The Young Turks: Matt Taibbi on Obama administration’s fear of fraud prosecutions

29 Dec 2011 | Cenk talks with “Rolling Stone” contributing editor Matt Taibbi about his new piece on the Obama administration’s lack of prosecutions for white collar crime. “If they pushed all these prosecutions, investors worldwide would see how epidemic corruption is on Wall Street,” Taibbi says. “They’re afraid of what the international reaction would be.” Cenk says while he doesn’t think President Obama is personally corrupt, “It’s the system that corrupts all these politicians.”

Occupy protestors create their own social network

The Global Square is expected to launch in January 2012, providing a secure space for Occupy protestors to organize, share, and meet fellow protestors, according to its developers. It will also boast a Facebook-like news feed. Unlike Twitter and Facebook however, new Global Square members must be sanctioned by existing ones before being accepted.

Occupy Wall Street Farmers March

On December 4, 2011, farmers and activists from across the country joined the Occupy Wall Street Farmers March for "a celebration of community power to regain control over the most basic element to human well-being: food."

The Farmers March began at La Plaza Cultural Community Gardens where urban and rural farmers addressed an excited crowd about the growing problems in our industrial food system and the promise offered by solutions based in organic, sustainable and community based food and agricultural production. This was followed by a 3-mile march from the East Village to Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Rick Perry's incoherent foreign policy ramble

Riley on marketing

Growth of large private water companies brings higher water rates, little recourse for consumers

Jeremy Schwartz and Eric Dexheimer
Austin American-Statesman
17 Dec 2011

Over the past decade, multistate water utilities have expanded aggressively in Texas, drawn by the state's booming population and welcoming regulatory environment. A September report prepared by utility analysts for Robert W. Baird & Co., a financial management company, identified Texas water regulators as the most generous in the country for private water companies. Today, three out-of-state corporations own about 500 Texas water systems that serve more than 250,000 residents.

For residents living outside cities served by private utility companies, the state environmental commission is charged with setting "just and reasonable" water rates based on a company's cost of doing business plus a guaranteed profit. In exchange, the companies enjoy a monopoly on their service area.

Yet critics say the agency is unprepared to handle the recent influx of corporations that have exploited a regulatory system more accustomed to handling rural mom-and-pop operations. Meanwhile, Texas laws provide fewer consumer protections to residents facing water rate increases than electricity and gas ratepayers.

"We are in the midst of a transformation in this state, and the state is ill-prepared to move into that transition," said Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who co-chairs a legislative subcommittee to investigate the rates charged by investor-owned water utilities. "It feels like it's happening at warp speed."

The whole story:

Obama to sign indefinite detention bill into law

After spend months threatening a veto, the President decides instead to codify the first such bill since the 1950s.

Glen Greenwald | salon.com | 15 Dec 2011

The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as ”black hole” injustice.

The whole story:

Robert Reich puts an offer on the table for President Obama

In less than three minutes, our favorite economist spells out what it's going to take to get our support.

STRONG response from a Teacher

11 Dec 2011 | Joshua Grizelle: Texas Governor Rick Perry is apparently unfamiliar with the bill he signed into Texas law in 2003 mandating a "minute of silence" each morning during which "students may pray".

Perry wants constitutional amendment for school prayer

11 Dec 2011 | As president, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) says he would fight for a constitutional amendment to allow prayer in schools.

Sir Douglas Quintet - "I Keep Wishing For You"

From "Border Wave" 1983



Read about it.

Ron Paul's eye-opening ad on U.S. wars

'Tyrants' replacing local democracy in Michigan

8 Dec 2011 | Rachel Maddow reports on the expanding role of the "emergency manager" in Michigan, supplanting elected local governments.

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Bankers are the dictators of the West

It seems to me that the reporting of the collapse of capitalism has reached a new low which even the Middle East cannot surpass for sheer unadulterated obedience to the very institutions and Harvard "experts" who have helped to bring about the whole criminal disaster.

Robert Fisk | The Independent
10 December 2011

Let's kick off with the "Arab Spring" – in itself a grotesque verbal distortion of the great Arab/Muslim awakening which is shaking the Middle East – and the trashy parallels with the social protests in Western capitals. We've been deluged with reports of how the poor or the disadvantaged in the West have "taken a leaf" out of the "Arab spring" book, how demonstrators in America, Canada, Britain, Spain and Greece have been "inspired" by the huge demonstrations that brought down the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and – up to a point – Libya. But this is nonsense.

The real comparison, needless to say, has been dodged by Western reporters, so keen to extol the anti-dictator rebellions of the Arabs, so anxious to ignore protests against "democratic" Western governments, so desperate to disparage these demonstrations, to suggest that they are merely picking up on the latest fad in the Arab world. The truth is somewhat different. What drove the Arabs in their tens of thousands and then their millions on to the streets of Middle East capitals was a demand for dignity and a refusal to accept that the local family-ruled dictators actually owned their countries.

And that is the true parallel in the West. The protest movements are indeed against Big Business – a perfectly justified cause – and against "governments". What they have really divined, however, albeit a bit late in the day, is that they have for decades bought into a fraudulent democracy: they dutifully vote for political parties – which then hand their democratic mandate and people's power to the banks and the derivative traders and the rating agencies, all three backed up by the slovenly and dishonest coterie of "experts" from America's top universities and "think tanks", who maintain the fiction that this is a crisis of globalisation rather than a massive financial con trick foisted on the voters.

The whole story:

Rape in the US military: America's dirty little secret

A female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire

Lucy Broadbent | guardian.co.uk
9 Dec 2011

Rape within the US military has become so widespread that it is estimated that a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be attacked by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. So great is the issue that a group of veterans are suing the Pentagon to force reform. The lawsuit, which includes three men and 25 women (the suit initially involved 17 plaintiffs but grew to 28) who claim to have been subjected to sexual assaults while serving in the armed forces, blames former defence secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates for a culture of punishment against the women and men who report sex crimes and a failure to prosecute the offenders.

Since the lawsuit became public in February, 400 more have come forward, contacting attorney Susan Burke who is leading the case. These are likely to be future lawsuits. Right now they are anxiously awaiting a court ruling to find out if the lawsuit will go to trial. The defence team for the department of defence has filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing a court ruling, dating back to 1950, which states that the government is not liable for injury sustained by active duty personnel. To date, military personnel have been unable to sue their employer.

Whether or not the case goes to trial, it is still set to blow the lid on what has come to be regarded as the American military's dirty little secret. Last year 3,158 sexual crimes were reported within the US military. Of those cases, only 529 reached a court room, and only 104 convictions were made, according to a 2010 report from SAPRO (sexual assault prevention and response office, a division of the department of defence). But these figures are only a fraction of the reality. Sexual assaults are notoriously under-reported. The same report estimated that there were a further 19,000 unreported cases of sexual assault last year. The department of veterans affairs, meanwhile, released an independent study estimating that one in three women had experience of military sexual trauma while on active service. That is double the rate for civilians, which is one in six, according to the US department of justice.

The whole story:

How the right wing destroyed the U.S. Postal Service

By SamSeder | 9 Sept 2011
The Majority Report

Steps taken during the Bush administration are the reason why the once successful U.S. Postal Service is currently in financial trouble. Sam takes a look at the Right Wing cause to privatize the mail and destroy a U.S. institution.





Truth Out article on this by Allison Kilkenny:

How TV Ruined Your Life: Aspiration

8 Feb 2011 | From Dallas to Grand Designs, television continually rubs desirable lifestyles in your face, making you feel inadequate in the process.

Jackson Browne on powers-that-be reaction to OWS - 'I think they're freaking out'

1 Dec 2011 | Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Ex-Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, failed banker-turned Senate candidate, funds ‘End the Occupation’ site

Stephen C. Webster | rawstory.com
17 Oct 2011

In what appears to be an effort to garner email addresses for his U.S. Senate campaign, a Texas Republican who formerly served on Washington Mutual’s board of directors has launched a website called “End Occupy,” which blames young Americans and their “false sense of entitlement” for the country’s current economic status.

“The Occupy Wall Street crowd represents the same flawed values that got our country into this economic mess,” Tom Leppert’s “EndOccupy.com” claims. “They possess a false sense of entitlement and think they should be receiving government handouts and run up the debt on an imaginary credit card by making hard-working Americans and future generations pay for the bill.” It goes on to ask for petition signatures, which will be sent to President Barack Obama.

But for Leppert, who’s running to replace Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), that allegation may just produce a round of laughter from the occupied streets of New York all the way to his home in Dallas, Texas, given his history. Leppert was one of the last chairmen of Washington Mutual’s audit committee, right before the company earned the title of largest bank failure in U.S. history, fleecing shareholders of $63 billion.

Before it went down, WaMu was cited as one of the worst offenders in offering the junk loans that inflated the housing bubble. When that bubble popped, WaMu was seized by government regulators, then sold to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Chase shortly thereafter received a $25 billion bailout financed by U.S. taxpayers, which it has since paid back.

Luckily for Leppert, he didn’t have to manage that morass, finding himself in a new job just before the crisis hit: Mayor of Dallas, an office he held from 2007-2011.

The rest of the story:

Matt Taibbi on judge's decision to reject the SEC’s latest settlement with Citigroup | Countdown

28 Nov 2011 | Keith and 'Countdown' contributor Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone discuss the remarkable decision by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff to reject a $285 million settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors. Taibbi points out that banks take punitive settlements in stride, saying, “They recognize that every now and then they’re going to get dragged into court, they’re going to have to give a little bit of money to somebody, and then they get to walk away and keep doing it.”

Fox News criticizes Obama's Thanksgiving Day address | The Daily Show

28 Nov 2011 | Not only is Barack Obama not the first president to leave God out of his Thanksgiving address, he didn't even do that -- but that doesn't stop Fox from criticizing him.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Janeane Garofalo on the double standard of Republican rhetoric

Sanders: No Super Congress deal is the best deal

BLITZER: But as you know, the compromise in the works has always been there would be some tax increases, which is what you want, but at the same time there would be cuts in what's called entitlement spending, including Social Security and Medicare.

SANDERS: Well, I think that position is way out of line with what the American people want. I just saw a poll today. Seventy percent of Republicans, of Republicans say do not cut Social Security. Numbers are higher for Democrats and independents. In this economic moment when so many people are hurting, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are enormously important. They are life and death issues.

BLITZER: Are you open to reforms in Social Security, for example, raising the retirement age?

SANDERS: No. I'm open to reforms by lifting the cap taxable income so that millionaires contribute more into Social Security so that it will be solvent for 75 years. Let's be clear. Social security has not contributed to one nickel to the deficit.

Retired police Captain Ray Lewis: "Corporate America is using our police departments as hired thugs"

19 Nov 2011 MSNBC

Robert Reich: super committee is super trouble

Robert Reich explains how the Super Committee could reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the 1% and create jobs, rather than making cuts that will hurt working families.

Bill Moyers on Plutonomy

Bill Moyers signs off his last broadcast with an editorial discussion on why plutocracy and democracy don't mix.

How to succeed through supercommittee’s ‘failure’

By E.J. Dionne Jr. | The Washington Post

16 Nov 2011 | Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing.

That’s right. If Congress simply fails to act between now and Jan. 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away.

Knowing this, are you still sure that a “failure” by the congressional supercommittee to reach a deal would be such a disaster?

Read it here.

Barney Frank: Gingrich is 'fundamentally intellectually dishonest' for hypocrisy on Freddie Mac

The frightening thought

"No politician, regardless of what party he's in, wants the people to suddenly be in charge. For the power to shift from those who are the elected officials to the people who elected them, which is actually the way it's supposed to be, that's a frightening thought." - Michael Moore, 15 Nov 2011

Alleged child rapist Jerry Sandusky speaks | The Ed Show | 15 Nov 2011

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dan Siegel: Totally futile to try shutting down ‘Occupy’ protests | The Rachel Maddow Show

14 Nov 2011 | Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s legal adviser and longtime friend, Dan Siegel, explained to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Monday night why he decided to resign his post.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Get ready for a passionless presidential race

Robert Reich | 14 Nov 2011

At this point neither the Republican right nor the mainstream media wants to admit the yawn-inducing truth that Mitt will be the GOP’s candidate. The right doesn’t want to admit it because it will be seen as a repudiation of the Tea Party. The media doesn’t want to because they’d prefer to sell newspapers and attract eyeballs.

The media are keeping the story of Rick Perry’s cringe-inducing implosion going for the same reason they’re keeping the story of Herman Cain’s equally painful decline going — because the public is forever fascinated by the gruesome sight of dying candidacies. With Bachmann, Perry, and Cain gone or disintegrating, the right wing-nuts of the GOP have only one hope left: Newt Gingrich. His star will rise briefly before he, too, is pilloried for the bizarre things he’s uttered in the past and for his equally bizarre private life. His fall will be equally sudden (although I don’t think Gingrich is capable of embarrassment).

And so we’ll be left with two presidential candidates who don’t inspire — at the very time in American history when Americans crave inspiration.

The full story:

Van Jones on Occupy Wall Street | Countdown with Keith Olbermann

9 Nov 2011 | Van Jones, co-founder and president of Rebuild the Dream, discusses the connection the Occupy movement is making with more Americans around specific issues. Referring to the continued resistance by Republicans to the desire by a growing percentage of the public that government intervene in the country’s wealth disparity, Jones says to them, “Please just keep saying you want America’s government to be AWOL in the biggest crisis to hit us since the Great Depression.”

Berkeley police beating Cal students before retreating

Mike Tyson impersonates Herman Cain in spoof campaign commercial

"The Tea Party loves crazy more than they hate black."

Rural farmers unite to feed Wall Street protestors

How rural farmers, an unemployed chef and a protestor named Heather are getting 1,000 dinners served at Occupy Wall Street every night.



FULL STORY:

New documentary highlights Koch Brothers' influence on American politics

New documentary by Al Jazeera's Bob Abeshouse on the Kochtopus.

Paul Krugman: Here comes the sun

PAUL KRUGMAN | New York Times
6 Nov 2011

For decades the story of technology has been dominated, in the popular mind and to a large extent in reality, by computing and the things you can do with it. Moore’s Law — in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months — has powered an ever-expanding range of applications, from faxes to Facebook.

Our mastery of the material world, on the other hand, has advanced much more slowly. The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago.

But that may be about to change. We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power.

Read it here:

Walter Cronkite On Fox News: Beyond Conservative

NewsCorpse 18 July 2009 | There are really very few times when the phrase “the end of an era” is actually true. But in the case of Walter Cronkite, it could not be more appropriate. He presided over so many of the most significant events of the latter half of the twentieth century that it almost seems as if he were a part of them.

Cronkite represented a generation of television journalism that can never be repeated. The concentration of media to only three networks elevated their impact and influence. So when a dignified and experienced reporter rose to the position of anchor at CBS, it was just matter of time before his calm and confident delivery inspired a measure of respect that has never been matched. And if ever there were a time to heed his words, it is now:

Cronkite: It was quite clear when they founded the Fox network that they intended to be a conservative organization. Beyond conservative, a far right-wing organization.



It must have been comments like those above that led to Bill O’Reilly dismissing Cronkite as a leftist a couple of years ago:

“Just look at what Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers have done since they left CBS News; both men allied themselves with the far-left and are proud of it.”

But that’s nothing compared to what the Fox Nation community is saying about Cronkite today:

Read it here:

Media reacts to Conan's same-sex wedding news

FDR: "I welcome their hatred."

American Apparently: "The American people" is a meaningless phrase | The Daily Show

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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5 May 2010 | "The American people" is a meaningless phrase that should be struck from public utterance along with, "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."

Sean Hannity Calls #OWS Protesters Un-American, Two Marines Set Him Straight

Matt Taibbi's take on Rick Perry's struggling campaign | Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Democracy Now host Amy Goodman and Truthdig blogger Chris Hedges on the Occupy Wall Street movement

Rick Perry ready to bail on stupid debates

Occupy Wall Street: Naomi Wolf calls attention to the disturbing involvement of Homeland Security in her arrest

21 Oct 2011 | Naomi Wolf, political activist and author of “Give Me Liberty,” calls attention to the enormous power that the federal government can wield to prevent constitutionally guaranteed rights. “History shows they start with the Other and it gets closer and closer and closer and someday they come for you.”

OWS: Will Bunch on Occupy Chicago arrests | Countdown

24 Oct 2011 | Keith and Will Bunch, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily, discuss the 130 arrests during Occupy Chicago this past Sunday and that police officers seem to be unaware that their arrests and aggressive law enforcement amplify the movement: “The police have become kind of a stand-in for the 1 percent and the elites they seem to be protecting.”

Bill Press on the 'Super Congress'

Big banks complaining they are being unfairly targeted | Countdown | 19 Oct 2011

Which bank is worst for America?

Sarah Jaffe and Joshua Holland
19 Oct 2011 | alternet.com 
 
The economic crash led to the loss of 9 million jobs and the biggest drop in American home-ownership since the Great Depression. Long-term unemployment, poverty and hunger have increased dramatically. People are angry. The Occupy Wall Street movement, a stand against Wall Street's greed, excess and criminality, has captured the imagination and participation of millions across the nation and the globe.

The giant mortgage bubble and the irresponsible and corrupt practices that caused the catastrophic economic crash didn't emerge out of thin air. They were a consequence of decades of pay-to-play politics rife with conflicts of interest; a political system awash in cash and legal pay-offs, designed to undermine the checks and balances that could have prevented the meltdown.

Many of these checks and balances were implemented during the Great Depression. How they were eroded and eventually abandoned is the story of a small group of banks, financial companies and elites involved in major conflicts of interest, revolving-door politics and backroom deal-making -- all to protect the interests of the global elite at the expense of the American public.

Read it here.

Markos Moulitsas on Roger Ailes’ attempt at rebranding Fox

26 Sept 2011 | Keith and Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas discuss the improbable claim by Fox executives and Roger Ailes that Fox News is actually moving closer to the middle of the ideological spectrum. Moulitsas also calls out Howard Kurtz for enabling Fox.

AzR - Thank You, Steve (Tribute to Steve Jobs made entirely of Mac sounds)

"Every instrument, including drums, has been sampled from a Mac product, tuned by ear, and replayed in the context of the song."

Reagan asks crowd whether millionaires should be paying more or less in taxes than a bus driver

In a June 6, 1985 speech at Northside High School in Atlanta, Georgia, then President Ronald Reagan explained that tax loopholes allowing a millionaire to pay lower taxes than a bus driver were “crazy,” because they allowed the “truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share.”

Robin Hood Tax on bank transactions could raise hundreds of billions for public services and to tackle poverty and climate change

Adbusters, which initiated the original call to Occupy Street, is now calling for global marches on October 29 in favor of a 1 percent 'Robin Hood tax' on all financial transactions and currency trades. If you are unfamiliar with the Robin Hood tax, this film with Bill Nighy from RobinHoodTax.org explains...

1979 Wall Street Occupation

Marine Corps veteran Sgt. Shamar Thomas on Occupy Times Square, veterans’ rights

Paul Krugman: How Occupy Wall Street Is Refocusing America

16 Oct 2011: "We are just three years after the greatest banking crisis since the 1930s. I think it was brought on by excesses on the part of the financial industry and the financial industry was bailed out at the public’s expense and risk and yet we’re still in an economic crisis. And somehow the discussion of who are these guys, why are we supporting them, why haven’t they paid more for this, what are the reforms that’s going to stop this from happening again, all that disappeared from the debate."

OccupyWallStreet: NYPD Use Horses for Crowd Control on 15 Oct 2011

John Lennon quote for Occupy Wall Street

"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor." - John Lennon

President's approval rating soars after punching Wall Street banker in face

Russ Feingold to Democrats: "This is no time to hang back."

The #OccupyWallStreet Statement, read by Keith Olbermann

Geraldo Rivera abandons ‘Occupy Wall Street’ as protesters chant, ‘Fox News lies!’

Occupy Wall Street: the next viral video

DC Douglas has put together a brilliant 3-minute video which boils down the situation and just what the hell should be done about it.

Sanders skewers the ‘class warfare’ of America’s ‘economic royalists’

Steve Jobs | Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

The Daily Show | Indecision 2012: The Great White Hope

he Mitt Romney: 

The Daily Show
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Reagan: End ‘crazy’ tax loopholes that let millionaires pay less than a bus driver

Rep. Ed Markey asks GOP if they plan to legislate against gravity, relativity

Occupy Wall Street: unbelievable protest footage

Stumbling Rick Perry and Media Judgement

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Police violence at Occupy Wall Street protests

 
Keith and Occupy Wall Street protester Kelly Heresy discuss the latest documentation of police brutality at the marches and a New York Times report that calls the movement “noble but fractured and airy.” Ten days into the occupation, Heresy — who was one of the first to be pepper sprayed — clarified that the protesters support police officers: “We are not against the cops — the cops are part of the 99 percent — the cops, we would like to believe, are on our side. Because we understand that they have families, they have children, and with budget cuts they could be losing their jobs and pensions as well.”

NYPD pepper spray women behind barricade at #OccupyWallStreet

Keith Olbermann: Taking Back Governance From Politicians: 1 August 2011

The Demand Is A Process: by Jaisal Noor and Nathan Schneider

Countdown with Keith Olbermann - 9-23-11 – Worst Persons

The men who crashed the world - Meltdown - Al Jazeera English

The first of a four-part investigation into a world of greed and recklessness that led to financial collapse.

In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne.

The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929.

But how did it all go so wrong?

Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place.

Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced 'light touch regulation' - giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace.

All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world's biggest financial collapse

Watch the video here.

Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation

Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever,’” Warren said. “No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Keith Olbermann slams media blackout of #OccupyWallStreet and the teabagger double standard

Don't mess with the steel workers...

Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies About The Economy

This was the story of Howard Beale, the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.

Republicans Get an earful on Social Security and Medicare cuts at town hall meetings

JFK on the Separation of Church and State

The Daily Show | World of Class Warfare: Warren Buffet vs. Wealthy Conservatives

The Daily Show
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Rick Perry attempts to bully a Texas DPS officer

Rick Perry whistles Dixie

Dylan Ratigan's epic rant on the international banking cartel thieves and political corruption

Molly Ivins: Working for the NY Times, death of the Dallas Times-Herald

Fault Lines: The Top 1%

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US' 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US's social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further.

The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically.

How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest.

This episode of Fault Lines first aired on Al Jazeera English on August 2, 2011.

Moon volcanoes and global warming

Bill Nye-the-Science-Guy explains to some dimwit wingnut on Fox News that moon volcanoes are not part of global climate change. But the priceless moment is the look and pause that Bill Nye gives this low-watt bulb right after he is asked about global warming from moon volcanoes.

New Balance struggles as last major athletic shoe brand still manufacturing in U.S.

By Peter Whoriskey | Washington Post
28 July 2011

NORRIDGEWOCK, Maine — At the factory here owned by New Balance, the last major athletic shoe brand to manufacture footwear in the United States, even workers on the shop floor recognize that in purely economic terms, the operation doesn’t make sense.

The company could make far more money if, like Nike and Adidas, it shifted virtually all of these jobs to low-wage countries.

Negotiations between the United States, Vietnam and other countries for a free trade agreement, which would lower the price of imported shoes by removing the existing tariff, have workers at the New Balance factory in Maine worried for the security of their jobs.

Negotiations between the United States, Vietnam and other countries for a free trade agreement, which would lower the price of imported shoes by removing the existing tariff, have workers at the New Balance factory in Maine worried for the security of their jobs.

So employees try working each shift to make it up. Conversations on the shop floor are sparse at best, and the tasks at each work station have been stripped of waste and precisely timed. Workers cut leather for a pair of shoes in 88 seconds, handle precise stitching in 37 seconds and glue soles to uppers even faster.

“The company already could make more money by going overseas, and they know it,” said Scott Boulette, 35, a burly team leader who has his son’s name tattooed in Gothic letters down his left forearm. “So we hustle.”

Now, however, comes what may be an insurmountable challenge. The Obama administration is negotiating a free-trade agreement with Vietnam and seven other countries, and it is unclear whether the plant can stand up to a flood of shoes from that country, already one of the leading exporters of footwear to the United States.

Read it here:

"... the common clay..."

Reagan campaigns for Truman in 1948

News Corp: Company or Crime Syndicate?

How the State of Texas Betrayed Its Schools and Abandoned Its Children

The stars at night no longer look so big and bright for the former Great State of Texas

John T. Harvey | Forbes.com
20 July 2011

As promised, this is my follow-up post based on our trip to the Save Texas Schools conference in Austin this past weekend. It was a sobering experience. The long and the short of it is this: Texas has abandoned its children. The Governor and the Legislators in Austin have set the stage for a protracted crisis not only in education but in the State economy. With respect to the former, we can look forward to larger class sizes, the elimination of many important programs, and the placing of even more responsibility of the backs of overworked (and fewer) teachers. Texas already ranked an embarrassing 44th in education and these developments do not bode well for future of the Lone Star State.

As far as the economy is concerned, every public education layoff means less income not only for those individuals, but for local businesses where they would have shopped. Indeed, the Legislative Budget Board forecast that almost 45% of job losses would actually be in the private sector (Center for Public Policy Priorities: CPPP Urges Rejection of HB1). Furthermore, the lack of a decent education will greatly reduce the future earning power of Texans. The only firms willing to relocate here will be those hoping to find a source of cheap, low-skilled laborers. Texas will become the alternative to outsourcing to an impoverished, third-world country. The stars at night no longer look so big and bright.

Was this fiscal crisis the inevitable outcome of the Great Recession? The answer is absolutely, unequivocally, no. In fact, it is hard to avoid the unsettling conclusion that it was deliberate, that certain State Legislators and the Governor did this on purpose.

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Grassroots group to rally for Dublin Dr Pepper

Barry Shlachter | Fort Worth Star-Telegram
21 July 2011
barry@star-telegram.com

A bunch of Dublin Dr Pepper fans have a message for Dr Pepper Snapple Group and the rest of corporate America: Don't mess with small towns and their equally small businesses.

A grassroots group led by video producer Mike Simpson is organizing a July 30 rally in support of the tiny Dr Pepper bottler, which is being sued by the brand owner, which says it violated trademarked labeling designs and sold its sugar-sweetened beverage beyond its franchise's boundaries.

Fans of the embattled bottler are asked to gather outside the brick-walled plant on Elm Street at 10 a.m. to be part of a video to be placed on YouTube. Signs are optional.

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In 1983, Reagan Warned Of ‘Incalculable Damage’ If Debt Ceiling Wasn’t Raised

Pat Garofalo | ThinkProgress.com
16 May 2011

Republicans poo-pooing the necessity of raising the debt ceiling might want to look to conservative icon Ronald Reagan. In 1983, Reagan warned that the consequences of failing to raise the nation’s borrowing limit “are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate”:

The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the costs, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.

In a 1987 radio address, Reagan also said, “Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinksmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.”

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FDR’s premonitions about the ways Republicans would treat Social Security, saving homes, and work for the unemployed

Sex, lies & politicos: Porn king Larry Flynt book bares politicians' scandalous lives

By Howard Gensler | McClatchy-Tribune
20 July 2011

PHILADELPHIA — Weary of sex scandals that have rocked all portions of our government in recent years, there's a lot of talk on the campaign trail about getting back to the principles of our nation's Founding Fathers.

That sentiment may change if people read the new book, "One Nation Under Sex," by Larry Flynt and historian David Eisenbach, because men such as Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson would make Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and Arnold Schwarzenegger seem like choirboys, and the partisan press of their era would make the tabloids of today read like children's books.

...

"Americans need to adopt one simple rule," the authors write. "Don't trust anyone who dedicates his or her life to stomping out other people's consensual sexual activities — it is pretty much guaranteed that lurking behind all the antisex zealotry are deep-seated sexual issues."

That's why former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover also gets his own chapter.

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The Minimum Wage Trap in Texas

In the New York Times' Room For Debate feature, Dave Mann, executive editor of the Texas Observer, explains the human costs of Texas' booming budget. Despite the good economy, Texas remains a state of extreme wealth and desperate poverty.

Read it here.

Rick Perry began political career as a young star for Texas Democrats

The GOP governor entered the Texas legislature as a Democrat in 1984, and served as Al Gore's Texas Campaign Chairman in the 1988 presidential campaign.

Jay Root | The Texas Tribune
15 July 2011

Gov. Rick Perry, a no-apologies conservative known for slashing government spending and opposing all tax increases, is about as Republican as you can get.
But that wasn't always the case.

Perry spent his first six years in politics as a Democrat, in a somewhat forgotten history that is sure to be revived and scrutinized by Republican opponents if he decides to run for president.

A raging liberal he was not. Elected to represent a slice of rural West Texas in the state House of Representatives in 1984, Perry, a young rancher and cotton farmer, gained an early reputation as a fiscal conservative. He was one of a few freshman "pit bulls," so named because they sat in the lower pit of the House Appropriations Committee, where they fought to keep spending low.

But Perry cast some votes and took a few stands that seem to be at odds with his current conservative stances.

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Teddy said...

"A political machine can only be brought to a state of high perfection in a party containing very many ignorant and uneducated voters..." Theodore Roosevelt, History of the United States, p 121.

James Carville says Rick Perry is 'not very bright'

Longtime Democratic attack dog James Carville made a Tuesday appearance on CNN to explain why he (mockingly) supports a potential Rick Perry candidacy.

“I hope he runs because anybody that talked about secession needs to run for president,” he said. “(Perry) talks a lot and he’s not very bright,” he added. “And that’s a combination I like in Republicans.”

Read it here.

Dennis Kucinich: "We have to put an end to the thinking that the Constitution is a doormat!"

Rick Perry: why his Texas record is a 2012 campaign liability

Rick Perry: Why His Texas Record Is Much Worse Than You Think
Abby Rapoport | The New Republic
June 21, 2011

Following his media blitz, few articles have cast a skeptic’s eye on the governor’s Texas record. “Texas Governor Calls for Halt of Economic Ruin” read one recent Bloomberg headline. The narrative is appealing: Small-town guy becomes Texas ...governor and makes (the economy) good—all by sticking to conservative principles.But while Texas remains “open for business”—the slogan of his successful re-election campaign in 2010—the state’s Legislature is in the process of a going-out-of-business sale.

The Texas budget for the next two years is a mess of accounting tricks and gutted programs, thanks to an unprecedented budget shortfall. The state’s business tax has not only been unpopular, it also doesn’t generate nearly enough revenue. Operating at a structural deficit, the state has even begun to attack funding in the once-hallowed ground of education. And while Perry has spent a good bit of June on his non-campaign-campaign, state lawmakers from both parties are fighting tooth-and-nail to legislate around his dictums.

In the face of Perry’s promise to veto any use of the rainy day fund, lawmakers turned to accounting tricks like deferred payments to soften the blows to state programs. Fees, too, on everything from getting help collecting child support to registering as a lobbyist, are going up all over the state, and almost nowhere does the budget account for normal growth in social services enrollment. The final budget short-funds Medicaid by almost $5 billion. Legislators had to return for a special session to hammer out the cuts to education, which will likely end up around $4 billion. It will mark the first time Texas has cut funding for public schools since 1949, when the state first took a prominent role in financing them. Even the Texas Association of Business, a conservative, pro-business coalition if ever there was one, has expressed concerns over some of the cuts to schools and early childhood education. “Our state runs the risk of falling short on our commitment to Texas school children and businesses that rely on a well-educated workforce,” the group proclaimed in one March press release.

Of course, many lawmakers didn’t want to use the rainy day fund in the first place, but that’s because they know a dirty little secret: Even after this two year budget period, the state’s fiscal woes are far from over. The Lone Star State has a standing $10 billion shortfall every two-year budget cycle, thanks to a faulty tax system pushed by Perry that fails to balance the budget. Although the governor normally stays away from the state Legislature—sightings in either chamber are rare and exciting—Perry engineered a new business tax in 2006 to replace a prior one riddled with loopholes. Ostensibly a good idea, his new tax nonetheless suffered from the simple fact that it didn’t bring in enough revenue. Furthermore, it turned out to be incredibly complex, leaving many business owners scratching their heads. Those who figured it out, meanwhile, realized that, because the new tax was levied on gross margins as opposed to profits, companies could be losing money and still find themselves on the hook.

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Latino officials give Perry a subdued greeting

Dave Montgomery | 23 June 2011
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

SAN ANTONIO - Gov. Rick Perry, who is nearing a decision on a presidential run, drew a tepid response Thursday as he reached out to Hispanics at a national gathering of Latino officials and political leaders.

After his address at the 28th annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Perry told the Star-Telegram that he is continuing to eye a potential 2012 bid for the White House.

Perry spoke for nearly 13 minutes, touting his record of Hispanic appointments and striking familiar themes about Texas job growth and the state's robust economy. The more than 600 Hispanic leaders applauded politely after the address. A few stood, but the remainder stayed seated.