Home · News · News Sep 2013 · Sep 05 2013
Thursday September 05, 2013
News Articles

How the Bank Lobby Loosened U.S. Reins on Derivatives
Bloomberg | Silla Brush | 09/04/13

One by one, Gary Gensler’s supporters deserted him. Now the chief U.S. regulator of derivatives was being summoned by Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew to explain why he refused to compromise.

... The July 3 meeting in Lew’s conference room with a view of the White House grew tense, according to three people briefed on it. Gensler argued his plan was vital if the U.S. hoped to seize meaningful authority over financial instruments that helped push the global economy to the brink in 2008, taking down American International Group Inc. (AIG) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and igniting the worst recession since the 1930s. ... Read more

Back in the old days, before the Financial Crisis of 2008, Brooksley Born had Gary Gensler job. She was worried then about how unregulated derivatives could crash our economy. Watch the PBS Special below to see how she was treated by the Financial Elite. It is a great documentary!
*PBS Frontline: The Warning, The Financial Collapse - Brooksley Born [56:17]

*Oh Magog! Why End-Times Buffs Are Freaking Out About Syria
MotherJones | Tim Murphy | 09/04/13

In early 2012, best-selling novelist Joel Rosenberg came to Capitol Hill for a meeting with an unidentified member of Congress to discuss the end of the world. "I thought the topic was going to be the possible coming war between Israel and Iran," Rosenberg explained on his website. "Instead, the official asked, 'What are your thoughts on Isaiah 17?'"

For the better part of an hour, Rosenberg says, the writer and the congressman went back forth on something called the "burden of Damascus," an Old Testament prophecy that posits that a war in the Middle East will leave Syria's capital city in ruins—and bring the world one step closer to Armageddon. As Rosenberg put it, "The innocent blood shed by the Assad regime is reprehensible and heart-breaking and is setting the stage for a terrible judgment." ... Read more

Wes Clark - America's Foreign Policy (10/03/07) [7:36]

The Redirection
New Yorker | Seymour M. Hersh | 03/05/07 old, but a great article

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. ... Read more

Education
Between 2000 and 2012:
  1. Consumer Price Index increased 33%.
  2. Median household income (adjusted for inflation) dropped 9%.
  3. Average four-year college tuition increased 44%.
  4. Private for-profit tuition increased 19%.
  5. Private nonprofit college tuition increased 36%.
  6. Public college tuition increased 71%.
  7. Public spending on public education has dropped 30% even as enrollment at public colleges has jumped 34%.
  8. As college costs have shot up, so has student debt. Americans owe almost $1 trillion on their student loans, 310% more than a decade ago.
  9. In 1989, 9% of households had student debt. Today nearly 20% do.
  10. The average amount of student loan debt has increased 177% since 1989.
  11. 56% of all student loan debt is owed by households headed by people 35 or older.
  12. 47% of total student loan debt is held by households with incomes below $60,000.
  13. Nearly half of college graduates with student debt say it has made it more difficult for them to make ends meet. 24% say it has affected their career choices.
  14. 25% of recent grads say student loan debt has made them take unexciting jobs just for the money.




DemocracyNow Daily News
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, September 05 [10:14]
DN | Debate: Will a U.S. Attack Help the Syrian Opposition's Struggle Against Assad? (09/05/13) [18:01]
*DN | Rep. Alan Grayson on Syria: Congress Should Reject "War Mongering" and Focus on Problems at Home (09/05/13) [11:58], Part 2 [16:43]
TRNN News
*TRNN | Dina Rasor, an investigator reporter: US Military Contractors Celebrate Record High Profits and Stock Prices (09/04/13) [11:41]
A Views Comment: No one should be surprise at this story. The U.S. has been at "war" with Afghanistan for 10 years and Iraq for 9 years, some one is getting paid with these government contracts. The bottom line for the U.S. is that war is profitable for a selected few.
TRNN | Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute For Energy And Environmental Research: Japanese government $500 million ice wall is a precarious, temporary fix, not a permanent solution to the radioactive water leaking from stricken nuclear reactors (09/05/13) [8:37]
TYT News
Syria
Rep Alan Grayson: The U.S. Has No Mandate to Act As a Global Policeman in Syria (09/04/13) [10:28]
Whistle Blowing
*Whistleblower Award 2013 - Glenn Greenwald honorific speech for Edward Snowden (09/05/13) [9:03]
MSNBC Chris Hayes - All In
Chris Hayes | Senate Committee passes Syria resolution (09/04/13) [15:35]
Chris Hayes | McConnell noticeably absent from Syria debate (09/04/13) [4:58]
Chris Hayes | Chris Hayes doesn't think we should send missles into Syria (09/04/13) [5:41]
Chris Hayes | The familiar drumbeat of war (by the neocons) (09/04/13) [3:25], Part 2 [9:28]
MSNBC Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow | Looking beyond military options for Syria (09/04/13) [16:09]
Rachel Maddow | White House facing going it alone on Syria?? (09/04/13) [6:56]
Rachel Maddow | Bush advisors who totally screwed up our world (09/04/13) [0:44], Part 2 [7:19]
Rachel Maddow | Edwin Lyman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, talks about Fukushima (09/04/13) [10:54]
Jon Stewart | Stephen Cobert
Jon Stewart | Syria's Bashar al-Assad crosses the line of what the American government feels is the appropriate way to kill people (09/03/13) [6:12]
Jon Stewart | Andrew Harper, head of the United Nations refugee agency in Jordan, breaks down the humanitarian disaster along the Syrian border. (09/03/13) [6:10], Part 2 [7:11]
Jon Stewart | Syria's Bashar al-Assad crosses the line of what the American government feels is the appropriate way to kill people (09/03/13) [6:12]
Jon Stewart | Jon Learns What Happened Over the Summer (09/03/13) [5:00]
Other Videos and Documentaries I Ran Across
Note: I don't endorse any of the videos in this section.
As I construct My News Pages I constantly run across a lot of NEW videos, and since I find YouTube frustrating trying to re-find videos, I save the links in this section so I can find them again.

09.05.2013. 11:17



Special Interest Important stuff
GOOD Shorts Videos

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I'm still working on this

GOOD Short Videos
Newer Documentaries You Might Not Have Seen

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I'm still working on this

Newer Documentaries
Documentaries You've Never Seen

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Documentaries (small | pop-up)
Documentaries (big | full screen)
Good YouTube Documentaries

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Great YouTube Docs. (small | pop-up)
Good YouTube Docs. (big | full screen)

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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I am one of those "once" middle class, over 60, over educated, under-employed, semi retired, soon to be poor workers, that everyone is talking about. 
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