Aug 14 2014 - News Aug 2014 - News - Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Thursday August 14, 2014

News Articles

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

TPP Trade Agreement
Click to zoom - Global Trade Deals

The TPP, short for Trans Pacific Partnership, is a Free Trade Agreement that is currently being pushed by the US to 10 nations of the Pacific Rim: New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Mexico and Canada. Japan has shown interest. The TPP just held it's 13th Round of Negotiations in the US, and will be holding Round 14th on September. The Trans-Pacific Partnership would create a super-treaty which would jeopardize the sovereignty of the nations involved by giving that power to large corporations like Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, Halliburton, Philip Morris, GE, GM, Apple.

The economic power of this group is more than 40% larger than the 27- nation European Union.
TPP will offshore millions of good-paying jobs to low-wage nations, undercutting working conditions globally and increasing unemployment.
TPP will expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and institute longer patents that will decrease access to affordable medications
TPP will limit food GMO labeling and allow the import of goods that do not meet US safe standards.
TPP will institute SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA-like regulations and Internet measures which restrict our right to free speech.
TPP will roll back Wall Street regulations, and prohibit bans on risky financial services.
TPP will give multinational corporations and private investors the right to sue nations in private tribunals. These tribunals have the power to overturn environmental, labor, or any other laws that limit profit, awarding taxpayer funded damages.
TPP will encourage the privatization of lands and natural resources in areas where indigenous people live.

TTIP Trade Agreement

TISA Trade Agreement

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

... "Free trade" is uncontrolled, unrestricted access to our economy, tariff- and duty-free, for goods made in foreign lands for $4 per hour or less. We cannot compete with these wages, so our manufacturers are forced to close up, sell out or leave the country. It is the reason we have lost our manufacturing sector and languish in a state where nearly a quarter of the workforce is unemployed or underemployed. No wealthy nation can withstand a "free trade" relationship with a nation of low wages and few regulations. ...

... The first of three gargantuan "free trade" deals is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Many different countries in all kinds of states of development are being bound together with the "free trade". The deal is being negotiated in secret, and get used to that because none of these trade deals has any transparency. Most of this deal isn't even about trade. In addition to forcing open relations between us and low-wage nations, it will tighten controls over the Internet and other areas, all without Congressional involvement. ...

... The second, which started negotiations about a year ago, is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Its trade implications are perhaps less potentially damaging than the TTP's, because it involves the U.S. and Europe, whose wages are similar to ours, but like the TPP it will principally not be about trade. Again, negotiations are secret and only Wikileaks has allowed us the little bit of knowledge that we have. ...

... Finally, there is TISA. The Trade in Services Agreement. The extent of this agreement could be the entire globe when all is said and done. This scheme is even more secret than the previous two, as it was given a top secret classification that will not expire until five years after the agreement is passed! Our leaders propose to fashion laws for us and we can't even know what they are! ... Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, August 14 [5:53]

*DN | Armed w/ Military-Grade Weapons, Ferguson, Missouri Police Crack Down on Protests Over Michael Brown Shooting (08/14/14) [7:13]

DN | Worse Than Tiananmen? 1st Anniversary of Egyptian Army Killings of 800+ Anti-Coup Protesters (08/14/14) [15:10]

DN | New Family Detention Centers Hold Immigrant Women and Children Without Bond as Asylum Claims Pend (08/14/14) [8:42]

DN | Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Part 1 (08/09/14) [10:18], Part 2 [seems there is a problem]

As radiation readings in Japan reach their highest levels since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdowns, we look at the beginning of the atomic age. Today is the 66th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which killed some 75,000 people and left another 75,000 seriously wounded. It came just three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing around 80,000 people and injuring some 70,000. By official Japanese estimates, nearly 300,000 people died from the bombings, including those who lost their lives in the ensuing months and years from related injuries and illnesses. Other researchers estimate a much higher death toll. Democracy Now! airs an account of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the pilots who flew the B-29 bomber that dropped that bomb, and feature an interview with the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, who was the first reporter to enter Nagasaki. He later summarized his experience with military censors who ordered his story killed, saying, "They won." Democracy Now! interviews Greg Mitchell, co-author of "Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial," with Robert Jay Lifton. His latest book is "Atomic Cover-Up: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and The Greatest Movie Never Made."

TRNN News

TRNN | PERI Co-Director Gerald Epstein discusses how FED Vice Chair Stanley Fischer's has ignored real solutions to improve the economy, like increasing wages, ... (08/14/14) [7:59]

*TRNN | Lawrence Wilkerson: Cooperation with Iran Necessary to Thwart Islamic State in Iraq (08/14/14) [9:54]

*TRNN | Burt Wides | Systemic Corruption and 40 Years Since Nixon Resigned (08/14/14) [22:11], Part 2 [21:04]

Mr. Wides tells Paul Jay the Watergate scandal exposed a pattern of a White House above the law and paved the way to exposure of CIA assassinations plots and illegal actions.

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire | The Corporate Death Grip on America (08/13/14) [3:15]

Chris Hayes - All In

Chris Hayes | Protesters and police clash in wake of shooting death of Michael Brow. (08/12/14) [15:34]

Chris Hayes | Chris Hayes examines the racial double-standard that still dominates American society. (08/12/14) [7:48]

Chris Hayes | Chris Hayes asks "Mrs. Doubtfire" screenwriter Randi Mayem Singer about her memories from working with the actor Robin Williams (08/12/14) [4:47]

Tiny House

Tiny house in the city- Boneyard Studios tour -Jay Austin's home [10:40]

ReasonTV | Jay Austin's Beautiful, Illegal Tiny House [10:31]

Colorado portable tiny house + Airstream-ish portable office [12:47]

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.

Greg Mitchell: The Hiroshima & Nagasaki Coverup (08/13/14) [33:55]

08.14.2014. 10:41

NPR

PBS

Special Interest Important stuff

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GOOD Short Videos

Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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Newer Documentaries

Documentaries You've Never Seen

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Good YouTube Documentaries

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Lindsey Graham Mashups

Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change

Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning

AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics | AI - Artificial Intelligence

Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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Nukes

Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business

Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911

911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups

Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades

Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews

Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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