Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Was Michael Hastings' Car Hacked? Richard Clarke Says It's Possible
HP | Mike Hogan | 06/24/13 older

Former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke told The Huffington Post that what is known about the single-vehicle crash is "consistent with a car cyber attack." Clarke said, "There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers" -- including the United States -- know how to remotely seize control of a car.

"What has been revealed as a result of some research at universities is that it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the brakes on, to launch an air bag," Clarke told The Huffington Post. "You can do some really highly destructive things now, through hacking a car, and it's not that hard." ... Read more

Richard Clarke: Hastings Accident "Consistent with a Car Cyber Attack"
RedIce | Kurt Nimmo | date

"There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers" -- including the United States -- know how to remotely seize control of a car," Clarke said.   On Saturday, Infowars.com posted a video of a talk presented by Dr. Kathleen Fisher, a program manager for DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies. Fisher admitted that the Pentagon has researched remotely controlling cars through hacking on board computers.

In 2011, Car and Driver magazine published an article substantiating the Pentagon research. "Currently, there's nothing to stop anyone with malicious intent and some ­computer-programming skills from taking command of your vehicle. After gaining access, a hacker could control everything from which song plays on the radio to whether the brakes work," writes Keith Barry, citing research conducted by the Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security, a partnership between the University of California San Diego and the University of Washington. ... Read more
CNN: Was Michael Hastings Death An "Accident"? (06/20/13) [2:40]

*What can NSA Really Do! Quite A Lot. To Protect And Infect or Wrist Slitting Depressing (30C3) (12/30/13) [1:02:15]

This Guy Needs A Clue: A Member Of The 1% Declares It 'Great' That 3.5 Billion Are In Poverty.
upworthy.com | Brandon Weber | date

It's like he's a living example of rich white male privilege: "Anybody can be me!"   Just to be clear, I'm not jealous of his wealth. Or what he had to do to get it. But many of those 3.5 billion in poverty never even get a chance to try to "be somebody." Once we level that playing field, we can start talking about "looking up to the 1%."

This clip came from "The Lang & O'Leary Exchange" on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The guy in the clip, Kevin O'Leary, is one of the investors on "Shark Tank." Jump to
Kevin O'Leary says 3.5 billion people living in poverty is 'fantastic news' (01/21/14) [1:11]

Obama's Weak Enviro Agenda Is Suicide for Humanity -- Here's the Stark Future We Face
AlterNet | Tara Lohan | 01/29/14

Are there any self-respecting environmental organizations out there that are still behind President Obama? After his State of the Union on Tuesday it's hard to imagine there could be. In his address, Obama proudly declared, "The 'all the above' energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working, and today America is closer to energy independence than we have been in decades."

Based what we know from the most recent climate science, Obama's "all-of-the-above" energy policy is actually suicidal. To say that we're approaching a dangerous precipice would be too optimistic or simply unrealistic. For a decade we were peering over the edge, but now we're falling—how long and how hard depends on what we do this year and in the next few years. ... Read more

Edward Snowden has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
Washington Post | Brian Fung | 01/29/14/span>

Edward Snowden spent the last year revealing some of the government's most tightly held secrets, kicking off a massive debate about the proper role of America's intelligence services. Now, a pair of Norwegian politicians have nominated the NSA leaker for a Nobel Peace Prize.   In their nomination letter, Baard Vegar Solhjell and Snorre Valen, who hail from the Socialist Left party, said Snowden's revelations "contributed to a more stable and peaceful world order." ... Read more

James Clapper Suggests Journalists Could Be Edward Snowden's 'Accomplices'
HP | Michael Calderone | 01/29/14

"Snowden claims that he's won and that his mission is accomplished," Clapper said, according to a transcript from the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, posted by the Washington Post. "If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed, to prevent even more damage to U.S. security." ...

... Guardian national security editor Spencer Ackerman, among others, questioned on Twitter whether Clapper was referring to journalists.   HuffPost put the question to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which didn't rule out that journalists could be considered "accomplices." ... Read more

*ProPublica | Has the Gov't Lied on NSA Snooping? Let's Go to the Videotape [2:53]

*Booz Allen Hamilton: Far Worse Than Blackwater
activistpost.com | Tommy Paine | 2013 older

Lost in the Edward Snowden debate is a critical look at his former employer, the company doing the spying on Americans in the first place: Booz Allen Hamilton.

Booz Allen Hamilton is a government contractor, with 99% of its revenue coming from the US government. Not only does it receive money from the NSA, but also the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Marine Corps, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and ... the IRS. In addition, Booz Allen is heavily connected to the CIA. ... Read more | full article in pup-up window
Click to zoom chart
Does Bush work for Carlyle, who owns Booz Allen, who get huge defense contracts?

*Truthloader | What you're not being told about Booz Allen Hamilton and Edward Snowden (10/07/13) [11:47]

*Truthloader | Who are The Carlyle Group, and what is their relationship with Booz Allen Hamilton? (08/16/13) [9:18]

WSJ Defends Paranoid Rich Guy Who Thinks The Poor Are Nazis, Naturally
HP | Emily Peck | 01/30/14

Perkins, who co-founded the firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in the 1970s, made his explosive comments in a letter to the WSJ over the weekend. "I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich,' " he wrote.   An epic Internet freakout ensued. Fortunately, the gallant WSJ op-ed page, owned by News Corp., where Perkins was until recently a board member, came to his rescue.

The Nazi comparison was "unfortunate," admitted the WSJ's editorial team, in a piece pubbed late Wednesday night. But the WSJ also declared Perkins' larger point -- that the super-rich are demonized by the press and "liberals" -- right on target. The outraged response to his letter proves the point, the WSJ triumphantly noted. ... Read more

Silicon Valley fights to keep its Dutch Sandwich and Double Irish loopholes
magazine | Cyrus Farivar | 01/20/14

Last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- a group of the world's top economies -- decided it was time to crack down on international tax shenanigans through meaningful reform. These legal loopholes allow major tech corporations to move money around on paper through a series of shell corporations in Ireland, Bermuda, and the Netherlands. The companies save big, and "best" of all, it's currently legal! This widespread strategy of moving money around involves two specific tactics better known as the "Dutch Sandwich" and the "Double Irish."

Lots of companies engage in these strategies -- Apple, Google, Amazon, Adobe, and Microsoft to name a few. How beneficial are they? Google's overseas tax rate was 2.4 percent in 2009, the lowest of all American tech companies when measured by market capitalization. This shifting move saves the company billions of dollars annually. In October 2013, Google is now moving even more money through a shell corporation in Bermuda -- reaching a total of €8.8 billion ($11.91 billion) in 2012, 25 percent more than it did in 2011. ... Read more

Boehner warns Obama headed for 'brick wall'
CNN | CNN's Dana Bash | 01/28/14

House Speaker John Boehner warned President Barack Obama that he will "run into a brick wall" by using his executive power and bypassing Congress, as the White House has signaled the President intends to do. "We're just not going to sit here and let the President trample all over us," said Boehner.

"This idea that he's just going to go it alone, I have to remind him we do have a constitution. And the Congress writes the laws, and the President's job is to execute the laws faithfully. And if he tries to ignore this he's going to run into a brick wall." ...

MSNBC | Chuck Todd: Majority of Americans believe Obama's second term won't improve [3:12]

My Fox News Nightmare: How I Tortured Myself with The Propaganda of Ignorance
AlterNet | John Haggerty | 01/28/14

So here's what happened when I watched 3 hours of Fox every day for a month.

One October evening, in the midst of the 2013 government shutdown, I watched Bill O'Reilly work himself into something of a state. He sat at his desk, his hands palms upward, fingers slightly curved, as if cupping something in them. "I want Hagel." he said, staring into the camera. "I want Hagel. I want him." A casual observer might interpret this moment as O'Reilly expressing his fierce but tender desire for Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense. More experienced O'Reilly viewers, however, will recognize it as a signal that the unfortunate Hagel had plummeted downward in O'Reilly's estimation from pinhead to evildoer. (There are only three kinds of people in Bill O'Reilly's world: good hardworking Americans, pinheads--people who are not actually malevolent but who are too stupid to understand the way the world really works--and evildoers.) ... Read more

A Holodeck Videogame Designed to Train Soldiers
Wired Magazine | Allen McDuffee | 01/28/14

Last week, the Army Contracting Command issued a Sources Sought notice for companies interested in demonstrating "mature technologies" for military training. Northrop Grumman thinks its Virtual Immersive Portable Environment (VIPE) Holodeck just may be the answer.

Using commercial, off-the-shelf hardware combined with gaming technology, the VIPE Holodeck 360 degree virtual training system provides users with a high-fidelity immersive environment with a variety of mission-centric applications, including simulation and training, mission rehearsal and data visualization. The VIPE Holodeck can support live, virtual and constructive simulation and training exercises including team training, cultural and language training and support for ground, air and remote platform training. Off-the-shelf technology keeps costs down while also making future upgrades and maintenance easy to perform and affordable, says Northrop. ... Read more
VIPE Holodeck. The Virtual Immersive Portable Environment is the most realistic, cost effective virtual training system available. [2:46]

Edward Snowden, v 1.0: NSA Whistleblower William Binney Tells All
ReasonTV | William Binney | 01/10/14

ReasonTV | Edward Snowden, v 1.0: NSA Whistleblower William Binney Tells All (01/10/14) [50:12]

TPP Wikileaked: US Watering Down Enviro Protections in Secret Trade Deal
Bill Moyers | John Light | 01/16/14

Another chapter in the tale of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a secret international trade deal being pushed by the Obama administration and described by critics as "NAFTA on steroids" -- has once again been Wikileaked. This one deals with the environment, and it shows that, by and large, the US is caving on environmental standards it had previously set for international trade agreements.

... The TPP is a deal negotiated by the US, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Brunei, Australia, Vietnam, Peru, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Japan. The complete text has not been released to the public, but the Obama administration is rushing to get it finalized as part of a strategic "pivot to Asia." The agreement had previously been criticized for increasing corporate control over the Internet, copyrights and patents and potentially having the same negative effect on the US job market as NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement entered into 20 years ago. ... Read more

Part Three: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Science Literacy
BillMoyers | Neil deGrasse Tyson | 01/24/14

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson unwittingly triggered a controversy in the blogosphere last week when he said this on our show: "If you have a religious philosophy that is not based in objective realities that you then want to put in the science classroom, then I'm going to stand there and say no, 'I'm not going to allow you in the science classroom.'" ... Read more

The Constant Presence of U.S. Drones in the Sky Traumatize and Ruin Lives on the Ground
AlterNet | H.H. Bhojani | 01/23/14

Nabila's drawings are like any other nine-year-old's. A house rests besides a winding path, a winding path on which wander two stick figures. Tall trees, rising against the back drop of majestic hills. Clouds sprinkled over a clear sky.

Nabila's drawings are like any other nine-year-old's. With one disturbing exception.   Hovering over the house, amidst the clouds, above the people, are two drone aircraft. ... Read more

Approx. 4,000 oil platforms in the Gulf

Wall Street Regulators Still "Funded at a Level to Fail"
Bill Moyers | staff | 01/21/14

In 2011, the government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued an exhaustive report on the roots of the 2008 crash. It concluded that lax regulation and the inadequate enforcement of existing regulations lay at the heart of the meltdown.

More than 30 years of deregulation and reliance on self-regulation by financial institutions, championed by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others, supported by successive administrations and Congresses, and actively pushed by the powerful financial industry at every turn, had stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe. This approach had opened up gaps in oversight of critical areas with trillions of dollars at risk, such as the shadow banking system and over-the-counter derivatives markets. ... Read more

Biography Argues Roger Ailes Uses Fox To Divide Nation
magazine | author | date

Roger Ailes is a hero to the political right and a boogeyman to the left for leading the Fox News Channel to be the top rated force in cable news. The competition is not even close. A new biography argues Roger Ailes has used Fox to divide the nation.

NPR's David Folkenflik has reported extensively on Fox for this network and in his own book, "Murdoch's World." As David reports, the book, "The Loudest Voice in the Room," paints a picture of Ailes as a television news executive operating unlike any of his rivals. ... Read more
NPR | Biography Argues Roger Ailes Uses Fox To Divide Nation (01/22/14) [5:59]

Glenn Beck: I made an awful lot of mistakes at Fox & played a role in helping tear the country apart (01/22/14) [1:59]

How The 0.01 Percent Underwrites, And Undermines, Politics
HP | Paul Blumenthal | 01/24/13

Just four days after being named Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate in August 2012, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) made a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to meet the man who had, overnight, become his biggest benefactor: casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

Throughout the 2012 campaign, the octogenarian Adelson was both everywhere and nowhere -- perhaps the greatest example of an Oz-like wizard pulling the political strings behind the scenes. He appeared in public with Romney just once, at a fundraiser that Adelson hosted for the GOP nominee during a visit to Jerusalem. But he poured more than $150 million into a network of political groups that backed Republican candidates.

Adelson was not alone, however, among the small circle of Republican mega-donors. In June 2012, billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch invited dozens of the country's wealthiest individuals to their annual "donor" conference in San Diego. There they raised nearly $400 million in three days, money they would later churn through a web of conservative nonprofit groups -- shielding the identities of the donors in the process. Two weeks after the conference, David Koch held a fundraiser for Romney at his home in the Hamptons, which guests paid between $50,000 and $75,000 to attend. ... Read more

One of Congress's Most Pro-Israel Lawmakers Isn't Pro-Israel Enough for AIPAC
Thecable.ForeignPolicy.com | John Hudson | 01/23/14

A recent letter attacking Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is causing an internal brouhaha at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, The Cable has learned. The powerful lobbying outfit, known for its disciplined non-partisan advocacy for Israel, recently issued an action alert about the Florida congresswoman's waffling on Iran sanctions legislation. The letter urged members to contact Wasserman Schultz and cited a disparaging article about her in a conservative website founded by a prominent Republican political operative.

That AIPAC was driving hard for new Iran sanctions legislation surprised no one. But its use of a right-wing blog to target a well-connected Jewish Democrat with a long history of support for Israel raised eyebrows among some current and former AIPAC officials. It also raised concerns that AIPAC's open revolt against the White House's Iran diplomacy could fray its relations with liberal Democrats on the Hill.

"In the 40 years I've been involved with AIPAC, this is the first time I've seen such a blatant departure from bipartisanship," said Doug Bloomfield, AIPAC's former chief lobbyist. ... Read more

*Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]

*People Pressure Is Making Fast Tracking the TPP Politically Toxic. GOOD!
Truthdig | author | date

The White House is calling January "TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) Month" and has made it their task to pass Fast Track. President Obama needs Fast Track to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). When Congress returned this month, a bill was quickly introduced after delays of more than a year.

The lies begin with title of the bill: "The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014." Bi-partisan? In the House there was only one sponsor, Republican David Camp (MI). The Republicans demanded the Democrats add a sponsor before it was introduced, but due to public pressure, they could not find one. ... Read more
TPP Fast Track Protest at Senate Finance Committee Hearing (01/17/14) [3:30]

Illinois Medical Marijuana Rules: State Wants You To Choose Between Your Weed, Your Gun
HP | staff | 01/22/14

The Illinois Department of Public Health on Tuesday unveiled their proposed rules for the state's medical marijuana pilot program -- including several proposals that are receiving significant backlash from marijuana advocates.

... Among the proposals are that medical marijuana users would need to pay a $150 annual fee to participate in the program by getting a special photo ID, in addition to agreeing to be fingerprinted, undergoing a criminal background check and relinquishing their right to own a gun, the Associated Press reports. ... Read more
TYT | Pot Smokers Must Choose: Guns Or Pot? (01/22/14) [5:29]

Google Glass goes X-rated: App lets wearers see sex through their partner's eyes
DailyMail | Victoria Woollaston | 01/21/14

Forget mirrors on the ceiling or handheld cameras, couples can now use the wearable technology to record their most intimate moments. The app also lets couples see sex through their partner's eyes by streaming the view from their respective device. ...

... If the wearable tech is connected to smart lamps, or other household devices, for example, wearers can control music, lighting and even search the web for sexual positions and other inspiration. ... Read more
TYT | Google Glass Could Make Sex Creepy Or Amazing (01/22/14) [4:11]

*Oxfam: 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world
TheGuardian | Graeme Wearden | 01/20/14

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe -- who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together -- could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population. ... Read more

$170 Million HOTEL Keeps RICH & POWERFUL ELITE, Super SAFE at Davos World Economic Forum. [2:04]

DROP DEAD, DETROIT!
New Yorker | Paige Williams | 01/23/14

For the past twenty-one years, L. Brooks Patterson has governed Oakland County, a large, affluent suburb of Detroit. Oakland County embodies fiscal success as much as Detroit does financial ruin, and Patterson, the county executive, tends to behave as though his chief job in life were to never let anyone forget it. One week in September, he gave me an extended tour of his empire, in a chauffeured minivan. Near the end of the first day, we headed toward Lake St. Clair, at the mouth of the Detroit River, for a party on a yacht. Patterson sat in the front passenger seat. Over his shoulder, he said, "Anytime I talk about Detroit, it will not be positive. Therefore, I'm called a Detroit basher. The truth hurts, you know? Tough shit."

... Patterson told me, "I used to say to my kids, 'First of all, there's no reason for you to go to Detroit. We've got restaurants out here.' They don't even have movie theatres in Detroit--not one." He went on, "I can't imagine finding something in Detroit that we don't have in spades here. Except for live sports. We don't have baseball, football. For that, fine--get in and get out. But park right next to the venue--spend the extra twenty or thirty bucks. And, before you go to Detroit, you get your gas out here. You do not, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That's just a call for a carjacking." ... Read more

The NSA can hijack your Wi-Fi from 8 miles away
dailydot.com | Sarah Weber | 12/30/13

Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum elaborated on what he's learned about NSA spying tactics and tools during a lecture at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg.

Appelbaum co-wrote a Der Spiegel report published Sunday that sheds light on what the NSA can access, including your iPhone, your newly purchased laptop computer, and most major security architecture. But in his lecture, Appelbaum dropped this nugget: The NSA can tap into your wireless signal from up to eight miles away. ... Read more

The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV: Agency director says it will 'transform' surveillance
dailymail.co.uk | Rob Waugh | 03/16/12 older, but good

When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are. Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home - the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.

Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps - and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells. The resultant chorus of 'connected' gadgets will be able to be read like a book - and even remote-controlled, according to CIA CIA Director David Petraeus, according to a recent report by Wired's 'Danger Room' blog. ...

Read more

Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit
spiegel.de | Staff | 12/30/14

he NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.

It was thanks to the garage door opener episode that Texans learned just how far the NSA's work had encroached upon their daily lives. For quite some time now, the intelligence agency has maintained a branch with around 2,000 employees at Lackland Air Force Base, also in San Antonio. In 2005, the agency took over a former Sony computer chip plant in the western part of the city. A brisk pace of construction commenced inside this enormous compound. The acquisition of the former chip factory at Sony Place was part of a massive expansion the agency began after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

On-Call Digital Plumbers. One of the two main buildings at the former plant has since housed a sophisticated NSA unit, one that has benefited the most from this expansion and has grown the fastest in recent years -- the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO. This is the NSA's top operative unit -- something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked. Read more

Ever wonder how fast the computer is in the NSA Utah Data Center: it can do 27,000 trillion calculations a second.

Ever wonder what 42 trillion file cabinets stacked together would look like?

According to a report by NPR, the NSA data center in Utah will be capable of saving 5 Zettabytes (5 billion Terabyte). Assuming that a filing cabinet with 60 files (30,000 pages of paper) uses up 0.4 m², which would correspond to 120 MB of data, the printed out Utah data center would use up 17 million square kilometers.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Warnings From NAFTA
HP | Dean Baker | 01/20/14

With the New Year the corporate lobbyists and the Obama administration are stepping up their drive for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the new trade deal being negotiated in secret by the United States and eleven countries in the Pacific region. The key at the moment is Congressional approval of fast-track authority. This would give any agreement a straight up or down vote on an accelerated timetable.

Fast-track authority would virtually guarantee passage since members would face intense pressure from corporate contributors and the media, in both the news and opinion sections, to support the deal. Failure to support a deal would mean that a member would be labeled a protectionist Neanderthal (name-calling is standard fare in Washington when pushing for trade deals) in addition to being badly under-funded in their re-election campaign. ... Read more

Germany Has Recovered A Paltry 5 Tons Of Gold From The NY Fed After One Year
ZeroHedge | author | 01/19/14

On December 24, we posted an update on Germany's gold repatriation process: a year after the Bundesbank announced its stunning decision, driven by Zero Hedge revelations, to repatriate 674 tons of gold from the New York Fed and the French Central Bank, it had managed to transfer a paltry 37 tons. This amount represents just 5% of the stated target, and was well below the 84 tons that the Bundesbank would need to transport each year to collect the 674 tons ratably over the 8 year interval between 2013 and 2020. The release of these numbers promptly angered Germans, and led to the rise of numerous allegations that the reason why the transfer is taking so long is that the gold simply is not in the possession of the offshore custodians, having been leased, or worse, sold without any formal or informal announcement. However, what will certainly not help mute "conspiracy theorists" is today's update from today's edition of Die Welt, in which we learn that only a tiny 5 tons of gold were sent from the NY Fed. The rest came from Paris. ... Read more

How the U.S. Uses Surveillance and Scandal to Advance Its Global Control
AlterNet | Alfred McCoy | 01/19/14

... Not only does such surveillance help gain intelligence advantageous to U.S. diplomacy, trade relations, and war-making, but it also scoops up intimate information that can provide leverage -- akin to blackmail -- in sensitive global dealings and negotiations of every sort. The NSA's global panopticon thus fulfills an ancient dream of empire. With a few computer key strokes, the agency has solved the problem that has bedeviled world powers since at least the time of Caesar Augustus: how to control unruly local leaders, who are the foundation for imperial rule, by ferreting out crucial, often scurrilous, information to make them more malleable. ... Read more

What I learned from a week on food stamps: Paul Ryan couldn't be any more wrong
Salon | Sarah Gray | 01/19/14

... It has been 50 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson -- the architect of the modern food stamp -- set out to "conquer poverty" in America. Some, like Rep. Paul Ryan, are ready to declare the "War on Poverty" a failure, and gut funding for things like food stamps. What their objections ignore, however, is that SNAP is vitally important to 47 million Americans -- one sixth of our country, from rural plains to swelling cities. And the program works. ...

... Cantor et al. would be wise to know that 41 percent of SNAP recipients are in a household generating income. Yet, for some "able-bodied" workers, a meager income is still not enough to put food on the table. Employees of Wal-Mart and McDonalds, for example, are major beneficiaries of SNAP. (A 2012 Daily Kos article reported that 80 percent of Wal-Mart's employees benefit from SNAP. One Wal-Mart in Canton, Ohio, even held a food drive for their fellow employees struggling to afford the cost of Thanksgiving dinner.) Those SNAP beneficiaries who are not employed include children, the disabled and the elderly. It is estimated 25 percent of households that benefit from SNAP include an elderly family member, and 72 percent of such households include children. In fact, at some point in their childhood, a full half of America's children will be fed with food stamps. In 2011, only 11 percent of food-stamp recipients in New Jersey were single, childless, non-disabled, non-elderly adults. ... Read more

Garbage Island [20:48]

Richard Wolff | Global Capitalism: June 2013 Monthly Update (06/12/13) [1:49:51]

Fearmongers Trying to Kill Talk of Reforming the NSA
AlterNet | David Sirota | 01/16/14

In order to have a genuinely constructive debate, data must be compiled, evidence must be amassed and verifiable truths must be presented. This truism is particularly significant when it comes to debates about security and liberty. When public policy disputes involve such grave issues, facts are a necessity. Without facts, we get the counterproductive discourse we are being treated to right now -- the one hijacked by National Security Administration defenders throwing temper tantrums, tossing out fear-mongering platitudes and trying to prevent any scrutiny of the agency. ... Read more

Adam Lanza calls in radio station a year before Sandy Hook shooting and gives bizarre interview
nydailynews.com | Matthew Lysiak | 01/15/14

Documents reveal how Lanza, a year before Newtown massacre, used the pseudonym 'Smiggles' on a message board to talk about calling an Oregon college radio station and masking his voice to liken Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Breivik, to an abused chimpanzee that ripped Connecticut woman Charla Nash's face off.

Using the name Greg and apparently taking pains to disguise his voice, Lanza weighed-in on mass murder by comparing "a teenage mall shooter" to Travis, a chimpanzee who became infamous after ripping the face off a Connecticut woman in 2009. ... Read more

Adam Lanza calls in radio station a year before Sandy Hook shooting and gives bizarre interview [7:34]

Navy's 757-Sized Drone Will Provide Big-Time Surveillance
Wired Magazine | Allen Mcduffee | 01/07/14

A new drone with the mammoth wingspan of a Boeing 757 is set to give the U.S. Navy some serious surveillance power. Northrop Grumman and the Navy say they've just completed the ninth flight trial of the Triton unmanned aircraft system (UAS), an improvement upon its predecessor in the Air Force, the Global Hawk.

With its 130-foot wingspan, Triton will provide high-altitude, real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) from a sensor suite that supplies a 360-degree view at a radius of over 2,000 nautical miles, allowing monitoring from higher and farther away than any of its competitors. ... Read more

60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History
Buzzfeed | By Gregory D. Johnsen | 01/17/13

Written in the frenzied, emotional days after 9/11, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force was intended to give President Bush the ability to retaliate against whoever orchestrated the attacks. But more than 12 years later, this sentence remains the primary legal justification for nearly every covert operation around the world. Here's how it came to be, and what it's since come to mean.

Chemtrails, Nanoaluminum and Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Effects
National Health Federation | Russell L. Blaylock, M.D. | 04/18/12 older

The Internet is littered with stories of 'chemtrails' and geoengineering to combat 'global warming' and until recently I took these stories with a grain of salt. One of the main reasons for my skepticism was that I rarely saw what they were describing in the skies. But over the past several years I have notice a great number of these trails and I have to admit they are not like the contrails I grew up seeing in the skies. They are extensive, quite broad, are laid in a definite pattern and slowly evolve into artificial clouds. Of particular concern is that there are now so many­dozens every day are littering the skies.

My major concern is that there is evidence that they are spraying tons of nanosized aluminum compounds. It has been demonstrated in the scientific and medical literature that nanosized particles are infinitely more reactive and induce intense inflammation in a number of tissues. Of special concern is the effect of these nanoparticles on the brain and spinal cord, as a growing list of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's dementia, Parkinson's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) are strongly related to exposure to environmental aluminum. ... Read more

Still no Bankers in Jailed, BUT Nun Faces up to 30 Years for Breaking Into Weapons Complex, Embarrassing the Feds
MotherJones | Josh Harkinson | 01/15/14

Nestled behind a forested ridgeline on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee, is the sprawling Y-12 National Security Complex, America's "Fort Knox" of weapons-grade uranium. The complex's security cameras and machine gun nests are designed to repel an attack by the world's most feared terrorist organizations, but they were no match for Sister Megan Rice, an 83-year-old Catholic nun armed with nothing more than a hammer and bolt cutters. ... Read more

Elizabeth Warren's New Bill Could Save Taxpayers Billions
Mother Jones | Erika Eichelberger | 01/13/14

When banks and other corporations are accused of breaking the law, the government often settles cases instead of going to trial. In the wake of the financial crisis, for example, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and government banking watchdogs have settled cases against banks that helped tank the economy. Regulatory agencies have argued that settlements are adequate tools to enforce the law, but Warren has protested. She notes that many settlements are tax-deductible. Other deals are confidential, meaning the public has no idea whether the terms of the agreement are fair. ...

Founder of WV Chemical Spill Company Is a Twice-Convicted Felon
truth-out.org | Mark Karlin | 01/13/14

According to the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), "Freedom Industries, the company responsible for contaminating the water of 300,000 Kanawha Valley residents, was founded by a two-time convicted felon [and] benefited from the 2009 federal stimulus." ... Read more
TYT | Meet The Felon Behind The WV Chemical Spill (01/15/14) [4:44]

Green Zones: A Map of the US Military's Golf Courses
MotherJones | Eric Wuestewald | 01/16/14

Pentagon currently operates at least 194 golf courses and 2,874 holes of golf worldwide.

... According to MWR officials, military golf courses must "generally" be self-supporting; however, they are quite expensive to run. As journalist Nick Turse pointed out in 2008, fairways and greens regularly need refurbishing. The US Golf Association estimates a standard 18-hole course can cost around $384,000 to $636,000 a year in maintenance fees. (Building a golf course can cost $1.6 to $4.5 million.) Last year, the Pelican Bay Golf Course at Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base shut down after running a $270,000 average annual deficit since 2006. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, January 16 [12:03]

*Nigel_Farage | Big Banks, Big Business and Big Bureaucrats Run the EU (01/15/14) [2:30]

TYT | Bill O'Reilly Destroyed by Conservative Guest (01/15/14) [6:00]

TYT | Meet The Felon Behind The WV Chemical Spill (01/15/14) [4:44]

*TYT | Is This One Of The Most Disgraceful Things You've Ever Heard? (01/15/14) [7:23]

TYT | Tazed In The Face, Beaten & Killed, But Since The Killers Were Cops... (01/14/14) [8:03]

TYT | Shot Dead For Texting - Why America Is Dumb About Guns (01/14/14) [4:09]

TYT | Best (and Worst) Response to the WV Chemical Spill (01/14/14) [8:32]

TYT | It's Official: IRS Scandal Is Complete BS (01/14/14) [3:04]

TYT | Muslim Women Should Dress This Way (01/13/14) [6:48]

TYT | Ariel Sharon Dead: The Truth About HIs Legacy (01/13/14) [8:52]

*Want to Cut Government Spending? Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
finance.yahoo.com | Lauren Lyster | 11/25/13

If you thought the botched rollout of Obamacare, the government shutdown, or the sequester represented Washington dysfunction at its worst, wait until you hear about the taxpayer waste at the Defense Department.

Special Enterprise Reporter Scot Paltrow unearthed the "high cost of the Pentagon's bad bookkeeping" in a Reuters investigation. It amounts to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for. The year 1996 was the first that the Pentagon should have been audited under a law requiring audits of all government departments. Oh, and by the way, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with this law. ... Read more
*Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
TYT | Shocking Government Waste at The Defense Department (11/30/13) [7:11]

Stalin's Jews
ynetnews.com | Sever Plocker | 2006

Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to KGB. We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags.

An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf." ... Read more
Israeli Media Reveals The Secret Behind Communism (07/30/13) [14:36]

Top Free Classes Connects More Students to MOOCs Through Convenient, User-Friendly Directory
PRNewswire | author | 01/15/14

TopFreeClasses.com will help you find and compare MOOC courses from Coursera, Udacity, edX, Stanford, MIT, and many others.

A new trend in distance education is the Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC. In the past year, MOOCs have seen a huge surge and Top Free Classes has connected more students to MOOCs than ever before. With an estimated 10 million people who have registered for MOOCs thus far, the MOOC providers only expect the number of courses and participants to increase in the next year. Top Free Classes has experienced this growth firsthand and has helped facilitate emerging trends in the MOOC industry.

Besides the sheer amount of MOOCs now available, there have been several other developments as well. Credit granting MOOCs have been growing in different capacities, and various accreditation schemes are emerging. When MOOCs first began offering classes, it was the computer science classes that were most common, but this year has seen humanities classes take the lead of largest category of MOOCs.

Top Free Classes was created in mid-2012 as a response to the growing number of classes offered and the difficulty of finding interesting classes. It serves as a convenient one-stop destination for discovering new classes, checking out other students' opinions, and sharing experiences. For more information, please visit http://www.topfreeclasses.com.

House Republicans Demand Cuts for Wall Street Watchdogs in Budget Deal
Bill Moyers | Dan Roberts at Guardian | 01/14/14

The Guardian’s Dan Roberts reports that Republicans had backed off of their previous demand for deeper cuts to the food stamp program, settling instead for partially defunding Wall Street regulators. ... Read more
Click pic to zoom and read entire article

Why Conservatives’ Old Divide-and-Conquer Strategy -- Setting Working Class Against the Poor -- Is Backfiring
Bill Moyers | Robert Reich’s blog | 01/10/14

For almost forty years Republicans have pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy intended to convince working-class whites that the poor were their enemies. The big news is it’s starting to backfire.

Republicans told the working class that its hard-earned tax dollars were being siphoned off to pay for “welfare queens” (as Ronald Reagan decorously dubbed a black single woman on welfare) and other nefarious loafers. The poor were “them” -- lazy, dependent on government handouts and overwhelmingly black -- in sharp contrast to “us,” who were working ever harder, proudly independent (even sending wives and mothers to work, in order to prop up family incomes dragged down by shrinking male paychecks) and white.

It was a cunning strategy designed to split the broad Democratic coalition that had supported the New Deal and Great Society, by using the cleavers of racial prejudice and economic anxiety. It also conveniently fueled resentment of government taxes and spending. ... Read more
Click pic to zoom and read entire article

A Quiet Win for Banks on Borrowing
Slate | Matthew Yglesias | 01/14/14

International regulators just took a dive. America shouldn’t follow their lead.

Basel is a bit of a sleepy town, even by boring Swiss standards. And Basel regulations on bank derivatives holdings is a topic seemingly purpose-designed to put the general public to sleep. And yet, it’s through such dull-sounding mechanisms and obscurantist slogans that the financial sector manages to slip through the fingers of populist outrage and set the stage for future crises.

... The U.S., thankfully, is free to proceed with tougher rules than the global regulatory standard. But citizens should be on the lookout lest the same bogus arguments that prevailed in Basel carry the day in Congress, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve. ...

... The big lie of leverage regulations is that a strict rule could "curtail lending" and that laxer ones will "keep lending flowing to the economy." This is simply not the case. The issue isn’t what kind of lending (or, more broadly, investment) banks can do. It’s how can they finance that lending -- specifically, to what extent new lending will have to be financed with new borrowing versus cash. ... Read more

Wall Street May Win As Federal Reserve Prepares To Punt On Physical Commodities
HP | Shahien Nasiripour | 01/13/14

Big banks are poised to reap a significant victory in their fight to maintain lucrative businesses hoarding, selling and trading physical commodities as the Federal Reserve prepares to punt on the issue, people familiar with the matter said.

... Some federal financial regulators said the move may be a way for the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in Washington to evade calls to curb banks' risk-taking. It would come despite years of internal warnings at the Fed that Wall Street's expansion into metals and energy puts the U.S. economy at risk in the form of higher prices due to alleged market manipulation and endangers the financial system because of the possibility that a catastrophic incident such as an oil spill would lead counterparties to flee the affected bank and put it at risk of failure. ... Read more

Lawmakers unveil massive $1.1 trillion spending bill in bipartisan compromise
Washington Post | Lori Montgomery | 01/13/14

Congressional negotiators unveiled a $1.1 trillion funding bill late Monday that would ease sharp spending cuts known as the sequester while providing fresh cash for new priorities, including President Obama's push to expand early-childhood education.   The 1,582-page bill would fully restore cuts to Head Start, partially restore cuts to medical research and job training programs, and finance new programs to combat sexual assault in the military. It would also give all federal workers a 1 percent raise. ... Read more

Homeland Security's Future Home: A Former Mental Hospital
BloombergBusinessweek | Devin Leonard | 07/25/13 older

Chris Mills frequently gives tours of St. Elizabeths Hospital, a former mental institution where the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is building a $4.5 billion headquarters. It's the largest construction project in the District of Columbia since the Pentagon was completed in 1943. So there's a lot of ground to cover.

[Propaganda] He says DHS is currently scattered in 50 locations throughout the capital. After its dismal performance in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the agency decided it would be better able to fight terrorists and respond to natural disasters if its leaders worked side by side in one place. "We really needed a consolidated headquarters," Mills says. ... Read more

The Case for Abolishing the DHS
BloombergBusinessweek | Charles Kenny | 07/15/13

On Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano resigned to take up a post running California's university system. With her departure, there are now 15 vacant positions at the top of the department. That suggests it would be a particularly humane moment to shut the whole thing down. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was a panicked reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks. It owes its continued existence to a vastly exaggerated assessment of the threat of terrorism. The department is also responsible for some of the least cost-effective spending in the U.S. government. It's time to admit that creating it was a mistake.

In 2002 the George W. Bush administration presented a budget request for massively increased spending on homeland security, at that point coordinated out of the Office of Homeland Security. "A new wave of terrorism, involving new weapons, looms in America's future," the White House said. "It is a challenge unlike any ever faced by our nation." In proposing a new cabinet-level agency, Bush said, "The changing nature of the threats facing America requires a new government structure to protect against invisible enemies that can strike with a wide variety of weapons." Because of "experience gained since Sept. 11 and new information we have learned about our enemies while fighting a war," the president concluded that "our nation needs a more unified homeland security structure."

More than a decade later, it's increasingly clear that the danger to Americans posed by terrorism remains smaller than that of myriad other threats, from infectious disease to gun violence to drunk driving. Even in 2001, considerably more Americans died of drowning than from terror attacks. Since then, the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack in the U.S. or abroad have been about one in 20 million. The Boston marathon bombing was evil and tragic, but it's worth comparing the three deaths in that attack to a list of the number of people in the U.S. killed by guns since the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn., which stood at 6,078 as of June. ... Read more

FBI Drops Law Enforcement as 'Primary' Mission
ForeignPolicy.com/ | John Hudson |01/05/14

The FBI's creeping advance into the world of counterterrorism is nothing new. But quietly and without notice, the agency has finally decided to make it official in one of its organizational fact sheets. Instead of declaring "law enforcement" as its "primary function," as it has for years, the FBI fact sheet now lists "national security" as its chief mission. ... Read more

NSA Surveillance Lawsuit Tracker
ProPublica | Kara Brandeisky | updated01/09/14

The recent disclosure of sweeping surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has prompted a new wave of legal challenges to the U.S. government's intelligence-gathering programs. Here is a list of key legal challenges to government surveillance and secrecy. ... Read more

Bailout Tracker
ProPublica | Paul Kiel | updated 10/10/14

Below is a complete breakdown of the latest numbers in our bailout database. We’re tracking every dollar and every recipient for both the broader $700 billion TARP bill and the separate bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ... Read more

*Want to Cut Government Spending? Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
finance.yahoo.com | Lauren Lyster | 11/25/13

If you thought the botched rollout of Obamacare, the government shutdown, or the sequester represented Washington dysfunction at its worst, wait until you hear about the taxpayer waste at the Defense Department.

Special Enterprise Reporter Scot Paltrow unearthed the "high cost of the Pentagon's bad bookkeeping" in a Reuters investigation. It amounts to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for. The year 1996 was the first that the Pentagon should have been audited under a law requiring audits of all government departments. Oh, and by the way, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with this law. ... Read more
*Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
TYT | Shocking Government Waste at The Defense Department (11/30/13) [7:11]

Polar Vortex - The Sequel
Sky News reports that America is set to be hit by another blast from the polar vortex although this time Niagara falls may not freeze, as temperatures are likely to be higher than last week's extreme conditions. "The polar plunge is expected to move south from Canada, bringing colder air and sub-zero temperatures to the US this week. Forecasters say it will sweep over the lower Mississippi Valley and Midwest on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then hit the East on Thursday. The main thrust of the cold air will follow up a couple of days later."

Discover Politics in Your State

Many of the laws that affect us most directly -- from taxes to marriage equality to voter ID -- are made at the state level. The idea that change begins with the states is one of the founding principles of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. In state houses around the country, hundreds of ALEC "model laws" are proposed or enacted that would, among other things, dilute collective bargaining rights, make it harder for some Americans to vote and limit corporate liability for harm caused to consumers.

Is Your State Legislator an ALEC Member?

Pick Your ALEC Politician

U.S. to let spy agencies scour Americans' finances
Reuters | Emily Flitter | 03/13/13

The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.

The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation already has full access to the database. However, intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, currently have to make case-by-case requests for information to FinCEN. Read more

Why today's Cyprus bailout could be the start of the next financial crisis
WashingtonPost | author | 03/16/13

It is a bad day to have your money deposited in a bank in the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. And it may just mean some bad days ahead for the rest of us.

Early Saturday, the nation reached an agreement with international lenders for bailout help. Part of the agreement: Bank depositors with more than 100,000 euros ($131,000) in their accounts will take a 9.9 percent haircut. Even those with less in savings will see their accounts reduced by 6.75 percent. That's right: Anyone with money in a Cypriot bank will have significantly less money when the banks open for business Tuesday than they did on Friday. ... Read more

Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows
Bloomberg | David Reilly | 01/28/10

We're talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system -- apart from the matter of AIG's bailout -- deserves further congressional scrutiny.

The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail. ... Read more

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives
NYT | Louise Story | 12/11/10

On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable -- and controversial -- fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk. The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.... Read more

Honor Killing In Michigan: Iranian Sanaz Nezami Savagely Beaten By Islamic Husband -- Family Watches Death Online
ItMakesSenseBlog.com | author | 01/08/14

... In August, Nezami married Nima Nassiri in Turkey and lived with him temporarily in the Los Angeles area, where he was born and raised. Her sister said the two met over the Internet.

Nezami, a native of Tehran, had a bachelor's degree in engineering and a master's in French translation. She wanted a doctorate degree in environmental engineering. The newlyweds drove from California and found a rental home in November in Michigan. Nezami stayed in touch with family through e-mail, text message and video.

Leaving her family in Iran, she took off with Nima Nassiri. Keeping in touch with her family via the internet ... Read more

Rockefeller, Morgan, and War
Ludwig von Mises Institute | Murray N. Rothbard | 11/01/11, older

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy (1984)

Click to download pdf

During the 1930s, the Rockefellers pushed hard for war against Japan, which they saw as competing with them vigorously for oil and rubber resources in Southeast Asia and as endangering the Rockefellers' cherished dreams of a mass "China market" for petroleum products. On the other hand, the Rockefellers took a noninterventionist position in Europe, where they had close financial ties with German firms such as I.G. Farben and Co., and very few close relations with Britain and France.

The Morgans, in contrast, as usual deeply committed to their financial ties with Britain and France, once again plumped early for war with Germany, while their interest in the Far East had become minimal. Indeed, US ambassador to Japan Joseph C. Grew, former Morgan partner, was one of the few officials in the Roosevelt administration genuinely interested in peace with Japan.

World War II might therefore be considered, from one point of view, as a coalition war: the Morgans got their war in Europe, the Rockefellers theirs in Asia. Such disgruntled Morgan men as Lewis W. Douglas and Dean G. Acheson (a protégé of Henry Stimson), who had left the early Roosevelt administration in disgust at its soft-money policies and economic nationalism, came happily roaring back into government service with the advent of World War II. Nelson A. Rockefeller, for his part, became head of Latin American activities during World War II, and thereby acquired his taste for government service.

After World War II, the united Rockefeller--Morgan--Kuhn, Loeb eastern Establishment was not allowed to enjoy its financial and political supremacy unchallenged for long. "Cowboy" Sun Belt firms, maverick oil men and construction men from Texas, Florida, and southern California began to challenge the eastern Establishment "Yankees" for political power. While both groups favor the Cold War, the Cowboys are more nationalistic, more hawkish, and less inclined to worry about what our European allies are thinking. They are also much less inclined to bail out the now Rockefeller-controlled Chase Manhattan Bank and other Wall Street banks that loaned recklessly to Third World and Communist countries and expect the US taxpayer -- through outright taxes or the printing of US dollars -- to pick up the tab. ...

Click to hear interview

John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles were the forefathers of using covert operations to upset foreign governments -- with the aim of overthrow.

They learned the reach of American power abroad when they were partners at an influential New York law firm. Later, with John Foster Dulles serving as secretary of state and Allen Dulles as CIA chief, they shared power in the President Dwight Eisenhower's administration.

In August, the CIA in ousting the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, back in 1953. That was just the first in a long line of foreign governments toppled by the influential brothers during the Cold War.

In The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, journalist Stephen Kinzer examines their rise to power and how their personal relationship influenced their professional partnership.

Click to download the pdf

The Man Who Crashed the World
Joseph Cassano, former head of A.I.G.'s Financial Products unit, at London's High Street.

The Quiet Coup
theAtlantic | Simon Johnson |05/01/09, older - but good

The 2008 Crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government -- a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF's staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we're running out of time. ... Read more

BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - in pictures
theGuardian | Daniel Beltra | 12/09/13

It was one of the world's most destructive environmental disasters in human history: in April 2010 an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig killed 11 men and sent 210m gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing a black tide covering 68,000 square miles of ocean and spreading along 16,000 miles of coastline. ... Read more
Click to zoom

Noam Chomsky: The Richest Countries Are Racing Us Towards Disaster While 'Primitive' Societies Are Trying to Stop It
AlterNet | Natasha Lennard | 12/29/13

*Want to Cut Government Spending? Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
finance.yahoo.com | Lauren Lyster | 11/25/13

If you thought the botched rollout of Obamacare, the government shutdown, or the sequester represented Washington dysfunction at its worst, wait until you hear about the taxpayer waste at the Defense Department.

Special Enterprise Reporter Scot Paltrow unearthed the "high cost of the Pentagon's bad bookkeeping" in a Reuters investigation. It amounts to $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for. The year 1996 was the first that the Pentagon should have been audited under a law requiring audits of all government departments. Oh, and by the way, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with this law. ... Read more
*Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For
TYT | Shocking Government Waste at The Defense Department (11/30/13) [7:11]

The Black Budget
Washington Post | author | date

Read more

Inside the 2013 U.S. intelligence 'black budget'
Washington Post | author | date

The pages in this document appear in the summary of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's multivolume FY 2013 Congressional Budget Justification -- the U.S. intelligence community's top-secret "black budget." It covers many of the high-profile agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, as well as lesser-known programs, including those within the Treasury, State and Energy Departments. ... Read more

Everything You Wanted to Know About the 'Polar Vortex' That's Engulfed Much of N. America with Freezing Temps
AlterNet | Emily Atkin | 01/06/14

On Sunday night, a reporter for The Weather Channel stood in a Minnesota snowstorm, talking about local efforts to move homeless children into heated shelters. "How cold is it supposed to get?" the anchor, back in the studio, asked. The reporter replied: " Colder than Mars."

Indeed, recent temperatures across the U.S. have been Mars-like. Forecasts in the midwest call for temperatures to drop to 32 below zero in Fargo, N.D.; minus 21 in Madison, Wis.; and 15 below zero in Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago. Wind chills have been predicted to fall to negative 60 degrees -- a dangerous cold that could break decades-old records. ... Read more
What is the polar vortex and what causes it? (01/06/14) [2:19] Millions face coldest weather in decades (01/07/14) [2:37]

*'Polar Vortex' - Meteorology can be confusing, but these 2 experts break down the science behind our current crazy (01/06/14) [7:11]

BBC | A heat wave in central and north Australia has forced farmers to slaughter livestock (01/03/14) [2:01]

*BBC | 2013: Australia's Hottest Year On Record (01/05/14) [2:01]

Inside the Right-Wing Love Affair with Conspiracy Theories
AlterNet | CJ Werleman | 01/04/14

The New York Times recently published what is arguably the most comprehensive examination of the events that took place leading up to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. The six-part, multimedia report (see below) is not only the most exhaustive account of the tragedy ever published by a major news organization, it is also completely apolitical. In other words, it revealed the truth. Yet right-wing conspiracy theorists refuse to believe it.

While the article hardly paints the administration in a positive light, it makes clear that right-wing, echo chamber-generated conspiracy theories have no basis in reality. Central to the right's Benghazi narrative was the claim that President Obama, facing a fight for reelection, chose to lie and conceal the truth on Benghazi. In other words, the administration "knew" it was a carefully planned and orchestrated attack carried out by al-Qaeda, but instead chose to spin the story that it was a spontaneous protest carried out by a mob of Islamists, who were reacting to the release of anti-Muslim YouTube documentary. ... Read more

The Facts About Benghazi
NYT | staff | 12/30/13

An exhaustive investigation by The Times goes a long way toward resolving any nagging doubts about what precipitated the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. ... Read more

Koch-Backed Political Network, Built To Shield Donors, Raised $400 Million In 2012 Elections
HP & WashingtonPost | author | 01/05/13

The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors, according to an analysis of new tax returns and other documents. ...

... But they have substantial firepower. Together, the 17 conservative groups that made up the network raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign, according to the analysis of tax returns by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. ... Read more
Click to zoom

How Right-Wing Radicals -- From Nixon to Paul Ryan -- Have Deceived America
AlterNet | Paul Rosenberg | 01/06/14

From Nixon to Reagan to Gingrich to Bush to Paul Ryan and Chris Christie today, leaders who've shifted America to the right have been aided by moderating misrepresentations. In the case of Reagan, it was not just the man, but conservatism itself that received the flattering reinterpretation. That was a difference that mattered; it goes to the heart of why Reagan is the American right's touchstone. But the more general process of misrepresenting and reinterpreting increasingly radical ideological figures as if they were normal, everyday pragmatic problem-solvers is one that's been a repeated leitmotif in America's political trajectory since Richard Nixon's political resurrection in 1968. ... Read more

Meanwhile, In The Non "Polar Vortex" World...
ZeroHedge | author | 01/06/14

While America is preparing to usher in the coldest days of the 21st century, some other places around the globe are hardly as worried. Below is a photo from Rio's Ipanema beach over the weekend, where temperatures hit 51 degrees. Celsius. ... Read more

Americans Forecast Downhill Slide To 2050
HP | Connie Cass | 01/03/14

Ask people to imagine American life in 2050, and you'll get some dreary visions. Whether they foresee runaway technology or runaway government, rampant poverty or vanishing morality, a majority of Americans predict a future worse than today. ...

... Overall, 54 percent of those surveyed expect American life to go downhill, while 23 percent think it will improve, according to a December survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. ... Read more

NSA Hackers Get the 'Ungettable' With Rich Catalog of Custom Tools
Wired Magazine | Kim Zetter | 12/30/13

The National Security Agency's elite team of hackers spends its time shopping a secret high-end catalog of custom tools designed to subvert firewalls, servers, and routers made by U.S. firms, impersonate a GSM base station to intercept mobile phone calls, or siphon data from a wireless network

Hackers in the Tailored Access Operations division get the "ungettable" data the NSA can't otherwise obtain from tapping undersea cables or collecting bulk data from companies like Yahoo and Google. They do this by by installing backdoors and other implants remotely or by physically intercepting hardware being delivered to customers and planting backdoors in firmware. ... Read more

"Rich Will Keep Getting Richer In 2014" - In 2013, Top 300 Billionaires Added Half A Trillion In Net Worth
ZeroHedge | author | 01/02/14

All the pundits who preach an economic recovery in the US always fall strangely silent when asked to share their thoughts on the following chart (taken from the St. Louis Fed), showing the annual change in real disposable income per capita in the US. What seems to stump them most is that aside from the 2012 year end aberration (due to accelerated distribution of dividends ahead of the 2013 tax hikes) is that in November the series finally posted its first Y/Y decline (-0.1%) since the Lehman collapse. ... Read more
Click to zoom

Fiat gets full control of Chrysler for $4.35 billion
Reuters | Agnieszka Flak | 01/02/14

Fiat's $4.35 billion deal to gain full control of Chrysler Group LLC sent its shares to a near 2-1/2-year high on Thursday, despite doubts over whether the Italian carmaker could use the merger to cut losses in Europe.

Investors welcomed the deal struck by Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne, under which Fiat will buy the 41.46 percent of the No. 3 U.S. automaker it does not already own, without raising funds from the stock market. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, January 03 [13:00]

US Big Winter Storm Brings Snow, Cold to Northeast, 2014 Snowstorm slams northeastern United States (01/03/14) [1:36]

*TRNN | Tim Wise: 20 Years on, Mexico is NAFTA's Biggest Lie (01/03/14) [11:00]

TRNN | Michael Ratner: New York Times recognizing Snowden should spur backing of other whistleblowers (01/03/14) [11:07]

Stephen Cobert | JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon comes under fire for sending an excessively decadent Christmas card (12/19/13) [3:04]

World Bank Whistleblower Reveals Massive Corruption
HP | Kevin Lawton | 05/29/13

You need to know about this woman! Former Senior Counsel to the World Bank, Karen Hudes, unleashed recent interviews that should shatter any remaining fairytales about a functional and law-abiding system of banking and government. The good news is that she's part of a network of World Bank whistleblowers, working tirelessly to bring out the facts. And in her recent interviews, she names the names of people who are actively suppressing the facts, exposes the media for being one giant corporate shill, and reveals that all of the U.S. governors and attorneys general have been notified.
Read more

The World Bank: Rejecting "The Rule of Law"
Veteran Today | Karen Hudes (with Jim Fetzer) | 03/27/13

I learned that Karen Hudes, who earned her J.D. at Yale, our most distinguished School of Law, and an M.Phil. in economics at the University of Amsterdam, which is also a formidable institution, had been removed from her position as Senior Counsel for the World Bank because of her efforts to expose corruption and reaffirm the rule of law in the form of appropriate standards of accounting, I was dumbfounded. ... Read more

Half Of Americans Think Our Democracy Needs 'A Lot Of Changes' Or A Complete Overhaul
HP | Charles Babington | 01/02/13

Americans enter 2014 with a profoundly negative view of their government, expressing little hope that elected officials can or will solve the nation's biggest problems, a new poll finds.

Half say America's system of democracy needs either "a lot of changes" or a complete overhaul, according to the poll conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 1 in 20 says it works well and needs no changes. ... Read more

Edward Snowden Clemency: The New York Times, The Guardian Urge Obama To Help NSA Whistleblower
HP | author | 01/02/14

The editorial boards of The New York Times and The Guardian published editorials on Wednesday, urging the Obama administration to treat Edward Snowden as a whistleblower and offer him some form of clemency.

Seven months ago, the former National Security Administration contractor stole as many as 1.7 million highly classified documents about the U.S. government's surveillance program and released the information to the press. The files revealed how the NSA forced American technology companies to reveal customer information, often without individual warrants, and how data from global phone and Internet networks was secretly intercepted. ... Read more

Ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden: Edward Snowden leak worse than Bradley Manning's
Politico | Tal Kopan | 08/02/13 older

Former NSA and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden says that Edward Snowden's leaks are worse than what Bradley Manning released, but he says they are both emblematic of a new generation with different views of government transparency.

The Real Reason the Middle Class Is Dead
AlterNet | Edward McClelland | 01/01/14

Let me tell you the story of a 1965 "unskilled" worker in America who lived better than most of today's college graduates. ... Read more

Why Is the IRS Fighting Efforts to Unmask Karl Rove and U.S. Chamber Political Money Laundering?
AlterNet | Steven Rosenfeld | 12/31/13

An IRS whistleblower lawsuit that attempts to finger an overseas non-profit affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a dark money conduit that put tens of millions into Karl Rove's hands during the 2010 elections may soon die in an obscure federal court--unless the judge allows evidence-gathering over the IRS's objections.

Robert Jacobson, a Tuscon, Arizona physician who brought the lawsuit, believes that a nonprofit created by the State Department in conjunction with the U.S. Chamber to build a much-ridiculed exhibition at the 2010 Shanghai Expo in China had another purpose--diverting large slices of the $70-plus million in donations to Rove for campaigns to retake the House. The idea was that money from GOP-friendly corporations and even the Chinese government would evade oversight by flowing through barely regulated nonprofits. ... Read more

Ken Langone To Cardinal: The Pope Better Watch What He Says
crooksandliars.com | Susie Madrak | 12/31/13

Cardinal Dolan is someone who, in my kinder moods, I might describe as a "right-wing corporate bootlick." So the thought of him having to explain to self-centered billionaires that OF COURSE Pope Francis didn't mean to criticize them puts me in a happy mood. But billionaires like wingnut Langone (who's famously tight with a buck when it comes to his employees) really should reflect on the pope's economic message, because yes, he really was talking about people like him: ... Read more
Ken Langone To Cardinal: The Pope Better Watch What He Says (12/31/13) [0:50]

Sheila Bair's graph of the year: For many Americans, there's been no recovery at all
WashingtonPost | author | 12/30/13

For 2013, we asked some of the year's most interesting, important and influential thinkers to name their favorite graph of the year -- and why they chose it. Here's Sheila Bair's.

This chart, drawn from a report by the Sentier Research Group, shows that for a large number of American households, there has been no economic recovery. Caught in a vice of chronic unemployment and falling wages, real median household income (excluding capital gains and losses but including cash government benefits) has declined 4.4% since the "recovery" began in 2009. For many households, the drop has been more severe. For African-American households, it is 10.9%. For those under 25 years old, it is 9.6%. For single females with children, it is 7.5%. ... Read more
Click to zoom

*Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]

*Wealth Inequality in the World [3:51]

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, January 02 [14:08]

Michael Hayden on Politico

Michael Hayden on WashingtonPost

John Perkins reveals the Corporatocracy (02/17/13) [17:16]

Could The Fed Lose Control Of The Frankenstein Economy It Has Created?
ZeroHedge | author | 01/02/14

A longtime correspondent emailed me last week about the apparent contradiction between a Federal Reserve that has had the power for five years to counteract any decline and my call for a market decline in 2014: why would the Fed allow a market it has pushed higher for five years to ever fall?

It's an excellent question, as it summarizes the key question: is there any limit on "don't fight the Fed?" Can the Fed push assets higher essentially forever? And if so, why did it fail to do so in 2008? ... Read more

Climate Change Worse Than We Thought, Likely To Be 'Catastrophic Rather Than Simply Dangerous'
HP | Nick Visser | 12/31/13

Climate change may be far worse than scientists thought, causing global temperatures to rise by at least 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, or about 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a new study.

The study, published in the journal Nature, takes a fresh look at clouds' effect on the planet, according to a report by The Guardian. The research found that as the planet heats, fewer sunlight-reflecting clouds form, causing temperatures to rise further in an upward spiral.

That number is double what many governments agree is the threshold for dangerous warming. Aside from dramatic environmental shifts like melting sea ice, many of the ills of the modern world -- starvation, poverty, war and disease -- are likely to get worse as the planet warms. ... Read more