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Wednesday May 28, 2014
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America is an oligarchy, not a democracy or republic, university study finds
Washington Times | Cheryl K. Chumley | 05/21/14

America is no longer a democracy -- never mind the democratic republic envisioned by Founding Fathers.

Rather, it has taken a turn down elitist lane and become a country led by a small dominant class comprised of powerful members who exert total control over the general population -- an oligarchy, said a new study jointly conducted by Princeton and Northwestern universities.

One finding in the study: The U.S. government now represents the rich and powerful, not the average citizen, United Press International reported.

In the study, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens," researchers compared 1,800 different U.S. policies that were put in place by politicians between 1981 and 2002 to the type of policies preferred by the average and wealthy American, or special interest groups.

Researchers then concluded that U.S. policies are formed more by special interest groups than by politicians properly representing the will of the general people, including the lower-income class.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence," the study found.

The study also found: "When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose." Read more
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.pdf
Although Geithner's 'Stress Test' is an entertaining story, the result of reading it alongside 'House of Debt' is damning.

How Timothy Geithner Failed His Stress Test
america.aljazeera.com/ | Mike Konczal | 05/22/14

Two books published this month offer radically disparate interpretations of the Great Recession and its aftermath. They each tell a very different story about the housing bubble, the 2008 financial crisis and the weak recovery that has followed. In one version, the bailout of the Wall Street banks is the hero, keeping the Great Recession from becoming a replay of the Great Depression. In the other, the bailout is a sideshow, even a distraction, to the real story about our economy. The interpretation that gains traction will determine how the recession is understood, what went right and wrong, and who is ultimately to praise and blame.

The first book is "Stress Test," former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's memoir. Although he discusses his education, world travels as a young person and experiences in the Clinton administration, the bulk of the narrative is a first-person account of the financial crisis and subsequent bailouts. Unlike other books about the bailouts, such as "Too Big to Fail" by Andrew Ross Sorkin and "On the Brink" by Geithner predecessor Hank Paulson, "Stress Test" provides a point of view from within the first term of the Obama administration.

The second is "House of Debt," by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, economists at Princeton and the University of Chicago, respectively. In it they describe the large amount of empirical research carried out since 2008 to try and understand what went wrong in the financial markets and in the economy as a whole. Much of this work was either generated by the two authors or in response to them, and their command of these debates and the underlying data is impressive.

The books offer very different reading experiences. "Stress Test" is massive, at over 500 pages; "House of Debt" is barely 200. "Stress Test" is filled with clever humor and day-to-day observations during the economic crash. "House of Debt" reads as an excellent summary presentation of the recession to date, with each page packed with data. As opposed to many economists who try to force their pet theory onto the recession, Mian and Sufi let the research speak for itself. ... Read more
Dumb Quote of the Day
Joe The Plumber: 'Your Dead Kids Don't Trump My Constitutional Rights' To Have Guns.

Interview with Mian & Sufi on "House of Debt", and a review
ftalphaville.ft.com/ | Cardiff Garcia | 05/28/14

... To prevent a similar catastrophe in the future, the financial system should move away from debt contracts that impose all losses on debtors and towards equity-like and hybrid instruments. Future losses must be shared more equitably between creditors and debtors, the expectation of which would convince lenders to act more prudently. A good first step would be for the government to start eliminating subsidies for debt, such as the mortgage interest deduction. ... Read more
House of Debt website
House of Debt publisher

Tim Geithner and the Wall Street Bailout Redux
magazine | Robert Reich | 05/20/14

Timothy Geithner's new book about the financial crisis, "Stress Test," is basically an argument that the Wall Street bailout succeeded. That's hardly surprising, given that Geithner was in charge of the bailout when Treasury Secretary (as was his predecessor at Treasury, Hank Paulson), and so has an inherent interest in telling the public it succeeded.

Even so, the bailout clearly did succeed, if success means avoiding another Great Depression.

But another Great Depression might have been avoided if the crisis had been handled differently -- for example, by allowing the bankruptcy laws to do what they were intended to do, and forcing the big Wall Street banks to reorganize under them.

In fact, the bailout was a colossal failure in several respects Geithner barely mentions in his book, or avoids completely:

(1) The biggest Wall Street banks are now bigger than ever, and no sane person on or off the Street now believes Washington will ever allow them to fail -- which means they'll continue to make big, risky bets because they know they can't fail. And they'll get even bigger because big depositors and lenders know they'll never fail and therefore demand lower interest rates than demanded from smaller banks.

(2) No Wall Street executives have ever been prosecuted for what they did to the country, which means even more rampant irresponsibility in executive suites as well as even deeper cynicism in the public about the political power of Wall Street.

(3) The bailout helped the banks but did little or nothing for the tens of millions of Americans who lost billions of dollars in home equity and savings, and the millions more who lost their jobs. The toll was greatest on the poor and the middle class, who still haven't recovered their losses, even though Wall Street has fully recovered (and then some). Nor have reforms been enacted that will help the middle class and the poor the next time Wall Street implodes.

So pardon me if I take issue with Tim Geithner. The bailout was a success in the narrowest terms. Seen more broadly it was a terrible failure.

We'd have done better had we forced the biggest Wall Street banks, including the giant insurer AIG, to reorganize under bankruptcy rather than bail them out.
DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, May 28 [11:45]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Costas Lapavitsas: 40% of Profits Buys A Lot of Politicians, Part 6 (05/28/14) [12:57]
TRNN | Michael Hudson: Voters Reject Traditional Left Parties In EU Parliament Elections (05/28/14) [9:33]
TRNN | Professors Trevor Evans & John Weeks: EU Election Results Reflect Widespread Disapproval Of Austerity Policy Throughout Europe (05/28/14) [20:18]
Jon Stewart - Daily Show
*Jon Stewart | Timothy Geithner Extended Interview (05/21/14) [42:20]
If the above doesn't work, try the source below.
Jon Stewart | Timothy Geithner Extended Interview (05/21/14) [42:20]
Financial Times News
FT | Interview with Mian & Sufi on "House of Debt", and a review (05/28/14) [23:47]
Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers | REPLAY: Zombie Politics and Casino Capitalism (older, but good) [first half]
Dylan Ratigan
This is from several years ago on the Dylan Ratigan Show. It was good then, and still true NOW!
Dylan Ratigan | loses it on air (2011) [4:45]
Diane Rehms Show
Diane Rehm *New Data On Whether College Is Worth The Debts (05/28/14) [1hr]
Who's Responsible for National Debt - Click to zoom
Top Corporate Tax Rate - Click to zoom

05.28.2014. 11:21



Special Interest Important stuff
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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

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

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

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

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

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

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

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

Wall Street and Banksters

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

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

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

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

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

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Nukes
Nukes

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

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

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

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

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

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

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

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

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

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

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

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911
911

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

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

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

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

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

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

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

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

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

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