Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

The Rise of Violent Right-Wing Extremism, Explained
MotherJones | Jaeah Lee | 06/30/15

The US law enforcement community regards homegrown violent extremists, not radicalized Islamists, as the most severe threat from political violence in the country, according to a new study from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. Released late last week, the report comes amid renewed focus on the problem ever since a 21-year-old avowed white supremacist carried out a mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. There is a growing body of research highlighting the threat from right-wing extremists, but who or what exactly does that term encompass, and how big really is the problem? Mother Jones examined various reports and contacted experts to find out more. Read more

Think Today's Refugee Crisis Is Bad? Climate Change Will Make It a Lot Worse
HP | Elliott Negin | 06/30/15

Last year was the worst year on record for refugees. The number of people fleeing war and persecution jumped to nearly 60 million, the highest figure since the United Nations' refugee agency began keeping records 50 years ago, and that doesn't even include people driven from their homes by poverty, gang violence or natural disasters.

Smugglers are preying on refugees, social services in poor Middle Eastern and African countries have been stretched to the limit, and Europe and Australia are turning back exiles at their borders. António Guterres, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, acknowledged that relief agencies are overwhelmed. "We don't have the capacity and we don't have the resources to support all the victims of conflict around the world to provide them with the very minimal level of protection and assistance," he told reporters at a mid-June press conference. ... Read more

Gross Says Hold Cash, Prepare For "Nightmare Panic Selling"
ZeroHedge | author | 06/30/15

... Some have suggested, for instance, that if corporate bond fund managers were suddenly inundated with a cascade of redemptions, the absence of dealer liquidity in the secondary market could create the conditions for a firesale.

The problem, as we've been keen to point out, is that when fund flows are one-way (i.e. everyone is selling), fund managers must either i) meet redemptions with cash, or ii) trade the underlying securities. Note that the latter option is so undesirable in illiquid markets (indeed, trading large blocks into illiquid markets poses a systemic risk), that some fund managers are now lining up emergency liquidity lines with banks so that they can at least meet an initial wave of selling with cash and avoid, for a time at least, sparring with illiquidity. ... Read more

Don't Blame Austerity: Five "Dastardly" Ways Italy (& Greece) Burned Through Taxpayer Money
ZeroHedge | author | 06/30/15

It took years (after our initial report in 2011) but finally the Greeks realized that the main reason the Troika had been fleecing them all along, is that of the €227 billion in bailout funds disbursed to Greece, the amount that actually reached the Greek population was... 11%. The rest went back to repaying Greek creditors in some form.

So what was really going in Europe over the past 5 years, if the debt load kept creeping higher, and yet little money was actually making its way to the broader population?

The answer is simple: abuse of taxpayer funding, also known as fraud and corruption. And while it may come as a surprise, more European tax money has been lost to fraud in Italy than in any other European country, Greece included (perhaps because most of the free cash was already earmarked for creditor repayment). ... Read more

The Next Few Days Have the Potential to Transform Greece and Europe
NYTimes | Neil Irwin | 06/28/15

It has been easy to ignore the doings in Greece for the last few years, with the perpetual series of summits in Brussels that never seem to resolve anything. But it's time to pay attention. These next few days are shaping up to become a transformational moment in the 60-year project of building a unified Europe. We just don't yet know what sort of transformation it will be.

The immediate headlines that got us to this point are these: After an intractable series of negotiations over a bailout extension with Greece's creditors, the nation's left-wing government left the table Friday and said it would hold a referendum on July 5. Greek leaders think the offer on the table from European governments and the International Monetary Fund is lousy, requiring still more pension cuts and tax increases in a depressed economy ... Read more

The Hidden Intelligence Breakdowns Behind the Mumbai Attacks
propublica.org | Sebastian Rotella | 04/21/15

This story was co-published with PBS Frontline.

After Edward Snowden, the government said its controversial surveillance programs had stopped a terrorist -- David Coleman Headley. In "American Terrorist," ProPublica and PBS "Frontline" show why the claim is largely untrue.

In a rush to provide success stories, senior officials cited the capture of an American terrorist whose case I knew well. I had spent several years reporting about David Coleman Headley, whose reconnaissance for Pakistani spymasters and terrorist chiefs was crucial to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six Americans. Now the intelligence community was claiming the National Security Agency had played a key role in preventing Headley's follow-up plot against a Danish newspaper in 2009. ... Read more

Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley by Jesse Freeston on the plantation occupation movement that rose up in response to the 2009 coup d'etat in Honduras. (full) (2009) [1:31:38]

Why You Should Care About Greece's Impending Meltdown... And don't forget Puerto Rico.
MotherJones | Max J. Rosenthal | 06/29/15

... After months of failed negotiations with its creditors, the government of Greece now has 24 hours to pony up a $1.8 billion loan payment to the International Monetary Fund. With the country out of money and the European Union unwilling to soften its stance on Greek debt, finding that much cash is about as likely as it sounds.

If Greece does default on its loans, there are plenty of terrible consequences potentially in store for the country itself: it could be forced to leave the euro, get cut off from international capital markets, and see its already-hurting economy--around a quarter of Greeks are unemployed--shrink even further. But the United States might also suffer. ... Read more

Bernie Sanders Surges In New Hampshire Polls
HP | Marina Fang | 06/25/15

A CNN/WMUR poll released Thursday shows that Sanders is just 8 percentage points behind Clinton. Among Democratic primary voters surveyed, 45 percent said that Sanders "cares the most about people like you," while 24 percent said the same about Clinton. When asked which Democratic candidate "best represents the values of Democrats like yourself," 41 percent said Sanders, and 30 percent said Clinton.

The results are consistent with other recent polling in New Hampshire. Two polls last week had Sanders within 10 points of Clinton's lead, suggesting that Clinton, the presumptive favorite, may be vulnerable in the Granite State. ... Read more
CNN Pool - Click picture to zoom in

Here's how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill
TheGuardian | C Robert Gibson | 05/27/15

The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) -- the fast-tracking bill -- by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close.

Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world's most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts. Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate: ...

1. Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 "yea" votes.
2. The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.
3. The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.

[Greece] Tsipras Rejects Ultimatums, Says "Won't Be Blackmailed"
magazine | author | date

On Friday, the German press reported (and Bloomberg later confirmed) that Greece's creditors had presented PM Alexis Tsipras with a document (essentially an outlining the following available funds that could theoretically be part of either an extension of the country's second bailout or a third program (with the latter having been previously ruled out by the IMF and German lawmakers). The details are as follows: ... Read more

The Single Biggest Driver For Stocks Is Collapsing
ZeroHedge | author | 06/26/15

Earnings are what drive stocks. Investors sometimes forget this during periods of speculative manias such as the one we're experiencing today. But the reality is that there is no rational reason to buy a stock (company) other than to share it its profits via Earnings or Dividends.

Earnings Per Share or EPS leads stock prices as the below chart shows. Note the large divergence that occurred in 2007 at a time when EPS rolled over (EPS is the blue lines). We all know what came after this (2008). Now look at the massive divergence occurring today (the right black square). It makes the 2007 divergence look small by comparison!

Stocks are more stretched than at any point in the last 10 years. At the very least we should see a 10-15% correction if not an outright Crash in the coming months. ... Read more

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Kim Kardashian To Deliver Speech About Objectification Of Women

Let us remind ourselves that the individual below -- whose only achievement to date has been having a large posterior and appearing in amateur sex videos -- has a disturbingly large portion of society captivated day after day, year after year.

Supreme Court Rejects Obamacare Lawsuit, Preserving Insurance For Millions
HP | Jonathan Cohn | 06/25/15

he latest and possibly the last serious effort to cripple Obamacare through the courts has just failed. On Thursday, for the second time in three years, the Supreme Court rejected a major lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act -- thereby preserving the largest expansion in health coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid half a century ago.

The stakes of the case, King v. Burwell, were enormous. Had the plaintiffs prevailed, millions of people who depend upon the Affordable Care Act for insurance would have lost financial assistance from the federal government. Without that money, most of them would have had to give up coverage altogether. And the loss of so many customers would have forced insurers to raise premiums, seriously disrupting state insurance markets. ... Read more

CEO pay at US's largest companies up 54% since recovery began in 2009
TheGuardian | Suzanne McGee | 06/25/15

According to the latest annual survey by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, CEOs at the 350 largest companies in the country pocketed an average of $16.3m in compensation each last year. That's up 3.9% from 2013, and a whopping gain of 54.3% since the recovery began in 2009.

The average annual earnings of employees at those companies? Well, that was only $53,200. And in 2009, when the recovery began? Well, that was $53,200, too. In other words, while the CEOs have seen their compensation soar by 54%, the typical worker's paycheck hasn't budged. Read more

These Three Events Will Shatter "Liquidity Illusion", Trigger Crisis, OECD Says
ZeroHedge | author | 06/25/15

The OECD has released its first Business and Finance Outlook which the organization describes as "an annual publication that presents unique data and analysis that looks at what might affect and change.. tomorrow's world of business finance and investment."

Over some 250 pages, the first edition offers a sweeping look at the global financial landscape and outlines, in excruciating detail, many of the major themes we've built on in these pages including companies' propensity to spend on buybacks and dividends at the expense of capex, the dangers of employing unrealistic pension fund investment return assumptions in a ZIRP world, and, of course, the liquidity paradox, wherein trillions in central bank cash injections mask underlying illiquidity -- especially in bond markets. Here's how Reuters summarizes the report: Read more

The Bush Family Goes for Number Three (With the Help of Its Bankers)
HP | Nomi Prins | 06/24/15

This piece has been adapted and updated by Nomi Prins from her book All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power

It's happening. As expected, dynastic politics is prevailing in campaign 2016. After a tease about as long as Hillary's, Jeb Bush (aka Jeb!) officially announced his presidential bid last week. Ultimately, the two of them will fight it out for the White House, while the nation's wealthiest influencers will back their ludicrously expensive gambit.

And here's a hint: don't bet on Jeb not to make it through the Republican gauntlet of 12 candidates (so far). After all, the really big money's behind him. Last December, even though out of public office since 2007, he had captured the support of 73% of the Wall Street Journal's "richest CEOs." Though some have as yet sidestepped declarations of fealty, count on one thing: the big guns will fall into line. They know that, given his family connections, Jeb is their best path to the White House and they're not going to blow that by propping up some Republican lightweight whose father and brother weren't president, not when Hillary, with all her connections and dynastic power, will be the opponent. That said, in the Bush-Clinton battle to come, no matter who wins, the bankers and billionaires will emerge victorious. ... Read more

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power by Nomi Prins

Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. These families and individuals recycle their power through elected office and private channels in Washington, DC.

All the Presidents' Bankers sheds new light on pivotal historic events--such as why, after the Panic of 1907, America's dominant bankers convened to fashion the Federal Reserve System; how J. P. Morgan's ambitions motivated President Wilson during World War I; how Chase and National City Bank chairmen worked secretly with President Roosevelt to rescue capitalism during the Great Depression while J.P. Morgan Jr. invited Roosevelt's son yachting; and how American financiers collaborated with President Truman to construct the World Bank and IMF after World War II.

Big Picture: Get Big Money Out of Politics (06/23/15) [2:59]

Greece Rejects "Totally Unacceptable" IMF Counterproposal Demanding Pension Cuts: Full Redline Comparison
ZeroHedge | author | 06/24/15

The renewed optimism that's surrounded Greek debt negotiations since Monday evening evaporated like deposits on a hot summer day in Athens this morning as the IMF has indicated it will stick to its "red lines" on pension cuts and the VAT, meaning PM Alexis Tsipras will either surrender unconditionally or embrace an EMU exit. ... Read more

Earth Has Entered First 'Mass Extinction' Since Dinosaurs, Study Warns
HP |Lydia O'Connor | 06/22/15

The Earth has entered its sixth mass extinction phase, a new study warns, and the time we have to avoid dramatic consequences is rapidly running out. Vertebrates -- which include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish -- are disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal, according the study published Friday in the journal Science Advances. The study, led by Stanford, Princeton and the University of California-Berkeley, stated the number of vertebrate species that have gone extinct in the last century normally take 800 to 10,000 years to disappear under natural extinction rates.

"These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way," the researchers wrote. The last such extinction was 65 million years ago, The Telegraph noted, when dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the planet. ... Read more

On TPP, Congress's Cat Burglars Are Pulling a Fast One
HP | Bill Moyers | 06/22/15

"With cat-like tread upon our foes we steal." So boasted Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance as they decided to try a little burglary for a change. And "steal" is the appropriate word. It's hardly a surprise that Republican congressional leaders and their cadre of Democratic allies spurred on by Barack Obama are resorting to a bagful of parliamentary tricks to put the Trans-Pacific Partnership on a "take it or leave it but you can't change it" fast-track to enactment by Tuesday.

No sooner had the first round gone to pro-democracy forces than Speaker Boehner -- forever remembered as the man who handed out tobacco lobby checks to members on the House floor -- promptly scheduled a new vote allowing time to bring pressure on naysayers. ... Read more

Making the Economy Work for the Many and Not the Few #11: Medicare Isn't the Problem; It's the Solution
Robert Reich | Robert Reich | 06/22/15

Again and again the upcoming election you'll hear conservatives claim that Medicare -- the health insurance program for America's seniors -- is running out of money and must be pared back. Baloney. Medicare isn't the problem. In fact, Medicare is more efficient than private health insurance.The real problem is that the costs of health care are expected to rise steeply.

Medicare could be the solution -- the logical next step after the Affordable Care Act toward a single-payer system. ... Read more
The Big Picture: The Medicare Solution (06/17/15) [2:21]

The Unspoken Tragedy In The Upcoming Greek Bailout
ZeroHedge | author | 06/23/15

Of this touted 35 billion euro in bailout funding which Greece finally admitted it will cross "red lines" to obtain, the country will be lucky to pocket a little over 3 billion euro. However, considering that is how much the Greek government has already extracted out of various public pensions and municipalities as part of its quasi-capital controls unrolled previously to preserve the illusion of solvency, after the hard fought "deal" finally is inked, the Greek population will be left with... 0 euro!!! Read more

This How We Should Actually Punish Bank Felons
TruthDig & Robert Reich | Robert Reich | 06/22/15

America's CEOs Now Make 303 Times More Than Their Workers
MotherJones | Jaeah Lee | 06/22/15

The US economy is rebounding for the nation's top income earners, but not for everyone else, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. The study, published Sunday, finds that chief executives at the country's 350 biggest firms earned an average of $16.3 million in 2014, marking a 54.3 percent increase since 2009. Meanwhile, compensation for typical workers in the same industries as those CEOs fell 1.7 percent over the same time period.

"Those at the top of the income distribution, including many CEOs, are seeing a strong recovery, while the typical worker is still experiencing the detrimental effects of a stagnant labor market," the study authors, Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis, found. ... Read more

Newsflash: Groundwater Running Out,
uprisingradio.org/ | author | 06/17/15

Two studies published by the American Geophysical Union today, have identified the most stressed ground water systems in the world. Researchers concluded that one-third of the biggest groundwater reserves are in serious trouble. The Arabian Aquifer System was the worst off -- a source of water for 60 million people. Closely following is the Indus Basin aquifer underneath northwestern India and Pakistan, followed by the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa. The water system under drought-stricken California also made the list but is not as stressed. The research is based on data from two NASA satellites that "measure dips and bumps in Earth's gravity, which is affected by the weight of water." The scientists worry that climate change and population growth will only exacerbate the problems. They ask the important question: "What happens when a highly stressed aquifer is located in a region with socioeconomic or political tensions that can't supplement declining water supplies fast enough?" - See more at: http://uprisingradio.org/home/2015/06/17/newsflash-groundwater-running-out-new-plan-for-tpa-sanders-and-trumps-candidacies/#sthash.YNUewzMd.dpuf ... Read more

Crossing The Event Horizon On 50 Years Of A Financially-Engineered Black Hole
ZeroHedge | author | 06/22/15

Nobody knows what will happen next in the struggle to wring some kind of debt repayment promises out of poor Greece. Without "restructuring" -- a virtual national bankruptcy proceeding -- there can be no plausible promises of repayment. Both sides seem to have exhausted their abilities to juke their way out. The European Union and its wing-men at the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) can only pretend to kick that fabled can down the road because it has turned into a cement-filled 50-gallon drum. The Greek government can only pretend to further dismantle its civil service and pension systems lest angry citizens toss it out and replace it with a new government, perhaps an ugly and pugnacious one made up of Golden Dawn party Nazis. ... Read more

ThomHartmann | Brunch with Bernie (06/18/15) [31:08]

The Fed is Now Officially in VERY Serious Trouble
ZeroHedge | author | 06/19/15

California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude -- And The Worst Is Yet To Come
ZeroHedge | author | 06/19/15

Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis. At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all. As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain. ... Read more
Click picture to zoom in

Who Is Stoking The Trillion Dollar Student Debt Bubble?
ZeroHedge | author | 06/19/15

There's a very serious debate raging in America about whether it's appropriate for the federal government to forgive student loans. Some commentators rightfully assert that when it comes to federal loans made to students who attend public schools -- where, even if the education they receive doesn't exactly prepare them for the jobs market, graduation rates are at least respectable and the admissions process is not riddled with fraud -- personal responsibility should be taken into account and borrowers should be expected to pay off their debt.

The argument changes a bit when the conversation shifts to for-profit schools. In many cases, these institutions employ deceptive recruiting practices including falsified graduation and job placement rates to lure students who, once accepted, are encouraged to lie about their circumstances in order to maximize the amount of government aid they're eligible to receive. These schools live and die by federal student loans as around 90% of students pay for their 'education' with debt. And while the government (i.e. the taxpayer) keeps the doors open, CEOs (in many cases the schools are publicly traded) reap millions in compensation. ... Read more

Charleston Church Shooting: 9 Dead At Historic Black Church
HP | Ed Mazza | 06/17/15

Nine people were shot to death by a white man at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night, the Charleston Police Department confirmed at a news conference early Thursday.

Calling it "the worst night of my career," Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said the gunman entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a prayer meeting and opened fire. Eight people were found dead at the scene. Two others were transported to a hospital, where one later died.

None of the victims has been named by police. However, State House Minority leader Todd Rutherford said the church's pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, was among those killed, according to the Associated Press. ... Read more

Pope Francis Releases 'Laudato Si' Encyclical And Lays Out Moral Case For Addressing Climate Change
HP | Jaweed Kaleem | 06/18/15

In a highly anticipated papal letter released Thursday, Pope Francis called on Catholics worldwide to make safeguarding the environment and battling climate change an urgent and top priority of the 21st century.

In the lengthy treatise, more broadly addressed to "every person" who lives on Earth, the pope lays out a moral case for supporting sustainable economic and population growth as part of the church's mission and humanity's responsibility to protect God's creation for future generations. While saying that there were natural causes to climate change over the earth's history, the letter also says in strong words that human activity and production of greenhouse gases are to blame. ... Read more

The Forecaster (trailer) [10:30]

THE FORECASTER is a feature documentary about Martin Armstrong a financial guru who used the number pi in the nineties to predict economic turning points with precision. With his secret knowledge Martin Armstrong predicted the exact date of the October crash in 1987, the decline of the dollar in 1986 and the Nikkei crash in 1989. He was named economist of the decade. The Japanese just called him Mr. YEN. When the FBI stormed his offices in 1999 forcing him to hand over his secret model a few weeks later he was incarcerated for seven years for contempt of court without a trial. Now Martin Armstrong is back -- released from prison after 12 years. He agreed to be the focal point of this movie - a piece on the Financial Crisis we are facing -- the Sovereign Debt Crisis.

The Forecaster | Martin Armstrong Use FXS4CAST14 as a discount code

Jeb Bush Slams Washington's Pampered Elites...But Enlists Them for His Campaign
MotherJones | AJ Vicens | 06/18/15

Jeb Bush launched his campaign on Monday with a sharp jab at the Washington establishment. "We don't need another president who merely holds the top spot among the pampered elites of Washington," huffed this member of a political dynasty that has often held power in DC. "We need a president willing to challenge and disrupt the whole culture in our nation's capital." Yet, as Bush embarks on his presidential bid, he has surrounded himself with Beltway insiders who have long been part of what he calls the "mess in Washington." Many of his advisers served in the presidential administrations of his father and brother. Others were senators and representatives. Of course, several are lobbyists. ... Read more

Another Fed "Insider" Quits, Tells The Truth
ZeroHedge | author | 06/17/15

Once more, an "insider" from The Fed exposes the reality of an academic ivory tower clueless of the real financial markets. Former adviser to Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher, Danielle DiMartino Booth speaking in a CNBC interview slams The Fed for "allowing the [market] tail to wag the [monetary policy] dog," warning that "The Fed's credibility itself is at stake... they have backed themselves into a very tight corner... the tightest ever." ... Read more
ZH | Another Fed "Insider" Quits, Tells The Truth (06/17/15) [7:08]

RIP TPP?
TRNN | William K. Black | 06/14/15

My answer to the question I pose in my title is 'no.' The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is far from dead and can only be defeated by heroic efforts by a broad coalition of Americans dedicated to the interests of our Nation and its people and willing to pay the price to oppose the triumph of corporate interests. The focus of this column, however, is on the New York Times' coverage of Friday's vote on a key component of President Obama and the Republican leadership's efforts to make the TPP law. That focus requires some tangential discussion of the substantive arguments for and against TPP but I will minimize that discussion because I have explained previously in greater detail why I oppose the TPP and urge Americans to make our efforts to defeat it one of our highest priorities. ... Read more

The True Story of the Bilderberg Group

Delving into a world once shrouded in complete mystery and impenetrable security, this investigative report provides a fascinating account of the annual meetings of the world's most powerful people--the Bilderberg Group. Since its inception in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in the small Dutch town of Oosterbeek, the Bilderberg Group has been comprised of European prime ministers, American presidents, and the wealthiest CEOs of the world, all coming together to discuss the economic and political future of humanity. The working press has never been allowed to attend, nor have statements ever been released on the attendees' conclusions or discussions, which have ramifications on the citizens of the world. Using methods that resemble the spy tactics of the Cold War--and in several instances putting his own life on the line--the author did what no one else has managed to achieve: he learned what was being said behind the closed doors of the opulent hotels and has made it available to the public. This second edition includes an entirely new chapter and updated information on topics such as an earlier attempt to break up Canada and the portents of a North American union.

Bilderberg looks to the future but is stuck in the past
TheGuardian | Charlie Skelton | 06/15/15

... Equally anachronistic is the heavy-handed policing: the checkpoints, the armoured snowploughs, the harassment, the helicopter patrols with itchy-fingered cops. The obstinate refusal to engage in proper press relations. It's just a physical extension of Wolfensohn's 'I wasn't there ... I didn't attend'. A denial of reality, a denial of change: and it's no kind of long-term strategy. ... Read more

Elizabeth Warren
Mother Jones | Inae Ohr | 06/02/15

Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren participated in a conference hosted by tech website Re/Code, where she was asked a policy question about infrastructure spending. What followed was an incredibly powerful response that touched upon the Massachusetts senator's signature issues--student loans, misplaced Washington interests, and the systematic problems hurting middle class Americans.

"The only way we get change is when enough people in this country say, 'I'm mad as hell and I'm fed up and I'm not going to do this anymore,'" Warren said. "'You are not going to represent me in Washington, DC, if you are not willing to pass a meaningful infrastructure bill. If you are not willing to refinance student loan interest rates and stop dragging in billions of dollars in profits off the backs of kids who otherwise can't afford to go to college. If you don't say you're going to fund the NIH and the NISF, because that is our future.' We have to make these issues salient and not just wonky." ... Read more
Senator Elizabeth Warren on big money in Washington (current) [2:22]

Jeb Bush Is Officially Running for President. Here's What You Need to Know About Him.
MotherJones | Allie Gross | 06/15/15

Well, today's the day. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is expected to finally announce that he is running for president. After months of mounting a not-very-shadow campaign and raising money (almost $100 million since January for his super-PAC Right to Rise), his official leap into the crowded Republican field is no surprise. As the third Bush to run for president in 35 years, he is already considered the top choice for the GOP establishment.

But the GOP establishment no longer rules the party as it once did, so the road to the nomination, much less to the White House, is filled with land mines for Bush. Tea partiers and the Christian right are powerful Bush antagonists. Before he made his candidacy official, a tea party-aligned group called Constitutional Rights PAC started promoting the website EndJeb2016.com, which accuses Bush of being "anything but a 'conservative.'" ...
Toggle | Bush Baggage

Gulf War 1 - Wikipedia

Operation Desert Shield (08/02/90-02/28/91)
*The Gulf War 1991 () [6:09]

Gulf War 2 - Wikipedia

Iraq War (2003 - 2011) - WMD
*George W. Bush & Administration Lie about WMD () [9:00]

The Bush Administration's 935 LIES about Iraq war, Part 1 (2008) [9:53], Part 2 [8:34]

A STUDY from the Center for Public Integrity has revealed President Bush and top administration officials made a total of 935 false public statements about Iraq's alleged national security threat in the two years following the 9/11 attacks. President Bush made the most false statements -- 260. Colin Powell, his then-secretary of state, made 254 false statements. We speak with the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, Charles Lewis.

*George W. Bush - jokes about WMD () [0:28]

*Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy [1:01:10]

*Michael Moore | Farenheit 911 [1:58:29]

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

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

The Carlyle Group, the Bush family and 9/11 [25:43]

Five Million Reasons Why China Could Go to War
Bloomberg | David Tweed | 06/16/15

With five million citizens to protect and billions of investment dollars at stake, China is rethinking its policy of keeping out of other countries' affairs.

China has long made loans conditional on contracts for its companies. In recent years it has sent an army of its nationals to work on pipelines, roads and dams in such hot spots as South Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan. Increasingly, it has to go across borders to protect or rescue them. ... Read more
Reasons Why China Could Go to War (06/16/15) [3:46]

Finding the truth in 935 lies about war with Iraq
publicintegrity.org | Bill Buzenberg | older, 06/20/14

Center for Public Integrity founder Charles "Chuck" Lewis has just published a new book with the provocative title, "935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity." I can highly recommend this work.

Chuck tells the story of the founding of The Center for Public Integrity in 1989, after he had worked in television with ABC News and then CBS News, including producing investigative reports for the late Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. ... Read more

935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity

An epiphanic, public comment about the Bush "war on terror" years was made by an unidentified White House official revealing how information is managed and how the news media and the public itself are regarded by those in power: "[You journalists live] "in what we call the reality-based community. [But] that's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality ... we're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." And yet, as aggressive as the Republican Bush administration was in attempting to define reality, the subsequent, Democratic Obama administration may be more so.

Into the battle for truth steps Charles Lewis, a pioneer of journalistic objectivity. His book looks at the various ways in which truth can be manipulated and distorted by governments, corporations, even lone individuals. He shows how truth is often distorted or diminished by delay: truth in time can save terrible erroneous choices. ...

"Climate change poses a massive threat to the world."
climate25.com | climate25.com | date

Henry Paulson, who served as Secretary of the Treasury in George W. Bush's administration from 2006 to 2009, believes that in regards to climate change "it's going to be an even bigger problem if we wait."

In addition to his tenure in the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis, Paulson is also a former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs and is currently the chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago, "which conducts projects and research on economics and the environment in the United States and China." ... Read more
Climate change poses a massive threat to the world (current) [2:25]

Global Warming & Climate Change - Chronology of Coverage

Watch Out, Dems: Sheldon Adelson And The Koch Brothers Are Closer Than Ever
HP | Peter H. Stone | 06/14/15

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson (left) and billionaire industrialist David Koch (right) are both deeply committed to making sure a Republican wins the White House in 2016.

In late April, some 700 conservative luminaries, including presidential contenders, donors, fundraisers and former President George W. Bush, gathered at the Venetian casino and resort in Las Vegas for the Republican Jewish Coalition's spring meeting, where Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul and GOP megadonor, was holding court. ... Read more

With Stocks 3% Off Record Highs, Investor Confidence Crashes To "Extreme Fear"
ZeroHedge | author | 06/15/15

You know The Fed has suppressed vol too low for too long when stocks drop 3% from their all-time record-est highs and sentiment collapses into "Extreme Fear"... Read more
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Will The ECB Finally Use The Greek "Nuclear Option" This Wednesdsay?
ZeroHedge | author | 06/15/15

With both sides digging in and unwilling to budge, will Europe revert back to its strategy from day 1, namely creating a slow initially, then fast bank run in Greece, one which leads to gradual then sudden capital controls, resulting in civil discontent and disobedience and ultimately, a violent overthrow of the Greek government. ... Read more

Iceland Jailed Bankers and Rejected Austerity -- and It's Been a Success
TruthDig | Roisin Davis | 06/11/15

When the global economic crisis hit in 2008, Iceland suffered terribly--perhaps more than any other country. The savings of 50,000 people were wiped out, plunging Icelanders into debt and placing 25 percent of its homeowners in mortgage default.

Now, less than a decade later, the nation's economy is booming. And this year it will become the first culturally European country that faced collapse to beat its pre-crisis peak of economic output. That's because it took a different approach. Instead of imposing devastating austerity measures and bailing out its banks, Iceland let its banks go bust and focused on social welfare policies. In March, the International Monetary Fund announced that the country had achieved economic recovery "without compromising its welfare model" of universal health care and education. ... Read more

They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy by Robert Scheer

They Know Everything About You is a groundbreaking exposé of how government agencies and tech corporations monitor virtually every aspect of our lives, and a fierce defense of privacy and democracy.

The revelation that the government has access to a vast trove of personal online data demonstrates that we already live in a surveillance society. But the erosion of privacy rights extends far beyond big government. Intelligence agencies such as the NSA and CIA are using Silicon Valley corporate partners as their data spies. Seemingly progressive tech companies are joining forces with snooping government agencies to create a brave new world of wired tyranny.

Life in the digital age poses an unprecedented challenge to our constitutional liberties, which guarantee a wall of privacy between the individual and the government. The basic assumption of democracy requires the ability of the individual to experiment with ideas and associations within a protected zone, as secured by the Constitution. The unobserved moment embodies the most basic of human rights, yet it is being squandered in the name of national security and consumer convenience.

Robert Scheer argues that the information revolution, while a source of public enlightenment, contains the seeds of freedom's destruction in the form of a surveillance state that exceeds the wildest dream of the most ingenious dictator. The technology of surveillance, unless vigorously resisted, represents an existential threat to the liberation of the human spirit.

Greek Stocks, Bank Bonds Battered As Deal Hope Fades
ZeroHedge | author | 06/12/15

Every 2016 Presidential Candidate From Most Liberal to Most Conservative
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Jamie Dimon Wants To Mansplain Banking To Elizabeth Warren
HP | Amanda Terkel | 06/10/15

There are few people in Congress who criticize big Wall Street banks more than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) does. A former Harvard bankruptcy law professor, she is the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and chaired the government panel that oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out the financial sector in 2008. But according to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, she really doesn't know what she's talking about.

"I don't know if she fully understands the global banking system," Dimon said on Wednesday at a luncheon in Chicago, according to Bloomberg. ... Read more

Bernie Sanders 'Surprised' By Size Of Crowds At His Campaign Rallies
HP | Igor Bobic | 06/11/15

The number of adoring supporters who have shown up at presidential campaign events for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is bigger than even the candidate himself expected.

The self-described democratic socialist, who has presented himself as a champion of the working class against the interests of big business and corporate America, has drawn sizable crowds, far exceeding the numbers of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who maintains a large lead in the polls. Last month, several thousand people turned out to hear Sanders speak in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And in New Hampshire, the Vermont senator has attracted more interest, at least in sheer numbers, than much of the 2016 Republican presidential field. ... Read more

Economist Cover: "Watch Out"
ZeroHedge | author | 06/11/15

One of the recurring explanations given why the Fed is eager to hike rates is so it has some dry powder ahead of the next recession which, some 6 years after the last one ended is overdue (especially with a negative GDP Q1). Which, incidentally, is just the topic of the next Economist cover titled simply "Watch out" adding that the world is not ready for the next recession...

There is, of course, the question of just how much dry powder does a 25 bps increase in the Fed Funds rate provide, especially considering that Europe tried precisely that in the summer of 2011 only to unleash a crippling recession on the continent that required yet another Fed bailout in November 2011. ... Read more

Rental America: Why the poor pay $4,150 for a $1,500 sofa
WashingtonPost & ZeroHedge | author | 06/11/15

The love seat and sofa that Jamie Abbott can't quite afford ended up in her double-wide trailer because of the day earlier this year when she and her family walked into a new store called Buddy's. Abbott had no access to credit, no bank account and little cash, but here was a place that catered to exactly those kinds of customers. Anything could be hers. The possibilities -- and the prices -- were dizzying.

At Buddy's, a used 32-gigabyte, early model iPad costs $1,439.28, paid over 72 weeks. An Acer laptop: $1,943.28, in 72 weekly installments. A Maytag washer and dryer: $1,999 over 100 weeks.

By the next day, the Abbotts had a remade living room, two companion pieces, both of the same blended material, 17 percent leather. The love seat and sofa retailed, together, for about $1,500. Abbott would pay for hers over two years, though she still had paying the option to pay monthly or weekly. The total price if paid weekly: $4,158. ... Read more or the original article Here

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, June 11 [9:34]

Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. (older) [5:24]

Rep. Alan Grayson: $12 Trillion Gone and No One Punished (older) [5:04]

*TRNN | Environmental activist Josh Fox: How the Media & EPA Mislead the Public on Fracking (06/11/15) [19:13]

TYT | Fox Host Called A Liar, His Reaction Is Pure Fracking Fun (06/10/15) [11:50]

*ThomHartmann | The War Crimes Cleanup Begins (06/11/15) [4:43]

ThomHartmann | Bernie Sanders May Win The White House (06/10/15) [10:43]

ThomHartmann | Lookout For The Wall Street Time-Bomb (06/10/15) [9:55]

As mentioned in an interview from last year, Serfdom is the New Normal. Don't forget to send out your thank you notes:

Overview - Infographic
Click to zoom - for Full Image

National Debt - TILLIONS
*Demonocracyinfo | US Debt in Physical $100 bills [2:10]

Trade Imbalance (TPP, TTIP, NAFTA, Secret Trade Deals)
*U.S. Trade Deficit: Before and After "Free Trade" (current) [9:00]
http://tradetreachery.com/ website

US Federal Budget
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How Your Taxes are Being Spent
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How the American War Machine Is Sucking Up Vast Amounts of Cash to Screw Up the World Daily Ticker | Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For (2014) [5:32]

The Job Market Will Get Much Worse, JPMorgan Warns
ZeroHedge | author | 06/10/15

As Zero Hedge reports every month, the labor force participation rate is at multi-decade lows. Michael Feroli, a JPMorgan economist, said the economy will produce even fewer jobs in the future.

In the last ten years, the U.S. saw 68,000 new jobs per month. Meanwhile, the population grew by over 200,000 per month. The last decade's data was marred by severe job losses in 2008. From 1995 - 2005, it was normal to see 300,000 new jobs per month in good years, and the bad years didn't come close to the 2008 horror show. ... Read more

US Will Send 400 More Troops To Iraq Bringing Total To 3,500; Open New Military Base
ZeroHedge | author | 06/10/15

As reported yesterday, in the latest escalation of the "war on ISIS", Obama - winner of the Nobel peace prize for pulling US soldiers out of Iraq - was said to be sending even more US soldiers, pardon military advisors, to Iraq to halt the inexplicable, constant expansion of ISIS, now deep in Syrian territory. Earlier today, this was confirmed when Reuters reported that, as expected, the US will announce on Wednesday plans for a new military base in Iraq's Anbar province and the deployment of around 400 additional U.S. trainers to help Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State, citing an unnamed U.S. official. ... Read more

The Bomb Iran Lobby Gears Up For 2016
BillMoyers | Sina Toossi | 06/08/15

In a recent TV ad, a van snakes its way through an American city. As the driver fiddles with the radio dial, dire warnings about the perils of a "nuclear Iran" spill out of the speaker from Senator Lindsey Graham and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The driver then steers the vehicle into a parking garage, drives to the top level and blows it up in a blinding flash of white light. Words shimmer across the screen: "No Iran Nuclear Treaty Without Congressional Approval." ... Read more
Special Delivery (03/04/15) [0:30]

HSBC To Fire 50,000, One In Five Jobs, To Fund Dividends To Shareholders
ZeroHedge | author | 06/09/15

Just days after JPMorgan revealed it would fire another 5,000 by the end of the year in a "scalpel" headcount reduction, overnight the world's favorite drug money laundering bank HSBC unleashed the "machete" and announced it would cut almost 50,000 workers, or one in five bankers, a move which would shrink the investment bank division by one-third. The reason: the same why US corporations are laying off tens of thousands so they can fund record stock buybacks and enrich their shareholders - to boost profits so that more money can be channeled in the form of dividends. ... Read more

*U.S. Trade Deficit: Before and After "Free Trade" () [9:00]

Leak Critics Ask Judge Not To Send Petraeus To Jail For Unauthorized Disclosures
firstlook.org/theintercept | Cora Currier | 06/08/15

Senators, generals, ambassadors, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the owner of The Atlantic were in the roster of powerful voices who wrote to a federal judge to ask him to go easy on former CIA director and retired general David Petraeus, who admitted to giving classified information to his mistress and biographer.

Petraeus pleaded guilty in April to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information and was sentenced to two years probation and a $100,000 fine. The punishment stands in contrast to far harsher penalties sought for whistleblowers and leakers in less prominent positions. ... Read more

HBO | John Oliver: Bail (06/07/15) [17:49]

Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart | Blasts Texas Cop's Violent Response to Teen Pool Party (06/09/15) [3:17]

Deutsche Bank CEOs "Shown Door" -- World's Largest Holder of Derivatives In Trouble?
ZeroHedge | author | 06/08/15

The joint CEO's of Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, the twelfth largest bank globally in terms of assets, unexpectedly announced their resignation over the weekend. Anshu Jain will resign at the end of this month, almost two years ahead of schedule while Juergan Fitschen will stay on until May of next year. It is believed they resigned but some media reported that the CEOs heads had "rolled", they were "shown the door" and Reuters reporting that Deutsche had "purged its leadership."

... In the past year Deutsche, like many international banks, have been found to have been engaged in a slew of corrupt practices from manipulation of interest rates, for which the firm was fined $2.5 billion in April, to tax evasion and money laundering to "mis-selling" of derivatives. Deutsche Bank's derivatives position is truly enormous. It was recently estimated to be around $54 trillion. Germany's GDP, the fourth largest in the world, was a mere $3.64 trillion in 2015. Were Deutsche Bank caught off-side in its derivatives positions there is not a government or institution on earth that could bail it out and it could lead to contagion in the German financial system and indeed in the global financial system. ...

The Derivative Bomb!

The Non-GAAP Revulsion Arrives: Experts Throw Up All Over "Made Up, Phony, Smoke And Mirrors" Numbers
ZeroHedge | author | 06/08/15

One of the recurring stories on Zero Hedge has been the increasingly more blatant fabrication of corporate bottom line "earnings" with the explicit blessing of both accountants and regulators, in the form of non-GAAP results. Our most recent observation conducted two months ago showed that the variation between GAAP and non-GAAP EPS has stretched to the widest degree since the financial crisis. ...

Experts worry that 'phony numbers' are misleading investors
Yahoo & AP | Bernard Condon | 06/08/15

Those record profits that companies are reporting may not be all they're cracked up to be. As the stock market climbs ever higher, professional investors are warning that companies are presenting misleading versions of their results that ignore a wide variety of normal costs of running a business to make it seem like they're doing better than they really are.

What's worse, the financial analysts who are supposed to fight corporate spin are often playing along. Instead of challenging the companies, they're largely passing along the rosy numbers in reports recommending stocks to investors. ... Read more

With Greece "Everything Must Go Right From Now On" To Avoid Market Shock
HP | author | 06/08/15

"A positive scenario requires almost everything to go right from now on," BofAML says, adding that "Greece needs to receive new funding before the end of June, otherwise it will not be able to repay the IMF on June 30 ... which would put ELA access of Greek banks at risk." ... Read more

Federal Government Suffers Massive Hacking Attack
AP & HP | Ken Dilanian | 06/04/15

China-based hackers are suspected of breaking into the computer networks of the U.S. government personnel office and stealing identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers, American officials said Thursday.

... Collins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said the breach was "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances." ... Read more

Scott Walker: The First ALEC President?
HP | Mary Bottari | 06/03/15

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will address the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in San Diego this July.

Walker's speech at ALEC will be a reunion of sorts. Walker was an ALEC member as a state legislator in the 1990s, and the agenda that Walker has championed throughout his long political career has closely tracked the policies promoted by ALEC and its corporate funders, despite public opposition to many of those measures.

More than 200 corporations and a quarter of state legislators belong to ALEC, where corporations vote as equals with state legislators on "model" bills before they are introduced in legislatures to become binding law. The group receives 98 percent of its funding from corporations like Shell, Peabody Energy, and Altria/Philip Morris, and from sources like the Koch family foundations, and many of the "model bills" that it has promoted -- from prison privatization to environmental deregulation -- directly benefit the financial interests of its funders. ... Read more
Scott Walker: The First ALEC President?

Congress Slyly Changed Campaign Finance Rules. Now the GOP Is Cleaning Up.
MotherJones | Russ Choma | 06/04/15

After watching the biggest donors increasingly shun the major political parties and send their six-figure checks to super-PACs and other outside spending groups, Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress made a sly bid last December to bring billionaires and millionaires back into the party fold. They slipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that rewrote campaign finance rules to raise contribution limits for donations to the national parties. Under the old rules, an individual could give up to $33,400 a year to the Republican or Democratic national committees. The new rule allows donors to give 10 times that amount. And just months into the new election cycle, the effort is paying off -- at least for Republicans. The RNC is pulling down big money from a who's who of conservative megadonors. Democrats? Not so much. ... Read more

Where The May Jobs Were: Teachers, Waiters, Retail, And Temp Help
ZeroHedge | author | 06/05/15

One of the defining features of jobs "recovery" and the main reason why wage growth has been so far below the Fed's expectations for years it has prevented wage inflation from appearing despite years of QE, is that the quality of jobs added month after month has disappointing. May was no difference. Yes, the headline print of 280K job additions was great, but a quick look at how the BLS got there shows that nothing has changed because four of th ... Read more
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WikiLeaks Releases 'Largest Leak of Trade Negotiations in History'
TruthDig | author | 06/04/15

WikiLeaks has posted 17 documents about the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a giant, controversial global trade deal being negotiated among the U.S. and 23 other countries. TISA is a lesser-known relative of the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a deal that President Barack Obama has been actively campaigning for in Washington.

The 24 countries in the deal together comprise two-thirds of global GDP. "Services" now account for nearly 80 per cent of the US and EU economies and even in developing countries like Pakistan account for 53 per cent of the economy. While the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has become well known in recent months in the United States, the TISA is the larger component of the strategic TPP-TISA-TTIP 'T-treaty trinity'. All parts of the trinity notably exclude the 'BRICS' countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. ... Read more

Man Carries Fully Loaded AR-15 Into World's Busiest Airport
HP | author | 06/04/15

A Georgia man openly carried a fully loaded AR-15 semiautomatic rifle into Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest in the world.

Jim Cooley was armed with the weapon -- complete with an extended capacity 100-round drum -- when he went to drop his daughter off for a flight last Friday. Following the enactment of new state legislation in 2014, it's actually legal to carry a rifle in the open in the airport, so long as the holder doesn't attempt to pass through airport security.

Multiple police officers approached Cooley while he was in the airport and asked about the weapon, after which he replied he was carrying it for safety. Officers can be heard talking with Cooley in videos of the interactions he later uploaded to YouTube. ... Read more

Greece: Out Of Cash, Out Of Time, Out Of Options
ZeroHedge | author | 06/04/15

Most commentary still appears predicated on the idea that there will be some last-minute deal - either because the creditors will back down and give Greece some more money without requiring it to be paid back or because the Greek government will back down if it understands that not doing so would ultimately mean leaving the euro. On the other hand, some believe neither side is particularly interested in achieving a deal. ... Read more

IMF Panics - Slashes US Growth Forecasts, Demands Fed Stay On Hold For Another Year
ZeroHedge | author | 06/04/15

Anxiety over financial stability and shadow banking risks appear to have force Christine Lagarde and her fellow extrapolators to hit the panic button:

IMF CUTS U.S. 2015 GROWTH FORECAST TO 2.5% FROM 3.1%, URGES FED TO DELAY FIRST RATE INCREASE UNTIL 1H 2016

Adding that they viewed the Dollar as "moderately overvalued" and any more appreciation would be "harmful," it seems global disinflationary pressures have left the IMF no choice but to say publicly what everyone has uttered under their breath. Now Yellen is really cornered.. and just exactly how are the talking heads going to spin this as positive? ... Read more

Glacier Loss Raises High Concern Over Water Supplies
TruthDig | Tim Radford | 06/03/15

The glaciers of the Everest region of the Himalayan massif--home to the highest peak of all--could lose between 70% and 99% of their volume as a result of global warming.

Asia's mountain ranges contain the greatest thickness of ice beyond the polar regions. But new research predicts that, by 2100, the world's highest waters--on which billions of people depend for their water supply--could be at their lowest ebb because of the ice loss. Many of the continent's great rivers begin up in the snows, fed by melting ice in high-peak regions such as the Hindu Kush, the Pamir and the Himalayas. ... Read more

Why Do So Many Obvious Losers Think They Can Be President?
MotherJones | Kevin Drum | 06/03/15

My body is continuing its revolt against all things good and true, so my mental acuity is scattered at best. But here's something I've wanted to get out of my brain and onto pixels for a while. It's based on nothing at all except my personal opinion. It's not based on polls, nor anything the candidates have said, nor any detailed analysis of which blocs of voters each one will appeal to. It's just my gut feeling. So here it is: my ranking of the 2016 Republican presidential field: ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, June 04 [7:02]

Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Learns How Muslims Can Be Less Scary And More American (06/04/15) [4:19]

Jon Stewart | Jon Stewart Reminded Caitlyn Jenner Why Being Herself Is Wonderful But Being A Woman Can Suck (06/03/15) [3:48]

*TRNN | Christian Appy: The Vietnam Syndrome and the Project for a New American Century, Part 5 (06/04/15) [14:03]

Untold History of United States by Oliver Stone
*Untold History of United States - Bush & Obama: Age of Terror, Part 10 () [59:00]
MORE Untold History Of The United States

*TYT | Man Exercises Open-Carry Rights By Carrying Loaded Assault Rifle In Airport (06/03/15) [5:25]

TYT | Horrific Depths Of CIA Torture Exposed (06/03/15) [9:07]

TYT | U.S. Finally Respected Again And Fox News Can't Stand It (06/03/15) [7:08]

RT | CrossTalk: Russia's Economy, What Crisis? (06/03/15) [24:31]

Dick Cheney and Daughter Push Hawkish Stances for G.O.P. Hopefuls
NYTimes | Jonathan Martin | 06/02/15

The rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East has pushed Republicans toward embracing a more interventionist foreign policy, and now one prominent Republican family wants to be sure the party stays that way.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney are planning to make their presence felt in the 2016 presidential campaign through their advocacy group, Alliance for a Strong America. ... Read more

As Hope Lifts Athens Stocks, German Vice Chancelleor Warns Of "Gigantic Consequences" If Greek Talks Fail
ZeroHedge | author | 06/03/15

Despite all the reassurances by various leaders that any Grexit or Greek bankruptcy would be 'contained', Sigmar Gabriel - vice-chancellor and economic minister of Germany's SPD party - unleashed some uncomfortable truthiness yesterday. With Greek stocks up almost 5% today as hope springs eternal, Gabriel warned of nothing less than "gigantic consequences" for Europe in case of a Greek bankruptcy. ... Read more

One Small Step For NSA Reform, One Giant Leap For Congress
firstlook.org/theintercept | Dan Froomkin | 06/02/15

Exactly two years after journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras traveled to Hong Kong to meet an NSA whistleblower named Edward Snowden, Congress has finally brought itself to reform one surveillance program out of the multitude he revealed -- a program so blatantly out of line that its end was a foregone conclusion as soon as it was exposed.

The USA Freedom Act passed the House in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote three weeks ago. After hardliner Republicans lost a prolonged game of legislative chicken, the Senate gave its approval Tuesday afternoon as well, by a 67 to 32 margin. The bill officially ends 14 years of unprecedented bulk collection of domestic phone records by the NSA, replacing it with a program that requires the government to make specific requests to the phone companies. ... Read more

The Forgotten Pentagon Papers Conspirator
MotherJones | Barbara Myers | 06/02/15

The witness reported men being hung by the feet or the thumbs, waterboarded, given electric shocks to the genitals, and suffering from extended solitary confinement in what he said were indescribably inhumane conditions. It's the sort of description that might have come right out of the executive summary of the Senate torture report released last December. In this case, however, the testimony was not about a "black site" somewhere in the Greater Middle East, nor was it a description from Abu Ghraib, nor in fact from this century at all.

The testimony came from Vietnam; the year was 1968; the witness was Anthony J. Russo, one of the first Americans to report on the systematic torture of enemy combatants by CIA operatives and other US agents in that long-gone war. The acts Russo described became commonplace in the news post-9/11 and he would prove to be an early example of what also became commonplace in our century: a whistleblower who found himself on the wrong side of the law and so was prosecuted for releasing the secret truth about the acts of our government. ... Read more

9 Outrageous Ways the Rich Spend Their Money the Rest Of Us Could Only Dream About
AlterNet | Kali Holloway | 05/30/15

"Rich People--They're Just Like Us!" tabloid magazines assure us, and that's true, at the mitochondrial level. Otherwise, F. Scott Fitzgerald got it right the first time: Rich people are not like the rest of us, and they've put a lot of stopgaps in place to make sure it stays that way. I don't even mean the way they own 43 percent of the country's wealth domestically and more than 40 percent globally, or how they control the political process, or even how they've managed to jigger the justice system so they can literally get away with murder ...

Elizabeth Warren Has Had It With The SEC's Aid To Wall Street Lawbreakers
HP | Zach Carter | 06/02/15

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White on Tuesday, criticizing White's leadership as "extremely disappointing," and accusing the regulator of "misleading" her about a rule on CEO pay.

"You have now been SEC Chair for over two years, and to date, your leadership of the Commission has been extremely disappointing," Warren wrote. "I am disappointed by the significant gap between the promises you made during and shortly after your confirmation and your performance as SEC Chair." ... Read more

This Is The Hourly Wage You Need To Afford A 2-Bedroom Apartment Around The U.S.
HP | Carly Ledbetter | 06/01/15

The National Low Income Housing Coalition released its annual housing report "Out of Reach" earlier this month. The organization calculated the hourly wage a resident would need to earn to afford a moderate, two-bedroom apartment -- and the outlook is grim. The report found that a person earning minimum wage in each state cannot afford to spend only 30 percent of income on such an apartment in the U.S. Out of Reach found that the average hourly wage needed to rent a $1,006 two-bedroom unit in the United States is $19.35 -- or $40,240 per year. That's more than two and a half times the federal minimum wage, the report noted, and $4 over the estimated average wage of $15.16 that renters earn nationwide. ... Read more
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Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master
ZeroHedge | author | 06/02/15

Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine. In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine," expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, "with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force," and finally explained Poroshenko's "first priority must be to regain control of financial markets," which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding "I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement." ... Read more

Jon Stewart | Patriot Act and an NSA 'Emergency' (06/02/15) [6:09]

Jon Stewart | Retired Army general Stanley McChrystal talks about adapting to military and regional instability in the Middle East (06/01/15) [7:21]

Challenging Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Gains Momentum in Iowa
NYTimes | Trip Gabriel | 05/31/15

A mere 240 people live in the rural northeast Iowa town of Kensett, so when more than 300 crowded into the community center on Saturday night to hear Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, many driving 50 miles, the cellphones of Democratic leaders statewide began to buzz.

Kurt Meyer, the county party chairman who organized the event, sent a text message to Troy Price, the Iowa political director for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Price called back immediately. "Objects in your rearview mirror are closer than they appear," Mr. Meyer said he had told Mr. Price about Mr. Sanders. "Mrs. Clinton had better get out here." ... Read more

Seven Years Later, Wall Street Hasn't Learned Anything
TheAtlantic | Bourree Lam | 05//15

It's been said many times, in many places, even well before the Great Recession: The culture on Wall Street is terrible. It encourages bad behavior. More recently, there are concerns that the Wall Street that caused the financial crisis is back.

A new report by The University of Notre Dame, commissioned by the law firm Labaton Sucharow, which represents whistleblowers, has some alarming numbers to add to this well-trodden narrative. The report surveyed more than 1,200 people in the financial-services industry--account executives, wealth advisors, financial analysts, investment bankers, operations managers, and portfolio managers--in both the U.S. and the U.K. ...

Wall Street Is Using the Power of Dodd-Frank Against Itself
NYTimes | author | 05/27/15

Regulating Wall Street is an Old Testament sort of affair: Like Leviticus, it is all about the persnickety details. But politicians try to talk about it in New Testament terms, with sinners and saints, salvation and damnation. Only they can't agree on who the sinners are -- the bankers or the bureaucrats -- and wherein lies salvation. Such moralizing, however, does very little to shine light on the benefits and drawbacks of the byzantine 2010 banking regulations known as Dodd-­Frank.

Dodd-­Frank is a sprawling piece of legislation, divided into 16 sections that together represent the most drastic change in financial regulation since the Great Depression. The law created multiple government bodies tasked with monitoring and intervening in financial markets. In the event of crisis, it stipulates new ways to dissolve large banks without requiring government bailouts. The law also created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, increases the regulation of hedge funds and does several thousand other things, big and small. ... Read more