Sunday, August 28, 2011

Brick TeeVee's Mortgage Fraud Meltdown!

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MORTGAGE FRAUD MELTDOWN Last week started out with a bang so if you weren't paying attention let's get to it! First Max Keiser posts this article from the NYT Obama taunts public to riot on behalf of banks and prison industry READ Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal at nyt. Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com throws the book at them! Corrupt Obama Administration Pressuring New York Attorney General to Support Mortgage Whitewash It is high time to describe the Obama Administration by its proper name: corrupt. Admittedly, corruption among our elites generally and in Washington in particular has become so widespread and blatant as to fall into the “dog bites man” category. But the nauseating gap between the Administration’s propaganda and the many and varied ways it sells out average Americans on behalf of its favored backers, in this case the too big to fail banks, has become so noisome that it has become impossible to ignore the fetid smell. The Administration has now taken to pressuring parties that are not part of the machinery reporting to the President to fall in and do his bidding. We’ve gotten so used to the US attorney general being conveniently missing in action that we have forgotten that regulators and the AG are supposed to be independent. As one correspondent noted by e-mail, “When officials allegiances are to El Supremo rather than the Constitution, you walk the path to fascism.” ... Yet rather than address real, serious problems, senior administration officials are instead devoting time and effort to orchestrating a faux grass roots campaign to con a state AG into thinking his supporters are deserting him because he has dared challenge the supremacy of the banks.So how does the Administration rationalize its failure to do anything effective? It goes deeper into its propaganda hall of mirrors: Mr. Donovan said…“our view is we have the immediate opportunity to help a huge number of borrowers to stay in their homes, to help their neighborhoods and the housing market.” This doesn’t even qualify as competent three card monte. “No, don’t look at what we are trying to do for the banks. Really, all we care about is homeowners!” Marcy Wheeler, who has more patience for this vomititious tripe than I do, explains why Donovan’s assertion does not pass the credibility test. ... If you are a New York resident, I hope you’ll call (800 771-7755 or 212 416-8000) or e-mail Schneiderman and thank him for standing up to the corruption of the banks and their enablers in the Administration. I think he will appreciate the show of support. Go read it all because the next day Yves dissects said NYT article Mirabile Dictu! New York Times Tells Obama Administration Off, Backs Schneiderman on Mortgage Settlement The editorial in today’s New York Times may be a sign that the tide is turning. The elites are starting to break ranks with the mortgage industrial complex. Gretchen Morgenson reported yesterday that the Obama Administration was pressuring the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to drop his opposition to the so-called 50 state attorney general mortgage settlement. The short form is the banks want a “get out of liability for almost free” card, which is patently absurd. Not only have they caused a colossal economic train wreck, but sadly, they remain such central actors that they need to be involved in remediation. Letting them off cheaply would be tantamount to putting a band-aid on gangrene. ... As much as Morgenson’s expose was key, the editorial page of the New York Times throwing its weight behind Schneiderman gives him real political cover. (mirabile dictu -n. - A Roman phrase used to describe a wonderful event/happening) And Nobel Laureate Joe Stigllitz piles on Justice for Some Part of the rule of law is security of property rights – if you owe money on your house, for example, the bank can’t simply take it away without following the prescribed legal process. But in recent weeks and months, Americans have seen several instances in which individuals have been dispossessed of their houses even when they have no debts. To some banks, this is just collateral damage: millions of Americans – in addition to the estimated four million in 2008 and 2009 – still have to be thrown out of their homes. ... The procedural shortcuts, incomplete documentation, and rampant fraud that accompanied banks’ rush to generate millions of bad loans during the housing bubble has, however, complicated the process of cleaning up the ensuing mess. To many bankers, these are just details to be overlooked.Most people evicted from their homes have not been paying their mortgages, and, in most cases, those who are throwing them out have rightful claims. But Americans are not supposed to believe in justice on average. We don’t say that most people imprisoned for life committed a crime worthy of that sentence. The US justice system demands more, and we have imposed procedural safeguards to meet these demands. But banks want to short-circuit these procedural safeguards. They should not be allowed to do so. ... Growing inequality, combined with a flawed system of campaign finance, risks turning America’s legal system into a travesty of justice. Some may still call it the “rule of law,” but it would not be a rule of law that protects the weak against the powerful. Rather, it would enable the powerful to exploit the weak. In today’s America, the proud claim of “justice for all” is being replaced by the more modest claim of “justice for those who can afford it.” And the number of people who can afford it is rapidly diminishing. As BTV's legal counsel once quipped, "People come to court for Justice. Instead what they get is Just Us." If all this hasn't made your blood boil, we go to Countdown's interview with Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi Exclusive: Matt Taibbi on SEC covering up Wall Street crimes Then read his RS blog Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal The AGs initially talked about $20 billion as a settlement number, money that would “toward loan modifications and possibly counseling for homeowners,” as Gretchen Morgenson reported the other day. The banks, however, apparently “balked” at paying that sum, and no doubt it will end up being a lesser amount when the deal is finally done. To give you an indication of how absurdly small a number even $20 billion is relative to the sums of money the banks made unloading worthless crap subprime assets on foreigners, pension funds and other unsuspecting suckers around the world, consider this: in 2008 alone,the state pension fund of Florida, all by itself, lost more than three times that amount ($62 billion) thanks in significant part to investments in these deadly MBS. ... The banks are going to claim that all they’re guilty of is bad paperwork. But while the banks are indeed being investigated for "paperwork" offenses like mass tax evasion (by failing to pay fees associated with mortgage registrations and deed transfers) and mass perjury (a la the “robo-signing” practices), their real crime, the one Schneiderman is interested in, is even more serious. The issue goes beyond fraudulent paperwork to an intentional, far-reaching theft scheme designed to take junk subprime loans and disguise them as AAA-rated investments. The banks lent money to corrupt companies like Countrywide, who made masses of bad loans and immediately sold them back to the banks. The banks in turn hid the crappiness of these loans via certain poorly-understood nuances in the securitization process – this is almost certainly where Schneiderman’s investigators are doing their digging – before hawking the resultant securities as AAA-rated gold to fools in places like the Florida state pension fund. WHOOPS! More Taibbi in BTV Alerts! Seems Mr. Schneiderman got sacked! From HuffPo New York Attorney General Kicked Off Government Group Leading Foreclosure Probe Top Obama administration officials recently reached out to Schneiderman and his allies, effectively requesting he get in line, people familiar with the discussions said. The New York Times editorial board on Tuesday declared that Schneiderman "should stand his ground in not supporting the deal. The administration says that a settlement would quickly deliver much needed relief to hard-pressed borrowers, but it’s doubtful it would provide redress on a par with the banks’ wrongdoing or borrowers’ needs," the board wrote. ... Schneiderman's removal will likely make it easier for state and federal officials to reach an accord with the five banks. However, the potential amount of money they'll be able to extract will likely decrease. Schneiderman, armed with New York state's Martin Act, can bring suit against alleged fraudsters without having to prove that they intended to commit fraud, a much more lenient standard than available to federal securities regulators. New York's top legal officer is investigating whether banks followed the state's laws when bundling mortgages into securities. That probe could prove explosive. "If mortgages were not properly transferred in the securitization process, then mortgage-backed securities would in fact not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever," Adam J. Levitin, a bankruptcy expert and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told a congressional panel last November. Levitin said the problem could "cloud title to nearly every property in the United States" and could lead to trillions of dollars in losses. There's much more damning stuff in this HuffPo article so do read it all. Then, as reported by Nathaniel Popper and Walter Hamilton, Los Angeles Times Goldman Sachs CEO hires criminal defense lawyer Lloyd Blankfein retains Reid Weingarten amid the governments inquiry into the financial crisis. The move hints there could be new push to investigate the firm and its executives on criminal grounds. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the CEO reached out to Weingarten some months ago after the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations wrote a report about the financial crisis that accused Blankfein of lying to Congress — a report that was then handed on to the Department of Justice. ... "He's got an incredible amount to lose, and there's a lot of anger out there," said Philip Hilder, a criminal-defense attorney in Houston. "It signifies that the investigations are serious in tone and that he's not taking them lightly." Given the high stakes, Blankfein had to make sure somebody is watching out for his personal interests, experts said. "I would have been more surprised if he had not retained counsel," said Terree Bowers, a partner at Arent Fox in Los Angeles. But the subcommittee's most explosive claim was that Blankfein and other executives had lied to investigators when asked about how much the firm had profited from the mortgage meltdown. The panel's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said at the time that "Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress." Goldman said then that "the testimony we gave was truthful and accurate." ... Weingarten did not return telephone calls for comment. "Truthful and accurate"? OOPS! Malloy economic affairs correspondent prarie2 finds another bigwig jumping ship Spending more time with the family or the FBI The top man at Standard & Poor’s, Deven Sharma will quit before the end of the year. The Wall Street Journal says that he will be replaced by Douglas L. Peterson, currently the Chief Operating Officer of Citibank, one of the world’s biggest banks. No reason was given for Mr Sharma leaving but there is an ongoing investigation of S&P’s practice of fraudulently rating worthless sub-prime debt as AAA for banks much like Citibank for example. Sales of new homes were down for the third straight month in July, this puts a further drag on the economy. At the current rate, 2011 will be the worst year for new-home sales in nearly half a century. ... A report that came out last week showed that more home sales than expected fell apart at the last minute, often because appraisals come in far below the agreed to price. At least one in six deals were canceled head of closings last month which is four times the rate in May. The collapsed housing industry is hurting the broader economy, in the past half century following a recession, housing contributed up to 20 percent to economic growth. That has fallen to 4 percent in the current Depression and is falling still. And it took 19 years for prices to fully recover after the Republican Great Depression. If you are hoping to recover lost home value, you are not going to see it. While prices will start rising eventually, it will be mostly from inflation. The big run up in home prices during Bush was a bubble deliberately created by Greenspan and the Republicans to hide the real state of the economy. Except in really hard hit areas, this is about what prices should be and as wages continue to fall even these prices cannot be supported in real dollars. In 1937 the Republicans that were newly elected to Congress pushed through a balanced budget and plunged the recovering economy back into the Depression. We are of course repeating history, not because this history is unknown and we are thus doomed, but because the Republicans want to get it right this time. They let the country slip away from them then, and its taken Republicans 70 years to put themselves again in a position to end America as a democracy and as the land of opportunity for anyone but the Rich. They have indeed learned from their mistakes and are the odds on favorites to pull it off. Thanks prairie2, always cheerful! As various lawsuits regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act meander their way to the SCOTUS have you noticed your health insurance premiums going up in the last few years? Wonder why? Small businesses overpay for health insurance, collaborative research finds Research published in the August issue of the American Economic Review finds that small businesses have been overpaying for health insurance. The collaborative research paper “Unhealthy Insurance Markets: Search Frictions and the Cost and Quality of Health Insurance” highlights difficulties that small employers have in searching for health insurance. The difficulties of comparison shopping increase average health insurance premiums paid by small businesses by an estimated 29 percent, according to researchers at Case Western Reserve, Carnegie Mellon and Boston universities.... The study of search frictions is an important part of the economics of labor markets, leading to last year’s award of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Peter Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Dale Mortensen (Northwestern University) and Christopher Pissarides (London School of Economics). The current paper is the first to apply these theories to the operation of health insurance markets. ...Search frictions arise whenever consumers are unable to easily compare all the options available to them in the marketplace. This, Votruba, Cebul, Rebitzer and Taylor argue, is exactly the case for purchasers of individual and small group health plans.“Consumers have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of different options, and each plan has its own unique set of benefit details. In this complex environment, it’s hard for consumers to find the plan that offers them the best value. What our paper shows is that this ‘shopping problem’ has important implications for how market competition plays out. If consumers have a hard time evaluating value, competition becomes less about value and more about marketing,” Votruba said. ... If search frictions in health insurance markets cause small businesses to pay too much for low quality policies, can the health insurance exchanges mandated by health care reform law do better? This paper’s findings suggest they probably can. “In theory, they should,” said Rebitzer, “as long as the exchanges are designed so that shoppers can easily evaluate the value that they should expect for the prices of different plans. We will know that the exchanges are successful if turnover rates and marketing expenses decrease.” These "health insurance exchanges" won't come on-line until New Year's Day 2014 so stay tuned! FRONT PAGE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE THURSDAY: Health care measure seeks public option, rollbacks The initiative, aimed at California's November 2012 ballot, is being organized by Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group responsible for Proposition 103, the landmark 1988 ballot measure that established regulatory and cost oversight of state auto insurance rates. Consumer Watchdog Executive Director Jamie Court said the proposal represents "about the only forward movement toward patients" in the U.S. health care debate since the Affordable Care Act, the president's bill that passed Congress last year. Republicans refer to it as "Obamacare." "This will be a bellwether for America," Court said in an interview Wednesday. "If California passes a 20 percent rate rollback and the right of citizens to bypass private insurances in favor of a public plan, then every other major state will do that, too." Sign up HERE now (more in BTV Action). Shifting to education "reform" if you believed in gwb's "No Child Left Behind", if you believed Senator Obama when he said "being against No Child Left Behind is not an education policy", or maybe after a Rhode Island school fired ALL their teachers pResident O wanted "strategies like replacing a school’s principal and at least half of its staff", if you believe the Three Stooges of Charter Schools Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the Rev. Al Sharpton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who applauded Obama for showing "real courage on the issue of charter schools" and all the regressive governors who are attcking teachers' unions' right to collectively bargain and have pensions then DON'T READ THIS: MICHAEL WINERIP at NYT Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal Why won’t Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today? Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement. It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. ... At the end of March, three of the [USA Today] paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor. At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. ... Still, she would not talk to USA Today. ... The three reporters still hope to interview Ms. Rhee. “Absolutely,” said Mr. Toppo. Which brings things full circle: Why won’t Ms. Rhee talk to USA Today? More debunking at RheeFirst.com (h/t jen) Following up on the CWA/IBEW strike against Verizon now that the CWA/IBEW for Verizon Wireline have stopped their strike and gone back to work under their old contract, Ralph Nader observes a Dark Horizon for Verizon [T]he tax lawyers for their bosses have figured out how to turn Verizon into a vast tax escapee. According to the super-accurate Citizens for Tax Justice, Verizon Communications made a total of $32.5 billion dollars in pretax U.S. profits during 2008, 2009, 2010. Far from paying the maximum federal corporate income tax rate of 35 percent on these ample profits, Verizon's federal income tax was negative $951 million or negative 2.9 percent! ...Verizon keeps saying that what they're doing just "reflects the changing times." The times are changing - skyrocketing executive pay packages and corporate profits - slashing benefits for the workers and their families - shredding of all moral authority by example from the top. Speaking of "moral authority from the top" TheStreet.com has the Text of Bernanke's Jackson Hole Speech from Friday and an "Investing Opinion" Bernanke Speech: Was That It, Ben? by TheLFB-Forex.comTranslation: We are outta here, you are on your own. Market Reaction: Traders will be watching the 10-year Treasury Futures contract ZNU1 and a break above 130.40, which would signal ESU1 (S&P 500) weakness. ESU1 has 1145 and 1130 support, followed by a move to 1110. Upside resistance will be found at 1180 and 1195. There are no reasons to believe that anything positive will be taken from this widely anticipated speech. Equity investors will have as many questions as answers. Traders will watch the equity reaction, and trade the consequences of moves in the global futures markets. European equity futures valuations are closing out at the lows of the week, month, and year. Participation levels are very low, and bullish sentiment for stocks is non-existent. Ahead of the weekend, it would seem that only a low-volume ramp at the close would stop negative stock sentiment rolling into next week. Oil trade looks weak, Treasury note values look strong as interest rates weaken, gold and silver look robust after absorbing a margin-increase induced drop. The US dollar is starting to be bought. The dollar index will run into 74.50 and 74.90 resistance. So much for "leadership" from Helicopter Ben and his "quantitative easing" printing machine! Blogger oddmanout215 tells a joke! Obama bans war criminals. Very funny. It’s good to see something by Nat Hentoff, who wrote for Village Voice when it was worth reading and is still fighting the good fight against people in powerful positions who break the law. The subject matter of Hentoff’s recent article should surprise no one:

    By executive order on Aug. 4, President Barack Obama refused entry to the United States of war criminals and human-rights violators (jurist.org, Aug. 4). He ignored, as he often does, the deeply documented factual evidence of war crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney administration along with grim proof that the Obama administration also violates our anti-torture laws and the U.N. Convention Against Torture we signed. Take, for example, right now under Obama, “The CIA Secret Sites in Somalia” (the nation.com, July 12). In what will be an historic 108-page report, “Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees,” Human Rights Watch is further accelerating the rising insistence here on accountability from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet for having not only authorized these war crimes, but also failing “to act to stop mistreatment, or punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses” (www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0711webwcover.pdf). Not only has President Obama rejected an independent criminal investigation of these highest-profile officials, but also, adds Human Rights Watch, of Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, David Addington (counsel to Cheney) and, among others, John Yoo, author of the unsparingly cruel, aptly dubbed “torture memos” from the Ashcroft Justice Department that gave “legal cover” to allow torture.
Huh. Salon's Glenn Greenwald explains further The fruits of elite immunity But thanks to the decision to block all legal investigations into his chronic criminality, those matters have been relegated to mere pedestrian partisan disputes, and Cheney is thus now preparing to be feted -- and further enriched -- as a Wise and Serious Statesman with the release of his memoirs this week: one in which he proudly boasts (yet again) of the very crimes for which he was immunized. As he embarks on his massive publicity-generating media tour of interviews, Cheney faces no indictments or criminal juries, but rather reverent, rehabilitative tributes, illustrated by this, from Politico today: The Arena: Will book improve Cheney's Image? Has the former vice president been proven right about the Iraq invasion and other global issues? That's what happens when the Government -- marching under the deceitful Orwellian banner of Look Forward, Not Backward -- demands that its citizens avert their eyes from the crimes of their leaders so that all can be forgotten: the crimes become non-crimes, legitimate acts of political choice, and the criminals become instantly rehabilitated by the message that nothing they did warrants punishment. That's the same reason people like John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales are defending their torture and illegal spying actions not in a courtroom but in a lush conference of elites in Aspen. OpEdNews provides some key great headlines- just a wealth of information. Last word goes to TarSandsAction.org where you can read about all the arrests in DC last week and the ongoing protests against the Keystone XL pipeline NOT COVERED by the Hurricane/Libya-transfixed shiny-object Corporomedia. Go read! And jen adds this news State Department Environmental Impact Study of Keystone XL Pipeline Released, Skids Greased for Approval dday firedoglake As expected, the State Department essentially gave its environmental blessing to the Keystone XL pipeline today, which would stretch nearly 1,700 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas, and which would deliver as much as 700,000 barrels of noxious tar sands oil every day. This is not a final approval on the project, but getting a favorable environmental impact study (EIS) is a necessary hurdle before final approval. ... Gary Doer, the Canadian ambassador to the US, said flatly, “If you ask Americans, would you choose Canada over the Middle East, they’d say yes.” ...The tar sands industry claims it is working on techniques to reduce the carbon intensity of production. I don’t think we should accept this at face value.... UPDATE II: James Hansen calls the report “greenwashing.”
    NASA scientist James Hansen, who galvanized the environmental movement decades ago with his congressional testimony about the dangers of climate change, said yesterday that President Obama has a rare opportunity to show he is not a “hopeless addict.” The climatologist, who will appear at the National Press Club on Monday before joining protests at the White House, where he expects to be arrested, told ClimateWire in an email interview that the Keystone XL pipeline awaiting approval from the president is like a dirty needle from a fellow oil addict, Canada. “If Obama chooses the dirty needle it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing all along, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians, with no real intention of solving the addiction,” Hansen said.
Check Majority Report (below) for Seder's interview with dday!
Let's remember 360.org's Bill McGibbon "We think we may have a chance because for once Obama gets to make the call himself. He has to sign – or not sign – the permit. As environmentalists this is the one clean test we are ever going to get of Obama's real commitment to climate issues."(link from last week.) We also recommend The Truth About the Situation in Libya: Cutting through the government propaganda and media lies By Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition. Then listen to AntiWarRadio with Our Man in Pipelineistan Pepe Escobar and DN! for The One Billion Dollar Question: Who Are the Libyan Rebels? MAKE NO MISTAKE: This is clearly COEHM with NATO weapons and more neo-liberal exploitation of resources. So where does this all leave us? Blogger natasha at Suburban Gorilla chimes in with Near-As-No-Matter Feudalism To recap, once more with feeling, an activist can go to jail for lying to prevent energy companies from participating in an illegal auction, but an energy company can get away with lying to the government about the yield from an energy lease and get the government to pay the liabilities for it. W.T.F? You can call this whatever you want to, but to be shocked when the peasants revolt against the widening inequality of their society is misguided at the least. To rub salt in the wound, public institutions that formerly provided the hope of class mobility are being dismantled, one by one, across the ‘free world’, while politicians and business people climb to power by bragging about how much they can cut the stupid, inefficient wages that ordinary families have to live on. People don’t like being hungry or poor or treated badly. They don’t need an ideology to dislike those outcomes and, eventually, they’re going to get tired of any ideology used to justify them, along with the people who wield those justifications. Our own ljm sums it up nicely. The author of Political Ponerology [Andrew M. Lobaczewski] says that Communism and probably whatever other ideology that gets sold to a population didn't end up being what was sold. What they got was facism. He said the bad name Communism got was as much due to the propaganda machine in the west as to what was actually going on behind the iron curtain. The political psychopaths get into power and it winds up being the same old same old no matter where it happens in the world. Whole populations get hoodwinked and brainwashed by their masters. Normal people get gobsmacked and have to find a way to survive the insanity thrust on them. Eventually, the people topple these psychopathocracies, but it takes a long time. Pretty much everything is looted. Russia was a great example of that after the end of the USSR. All the wealth was extracted, which is a high-falootin way of saying stolen. And our Maddy puts a nice little bow on it all: Time to come to terms with the fact that we live in a Fascist country, I guess. If you made it this far you know the Sunday Bubalas will NOT discuss the real facts about Libya but instead infuse the populace with their stock talking points and also will focus on The Hurricane as Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate takes the WH Limo to FAKE SNOOZE, Meet the David, This Anampout and State of the Candy who also gets former Homeland Security Secretary MICHAEL "HELLUVAJOB Equine Lawyer" CHERTOFF for his, uh, WHAT exactly? Meet the David deep-sixes an interview with GOP presidential candidate JON HUNTSMAN for their coverage of said hurricane, or maybe because Huntsman isn't crazy enough? Or because he wears "magic underwear" like MITT ROMNEY? and HARRY REID? The Tribe made 2-in-a-row late-inning comebacks against KC and inched to within 6 games of division-leading Tigers as the Central Division race heats up. And the Tribe claimed JIM "600 HR Club" THOME off waivers from The Twinkies and he hit his 602nd Saturday on his 41st birthday! The Tribe basically has to go 24-10 the rest of the way to get to 88 wins including 6 more games against the Tigers, with the last three games of the season in Detriot. Anybody need TOMATOES? The BTV garden is crazy! And we've got hot peppers and cukes too! Too bad local critters ate our brocolli, cabbage, zuchinni, butternut squash. We're planting spinach now, which grows good in cooler weather. And more beans! Hope your personal Victory Garden is doing well! Enjoy and have a great week!


BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©
Democracy NOW!
»»» Robin Waudo, International Red Cross spokesperson @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Report from Libya: Gaddafi Regime on Brink of Collapse as Rebels Storm Tripoli RELATED "Libya Has Reignited the Flame of Liberty in the Arab World": Juan Cole, Khaled Mattawa on Uprising Aug 22, 2012
»»» Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW As Fighting Continues in Tripoli, A Look at Role of the U.S., NATO and Oil Firms in Libya Uprising Aug 22, 2012
»»» Bill McKibben WATCH NOW Over 160 Arrested in Ongoing Civil Disobedience Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Aug 23, 2011
»»» Matt Taibbi @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Covering Up Wall Street Crimes: Matt Taibbi Exposes How SEC Shredded Thousands of Investigations Aug 23, 2011
»»» Gilbert Achcar, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW The One Billion Dollar Question: Who Are the Libyan Rebels? Aug 24, 2011
»»» Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW The 9/11 TV News Archive: 3,000 Hours of Video News Coverage of 2001 Attacks Posted Online RELATED Pioneering Internet Archivists Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger on Preservation in the Digital Age Aug 24, 2011
»»» Matt Apuzzo, co-author of the Associated Press investigative report @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW With CIA Help, New York Police Secretly Monitored Mosques, Muslim Communities Post-9/11 RELATED Investigative Reporter Trevor Aaronson & former FBI agent James Wedick "Terrorists for the FBI:" How the FBI Uses Informants to Surveil and Entrap Americans Aug 25, 2011
»»» Rev. Jesse Jackson & Dr. Vincent Harding WATCH NOW MLK National Monument Inspires Calls to Continue Civil Rights Leader’s Work to End Poverty and War Aug 26, 2011
»»» Brian Jones and Diane Ravitch @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW “Poverty Is the Problem”: Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed Aug 26, 2011
GRITtv
»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW Tim Wise: Dragging Racial Bias Into the Open
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!©
»»» MLB on TBS Cubs @ Brewers! 2 pm et
»»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Dodgers @ Rangers! 8 pm et
»»» Monday Night Baseball on ESPN Phillies @ Reds at 7 pm et
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!©
CONSUMER WATCHDOGI WANT TO HELP COUNT ME IN! I want to help with a California ballot measure that will rollback health insurance rates by 20% and create a public option alternative to private insurance companies. Please keep me informed and let me know what I can do. SIGN UP NOWI WANT TO HELP Entire San Francisco Chronicle Front Page story from Thu Aug 25, 2001 at link!
October2011.org October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions. Take this pledge at October2011.org
    "I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America's resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning."
Do it NOW!
CHANGE.ORG The First Cause: A Plan to Claim Food As Food We're losing the right to manage our own health. Even the right to choose our food is being stolen. We can stop it, but only by ending the basis on which it's being done—not by addressing each action. A new website has been set up to allow people to post responses from politicians, along with their own articles: Free Choice - Health Defining food as food is not the only issue that must be tackled, but it's a key one. As it gets rolling, we'll start others. We are literally in a battle for our lives!
If you're in Europe, click HERE to sign the petition.
If you're in the United States, click HERE to sign the petition. Do it NOW!
UPDATE! Watch this interview with constitutional law attorney Jonathan Emord on ProjectCamelotLive JONATHAN EMORD INTERVIEW
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
MOVE TO AMEND! www.movetoamend.org SIGN HERE NOW! Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net And Alan Grayson is running again in FL-8! Help out at CongressmanWithGuts.com
SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org UPDATE! Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed at wired.com plus The Deeply Personal Details in New Bradley Manning Chat Logs and Bradley Manning Support Network Much more at link.
EMAIL UPDATE! Help us reach our goal of a half million by signing the petition, and passing it on. Add your name! AND Vote for Bradley in the 2011 Time Magazine 100 Poll here!
Add your name to this petition Eminent US legal scholars protest 'torture' of Bradley Manning.
DONATE YOUR OLD CELL PHONES TO T.J. MARTELL FOUNDATION Help save lives. Donate your old & used iPhone, Blackberries, Droid and other phones to help the T.J. Martell Foundations fund life-saving cancer & AIDS research. For more information, go to www.tjmartellfoundation.org


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The essential guide for watching government propaganda
IRAQ: 4,474 US Military Dead as of Aug 27, 2011
AFGHANISTAN: 1,750 US Military Dead as of Aug 27, 2011
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

  • This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour - Jake Tapper live from Ames, Iowa
    Fact Checking ABC's "This Week" at NPR "On the Media" - Jake Tapper, interim host of ABC's "This Week," liked the idea of fact-checking his guests' comments, so he set up a partnership with Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking organization. See Politifact Statements ABC News 'This Week'
    • FEMA director Craig Fugate
    • New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
    • ROUNDTABLE: George Will and Cokie Roberts, political strategist Donna Brazile and National Journal's Ron Brownstein
    • LIBYA ROUNDTABLE: George Will, Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, Robin Wright, author of "Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World," and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post,

  • Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
    • Former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

  • 60 Minutes (CBS)
    • Greg Mortenson - He's written inspiring best sellers, including "Three Cups of Tea," but are the stories all true? Steve Kroft investigates. Andy Court, Kevin Livelli and Maria Usman are the producers
    • Gospel for Teens - Lesley Stahl spends a year following the inspirational leader of a gospel music program for teenagers in Harlem and her students as they learn to sing this original American art form and build the confidence and character it inspires. Shari Finkelstein is the producer.

  • Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
    Meet the Facts at NPR "On the Media" - Last December, NYU professor Jay Rosen proposed something simple yet revolutionary: why don't the Sunday morning chat shows fact check their guests? After "Meet the Press" host David Gregory declined, two college students launched a website to do it for him. One of them, Chas Danner, explains what they're trying to accomplish. See their website MeetTheFacts.com updating soon!
    • FEMA Director Craig Fugate
    • PROGRAMMING NOTE: Our Meet the Candidates series with Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has been postponed due to the developing story of Hurricane Irene.
    • ROUNDTABLE: New York Times Columnist, David Brooks; Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson; ashington Correspondent for the BBC, Katty Kay; and National Correspondent for NBC'S TODAY, Jamie Gangel, who interviewed VP Cheney exclusively.

  • State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) live from Iowa
    At 9 AM ET, Candy talks to the power players: politicians, business leaders and international newsmakers who will make Monday morning's headlines. At NOON ET, Candy wraps it all up with fresh interviews and the best of the earlier hours.
    • Complete coverage of Hurricane Irene as it bears down on the Eastern seaboard. CNN has deployed unparalleled resources up and down the East Coast to keep you abreast of the storm’s movement and the damage left in its wake.
    • FEMA Director Craig Fugate
    • Hurricane Center Director Bill Read
    • former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
    • Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy
    • New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

  • HEAD ON RADIO with Bob Kincaid
    HEAD ON
    Headon Radio with Bob Kincaid 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific, 2300 GMT. Duration: 3 hrs. To be part of the conversation on Head-on Radio, call toll-free (877) 443-2366, or use our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email: bob [at] headonradio [dot] com.
    • Prayer Meetin' Wednesday!!!!!! Listen HERE (mp3)!
    • Catch the PRISM-WV Summer Academy video stream on the Head-On With Bob Kincaid USTREAM Channel!
    Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE!

  • YOUR GREEN NEWS REPORT
    desi-n-bradweirdos
    The Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen: 6 minutes of green news, politics, analysis & snarky comment!
    Go see greennews.bradblog.com!
    'Green News Report' - August 25, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bracing for Irene; Hey, how's your infrastructure? Earthquakes and now hurricanes test the East Coast; Fukushima Exclusion Zone to become permanent; Hundreds more tar sands protesters arrested at the White House; PLUS: Did Fox "News" just accidentally acknowledge human-caused climate change?!?! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!!
    IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): 'Hockey Stick' climate scientist vindicated again; India & China spar over water; TX record-breaking drought getting 'worse by the day'; BP Oil Spill Fund has paid out $5B; 'Green Scissors' proposal to cut billions oil subsidies; EPA to creates mini-Civilian Conservation Corps for Great Lakes; Van Jones slams misleading NYT article on green jobs; "The Intermittency of Fossil Fuels"; Shell plugs North Sea pipeline spill; Shell’s shoddy safety record in the UK; GOP bashes Obama Admin for refusing to promote oil shale; Since 9/11, Koch Industries has fought tougher rules on chemical plants; National Review twisted in knots over GOP science denial; US natural gas reserve estimates cut by 80% ... PLUS: Climate cycles are driving wars: When El Nino warmth hits, tropical conflicts double: study... Visit BradBlog.com to see who counts yer votes! Reference yer background/research at Who's Counting? too.
    UPDATE: Prosecutor Declines Criminal Charges Against WI's Justice Prosser for 'Choke-hold' on Fellow Justice.

  • The Peter B. Collins Show PODCAST!
    pbc show
    Listen at PeterBCollins.com!
    The Peter B. Collins Show covers American news and politics from the Left Coast. Veteran talk radio personality Peter B. Collins, based in San Francisco, delivers fresh interviews, commentary and analysis on a range of important topics, with views and voices you don’t often find in the corporate media.
    • PBC Live! Weekly on KGO PBC Live! Weekly on KGO Your humble host has been remiss in keeping you apprised of his other media activities. Since February, I’ve been hosting a regular weekly show on KGO, the leading San Francisco talk station with a huge coverage area–at night, you can hear it anywhere on the West Coast. TFN (till further notice), you can hear me every Friday night–or, more precisely, Saturday morning, from 1-5 am (PDT) on 810-AM or streaming at www.kgoradio.com. If you’d like to be alerted each week, sign up on Facebook as a fan of “Peter B. Collins Show” or you can follow me on Twitter, @pbcsf
    • PBC Podcast 280 Journalist Ralph Steiner Gives Us an In-Depth Recounting of the UFO Event at Roswell, New Mexico Ralph Steiner is a journalist with a background in physics who has investigated the 1947 Roswell UFO event for many years. With credit and thanks to Steiner’s archives, we include interview clips from many credible people, framed by the rich detail of Steiner’s commentary. It’s a follow-up to our interview with Annie Jacobsen about her book Area 51 in PBC podcast 266 on 6/22/11.
    • PBC Podcast 281 Should Aldous Tyler Challenge Obama in Primaries? Roger Shuler Updates Alabama Bingo Trial, Examines Rick Perry’s Pay-to-Play Corruption Aldous Tyler, the Wisconsin activist, is considering a primary challenge to Obama–woud you support it? Roger Shuler of Alabama returns to update us on the “Bingo trial”, incoherent actions of the Holder Justice Department, and Gov. Rick Perry’s legal problems–if he were treated the way former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was.
    • PBC Podcast 282 Boiling Frogs: “Jersey Girl” Lorie van Auken Still Looking for Truth About 9/11 Lori van Auken, whose husband was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01, continues to search for the truth. This powerful interview is part of the Boiling Frogs series, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.

  • Ring of Fire Radio
    rofheader
    Find us at http://ringoffireradio.com and http://goleft.tv/ hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
    Ring of Fire Radio - GoLeft TV - Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder - Politics, Commentary, and News.
    This Week on Ring of Fire! August 26, 2011
    • This week on Ring of Fire: Steve Clemons from The Atlantic will join us to talk about the challenges that currently face Libya now that Gaddafi has been driven from power.
    • Author Robert Dreyfuss from The Nation will be here to tell us why he believes the US should have stayed clear of the situation in Libya.
    • We’ll hear from author and historian Rick Perlstein about how the Democrats need to step up their game and continue to fight to preserve the social safety net.
    • We’ll also be talking with Ben Adler from The Nation about how the conservatives are whining like babies because Obama has once again proven that he can handle National Security issues better than the GOP.
    • Join our blog at www.ringoffireradio.com. You can now SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST by clicking on the “Podcast” tab at the top of the Ring of Fire blog. Please help support progressive radio by signing up!
    Ring of Fire Radio Ring of Fire, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder: Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm (4 pm on XM 167) featuring The PAP Attack! "We’ll bring you the stories that the mainstream media didn’t feel like reporting this week."

  • Majority Report with Sam Seder Streaming LIVE weekdays 11:30 am et @ Majority.fm!
    majority
    Heather Hurlburt on Libya & the Fall of Gaddafi [08•22•11]
    Don Peck of The Atlantic discusses Can the Middle Class Be Saved? [08•23•11]
    A Conversation Between David Cross and Sam Seder from Right After Yesterday's Earthquake [08•24•11]
    David Dayen of firedoglake on the NY AG Schniederman Banks Story [08•24•11]
    Amanda Terkel of Huffington Post on Progressive State Ballot Initiatives [08•24•11]
    Sam Seder Talks with John Amato of Crooks and Liars [08•25•11]
    MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityreport.official.fm!

  • On the Edge with Max Keiser Podcasts and more @ MaxKeiser.com!
    maxheaderhiyall
    "HI Y'ALL! Tell the people! Tell the people!"
    WHO IS MAX KEISER? Max Keiser is a financial expert, Prediction Markets analyst, inventor and filmmaker. He is the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) the first Prediction Market. Max Keiser co-hosts “The Truth About Markets” on ResonanceFM 104.4 in London. He also produces and presents documentary films covering markets and finance for Al Jazeera’s “People & Power” series. Max Keiser started his career on Wall Street in 1983. He is the creator of KarmaBanque a site that enables activists to challenge corporate power.
    • VISIT PirateMyFilm.com!!! Crowd Funding for Pirates!
    • VIDEO! The Official Silver Liberation Army! See SilverLiberationArmy.com !
    • VIDEO! Max Keiser Standup Rage Mott St. NYC; August 2nd, 2011 In two parts, about 90 minutes. Must Watch!
    • VIDEO! Max on the Big Screen!?!? Watch "Four Horsemen - Official Trailer"
    • VIDEO Gold, Chavez, and "Operation Twist 2" the sequel at King World News Eric King interviews Jim Rickards VIDEO Mike Maloney on Debt Collapse & the Case for $20,000 Gold Stacy Summary: We’ll be interviewing Mike Maloney in the next two weeks, so if you have any questions after viewing the film. Please post below.
    Obama taunts public to riot on behalf of banks and prison industry READ Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal
    When the U.S. is finally liquidated, JP Morgan’s interests are senior to the U.S. government. READ JPMorgan Is Foreclosing On The U.S. Treasury at businessinsider.com
    A Comment on Keiser Report with Catherine Austin Fitts Stacy Summary: Here is an interesting letter sent to Catherine Austin Fitts by an attorney in Ohio specializing in foreclosure defense. READ A Comment on Foreclosure Fraud at solari.com
    • KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Bankers & Aliens (E175) We interview Catherine Austin Fitts about exponential fraud and the financial coup d’etat.
    • KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Myotonic Markets (E176) This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the Fainting Bankers of Wall Street and the myotonic markets they inspire. In the second half of the show Max talks to Chris Martenson about the insolvency of the banking system and about Dr. Bernanke's misdiagnosis of the cause of the financial crisis.
    • ON THE EDGE [OTE120] On the Edge with Alex Jones
    • ON THE EDGE On the Edge with Dr. Michael Hudson Interview with Dr. Michael Hudson. Hudson maintains that President Obama’s second-term plan is to shrink US wages by 30% because his Chicago-school casino capitalist backers demand it.
    • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM-1202] The Truth About The Holy Dial Tone – 13 August 2011. Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here.

  • ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
    antiwarradio.jpg LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
    Listen at antiwar.com/radio
    Francis Boyle August 25, 2011: Francis Boyle, Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, discusses how in 2004 the FBI and CIA tried to make him an informant to betray his Arab and Muslim legal clients; how his refusal landed him on several terrorism watch lists, guaranteeing him a lifetime of harassment when traveling; the list of five thousand Arabs, Muslims and their sympathizers that the FBI interrogated and attempted to “turn;” the US government’s habit of rounding up entire groups of Americans (or planning to) and sending them to prison camps during a crisis – Constitution notwithstanding; and why we already live in a police state, which will become a military dictatorship after one more major terrorist attack.
    Eric Margolis August 25, 2011: Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the ragtag Libyan rebels entering Tripoli and seizing Gadhafi’s compound (courtesy of massive NATO air support); the similarity with Egypt’s governmental reforms, where the head autocrat is deposed yet former ministers and the power structure remain intact; why the disparate rebel factions, united in hatred of Gadhafi, will splinter and fight amongst themselves; and the return of European colonialism in N. Africa, as the British and French look to stay in Libya for the long term.
    Nick Turse August 25, 2011: Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, discusses his article “Uncovering the Military’s Secret Military”; how JSOC became “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine” and the president’s own private army; rebuilding US special operations after the 1980 Iran hostage embarrassment and greatly expanding them after 9/11; how SOCOM has developed the clout and influence of an independent military branch, like the Navy or Army; the war-porn addicts in Congress who get excited by every Navy SEAL operation and fund them accordingly; and why the precision airstrikes in Libya were probably guided by special operations forces on the ground.
    Pepe Escobar August 26, 2011: Pepe Escobar, journalist and author of Obama Does Globalistan, discusses his article “Welcome to Libya’s ‘democracy’” and whether Gadhafi’s apparent defeat is instead a strategic retreat – presaging a guerrilla war; how NATO filters all information from Libya’s National Transitional Council, making it very difficult for outsiders to determine what’s really going on; why eastern Libya may become an emirate ruled by heavily armed Islamists, much to the delight of the Persian Gulf monarchies; how Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron are all taking credit for a victory and reaping some domestic political rewards for it; why occupation forces will likely be composed of a Persian Gulf “task force;” and how the BRIC countries, opposed to Libya intervention from the start, are getting shut out of lucritive oil contracts. See Why the Syrian Regime won't fall at AsiaTimes
    Will Grigg August 26, 2011: Will Grigg, blogger and author of Liberty in Eclipse, discusses the AP news story about the CIA/NYPD joint venture into “mapping” minority neighborhoods – essentially domestic spying; rendering moot the prohibitions on domestic CIA intelligence gathering and military law enforcement; why recruiting government informants through blackmail is a sign of creeping totalitarianism; why Americans are not protected by the rule of law, so long as the government can ignore it at will; and why the real threat to liberty is not from terrorists abroad, but from government at home.
    Lew Rockwell August 26, 2011: Lew Rockwell, founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses why Ron Paul is the first real peace candidate for president since Eugene McCarthy in 1968; the prime importance of foreign policy, since waging imperial wars abroad inevitably harms liberty and prosperity at home; Paul’s bold challenge to Rick Santorum’s Iran warmongering in the Iowa debate; why the US unnecessarily provoked the Cold War and kept it going; why democratic wars fail to differentiate between soldiers and civilians (the people ARE the government, right?); ending the morality double standard that prohibits individuals from grave acts but allows the government to kill and steal; and Dick Cheney’s book promotion media tour, where he defends torture, regrets he couldn’t start a war with Syria, and laughs all the way to the bank.
    Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!

  • fauxnews
    • Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate
    • Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate.

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Brick TeeVee's Arctic 710.77345 Edition!

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710.77345 First one to guess what that number says wins a free Malloy podcast! HINT: Get out yer calculators. Heh. Warren Buffet speaks! And the congresscritters that took Grover Norquist's "No Tax Pledge" are peeing their pants! Not Tyler Durden at zerohedge who points out in Bank Of America: Gold Upgraded To AAAA, 12 Month Price Target: $2,000 A day after the US downgrade to AA+, Warren Buffett (who elsewhere continues his op-ed uber-campaign in hypocrisy by writing in the NYT that the government should "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich") said that in his book the US is AAAA. Amusingly, hours later S&P downgraded Berkshire to pari with the US. Judging by the record near surge in volatility in the ensuing days, the market was not too convinced with the octogenarian of Omaha's latest orations. What it was more convinced by, judging by market results, was the fact that Bank of America upgraded something totally different to an AAAA rating: gold, with a $2000 12 month target. To wit: "High commodity prices have now created a terms-of-trade shock for importers, feeding into current accounts, the financial sector and, ultimately, sovereign debt. How will these imbalances unwind? Physical gold is the ultimate collateral because it has no credit risk, so EM Central Banks have been diversifying their foreign exchange reserves into gold and other non-dollar, non-euro assets in recent quarters. Looking ahead, the deterioration in credit quality in Europe and the US coupled with an increased probability of QE3 means these pressures will continue. As a result, we revise our 12-month gold target to $2000/oz." Basically everything that Zero Hedge has been saying for about TWO AND HALF YEARS NOW. Naturally, this coming from Bank of America, should set off contrarian call alarm bells everywhere. Regardless, here is BofA's Michael Widmer explaining his call, as well as the full upgrade report from BAC, which lately has far, far greater problems than getting its commodities call right or wrong. See the video at the link! But Brendan Lynch at the Boston Herald reports Bank of America plans to lay off 3,500 more workers “There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ surrounding B of A,” said Anthony Polini, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates. “If the U.S. can continue to recover, if it can put the lawsuits surrounding the mortgage crisis behind it. ... Polini speculated they could come from the bank’s retail operation or its mortgage banking unit. “How many re-fi waves can you have in a row?” Polini said. “The next re-fi wave will have to be 3 percent (interest rates). It seems like everybody but me is already at 4 percent.” Maybe they're letting go of all those RoboSigners in their "mortgage banking unit"? Reuters published a Special report: Banks continue robo-signing last month citing Bank of America, meanwhile, is coming under fire from a New York federal bankruptcy judge. Last Tuesday, Judge Robert Drain ordered an investigation involving a foreclosure case brought by the bank. Two earlier copies of a promissory note filed in court had lacked any endorsement, but then one appeared on the note when bank lawyers produced the original. The judge said the sudden appearance of an endorsement, and his own close look at it, raised questions about whether it had been added illegally to make the note look legitimate.It "raises a sufficiently serious issue as to when and more importantly by whom this note was endorsed," the judge said. Then Louise Story @ NYT reports U.S. Inquiry Is Said to Focus on S.&P. Ratings The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews. The investigation began before Standard & Poor’s cut the United States’ AAA credit rating this month, but it is likely to add fuel to the political firestorm that has surrounded that action. ...In the mortgage inquiry, the Justice Department has been asking about instances in which the company’s analysts wanted to award lower ratings on mortgage bonds but may have been overruled by other S.& P. business managers, according to the people with knowledge of the interviews. If the government finds enough evidence to support such a case, which is likely to be a civil case, it could undercut S.& P.’s longstanding claim that its analysts act independently from business concerns. Then our own msgeaux finds Obama — Beware of Elites Bearing Gifts by Richard K. Moore: To my way of thinking, the proper response to the financial collapse would be to place all the big financial institutions under national receivership. They created the crisis through fraudulent practices, and bailing them out should be the furthest thing from our minds. The nations of the world can figure out who legitimately owes who what, figure out some way to settle up, and establish new sounder bases for currencies. That's what the G-20 could have been doing, but of course they didn't. As things get worse, we will take comfort that Obama 'understands our plight', is 'one of us', and is 'doing all he can'. Indeed, we will be dutifully emailing our representatives, to support this or that Obama legislation. As to the actual dark tunnel we are entering, here are a few recent articles that have come my way: [...read all these at link...] If anyone still doubts that the banking elites run things from behind the scenes, the past few months should have opened their eyes. Instead of a rational response, based on bringing the financial institutions under control, we have a capitulation to banking interests, symbolized by the installation of Henry Paulson as US Economic Czar, the same Paulson who helped engineer the subprime virus while at Goldman Sachs. The bailout, which has become a global phenomenon, is a crime against humanity, a betrayal of whatever democratic principles remained in our societies. Humanity is the patient, and capitalism (i.e., rule by capitalist elites) is the disease. The agenda of our leaders, and Obama will be no exception, is to sacrifice the patient so that the disease may survive. Our always intrepid jen is reminded of a long 2000 essay by Richard K. Moore Escaping the Matrix. Here's a snip: In the matrix, the various factions believe that their competition with each other is the process that determines society's political agenda. Politicians want votes, and hence the biggest and best-organized factions should have the most influence, and their agendas should get the most political attention. In reality there is only one significant political agenda these days: the maximization of capital growth through the dismantling of society, the continuing implementation of neoliberalism, and the management of empire.... The matrix cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Under the onslaught of globalization, the glitches are becoming ever more difficult to conceal--as earlier, with the Vietnam War. November's anti-establishment demonstrations in Seattle, the largest in decades, were aimed directly at globalization and the WTO. Even more important, Seattle saw the coming together of factions that the matrix had programmed to fight one another, such as left-leaning environmentalists and socially conservative union members. Seattle represented the tip of an iceberg. A mass movement against globalization and elite rule is ready to ignite, like a brush fire on a dry, scorching day. The establishment has been expecting such a movement and has a variety of defenses at its command, including those used effectively against the movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In order to prevail against what seem like overwhelming odds, the movement must escape entirely from the matrix, and it must bring the rest of society with it. As long as the matrix exists, humanity cannot be free. The whole truth must be faced: Globalization is centralized tyranny; capitalism has outlasted its sell-by date; matrix "democracy" is elite rule; and "market forces" are imperialism. Left and right are enemies only in the matrix. In reality we are all in this together, and each of us has a contribution to make toward a better world. And it is as strong as ever and growing as outlined in Dana Priest's Top Secret America. Our msgeaux also snags an excellent vid preview The Four Horsemen - Official Trailer MUST WATCH! Max has it too! And from last week's AntiWarRadio interview with JASON LEOPOLD. He recommends Who is Richard Blee? secrecykills.com - Find out 9/11/2011 with Richard Clarke. Read Leopold's Former Counterterrorism Czar Accuses Tenet, Other CIA Officials of Cover-Up at truth-out.org. With all this as a backdrop NYT's John M. Broder explains Bashing E.P.A. Is New Theme in G.O.P. Race: Representative Ron Paul of Texas wants environmental disputes settled by the states or the courts. Herman Cain, a businessman, wants to put many environmental regulations in the hands of an independent commission that includes oil and gas executives. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor, thinks most new environmental regulations should be shelved until the economy improves.... Bachmann drew loud applause 10 days ago at a rally in Iowa when she declared: “I guarantee you the E.P.A. will have doors locked and lights turned off, and they will only be about conservation. It will be a new day and a new sheriff in Washington, D.C.” In an earlier debate she said the agency should be renamed the “job-killing organization of America.” She has called global-warming science a hoax. ... On Monday, Mr. Perry called on Mr. Obama to halt all regulations because, Mr. Perry said, “his E.P.A. regulations are killing jobs all across America.” In his book, “Fed Up, Our Fight to Save America from Washington,” Mr. Perry described global-warming science as “one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight” and a “secular carbon cult” led by false prophets like Al Gore. Guardian UK reports Rick Perry accuses scientists of 'manipulating' climate data These comments led to the climate science faculties at both the University of Texas and Texas A&M University (Perry’s alma mater) posting consensus statements on their websites endorsing the findings about the manmade character of climate change by the world’s leading scientific body on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For more read Alex Pareene at Salon's "War Room" The GOP candidates have no time for your "science" and Texas Climate News Perry sharpens rhetoric on climate science, charges data “manipulated” for money. The "drill baby" party has also been actively supporting drilling in the Arctic. First it was Texaco/Chevron in Ecuador, Exxon Valdeez in Alaska, then Bottomless Pit (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico and now SHELL OIL! Shell wins tentative approval for offshore Arctic drilling says Richard Maur at the Anchorage Daily News But the permit is contingent on many other federal permits and approvals, among them governing air pollution from drill ships and companion vessels, oil-spill response plans, marine mammal protection and specific plans for each of the wells. A Shell spokesman in Alaska, Curtis Smith, said the company has been informed that at least the oil-spill response plan is near conclusion and will be approved next week. Representatives of several environmental organizations, in a joint telephone news conference from Washington, D.C., said they were disappointed by the decision and were studying whether to challenge it in court. Erik Grafe, an Anchorage-based attorney for Earthjustice, said they had 60 days to file a lawsuit. Grafe and the others said the federal approval was granted before Shell proved it could clean up an oil spill in the Arctic. They said the drilling program should have been subject to a full-blown environmental impact statement with public comment and additional research, not the more limited environmental assessment that the agency conducted. The agency found no evidence that Shell's exploration "would significantly affect the quality of the human environment," a key for rejecting the need for an environmental impact statement. Shell is also seeking authorization to drill in the Chukchi Sea about the same time as in the Beaufort. That application is pending. See EarthJustice.org Feds Ignore Risks and Green Light Shell Drilling in Arctic Ocean “Just this June, the USGS reported gaping holes in our understanding of the Arctic Ocean, yet the administration ignores these realities by declaring that offshore drilling would have no significant impact on this fragile marine environment,” said Sierra Weaver, attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “By putting Shell one step closer to dangerously risky drilling, the administration puts the wildlife and people that depend on the fragile Arctic ecosystem on thin ice.” “Shell’s oil drilling risks major spills that could devastate nearby coasts, including our nation’s treasured Arctic National Wildlife Refuge roughly a dozen miles away,” said Pamela A. Miller, Arctic Program Director, Northern Alaska Environmental Center in Fairbanks, Alaska. “The toxic pollution and noisy disturbance from the exploration wells threaten refuge resources dependent upon marine and nearshore estuary waters, as well as surrounding coastal habitats so vital to polar bears, migratory birds, caribou, Alaska Native subsistence, and recreation. Our preeminent wilderness refuge deserves better care than the offshore agency has shown.” Joe Romm at ThinkProgress Climate Progress shows how After North Sea Oil Spill, Shell Prepares to Drill in Arctic Where There is ‘No Infrastructure’ for Clean-Up But the leader of the U.S. Coast Guard continues to raise concerns about the environmental implications of a spill there. Speaking to reporters on Friday in Alaska, Admiral Robert Papp explained that that the agency needs “an appropriate level of Arctic pollution response capability. Presently we have none.” From the Associated Press:

    As of now, the agency is operating at a disadvantage, Adm. Robert Papp said. “You never know the full spectrum of things that can go wrong,” Papp said. (Uhh, yes we do! Can you say "Valdez" or "Deepwater Horizon" or "Dai-Ichi"? -Ed.) “And if the Coast Guard has no resources, we have no backup, we have no way to execute a plan. So we’ve got to have some infrastructure up there.”
      ......But the disconnect gets far worse. In its Environmental Impact Assessment, the Department of Interior fully recognizes the impact of climate change on the Arctic. Yet it gives approval to drill for more carbon-intensive fossil fuels in the region, exacerbating the very problem the agency outlines:
        A thorough scientific examination of climate change in the Arctic is provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007a) and the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA, 2005). The two reviews offer the most comprehensive compilation of information available on climate change, agreeing that the Arctic is experiencing variations that are accelerating faster than previously realized (Karcher et al., 2010). Other research concurs the Arctic is undergoing rapid transition, including surface warming (affecting cloudiness) and changes in the cryosphere, the frozen water part of the Earth system that includes sea ice (Matthes, Rinke, and Dethloff, 2009).
      A thorough scientific examination of climate change in the Arctic is provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007a) and the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA, 2005). The two reviews offer the most comprehensive compilation of information available on climate change, agreeing that the Arctic is experiencing variations that are accelerating faster than previously realized (Karcher et al., 2010). Other research concurs the Arctic is undergoing rapid transition, including surface warming (affecting cloudiness) and changes in the cryosphere, the frozen water part of the Earth system that includes sea ice (Matthes, Rinke, and Dethloff, 2009).
    Ironically, the proposed plan to address climate change is to install emissions-reduction equipment at rigs onsite, rather than consider the impact of drilling for fossil fuels.
    On yet another front Bill McKibben, founder of 360.org, pens a WaPo editorial alerting us to a D.C. sit-in to fight the construction of a pipeline that would bring the dirtiest tar sands oil from Alberta Canada to the Texas refineries straight through the heartland of America: A watershed moment for Obama on climate change The issue is simple: We want the president to block construction of Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry oil from the tar sands of northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. We have, not surprisingly, concerns about potential spills and environmental degradation from construction of the pipeline. But those tar sands are also the second-largest pool of carbon in the atmosphere, behind only the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. If we tap into them in a big way, NASA climatologist James Hansen explained in a paper issued this summer, the emissions would mean it’s “essentially game over” for the climate. That’s why the executive directors of many environmental groups and 20 of the country’s leading climate scientists wrote letters asking people to head to Washington for the demonstrations. In scientific terms, it’s as close to a no-brainer as you can get. Read it all! NOW TAKE ACTION! Join us this summer! From August 20th – September 3rd we’re planning a peaceful protest in Washington DC to defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America - www.tarsandsaction.org Yeah! Back to SHELL OIL in the ARCTIC Shell's second oil leak in North Sea pipeline caused by relief valve guardian.co.uk Tue 16 Aug Greenpeace is taking legal action to stop the granting of more than 20 new licences for oil companies to drill in the deep water to the west of Shetland, arguing that the government cannot be certain that a spill in the area would not devastate specially protected wildlife havens. Campaigners also pointed to wider lessons for oil companies in other parts of the world, including places where oil spills have been covered up such as Nigeria. As the Guardian recently revealed, Shell has been forced to admit liability for spills in the region THAT HAVE DWARFED last year's [BeePee] Gulf of Mexico DISASTER. Communications director for the Alaska Wilderness League Emilie Surrusco opines at the Christian Science MonitorDrilling for oil in Arctic Ocean is fraught with danger Importantly, no one has been able to come up with a workable way to clean up oil in ice. Shell’s spill plan includes techniques that are familiar to anyone who followed the Deepwater Horizon disaster – in situ burning, dispersants, booms – methods that were difficult to implement in the Gulf’s calm, temperate seas, close to modern infrastructure. When oil companies tested some of these approaches in the Arctic (over 10 years ago), the experiment was declared a “failure.” Since then, nothing has changed in Arctic oil-spill response technology. What’s more, America’s own science experts – the United States Geological Survey – say it’s “difficult, if not impossible” to make informed decisions about drilling in the Arctic because too much remains unknown about the Arctic’s marine environment and the wildlife that depend on it. See BTV's Spill Baby Spill & More Spills and Thrills plus BTV's SPECIAL REPORT Mountaintop Removal Study for more recent "extraction industry" disasters. THIS JUST IN! Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk Friday 19 August 2011: Massive protest at White House against Alberta tar sands pipeline Campaigners say the two-week protest will be the biggest green civil disobedience in a generation The veteran environmentalist Bill McKibben, who is leading the protest, describes it as the biggest civil disobedience action in environmental circles for years. It also puts Obama on the spot to make good on his promises as a presidential candidate in 2008 to act on climate change. Congress failed to act on the main plank of Obama's green agenda – climate change legislation – and pressure from Tea Party activists has forced the Environmental Protection Agency to delay or weaken regulations on dealing with climate change. This time though, Obama has freedom of action – or at least that is McKibben's hope. Obama must personally sign off on the pipeline, if it is to go ahead. "We think we may have a chance because for once Obama gets to make the call himself. He has to sign – or not sign – the permit," McKibben said. "As environmentalists this is the one clean test we are ever going to get of Obama's real commitment to climate issues." (This story DID NOT RUN in the U.S. press. If you can find ONE then post below and prove us wrong. -Ed.) AND for our PUMAs out there Groups Question Influence of Clinton Ties to Oil Lobbyist on State Department Pipeline Decision A coalition of organizations composed of Friends of the Earth, the Center for International Environmental Law, and Corporate Ethics International submitted a Freedom of Information Act request [PDF] this week asking for all communications between the agency and a former presidential campaign manager for Hillary Clinton. Paul Elliot, the lobbyist in question, served as national deputy director and chief of staff for delegate selection for Clinton's Presidential campaign committee. He's now a lobbyist for TransCanada, the company aiming to build the controversial 2,151 mile-long Keystone XL Pipeline. The above organizations are concerned about how the relationship between Secretary of State Clinton and Elliot may impact the approval process for the controversial tar sands pipeline. For the coalition of watchdog organizations, this is just the latest in a series of developments that cast doubt on whether the State Department is fulfilling its obligations to conduct an exhaustive and transparent review of the environmental and public health dangers of the proposed pipeline. Read Friends of the Earth Press Release So, PUMAs, despite the primary and convention 2008 hi-jinx vote-rigging and arm-twisting BLATANT UNDERMINING OF DEMOCRACY, just how much would have a Hillary pResidency be even marginally different? Post yer PUMA thoughts below. Catch Chris Moody on Ring of Fire Radio talking with Pap about the green-washing of our education system. Also our man in Pipelineistan Pepe Escobar is on AntiWar Radio, Stephen Zunes and Thomas Frank is with Peter B, Matt Taibbi is on Majority Report and much more! As for the Sunday Funnies WH Limo Riders DAVID AXELROD on State of the Candy & This Anampout and BOB GIBBS on Meet the David explain the WH "pivot" to "job creation" after yet another roller-coaster (mostly down) market week. FAKE SNOOZE goes with RICK SANATARIUM and TURD BLOSSOM while Face the Bob gets JOHN "CRAZY TRAIN" MCCAIN. Later 60 Minutes follows the story of whistleblower THOMAS DRAKE. The Brick TeeVee Crew has been dragging ass all week during the hot Dog Days and the Tribe's Band Box batting has been hit and mostly miss as they look to get at least one win in Detroit on Sunday before a long homestand against the Mariners, Royals and A's. Throw some bricks, buy some gold and have a great week!


    BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©
    Democracy NOW!
    »»» Chris Woods Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London. @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Investigation Finds U.S. Drones Strike Pakistan Every Four Days, Killing 775 Civilians Since 2004 Aug 15, 2012
    »»» "X", an anonymous member of the hacktivist group Anonymous @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Disguised Member of Hacktivist Group "Anonymous" Defends Retaliatory Action Against BART RELATED Hacktivism’s Global Reach, From Targeting Scientology to Backing WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring Aug 16, 2012
    »»» Rona Peligal, deputy director of the Africa Division for Human Rights Watch WATCH NOW Human Rights Watch: Abuses by All Sides Fueling Crisis in Somalia Aug 17, 2011
    »»» Frank Schaeffer @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Ex-Evangelical Denounces Michele Bachmann & Calls Christian Reconstructionist Politics "Anti-American" Aug 17, 2011
    »»» Juan Gonzalez @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Juan Gonzalez: Verizon Workers’ Strike "Most Important Labor Battle Going on Today" RELATED Verizon Workers, Management Dig in for Decisive Labor Battle 'This is no ordinary strike' Click to read more of Juan Gonzalez’s column in the New York Daily News. Aug 18, 2011
    »»» Author David Wise @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW As Biden Visits China, Author David Wise on "Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War with China" Aug 18, 2011
    »»» Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Violence Spikes in Iraq as U.S. Considers Ways to Extend Occupation Past December Deadline Aug 19, 2011
    »»» Cindy Schild, the refining issues manager at the American Petroleum Institute, and Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW A Debate: Should the U.S. Approve TransCanada’s Massive Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline? Aug 19, 2011
    »»» Robert Borosage, founder and president of the Institute for America’s Future @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Bipartisan "Super Committee" Turns to Cutting Deficit with "Extraordinary" Powers Aug 19, 2011
    »»» Steven Greenhouse, the labor reporter for the New York Times @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW The Verizon Labor Battle: As Strike Continues, Customers Report Delays and Disruptions to Service Aug 19, 2011
    GRITtv
    »»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
    »»» FEATURED SHOW Evicting Rioters from Public Housing? David Cameron Meet Michelle Alexander
    BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!©
    »»» NASCAR on ESPN Pure Michigan 400! Live from Michigan International Speedway @ 1 pm et
    »»» MLB on TBS Yankees @ Twins! 2 pm et
    »»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Cardinals @ Cubs! 8 pm et
    »»» Wednesday Night Doubleheader on ESPN Red Sox @ Rangers at 7 pm et followed by White Sox @ Angels 10 pm et
    BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!©
    SUPPORT CWA at VERIZON Many of you may have Verizon Wireless or even live in a state where they provide land lines. 45,000 Communications Workers of America members have walked off the job this week because of Verizon's unrelenting proposed cuts. Note that a $10/hour across-the-board increase in wages for all 45,000 members would amount to about $93 Million/year which is LESS THAN ONE HALF of 1% of the $19 BILLION Verizon made in profits the last four years! Please support our brothers and sisters at CWA here: Tell Verizon: Stop Attacking the Middle Class UPDATE: Agreement on Bargaining Reached! Thanks to our unity, we will return to work Tues. with contract back in force and bargaining restructured. Member update call Sunday 11 am EDT. Read our statement. Taryn Luna, Boston Globe Correspondent Unions agree to end strike without new contract with Verizon The Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers agreed today to end one of the largest strikes in a decade without winning a new contract agreement, and send their 45,000 members back to work at Verizon Communications Inc. nearly two weeks after walking off the job. Workers from Massachusetts to Virginia will return to their posts in the company’s landline division on Monday evening under the terms of the previous contract, as negotiations on a new bargaining agreement continue between the two sides next week.
    October2011.org October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions. Take this pledge at October2011.org
      "I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America's resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning."
    Do it NOW!
    CHANGE.ORG The First Cause: A Plan to Claim Food As Food We're losing the right to manage our own health. Even the right to choose our food is being stolen. We can stop it, but only by ending the basis on which it's being done—not by addressing each action. Heidi Stevenson, Gaia Health:
    The First Cause: A Plan to Claim Food As Food: We can't end this destruction of our rights simply by protesting each incident. By the time these limitations are pushed on us, it's too late. We must address the bases on which these rules are made. We must insure that, at a minimum, laws are enacted that remove the ability to limit our access to natural products. Food must be recognized as food, not treated as drugs. To this end, I'm starting two petitions, one in the US and one in the EU, to address this concern. However, these petitions are not the usual sort. They will form the basis of many actions. People who sign are asked to be part of the movement to claim back our health rights. We need to let politicians know that we're serious, we're organized—and we're growing. People who sign are asked to also send letters or e-mails to their representatives in congress or parliament, thus sending a constantly increasing stream of messages to keep the issue in front of them. A new website has been set up to allow people to post responses from politicians, along with their own articles: Free Choice - Health Defining food as food is not the only issue that must be tackled, but it's a key one. As it gets rolling, we'll start others. We are literally in a battle for our lives!
    If you're in Europe, click HERE to sign the petition.
    If you're in the United States, click HERE to sign the petition. Do it NOW!
    (Ed. sez go read Michael Pollan's FARMER IN CHIEF -Ed.)
    CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
    MOVE TO AMEND! www.movetoamend.org SIGN HERE NOW! Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net And Alan Grayson is running again in FL-8! Help out at CongressmanWithGuts.com
    SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org UPDATE! Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed at wired.com plus The Deeply Personal Details in New Bradley Manning Chat Logs and Bradley Manning Support Network Much more at link.
    EMAIL UPDATE! Help us reach our goal of a half million by signing the petition, and passing it on. Add your name! AND Vote for Bradley in the 2011 Time Magazine 100 Poll here!
    Add your name to this petition Eminent US legal scholars protest 'torture' of Bradley Manning.
    DONATE YOUR OLD CELL PHONES TO T.J. MARTELL FOUNDATION Help save lives. Donate your old & used iPhone, Blackberries, Droid and other phones to help the T.J. Martell Foundations fund life-saving cancer & AIDS research. For more information, go to www.tjmartellfoundation.org


    brick_teevee_test.jpg
    B R I C K T E E V E E
    image ©2006 arkysue
    THEY report. YOU throw bricks. ©
    Get your Foam Bricks at ThrowThings.com HERE!
    The essential guide for watching government propaganda
    IRAQ: 4,474 US Military Dead as of Aug 12, 2011
    AFGHANISTAN: 1,738 US Military Dead as of Aug 12, 2011
    The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
    Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

    • This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour - Jake Tapper live from Ames, Iowa
      Fact Checking ABC's "This Week" at NPR "On the Media" - Jake Tapper, interim host of ABC's "This Week," liked the idea of fact-checking his guests' comments, so he set up a partnership with Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking organization. See Politifact Statements ABC News 'This Week'
      • former Utah governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman
      • Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod
      • ROUNDTABLE: George Will, political strategist Donna Brazile, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, and Liz Claman of FOX Business Network

    • Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer - Chief White House Correspondent Norah O'Donnell sits in for Bob Schieffer
      • Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
      • economist Mark Zandi
      • former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie
      • former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe

    • 60 Minutes (CBS)
      • U.S. vs. DRAKE - Tom Drake, a former National Security Agency senior executive, was indicted last year for espionage after leaking allegations to the media that the nation's largest intelligence organization had committed fraud, waste and abuse. Scott Pelley reports. Glenn Silber and Graham Messick are the producers.
      • The Archbishop - In a wide-ranging interview with Morley Safer, New York's Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan discusses the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, his current mission and the state of the church in America. Deirdre Naphin is the producer.

    • Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
      Meet the Facts at NPR "On the Media" - Last December, NYU professor Jay Rosen proposed something simple yet revolutionary: why don't the Sunday morning chat shows fact check their guests? After "Meet the Press" host David Gregory declined, two college students launched a website to do it for him. One of them, Chas Danner, explains what they're trying to accomplish. See their website MeetTheFacts.com updating soon!
      • Obama for America Campaign adviser, Robert Gibbs
      • Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R)
      • ROUNDTABLE: former Tennessee congressman, Harold Ford, Jr. (D); columnist for the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan; columnist for the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne; and host of CNBC’s Closing Bell, Maria Bartiromo.

    • State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) live from Iowa
      At 9 AM ET, Candy talks to the power players: politicians, business leaders and international newsmakers who will make Monday morning's headlines. At NOON ET, Candy wraps it all up with fresh interviews and the best of the earlier hours.
      • David Axelrod, Senior Strategist of the Obama re-election campaign
      • Governors Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Martin O'Malley of Maryland, chairs of their party’s governors associations.
      • Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland.
      • U.S. economic editor of The Economist Greg Ip and Editor of Thomson Reuters Digital Chrystia Freeland.

    • HEAD ON RADIO with Bob Kincaid
      HEAD ON
      Headon Radio with Bob Kincaid 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific, 2300 GMT. Duration: 3 hrs. To be part of the conversation on Head-on Radio, call toll-free (877) 443-2366, or use our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email: bob [at] headonradio [dot] com.
      • Prayer Meetin' Wednesday!!!!!! Listen HERE (mp3)!
      • Catch the PRISM-WV Summer Academy video stream on the Head-On With Bob Kincaid USTREAM Channel!
      Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE!

    • YOUR GREEN NEWS REPORT
      desi-n-bradweirdos
      The Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen: 6 minutes of green news, politics, analysis & snarky comment!
      Go see greennews.bradblog.com!
      'Green News Report' - August 18, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme weather in 2011 breaking records for record-breaking; Civil disobedience coming to the White House over Canada's Keystone XL pipeline; PLUS: TX Gov. Rick Perry thinks he knows more about climate science than climate scientists do...and the GOP candidates' attacks on the EPA may be costly ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!!
      IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): 'Every farmer in the world will be affected by climate change'; Wal-Mart Going 100% Renewable - in Canada; Op-ed: No to Arctic Drilling; Koch Brothers Fund Bogus Study Bashing Offshore Wind in New Jersey; Melting Arctic sea ice drives walruses onto land; Famine-struck Somalia faces cholera outbreak; EPA's Planned Phaseout of Harmful Refrigerant Hits Snag; Human Excrement to Blame for Coral Decline; Obama administration moves against ANWR oil drilling; Public's ideas for BP oil spill restoration projects; Otters are back in England; U.S. bans Syrian oil imports; Myth: smaller, fuel-efficient cars increase traffic deaths; Army Corps re-calibrating ’500-Year Flood’ standard; Fukushima's meltdown: reactors were doomed to fail" ... PLUS: Living beyond our means: How our indulgent economic and environmental models threaten future generations. Visit BradBlog.com to see who counts yer votes! Reference yer background/research at Who's Counting? too.
      UPDATE: HACKED: Wisconsin State Elections Board Website.

    • The Peter B. Collins Show PODCAST!
      pbc show
      Listen at PeterBCollins.com!
      The Peter B. Collins Show covers American news and politics from the Left Coast. Veteran talk radio personality Peter B. Collins, based in San Francisco, delivers fresh interviews, commentary and analysis on a range of important topics, with views and voices you don’t often find in the corporate media.
      • PBC Live! Weekly on KGO PBC Live! Weekly on KGO Your humble host has been remiss in keeping you apprised of his other media activities. Since February, I’ve been hosting a regular weekly show on KGO, the leading San Francisco talk station with a huge coverage area–at night, you can hear it anywhere on the West Coast. TFN (till further notice), you can hear me every Friday night–or, more precisely, Saturday morning, from 1-5 am (PDT) on 810-AM or streaming at www.kgoradio.com. If you’d like to be alerted each week, sign up on Facebook as a fan of “Peter B. Collins Show” or you can follow me on Twitter, @pbcsf
      • PBC Podcast 277 Prof. Stephen Zunes On Drone Deaths, AfPak, Iraq, Syria and Much More; Email Responses to Call for a Primay Challenge to Obama J. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Chair of Middle East Studies at University of San Francisco, returns to talk about an array of foreign policy issues, starting with the false claim from Obama advisor John Brennan that there have been no civilians killed by drone strikes in the past year and the inability of the New York Times to call proven falsehoods, well, lies; interesting array of reaction to call for Obama challenger.
      • PBC Podcast 278 Tom Frank, Harper’s Columnist, on Obama’s Decline and the Age of Enron; Journalist/Activist Mike Elk on the HuffPo Strike and ALEC Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter With Kansas and The Wrecking Crew, returns to talk about his next book, the problems with Obama, and his recent Harper’s column on the Age of Enron. Mike Elk, journalist and activist, talks about the writer’s strike at Huffington Post and about the role of ALEC in filling prisons–and then privatizing the operation of prisons.
      • PBC Podcast 279 Ex-Evangelical Leader Frank Schaeffer Says Michelle Bachman Lies About “Submission” and More; Will Durst Unloads on Congress Frank Schaeffer used to be an insider in the religious right–son of Reconstructionist preacher Francis Schaeffer, who is cited as a major influence on Michele Bachman. He issues a powerful indictment of her fundamentalism, and starts by calling her a liar about “submission” to her husband. Will Durst comments on the 12-member “Super Congress”.

    • Ring of Fire Radio
      rofheader
      Find us at http://ringoffireradio.com and http://goleft.tv/ hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
      Ring of Fire Radio - GoLeft TV - Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder - Politics, Commentary, and News.
      This Week on Ring of Fire! August 19, 2011
      • This week on Ring of Fire: Actor, comedian, and documentary filmmaker Harry Shearer will join us to talk about his new documentary “The Big Uneasy.
      • Author Frank Schaeffer will join us to talk about the radical right wing evangelicals who have helped shape Michelle Bachmann’s worldview.
      • We’ll be talking with new MSNBC host Chris Hayes about how the gross income inequality in America is finally starting to hurt the elite on Wall Street.
      • Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, will be here to talk about how government regulations are helping to save American lives.
      • Author Chris Mooney will talk with us about the continuing assault on climate science that has now infiltrated our school system.
      • And political strategist and author Mike Lux will be here to tell us why our current economic policies are leading America to ruin.
      • Join our blog at www.ringoffireradio.com. You can now SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST by clicking on the “Podcast” tab at the top of the Ring of Fire blog. Please help support progressive radio by signing up!
      Ring of Fire Radio Ring of Fire, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder: Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm (4 pm on XM 167) featuring The PAP Attack! "We’ll bring you the stories that the mainstream media didn’t feel like reporting this week."

    • Majority Report with Sam Seder Streaming LIVE weekdays 11:30 am et @ Majority.fm!
      majority
      Dahlia Scheindlin of +972 Magazine on the Protests in Israel [08•15•11]
      Michelle Goldberg of The Daily Beast on A Christian Plot for Domination? [08•16•11]
      Peter Mougey Discusses Shareholder's Rights [08•17•11]
      Matt Taibbi talks...Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes? [08•18•11]
      Cliff Schecter on Ohio SB5, Rick Perry and more! [08•19•11]
      MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityreport.official.fm!

    • On the Edge with Max Keiser Podcasts and more @ MaxKeiser.com!
      maxheaderhiyall
      "HI Y'ALL! Tell the people! Tell the people!"
      WHO IS MAX KEISER? Max Keiser is a financial expert, Prediction Markets analyst, inventor and filmmaker. He is the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) the first Prediction Market. Max Keiser co-hosts “The Truth About Markets” on ResonanceFM 104.4 in London. He also produces and presents documentary films covering markets and finance for Al Jazeera’s “People & Power” series. Max Keiser started his career on Wall Street in 1983. He is the creator of KarmaBanque a site that enables activists to challenge corporate power.
      • VISIT PirateMyFilm.com!!! Crowd Funding for Pirates!
      • VIDEO! The Official Silver Liberation Army! See SilverLiberationArmy.com !
      • VIDEO! Max on the Big Screen!?!? Watch "Four Horsemen - Official Trailer"
      Watch How They Steal The Money READ Watch How They Steal The Money (24hgold.com) The amount of theft going on these days is immense. I thought I would catalog at least a few ways in which it is happening in Europe. This is not supposed to be a comprehensive list. I hope that some Matt Taibbi will compile some sort of record of these things. Real journalists are as rare as unicorns these days. Plus, they have a tendency to die suddenly. ... I think it is funny that people then get upset about "bankers' bonuses." As if that mattered, when crime of this magnitude is happening in front of your eyes. "You killed my mother and my brother and my sister, so I think you should wear less expensive shoes." This is the talk of slaves.
      Rick Perry solicited by Bank of America to perform unnatural banking acts – caught on video In Bedford, New Hampshire, an unknown gentlemen approaches a casual Perry like an Ian Flemming character, and proceeds to dead drop the following: “Bank of America… We will help you out”… and silently moves on & UPDATE: Blatant bribe and fraud by Bank of America soliciting Rick Perry – caught on tape. ZeroHedge identifies the Bank of America official offering his his company’s support to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s campaign as James Mahoney the Director of Public Policy for the bank. READ Bank Of America Executive To Rick Perry: “We’ll Help You Out”
      • VIDEO! Max Keiser Standup Rage Mott St. NYC; August 2nd, 2011 In two parts, about 90 minutes. Must Watch!
      • KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Banking Looters (E173)
      • KEISER REPORT [KR174] Keiser Report: Crimogenic UK We interview Richard Heinberg. define: crim·i·no·gen·ic
      • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM-1202] The Truth About The Holy Dial Tone – 13 August 2011. Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here.
      • ON THE EDGE [OTE118] On the Edge with Yanis Varoufakis
      • ON THE EDGE On the Edge with Dr. Michael Hudson Interview with Dr. Michael Hudson. Hudson maintains that President Obama’s second-term plan is to shrink US wages by 30% because his Chicago-school casino capitalist backers demand it.

    • ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
      antiwarradio.jpg LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
      Listen at antiwar.com/radio
      Pepe Escobar August 15, 2011: Pepe Escobar, journalist and author of Obama Does Globalistan, discusses why his article “Why the Syrian regime won’t fall” could prove false if major demonstrations break out in the largest urban areas, including Damascus and Aleppo; whether Turkey’s mediation can prevent the slaughter of civilian protesters in the street; the despots-in-waiting groomed by Saudi Arabia to fill vacancies in Syria and Yemen; the proposed Saudi Arabian “anti-terrorism” law that would send critics of the regime to prison for ten years; the crushed rebellion in Bahrain, thanks to stormtroopers from the GCC; and why we shouldn’t hold our breath for a democratic reform government in Yemen.
      David Swanson August 16, 2011: David Swanson, author of War is a Lie, discusses “The Military Industrial Complex at 50” national conference in Charlottesville, VA from September 16-18; the paltry defense spending cuts decried by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as a “doomsday mechanism” that will endanger national security; how Swanson helped turn former Congressman Bill Delahunt against the wars; and Paul Krugman’s half-serious plan to boost the economy by preparing for an alien invasion.
      Chris Hellman August 16, 2011: Chris Hellman, Senior Research Analyst for the National Priorities Project, discusses his article “How Safe Are You? What Almost $8 Trillion in National Security Spending Bought You” at tomdispatch.com; how cutting projected DoD spending increases could solve future government spending cuts mandated by the recent debt ceiling compromise; why the homeland security industry needs to hype terrorism threats to justify hefty budgets in a time of austerity; why casual readers of Antiwar.com know more about foreign policy than nearly everyone in Congress; and the F-22 “mafia” that greased palms and twisted arms until the project was green-lighted.
      Jason Ditz August 18, 2011: Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses why Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “turn towards dictatorship” is deemed beneficial to the US; reneging on a promise to put the 2008 Iraq Status of Forces Agreement to a popular referendum; five months of Libyan rebels claiming imminent victory; why, winning or not, the rebels are not the bastions of democracy; whether the NATO bombing campaign is saving civilians, or extending a bloody civil war; and how a 2012 breakthrough in Libya could help Obama’s reelection campaign.
      Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!

    • fauxnews
      • former Bush White House Senior Adviser Karl Rove
      • former Obama White House Deputy Communications Director Bill Burton.
      • former Senator Rick Santorum

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