Sunday, May 11, 2014

Brick TeeVee's Mothers' Day Special 2014!


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Mothers' Day Special! Happy Mom's Day to all you mothers! And Happy
Victory Day in Russia! This is the celebration of the end of World War Two and the Russian equivalent of Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day marking the surrender of Nazi Germany. This year see Boston Globe's Big Picture Victory Day in Ukraine and Crimea. More on the Ukraine situation in a bit.

Here's a SALON.com Exclusive: Private documents reveal how Big Restaurant lobby monitors fast food protests by Josh Eidelson In internal communications obtained by Salon, the National Restaurant Association, the world’s largest food service trade association, warns of growing traction for “rent-a-mob” fast food protests, describes “closely monitoring social media for any plans or signs of activity” and compiles news about an activist antagonist’s book signings and Wikipedia profile. The three documents, provided to Salon on condition of anonymity, include December and February “Labor Activism Update” memos and a description of the January board meetings of the National Restaurant Association (the so-called “other NRA”) and the NRA Educational Foundation. The meeting notes are introduced with a message from NRA President and CEO Dawn Sweeney pledging “active engagement in responding to reputational attacks on our industry and the organized wage protests that have gained such traction in the last few months.” Toward that end, the January meeting report reveals that the NRA’s Jobs & Careers Committee and its Restaurant PAC both “recommended that the Restaurant Advocacy Fund provide $600,000 in additional support for the ongoing project to combat the tactics of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers, or ROC, and the new industry reputational campaign.” Reached by email, NRA Communications Director Katie Niebaum acknowledged the set of documents “appears to be some of our member communications.” ......... The NRA has for decades helped defeat attempts to raise the current $2.13 minimum for tipped workers, including in the mid-’90s under the leadership of then-CEO Herman Cain. ................ But the NRA’s private messages take a different tone. “In preparation for the [fast food] protests,” a Dec. 19, 2013, “Labor Activism Update” reveals, “NRA entered several hundred zip codes” into the Low Pay Is Not OK website (designed by organizers to help protesters find demonstrations to join), so that the NRA could “locate and track protest locations across the country.” Then, “All of this information was compiled into a spreadsheet that was distributed to our chain and SRA allies prior to the protest taking place so that they could prepare for protest activity at specific locations.” ................... But the NRA’s Dec. 19 “Labor Activism Update,” and a subsequent message dated Feb. 12, shower their most detailed attention on the efforts of a relatively low-profile organization (one they suggest is also in league with SEIU): the Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United, and its network of local affiliates. Among the largest in an array of “alt-labor” groups that have sprung up to organize and mobilize workers without collective bargaining over the past two decades, ROC aims to transform the overwhelmingly non-union restaurant industry through a mix of laws, lawsuits, protests, training and media. (“Our approach,” ROC’s Sekou Siby told me in 2011, “is to surround the industry.”) While arguing ROC has recently “taken some hits to its reputation,” including withdrawing from being an Obamacare “navigator,” the December NRA memo warns ROC has been “steadily expanding its operation under the radar”; the February follow-up reports a post-State of the Union “flurry of labor activity from ROC and other allied groups that we expect to continue from now until after the 2014 midterm elections.” It reports that “NRA has been closely monitoring social media for any plans or signs of activity from ROC and other allied groups.” Social media isn’t all the NRA appears to be monitoring. ......... MORE! WOW! And no doubt the astroturf website www.minimumwage.com has its owners HIDDEN by Domains By Proxy, LLC thereby delegating responsibility for managing unsolicited contacts from third parties and keeping the domains owners personal information safe from the public eye. That $600,000 "to combat the tactics of ROC" works out to over 82,000 hours of $7.25 wages or about 53 minimum wage workers' 30-hr work-week yearly salaries! A mere pittance! Pocket change! "Walkin' Around" Money! Hold on to yer hats! In a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies Restaurant Industry Pay: Taxpayers' Double Burden New report shows that while restaurant executives are fighting living wages for their workers, they're also benefiting from tax subsidies for their own pay. .......What’s less well known is that taxpayers are also subsidizing these corporations’ executive compensation. This report calculates the cost of CEO pay subsidies at the 20 largest corporate members of the National Restaurant Association, a lobby group that is leading the charge to block minimum wage increases. Specifically, we calculate the cost of a loophole that allows corporations to deduct unlimited amounts from their income taxes for the cost of executive compensation — as long as the pay is in the form of stock options and other so-called “performance pay.” This loophole serves as a massive subsidy for excessive executive compensation. Key report findings:
  • During the past two years, the CEOs of the 20 largest NRA members pocketed more than $662 million in fully deductible “performance pay,” lowering their companies’ IRS bills by an estimated $232 million. That would be enough to cover the cost of food stamps for more than 145,000 households for a year.
  • One NRA member —Starbucks— was off the charts. CEO Howard Schultz pocketed $236 million in exercised stock options and other “performance pay” over the 2012-2013 period. That translates into an $82 million taxpayer subsidy—enough to raise the pay for more than 30,000 baristas to $10.10 per hour for a year of full-time work.
  • The next four largest beneficiaries of the CEO pay subsidy are fast food corporations. Chipotle, Yum! Brands (owner of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut), McDonald’s, and Dunkin’ Brands each raked in CEO pay subsidies ranging from $12 million to $68 million over the period.
  • Among full-service restaurants, the company that has enjoyed the largest CEO pay subsidy is Darden, the owner of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and several other chains. CEO Clarence Otis took in nearly $9 million in fully deductible “performance pay” over the years 2012 and 2013. That works out to a more than $3 million taxpayer subsidy.
Download the full report (pdf) HERE! Dig through THAT for more eye-popping info! Then add yer comments below! At HuffPoAOL Ryan Grim finds Wide Majorities Losing Faith In John Roberts' Supreme Court, Want Term Limits An overwhelming majority of voters would support sweeping reforms to the Supreme Court, as trust and confidence in the institution has eroded in recent years, according to a new survey by the Democratic-aligned firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Wide majorities disagree with the recent 5-4 party-line rulings that have upended a century of campaign finance law and tilted the rules in favor of the extremely wealthy and major corporations. The landmark Citizens United ruling was opposed by a whopping 80-18 margin. The more recent McCutcheon decision, which lifted caps on total giving, was said by a 51 percent majority to be likely to create more corruption, while 8 percent suggested it would lead to less. By a 60-36 spread, those surveyed said that Supreme Court justices were more likely to be carrying out a personal or political agenda than working to render a fair and impartial judgment, an opinion that cut across party lines. John Roberts swore before Congress during his confirmation hearings that he had great respect for precedent. But once confirmed as chief justice, he embarked on a remarkable run of conservative judicial activism that has favored the wealthy while undermining affirmative action and protection for voting rights. Overall approval of the Supreme Court has been falling since its 5-4 Bush v. Gore decision handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, according to Gallup. Big majorities in the GQR poll said that Supreme Court justices should no longer be appointed for life, that cameras should be allowed in the courtroom and that justices should disclose financial conflicts of interest and be bound by ethics rules. And now Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite Professor of Theology, Chicago Theological Seminary explains the 'Unfettered' Prayer and the Roberts Court Don't say I didn't warn you what a Supreme Court led by a Chief Justice John Roberts would be like on separation of church and state. In 2005, I was invited to be an expert witness in the Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings on John Roberts appointment to be Chief Justice. I argued before the Judiciary Committee that I saw very disturbing trends, even in the limited amount of his papers released by John Roberts. In my oral testimony I said, "there is evidence -- and I have cited detail in my written testimony -- that his [Roberts] judicial posture is more toward permissiveness in religious establishment and is less than vigorous in the defense of religious minorities and their freedoms. He refers to the so-called right to privacy, has objected to affirmation action, but has favored expanding both the authority of law enforcement and Presidential authority." Readers should recall that in these hearings, on the contrary, John Roberts had promised to bring "no agenda" and to take a minimalist approach to Constitutional interpretation. He compared his way of interpreting the law to that of an "umpire calling balls and strikes." Well, the "Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment just struck out in my view. Chief Justice John Roberts and the four other conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have now ruled that legislative bodies such as city councils can begin their meetings with prayer, even if it plainly favors a specific religion. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said those given the opportunity to pray before legislative meetings should be "unfettered" by what government officials find appropriate. By contrast, consider the opinion of Sandra Day O'Connor in the 1984 Lynch v Donnelly case. O'Connor's fundamental concern was whether, in regard to the "Establishment Clause" a particular government action conveys "a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." When prayer is "unfettered," how many times do non-Christian members of a particular community need to hear prayers to "Jesus Christ," for example, before they feel it is the Christians who are the "favored members of the political community"? .................... To me, Roberts's predilection for conservative judicial activism was obvious from the time of the hearings on his appointment. It should have been obvious to anybody, especially the senators on the Judiciary committee, who were also supposed to look at Robert's record prior to confirming him. .......... ..... Freedom for religious minorities in the new United States is one of our core, founding principles; in the era of a Roberts Court, on the contrary we are moving toward a practice of religious establishment in a Christian majority nation. I was right in 2005 about what the Supreme Court would be like under the leadership of John Roberts, and I've been proven right, over and over. For all the good that does us. Indeed. Don't even get us started on the R.A.T.S. what Papantonio calls "politicians with robes on" make no mistake. NOW READ for your own eyes U.S. Patent 6630507 at wikipedia. Brinna Nanda at stopthedrugwar.org ferreted this out from an encounter in 2008! The Significance of US Govt Cannabinoid Patent 6,630,507 When I was at the Patients Out of Time Medical Cannabis conference in Asilomar this last April [2008], I overheard a remark that startled me: "The US Government has a patent on cannabis." I couldn't locate the person who made the comment, so I went home and did some online research. Sure enough, patent number 6,630,507 states unequivocally that cannabinoids are useful in the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of diseases including auto-immune disorders, stroke, trauma, Parkinson's, Alzeheimer's and HIV dementia. The patent, awarded in 2003, is based on research done by the National Institute of Health, and is assigned to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. So, why is this important? Here is a legal document, in the public domain, which flies in the face of the US Government's stated position with regard to the classification of cannabis as a Schedule I substance having no "currently accepted medical use". Believe me, citing this patent stops the "medical marijuana is a myth" advocates dead in their tracks. They simply cannot argue with it. The forces that would keep cannabis illegal are vocal and well funded, but they are not impervious to persistent effort. The lynch pin in the War on Drugs is cannabis. Without the suppression and interdiction of this popular and widely used substance, there simply would not be enough "illegal drug use" going on to justify the huge amount of money and resources spent on "fighting drugs." I believe disseminating information about this patent as widely as possible, and to as many people as possible is a crucial strategy in loosening that lynch pin, and changing public perception about cannabis. .......... And so do we. Be sure to watch DN! Marijuana Refugees: Virginia Family Moves to Colorado to Treat Epileptic Child with Cannabis Oil NEXT Senator Elizabeth Warren has a new idea! BeforeItsNews.com scoops the speech! With VIDEO! Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act Slashes Student Debt Over the last decade our nation’s student loan debt has tripled, from $364 billion to over $1.2 trillion dollars. This week Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, new legislation that would give people a chance to refinance their existing student loan debt at a much lower rate of interest. This proposed economic stimulus could positively transform our nation’s economy in a huge way, putting billions of dollars back into the pockets of hard working families, and lessening the financial burden of everyone who is still struggling to repay their education debt. .............. The new bill would allow everyone who still carries privately held student loans, which often have grossly inflated interest rates as high as 8 or 9 percent, to refinance directly through the Federal Direct Loan program at the current 3.86 rate. Under the Student Loan Certainty Act, which was passed by Congress last summer, all new undergraduate loans are now being financed with the lower interest, but millions of college graduates are still forced to pay nearly triple those rates on their existing education debt. As income inequality flourishes, mammoth financial institutions continue to make record profits, while many families are still fighting to find work and pay their monthly bills. Slightly lowering the amount of profit that is made off the backs of working class people trying to educate themselves is both smart and sensible. ........ Forgive All Student Debt Our federal government should not be making tens of billions in profit from struggling students desperately trying to get an education. Nearly all my friends are still paying off massive college loan debt, even though most of us finished grad school at the beginning of the Clinton Administration. The previously unregulated excessive fees and grossly bloated interest rates kept increasing what was owed, and now this growing financial burden continues to hang like a collective albatross on our necks, the weight of which is draining the life blood out of so many working people. These reforms are urgently needed, as is an economic stimulus plan to forgive all student debt. Needing to borrow money to get an education should not force anyone into indentured servitude for the rest of our lives. Jeff Spross at ClimateProgress tells the Buckeye State Fracking Well Leak Spills 1,600 Gallons Of Oil Drilling Lubricant Into An Ohio Tributary Wonderful. Just wonderful. The rig site is located in southeastern Ohio near the town of Beverly, and is owned by PDC Energy Inc. One of the company’s contractors is handling the cleanup, under the supervision of Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency. A spokesperson for PDC told the Associated Press that workers at the site noticed a build up in high pressure in the well, but were unable to contain it thanks to malfunctioning equipment at the well head. That released the oil based fluid, called “mud,” which is used to lubricate the equipment in the well bore during drilling. The mud reached a creek that serves as a tributary to the Muskingum River, and cleanup crews are using containment dams to prevent the fluid from spreading any further. Both the sheriff and fire departments for Morgan County were called in following the leak, and PDC paid to relocate several nearby residents to ensure no one would be harmed if leaking natural gas led to an explosion. Officials said the spill was contained by Wednesday, though also added it could be harmful to marine life. The well had been intended for hydraulic fracturing, but the fracking process hadn’t yet begun when the leak occurred. PDC Energy has 15 active wells in Ohio and permits for 18 more, but this is the only reported spill the company has in the state. It did suffer a spill of fracking fluid at a Colorado well in February of 2013.......... Overall, more than 120,353 barrels of hazardous liquids, including crude oil and other forms of petroleum, spilled in 2013 in 622 different incidents. That’s more than double the 45,934 barrels spilled in 570 incidents in 2012. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is in charge of handling and monitoring gas and oil drilling permits in the state, and will investigate this latest spill. (What could possibly go wrong? ONE (or several) of our BTV correspondents might want to pass that story on to a certain Central OH land-frack-owner heh heh. -Ed.) And we haven't even touched on the new National Climate Assessment U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods! With the attendent climate-deniers pushing back right away GOP rejects grim White House climate change report via their Moonie Mouthpiece Washington Times! YOIKES! The West's media has now agreed that the Russian-speaking Ukraineans are now called "Separaitists". Huh. From March 3, 2014 by Common Dreams staff writer Jon Queally Ukraine in Context: What You Don't Know About a New Cold War In a crisis that betrays simple narratives, analysts hope for solutions that de-escalate the threat of violence while protecting ordinary Ukrainians from the various interests of elite powers Odd considering The West's media THREE MONTHS AGO AGREED the people on the street on Kiev were "The Separatists". Enter Neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland the wife of prominent neocon Robert Kagan co-founder of the Project for the New American Century the war mongers we know and love colloquially as PNAC. NOW Some of those former "separatists" (wink, wink) are now in power, officially legiitimate in the "World's Eye". Quipped Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dimitry Rogozin “After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline.” BWAAAAHAAHAHAHA! No really! But it gets weirder. Sez Patrick L. Smith at SALON.com Samantha Power’s brazen hypocrisy: Media swallows propaganda, but here’s the truth about Ukraine The media swallows U.S. propaganda whole. Here's the truth about Ukraine -- and what it shows about American power - Ukraine comes full circle. In six months, a troubled but intact nation is now pulled to pieces. Vasyl Krutov, the general in charge of what the provisional government in Kiev insists on calling its “anti-terror” military campaign in the east and south, acknowledged over the weekend that the country is “essentially at war.” Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, had to go in February because of the violence that had erupted in Independence Square, scene of demonstrations since the previous November. We still do not know who was responsible for the shootings used to justify the Yankuovych coup, but we know this: The provos who took his place are now doing the shooting — killing their countrymen, reclassified as terrorists, by the score. Samantha Power, the most tendentious hypocrite in the Obama administration (and the competition is keen), defends these murderers thusly: “Their response is reasonable, it is proportional, and frankly it is what any one of our countries would have done in the face of this threat,” Power said in the Security Council at the weekend. Does this remind you of anything? It should. Is this not a replay of the Egyptian catastrophe? An elected leader trying to hold a nation together on its own terms is deposed, what follows is magnitudes worse than anything the deposed leader ever dreamed of, and the army is turned loose on those it is supposed to defend. The Americans, having backed the putschists from the shadows, tell you, “No, that was not a putsch you just watched. It only looked like one. The elected guy was replaced violently by the unelected in the service of a democratic restoration. And there will be another election, under the auspices of the unelected, to confirm all this as best.” For its speed and sheer wastage, Ukraine’s arriving fate is astonishing. It is a spectacle. And this is the one good thing about the Ukraine calamity: The anatomy of it is all there, spectacularly. ....................... It is the clarity of our moment, even amid all the blur, that I am trying to get at. And two things emerge more clearly than any other. Let us look briefly at each. One is the intent and operation of American policy in the post-Cold War, post-George W. era. This is now nakedly before us, and it is our shared responsibility to see it for what it is. Here Ukraine takes its place as one thread in a weave. For all the talk of 21st century diplomacy and an adjusted place in a more complex world, Washington remains in the business of eliminating national leaders who decline conformity within the neoliberal order. .................. For context here, see Venezuela, where the nation-building set has been outed three times in the past year. Or the social-media program in Cuba — not covert, says the State Department (which funded it), but “discreet.” Or similar projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two others among the many not so far revealed. Two years ago Putin was condemned when he insisted NGOs funded from abroad register as foreign agents. Remember? When the State Department voiced “deep concern,” he condemned the Americans for “gross interference.” Now you know what he meant. This is American foreign policy Version 2014: Often disrespectful, often unlawful, purposefully destructive of order, possessing no idea of limits. There is no more Saddam Hussein, and it takes some doing to bring him in for reconsideration, no more Gadhafi, no Morsi, no Yanukovych, there would be no more Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela if Washington had its way. You have to climb over a mountain of prejudice and misinformation to consider what Washington has done wrong in these cases, but it is wrong. The quality of these leaders has nothing to do with it. “The first casualty of war is truth.” Most journalists, at least of my cohort, know this sentence from the Philip Knightley book “The First Casualty,” a history of war correspondents that begins, ironically, in mid-19th century Crimea. Maybe we should be talking about the State Department’s war, not its policy, because the reporting of it has been near to fatally awful. This is my other point of clarity. The media entered the post-Cold War era in bad shape, having surrendered almost all ground that separates them from power (political, corporate, financial by way of the stock market). But they are now not short of craven. ............ Neither can you run media successfully when your problem is far greater than the technological change journalists focus upon: the problem that increasing numbers of people do not believe what you say. Media in this phase are by definition on a slide. A great newspaper remains great when, in some little or large way, it builds upon its greatness in every edition. To live on past greatness, consuming it but adding nothing — this is called decline. Being an exquisitely balanced columnist, I end with mention of a remarkable piece that appeared in the New York Times last Sunday. The big boys and girls running things must have liked it, for they splashed it across four columns, above the fold on “1,” and with a huge photograph. Take a look. But here is the truly remarkable thing. Chivers and Sneider took on the freighted question of just who these fighters are. And they reported back honestly. No Russians among the so-called green men, we now know. They are “ordinary Ukrainians,” to take the two correspondents’ term for the leader. The propaganda term “separatists,” which appears by the blizzard in typical news reports, comes once — when a fighter refutes it as a preposterous description of their intent. “The rebels of the 12th Company appear to be Ukrainians but, like many in the region, have deep ties to and affinity for Russia,” Chivers and Sneider tell us. “They are veterans of the Soviet, Ukrainian or Russian Armies, and some have families on the other side of the border. Theirs is a tangled mix of identities and loyalties.” .......... GOPher HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK: This item came across the BTV roundtable this week (but not suprised) The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Yes THAT David Koch of Kansas-based Koch Industries and KOCH BROTHERS EXPOSED: 2014 Version. Does David Koch have ANY IDEA HOW MUCH HIS INDUSTRIES CAUSE CANCER? And what about all his friends and well-wishers at this soiree? Do THEY know? And what about all THE PhD SCIENTISTS who are doing the RESEARCH the Kochs fund (through their "giving" institutions) that are proving in their own labs the Koch Extraction Industries are causing these cancers? WAIT! THERE'S MORE! At the Watchdog Progressive The Curious Case of NOVA and David H. Koch I hate to burst people’s bubble, but for months I have been quiet about the fact that one of the major sponsors of NOVA, a very well produced and popular PBS program, is David H. Koch. Yes, that Koch, of Koch Industries. Quite frankly, at first I was not sure what to make of it. He is interested in science – so am I. He donates money to a program he likes – so do I. Of course, I donate a couple hundred a year. I am sure his sponsorship is significantly more. ........ Now, I am wondering if the Koch effort to strip funding from CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, via one of his front groups who works with House Republicans is an effort to be LAST MAN STANDING. To be the primary sponsor and therefore in the position to directly influence content, like on climate change. Knowing what I know about the Koch family and how ruthlessly ambitious David Koch is, I think this is a serious question that must be asked – and answered: Is David Koch’s interest in backing NOVA about greenwashing? ............. Both David Koch and his brother Charles, back front groups, lobbying groups, think tanks and astro-turf groups to promote their causes and interests. One of their pet projects is to counter scientific research about global warming and its causes: carbon pollution. The Koch Industries Carbon Footprint Is About 300 Million Tons. With the assumption that Koch has a carbon intensity on the order of oil majors such as Chevron and ExxonMobil, each billion dollars of revenue corresponds to 2 to 4 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases. Therefore, each year, Koch Industries is likely responsible for about 300 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution every year. Flint Hills Resources, Koch’s refining subsidiary, processes 300 million barrels of oil a year. This one company — with its refining, pipeline, chemical, fertilizer, cattle, and forestry operations — is involved in up to five percent of the entire United States 7-gigaton carbon footprint. ......... The Greenpeace 2011 Update on Koch Industries - Billionaire oilman David Koch used to joke that Koch Industries was “the biggest company you’ve never heard of.” Now the shroud of secrecy has thankfully been lifted, revealing the $55 million that he and his brother Charles have quietly funneled to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming. A lot can happen in a year. Today, the Kochs are being watched as a prime example of the corporate takeover of government. Their funding and co-opting of the Tea Party movement is now well documented. Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch have a vested interest in delaying climate action: they’ve made billions from their ownership and control of Koch Industries, an oil corporation that is the second largest privately-held company in America (which also happens to have an especially poor environmental record). It’s timely that more people are now aware of Charles and David Koch and just what they’re up to. A growing awareness of these oil billionaires’ destructive agenda has led to increased scrutiny and resistance from people and organizations all over the United States. READ THE REPORT DOWNLOAD HERE Koch-Report-2-FINAL. Be sure to sift through our regulars with interviews with Ray McGovern, Marcy Wheeler, Thomas Franks, Digby and more on DN! too and so much more! We're still working on filling in last week's post so stay tuned! Have a great Mom's Day and a great week!

BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©

Democracy NOW!

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GRITtv GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW Ford Foundation: New Labor in New York From taxi drivers working long hours and nights to restaurant workers taking home little but tips, New York is home to one of the fastest growing "precariats" in the United States. ........ more!

BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!©
»»» SUNDAY NIGHT BASEBALL on ESPN Cardinals @ Pirates 8 pm et
»»» MONDAY NIGHT BASEBALL on ESPN Cubs @ Cardinals 7 pm et
»»» NBA on ABC & TNT Second round continues! SUNDAY ABC 3:30 pm et Oklahoma City at LA Clippers Game 4 - Thunder lead 2-1; SUNDAY TNT 8 pm et Indiana at Washington Game 4 - Pacers lead 2-1. More games all week on TNT!

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! Stop the FCC from Breaking the Internet The Federal Communications Commission is proposing rules that would kill — rather than protect — Net Neutrality and allow rampant discrimination online. Under these rules, telecom giants like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon would be able to pick winners and losers online and discriminate against online content and applications. And no one would be able to do anything about it. We must stop the FCC from moving forward with these rules, which would give the green light to ISPs eager to crush Net Neutrality. The agency can preserve Net Neutrality only by designating broadband as a telecommunications service under the law. Anything else is an attack on our rights to connect and communicate. Tell FCC Chairman Wheeler to throw out his proposed rules. Demand nothing less than real Net Neutrality. SIGN NOW at Stop the FCC from Breaking the Internet at freepress.net NOW. Join the Day of Action on May 15! The Internet will rise up online and take to the streets. SIGN UP HERE to learn more!

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. 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! NEW!!! NATION ACTION! Stop the Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger! GO THERE NOW!

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 "Chelsea Manning Support Network" March 19, 2014. By CMSN. PVT Manning has filed to change her name legally to "Chelsea Elizabeth Manning" and to receive hormone therapy. To show our support in this struggle, we are renaming ourselves to the "Chelsea Manning Support Network." ..... UPDATE! Defending Democracy: A presentation by Chelsea Manning's defense team, now on youtube! April 19, 2014. See Chelsea Manning's new defense team, Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward, give their first public presentation alongside NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, FBI whistleblower Mike German, and Support Network Organizer Emma Cape..... AND Update 4/5/14: Today marks the fourth anniversary of the release of Collateral Murder It has been four years since the public became witness to Collateral Murder, the shocking video which exposed the murder of innocent civilians and two Reuters journalists, which was released by Chelsea Manning and then published by WikiLeaks on April 5, 2010. .....

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: 2,319 US Military Dead as of May 8, 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
    Meet ABC News' Newest Contributor, Laura Ingraham 10 Moments That Illustrate The Right-Wing Radio Host's Fringe Viewpoints And Disdain For Civil Discourse - Ingraham has repeatedly engaged in inflammatory and hateful rhetoric, lobbing numerous attacks against everyone from President Obama to people who receive government assistance to her favorite target, immigrants. Here are 10 hateful moments from Ingraham in the past year...
    • Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
    • Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida
    • ROUNDTABLE: Democratic strategist and ABC News contributor Donna Brazile, Weekly Standard editor and ABC News contributor Bill Kristol, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, and radio host Michael Smerconish


  • Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
    • Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
    • former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
    • ROUNDTABLE: David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Michael Crowley of Time, and CBS News State Department Correspondent Margaret Brennan.


  • 60 Minutes (CBS)
    • The Fox 'News'-ification of CBS News and '60 Minutes': 'The Cleantech Crash'
    • CBS' '60 Minutes' admits to faking Tesla car noise
    • Coming Up Sunday, May 11 at 7 p.m. ET/PT
    • Washington's open secret: Profitable PACs
    • Free surgery saves children's lives in Sudan
    • Salmon farms: Helping or hurting wild salmon?


  • 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.
    • Pre-empted by coverage of Premier League soccer.


  • State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) Sunday at 9 am ET and Noon ET.
    • Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
    • Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
    • LEWINSKY ROUNDTABLE: Hilary Rosen, Susan Page, and Ramesh Ponnuru
    • Mother’s Day ROUNDTABLE: authors and moms Claire Shipman, Iris Krasnow, and Jennifer Senior


  • 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!
    • FRONT PORCH FRIDAY!! Featuring the H.O.R.N./Malloy skype group! Listen here NOW! Friday, May 9th, 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-bradLac-Megantic_TrainExplosion
    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' - May 8, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Stanford University breaks up with coal - billions of dollars of it; It's official: fracking causing earthquakes in Oklahoma; Fracking also increasing traffic fatalities; Koch Brothers conning your grandmother; PLUS: New rules for the deadly 'Ford Pinto of rail cars'... All that and more in today's Green News Report! IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links at site): Protecting communities of color from industrial pollution; How the US stopped its fisheries from collapsing; Why wave power is lagging behind as an energy source; Judge rules victims of Citgo’s criminal pollution not entitled to compensation; Marco Rubio accuses Obama of not being a meterologist; Judge smacks down 'wind turbine syndrome' lawsuit; NASA to grow lettuce in space; Japan testing space-based solar energy transmission; Solar cells the size of a pencil point ... PLUS: Is a Godzilla-sized El Nino heading our way this fall? ... and much, MUCH more! ...
    • 'Green News Report' - May 6, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report special coverage: Buckle up - landmark US report from 13 federal agencies warns climate change is here and now, and a clear and present danger... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
    • BRADCAST! Democracy, Rights and Health Care for All: KPFK 'BradCast' GUESTS: Dr. Margaret Flowers from Popular Resistance; Christina Tobin from Free And Equal Foundation; and MUCH MORE...
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! VIDEO! Hartmann TV: Brad Explains BIG Federal Court Ruling on GOP Photo ID Restrictions What the recent landmark ruling in WI means and how it may spell trouble for the GOP's nationwide voter suppression efforts...
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! Beginning of the End for GOP Polling Place Photo ID Restriction Laws? Legal analyst Ernie Canning explains why the federal court decision striking down WI's statute is 'likely' to spell trouble for similar Republican laws nationwide...
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! Huh?!: Gun Safety Advocate Calls E-Voting 'Fool-Proof' Appearing on MSNBC to advocate for 'smart gun' technology, Mark Glaze offers puzzling, troubling, wildly inaccurate, insane assertion ....
    • BRADBLOG UPDATE! Paper-Ballot Vote Tabulators Failed in FL Special Election Computerized ballot scanners broke down in two different counties during last month's special primary for the U.S. House. The news only came to light this week...


  • 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 7 May 2014 PBC News & Comment: Putin Shifts Strategy, Still Holds All the Cards Putin announces Russian troop pullback from Ukraine border, asks for delay in separatist referendum; but he controls Ukraine’s gas supply…
    • PBC News & Comment 8 May 2014 PBC News & Comment: Do-Nothing House Doubles Down on Benghazi, IRS Scandals Bruno Mars opens the podcast with The Lazy Song, dedicated to John Boehner and the Republican House Circus, um, Caucus….
    • PBC News & Comment 9 May 2014 PBC News & Comment: Snowden Leaks Lead to Crackdown on Intelligence Workers While high ranking leakers face no consequences, new rules crack down on rank-and-file intelligence employees; Clapper’s perjury outraged Snowden….
    • PBC Standard Podcast April 30, 2014 New Progressive Political Party Launches in Detroit May 2 Free Preview Clip No subscription required The Occupy movement resurfaces with the launch of the After Party in Detroit this weekend. We get details from Carl Gibson of the national steering committee.
    • PBC Standard Podcast May 2, 2014 Former Telecom Exec Calls on Obama to Fire FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler over Net Neutrality James P. Tuthill is a former top executive at A T & T who slams the FCC’s handling of Net Neutrality, and says President Obama should replace new FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
    • PBC Standard Podcast May 8, 2014 Journalist Lou Wolf Confronts the “Truth Emergency”, and Pays Tribute to the Late John Judge Louis Wolf, co-founder of Covert Action Quarterly and editor of Rock Creek Free Press, talks about the challenge of exposing government lies, and honors his friend and colleague, John Judge, who died recently.


  • 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! May 9, 2014 Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern.
    • Heather Hurlburt from Human Rights First will tell us about Obama’s foreign policy legacy.
    • Author and Nation magazine correspondent Ari Berman will tell us about the recent victory in the fight for equal voting rights.
    • And author Ken Silverstein will be here to tell us how the oil industry is able to skirt international laws in order to secure sweetheart deals for themselves.
    • NEW! This Week on Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV! May 10, 2014 Sundays at NOON!
    »» Howard Nations will tell us why Walmart is the queen of corporate welfare.
    »» David Haynes will explain the growing problems with the pharmaceutical industry, which includes unprecedented political influence and a complete lack of oversight.
    »» Best-selling author Thomas Frank will talk about the Clintons’ corporate image problem, and how they want to change that before the 2016 elections.
    »» David TeSelle will tell us how the Koch Brothers, after successfully purchasing our political system, are now trying to buy up America’s judges.
    »» Robert Price will tell us about the dangers of pelvic mesh and the lies that got it on the market.
    • Ring of Fire’s Weekly Rewind Posted on May 10, 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 29, 2014 by Joshua De Leon
    • VIDEO! Papantonio: Do The Kochs Own The Judiciary? (VIDEO) After buying up American politicians, the Koch brothers have now set their sights on the judiciary. Mike Papantonio and Thom Hartmann talk about the influence-buying that is now taking place between corporate America and our judicial system.
    • VIDEO! Pap and Seder: Secularism is Constitutional. Deal With It. (VIDEO) On Monday, a 5-4 Supreme Court decision will allow Christian prayer in government meetings within the town of Greece, New York. On the surface, the decision may appear just, but it actually undermines the principal of secularism in America. Additionally, the decision further shows the nauseating state in which the United States Supreme Court exists. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder discuss the decision, how the SCOTUS has drifted so far from elementary principals.
    • 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 5/5/14 Digby: The Politics of Inequality & Benghazi
    • TUESDAY 5/6/14 Thomas Frank: How Consumerism Co-opted Rebellion
    • WEDNESDAY 5/7/14 Mark Ames: The Techtopus: The Silicon Valley Wage Suppression Cartel
    • THURSDAY 5/8/14 Stephen A. Bezruchka: Inequality Is Bad For Your Health
    • FRIDAY 5/9/14 Casual Friday: Cliff Schecter & Isabel Gillies
    • 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)
    • The Decline of Small Business and the Middle Class by Charles Hugh Smith - The only way to not just survive but thrive as an entrepreneurial enterprise is to destroy fixed costs and labor overhead. It is not coincidental that the middle class and small business are both in decline.Entrepreneurial enterprise and small business have long been stepping stones to middle class incomes and generational wealth, i.e. wealth that is passed down to future generations rather than consumed. As the headwinds to entrepreneurial enterprise and small business rise, the pathway to middle class prosperity narrows. Read more HERE .......
    • Headlines: Unpaid Taxes and Stockholm Syndrome by Stacy Herbert - READ Concern at plan to let HMRC recover unpaid tax directly from bank accounts (theguardian.com) AND Stockholm Syndrome in the Baltics (michael-hudson.com) PLUS Ukraine crisis EXCLUSIVE: West draws up plan to ‘disarm’ Russia’s energy supply threat (independent.co.uk). Stacy again: I think it’s adorable that Americans are so patriotic as to be willing to double or triple their own energy bills so that Europe may be ‘free’ from Russian energy hold! Watch the Get REAL interview with Jan Skoyles with Reuters’ natural gas expert for a bit of sense on this energy war in Ukraine: VIDEO here!
    • Oops, USA Today spills the beans: Insiders get rich on IPOs, masses lose by Stacy Herbert - READ Insiders get rich on IPOs, masses lose "The odds seems stacked against the common investors, too. More than half of the IPOs to start trading over the past 12 months, 127, are trading for less than the closing price on their first day. However, nearly two-thirds of these deals are still trading at or above their offering prices paid by the well-heeled. Periodically individual investors may get a chance to buy shares at the offering price, but the allocation is usually scarce for deals that are attractively priced." Don’t expect this to stop the ‘individual investor’ from doing anything but piling in on the next one; cuz the next one is ALWAYS certain to be the winning ticket!
    • Is Wall Street killing its bankers? by Stacy Herbert - READ Bloomberg View: Is Wall Street killing its bankers? "It’s probably just a sad coincidence, but the sudden deaths since December of a group of young men who worked for JPMorgan Chase & Co. (or who once did) have conspiracy theorists in a tizzy."
    • Tim Geithner Admits “Too Big To Fail” Hasn’t Gone Anywhere (and that’s the way he likes it) Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg. - There are so many choice nuggets in this article, all of which make Geithner look worse and worse as you read on. It’s almost as if he is some sort of lab created, android bankster butler sent back to earth from the future in order to ensure Wall Street bonuses never experience a downtick. It’s truly remarkable. Early in the article, we learn a little bit about Timmy’s family history, and how, shocker, it overlaps quite nicely with Obama’s own family history. Read the rest HERE.
    • KEISER REPORT [KR597] Keiser Report: Scots, Get Rid of Westminster Losers! A double-header discussing the Scottish Independence movement by looking at some of the facts of English politics and economics some in Scotland are against. They start with the ‘botched’ Royal Mail privatisation and how the Business Secretary had his strings pulled by Lazard bank. And then look at the proliferation of precarious ‘zero hour’ contracts in which there is no obligation on the employer to provide regular shifts – or for the employee to work a certain number of hours.
    • KEISER REPORT [KR598] Keiser Report: Medieval Tortures from Wall Street We discuss the brutal tortured to death industry in America and suggest some Medieval ideas, such as the Tub, the Lead Sprinkler and the Brazen Bull. We compare these old techniques to the modern financial and monetary systems in which, for example, investors’ wealth is trapped inside the ‘Brazen Bull’ and the Dow hitting all time highs is actually these investors screaming in financial pain. In the second half, Max interviews Reggie Middleton of BoomBustBlog.com about ‘Reggie Middleton’s Ultracoin’ being to crypto what Google is to the internet – a gatekeeper of value on the block chain.
    • KEISER REPORT [KR599] Keiser Report: The Speculation Game We discuss the warning from legendary stock market speculator, Jesse Livermore, that speculation is “not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.” And, yet, speculation has become the economic model for a nation of stupid and mentally lazy speculator-taxpayers. We also discuss splat collateralized debt obligations and fracking Walden Pond to pay off our bad debts. In the second half, Max interviews Steve Keen, author of Debunking Economics, about housing bubbles, falling wages and why Mom & Pop investors are always wrong.
    • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS The Truth About Markets in Sheffield 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 05/06/14 Marcy Wheeler: Blogger Marcy Wheeler discusses the NSA “reform” bills making the rounds through Congress; how the once-promising USA Freedom Act was ruined; renewing the PATRIOT Act through 2017; the FBI’s unfettered surveillance of Americans; and the NGOs embracing the lesser-evilism of crappy reform legislation (hey, it’s better than nothing…).
    • Scott Horton Radio Show 05/07/14 Dahr Jamail: Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff report and author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, discusses “The Iraq Commission” conference for holding government officials accountable for war crimes in Iraq; the class action lawsuit against Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz; and the legacy of violence and authoritarianism (despite elections) in Iraq today.
    • Scott Horton Radio Show 05/09/14 Ray McGovern: Ray McGovern, a retired CIA officer turned political activist, discusses Robert Parry’s assertion that Putin and Obama are working behind the scenes to deescalate the Ukraine crisis; the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity’s (VIPS) call for an Obama-Putin summit; and the Israeli/US policy of perpetuating the fighting in Syria, civilian death toll be damned.
    • Older interviews at Antiwar Radio!


  • fauxnews
    • New Benghazi select committee chair, South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy (R)
    • head of the House Democratic Caucus, Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA)
    • former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell
    • Shiza Shahid, CEO of the Malala Fund


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