Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Bernie Sanders Draws Army of 100,000 Volunteers to First Nationwide Organizing Event
AlterNet | Zaid Jilani | 07/30/15

Over 100,000 people came together for Bernie Sanders' first nationwide organizing event on Wednesday. Sanders spoke to this army of volunteers via a video livestream, telling them they are needed if he is to overcome the power of what he calls the "billionaire class" -- the tight group of the wealthy and corporations that own both the economy and political system.

Sanders, unlike his opponents, is not cultivating a super PAC. He's not taking corporate PAC money, and he is relying on small donors; 81 percent of his donations in the first quarter were from people giving less than $200.

This puts him at a huge monetary disadvantage. Two billionaire brothers in Texas gave a pro-Ted Cruz super PAC $15 million, as much money as Sanders has raised in his whole campaign. But Sanders has a plan to make up the difference: people power. ... Read more

West Coast Heat Wave Threatens All-Time Records
Weather Channel | Chris Dolce | 07/31/15

Summer heat is gripping opposite sides of the country into this weekend, including parts of the West and the Northeast. The heat will help clinch one of the hottest Julys on record for some Northwest cities, and a few locations may challenge their all-time or monthly record highs on Friday. It's also helped set a record for the most 90-degree days in a year in Seattle and has given Portland its hottest temperatures since 2009. Read more
West Coast Heat Wave Threatens All-Time Records (07/31/15) [0:39]

Debt Slaves: 7 Out Of 10 Americans Believe That Debt "Is A Necessity In Their Lives"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/31/15

Could you live without debt? Most Americans say that they cannot. According to a brand new Pew survey, approximately 7 out of every 10 Americans believe that "debt is a necessity in their lives", and approximately 8 out of every 10 Americans actually have debt right now. Most of us like to think that "someday" we will get out of the hole and quit being debt slaves, but very few of us ever actually accomplish this. That is because the entire system is designed to trap us in debt before we even get out into the "real world" and keep us in debt until we die. Sadly, most Americans don't even realize what is being done to them. ... Read more

Italy Youth Unemployment Hits Record High 44.2%, Concerns Rising "Recession Exit May Be Unsustainable"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/31/15

While the overall unemployment rate for the Eurozone also unchanged at 11.1%, it was renewed concern about what is going on in Italy, where unemployment rose from 12.5% to 12.7%, while Italy's youth unemployment rate, which surprisingly jumped by nearly 2% to 44.2%, a record level. As Bloomberg put it, "Italy's jobless rate unexpectedly rose in June as businesses continue to dismiss workers amid concerns that the country's exit from recession may not be sustainable." ... Read more

How To Solve A Problem Like The GOP Debate
magazine | author | date

Seventeen candidates. Two debates. One Donald Trump. What's it going to take to survive and move on?

So, that happened. On this week's podcast, we game out the survival strategy for the 17 GOP candidates who hope to succeed in August's debate, check in on the progress Congress has made on the highway funding bill, and note the irony of Phil Gramm returning to Washington to testify against Dodd-Frank. ... Read more

"So That Happened" podcast

*El Niño vs. the Blob: Here's Why California's Drought Probably Won't End Anytime Soon
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | 07/30/15

California could be in for a wetter-than-normal winter, thanks to the mysterious meteorological phenomenon known as El Niño. Weather scientists have been watching El Niño get stronger throughout this year and think it could match or surpass the strongest on record, back in 1997. What does this mean for long-suffering California and its interminable drought? Let us explain. ...

... What happens then? These changes in water temperature cause changes in air temperature, and as a result the whole planet's weather system gets a bit screwy. In some places, the end product is massive downpours -- Peru is already anticipating devastating floods -- while elsewhere, like India and Australia, El Niño means severe drought. ...

... Will it save California from drought? Here's the short answer: Probably not. "You creep into a drought slowly, and you creep out of it. There's no quick fix," Patzert said. ... Read more
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Washington Is Finally Getting What It Deserves As It Sinks Into The Sea
HP | Kate Sheppard | 07/29/15

The research, from the University of Vermont, the U.S. Geological Survey and several other institutions, projects the land beneath the Washington area will drop 6 or more inches in the next 100 years. That's in addition to rising sea levels due to climate change, which is melting ice sheets and causing thermal expansion of the oceans. Climate change has already caused 8 inches of sea level rise since 1880, and is expected to raise average global sea levels another 1 to 4 feet by the end of this century.

Relative sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay region is happening faster than any other part of the Atlantic coast, according to tidal records, and twice as fast as global averages. ... Read more
The report was published in the journal Geological Society of America Today this week.

Killer of Cecil the Lion Finds Out That He Is a Target Now, of Internet Vigilantism
NYTimes | Christina Capecchi | 07/29/15

Two signs posted on the door of a nondescript dental office here asked passers-by to mourn the death of Cecil, a lion who was lured off his sanctuary and killed during a game hunt this month in Zimbabwe.

In the hours since Dr. Walter J. Palmer apologized for killing the lion, he has gone from a dentist and longtime hunting enthusiast to a villain at the center of a firestorm over the ethics of big-game trophy hunting. ... Read more

US Economy Grew Less Than Expected In Q2: Worst Economic Recovery Since WWII Revised Even Weaker
ZeroHedge | author | 07/30/15

And the culprit: the capex recovery is officially dead - fixed investment as a % of GDP dropped to the lowest since Q2 2012. ... Read more
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70% Of Americans See Economy Worsening, Consumer Comfort Collapses By Most In 10 Month
ZeroHedge | author | 07/30/15

With stocks just 1-2% from record highs, because China is fixed, oil is recovering, Europe is awesome, and gas prices are low? it appears the talking heads forgot to tell the 'people' how great things are. Bloomberg's Consumer Comfort index plunged (by the most since Sept 2014) to hover at 18 month lows... ... Read more
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Latest National Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Beating Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush
AlterNet | Zaid Jilani | 07/27/15

Of all of the arguments the Democratic establishment has thrown out against the Bernie Sanders candidacy, perhaps the most reoccurring one revolves around electability. "Sure, you agree with him," they argue, "but he can't win."

A just released CNN poll finds Sanders out-polling all of the GOP's major candidates, though pretty much tied with Jeb Bush. Here's how Sanders stacks up:

The Republican Party Tried To Kill Its Demons In 2013. They're Still Alive.
HP | Sam Stein | 07/28/15

After the Republican Party took a drubbing at the polls on Election Day 2012, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus ordered an autopsy. The party, the coroner's report found a few months later, had alienated women and minorities and came off as plutocratic.

But with another presidential election now quickly approaching, the zombie appears to be rising from the table, as the party's discourse has not exactly been focused on the priorities that the 2013 report identified.

Over the past few weeks, the GOP presidential campaign has been fixated on comments Donald Trump made, in which the candidate called Mexican immigrants coming illegally across the border "rapists." On Capitol Hill, Republicans have turned their attention towards defunding Planned Parenthood after controversial, edited videos emerged on the group's practices of donating fetal tissue. Elsewhere, GOP lawmakers are pushing to roll back Wall Street reform and, for the fourth straight national election, repeal Obamacare.

And that's all to say nothing of the current Topic A in the national Republican discourse: whether it was appropriate for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) to invoke Hitler and the Holocaust in characterizing President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. ... Read more

TRNN | Donald Trump and Liberal Media: The Joke's On You (07/29/15) [3:14]

Russell Napier: What Happens When Markets Realize China Is A Forced Seller Of Treasuries
ZeroHedge | author | 07/29/15

"How would US Treasury bulls in the private sector react if they knew in advance that the second largest owner of Treasuries, the PBOC, was a forced seller of Treasuries. Such compelled selling would be obvious before US markets opened each morning as downward pressure on the RMB exchange rate in Asia forced the PBOC to liquidate foreign currency assets to defend the fixed exchange rate. Would even Treasury bulls stand in the way of such a large and predictable liquidation? If they didn't then the second phase of The Great Reset would come to pass and the decline of EM external deficits would force tighter monetary policy in both EM and DM." ... Read more

Haunting Nude Photos Bring 1970s Hippie Community Back To Life
HP | Carla Herreria | 07/28/15

The camp/commune was essentially a clothing-optional village where hippies, families, war veterans and runaways could live peacefully together. Freedom and love reigned supreme. But suddenly, Taylor Camp was burning.

And once the skeleton of its towering tree houses were dusted away, it would be transformed into a government-owned state park at the end of a road on the Hawaiian island of Kauai's north shore. ... Read more
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House, Senate On Collision Course Just Days Before Crucial Highway Bill Deadline
AP | Erica Werner | 07/27/15

Hours later, in a hectic late-night session, the Senate voted 64-29 to include the provision reviving the Export-Import Bank as an amendment to its version of the highway bill. The bank, a federal agency that underwrites loans to help foreign customers buy U.S. goods, expired June 30 amid conservative opposition. Supporters in the business community say the bank is necessary for U.S. competitiveness, but conservatives say it amounts to corporate welfare, and their objections pushed the vote Monday well past 10 p.m. ... Read more

5 things to know about the fight over the Export-Import Bank
AP & HP | Erica Werner | 07/28/15

The federal Export-Import Bank expired June 30 when Congress failed to renew its charter. The bank is a small federal agency that helps U.S. companies sell their products overseas, by underwriting loans to foreign customers. Conservatives oppose it as corporate welfare and are pushing for it to stay dead. But late Monday the Senate voted 64-29 to add legislation reviving the bank to a sweeping highway bill being considered on the floor. Five things to know about the Export-Import Bank and its future:

... Read more

How A Chinese Farmer Lost More Than Everything Trading Stocks
ZeroHedge | author | 07/28/15

Last night, just six weeks after one Chinese farmer Liu Jianguo invested his life savings in the Chinese market, proclaiming "it's a lot easier making money from stocks than farm work," we wondered if it was time for a sequel.

A few hours later we find out that it was because as CNBC reported in its sequel, another farmer has lost it all... and more. As CNBC's Eunice Yoon reports, just a few weeks after his glorious gamble in China's manipulated market, the farmer "trader "now owes - thanks to wonders of margin calls and leverage - as much as he originally invested.

From the hope-filled exuberance of early June to Yang Cheng's utter hopelessness, "I have lost everything," after he followed the government's 'grand plan' to open the economy and encourage stock market speculation. ... Read more

China's "Manipulated" Market To Plunge Another 14%, DeMark Predicts
ZeroHedge | author | 07/28/15

Anyone tempted to gamble on buying the proverbial dip in Chinese equities after Monday's dramatic 8.5% sell-off probably shouldn't, says Tom DeMark, who called a top and shortly thereafter, a bottom in the SHCOMP back in 2013.

Even after Monday's rout, the index could fall another 14% DeMark figures, noting that "you just cannot manipulate the market."

Actually, you certainly can manipulate the market, as the Fed and the HFT crowd have vividly demonstrated, although the Chinese experience is admittedly a bit different. As we've argued repeatedly, the retail investors who have at times accounted for over three quarters of daily volume in China have now adopted a "sell the rip" mentality after watching their life savings vaporized in the space of three short weeks, which means that Beijing's plunge protection efforts are met everywhere and always with immediate selling pressure .... Read more

According To One Veteran FX Trader, "Greece Is Playing It Correctly"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/28/15

"Greece is playing it correctly. Agree to everything. Give Germany no excuse to do what they want. Get the money. This is why France, among others, want this all agreed as quickly as possible, because they know this deal is not how it will end, but an end that keeps the EUR together must be found. The Germans know it too. They also know that they have been had and it is their own fault." ... Read more

Tiny Homes: Inexpensive and Cute, but Livable?
AlterNet | Katie Hyslop | 07/27/15

A small sign affixed beneath the window of Isabella Mori's tiny 186 square foot home speaks to its popularity in her Metro Vancouver trailer park. It reads: "Taking photos is fine but only from the sidewalk please."

You can understand Mori's shyness. When your living room moonlights as your front hall, kitchen, bedroom and office, having looky-loos peeking in the windows can be disconcerting. ... Read more

Micro homes on wheels marketed to young families in Terrace, B.C.
cbc.ca | author | date

Construction is underway on a project to bring micro-homes on wheels to Terrace, in Northwestern B.C. Hummingbird Micro Homes is building on a plot of land it owns just outside of the city, and hopes the development will attract small families struggling to buy or rent a home in the current market. "We're not selling the plots of land, but they are basically for families to live in their homes at a very attainable price range," said Hummingbird's Ally Blake. ... Read more

Latest National Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Beating Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush
AlterNet | Zaid Jilani | 07/27/15

Of all of the arguments the Democratic establishment has thrown out against the Bernie Sanders candidacy, perhaps the most reoccurring one revolves around electability. "Sure, you agree with him," they argue, "but he can't win."

A just released CNN poll finds Sanders out-polling all of the GOP's major candidates, though pretty much tied with Jeb Bush. Here's how Sanders stacks up:

Disastrous Sea Level Rise Is an Issue for Today's Public -- Not Next Millennium's
HP | Dr. James Hansen | 07/26/15

In 2005, I argued that ice sheets may be more vulnerable than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated, mainly because of effects of a warming ocean in speeding ice melt. In 2007, I wrote "Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise," describing and documenting a phenomenon that pressures scientists to minimize the danger of imminent sea level rise.

About then I became acquainted with remarkable studies of geologist Paul Hearty. Hearty found strong evidence for sea level rise late in the Eemian to +6-9 m (20-30 feet) relative to today. The Eemian is the prior interglacial period (~120,000 years ago), which was slightly warmer than the present interglacial period (the Holocene) in which civilization developed. Hearty also found evidence for powerful storms in the North Atlantic near the end of the Eemian period.

It seemed that an understanding of the late Eemian climate events might be helpful in assessing the climate effects of human-made global warming, as Earth is now approaching the warmth that existed then. Thus several colleagues and I initiated global climate simulations aimed at trying to understand what happened at the end of the Eemian and its relevance to climate change today. .... Read more

What Trump's Surging Popularity Says About the GOP Base
AlterNet | Conor Lynch | 07/26/15

... In a recent article by Jeffrey Tucker, however, it is argued, quite justly in my opinion, that Donald Trump, whether he knows it or not, is a fascist (or is at least acting like one). Much like Mussolini and Hitler, Trump is a demagogue dedicated to riling up the people (particularly conservatives) with race baiting, traditionalism and strongman tough talk -- and, according to polls, it's working -- for now. Tucker writes:

"Trump has tapped into it, absorbing unto his own political ambitions every conceivable resentment (race, class, sex, religion, economic) and promising a new order of things under his mighty hand." .... Read more

Bill Cosby Accusers Detail Trauma and Betrayal in Magazine
AlterNet | Jessica Glenza | 07/27/15

Thirty-five women who have accused Bill Cosby of raping them have spoken out in an explosive photo essay for New York magazine. More than 40 women have so far accused the comedian of sexual assault, but the cover story represents a sea change in how the comedian's alleged victims have been publicly perceived.

On Sunday, the magazine published excerpts of interviews with each woman for a 13-page photo essay, covering accusations they have made against the comedianand the backlash they have faced. Listen, he was America's favorite dad," said Barbara Bowman, who says she was raped as a 17-year-old actor. She made her case public in 2004, when testifying on behalf of Andrea Constand, who said she was also one of Cosby's victims. ... Read more

Former Top NASA Scientist Predicts Catastrophic Rise In Sea Levels
HP | Kate Sheppard | 07/21/15

One of the nation's most recognizable names in climate science, Dr. James Hansen, released a new paper this week warning that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming may be "highly dangerous" for humanity. The paper, which will be published online in the European Geosciences Union journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussion later this week, projects sea levels rising as much as 10 feet in the next 50 years.

Hansen and 16 co-authors drafted the paper as a message to policymakers that current greenhouse-gas reduction goals are not strong enough. World leaders have committed to limiting average warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a goal articulated in the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 and reiterated by G7 leaders in June. ... Read more

Elizabeth Warren Nails GOP Financial Exec
HP | Zach Carter | 07/21/15

When a financial executive refuses to answer basic questions about personal finance, you know he's in trouble. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Tuesday embarrassed Primerica President Peter Schneider, who Senate Republicans had invited to testify against a new regulation designed to protect retirement savings from dodgy investment managers. The Obama administration estimates that Americans lose $17 billion a year from investment professionals who manage retirement accounts by prioritizing their own financial interests over those of their clients. It has proposed a simple solution: making that illegal. ... Read more
VIDEO | Elizabeth Warren Nails GOP Financial Exec (07/21/15) [5:40]

President Obama Says "Goodbye" to Jon Stewart in Final Daily Show Apperance
AlterNet | Adam Johnson | 07/22/15

Two titans of the establishment left facing their twilight, President Obama and Daily Show Host Jon Stewart, sat down on Tuesday night for an extended interview on topics ranging from ISIS to the media to Iran to the crumbling VA system.

It was a relatively friendly interview, with Stewart asking open-ended questions and more or less letting the President take the floor. The one exception would be when Stewart addressed the failures of veteran care in recent years. ... Read more

China, Coal. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
AlterNet | James West | 07/05/15

Our Climate Desk partners at The Guardian have published a beautiful -- and terrifying -- multimedia story from deep inside China's coal belt. It's the third installment in the paper's ongoing "carbon bombs" series: investigations into giant fossil fuel projects from around the world that are super-charging global warming, or that have the potential to do so. Today's deep-dive into China's ravenous use of coal is eye-opening not only because it explores the long-lasting impact of burning coal on the nation's health, but also because it illustrates the country's outsized impact on global climate change through coal-related emissions. Here are some highlights from the Guardian story (which you should also check out for the gorgeous video and graphics): ... Read more
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Cheese Fries Recipes For The Ages
HP | author | 07/21/15

Okay, in all fairness, these are not so much recipes as serving suggestions. They all include fries of varying shape and composition, topped with melty cheese of various type and consistency. ... Read more

Economists Troll Germany, Telling It To Leave The Euro First
HP | Daniel Marans| 07/20/15

The possibility of a "Grexit" -- or Greek exit from the eurozone -- has dominated headlines in recent months, as round-the-clock negotiations between Greece and its international creditors over a new bailout deal shed doubt on Greece's future in the monetary union. Many eurozone leaders, particularly in Germany, welcomed the prospect.

But some economists say proponents of a "Grexit" have it all wrong: If one country should leave the eurozone, they argue, it is Germany. These economists' basic premise is that Europe's depressed economies, which include not just Greece, but Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy, would benefit tremendously from a cheaper currency. ... Read more

First Half Of 2015 Was Hottest Ever Recorded
AP & HP | Seth Borenstein | 07/20/15

Earth dialed the heat up in June, smashing warm temperature records for both the month and the first half of the year. Off-the-charts heat is "getting to be a monthly thing," said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. June was the fourth month of 2015 that set a record, she said. "There is almost no way that 2015 isn't going to be the warmest on record," she added.

NOAA calculated that the world's average temperature in June hit 61.48 degrees Fahrenheit (16.33 Celsius), breaking the old record set last year by 0.22 degrees (.12 degrees Celsius). Usually temperature records are broken by one or two one-hundredths of a degree, not nearly a quarter of a degree, Blunden said. ... Read more
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'Black Lives Matter' protesters flummox O'Malley, Sanders
politico.com | Daniel Strauss | 07/19/15

When Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders took the stage at Saturday's Netroots Nation forum here in Arizona, things didn't go exactly as planned. Both Democratic presidential candidates were supposed to sit down with activist and journalist Jose Antonio Vargas to talk about immigration. Instead, they got shouted down. ... Read more

Warren Buffett & Johnny Depp Snap Up "Cheap" Greek Islands
ZeroHedge | author | 07/21/15

On Monday, we brought you a day in the life of a Greek realtor. Courtesy of Bloomberg, we got a first-hand account of what it's like in the Athens real estate market now that the Greek economy has collapsed. "For the last 15 days," the Athenian realtor featured in the video says, "the market has been really dead." ... Read more

5 delicious slow-cooker dishes under 500 calories (even sticky buns!)
today.com | Tracy Saelinger | current

5-ingredient chicken recipes for your slow cooker

For all the convenience of slow-cooker meals, we often pay for them with fat and calories--the recipes always seem to be loaded with cheese and starch. But slow-cooker dishes under 500 calories do exist. We even found a dessert (that could double as breakfast) to boot. ... Read more

Europe Backs Iran Deal, Hopes To Send A Signal To U.S. Congress
Reuters & HP | author | 07/20/15

The European Union approved the Iran nuclear deal with world powers on Monday, a first step towards lifting Europe's economic sanctions against Tehran that the bloc hopes will send a signal that the U.S. Congress will follow.

In a message mainly aimed at skeptical voices in the U.S. Congress and strong resistance from Israel, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels stressed that there was no better option available. "It is a balanced deal that means Iran won't get an atomic bomb," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. "It is a major political deal." ... Read more

Bernie Sanders Takes His Populism to the Red States and Draws Huge Crowd
AlterNet | Zaid Jilani | 07/19/15

Today, Sanders took his Southwestern tour to Dallas and Houston. In Dallas, he spoke to nearly 10,000 people. The senator condemned the Democratic Party's political strategy in the South, saying that it has "conceded half of the states in the national level." He said that when "childhood poverty in Texas is 27 percent, we've gotta take it on. When 34 percent of people living in Texas have no health insurance, we've gotta take it on." ... Read more

California Drinking Water: Not Just Vanishing, But Also Widely Contaminated
MotherJones | Tom Philpott | 07/20/15

In normal years, California residents get about 30 percent of their drinking water from underground aquifers. And in droughts like the current one -- with sources like snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains virtually non-existent -- groundwater supplies two-thirds of our most populous state's water needs. So it's sobering news that about 20 percent of the groundwater that Californians rely on to keep their taps flowing carries high concentrations of contaminants like arsenic, uranium, and nitrate.

That's the conclusion of a ten-year US Geological Survey study of 11,000 public-water wells across the state. The researchers tested the wells for a variety of contaminants, looking for levels above thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency and/or the California State Water Resources Board. ... Read more

America's stock market is shrinking
money.cnn.com | author | 07/09/15

The number of publicly listed U.S. stocks peaked at a record 7,562 during McGwire's record-setting summer of 1998, according to the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index. Today, there are just 3,812.

This isn't a trivial problem that only matters to bankers on Wall Street. Not only do investors have fewer options to invest in, but it directly impacts American jobs. "We're shrinking the stock market. Unless we figure out how to create a lot more startups and a lot more IPOs, the economy is going to continue to generate jobs at lower rates than it should," said David Weild, former vice chairman at Nasdaq who has testified in Congress about capital markets. ... Read more
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The Climate Deception Dossiers
ucsusa.org | author | 07/09/15

For nearly three decades, many of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.

Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven "deception dossiers" -- collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests. ... Read more

The Climate Deception Dossiers: Internal Fossil Fuel Industry Memos Reveal Decades of Corporate Disinformation.pdf

As early as 1977, representatives from major fossil fuel companies attended dozens of congressional hearings in which the contribution of carbon emissions to the greenhouse effect was discussed. By 1981 at least one company (Exxon) was already considering the climate implications of a large fossil fuel extraction project.

In 1988, the issue moved beyond the scientific community and onto the national stage. James Hansen, a leading NASA climate scientist, testified before Congress that scientific data had confirmed that industrial activities were causing climate change. It was also in 1988 that the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Congress introduced the National Energy Policy Act in an effort to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.

UMich Consumer Sentiment Drops, Misses By Most Since 2006
ZeroHedge | author | 07/17/15

Since January's exuberant peak, UMich consumer sentiment has drifted lower. Expectations for July's preliminary data was 96.0 but the 93.3 print is the biggest miss since 2006. Both current and future "hope" conditions dropped markedlywith details showing American sless certain about retirement, less confident about income growth outpacing inflation, and businesses considerably less confident. ... Read more

Trump's Racist Attacks Fire Up the Base and Push Him to Top of GOP 2016 Field
AlterNet | Steven Rosenfeld | 07/15/15

National and regional polls -- by the Washington Post/ABC, USA Today/ Suffolk University, Monmouth University and Public Policy Polling -- find Trump's rise has followed his attacks on undocumented immigrants, especially from Mexico, as he's called for tigher border controls.

“Mexico—they’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us at the border,” he said at a rally in Pheonix, Arizona, last weekend to a nearly all-white audience. “We’ll take our country back.” ... Read more

Greece Lawmakers Approve Bailout Proposal
AP & HP | author | 07/15/15

Parliament agrees that while more austerity is bad, leaving the euro would be even worse.

Greek lawmakers voted overwhelmingly early Thursday to approve a harsh austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite significant dissent from members of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' own left-wing party.

The bill, which imposes sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts, fueled anger in the governing Syriza party and led to a revolt against Tsipras, who has insisted the deal forged after a marathon weekend eurozone summit was the best he could do to prevent Greece from catastrophically crashing out of the euro, Europe's joint currency. ... Read more

How The ECB Took Over Greek Banks, In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 07/16/15

Earlier this week, when we reported that as part of the just passed latest Greek austerity package which open the way for the third Greek bailout, "one of the preconditions imposed on Greece for a deal is that it signs into law European rules that would put euro zone authorities at the ECB and in Brussels, rather than Athens, in charge of identifying and closing or breaking up sick banks."

As Reuters added, "this in turn could lead to a shake-up of the sector that could see some banks close, with losses pushed onto bondholders and possibly even large depositors. In such circumstances, there would be little that Athens could do to prevent this." ... Read more

I Attended an ALEC Conference -- and Found an Alternative Universe
BillMoyers | Chris Taylor | older

ALEC's guiding principle -- supporting big business -- turns the small-c conservative ideal of individual liberty and local control on its head. As Utah Sen. Howard Stephenson stated to an Education subcommittee, "We need to stomp out local control." School boards and city councils take away liberties quicker than the federal government, he insisted. Local governing entities can be a roadblock to the ALEC agenda, so their power needs to be preempted and removed.

And, there are the economics of the ALEC otherworld. I chuckled at the scorn directed at Minnesota, where, Rep. Garafalo remarked, "the inmates are running the asylum." Minnesota raised taxes on the rich and invested the resulting revenue in public schools, including all-day kindergarten. In "Rich States, Poor States" -- an ALEC publication that ranks states in terms of a 2013 State Economic Outlook -- Minnesota ranks 46th, Wisconsin 15th and Mississippi 10th. Yet in 2012 Minnesota had one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, and currently has higher median incomes and lower unemployment and poverty rates than both Wisconsin and Mississippi (where a whopping 17.5 percent of families have incomes below the poverty level). The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts Minnesota near the top of private sector job growth in the Midwest, while Wisconsin lags near the bottom. In the ALEC otherworld, actual economics do not count. ... Read more

Why the Iran Deal Makes Obama's Critics So Angry
TheAtlantic | Peter Beinart | 07/14/15

"Mankind faces a crossroads," declared Woody Allen. "One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." The point is simple: In life, what matters most isn't how a decision compares to your ideal outcome. It's how it compares to the alternative at hand.

The same is true for the Iran deal, announced Tuesday between Iran and six world powers. As Congress begins debating the agreement, its opponents have three real alternatives. The first is to kill the deal, and the interim agreement that preceded it, and do nothing else, which means few restraints on Iran's nuclear program. The second is war. But top American and Israeli officials have warned that military action against Iranian nuclear facilities could ignite a catastrophic regional conflict and would be ineffective, if not counterproductive, in delaying Iran's path to the bomb. ... Read more

Benjamin Netanyahu Doesn't Need To Read The Iran Deal To Know He Hates It
HP | Jessica Schulberg | 07/14/15

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the historic nuclear agreement reached between Iran, the U.S., and five other world powers on Tuesday to be a catastrophe. Netanyahu's judgment of the 159-page agreement came before the public release of the text of the deal. He blamed the nuclear agreement on the willingness of the negotiators to reach a deal "at any cost," a thinly veiled criticism of President Barack Obama, whom the Israeli premier has long sparred with on the topic of Iran's nuclear program. ... Read more

Italy -- Non-Performing Loans Hit A New Record High
ZeroHedge | author | 07/15/15

The real danger to the euro area probably doesn't emanate from Greece, but from two of its heavyweights, namely France and Italy. If one thinks things properly through, Greece is really a side-show. The euro zone remains full of accidents waiting to happen and some of them have the potential to become truly gigantic accidents. ... Read more

Recession Watch - Industrial Output Growth Plunges To 5 Year Lows
ZeroHedge | author | 07/15/15

Industrial Production rose just 1.54% YoY, the weakest growth since Feb 2010 and flashing a major recessionary red light. Utilities were the biggest contributor, as Manufacturing output ended June unchanged (against expectations of a modest 0.1% rise), missing for the 2nd month in a row. Notably vehicle production tumbled 5.5% MoM. Not exactly the end to Q2 that GDP hockey-stick'rs will be wanting. ... Read more
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William Rivers Pitt | What I Think of George W. Bush
Truth-Out.org | William Rivers Pitt | 07/14/15

I ran accross this article, and with it this video... I don't know if I should laugh or cry. ... Read more

The Truth About Extended Auto Warranties
Car Guru | author | 07/15/15

Most of us know the feeling. Your car is no longer under factory warranty and you hear or feel something unusual in your car. The first thought that races through your head is your bank account balance going down. The second is finding a reputable repair shop and how long you'll be without a car. ... Read more
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Car Guru Carchex - Extended Vehicle Protection QUOTE

Here's How the Iran Nuclear Deal Is Supposed to Work
MotherJones | Kevin Drum | 07/14/15

Apparently this is Let's Make a Deal week. First the Greeks, now the Iranians. The deal with Iran restricts their supply of uranium, cuts down the number of centrifuges they can run, forces them to account for past activity, and puts in place strict verification measures. So when does it take effect: Here's the Washington Post:

The agreement will not take effect until Iran is certified to have met its terms -- something Iran says will happen in a matter of weeks but that Western diplomats have said could take at least until the end of the year. Hmmm. That's not necessarily a good start. So when will sanctions be lifted? ... Read more

The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Expose by David Ray Griffin

In 2004, David Ray Griffin published The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Translated into several languages, it helped spark a worldwide movement demanding "9/11 truth." Even as it became increasingly outdated, it continued to be widely cited as the best introduction to the issues.

Griffin has now written The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, which provides a chapter-by-chapter updating of the information provided in that earlier book. It shows that the case against the official account constructed by independent researchers---who now include architects, engineers, physicists, pilots, politicians, and former military officers---is far stronger than it was in 2004, leaving no doubt that 9/11 was a false-flag operation, designed to give the Bush-Cheney administration a pretext to attack oil-rich Muslim nations.

Taken together, these two books provide everything one needs to make an informed decision about 9/11---whether one is a journalist, a political leader, a religious leader, or an ordinary citizen concerned about truth, democracy, and the rule of law.

SEC: Government Destroyed Documents Regarding Pre-9/11 Put Options
washingtonsblog.com | author | 06/15/10

Sources tell CBS News that the afternoon before the attack, alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in the U.S. stock options market. An extraordinary number of trades were betting that American Airlines stock price would fall.

The trades are called "puts" and they involved at least 450,000 shares of American. But what raised the red flag is more than 80 percent of the orders were "puts", far outnumbering "call" options, those betting the stock would rise. ... Read more

The 9/11 Tapes: The Story in the Air
NYTimes | author | 09/07/11

A selection of audio recordings from the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.), North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) and American Airlines from the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The recordings, some of which have been published previously, are being released in a multimedia report originally intended to be part of the Sept. 11 Commission's 2004 report. Read Related Article ... Read more

That Time Ronald Reagan Opened Iran and Illegally Sold Weapons to Khomeini
TruthDig | Juan Cole | 07/14/15

he Reagan administration in the 1980s was buffeted by two policy drives toward Iran. On the one hand, Reagan ally Saudi Arabia supported Iraq, which illegally launched a war on the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1980 in order to steal its oil-rich Khuzistan Province. Reagan in 1983 sent Donald Rumsfeld, then CEO of Searle pharmaceuticals, to make friends with Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

From the other side, a section of the Israeli security establishment wanted Reagan to side with Iran against Iraq and to provide Iran weaponry. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran had been a major supplier of petroleum to Israel, which was boycotted by the Arab League (Iran is not an Arab country). ... Read more
RT | "Iran-Contra: America's biggest political scandal?" (07/14/15) [3:51]

*The Big Unchill
TheBostonGlobe | David Abel | date

BARROW, Alaska -- A mile off the coast of the continent's northernmost city, Josh Jones gunned his four-wheeler over ridges of buckling ice and through pools of turquoise water, where normally there would be a vast sheen of ice and snow.

Here, as close to the top of the world as you can get in America, the signs are serious indeed: The Arctic Ocean is melting faster than at any time on record. This February, the sea ice that stretches from North America to Russia reached its lowest-known winter extent and began melting 15 days earlier than usual. That continued a three-decade trend that has seen the ocean's ice lose about 65 percent of its mass and about half of its reach during the summer. In 20 or 30 more years, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly devoid of ice in the summer, climate scientists believe. ... Read more

Greg Palast: Greece Is a Crime Scene, and Vulture Funds Are to Blame
Truth-out.org | Michael Nevradakis | 01/09/15

Investigative reporter and bestselling author Greg Palast discusses with Truthout the results of his investigation into the actions of so-called vulture funds and their role in the destruction of the Greek economy. He also examines the eurozone and alternative examples of economic development available.

... Well, as my fellow economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz have noted, the austerity programs are like medieval bloodletting. If you're sick, they would drain the blood from you, and if you didn't get better, they would say "oh, the problem is that we didn't drain enough blood" and they would bleed you some more. That's how austerity works. ... Read more

Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores by Greg Palast

This is the story of the corporate vultures that feed on the weak and ruin our planet in the process-a story that spans the globe and decades.

For Vultures' Picnic, investigative journalist Greg Palast has spent his career uncovering the connection between the world of energy (read: oil) and finance. He's built a team that reads like a casting call for a Hollywood thriller-a Swiss multilingual investigator, a punk journalist, and a gonzo cameraman-to reveal how environmental disasters like the Gulf oil spill, the Exxon Valdez, and lesser-known tragedies such as Tatitlek and Torrey Canyon are caused by corporate corruption, failed legislation, and, most interestingly, veiled connections between the billionaires of financial industry and energy titans. Palast shows how the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and Central Banks act as puppets and bandits for Big Oil.

With Palast at the center of an investigation that takes us from the Arctic to Africa to the Amazon, Vultures' Picnic shows how the big powers in the money and oil game slip the bonds of regulation over and over again, and simply destroy the rules that they themselves can't write-and take advantage of nations and everyday people in the process.

What Assets Did Greece Just Hand Over To Europe: "Airports, Airplanes, Infrastructure And Most Certainly Banks"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/13/15

The Simpsons had it right all along:

With the provocative and dramatic Greek "time out" language pulled from the final finmin and summit draft language, the two most humiliating aspects of the latest extend and pretend "deal" for the Greek people will be the return of the Troika's (surely we can call it the Troika again as part of the Greek capitulation) IMF mission to Athens, and the escrowing of some €50 billion in Greek assets in a liquidation fund. ... Read more

"The Eurozone As We Know It Is Destroyed"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/13/15

Despite the euphoria in global equity markets, The FT's Wolfgang Munchau - once one of the keenest euro enthusiasts - warns regime change is coming in Europe. The actions of the creditors has "destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union," Munchau exclaims, fearing they have "demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order." He concludes rather ominously, "we will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable." ... Read more

A Photo Essay On Yemen's Victims Of Saudi Airstrikes
firstlook.org/theintercept | Alex Potter | 07/10/15

"We were sitting in the mosque, reading Quran. A while after the afternoon prayer we heard a plane circling, and a huge explosion," says a boy surveying the damage to a mosque in the village of Al Joob, in Yemen. "People were running and there were pieces of bodies everywhere." ... Read more

Europe is blowing itself apart over Greece - and nobody seems able to stop it
TRNN | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | 07/08/15

Like a tragedy from Euripides, the long struggle between Greece and Europe's creditor powers is reaching a cataclysmic end that nobody planned, nobody seems able to escape, and that threatens to shatter the greater European order in the process. Greek premier Alexis Tsipras never expected to win Sunday's referendum on EMU bail-out terms, let alone to preside over a blazing national revolt against foreign control.

He called the snap vote with the expectation - and intention - of losing it. The plan was to put up a good fight, accept honourable defeat, and hand over the keys of the Maximos Mansion, leaving it to others to implement the June 25 "ultimatum" and suffer the opprobrium. ... Read more

Dune, 50 Years On: How a Science Fiction Novel Changed the World
AlterNet | Hari Kunzru | 07/05/15

In 1959, if you were walking the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, you might have encountered a burly, bearded extrovert, striding about in Ray-Ban Aviators and practical army surplus clothing. Frank Herbert, a freelance writer with a feeling for ecology, was researching a magazine story about a US Department of Agriculture programme to stabilise the shifting sands by introducing European beach grass. ... Read more

Losing Control
ZeroHedge | author | 07/10/15

Markets are beginning to signal that policy makers are losing control. Many second-order-effects of the unprecedented and experimental global actions taken since the 2008 crisis are beginning to manifest. There are always causes and effects that develop; but they do so at different speeds. Many actions in recent years have prioritized 'benefits today' over 'consequences tomorrow'. 'Tomorrow' is approaching ever more quickly. There is no 'free lunch'. ... Read more

Quantum leap taken in measuring greenhouse effect
climatenewsnetwork.net | Tim Radford | 07/08/15

LONDON, 8 July, 2015 -- British scientists have devised a new way to observe the greenhouse world, enabling researchers to measure with exquisite accuracy how atmospheric carbon dioxide builds up, migrates, evolves and absorbs radiation.

The technique will allow more accurate predictions about how much the Earth is likely to warm over the next few decades as a result of the inexorable rise in atmospheric CO2 -- from car exhausts, power station chimneys and burning forests -- that drives global warming and climate change. ... Read more
Exxon-Mobile started climate change denial 1981 (07/09/15) [0:58]

Exxon Knew of Climate Change in 1981, Email Says -- But It Funded Deniers for 27 More Years
AlterNet | Suzanne Goldenberg | 07/09/15

ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company, knew as early as 1981 of climate change -- seven years before it became a public issue, according to a newly discovered email from one of the firm's own scientists. Despite this the firm spent millions over the next 27 years to promote climate denial.

... "Exxon first got interested in climate change in 1981 because it was seeking to develop the Natuna gas field off Indonesia," Lenny Bernstein, a 30-year industry veteran and Exxon's former in-house climate expert, wrote in the email. "This is an immense reserve of natural gas, but it is 70% CO2," or carbon dioxide, the main driver of climate change. ... Read more

China Soars Most Since 2009 After Government Threatens Short Sellers With Arrest, Global Stocks Surge
ZeroHedge | author | 07/09/15

The Shanghai Composite Index had dropped as much as 3.8% to a 4 month low before the news that the cops were going to arrest anyone who was caught "maliciously shorting stocks", when everything suddenly took off, and the SHCOMP closed a "Dramamine required" 5.8% higher, the biggest daily increase since March 2009! Stocks around the globe followed, with US equity futures wiping out much of yesterday's losses and up 1% at last check. ... Read more

Nigel Farage Destroys EU Group-Think: "There's A New Berlin Wall... And It's Called The Euro"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/09/15

Standing before the European Parliament yesterday, it took Nigel Farage just four minutes to completely destroy every argument supporting the Eurozone. As Nigel explains in the video below, right from the start, the system was never intended to help the Greek people. Greece entering the euro was great for Goldman Sachs. But terrible for Greeks. It chained the country to a system in which it didn't belong. ... Read more
*UKIP leader Nigel Farage: Your moment has come, Mr Tsipras, take back control of your country (07/08/15) [4:25]

FREEFALL: Chinese Stocks Plummet
HP & AP | author | 07/08/15

China announced a flurry of new moves Wednesday to halt a stock market slide. The result? Another big dive in share prices. The government told state companies and executives to buy shares, raised the amount of equities insurance companies can hold and promised more credit to finance trading.

Hundreds of companies have halted trading in their stock after emergency measures announced last weekend failed to stop a rout that has dragged down the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index by more than 30 percent since early June. ... Read more

China Makes Selling For Big Investors Illegal
ZeroHedge | author | 07/08/15

Having corralled selling by the National Social Security fund earlier this week and after discouraging local reporters from mentioning selling in the press, China has now made it illegal for major shareholders to dump stock over the next six months. ... Read more

Greece Proves Again Why Democracy is the Criminal Classes' Great Fear
neweconomicperspectives.org | William K. Black | 07/05/15

The people of Greece have just shown great courage, and even greater common sense, in voting "No" in overwhelming numbers against the troika's war on the Greek people and labor throughout the EU. In recent days we have seen the spectacle of the major media shamelessly lying globally about the referendum and the Greek government -- cheered on by the troika. The troika openly sought to depose a second Greek head of state for the high crime of favoring a democratic vote on the troika's economic malpractice and effort to extort the Greek people by threatening to destroy their economy. The tone and content of the propaganda were extraordinary -- and reversed reality.

Greece's debt crisis has unsettled Asian stock markets but the losses in China are driven entirely by internal factors. Beijing fostered a market boom over the past year ... Read more

A Detailed Look At Hacking Team's Emails About Its Repressive Clients
firstlook.org/theintercept | Cora Currier | 07/07/15

Internal emails and financial records show that in the past five years, Hacking Team's Remote Control System software -- which can infect a target's computer or phone from afar and steal files, read emails, take photos and record conversations -- has been sold to government agencies in Ethiopia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Azerbaijan and Turkey. An in-depth analysis of those documents by The Intercept shows Hacking Team's leadership was, at turns, dismissive of concerns over human rights and privacy; exasperated at the bumbling and technical deficiency of some of its more controversial clients; and explicitly concerned about losing revenue if cut off from such clients. ... Read more

New Swat Documents Give Snapshot Of Ugly Militarization Of U.S. Police
firstlook.org/theintercept | George Joseph | 07/07/15

Extensive records from SWAT team raids in northeastern Massachusetts released today by the American Civil Liberties Union corroborate what police reform advocates have long insisted: that "Special Weapons And Tactics" units spend a majority of their time responding to low-risk situations that do not require SWAT's quasi-military approach.

The documents include after-action reports from 79 SWAT operations between August 2012 and June 2014 by the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC, a consortium of police departments covering 925 square miles in Middlesex and Essex Counties outside Boston. According to NEMLEC, its SWAT team exists to respond to "critical incidents," mainly "active shooters, armed barricaded subjects, hostage takers, and terrorists. ... Read more

Greece Called the Bluff of Europe's Biggest Bankers -- A Big No to Austerity
AlterNet | Michael Hudson | 07/06/15

Just after 7 PM Greek time on Sunday, I was told that the "No" vote (Gk. Oxi) was winning approximately 60/40. The "opinion polls" showing a dead heat evidently were wrong. Bookies across Europe are reported to be losing their shirts for betting that the financial right wing could fool most Greeks into voting against their self-interest. The margin of victory shows that Greek voters were immune to the mainstream media's misrepresentation during the week-long run-up as to whether to accept the troika's demand for austerity to be conducted on anti-labor lines. (James Galbraith summarizes the misrepresentation in "9 Myths About the Greek Crisis," Politico.) ... Read more

Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt by Chris Hedges

Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges--who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class--investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges' message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.

Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as "sublime madness" -- the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this "sublime madness."

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | older, but good

The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything. ... Read more

The Biggest Winner From The Greek Tragedy
ZeroHedge | author | 07/07/15

In reality, nobody had put a gun to Greece's head and told it to lever up, enriching local oligarchs and corrupt politicians, taking advantage of credit that was artificially cheap only due to the common currency and an implicit monetary, if not fiscal, union.

Germany, whose exports account for nearly 50% of GDP, on the other hand experienced an unprecedented exporting golden age, made possible only due to an artificial currency, the Euro, that was by definition created to be weaker than the Deutsche Mark and benefitted from any bout of weakness in Europe's periphery, such as the past 5 years.

The truth is, when things were good nobody second-guessed any decisions for a second, and since the rising economic tide lifted all boats, nobody cared.

And then the tide rolled out, displaced by trillions in bad loans and gargantuan mountains of sovereign and financial debt, which ultimately would lead to the first, then second, then third and then an all-out cascade of sovereign defaults.

Sadly, the losers - regardless of the propaganda and jingoist rhetoric - are the ordinary, common, taxpaying people of Germany and Greece (and every other European nation), who enjoyed a few brief years of artificial prosperity, which in retrospect was entirely due to debt, masked well by the "currency swaps" and other financial engineering concocted by banks such as Goldman Sachs, in clear violation of the Maastricht treaty which is now a long-forgotten memory of the founding ideals behind the Eurozone. ... Read more

Colorado's Teen Birth Rate Fell 40 Percent Thanks To A Free Contraception Program
HP | Anna Almendrala | 07/06/15

Rates of teen pregnancies and abortions have plunged in Colorado thanks to a six-year program that distributed free LARCs -- long-acting reversible contraceptives -- to teens and young women.

The initiative provided women with free IUDs (intrauterine devices) or hormonal implants that can prevent pregnancy for up to 10 years, resulting in a 40 percent decline in birthrates among teen moms and a 42 percent decline in teen abortions from 2009 to 2013, reported The New York Times. ... Read more

Greece Resoundingly Rejects Austerity In Referendum On Bailout Deal
HP | Eline Gordts | 07/05/15

Greeks on Sunday decisively rejected a bailout deal proposed by the country's international creditors, which demanded new austerity measures in return for emergency funds. The vote amounted to a stinging rebuke of the austerity measures imposed on Greece since 2010.

The win for the "no" camp constituted a major victory for Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras, who had campaigned heavily against the deal put forward by the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission. But it also raised uncertainty about the country's financial future and its place in the eurozone. ... Read more

Piketty: "Germany Has Never Repaid Its Debts; It Has No Standing To Lecture Other Nations"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/06/15

"When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations. ... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up... " Read more

With Yanis Gone, Now Troika Heads Must Roll
ZeroHedge | author | 07/06/15

It's time for the Troika to seek out some real men too. It cannot be that the winner leaves and all the losers get to stay. The attempts to suppress the IMF debt sustainability analysis were a shameful attempt to mislead the people of Greece, and of Europe as a whole. And don't forget the US: Lagarde operates out of Washington. It cannot be that after this mockery of democracy, these same people can just remain where they are. ... Read more

Russia Gloats: "Merkel's Misery Over Broken Europe Dreams"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/06/15

"After the Greeks voted against accepting the latest demands from its creditors, Merkel is facing her worst nightmare: a possible Greek exit from the euro, a possible exit from the EU completely and loss of confidence in the currency itself. Half of her was Merkel -- the pragmatic economist, the other was Merkel -- the great European. She has now discovered, in her vacillation, she has not shown the leadership expected of the most powerful woman in the European Union." ... Read more

Bill Black & Michael Hudson: A Greek Bailout Is Really a Bailout of Western Banks
TruthDig | author | 07/01/15

U.S. political economists Michael Hudson and Bill Black tell The Real News Network that Western financial institutions are keen to bail out Greece because if they don't, the country's existing creditors--other Western financial institutions--will fail to recover money they previously lent to Greece. ... Read more
*TRNN | UMKC's Bill Black and Michael Hudson: US Hedge Funds Get Bailed Out if Greeks Pass Bailout Referendum, Part 1 (06/30/15) [8:22]

Scientists Warn Giant Nuclear Sarcophagus in Marshall Islands Is Leaking
TruthDig | author | 07/03/15

One hundred and eleven thousand cubic yards of radioactive debris lies within Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands, a "hulking legacy of years of U.S. nuclear testing" whose fragile structure is vulnerable to breaking from violent weather associated with climate change.

"Runit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and climate change," Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the dome in 2010, told The Guardian. ... Read more

This Is What The End Of European Democracy Looks Like
HP | Ryan Grim | 07/02/15

Underlying the question of whether European leaders and the Greek state will be able to come to terms amid the financial crisis is one even more fundamental: Is there room in Europe for democracy?

In January, Greek voters elected a government on a platform of anti-austerity, one that argued further cuts would not just be cruel to a people already experiencing 25 percent unemployment, but economically backward as well. European leaders have spent the five months since then doing everything they can to drive that Greek government from power.

If the troika of economic policy-setters succeeds in ousting the Greek government, it will send a clear message to other European Union countries: You are free to hold elections, but the government you elect can only do what we say. ... Read more
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Record-Breaking Heat Wave Scorches Europe
HP | Lydia O'Connor | 07/02/15

Triple-digit temperatures baked Spain and Portugal earlier this week before moving on to France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland and other areas of Europe, AccuWeather reported.

Madrid set a new record for its June heat on Monday when temperatures reached 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Weather Channel, and southern Spain's Cordoba experienced 110.7 degrees on Sunday. A heat of 98.1 degrees at London's Heathrow Airport on Wednesday set a new record for July heat in all of the U.K., while the 103.5 degrees recorded in Paris that same day was the hottest reading in the city since 1873. Read more & PHOTOS

The Troika Turns Europe Into A Warzone
ZeroHedge | author | 07/03/15

There's no there there. Europeans are completely clueless about what's happening here in Athens. They can't see to save their lives that their silence protects and legitimizes a flat out war against a country that is, just like their respective countries, a member of a union that now seeks to obliterate it. Europeans need to understand that the EU has no qualms about declaring war on one of its own member states. And that it could be theirs next time around. Where people die of hunger or preventable diseases. Or commit suicide. Or flee. All Europeans on their TV screens can see the line-ups at ATMs, and the fainting grandmas at the banks, the hunger, the despair. How on earth can they see this as somehow normal, and somehow not connected to their own lives? ... Read more

Contagion Continues: Italy, Spain Stocks Tumble To Post-Greferendum Lows
ZeroHedge | author | 07/03/15

Having bounced midweek on 'hope' of a deal and 'faith' in Draghi's containment, European stock markets are tumbling back to the post-Greferendum lows of Tuesday. Italy and Spain are now down 5.5 to 6% and as the European close nears - and the realization thanks to The IMF that the vote is a simple Yes/No to debt haircuts - stocks are being sold and volatility is picking up. Bond spreads are leaking higher but it is clear that what Draghi really 'contained' was EURUSD which remains only marginally lower on the week. ... Read more
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Puerto Rico Is Emptying of People as Its Economy Disintegrates
TruthDig | Ricardo Mangual | 07/03/15

As Puerto Rico begins to ration water, close schools and lose its healthcare system under the weight of a $73 billion debt, tens of thousands of its inhabitants are fleeing to the United States, where prospects of finding a better life are dim. Forty-five percent of Puerto Ricans live in poverty. ... Read more

Scientists Detect Mysterious Warming in U.S. Coastal Waters
TruthDig | Tim Radford | 06/28/15

Oceanographers are puzzled by an accelerated burst of warming sea that threatens the fisheries of the American Atlantic coast.

Meanwhile, off the US West coast, scientists report that they have been baffled by a mysterious "blob" of water up to 4°C warmer than the surrounding Pacific, linked to weird weather across the entire country.

Jacob Forsyth and research colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts report in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans that the ocean off the US north-east continental shelf has been warming at unprecedented levels for 13 years. ... Read more or Here
*GWR | Last Hours, Episode02 (09/19/14) [11:18]

Americans Not In The Labor Force Soar By 640,000 To Record 93.6 Million; Participation Rate Drops To 1977 Levels
ZeroHedge | author | 07/02/15

In what was an "unambiguously" unpleasant June jobs payrolls report, with both April and May jobs revised lower, the fact that the number of Americans not in the labor force soared once again, this time by a whopping 640,000 or the most since April 2014 to a record 93.6 million, with the result being a participation rate of 62.6 or where itt was in September 1977, will merely catalyze even more upside to the so called "market" which continues to reflect nothing but central bank liquidity, and thus - the accelerating deterioration of the broader economy. ... Read more
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IMF Bolsters Greek "No" Vote, Says Country Needs Debt Haircut
magazine | author | date

If the IMF were a Greek citizen, it would vote "No" in this weekend's referendum. According to a report prepared prior to capital controls and the banking sector meltdown, any deal that included creditor concessions on fiscal reforms would mean Greece's debt load would have to be written down.

This underscores the IMF's long-standing position that EU creditors will ultimately need to write down their holdings if Greece has any hope of returning to a situation where the country's debt-to-GDP ratio is "sustainable," and suggests that Syriza is indeed making a smart move by holding out. ... Read more
CBS | Pain In The Streets In Greece As Financial Crisis Unfolds (07/01/15) [2:32]

BB | How Much Worse Can It Get for Greece? (07/30/15) [4:08]

XKEYSCORE: NSA'S Google For The World's Private Communications
firstlook.org/theintercept/ | Glenn Greenwald | 07/01/15

One of the National Security Agency's most powerful tools of mass surveillance makes tracking someone's Internet usage as easy as entering an email address, and provides no built-in technology to prevent abuse. Today, The Intercept is publishing 48 top-secret and other classified documents about XKEYSCORE dated up to 2013, which shed new light on the breadth, depth and functionality of this critical spy system -- one of the largest releases yet of documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA's XKEYSCORE program, first revealed by The Guardian, sweeps up countless people's Internet searches, emails, documents, usernames and passwords, and other private communications. XKEYSCORE is fed a constant flow of Internet traffic from fiber optic cables ... Read more

Bernie Sanders' Campaign Gets A Big Boost
HP | Dave Jamieson | 07/01/15

The longtime leader of one of the country's most powerful labor unions is joining the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and he says presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton made it an easy call. Larry Cohen, outgoing president of the Communications Workers of America, told The Huffington Post he will serve as an unpaid volunteer stumping for Sanders as the Vermont senator seeks the Democratic nomination. One of the main factors in his decision, Cohen said, was ... Read more

GREECE | Tsipras Offers Conditional Okay To Greece Bailout; Creditors Skeptical
Reuters & HP | author | 07/01/15

BRUSSELS, July 1 (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has written to international creditors saying Greece could accept a bailout offer published on June 28 if several conditions were changed, but Germany said the letter had come too late and did not go far enough.

In exchange, Athens wants a 29 billion euro loan to cover all its debt service payments due in the next two years. In the letter, seen by Reuters, Tsipras asked to keep a discount on value added tax for Greek islands, stretch out defense spending cuts and delay the phasing out of an income supplement to poorer pensioners. ... Read more

IMF: austerity measures would still leave Greece with unsustainable debt
TheGuardian | Alberto Nardelli | 06/30/15

Greece would face an unsustainable level of debt by 2030 even if it signs up to the full package of tax and spending reforms demanded of it, according to unpublished documents compiled by its three main creditors.

The documents, drawn up by the so-called troika of lenders, support Greece's argument that it needs substantial debt relief for a lasting economic recovery. They show that, even after 15 years of sustained strong growth, the country would face a level of debt that the International Monetary Fund deems unsustainable. ... Read more

Terminator Genisys review: Arnie's back, but the lustre isn't
TheGuardian | Henry Barnes | 06/30/15

He is, inevitably, back. Again. The Terminator franchise stumbles out of the wreckage of the critically savaged sequel Salvation, this time with the participation of the original model, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the lavish endorsement of series co-creator James Cameron.

Salvation "sucked" and Genisys, we've been told, is a new dawn. In this alternate timeline, the genius of 1984's splendidly cheesy The Terminator and its sleek, superior follow-up Terminator 2: Judgment Day, are the only history that matters. ... Read more
Terminator Genisys Movie (trailer) [2:31]