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Holiday Musings HO HO HO! Happy Holidays to all! Although Christmas has passed many are still celebrating the holidays mostly the Twelve Days of Christmas. Wiki explains, "In England in the Middle Ages, this period was one of continuous feasting and merrymaking, which climaxed on Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the Christmas season. In Tudor England, Twelfth Night itself was forever solidified in popular culture when William Shakespeare used it as the setting for one of his most famous stage plays, titled Twelfth Night. Often a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the Christmas revels.[18] Some of these traditions were adapted from the older pagan customs, including the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic Yuletide.[19] " IN FACT The Brick TeeVee Crew has been loading up on "feasting and merrymaking" all week! We hope and trust your holiday merrymaking has been fun too!
Washington's Blog tells us the story of The REAL Santa Claus Saint Nicholas was a real, historical person. But he didn’t live in some snowy Northern place like the North Pole or Scandinavia. And he probably wasn’t fair-skinned with ruddy cheeks. He lived in the town of Myra – on the Southern Coast of Turkey – in the fourth century (it was then part of Greece). So he likely had an olive-colored, Mediterranean complexion. And he didn’t ride a magic sleigh driven by flying reindeer, have a workshop full of elves, squeeze through chimneys with belly-defying dimensions, or maintain a naughty-or-nice list rivaling the NSA. The real St. Nick came from a wealthy family, and his parents died in an epidemic when he was young. Nick used his large inheritance to help the poor. For example, poor young girls were likely to be sold into slavery because they didn’t have a dowry with which to attract a husband. So on 3 occasions, Nicholas threw a bag of gold into a poor girl’s house through an open window … enough to provide a dowry so the girl could get married. The bags of gold are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left in front of the fire to dry. This led to the custom of kids hanging stockings or putting out shoes, hoping for gifts from Saint Nick. .......... And we peel back to 2005 and Michelle Goldberg st Salon.com How the secular humanist grinch didn’t steal Christmas IN 1959, the recently formed John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a JBS pamphlet titled “There Goes Christmas?!” a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, “One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas — to denude the event of its religious meaning.” The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where the “Godless UN” was scheming to replace religious decorations with internationalist celebrations of universal brotherhood. ........... At the time, the campaign to save Christmas was not widely treated as a matter of great national import. The John Birch Society was generally regarded as a crank, far-right outfit whose paranoid conspiracy theories (it believed fluoridated water was part of an evil communist plot to poison America’s brains) put it outside the pale of reasonable discourse. Staffers on the ultra-right 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign tried to prevent Birchers from volunteering because they carried the taint of extremism. The John Birch Society didn’t have access to a major television network. But a lot has changed since then. .......... READ ON! And we go back to 2008's Alex Altman at TIME.com for A Brief History Of The War on Christmas Certainly the number of revelers who share those sentiments is greater than you think: in a 2006 Chicago Tribune poll, 68% of respondents affirmed their belief in a War on Christmas. But while Gibson and FOX colleague Bill O'Reilly have taken the fight against these left-wing Grinches mainstream, theirs is only the latest skirmish in a battle that's been going on for hundreds of years. The front lines of the War on Christmas were originally manned by none other than the Puritans — and not on the side many conservative news anchors might think. Objecting to the yuletide festivities on the grounds that they didn't square with the Bible's teachings, in 1659 the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the holiday; it wasn't reinstated until 1681. For a war often blamed on secular terrorists, these are some pious roots. Since then, the perpetrators of the struggle against Santa have taken on many forms; just about every major bugbear on the radical left has at one point or another been blamed. In the beginning, of course, there were the Jews. "The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas...shows the venom and directness of [their] attack," wrote automaker and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford in 1921, citing efforts around the country to silence Christmas carolers and suppress demonstrations of religion in schools. By the 1950s, blame had shifted to the Communists. "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas," screamed a 1959 pamphlet (the overpunctuated title: "There Goes Christmas?!") issued by the newly-formed John Birch Society. The society also assailed United Nations "fanatics" who were trying to "poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high-pressure propaganda." Before it became part of mainstream conservative punditry, the leading proponent of the War on Christmas was a former magazine writer and editor named Peter Brimelow. ......... HAHA! While we constantly hear the bray from media CONservatives "Put Christ back in Christmas" we DID hear one local college deejay Jumpin' Joe Madigan (das buuk Retro Radio WJCU 88.7) propose "putting The Christ back in CHRISTIANS"! WHAT A NOVEL IDEA! IMAGINE the so-called (most-times self-proclaimed) "Christian Conservatives" TODAY on the media fighting for things like helping the poor or throwing out the "moneychangers"! The ENTIRE Fake Snooze EDIFICE would collapse of their own hubris and hippocracy! Well we CAN Imagine (aka notgonnahappen).
We go to the UK's Daily Mail for the 10th anniversary of tsunami is marked with tears PERELIYA, Sri Lanka (AP) — A packed train in Sri Lanka that was swept off the tracks by waves as big as elephants. A boat patrolling off Thailand's shore hurled more than a mile inland. Streets in Indonesia turned into roaring rivers that carried people to their deaths. Vivid and terrifying memories such as these were recalled Friday at ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami that left nearly a quarter-million people dead in one of modern history's worst natural disasters. The Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami was triggered by a magnitude-9.1 earthquake — the region's most powerful in 40 years — that tore open the seabed off Indonesia's Sumatran coast, displacing billions of tons of water and sending waves roaring across the Indian Ocean at jetliner speeds as far away as East Africa. Weeping survivors and others took part in beachside memorials and religious services across Asia, while some European countries also marked the anniversary, remembering the thousands of Christmastime tourists who died in the disaster. Pain and hope alike were harvested from the tragedy. Lots more with some stunning pictures! And France24.com has this video report World marks 10 years since devastating Asian tsunami .......... Tsunami-hit nations began commemorating the 220,000 people who perished on December 26, 2004, after a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's western tip generated a series of massive waves that devastated coastlines from Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka to Somalia. Among the victims were thousands of foreign tourists enjoying the region's warm temperatures over Christmas, bringing the tragedy home to citizens around the world. The Indonesian national anthem opened an official memorial at a 20-acre park in Indonesia's Banda Aceh -- the main city of the province closest to the epicentre of the massive quake and which bore the brunt of waves towering up to 35 metres (115 feet) high. From Bill Nicol's Blog we find Tsunami 10th Anniversary Almost 10 years since the 2004 tsunami. Time for the commemoration. There’ll be lots of comments. Some will be good, some bad, some self-serving rot. The big agencies will no doubt do a superb job of chest beating. I just saw an early feed from a conference organised by the World Bank. Unsurprisingly, it was a stacked panel — all from the Bank. But at least they chose the best including Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Andrew Steer and Joel Hellman. But they are of the institution so my expectations are not high. I noted, for instance, a reference to the $700m pumped into Aceh and Nias through the Multi Donor Fund (MDF) with the Bank essentially claiming credit by association even though it “only” put in $25m and made the fastest grab for money for its own programs. But that’s okay. It was quick off the mark. And, after all, the Bank did administer the MDF and did it well, at least in the early stages. Later, the MDF became a rule-bound sludge that ground into unresponsiveness, as did the Bank. The Bank’s people could not see this and whitewashed the mess they created as the institution degenerated from best friend of the Indonesian Government recovery agency, BRR, to just another of its many obdurate enemies. The problem? Andrew Steer’s fabulous early leadership was replaced by the technocratic purity of bunch of bureaucrats who could not think beyond the limits of their own culture. I could see this coming and tried to warn the people involved but none would listen. It was the most appalling level of ignorance from a bunch of people who could and should have known better. But, for a writer like myself, it just added to the great story I recorded in my book “Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management”. It will give you more balance and more facts about the Aceh reconstruction program than anything you’re likely to find elsewhere. More on this in a later post. Read Bill's book Tsunami Chronicles: Adventures in Disaster Management for more details on the Disaster Capitalism that began ten years ago. NEXT Prof Michel Chossudovsky at GlobalResearch.ca asks Ten Years Ago: December 26, 2004: Indian Ocean Tsunami. Why did the Information Not Get Out? Was There a Hidden Agenda? This article was first published in February 2005. The tsunami warning system was also examined by the author in two texts published in the immediate wake of the December 26, 2004 tsunami. ......... The text below examines the broader seismic network as well as the system of satellite imagery, which provides data in near real time. Click over for the real-time map showing the tsunami's progress! WOW! IN A RELATED STORY to the tsunami of ten years ago and the CANCER that is GLOBAL Author and investigative reporter David Cay Johnston says it's Full speed ahead on secretive trade deal at aljazeera.com Early next year, after the 114th Congress begins meeting, a new Washington coalition will move quickly to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade agreement that will destroy American jobs, restrict individual liberty and burden American taxpayers. Oh, and it will do so without any real debate. The coalition pushing approval consists of multinational corporations eager to escape the rigors of competition, Republican lawmakers who talk free markets but act as enemies of competition and President Barack Obama, as loyal a friend as Wall Street and multinational corporations have ever had in the White House. The broad strokes of the proposed agreement show it is not about lowering the few remaining tariffs and trade barriers, with a few exceptions such as easing Japanese protections for domestic farmers so cheap California rice can be sold in Tokyo. At least the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative does not call it a free trade agreement, because it is anything but. Rather, it is a trade-restriction agreement that protects monopolists, large corporations and various state-owned enterprises from the rigors of competition while diminishing worker rights and gutting environmental rules and food safety inspections. The agreement would even let foreign companies seek damages if U.S. or state rules threaten their profits. Plaintiff companies would not have to sustain damages to collect damages from American taxpayers. They would only need to show a threat to their profits, leaks from the trade talks have revealed. .............. A draft of just one TPP chapter, labeled QQ, has become public. WikiLeaks posted the 30,000-word document, covering intellectual property rights such as drug patents and movies, which you can read here. Secrecy, complexity and finely detailed rules are the tools of exploiters who can and will use them to crush competition and protect their privileges, undermining the benefits of competitive markets, just as Adam Smith warns us in “The Wealth of Nations”: People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. ............. Obama wants Congress to fast-track the agreement, which would mean perfunctory congressional hearings followed by an up-or-down vote within 90 days, no amendments allowed. That congressional Republicans favor fast-tracking has an “Alice in Wonderland” quality, given GOP attacks on his supposed dictatorial use of executive orders. ..........Secrecy and fast track are not how democracy is supposed to work. They are also a glaring contradiction of candidate Obama’s transparency promises in 2008. The whole idea of self-governance is that we will hear out every side and come to decisions after reasoned — and even unreasoned — debate. It’s messy and slow and does not always produce the optimal results, but sunshine is also the best antidote to dictatorial rule and abuse of power. If you have hardly heard of the proposed TPP or its European twin, the proposed Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, and have little to no idea of just what it is about, that is no surprise. Only a handful of us have written about the agreement, mostly to a collective shrug from the public. That disinterest is understandable because when all the major news organizations fail to follow a story, people reasonably assume it must not be important. But these trade deals are critically important. ............ The real reasons trade talks get little attention are that officials refuse to say anything of substance on the record that understanding trade economics, treaty law and related issues requires a lot of time. Sadly, most journalists rely on what official sources say rather than their own reporting. The TPP is not totally secret. If you represent any of about 500 big U.S. companies involved in negotiating its terms, you are in the know. The tiny, elite universe of trade lawyers enjoys not just insider power but big money from client fees. ............. YOIKES! OUR BEST HOPE after The 113th Congress Was the Second Least Productive in History is that the Progressive Caucus wins over enough tea-bag-ronpaul-stopusintervension-antiwar-libertarian-peace types in AN HISTORIC LEFT-CENTER-RIGHT MOVEMENT to Congress: Don't betray democracy! No "Fast Track" for the TPP Congress is pushing legislation right now that would "Fast Track" the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- a secretive agreement negotiated behind closed doors by government bureaucrats and more than 600 corporate lobbyists. It threatens everything you care about: democracy, jobs, the environment, and the Internet. Enter your phone number below. You'll get a call from us and we'll connect you to your reps. Can't call? Send an email. These organizations oppose Fast Track. Here's why, in their own words.
Many more organizations OPPOsE TPP so go there NOW! TAKE ACTION! And tell yer peeps! ALSO See last year's Electronic Frontier Foundation's Public Interest Coalition Opposes Fast-Track Authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Your Number One Resource for All Things TPP is PublicCitizen.org Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Job Loss, Lower Wages and Higher Drug Prices TruthDig.com's A/V booth features Chris Hedges and Rev. David Bullock: Christmas Charity and Revolution In a special Christmas episode of The Real News Network’s “Reality Asserts Itself,” Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges and Detroit’s Rev. David Bullock discuss capitalism’s perversion of charity and the season’s potential to breath social justice back into national life. Also at TruthDig.com David Sirota explains How States Are Redistributing the Wealth Brownback’s proposal: Slash the state’s required pension contribution by $40 million to balance the state budget, even though Kansas already has one of the worst-funded pension systems in the nation. ............... In New Jersey, Christie slashed required pension payments while signing legislation expanding tax credits to corporations, and doling out a record amount of taxpayer subsidies to businesses. ................. Illinois followed a somewhat similar path. For years, lawmakers did not make the full actuarially required pension payments, causing severe funding shortages in the state’s pension system. While lawmakers said there was little money to meet pension obligations, Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed a corporate tax cut in 2011 that is projected to cost the state more than $370 million a year in lost revenue. Two years after signing that bill, as pension funding gaps swelled, Quinn signed legislation slashing public employees’ retirement benefits. An Illinois judge last month ruled that the legislation violated the state’s constitution, though the ruling is being appealed. The obvious question raised by these episodes is: Where is the outrage? To date, these attempts to use workers’ money to finance massive giveaways to the rich have generated little media coverage or political opposition—and certainly less than the full-fledged frenzy that took place when Obama made his “spread the wealth” comment a few years ago. The tepid response to this kind of wealth transfer suggests that for all the angry rhetoric about redistribution you might hear on talk radio, cable TV and in the halls of Congress, the political and media class is perfectly fine with redistribution—as long as the cash flows from the 99 percent to the 1 percent, and not the other way around.
The Intercept NSA Drops Christmas Eve Surprise
By Murtaza Hussain The National Security Agency on Christmas Eve day released twelve years of internal oversight reports documenting abusive and improper practices by agency employees. The heavily redacted reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board found that NSA employees repeatedly engaged in unauthorized surveillance of communications by American citizens, failed to follow legal guidelines regarding the retention of private information, and shared data with unauthorized recipients. While the NSA has come under public pressure for openness since high-profile revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the release of the heavily redacted internal reports at 1:30PM on Christmas Eve demonstrates limits to the agency’s attempts to demonstrate transparency. Releasing bad news right before a holiday weekend, often called a “Christmas Eve surprise,” is a common tactic for trying to minimize press coverage. The reports, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union, offer few revelations, but contain accounts of internal behavior embarrassing to the agency. In one instance an NSA employee “searched her spouse’s personal telephone directory without his knowledge to obtain names and telephone numbers for targeting”, a practice which previous reports have indicated was common enough to warrant the name “LOVEINT”.
Staff writer Nadia Prupis at CommonDreams.org reports Citizenfour Producers Sued for 'Aiding' Edward Snowden A retired naval officer and former government secretary is suing the producers of Citizenfour, the documentary chronicling NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's classified document release in 2013, for "profiteering" from the "theft and misuse" of government files. The officer and former secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation, Horace Edwards, said he was filing the suit "on behalf of the American public." .......... Snowden's document leak revealed widespread, illegal global spying programs conducted by the U.S. and U.K. governments, among other regimes, which targeted both foreign diplomats and those countries' own citizens for surveillance. The files also identified numerous telecommunications companies as participating in the operations, handing over private customer data and metadata to government agents, even without warrants. Snowden's supporters call him a hero; his detractors call him a traitor. Edwards, who filed the suit Monday at the Kansas federal court, is one such critic. According to the lawsuit, Edwards believes that the revelations—many of which are still being newly published—caused "irreparable damage to the safety of the American people." His suit aims to prevent "dangerous disruption of foreign affairs due to irresponsible conduct of disloyal government operatives and entertainment industry collaborators".Among those named in the suit is investigative journalist and filmmaker Laura Poitras, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work highlighting the leak and also directed and is one of the producers of Citizenfour—a first-person account of the meeting and collaboration in Hong Kong between Poitras, Snowden, and journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewan MacAskill. "This lawsuit seeks relief against those who profiteer by pretending to be journalists and whistleblowers but in effect are evading the law and betraying their country," Edwards writes in his suit. He also charges Poitras with "hiding [Snowden] in her hotel room while he changes into light disguise, accepting all of the purloined information to use for her personal benefit financially and professionally, filming Defendant Snowden’s meeting with a lawyer in Hong Kong as he tries to seek asylum." ...... and video too! WOW!
NEXT
At ClimateProgress Emily Atkin reports New Yorkers Strongly Approve Of State’s New Ban On Fracking New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent decision to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state is receiving widespread support from the people who live there, according to a new poll. The Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found that 55 percent of New Yorkers across the state support Cuomo’s decision on fracking, while 25 percent oppose it and the remainder are undecided. In upstate New York, where fracking likely would have taken place, 56 percent of respondents approved of the ban while 30 percent opposed it. Republicans approved of the ban 42 to 40 percent, Democrats approved 67 to 11 percent, and people who live in New York City supported the ban 56 to 19 percent. Overall, no political party, gender, age, or regional group disapproved of Cuomo’s decision. “It’s a clean sweep, but not a big sweep, for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking in New York State,” Quinnipiac University Poll assistant director Maurice Carroll said in a statement, noting that Cuomo’s overall approval rating did not much improve despite the good numbers of fracking. ..............
AT the ThinkProgress.com Health Desk Tara Culp-Ressler tells us a Federal Court Unanimously Calls North Carolina Anti-Abortion Law A Violation Of The First Amendment IN a unanimous decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has permanently blocked a 2011 law in North Carolina that represented one of the harshest forced ultrasound measures in the country. The judges agreed that the measure is a violation of the First Amendment. The law, which was struck down by a district court at the beginning of this year, forced doctors to provide their patients with detailed descriptions of ultrasounds immediately before proceeding with an abortion. Even if the patient attempted to avoid that information by closing her eyes and covering her ears, the law stipulated that physicians should continue speaking. .............. In Monday’s opinion, the Fourth Circuit concluded that “the state cannot commandeer the doctor-patient relationship to compel a physician to express its preference to the patient.” ........... Aside from preserving this aspect of the doctor-patient relationship, the recent ruling also prevents North Carolina women from being subject to a law that suggests they’re incapable of making their own decisions about a pregnancy.
And Joe Romm at Climate Progress says Irreversible But Not Unstoppable: The Ghost Of Climate Change Yet To Come Unlike Scrooge, we don’t get a spirit to show us what the future holds if we don’t change our ways. That’s what we have science for. ................. The question of whether it’s “too late,” doesn’t have one purely scientific answer. It does seem clear that the most dangerous carbon-cycle feedback — the defrosting permafrost — hasn’t kicked in yet but likely will within two decades, adding 0.4°F – 1.5°F to total global warming by 2100. On the other hand, part of the West Antarctic ice sheet now does appear close to if not past the point of irreversible collapse. That said, the worst case of sea level rise can still be avoided, as can many other of the most serious impacts. If humanity gets truly serious about emissions reduction — and by serious I mean “World War II serious” in both scale and urgency — we could go to near-zero global emissions in, say, two decades and then quickly go carbon negative. It wouldn’t be easy, far from it in fact. But it would be vastly cheaper and preferable to the alternative. A few years ago, scientists found the “net present value of climate change impacts” to be an astronomical $1240 trillion on our current emissions path, making mitigation to under 450 ppm a must. Delay is very risky and very, very expensive. As the International Energy Agency has explained, “on planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.” “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.” Action now will save trillions and trillions of dollars. .................... Indeed, we are only committed to under 2°C total warming so far, which may be manageable — especially if we did keep CO2 concentrations from peaking below 450 ppm, the small amount of CO2 we are likely to be able to remove from the atmosphere this century could well take us below the danger zone. But if we don’t reverse emissions trends far faster than currently envisioned, we will certainly double and probably triple that temperature rise, most likely negating any practical strategy to undo the impacts for hundreds of years:
Such is the climate change yet to come.
Margaret Sarfehjooy and Coleen Rowley explain “Perception Management”: Selling ‘Peace Groups’ on US-Led Wars at GlobalResearch.ca “War is peace” double-speak has become commonplace these days. And, the more astute foreign policy journalists and commentators are beginning to realize the extent of how “liberal interventionists” work in sync with neocon warhawks to produce and sustain a perpetual state of U.S. war. More and more “peace and social justice” groups are even being twisted into “democracy promotion,” U.S. militarism style. But rarely do we get a window to see as clearly into how this Orwellian transformation occurs as with the “Committee in Solidarity with the People of Syria” (CISPOS) based in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, a spin-off of “Friends for a Nonviolent World” (FNVW), steering its Quaker-inspired founding in nonviolence to promote speakers and essayists with strong ties to the violent uprising to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, resulting in a war that has already taken some 200,000 lives. Do the real pacifist members approve? Or even know? ................... With all of the information about Syria, what are we to believe as true? We know the facts about recent U.S. interventions in Middle Eastern countries. Why would Syria be any different? Afghanistan is still in shambles with the majority of the people living in extreme poverty; Libya, which had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy on the continent, is now a failed state; Western intervention transformed Iraq from an emerging country with moderate prosperity into an impoverished country with a starving population. In the lead-up to each intervention, “experts” emerged to explain that while anti-imperialism is good in general and in past scenarios, this time is different. Is it? Isn’t it time for war-weary Americans to wise up and stop falling for these pretexts of bringing democracy and human rights to foreign countries through training and funding of “color (and umbrella) revolutions,” inciting of coups and regime changes and eventually, through U.S.-NATO military might? Liberal interventionists clearly assist neocon warhawks towards their mutual goal of “full spectrum dominance” under the euphemistic guise of Pax Americana. Only the “Pax” always turns out to be endless war and occupation.
Sigh.
FOR THOSE WHO MISSED THE LIVE XMAS DAY BROADCAST of
THE SECOND BRITISH INVASION 2014 Holiday Special on WRUW.org
YOU'RE IN LUCK! We saved them for you so you can listen when you can.
We subbed arrrr took over arrrr pirated haha THREE shows haha arrrrrrggh!
We're here because you're there.
BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©
Headlines Monday, December 22, 2014
- Steven Thrasher, weekly columnist for the Guardian U.S. & Graham Weatherspoon, retired detective with the New York City Police Department Calls for Calm After NYPD Union Says Mayor, Protesters Have Blood on Their Hands for Cops’ Murder
- Christine Hong, assistant professor at University of California at Santa Cruz & Tim Shorrock, investigative journalist "The Interview" Belittles North Korea, But is Film’s Backstory and U.S. Policy the Real Farce?
- Nathaniel Raymond, research ethics adviser for Physicians for Human Rights Weaponizing Health Workers: How Medical Professionals Were a Top Instrument in U.S. Torture Program
- Lawrence Wilkerson, served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005 Ex-Bush Official: U.S. Tortured Prisoners to Produce False Intel that Built Case for Iraq War
- More Lawrence Wilkerson Bush & Cheney Should Be Charged with War Crimes Says Col. Wilkerson, Former Aide to Colin Powell
- Humberto Brown, former Panamanian diplomat, Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at New York University & Wilkerson "The War to Start All Wars": Did U.S. Invasion of Panama 25 Years Ago Set Stage for Future Wars?
- Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin Democratic state representative in Milwaukee Ferguson, NYC, Milwaukee: Protests Erupt as Officer Cleared in Killing of Unarmed Dontre Hamilton
- Pardiss Kebriaei, senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights Will Guantánamo Ever Close? U.S. Frees More Prisoners, But Dozens Remain Behind Bars
- Stacey Addison’s mother, Bernadette Kero, and Charles Scheiner of La’o Hamutuk, the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis A Nightmare Taxi Ride: Oregon Veterinarian Jailed in East Timor After Sharing Car with Drug Peddler
- Martin Garbus, attorney and member of the Cuban Five legal team "Diplomaculate Conception": U.S. Helped Jailed Cuban Five Member Artificially Inseminate His Wife
- Saul Landau, award-winning journalist, filmmaker, author, professor Saul Landau on the Cuban Revolution and How the U.S. Directly Aided Anti-Castro Militants
- "Cuban 5" René González René González, First Freed Member of Cuban 5, Speaks Out from Havana We rebroadcast a 2013 interview with the first freed member of the Cuban Five, René González.
- Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel Mike Gravel to Senator Mark Udall: Make Full Torture Probe Public Like I Did with Pentagon Papers
- Daniel Ellsberg, Mike Gravel, & Robert West How the Pentagon Papers Came to be Published by the Beacon Press Told by Daniel Ellsberg & Others
GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders - New Episode Every Monday at TELESUR
»»» VIDEO OF THE WEEK Freedom Dreaming & Liberation: Robin D.G. Kelley Is there a connection between Communists in Alabama during the great depression, jazz great Thelonious Monk, and Apartheid in Palestine? This week's guest, author and historian Robin D.G. Kelley has written about all three, and much more......
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!© »»» SUNDAY FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA on NBC Bengals @ Steelers 8:30 pm et »»» THURSDAY NEW YEARS DAY BOWLS! OUTBACK BOWL ESPN2 12 pm No. 19 Auburn vs. No. 18 Wisconsin; GOODYEAR COTTON BOWL CLASSIC ESPN 12:30 pm No. 8 Michigan State vs. No. 5 Baylor; CITRUS BOWL ABC 1:00 pm No. 16 Missouri vs. No. 25 Minnesota; ROSE BOWL ESPN 5:00 pm No. 2 Oregon vs. No. 3 Florida State; SUGAR BOWL ESPN 8:30 pm No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Ohio State
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
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: No Frankenstein Net Neutrality The FCC is considering a new plan that has the same big problems we’ve been protesting against all year. Tell the agency we’ll accept nothing less than REAL Net Neutrality. Just how bad is it? This new proposal: • Would allow broadband providers to cut specialized deals with companies to reach Internet users. • Still gives us slow lanes and gives users no real protection against discrimination from Internet service providers. • Rests on shaky legal arguments that won’t stand up in court. This isn't what millions of us have been fighting for. SIGN NOW at Tell Chairman Wheeler: No Frankenstein Net Neutrality at freepress.net NOW.
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 Chelsea 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! ACLU honors Chelsea on her birthday AND Birthday Messages to Chelsea from Snowden, Gilliam & more public icons Dec 16, 2014. Public icons send birthday greetings and support to prisoner of conscience Chelsea Manning, including: Edward Snowden, Terry Gilliam, Michael Stipe, Vivienne Westwood, Molly Crabapple, JM Coetzee, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Slavoj Žižek, Alan Moore, Joe Sacco, Lupe Fiasco, Peter Tatchell, Billy Martin, Saul Williams..........
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!!
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: 2,356 US Military Dead as of Dec 19, 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...
• 2014 Game Changers
• Special edition of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
- Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
• NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton
• former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani
• Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
• Ebola czar Ron Klain
• Author Laura Hillenbrand, whose epic biography of war hero Louis Zamperini is portrayed in the film "Unbroken."
• ROUNDTABLE: David Rohde of Reuters and Robin Wright of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
- 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
• Sunday, Dec. 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT
• Preview: Sen. Tom Coburn - Republican Sen. Tom Coburn says he's proud of the U.S. for electing Barack Obama president
• Preview: Reese Witherspoon - Award-winning actress talks about some tough years and reading she was "washed up" in The New Yorker before she made her comeback
- Meet the Press (NBC) Host Chuck Todd
• Microsoft, NBC News Dissolve MSNBC.com Joint Venture 07/15/12 — 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.
All legal notices should be sent by mail to the editor-in-chief NBCNews.com, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052
• New York Police Commissioner William Bratton
• THE STATE OF SATIRE: politics and comedy with Lewis Black, W. Kamau Bell, and Laura Krafft
• ROUNDTABLE: Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, NBC's Luke Russert, and conservative columnist and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
- State of the Union(CNN) Dana Bash hosts Sunday at 9 am ET and Noon ET
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
• Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
• Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)
• ROUNDTABLE: Ken Cuccinelli, Matea Gold, Kevin Madden and Donna Brazile.
• Candy bids CNN farewell
• A salute to Candy Crowley
• Candy Crowley: 27 amazing years at CNN
• CNNers say goodbye as Candy leaves CNN
- HEAD ON RADIO with Bob Kincaid
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!
• PRAYER MEETIN' WEDNESDAY!! XMAS Eve Special!! Listen here NOW! Wednesday, December 24th, 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!
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' - December 23, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 2014 on track for hottest year on record; Washington state governor proposes a carbon cap and trade system; Plastic trash pollution in the oceans worse than previously known; PLUS: Innovative solar energy breakthrough out of Australia... All that and more in our last Green News Report of the year! IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): EPA issues new rules for toxic coal ash waste; Measuring the true cost of coal; Insane impacts of factory farming; NDAA giveaways include increasing fracking on public lands; US power grid needs $2.1 trillion investment; Texas weakens chemical exposure guidelines; Most U.S. coastal cities to see 'nuisance flooding'; Autism again linked to air pollution exposure in pregnancy... PLUS: What Might Have Been - Al Gore on climate change in 1983... and much, MUCH more! ...
• BRADCAST! The 'Very Special BradCast Holiday Special' Returns Join The 'BradCast' Radio Theatre Players for some of our favorite episodes from the 1930s & 40s in what is now, officially, a beloved annual holiday tradition for two years running!...
• BRADBLOG UPDATE! Not Voting IS a Vote Stop blaming those who didn't turn out. Americans did vote. By not turning out, they voted against the two major parties and against the system as a whole. It may have been a dumb vote, but it was a landslide...
• BRADBLOG VIDEO! 'A Terrible Idea': E-Voting, E-Counting, 'Open Source' and Internet Voting Computerphile's Tom Scott understands and explains what too many -- even most opponents of 'e-voting' -- don't fully appreciate..
• BRADBLOG UPDATE! Bloomberg Editors Refuse to Correct Inaccurate, Misleading Photo ID Editorial Read the 'mind-boggling' responses to BRAD BLOG's emailed explanation of blatant errors and inaccuracies in Francis Barry's op-ed..
- The Peter B. Collins Show PODCAST!
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
• 19 Dec 2014 PBC News & Comment: Gov. Siegelman Will Not Be Home for the Holidays New judge denies release to former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and Siegelman supporter provides details on Monday’s court hearing…
• 22 Dec 2014 PBC News & Comment: Former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney Comments on Sony Hack Binney says NSA finds vulnerabilities in corporate security, software, but doesn’t alert companies or consumers so it can exploit weaknesses…
• 23 Dec 2014 PBC News & Comment: The Questions Corporate Media Never Ask Obama In our final 2014 News & Comment podcast, we list critical questions that weren’t asked at Obama’s last press conference…..
• PBC Standard Podcast December 24, 2014 Holiday Bonus! Extended Interview with Prof. Richard Falk No Subscription Required….Happy Holidays! Here is a truly in-depth conversation with Richard Falk, Princeton Professor Emeritus in international law, who served from 2008-2014 as UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine. An acknowledged expert on international law and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he shares his expertise and insight, and discusses his new book, Palestine: The Legacy of Hope.
• PBC Standard Podcast December 19, 2014 Law Professor Marjorie Cohn Talks About Obama’s Expanded Use of Armed Drones Marjorie Cohn, San Diego law professor and past president of the National Lawyers Guild, talks about her new book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.
- Ring of Fire Radio
Find us at http://ringoffireradio.com and http://goleft.tv/ hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
Ring of Fire Radio - GoLeft TV - Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder - Politics, Commentary, and News.
• This Week on Ring of Fire December 25, 2014 Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern.
»» Former CIA attorney John Rizzo will be here to tell us about some of the most secretive activities of our federal government.
»» Simon Lazarus from the Constitutional Accountability Center will discuss the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act.
»» And Ethan Rome from Health Care for America Now will tell us how trade deals like the TPP could effect American healthcare.
• This Week on Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV! - Sundays at NOON!
»» Guests TBA
»» Watch at FSTV
• 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
• Since 9/11, the War on Terror has Cost Taxpayers $14 million an Hour by Amy Eddings - A new report from Congress has found that since 9/11, war spending has cost American taxpayers about $1.6 trillion, or about $337 million a day, every day, for the past 13 years, the International Business Times reported. The new estimate of the $1.6 trillion estimate from the Congressional Research Service is actually about half a trillion dollars more than the CRS’s 2010 estimate. This makes the War on Terror second in spending costs to World War II. ....................
• VIDEO! Thom Hartmann: How the New Economic Boom Left Behind the Poor & Middle Class by Joshua Schwitzerlett
• VIDEO! Obama Ran Twice on Anti-NAFTA Free Trade; He was Lying to Us. Big TPP Push. by Guest Blogger - As President Obama continues to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret trade agreement negotiated behind closed doors, the more we learn about it – the more we realize how dangerous the agreement is. Last year, Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch sat down with Democracy Now and explained exactly why the TPP is terrible. “This is not mainly about trade,” said Wallach. “It is a corporate Trojan horse. The agreement has 29 chapters, and only five of them have to do with trade. The other 24 chapters either handcuff our domestic governments, limiting food safety, environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and climate policy, or establishing new powers for corporations.” Even as far back as last October, Wallach knew exactly the damage the TPP would do. Watch her full remarks.
• VIDEO! A Simple Conversation About How REALLY REALLY CRIMINAL Banks Have Become by Amy Eddings - On an episode of his web series The Trews, comedian and actor Russell Brand sat down with Max Keiser, a financial host on RT to discuss banks. Keiser explains just how shockingly criminal the big banks have become, including how RBS was laundering money for Hamas and HSBC was laundering money for Hezbollah and Mexican drug cartels.
• FCC Somehow ‘Lost’ Hundreds of Thousands of Net Neutrality Comments by Amy Eddings - ........Fight for the Future’s Jeff Lyons said “at lest 244,811 [comments] were missing” from the FCC’s data, and the Sunlight Foundation found that 95,000 comments released by the FCC were duplicates. “The Sunlight Foundation study concluded that anti-net neutrality comments dominated the dataset,” reported Gizmodo. “There was talk of a ‘shadowy’ Koch Brothers group that succeeded in driving half of the total number of comments, leading to the conclusion that some 60 percent of those who commented actually opposed net neutrality.” This statistic then fueled the political rhetoric that most Americans opposed net neutrality, a fact that simply wasn’t true......
• 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 12/22/14 Jane Landers: Ending Our Failed Cuba Policy
• TUESDAY 12/23/14 Year End Wrap Up
• WEDNESDAY 12/24/14 Nick Hanauer: Pay Higher Wages Now! & David Dayen: How Wall Street Is Undermining Reform
• FRIDAY 12/26/14 Digby: 2014 Review
• MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityfm.libsyn.com!
- KEISER REPORT Podcasts and more @ MaxKeiser.com!
"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)
• Russian Roulette: Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives by Ellen Brown — The sudden dramatic collapse in the price of oil appears to be an act of geopolitical warfare against Russia. The result could be trillions of dollars in oil derivative losses; and the FDIC could be liable, following repeal of key portions of the Dodd-Frank Act last weekend. Senator Elizabeth Warren charged Citigroup last week with “holding government funding hostage to ram through its government bailout provision.” At issue was a section in the omnibus budget bill repealing the Lincoln Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, which protected depositor funds by requiring the largest banks to push out a portion of their derivatives business into non-FDIC-insured subsidiaries.
Warren and Representative Maxine Waters came close to killing the spending bill because of this provision. But the tide turned, according to Waters, when not only Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, but President Obama himself lobbied lawmakers to vote for the bill. More HERE…
• Is Russia Being Driven Into the Arms of China? by Mark O'Byrne — European governments slavishly adhere to U.S. imposed sanctions. So from a western elite point of view, Russia is indeed isolated. Whether antagonising Russia is damaging to Russia is a moot point. Certainly in Russia’s current straits the bankrupt west is in no position to help. European farmers are suffering from loss of export markets while Europe is still dependent on Russian natural gas. So how “isolated” is Russia in reality? READ MORE Is Russia Being Driven Into the Arms of China? (goldcore.com)
• VIDEO! Get REAL with Jan Skoyles: Gold is heading West to East by Stacy Herbert — Stacy Summary: The show that was the first ever crowdfunded financial news programme is back. Jan Skoyles talks to Ned Naylor-Leyland about gold heading from West to East. Lots of interesting discussion and data.
• Gold “Terrifies” the International Monetary System by WolfStreet.com — Gold is the most maligned asset, if you listen to the Fed, the ECB, and other central banks. This was driven home again in a variety of ways, including what transpired before the Swiss gold referendum and Mario Draghi’s “all assets but gold” declaration. So I asked Fabrice Drouin Ristori, Founder and CEO of Goldbroker.com, why the heck central banks react toward gold in that bizarre manner. Read….. Gold “Terrifies” the International Monetary System (wolfstreet.com)
• KEISER REPORT [KR696] Keiser Report 696 – Tail Chasing Media Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss power. In the domestic political arena, Russell Brand’s campaign with the New Era Estate women proves that the people do have the power – if they want it. And in the energy market, it seems supply and demand actually has the power – not the cartels, not the conspiracies. In the second half, Max interviews former energy market regulator Chris Cook about the possible causes of the oil price collapse and what the future holds for price and projects.
• KEISER REPORT [KR697] Keiser Report: Remove money from politics! (ft. Russell Brand) We visit Russell Brand at his Trews set in East London for a double header of Christmas cheer. The three discuss the big themes of 2014 and what to look forward to in 2015. They look at successful activist campaigns and not yet successful campaigns – but at the end of the day, the people have the power as the New Era Estate kicking Westbrook Partners out of London. They talk cryptocurrencies, crowdfunding and media distractions. And they wish you all a very Merry Christmas!
• KEISER REPORT [KR698] Keiser Report: De-Fiatisation of the World We discuss the ‘Give Us Back Our Gold’ movement across Europe as governments seek to have their gold held domestically as fear spreads about the integrity of our fiat and debt world. Max describes the de-fiatisation of the world as the American empire makes way for the emerging power of China. In the second half Max interviews Sandeep Jaitly of FeketeResearch.com about negative GOFO rates, earning free fiat with your gold and taking us back to the Dark Ages with Quantitative Easing.
- The Scott Horton Radio Show
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 New show hours effective 5/26/2014 @ 12-3 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 - http://kpfk.org), 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....... New show hours effective 5/26/2014: 12-3 PM Eastern!
• 12/10/14 Marcy Wheeler: Blogger Marcy Wheeler discusses the CIA’s lies about properly vetting their enhanced interrogation program with their Congressional overseers; Dick Cheney’s conspicuous absence from the CIA torture report; and the 9000 CIA documents withheld that likely implicate the Office of Legal Council and Cheney in the torture program.
• 12/17/14 Grant F. Smith: Grant F. Smith, founder of the Institute for Research, Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP), discusses his involvement in the April 10, 2015 conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC: “The Israel Lobby: Is it Good For the US?”
• 12/16/14 Douglas Lucas: Douglas Lucas, a writer, researcher, and journalist based in Texas, discusses “hactivist” writer Barrett Brown’s sentencing hearing in a Dallas federal court, where he faces up to 8.5 years in prison on a plea deal. He was arrested in September 2012 after posting YouTube videos threatening an FBI agent, and a litany of charges was then added by prosecutors who accused Brown of colluding with the Anonymous hacker collective in criminal acts, rather than just covering their findings as a journalist.
• 12/17/14 Eric Margolis: Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of American Raj, discusses the Pakistani Taliban’s mass-killing of kids in Peshawar; the history of Pakistan’s restive northwest territories from the days of British empire; why the US still won’t leave Afghanistan; and the possibility of normalized relations with Cuba.
• 12/18/14 Mark Thornton: Mark Thornton, Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, discusses the 100 year anniversary of the War on Drugs, its firm foundation in racism and bigotry, and how it has been taxed, regulated, and legislated into a multi-billion dollar government enterprise of destruction.
• Older interviews at Antiwar Radio!
- fauxnews
• bestselling author Laura Hillenbrand “Unbroken”
• ROUNDTABLE: “Year In Review”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Brick TeeVee - THEY report. YOU throw bricks. ©
We're here because you're there. ©
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At Reuters Daniel Wiessner and Edward McAllister report 
