chair of the powerful energy and water panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee has a history of siding with the state's agricultural interests, which use 80 percent of the state's water. In a March email to two Cabinet secretaries, Feinstein joined Republicans in urging federal water officials to capture "the maximum amount of water" from the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta for farmers. Two months later, she pushed a drought bill through the Senate by a unanimous vote, over the objections of environmentalists who said it would open the door to permanently increasing water allocations to farmers at the expense of endangered fish. Environmental groups "have never been helpful to me in producing good water policy," she later told the San Francisco Chronicle. She is now hammering out a compromise bill with House Republicans who want to do even more to gut endangered species laws. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, September 09 [7:29]
DN | The Climate Change Defense? Citing Global Warming, DA Drops Charges Against Anti-Coal Activists (09/09/14) [3:06]
John Oliver
*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Student Debt (09/07/14) [16:16]
BraveNewFilms | Bad Paper (05/22/14) [7:26]
Marine Corps veteran Josh Christmon earned a Purple Heart from his service in Iraq, where a close encounter with a roadside explosion nearly killed him. He suffered back problems and leg injuries, along with many of the classic symptoms of PTSD.

Josh's bad dreams followed him back home. Alcohol seemed as good a way to forget as anything, so one night, he went out for drinks. He was also offered a joint. Josh took two puffs. A week later, he failed a random drug test at work, and days after that, he was less-than-honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, losing all of his veterans benefits, including his medical care.

Fortunately for Josh and other veterans, there are organizations like Swords to Plowshares (http://www.swords-to-plowshares.org/) that are fighting to restore their lost benefits, but it shouldn't be this way in the first place.
BraveNewFilms | CIA Director John Brennan Lies His Ass Off (08/19/14) [1:18]
*BraveNewFilms | F35, The jet that ate the Pentagon (older, but good 02/03/14) [8:18]
At least $8 billion of the Pentagon's budget for 2015 is devoted to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Already on track to be the most expensive weapon system in history, the F-35 is becoming a black hole in the Pentagon budget.
Click to zoom - for Infographics
Promising the sky: Pork Barrel Politics and the F-35 Combat Aircraft.pdf
WarCosts.com
F35 is a Bad Deal
TRNN | Michael Ratner: Will the Palestinian Authority join the ICC despite intimidation? (09/09/14) [15:17]
TRNN | Bill Black discusses the significance of a new lawsuit against Evans Bancorp that alleges the bank would not give loans to black neighborhoods (09/07/14) [6:26]
TRNN | Bill Black says Ecuador's plan is supposed to provide bank services to rural communities through mobile phones (09/08/14) [10:06]
Ring of Fire
RoF | Ring of Fire (full) (09/07/14) [57:00]
  1. 04:22 - "The Next Foreclosure Nightmare is Here." Michael Burg tells us what states are doing to prevent the foreclosure nightmare that is right around the corner. #ForeclosureNightmare
  2. 14:11 - Can Liberalism Replace Secularism?" Journalist CJ Werleman explains the connection between the prosperity of liberalism and secularism. #FreedomFromReligion
  3. 23:02 - "Far Right Groups Pose Serious Security Threats." Howard Nations tells us why the FBI is more concerned about the threats of the sovereign citizen movement than they are from al Qaeda. #FarRightTerrorism
  4. 34:04 - "GOP Boys' Club Doesn't Understand Women." Author Nancy Cohen explains why the Republican Party can't seem to understand why women can't stand the GOP. #GOPBoysClub
  5. 40:57 - "The Economics of Revolution." Interview with David DeGraw.
*RoF | Warhawks A More Serious Threat Than ISIS (09/08/14) [3:33]
*RoF | Charter School Fraud Gone Wild (09/08/14) [9:21]
The F-35 Is Unaffordable
The F-35 Is Unaffordable, And There Are Alternatives

    By the dollars:
  1. $39.1 billion - amount spent on RDT&E that was never in the Pentagon's original program costs for the F-35. In large part, that money went to contractors for additional research and several rounds of redevelopment when the contractors failed to meet the F-35 goals set by the Pentagon.

  2. It doesn't appear that the Pentagon ever penalized the contractors for those failures.

  3. $27 billion -- how much the Department of the Navy will spend between now and fiscal year (FY) 2019 on the F-35, roughly the same as the cost to complete the purchase of the entire remaining identified requirements for the V-22 and the P-8.
  4. $6.3 billion -- amount being spent on FY15 procurement for a single aircraft program. Of the total Pentagon FY15 procurement request of $90.6 billion, this accounts for just under seven percent of the entire Pentagon unclassified procurement request.
  5. $4.2 billion -- cost of all currently planned modernization for the F-22, the F-15 and the F-16 over many years. This is well within the more than $4.6 billion the Air Force is asking Congress to devote to procurement and research and development of the F-35 in just the coming fiscal year.
  6. $564 million - Total cost for 8 Super Hornets. The Department of the Navy FY15 request is for 2 F-35Cs for the Navy and 6 F-35Bs for the Marines. The Department could save a lot of money by purchasing Super Hornets rather than either variant of the F-35.

By the percentages:
  1. 110% -- How much of its future tactical aircraft modernization plan the Air Force could purchase with just this year's F-35A procurement line.
  2. 100% -- How much of the Air Force's FY15 Combat Aircraft request is devoted to the F-35A.
  3. 80% -- A new F-16 is at least 80% cheaper than the Air Force's stated list price for an F-35A and the F-15 won't require additional infrastructure training.
  4. 60% -- A new F-15E is roughly 60% of the stated list price for an F-35A.
  5. 23% -- How much of the Department of the Navy's Combat Aircraft request is devoted to the F-35B and F-35C.

The United States enjoys by far the greatest air superiority in the world. The wide range of aircraft employed by the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marines performs at least nine different missions: (1)air-to-surface, (2)air-to-air, (3)Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), (4)Command and Control, (5)Electronic Attack, (6)Tanking, (7)Airlift, (8)Combat Search and Rescue and (9)Global Strike. The F-35 is proposed to fulfill all of those except tanking, airlift, combat search and rescue and some aspects of global strike.
War Profeteering
Thom Hartmann | War Costs - Exposing America's War Profiteers (older) [9:00]

09.09.2014. 12:38

Monday September 08, 2014
News Articles

What Larry Summers Told Me
Bill Moyers | Elizabeth Warren | 09/05/14

In early April, I got a call from the office of Larry Summers. I didn't know Larry well, but I'd met him a few times while he was president of Harvard in the early 2000s. According to reports, Larry had been Tim Geithner's mentor when they were both in the Treasury Department in the 1990s. Now Larry was the director of the National Economic Council, which meant that, along with Secretary Geithner, he advised President Obama on economic issues. Would I be interested in meeting him for dinner?

Sure, I replied. Larry's office suggested the Bombay Club, an Indian restaurant near the White House. Quiet and softly lit, it served Washington's power elite.

When Larry arrived for our dinner, he ordered a Diet Coke as soon as he sat down. He glanced at the menu, ordered quickly and soon the food started coming.

It was a long dinner, with plenty of intense back-and-forth about everything from the bailout, to deregulation, to the foreclosure crisis. I also talked to Larry about an idea I'd been working on for a new consumer financial agency and he seemed interested. We didn't agree on everything, but I give Larry full credit: I'll take honest conversation and debate any day of the week over the duck-and-cover stuff I so often saw in Washington that spring.

Late in the evening, Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. By now, I'd lost count of Larry's Diet Cokes, and our table was strewn with bits of food and spilled sauces. Larry's tone was in the friendly-advice category. He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders. I had been warned. Read more

America's Wealth Gap 'Unsustainable' According To Harvard Study
Reuters & HP | author | 09/08/14

The widening gap between America's wealthiest and its middle and lower classes is "unsustainable", but is unlikely to improve any time soon, according to a Harvard Business School study released on Monday.

... "Shortsighted executives may be satisfied with an American economy whose firms win in global markets without lifting U.S. living standards. But any leader with a long view understands that business has a profound stake in the prosperity of the average American," according to the report. ... Read more

The Highest-Paid Female CEO In America Was 'Born Male'. [NYMag, 09/10/14]
Futurist, pharma tycoon, satellite entrepreneur, philosopher. Martine Rothblatt, the highest-paid female executive in America, was born male. But that is far from the thing that defines her. Just ask her wife. Then ask the robot version of her wife.

The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism
NYT | Thomas B. Edsall | 08/26/14

... In terms of food, housing and other essentials, the cost of being poor has always been exorbitant. Landlords, grocery stores and other commercial enterprises have all found ways to profit from those at the bottom of the ladder.

In addition to probation, municipal court systems are also turning collections over to a national network of companies like Sentinel that profit from service charges imposed on the men and women who are under court order to pay fees and fines, including traffic tickets (with the fees being sums tacked on by the court to fund administrative services).

When they cannot pay these assessed fees and fines -- plus collection charges imposed by the private companies -- offenders can be sent to jail. There are many documented cases in which courts have imprisoned those who failed to keep up with their combined fines, fees and service charges. ... Read more

4 Ways Greedy Capitalists Rig the System to Profit Off Our Misery
AlterNet | Paul Buchheit | 09/07/14

Self-indulgent capitalists have turned much of America against its own best interests by promoting a winner-take-all philosophy that reaps great rewards for a few people at the expense of everyone else. To the neoliberal, vital human needs like health and education are products to be bought and sold.

Poverty Capitalism: The Free Market At Work
    Some really interesting Examples:
  1. Water
  2. Housing
  3. Saving
  4. Justice
Read more

Neil Patrick Harris Marries David Burtka In Italy
HP | author | 09/08/14

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka are married! Harris and Burtka wed in an intimate ceremony in front of family and friends in Italy on Saturday, Sept. 6, E! News confirmed. The couple wore Tom Ford tuxedos for the nuptials, which were officiated by "How I Met Your Mother" producer and director Pam Fryman. Elton John performed at the party. ... Read more

Click to zoom - for bigger image
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, September 08 [11:12]
*DN | "U.S. Militarism Brings Chaos": As Obama Plans a War on ISIS, a Call for a Middle East-Led Response (09/08/14) [17:15]
*DN | Think Tanks as Lobbyists: Exposé Shows U.S. Groups Receive Millions to Push Foreign Nations' Agendas (09/08/14) [13:03]
DN | Big Tobacco's Child Workers: Young Laborers Endure Health Risks, Harsh Conditions on U.S. Farms (09/08/14) [12:11]
*Bill Moyers | Senator Elizabeth Warren talks to Bill about taking on the entrenched political and Wall Street interests that have rigged the game against the rest of us. (08/05/14) [25:28]
Bill Moyers | Elizabeth Warren on Why "I'll Never Be an Insider" (09/05/14) [17:37]
This week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined Bill to talk about the numerous problems plaguing the middle class and what Washington should be doing to help solve them. After taping the broadcast interview, the two kept talking and we kept rolling: as so often is the case, great moments are often captured when we least expect them. Here, Bill starts by asking Sen. Warren about her dinner with Larry Summers, who at the time was one of President Obama's top economic advisors and she was "raising a lot of trouble over how the money in the bailout was being spent." ...
Bill Moyers | Elizabeth Warren (Basically) Predicts the Great Recession (interview 2004) (09/04/14) [14:29]
*PBS Frontline | Brookley Born: The Warning, Long before the economic meltdown, one woman tried to warn about the threat to the financial system (older, but good, 10/20/09) [56:07]
Brookley Born: Derivatives still a ticking time bomb! Sept 2011 () [11:42]
*TRNN | Gulf Restoration Network's Steve Murchie says: Better Oversight and Less Drilling Needed to Protect the Gulf (09/08/14) [10:03]
*TRNN | Greg Palast: US corporate media ignoring evidence of BP foreknowledge of problems that led to Gulf disaster (older, 2012) [13:04]
*TRNN | Greg Palast: Romney Made Multi-Millions in Detroit Bailout (older, but good, 2012) [11:19]
Greg Palast: Romney's "blind" trust and his allies made tens of millions in the GM/Chrysler bailout by purchasing a parts manufacturer and threatening to close down GM if not bought out at an inflated price.
*TRNN | The Role of Russia and NATO in Ukraine's Civil War (09/08/14) [12:07], Part 2 [10:41]
Mountain Top Removal | Appalachia | Last Mountain
Comment: Mountain Top Removal -- what is it? As usual I have heard of it, but never knew what it ment. Listen to Robert Kennedy, Jr. and look at the documentary "The Last Mountain" to see why people are fighting the COAL companies.
DN | Robert Kennedy, Jr & Bill Haney on "The Last Mountain" & Effort to Stop Mountaintop Removal. Part 1 (05/23/11) [12:58], Part 2 [12:58]
*The Last Mountain (2011) [1:35:09]
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Blowing the peaks off mountains to remove coal is one of America's hottest environmental flashpoints. (6/16/11) [1:08:29]
Blowing the peaks off mountains to remove coal is one of America's hottest environmental flashpoints. Now Kennedy is shining a light on mountain-top removal in Appalachia nearly four decades after his father campaigned against strip mining there. Kennedy and filmmaker Bill Haney traveled for several years to West Virginia and compiled nearly 500 hours of footage in the heart of coal country. They hope the resulting new documentary, The Last Mountain, will lead Americans to understand how they are connected to the lives and landscapes in the film. The federal government has gradually tightened restrictions on mountain-top removal, and there is essentially a national moratorium on building new coal power plants. But America is still largely a coal-fired nation, and Kennedy contends that there is a cleaner way to power our economy. Join us for an evening with one of America's most passionate environmentalists.

09.08.2014. 11:39

Friday September 05, 2014
News Articles

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia
HP | Alastair Crooke | 08/27/14

The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?"

It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan -- please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s. ... Read more
*SCG | The Covert Origins of ISIS (09/29/14) [21:00]

How People In The Middle East Are Making Fun Of ISIS [hp | 08/29/14]

In Lebanon, where IS also staged incursions in recent months, one news site published an Onion-style article joking the militants postponed its invasion because of Lebanon's complex political system. "We do not yet understand the Logic of Lebanon," a ISIS spokesman is quoted saying in the NOW News. “I mean... Who the f*** do we overthrow around here?”

Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces To Hold Major Exercise This Month
Reuters & HP | author | 09/03/14

The forces responsible for Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal will conduct major exercises this month involving more than 4,000 soldiers, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, in the latest sign of rising tension with NATO over the Ukraine crisis.

In an announcement a day before the start of a NATO summit in Wales, RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying the exercises would take place in Altai in south-central Russia and would also include around 400 technical units and extensive use of air power. ... Read more

This is getting scary when several news sources all talk about nuclear weapons on the same day... If you don't want to watch the whole DemocracyNow (DN) interview/video, jump to 15:30 (about 4/5 on the progressbar).
*DN | Ukraine Ceasefire Takes Hold, but an Expanding NATO on Russia's Borders Raises Threat of Nuclear War (09/05/14) [19:20]

Henry Kissinger on the Assembly of a New World Order
WSJ | Henry Kissinger | 08/29/14

The concept that has underpinned the modern geopolitical era is in crisis

Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan's young democracy is on the verge of paralysis. To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia and a relationship with China divided between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination. The concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis.

The search for world order has long been defined almost exclusively by the concepts of Western societies. In the decades following World War II, the U.S. -- strengthened in its economy and national confidence -- began to take up the torch of international leadership and ... Read more

This is what Henry Kissinger's brand of Exceptionalism did to Laos, not to mention Cambodia or Veitnam.
Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos
The Trials of Henry Kissinger (old, but good) [1:19:41]
The Dark Side of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger: Seymour Hersh Interview (1983) [58:24]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, September 05 [9:41]
*DN | Ukraine Ceasefire Takes Hold, but an Expanding NATO on Russia's Borders Raises Threat of Nuclear War (09/05/14) [19:20]
*DN | Profit over Safety: BP Faces Billions in Fines for "Grossly Negligent" Role in 2010 Gulf Oil Spill (09/05/14) [12:03]
DN | Hundreds Arrested as Growing Fast-Food Workers' Movement Strikes for Living Wage, Unionization (09/05/14) [12:04]
*TRNN | Professor Chris Williams argues: a massive re-structuring of economic activity is required to address the climate change crisis (09/05/14) [13:43]
TYT | Politician Warns Christians About Muslims, ALL Of Them (09/04/14) [11:22]
TYT | Joan Rivers Dead At 81 (09/04/14) [8:12]
TYT | Putin Takes His Nukes Out For A Spin (09/04/14) [3:31]
The forces responsible for Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal will conduct major exercises this month involving more than 4,000 soldiers, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, in the latest sign of rising tension with NATO over the Ukraine crisis.

In an announcement a day before the start of a NATO summit in Wales, RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying the exercises would take place in Altai in south-central Russia and would also include around 400 technical units and extensive use of air power.

The agency quoted Dmitry Andreyev, a major in the strategic rocket forces, as saying troops would practice countering irregular units and high-precision weapons, and "conducting combat missions in conditions of active radio-electronic jamming and intensive enemy actions in areas of troop deployment.
American Empire
AE | American Empire Special Reports (preview) [3:14]
AE | Rage Against the Regime: the CIA, NGOs & Color Revolutions, Part 1 (07/05/14) [28:55]
ISIS | IS | Wahhabism
AE | The Rise of ISIS / ISIL In Iraq (older, 06/21/14) [18:03]
The Fall of Iraq - What You Aren't Being Told (older, 06/17/14) [13:16]
As The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) descend from Syria into the heart of Iraq, Avi Oren and American Empire take a look at the cause and effect of the once Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization in this special report.

Who is ISIS? What is their ultimate goal and who is supporting the terrorist organization? Did the U.S. invasion of Iraq contribute to the rise of ISIS? How does the Syrian civil war impact the region and how do other Islamic groups view ISIS/ISIL?
Energy
Mountain top Removal
Smithsonian | The Land of Mountaintop Removal (2013) [2:57]
"The Last Mountain" (official trailer) [2:28]
*The Last Mountain (2011) [1:35:09]
In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America's struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns. Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.

The citizens argue the practice of dynamiting the mountain's top off to mine the coal within pollutes the air and water, is responsible for the deaths of their neighbors and spreads pollution to other states. Yet, regardless of evidence supporting these claims, Big Coal corporations repeat the process daily in the name of profit. Massive profit allows Big Coal to wield incredible financial influence over lobbyists and government officials in both parties, rewrite environmental protection laws, avoid lawsuits and eliminate more than 40,000 mining jobs, all while claiming to be a miner's best friend. As our energy needs increase, so does Big Coal's control over our future. This fact and a belief that America was founded on the democratic principal that no individual or corporation owns the air and water and we all share the responsibility of protecting it, drives these patriotic citizens and their supporters from outside of Appalachia, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to keep fighting.A passionate and personal tale that honors the extraordinary power of ordinary Americans when they fight for what they believe in, THE LAST MOUNTAIN shines a light on America's energy needs and how those needs are being supplied. It is a fight for our future that affects us all.

 Ranning late, will post all the articles and videos on Monday.
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across

09.05.2014. 14:46

Thursday September 04, 2014
News Articles

Media War Frenzy 'Like 2003'
Click to zoom - Medias March to War
HP | author | 09/04/14

As the Obama administration weighs whether it should try to manage the Islamic State, destroy it or follow it to the "gates of Hell," endless news coverage and non-stop cable chatter have focused on the possibility of expanding the fight from Iraq to Syria.

Many have argued that President Barack Obama needs to go beyond air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq -- there have been 124 strikes so far -- and begin targeting militants inside civil war-torn Syria. The notion that Obama isn't doing enough has been a common theme, regardless of party.

"I think it's time for him to say more and do more," former Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday. The next day, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) told Blitzer he agreed with Harman and expressed support for targeting the Islamic State within Syria. ... Read more

Guess Which One Isn't Allowed At Kroger

ISIS Terror - 44 Stories
NBC News | author | 09/04/14

EXCLUSIVE: American Extremist Reveals His Quest to Join ISIS

Just a few weeks ago a Catholic-born, American man -- a former military school student, special forces aspirant, law enforcement officer and bodybuilder -- set off on a path far from any he'd envisioned for himself as a kid in North Carolina: on the other side of the world, in Lebanon, he was trying to figure out how to get into Syria and join ISIS, the most radical, bloodthirsty terrorist group of our times. Don Morgan, 44, said he was answering a higher calling. ... Read more

Russia tries to buy some influence. [PublicIntegrity, 09/02]

Alexander Cohen at the Center for Public Integrity reports that "a Russian bank targeted with sanctions by President Obama over the Ukraine crisis, has hired two former U.S. senators to lobby against those sanctions." Gazprombank thinks former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) can sway their former colleagues to go easy on Russia, but given the chilly climate in US-Russian relations, that may be a tall order.
Clueless plutocrats[Bloomberg, 09/02/14]

Countrywide Financial -- and Bank of America, which picked up the pieces after Countrywide went belly up -- racked up more than $70 billion in fines for its subprime lending. But Bloomberg's Max Abelson reports that former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo is "baffled" by the public's outrage. "No, no, no, we didn't do anything wrong," he insisted.
Sold out too low?[NewRepublic, 09/02/14]

TNR's Alec MacGillis thinks Eric Cantor, who took a cushy job at a Wall Street investment house this week, could have held out for a higher bidder given that no one "has made more of an effort over the years to endear himself to big financial employers than has Eric Cantor."

The Future of Guantánamo, or Who's Left??
NYTimes | author | 009/01/14

... Taxpayers are spending about $443 million to operate the Guantánamo prison this year, or nearly $3 million for each of the 149 prisoners. Because many costs are fixed, once the low-level detainees are transferred, the per-inmate cost of housing the remaining ones at the remote naval base would soar even higher. By comparison, the federal Bureau of Prisons -- which imprisons many convicted terrorists -- spent $30,280 a year per maximum-security inmate in 2013. ... Read more

New Segment - What is wrong with these people??
Right-Wing Rodeo - White Priviledge to Femi-Nazies & Obama is a Muslim (09/02/14) [2:58]
Rush Limbaugh: Trouble Started When Women Started Voting (07/06/12) [4:04]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, September 04 [10:10]
DN | A Victory over Justice System's Failure: Wrongly Convicted Brothers Freed After 31 Years in Prison (09/04/14) [12:52]
DN | New York Candidates Zephyr Teachout, Randy Credico, Tim Wu on Challenging Cuomo & Money in Politics (09/04/14) [19:07]
*TRNN | David Cay Johnston: Pillaging the Public Treasury, Part 4 (09/04/14) [17:00]
*TRNN | Subhankar Banerjee: Polar Ice Caps Are Melting at a Much Faster Rate than the IPCC Predicted (09/04/14) [16:41]
TRNN | Telesur's "The Global African: Climate Change in the Caribbean" (09/04/14) [25:08]
The Caribbean and its 40 million inhabitants face unprecedented vulnerability due to the phenomena that is climate change. This week on "The Global African," host Bill Fletcher, Jr. sits down with climate and development scientist Ramon Bueno and Caribbean climate change activists Stina Herberg and Empress Modupe Olufunmi-Jacobs to talk mitigation and the activism behind the threat.
Bill Moyers | Elizabeth Warren on Fighting Back Against Wall St. Giants (preview) [0:34]
The Massachusetts senator talks to Bill about taking on the entrenched political and Wall Street interests that have rigged the game against the rest of us.
*TYT | PLEASE Stop Giving Kids Guns (09/03/14) [6:42]
TYT | Duck Dynasty Star Solves ISIS On Hannity With Book (09/03/14) [4:09]
*TYT | Secret Tapes Reveal Koch Bros Master Plan To Minimize Wages & Maximize Profits (09/03/14) [12:46]
TYT | ISIS Provokes Panic, Fear, Anger & Threats But No Solutions (09/03/14) [10:14]
*TYT | Former Politicians's New Job Is Pure Corruption In Action (09/03/14) [7:21]
*TYT | Guantanamo Bay Cost Per Prisoner Is Beyond AMAZING (09/03/14) [4:58]

09.04.2014. 12:18

Wednesday September 03, 2014
News Articles

Eric Cantor To Join Investment Bank Moelis & Co. As Vice Chairman And Managing Director
HP | Reuters | 09/02/14

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will join investment bank Moelis & Co as vice chairman and managing director, the company said, adding that Cantor will also be elected to its board. ...

... Cantor, the No.2 Republican in the House of Representatives, was beaten by college economics professor David Brat, who accused Cantor of betraying conservative principles on spending, debt and immigration. ... Read more

Thom Hartmann News
Thom Hartmann: The story of the 5 Kings who rule America (older) [9:39]
Thom Hartmann: How the Koch Brothers Rose to Power by Daniel Schulman (older) [9:25]
Thom Hartmann: Why Iraq is a Mess (older) [9:27]
Thom Hartmann debates John Guandolo, former FBI agent-Counterterrorism Division,Washington, DC / Founder- UnderstandingTheThreat.com / Author of 2 books, latest Raising a Jihadi Generation, Website: www.understandingthethreat.com/, over whether taking out Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do.
Thom Hartmann | Forbidden Bookshelf with Mark Crispin Miller (older, 06/18/14) [7:07]
Mark Crispin Miller - Forbidden Bookshelf
RT | Chris Hedges: Last thing US wants in the world is democracy (older, 04/28/14) [24:22]
The crisis in Ukraine and the steadily dropping temperature in relations between Moscow and Washington made many talk about a new Cold War; and many others are worried it may turn 'hot'. But there's another war going on right now: the information war. US Secretary of State Kerry has already attacked RT, calling it "Putin's propaganda machine." But Washington itself uses dubious evidence and fake facts. What is the information war? What methods is America using? Sophie talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and veteran correspondent Chris Hedges.
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire (08/31/14) [57:00]
  1. 00:48 - how local police offices got their hands on military grade equipment, and why they think they need it. #PoliceMilitarization
  2. 10:42 - “Charter School Fraud Gone Wild.” Ruth Conniff, editor of The Progressive Magazine in Madison, Wisconsin, will tell us why the FBI is investigating charter schools, and how fraud is the standard operating procedure at these institutions. #CharterSchoolFraud
  3. 20:06 - “Obama’s Union Busters” David TeSelle will tell us why some of Obama’s top former advisors are now working as union busters. #ObamaUnionBusting.
  4. 30:23 “Republican Obstruction Shapes Obama Legacy.” Best Selling author Thomas Frank in Washington, D.C. tells us why Obama has let Republicans shape his legacy. #ObamaLegacy
  5. 41:41 - “The Backstory.” With Sam Seder in NYCListen to Ring of Fire on Saturdays from 3pm - 6pm Eastern! Listen live via the Progressive Voices Channel on TuneIn
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, September 03 [8:50]
DN | Kids For Cash: Inside One of the Nation's Most Shocking Juvenile Justice Scandals (Part 1 of 3) (09/03/14) [17:28] OR See full length interview here
*TRNN | David Cay Johnston: The Deep State and the Power of Billionaires (09/03/14) [25:33]
Mr. Johnston, a leading investigative journalist, says everybody who gets to make a serious run for president is a Wall Street candidate; weakening the estate tax is one way billionaires defend their power and fortunes.
TRNN | Robert Naiman and TRNN's Lia Tarachansky respond: New York Times Runs Ad Equating Isis and Hamas (09/03/14) [14:30]
RIMPac
Vice | The Future of Amphibious Warfare: War Games (09/03/14) [13:56]
Amphibious warfare is treacherous; moving a military force from sea to land can turn mistakes into disasters. As the US military begins to focus its attention on the Asia-Pacific region, an area of increasing military tension and territorial disputes.
2014 August Breaking News New World Order ALERT RIMPAC2014 international Military exercise (06/25/14) [34:06]
Paul Bremer - Iraq - ISIS
Boy, it is really hard to watch the CNN and Aljazeera interviews with Paul Bremer after you have watched and read articles on what really happened. These NeoCons, i.e. Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, etc, are trying desperately to rewrite history.
*No End in Sight Iraq's Descent Into Chaos by Charles Fugison (2007) [1:41:53]
CNN | Paul Bremer: Obama is to blame for Iraq (06/16/14) [7:07]
Aljazeera | Bremer attacks ISIS, Maliki and Obama (06/25/14) [47:26]
ISIS - Islamic State (IS) - The Battle for Iraq
Then There is the ISIS Fighters, Where Do ISIS Fighters Come From?
Click to zoom - ISIS Fighters

09.03.2014. 10:17

Tuesday September 02, 2014
News Articles

Ex-NSA Director, US Intelligence Veterans Write Open Letter To Merkel To Avoid All-Out Ukraine War
ZeroHedge | author | 09/01/14

Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War, U.S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA's spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian "invasion."

"We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5. You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. ... Read more

6 Questions With Sylvia Earle, the Greatest Living Ocean Explorer
AlterNet | Brian Palmer | 08/19/14

Earle, the famed marine biologist, is feted in the new Netflix documentary 'Mission Blue.'

She knows the ocean better than any other person alive. Reverently nicknamed " Her Deepness," Sylvia Earle has spent 7,000 hours underwater over seven decades. And on those dives she has witnessed first hand the havoc we wreak upon the sea--from coral bleaching and shark finning to the disappearance of once-abundant species such as tuna and menhaden. She has received virtually every honor in exploration and conservation science, and has served as chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. When Sylvia Earle talks about the ocean, you listen. ... Read more or A Conversation with 'Her Deepness'
*Netflix | Mission Blue (trailer) (08/15/14) [2:24]

Lights off on Singapore's billionaire row as luxury house prices plunge
Reuters | Caroline Ng | 08/28/14

There's an eerie silence at night in Sentosa Cove, the man-made island resort billed as Singapore's answer to Monte Carlo and the only place in the country where foreigners can buy landed property. Dozens of houses - complete with their own private yacht berths and multiple swimming pools - sit empty while few lights are on in the apartment blocks overlooking the marina, a few kilometres away from Sentosa's giant casino.

Prices in the gated community, where Australian mining tycoons Gina Rinehart and Nathan Tinkler bought properties, fell around 20 percent in the past year as lending restrictions and taxes on foreign buyers burst a bubble in the Southeast Asian financial hub's luxury real estate market. Investors could see the value of their assets fall even further with developers and investors still struggling to sell even after the recent price falls. Real estate websites list hundreds of flats and bungalows for sale, yet just 12 apartments and one house have changed hands all year on Sentosa, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). ... Read more

Where Do ISIS Fighters Come From?
Everywhere...
Click to zoom - ISIS Fighters

Meet the Risky Mortgage Pioneer Trying to Pay His Buddy's Way Into Congress
MotherJones | Molly Redden | 09/02/14

If New Hampshire Republican Dan Innis wins his congressional race, he knows where to send the fruit basket: to the home of mortgage giant Peter T. Paul.

Before running for Congress, Innis served as dean of the University of New Hampshire's business school, which was renamed for Paul after he donated $25 million. His campaign website touts major building projects he oversaw as dean -- projects financed by Paul's contribution. And Innis' congressional run is getting a big-time boost from a brand-new super PAC founded and financed by Paul. ... Read more

Watson, the supercomputer
Remember IBM's Watson, the supercomputer that beat all comers on the game show "Jeopardy"? Well, Watson hasn't gone away, and its potential in medicine is huge. Watson can read 200 million pages in three seconds. With the exponentially increasing amount of medical knowledge being published every year, it will be necessary to have Watson and its fellow supercomputers keep track of all that knowledge so your physicians can have the most up-to-date information necessary for your medical treatment.
Tongue-Zapping Brain Restorers
Serious brain injuries are long-lasting and difficult to treat. Currently our best bet is long-term rehabilitation. But what if we could just zap the brain back into shape? Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in collaboration with the U.S. Army, are working on a device that delivers targeted stimulation to the brain through the tongue (which has thousands of nerve connections to the brain). The stimulation helps repair damaged brain cells, and has shown brain improvement in as short as a week. In addition to blunt force brain injuries, the device could possibly aid in treatment of brain damage from stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and even alcoholism.
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, September 02 [10:15]
DN | Women's Health over Politics: Courts Block Laws Threatening Abortion Clinics in Texas, Louisiana (09/02/14) [9:40]
DN | Hong Kong "Occupy Central" Protests Call for Political Freedom after China Rejects Open Elections (09/02/14) [7:58]
DN | Pakistan government considers decisive action against protesters (09/02/14) [1:51]
*TRNN | Bill Black discusses: Sacramento Residents Found Not Guilty of Mortgage Fraud (09/02/14) [7:35]
TRNN | David Cay Johnston: 60's to 80's the Los Angeles police department made wide use of agents to undermine peaceful and legal opposition groups, Part 2 (09/02/14) [23:21]
Environment
California drought expected to cost state $2.2 billion in losses () [1:25]
*Netflix | Mission Blue (trailer) (08/15/14) [2:24]
Official trailer for Mission Blue, a Netflix original documentary. Mission Blue tells the story of world-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle as she travels the globe on an urgent mission to shed light on the dire condition of Earth's oceans.
*Planet Ocean [UK]- the film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (2014) [1:28:59]
*HOME - film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (2009) [1:33:17]
We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate. The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being. For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.
GoodPlanet.info website
TYT | Female Celebrities Attacked In Disgusting Violation Of Privacy - iCloud Hacked (09/01/14) [7:11]
YouTube Commenter
If you take a pic on your iphone it gets saved onto your icloud account. so if you took a pic and sent it to your SO and then deleted it, it would still be in the cloud.?

What about the NSA... they have all this stuff.
John Oliver
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Fan Mail (08/31/14) [4:10]
*Last Week Tonight With John Oliver - Argentina Default (08/08/14) [8:25]
Vulture Paul Singer
Singer grew up in a Jewish family, one of three children of a Manhattan pharmacist and a homemaker. He obtained his B.S. in psychology from the University of Rochester and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. In 1974, Singer accepted a job as an attorney in the real estate division of the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Singer has been divorced since 1996. He lives on New York City's Upper West Side and also has a house in Aspen, Colorado.

Vulture Elliott Management Corporation
In 1977, Singer founded the hedge fund Elliott Associates L.P. with $1.3 million from various friends and family members. Elliott Management Corporation oversees Elliott Associates and Elliott International Limited, which together have more than $21 billion in assets under management. According to The Guardian, "Elliott's principal investment strategy is buying distressed debt cheaply and selling it at a profit or suing for full payment." The firm is currently closed to new investors. As of mid-2008, Elliott counted 175 employees in New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong and is one of the oldest hedge funds under continuous management.
More Stuff
Max Keiser | Greg Palast with Max Keiser on vulture funds (older) [13:11]
The Robotic Takeover of the Military (8/30/14) [5:58]

09.02.2014. 10:17

Monday September 01, 2014
News Articles

Do Both Liberals and Conservatives Have Taxing and Spending All Wrong?
BillMoyers | Joshua Holland | 08/29/14

What if our endless political fights over taxes and public spending are based on a poor understanding of how government really works in a modern economy?

Edward Kleinbard, a professor of business at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, thinks that's largely true. Recently, he published a paper arguing that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, corporate "inversions" aren't motivated by multinationals' desire to establish themselves abroad in low-tax havens. And in his forthcoming book, We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money, he says that both liberals and conservatives get key issues wrong.

BillMoyers.com recently spoke with Kleinbard; below is a transcript of our discussion that's been edited for length and clarity: ... Read more

Stat of the day: 28,000 -- the number of children and teens shot and killed in the US between 2002 and 2012. According to ABC News, that means that 13 kids died at home for every soldier killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan during that period.

Ukraine Defense Minister Warns Of "Worst Conflict Since WWII", Shifts Forces To "Combat Full-Scale Russian Invasion"
ZeroHedge | author | 09/01/14

Unless they are tilting at windmills, the rhetoric this morning from Ukraine's defense minister is the strongest and most actionable yet. Via his Facebook page, Valeriy Galetey accused Russia of "open aggression," and explained that:

Earlier in the morning, US Senator Bob Menendez said he has "no doubt Russia has invaded Ukraine," and following Ukraine requests for assistance from Europe and US, NATO responded by noting a reaction force or 3-5,000 can be ready in 48 hours. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Then NATO responds

This 11-Year-Old Was Locked Up Trying to Cross the Border. Read the Heartfelt Letter She Sent Obama.
MotherJones | Molly Redden | 08/29/14

On Tuesday, the nation's top immigration court allowed a Guatemalan woman who fled her abusive husband to petition for asylum in the United States. It's a landmark ruling that immigrant rights advocates hope will protect women who have escaped horrific marital violence in countries besides Guatemala.

One of those women is a Honduran named Rosemary. In June, she entered the US with Daniela, her 11-year-old daughter, and both were detained near the border. Rosemary and Daniela are currently detained in a makeshift facility in Artesia, New Mexico, set up by the Department of Homeland Security. They are seeking asylum after fleeing Daniela's father, who allegedly beat and choked Rosemary for three years before the two escaped. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Letter from Daniela to Obama

Herbs de Provence

Herb Roasted Chicken Thighs with Potatoes
simplyrecipes.com | author | date

Here's an idea for an easy, one-dish meal--herb roasted chicken thighs baked on a bed of potatoes. Layer a casserole dish with thinly sliced potatoes, top with thinly sliced shallots, top with chicken thighs, douse with an herby vinaigrette, and roast until the chicken is golden brown.Here's an idea for an easy, one-dish meal--herb roasted chicken thighs baked on a bed of potatoes. Layer a casserole dish with thinly sliced potatoes, top with thinly sliced shallots, top with chicken thighs, douse with an herby vinaigrette, and roast until the chicken is golden brown. ... Read more

DN | As John Kerry Questions Official Story of JFK Killing, Thom Hartmann Discusses "Legacy of Secrecy" (older) [7:17]
DN | Thom Hartmann on: "The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America -- and What We Can Do to Stop It" (older) [19:31]
*DN | Thom Hartmann on: Secrets the Rich don't Want You to Know (older) [10:25]
*TRNN | Mr. Johnston, a renowned investigative journalist, says he used to believe if you worked hard you would prosper, but now, there is a completely different environment, Part 1 (08/31/14) [14:12]
TRNN | REPLAY | Jeannette Wicks-Lim (in 2009) from PERI said low-wage work was likely to predominate future job creation through 2016, but that unions can act to counter that trend (older) [10:30]
TYT | Does It Matter If You're Black Or White? (Study) (08/31/14) [7:28]
TYT | How Your Income Affects Your Weight (Study) (08/31/14) [5:02]
Untold History of the United States
I ran across episode 10 of "Untold History of United States" by Oliver Stone and decided to watch it again. It is fascinating and well worth the watching.
*Oliver Stone | Untold History of United States - Bush & Obama: Age of Terror (2013) [58:39]
Click to zoom - Untold History of the US - Episodes
You can see additional episodes here or here.
*No End in Sight Iraq's Descent Into Chaos by Charles Fugison (2007) [1:41:53]
YouTube Commenter
This was not a mistake, it was orchestrated. Looking back from the 50's, the United States of America economy is entirely dependent on wars. People need to stop seeing this as just incompetence. The American people have a duty, a difficult battle ahead of them, and that is to take their government back from the hands of corporations. If you don't do that, the rest of the world will pay with their lives on this game of power and greed played by the ones on charge.
IraqBodyCount.org
*Inside Job by Charles Furgison Part 1 (2011) [57:07], Part 2 [47:02]
The Biggest Bank Heist Ever! (shorter version) (2011) [49:42]
Ring of Fire
Ring of Fire (full) (08/24/14) [55:29]
  1. 00:35 - "Rick Perry's Legal Woes." Ian Millhiser, editor of Think Progress Justice, explains Rick Perry's legal troubles following his indictment for corruption and abuse of power. #RickPerryIndictment
  2. 08:25 - "The Low T Cash Bonanza." Dr. Tom Schneider explains the pharmaceutical industry's latest cash cow -- low testosterone. #Manopause
  3. 17:26 - "Is Wall Street Intentionally Destroying The Economy?" Michael Burg tells us how Wall Street bankers are actually keeping our economy down to benefit their own interests. #EconomicRecovery
  4. 26:18 - "The Militarization of the Police." Chauncey DeVega will give us the latest on the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, and he'll explain how our police forces have become to militarized. #Ferguson
  5. 35:10 - "Koch's New Target -- State Supreme Courts." Howard Nations tells us how the Koch brothers are trying to buy state Supreme Court justices in this year's midterm elections. #KochMoney
  6. 44:16 - "Big Pharma Gone Wild -- The Xarelto Scam." Ned McWilliams will discuss the dangers of the drug Xarelto. #XareltoDangers
*Ring of Fire | Is Wall Street Intentionally Destroying The Economy? (08/29/14) [8:51]
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across

09.01.2014. 12:31



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

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

I'm still working on this

Newer Documentaries
Documentaries You've Never Seen

Note: To view a video, click on code at left of the title
Documentaries (small | pop-up)
Documentaries (big | full screen)
Good YouTube Documentaries

Note: To view a video, click on its name/title
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.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.
Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.
Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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,.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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".

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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.

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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

Or click here for a tablet or a small screen device
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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