July 24 2013 - News Jul 2013 - News - Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Wednesday July 24, 2013

News Articles

*Chase, Once Considered 'The Good Bank,' Is About to Pay Another Massive Settlement
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 07/18/13

During the financial crisis, while Dr. Evil-ish Wall Street villains like Goldman and Lehman Brothers were getting all the bad press, pundits continually referred to J.P. Morgan Chase as the "good bank."

... Well, there's some more news about the "good bank" -- Chase is about to pay yet another ginormous settlement for cheating and stealing from the public. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will fine Chase "close to $1 billion" for manipulating energy prices in Enron-esque fashion in Michigan and California. The story is interesting in itself -- and we'll write more about it later -- but for now, it's just the fact of yet another massive settlement for this bank that's so interesting. ... Read more

In the three-year period between 2009-2012, Chase paid out over $16 billion in litigation costs. Noted financial analyst Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher slammed Chase in a report earlier this year, pointing out that these settlements and legal costs represented a staggering 12% of Chase's net revenue during this time. There couldn't possibly be a clearer demonstration of the modern banking model, in which companies break rules/laws as a matter of course, and simply pay fines as a cost -- a significant cost -- of doing business.

Chase Made Errors in Nine Percent of Credit-Card Collection Lawsuits, Internal Survey Finds
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 07/11/13

A piece in the Wall Street Journal dug up yet another damning fact about Jamie Dimon's J.P. Morgan Chase. This time, reporters got hold of an internal bank survey of its credit-card collections suits. It turns out that Chase's own survey found that huge numbers of lawsuits filed by the bank contained errors. ... Read more

Wall Street in Crisis: A Perfect Storm Looming
secwhistlebloweradvocate.com | Jordan Thomas | 07/16/13

Labaton Sucharow's U.S. Financial Services Industry survey results were released today. The survey confidentially polled financial professionals on corporate ethics, wrongdoing in the workplace and the role of financial regulators in policing the marketplace. The results suggest that the financial services industry faces a serious and growing ethical crisis. ... Read more

Choosing the FED Chairman! - Click to zoom

Wall Street in Crisis: A Perfect Storm Looming (Survey.pdf)

Death by Corporation, Part I: Mankind
TruthOut | Dr Brian Moench | 06/26/13

In fact, today, corporations come much closer to embodying Mary Shelley's Frankenstein than Jesus Christ. Ironically, created by and managed by humans, corporations have become almost robotic monsters, perpetrating, even feeding off human misery, threatening every aspect of human life - the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat - and even the future of mankind itself. What have these corporate Frankenstein monsters done for us lately? ... Read more

Death by Corporation, Part II: Companies as Cancer Cells
TruthOut | Dr Brian Moench | 07/23/13

The financial industry, chemical industry, drug companies, nuclear industrial complex and dirty energy empire work "like tumor cells for the relentless destruction of the environment that they themselves depend upon for their very lives. And the rest of us stand by and watch it happen." ... Read more

The GOP's Plan B to Kill Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Watchdog
MotherJones | Erika Eichelberger | 07/24/13

Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declared victory when the Senate confirmed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the consumer watchdog agency that Warren conceived and helped launch. For years, Republicans had been fighting tooth and nail to kill the infant agency, which is charged with protecting Americans from abusive practices by banks, payday lenders, mortgage-servicing companies, and debt collectors. Originally, the GOP planned to cripple the agency by blocking it from ever getting a director. That didn't happen, so now Republicans have to turn to Plan B. Read more

DemocracyNow Daily News

DemocractNow Wendesday 24, 2013 [50:56]

DN | "Kill Anything That Moves": New Book Exposes Hidden Crimes of the War Kerry, Hagel Fought in Vietnam (12/15/13 older) [18:40]

John Pilger | Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror () [52:01]

John Pilger | The War You Don't See [1:36:34]

Glenn Greenwald: "Dianne Feinstein is Outright Lying" about NSA Surveillance Abuses (06/24/13) [2:18]

Why do we allow our representatives to lie to us? Why aren't they afraid of going to jail??

MSNBC Chris Hayes - All In / Alan Grayson

Raging Liberal Alan Grayson FORCED To Work With Republicans To Try And Save The Constitution (07/22/13) [6:13]

There Is NO Threat To America When I Talk To My Mother! Alan Grayson (07/23/13) [25:18]

Senator Elizabeth Warren's Corner

Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders are a few honest legislators on Capital Hill.

Elizabeth Warren | Banking Subcommittee Hearing on Financial Holding Companies (07/23/13) [6:55]

Senator Elizabeth Warren's Q&A at the July 23, 2013 Senate Banking Subcommittee Hearing on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, titled "Examining Financial Holding Companies: Should Banks Control Power Plants, Warehouses, and Oil Refineries?" The witnesses included: Ms. Saule Omarova, Associate Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law; Mr. Joshua Rosner, Managing Director, Graham Fisher & Company; Mr. Timothy Weiner, Global Risk Manager, Commodities/Metals, MillerCoors LLC; and Mr. Randall D. Guynn, Head of Financial Institutions Group, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.
Elizabeth Warren | Banking Subcommittee Hearing on Financial Holding Companies (longer version) (07/23/13) [20:36]
The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs (website)

Elizabeth Warren | Sen Elizabeth Warren Questions Ben Bernanke in His Last Appearance Before Senate Banking Committee (07/18/13) [7:16]

COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS met in EXECUTIVE SESSION to consider the nominations of The Honorable Melvin L. Watt, of North Carolina, to be Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency; Dr. Jason Furman, of New York, to be a Member and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; Ms. Kara M. Stein, of Maryland, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Dr. Michael S. Piwowar, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission; The Honorable Richard T. Metsger, of Oregon, to be a Member of the National Credit Union Administration Board; and The Honorable Mary Jo White, of New York, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission for a term expiring June 5, 2019. Following the EXECUTIVE SESSION, the Committee met in OPEN SESSION to conduct a hearing on "The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress." The witness will be: The Honorable Ben Bernanke, Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Clip includes comments and questions to Bernanke, from Committee Member Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

TRNN News

TRNN | Chris Hedges: As a Socialist, I Have No Voice in the Mainstream, Part 6 (07/24/13) [14:04]

TRNN | Chris Hedges:

Facebook

What you need to know about Facebook [13:24]

What facebook knows about you [1:58]

Assange: Facebook, Google, Yahoo spying tools for US intelligence [12:55]

Diane Rehms Show

The Freelance Economy (07/24/13) [1hr]

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 at a later time.

John Pilger | Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror () [52:01]
John Pilger | The War You Don't See [1:36:34]
The War That You Don't See - John Pilger's Interview With Julian Assange (12/29/10)

DN | "Kill Anything That Moves": New Book Exposes Hidden Crimes of the War Kerry, Hagel Fought in Vietnam (12/15/13 older) [18:40]

Two of the leading figures nominated to head President Obama's second-term foreign policy establishment have their political roots in the Vietnam War. If confirmed, Chuck Hagel will become the first Vietnam War veteran to head the Pentagon, while John Kerry will helm the State Department after becoming one of the most prominent veterans to oppose the Vietnam War upon his return from duty. Although Vietnam is far behind them, Kerry and Hagel will now have to contend with the longest running war in U.S. history: Afghanistan. We're joined by Nick Turse, managing editor of TomDispatch.com and author of the new book, "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam." The title is taken from an order given to the U.S. forces who slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese civilians in the notorious My Lai massacre of 1968. Drawing on interviews in Vietnam and a trove of previously unknown U.S. government documents -- including internal military investigations of alleged war crimes in Vietnam -- Turse argues that U.S. atrocities in Vietnam were not just isolated incidents, but "the inevitable outcome of deliberate policies, dictated at the highest levels of the military."

07.24.2013. 11:46

NPR

PBS

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Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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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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