Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Trump Administration Tells World Leaders to Just Ignore What the President Says: Report
AlterNet | Erin Corbett / Raw Story | 02/20/27

"The dirty little secret of the 'Never-Mind-What-Trump-Said' approach to foreign policy is that it's not a sustainable foreign policy at all."

One month into President Donald Trump's administration, the divide in his team's approach to national security and foreign policy issues couldn't be more clear. The Rachel Maddow blog laid out the ways in which the Trump team has adopted a "Never-Mind-What-Trump-Said" approach to both matters. ... Read more
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'Never-Mind-What-Trump-Said' foreign policy

Mar-a-Lago: Trump's Winter White House takes over Palm Beach
CNN | Dan Merica | 02/20/17

President Donald Trump, a newcomer to the White House, is still developing his relationship with the people of Washington. But that's far from the case with the people of Palm Beach -- now the location of his so-called Winter White House -- the long spit of land off Florida's East Coast that the real estate mogul has been frequenting for decades.

Since he purchased the Mar-a-Lago property in 1985 for $5 million, Trump's relationship with the tony city and its residents has ebbed and flowed. He's sued the city, fought with the town leadership and turned local issues into nattional controversies. Traffic caused by Trump's motorcade is the most recent sore spot for the people of Palm Beach and the surrounding area. ... Read more

Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street by Sheelah Kolhatkar (2017)

The rise over the last two decades of a powerful new class of billionaire financiers marks a singular shift in the American economic and political landscape. Their vast reserves of concentrated wealth have allowed a small group of big winners to write their own rules of capitalism and public policy. How did we get here? Through meticulous reporting and powerful storytelling, New Yorker staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar shows how Steve Cohen became one of the richest and most influential figures in finance--and what happened when the Justice Department put him in its crosshairs.

Cohen and his fellow pioneers of the hedge fund industry didn't lay railroads, build factories, or invent new technologies. Rather, they made their billions through speculation, by placing bets in the market that turned out to be right more often than wrong--and for this they have gained not only extreme personal wealth but formidable influence throughout society. Hedge funds now manage nearly $3 trillion in assets, and competition between them is so fierce that traders will do whatever they can to get an edge.

Cohen was one of the industry's greatest success stories. He mastered poker in high school, went off to Wharton, and in 1992 launched SAC Capital, which he built into a $15 billion empire, almost entirely on the basis of his wizardlike stock trading. He cultivated an air of mystery, reclusiveness, and extreme excess, building a 35,000 square foot mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, and amassing one of the largest private art collections in the world. On Wall Street, Cohen was revered as a genius.

That image was shattered when SAC became the target of a sprawling, seven-year government investigation. Labeled by prosecutors as a "magnet for market cheaters" whose culture encouraged the relentless hunt for "edge"--and even "black edge," or inside information--SAC was ultimately indicted in connection with a vast insider trading scheme, even as Cohen himself was never charged.

Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the gray zone in which so much of Wall Street functions, and a window into the transformation of the U.S. economy. It's a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the government's pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of modern Wall Street.

Here's What People Really Thought About That Trump Press Conference
HP | Ariel Edwards-Levy | 02/20/17

Nothing Seemed To Stop Milo Yiannopoulos -- Until This
HP | Chris D'Angelo | 02/20/17

Racism, bigotry and sexism weren't enough to silence the far-right troll.

A platform of hatred. A plethora of racist, misogynistic and transphobic remarks. But through it all, many stood by far-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos, often defending his right to free speech.

Over the weekend, however, the Breitbart editor finally crossed what may have seemed a non-existent line, sending the American Conservative Union, publishing house Simon & Schuster and others who once supported him running. The breaking point: defending pedophilia. ... Read more

Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy by Sheldon Whitehouse (Author), Melanie Wachtell Stinnett (2017)

In Captured, U.S. Senator and former federal prosecutor Sheldon Whitehouse offers an eye-opening take on what corporate influence looks like today from the Senate Floor, adding a first-hand perspective to Jane Mayer's Dark Money.

Americans know something is wrong in their government. Senator Whitehouse combines history, legal scholarship, and personal experiences to provide the first hands-on, comprehensive explanation of what's gone wrong, exposing multiple avenues through which our government has been infiltrated and disabled by corporate powers. Captured reveals an original oversight by the Founders, and shows how and why corporate power has exploited that vulnerability: to strike fear in elected representatives who don't "get right" by threatening million-dollar "dark money" election attacks (a threat more effective and less expensive than the actual attack); to stack the judiciary--even the Supreme Court--in "business-friendly" ways; to "capture" the administrative agencies meant to regulate corporate behavior; to undermine the civil jury, the Constitution's last bastion for ordinary citizens; and to create a corporate "alternate reality" on public health and safety issues like climate change.

Captured shows that in this centuries-long struggle between corporate power and individual liberty, we can and must take our American government back into our own hands.

**CNN | Manafort, Flynn communicated regularly with Russians (02/14/17) [1:43]

Who is Paul Manafort?
CNN | Laura Smith-Spark | 02/15/17

So who is Manafort and why is he under scrutiny? He was originally brought in to save Trump from a defeat at the Republican convention, should Trump have failed to win enough delegates to clinch a first-ballot nomination.

But his role grew to serve as Trump's connection to the GOP establishment, telling Republican elders that their presidential nominee would run a traditional campaign that would not imperil down-ballot candidates. ... Read more

Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash ($12.7 million) for Donald Trump's Campaign Chief
NYTimes | author | older 08/14/16

KIEV, Ukraine -- On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office used for years by Donald J. Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for Ukraine's ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still there as recently as May.

And Mr. Manafort's presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. ... Read more