Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

6 Ways to Get Big Money Out of Politics
http://www.StampStampede.org

HP | Ben Cohen | 03/31/15

With the Oval Office at stake, the final price tag on next year's election will be sky high. It's predicted to total $5 billion. Politicians are talking to funders over constituents, listening to Big Money over voters. It's no wonder that for years the interests of regular Americans have been collecting dust in the halls of Washington. Our government should be representing the will of the people, not the will of a few billionaires. It's time we unite and wield the collective influence of people-power in order to unshackle our politicians from Big Money's venomous grip. This movement is about grassroots action; here are six ways you can help fight back.

Former Fed Governor Admits Market Controlling The Fed Is A "Very Dangerous Development"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/31/15

Someone is not getting invited back on CNBC... Read more

Former Fed Governor Admits Market Controlling The Fed Is A "Very Dangerous Development" (03/31/15) [8:20]

How The Fed Has Failed The Nation (In One Chart)
ZeroHedge | author | 03/31/15

The supposed goal of the Fed's zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) and quantitative easing (QE) was to make borrowing easier for both corporations and consumers, the idea being companies would borrow to invest in new productive capacity and consumers would buy the new goods and services being produced with cheap credit.

The secondary publicly stated goal was to spark a rally in stocks, bonds and real estate that would spark a wealth effect: as households saw their net worth rise, they would feel wealthier and thus more likely to buy goods and services they didn't need on credit. ...

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

*DailyTicker | Pentagon Can't Find 8.3 Trillion Dollars [5:30]

Mike Maloney | Hidden Secrets of Money (How Money is Made) (10/15/13) [29:34]

Why on Earth Did the Feds Approve a High-Pressure Gas Pipeline Near a Nuke Plant?
AlterNet | author | 03/27/15

... The primary pipeline safety risk is ruptures. When a gas pipeline ruptured in San Bruno, California in 2010, it leveled a Bay Area neighborhood and killed eight people, incurring $1.4 billion in damages. The San Bruno pipeline was much smaller and carried less gas at a lower pressure than the proposed Spectra pipeline in Westchester County. ...

... At Indian Point, NY, neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nor FERC will require electronic safety features to automatically shut down the pipeline in the event of leaks, ruptures or explosions. Instead, Spectra, the pipeline company, will monitor the pipeline from Houston, with the promise that "upon viewing a drop in pressure within the distant pipeline, the Houston employees could close safety valves within three minutes." ...

... How near would a rupture-triggered fire be to nuclear plan structures? Paul Blanch, the nuclear safety expert, explained, "we have the gas turbine fuel oil tanks that are located in a very close proximity to the pipeline. They hold hundreds, maybe millions of gallons of burning jet fuel oil which would ignite and flow downhill into safety-related structures, including the switchyard, transformers, as well as vital tanks that are used for cooling which are in the high-heat flux and blast radius." ... Read more

7 Laws of Personal Power That Exponentially Elevate Quality of Life
HP | Sherrie Campbell, PhD | 03/30/15

To exponentially elevate the quality of your life commit to removing your fearful thoughts, acts of timidity, and the need to be the same as everyone else to feel a sense of belonging. Have the courage to live by higher standards and never apologize for them. Trust that the people who want to be in your life will rise to meet you at your highest expectations. ...

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

How the American War Machine Is Sucking Up Vast Amounts of Cash to Screw Up the World
AlterNet | William Hartung | 03/26/15

President Obama and Senator John McCain, who have clashed on almost every conceivable issue, do agree on one thing: the Pentagon needs more money. Obama wants to raise the Pentagon's budget for fiscal year 2016 by $35 billion more than the caps that exist under current law allow. McCain wants to see Obama his $35 billion and raise him $17 billion more. Last week, the House and Senate Budget Committees attempted to meet Obama's demands by pressing to pour tens of billions of additional dollars into the uncapped supplemental war budget. Read more
Daily Ticker | Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For (2014) [5:32]

Senator Harry Reid Announces Retirement
HP | author | 03/27/15

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will not seek re-election, he said in an interview with The New York Times published Friday. Reid has led the Senate Democrats since 2005. In a video posted Friday morning, Reid thanked his constituents for allowing him to serve the state of Nevada. My life's work has been to make Nevada and our nation better. Thank you for giving me that wonderful opportunity ... Read more

Senate Passes GOP Budget After Late-Night Debate
HP | author | 03/27/15

The Senate early Friday passed a Republican budget plan that would cut spending by $5.1 trillion over 10 years, raise military funding and repeal Obamacare. The non-binding budget, debated all week and passed 52-46 during a 15-hour marathon session before the Easter recess, gives Republicans another crack at repealing the Affordable Care Act, probably through a process known as reconciliation, and increases defense spending while slashing funds in other areas, including education and health care ... Read more

It's Official: Americans Spent All Their "Gas Savings" On Obamacare
ZeroHedge | author | 03/27/15

Unmasked the two great mysteries of the US economy in recent history: the first being why there is no wage growth, which is because all the wage growth was going to the 20% of the workforce that is supervisors and bosses. For everyone else: sorry... ... and now we have solved the mystery of why US households did not spend all those billions in "dropping gas price" windfalls - the answer is that they did spend all this money. Read more
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US CEO-Worker Pay Gap Is Widest In Developed World
ZeroHedge | author | 03/26/15

The CEOs of 350 Standard & Poor's 500 companies made 331 times more than their employees in 2013, up from a ratio of 46-to-1 in 1983, according to the AFL-CIO. That's more than twice the gap in Switzerland and Germany, and about 10 times bigger than in Austria. In Japan, CEOs make about 67 times more than workers (although the country's highest-paid woman earns only 25 times more). ... Read more

Why Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren Can Beat Any Republican, Including Walker, Bush, Paul and Cruz
HP | H. A. Goodman | 03/26/15

Rising stars in the Democratic Party like Tim Kaine, Jim Webb and especially Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren are all formidable candidates, despite the fact that one liberal icon has amassed $328,755,858 and owns her own server. If Republicans can be proud of the fact that Ted Cruz would "most likely" be able to serve as president, Democrats should trumpet the plethora of talent within their ranks. The truth is that presidential elections are decided by electoral votes, not the soap opera we'll all witness for the next 593 days. To win the White House a candidate needs 270 electoral votes; far fewer than the 332 votes Obama won in 2012 to beat Romney. Martin O'Malley and Elizabeth Warren can defeat anyone Republicans have to offer in 2016, primarily because they possess ideas and attributes that resonate with the majority of Americans. ... Read more

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh Explains How Muslim Women Are 'Spoken Over By The Public' And Their Voices 'Ignored'
HP | Rahel Gebreyes | 03/25/15

When it comes to discussions of how Islam affects the lives of the women who practice it, Western media often insists on speaking for them. But Muslim women are perfectly willing and able to lend their own voices to the issues that affect their lives.

From conversations about headscarves to how religious teachings regard women, we are rarely given the chance to hear the perspectives of Muslim women themselves. And as Muslim.Girl.net CEO Amani Al-Khatahtbeh explains in a HuffPost Live interview on Tuesday, Muslim women have long fought the exclusion. ... Read more

PHOTOS: 'Trash Mountain' Rises Up In Mumbai As City Runs Out Of Space For Its Own Waste
HP | Nick Visser | 03/26/15

Surprise! Another Christian Terrorist
Daily Beast | Dean Obeidallah | 03/24/15

Well, last Friday night, this exact event took place at the New Orleans airport--that is, except for one factual difference: The attacker was not Muslim. Consequently, you might be reading about this brazen assault for the first time here, although this incident did receive a smattering of media coverage over the weekend.

The man who commited this attack was Richard White, a 63-year-old former Army serviceman who has long been retired and living on Social Security and disability checks. He was reportedly a devout Jehovah's Witness. ... Read more

Middle East Proxy War: Presenting The Massive "Decisive Storm" Coalition
ZeroHEdge | author | 03/26/15

The biggest news of the day is the start of the second proxy war in the past year (the first one of course being the Ukraine civil war which is just a chess game between the west, mostly the US with Europe as a reluctant second fiddle, and the Kremlin) overnight in Yemen, where as we reported yesterday a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US has launched an airborne assault on Yemen's Houthi rebels at the request of the self-exiled government (at last check Yemen's president was in Oman), which confronts the Suuni states led by Saudi Arabia, against the mostly Shiite militia, which has the broad support of Iran. ... Read more
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Armed With US Weapons, Yemen Rebels Advance On President As Saudi Arabia Prepares For War
ZeroHedge | author | 03/25/15

Previously we reported that in the latest "coup" for US foreign policy, the US had "lost" over $500 million in weapons in Yemen, until recently an Obama administration foreign policy "success story", following the abrupt evacuation of the US embassy there, all of which ended up in local rebel and al-Qaeda hands. ... Read more
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Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show' Segment Leads To Huge Change For Veterans
HP | Ed Mazza | 03/25/15

"The Daily Show" has just made a huge difference in the lives of veterans, helping many gain access to a program they were unfairly kept from using.

The Choice Program, which was put in place to speed access to medical care after it was revealed that some patients had been waiting months for treatment, allows veterans who live far from VA facilities to get out-of-network care closer to home. ... Read more
*Jon Stewart |The Department of Veteran Affairs launches an initiative to better provide health care to veterans, but the results are mixed at best. (03/23/15) [7:38]

Exposing America's Billionaire Welfare Ranchers
AlterNet | Vickery Eckhoff | 03/24/15

Americans love ranchers: Gritty ranchers, mom-and-pop ranchers, renegade ranchers -- especially those who raise livestock on the vast open prairies of the West through a mixture of hard work and rugged independence. But there's another side to the ever-popular rancher mythology-- a side the media doesn't cover and the public never sees. The Koch brothers, Ted Turner, the Hilton family and nine other powerful ranchers share an uncommon privilege: giant public subsidies, unknown to U.S. taxpayers.

The .01 percenters. They are the nation's biggest welfare ranchers, according to numerous environmental and policy groups; and it's time they brought some attention to themselves, and the federal grazing program they're exploiting to waste as much as $1 billion a year of taxpayer money while causing long-term damage to one of the public's most treasured assets. ...

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, March 25 [7:57]

*DN | My Lai Revisited: 47 Years Later, Seymour Hersh Travels to Vietnam Site of U.S. Massacre He Exposed (03/25/15) [11:47]

TRNN | Mark Weisbrot says: What is Behind the Collapse of the Centre Left Parties in Europe? (03/25/15) [10:09]

TYT | Traitor Senators Used Israeli Spies Against Their Own Country (03/24/15) [12:00]

TYT | George Zimmerman Whines He Was Victim, Blames Obama (03/24/15) [6:47]

TYT | Religion In The Military. (03/24/15) [3:42]

*RT | CrossTalk: China Banks It (03/25/15) [24:20]

Chris Hayes | Ted Cruz is in! The first-term Texas senator is the first major candidate to formally enter the presidential race -- and potentially a big headache for the Republican Party. (03/24/15) [11:11]

7 More Netflix Hacks Every Binge-Watcher Needs To Know
HP | Bill Bradley | 03/21/15

Netflix is well on its way to turning everybody in the world into binge-watching homebodies. But really, who cares? Life is just all that inconvenient stuff that happens in between "Breaking Bad" marathons. With the announcement of the premiere dates for "Orange is the New Black" and "Wet Hot American Summer," it's clear the indent you're making in the couch is about to get a little more permanent. ... Read more

Meet Ted Cruz's Karl Rove: "He Leaves a Path of Destruction"
MotherJones | Pema Levy | 03/24/15

It was no surprise on Monday when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) formally announced his presidential bid. By last summer, he was making key hires for his campaign crew. And this included recruiting a controversial Missouri-based political operative named Jeff Roe, who is known for his ruthless, bare-knuckled style and who has recently been in the news due to a tragic death. ... Read more

George Soros Warns Greece "Is Going Down The Drain"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/24/15

"Right now we are at the cusp," billionaire George Soros tells Bloomberg TV in this brief clip, the chances of Greece leaving the euro area are now 50-50 and the country could go "down the drain." The 84-year-old fears that talks between Greece and 'the institutions' could "break down," adding that "Greece is a long-festering problem that was mishandled from the beginning by all parties," concluding that the chances of Greece leaving the euro area are now 50-50 and the country could go "down the drain." Finally, Soros notes, what worries him the most is Ukraine. ... Read more
Bloomberg | Soros: Greece Is Going Down the Drain (03/24/15) [2:20]

Scientists: Ted Cruz's Climate Theories Are a "Load of Claptrap"
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | 03/18/15

... There's also a big underlying flaw with Cruz's cherry-picked timespan of 17 years, which almost any climate scientist would agree is far too short to observe any meaningful trend. 1998, the year Cruz starts with, was itself exceptionally warm thanks to the biggest El Nino event of the 20th century. If that's your starting place, the warming trend does indeed look weak. But look over a longer time period, and it's obvious that very warm years are more common now than before. ... Read more
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PHOTOS : Hypnotic Northern Lights Time-Lapse Captured Over 2 Magical Nights in Alaska
HP | DL Cade | 03/23/15

The Northern Lights -- or Aurora Borealis, or Polar Spirits, or whatever you'd like to call it -- is far up my bucket list. Like really far up. So far up I often have dreams of standing in the middle of a frozen landscape, completely alone, looking up at this celestial display, awestruck. ... Read more
Hypnotic Northern Lights Time-Lapse Captured Over 2 Magical Nights in Alaska (03/23/15) [3:06]

Short-Term Gains & Long-Term Disaster
ZeroHedge | author | 03/24/15

It's time for the Japanese to get seriously scared now. Like many other countries, Japan -- and its political class -- creates a false image of enduring prosperity by letting its central bank increasingly buy up ever more of its sovereign bonds. It's a total sleight of hand, there is nothing left that's real. There's no there there. This is of course the same as what happens in Europe. And it's precisely because central banks buy up all these bonds, that their yields scrape the gutter. It's a blueprint for killing off the last bit of actual functionality in an economy. ... Read more

Many Fears Stalk the Aging As Safety Nets Shrink; Media Stereotypes Miss the Full Story
AlterNet | Steven Rosenfeld | 03/19/15

This week, I told one verbose middle-aged friend who called that his college roommate has been taking care of his wife's 91-year-old mother at his home, which silenced him. His ex-roommate, an accountant, was stunned when told by a local nursing home "to bring her in and we'll figure out the finances later." They charge $10,000 a month. ... Read more

Ted Cruz Announces He's Running For President In 2016
HP | Samantha Lachman | 03/23/15

Cruz will make a formal announcement Monday at Liberty University in Virginia. Cruz is the first high profile candidate to officially declare that he is running for president and will forego an exploratory committee. ... Read more
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Who Left the Crash Window Open?
ZeroHedge | author | 03/23/15

Given that we live in a world where a modest 3% decline in the stock market triggers panicky demands for more quantitative easing (QE 4), few observers expect much a correction, regardless of the souring fundamentals such as sales and profits. Interesting article, lots of Graphs ... Read more

Companies Profiting the Most From War
247wallst.com/ | Thomas C. Frohlich | 03/18/15

Worldwide military expenditure shrunk in 2013 for the second consecutive year, falling by 1.9% to $1.75 trillion. The 100 largest arms-producers sold a combined $402 billion worth of arms and military services in 2013, also down -- for the third consecutive year.

However, not all countries are spending less. Military spending in North America and in Western and Central European countries has continued to decline, while other countries such as Brazil and Russia have increased their arms investments. ...

7 More Netflix Hacks Every Binge-Watcher Needs To Know
HP | Bill Bradley | 03/21/15

Netflix is well on its way to turning everybody in the world into binge-watching homebodies. But really, who cares? Life is just all that inconvenient stuff that happens in between "Breaking Bad" marathons. With the announcement of the premiere dates for "Orange is the New Black" and "Wet Hot American Summer," it's clear the indent you're making in the couch is about to get a little more permanent. ... Read more

Rapacious Companies Go After Defenseless People in Debt
AlterNet | Jim Hightower | 03/14/15

Debt firms routinely file thousands of lawsuits a day against financially devastated Americans. They know that most debtors can't understand the legal gibberish filed against them, can't afford a lawyer, can't take time off to go to a court hearing and can't mount an effective defense against the corporate lawyers. So, some 95 percent of these lawsuits produce default judgments against hapless borrowers -- meaning debt buyers can then confiscate the wages of borrowers or freeze their bank accounts. ... Read more

The Central Banks Will Not Be Able to Control This
ZeroHedge | author | 03/19/15

The biggest issue facing the finacial system today is the US Dollar rally. The Fed and other Central Banks are trying to maintain the illusion that they have everything in control by talking about interest rates, but the reality is that the US Dollar carry trade is ABOVE $9 trillion in size. That is almost as big as ALL of the money printing that occurred between 2009 and 2013.

Globally, the world is awash in borrowed money... most of it in US Dollars. The US Dollar carry trade is north of $9 trillion... literally than the economies of Germany and Japan COMBINED. When you BORROW in US Dollars you are effectively SHORTING the US Dollar. So when the US Dollar rallies... you have to cover your SHORT or you blow up. ... Read more
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When The World's Reserve Currency Flash Crashed: "I Haven't Seen Anything Like It Since The Financial Crisis'
ZeroHedge | author | 03/20/15

On Wednesday afternoon, just after the close of the market, the US Dollar, the world's reserve currency flash crashed. "I haven't seen anything like it since the financial crisis," said Paul Lambert, head of currency at Insight Investment, which manages $480 billion of assets. For a few minutes on Wednesday, the lack of dollar buyers caused a short-term freeze in electronic trading platforms, according to a New York-based trader at a major currency-dealing bank. "There was a lot of shouting on the desk, a lot of nervousness," the trader said. ... Read more

Petraeus: The Islamic State isn't our biggest problem in Iraq
Washington Post | Liz Sly | 03/20/15

General David Petraeus, who commanded U.S. troops during the 2007-2008 surge, was back in Iraq last week for the first time in more than three years. He was attending the annual Sulaimani Forum, a get-together of Iraqi leaders, thinkers and academics, at the American University of Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region.

In his most expansive comments yet on the latest crisis in Iraq and Syria, he answered written questions from The Post's Liz Sly, offering insights into the mistakes, the prosecution and the prospects of the war against the Islamic State, which he refers to by its Arabic acronym, Daesh. ... Read more

McConnell Urges States to Help Thwart Obama's 'War on Coal'
NYTimes | Coral Davenport | 03/19/15

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has begun an aggressive campaign to block President Obama's climate change agenda in statehouses and courtrooms across the country, arenas far beyond Mr. McConnell's official reach and authority.

The campaign of Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is aimed at stopping a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring states to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. ... Read more

Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low Winter Maximum, Points To Evidence Of Long-Term Climate Change
Reuters & HP | author | 03/19/15

Arctic sea ice this year is the smallest in winter since satellite records began in 1979, in a new sign of long-term climate change, U.S. data showed on Thursday. The ice floating on the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole reached its maximum annual extent of just 14.54 million square kms (5.61 million sq miles) on Feb. 25 - slightly bigger than Canada - and is now expected to shrink with a spring thaw.

"This year's maximum ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record, with below-average ice conditions everywhere except in the Labrador Sea and Davis Strait," the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said in a statement. A late season surge in ice was still possible, it said. The ice was 1.1 million sq kms smaller than the 1981-2010 average, and below the previous lowest maximum in 2011. ... Read more

Battle Between House GOP Factions Prompts Budget Vote Delay
AP & HP | author | date

The failure of the GOP-led committee to approve its budget blueprint as scheduled was unprecedented in recent memory and could delay floor debate into April. Republicans, in charge in both the House and Senate now, are determined to prove they could govern after the humiliating defeat over homeland security funds and immigration.

Several conservatives on the budget panel appeared out of synch with GOP leaders seeking to mollify defense hawks. Several conservative hard-liners had opposed the election of John Boehner, R-Ohio, as Speaker.

In the Senate, two Republican defense hawks were joining House rebels in trying to rewrite the party's budget plans to add tens of billions of dollars to ease deficit-driven cuts to the military. ... Read more

De-Dollarization Accelerates As More Of Washington's "Allies" Defect To China-Led Bank
ZeroHedge | author | 03/19/15

"Ignoring direct pleas from the Obama administration, Europe's biggest economies have declared their desire to become founding members of a new Chinese-led Asian investment bank that the United States views as a rival to the World Bank and other institutions set up at the height of American power after World War II," The Times notes, in yet another indication of declining US influence. ... Read more

You Think You're An Investor? I Think Not
ZeroHedge | author | 03/19/15

Having a rigged, distorted system that fakes being a market and makes a bunch of grifters a lot of money, is not how you build a functioning society. One might conclude, when looking at the excessive attention 'everyone' paid yet again today to Janet Yellen and the Fed, waiting breathlessly to see if she utters the word 'patience', that those people who call themselves 'investors' are not even grifters, they're nothing but yet another group of lazy bums waiting for government -- and/or central bank -- hand-outs. Read more

Heartbreaking Photos and Tragic Tales of San Francisco's Homeless (PHOTOS)
MotherJones | Gabrielle Canon | older, 02/17/15

Psychiatrist Robert Okin spent years getting to know the city's street people. Now he's sharing their stories.

Jeff's is one of the many stories of homelessness chronicled in Robert Okin's new book Silent Voices. As a psychiatrist who has served as the Commissioner at the Department of Mental Health in both Massachusetts and Vermont, a professor emeritus at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, and former Chief of Service in the San Francisco General Hospital's Department of Psychiatry, Okin has worked with homeless patients throughout his career. ... Read more

Here's What Will Happen If Antarctica Melts
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | older, 03/06/15

When we talk about global warming at the poles, the Arctic tends to get more press than the Antarctic, because it's happening faster there than anywhere else on Earth. But Antarctica is still a juggernaut. As ice sheets there collapse--a process some scientists now see as irreversible--global sea level could rise 10 feet.

Tonight, our friends at VICE will kick off their third season of documentaries on HBO, and they're headed to Antarctica to get a close-up look at the potentially catastrophic changes underway there. ... Read more
HBO | Vice: Our Rising Oceans S03, E01 (03/11/15) [1:01]
***HBO Vice | Our Rising Oceans S03,E01 (full) (03/11/15) [42:09]

Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party Wins Israeli Election
HP | Jade Walker | 03/18/15

The Likud Party, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has defied expectations and emerged as the winner in Tuesday's parliamentary elections, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Isaac Herzog, Israel's opposition leader, contacted Netanyahu on Wednesday to concede, Reuters reported. The final results, as reported by Haaretz, showed Likud won 30 seats while the Zionist Union came in second with 24 seats. ... Read more

*House Republican budget: There's a mysterious $1.1 trillion in spending cuts in the House GOP's budget
Washington Post | Max Ehrenfreund | 03/17/15

"They have a magic asterisk," Hoyer said. ... ... Hoyer was apparently not referring to an actual asterisk, but to a row of figures with the innocuous label "Other Mandatory" in one of several tables at the back of the document. The numbers show that Republicans are planning to save $1.1 trillion over 10 years by reducing outlays for mandatory spending other than on health care and Social Security, a drastic reduction for that category as compared to current policy.

It was not immediately clear where the savings would come from, but they're necessary in order for the budget to balance within a decade, as Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said it would. The large reduction in this category is crucial for attaining the budget's $5.5 trillion of overall savings, which the document stated could be achieved "without gimmicks or creative accounting tricks" or "sudden and arbitrary cuts to current services." House Republicans hope to reach those goals while increasing spending on the military and without raising taxes. ... Read more

CBS | Donald Rumsfeld Admits Day before 911 "2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD" () [2:54]

Daily Ticker | Find the $8.5 Trillion the Pentagon Can't Account For (2014) [5:32]

Here's What Will Happen If Antarctica Melts
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | older, 03/06/15

When we talk about global warming at the poles, the Arctic tends to get more press than the Antarctic, because it's happening faster there than anywhere else on Earth. But Antarctica is still a juggernaut. As ice sheets there collapse--a process some scientists now see as irreversible--global sea level could rise 10 feet.

Tonight, our friends at VICE will kick off their third season of documentaries on HBO, and they're headed to Antarctica to get a close-up look at the potentially catastrophic changes underway there. ... Read more
HBO | Vice: Our Rising Oceans S03, E01 (03/11/15) [1:01]

GAO: U.S. Government Gave Away $125 Billion In Questionable Benefits Last Year
AP & HP | Stephen Ohlemacher | 03/17/15

While the errors were spread among 22 federal agencies, three programs stood out: Medicare, Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Together, the three programs accounted for more than $93 billion in improper payments.

Federal Spending - Budget
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Defense Spending

Plan B? Major European "Allies" Desert Obama, Join China-led Infrastructure Bank
ZeroHedge | author | 03/17/15

It appears the sea of de-dollarization has reached the shores of Europe. With Australia and UK having already moved in the direction of joining the China-led AIIB, The FT reports that France, Germany, and Italy have now all agreed to join the development bank as 'pivot to Asia' appears to be Plan B for Europe. ...

... De-dollarization continues... As Simon Black recently concluded, now we can see words are turning into action. Our Allies might be too polite to tell the US straight up - "Look, you have $18.1 trillion in official debt, you have $42 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and you're kind of a dick. I'm dumping you." ... Read more

Treasury Secretary Lew Admits US "International Credibility & Influence Is Being Threatened"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/17/15

While we try to our patriotic duty every day, Jack Lew's comment that: U.S. ECONOMIC RECOVERY WELL ESTABLISHED, LEW SAYS was too much to bear... so we provide the following 3 charts for guidance in comprehending the propaganda. Why would he blatantly lie in the face of unequivocally bad data? Simple, they are desparate to spin US economic strength as the world comes to realize it no longer needs to rely on a unipolar US-based model... Read more

Immediately After Launching Effort to Scuttle Iran Deal, Senator Tom Cotton to Meet with Defense Contractors
firstlook.org/theintercept | Lee Fang | 03/09/15

Immediately After Launching Effort to Scuttle Iran Deal, Senator Tom Cotton to Meet with Defense Contractors. The NDIA is composed of executives from major military businesses such as Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, ManTech International, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense and Booz Allen Hamilton, among other firms.

Cotton strongly advocates higher defense spending and a more aggressive foreign policy. As The New Republic's David Ramsey noted, "Pick a topic -- Syria, Iran, Russia, ISIS, drones, NSA snooping -- and Cotton can be found at the hawkish outer edge of the debate ... During his senate campaign, he told a tele-townhall that ISIS and Mexican drug cartels joining forces to attack Arkansas was an 'urgent problem.'" ... Read more

10 Things Black People Fear That White People Don't
AlterNet | Terrell Jermaine Starr | 03/16/15

The following is the latest in a new series of articles on AlterNet called Fear in America that launched this March.

Biggest corporate political interests spend billions, get trillions
sunlightfoundation.com |Bill Allison | older, 11/17/14

Between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America's most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. A year-long analysis by the Sunlight Foundation suggests, however, that what they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion in federal business and support. ... Read more
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The Hidden Money Buying Condos at the Time Warner Center
NYTimes | author | older, 02/07/15

For more than a year, The New York Times examined the influx of global cash fueling the city's high-end real estate boom. The investigation pierced the secrecy of more than 200 shell companies that have owned condominiums at one complex, the Time Warner Center:

In Program to Spur Affordable Housing, $100 Million Penthouse Gets 95% Tax Cut
NYTimes | Charles V. Bagli | older, 02/01/15

The penthouse at One57, which offers panoramic views from 1,000 feet above 57th Street, recently sold for a record-setting $100.5 million.

But it is not the price that has grabbed the attention of housing advocates, policy analysts, developers and city officials. Rather, it is one of peculiarities of New York real estate: a billionaire's lair that comes with an incentive that cuts this year's property tax bill by 95 percent, or an estimated $360,000. ... Read more

When It Becomes Serious, First They Lie - When That Fails, They Arrest You
ZeroHedge | author | 03/16/15

"When it becomes serious, you have to lie." Jean-Claude Juncker simply gave voice to what the world's leaders practice on a daily basis, because now it's always serious.

And why is it now serious? Persuading tax donkeys and debt serfs (middle class) that everything is going their way is now impossible without lies. Persuading the populace that the leadership is working on their behalf was jettisoned in the wake of the 2008 bailout of bankers and parasites.

Stripped of the artifice that they care about anything other than preserving the wealth of their cronies, global political leaders now rely on propaganda: narratives designed to manage expectations and perceptions, bolstered by carefully tailored official statistics.

When 20% of the populace no longer believe the lies and begins questioning the state's enforcement of the status quo, the government devotes its resources to punishing dissenters, resisters and whistleblowers ... Read more

The New GOP Senator Tom Cotton
AlterNet | Medea Benjamin | 03/12/15

Hailing from Arkansas, 37-year-old Senator Cotton boasts the title of being the youngest member of the Senate, but he spouts the old warmongering rhetoric of 78-year-old Senator John McCain. From Guantanamo to Iran, food stamps to women's rights, here are ten reasons why Tom Cotton is a dangerous dude.

Parasite Turns On Parasite: HFT Sues Other HFTs For "Egregious Manipulation" Of Treasury Securities
ZeroHedge | author | 03/12/15

The beginning of the end of high frequency trading has arrived, and it has done so in a most unexpected fashion: with an HFT turning on other HFTs and revealing on the record, for the entire world to see, just how truly parasitic, manipulative and "market-rigging" the algorithms truly are.

Remember the massive Libor manipulation conspiracy, and what stumped the so-called experts, is how could something so vast, with so many moving pieces, remain a secret for as long as it did.

The answer is extremely simple: everyone who was in on the "secret" was also benefiting from it: from the lowliest Libor rigger to the CEO of Barclays and every other major bank, they all knew what was going on, but also knew that if the information became public knowledge, the jig would be up, and everyone's benefits would evaporate with some even going to jail (at least in a hypothetical legal system in which bankers actually go to jail). In other words, it was merely a case where everyone's interest was aligned to maintain the conspiracy cartel as long as possible.

Which brings us to High-Frequency Trading: another vast "conspiracy", this time involving market rigging and manipulation ... Read more
*CBS 60 Minutes | Wall Street: The High Speed Traders (older, but good) [13:36]

Flash Boys' Michael Lewis Warns "The Problem's Not Just HFT, The Problem Is The Entire System"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/13/15

As HFT shops begin to turn on each other, it seems appropriate to reflect on the impact that Michael Lewis' Flash Boys book had on exposing the ugly truth that many have been discussing for years in US (and international) equity (and non-equity) markets. As Lewis concludes, after explaining the attacks he has suffered from the HFT industry, "If I didn't do more to distinguish 'good' H.F.T. from 'bad' H.F.T., it was because I saw, early on, that there was no practical way for me or anyone else... to do it. ... The big banks and the exchanges [have] been paid to compromise investors' interests while pretending to guard those interests. I was surprised more people weren't angry with them." ... Read more

Michael Lewis Reflects on His Book Flash Boys, a Year After It Shook Wall Street to Its Core
Vanity Fair | Michael Lewis | 04//15

Flash Boys, the author's best-selling exposé of high-speed trading, made some of Wall Street's richest people very angry. Dissecting the reaction, he argues that the furor has obscured his book's real news.

When I sat down to write Flash Boys, in 2013, I didn't intend to see just how angry I could make the richest people on Wall Street. I was far more interested in the characters and the situation in which they found themselves. Led by an obscure 35-year-old trader at the Royal Bank of Canada named Brad Katsuyama, they were all well-regarded professionals in the U.S. stock market. ... Read more

What Happens To The Stock Market If The U.S. Follows The World Into Recession?
ZeroHedge | author | 03/13/15

Regardless of income, history shows that stocks crater when payrolls, industrial production and real final sales all tank. The current euphoria for stocks has several components: one is soaring corporate profits, and the other is quasi-religious faith in the power of central banks to keep stocks lofting higher in a complete disconnect from fundamentals such as sales, profits, production or payrolls. History is rather unkind to blind faith in central banks, just as the rising U.S. dollar and stagnant sales are being very unkind to corporate profits. ... Read more

What Americans Think Is The #1 US Problem
ZeroHedge | author | 03/12/15

While dissatisfaction with government is by no means a new issue to the American people, it has not in recent months been as clearly the leading problem as it is now, given that fewer Americans mention the economy. ... Read more

Are Alarm Bells Ringing Over Greece's Pivot To Russia?
ZeroHedge | author | 03/12/15

With German media asking "who is more dangerous for us? Greece or Russia," recent actions by both 'antagonists' in that question suggest they may become one and the same sooner than many expected. With tensions rising between Greece and the Eurogroup, recent and future visits to Russia have gained in importance since Russian FinMin confirmed that Moscow "could consider financial help to Greece." While this Russian pivot meme was the stuff of conspiracy theorists just weeks ago, The BBC is now asking directly, "could Europe lose Greece to Russia?" and with more Greeks positive on Russia (61%) than Europe (23%), it should not shock anyone. ... Read more

From Yellen Put To Yellen Massacre
ZeroHedge | author | 03/12/15

Yellen has created a narrative about the US economy, especially the (un)employment rate, and with the narrative is now firmly in place, Yellen and her stooges can claim they have no choice but to hike In short, Janet Yellen will go down into history as the person responsible for what may be the biggest economic crash ever, or at least delivering the final punch of the way into it, a crash that will make the rich banks even much richer. And there is not one iota of coincidence in there. Yellen works for those banks. The Fed only ever held investors' hands because that worked out well for Wall Street. And now that's over. Y'all are on the same side of the same trade, and there's no profit for Wall Street that way. ... Read more

3 Charts That Show Just How Much Wall Street Bonuses Swamp Low-Wage Worker Pay
AlterNet | Sarah Anderson | 03/11/15

New figures from the New York State Comptroller reveal that Wall Street banks handed out $28.5 billion in bonuses to their 167,800 employees last year. That's nearly double the combined annual earnings of the more than 1 million full-time U.S. minimum wage workers, according to a report I authored for the Institute for Policy Studies. ... Read more
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IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT!
HP | author | 03/11/15

Republicans, under fire for a letter signed by 47 senators to the leadership of Iran, said Tuesday that complaints about violating foreign policy convention should be leveled not at them, but at President Barack Obama.

GOP lawmakers spent much of Tuesday being pressed on why Senate party leadership went around the White House with an open letter warning Iran that any nuclear agreement may be undercut in the future by Congress or Obama's successor. ... Read more

The 3 Biggest Myths Blinding Us to the Economic Truth
magazine | Robert Reich | 03/10/15

Robert Reich | The 3 Biggest Myths Blinding Us to the Economic Truth (current) [2:35]

Republicans And Iran Deal Opponents Are Funded By The Same Mega-Donors
HP | Paul Blumenthal |03/10/15

... Now, many of these groups are promoting the latest effort to derail talks between the United States and Iran: a letter to Iran's ayatollahs, organized by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and signed by 46 other Republican senators, warning that Congress will not lift sanctions on Iran as part of any deal that Iran would accept. The letter further states that any such deal could be canceled by the next occupant of the White House.

The Israel Project is heavily promoting the senators' letter as part of an effort to move legislation in Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran and require the Obama administration to consult Congress on aspects of an Iranian nuclear deal, if one is reached. Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, called the letter an effort to promote a congressional role of "vigorous review, advice and consent" on a deal. Dubowitz has previously argued that any sanctions targeting Iran should aim for regime change instead of nonproliferation.

Cotton has received a great deal of support from the donors who fund these and other groups opposing an Iran deal. Singer and Klarman have given a combined $350,000 to the pro-Cotton super PAC Arkansas Horizon. Singer also gave $2.6 million to American Crossroads, $100,000 to B-PAC and $10,000 to John Bolton Super PAC, all of which spent money to support Cotton's Senate campaign last year. Klarman has directed $400,000 to American Crossroads. The Emergency Committee for Israel -- a nonprofit group, led by the neoconservative Bill Kristol, that opposes an Iran deal -- spent nearly $1 million to support Cotton in his election campaign. ... Read more

Worse Than The Cold War: 81% Of Russians Now View The US Negatively
ZeroHedge | author | 03/11/15

Russians view the United States much more unfavorably today than they did during the end of the Cold War era. As you will read about below, an astounding 81 percent of all Russians now view the United States negatively, and only 13 percent have a positive opinion of this country. In all of the years when Russians have been surveyed on their attitudes toward the U.S., they have never been this negative. But of course Americans generally do not view the Russian people unfavorably.

So why is this happening? Well, it all comes down to the actions of the Obama administration. The Russian people are convinced that U.S. organizations organized, funded and armed the rebels that violently overthrew the democratically-elected Ukrainian government. And once it was overthrown, the Obama administration immediately recognized the rebels as the legitimate government of Ukraine. And now most Russians are convinced that the U.S. government is trying to promote a similar revolution inside Russia. In recent years, the Russian people have become increasingly nationalistic, and at this point they view U.S. meddling in their affairs as a direct threat to their way of life. Even while most Americans are extremely apathetic about what is going on over in Russia, an increasingly large chunk of the Russian population is angry enough to go to war. Read more

Dear Treasury Secretary Lew: Here Is All You Need To Know About HFT
ZeroHedge | author | 03/10/15

About a decade after the arrival, and subsequent takeover of the market by high-frequency traders... 6 years after the start of our crusade to purge the capital markets of the 2nd worst scourge to capital allocation efficiency and fraud, the first being of course the central banks, and 5 years after the flash crash, we just realized that we, and all those others who caution every day against the threat that HFT poses every single day, have finally made an epic breakthrough. To wit:

Lew Says Government Trying To Understand High-Frequency Trading.

That's right: the US Treasury Secretary is finally trying to figure out what all this buying and selling and buying and selling (repeat that 1 million times in one second) is good for. Well... it was about time. ... Read more
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*CBS 60 Minutes | Wall Street: The High Speed Traders (older, but good) [13:36]

White House Studying "New Bankruptcy Options" For Student-Loan Borrowers
ZeroHedge | author | 03/10/15

The default risk from the $1 trillions in student loans is several orders of magnitude above the 9% student loans which the Fed has revealed as currently "in default", as one has to add those 12% of loans in deferment and 11% in forbearance to the entire risk pool. In short: a third of all student loans are likely to end up unrepaid!

And, the punchline: according to the TBAC's worst case scenario of the future of student debt, this gargantuan load will triple over the next decade, to as much as $3.3 trillion by 2024. ... Read more
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Elizabeth Warren wants to be the most powerful Democrat in America -- without running for president.
Politico | Glen Thrush | 03/15

Ask Elizabeth Warren for her first impression of Hillary Clinton, and she doesn't hesitate: She jolts forward to the edge of her seat, snaps her fingers and describes her as "quick!"

Clinton, of course, craves a more emphatic endorsement from Warren, hoping to bring the Democratic Party's rising populist firebrand into her 2016 fold as soon as possible. Last year, she praised the Massachusetts senator as "a passionate champion for working people" at a campaign event they both attended; Warren was noticeably cooler and barely even acknowledged Clinton in her remarks. And, in December, Clinton invited a still-noncommittal Warren to her mansion in Washington. (Warren politely but firmly suggested that Clinton needs to take a much tougher line on Wall Street.). ... Read more

Sony Is Making A Male 'Ghostbusters' Again Too
HP | Jessica Goodman | 03/09/15

Just as excitement over the all-female "Ghostbusters" starring Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig has settled, Sony made another announcement about the franchise: a second, "guy-themed" version is in the works, too.

Deadline.com reported that the studio has formed "Ghost Corps," a subsidiary with original "Ghostbusters" creatives Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd, to produce more "Ghostbusters" branding opportunities. The first project will be a new "Ghostbusters" film from Joe and Anthony Russo ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier"). Drew Pearce ("Iron Man 3") will write the script, and Channing Tatum and his partners Reid Carolin and Peter Kiernan will produce. According to Deadline.com, Sony is hopeful Tatum will star as well. ...

Republicans Warn Iran Against Nuclear Deal With Obama
Reuters & HP | author | 03/09/15

Republican senators warned Iran on Monday that any nuclear deal made with U.S. President Barack Obama could last only as long as he remains in office, in an unusual intervention into U.S. foreign policy-making.

The letter, signed by 46 U.S. senators, says Congress plays a role in ratifying international agreements and points out that Obama will leave office in January 2017, while many in Congress will remain in Washington long after that. "We will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei," the letter read. ... Read more

NRA Top Lobbyist: Obama Admin. Proposal To Ban Armor-Piercing Ammo Is Actually A Move Against Women
MediaMatters | Tim Johnson | 03/03/15

On February 13 the ATF published a letter describing its intent to ban the importation and manufacture of a type of armor-piercing ammunition commonly called "green tip" that is used in AR-15 and other "AR-type" assault weapons. Because the "green tip" round contains a steel penetrator, it is more powerful than some other types of ammunition used in such firearms, and its use is already banned at some shooting ranges, including the NRA's.

Chris Cox, the National Rifle Association's top lobbyist, falsely claimed that a recent move by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to ban a type of armor-piercing ammunition is motivated by animus towards women. In fact, the proposal aims to protect law enforcement officers. ... Read more

Earth's magnetic field can flip in less than 100 years, new study
TheWatchers | author | 10/15/14

It is known that Earth's magnetic field has flipped many times throughout the planet's history. Its dipole magnetic field remains about the same intensity for thousands to millions of years, but for incompletely known reasons it occasionally weakens (such is the case now) and, presumably over a few thousand years, reverses direction. A new study, however, shows that the final stage - a sudden 180-degree flip - can happen within a human lifetime.

The new study was done by a team of scientists from Italy, France and USA and it demonstrates that the last magnetic reversal of Earth's poles which happened some 786 000 years ago actually happened very quickly, in less than 100 years.

The discovery comes shortly after ESA's "Swarm" satellite array revealed that the intensity of Earth's magnetic field is decreasing 10 times faster than normal, decreasing in strength about 5 percent a decade rather than 5 percent a century. ... Read more

Pole shift | Earth Crustal Displacement
Wikipedia | author | current

The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis suggests that there have been geologically rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of the Earth, creating calamities such as floods and tectonic events.

There is evidence of precession and changes in axial tilt, but this change is on much longer time-scales and does not involve relative motion of the spin axis with respect to the planet. However, in what is known as true polar wander, the solid Earth can rotate with respect to a fixed spin axis. Research shows that during the last 200 million years a total true polar wander of some 30° has occurred, but that no super-rapid shifts in the Earth's pole were found during this period. A characteristic rate of true polar wander is 1° or less per million years. Between approximately 790 and 810 million years ago, when the supercontinent Rodinia existed, two geologically rapid phases of true polar wander may have occurred. In each of these, the magnetic poles of the Earth shifted by ~55°. ... Read more

Dating Methodologies in Archaeology
Wikipedia | author | current

Dating material drawn from the archaeological record can be made by a direct study of an artifact, or may be deduced by association with materials found in the context the item is drawn from or inferred by its point of discovery in the sequence relative to datable contexts. ...

Queen Rania: Let's Drop The First 'I' In ISIS. There's Nothing Islamic About Them
HP | Kathleen Miles | 03/06/15

Queen Rania of Jordan said Thursday evening that there is nothing Islamic about the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS. She was speaking with Huffington Post Editor-In-Chief Arianna Huffington as a part of The WorldPost Future of Work Conference. "I would love to drop the first 'I' in ISIS because there's nothing Islamic about them," Queen Rania said, prompting applause from the audience.

... "ISIS wants to be called Islamic … because any action against them will automatically be called a war against Islam, which is exactly what they want it to be," she said. "They want it to be the West coming against Islam because it will help them with their recruiting." ... Read more
HP | Queen Rania: Let's Drop The First 'I' In ISIS (03/06/15) [3:56]

The One Chart You Need To Predict The Future
ZeroHedge | author | 03/06/15

After 30 years of success, the endgame is finally here. We are witnessing a profound secular sea-change: the failure of expanding debt and leverage to lift the real economy of wages and household income. When push comes to shove therefore, you only need one chart to predict the future... Read more
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CPAC website

Sarah Palin bemuses Republicans with rambling speech and talk of 2016 run
theguardian.com | Jon Swaine | older, 01/28/15

The former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee revived speculation about her future over the weekend by twice telling reporters that she was interested in running for the White House next year, before addressing the Freedom Summit in Des Moines.

However, her disjointed 33-minute speech -- in which she described President Barack Obama as an "overgrown little boy who is acting kinda spoiled", and declared "the man can only ride you when your back is bent" -- received poor reviews even from some conservatives. ... Read more

Iowa Freedom Summit - Some of the Speakers
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Governor Scott Walker (R-WI), Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ), Governor Rick Perry (R-TX), former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), and others spoke at the 2015 Iowa Freedom Summit. The summit took place on January 24 at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, Iowa.
Iowa Freedom Summit (01/24/15) [9:18:52] (Note: Scroll down about 3/4" to video window. Start the video. Then use the Progressbar to scroll, back and forth, between speeches. Sarah Palin is at 07:18:00)

This Year's CPAC Speakers: Three Generations of Stupid
HP | Bob Cesca | 03/03/15

Sadly, the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference is over. And while none of the speakers used Super Big Gulps as props this year, the level of stupid reached all new depths. One speaker after another proved that far-right conservatives are more interested in thoughtless applause and bumper-sticker slogans than serious policymaking. For example, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson delivered a speech in which he talked about sexually transmitted diseases. ... Read more
CPAC 2015 | Sarah Palin Talks PTSD and Veterans (02/26/15) [20:40]

How a 25-Year-Old Sparked Lumber Liquidators' Stock Plunge
Bloomberg | Matt Townsend | 03/04/15

Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc.'s stock plunge over the past week, fueled by allegations of excessive formaldehyde in its flooring, can be traced back to a blog post from an obscure 25-year-old short seller.

Xuhua Zhou, who had dropped out of UCLA's doctoral program in finance and became an individual investor, took an interest in Lumber Liquidators about two years ago. After seeing a surge in the company's gross profit margin, Zhou learned that it sourced some products from China. That raised his suspicions that safety might have been skirted in pursuit of lower costs, he said in an interview. ... Read more

Jeb Bush Is Taking Foreign Policy Advice From These Influence Peddlers
HP | Paul Blumenthal | 03/05/15

The Chertoff Group boasts a rich and mostly secret client list of intelligence and security companies, as previously detailed by The Huffington Post, that benefit financially from the global war on terror through government contracts and policies. The founder of that firm now has the ear of potential White House candidate Jeb Bush.

The former two-term Florida governor has assembled a foreign policy advisory team laden with officials who served in his father's and brother's presidential administrations and have since spun through the revolving door into the world of influence peddling.

Besides Chertoff himself, they include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who works for the Chertoff Group, and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, retired Adm. Robert Natter and Tom Ridge, the first Homeland Security secretary -- the latter three all run their own consulting firms. All of these men also sit on the boards of companies ready to reap huge rewards from defense, intelligence and security contracts. ... Read more

Who Said It? "If You Take Out Saddam, I Guarantee It Will Have Enormous Positive Reverberations"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/05/15

In 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu already harbored some extremely strong convictions on how to deal with both Iran and Iraq - "If you take out Saddam's Regime, I guarantee you, that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." Fast forward nearly thirteen years, and rather than recognizing that this man's plan in Iraq only led to death, chaos, and the emergence of ISIS, Congress felt the need to ask him for advice once again. Since as we all know, being wrong in America doesn't lead to consequences, it leads to promotions. ... Read more

There really ARE more fish in the sea: Scientists find deep sea species untouched by fishing makes up 95% of all fish in the world
DailyMail | author | date

Scientists have vastly underestimated the number of fish in the sea - and say the majority of them have never been fished.

Australian researchers found that mesopelagic fish, which live between 100 and 1000m below the surface, constitute 95 per cent of the world's fish biomass and are untouched by fishing. ... Read more
Large mesopelagic fishes biomass and trophic efficiency in the open ocean .pdf (research)

The Global Problem: Monetary Policy Can't Fix An Economy's Structural Problems
ZeroHedge | author | 03/05/15

What with all the praise being heaped on central banks for "saving" the world from economic doomsday in 2008, it's only natural to ask which structural problems their unprecedented policies solved in the past 6 years. After all, "saving" the world from financial collapse was relatively quick work; so what problems beyond imminent implosion did the central banks policies solve in the past 6 years? Answer: none. zip, zero, nada. The truth is central bank policies of zero-interest rates and free money for financiers have made many structural problems worse. ... Read more

Netanyahu Visit Polarizes Americans
HP Poll | author | 03/02/15

NBC/WSJ FINDS DISAPPROVAL OF GOP'S NETANYAHU INVITATION - Mark Murray: "Nearly half of American voters -- 48 percent -- say that congressional Republicans should not have invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress on Tuesday without first notifying President Barack Obama, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. By contrast, 30 percent of those polled believe the invitation was fine, and another 22 percent don't know enough to say either way. Not surprisingly, the issue breaks along partisan lines, with 66 percent of Democrats saying Republicans shouldn't have invited Netanyahu without first notifying the president, compared with just 28 percent of Republicans who say that." ... Read more

Only 17% Of Americans See The US As The World's Economic Superpower
ZeroHedge | author | 03/03/15

Echoing former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers' quip, "There is surely something odd about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor," it appears that economic reality is finally beginning to set in for Americans... Only hours ago, Gallup released a new poll showing that only a small minority (just 17%) of Americans still view the US as the world's economic superpower. ... Read more

House breaks impasse, passes security funding without provisions
Reuters | David Lawder | 03/03/15

A chaotic three-month-long fight in Congress over funding the U.S. domestic security agency finally ended on Tuesday, but not before it highlighted House Speaker John Boehner's inability to halt the Republican Party's further descent into disorder. ... Read more

Scientists Are Using Cosmic Radiation To Peer Inside Fukushima's Mangled Reactor
Motherboard.vice.com | author | 03/02/15

Scientists designed the reactor walls at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station to prevent some of the most powerful radiation in the universe from getting out--but they're lucky that at least one kind of radiation can still get in.

In the wake of 2011's disaster, ?scientists realized they might be able to harness the impressive penetrating power of natural, high-energy cosmic rays to paint a much-needed picture of the ruined Japanese reactor's cores. ... Read more
*Fukushima: New Findings On Fallout; Muon May Locate Melted Fuel (01/29/15) [13:36]

Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu's Speech Deepens Rift Between U.S., Israel And American Jews
USToday & HP | William M. Welch | 03/02/15

American Jewish leaders and activists are worried about widening political divisions between Israel and the White House sparked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial address to Congress on Tuesday despite strident objections by President Obama.

... "People are upset about it," said Rob Eshman, publisher and editor in chief of the Jewish Journal, a Los Angeles-based publication and website. "They're obviously concerned about Iran and want a good deal and think it's really unfortunate that Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing this -- creating a conflict outside the existing conflict." ... Read more

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel Address to a Joint Meeting of Congress
John Boehner(youtube account) | Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel Address to a Joint Meeting of Congress (03/03/15) [42:31]

Former CIA Head Pleads Guilty To Mishandling Classified Information, Faces Year In Prison
ZeroHedge | author | 03/03/15

WSJ reports that David Petraeus - the former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency - will plead guilty to a charge of mishandling classified information. The reitred military general, whose career was cut short by a very public affair with his biographer, reached a plea deal over sharing unauthorized information with her, in order to avoid an embarrassing trial. To summarize, the man trusted with all of the America's most secret secrets just plead guilty to pillow-talk-sharing of classified information... ... Read more

Record-Breaking Cold Likely in the First Week of March
weather.com | author | 03/03/15

Mass Grave With 200 Skeletons Found Under Supermarket In Central Paris
HP | Ryan Grenoble | 03/02/15

Archaeologists have made a strange and rather gruesome discovery under a supermarket in central Paris: an ancient mass grave containing the skeletal remains of more than 200 people.

... The store has long been known to rest on the site of a hospital that operated from the 12th through the 17th century, The Telegraph reported. So remains weren't unexpected, though no one guessed there would be this many. ... Read more
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USGS: Fracking's disposal wells are the cause of earthquakes in Oklahoma
kfor.com/ | author | older, 02/21/15

OKLAHOMA -- It's the million dollar question in Oklahoma: What's causing all the earthquakes? There have been a lot of theories about fracking causing earthquakes. But now, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says that fracking's disposal wells are indeed, to blame. ... Read more

Breaking Bad (Debt) - Part 3
ZeroHedge | author | 03/03/15

The 2008 worldwide financial crisis was produced due to excessively easy monetary policy, which caused the largest debt driven mal-investment in housing, automobiles, and Chinese produced crap in world history. The consequences of this debt bacchanalia should have been the orderly liquidation of the Wall Street entities that created the crisis, the writing off of trillions in bad debt, corporate and personal bankruptcies of businesses and people who borrowed recklessly, a sharp steep economic decline to cleanse the excesses, and politicians who immediately began the process of reducing budgets and addressing long term unfunded unpayable liability promises. Instead, the psychotic oligarchs did not want to lose any of their power, wealth or control over the proletariat. They have done the exact opposite of what needed to be done. ... Read more
Part 1
Part 2

As Jeb Bush Pounces On The Hillary Email Scandal, The Real Winner Is... Goldman Sachs
ZeroHedge | author | 03/03/15

Hillary Clinton's use of personal email accounts as America's former top diplomat is a far more serious issue as it touches directly on accountability, and rational decision-making while in a top position of government power. To say that it impairs her image as a presidential candidate who puts the country ahead of her own interests, would be an understatement.

However, depending on just how aggressive the US DOJ is, it may have criminal implications as well: according to the Weekly Standard, citing CNN conversations with "experts", Hillary Clinton broke the law by using her personal email account to conduct official State Department business while she was secretary of state. ... Read more
CNN | Experts say Hillary Clinton broke the law (03/03/15) [1:48]

Ring of Fire | Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV (02/22/15) [54L58]

Netanyahu Arrives In U.S., Signs Of Easing Of Tensions Over Iran Speech
Reuters & HP | Matt Spetalnick | 03/01/15

The United States and Israel showed signs of seeking to defuse tensions on Sunday ahead of a speech in Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he will warn against a possible nuclear deal with Iran.

Israel fears that U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy, with an end-of-March deadline for a framework accord, will allow its archfoe to develop atomic weapons, something Tehran denies seeking. ... Read more

Bill Gross: "Central Banks Have Gone Too Far In Their Misguided Efforts To Support Economic Growth"
ZeroHedge | author | 03/02/15

"None dare call it a "currency war" because that would be counter to G-10/G-20 policy statements that stress cooperation as opposed to "every country for itself", but an undeclared currency war is what the world is experiencing. Close to the same thing happened in the 1930's, a period remarkably similar to what many countries' policies resemble today. ... Read more

Bernie Sanders Calls Out Media For Not Covering Obama's (TPP)Trade Deal
HP | Andrew Hart | 03/01/15

"The major television networks are not covering the TPP. Incredible as it may sound, this trade agreement--the largest trade agreement in the history of the United States of America--has received virtually no coverage, no coverage, on the major networks," Sanders said from the Senate floor on Thursday.

TPP is a trade deal being negotiated between the U.S., Canada and ten other Asia-Pacific nations, covering about 40 percent of the global economy. Supporters of the treaty argue that it would boost economic growth in participating countries by reducing tariffs, increasing investments and bringing the member nations closer together.

Critics aren't buying it, arguing TPP would take jobs out of the U.S., increase income inequality, allow multinational corporations to sidestep U.S. regulations and reward countries with poor human rights records. ... Read more

Lehman Moment For Austrian "Bad Bank" Means Worse Coming
ZeroHedge | author | 03/02/15

Today, following the "spectacular development" over the weekend that the bank will be wound down due to the discovery of an $8.5bn "hole" in its balance sheet, the 2Y HETA bonds are trading below 50c on the dollar (at a yield of 54%). This is indeed Austria's "Lehman" moment as for the first time in the new European 'bail-in' era, senior debt is getting a massive haircut.

... Of course, this being Austria, and the Creditanstalt, aka the bank which failed in 1931 under almost identical circumstances and set off the dominos that led to a global financial crisis which in turn bank fanned the flames of the Great Depression, also being Austrian, suddenly everyone is asking: "what just happened and what happens next?" ... Read more

10 Things America Must Do to Stop Ruining the World
AlterNet & TomDispatch | Tom Engelhardt | 03/01/15

I feel a responsibility for the acts of this country that I don't feel for those of other states or groups. When, for instance, a wedding party blows up thanks to a Taliban roadside bomb, or the Islamic State cuts some poor captive's head off, or Bashar al-Assad's air force drops barrel bombs on civilians, or the Russians jail a political activist, or some other group or state commits some similar set of crimes, I'm not surprised. Human barbarity, as well as the arbitrary cruelty of state power, are unending facts of history. They should be opposed, but am I shocked? No.

Still -- and I accept the irrationality of this -- when my country wipes out wedding parties in other lands or organizes torture regimes and offshore prison systems where anything goes, or tries to jail yet another whistleblower, when it acts cruelly, arbitrarily, or barbarically, I feel shock and wonder why more Americans don't have the same reaction. ... Read more

Even The Regulators Are Rigged: Prominent HFT Critic Stiglitz Blocked From SEC Panel
ZeroHedge | author | older 01/05/15

That markets are rigged, at both the macro level, through central banks, and micro, through HFTs, dark pools and purposeful market fragmentation, should be painfully obvious to everyone by now. But when even the regulators engage in "jury rigging", or in this case blocking prominent HFT-critic Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist (a prize which doesn't count for much on these pages but should - at least on paper - impress such statist cronies as the SEC), has been blocked from a government panel that will advise regulators on issues facing U.S. equity markets, it becomes clear as day that the rigging is not just in the markets: worse, it is openly involves the market's "regulator" and "enforcer." Read more