Sunday, March 16, 2014

Brick TeeVee's Constitutional Crisis Special!


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Constitutional Crisis Yes there is a "Constitutional Crisis" but it's not in Ukraine! And Diane Feinstein is "shocked! shocked!" there is spying going on! On HER committee! Of course DiFi thinks it's PERFECTLY OK and REASONABLE we regular peeps can be spied on! Her "come to jeebus" moment is so full of hippocracy it's nearly laughable if it wasn't so grave. And Ukraine has its own set of problems, most likely caused by war profiteers like DiFi and her neolib/neocon buddies. More on both of these in a bit. BUT FIRST From David Shepardson and Melissa Burden at the Detroit News Ignition switch recall engulfs GM One month after General Motors Co. announced a seemingly routine recall for older cars for ignition switch problems, the callback of 1.62 million cars linked to 12 deaths and 31 crashes in which air bags failed to inflate has grown into the biggest crisis the Detroit automaker has faced in years. GM now faces a criminal investigation, looming hearings in Congress, scrutiny from federal regulators and mounting negative publicity over the question of whether GM recalled the cars in a timely manner. News reports have featured tearful stories of people killed in now-recalled cars. Tuesday, GM staffers are scheduled to brief House Energy and Commerce aides from both political parties on events leading to the recall. ............Adding to GM’s problems Friday, Transport Canada said it is investigating a June 2013 death that could be linked to the defects. GM has recalled more than 235,000 cars in Canada linked to bad ignition switches that can inadvertently turn off the engine and disable air bags, and also make the car difficult to steer. Also Friday, Texas law firms filed a class-action suit against the company. Several executives at the Detroit automaker have privately compared the firestorm over its decision to delay recalling 1.62 million Chevrolet Cobalts and other cars to the maelstrom faced by BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster or the manufacturer of Tylenol after the 1982 deaths of seven people who took cyanide-spiked painkillers. GM likely will face more lawsuits with all the publicity. .......... Under terms of the bankruptcy agreement, the “new” GM is not liable for accidents occurring before bankruptcy. GM previously has said the company did not assume liability for claims that came from accidents that occurred before July 2009, but it will put the customer first “and that will continue to guide us.” See Ralph Nader on DN! below! Rambler anyone? Say didn't MITT HEADROOM's dad George run AMC back then?
COBALT began in 2004 at the beleagured GM Lordstown Assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio heralded as a "job creator". Take a trip in the BTV Wayback Machine to 2004 Taking a Spin with New Lordstown-Built Cobalt At present, Local 1112 has 3,700 active members and the plant's overall work force has dwindled over the last two years because of retirements and attrition. An additional 1,800 workers are members of UAW 1714 and work in the plant's metals stamping operation. ...... "The key is that no one will be laid off," Graham said, though he added final employment numbers at the plant have not been finalized. Last month, 30 workers retired and the plant expects a large number to retire in January. Other employees might be transferred to a "jobs bank" and receive full pay and benefits until positions become available.Graham said by January, those employees in the plant's job bank will hopefully be back on the line as production hits stride.....
The NATIONAL SUMMIT TO REASSESS THE U.S. - ISRAEL "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP" was held in Washington D.C. at the National Press Club by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy along with the Council for the National Interest, If Americans Knew, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Check out the lineup of Speakers and watch some of the presentations at their Video/Audio/Program page! And look for more at The Future of Freedom Foundation. Scott Horton and Grant F. Smith discuss the conference on The Scott Horton Show!
Here are few items we didn't get to last week: Also ANDREW ROSENTHAL at the NYT's "Taking Note" editors blog explains The Cost of Not ‘Looking Backwards’ at Torture In the last few days, Americans were treated to an appalling battle between the Central Intelligence Agency and its Congressional overseers over the Senate’s attempt to investigate the C.I.A.’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation practices. The fight is over two still-secret documents – a 2009 C.I.A. inspector general’s report on those practices, and a four-year-long investigation by the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Some Democratic senators on the panel accused the C.I.A. of breaking into the computers of their committee’s staff members in an attempt to find out how they got access to that 2009 report. The head of the C.I.A., John Brennan, fumed about “spurious allegations,” in public, while behind the scenes, members of his staff claimed it was Senate workers who did the hacking. If the entire thing left you baffled, I’m not surprised. The whole point of this exercise, as far as the Obama administration and its intelligence agencies are concerned, is to confuse the public and keep us in the dark. It is the direct result of a cynical decision that was made five years ago by the newly inaugurated President Obama and his political advisers to paper over the C.I.A.’s adventures in torture, illegal detention and rendition (the kidnapping of foreign citizens who were shipped off to other countries to be tortured and abused without worrying too much about international law or whether they had actually committed any crimes). ................. Administration lawyers continued to block all attempts at airing the Bush administration’s policies on detention and interrogation in court. Federal prosecutors whitewashed the destruction of 92 videotapes of C.I.A. interrogations. And a 2009 report on the interrogations by the inspector general of the Central Intelligence Agency was withheld not only from the public, but also from the very members of Congress whose job it is to supervise the intelligence agencies – the Senate committee.The committee did not follow Mr. Obama’s lead, and had directed its staff to investigate and report on interrogation and detention policies after the 9/11 attacks. They did so over four years, amassing a 6,000-page report, using computers that were provided by the C.I.A. on a supposedly secure network in a supposedly secure room. The report was finished last December, but has not been released because the C.I.A. disputed some of its conclusions. That’s not terribly surprising, since the report found fault with the C.I.A. for conducting illegal interrogations that it said did not produce much, if any, useful intelligence. ....... Now, instead of having either of those documents brought before the public, we will have to endure a long – weeks? months? years? – battle between the Senate and the C.I.A. over who broke into whose computers first. The result will be more secrecy, less information, and, of course, no accountability. In the Gray Lady too! WOW! More on this in a bit. Robert Naiman poses this at truth-out.org If They Can Sanction Russia Over Crimea, We Can Sanction Israel Over Palestine Until now, it has been the case that in the United States, if you talk about any kind of boycott, any kind of divestment, any kind of sanction to pressure the Israeli government to end its military occupation of Palestine, some apologists for the Israeli occupation have gone into rhetorical meltdown. Until now, we've collectively tolerated that the hysterical opposition to "BDS" (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) of these apologists for the Israeli occupation be taken seriously in public discourse. In New York, Maryland, and Illinois, state legislators want to punish you if you even think about boycotting one egg from the Israeli occupation. We're all for the right of free speech - unless you misuse your free speech rights to say something bad about the Israeli occupation of Palestine. But now, when it is proposed to sanction Russia over its military intervention in Crimea, it passes through public discourse like a hot knife through butter. No one complains that Russia is being "unfairly singled out." No one claims that people who want to impose sanctions on Russia are motivated by an irrational hatred of the Russian people. No one claims that supporters of sanctions want to "delegitimize Russia" or "destroy Russia," nor that supporters of sanctions "refuse to accept Russia's right to exist." People are raising legitimate questions about sanctions on Russia, as they always should when new sanctions are proposed. Are they likely to be effective at achieving stated goals? Who is likely to be harmed by them, directly or indirectly? If they will harm innocent people, is that harm ethically justifiable? But no one with any influence in public discourse is calling supporters of sanctions against Russia bad names, or demanding that they be punished for their political opinions. Let's draw a line in the sand. From now on, supporters of sanctions against Israel for its military occupation of Palestine must demand the same respect for our democratic rights that supporters of sanctions against Russia for its military intervention in Crimea enjoy. From now on, we must not tolerate any abrogation of our democratic rights to advocate for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli occupation........... Going back to Robert Parry's Neocons and the Ukraine Coup from February 23, 2014 ..........Now, you have Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan, acting as a leading instigator in the Ukrainian unrest, explicitly seeking to pry the country out of the Russian orbit. Last December, she reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve “its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion.” She said the U.S. goal was to take “Ukraine into the future that it deserves.” The Kagan family includes other important neocons, such as Frederick Kagan, who was a principal architect of the Iraq and Afghan “surge” strategies. In Duty, Gates writes that “an important way station in my ‘pilgrim’s progress’ from skepticism to support of more troops [in Afghanistan] was an essay by the historian Fred Kagan, who sent me a prepublication draft. “I knew and respected Kagan. He had been a prominent proponent of the surge in Iraq, and we had talked from time to time about both wars, including one long evening conversation on the veranda of one of Saddam’s palaces in Baghdad.” Now, another member of the Kagan family, albeit an in-law, has been orchestrating the escalation of tensions in Ukraine with an eye toward one more “regime change.” As for Nuland’s sidekick, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Pyatt previously served as a U.S. diplomat in Vienna involved in bringing the International Atomic Energy Agency into a line with U.S. and Israeli hostility toward Iran...... It was Ambassador Pyatt who was on the other end of Nuland’s infamous Jan. 28 phone call in which she discussed how to manipulate Ukraine’s tensions and who to elevate into the country’s leadership....... Much more! Paul Craig Roberts reveals The Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun and is fully on to the "Shock Doctrine" "remedies" The West is ready to impose on the peeps of Ukraine According to a report in Kommersant-Ukraine, the finance ministry of Washington’s stooges in Kiev who are pretending to be a government has prepared an economic austerity plan that will cut Ukrainian pensions from $160 to $80 so that Western bankers who lent money to Ukraine can be repaid at the expense of Ukraine’s poor. It is Greece all over again. Before anything approaching stability and legitimacy has been obtained for the puppet government put in power by the Washington orchestrated coup against the legitimate, elected Ukraine government, the Western looters are already at work. Naive protesters who believed the propaganda that EU membership offered a better life are due to lose half of their pension by April. But this is only the beginning. The corrupt Western media describes loans as “aid.” However, the 11 billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid. It is a loan. Moreover, it comes with many strings, including Kiev’s acceptance of an IMF austerity plan. Remember now, gullible Ukrainians participated in the protests that were used to overthrow their elected government, because they believed the lies told to them by Washington-financed NGOs that once they joined the EU they would have streets paved with gold. Instead they are getting cuts in their pensions and an IMF austerity plan. The austerity plan will cut social services, funds for education, layoff government workers, devalue the currency, thus raising the prices of imports which include Russian gas, thus electricity, and open Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations. Ukraine’s agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness. One part of the Washington/EU plan for Ukraine, or that part of Ukraine that doesn’t defect to Russia, has succeeded. What remains of the country will be thoroughly looted by the West. ........... Washington’s stooges in Kiev can do nothing about Crimea except bluster. Under the Russian-Ukraine agreement, Russia is permitted 25,000 troops in Crimea. The US/EU media’s deploring of a “Russian invasion of 16,000 troops” is either total ignorance or complicity in Washington’s lies. Obviously, the US/EU media is corrupt. Only a fool would rely on their reports. Any media that would believe anything Washington says after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN to peddle the regime’s lies about “Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,” which the weapons inspectors had told the White House did not exist, is clearly a collection of bought-and-paid for whores....... Holy Rip-Off Batman! Where's Naomi Klien? "American agribusiness"? aka Monsanto? And more GMOs? While our tax-dodging buddy Bill Gates dumps another $10 million into researching new GM crops for agricultural takeover of Africa? Please sign the petition to the EU's trade chief to keep GMO ban. at SumOfUs.org Secret trade negotiations are taking place between the EU and US that could force European consumers to eat genetically modified foods. If approved, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will allow huge multinationals like Monsanto to force the EU to drop its ban on GMOs (genetically modified organisms). The talks are being held in secret precisely because governments and big corporations know that what they are agreeing to will be deeply unpopular..... With a Western-corporate-friendly puppet gummit now in vastly unstable Ukraine how long can the anti-GMO peeps bar the door? It might be too late as NPR's Bill Chappell explains at The Two-Way last month European Union Moves To Approve U.S. Genetically Modified Corn Despite efforts by two-thirds of its 28 member states to block the move, the European Union took a large step toward approving a new genetically modified corn Tuesday. It opponents say the corn, a DuPont Pioneer product called TC1507, has harmful qualities. They also predict the decision will prove to be controversial in Europe. ....... After word of the approval came out, Greenpeace's European agriculture policy director Marco Contiero said the EU Commission shouldn't ignore the concerns of countries who are against the corn's use in Europe. "The European Court of Justice would very likely overturn an authorization of this GM maize in a legal challenge, as it did with the latest Commission approval of the Amflora GM potato," Contiero said. "The Commission must learn from its mistakes and stop breaching the rules that help ensure the safety of what is grown in Europe." ..... Ya think? But WAIT! There's more! Patrick L. Smith at Salon explains the Propaganda, lies and the New York Times: Everything you really need to know about Ukraine You need a machete these days to whack through the thicket of misinformation, disinformation, spin, propaganda and straight-out lying that daily envelopes the Ukraine crisis like kudzu on an Alabama telephone pole. But an outline of an outcome is now faintly discernible. Here is my early call: We witness an American intervention in the process of failing, and the adventure’s only yields will be much pointless suffering among Ukrainians and life for years to come in the smothering embrace of a justifiably suspicious Russian bear. ....... Pretending innocent horror now is a waste of time. The Ukraine tragedy is real estate with many names on the deed. This must not get lost in the sauce. ......... It is difficult but not impossible to interpret these narratives. The first step, admittedly hard for many Americans, is to drop all Cold War baggage and see beyond the West’s century-and-a-half habit of demonizing Russia as the emblematic power of the inherently autocratic East. “Oriental despotism” was a passing fad conjured by a scholar-stooge named Karl Wittfogel in the late 1950s. It died a deserved death — around the time of hula hoops, I think — but the prejudice lingers, remarkably, in many Western minds. Here comes the bitter bit. The Russian take in the Ukraine crisis is more truthful than the artful dodge Washington attempts. The above forecast of the outcome rests on the thought that the dodge is simply too flimsy to last. You cannot make a call such as this without looking closely. So let’s. .............Insisting on direct talks between Russia and the provisional government in Kiev is to insist the former recognize the latter, a trap Putin cannot possibly be stupid enough to fall into. Recognition, in turn, would complete the Nuland-Pyatt project to gift Ukrainians with a post–Yanukovych puppet government. This is Kerry’s unstated intent. It is remarkable what a good road map the Nuland tape has proven. She mentioned three names in her exchange with Pyatt: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Oleh Tyahnybok and Vitali Klitschko. The first, Nuland’s favorite, is now prime minister; Tyahnybok was running ahead of Yanukovych in polls at the time Nuland was taped and remains the vigorously anti-Russian head of Svoboda, a power-balancing party of rightists; Klitschko is not in the government but plans to run for president in the May elections. This is precisely the constellation Nuland described as her work in progress: Yatsenyuk in, the others more useful outside for now. As a measure of Washington’s unseemly haste to lend legitimacy, Obama meets Yatsenyuk in Washington as I write — an unelected leader of who knows whom sitting in the White House. Just for good measure, Nuland also mentioned one Robert Serry, a U.N. official Washington arm-twisted Ban Ki-moon into sending to Kiev to give a veneer of multi-sided consensus. And there was Serry in the news last week — when Crimeans chased him across their border at gunpoint. They must be reading the papers carefully, those Crimeans........ The decisive influence of ultra-right extremists, some openly committed to an ideology of violence, some whose political ancestors sided with the Nazis to oppose the Soviets, is a matter of record. Svoboda and Right Sector, the two most organized of these groups, now propose to rise into national politics. Right Sector’s leader, Dmytro Yarosh, intends to run for president. The New York Times just described him as “an expert with firebombs” during the street protest period. These people are thugs by any other name. One cannot see how this can be in question — or why the Times suggests that Russia’s descriptions of them as such amount to “a fun house mirror.” ......... Not to root for the home team, but Nicholas Davies just published in Salon an inventory of 35 cases wherein Washington has split the sheets with fascists in the interest of intervention. Read it. Splendidly timed, it demolishes all argument that what is in front of our eyes is somehow not. History so often does the job, I find. Elsewhere, things go from bad to execrable. ....... No wonder the U.S. is 46th in Reporters Without Borders 2014 World Press Freedom Index right above Hiati, Niger, Italy, Taiwan and Malta. Ah yup. (still way ahead of Ukraine at 127, India at 140, The Russian Federation at 148, Turkey at 154, and China at 175 but far behind former U.S.S.R. satellites Czech Republic 13, Poland 19, Solvakia 20, Slovenia 34.....) At WaPo's Innovations blog Matt McFarland covers Edward Snowden: ‘They’re setting fire to the future of the Internet’ Edward Snowden on Monday advocated for better online security measures, speaking via Google Hangout at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin. Snowden spoke as part of an an American Civil Liberties Union panel, along with analysts Chris Soghoian and Ben Wizner. While the video and audio feed was choppy, Snowden’s message was clear. “They’re setting fire to the future of the Internet,” Snowden said of the National Security Agency. “We need public advocates. We need public oversight. Some way [to have] trusted figures, sort of civil rights champions to advocate for us, to protect the structure. How do we fix our oversight? How do we structure an oversight model that works? The key factor is accountability.” ........ “If we allow the NSA to continue unrestrained, every other government will accept that has green light to do the same,” he said. Speaking in front of a backdrop showing the U.S. Constitution, he spoke of feeling an obligation to defend a document he saw being “violated on a massive scale.” Snowden argued that NSA policies have harmed national security in an era of cyberattacks. “America has more to lose than anyone else when every attack succeeds,” Snowden said. “When you are the one country in the world who has sort of a vault that’s more full than anyone else’s, it doesn’t make sense for you to be attacking all day and never defending your full vault.” ..... Watch the VIDEO with Snowden speraking to SXSW at the WaPo link above! NEXT at The Intercept Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald explain How the NSA Plans to Infect ‘Millions’ of Computers with Malware Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process. The classified files – provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware “implants.” The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks. The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic. In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites. ............... In a top-secret presentation, dated August 2009, the NSA describes a pre-programmed part of the covert infrastructure called the “Expert System,” which is designed to operate “like the brain.” The system manages the applications and functions of the implants and “decides” what tools they need to best extract data from infected machines. Mikko Hypponen, an expert in malware who serves as chief research officer at the Finnish security firm F-Secure, calls the revelations “disturbing.” The NSA’s surveillance techniques, he warns, could inadvertently be undermining the security of the Internet. “When they deploy malware on systems,” Hypponen says, “they potentially create new vulnerabilities in these systems, making them more vulnerable for attacks by third parties.” Hypponen believes that governments could arguably justify using malware in a small number of targeted cases against adversaries. But millions of malware implants being deployed by the NSA as part of an automated process, he says, would be “out of control.” “That would definitely not be proportionate,” Hypponen says. “It couldn’t possibly be targeted and named. It sounds like wholesale infection and wholesale surveillance.” The NSA declined to answer questions about its deployment of implants, pointing to a new presidential policy directive announced by President Obama. .............. “One of the greatest challenges for active SIGINT/attack is scale,” explains the top-secret presentation from 2009. “Human ‘drivers’ limit ability for large-scale exploitation (humans tend to operate within their own environment, not taking into account the bigger picture).” The agency’s solution was TURBINE. Developed as part of TAO unit, it is described in the leaked documents as an “intelligent command and control capability” that enables “industrial-scale exploitation.” TURBINE was designed to make deploying malware much easier for the NSA’s hackers by reducing their role in overseeing its functions. .................. Eventually, the secret files indicate, the NSA’s plans for TURBINE came to fruition. The system has been operational in some capacity since at least July 2010, and its role has become increasingly central to NSA hacking operations. ............. The NSA has a diverse arsenal of malware tools, each highly sophisticated and customizable for different purposes. One implant, codenamed UNITEDRAKE, can be used with a variety of “plug-ins” that enable the agency to gain total control of an infected computer. An implant plug-in named CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE, for example, is used to take over a targeted computer’s microphone and record conversations taking place near the device. Another, GUMFISH, can covertly take over a computer’s webcam and snap photographs. FOGGYBOTTOM records logs of Internet browsing histories and collects login details and passwords used to access websites and email accounts. GROK is used to log keystrokes. And SALVAGERABBIT exfiltrates data from removable flash drives that connect to an infected computer. The implants can enable the NSA to circumvent privacy-enhancing encryption tools that are used to browse the Internet anonymously or scramble the contents of emails as they are being sent across networks. That’s because the NSA’s malware gives the agency unfettered access to a target’s computer before the user protects their communications with encryption. It is unclear how many of the implants are being deployed on an annual basis or which variants of them are currently active in computer systems across the world........ Much much more! While yer visiting The Intercept see these items: We also need to catch you up on Matt Taibbi with The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever. ...... The key was repealing – or "modifying," as bill proponents put it – the famed Glass-Steagall Act separating bankers and brokers, which had been passed in 1933 to prevent conflicts of interest within the finance sector that had led to the Great Depression. Now, commercial banks would be allowed to merge with investment banks and insurance companies, creating financial megafirms potentially far more powerful than had ever existed in America. All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation – till now, basically – to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally." Complementary to a financial activity. What the hell did that mean? ..... Read on for the super scary implications! And Matt posted this Thank You, Rolling Stone Today is my last day at Rolling Stone. As of this week, I’m leaving to work for First Look Media, the new organization that’s already home to reporters like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras. I’ll have plenty of time to talk about the new job elsewhere. But in this space, I just want to talk about Rolling Stone, and express my thanks. Today is a very bittersweet day for me. As excited as I am about the new opportunity, I’m sad to be leaving this company. ...... We sure will miss reading Matt in RS - he's done such an incredible job uncovering and explaining the complete corruption in the banking and real estate sectors before, during and after The Great Recession. We hope Matt is happy at The Intercept but it's just not the same as holding an issue of RS headlining another Taibbi bombshell with illustrations by Victor Juhazs, his long-time collaborator. I guess we'll just have to PRINT OUT Taibbi's items at The Intercept! Good luck Matt! We look forward to your next bombshell, at The Intercept next time out. More ROLLING STONE Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview so read all of this too. We have a tidbit from The Hill's Laura Barron-Lopez Bill Gates talks climate change with Charles Koch In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gates shared his views on climate change and mentioned that, during a private dinner with Koch, the issue came up. "I happened to be having dinner with Charles Koch last Saturday, and we talked a little bit about climate change," Gates said. "He's a very nice person, and he has this incredible business track record. He was pointing out that the U.S. alone can't solve the problem, and that's factually correct." Gates added that the U.S. must take action to lead other countries in the fight against climate change. "But you have to view the U.S. doing something as a catalyst for getting China and others to do things. The atmosphere is the ultimate commons," Gates said. "We all benefit from it, and we're all polluting it. It's amazing how few problems there are in terms of the atmosphere.....There's just this one crazy thing that CO2 hangs around for a long, long time, and the oceans absorb it, which acidifies them, which is itself a huge problem we should do something about." Gates has some unconventional ideas about how to counteract climate change. The billionaire thinks geo-engineering, which involves large-scale projects that manipulate the atmosphere to counter global warming, could be useful. "But one of the complaints people have against that is that if it looks like an easy out, it'll reduce the political will to cut emissions. If that's the case, then, hey, we should take away heart surgery so that people know not to overeat," he said. Bill Gates may the richest man in the world with a fortune estimated at over $76 billion BUT Corporate America Is Hiding $2 Trillion In Profit From The IRS reports Alan Pyke at Think Progress The largest American multinational companies parked an additional $206 billion of profits in offshore accounts last year, according to Bloomberg, bringing the total amount of profits stashed where U.S. tax officials can’t touch them up to about two trillion dollars. The 307 companies that Bloomberg examined now hold a combined $1.95 trillion offshore, allowing them to avoid paying U.S. taxes on those earnings. The majority of the total is concentrated in just a few corporate hands. The largest 22 of those companies hold more offshore than the other 285 combined. General Electric leads the pack, with $110 billion held offshore. Tech companies like Microsoft ($76.4 billion), Apple ($54.4 billion), IBM ($52.3 billion), and Google ($38.9 billion) also dominate, along with drug companies like Pfizer ($69 billion) and Merck ($57.1). The tech giants have drastically accelerated their offshore holdings in recent years, with Microsoft and Google more than doubling and Apple more than quadrupling offshore profit holdings from 2010 to 2013. Back to that RS interview with Microsoft's new "technology adviser" .... In general, on taxation-type things, you'd think of me as a Democrat. That is, when tax rates are below, say, 50 percent, I believe there often is room for additional taxation. And I've been very upfront on the need to increase estate taxes. .... Yeah. Sure. Back to Alan Pyke ... While lawmakers around the world talk a good game about reforms that would change the incentives faced not only by companies but tax haven governments, most of that talk is still premised on the same sort of patchwork system that’s in place now. Ireland, for example, made a splash last fall by announcing some changes to its tax laws, but they do little to end the country’s status as a tax haven. Tweaking specific rules within that flawed system seems unlikely to produce meaningful changes in corporate behavior. These companies face no meaningful negative consequences to stashing trillions from the taxman. When they need to access their offshore cash for investing in production or personnel, they can simply use the untaxed profits as collateral for borrowing from the financial sector. There is no business reason to stop ducking U.S. taxes, so it is up to lawmakers to address the problem. ........ Despite corporate protests, there is no historical evidence that higher corporate tax rates hurt the economy, and companies that pay higher tax rates tend to create more jobs than those that game the rules to minimize their tax liability. George Zornik at The Nation tells us how a Senate Investigation of Bush-Era Torture Erupts Into Constitutional Crisis A gripping battle between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Senate Intelligence Committee broke into public view Tuesday morning, as Senator Dianne Feinstein openly accused the CIA of spying on congressional staffers as they investigated the agency’s illegal detention and interrogation programs under President George W. Bush. Feinstein’s allegations raise grave questions about how the executive branch interprets constitutional separation of powers, along with raising serious concerns about the integrity of congressional oversight of US intelligence agencies. And lurking in the background is the country’s dirty history of torture following the September 11 terror attacks, which top officials—including those appointed by President Obama—seem determined to brush into the dustbin of history. In a lengthy speech on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, which you can read here, Feinstein explained how the Senate Intelligence Committee, which she chairs, has come to believe that the CIA infiltrated Senate computers in order to see what investigators had learned about the Bush-era torture programs. She also described the removal of crucial documents from those computers by the CIA. How We Got Here - The backstory is crucial here, and the issues of congressional oversight and constitutional separation of powers echo throughout. ............... What they found was “chilling,” in the words of Feinstein this morning—the interrogations were “far different and far more harsh” than what the CIA had been admitting. Feinstein then wanted a full review of the program by Senate Intelligence Committee, which it approved by a 14-1 vote. Initially, as she noted this morning, Feinstein wanted the CIA to turn over all relevant documents to the committee in their usual offices, as had been done in the past. Then—CIA Director Leon Panetta, who had been appointed by Barack Obama and confirmed just a month earlier, had other ideas. Panetta wanted the review to take place at a secure CIA facility in Northern Virginia—something that would seem to undermine an independent congressional review. But, as Feinstein outlined in her speech Tuesday, an agreement was reached with agency officials in which the Senate review would take place on secure computers, but at the CIA facility: [.........] It’s important to understand that this computer system in effect belonged to Congress, which was conducting crucial oversight of the executive branch as protected by the Constitution. It was this computer system that Feinstein alleges was infiltrated by the CIA. The CIA began transferring hundreds of thousands, and then millions, of documents related to the enhanced interrogation program to these Senate computers. But it didn’t take long for problems to arise. In 2010, Senate investigators realized that the CIA had removed over 900 files it had initially transferred to them—something Feinstein revealed for the first time Tuesday morning during her speech on the Senate floor. At first the CIA claimed no files had been removed, then blamed it on the private contractors who were helping the agency vet the documents, and then ultimately blamed it on an order from the White House. The administration denied giving any such order and brokered a peace between Feinstein and the CIA, which included a CIA apology. But soon a far more severe breach arose. ............. The Implications - If what Feinstein alleges is true, it essentially amounts to a constitutional crisis. And she said as much during her speech, describing “a defining moment for the oversight of our intelligence community.” ............... And, in a remarkable statement, Feinstein accused the CIA of intimidation by filing the crime report. “[T]here is no legitimate reason to allege to the Justice Department that Senate staff may have committed a crime. I view the acting general counsel’s referral [to DoJ] as a potential effort to intimidate this staff—and I am not taking it lightly.” Feinstein went on to note one fairly amazing fact. The (acting) general counsel she referred to, who filed the complaint with DoJ, was a lawyer in the CIA’s counterterrorism center beginning in 2004. That means he was directly involved in legal justifications for the torture program. “And now this individual is sending a crimes report to the Department of Justice on the actions of congressional staff,” she noted gravely. “The same congressional staff who researched and drafted a report that details how CIA officers—including the acting general counsel himself—provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice about the program.” Remaining Questions - There are several crucial questions going forward. (1) What else did the CIA do to conduct surveillance on the committee? .........What may these have been? ........... Is it possible the CIA gained access to that room to see what the committee possessed in hard-copy form? ........... (2) Will Obama respond, and what will he say? .......... Can President Obama, himself a constitutional law scholar, avoid comment? If not, what will he say? ........... (3) Will the Senate Intelligence report on Bush-era torture ultimately be declassified? ............... In the wake of her revelations on Tuesday, Feinstein renewed her desire to declassify the Senate report. “We’re not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification and release to the American people,” she said, and suggested the findings will shock the public. “If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.” Obama has long said he supports declassification, and it seems it will happen soon. Tuesday, Feinstein was already moving to hold a committee vote on declassification. Committee Republicans will likely oppose it, but independent Senator Angus King, the swing vote, told reporters he is inclined to vote for declassification. .......... We snipped a lot and we'd bold the whole thing it's so important! Go to The Nation for the full report! MORE on DIFI & the "Constitutional Crisis" you should click over to read:Turn off the NSA! OffNow.org! Get Active in Your State Today! There are three ways in which states can make life difficult for federal warrantless spying programs. Track the status of such legislation by clicking on states in the three maps below. If your state is NOT considering legislation, scroll down to find action steps you should take....... Our BTV Last Word goes to The Black Agenda Report's editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley Freedom Rider: “Journalists” Follow Obama on Ukraine The corporate media are a key component of the U.S. imperial machine. Although styling themselves as watchdogs, they are in fact the dogs of war, whose mission is to hide Washington’s aggressions behind a fog of lies. War “crimes are committed with impunity in part because presidents get a helping hand from their corporate media partners.” Prominent journalists in the United States may as well be on the White House payroll. They are consistent cheerleaders for whoever occupies the oval office and the corporate corner office. They make no attempt to hide their allegiance to power and their lack of interest in informing the public. The rotten state of affairs becomes all too obvious whenever a president threatens action against another country. Reporters act more like press agents and spring into action shielding and protecting the aggressors. They make it clear to those few who gain access that questions, criticisms or anything else that smacks of independent thought will not to be tolerated. The American decision to use Ukraine as a means of attacking Russian influence is the latest effort to prop up the empire, and the corporate media obligingly show their approval. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour was so eager to fly the American foreign policy flag that she pointedly took a colleague to task on air when he was guilty of nothing more than doing his job. ......... Amanpour had lots of company at other networks. Gwen Ifill of PBS Newshour also stuck to the White House script with her guest, professor Stephen F. Cohen. ............... The so-called journalists who are held up to us as exemplars of success and profession acumen are by and large hacks who toe the party line. Ifill has a long standing reputation of defending presidential policy in her reporting. She is at least consistent. Just as she followed the Bush doctrine she is now in synch with the Obama team. Amanpour vilifies her colleague on air for cynical reasons and Ifill plays dumb if a guest dares to speak up with real analysis. All their behaviors are an effort to diminish any debates or arguments against the United States government. The only critics on the air are questioning whether Obama is tough enough and if American “prestige” is on the line if we don’t have as much violence in the world as they would like. Now that the United States government has officially declared war on the rest of the world, Americans are in desperate need of truth telling. But that is not how empires work. Ifill, Amanpour and company flourish precisely because they do not tell us the truth. It is not too harsh to point out that the propaganda and lies spread by networks and newspapers are part of an enormous crime. America is the evil doer in Iraq and Haiti and Libya and Venezuela and Ukraine. Nations are invaded and economies are ruined because our government is determined to have its way in the world. The crimes are committed with impunity in part because presidents get a helping hand from their corporate media partners. The only thing making Americans squeamish about military involvement against Russia is war weariness. They don’t oppose it on principle because they don’t know what the principles involved are. Just as we aren’t the richest country in the world, and we don’t have the best health care in the world, we don’t have the best press either. We have a government that is more aggressive by the day and they have a mouth piece which we call the media. And that's just ONE REASON to visit Brick TeeVee every Sunday! R.I.P. Bartcop We are deeply saddened to report the passing of Bart on the morning of March 5, 2014. He died peacefully due to his flu, pneumonia and his Leukemia. His last word is below as well as opportunities to communicate what he and his Tequila Tree House have meant to you over the years. As we grieve the loss and celebrate Bart's life we will consider our options for the future of the page in the days ahead. Send us your thoughts. Donations to help Mrs. Bart cover Bart's medical expenses are greatly appreciated. Scroll down to read these important items:
  • History of How BartCop Started
  • Bartcop Radio is now open and FREE
  • Last Word From Bart
  • Your thoughts
And at Bradblog RIP: 'BartCop' Terry 'BartCop' Coppage, a beloved pioneering blogger who influenced many and who started before the days when the world 'blog' even existed, has passed away... Lots more to watch, read and listen to below so get busy! See you next Sunday!

BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©

Democracy NOW!

Headlines Monday, March 10, 2014

Headlines Tuesday, March 11, 2014 Headlines Wednesday, March 12, 2014 Headlines Thursday, March 13, 2014 Headlines Friday, March 14, 2014

GRITtv GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW Miquela Craytor: Economic Transformation Through Worker Co-ops Earlier this week, we heard from Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo and NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives Founder Chris Michael who came on the show to discuss the potential of worker-owned co-operatives to ease poverty and unemployment. What is standing in the way of this much-needed economic transition and transformation? ......... more!

BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!©
15 DAYS UNTIL MLB OPENING DAY!
»»» NASCAR on FOX Sprint Cup Series at Bristol Motor Speedway 1 pm et
»»» NBA on ABC Sunday!! Rockets @ Heat 3:30 pm et
»»» NBA on ESPN Monday Doubleheader! Thunder @ Bulls 8 pm et then Clippers @ Nuggets 10:30 pm et
»»» NBA on ESPN Wednesday Doubleheader! Pacers @ Knicks 8 pm et then Spurs @ Lakers 10:30 pm et

BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!©
The 1st Amendment is Our Permit Our permit to occupy is The First Amendment. Quickly sign the following statement which will be delivered to mayors, police chiefs and major media across the country:

    Our permit to occupy public squares and parks is in The First Amendment, which affirms "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." When people across the Middle East occupied public squares, leaders in Washington mostly cheered those protesters and warned Middle Eastern governments not to use force to clear them. Those other societies don’t have a First Amendment. Yet Washington affirmed the universal right to assembly and protest. We do have a First Amendment. The force being used to clear nonviolent protesters from public squares in our country is unacceptable. It must stop.

StrikeDebt.org & RollingJubilee.org! A bailout of the people by the people Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits. ADDENDUM: Naked Capitalism reports Top Tax Expert Confirms Our Doubts About Occupy Wall Street’s Debt Buying/Forgiveness Scheme

STOP the ACHE NEW WEBSITE! AcheAct.org and Appalachian Community HEALTH EMERGENCY Advocating for government action and protection of the public from the health crisis in mountain top removal communities. The A.C.H.E. Act Is Re-Introduced In The 113th Congress!

    Washington, DC – Today a group of U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers introduced the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE Act, H.R. 526) to protect Appalachian families and communities from the nation’s most extreme form of coal mining, mountaintop removal. The Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act’s leading sponsors are Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), joined by original cosponsors Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD), Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Michael Honda (D-CA), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Rep. Janice Schakowksy (D-IL), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Rep. Jared Polis (DCO).

Community-Wealth.org community-wealth.org a project of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland Community-Wealth.org brings together, for the first time, information about the broad range of community wealth building activity. Featuring Overview: The Cleveland Model—How the Evergreen Cooperatives are Building Community Wealth Something important is happening in Cleveland. The Democracy Collaborative—the host of C-W.org—in partnership with the Cleveland Foundation, the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, Shorebank Enterprise Cleveland, the City of Cleveland, and the city's major hospitals and universities—is helping to implement a new model of large-scale worker-owned and community-benefiting businesses. The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation's decaying economy. Increasingly, this model is being referred to nationally as The Cleveland Model. Initial planning is now underway to assist other cities in Ohio and nationwide to replicate and adapt this innovative approach to economic development, green job creation, and neighborhood stabilization. Find more many resources at Community-Wealth.org!

NET NEUTRALITY! SaveTheInternet.com Declaration of Internet Freedom Tired of fighting bad bills like SOPA, PIPA and CISPA? Want to stand up against those who are trying to control what we do and say online? It's time for something different. A group of more than 1,500 organizations, academics, startup founders and tech innovators has come together to produce a Declaration of Internet Freedom, a set of five principles that put forward a positive vision of the open Internet. Our goal: Get millions of Internet users to sign on to this Declaration. Build political power for Internet users to make sure that we get a seat at the table whenever, and wherever, the future of the Internet is being decided. It's time to stop playing defense and start going on the offensive. The open Internet is central to people’s freedom to communicate, share, advocate and innovate in the 21st century. But powerful interests want to censor free speech, block the sharing of information, hinder innovation and control how Internet users get online. And all too often, people in power are making political decisions behind closed doors about how the Internet should operate — and they're doing this without the involvement of actual Internet users. The result: policies that could close down the open Internet and destroy our freedom to connect. It’s time for us to reclaim the Internet for its users. Take action now and sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom. ACTION! Tell the FCC: Restore Net Neutrality An appeals court just dealt the latest blow to the open Internet. The court struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order because of the questionable legal framework the agency used when it adopted its Net Neutrality rules in 2010. This ruling means there is no one who can protect us from ISPs that block or discriminate against websites, applications or services. But there’s hope: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler can correct the agency’s past mistakes and truly protect our nation’s communications infrastructure. The agency must take the necessary steps to make broadband networks open, accessible, reliable and affordable for everyone. Tell the FCC to start treating broadband like a communications service, and to restore its Net Neutrality rules.

NEW!!! Stop Media Consolidation! Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is trying to change the agency’s ownership rules to pave the way for Murdoch to get exactly what he wants. Worse, Genachowski and Murdoch are keeping this all very hush-hush, hoping you won't notice.3 These changes wouldn’t just benefit Murdoch. If the FCC proposal passes, one company could own the major daily newspaper, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in your town. And that one company could be your Internet provider, too. What is the FCC thinking?!? We can still stop the agency from taking this perilous step — but we have less than a month to do it. By taking action, you’re joining a movement of millions who are working to stop big media from getting even bigger. Please take action today. Click HERE to view our infographic and send a message to the FCC! More info at Another FCC Cave-In: Julius Genachowski’s Media Consolidation Christmas Gift to Murdoch at StopTheCap.com! And Sign Senator Bernie Sanders petition to the FCC Protect Media Diversity: Stop Media Consolidation!

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! And check out more actions on the Move to Amend Calendar for more! UPDATE! Legalize Democracy Film Premieres on Free Speech TV Jan 21 Move to Amend is thrilled to announce that the premiere of our mini documentary, Legalize Democracy, will be airing on Free Speech TV (FSTV) next week to coincide with the "anniversary" of Citizens United. Legalize Democracy is a 28 minute film by Dennis Trainor, Jr. about the movement to amend -- why it is needed, and how you can get involved. Watch live on our website here. Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net GET INVOLVED! And Alan Grayson is BACK in the 113th Congress! Help out at CongressmanWithGuts.com and check out his latest effort DontAttackSyria.com!

REPRESENT.US IT’S TIME TO GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS SO THE GOVERNMENT CAN REPRESENT US. Represent.Us is a fresh campaign to pass the American Anti-Corruption Act: a law that would overhaul campaign finance, impose strict lobbying and conflict of interest laws, and end secret political money. We are mobilizing millions of Americans — conservatives and progressives, young and old, every issue group fighting K Street, online and offline — to join this campaign. Represent.Us is not just building a movement to pass the Act. The campaign will use hard-hitting accountability tactics to unseat politicians who fail to endorse the Act. If passed, the Act will completely reshape American politics and policy-making and give people a voice. See this Guest Blog at Greenpeace by Executive Director Josh Silver The $6 Billion Auction: Finally, A Plan to Get Money Out of Politics for more information!

SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org and Bradley Manning Support Network From the Bradley Manning Support Network Announcing the Private Manning Support Network! August 26, 2013, By attorney David Coombs and the Private Manning Support Network (formerly the Bradley Manning Support Network). Additional clarification on PVT Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning's request regarding her gender and name. With your continued support, our network will continue its advocacy efforts in support our heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower through this new phase of her life. ....... UPDATE! Chelsea Manning Awarded Sam Adams Integrity Prize for 2014 January 22, 2014. By the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII). Chelsea Manning has been awarded this years's Integrity in Intelligence award for "casting much-needed daylight on the true toll and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq; human rights abuses by U.S. and “coalition” forces, mercenaries, and contractors; and the roles that spying and bribery play in international diplomacy." ..... AND Update 3/11/14: John Kiriakou: The Espionage Act should be rewritten to consider intent and actual harm done Currently serving a 30 month sentence for releasing classified information that exposed torture at Guantanamo prison, John Kiriakou argues that the government is selectively and inappropriately prosecuting whistleblowers and refusing to prosecute other government releases of classified information.. .....

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

CELLULAR PHONE TASK FORCE EDUCATION, ADVOCACY, SUPPORT at CellPhoneTaskForce.org The Cellular Phone Task Force is dedicated to halting the expansion of wireless technology because it cannot be made safe. We provide: education to the public concerning electromagnetic pollution (electrosmog); advocacy for an electromagnetically cleaner environment; support for individuals disabled by radiation from wireless technology and other sources. WATCH THIS MOVIE at Top Documentary Films Resonance: Beings of Frequency Now we live an an ocean of electromagnetic radiation. It’s all around us now, invisible, but we know it’s there. Every time you lift up your mobile phone you know it’s there. It is very hard to turn the clock back, in fact it is impossible, but we need to be aware of the adverse health effects so that we can have the choice of taking precautions against the exposures. How we could have possibly thought that putting microwaves to our brain was safe. We just don’t fully understand what we’re doing. "Resonance: Beings of Frequency" is the first documentary to investigate the actual mechanisms by which mobile phone technology can cause cancer. The film takes a deeper look at how humanity is reacting to the most profound environmental change the planet has ever seen. Read more HERE!!

B R I C K T E E V E E
brick_teevee_test.jpg
The essential guide for watching government propaganda!
THEY report. YOU throw bricks.©
Get your Foam Bricks at ThrowThings.com HERE!
IRAQ: 4,486 US Military Dead as of April 21, 2012
AFGHANISTAN: 2,315 US Military Dead as of Mar 15, 2014
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
MOCKINGBIRD: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA
Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media at informationclearinghouse
60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History

  • This Week (ABC) Host George Stephanopoulos
    • Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
    • Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
    • Bill Gates
    • ROUNDTABLE: TBA


  • Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
    • Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the head of the House Intelligence Committee
    • Tom Donilon, the president's former national security advisor
    • Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ROUNDTABLE: Capt. Sully Sullenberger, Former Chairman of the NTSB Mark Rosenker, and CBS correspondent Bob Orr


  • 60 Minutes (CBS)
    The Fox 'News'-ification of CBS News and '60 Minutes': 'The Cleantech Crash'
    • Coming Up Sunday, March 16 at 7 p.m. ET/PT
    • "Jon Stewart of Egypt" risks jail or worse for satire
    • The future of drones: Technology vs. privacy
    • Inside Tabasco's hot sauce empire


  • Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
    Microsoft, NBC News Dissolve MSNBC.com Joint Venture NBC is buying Microsoft's 50 percent interest in the MSNBC website for an undisclosed amount. MSNBC.com will be rebranded as NBCNews.com, and readers who logged into MSNBC.com late Sunday were automatically redirected to NBCNews.com. Microsoft is preparing to launch its own news service this fall. Although he declined to provide many details about the operation general manager of MSN.com Bob Visse said the news staff will be about the same size as the roughly 100 people who created original content for the MSNBC.com. "There is no question that we are going to have more flexibility to make our own decisions," said Vivian Schiller, NBC News' chief digital officer. "This is really an amicable breakup. We think competition will make us better." Okay then.
    • White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer
    • Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
    Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
    • ROUNDTABLE: TBA


  • State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) Sunday at 9 am ET and Noon ET.
    • Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ROUNDTABLE: John Negroponte, the former Director of National Intelligence, Colleen Keller helped find Air France Flight 447, Steven Wallace investigated crashes for the FAA for eight years, and Richard Aboulafia is an expert on the 777
    • Spokesman for the Navy’s 7th Fleet Commander William Marks aboard the USS Blue Ridge in the Indian Ocean.
    • Republican Arizona Senator John McCain
    • Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus
    • Politics ROUNDTABLE: Charles Blow, Ana Navarro and Ron Brownstein.
    • Exclusively at 12pm: The British, German, and French Ambassadors to the United States


  • 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 Conversation Radio call our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email bob [at] headonradio [dot] com during the show!
    • TITANIC TUESDAY! Get some laughs on all the MO-RANS! Listen here: NOW HERE - Tuesday, March 11th, 2014 (mp3)! Amen to the White Rose Society! Bob's show archives at the White Rose HERE! Keep Bob on the air! Donate to Head On HERE! And join Coal River Mountain Watch at www.crmw.net!


  • YOUR GREEN NEWS REPORT With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen!
    desi-n-bradSenRonJohnson
    The Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen: 6 minutes of green news, politics, analysis & snarky comment! BOOKMARK greennews.bradblog.com NOW!
    'Green News Report' - March 13, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Battle lines drawn in contentious U.S. Senate hearing on Keystone XL; Hottest winter on record for California; China is declaring war --- on pollution; Drilling boom creating huge drilling waste problem; PLUS: Secretary of Energy Moniz cites a boom in solar and wind ... All that and more in today's Green News Report! IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links at site): Texas: 'cheapest solar power deal ever seen'; Utility death spiral accelerates in Germany; US risks national blackout even in small-scale attack; NJ moves to shut down Tesla; Officials shut down fracking wells due to quakes; 18 Ohio coal plants operating without permits; Is this plant the future of 'clean coal'?; Asian carp eggs found as far north as Wisconsin; State Dept vastly overestimated oil-by-rail in Keystone XL report ... PLUS: Climate science predicted California drought ten years ago ... and much, MUCH more! ...
    'Green News Report' - March 11, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Up all night for climate in the U.S. Senate; Alaska's iconic Iditarod race struggles without snow; California breaks solar power records; PLUS: 3rd anniversary of the meltdown at Fukushima, and the legacy of nuclear disaster ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
    • BRADCAST! CIA/U.S. Senate Torture Cover-Up & Spying Scandal: KPFK 'BradCast' NatSec expert Marcy Wheeler joins Brad to discuss Sen. Dianne Feinstein's remarkable new disclosures and what is now being called a bona fide 'Constitutional Crisis'...
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! Scott Walker REALLY Wants Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions in WI This Year Even though it's been found unconstitutional (twice) in his state, he's prepared to call a special legislative session to try again...
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! RIP: 'BartCop' Terry 'BartCop' Coppage, a beloved pioneering blogger who influenced many and who started before the days when the world 'blog' even existed, has passed away...
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! 'Citizens United' Blamed for 'Republican Silence' on Climate Change Action Sen. Whitehouse links GOP flip-flop on global warming to SCOTUS case that unleashed Koch Bros. 'dark money' in elections...


  • 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.
    Holiday Break and Website Changes
      To my valued listeners: We are making some changes to the website and our terms, effective in January. We will continue to offer free podcasts–my new daily news and commentary. Our in-depth interviews will be available for $1 per episode, or to subscribers who pay $5 per month or more. Loyal listeners who simply can’t afford it should send an email to peter@peterbcollins.com, as we will be offering a limited number of scholarships to our friends who are hurting during these tough times. More information will be posted as we complete the revisions. I’m grateful to each of you for listening and supporting this work, and hope that the new model will enable us to keep it going well into the future. All the best, -pbc
    • Peter B Collins, Truthout | Op-Ed An Insider's View of the Progressive Talk Radio Devolution
    • PBC News & Comment 12 Mar 2014 PBC News & Comment: It’s the Constitutional Crisis We Sorely Need Feinstein vs. CIA provokes much-needed crisis over who controls our spies–it’s time for Obama to show real leadership….
    • PBC News & Comment 13 Mar 2014 PBC News & Comment: Obama Tries to Duck the CIA-Senate Fight, as White House Withholds Torture Docs from Senate Obama tries to duck the CIA-Senate battle over torture documents, as McClatchy reports White House withheld 9,400 docs from Senate…..
    • PBC News & Comment 14 Mar 2014 PBC News & Comment: After Crimea Votes to Join Russia, What Will US and Allies Do? To the strains of “Mother Russia” by Sisters of Mercy, your humble host suggests there’s no point to threatening Russia….
    • PBC Standard Podcast March 10, 2014 Code Pink Co-founder Medea Benjamin Describes Her Brutal Treatment and Deportation from Cairo Airport
    • PBC Standard Podcast March 13, 2014 Alabama Report: Andrew Kreig Updates the Roger Shuler Case, and the Fight to Restore the Voting Rights Act


  • 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 Weekend on Ring of Fire Radio! March 14, 2014 Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern.
    • Congressman Gregory Meeks will explain the House of Representative’s resolution on the Ukraine crisis.
    • Author David Bromwich will tell us why many of President Obama’s campaign promises have fallen flat over the years.
    • And David Saldana, director of the new film Keystone PipeLIES Exposed, will tell us about the dirty tricks used to sell the Keystone XL Pipeline to the American public.
    • NEW! This Week on Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV! March 15, 2014 Sundays at NOON!
    »» Attorney Seth Katz will explain the problem with corporate fines, specifically, why they do absolutely nothing to curtail criminal behavior.
    »» Howard Nations will tell us what an economic disaster NAFTA has been for America, and we’ll discuss dangers of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership.
    »» Joe Cotchett will tell us about the rising tide of populism among Democrats in Washington.
    »» And David Haynes will explain the political scandals surrounding the most promising GOP heavyweights.
    Ring of Fire’s Weekly Rewind Posted on March 15, 2014 by Joshua De Leon - Ring of Fire’s top stories from the past week.
    • VIDEO! THE HISTORY OF CORPORATE CORRUPTION & FRAUD with Robert Kennedy Jr & Mike Papantonio “Call us if you have a personal story about Fraud on Taxpayers or False Claims for Payment made by Corportations at 1-866-389-FIRE (3473) or contact us by email at info@ringoffireradio.com if you have evidence of fraud that robbed taxpayer dollars. If our government is paying too much due to fraud by a corporation, Ring of Fire wants to do a story on it.” Also see Papantonio & Kennedy on Corporate Corruption and Fraud — Pt. 1/4
    Ring of Fire’s Weekly Rewind Posted on March 8, 2014 by Joshua De Leon
    • VIDEO! Pap and Seder: Paul Ryan’s “Free Lunch” Lies (VIDEO) Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder discuss the recent CPAC convention, and the completely made up “free lunch” story that Paul Ryan told in an attempt to shame children who receive free lunch in public schools.
    • VIDEO! Papantonio: Finally Feinstein Is Afraid of Spooks (VIDEO) Mike Papantonio appears on The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann to discuss the recent revelations that the CIA spied on Senate computers.
    • 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 7-10 et Sunday evenings on Chicago's Progressive Talk WCPT AM & FM and 4 pm et on Sirius/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 12 NOON et @ Majority.fm!

    • MONDAY 3/10/14 Alfie Kohn: Feel-Bad Education Education activist and the author of Feel-Bad Education And Other Contrarian Essays on Children and Schooling Alfie Kohn explains why poverty is the root problem in modern education, where standardized testing fails, why driving up test scores do not reflect education but do reflect affluence, why those pushing corporate education "reform" do not understanding what the experience of education really is and more .......
    • TUESDAY 3/11/14 Irin Carmon: California’s Quiet Reproductive Rights Revolution
    • WEDNESDAY 3/12/14 Alex Marshall: The Surprising Design of Market Economies
    • THURSDAY 3/13/14 Mark Mazzetti: CIA Spying on the Senate?
    • FRIDAY 3/14/14 Casual Friday: Cliff Schecter & Andy Kindler
    • MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityfm.libsyn.com!


  • KEISER REPORT 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!
    • MaxKeiserTV on YouTube! MaxKeiserTV
    KEISER REPORT ON FACEBOOK STACY SUMMARY: For once and for all, here are our real Facebook pages, the other ones are fake. But if you feel like chatting to the fake ones, by all means, go ahead.
    »» Max Keiser
    »» Keiser Report
    »» Stacey Herbert
    Assange: How cryptography is a key weapon in the fight against empire states by maxkeiser - READ What began as a means of retaining individual freedom can now be used by smaller states to fend off the ambitions of larger ones (guardian.co.uk)
    Warren’s Post Office Proposal: Palast Aims at the Wrong Target by Ellen Brown - Investigative reporter Greg Palast is usually pretty good at peering behind the rhetoric and seeing what is really going on. But in tearing into Senator Elizabeth Warren’s support of postal financial services, he has done a serious disservice to the underdogs – both the underbanked and the US Postal Service itself. In his February 27 article “Liz Warren Goes Postal,” Palast attacked her support of the USPS Inspector General’s proposal to add “non-bank” financial services to the US Postal Service, calling it “cruel, stupid and frightening” and equating it with the unethical payday lending practices it seeks to eliminate. Read more HERE .......
    Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? by Charles Hugh Smith - I recently discussed the Deep State and “throwing Wall Street under the bus” with my friend and colleague Jim Kunstler. More HERE .....
    BP: Eco-holocaust pays dividends by maxkeiser - As BP Refuses To Pay Remaining Gulf Oil Claims, US Restores Its Federal Contract & Lease Privileges http://t.co/6d0RzpsNyW — Greg Palast (@Greg_Palast) March 14, 2014 AND 4 Years after Deepwater Horizon spill, U.S. agrees to let BP oil rigs back into the Gulf http://t.co/rlVngzjxK9 pic.twitter.com/eH6eimAuqw — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) March 14, 2014
    • VIDEO! Russia vetoes UN resolution on #Crimea referendum by maxkeiser
    “Another warning shot was fired before an all-out assault on the dollar system begins.” by maxkeiser - READ Kremlin: If The US Tries To Hurt Russia’s Economy, Russia Will Target The Dollar. (testosteronepit.com)
    • KEISER REPORT [KR573] Keiser Report: Psychodeloflation We discuss the psychodeloflation caused by an LSD laced monetary system trying to distort our perception of what the economy and markets really are. In the second half, Max interviews Peter Bach, director of the new film, SELL OFF: The Abolition of Your NHS, a documentary about the privatization of the public health system in the UK. Max wonders if financial mercentaries may introduce Syrian style metal bar to the head as anesthesia in this new privatized system.
    • KEISER REPORT [KR574] Keiser Report: Ghostbusters of Financial Fraud We discuss bashing the markets with metal pipes in order to save the markets. As a result – Libor fraud, gold fix fraud, ISDA fix fraud and now forex market fraud – each fraud is a whack, bam, bash to the market; trying to defraud the market to save the market. In the second half, Max interviews Kyle Torpey about MtGox, Dorian ‘Satoshi; Nakamoto and sovereign cryptocoins.
    • KEISER REPORT [KR575] Keiser Report: Spider’s Web of Debt We discuss financial ear wax and collateral the size of a spider’s egg. In the second half, Max interviews Chris Whalen, an investment banker and the author of a new book, “Financial Stability: Fraud, Confidence & The Wealth of Nations,” about a financial system replete with fraud and how what is happening in Detroit relates to fraudulent derivatives.
    • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM-1306] The Truth About Markets – 22 February 2014 Download show HERE (mp3)
    • Donate to ResonanceFM here!


  • The Scott Horton Radio Show
    scotthorton
    Scott Horton is host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles and KUCR 88.3 in Riverside, and the Scott Horton Show on No Agenda Radio. (You can listen live Monday through Friday from 3-5 PM Eastern HERE.) Plenty of archives too!
    • Scott Horton Radio Show Progress Report: All right, yall, welcome back to the show to the inaugural Scott Horton Show progress report! It’s been an eventful year since the show and I (amicably) parted ways with Antiwar.com, so I thought I would highlight just a few of the show’s important milestones, as well as preview some of the exciting projects to look for in the near future. ........ The show on Pacifica KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A., still called Antiwar Radio, has now moved to join their Sunday morning public affairs line up (8:30 am pt), and remains the largest source of listeners, with 15,000-20,000 people tuning in weekly. The future: Liberty Express Radio is growing and bringing me along for the ride. The great Charles Goyette hooked me up with Alan Butler and the Liberty Express earlier this year, and what has been the daily replay there from 3-5 eastern time has become my best listened-to show. And now they’re adding my friend Tom Woods to the lineup from 2-3 PM. That does it. I’m making the switch! Starting Monday, October 14, the live show is moving to 3-5 PM Eastern time on LibertyExpressRadio.com, as well as NoAgenda and my own stream.......
    • Scott Horton Radio Show 03/10/14 Grant F. Smith: Grant F. Smith, director of IRMEP, discusses the successful National Summit to Reassess the U.S. – Israel “Special Relationship” in Washington last weekend.
    • Scott Horton Radio Show 03/11/14 Dahr Jamail: Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, discusses the Fallujah civilians being killed by Iraq’s government; the events leading up to the 2004 killing of four Blackwater mercenaries and the subsequent US assault on Fallujah; the continuing consequences of Bush’s disastrous Iraq war; and why Nuri al-Maliki is basically a Shiite Saddam Hussein.
    • Scott Horton Radio Show 03/12/14 Jason Leopold: Journalist Jason Leopold discusses the government’s Orwellian war on words wherein Guantanamo hunger strikers are said to be on “long term non-religious fasts;” the media blackout on Guantanamo; and the painful process of force feeding.
    • Scott Horton Radio Show 03/13/14 Patrick Cockburn: Patrick Cockburn, an award-winning journalist with The Independent, discusses the treacherous road between Damascus and Tartous in Syria; why nobody really knows the composition of Syria’s many rebel groups, or how great their numbers; the Gulf monarchies backing radical Sunni groups throughout the region; and why the Syria-Iraq border no longer matters as suicide bombers roam freely on both sides.
    • Visit his blog Stress. See ScottHorton.org for archives! Send emails to Scott at scotthorton.org to help Scott keep his podcast going!
    • Older interviews at Antiwar Radio!


  • fauxnews
    • Rep Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee
    • Peter Goelz, former Managing Director of the National Transportation Safety Board
    • Senate Foreign relations committee, Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
    • Ranking Member, Sen Bob Corker (R-TN)


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