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Thursday December 05, 2013
News Articles

The State of Work
prospect.org | Harold Meyerson | Editorial

The Forty Year Slump

Since 1947, Americans at all points on the economic spectrum had become a little better off with each passing year. The economy's rising tide, as President John F. Kennedy had famously said, was lifting all boats. Productivity had risen by 97 percent in the preceding quarter-century, and median wages had risen by 95 percent. As economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted in The Affluent Society, this newly middle-class nation had become more egalitarian. The poorest fifth had seen their incomes increase by 42 percent since the end of the war, while the wealthiest fifth had seen their incomes rise by just 8 percent. Economists have dubbed the period the "Great Compression." ... Read more

*Fast Food CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay
ips-dc.org | author | date

These CEO pay subsidies are the result of a loophole that allows firms to deduct unlimited amounts from their income taxes for the cost of stock options, certain stock grants, and other forms of so-called "performance pay" for top executives. Put simply: the more corporations pay their CEOs, the less they pay in federal taxes. And ordinary taxpayers wind up footing the bill.

During the past two years, the CEOs of the top six publicly held fast food chains pocketed more than $183 million in fully deductible "performance pay," lowering their companies' IRS bills by an estimated $64 million. ...

  1. YUM! Brands enjoyed the biggest taxpayer subsidy for its CEO pay largesse. This firm, which owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, paid CEO David Novak $94 million in fully deductible "performance pay" over the years 2011 and 2012. That works out to a $33 million taxpayer subsidy to YUM! -- just for one executive's pay.
  2. McDonald's received the second-largest government handout. As CEO in 2011 and the first half of 2012, James Skinner pocketed $31 million in exercised stock options and other fully deductible "performance pay." Incoming CEO Donald Thompson took in $10 million in performance pay in his first six months on the job. Skinner and Thompson's combined performance pay translates into a $14 million taxpayer subsidy for McDonald's.
Read more
Fast Food CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay.pdf

How a Shadowy Network of Corporate Front Groups Distorts the Marketplace of Ideas (Think ALEC)
Truth-out | Joshua Holland | 11/21/13

In 1971, Lewis Powell, who would become a Supreme Court justice the following year, penned a memo calling on the American business community to aggressively engage in shaping the country's political discourse and regulatory landscape. The "American economic system is under broad attack," he wrote. He said the time had come to fight back. "Business must learn . . . that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination -- without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business." ... Read more

We need to take our Government back!

ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy
The Guardian | Suzanne Goldenberg | 12/04/13

An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels -- casting them as "freeriders" -- in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, the Guardian has learned

Over the coming year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will promote legislation with goals ranging from penalising individual homeowners and weakening state clean energy regulations, to blocking the Environmental Protection Agency, which is Barack Obama's main channel for climate action. ... Read more

Climate Scientists Say the Current International Warming Target Is "Disastrous"
BillMoyers | Tim McDonnell | 12/05/13

Ever since the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, world leaders have agreed on 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) as the maximum acceptable global warming above preindustrial levels to avert the worst impacts of climate change (today we're at about 0.8 degrees C). But a new study, led by climatologist James Hansen of Columbia University, argues that pollution plans aimed at that target would still result in "disastrous consequences," from rampant sea level rise to widespread extinction. ... Read more



DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, December 05 [11:55]
*DN | As Workers Strike, Fast-food CEOs Fatten Pockets With Tax Loopholes, Social Assistance for Employees (12/05/13) [9:06]
As fast-food workers stage a one-day strike, a new report exposes how the industry's CEOs have not just saved money by paying workers low wages, but have used the government to subsidize their own million-dollar salaries with taxpayer dollars. That is because a loophole in the tax code lets companies deduct the costs of performance-based executive pay. We are joined by Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of the new report, "Fast-food CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay."
DN | "We Can't Survive on $7.25": Fast Food Workers Kick Off National Day of Action for Higher Pay (12/05/13) [13:50]
*DN | Jeremy Scahill: Oscar Nod for "Dirty Wars" Could Raise Awareness of Ongoing U.S. Drone Strikes (12/05/13) [12:53], Part 2 [8:58]
Bill Moyers
*Bill Moyers | Henry Giroux: Zombie Politics and Casino Capitalism (11/22/13) [56:43]
scholar Henry Giroux explains how our political system has turned people into zombies -- "people who are basically so caught up with surviving that they become like the walking dead -- they lose their sense of agency, they lose their homes, they lose their jobs."
GRITtv News
GRITtv | Peter Buffett, Warren Buffett's Son, on The Charitable Industrial Complex and Philanthro-Feudalism: Calls for End of Capitalism (12/04/13) [13:39]
Laura Flander, GRITtv.org, interviews Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett on the conflict between capitalism and humanism. Says Buffett:"You can't have both".
TRNN News
Click to zoom
TRNN | Leo Panitch: How the Defeat of Trade Unionism Gave Rise to Low-Wage Jobs (12/04/13) [12:05]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm Washington Dysfunction And The U.S. Constitution (12/05/13) [1hr]
There's widespread agreement that our government is not working well. Legal scholars debate the causes of dysfunction in Washington and how the U.S. Constitution plays a role.

Guests
  1. Jeffrey Toobin staff writer at The New Yorker; senior legal analyst for CNN, author of "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" (Doubleday), and former Assistant U.S.Attorney in Brooklyn, New York.
  2. Bruce Fein former associate deputy attorney general, Republican counsel during the Iran-Contra hearings and founding partner with the Lichfield Group.
TYT News
Thom Hartmann News
Thom Hartmann on the News: December 4, 2013 [6:54]
Thom Hartmann | Banksters...too Big to fine? (12/04/13) [8:58]
Thom Hartmann | The Condemnation of Trickle Down Economics (12/04/13) [4:34]
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.

12.05.2013. 10:57



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

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GOOD Short Videos
Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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Newer Documentaries
Documentaries You've Never Seen

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Documentaries (small | pop-up)
Documentaries (big | full screen)
Good YouTube Documentaries

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Great YouTube Docs. (small | pop-up)
Good YouTube Docs. (big | full screen)

Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

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

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

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

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

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

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

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

Wall Street and Banksters

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

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

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

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

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

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Nukes
Nukes

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

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

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

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

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

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

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

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

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

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

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

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911
911

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

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

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

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

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

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

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

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

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

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