Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

The Fake Terror Threat Used To Justify Bombing Syria
firstlook.org/theintercept | Glenn Greenwald | 09/29/14

As the Obama Administration prepared to bomb Syria without congressional or U.N. authorization, it faced two problems. The first was the difficulty of sustaining public support for a new years-long war against ISIS, a group that clearly posed no imminent threat to the "homeland." A second was the lack of legal justification for launching a new bombing campaign with no viable claim of self-defense or U.N. approval.

The solution to both problems was found in the wholesale concoction of a brand new terror threat that was branded "The Khorasan Group." After spending weeks depicting ISIS as an unprecedented threat -- too radical even for Al Qaeda! -- administration officials suddenly began spoon-feeding their favorite media organizations and national security journalists tales of a secret group that was even scarier and more threatening than ISIS, one that posed a direct and immediate threat to the American Homeland. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new terror group was created in media lore. ... Read more

Climate Change Is Driving Heat Waves Around The World: Report
HP | Kate Sheppard | 09/29/14

The record-setting heat wave in Australia last year was "largely attributable" to human-caused climate change, according to a synthesis report released Monday. Heat waves in Japan, Korea, China and Europe were also "substantially influenced" by global warming, the report found.

For the synthesis report, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 22 groups of scientists looked at 16 extreme weather events that took place in 2013. The paper concludes that at this time, it is more difficult to discern the human impact on other extreme events, such as the drought in California, extreme rainfall in Colorado, and an early-season blizzard in South Dakota.

This is the third annual report on the connections between individual extreme weather events and climate change, led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. ... Read more

Another Conspiracy Theory Becomes Fact: The Fed's "Stealth Bailout" Of Foreign Banks Goes Mainstream
ZeroHedge | author | 09/30/14

Stunning Drone Clip Reveals Massive Size Of Hong Kong Protest
ZeroHedge | author | 09/29/14

Ferguson was for amateurs. For those curious why the Hong Kong protests over the weekend have sent shivers across the world's capital markets, pushed the Hang Seng 2% lower, and impacted both European and US futures, not to mention leading to worries that China may get involved any second and result in another Tiananmen square event, the following clip from HK's Apple Daily, taken by a drone, shows just how massive the demonstrations, which according to some estimates involved just why of 100,000 people, taking place in Hong Kong are. ... Read more
Massive Size Of Hong Kong Protest (09/28/14) [1:31]

Why the Showdown with Islamic Extremists Is the War the Pentagon Was Hoping For
AlterNet | Nicholas JS Davies | 09/28/14

As the U.S. escalates its bombing campaign against ISIS (or IS or ISIL), U.S. officials seem to have found an enemy we can all love to hate and fear. ISIS beheads hostages, conducts brutal ethnic cleansing and has links to Al-Qaeda. DC power players have eagerly embraced a small war made to order to restore America's wounded military pride after the first Iraq debacle.

The contrived nature of the narrative presented by U.S. officials was evident from the outset if one cared to look behind the propaganda screen. As the U.S. bombing campaign began, German Left Party MP Ulla Jelpke told a press conference in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) on August 11th that the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar were rescued by the Kurdish PKK, who the U.S. government classifies as "terrorists." Refugees told Jelpke that they were saved by "Allah and the PKK," not by U.S. bombing. ... Read more

The War Without End
AP & HP | author | 09/29/14

Afghanistan To Sign U.S. Security Agreement, Adviser Says

A senior adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday that Afghanistan will sign a deal Tuesday to allow American soldiers to remain in the country past the end of the year. John Podesta, speaking to a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said he didn't know if newly inaugurated President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai would be the official signing the deal for Afghanistan.

The deal will allow about 10,000 American troops to stay in the country after the international combat mission ends on Dec. 31. ... Read more

Dead kids and accidental shootouts: A September snapshot of gun violence in America
Salon | Joanna Rothkopf| 09/29/14

How's this for a bleak assessment? "For essentially the last 20 years, there has been almost no federal support for research on a health problem that kills upwards of 30,000 people a year," said Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, in an interview yesterday with NPR.

The health problem he's talking about is, of course, gun violence. Between 2000 and 2010, the rate of gun-related deaths in the United States was 10.21 per 100,000 people, according to a recent study in the journal BMJ Open. Over the 11 years covered by the study, at least 335,609 people were killed by guns in this country, and the researchers conclude that if trends continue, around 336,778 lives will be lost due to gun violence between 2011 and 2020. ... Read more

Naomi Klein: Fossil Fuels Threaten Our Ability to Have Healthy Children
MotherJones | author | 09/29/14

It's self-evident that embryos, fetuses, and babies are vulnerable. We have strict laws protecting children because they cannot fend for themselves. And yet, too often, we ignore the impact that environmental disasters have on the very earliest stages of life. In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein examines the effect that our reliance on fossil fuels has on the most helpless members of the animal kingdom--as well as on our own children.

"In species after species, climate change is creating pressures that are depriving life-forms of their most essential survival tool: the ability to create new life and carry on their genetic lines," Klein writes. "Instead, the spark of life is being extinguished, snuffed out in its earliest, most fragile days: in the egg, in the embryo, in the nest, in the den." ... Read more

Inside the New York Fed: Secret Recordings and a Culture Clash
ProPublica | Jake Bernstein | 09/26/14

Barely a year removed from the devastation of the 2008 financial crisis, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York faced a crossroads. Congress had set its sights on reform. The biggest banks in the nation had shown that their failure could threaten the entire financial system. Lawmakers wanted new safeguards.

The Federal Reserve, and, by dint of its location off Wall Street, the New York Fed, was the logical choice to head the effort. Except it had failed miserably in catching the meltdown.

New York Fed President William Dudley had to answer two questions quickly: Why had his institution blown it, and how could it do better? So he called in an outsider, a Columbia University finance professor named David Beim, and granted him unlimited access to investigate. In exchange, the results would remain secret.

After interviews with dozens of New York Fed employees, Beim learned something that surprised even him. The most daunting obstacle the New York Fed faced in overseeing the nation's biggest financial institutions was its own culture. The New York Fed had become too risk-averse and deferential to the banks it supervised. Its examiners feared contradicting bosses, who too often forced their findings into an institutional consensus that watered down much of what they did. ... Read more
*NPR | This American Life: 536: The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra (09/26/14) [68:55]

How Goldman Controls The New York Fed: 47.5 Hours Of "The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes" Explain
ZeroHedge | author | 09/26/14

You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.

The only reason you know is that one woman, Carmen Segarra, has been brave enough to fight the system. She has paid a great price to inform us all of the obvious. She has lost her job, undermined her career, and will no doubt also endure a lifetime of lawsuits and slander.

So what are they going to do about it? At this moment the Fed is probably telling itself that, like the financial crisis, this, too, will blow over. It shouldn't. ... Read more

The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes
Bloomberg | Michael Lewis | 09/26/14

... Our financial regulatory system is obviously dysfunctional. But because the subject is so tedious, and the details so complicated, the public doesn't pay it much attention.

That may very well change today, for today -- Friday, Sept. 26 --- the radio program "This American Life" will air a jaw-dropping story about Wall Street regulation, and the public will have no trouble at all understanding it. ... Read more

A Look Inside The Secret Deal With Saudi Arabia That Unleashed The Syrian Bombing
ZeroHedge | author | 09/25/14

For those to whom the recent US campaign against Syria seems a deja vu of last summer's "near-war" attempt to ouster its president Bashar al-Assad, which was stopped in the last minute due to some very forceful Russian intervention and the near breakout of war in the Mediterranean between US and Russian navies, it is because they are. And as a reminder, just like last year, the biggest wildcard in this, and that, direct intervention into sovereign Syrian territory, or as some would call it invasion or even war, was not the US but Saudi Arabia - recall from August of 2013 - "Meet Saudi Arabia's Bandar bin Sultan: The Puppetmaster Behind The Syrian War." Bin Sultan was officially let go shortly after the 2013 campaign to replace Syria's leadership with a more "amenable" regime failed if not unofficially (see below), but Saudi ambitions over Syria remained. That much is revealed by the WSJ today in a piece exposing the backdoor dealings that the US conducted with Saudi Arabia to get the "green light" to launch its airstrikes against ISIS, or rather, parts of Iraq and Syria."The process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh U.S. commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority." Read more

The Right's Newest Obama Conspiracy: He Made Up a "New" Terrorist Group to Defeat
MotherJones | Jenna McLaughlin | 09/25/14

... "From what I understand, the [Obama] regime has given this group a new name in order for Obama to be able to continue to say he wiped Al Qaeda out," Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "So you come up with a new name for Al Qaeda, the Kardashians, or Khorasans, or whatever they are, and either way it's defeating…So this new group is essentially just Al Qaeda renamed."

Glenn Beck came to a similar conclusion: "What is Khorasan? [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper mentioned Khorasan for the first time last week. What is it? It's an Al Qaeda splinter group. Notice they're not saying 'Al Qaeda Khorasan.' They're just calling it Khorasan. Why? The Pentagon claimed they have been watching Khorasan for a very long time, but it wasn't too long ago that this administration said Al Qaeda was decimated and on the run. But now they're an imminent threat? It doesn't add up, does it?"... Read more

$26 Billion in US Aid Later, the Iraqi Military Is a Total Disaster
MotherJones | Alex Park | 09/25/14

As US bombs rain down on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, analysts agree that this war will ultimately be won on the ground. Too bad the Iraqi defense forces are a shambles. The New York Times reports that the United States still has to train the country's 26 "intact and loyal" brigades. And the Iraqi government has yet to recruit and set up national guard units. "It is not going to be soon," says a State Department official.

Obama Expands Pacific Ocean Preserve, Making It Largest In The World
AP & HP | Josh Lederman | 09/24/14

President Barack Obama is carving out a wide swath the Pacific Ocean for an expanded marine preserve, putting the waters off-limits to drilling and most fishing in a bid to protect fragile underwater life.

The revamped expanded Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument will cover 490,000 square miles - an area roughly three times the size of California - and will become the largest marine preserve in the world. Millions of seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals live in the bio-rich expanse included by the new monument, which will also add new protections for more than 130 "seamounts" - underwater mountains where rare or undiscovered species are frequently found. ... Read more

What Is Khorasan and Why Did the US Just Bomb It?
MotherJones | Jenna McLaughlin | 09/23/14

On Monday night, a US-led coalition launched air strikes in Syria against members of ISIS, the extremist Islamic group occupying territory in Iraq and Syria. As a "last-minute add-on," NBC reports, the United States also targeted a different terrorist group: a little-known outfit called Khorasan. This Al Qaeda affiliate gained some public attention earlier this month after US officials reported that the extremists were plotting to sneak bombs on to US airplanes. Last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper noted that the group "perhaps" posed as great a threat to the United States as ISIS. On Tuesday morning, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby maintained that strikes on ISIS and Khorasan were "very successful." The US targeted Khorasan's "training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building and command and control facilities," the Pentagon told the Washington Post. ... Read more

America Has More Low-Paying Jobs Than Any Other Developed Country
HP | Kevin Short | 09/23/14

America may be exceptional in many ways, but it also tops the charts of a new, troubling ranking. The U.S. has more low-paying jobs than any other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an economic group of 34 developed countries, according to a research note released by Morgan Stanley on Monday.

... The OECD defines "low-paying" as jobs that earn less than two-thirds of a country's median income. On average, around 16 percent of jobs in OECD countries are considered low-paying. In the U.S., over 25 percent of all jobs qualify as such. ... Read more

Top Liberian Official Warns Ebola Crisis May Plunge The Country Back Into Conflict
HP | author | date

A top official in Liberia's government warned on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak ravaging through West Africa may have disastrous consequences for the peace and stability of the region. Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown told the Agence France Presse that the slow response to the Ebola outbreak could cause the region to "slip back into conflict."

"Hospitals are struggling, but so too are hotels," Brown said. "Businesses are struggling. If this continues the cost of living will go to the roof. You have an agitated population." ... Read more

How Playing Good Christian Housewife Almost Killed Me
AlterNet | Vyckie Garrison | 09/18/14

Vyckie Garrison was once a minor celebrity in the Quiverfull Movement, made famous by TV's Duggar family. As a devout, Bible-believing Christian and the mother of seven homeschooled children, Garrison spent 16 years, with her husband, publishing a newspaper for families on a similar path. Today, via a website called No Longer Quivering, she publishes resources for women leaving the movement. Recently she addressed American Atheists about her experience. This article is an abridged version of her remarks.

Whenever I talk about my escape from the Quiverfull movement, Christians immediately dismiss my experience by saying, "Your problem was not with Jesus or Christianity. Your problem was that you were following an extreme, legalistic cult. Let me tell you about my personal relationship with Jesus." It can be extremely frustrating. I was in a close, personal relationship with Jesus for over 25 years. But rather than telling you about the beginning of my relationship with this man, I am going to spare you the long story and skip straight to the break up. ... Read more
Salon | All God's children (older) (article)

What’s Possible, a New Film for World Leaders on the Urgency of Global Warming
BillMoyers | author | 09/23/14

More than 120 world leaders – including President Barack Obama – kicked off a one-day United Nations’ summit on climate change in New York City by viewing What’s Possible, a short film on the urgency of global warming.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film’s images, some disturbing and some magnificent, are meant to remind them of what’s at stake: global warming will place our planet and all its inhabitants at destruction’s door unless our governments take immediate action. ... Read more
Bill Moyers | What’s Possible, a New Film for World Leaders on the Urgency of Global Warming. (09/23/14) [2:29]

Climate Change You Can Believe In
BillMoyers | Bill Moyers | 09/18/14

Just as Sunday’s big People’s Climate March and next week’s UN global summit on climate converge here in New York City, the nation and world are experiencing weather of an intensity that should rattle the stubborn false convictions of even the most fervent climate change denier.

Terrible flooding in India and Pakistan, the worst in more than a century, with heavy monsoon rains, 500 lives lost and hundreds of thousands left stranded… thousands of wildfires ignited by severe drought in California and the West… flashfloods in Arizona… the punch of a hurricane pounding Mexico’s Baja coast, the strongest in nearly fifty years, battering locals and trapping tourists in their hotels without electricity. ... Read more

We Brought it on Ourselves: A Timeline of Choices We’ve Made to Increase Inequality
YesMagazine | author | 09/20/14

*Wealth Inequality in America [6:25]

*Wealth Inequality in the World [3:51]

TV News Misses Yet Another Opportunity To Cover Climate Change
HP | By Jack Mirkinson | 09/22/14

The People's Climate March on Sunday was perhaps the largest climate change protest in history. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of New York City. Celebrities and high-profile politicians were among the marchers. The protest was a huge topic on social media. ...

...Well, so much for that idea. It seems climate change remains one potentially world-shattering issue that just can't get any respect on television. No Sunday morning show except MSNBC's "Up" so much as mentioned climate change, or the march, save for one stray reference on "This Week" by The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel. She pointed out that the march was actually gathering right outside the ABC studios in Lincoln Center where the show is taped. ... Read more

Rockefellers Divesting From Big Oil
HP | Alana Horowitz | 08/21/14

The Rockefeller family is divesting some of its massive fortune from fossil fuels, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the family's charitable arm, will announce the landmark move in a video conference on Monday along with 49 other foundations. According to USA Today, the 50 groups will divest from 200 major oil and gas companies.

... The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has been a major supporter of environmental advocacy. Last year, the charity gave over $6 million in grants to sustainable development projects. ... Read more

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
TomDispatch | Alfred W. McCoy | older

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003. ... Read more, or Read more here

Apple said it sold 10 million new iPhones over the weekend.

Where The Housing "Recovery" Is, In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 09/22/14

Janet, we have a problem. The Fed's main policy transmission channel, since stock ownership is not widespread enough to affect the real economy's expectations, is via home equity wealth creation and animal spirit exuberance-based borrowing and leverage. As the following chart shows, the much-touted "housing recovery" pillar of the economy - that is set to take off and lift growth to escape velocity - is only evident in one place...
Click to zoom - for bigger image
Read more

California Or Ethiopia? "Families Dream Every Night About Water"
ZeroHedge | author | 09/22/14

It's worst and getting worst-er. Hundreds of domestic wells in California's drought-parched Central Valley farming region have run dry, according to AP, leaving many residents to rely on donated bottles of drinking water to get by. With government set to regulate deeper drilling, hope is plunging that a solution to California's drought will come anytime soon as groundwater levels plunge. The stories of struggle are simply stunning, especially given they are coming from America with Governor Brown signing an executive order that provides money to buy drinking water for residents statewide whose wells have dried up. ... Read more

Scotland Rejects Independence, Votes To Stay In The United Kingdom
Reuters & HP | Alistair Smout | 09/19/14

Scotland spurned independence in a historic referendum that threatened to rip the United Kingdom apart, sow financial turmoil and diminish Britain's remaining global clout.

A vote for the 307-year union is a relief for millions of Britons including Prime Minister David Cameron, whose job was on the line, as well as allies across the world who were horrified at the prospect of the United Kingdom's separation. Opponents of independence won 55 percent of the vote while separatists won 45 percent with all 3.6 million votes - a record 85 percent turnout - counted. But leaders from across the United Kingdom said the union must change if it is to endure. ... Read more

Angry With Washington, 1 In 4 Americans Open To Secession
Reuters & HP | Scott Malone | 09/19/14

The failed Scottish vote to pull out from the United Kingdom stirred secessionist hopes for some in the United States, where almost a quarter of people are open to their states leaving the union, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Some 23.9 percent of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away, while 53.3 percent of the 8,952 respondents strongly opposed or tended to oppose the notion. ... Read more

Sierra Leone's Capital At Standstill As 3-Day Ebola Lockdown Begins
Reuters & HP| Umaru Fofana| 09/19/14

Sierra Leone began a three-day lockdown on Friday in an effort to halt the spread of the Ebola virus, as President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents to comply with the emergency measures.

Streets in the normally bustling seaside capital Freetown were deserted, barring vehicles carrying police officers and health workers. Radio stations played Ebola awareness jingles on repeat and encouraged residents to stay indoors. ... Read more

3 Things Worth Thinking About
ZeroHedge | author | 09/19/14

While we are not predicting that the proverbial "wheels are about the come off the cart," today, this is another in a long list of indications that value in the stock market is no longer present. Of course, this would also suggest this might be, just maybe, a time to start considering "selling high." Of course, such a suggestion is wildly ludicrous and absolutely illogical since it is widely believed that the markets will never go down...ever. ...

... in a consumption based economy excess debt, structural unemployment and stagnant incomes retard economic prosperity. The simple fact is that when it requires roughly $4 of debt to create $1 of "real" economic growth - the engine of growth is broken. ... Read more

Stephen Cobert | Stephen Colbert considers our as-yet-unnamed Arab partners in the fight against ISIS -- and tells us it's time to be very afraid... (09/18/14) [8:49]

One-Pot Pasta Recipe
Oprah | Laurie David | date

Scotland Independence Vote Commences
AP & HP | Jill Lawless | 09/18/14

For Scots, Wednesday was a day of excitement, apprehension, and a flood of final appeals before a big decision. In a matter of hours, they will determine whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and becomes an independent state.

A full 97 percent of those eligible have registered to vote -- including, for the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds -- in a referendum that polls suggest is too close to call. ... Read more
PBS NewsHour | Scottish independence vote too close to call on election eve (09/17/14) [5:02]

Goldman's Q&A On What Yellen Really Said (Or Didn't)
ZeroHedge | author | 09/18/14

Since it is the NY Fed, headed by an ex-Goldmanite, which will ultimately be tasked with exiting 6 years of "unconventional monetary policy" - at some point during this "recovery" if not now or any time soon for that matter - it is probably best to listen to Goldman for its post-mortem on what the chairwoman did or did not say. Which is why we present a "Q&A" with Goldman's head economist, Jan Hatzius, known to occasionally exchange a sandwich and the occasional policy guidelene, with NY Fed's Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence, in which he explains how Yellen managed to be both more dovish and more hawkish than the "market" expected. ... Read more

The Trolling Continues: Fed Chairwoman Expresses Her Condolences To America's Poor
ZeroHedge | author | 09/18/14

Janet Yellen released a speech this morning explaining how sorry she is about 'the poor' and why they need to get rich. In the speech below, she stresses, "how important it is to promote asset-building, including saving for a rainy day, as protection from the ups and downs of the economy," despite falling incomes, rising costs, and extending credit, we assume she means. ...

... For lower-income families, what we find is sobering. The median net worth reported by the bottom fifth of households by income was only $6,400 in 2013. Among this group, representing about 25 million American households, many families had no wealth or had negative net worth. The next fifth of households by income had median net worth of just $27,900. These numbers represent declines from 2010. One reason is that income has continued to fall for these families ... Read more

Five Signs the Dark-Money Apocalypse Is Upon Us
MotherJones | Andy Kroll | 09/18/14

It's the home stretch of the 2014 election season. No single theme or issue has dominated the midterms, but 2014 is on pace to be the Year of Dark Money.

Nonprofit groups, some well-known (such as the US Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity, founded by the Koch brothers) and some obscure (America Inc., anyone?), have dumped huge sums of anonymous money into every competitive Senate race and many House contests. Here are five eye-opening indicators showing the rapid spread of dark money in this year's campaign season--and why it's going to get worse as Election Day approaches. ... Read more

Dirty Secret of $1 Trillion Loans Is When Do You Get Money Back?
Bloomberg | author | date

Imagine a trillion-dollar market that runs on faxes and phone calls while routinely tying up investors' money for months before they get any return. That's not fiction: It's the unregulated market for leveraged corporate loans. In a financial system that is increasingly automated, the origination and trading of loans is in the relative dark ages while money pours in from mainstream investors such as Kansas and New York pension plans and mutual funds catering to individuals seeking high yields in an era of near-zero interest rates.

The antiquated structure of a market that's ballooned from a mere $35 billion in 1997 poses a growing threat, raising the odds of gridlock in a downturn when investors expect to get their money back with a click of a button. As of yet, no regulators have taken responsibility for fixing the deficiency.

"It's a critical issue," said Beth MacLean, a money manager at Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.97 trillion, including the world's biggest bond mutual fund. "Any single retail fund not being able to meet their redemptions would have a ripple effect on the whole market." ...

... Judith Burns, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has placed a priority on monitoring corporate and municipal bond trading more closely, declined to comment. So did representatives of the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- which have all raised concern that banks are being too lax in their loan underwriting standards. ... Read more

Naomi Klein: Only a Reverse Shock Doctrine Can Save Our Climate
BillMoyers | Joshua Holland | 09/16/14

In her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein argues that if we had taken action years ago when scientists first established that human activities were changing our climate, we might have been able to deal with the problem of global warming with only minimal disruption to our economic system. But as we approach a tipping point, and the consequences of climate change come into sharper focus, that time has passed, and we now have to acknowledge that preserving humans’ habitat requires a paradigm change.

But Klein doesn’t just offer us a depressing litany of the damage we’ve already done. She calls on us to seriously rethink the way our economy is structured to address not only climate change, but also other longstanding social problems like persistent global poverty and rising inequality. ... Read more
*Naomi Klein on Capitalism and Climate Change (older, but she speaks SO well, 11/15/12) [31:51]

Ebola Cases Could Double Every 3 Weeks
AP & HP | author | date

The number of Ebola cases could start doubling every three weeks in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, warning that the outbreak will cost nearly $1 billion to contain so it does not turn into a "human catastrophe."

Even as President Barack Obama is ordering the deployment of 3,000 U.S. military personnel to help provide aid in the region, Doctors Without Borders said the global response to Ebola has been far short of what is needed. ... Read more

Marriott Skewered For Asking Guests To Help Pay Its Hotel Maids
HP | Alexander C. Kaufman | 09/17/14

Hotel behemoth Marriott -- which raked in nearly $13 billion in revenue last year -- wants guests to cough up a little more cash to help pay its hotel maids. Surprising to no one, customers are infuriated.

The company teamed up with TV anchor and activist Maria Shriver to launch a campaign on Monday called “The Envelope Please.” This week, envelopes will be placed in 160,000 Marriott hotel rooms across the U.S. and Canada requesting that guests tip the hotel’s cleaning staff. ... Read more

A Wealthy Capitalist on Why Money Doesn't Trickle Down
Bill Moyers | Nick Hanauer | 09/11/14

The fundamental law of capitalism is: When workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers -- not rich businesspeople -- the true job creators. A thriving middle class isn't a consequence of growth -- which is what the trickle-down advocates would tell you. A thriving middle class is the source of growth and prosperity in capitalist economies.

Our economy has changed, lest you think that the minimum wage is for teenagers. The average age of a fast-food worker is 28. And minimum wage jobs aren't confined to a small corner of the economy. By 2040, it is estimated that 48 percent of all American jobs will be low-wage service jobs. We need to reckon with this. What will our economy be like when it's dominated by low paying service jobs? What proportion of the population do we want to live on food stamps? 50 percent? Does this matter? Should we care?

Business people tell me they cannot afford higher wages. Not true. They can adjust to all sorts of higher costs. The minimum wage is much higher here in Seattle than in Alabama, and McDonald's thrives in both places. Businesses adjust to higher costs, even when they say they can't.

Our economy can be safe and effective only if it is governed by rules. Some capitalists actually don't care about other people, their communities or the future. Their behavior, if left unchecked, has a massive effect on everyone else. When Wal-Mart or McDonald's or any other guy like me pays workers the minimum wage, that's our way of saying, "I would pay you less, except then I'd go to prison." ... Read more

The Planet Just Had Its Warmest August On Record
HP | Nick Visser | 09/15/14

This past August was the warmest since records began in 1881, according to new data released by NASA. The latest readings continue a series of record or near-record breaking months. May of this year was also the warmest in recorded history.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told The Huffington Post that while the agency's data does indicate that this August was the hottest on record, the difference falls within a few hundredths of a degree compared with previous Augusts. ... Read more
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) - Panoply netCDF, HDF and GRIB Data Viewer

Monrovia, the Liberian capital, is facing a widespread Ebola epidemic 909/11/14) [3:45]

The Demise of a US Group Backing Moderate Syrian Rebels Is a Bad Sign for Obama's Anti-ISIS Campaign
MotherJones | Dana Liebelson | 09/16/14

Last week, President Barack Obama outlined his plan for expanding military action against ISIS, the murderous Islamic extremist group that controls territory in Iraq and Syria. His beefed-up campaign includes increased funding previously announced (up to $500 million) to train and arm supposedly moderate rebels in Syria who are fighting the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad and also at times battling ISIS. For the past few years, Washington has assisted Syrian opposition forces deemed non-extremist--even though they might be fighting alongside Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels. But the effort has not been a great success, with hawks accusing the Obama administration of not doing enough, and administration officials skeptical about the moderate opposition's cohesion and military effectiveness and wary of doling out weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. In February, the leader of the moderate Free Syrian Army--who was the conduit for US aid to the rebels--was removed by his own council, partly because the FSA had been taking a beating from the regime and Islamist forces. Now Obama intends to boost the US effort to support these moderate fighters in Syria. But this move comes just weeks after the collapse of the Syrian Support Group, a US-based nonprofit backed by the State Department that boasted it delivered millions in dollars of nonlethal supplies to the FSA. According to former officials of the group, it shut down because of funding problems and divisions among rebel forces. Read more

How IS Is Organized (09/11/14) [3:19]

Finally, Wall Street gets put on trial: We can still hold the 0.1 percent responsible for tanking the economy
Salon | Thomas Frank | 09/07/14

The Tea Party regards Barack Obama as a kind of devil figure, but when it comes to hunting down the fraudsters responsible for the economic disaster of the last six years, his administration has stuck pretty close to the Tea Party script. The initial conservative reaction to the disaster, you will recall, was to blame the crisis on the people at the bottom, on minorities and proletarians lost in an orgy of financial misbehavior. Sure enough, when taking on ordinary people who got loans during the real-estate bubble, the president's Department of Justice has shown admirable devotion to duty, filing hundreds of mortgage-fraud cases against small-timers. ...

...This is a difficult thing to understand--indeed, not understanding it is the stated reason Obama Administration officials have made no effort to send financiers to jail--so let us take this slowly. Executives at the mortgage origination companies got huge bonuses in those days for writing lots of loans. OK? They wanted to write more of them, and the only way to really crank out mortgages on a vast scale was by giving one to anyone who wanted one, regardless of their ability to pay, a feat that is only possible by means of the "liar's loan." So: Liar's loans = rich bankers. ... Read more

CQ Roll Call Unveils the 50 Richest Members of Congress
mediabistro.com | Nick Massella | 09/08/14

At the top of the list this year and last is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) with a net worth of more than $350 million. Rounding out the Top 10 is Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Rep. John Delaney (D-MD), Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA).

At the bottom of the Top 50 is Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) with a net worth of $7.47 million. Roll Call's Top 50 includes 30 Republicans and 20 Democrats, 35 House and 15 Senate members, and 41 men and 9 women. ... Read more

50 Richest Members of Congress

Lindsey Graham Worries Islamic State Will Destroy Americans, Wipe Out Mankind
HP | Jennifer Bendery | 09/14/14

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday slammed President Barack Obama's strategy for combating Islamic State militants and said the president needs to significantly step up military action against the terrorist group before it comes to the United States and "we all get killed."

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Graham said the Obama administration is "delusional" for thinking it can counter the Islamic State, a terrorist group in Syria sometimes called ISIS or ISIL, primarily through expanded air strikes and by training Syrians for ground combat.

"There's no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria to destroy ISIL without a substantial American component," said Graham, a prominent war hawk on Capitol Hill. "This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home." ... Read more

Why Scotland Has All The Leverage, In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 09/15/14

As Scotland prepares to vote for or against Independence from the Union on Thursday, it appears everyone has an opinion on what may, what should and what will happen. At the basis of every such opinion is some basis in fact, misguided as it may be in most cases, about who has all the leverage, with the dominant one being that Scotland would make a horrendous mistake if it says goodbye to the UK and puts a border around what is currently a third of UK's landmass.

Some, such as Deutsche Bank, the bank that has the single greatest derivative exposure in the world and is therefore most leveraged to maintaining the status quo, saw its "Chief Economist & Member, Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG" David Folkerts-Landau personally put pen to paper on Friday and in rambling, demagogic terms, explain why it would be a "Wrong Turn" for Scotland to seek self-determination.

He says that, "A "Yes" vote for Scottish independence on Thursday would go down in history as a political and economic mistake as large as Winston Churchill's decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard or the failure of the Federal Reserve to provide sufficient liquidity to the US banking system, which we now know brought on the Great Depression in the US. These decisions -- well-intentioned as they were -- contributed to years of depression and suffering and could have been avoided had alternative decisions been taken." ... Read more

How Billionaires Like the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and Sam Walton Are Destroying America
AlterNet | Steve Fraser | 09/11/14

George Baer was a railroad and coal mining magnate at the turn of the twentieth century. Amid a violent and protracted strike that shut down much of the country's anthracite coal industry, Baer defied President Teddy Roosevelt's appeal to arbitrate the issues at stake, saying, "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for... not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men of property to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country." To the Anthracite Coal Commission investigating the uproar, Baer insisted, "These men don't suffer. Why hell, half of them don't even speak English."

We might call that adopting the imperial position. Titans of industry and finance back then often assumed that they had the right to supersede the law and tutor the rest of America on how best to order its affairs. They liked to play God. It's a habit that's returned with a vengeance in our own time.

The Koch brothers are only the most conspicuous among a whole tribe of "self-made" billionaires who imagine themselves architects or master builders of a revamped, rehabilitated America. The resurgence of what might be called dynastic or family capitalism, as opposed to the more impersonal managerial capitalism many of us grew up with, is changing the nation's political chemistry. ... Read more

How to Build a Green Economy Without Sacrificing Jobs
Bill Moyers & Boston Review | Robert Pollin | 09/11/14

Here is the fundamental challenge we confront with climate change. As of 2010, total annual greenhouse gas emissions were at 45 billion metric tons of mostly carbon dioxide (CO2), along with smaller amounts of methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that to stabilize the global average temperature at its current level of around 60.3° Fahrenheit, which is 3.6° above the pre-industrial average of 56.7°, total emissions will need to fall by 40 percent by 2030, to 27 billion metric tons annually, and by 80 percent in 2050, to about 9 billion metric tons.

We are not on track to meet these goals. As long as global economic growth proceeds along roughly the trajectory it has taken over the past century, and especially the past fifty years, global emissions will not fall at all, but rather will rise over time as more and more fossil fuels -- oil, coal and natural gas -- are burned to meet increasing demands for energy. The greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning fossil fuels account for nearly 80 percent of all emissions. ... Read more

How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World
MotherJones | Mariah Blake | Oct 2014

One icy morning in February 2012, Hillary Clinton's plane touched down in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, which was just digging out from a fierce blizzard. Wrapped in a thick coat, the secretary of state descended the stairs to the snow-covered tarmac, where she and her aides piled into a motorcade bound for the presidential palace. That afternoon, they huddled with Bulgarian leaders, including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, discussing everything from Syria's bloody civil war to their joint search for loose nukes. But the focus of the talks was fracking. The previous year, Bulgaria had signed a five-year, $68 million deal, granting US oil giant Chevron millions of acres in shale gas concessions. Bulgarians were outraged. Shortly before Clinton arrived, tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets carrying placards that read "Stop fracking with our water" and "Chevron go home." Bulgaria's parliament responded by voting overwhelmingly for a fracking moratorium. Clinton urged Bulgarian officials to give fracking another chance. ... Read more

Transnational Corporations (TNCs) , capitalist network that runs the world
newscientist.com | author | 10/24/11

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. ...

... The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs). ... Read more

President Obama speech on ISIS ISIL - Barack Obama Address US War strategy fight ISIL (09/10/2014) [9:06]

Obama's Broad Coalition Cracks - UK, Germany Won't Support Airstrikes In Syria
ZeroHedge | author | 09/11/14

Well that didn't take long. After espousing his strategy last night of leading a broad coalition against ISIS, it appears President Obama's "allies" are backing away from the plan. As The WSJ reports, Germany and the U.K. on Thursday ruled out carrying out air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria. It appears the Europeans, realizing the ire that these actions will likely cause to Putin, are stepping back - "We haven't been asked, nor will we do it," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters and his U.K. counterpart Philip Hammond explicitly ruled out air strikes in Syria, after the U.K. parliament struck down such a move last year. So that leaves the French? ... Read more

OH My God, what is the world coming to?
Boyack, 91, left, and Dubes, 90, tied the knot Sept. 6 in Iowa.

How can these women corrupt our children?

Obama's Former Chief Economist Calls For An End To US Dollar Reserve Status
ZeroHedge | author | 09/08/14

There are few truisms about the world economy, but for decades, one has been the role of the United States dollar as the world's reserve currency. It's a core principle of American economic policy. After all, who wouldn't want their currency to be the one that foreign banks and governments want to hold in reserve? ... Read more

What Petrodollar: Russia, China To Create SWIFT Alternative
ZeroHedge | author | 09/10/14

According to Itar-Tass, Russia and China are discussing setting up a system of interbank transactions which will become an analogue to International banking transaction system SWIFT, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told PRIME on Wednesday after negotiations in Beijing. "Yes, we have discussed and we have approved this idea," he said. ... Read more

Fed's rate guidance on chopping block, new exit plan nears
Reuters | Ann Saphir | 09/11/14

The U.S. Federal Reserve is facing perhaps its most pivotal meeting of the year next week, as it debates a potential overhaul of its guidance on interest rates and seeks to nail down a plan for exiting its extraordinarily easy monetary policy.

It remains to be seen whether decisions will be taken on either, but it is clear that details on a so-called exit plan are nearly complete, while discomfort is growing internally over a pledge to keep rates near zero for a "considerable time. ... Read more

How IS Is Organized (09/11/14) [3:19]

Murky Special OPS Have Become Corporate Bonanza
The Intercept | Ryan Gallagher | 09/09/14

The U.S. government is paying private contractors billions of dollars to support secretive military units with drones, surveillance technology, and “psychological operations,” according to new research. ...

... Researcher Crofton Black, who also works as an investigator for human rights group Reprieve, was able to dig through the troves of data and identify the beneficiaries of almost $13 billion worth of spending by USSOCOM over the five-year period. He found that more than 3,000 companies had provided services that included aiding remotely piloted drone operations in Afghanistan and the Philippines, helping to conduct surveillance of targets, interrogating prisoners, and launching apparent propaganda campaigns. ...

Iraq's Shi'ite militia, Kurds use U.S. air strikes to further own agendas
Reuters | Isabel Coles | 09/09/14

... The unlikely coalition of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Shi'ite militias and the U.S. air force won a major victory when it broke a siege of the Shi’ite Turkman town of Amerli last week and drove Islamic State from 25 nearby Sunni towns and villages.

But the aftermath is far from what the Americans envisioned. Smoke now rises from those Sunni villages, where some houses have been torched by Shi'ite militia. Others are abandoned, the walls daubed with sectarian slogans. ... Read more

Mark Driscoll (pastor)
Wikipedia | author | 09/10/14

Mark A. Driscoll (born October 11, 1970) is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, and preaching pastor of Mars Hill Church, a megachurch in Seattle, Washington.

In 2011, Preaching magazine named Driscoll one of the 25 most influential [English-speaking] pastors of the past 25 years. His influence is polarizing; he is described in a profile by Salon as being the center of a cult of personality, and using controversy to increase his visibility. The New York Times Magazine called him "one of the most admired -- and reviled -- figures among evangelicals nationwide.

Photos Capture Amazon Tribe As They Beat And Strip Illegal Loggers
HP | author | 09/08/14

Noam Chomsky: The Real Reason Israel "Mows the Lawn" in Gaza
AlterNet & TomDispatch.com | Noam Chomsky | 09/09/14

Like other states, Israel pleads "security" as justification for its aggressive and violent actions. But knowledgeable Israelis know better.

On August 26th, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) both accepted a ceasefire agreement after a 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza that left 2,100 Palestinians dead and vast landscapes of destruction behind. The agreement calls for an end to military action by both Israel and Hamas, as well as an easing of the Israeli siege that has strangled Gaza for many years.

This is, however, just the most recent of a series of ceasefire agreements reached after each of Israel's periodic escalations of its unremitting assault on Gaza. Throughout this period, the terms of these agreements remain essentially the same. The regular pattern is for Israel, then, to disregard whatever agreement is in place, while Hamas observes it -- as Israel has officially recognized -- until a sharp increase in Israeli violence elicits a Hamas response, followed by even fiercer brutality. These escalations, which amount to shooting fish in a pond, are called "mowing the lawn" in Israeli parlance. The most recent was more accurately described as "removing the topsoil" by a senior U.S. military officer, appalled by the practices of the self-described "most moral army in the world." ... Read more

Hustle and Flow: Here's Who Really Controls California's Water
MotherJones | author | date

"Water flows uphill towards money," a source told Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert, the seminal book on California water politics. Today the complex web of political interests that Reisner detailed some 30 years ago has become even more arcane and intertwined. As California confronts its worst drought in years, these power brokers will largely determine who gets water, and who gets left high and dry:

DIANNE FEINSTEIN: The chair of the powerful energy and water panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee has a history of siding with the state's agricultural interests, which use 80 percent of the state's water. In a March email to two Cabinet secretaries, Feinstein joined Republicans in urging federal water officials to capture "the maximum amount of water" from the Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta for farmers. Two months later, she pushed a drought bill through the Senate by a unanimous vote, over the objections of environmentalists who said it would open the door to permanently increasing water allocations to farmers at the expense of endangered fish. Environmental groups "have never been helpful to me in producing good water policy," she later told the San Francisco Chronicle. She is now hammering out a compromise bill with House Republicans who want to do even more to gut endangered species laws. ... Read more

What Larry Summers Told Me
Bill Moyers | Elizabeth Warren | 09/05/14

In early April, I got a call from the office of Larry Summers. I didn't know Larry well, but I'd met him a few times while he was president of Harvard in the early 2000s. According to reports, Larry had been Tim Geithner's mentor when they were both in the Treasury Department in the 1990s. Now Larry was the director of the National Economic Council, which meant that, along with Secretary Geithner, he advised President Obama on economic issues. Would I be interested in meeting him for dinner?

Sure, I replied. Larry's office suggested the Bombay Club, an Indian restaurant near the White House. Quiet and softly lit, it served Washington's power elite.

When Larry arrived for our dinner, he ordered a Diet Coke as soon as he sat down. He glanced at the menu, ordered quickly and soon the food started coming.

It was a long dinner, with plenty of intense back-and-forth about everything from the bailout, to deregulation, to the foreclosure crisis. I also talked to Larry about an idea I'd been working on for a new consumer financial agency and he seemed interested. We didn't agree on everything, but I give Larry full credit: I'll take honest conversation and debate any day of the week over the duck-and-cover stuff I so often saw in Washington that spring.

Late in the evening, Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. By now, I'd lost count of Larry's Diet Cokes, and our table was strewn with bits of food and spilled sauces. Larry's tone was in the friendly-advice category. He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders. I had been warned. Read more

America's Wealth Gap 'Unsustainable' According To Harvard Study
Reuters & HP | author | 09/08/14

The widening gap between America's wealthiest and its middle and lower classes is "unsustainable", but is unlikely to improve any time soon, according to a Harvard Business School study released on Monday.

... "Shortsighted executives may be satisfied with an American economy whose firms win in global markets without lifting U.S. living standards. But any leader with a long view understands that business has a profound stake in the prosperity of the average American," according to the report. ... Read more

The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism
NYT | Thomas B. Edsall | 08/26/14

... In terms of food, housing and other essentials, the cost of being poor has always been exorbitant. Landlords, grocery stores and other commercial enterprises have all found ways to profit from those at the bottom of the ladder.

In addition to probation, municipal court systems are also turning collections over to a national network of companies like Sentinel that profit from service charges imposed on the men and women who are under court order to pay fees and fines, including traffic tickets (with the fees being sums tacked on by the court to fund administrative services).

When they cannot pay these assessed fees and fines -- plus collection charges imposed by the private companies -- offenders can be sent to jail. There are many documented cases in which courts have imprisoned those who failed to keep up with their combined fines, fees and service charges. ... Read more

4 Ways Greedy Capitalists Rig the System to Profit Off Our Misery
AlterNet | Paul Buchheit | 09/07/14

Self-indulgent capitalists have turned much of America against its own best interests by promoting a winner-take-all philosophy that reaps great rewards for a few people at the expense of everyone else. To the neoliberal, vital human needs like health and education are products to be bought and sold.

Neil Patrick Harris Marries David Burtka In Italy
HP | author | 09/08/14

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka are married! Harris and Burtka wed in an intimate ceremony in front of family and friends in Italy on Saturday, Sept. 6, E! News confirmed. The couple wore Tom Ford tuxedos for the nuptials, which were officiated by "How I Met Your Mother" producer and director Pam Fryman. Elton John performed at the party. ... Read more

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia
HP | Alastair Crooke | 08/27/14

The dramatic arrival of Da'ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed -- and horrified -- by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia's ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, "Don't the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?"

It appears -- even now -- that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite "fire" with Sunni "fire"; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da'ish's strict Salafist ideology.

Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan -- please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s. ... Read more
*SCG | The Covert Origins of ISIS (09/29/14) [21:00]

Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces To Hold Major Exercise This Month
Reuters & HP | author | 09/03/14

The forces responsible for Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal will conduct major exercises this month involving more than 4,000 soldiers, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, in the latest sign of rising tension with NATO over the Ukraine crisis.

In an announcement a day before the start of a NATO summit in Wales, RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying the exercises would take place in Altai in south-central Russia and would also include around 400 technical units and extensive use of air power. ... Read more

*DN | Ukraine Ceasefire Takes Hold, but an Expanding NATO on Russia's Borders Raises Threat of Nuclear War (09/05/14) [19:20]

Henry Kissinger on the Assembly of a New World Order
WSJ | Henry Kissinger | 08/29/14

The concept that has underpinned the modern geopolitical era is in crisis

Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan's young democracy is on the verge of paralysis. To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia and a relationship with China divided between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination. The concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis.

The search for world order has long been defined almost exclusively by the concepts of Western societies. In the decades following World War II, the U.S. -- strengthened in its economy and national confidence -- began to take up the torch of international leadership and ... Read more

Watch the US Drop 2.5 Million Tons of Bombs on Laos

The Trials of Henry Kissinger (old, but good) [1:19:41]

Media War Frenzy 'Like 2003'
Click to zoom - Medias March to War
HP | author | 09/04/14

As the Obama administration weighs whether it should try to manage the Islamic State, destroy it or follow it to the "gates of Hell," endless news coverage and non-stop cable chatter have focused on the possibility of expanding the fight from Iraq to Syria.

Many have argued that President Barack Obama needs to go beyond air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq -- there have been 124 strikes so far -- and begin targeting militants inside civil war-torn Syria. The notion that Obama isn't doing enough has been a common theme, regardless of party.

Guess Which One Isn't Allowed At Kroger

ISIS Terror - 44 Stories
NBC News | author | 09/04/14

EXCLUSIVE: American Extremist Reveals His Quest to Join ISIS

Just a few weeks ago a Catholic-born, American man -- a former military school student, special forces aspirant, law enforcement officer and bodybuilder -- set off on a path far from any he'd envisioned for himself as a kid in North Carolina: on the other side of the world, in Lebanon, he was trying to figure out how to get into Syria and join ISIS, the most radical, bloodthirsty terrorist group of our times. Don Morgan, 44, said he was answering a higher calling. ... Read more

Russia tries to buy some influence. [PublicIntegrity, 09/02]

Alexander Cohen at the Center for Public Integrity reports that "a Russian bank targeted with sanctions by President Obama over the Ukraine crisis, has hired two former U.S. senators to lobby against those sanctions." Gazprombank thinks former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) can sway their former colleagues to go easy on Russia, but given the chilly climate in US-Russian relations, that may be a tall order.

Clueless plutocrats[Bloomberg, 09/02/14]

Countrywide Financial -- and Bank of America, which picked up the pieces after Countrywide went belly up -- racked up more than $70 billion in fines for its subprime lending. But Bloomberg's Max Abelson reports that former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo is "baffled" by the public's outrage. "No, no, no, we didn't do anything wrong," he insisted.

Sold out too low?[NewRepublic, 09/02/14]

TNR's Alec MacGillis thinks Eric Cantor, who took a cushy job at a Wall Street investment house this week, could have held out for a higher bidder given that no one "has made more of an effort over the years to endear himself to big financial employers than has Eric Cantor."

The Future of Guantánamo, or Who's Left??
NYTimes | author | 009/01/14

... Taxpayers are spending about $443 million to operate the Guantánamo prison this year, or nearly $3 million for each of the 149 prisoners. Because many costs are fixed, once the low-level detainees are transferred, the per-inmate cost of housing the remaining ones at the remote naval base would soar even higher. By comparison, the federal Bureau of Prisons -- which imprisons many convicted terrorists -- spent $30,280 a year per maximum-security inmate in 2013. ... Read more

Eric Cantor To Join Investment Bank Moelis & Co. As Vice Chairman And Managing Director
HP | Reuters | 09/02/14

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will join investment bank Moelis & Co as vice chairman and managing director, the company said, adding that Cantor will also be elected to its board. ...

... Cantor, the No.2 Republican in the House of Representatives, was beaten by college economics professor David Brat, who accused Cantor of betraying conservative principles on spending, debt and immigration. ... Read more

Thom Hartmann: The story of the 5 Kings who rule America (older) [9:39]

Ring of Fire (08/31/14) [57:00]

Ex-NSA Director, US Intelligence Veterans Write Open Letter To Merkel To Avoid All-Out Ukraine War
ZeroHedge | author | 09/01/14

Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War, U.S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA's spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian "invasion."

"We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5. You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. ... Read more

6 Questions With Sylvia Earle, the Greatest Living Ocean Explorer
AlterNet | Brian Palmer | 08/19/14

Earle, the famed marine biologist, is feted in the new Netflix documentary 'Mission Blue.'

She knows the ocean better than any other person alive. Reverently nicknamed " Her Deepness," Sylvia Earle has spent 7,000 hours underwater over seven decades. And on those dives she has witnessed first hand the havoc we wreak upon the sea--from coral bleaching and shark finning to the disappearance of once-abundant species such as tuna and menhaden. She has received virtually every honor in exploration and conservation science, and has served as chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. When Sylvia Earle talks about the ocean, you listen. ... Read more or A Conversation with 'Her Deepness'
*Netflix | Mission Blue (trailer) (08/15/14) [2:24]

Lights off on Singapore's billionaire row as luxury house prices plunge
Reuters | Caroline Ng | 08/28/14

There's an eerie silence at night in Sentosa Cove, the man-made island resort billed as Singapore's answer to Monte Carlo and the only place in the country where foreigners can buy landed property. Dozens of houses - complete with their own private yacht berths and multiple swimming pools - sit empty while few lights are on in the apartment blocks overlooking the marina, a few kilometres away from Sentosa's giant casino.

Prices in the gated community, where Australian mining tycoons Gina Rinehart and Nathan Tinkler bought properties, fell around 20 percent in the past year as lending restrictions and taxes on foreign buyers burst a bubble in the Southeast Asian financial hub's luxury real estate market. Investors could see the value of their assets fall even further with developers and investors still struggling to sell even after the recent price falls. Real estate websites list hundreds of flats and bungalows for sale, yet just 12 apartments and one house have changed hands all year on Sentosa, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). ... Read more

Where Do ISIS Fighters Come From?
Everywhere...
Click to zoom - ISIS Fighters

Meet the Risky Mortgage Pioneer Trying to Pay His Buddy's Way Into Congress
MotherJones | Molly Redden | 09/02/14

If New Hampshire Republican Dan Innis wins his congressional race, he knows where to send the fruit basket: to the home of mortgage giant Peter T. Paul.

Before running for Congress, Innis served as dean of the University of New Hampshire's business school, which was renamed for Paul after he donated $25 million. His campaign website touts major building projects he oversaw as dean -- projects financed by Paul's contribution. And Innis' congressional run is getting a big-time boost from a brand-new super PAC founded and financed by Paul. ... Read more

Do Both Liberals and Conservatives Have Taxing and Spending All Wrong?
BillMoyers | Joshua Holland | 08/29/14

What if our endless political fights over taxes and public spending are based on a poor understanding of how government really works in a modern economy?

Edward Kleinbard, a professor of business at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, thinks that's largely true. Recently, he published a paper arguing that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, corporate "inversions" aren't motivated by multinationals' desire to establish themselves abroad in low-tax havens. And in his forthcoming book, We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money, he says that both liberals and conservatives get key issues wrong.

BillMoyers.com recently spoke with Kleinbard; below is a transcript of our discussion that's been edited for length and clarity: ... Read more

Ukraine Defense Minister Warns Of "Worst Conflict Since WWII", Shifts Forces To "Combat Full-Scale Russian Invasion"
ZeroHedge | author | 09/01/14

Unless they are tilting at windmills, the rhetoric this morning from Ukraine's defense minister is the strongest and most actionable yet. Via his Facebook page, Valeriy Galetey accused Russia of "open aggression," and explained that:

Earlier in the morning, US Senator Bob Menendez said he has "no doubt Russia has invaded Ukraine," and following Ukraine requests for assistance from Europe and US, NATO responded by noting a reaction force or 3-5,000 can be ready in 48 hours. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Then NATO responds

This 11-Year-Old Was Locked Up Trying to Cross the Border. Read the Heartfelt Letter She Sent Obama.
MotherJones | Molly Redden | 08/29/14

On Tuesday, the nation's top immigration court allowed a Guatemalan woman who fled her abusive husband to petition for asylum in the United States. It's a landmark ruling that immigrant rights advocates hope will protect women who have escaped horrific marital violence in countries besides Guatemala.

One of those women is a Honduran named Rosemary. In June, she entered the US with Daniela, her 11-year-old daughter, and both were detained near the border. Rosemary and Daniela are currently detained in a makeshift facility in Artesia, New Mexico, set up by the Department of Homeland Security. They are seeking asylum after fleeing Daniela's father, who allegedly beat and choked Rosemary for three years before the two escaped. ... Read more
Click to zoom - Letter from Daniela to Obama

Herbs de Provence

Herb Roasted Chicken Thighs with Potatoes
simplyrecipes.com | author | date

Here's an idea for an easy, one-dish meal--herb roasted chicken thighs baked on a bed of potatoes. Layer a casserole dish with thinly sliced potatoes, top with thinly sliced shallots, top with chicken thighs, douse with an herby vinaigrette, and roast until the chicken is golden brown.Here's an idea for an easy, one-dish meal--herb roasted chicken thighs baked on a bed of potatoes. Layer a casserole dish with thinly sliced potatoes, top with thinly sliced shallots, top with chicken thighs, douse with an herby vinaigrette, and roast until the chicken is golden brown. ... Read more