Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

How The Glorious Socialist Revolution Generated A 681% Return For Goldman Sachs
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/30/13

Back in 2011, BlackRock's Larry Fink revealed one of the great unspoken truths of capital markets, namely that "markets like totalitarian governments." They also like authoritarian socialism, sprinkled in with a healthy dose of nationalization, because as Bloomberg reports, one of the biggest beneficiaries of over ten years of the "glorious socialist revolution" in Venezuela, coupled with over 1000 nationalizations by the bed-ridden and roughly 15 times deceased Hugo Chavez (if one believes all the rumors), is none other than Goldman Sachs, which generated some 681% in returns due to "aligning its interests" with those of the unshakable Venezuelan ruler. ... Read more

Chart Of The Quarter: $312 Billion In Debt "Adds" Negative $5 Billion In GDP
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/30/13

What was it about the law of diminishing Fed stimulus returns again? But don't worry: "the market is up." Because if $165 billion in Q4 stimulus could not even generate a positive GDP return, at least it sent the Russell 2000 soaring. Read more
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*Humans Have Already Set in Motion 69 Feet of Sea Level Rise
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 01/31/13

Last week, a much-discussed new paper in the journal Nature seemed to suggest to some that we needn't worry too much about the melting of Greenland, the mile-thick mass of ice at the top of the globe. The research found that the Greenland ice sheet seems to have survived a previous warm period in Earth's history--the Eemian period, some 126,000 years ago--without vanishing (although it did melt considerably).

But Ohio State University glaciologist Jason Box isn't buying it. ... Read more
Climate Desk Live: Can Greenland Be Saved? (01/31/13) [3:58]

Austerity Is Dead: Can Someone Please Tell Paul Ryan and His Deluded GOP Cohorts?
AlterNet | Pat Garofalo | 01/30/13

Republicans cling to a policy that pretty much everyone agrees is a total disaster. Most of the recent economic data out of Europe has been exceedingly grim. A record high number of workers across the Eurozone are unemployed. Economies are shrinking. Debts are rising.

The anecdotes, though, are even worse. Hospitals are asking patients to supply their own syringes due to lack of funds. Trees on public land are being cut down by workers desperate for firewood to warm their homes. An entire generation of young workers is going to experience lower wages for the rest of their lives, due to years of being unemployed while in their 20s. ... Read more

U.S. Economy Shrinks For The First Time Since The Recession Ended
HP | Christopher S. Rugaber | 01/30/13

The U.S. economy unexpectedly shrank from October through December for the first time since 2009, hurt by the biggest cut in defense spending in 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles. The drop occurred despite stronger consumer spending and business investment. ... Read more

Senate confirms Sen. John Kerry as secretary of state to succeed Clinton
AP & newser.com | Donna Cassata | 01/29/13

The vote was 94-3. Once sworn-in, Kerry will replace Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is stepping down after four years.   The vote came just hours after the Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination by voice vote. Kerry has led the committee for the past four years.   The 69-year-old Kerry is a decorated Vietnam veteran and the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate. ... Read more

Pentagon's new massive expansion of 'cyber-security' unit is about everything except defense
Guardian | Glenn Greenwald | 01/28/13

As the US government depicts the Defense Department as shrinking due to budgetary constraints, the Washington Post this morning announces "a major expansion of [the Pentagon's] cybersecurity force over the next several years, increasing its size more than fivefold." Specifically, says the New York Times this morning, "the expansion would increase the Defense Department's Cyber Command by more than 4,000 people, up from the current 900." The Post describes this expansion as "part of an effort to turn an organization that has focused largely on defensive measures into the equivalent of an Internet-era fighting force." This Cyber Command Unit operates under the command of Gen. Keith Alexander, who also happens to be the head of the National Security Agency, the highly secretive government network that spies on the communications of foreign nationals - and American citizens. ... Read more

Treasury Disregarded Own Guidelines, Allowed Executive Raises At Bailed-Out GM, AIG: Report
HP & Reuters | Author | 01/28/13

The Treasury's pay czar, or "special master," was tasked with limiting "excessive" pay at companies the government bailed out using taxpayer money during the financial crisis.   But the Office of the Special Master did not follow the rules it had set for compensation, instead letting companies define pay themselves, according to a report by the inspector general for the government's bailout program.

In 2012, the pay czar acceded to company requests in approving multi-million dollar pay packages and pay hikes for top executives at General Motors, AIG and Ally Financial.... Read more

Dow Nears 14,000, On Way To 36,000, Obviously: Seven And A Half Things To Know
HP | Mark Gongloff | 01/30/13

... Whatever number you want to use, the Dow has more than doubled from its crisis low of 6,547.05 in March 2009. And most of that climb has been driven by professional investors -- twice-burned individuals have doggedly shunned stocks throughout the rally, pouring their money into bond mutual funds at a record pace. That pattern has changed lately, writes Tom Lauricella of the Wall Street Journal, as small investors have started to crawl back into stock funds. ... Read more

Deadly flood waters rise in eastern Australia
Aljazeera | Author | 01/29/13

At least four people have been killed by deadly floodwaters, and thousands of homes and businesses flooded by torrential rain, along Australia's east coast since the weekend.   Floodwaters swept down the coast on Tuesday, with Queensland's state capital Brisbane bracing for its river to peak as other towns waited anxiously to see just how high the water would rise. ... Read more

The OCC's Tragic Response to the Frontline expose: The Untouchables
TheRealNews | William K. Black | 01/25/13

... "The OCC statement about SARs (the technical jargon for "criminal referrals"), is sad. Banks virtually never make criminal referrals against their senior officers, so the number of SARs filed by banks is not relevant to the subject being discussed. The OTS made over 30,000 criminal referrals during the peak years of the S&L debacle. It made zero in this crisis -- a crisis in which the losses and the frauds by senior managers were roughly 70 times larger than during the debacle. Apparently, the OTS and the OCC are trying to excuse their failure to examine, supervise, regulate, and investigate, much less make referrals on the claim that this is the first Virgin Crisis ... Read more

Obama: Fox News And Rush Limbaugh Are Why Washington DC Is Such A Mess
BusinessInsider | Brett LoGiurato | 01/27/13

In a sit-down interview with The New Republic released today, President Barack Obama cast blame on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for shaping compromise as a "dirty word."   Obama talked about the recent deal to avert the fiscal cliff, saying he thought House Speaker "genuinely wanted" to come to a deal sooner but felt he was vulnerable to attack from the right. ... Read more

Five Moments From President Obama & Hillary Clinton's '60 Minutes' Interview
Daily Beast | Ben Teitelbaum | 01/28/13

In their first joint interview, President Obama and Hillary Clinton couldn't get enough of each other, as they talked about their friendship, the last four years, and America on the world stage. ... Read more

Withdrawn: $114 Billion From Big U.S. Banks
Business Week | Nick Summers | 01/23/13

More than $114 billion exited the biggest U.S. banks this month, and nobody's quite sure why.   The Federal Reserve releases data on the assets and liabilities of commercial banks every Friday. The most current figures, covering the first full week of 2013, show the largest one-week withdrawals since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Even when seasonally adjusted, the level drops to $52.8 billion--still the third-highest amount on record, and one for which bank experts and analysts were reluctant to give a definitive explanation. ... Read more

SEC's new Wall Street enabler
Salon | David Sirota | 01/24/13

If your first reaction to this morning's news about President Obama nominating Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission is positive, that's understandable. She's a former prosecutor and, as such, much of the elite media has simply concluded that must mean the Obama administration is going to get tough on Wall Street crime. ...

However, Mary Jo White isn't just any prosecutor. Her name should ring a bell, or really, sound a frightening alarm. I knew I had heard of her before, and not in a good way. So I fired up Google this morning and sure enough, I discovered why my superficially good feeling was quickly turning into a deeply ominous nausea. I suddenly remembered that this is the same Mary Jo White who has built the latter part of her career leveraging her position in governmental law enforcement positions to land lucrative private-sector jobs defending Wall Streeters. In moving through that revolving door, she has been a part of a corrupt culture that has weakened the power of the very law enforcement agency President Obama is now nominating her to run. ... Read more

Amgen Gets a Gift From Congress
NYTimes | Author | 01/22/13

For a disheartening example of how intense lobbying and financial contributions can distort the legislative process in Washington, consider what happened to the "fiscal cliff" bill approved three weeks ago by Congress.

Senators who play a major role in federal health care financing were happy to help Amgen, the world's largest biotechnology company, evade Medicare cost-cutting controls by delaying price restraints on a class of drugs used by kidney dialysis patients, including Sensipar, a drug made by Amgen. That provision was inserted into the final fiscal bill by Senate aides. Many members of Congress did not know it was in the bill until just hours before it was approved. ... Read more

Are banks too big to jail?
Salon | David Sirota | 01/23/13

PBS Frontline's stunning report last night on why the Obama administration has refused to prosecute any Wall Streeter involved in the financial meltdown doesn't just implicitly indict a political and financial press that utterly abdicated its responsibility to cover such questions. It also -- and as importantly -- exposes the genuinely radical jurisprudential ideology that Wall Street campaign contributors have baked into America's "justice" system. Indeed, after watching the piece, you will understand that the word "justice" belongs in quotes thanks to an Obama administration that has made a mockery of the name of a once hallowed executive department. ... Read more

The Four Steps Required to Keep Monsanto OUT of Your Garden
TheHealthyHomeEconomist | Sarah | 01/23/13

What most of these home gardeners don't realize is that corporate behemoth and GMO titan Monsanto has been gobbling up the seed market faster than a caterpillar can munch a tomato plant! With one fell swoop in 2005, Monsanto grabbed approximately 40% of the US vegetable seed market with its acquisition of Seminis. ... Read more

Hate Eating Corporate Food? Democracy Is the Best Recipe
AlterNet | Tara Lohan | 01/27/13

We may be able to agree that much of our food system is broken, but how we begin to fix it is much harder to understand. Wenonah Hauter, director of Food and Water Watch, takes on this challenge in her new book, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America.

Hauter, who grew up and lives on a farm in Virginia, uses Foodopoly to take readers on a deep dive into our country's history and our relationships with farmers. Through her book, readers learn about farmers as the heart of the Populist movement, whose organization and alliance with labor leaders made them a political threat. She writes about the systems that were put in place to move men off of farms for cheap labor in cities, to lower prices for crops, and to whittle away at the fabric of rural America -- for the sake of corporate profit. ... Read more

Hope Has Changed - It Died
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/28/13

Hope is dying in the US. The performance of financial markets affects everyone. For savers and investors, these markets represent the means to an improved life, at least as they define it. Savings and wealth provide options and opportunities, the quintessential aspect of being an American. These options and opportunities differentiated an American from someone who was born and destined to die in a hut or remain locked in a societal class from which there was no hope of escape. ... Read more

Billion-Dollar Hospital Bonuses Not Seen Improving Health
Bloomberg | Shannon Pettypiece | 01/25/13

The chief executive officer of an HCA-owned (HCA) hospital recently went undercover, wearing a two-day- old beard and a baseball cap to pose as a patient entering his hospital. His goal: spot service flaws and get them fixed.   The covert mission was part of a bid to win some of the almost $1 billion in government payments for hospitals with top ranked service. Across the U.S., the program is encouraging tidier rooms and quieter hallways at the more than 3,000 hospitals that participate in "patient experience" surveys. ... Read more

U.S. Health Worse Than Nearly All Other Industrialized Countries
AlterNet | Carey L. Biron | 01/22/13

U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialised countries, according to the first comprehensive government analysis on the subject, released Wednesday.   Of 17 high-income countries looked at by a committee of experts sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the United States is at or near the bottom in at least nine indicators.

These include infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancies, as well as more systemic issues such as injuries, homicides, and rates of disability. ... Read more

US battles record low temperatures (01/24/13) [1:33]

Explained in 90 Seconds: It's Cold. That Doesn't Mean Global Warming is Fake.
MotherJones | James West | 01/25/13

Regular readers that pepper us on Twitter and Facebook with one of several climate myths upon the publication of every article, sometimes with freakish speed. One of the most popular myths is this: Global warming isn't real because it's really cold outside; climate models are thus full of sh*t. So, here in 90 seconds, is our attempt to explain something we interact with every day, in all sorts of ways, from flying in a plane, to getting a loan, to betting on a horse: computer modeling. ... Read more
Explained in 90 Seconds: Climate Modeling (01/24/13) [2:18]

*Why Greenland's Melting Could Be the Biggest Climate Disaster of All
MotherJones | Chris Mooney | 01/24/13

Jason Box speaks the language of Manhattans. Not the drink--the measuring unit. As an expert on Greenland who has traveled 23 times to the massive, mile thick northern ice sheet, Box has shown an uncanny ability to predict major melts and breakoffs of Manhattan-sized ice chunks. A few years back, he foretold the release of a "4x Manhattans" piece of ice from Greenland's Petermann Glacier, one so big that once afloat it was dubbed an "ice island." In a scientific paper published in February of 2012, Box further predicted "100 % melt area over the ice sheet" within another decade of global warming. As it happened, the ice sheet's surface almost completely melted just a month later in July -- an event that, in Box's words, "signals the beginning of the end for the ice sheet." ... Read more

Tim Geithner's Annotated Exit Interview: "F--- The Banks" And Other Pearls
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/25/13

... "To save an economy from a failing financial system, you have to do things that are going to be fundamentally impossible to explain to people," Geithner said. "You're going to look like you're giving money to people who were responsible for burning down the economy." ... Read more

The Case Against QE: "Zombie Banks, Companies, Households, And Governments"
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/25/13

In a quiet corner of Davos this week, Davide Serra (hedge fund manager) and Nouriel Roubini (doom-monger) laid out to the great and good attending just exactly what their puppet central-banking transmission channels were doing to our world. As The Telegraph reports, "Money printing is theft from our children and may merely be storing up problems for an even bigger crisis." QE has led to gross mis-allocation of capital, the two gentlemen go on to note, adding that they comprehend the reasoning why Bernanke's Put has replaced Greenspan's but add that in doing this money-printing-by-another-name, they have "made it difficult for bond vigilantes to do their job - force fiscal reform." QE just buys time - but the time must be used wisely. Roubini warned that central bankers need to think about turning off the cheap money tap or risk creating another, possibly even worse, bubble. ... Read more

How Climate Change Could Wipe Out the Western Forests
The Atlantic | Sarah Garland | 01/24/13

If current trends continue, the landscapes of states like New Mexico and Arizona may soon be unrecognizable. ... Read more

Fiscal cliff, elections boost spending on lobbying
publicintegrity.org | Dave Levinthal | 01/23/13

Congress' fiscal cliff fiasco, a flurry of lame duck legislation and election-season politics drove some of the nation's most powerful lobbying forces to double down on their governmental influence efforts late last year, newly filed reports show.   Such an uptick foreshadows what could be ever-more-aggressive lobbying on federal finances, taxation, energy and social issues like immigration and gun ownership as President Barack Obama enumerated in his inaugural address Monday. ... Read more

How doctors and hospitals have collected billions in questionable Medicare fees
publicintegrity.org | Fred Schulte | updated 01/09/13

Thousands of doctors and other medical professionals have steadily billed higher rates for treating elderly patients on Medicare over the last decade -- adding $11 billion or more to their fees and signaling a possible rise in medical billing abuse, an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity has found. ... Read more

Detailed Photos Of Cold War Missile Sites: Opposing Superpowers, Same Terror
Wired Magazine | Pete Brooks | 01/24/13

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the U.S. and U.S.S.R, at the height of the Cold War, maintained approximately 8,800 warheads on 3,000 ICBMs combined, with the Soviets generally possessing twice the amount of the U.S. at any given time.

The Soviets were gluttons for nuclear megatonnage. In the mid-1970s, the U.S.S.R. possessed the equivalent yield of almost 450,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. Massive, publicized reductions have taken place since. The U.S. currently operates 450 ICBMs on three Air Force bases, and Russia has about double that number. Currently, only Russia, China, India and the U.S. are the nations known to possess land-based ICBMs. ... Read more

Bringing Home the Bacon--With an AR-15
Mother Jones | Tim Murphy | 01/24/13

Why semiautomatic rifles are the weapon of choice for helicopter hunting. Read more

Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals
thebureauinvestigates.com | Author | 02/04/12

The CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed.   The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a 'targeted, focused effort' that 'has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.' ... Read more

Too Big To Jail? The Top 10 Civil Cases Against the Banks
PBS Frontline | Jason M. Breslow | 01/22/12

The Justice Department's initial response to the financial crisis did not take long to materialize. In June 2008, three months before the Lehman Brothers collapse, the department brought its first criminal case, charging two former Bear Stearns executives with securities fraud for their alleged roles inflating the housing bubble.

A little more than a year later, a jury found the executives not guilty, dealing the DOJ an early setback. Since then, government investigations into the crisis have almost exclusively centered on civil charges, which requires prosecutors establish guilt beyond a preponderance of the evidence. The bar is higher in criminal cases, requiring they prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ... Read more

Debt Ceiling: House Voting On Temporary Extension
HP | Andrew Taylor | 01/23/13

With tacit support from President Barack Obama, House Republicans are moving to try to defuse a potential debt crisis with legislation to prevent an economy-rattling fiscal crisis for at least three months.   The GOP legislation marks a tactical retreat by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who is eager to avoid a potential first-ever default on U.S. payment and debt obligations as he wrestles with Obama and his Democratic allies over taxes, spending and the deficit. ... Read more

U.S. Budget Discord Is Top Threat to Global Economy in Poll
Bloomberg | David J. Lynch | 01/22/13

Global investors say the state of the U.S. government's finances is the greatest risk to the world economy and almost half are curbing their investments in response to continuing budget battles, a Bloomberg poll shows. ... Read more

The Vision and the Budget
HP | Jeffrey Sachs | 01/22/13

...The budget has been shrinking for thirty years, on a declining trajectory started by Reagan and continued by every president since then -- including Obama in his first term!

In the 1970s, that budget was more than 4 percent of GDP, too little to meet America's needs even then, but at least within the ballpark. Then came Reagan and the goal to "starve the beast," meaning to cripple the government by cutting tax revenues so that spending would have to decline as well.   The non-defense discretionary budget fell to under 4 percent and continued to slide. By 2008, in the final year of the Bush Presidency, it had declined to 3.7 percent of GDP, and was no longer able to fund programs in science, technology, energy, climate change, education, job training, and infrastructure needed to keep America modern and competitive. When President Obama promised "Change" in 2008, the change he should have meant was to re-establish a vibrant Federal Government, with the finances to keep it running. ... Read more

Nebraska Governor Appoves Alternative Route Of Keystone XL Pipeline: Will Buffett/Obama Give The Green Light?
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/22/13

One of the more contentious issues in the past year for America's environmentalists was the (successful) blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline over fears that it would contaminate the Ohallala aquifier in the Sandhill region of Nebraska, a major source of groundwater, and an issue over which none other than the president was quite vocal just about a year ago when he killed the idea. ... Read more

Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Wednesday, January 23 [10:50]

*DN | Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill & Rick Rowley's New Film Exposes Hidden Truths of Covert U.S. Warfare Part 1 (01/22/13) [29:39]

*The Bottom Line: Regulation. Rules are as important in an economy as they are in sports

*PBS Frontline | "The Untouchables": examines why no Wall St. execs have faced fraud charges for the financial crisis. (01/22/13) [53:41]

*TYT | Disturbing Report: Both Parties In Bed With Amgen (01/22/13) [10:00]

School Kicks Out Sophomore in RFID Student-ID Flap
Wired Magazine | David Kravets | 01/18/13

A Texas high school on Friday barred a girl from attending class as part of the fallout from a legal flap that began when the sophomore refused to wear around her neck an RFID-chip student ID she claims is the "Mark of the Beast," lawyers connected to the brouhaha said.

The Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-laden student-body cards when the semester began in the fall. The ID badge has a bar code associated with a student's Social Security number. The chip monitors pupils' movements on campus, from when they arrive until when they leave. ... Read more

Obama's Job One: Middle-Class Employment Problems Loom Over Second Term
HP | Dave Jamieson | 01//14/13

On election night in Chicago two months ago, President Barack Obama triumphantly pledged to fight for a middle class he'd appealed to relentlessly -- and successfully -- on the 2012 campaign trail. ... Read more

Goldman Sachs Profiting From Food Crisis: Report
HP | Bonnie Kavoussi | 01/22/13

Goldman Sachs has boosted its bottom line on the backs of people struggling to pay for food, according to a new report in The Independent.   The bank made about $400 million last year by betting on the prices of food staples, according to an analysis for The Independent by the World Development Movement. This speculation is fueling rising food prices, according to the report. ... Read more

Obama's 'Playbook' for Targeted Strikes Has a Gaping Hole--CIA's Killer Drones in Pakistan Exempted
AlterNet | Alex Kane | 01/22/13

The CIA's deadly campaign of drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan will be exempt from the Obama administration's attempt to codify rules for targeted killings. ... Read more

Democratic base wants compromise
Politico | Rep. Ron Kind | 01/21/13

Last November, Bob and Evelyn Driscoll waited 90 minutes in line to vote. Standing in a cold drizzle, neither of them were in love with either of the presidential candidates or their congressional representatives. But they were eager to vote because they knew the country faced immense challenges.

They stood in the cold until it was their turn to vote. They pulled the lever for the president, and for Democrats in the House and Senate. And if they were able to deliver a short message to each as we cross the threshold into Barack Obama's second term, it would be this: "Fix it. Work together and fix it."... Read more

How Factory Farming Contributes to Global Warming
Reader Supported News | Ronnie Cummins, EcoWatch | 01/22/13

... Factory farms aren't just a disaster for the environment. They're also ruining our health. A growing chorus of scientists and public health advocates warn that the intensive and reckless use of antibiotics and growth hormones leads to factory-farmed food that contains antibiotic-resistant pathogens, drug residues such as hormones and growth promoters, and "bad fats." Yet despite these health and environmental hazards, the vast majority of consumers don't realize that nearly 95 percent of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from CAFOs. Nor do most people realize that CAFOs represent a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized, low profit-margin production, processing and distribution systems. ... Read more

Is Genetically Engineered Salmon Safe?
AlterNet | Ocean Robbins | 01/21/13

On December 21, at the very end of the last business day before Christmas week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly released its environmental assessment that found "no significant impact" from the controversial AquaBounty AquaAdvantage transgenic salmon. Frankenfish could be on your dinner plate by the end of the year. ... Read more

Netanyahu Gets Landslide in Markets Masking No Peace Process
Bloomberg | Shoshanna Solomon | 01/21/13

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral opponents say he has presided over a deterioration of the Palestinian peace process, heightened tension with Iran, Egypt and Turkey and rising living costs. ... Read more

The Road Forward: What Does the World Want From Obama?
HP | Nicholas Sabloff | 01/18/13

To find out what the world want from Obama we go to UK, Canada, France, Spain and Italy -- for a collection of articles as part of our series "THE ROAD FORWARD: Obama's Second Term Challenges." The hope is that these pieces, written by our reporters in these countries, will illuminate how the world outside America views the challenges and possibilities facing a leader whose personal appeal still looms larger than his presidential accomplishments. Read more, Series the stories

The Five-Step Process to Cheat the Middle Class Worker
AlterNet | Paul Bucheit | 01/19/13

As we struggle to support ourselves, the super-rich remain on the take, driving us ever closer to the status of most wealth-unequal country in the world. It's so artfully done, and so diabolical, that one can picture secret seminars in subterranean Wall Street meeting rooms, guiding young business recruits in the proven process of taking an extra share of wealth from the middle class. Their presentation might unfold as follows: ... Read more

*The 'war on terror' - by design - can never end
The Guardian | Glenn Greenwald | 01/04/13

As the Pentagon's former top lawyer urges that the war be viewed as finite, the US moves in the opposite direction. Last month, outgoing pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson gave a speech at the Oxford Union and said that the War on Terror must, at some point, come to an end: ... Read more

*When Did Whistleblowers Become the Bad Guys?
care2.com | Kevin Mathews | 01/19/12

... The demonization of whistleblowers is growing in the business world, according to The Wall Street Journal. Employees fear being labeled a snitch or ostracized by their coworkers for potentially costing the company jobs or profits should they report illicit corporate actions. While laws are supposedly in place to protect those who do step forward, too often they fall short: airline employees who brought attention to insufficient safety inspections were demoted to desk jobs. A miner who reported illegal, unsafe work conditions (which would lead to a coworker fatality the following day) is being held criminally responsible. A former Wells Fargo employee who exposed the bank's practice of targeting minority communities with high-interest loans is now having her home fraudulently foreclosed on by the same bank in an apparent act of retaliation. ... Read more

*The Myth of Human Progress
AlterNet | Chris Hedges | 01/20/13

Clive Hamilton in his "Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change" describes a dark relief that comes from accepting that "catastrophic climate change is virtually certain." This obliteration of "false hopes," he says, requires an intellectual knowledge and an emotional knowledge. The first is attainable. The second, because it means that those we love, including our children, are almost certainly doomed to insecurity, misery and suffering within a few decades, if not a few years, is much harder to acquire. To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut-level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to the devastation of the ecosystem, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality. ... Read more

*How to Steal an Election
informationclearinghouse.info | Larry Dorshkind | 11/05/12
Read more

Davos Doom Loses to Merkel-Draghi as Euro Defies Roubini
Bloomberg | Simon Kennedy | 01/20/13

The parade of economists and investors led by Nouriel Roubini predicting Greece's ejection by now from the euro zone failed to appreciate the resolve of European policy makers to protect their union and the amount of pain Greeks are willing to stomach. ... Read more

*What's Inside America's Banks?
The Atlantic | Frank Partnoy | Jan/Feb

Some four years after the 2008 financial crisis, public trust in banks is as low as ever. Sophisticated investors describe big banks as "black boxes" that may still be concealing enormous risks--the sort that could again take down the economy. A close investigation of a supposedly conservative bank's financial records uncovers the reason for these fears--and points the way toward urgent reforms.

The financial crisis had many causes--too much borrowing, foolish investments, misguided regulation--but at its core, the panic resulted from a lack of transparency. The reason no one wanted to lend to or trade with the banks during the fall of 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, was that no one could understand the banks' risks. It was impossible to tell, from looking at a particular bank's disclosures, whether it might suddenly implode. ... Read more

Our Legal System Didn't Give Aaron Swartz a Chance
The Atlantic | Wendy Kaminer | 01/15/13

Federal prosecutors wanted to make an example of Aaron Swartz and they succeeded. Their wildly disproportionate treatment of his victimless trespasses exemplified the Justice Department's disregard for fairness, decency, and the fundamental rights of the citizens it's supposed to serve. Swartz's prosecution was notable not because of its cruel over-zealousness, which is horribly routine, but because it involved a gifted, idealistic, emotionally vulnerable defendant, with a sophisticated and relatively powerful constituency that has the means to make itself heard. ... Read more

Senator Asks CIA Nominee When Drones Can Kill Americans
Wired Magazine | Spencer Ackerman | 01/14/13

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter on Monday to John Brennan, the White House's counterterrorism adviser and nominee to be head of the CIA, asking for an outline of the legal and practical rules that underpin the U.S. government's targeted killing of American citizens suspected of working with al-Qaida. The Obama administration has repeatedly resisted disclosing any such information about its so-called "disposition matrix" targeting terrorists, especially where it concerns possible American targets. ... Read more

Sandy wrecked our house, but bureaucrats are keeping it broken.
WSJournal | Roger Kimball | 01/14/13

Like many people whose houses were badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, my family and I have been living in a rented house since the storm. Unlike some whose houses were totalled, we could have repaired things and been home toasting our tootsies by our own fireplace by now. What happened?   Two things: zoning (as in "Twilight Zone") and FEMA. ... Read more

How JPMorgan's $5 Million Loss Rose 80-Fold In Minutes After "A Confrontation Between Traders"
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/18/13

Actually that title was misleading: there will be no disclosure of "how", because we don't know. What we do know is that thanks to the magic of JPM's definition of "Mark-To-Market" accounting, a $5 million prop trading loss (and thus forbidden by the Volcker Rule) funded by depositor cash as it took place in the infamous CIO unit whose job was to manage "excess deposits" in a prudent manner, became a $400 million prop trading loss in the span of 88 minutes. But not during trading - the market was long closed. The adjustment was purely on paper. ... Read more

Everything We Know So Far About Drone Strikes
ProPublica | Cora Currier | 01/11/13

You might have heard about the "kill list." You've certainly heard about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia -- a centerpiece of the Obama administration's national security approach -- remain shrouded in secrecy. Here's our guide to what we know--and what we don't know. ... Read more

'Zero Dark Thirty' Is Osama bin Laden's Last Victory Over America
RollingStone | Matt Atibbi | 01/16/13

... So I went to see the movie and like most people I know who watched it, I was blown away. On a pure whodunit level, the bulk of the film was an unbelievably compelling thriller, and purely on the level of action cinematography, the final scene -- with all its real-world drama and consequence, plus the unique fact the movie revealed secrets about one of the shadowiest, most highly-classified operations ever -- was about as pulse-pounding and exciting as movies get. ... Read more

NRA Warns Obama Gun Proposal Is 'Fight Of The Century' In Fundraising Push
HP | Luke Johnson | 01/16/13

The National Rifle Association blasted out an urgent fundraising appeal by Executive Director Wayne LaPierre Tuesday night, hours ahead of President Barack Obama's announcement of 23 executive actions on gun control.   "I warned you this day was coming and now it's here," LaPierre wrote. "This is the fight of the century and I need you on board with NRA now more than ever. My strength, and the strength of our entire NRA organization comes from you and your strong commitment to our membership. I need you in our corner TODAY." ... Read more

The Prosecution of Aaron Swartz Paints Obama's Justice Department as Needlessly Cruel and Capricious
AlterNet | Marcy Wheeler | 01/15/13

A powerful indictment of our justice system, the Swartz case exemplifies the sick hypocrisy of persecuting information activists while corrupt corporations and bankers get off easy. ... Read more

*FreedomWorks Putting Its War Chest to Work for ALEC's Anti-Union Agenda in the States
prwatch.org | Brendan Fischer | 01/14/13

The Tea Party-affiliated group FreedomWorks -- the right-wing organization that helps connect "Tea Party" groups with talking points, rallies, and more -- is gearing up to direct its sizeable war chest towards advancing anti-union initiatives in the states, supporting an agenda set by groups like David Koch's Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This strongly suggests that the battle for the future of private and public sector unions in America is beginning a new phase of combat. ... Read more

Dennis Kucinich Joining Fox News
AlterNet | Natasha Lennard | 01/16/13

... "I've always been impressed with Rep. Kucinich's fearlessness and thoughtfulness about important issues," said Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes in a statement announcing that Kucinich will join the network as a regular paid contributor. "His willingness to take a stand from his point of view makes him a valuable voice in our country's debate." ... Read more

Charts: Suicide, PTSD and the Psychological Toll on America's Vets
MotherJones | Jaeah Lee | 01/17/13

It Will Take The Fed Seven Years To Deliver 300 Tons Of German Gold
ZeroHedge | Author | 01/17/13

... Germany's Bundesbank intends to store half of Germany's gold reserves in its own vaults. it will take the Fed some seven years to procure Germany's 300 tons of gold. This is the same Fed that, in its own words, holds some "216 million troy ounces of gold" or some 6720 tons, in its vault 80 feet below ground level. ...

... Why it will take the Fed 7 years to part with an amount of gold that is less than 5% of its total holdings is anyone's guess... Read more

What Exactly (Cough) Is Beijing (Hack) Breathing?
MotherJones | James West | 01/15/13

China's landlocked capital of 20 million people has experienced record-breaking pollution over the last few days. The South China Morning Post reported that visits to Beijing Children's Hospital hit a five-year high, with more than 7,000 patients a day. Bloomberg News found that heart attacks roughly doubled since Friday at Peking University People's Hospital. ... Read more
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*The 5 Things Obama Must Do For Financial Reform
HP | Mark Gongloff | 01/16/13

When President Barack Obama first swore the oath of office, the backdrop was a financial system in flames. Four years on, the fires are out, but those who hoped Obama would make capitalism fundamentally safer are disappointed.

1. Make Dodd-Frank stonger
2. Finish The Rules of Doss-Frank Already
3. Solve Too Big To Fail
4. Get The Right People In Place... PLEASE
5. Loophole-Free Derivatives Regulation

*New Federal Report: Climate Change Is Really, Really Scary
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | 01/11/13

Say what you want about the Obama administration's relative ignoring of climate issues: Many of his top scientists are paying rapt attention, and they think we're about to get our butts kicked--although dumping the news at 4 p.m. on a Friday gives some indication of where it sits in federal priorities. ... Read more

*2012 Global Temperature Reports From NASA, NOAA Show Continued Warming
HP | James Gerken | 01/15/13

...Every year of the 21st century thus far has been one of the top 14 warmest years in 133 years of recordkeeping.... Read more
2012 Global Temperature Reports From NASA, NOAA Show Continued Warming

America's False History Allows the Powerful to Commit Crimes Without Consequence
TruthOut | Mark Karlin | 01/15/13

Seasoned journalist Robert Parry offers a thoroughly researched account of how the Republican Party and neocons have conspired to creative a false narrative about America's political and constitutional history. ... Read more

How to Go Vegan
NYTimes | Tara Parker-Pope | 01/14/13

When I first heard former President Bill Clinton talk about his vegan diet, I was inspired to make the switch myself. After all, if a man with a penchant for fast-food burgers and Southern cooking could go vegan, surely I could too. ...

... Since then, I've spoken with numerous vegan chefs and diners who say it can be a challenge to change a lifetime of eating habits overnight. They offer the following advice for stocking your vegan pantry and finding replacements for key foods like cheese and other dairy products. ... Read more

What the Heck is Nutritional Yeast?
fatfreevegan.com | Susan Voisin | date
Read more

Foodies, Get Thee to Occupy Wall Street
MotherJones | Tom Philpott | 10/14/13

The Occupy Wall Street protests grew out of anger at the outsized power of banks. But as they've expanded nationwide, the uprisings have evolved into a kind of running challenge to the way power is concentrated in all aspects of our economy--concentrated into the hands of people with an interest in maintaining the status quo. ...

Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Wednesday, January 16 [12:26]

NRA's New Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite' (01/15/13) [0:36]

*TRNN | Aaron Swartz - a Fighter Against the Privatization of Knowledge (01/15/13) [26:27]

*TYT | Do politicians support drone strikes because they drive bigger defense contracts? (01/14/13) [3:11]

*Jon Stewart | HSBC proves too big to prosecute when it comes to laundering money for terrorists and Mexican drug cartels. (01/09/13) [4:03]

*Jon Stewart | Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg thanks the people who bailed out his company by suing them for $25 billion. (01/09/13) [4:13]

Jon Stewart | Zero Dark Appointees (01/14/13) [4:53]

The Stimulus Plan: How to Spend $787 Billion
NYTimes | Farhana Hossain | date

See a large table of all the numbers ... Read more

The Finance Industry Has Pried into Every Sector of the Economy, and Has Ended Up Running the Whole Show
AlterNet | Michael Hudson | 12/31/12

Today's economic warfare is not the kind waged a century ago between labor and its industrial employers. Finance has moved to capture the economy at large, industry and mining, public infrastructure (via privatization) and now even the educational system. (At over $1 trillion, U.S. student loan debt came to exceed credit-card debt in 2012.) The weapon in this financial warfare is no larger military force.

The tactic is to load economies (governments, companies and families) with debt, siphon off their income as debt service and then foreclose when debtors lack the means to pay. Indebting government gives creditors a lever to pry away land, public infrastructure and other property in the public domain. Indebting companies enables creditors to seize employee pension savings. And indebting labor means that it no longer is necessary to hire strikebreakers to attack union organizers and strikers. ... Read more

A Global NRA: Our Government Is the Largest Federally Licensed Weapons Dealer on the Planet
AlterNet | Tom Engelhardt | 01/13/13

The White House and the Pentagon -- with a helping hand from the State Department -- ensure that the U.S. remains by far the leading purveyor of the "right to bear arms" globally. ... Read more

Obama Versus Physics
Bill McKibben | TomDispatch & Bill Moyers | 01/07/13

... For Obama, faced with a Congress bought off by the fossil fuel industry, a realistic approach would be to do absolutely everything he could on his own authority -- new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, for example; and of course, he should refuse to grant the permit for the building of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, something that requires no permission from John Boehner or the rest of Congress. ...

... If he were serious, Obama would be doing more than just the obvious and easy. He'd also be looking for that Pearl Harbor moment. God knows he had his chances in 2012: the hottest year in the history of the continental United States, the deepest drought of his lifetime, and a melt of the Arctic so severe that the federal government's premier climate scientist declared it a "planetary emergency." ... Read more

Call for a Democracy-for-All Act on MoneyOut/VotersIn Day
TheNation | Mark Green | 01/14/13

It's time to stop moneyed conservative interests from trying to buy or steal our democracy. We know the problem -- let's get to the solutions.

... This time, the efforts of the Adelsons, Kochs and Roves largely failed (at the federal level). But the economic elites will be back to attempt their hostile takeover of our democracy with even more money and sophistication. ...

1. Reverse Citizens United
2. Public funding of elections
3. Stop gerrymandering
4. Universal Voter Registration
5. etc.

Up to half of world's food goes to waste, report says
Reuters | Author | 01/10/13

Up to half of all the food produced worldwide ends up going to waste due to poor harvesting, storage and transport methods as well as irresponsible retailer and consumer behavior, a report said on Thursday. ... Read more

Jack Lew's Robert Rubin Connection Is A Bad Sign For Financial Reform
HP | Mark Gongloff | 01/11/13

What's possibly more troubling about Lew is how he got to Citigroup, along with the fact that he apparently managed to spend a couple of years on Wall Street without learning too much about markets.   His position at Citi was secured on the recommendation of Rubin, who knew him from their years working together in the Clinton administration and was on Citi's executive committee in 2006.

The connection to Rubin is particularly troubling, as Rubin was the chief architect of the financial deregulation in the 1990s that helped set the stage for the crisis. Lew was not as close to Rubin as were Tim Geithner or Larry Summers, writes Michael Hirsh in the National Journal. But he at least owes Rubin for his big Wall Street payday. ... Read more

The Inconvenient Truth About Jack Lew
HP | Robert Scheer | 01/11/13

I suppose that he can't be much worse than Timothy Geithner, but that should be scant cause for cheer over the news that the president has nominated Jack Lew as Treasury secretary. Both championed the financial deregulation craze of the Clinton administration, and both are acolytes of Robert Rubin, the former Clinton Treasury secretary who unfettered Wall Street greed and then took his own considerable cut of the action.

Rubin went to work at Citigroup, the world's largest financial conglomerate whose legality was enabled by legislation he advanced while in government. He made off with a salary of $15 million a year during his decade at that bank, which specialized in toxic mortgage derivatives and had to be bailed out by taxpayers to avoid bankruptcy. ... Read more

Matt Taibbi & Bill Black: Obama's New Treasury Secretary a 'Failure of Epic Proportions'
AlterNet | Juan Gonzalez | 01/11/13

President Obama is facing criticism for nominating another former Wall Street executive to become treasury secretary. On Thursday, Obama tapped his own chief of staff, Jack Lew, to replace Timothy Geithner. Lew was an executive at Citigroup from 2006 to 2008 at the time of the financial crisis. He served as chief operating officer of Citigroup's Alternative Investments unit, a group that bet on the housing market to collapse.

Lew has also long pushed for the deregulation of Wall Street. From 1998 to January 2001, he headed the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton. During that time, Clinton signed into law two key laws to deregulate Wall Street: the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. ... Read more

Last Year Wasn't Just Hot -- It Was a Habanero
Bloomberg | Tom Randall | 01/10/13

To say that 2012 was hot is an understatement. The average temperature in the contiguous U.S. last year was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees hotter than the 20th century average and 1 degree hotter than the previous record. ... Read more
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Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Monday, January 14 [15:48]

DN | "An Incredible Soul": Lawrence Lessig on Aaron Swartz After Leading Cyberactivist's Suicide. Part 1 (01/14/13) [10:42]

TRNN | Oliver Stone of the Untold History: Peter Kuznick: Stalin, the Soviet Union and WWII (01/14/13) [16:07]

TYT | Does Obama's Treasury Nom Understand Deregulation? (01/11/13) [7:16]

Secret Goldman Team Sidesteps Volcker After Blankfein Vow
Bloomberg | Max Abelson | 01/08/13

Sitting onstage in Washington's Ronald Reagan Building in July, Lloyd C. Blankfein said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) had stopped using its own money to make bets on the bank's behalf.   "We shut off that activity," the chief executive officer told more than 400 people at a lunch organized by the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., slicing the air with his hand. The bank no longer had proprietary traders who "just put on risks that they wanted" and didn't interact with clients, he said.

The Debt Ceiling's Escape Hatch
NYTimes | Edward D. Kleinbard | 01/09/13

THE fiscal cliff may have been avoided, but an even higher-stakes political standoff -- this time, over the federal debt ceiling -- is just around the bend. ... Read more

AIG Wants to Sue the Govt After Taking Huge Bailout Money -- Taibbi Shreds Wall St. Lies
AlterNet | Laura Gottesdiener | 01/09/13

... As Taibbi writes:
Even worse was the incredible episode in which bailout recipient AIG paid more than $1 million each to 73 employees of AIG Financial Products, the tiny unit widely blamed for having destroyed the insurance giant (and perhaps even triggered the whole crisis) with its reckless issuance of nearly half a trillion dollars in toxic credit-default swaps. The "retention bonuses," paid after the bailout, went to 11 employees who no longer worked for AIG. ... Read more
AIG "Thank You America" commercial [1:01]

No More Liar Loans Or Other Dreadful Mortgage Products, Regulators Say
HP | Ben Hallman | 01/10/13

It took awhile, but more than five years after a wave of failing subprime loans wrecked the American economy, regulators have instituted new rules that prevent lenders from offering prospective buyers the worst types of mortgages.

The rules, imposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday, force lenders to do something they actively and intentionally avoided during the build up to the mortgage bubble: determine if the person they were loaning money to buy a house had the ability to repay that loan. So no more of the "no doc" or "liar's loans" that failed in epic numbers. ... Read more

Who To Trust On Banks: Warren Buffett Or Your Lying Eyes? Seven And A Half Things To Know
HP | Mark Gongloff | 01/10/13
Read more

*U.S. Drones Pound Pakistan, Which Responds by Doing Exactly Nothing
Wired Magazine | Spencer Ackerman | 01/10/13

Make that seven U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan during the first 10 days of 2013. But the recent uptick in drone strikes hasn't yet coincided with a resurgence in Pakistani outrage that marred Washington's relationship with Islamabad in 2012. ... Read more

6 Strikes, 8 Days, 35 Dead: The U.S. Drone War in Pakistan Is Back
Wired Magazine | Spencer Ackerman | 01/08/13

The sixth U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2013 has killed at least eight people, as if to announce the impending arrival at the CIA of the drone campaign's chief advocate. ... Read more

*NRA Gun Control Crusade Reflects Firearms Industry Financial Ties
HP | Peter H. Stone | 01/11/13

Throughout its 142-year history, the National Rifle Association has portrayed itself as an advocate for the individual gun owner's Second Amendment rights. In turn, the NRA relied on those gun owners, especially its 4 million or so members, to pressure lawmakers into carrying out its anti-gun control agenda.

In the last two decades, however, the deep-pocketed NRA has increasingly relied on the support of another constituency: the $12-billion-a-year gun industry, made up of manufacturers and sellers of firearms, ammunition and related wares. That alliance was sealed in 2005, when Congress, after heavy NRA lobbying, approved a measure that gave gunmakers and gun distributors broad, and unprecedented, immunity from a wave of liability lawsuits related to gun violence in America's cities.

It was a turning point for both the NRA and the industry, both of which recognized the mutual benefits of a partnership. That same year, the NRA also launched a lucrative new fundraising drive to secure "corporate partners" that's raked in millions from the gun industry to boost its operations. ... Read more

*Australia had to add two new colors to their weather maps to represent this years extreme temperatures
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Halliburton's KBR, Guilty In Iraq Negligence, Wants Taxpayers To Foot The Bill
HP | Ryan J. Reilly | 01/09/13

... Lt. Col. James Gentry was one of approximately 830 service members, including active-duty soldiers and members of the National Guard and reserve units from Indiana, South Carolina, West Virginia and Oregon, assigned to secure the water treatment plant, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.   Sodium dichromate is not a mild irritant. It is an extreme carcinogen. In November 2009, at age 52, Gentry died of cancer. The VA affirmed two months later that his death was service-related.

In November, a jury found KBR, the military's largest contractor, guilty of negligence in the poisoning of a dozen soldiers, and ordered the company to pay $85 million in damages. Jurors found KBR knew both of the presence and toxicity of the chemical. Other lawsuits against KBR are pending.   KBR, however, says taxpayers should be on the hook for the verdict, as well as more than $15 million the company has spent in its failed legal defense, according to court documents and attorneys involved with the case. ... Read more

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Expected To Agree To $1.5 Billion Settlement Over Foreclosure Claims
Reuters | Author | 01/08/13

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley are among a group of banks expected to agree as soon as this week to a $1.5 billion settlement with federal regulators over botched foreclosure claims, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The accord would come on the heels of a separate $8.5 billion settlement announced on Monday with 10 bigger mortgage servicers, including America Corp, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Case & Co, Wells Fargo & Co.   HSBC Holdings Inc, Ally Financial Inc, EverBank Financial Corp and OneWest Bank FSB have also said they are in settlement discussions with the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. ... Read more

The Woes of an American Drone Operator
spiegel.de | Nicola Abe | 12/14/12

A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can't do it anymore.

For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world. ... Read more

Cut Corporate Welfare, Not the Safety Net
readersupportednews.org | Carl Gibson | 01/06/13

In Congress' latest "fiscal cliff" deal that supposedly had to be passed in order to avoid economic calamity, we spent $30 billion on extending unemployment benefits for a year, and $205 billion on corporate tax breaks, subsidies and excessive tax loopholes. Most of these Christmas gifts for corporate America are benefiting major, multi-billion-dollar corporations that haven't paid a dime of US income taxes in years, like GE and Boeing. In other words, taxpayers spent six times more on giving free money to companies making record profits than we did to making sure the people who were laid off by these corporations can still feed their families. $205 billion in corporate goodies was okay with Speaker Boehner, but $60 billion in Hurricane Sandy relief apparently wasn't. ... Read more

The Hoax of Entitlement Reform
readersupportednews.org | Robert Reich | 01/07/13

It has become accepted economic wisdom, uttered with deadpan certainty by policy pundits and budget scolds on both sides of the aisle, that the only way to get control over America's looming deficits is to "reform entitlements."   But the accepted wisdom is wrong. ... Read more

*The Department Of Homeland Security Is Hard At Work With One Billion New Bullets
businessinsider.com | Robert Johnson | 01/06/13

Last March we found 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition slated for delivery to the Department of Homeland Service and its agencies.   Weeks later we found an additional request for 750 million rounds. The news wasn't reported much, though the order forms are still floating around. ...

... Major General Jerry Curry, (Ret) offered up a good point when the 750 million order became public last fall saying that number of bullets was more than 10 times what U.S. troops used in a full year of Iraqi combat. ... Read more

*Corporate America: A Whale in a Fish Tank
Truthout | Thom Hartmann | 01/09/13

... Consider our food industry. According to Tom Philpott at Mother Jones magazine, agriculture oligopolies exist from farm to shelf. Just four companies control 90% of the global grain trade. Just three companies control 70% of the beef industry. And just four companies control 58% of the pork and chicken industry.   On the retail side, Walmart controls a quarter of the entire U.S. grocery market. And just four companies produce 75% of our breakfast cereal, 75% of our snack foods, 60% of our cookies, and half of all the ice cream sold in supermarkets around the nation. ... Read more

Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Thursday, January 10 [14:49]

*TYT | Climate Change Studies: Less than 1% Reject Global Warming (12/19/12) [4:01]

Rachel Maddow | Polls: How Congress rates against roaches and carnies (01/08/13) [2:49]

Jon Stewart | Satire on gun control Part 1 (01/06/13) [7:07]

Big Oil, Big Ketchup and "The Assassination of Hugo Chavez"
Truthout | Greg Palast | 01/09/13

Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush's attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton.   So what happened to change Clinton's hugs-and-kisses policy to Bush's shoot-to-kill? Here's the answer you won't find in The New York Times:

Just after Bush's inauguration in 2001, Chavez's congress voted in a new "Law of Hydrocarbons." Henceforward, Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and Chevron would get to keep 70 percent of the sales revenues from the crude they sucked out of Venezuela. Not bad, considering the price of oil was rising toward $100 a barrel.   But to the oil companies, which had bitch-slapped Venezuela's prior government into giving them 84 percent of the sales price, a cut to 70 percent was "no bueno." Worse, Venezuela had been charging a joke of a royalty - just 1 percent - on "heavy" crude from the Orinoco Basin. Chavez told Exxon and friends they'd now have to pay 16.6 percent.

Clearly, Chavez had to be taught a lesson about the etiquette of dealings with Big Oil. ... Read more

Not Even Close: 2012 Was Hottest Ever in U.S.
NYTimes | Justin Gillis | 01/08/13

The numbers are in: 2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt and a huge storm that caused broad devastation in the Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous United States. ... Read more

Chernobyl Factored In The Fall Of a Corrupt Regime -- Fukushima May Too
http://fairewinds.org | Roger Pulvers | 12/09/12

... What is the true nature of the destruction caused by radioactive contamination in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an area stretching out in a 31-km radius from the plant? And what can we expect to find in a similar zone in Fukushima Prefecture? After all, it has been estimated that the nuclear accident in Ukraine has made human habitation in the zone impossible for 20,000 years. Will the land in Fukushima be equally condemned? ... Read more

CROOKED CLEANUP (1): Radioactive waste dumped into rivers during decontamination work in Fukushima
ajw.asahi.com | Author | 01/04/12

Cleanup crews in Fukushima Prefecture have dumped soil and leaves contaminated with radioactive fallout into rivers. Water sprayed on contaminated buildings has been allowed to drain back into the environment. And supervisors have instructed workers to ignore rules on proper collection and disposal of the radioactive waste. ... Read more

Washington's jaw drops at possibility of AIG lawsuit
Politico | Ben White | 01/08/13

Remember when AIG took a $182 billion bailout only to turn around and hand out seven-figure bonuses to the same guys who tanked their company?

Grab the pitchforks -- it gets better. Now the insurance organization might join a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the terms of the bailout -- saying the deal that saved the company cheated shareholders. ... Read more

Secrets and Lies of the Bailout
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 01/04/13

... It was all a lie -- one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. We were told that the taxpayer was stepping in -- only temporarily, mind you -- to prop up the economy and save the world from financial catastrophe. What we actually ended up doing was the exact opposite: committing American taxpayers to permanent, blind support of an ungovernable, unregulatable, hyperconcentrated new financial system that exacerbates the greed and inequality that caused the crash, and forces Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to increase risk rather than reduce it. ... Read more

Secrets and Lies of the Bailout: One Broker's Story
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 01/08/13

I have a feature in the new issue of Rolling Stone called "Secrets and Lies of the Bailout," which focuses in large part on the seemingly intentional policy of deception in the government's rescue of the financial sector. The government didn't just bail out Wall Street with money: It also lied on Wall Street's behalf, calling unhealthy banks healthy, and helping banks cover up just how much aid they were getting in secret. ... Read more

Movie reveals fracking's unsavory practices
Politico | Trip Van Noppen | 01/08/13

The oil and gas industry is furious at Matt Damon, objecting to the way it is portrayed in his latest film, "Promised Land." But instead of blaming Damon for its PR troubles, the industry should heed this cautionary tale of a community that stands up to a dishonest and powerful company. ... Read more

How Our Government Is Trying to Scare Us into Submitting to Corporate Dominance
AlterNet | Chris Hedges | 01/07/13

... These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America." ... Read more

There's a Violent World War Going On, with Millions of Casualties -- Oligarchs vs. Everyone Else
AlterNet | Thom Hartmann | 01/07/13

... We have become, in the United States, and increasingly all over the world, a society with only two classes: Those who own, and those who owe.   The owners (or "Takers") own vast wealth, and loan it out at interest to everybody from students to governments. They're continually receiving that interest back in ways that are either tax-free or taxed at very low levels. (Here in the US we call it "capital gains," "Interest," "dividends," and "carried interest." While a working person will pay as much as 39% in federal income taxes, the federal income tax to the Mitt Romneys, Paris Hiltons, and Lloyd Blankfeins of the world is now capped at 20%. As Leona Helmsley famously said, "Only little people pay taxes.") ... Read more

Forget Gratitude: AIG Considers Suing U.S. Over Bailout
BusinessWeek | Matthew Philips | 01/08/13

At the behest of its former chief executive, Maurice Greenberg, AIG (AIG) is considering joining a lawsuit filed by its shareholders against the government. On Wednesday, according to the New York Times, Greenberg, 87, will try to persuade the AIG board that the terms of the company's $182 billion government bailout were too onerous, the interest rates were too high, and ultimately, that AIG shareholders got a raw deal. What's that about biting the hand that feeds you? ... Read more

Who Can Stop the People?
HP | Ralph Nader | 01/07/13

... Over the past several weeks, Congress has been the focal point of much controversy for its inability to come together on a comprehensive fiscal cliff deal until the absolute final hour. More and more Americans are becoming aware -- and upset -- about the systemic gridlock in Congress, which results in the failure to solve or even address numerous major problems that plague our country. ... Read more

George W. Bush's legacy grows more impressive
Washington Post | Jennifer Rubin | 01/02/13

The retention of 98 percent of the Bush tax cuts by the most liberal president to hold office reminds us that a mere four years after leaving office, George W. Bush has a legacy that is becoming more impressive with time. ... Read more

Most Underreported Story of 2012?
Washington Post | Bob Woodward | 12/03/12

... So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested. ... Read more

Steubenville High School Students Joke About Rape In Video Leaked By Anonymous
HP | Meredith Bennett-Smith | 01/02/13

A chilling video leaked by an Anonymous cell this week has added a new twist to a sordid tale of alleged rape that has shattered the peace of a close-knit Ohio football town.   The disturbing 12-minute video, posted online Tuesday by the hacktivist group "Knight Sec," shows teens making jokes about the events that reportedly transpired on Aug. 22. ... Read more
Leaked Steubenville Big Red Rape Video (01/02/13) [12:29]

Immigration Enforcement Cost Higher Than FBI, Policing Drugs, Guns Combined: Report
HP | Elise Foley | 01/07/13

The United States spends more money on immigration enforcement -- nearly $18 billion in the 2012 fiscal year -- than on its other law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report released Monday from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. ... Read more
Immigration Enforcement in the United States (pdf)

6 Strikes, 8 Days, 35 Dead: The U.S. Drone War in Pakistan is Back
Wired Magazine | Spencer Ackerman | 01/08/13

The sixth U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2013 has killed at least eight people, as if to announce the impending arrival at the CIA of the drone campaign's chief advocate. ... Read more

If You Thought Obama's Drone Godfather Was Powerful, Wait 'Til He's at the CIA
Wired Magazine | Spencer Ackerman | 01/07/13

... If confirmed by the Senate to lead the CIA, John Brennan, to paraphrase Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, will be clothed in immense power. He's already an architect of the CIA's accelerated counterterrorism campaign, the one that launches drone strikes at suspected terrorists around the world. From his perch at the White House, Brennan has been a major advocate for the CIA, perhaps more effectively than the men running Langley, thanks to his close relationship with Obama. ... Read more

Right-Wingers Who Think They Got 'Rolled' by Obama In Cliff Deal Are Totally Crazy
AlterNet | Joshua Holland | 01/04/13

I thought that by this point, I was beyond the capacity to be shocked by the delusions held by the American Right. But my jaw dropped when I read that a number of high-profile conservatives are outraged about the fiscal slope deal, and believe they have been "rolled" by Obama. The very notion is wildly delusional. ... Read more

The Steubenville Files
localleaks.blogs.ru/ | Author | 01/01/13

On August 27, 2012 two members of the Big Red High School football team in Steubenville, Ohio USA were arrested and charged with the rape and kidnapping of an out of town 16 year old girl that took place on August 11th. At the time of this gang rape, the girl was intoxicated and unconscious. ... Read more
Michael Colin Nodianos Video

Ending the Silence on Climate Change
Bill Moyers | Author | 01/04/13

Climate change communication expert Anthony Leiserowitz explains why climate change gets the silent treatment, and what we should do about it. ... Read more

The Elephant in the Room: Climate Change
Bill Moyers | Author | 12/20/12

The most under-reported news story of 2012?   The elephant in the room. Global climate change -- and the failure of our leaders and media to act. ... Read more

Fourteen Years Later, Looking Back at a School Shooting
PBS Frontline | Author | 12/21/12

The Killer at Thurston High, which first aired on Jan. 18, 2000, examines Kinkel's childhood in a nurturing family in suburban Oregon and his transformation from a shy, lonely teenager into a methodical killer. The story draws on excerpts from Kinkel's writings, his psychologist's notes and interviews with his sister, schoolmates and family friends. ... Read more

Heat
PBS Frontline | Author | (2008)

Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, fires, floods and droughts. On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world's largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth's looming environmental disaster.   "I have reported on the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rise of Al Qaeda, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Smith. "But nothing matches climate change in scope and severity." ... Read more

Why Soldiers Keep Losing to Suicide
PBS Frontline | Author | 12/20/12

... About 53 percent of those who died by suicide in the military in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, had no history of deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, according (pdf) to the Defense Department. And nearly 85 percent of military members who took their lives had no direct combat history, meaning they may have been deployed but not seen action. ... Read more

A Defining Moment at the Gulf War's End
PBS Frontline | Author | 02/20/03

As the U.S. stands at the brink of war with Iraq, many are now warning about the potential consequences: the danger of getting bogged down in Baghdad, the prospect of longtime allies leaving America's side, the possibility of chaos in the Middle East, the threat of renewed terrorism. ... Read more

Maddow Discusses How Shell's Arctic Drilling Keeps Getting More Ridiculous
AlterNet | Lauren Kelley | 01/04/13

Rachel Maddow discussed the latest developments in the grounding of a Shell artic drilling rig off the coast of Alaska. ... Read more

Wildfires Hit Australia Amid Worst Heatwave in Decade
BusinessWeek | Edward Johnson | 01/04/13

Wildfires are sweeping through parts of rural Australia as the biggest heatwave since 2001 spreads across the nation bringing near-record temperatures.   State-wide fire bans are in force in the southern island state of Tasmania and in Victoria, while emergency services issued bushfire alerts across South Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology said the heatwave was moving east across the continent, bringing temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). ... Read more

Can We Avert The Coming Debt Ceiling Crisis With A Magic Coin?
HP | Jason Linkins | 01/04/12

Because of the deal made on New Year's Day that averted the immediate impact of the so-called fiscal cliff, America will face a sequel to the debt ceiling hostage crisis that led to the super committee and the sequester and the fiscal cliff and the fiscal cliff solution and the sequel to the debt ceiling hostage crisis that led to the super committee and the sequester and the fiscal cliff and the fiscal cliff solution, et cetera, ad infinitum. ... Read more

Noam Chomsky: The Gravest Threat to World Peace
http://truth-out.org | Noam Chomsky | 01/04/13

Reporting on the final U.S. presidential campaign debate, on foreign policy, The Wall Street Journal observed that "the only country mentioned more (than Israel) was Iran, which is seen by most nations in the Middle East as the gravest security threat to the region." ... Read more

The Case Against Billionaires
http://truth-out.org | Thom Hartmann | 01/03/12

It's time we as a nation have a serious discussion about outlawing billionaires.   This week we learned that 2012 was one heck of a year for the billionaires. The 100 richest people in the world got $241 billion wealthier this year bringing their total net worth to $1.9 trillion. These 100 people have more combined wealth than the entire GDP of nations like Italy, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Australia, and about 170 other nations.

Billionaires exclusive to the United States also had a field day. As the annual Forbes 400 list of 2012 showed, America's richest billionaires saw their wealth increase by $200 billion last year bringing their total net worth to $1.7 trillion. ... Read more

Thom Hartmann: U.S. the next Greece? (01/04/13) [9:18]

New Congress Taking Office With Old Divides
HP & AP | Donna Cassata | 01/03/13

WASHINGTON -- Congress is ushering in the new and the old - dozens of eager freshmen determined to change Washington and the harsh reality of another stretch of bitterly divided government. ... Read more

*8 Huge Corporate Handouts in the Fiscal Cliff Bill
AlterNet | Matt Stoller | 01/01/13

Throughout the months of November and December, a steady stream of corporate CEOs flowed in and out of the White House to discuss the impending fiscal cliff. Many of them, such as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, would then publicly come out and talk about how modest increases of tax rates on the wealthy were reasonable in order to deal with the deficit problem. What wasn't mentioned is what these leaders wanted, which is what's known as "tax extenders", or roughly $205B of tax breaks for corporations. ...

Angelo Mozilo, Former Countrywide CEO, Claims He Doesn't Know What 'Verified Income' Is
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 12/28/12

If you were going to assign blame to any single person for the financial crisis, Angelo Mozilo would rank right up there with people like Lehman's idiot CEO Dick Fuld, deranged credit-default-swap peddler Joe Cassano of AIG's Financial Products unit, and deregulatory pioneers like Bob Rubin and Phil Gramm. Mozilo's role, however, was probably the single most shameful, as he represented the conscious decision of mortgage underwriters to abandon lending standards in order to claim ever-larger chunks of market share. ...

... As chief of Countrywide, Mozilo headed the single most corrupt subprime mortgage lender in America during the period preceding the crisis. Charged with mass fraud and headed for trial in October of 2010, Mozilo and the SEC ultimately settled four days before opening arguments were set to begin in Los Angeles. Ultimately, Mozilo got away with no jail time, paying a $67.5 million settlement, $20 million of which was covered by Countrywide, which by then had been acquired by Bank of America, a major bailout recipient. Just in the years between 2000 and 2008, Mozilo made over half a billion dollars -- $521.5 million, according to one corporate research firm. ... Read more

Everything We Tell Ourselves About America and the World Is Wrong
AlterNet | Charles Eisenstein | 12/29/12

Every culture has a Story of the People to give meaning to the world. Part conscious and part unconscious, it consists of a matrix of agreements, narratives, and symbols that tell us why we are here, where we are headed, what is important, and even what is real. I think we are entering a new phase in the dissolution of our Story of the People, and therefore, with some lag time, of the edifice of civilization built on top of it. ...

... From my vantage point, the basic premises of this story seemed unquestionable. After all, it seemed to be working in my world. Looking back, I realize that this was a bubble world built atop massive human suffering and environmental degradation, but at the time one could live within that bubble without need of much self-deception. The story that surrounded us was robust. It easily kept anomalous data points on the margins. ...

... Today we cannot ignore the intensifying degradation of the biosphere, the malaise of the economic system, the decline in health, or the persistence and indeed growth of global poverty and inequality. We once thought economists would fix poverty, political scientists would fix social injustice, chemists and biologists would fix environmental problems, the power of reason would prevail and we would adopt sane policies. I remember looking at maps of rain forest decline in National Geographic in the early 1980s and feeling both alarm and relief -- relief because at least the scientists and everyone who reads National Geographic is aware of the problem now, so something surely will be done. ... Read more

Democracy Now! National and Global News Headlines for Thursday, January 03 [14:18]

*TRNN | Bill Black: Cliff Deal a "Moderate" Betrayal (01/03/13) [13:39]

*60 Minutes | A rare look at the Vatican Library's treasures (12/17/12) [12:25]

*60 Minutes | Tragedy in Newtown (12/17/12) [13:44]

*60 Minutes | Costa Concordia: Salvaging a shipwreck (12/17/12) [13:28]

*60 Minutes | The race to save the tortoise (12/09/12) [12:58]

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and the Damage Done
Bloomberg | Peter Coy | 01/02/13

Ordinarily we call a deal in which neither side gets what it wants a victory for democracy. Shared sacrifice produces moderation and probity. But any process in which the Speaker of the House tells the Senate Majority Leader "Go f-?-?- yourself," as John Boehner instructed Harry Reid at the height of fiscal cliff madness, deserves just a bit of examination. ... Read more

Despite Dubious Evidence of Safety, You May Soon Be Eating Unlabeled Genetically Engineered Salmon
AlterNet | Dan Bacher | 12/28/12

On December 21, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a draft environmental assessment (EA) finding, in spite of much evidence to the contrary, that genetically engineered (GE) AquaAdvantage salmon pose no risk to the environment.   The document claimed that the fish "will not have any significant impacts on the quality of the human environment of the United States." ... Read more

The Finance Industry Has Pried into Every Sector of the Economy, and Has Ended Up Running the Whole Show
AlterNet | AlterNet |12/31/12

Today's economic warfare is not the kind waged a century ago between labor and its industrial employers. Finance has moved to capture the economy at large, industry and mining, public infrastructure (via privatization) and now even the educational system. (At over $1 trillion, U.S. student loan debt came to exceed credit-card debt in 2012.) The weapon in this financial warfare is no larger military force. The tactic is to load economies (governments, companies and families) with debt, siphon off their income as debt service and then foreclose when debtors lack the means to pay. ... Read more

Fiscal Cliff Deal Passed By Congress After Republicans Cave
HP | Michael McAuliff | 01/01/13

... The Senate passed a compromise at 2 a.m. Tuesday. The House threatened to blow up the deal, but reluctantly followed suit 20 hours later, ultimately passing a permanent extension of many Bush-era tax cuts by an overwhelming vote of 257 to 167.   The weeks-long debacle of tax negotiations brought into stark relief how focused the nation's Capitol remained on the deficit and debt, while focus on the jobs crisis nearly vanished, along with talk of economic devastation from climate change. ... Read more

Billionaires Worth $1.9 Trillion Seek Advantage in 2013
Bloomberg | Matthew G. Miller | 01/01/13

The aggregate net worth of the world's top moguls stood at $1.9 trillion at the market close on Dec. 31, according to the index. Retail and telecommunications fortunes surged about 20 percent on average during the year. Of the 100 people who appeared on the final ranking of 2012, only 16 registered a net loss for the 12-month period. ... Read more

Shell Drill Ship, The Kulluk, Grounds Off Alaska
Reuters | Yereth Rosen | 01/01/13

... The grounding of the Kulluk, a conical, Arctic-class drill ship weighing nearly 28,000 gross tons, is a blow to Shell's $4.5 billion offshore programme in Alaska.   Shell's plan to convert the area in to a major new oil frontier has alarmed environmentalists and many Alaska Natives but excited industry supporters. ... Read more

The Global Religious Landscape
http://www.pewforum.org | Author | 12/18/12

Worldwide, more than eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. A comprehensive demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion. ... Read more

Climate Risks Have Been Underestimated for the Last 20 Years
AlterNet | Glenn Scherer | 12/20/12

Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world's most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent, say a growing number of studies on the topic.

As the latest round of United Nations climate talks in Doha wrap up this week, climate experts warn that the IPCC's failure to adequately project the threats that rising global carbon emissions represent has serious consequences: The IPCC's overly conservative reading of the science, they say, means governments and the public could be blindsided by the rapid onset of the flooding, extreme storms, drought, and other impacts associated with catastrophic global warming.This conservative bias, say some scientists, could have significant political implications, as reports from the group ... Read more

The Post-Apocalypse Survival Machine Nerd Farm
Bloomberg | Ashlee Vance | 11/01/12

Marcin Jakubowski sits cross-legged on the dirt floor of a round hut in Missouri farm country, carefully making an open-faced mayo and cheddar sandwich. Inside the hut there's a bed, a small desk, a few plastic containers (including one for food), and, occasionally, mice and snakes. ... Read more