Jan 16 2017 - News Jan 2017 - News - Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Monday January 16, 2017

News Articles

Mad As Hell - Why the electorate is so pissed off
peakprosperity.com | Chris Martenson | 01/13/17

Making a killing under Obamacare: The ACA gets blamed for rising premiums, while insurance companies are reaping massive profits

While Americans continue to be hammered by rising health care costs, and while congressional lawmakers (with their taxpayer-subsidized health care) do nothing to lower the cost of pharmaceuticals and medical care, one group is reaping a windfall in profit: health insurance companies and their investors.

On Thursday, Aetna reported $734 million in profit on $15.8 billion in revenue for the three months that ended Sept. 30. The nation's third-largest health insurer by revenue handily beat Wall Street estimates for the quarter.

Aetna's earnings report came a week after UnitedHealth reported a 12 percent jump in revenue to $46.3 billion for the three months that ended Sept. 30 compared with the same period the previous year. The company collected $36.1 billion in insurance premiums, a sum 11 percent higher than for the year-ago quarter, while profits increased 29 percent to $1.98 billion

A Salon analysis of regulatory filings found that the top five health insurers -- UnitedHealth, Anthem, Aetna, Humana and Cigna -- have doled out nearly $30 billion in stock buybacks and dividends from 2013 to 2015.

Similar strong results were noted for Humana in their last earnings release. So how can it be that all these companies are both reporting the need for massively higher premiums while also booking higher and higher profits?

Well, when you live in a country that routinely subjects its citizens to racketeering, this is exactly the sort of disconnect you have to live with. They say one thing; but you see with your own eyes, or experience with your own wallet, something completely different. ...

... If the elites don't manage to figure out how to contain their greed, then an angry electorate is just the beginning of their troubles. Anybody seeking to understand the political landscape really just needs to spend a little time on the eroding prosperity of the bottom 99% over the past 20 years. ... Read more

Chris Martenson | Peak Prosperity News Update (01/13/17) [9:56]
Click to zoom in

Fun fact: during the first 26 years of its existence, the US income tax code grew by 104 pages. Over the past 30 years, it has grown by 50,000 pages.

TRUMP: NATO 'OBSOLETE'

Trump Wants To Cut Russia Sanctions In Return For Nuclear Arms Deal
Reuters & HP | Guy Faulconbridge | 01/15/17

LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will propose offering to end sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he told The Times of London.

Trump, in an interview with the newspaper published online on Sunday, was deeply critical of previous U.S. foreign policy, describing the invasion of Iraq as possibly the gravest error in the history of the United States and akin to "throwing rocks into a beehive."

But ahead of his inauguration on Friday as the 45th U.S. president, Trump raised the prospect of the first major step towards nuclear arms control since President Barack Obama struck a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia in 2010. ... Read more

Trump Makes America Goldman's Again! #MAGA
The Intercept | Jon Schwarz | 12/09/16

IT'S NOW TIME for us, as a nation, to come together and congratulate the winner of the 2016 presidential election: Goldman Sachs.

Many Donald Trump voters likely believed his victory would be a loss for Goldman. At the Republican convention, a man who seemed to take Trump's twitter attacks on Goldman seriously screamed "Goldman Sachs!" at Ted Cruz's banker wife as she fled the convention floor. Trump's own final campaign video declared that he would do battle against the "global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations" -- as personified on screen by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. ... Read more

A Russian Journalist writes "A message to my doomed colleagues in the American media"
skepchick.org | Alexey Kovalev | 01/12/17

Congratulations, US media! You've just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear. We in Russia have been doing it for 12 years now--with a short hiatus when our leader wasn't technically our leader -- so quite a few things during Donald Trump's press conference rang my bells. Not just mine, in fact? -- ?read this excellent round-up in The Moscow Times. ... Read more or Original article here

DemocracyNow - http://www.democracynow.org

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, January 16 [59:02]

Saturday Night Live

SNL | Alec Baldwin: Donald Trump Press Conference Cold Open (01/15/17) [7:56]

Bloomberg Politics

Bloomberg | Warren: Trump Should Follow Mnuchin on Blind Trust (01/11/17) [9:35]

TRNN News - http://therealnews.com/

TRNN | Economist Bill Black: Investors Bet Big on Trump for Big Pharma (01/15/17) [12:58]

TRNN | The Bizarre Far-Right Billionaire Behind Trump's Presidency (01/12/17) [24:58]

TRNN | Dr. Steffi Woolhandler: Republican Healthcare Plan: Skimpier, Meaner Obamacare (01/15/17) [18:02]

TYT News - http://www.tytnetwork.com/

TYT | The REAL Winner Of The 2016 Election...Goldman Sachs (01/15/17) [5:25]

TYT | Trump Owes BIG Money To MANY People (01/15/17) [5:37]

TYT | Russian Reporter: Get Ready For Trump's Authoritarian Press Conferences (01/15/17) [10:42]

TYT | Newt Gingrich: Trump Should Send The Media A Message (01/15/17) [11:56]

TYT | Congress Votes On Obamacare Repeal (01/15/17) [9:03]

TYT | Cancer Survivor To Paul Ryan: Obamacare Saved My Life (01/15/17) [8:41]

RT - http://www.rt.com/

RT | Keiser Report: Trumptopia (E1019) (01/14/17) [25:45]

Max and Stacy discuss whether or not the Democratic party could ever become again the party of freedom. In the second half, Max interviews James Howard Kunstler of Kunstler.com about the wheels coming off Trumptopia.

Ring of Fire - http://ringoffireradio.com/

Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/

Diane Rehm - http://thedianerehmshow.org

Aljazeera - http://america.aljazeera.com/

NPR (National Public Radio) - www.npr.org/

PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) - pbs.org/

MSNBC - Maddow/Hayes - www.msnbc.com/

Capitalism Needs Constant Growth Which Isn't Sustainable -- So What Do We Do Next??

Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy by David Fleming (2016)

Surviving the Future lays out a compelling and powerfully different new economics for a post-growth world. One that relies not on taut competitiveness and eternally increasing productivity?"putting the grim into reality"?but on the play, humor, conversation, and reciprocal obligations of a rich culture. Building on a remarkable breadth of intellectual and cultural heritage?from Keynes to Kumar, Homer to Huxley, Mumford to MacIntyre, Scruton to Shiva, Shakespeare to Schumacher?Fleming describes a world in which, as he says, "there will be time for music."

This is the world that many of us want to live in, yet we are told it is idealistic and unrealistic. With an evident mastery of both economic theory and historical precedent, Fleming shows that it is not only desirable, but actually the only system with a realistic claim to longevity. With friendliness, humor, and charm, Surviving the Future plucks this vision out of our daydreams and shows us how to make it real.

Shaun Chamberlin Surviving the Future () [1:22:50]

Chris Martenson | Shaun Chamberlin: Surviving The Aftermath Of The Market Economy (01/08/17) [46:54]

Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It by David Fleming (2016)

... Fleming acknowledges, with honesty, the challenges ahead, but rather than inducing despair, Lean Logic is rare in its ability to inspire optimism in the creativity and intelligence of humans to nurse our ecology back to health; to rediscover the importance of place and play, of reciprocity and resilience, and of community and culture.

Dr. David Fleming - Nov 2006 - "Lean Energy: A Practical Guide to the Energy Descent" (11/25/16) [1:28:19]

Chris Martenson | Peak Prosperity News Update (01/06/17) [5:48]

Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across

Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.

Corbett Report
Corbett Report | How Big Oil Conquered the World () [1:11:26]

01.16.2017. 18:14

NPR

PBS

Special Interest Important stuff

GOOD Shorts Videos

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I'm still working on this

GOOD Short Videos

Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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I'm still working on this

Newer Documentaries

Documentaries You've Never Seen

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

Good YouTube Documentaries

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

Lindsey Graham Mashups

Lindsey Graham

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

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Environment & Climate Change

Environment

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

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning

AI - Artificial Intelligence

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

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

Quantum mechanics

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

Wall Street and Banksters

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

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

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

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg

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

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Nukes

Nukes

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

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business

Rana Foroohar

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

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

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

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

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

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

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

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

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

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911

911

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

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

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

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Trump's Mashups

Trump's Mashups

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

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Trump's Sexcapades

Trump's Sexcapades.

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

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews

Trump's Speeches | Rallys

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

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Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

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