Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

4 Calamities Destroying America's Economy Being Ignored by Elites
AlterNet | Frithjof Bergmann | 08/27/14

The world's current economic and political structures are proving incapable of fixing the global crisis of poverty, unemployment, and dislocation from a viable way of life for the majority of the world's population. Why? Let us begin with one present-day example: Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and also former chair of the Board of Economic Advisors, recently was the principal guest of the national radio broadcast "On Point." The topic of the hour-long dialogue was growing "inequality."

Summers posited that we are in an oddly slow recovery. He gave some reasons for the slowness but maintained that the measures instigated by the government (the Federal Reserve pumping funds into the economy, and the like) were fundamentally correct, and that with patience and persistence the recovery would solve the problems we have.

This basically is the position of Obama and importantly, by no means only his. Every government in every country subscribes essentially to this same apostolic faith. That faith is pathetic and even grotesquely mistaken. It ignores the four "Tsunami" causes for the globally increasing inequality:

Shocking Picture of What Life Will Look Like When You Can't Afford to Retire
AlterNet | Lynn Stuart Parramore | 08/25/14

In a must-read article in the current issue of Harper's magazine, journalist Jessica Bruder, adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, adds a new phrase to America's vocabulary: "Elderly migrant worker." She documents a growing trend of older Americans for whom the reality of unaffordable housing and scarcity of work has driven them from their homes and onto the road in search of seasonal and temporary employment across the country. Packed into RVs, detached from their communities, these "Okies" of the Great Recession put in time at Amazon warehouses, farms and amusement parks, popping free over-the-counter pain reliever to mask the agony of strained muscles and sore backs. And when they can't hold up any longer? The RV sometimes becomes a coffin. ... Read more

Louisiana is drowning, quickly.
magazine | author | date

Scientists now say one of the greatest environmental and economic disasters in the nation’s history is rushing toward a catastrophic conclusion over the next 50 years, so far unabated and largely unnoticed.

At the current rates that the sea is rising and land is sinking, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists say by 2100 the Gulf of Mexico could rise as much as 4.3 feet across this landscape, which has an average elevation of about 3 feet. If that happens, everything outside the protective levees -- most of Southeast Louisiana -- would be underwater. ... Read more
Gulf’s Delacroix Islanders Watch As Their World Disappears (older) [11:02]
Click to zoom - Loosing Ground

JPMorgan and Other Banks Struck by Hackers
NYT | Nicole Perlroth | 08/27/14

A number of United States banks, including JPMorgan Chase and at least four others, were struck by hackers in a series of coordinated attacks this month, according to four people briefed on a continuing investigation into the crimes.

The hackers infiltrated the networks of the banks, siphoning off gigabytes of data, including checking and savings account information, in what security experts described as a sophisticated cyberattack.... Read more

For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe
WashingtonPost | Craig Timberg | 08/24/14

Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.

The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people's travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology.

The world's most powerful intelligence services, such as the National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ, long have used cellphone data to track targets around the globe. But experts say these new systems allow less technically advanced governments to track people in any nation -- including the United States -- with relative ease and precision. ... Read more

Documents show how the NSA infers relationships based on mobile location data
WashingtonPost | Ashkan Soltani | older, but good

The NSA doesn't just have the technical capabilities to collect location-based data in bulk. A 24-page NSA white paper shows that the agency has a powerful suite of algorithms, or data sorting tools, that allow it to learn a great deal about how people live their lives. ...

... The NSA collects Internet and phone metadata via relationships with corporate partners that allow the agency to intercept traffic at key network routing points. These partnerships take many forms. A company may transfer Call Detail Records to the NSA or allow the agency to install large-scale surveillance equipment to capture this traffic. ... Read more

GOP candidates credit Koch brothers for their success
ThHill.com | Mike Lillis | 08/27/14

GOP Senate candidates are facing new scrutiny in the wake of Wednesday reports tying them closely to the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch. Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) attended a lavish June conference sponsored by the Koch brothers. Cotton and Ernst both credited the brothers' political activities for enabling their campaigns, The Huffington Post reported early Wednesday, citing audio from the event. ... Read more

The UN's New Report on Global Warming Is the Most Terrifying Yet
Bill Moyers | John Light | 08/27/14

The New York Times and Bloomberg News got a look at a draft of a new UN report on climate change. It's bleak, to say the least.

Runaway growth on the emission of greenhouse gases is swamping all political efforts to deal with the problem, raising the risk of "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts" over the coming decades, according to a draft of a major new United Nations report. ...

... But one of the central points of the IPCC report is that some of what we've wrought is already irreversible, and more of it soon will be. The world's existing power plants are already slated to pump over 300 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere -- a figure that's growing by billions of tons each year, speeding up the changes that are already underway. Governments' efforts to do something are a drop in the bucket compared to what's needed. ... Read more

The Nail In The Petrodollar Coffin: Gazprom Begins Accepting Payment For Oil In Ruble, Yuan
ZeroHedge | author | 08.27.14

According to Russia's RIA Novosti, citing business daily Kommersant, Gazprom Neft has agreed to export 80,000 tons of oil from Novoportovskoye field in the Arctic; it will accept payment in rubles, and will also deliver oil via the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO), accepting payment in Chinese yuan for the transfers. Meaning Russia will export energy to either Europe or China, and receive payment in either Rubles or Yuan, in effect making the two currencies equivalent as far as the Eurasian axis is conerned, but most importantly, transact completely away from the US dollar thus, finally putin'(sic) in action the move for a Petrodollar-free world. ... Read more

Fighting Ebola With Nothing but Hope
TheDailyBeast.com | Abby Haglage | 08/27/14

Primary health care manager Emmanuel Boyah is at Ebola's frontline in Liberia. If he contracts the disease, there will be no 'secret serum' waiting for him. Yet he keeps fighting.

Black shirt tucked into snug black pants, his role is made transparent by the bright yellow embroidery across his chest: "International Rescue Committee." Stacks of clean brown boxes surrounding him hold bleach, latex gloves, and masks--weapons against Ebola. These supplies will be distributed to medical facilities across Lofa County, one of the hardest hit regions in Liberia, where reports show more than 624 deaths.

According to a report released this week by the World Health Organization, an estimated 240 health-care workers have been infected with Ebola in West Africa. Of that number, at least 50 percent are already dead. For an international relief worker, contracting the virus likely means becoming the focus of headlines about high-tech aircrafts and secret serums. For a West African doctor in the same position, it means simply one less health-care worker on a continent in desperate need of more. ... Read more

Executive Vice President and President of Epsilon Bryan J. Kennedy's Salary
www1.salary.com | author | 08/26/14

As Executive Vice President and President, Epsilon at ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEMS CORP, Bryan J. Kennedy made $2,962,098 in total compensation. Of this total $540,000 was received as a salary, $540,000 was received as a bonus, $0 was received in stock options, $1,812,740 was awarded as stock and $69,358 came from other types of compensation. This information is according to proxy statements filed for the 2013 fiscal. ... Read more

*TYT | Tap Water Dries Out In California. Could You Be Next? (08/25/14) [4:19]

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve Is Actually Larger Than Switzerland
HP | Lisa_Miller | 08/26/14

When it comes to U.S. national parks, everyone knows about Yellowstone and Yosemite. But we bet you've never heard of the national park that's larger than a major European country.

Meet Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. This vast, gorgeous national park in Alaska is the largest in the country. It clocks in at 13.2 million acres... making it larger than Switzerland. The park stretches from Mount St. Elias, one of the tallest peaks in America, to the Gulf of Alaska and offers glaciers, caves, lakes, mountains and, well, pretty much every natural wonder you could dream up. An array of flora and fauna populate the park, and if you're into snow, well this place has plenty of that. ... Read more

Hamas official admits group murdered 3 Israeli teens
RT | author | 08/21/14

A Hamas official has admitted for the first time that members of its militant wing kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in June. This fueled increased tensions with Israel and eventually led to the IDF's bombardment of Gaza.

Saleh Al-Arouri said the al-Qassam Brigades were responsible, after Hamas' leader Khaled Meshaal, who is in exile in Qatar, had earlier denied his group was involved. However, Meshaal did praise those who carried out the kidnappings. ... Read more
*TYT | Hamas Kidnapped & Killed Israeli Teens, Proving Devastating Stupidity (08/22/14) [15:39]

IBM's new supercomputing chip mimics the human brain with very little power
engadget.com | Joseph Volpe | 08/10/14

A lot has changed in the three years since IBM first unveiled a prototype of its human brain-inspired SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) chip. That single-core prototype has now been significantly scaled up, leading to a new, production-ready SyNAPSE chip that blows past its predecessor with 1 million neurons, 256 million synapses and 4,096 neurosynaptic cores, all the while only requiring 70mW of power.

Traditionally, faster processing has always meant greater power consumption, but IBM's new SyNAPSE chip flips that paradigm on its head. To give you some perspective of just how low-powered this supercomputing chip is, IBM's Chief Scientist Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha says it requires power equivalent to that of a battery from a hearing aid. It's an achievement that's merited IBM the cover of the journal Science; it also has the potential to drastically alter conventional approaches to computing. In fact, the new SyNAPSE chip is so disruptive to the current computing landscape that IBM's created a new programming language to go along with it and an educational outreach program called SyNAPSE University. It's no wonder why the project received $53 million in funding from DARPA. ... Read more

Dramatically different from traditional software, IBM's new programming model breaks the mold of sequential operation underlying today's von Neumann architectures and computers. It is instead tailored for a new class of distributed, highly interconnected, asynchronous, parallel, large-scale cognitive computing architectures.

A New Era of Computing Requires a New Way to Program Computers
asmarterplanet.com | Dharmendra S. Modha | 08/08/13

Sixty years ago, in the face of tremendous skepticism, IBM engineer John Backus set out to radically change the economics of scientific computing on the IBM 704 by making programming much cheaper, faster, and reliable. The language that he and his colleagues developed--FORTRAN--became the first widely used high-level programming language. It laid the groundwork for the software industry as we know it and the waves of transformation that computing has brought to industry, science, government and society. The importance of FORTRAN is hard to overestimate as demonstrated by O'Reilly's poster on "The History of Programming Languages."

Today, we're at another turning point in the history of information technology. The era that Backus and his contemporaries helped create, the programmable computing era, is being superseded by the era of cognitive computing. Increasingly, computers will gather huge quantities of data, reason over the data, and learn from their interactions with information and people. These new capabilities will help us penetrate complexity and make better decisions about everything from how to manage cities to how to solve confounding business problems. ... Read more

6 Numbers That Show How Out of Whack America's Priorities Are
AlterNet | Paul Buchheit | 08/24/14

Americans constantly hear about the threat of "entitlements," which in the case of Social Security and Medicare are more properly defined as "earned benefits." The real threat is the array of entitlements demanded by the very rich.

Note:Read the first part of the article to get the total amount spent on each entitlement, but for another view: Annual Per Capita Numbers see below:

Sexiest Body Paint of Sports Illustrated
TodaysGrid | Steve Marshall | 01/29/14

Read more

Seven Key Takeaways From Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Tax Plan for Growth and Equality
BillMoyers | author | 05/30/14

But taxes also shape our incentives. We tax things that we deem to be harmful -- like tobacco and alcohol -- and hand out tax breaks to encourage things we find beneficial, like research.

According to a new white paper by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, our labyrinthine tax system is skewing those incentives. We’re encouraging corporations to invest in creating jobs overseas, when unemployment remains doggedly high here at home. We’re giving US-based multinationals good reason t0 deprive our treasury of revenues when we should be investing in infrastructure and the American people.

The full recommendations are available in Stiglitz’s report, Reforming Taxation to Promote Growth and Equity(PDF).

*Bill Moyers | Joseph E. Stiglitz Calls for Fair Taxes for All (08/21/14) [25:25]

SWAT Lobby to Congress: Hands Off Our Mine-Resistant Vehicles!
TheDailyBeast.com | Tim Mak | 08/21/14

In an attempt to counter widespread concern over “militarized” local police departments, law enforcement groups are pressing Capitol Hill to not cut off the supply of armored vehicles, body armor and other military equipment to the nation’s cops.

This week, the National Tactical Officers Association, the lobbying group for 1,600 SWAT teams across the country, emailed all legislative staffers in the House and Senate to express that they shared in “our nation’s grief” over the events in Ferguson, Missouri. ... Read more

Neil deGrasse Tyson Hit by Creationist Backlash for Explaining Universe Is Billions of Years Old
AlterNet | Dan Arel | 08/20/14

In the wake of the success of the "Cosmos" television series, which picked up four Emmy Awards earlier this week, Neil deGrasse Tyson discussed politics, religion and science in a recent interview with AlterNet.

When I asked if the success of "Cosmos" had surprised him, Tyson said he had not anticipated the kind of coverage the show would get by entertainment sites and blogs. Because of the show's major network backing and primetime slot, he said, it was covered like any other television show. He said this forced many entertainment writers to write about all sorts of science topics not often covered in these publications, exposing the show to a new and possibly unintended audience.

... Tyson was not as shocked by the backlash the show garnered from certain religious and political groups, mainly creationists who took issue with Tyson’s insistence on discussing evolution, the Big Bang theory and the history of scientific discovery. Their criticism of the show did not bother Tyson at all. “You have to ask yourself, what are the numbers behind the people making these claims? Someone like Ken Ham [owner of the Creation Museum] has beliefs that are even crazy to many Christians.” ... Read more

Ruling on Nuclear Waste Storage Could Create a "Catastrophic Risk"
MotherJones | Josh Harkinson | 08/22/14

Strict safety controls sought by environmental groups for the storage of radioactive waste at dozens of nuclear power plants may fall to the wayside under a rule that's expected be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next week. According to a congressional source who does not wish to be identified, the NRC is rushing to vote on the rule before the September retirement of Commissioner William Magwood, an ally of the nuclear power industry.

The rule would establish that the environmental risks of storing spent fuel in pools of water at reactor sites for extended periods are negligible and for the most part don't need to be studied as part of the licensing requirements for nuclear power plants. But critics of the rule say that the NRC is blatantly ignoring its own research, which shows that the practice could lead to serious disasters: "You will have all the waste sitting, basically, in a giant swimming pool," the source says, "and the potential of the swimming pool draining or being breached by an accident or an attack or a power loss that causes the water to boil off—all of those things would have impacts that the NRC's own analysis says would equal that of a meltdown of the reactor core." ... Read more

Another Police Shooting in St. Louis: St. Louis Police Release Video Of Kajieme Powell Killing
HP | Ryan Grim | 08/20/14

... St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Tuesday that both of the officers opened fire on Powell when he came within a three or four feet of them holding a knife "in an overhand grip." But the newly released cell phone footage undermines the statement, showing Powell approaching the cops, but not coming as close as was reported, with his hands at his side. The officers began shooting within 15 seconds of their arrival, hitting Powell with a barrage of bullets. ...

CNN's Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo pushed Dotson on the officers' decision to use lethal force, rather than opting for an alternate form of defense like a Taser. "Certainly a Taser is an option that's available to the officers, but Tasers aren't 100 percent," Dotson said. "So you've got an individual with a knife who's moving towards you, not listening to any verbal commands, continues, says, 'shoot me now, kill me now.' Tasers aren't 100 percent. if that Taser misses, that [individual] continues on and hurts an officer." ... Read more

*Kajieme Powell Shooting. (Police arrive at 1:20 into the video) (08/20/14) [6:30]

Robert Reich: American Democracy Is Diseased
AlterNet | Robert Reich | 08/20/14

Americans are sick of politics. Only 13 percent approve of the job Congress is doing, a near record low. The President's approval ratings are also in the basement. A large portion of the public doesn't even bother voting. Only 57.5 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the 2012 presidential election.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence on them of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups, and average citizens. Their conclusion: "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." ... Read more

Bank Of America Reaches Record $17 Billion Settlement With U.S.
HP & AP | Jeff Horwitz | 08/20/14

Bank of America has reached a record settlement of nearly $17 billion to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis, officials directly familiar with the matter said Wednesday. One of the officials, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the announcement isn't scheduled until Thursday at the earliest, said the bank will pay $9.65 billion in cash and provide consumer relief valued at $7 billion.

The deal is the largest settlement arising from the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. It follows agreements in the last year with Citigroup for $7 billion and with JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $13 billion. ... Read more

The Disease in American Democracy
Bill Moyers | Robert Reich | 08/19/14

A new study scheduled to be published in this fall by Princeton's Martin Gilens and Northwestern University's Benjamin Page confirms our worst suspicions.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence on them of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens.

Their conclusion: "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." Read more

*HBO | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Predatory Lending. (08/10/14) [16:32]

Two California youths accused of plotting high school shooting spree
Reuters | Steve Gorman | 08/18/14

Police in the Los Angeles suburb of South Pasadena said on Monday they had thwarted a mass shooting plot with the arrest of two teenagers who were conspiring to kill several staffers and as many fellow students as possible at their high school.

"Enough evidence was discovered, and based on that evidence the two students were arrested," the statement said, though it did not identify the pair or make clear when they were taken into custody. ... Read more

Iraq Vet: Small-Town Cops Have Better Armor and Weaponry Than We Carried in a Combat
Bill Moyers | Rafael Noboa y Rivera | 08/15/14

In my year in Iraq, I lost track of how many times my guys asked me why so many Iraqis viewed us with distrust when we were trying to help them. The question would arise while we were walking the beat with Iraqi police officers, manning checkpoints, or in our forward operating base after we went off-duty.

Invariably, my response went something like this: “Imagine that you’re back home, OK? Suddenly, you got a whole mess of Iraqi soldiers in your town. They’re all over the place, doing the same things we’re doing right now. How do you think you’d react? You’d probably get pretty hot, right?” ... Read more
“Civil Disturbances (ATP 3-39.33)”, the Army’s crowd control manual (PDF)

How America’s Largest Worker Owned Co-Op Lifts People Out of Poverty
Bill Moyers | Laura Flanders | 08/15/14

Before Zaida Ramos joined Cooperative Home Care Associates, she was raising her daughter on public assistance, shuttling between dead-end office jobs, and not making ends meet. “I earned in a week what my family spent in a day,” she recalled.

After 17 years as a home health aide at Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), the largest worker-owned co-op in the United States, Ramos recently celebrated her daughter’s college graduation. She’s paying half of her son’s tuition at a Catholic school, and she’s a worker-owner in a business where she enjoys flexible hours, steady earnings, health and dental insurance, plus an annual share in the profits. She’s not rich, she says, “but I’m financially independent. I belong to a union, and I have a chance to make a difference.” ... Read more
A Co-op Story: Green Worker Co-op Academy (08/08/14) [8:02]

Liberia fights Ebola in capital, West Africa toll tops 1,200
Reuters | Stephanie Nebehay | 08/19/14

Liberia battled on Tuesday to halt the spread of the Ebola disease in its crowded, run-down oceanside capital Monrovia, recording the most new deaths as fatalities from the world's worst outbreak of the deadly virus rose above 1,200.

The epidemic of the hemorrhagic disease, which can kill up to 90 percent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy.

As the Geneva-based World Health Organization rushed to ramp up the global response to the outbreak first detected in March, including emergency food deliveries to quarantined zones, it announced that deaths from it had risen to 1,299 as of Aug. 16, out of 2,240 cases. ... Read more

Federal Authorities Wade Deeper Into Teen's Death
WSJ | Devlin Barrett | 08/17/14

The announcement Sunday came after dozens of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents descended on the St. Louis suburb over the weekend to gather evidence as violent protests resumed following two days of relative peace.

Earlier, more than 3,000 people, including prominent civil rights leaders, gathered at a "unity rally" to call for greater protection for young black men who encounter police and greater federal intervention in the case of Michael Brown, the African-American teen killed Aug. 9 by a white police officer. ... Read more

Lawmaker To Introduce Bill To Curb Increasing Militarization Of Police Agencies
http://washington.cbslocal.com/ | author | 08/15/14

A police officer keeps watch over demonstrators protesting the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 13, 2014 in Ferguson, Mo (north St. Louis)

Lenco Armored Vehicles website

Defense Logistics Agency - Disposition Services - Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) website

How to Get Grant Funding for a MRAP

A giant column of Russian aid trucks is headed for Ukraine — flanked by attack helicopters
vox.com | Max Fisher | 08/15/14

Russia is sending 280 trucks barreling toward eastern Ukraine as part of what it says is an aid convoy to help Ukrainian civilians effected by the worsening fighting there. But Ukrainian officials say they will not allow the trucks to cross into Ukraine because they believe they are a clandestine invasion force. It's not hard to see why: a few months earlier, Russia sent undercover special forces into the Ukrainian region of Crimea as the vanguard of a hostile invasion, which quickly annexed the territory.

Russia, never great at public relations abroad, is giving Ukraine reasons to worry, and not just because it is actively arming and supplying the eastern Ukrainian separatists who are causing the violence there. On Wednesday, for example, the aid convoy made a mysterious and unannounced stop at a Russian military base -- no one is sure why. Russia will not reveal the contents of the trucks. ... Read more

NAFTA Is 20 Years Old – Here Are 20 Facts That Show How It Is Destroying The Economy
ZeroHedge | author | 08/15/14

Back in the early 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement was one of the hottest political issues in the country. When he was running for president in 1992, Bill Clinton promised that NAFTA would result in an increase in the number of high quality jobs for Americans that it would reduce illegal immigration. Ross Perot warned that just the opposite would happen. He warned that if NAFTA was implemented there would be a "giant sucking sound" as thousands of businesses and millions of jobs left this country. Most Americans chose to believe Bill Clinton. Well, it is 20 years later and it turns out that Perot was right and Clinton was dead wrong.

So if NAFTA is so bad for American workers, then why don't our politicians just repeal it? [6:44]

One Nation Under SWAT: The Militarization of America's Police
AlterNet | TomDispatch | 08/14/14

Amidst the outrageous police presence in Ferguson, a look at how local law enforcement is turning communities into war zones.

Think of it as a different kind of blowback. Even when you fight wars in countries thousands of miles distant, they still have an eerie way of making the long trip home. Take the latest news from Bergen County, New Jersey, one of the richest counties in the country. Its sheriff's department is getting two mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs -- 15 tons of protective equipment -- for a song from the Pentagon. And there's nothing special in that. The Pentagon has handed out 600 of them for nothing since 2013, with plenty more to come. They're surplus equipment, mostly from our recent wars, and perhaps they will indeed prove handy for a sheriff fretting about insurgent IEDs (roadside bombs) in New Jersey or elsewhere in the country. When it comes to the up-armoring and militarization of America's police forces, this is completely run-of-the-mill stuff. ... Read more

Ferguson Is 60 Percent Black. Virtually All Its Cops Are White.
MotherJones | Hannah Levintova | 08/14/14

Black residents of Ferguson, Missouri, the working-class city in northern St. Louis county where an unarmed black teenager was shot dead by police officers on Saturday, say the town has been a "powder keg" of racial imbalance for decades. "They treat us like second class all the way down the line," one black resident told the LA Times. A black city alderman said the ensuing protests are "a boiling over of tensions that had been going on for a long while." Read more

Donald Rumsfeld Admits Day before 911 "2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD" () [3:57]

96 Bodies You Won't See On Billboards -- But Should
HP | Nina Bahadur | 08/13/14

Only 5 percent of women have the type of body we see on billboards and in TV commercials. The "Expose" project wants you to see the remaining 95 percent.

Blogger and activist Jes Baker teamed up with photographer Liora K to showcase women's bodies just as they are -- unfiltered, un-Photoshopped, and totally amazing. ... Read more

There's Another Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You've Never Heard Of
BillMoyers | Cole Stangler | 08/12/14

Most progressives are, by now, familiar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the proposed trade deal that would link the United States with Pacific Rim powerhouses like Australia and Japan. Wonkier corners of the left are equally conversant in the intrigue of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a pact that would couple the United States and the European Union. Like-minded critics would do well by memorizing yet another trade acronym: TISA, or the Trade in Services Agreement. Judging by the stakes and the ultra-secrecy of the negotiations, it could easily be the worst of the bunch.

Here's what we know: Fifty countries, including the United States, the EU nations, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey, have been in TISA talks since 2012. The resulting agreement will set the terms for almost 70 percent of global trade in "services": everything from banking and construction to telecom and tourism.>/p>

The public got its first glimpse of the treaty on June 19, when WikiLeaks published a draft of the agreement's chapter on financial services. It wasn't pretty. The text included proposals to extend new "market access" guarantees to all participating states and fresh limits on the ability of nations to "discriminate" against foreign financial firms. The section hasn't been finalized, but the leak confirmed what TISA skeptics feared: The United States and EU are leading the charge to block countries from imposing domestic regulations on the multi-trillion-dollar services industries.

"It is astounding that at a time when we are still reeling from the devastating consequences of reckless financial deregulation, our governments are negotiating further deregulation of the financial sector, solely in the interests of large financial corporations," says Daniel Bertossa, senior policy and advocacy officer at Public Services International (PSI), a global public-sector union federation based in France. .... Read more

Unholy Trinity on America
EcomonyInCrisi.org | Ruth Patterson | 06/27/14

When She Talks, Banks Shudder
NYTimes | Binyamin Appelbaum | 08/09/14

... But after years of quixotic advocacy, Ms. Admati is reaching some very prominent ears. Last month, President Obama invited her and five other economists to a private lunch to discuss their ideas. She left him with a copy of “The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong With Banking and What to Do About It,” a 2013 book she co-authored. A few weeks later, she testified for the first time before the Senate Banking Committee. And, in a recent speech, Stanley Fischer, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, praised her “vigorous campaign.” ... Read more

Bill Moyers | Stanford finance professor Anat R. Admati talks to Bill Moyers about "too-big-to-fail" banks. (06/14) [24:34]

When Did Republicans Start Hating the Environment?
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 08/13/14

Roughly 1991, according to a new study.

It's one of those facts that sweeps you back into an alien, almost unrecognizable era. On July 9, 1970, Republican President Richard Nixon announced to Congress his plans to create the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By the end of that year, both agencies were a reality. Nowadays, among their other tasks, they either monitor or seek to mitigate the problem of global warming—actions that make today's Republicans, Nixon's heirs, completely livid.

To give one example of how anti-environment the right today is, just consider this ThinkProgress analysis, finding that "over 58 percent" of congressional Republicans refuse to accept the science of climate change. So what happened to the GOP, from the time of Nixon to the present, to turn an environmental leader into an environmental retrograde? According to a new study in the journal Social Science Research, the key change actually began around the year 1991—when the Soviet Union fell. "The conservative movement replaced the 'Red Scare' with a new 'Green Scare' and became increasingly hostile to environmental protection at that time," argues sociologist Aaron McCright of Michigan State University and two colleagues. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Geoengineering

Paul Singer Will Make Argentina Pay
Bloomberg | Max Abelson | 08/07/14

“He [Paul Singer]finds a country in distress, he buys its debt, he demands full payment, and he doesn’t care about the economics, the poverty, the circumstances of the country,” says Mark Cymrot, who represented Peru and is head of BakerHostetler’s international disputes group. “From his point of view, he would say, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ And you’d have to say he’s right. But I wouldn’t want to earn money that way myself.” ... Read more
*TYT | Real Life Super Villains Hold Entire Country Hostage (08/12/14) [14:56]

We Say Goodbye To Robin Williams at 63
USAToday | author | 08/12/14

"Robin Williams passed away this morning," said Mara Buxbaum, president of his PR firm. "He has been battling severe depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time."

His wife, Susan Schneider, issued a brief statement: "This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken," she said. ... Read more

USAToday | Oscar-winning actor/comic Robin Williams was found dead in his California home Monday, a possible suicide, according to investigators. He was 63 (08/12/14) [3:45]

Undeniable Proof That The California Drought Is A Big Deal
HP | author | 08/11/14

With major wildfires burning six at a time, more than half of California now experiencing the most severe category of dryness and experts warning that even an El Niño year won’t be enough to redeem the west in 2015, residents of California and beyond must face the terrifying reality that the drought probably isn’t done breaking records -- and it’s not something just farmers and firefighters have to face.

The Huffington Post asked readers to share photos through the hashtag #OurDroughtIsReal to show how the drought is affecting them in their own backyards, literally. Here are some of the heartbreaking photos and stories you shared. ... See article for a lot more photos

The Rebirth of Stakeholder Capitalism?
BillMoyers | Robert Reich | 08/12/14

... Pantagonia, a large apparel manufacturer based in Ventura, California, has organized itself as a “B-corporation.” That’s a for-profit company whose articles of incorporation require it to take into account the interests of workers, the community and the environment, as well as shareholders. ...

... In addition, 27 states have passed laws allowing companies to incorporate as “benefit corporations.” This gives directors legal protection to consider the interests of all stakeholders rather than just the shareholders who elected them. We may be witnessing the beginning of a return to a form of capitalism that was taken for granted in America 60 years ago. ...

... What changed? In the 1980s, corporate raiders began mounting unfriendly takeovers of companies that could deliver higher returns to their shareholders – if they abandoned their other stakeholders. The raiders figured profits would be higher if the companies fought unions, cut workers’ pay or fired them, automated as many jobs as possible or moved jobs abroad, shuttered factories, abandoned their communities and squeezed their customers. ... Read more

Lindsey Graham: If Obama Doesn't Go On Offense, Terrorists Are 'Coming Here'
HP | Amanda Terkel | 08/11/14

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) doesn't think the public has been sufficiently frightened about what is going on in the Middle East. On Sunday, he urged President Barack Obama to give a speech warning Americans that the United States faces a possible terrorist attack from Iraq or Syria. ...

... On Thursday, Obama announced that he had authorized limited airstrikes in Iraq in an effort to stop the Islamic State, a militant group currently threatening the Kurdish city of Irbil, where American officials and forces are located. The group has also driven thousands of Iraqis belonging to the minority Yazidi sect onto a barren mountain and terrorized people across the country as it seeks to establish a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. ... Read more
Fox | Sen. Lindsey Graham Says Terrorist Attack From Iraq, Syria Will Set U.S. City on Fire (08/11/14) [4:14]

3D Mural Art Of Artist Eric Grohhe
arborsci.com | author | 2011

Eric Grohe Murals LLC Working in cooperation with architects, designers, art commissions and community representatives, Eric Grohe creates mural art that transforms the environment and communities as well. He believes that his art should involve, challenge and inspire the viewer; not simply adorn, but integrate with its architectural surroundings. ... Read more
Eric Grohe website

Eye Deceiving Wall Murals by John Pugh
amusingplanet.com | author | 2011

California based artist John Pugh specializes in the art of in ‘trompe l’oeil’, which means 'to deceive the eye’ in French. Pugh uses his skills to create huge 3D scenes on the side of buildings that fools the eye. Take for instance the wall mural painted on a wall in Los Gatos, California. It looks as if an earthquake had shaken away the walls of these buildings to reveal Egyptian architecture hidden inside. And that woman peering into the ruins? She is not real either. ... Read more
John Pugh website
John Pugh - Mana Nalu

The "Recovery" In One Chart: When Americans Can't Even Afford To Buy McDonalds For 9 Months In A Row
magazine | author | date

It is the latter that is by far the best indicator of how the US economy is progressing when stripped of all the bullshit seasonal adjustments, rhetoric and lies from the administration which focus on what is a glowing recovery, for the 1%. ... Read more
Zoom - Americans Can't Even Afford To Buy McDonalds

Wall Street Analysts: High Inequality Makes Us Vulnerable to Crashes
Bill Moyers | Joshua Holland | 08/07/14

For many years there were some economists who argued that their discipline shouldn't worry about inequality. Economists, they said, should focus on efficiency and growth, and leave the distribution up to the political world. But a research brief released on Tuesday by the Wall Street ratings agency Standard and Poor's concludes that growth versus equality is a false choice. The authors argue that while some inequality may be desirable in a market economy -- it spurs entrepreneurship and innovation -- when those at the top take too large a share of a nation's output, they tend to bank it rather than spend it. This ultimately hurts consumer demand and slows down economic growth. They also note that "higher levels of income inequality increase political pressures, discouraging trade, investment, and hiring."

... After several decades of stagnant wages, most Americans have little or no cushion to get them through a temporary setback. According to a 2013 survey of 1,000 US households by Bankrate.com, 81 percent of American families don't have enough emergency savings to pay the bills for six months. American households compensated for flat wages first by transitioning from one-earner to two-earners -- millions of women joined the workforce. Then we started borrowing. When the recession hit, we were tapped out and deeply in debt. With no economic security -- no cushion -- we stopped spending money on anything but the essentials, and that contributed to the "output-gap" that persists to this day.. ... Read more

Wildfires Cause Nearly a Fifth of Manmade Carbon Emissions
MotherJones | Alex Park | 08/07/14

Wildfires are raging around the western United States: As of yesterday, more than 10,000 firefighters were battling 20 fires in Oregon and California. Another fire in Washington state recently grew to cover more than 8,000 acres. While the immediate consequences of the blazes are obvious -- scorched earth, destroyed homes, millions of dollars in damages -- the longer-term consequences for the climate have, until now, been poorly understood.

In a study published at the end of July in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University engineer, says the burning of biomass like trees, plants, and grass -- either by accident or deliberately (often to create room for agriculture) -- creates 18 percent of all human-caused carbon emissions. Worse yet, that pollution kills people: Around the world, Jacobson writes, biomass burning may account for 5-10 percent of all air pollution deaths worldwide, or about 250,000 people annually. Read more

West African Healthcare Systems Swamped As Ebola Death Toll Tops 900
HP & Reuters | Derick Snyder | 08/06/14

Health workers in West Africa appealed on Wednesday for urgent help in controlling the world's worst Ebola outbreak as the death toll climbed to 932 and Liberia shut a major hospital where several staff were infected, including a Spanish priest.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it would ask medical ethics experts to explore the emergency use of experimental treatments to tackle the highly contagious disease after a trial drug was given to two U.S. charity workers infected in Liberia. With West Africa's rudimentary healthcare systems swamped, 45 new deaths from Ebola were reported in the three days to Aug. 4 ... Read more

The situation in Gaza explained with a map by lemondefr

Webster Tarpley - Israel-Palestine-Hamas...

17 Things To Read If You're Trying To See All Sides Of The Israel-Gaza Conflict
HP | Nick Wing | 08/05/14
Read more

7 Things to Consider Before Choosing Sides in the Middle East Conflict
HP | Ali A. Rizvi | 07/28/14
Read more

Never ask me about peace again
al-monitor.com | Asmaa al-Ghoul | 08/04/14
Read more

Sticker Shock: How Big Pharma Gouges the American Public
BillMoyers | Terry J. Allen | 08/05/14

... The adventure began with a rant: "The last time I bought an EpiPen, it cost $60, and that was too much. Now it's $380. You're a reporter. Look into this." My marching orders came from Mary, a friend whose drugs aren't covered by insurance. Allergic to bees, she could die of anaphylactic shock if stung. Millions of kids and adults are similarly vulnerable -- peanuts, stings, various meds can swell shut their airways. Their lives may depend on a pen-shaped, plastic delivery device for self-injecting a fast-acting dose of epinephrine. ...

... Every doctor already knows about EpiPens. A limited customer base? With allergies on the rise and millions of EpiPens sold globally, economy of scale is built in, and a repeat market is guaranteed by quick expiration and dire need. EpiPen earned Mylan a tidy $640 million in 2012, The New York Times reported. ... Read more

The Toxic Algae Are Not Done With Toledo. Not By a Long Stretch.
MotherJones | Tom Philpott | 08/06/14

Last weekend, Toledo's 400,000 residents were sent scrambling for bottled water because the stuff from the tap had gone toxic--so toxic that city officials warned people against bathing their children or washing their dishes in it. The likely cause: a toxic blue-green algae bloom that floated over the city's municipal water intake in Lake Erie. On Monday morning, the city called off the don't-drink-the-water warning, claiming that levels of the contaminant in the water had fallen back to safe levels. Is their nightmare over?

I put the question to Jeffrey Reutter, director of the Stone Laboratory at Ohio State University and a researcher who monitors Lake Erie's annual algae blooms. He said he could "almost guarantee" that the conditions that caused the crisis, i.e., a toxic bloom floating over the intake, would recur this summer. But it's "pretty unlikely" that toxins will make it into the city's drinking water. ... Read more

Giant Holes in Siberia Are Evidence of Runaway Climate Change, Scientists Say
AlterNet & ecowatch.com/ | EcoWatch | 08/04/14

Scientists think this mysterious crater may be a giant methane blow-hole that signals the beginning of runaway climate change.

They are calling the point when frozen arctic methane in Canada, Alaska and Russia starts erupting into the atmosphere dragon burps.

I think Dr. Jason Box, who has highlighted the appearance of dangerous spikes in methane above Siberia, sums it up best, "If we don't get atmospheric carbon down and cool the Arctic, the climate physics and recent observations tell me we will probably trigger the release of these vast carbon stores, dooming our kids' to a hothouse Earth." ... Read more
Zoom - Dragon Burp?

WH | Climate Change & Wildfires Explained in Less Than Three Minutes (08/05/14) [2:38]

6 More Nails In Democracy's Coffin: Depressing Trends in Political Spending
AlterNet | Steven Rosenfeld | 07/29/14

American democracy--meaning our system of campaigns, lobbying and governing--has been drowning in dollars for decades. But a half-dozen recent trends suggest that 2014 is not just on the way to becoming another record-breaking election, where ever-greater sums are spent by elites to sway voters.

What sets 2014 apart is the staggering amount of outside money that is being spent for efforts that eclipse traditional candidate-run campaigns. This is a direct consequence of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that view all political messaging as free speech, and do not see how the wealthy monopolize the microphone, drown out debate and suppress dissent. ... Read more

Amid Protests, ALEC Launches New Spinoff to Influence Local Governments
Bill Moyers | Candice Bernd | 08/04/14

ALEC has generated legislation that advances the interests of its corporate members throughout state legislatures in the United States, as has been well documented by organizations such as the Center for Media and Democracy. More than 98 percent of the organization’s funding comes from corporations and corporate foundations, with the infamous petrochemical billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, serving as some of the organization’s largest donors.

... “[ALEC] is going to continue to push an anti-worker narrative,” said Pamela Reséndiz, mobilization coordinator with the Dallas AFL-CIO. “Whether it’s right to work, or whether they’re trying to take away pensions from workers, or whether it is to cut out overtime pay . . . their policies affect everyone, regardless of whether you’re in a union or not.” ...

... On Wednesday, ALEC announced the launch of a new offshoot that will apply ALEC’s modus operandi of courting legislators with corporate lobbyists to draft model bills advancing corporate interests – to the local level. This new arm of ALEC, the American City County Exchange (ACCE), held its first meeting last Wednesday at the Hilton Anatole. ACCE will work in conjunction with ALEC to influence elected representatives in city and county council positions, while ALEC focuses on state legislatures. ... Read more
ALEC - The American Legislative Exchange Council - Explained in 5 Minutes [5:00]
Bill Moyers | United States of Alec [31:54]

World’s Large Cities Move Water Equivalent to Ten Colorado Rivers to Meet their Annual Water Needs
NatGeo | Sandra Postel | 06/06/14

Now, a new study has estimated that collectively the world’s large cities, defined as those with at least 750,000 people, move 504 billion liters (133 billion gallons) of water a day a cumulative distance of some 27,000 kilometers. ...

... Large cities occupy only 1% of the Earth’s land surface, but the watersheds that provide their water cover 41% of the land surface, underscoring the importance of good land use in maintaining the quality of drinking water. ...

... The top ten largest cities under water stress, according to the McDonald team, are Tokyo (Japan), Delhi (India), Mexico City (Mexico), Shanghai (China), Beijing (China) Kolkata (India), Los Angeles (United States), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Moscow (Russia), and Istanbul (Turkey). ... Read more

How the West was Lost
NatGeo | Jay Famiglietti | 06/24/14

California’s epic drought is just the latest example of what is shaping up to be the new normal out west. Last year was the driest on record. This year, river flows are so low that deliveries of surface water to the southern half of the state, through California’s complex network of aqueducts and canals, were slashed to zero. Thirsty homeowners and anxious farmers have been forced to dig more and deeper wells to tap into steadily declining groundwater reserves.

Several cities and towns in California have imposed mandatory restrictions in order to curtail water use. The State Water Resources Control Board recently authorized fines of up to $500 for wasting water on washing down sidewalks or for overwatering yards. A new study from the University of California, Davis estimates that the current drought will cost the state $2.2 billion in damages, and will result in 17,000 jobs lost. ... Read more

US is Bankrupt: $89.5 Trillion in US Liabilities vs. $82 Trillion in Household Net Worth & The Gap is Growing.
ZeroHedge | author | 08/04/14

There are many ways to look at the United States government debt, obligations, and assets. Liabilities include Treasury debt held by the public or more broadly total Treasury debt outstanding. There’s unfunded liabilities like Medicare and Social Security. And then the assets of all the real estate, all the equities, all the bonds, all the deposits…all at today’s valuations. But let’s cut straight to the bottom line and add it all up…$89.5 trillion in liabilities and $82 trillion in assets. There. It’s not a secret anymore…and although these are all government numbers, for some strange reason the government never adds them all together or explains them…but we will. ... Read more

That FL CEO Who Said He'd FIRE Everyone if Obama Elected? Guess What Happened...
DailyKos.com | author | 07/25/14

"The Queen of Versailles" was a film documentary based on the sleazy time-share mogul, David Siegel, and his wife, Jackie. David had major financial troubles following Bush's 2008 economic crises. He even had to stop work on his private home, dubbed "Versailles", which was to be the largest home in the U.S. Poor guy.

Naturally, Obama was to blame for this. As you may recall during the peak of the presidential campaign, Mr. Siegel penned a letter threatening to fire all his employees and close down his Orlando-based company, Westgate, if Obama was elected. A snippet from the full letter: ... Read more

Robert Reich: Just Imagine If People Were Paid What Their Work Is Really Worth to Society
AlterNet | Robert Reich | 08/04/14

Does anyone seriously believe hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the $2.3 billion he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine after his firm pleaded guilty to insider trading?

On the other hand, what's the worth to society of social workers who put in long and difficult hours dealing with patients suffering from mental illness or substance abuse? Probably higher than their average pay of $18.14 an hour, which translates into less than $38,000 a year.

How much does society gain from personal-care aides who assist the elderly, convalescents, and persons with disabilities? Likely more than their average pay of $9.67 an hour, or just over $20,000 a year.

What's the social worth of hospital orderlies who feed, bathe, dress, and move patients, and empty their ben pans? Surely higher than their median wage of $11.63 an hour, or $24,190 a year.

Or of child care workers, who get $10.33 an hour, $21.490 a year? And preschool teachers, who earn $13.26 an hour, $27,570 a year?

Yet what would the rest of us do without these dedicated people? ... Read more

America's Massive National Security State Is the 4th Branch of Government
AlterNet | Tom Engelhardt | 08/03/14

As every schoolchild knows, there are three check-and-balance branches of the U.S. government: the executive, Congress, and the judiciary. That's bedrock Americanism and the most basic high school civics material. Only one problem: it's just not so.

During the Cold War years and far more strikingly in the twenty-first century, the U.S. government has evolved. It sprouted a fourth branch: the national security state, whose main characteristic may be an unquenchable urge to expand its power and reach. Admittedly, it still lacks certain formal prerogatives of governmental power. Nonetheless, at a time when Congress and the presidency are in a check-and-balance ballet of inactivity that would have been unimaginable to Americans of earlier eras, the Fourth Branch is an ever more unchecked and unbalanced power center in Washington. Curtained off from accountability by a penumbra of secrecy, its leaders increasingly are making nitty-gritty policy decisions and largely doing what they want, a situation illuminated by a recent controversy over the possible release of a Senate report on CIA rendition and torture practices. ... Read more

40 Million People Depend on the Colorado River. Now It's Drying Up.
MotherJones | Tom Philpott | 08/04/14

And here's what GRACE researchers found in the Colorado River Basin region: To make up for the gap between what the Colorado River supplies and what people and agriculture demand, farmers, landowners, and municipalities are dropping wells and tapping underground aquifers at a much faster rate than had been assumed. Between December 2004 and November 2013, the Colorado Basin surrendered almost 53 million acre-feet of underground water--roughly equal to about 1.5 full Lake Meads, siphoned away in just nine years.

"Quite honestly, we are alarmed and concerned about the implications of our findings," study coauthor Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at NASA and a professor of at the University of California-Irvine, wrote in a blog post. "From a group that studies groundwater depletion in the hottest of the hot spots of water stress around the world--in India, the Middle East, and in California's Central Valley--that says something." ... Read more
Running Dry (National Geographic) [1:40]

NIH to launch early Ebola vaccine trial in September
USA Today | Liz Szabo | 07/31/14

The USA will launch an early-stage trial in September of an experimental vaccine against Ebola, the deadly viral disease that has killed 729 people in the largest outbreak in history.

The National Institutes of Health has been developing an Ebola vaccine for several years that has had "encouraging results" in primates, says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci said he's working with the Food and Drug Administration to fast track the vaccine into a phase 1 clinical trial this fall. This type of trial is the earliest study in humans and aims to make sure that drugs are safe and show some efficacy. ... Read more
CBS | Ebola Spread in Western Africa (07/31/14) []

CIA Director John Brennan should resign
Politico | Burgess Everett | 07/31/14

Udall railed on Thursday against the CIA's "tremendous failure of leadership" displayed by Brennan in the aftermath of Feinstein's March accusation that the CIA accessed Senate computers. The senator said the CIA director was not forthright about the agency's interference into the torture report and said the IG report "isn't enough."

"I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan. The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal, but it violates the U.S. Constitution's requirement of separation of powers," Udall said. "There must be consequences." ... Read more

CBS | CIA chief apologizes for searching Senate members' computers (08/01/14) [2:17]

America's 10 Most Hated Banks
AlterNet | Erika Eichelberger | 07/29/14

If you put out a complaint box for customers of US banks and financial firms, you will get hundreds of thousands of complaints. That's what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--which was set up by Elizabeth Warren before she became a US senator--has discovered. And the bank that has drawn the most complaints is Bank of America. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Citibank were other top targets of consumer wrath.

... The majority of complaints targeting Bank of America--over 27,500 of them--concern mortgage practices, including foreclosure processing. In 2012, Bank of America, Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo, and Ally Bank--the nation's five largest mortgage servicers--entered into a $25 billion settlement with 49 states and the federal government over the banks' use of faulty foreclosure documents. (Bank of America recently agreed to pay a fine of $16.6 million to the Treasury Department to settle allegations that it processed nearly $100,000 in transactions for drug traffickers between 2005 and 2009.) ... Read more
Zoom - Banks American's Hate Most