Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Warp-speed disruptions outpace tech solutions
Axios | Ina Fried | 09/30/21

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The tech insider crowd partied here at Code Conference this week, but many couldn't shake the sense that the world's colossal problems are outrunning the breakthroughs their industry is promising.

The stage brimmed with talk of flying electric taxis and space tourism. Optimists flashed "we can fix that" smiles. But there wasn't enough tech-fueled bravado to lift the shadows: Runaway climate change. Misinformation-fueled erosion of democracy. And a planet where isolationism is rising as globalization falters. ...

... Meanwhile: Attendees struggled to outline a coherent strategy to deal with the fraying of the U.S.-China relationship that once supported a truly global tech industry. ... Read more

A Legacy of Corruption and Abuse: The Post-9/11 Immigration Megabureaucracy
magazine | author | date

Investigative reporter Ryan Devereaux explains how the U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus grew to the scale that it is today, stemming from the war on terror. Since the Department of Homeland Security’s messy beginnings, the number of Border Patrol agents has more than doubled; immigrants detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails have denounced mistreatment and unsafe conditions; and the number of deportations has dramatically risen. As Devereaux outlines, since Homeland Security’s creation, this trend has continued throughout the Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden administrations. ... Read more

The bond market is warped
Axios | Kate Marino | 09/29/21

Conventional wisdom sends "smart money" looking to the bond market to interpret investor expectations on things like economic growth or inflation. Sometimes those cues are loud and clear -- but for the better part of this year, the signals sent by Treasury yields seem broken.

Why it matters: The market still has things to tell us. But it's gotten harder to decode those messages amid all the noise and the complexities of the pandemic economy, says Drew Matus, chief market strategist at MetLife Investment Management. ... Read more

Banana Wars - US Occupation in Central America for A Fruit Company I THE GREAT WAR 1921 | The Great War | 06/14/21 | 26:01

Why Were Things So Terrible In the 17th Century - General Crisis Theory | Kings and Generals | 09/26/21 | 19:20

What It’s Like to Be the Target of a COVID Conspiracy | VICE | 09/23/21 | 7:01

Can Homeowners In The U.S. Afford Climate Change? | CNBC | 09/16/21 | 45:19

Senate GOP pushes DOJ to roll back Trump oversight rule
Axios | Lachlan Markay | 09/24/21

Senate Republicans want the Justice Department to roll back Trump-era restrictions on congressional oversight criticized at the time as an attempt to insulate the Trump administration from Democratic investigators, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: While some Republicans spoke out against the DOJ guidance at the time, it was mostly Democrats who attacked it as a constitutionally dubious effort to scuttle congressional oversight. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and the GOP is making similar arguments with Biden in the White House. ... Read more

War with China: Are we closer than we think? | Under Investigation | 60 Minutes Australia | 09/20/21 | 41:25

Shutdown, default odds increase as GOP buckles up to block debt limit hike
Politico | BURGESS EVERETT | 09/21/21

Lisa Murkowski isn't fully comfortable with her fellow Republicans' stance on the debt ceiling, which could risk a U.S. debt default or a government shutdown. She recognizes, however, that she's something of a unicorn.

"I always look carefully at things that will tie or limit our ability to address things on the [government funding] side. So, I probably take a different view of it than different colleagues," Murkowski said on Tuesday, referring to the possibility that the debt ceiling conflict causes a shutdown next week. ... Read more

Arabia Before Islam: Religion, Society, Culture | ings and Generals | 09/21/21 | 20:00

Why the Ottomans Never Colonized America? | ings and Generals | 07/23/20 | 15:46

Mitch McConnell Doesn't Get the Point of the Debt Limit
Politico | Joshua Zeitz | 09/22/21

Sometime next month, the United States will run up against its statutory debt limit. Unless Congress raises the ceiling, the federal government will either default on the national debt or be compelled to freeze critical domestic and defense initiatives - or possibly, even both.

The Biden administration has asked Congress to raise the debt limit, meeting what was once a routine responsibility of governing. But Republicans in Congress have refused. Given the minority’s ability to block nearly all legislation in the Senate, they have the power to hurl the country over an economic cliff, costing millions of jobs and erasing trillions of dollars in household wealth, overnight. ... Read more

Rua Moataz Khadr kept her three children close as they huddled in a house full of strangers in Mosul, Iraq. Above her, the U.S.-led coalition rained down airstrikes as the battle against the Islamic State reached its heights in 2017. ISIS fighters had forced Khadr's family from their home and into this building.

A bomb hit the house. Khadr and her two daughters were able to free themselves from the rubble that had fallen on them, but her 4-year-old son, Ahmed Yahya, was crushed to death. He was among the 9,000 to 11,000 civilians killed during the yearlong battle for Mosul.

Khadr, like most bombing victims in Iraq, has no idea which nation was responsible for the airstrike that killed her son. ...

... In its final days in Afghanistan, the U.S. conducted a drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Kabul -- seven of them children. Their deaths bring up a thorny question surrounding the frequent U.S. killing of civilians in the 9/11 wars: What would justice look like for the families of civilians who have been wrongfully killed? ... Read more

** Health care profits for me, but not for thee
Axios | Bob Herman | 09/21/21

In July, the head of the American Hospital Association blasted UnitedHealth Group for its "jaw-dropping" profits in the second quarter. But an analysis of financial documents shows a sample of large not-for-profit hospital systems that collectively generated the same amount of revenue as the insurance giant were almost three times more profitable than UnitedHealth.

Reality check: Companies and lobbying groups often paint their business foes as the primary problems with the health care system, but each sector contributes to the system's dysfunction.

By the numbers: UnitedHealth Group, which also increasingly owns doctors and other services, posted a net profit of $4.3 billion on $71.3 billion of revenue in the second quarter.

1. UnitedHealth's operating profit, which excludes taxes and interest, totaled $6 billion.
2. Axios looked at the Q2 financial data for 24 major tax-exempt hospital systems that combined for roughly $72 billion of revenue, on par with UnitedHealth.

1. The hospitals' operating profit, which excludes investment income, was $3.6 billion, or about 60% of UnitedHealth's operating profit.
2. Hospitals often point to their operating incomes when referring to slim margins without taking into account the benefits from their investments.

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, Sep 20 [11:59]

Anti-Vax MAGA Convinced Vaccine Is "Mark of the Beast" | TYT | 09/21/21 | 13:52

Democrats' dwindling 2022 map
Axios | Alexi McCammond | 09/21/21

What they're saying: Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Axios his party must be "flexible and nimble" and that the districts in play remain subject to change -- based on redistricting and the extent of Republican overreach.

- What's going to determine the size of the battlefield is how far down these dark paths of racism and denying a woman's reproductive freedom the Republican Party goes," he said. ... Read more

Monster risk: Fauci says COVID cases 10x too high
Axios | Eileen Drage O'Reilly | 09/09/21

Americans are now getting infected with COVID-19 at 10 times the rate needed to end the pandemic, which will persist until more people get vaccinated, NIAID director Anthony Fauci tells Axios.

Threat level: "The endgame is to suppress the virus. Right now, we're still in pandemic mode, because we have 160,000 new infections a day. That's not even modestly good control ... which means it's a public health threat."

"In a country of our size, you can't be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You've got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable," Fauci says. ... Read more

Yellen warns of likely October debt cliff and incoming 'irreparable damage'
Politico | Jennifer Scholtes and Caitlin Emma | 09/08/21

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned congressional leaders on Wednesday that she expects the country's debt limit will hit its breaking point next month, dealing a likely blow to the global economy without quick action.

In a letter to top lawmakers in both parties, Yellen said the Biden administration’s “best and most recent" calculations suggest that the United States will run out of cash "during the month of October." If Congress continues to push off action on the debt limit over the next few weeks, she warned, the uncertainty alone could hurt financial markets.

"We have learned from past debt limit impasses," the secretary wrote, “that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States." ... Read more

Tribal and Religious Identity in Afghanistan - Thomas Barfield | PittGlobalStudies | 02/01/13 | 42:55

Big oil's 'wokewashing' is the new climate science denialism
TheGuardian | Amy Westervelt | 09/09/21

ExxonMobil has been touting its commitment to "reducing carbon emissions with innovative energy solutions". Chevron would like to remind you it is keeping the lights on during this dark time. BP is going #NetZero, but is also very proud of the "digital innovations" on its new, enormous oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile Shell insists it really supports women in traditionally male-dominated jobs.

A casual social media user might get the impression the fossil fuel industry views itself as a social justice warrior, fighting on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, and women - at least based on its marketing material in recent years.

These campaigns fall into what a handful of sociologists and economists call “discourses of delay”. While oil and gas companies have a long track record of denying climate change, even after their own scientists repeatedly warned of the harm caused by burning fossil fuels, now the industry's messaging is far more subtle and in many ways more effective than outright climate science denial. ... Read more

Yellen says U.S. could default in October, urges Congress to raise debt ceiling
Axios | Jacob Knutson | 09/08/21

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen again called on congressional leaders to raise the debt ceiling in a letter Wednesday, saying the country may soon be unable to meet its financial obligations if nothing is done.

Why it matters: Yellen said the Treasury estimates that it will run out of cash and "extraordinary measures" used to finance the government in October. ... Read more

What the U.S. Could Have Bought After 9/11 Instead of a “War on Terror”
TheIntercept | Jon Schwarz | 09/03/21/span>

In April 1953, three months after he took office, President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors. In what would become known as his “Chance for Peace” speech, Eisenhower famously said:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone."

"It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.""

This is one way of looking at military spending. But there’s another way, one articulated just after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by Samuel Visner, a onetime executive at defense contractor SAIC turned top National Security Agency manager. “We can milk this thing all the way to 2015,” Visner told a contractor at a meeting about one of the NSA’s surveillance programs. “There’s plenty to go around.” ... Read more