Brick TeeVee's Solstice 2014 Special!

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Solstice 2014 Special Another Solar Year begins today! Happy Solstice! We go to Lady SpringWolf for the History of Yule - The Winter Solstice Every year the Sun traces out a circular path in a west-to-east direction relative to the stars (this is in addition to the apparent daily east-to-west rotation of the celestial sphere around the Earth). The two points at which the ecliptic and the equatorial plane intersect, known as the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the two points of the ecliptic farthest north and south from the equatorial plane, known as the summer and winter solstices, divide the ecliptic into four equal parts. These cycles were familiar to Greek astronomers, but it wasn't until Hipparchus that a method of using the observed dates of two equinoxes and a solstice to calculate the size and direction of the displacement of the Sun’s orbit was established. Hipparchus (190BC – 120BC) was a Greek Astronomer and Mathematician. His writings on this subject tell us that the Solstice was a known event not just in his time, but before his time as well. The winter solstice occurs on December 21 and marks the beginning of winter (this is the shortest day of the year). The Winter Solstice has been recognized and celebrated for eons by ancient people around the globe. The Newgrange burial mound in Ireland's County Meath is surrounded by megalithic stones set in what archeologists believe to be astronomical position to the Winter Solstice. The Stone Age monument dates to around 3200 B.C., making it 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and a thousand years older than England's Stonehenge. ......... No one is really sure when the first festival or ritual celebration for this time of the year occurred. But we do know that it has long been recognized and honored in some of the worlds most reverent monuments. It would be silly to think that a point in time so important to ancient people would not have been celebrated or honored until the 7th century AD. But we're jumping ahead in our tale. ............. Most scholars suggest that the first influence of this winter festival began with Saturnalia in Rome. Saturnalia is the feast with which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn. Saturn was a major Roman God and designated as the God of agriculture and harvest. Another link to the "wheel" concept. In early astrology, Saturn represents our limitations, our restrictions,yet it is also our inner mentor and teacher. His lessons are manifested only over time, after which we go through inner rebirth and enjoy spiritual growth. Some suggest this is the connection between the idea of the "rebirth" of the God during the winter festival. ............. In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun. It is this influence that we can see most in European Paganism. The Wheel of the Year divided into 4 parts was not that far of a leap for early European Pagans. They were already familiar with honoring the solstice periods as evidenced in The Stone Age Newgrange tomb and Stonehenge. They recognized the Suns return and knew it meant fields would once again be ready for tilling and planting. Warmth would return to the world and darkness would fade. To the rural folk who worked hard during the year, the end of a lean winter was something to celebrate and the God of the Sun was something to be honored. It bothers me that such significance it put on Germanic celebrations from the 7th Century AD, when so much historical evidence points to a much older acknowledgement and reverent connection to the Wheel of The Year in early pagan Europe and Norse history and mythology. Much more at PagansPath.com! From today onward the days will be getting longer and although we have a cold Winter ahead of us now Spring Training and Opening Day seem just that much closer! Happy Solstice everybody!
Now for some quick hits!

• CLEVELAND – Protest shuts down Wal-Mart store - WKYC.com Ferguson protesters join in with Cleveland
  
• Cleveland.com Attorneys who filed suit against Cleveland police on behalf of Tamir Rice's family ask to be released
  
• Vermont shelves Single-Payer health plan - vtdigger.com Shumlin backs off single payer plan
  
• RT.com European Parliament votes to recognize Palestine statehood 'in principle'
  
• Jesse's Café Américain Moyers: The New Robber Barons
  
• Reporters Without Borders RWB publishes 2014 round-up of violence against journalists
  
• AND The Rude Pundit has A Farewell to Michele Bachmann

FUKUSHIMA UPDATE: With al the other hub-bub going on in the U.S. and the world we need to go back to last month for this update by Esther Tanquintic-Misa at ibtimes.com TEPCO Finishes Removing 400 Tonnes of Spent Fuel Rod From Fukushima Reactor 4 After 12 long months, Tokyo Electric Power Company or TEPCO, has finally completed the removal of all spent fuel rod assemblies from the storage pool at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi unit 4. The spent uranium fuel that was removed accounted for a total of 400 tonnes. TEPCO said last Wednesday that there still remains some 180 unused fuel assemblies in the pool. But these are less-risky, it said. The materials will be removed by year end. The company said it had placed in a storage pool at ground level of the plant all the 1,331 recovered spent fuel assemblies. Paul Gunter from Beyond Nuclear appeared on Abby Martin's "Breaking The Set" Wednesday. WATCH Ending Cold War grudge, Fukushima forever & happy birthday Chelsea Manning Abby Martin wishes happy birthday to Chelsea Manning and highlights all the people who sent her birthday cards, including NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. RT’s Nicholas Sanchez-O’Donovan talks about President Obama’s announcement that the US will begin to normalize relations with Cuba. The decision to put 7,000 body cameras on LAPD officers – will this truly make a difference in preventing police brutality? Scott Yundt, staff attorney with Tri-Valley CAREs, discusses the unfathomable amount of money being spent to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal. Paul Gunter, reactor oversight director at Beyond Nuclear, talks about the removal of over 1,300 fuel rods from the Fukushima power plant and where the cleanup effort of the site currently stands. Kyodo News reported that these were initially located on the top floor of the No. 4 building, which was rocked by a hydrogen explosion early in the crisis. Located 30 metres above ground, the pool had been left uncovered since the explosion three years ago. The spent fuel rods are now going to be checked for signs of damage. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has six reactors. Reactors No. 1-3 went into partial meltdown resulting from the tsunami. The incident damaged their cooling systems. Reactor No. 4 suffered a hydrogen explosion. Reactors No. 5 and 6, meantime, were less badly affected. Their fuel remains stored and all are in stable condition, according to RIA Novosti. The removal of the used fuel marks, TEPCO said, marked "a solid step toward the decommissioning of the plant." The entire decommissioning process will take up 40 years. Fuel from Reactor No. 1 will be removed starting 2019, two years later than originally planned. TEPCO has recently removed the canopy over the building to allow debris removal. Removal of debris at the Reactor No. 3 is ongoing through remote-controlled robots, while the interior of the building of Reactor No. 2 is currently being surveyed. Unlike at Reactor No. 4, Reactors No. 1-3 were highly operational when the tsunami happened and disaster struck. These reactors have higher levels of radioactive contamination because of the meltdowns. The three reactor buildings are holding a total of 1,400 fuel assemblies in storage pools. Once all the spent fuel are already removed, TEPCO can now focus on extracting the reactor cores that reacted during the disaster. It is deemed the most difficult task and one that has never been done before, Reuters said. The operation is scheduled to start in 2025. AND From BeyondNuclear.org Beyond Nuclear on Harvey Wasserman's "Solartopia Green Power and Wellness" radio show" Beyond Nuclear was pleased to be invited back on to Harvey Wasserman's "Solartopia Green Power and Wellness" radio show today. Here is Harvey's description:

"A RATEPAYER REVOLT against nuclear power and the nationwide battle for Solartopia are the pure green fires that drive today's show. CYNTHIA PAPERMASTER of CODE PINK is organizing a rate withholding campaign in California's Bay Area meant to force Pacific Gas & Electric to finally shut its two lethal reactors at Diablo Canyon. Cynthia recently presented Michael Peavey of the California Public Utilities Commission with a "pink slip" for his collusion with the utilities he was hired to regulate. Expert KEVIN KAMPS of BEYOND NUCLEAR tells us about the politics of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the new Republican Congress. The willingness of regulatory agencies to ignore water quality and public safety issues for the benefit of greedy corporations threatens the health, safety, and prosperity of all of us at dying reactors like New Jersey's Oyster Creek and Davis-Besse in Ohio. Kevin's decades of hard campaigning for a Solartopian dawn make him one of America's leading experts on what happens next with atomic energy. Together, Cynthia and Kevin offer a great perspective on what we must now do to rid the Earth of atomic energy."

Click here to listen to the show! Good item! DENNIS WATCHES C-SPAN: We at Brick TeeVee shy away from posting entire articles in favor of posting the important snippies-of-interest related to the topic at-hand. However we need to post this article by former House Rep DENNIS KUCINICH in its entirety because it is just too important. It perfectly illustrates how the GOPhers have been operating these past years slipping in "poison pills" in any number of dissociated "must pass" bills from the Farm Bill to to ones like this to keep the government open, always in the dead of night and without ANY debate. And the SAME THING happens when ALEC-Backed legislation happens in statehouses across the country. READ ALL OF THIS to get a glimpse of how GOPhers use arcane House rules to further their deadly corporatist agenda. At TruthDig.com Three Members of Congress Just Reignited the Cold War While No One Was Looking

Late Thursday night, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a far-reaching Russia sanctions bill, a hydra-headed incubator of poisonous conflict. The second provocative anti-Russian legislation in a week, it further polarizes our relations with Russia, helping to cement a Russia-China alliance against Western hegemony, and undermines long-term America’s financial and physical security by handing the national treasury over to war profiteers. Here’s how the House’s touted “unanimity” was achieved: Under a parliamentary motion termed “unanimous consent,” legislative rules can be suspended and any bill can be called up. If any member of Congress objects, the motion is blocked and the bill dies. At 10:23:54 p.m. on Thursday, a member rose to ask “unanimous consent” for four committees to be relieved of a Russia sanctions bill. At this point the motion, and the legislation, could have been blocked by a single member who would say “I object.” No one objected, because no one was watching for last-minute bills to be slipped through. Most of the House and the media had emptied out of the chambers after passage of the $1.1 trillion government spending package. The Congressional Record will show only three of 425 members were present on the floor to consider the sanctions bill. Two of the three feigned objection, creating the legislative equivalent of a ‘time out.’ They entered a few words of support, withdrew their “objections” and the clock resumed. According to the clerk’s records, once the bill was considered under unanimous consent, it was passed, at 10:23:55 p.m., without objection, in one recorded, time-stamped second, unanimously. Then the House adjourned. I discovered, in my 16 years in Congress, that many members seldom read the legislation on which they vote. On Oct. 24, 2001, House committees spent long hours debating the Patriot Act. At the last minute, the old bill was swapped out for a version with draconian provisions. I voted against that version of the Patriot Act, because I read it. The legislative process requires attention. Legislation brought before Congress under “unanimous consent” is not read by most members simply because copies of the bill are generally not available. During the closing sessions of Congress I would often camp out in the House chamber, near the clerk’s desk, prepared to say “I object” when something of consequence appeared out of the blue. Dec. 11, 2014, is one of the few times I regret not being in Congress to have the ability to oversee the process. The Russia Sanctions bill that passed “unanimously,” with no scheduled debate, at 10:23:55 p.m. on Dec. 11, 2014, includes:
1. Sanctions of Russia’s energy industry, including Rosoboronexport and Gazprom.
2. Sanctions of Russia’s defense industry, with respect to arms sales to Syria.
3. Broad sanctions on Russians’ banking and investments.
4. Provisions for privatization of Ukrainian infrastructure, electricity, oil, gas and renewables, with the help of the World Bank and USAID.
5. Fifty million dollars to assist in a corporate takeover of Ukraine’s oil and gas sectors.
6. Three hundred and fifty million dollars for military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-tank, anti-armor, optical, and guidance and control equipment, as well as drones.
7. Thirty million dollars for an intensive radio, television and Internet propaganda campaign throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union.
8. Twenty million dollars for “democratic organizing” in Ukraine.
9. Sixty million dollars, spent through groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, “to improve democratic governance, and transparency, accountability [and] rule of law” in Russia. What brilliant hyperbole to pass such a provision the same week the Senate’s CIA torture report was released.
10. An unverified declaration that Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, is a nuclear “threat to the United States” and should be held “accountable.”
11. A path for the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty, which went into force in 1988. The implications of this are immense. An entire series of arms agreements are at risk of unraveling. It may not be long before NATO pushes its newest client state, Ukraine, to abrogate the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Ukraine signed when it gave up its nuclear weapons, and establish a renewed nuclear missile capability, 300 miles from Moscow.
12. A demand that Russia verifiably dismantle “any ground launched cruise missiles or ballistic missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers ...”—i.e., 300 and 3,300 miles.
READ THE LEGISLATION, which Congress apparently didn’t. As reported on GlobalSecurity.org, earlier that same day in Kiev, the Ukrainian parliament approved a security plan that will:
1. Declare that Ukraine should become a “military state.”
2. Reallocate more of its approved 2014 budget for military purposes.
3. Put all military operating units on alert.
4. Mobilize military and national guard units.
5. Increase military spending in Ukraine from 1 percent of GDP to 5 percent, increasing military spending by $3 billion over the next few years.
6. Join NATO and switch to NATO military standards.
Under the guise of democratizing, the West stripped Ukraine of its sovereignty with a U.S.-backed coup, employed it as a foil to advance NATO to the Russian border and reignited the Cold War, complete with another nuclear showdown. The people of Ukraine will be less free, as their country becomes a “military state,” goes into hock to international banks, faces structural readjustments, privatization of its public assets, decline of social services, higher prices and an even more severe decline in its standard of living. In its dealings with the European Union, Ukraine could not even get concessions for its citizens to find work throughout Europe. The West does not care about Ukraine, or its people, except for using them to seize a strategic advantage against Russia in the geopolitical game of nations. Once, with the help of the West, Ukraine fully weighs in as a “military state” and joins the NATO gun club, its annual defense budget will be around $3 billion, compared with the current defense budget of Russia, which is over $70 billion. Each Western incitement creates a Russian response, which is then given as further proof that the West must prepare for the very conflict it has created, war as a self-fulfilling prophecy. That the recent Russia sanctions bill was advanced, “unanimously,” without debate in the House, portends that our nation is sleepwalking through the graveyards of history, toward an abyss where controlling factors reside in the realm of chance, what Thomas Hardy termed “crass casualty.” Such are the perils of unanimity.

And more biligerent moves by Congress are outlined by RENSE.com's Stephen Lendman NATO Delivering Arms To Ukraine ......... The Ukraine Freedom Support Act (UFSA) of 2014 (See here H.R.5859 - Latest Major Action: 12/18/2014 Signed by President -Ed.) authorizes lethal and non-lethal aid. Besides what's already being supplied. Including communications equipment. Body armor. Night vision goggles. Humvees. Radar. Counter-mortar detection units. Binoculars. Small boats. Various other gear. Sniper and assault rifles. Hand grenade launchers. Mortars and shells. Stingers. Anti-tank missiles. What's known may be the tip of the iceberg. UFSA legislation "authoriz(ing) (Obama) to provide defense articles, defense services, and training to the Government of Ukraine for the purpose of countering offensive weapons and reestablishing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine…" "(I)ncluding anti-tank and anti-armor weapons, crew weapons and ammunition, counter-artillery radars to identify and target artillery batteries, fire control, range finder, and optical and guidance and control equipment, tactical troop-operated surveillance drones, and secure command and communications equipment." Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia "will not be able to leave this without a response." Especially if new US sanctions are imposed. Ryabkov blamed US "anti-Russian moods." Trying "to dictate decisions to us that for us are categorically unacceptable." Destroying chances for cooperation. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich responded to hostile US legislation, saying: "Both houses of the US Congress have approved the Ukraine Freedom Support Act bypassing debates and proper voting. The overtly confrontational message of the new law cannot but evoke profound regret." "Once again Washington is leveling baseless sweeping accusations against Russia and threatening more sanctions." ........ From FreeUkraineNow.org Sputnik explains Inside the “Ukraine Freedom Support Act” ......... The Three Amigos: The UFSA is just as much about Moldova and Georgia as it is about Ukraine, as all three countries are collectively grouped together except for when it comes to assisting with internally displaced persons. For example, when it comes to ‘the three amigos’, ............... Putting it all together, it is clear that the US has strategically incorporated Moldova and Georgia into its legislation about Ukraine, providing proof that it is Washington and not Moscow which is ‘widening the battlefield’ of the New Cold War. This isn’t the first time either, as all the amigos were first lumped together in May when the so-called Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014 was unveiled, which served as the predecessor of House Resolution 758. The reasoning for this is rather simple, actually. The US wants to coordinate its push against the former Soviet periphery and is pulling out all the stops along the way. ............. IRONICALLY THE ONLY COSPONSOR OF H.R.5859 WAS REP MARCY KAPTUR in the newly GOPher-redistricted OH-9 that was carved out SPECIFICALLY to get Dennis Kucinich out of Da House in favor of the pro-military Kaptur as outlined by David Swanson at GlobalResearch.ca US MILITARY CONTRACTORS FINANCE “PRO-WAR DEMOCRACY”: The Election We Should Be Following ............ A useful example to highlight the contrast between Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is found in the funding of wars. Between 2001 and 2009, Congresswoman Kaptur voted for $545 billion in war funding, voting Yes over and over again for Bush’s wars. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a total of $17 billion. (See the chart below.) In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, Kucinich’s was the clearest voice against it. He circulated evidence of war lies to his colleagues. He organized many of them to vote No with him. Kaptur, too, voted No on the authorization. But once the war had started, many Congress members, including Kaptur, turned around and voted to fund its continuation and escalation, year after year, even as the public turned more and more strongly against the war. While Kucinich was working to impeach Bush and Cheney, Kaptur was voting to fund their wars. While Kucinich was advancing resolutions to shift the debate toward ending wars and preventing new ones, Kaptur was claiming wars made us safer and reciting “support the troops” rhetoric, as though what veterans need most is the creation of more injured veterans. ............. Congresswoman Kaptur has been spending a lot of money on television ads in hopes of defeating Kucinich in the upcoming primary. Where does her money come from? Well, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org), in the current election cycle, she gets 77% of her money from PACs, and 5% from small individual contributors. Kucinich, in contrast, gets 5% from PACs, and 68% from small individual contributors. Kucinich does not get money from war contractors. Kaptur is a different story. Thus far, in the current election cycle, her fourth biggest “contributor” is a little operation known as General Dynamics. Her third biggest is Teledyne Technologies. Tied for seventh place are American Systems Corp and Northrop Grumman. Tied at 16th are Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Most of these corporations have been among Kaptur’s regular funders in past campaigns as well. They are also among the leading violators of U.S. laws. ................. According to the National Priorities Project (CostOfWar.com) Kaptur’s Ninth District of Ohio (prior to redistricting) has shelled out over $3.1 billion for wars since 2001. That expense has been with Kaptur’s full cooperation. And that is an expense measured purely in dollars taken from tax payers to pay for wars. It does not include further costs for veterans’ care, for interest on war debt, for increased fuel prices, or for lost opportunities. Nor does it include the cost already extracted of several times the $3.1 billion for a base annual military budget that has roughly doubled this decade and done so on the basis of the wars. .................. NO FUCKING KIDDING. In this one stark example one can obviously see how the We Da Peeps self-governance has been turned on its head to favor huge military-industrial types who literally BUY congresspeeps like Marcy Kaptur to get legislation passed that give them WINDFALL PROFITS. Don't think FOR A MINUTE General Dynamics, Teledyne Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin aren't salivating on the NEXT BIG NATO military expansion into Eastern Europe, aided and abetted by the likes of Kaptur and her pro-war criminal pals in Da House also bought-n-paid-for by the military-industrial complex. Do yerself a favor and search OpenSecrets.org to see how much $$$$$ YOUR CONGRESSPEEP has received from the M-I-C since the War on Terriers started in 2001. They "create jobs" donchaknow! And the M-I-C is in every district in the land (all those small and not-so-small tool-n-dye and parts shops in your neighborhood for instance). Rat basturds.

At Reuters Daniel Wiessner and Edward McAllister report New York bans fracking after health report New York state will ban hydraulic fracturing after a long-awaited report concluded that the oil and gas extraction method poses health risks, Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration said on Wednesday. New York Environmental Commissioner Joseph Martens said at a cabinet meeting he will issue an order early next year banning fracking, which has been under a moratorium since 2008. Once that happens, New York will join Vermont as the only states to completely prohibit fracking. The decision ends what has been a fierce debate in New York over the benefits and pitfalls of fracking, a process that involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into a well to extract oil or gas. Many in the state saw gas drilling as a key economic resource while others argued it was too dangerous. The state's health commissioner, Howard Zucker, said there is not enough scientific information to conclude that fracking is safe. "The potential risks are too great, in fact not even fully known, and relying on the limited data presently available would be negligent on my part," Zucker said. New York sits atop a portion of the Marcellus shale, one of the largest natural gas deposits in the United States. The ruling is a blow for energy companies that had been waiting for years to tap the thousands of acres of land they have leased there. The oil and gas industry immediately slammed Cuomo for the decision. Karen Moreau, the executive director of the New York State Petroleum Council, called it a reckless move that would deprive the state of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. "We are resolved to continue to fight for these benefits in New York," she said. Environmental groups, meanwhile, hailed Cuomo as a national leader on the issue. "We hope that this determined leadership Governor Cuomo has displayed will give courage to elected leaders throughout the country and world," said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney with the group Earthjustice. AND Stefanie Spear at EcoWatch.com links to some videos! RFK, Jr. and Josh Fox Chime in on New York Fracking Ban Victory Last night on Thom Hartmann‘s Best of the Rest of the News, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance, and Thomas Linzey, co-Founder of the Community Legal Defense Fund, joined Hartmann to talk about the dangers of fracking and the New York fracking ban. .............. Watch as Kennedy talks about the historical significance of this decision and how it’s “the first time in a decade that in a meaningful way a national political leader has stood up to the power of Big Oil.” ............. On Wednesday, Josh Fox, director of Gasland and Gasland Part II, was on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes to discuss this huge fracking ban victory. ......... Watch the interview below as Governor Cuomo explains that he is “not a scientist.” For more info see DeSmogBlog's Special Report FRACKING THE FUTURE. Meanwhile in the Buckeye State CommonDreams.org staff writer Andrea Germanos says in Monroe County, Ohio Out of Control Fracking Well Forces Evacuations An out-of-control natural gas fracking well in Monroe County, Ohio forced more than two dozen families from their homes and may pose the threat of an explosion. The blowout at the Triad Hunter-operated well on the Utica Shale happened at approximately 2:00 p.m. EST on December 13, 2014, according to a statement released Sunday by the operator's parent company, Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation. According to reporting by the Columbus Dispatch, the well had been temporarily plugged a year ago. ......... No injuries have been reported in the incident so far. Over twenty-five families in the area were evacuated, though they now have daytime access to their homes......... ALSO watch The Big Picture THURSDAY's Full Show 12/18/14: Torture and Fracking with RFK Jr. In a special, “Conversations with Great Minds,” Thom talks about Pres. George W. Bush, the Iraq War and if he should be prosecuted with author and former prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi. Thom talks about fracking dangers and the New York state ban with the Robert Kennedy Jr., President of Waterkeeper Alliance and Thomas Linzey, Co-Founder of the Community Legal Defense Fund. The Brick TeeVee Editors and Contributors in Da Bunker were fast elves at work since the Senate's CIA Torture Report came out. First they find The New Yorker's Jane Mayer who tells us about The Unidentified Queen of Torture For the past eight months, there has been a furious battle raging behind closed doors at the White House, the C.I.A., and in Congress. The question has been whether the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence would be allowed to use pseudonyms as a means of identifying characters in the devastating report it released last week on the C.I.A.’s abusive interrogation and detention program. Ultimately, the committee was not allowed to, and now we know one reason why. The NBC News investigative reporter Matthew Cole has pieced together a remarkable story revealing that a single senior officer, who is still in a position of high authority over counterterrorism at the C.I.A.—a woman who he does not name—appears to have been a source of years’ worth of terrible judgment, with tragic consequences for the United States. Her story runs through the entire report. She dropped the ball when the C.I.A. was given information that might very well have prevented the 9/11 attacks; she gleefully participated in torture sessions afterward; she misinterpreted intelligence in such a way that it sent the C.I.A. on an absurd chase for Al Qaeda sleeper cells in Montana. And then she falsely told congressional overseers that the torture worked. ............... Many people who have worked with her over the years expressed shock to NBC that she has been entrusted with so much power. A former intelligence officer who worked directly with her is quoted by NBC, on background, as saying that she bears so much responsibility for so many intelligence failures that “she should be put on trial and put in jail for what she has done.” Instead, however, she has been promoted to the rank of a general in the military, most recently working as the head of the C.I.A.’s global-jihad unit. In that perch, she oversees the targeting of terror suspects around the world. (She was also, in part, the model for the lead character in “Zero Dark Thirty.”) According to sources in the law-enforcement community who I have interviewed over the years, and who I spoke to again this week, this woman—whose name the C.I.A. has asked the news media to withhold—had supervision over an underling at the agency who failed to share with the F.B.I. the news that two of the future 9/11 hijackers had entered the United States prior to the terrorist attacks. ............... It never alerted the F.B.I., which had the principle domestic authority for protecting the U.S. from terror attacks. Its agents had, in fact, been on the trail of at least one of the hijackers previously, but had no way of knowing that he had entered the United States. Nor did the C.I.A. alert the State Department, which kept a “TIPOFF” watch list for terror suspects. Amazingly, perhaps, more than thirteen years after the 9/11 attacks, no one at the C.I.A. has ever been publicly held responsible for this failure. One of our BTV investigators snagged this tweet from Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept!

"Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald 12m12 minutes ago Given the extreme malfeasance & how widely known it is in media, why is Alfreda Bikowsky's name being withheld?"

HAHA! But wait! There's more! Another one of our "staff" dug back to over THREE YEARS AGO to find this post by Sibel Edmonds at her Boiling Frogs blog from September 21, 2011! BFP Breaking News: Confirmed Identity of the CIA Official behind 9/11, Rendition & Torture Cases is Revealed Boiling Frogs Post has now confirmed the identity of the CIA analyst at the heart of a notorious failure in the run-up to the September 11th tragedy. Her name is Alfreda Frances Bikowsky and she is the current director of the CIA Jihad Unit. Through three credible sources and documents we have confirmed Ms. Bikowsky’s former titles and positions, including her start at the CIA as an analyst for the Soviet Desk, her position as one of the case officers at the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit-Alec Station, her central role and direct participation in the CIA’s rendition-torture and black sites operations, and her current position as director of the CIA’s Global Jihad Unit. Alfreda Frances Bikowsky is the person described in New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer’s book The Dark Side as having flown in to watch the waterboarding of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammad without being assigned to do so. “Its not supposed to be entertainment,” superiors were said to have told her. She was also at the center of “the el-Masri incident,” in which an innocent German citizen was kidnapped by the CIA in 2003 and held under terrible conditions without charges for five months in a secret Afghan prison. The AP characterized it as “one of the biggest diplomatic embarrassments of the U.S. war on terrorism.” Both the previous and current administrations appear to have deemed Alfreda Frances Bikowsky’s direct involvement in intentional obstruction of justice, intentional cover up, lying to Congress, and overseeing rendition-kidnapping-torture practices as qualifying factors to have kept promoting her. She now leads the CIA’s Global Jihad Unit and is a close advisor to the President. Update 1: It was brought to our attention that the webmaster at Secrecykills.com had mistakenly scanned and posted the uncensored documents containing the names of the two CIA officers. Per their request we now are removing the second CIA officer’s name. Boiling Frogs Post had independently obtained and confirmed the first name: Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, but had included the second name, M. A. C., based on the uncensored documents posted by mistake at Secrecykills.com previously. Due to the government pressure on and threats to the producers Nowosielski-Duffy we were asked to remove the references to their site and previous post…At least for now. As you can see the mainstream media and pseudo alternatives (including Raw Story) have abided by their government masters and fund-ers, and have refused to pick up the story or support the producers-reporters or Boiling Frogs Post. We rely on ‘your’ support. The story is still developing-please stay tuned. GREAT JOB by the Brick TeeVee Sleuths! WOW! For more on this "failing and falling upward" story we go to Greenwald directly to Meet Alfreda Bikowsky, the Senior Officer at the Center of the CIA’s Torture Scandals ......... The person described by both NBC and The New Yorker is senior CIA officer Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. Multiple news outlets have reported that as the result of a long string of significant errors and malfeasance, her competence and integrity are doubted — even by some within the agency. The Intercept is naming Bikowsky over CIA objections because of her key role in misleading Congress about the agency’s use of torture, and her active participation in the torture program (including playing a direct part in the torture of at least one innocent detainee). Moreover, Bikowsky has already been publicly identified by news organizations as the CIA officer responsible for many of these acts. .............. NBC, while withholding her identity, noted that the same unnamed officer “also participated in ‘enhanced interrogations’ of self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, witnessed the waterboarding of terror suspect Abu Zubaydah and ordered the detention of a suspected terrorist who turned out to be unconnected to al Qaeda, according to the report.” ................ Both news outlets withheld the name of this CIA officer even though her identity is widely known among journalists, and her name has been used by various media outlets in connection with her work at the CIA. Both articles cited requests by the CIA not to identify her, even though they provided details making her identity clear. In fact, earlier this year, The Washington Post identified Bikowsky by name, describing her as a CIA analyst “who was tied to a critical intelligence-sharing failure before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the botched 2003 ‘rendition’ of an innocent German citizen thought to be an al-Qaeda operative.” That Post report led to both McClatchy and independent journalist Marcy Wheeler raising questions about the propriety of Bikowsky’s former personal lawyer, Robert Litt, playing a key role in his current capacity as a top government lawyer in deciding which parts of the torture report should be released. The McClatchy article identified Bikowsky by name as the officer who “played a central role in the bungled rendition of Khaled el-Masri. El-Masri, who was revealed to be innocent, claimed to have been tortured by the agency.” El-Masri, a German citizen who was kidnapped from Macedonia and tortured by the CIA in Afghanistan, was released in 2003 after it was revealed he was not involved in al Qaeda. .................... Bikowsky’s name, and her long string of controversial actions, have become such an open secret that she even has her own lengthy, detailed Wikipedia page. The entry describes her as a “career Central Intelligence Agency officer who has headed . . . the Global Jihad unit.” In the months leading up to the release of the torture report, the CIA and the White House fought to prevent the Senate even from assigning pseudonyms to the CIA officers whose actions are chronicled in the report. The Senate ultimately capitulated, making it difficult to follow any coherent narrative about what these officers did. ................. Naming Bikowsky allows people to piece together these puzzles and hold American officials accountable. The CIA’s arguments for suppression of her name are vague and unpersuasive, alluding generally to the possibility that she could be the target of retaliation. The CIA’s arguments focus on an undefined threat to her safety. “We would strongly object to attaching anyone’s name given the current environment,” a CIA spokesperson, Ryan Trapani, told The Intercept in an email. In a follow-up voicemail he added: “There are crazy people in this world and we are trying to mitigate those threats.” However, beyond Bikowsky, a number of CIA officials who oversaw and implemented the program have already been publicly identified—indeed, many of the key architects of the program, such as Jose Rodriguez, are frequent guests on news programs. ............... So there it is! Screw up, embrace illegal activity and get a raise and a promotion! Heck that describes most of the GOPhers in Congress! HuffPoAOL also has this VIDEO interview Glenn Greenwald Blasts Dick Cheney And President Obama On Torture Also at CommonDreams.org staff writer Jon Queally Leaked Internal CIA Document Admits US Drone Program "Counterproductive" Wikileaks on Thursday has made public a never-before-seen internal review conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that looked at the agency's drone and targeted assassination programs in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. The agency's own analysis, conducted in 2009, found that its clandestine drone and assassination program was likely to produce counterproductive outcomes, including strengthening the very "extremist groups" it was allegedly designed to destroy. Here's a link to the document, titled Best Practices in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Toolocument (pdf). In one of the key findings contained in the CIA report, agency analysts warn of the negative consequences of assassinating so-called High Level Targets (HLT). "The potential negative effect of HLT operations," the report states, "include increasing the level of insurgent support […], strengthening an armed group's bonds with the population, radicalizing an insurgent group's remaining leaders, creating a vacuum into which more radical groups can enter, and escalating or de-escalating a conflict in ways that favor the insurgents.” Wikileaks points out that this internal prediction "has been proven right" in the years since the internal review was conducted near the outset of President Obama's first term. And despite those internal warnings—which have been loudly shared by human rights and foreign policy experts critical of the CIA's drone and assassination programs—Wikileaks also notes that after the internal review was prepared, "US drone strike killings rose to an all-time high." Reached by the Washington Post on Thursday for response, CIA spokesperson Kali J. Caldwell said the agency would not comment “on the authenticity or content of purported stolen intelligence documents.” According to a statement released by Wikileaks:

The report discusses assassination operations (by various states) against the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, the FARC, Hizbullah, the PLO, HAMAS, Peru's Shining Path, the Tamil's LTTE, the IRA and Algeria's FLN. Case studies are drawn from Chechnya, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand. The assessment was prepared by the CIA's Office of Transnational Issues (OTI). Its role is to provide “the most senior US policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support”. The report is dated 7 July 2009, six months into Leon Panetta's term as CIA chief, and not long after CIA analyst John Kiriakou blew the whistle on the torture of CIA detainees. Kiriakou is still in prison for shedding light on the CIA torture programme. Following the politically embarrassing exposure of the CIA's torture practices and the growing cost of keeping people in detention indefinitely, the Obama administration faced a crucial choice in its counter-insurgency strategy: should it kill, capture, or do something else entirely?

Given exclusive access to the CIA document ahead of its public release, the Sydney Morning Herald's Philip Dorling reported earlier on Thursday. ................ The hits just keep on coming! On Tuesday Professor of History Alfred McCoy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror and Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation was interviewed on DN! "Psychological Torture is Enshrined in U.S. Law": Complicity in Abuses Began Long Before Bush. Please watch this entire segment for its sheer "Big Brother"-ness: When the United States finally ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994, we did so subject to certain qualifications, known in diplomatic parlance as "reservations." And basically, the four reservations that we introduced modified our approval, our ratification of that convention, everything in it except: We redefined the U.N. definition of what torture was—extreme pain—and we called it "prolonged mental harm," that for an act to rise to the level of torture, it had to become, in U.S. parlance, in those reservations, prolonged mental harm. Now, those three words are critical. First of all, "mental." That meant that the United States was effectively splitting the U.N. convention down the middle. The convention barred both physical and psychological torture. We were saying, "We accept the ban on physical torture, but we’re exempting the ban on psychological torture. And we are qualifying that ban because in order for an act to rise to the level of torture, of psychological torture, it has to inflict prolonged mental harm upon the victim." Now, what is "prolonged"? How long is "prolonged"? That’s not defined. It’s a huge loophole. And what constitutes "harm"? That’s another huge loophole. And that, of course, opened the door for that notorious memo by the Office of Legal Counsel, its leader then Jay Bybee, to say that for something to rise to the level of harm, the pain must be sufficient or equivalent to organ failure. In other words, torture, psychological torture up to but not including death, is legally acceptable in U.S. law. ...................... When the Abu Ghraib photographs were released back in April 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blamed it on the so-called "bad apples." That’s the first reflex—blame the bad apples. Then Dick Cheney and others, right away, began saying that it was an imperative for national security: We had to do it for reasons of safety. That’s the second stage in impunity. Then, when President Obama came into office in April 2009, he visited CIA headquarters, and he brought us to the third stage of impunity by saying that the past was indeed unfortunate, but it was time to move forward together. In other words, national unity means we can’t investigate this troubled past. Then we hit stage four, which is essentially exoneration for the perpetrators and the powerful that ordered them to commit these acts. .............. Now what they’re fighting for is not just exoneration, they want vindication before the bar of history. And that’s critical on a couple of levels. ............. And so, that’s why this is a desperate and very serious battle over impunity. And that’s why the Senate committee’s report is so important, because up to this point the perpetrators and their powerful were winning the debate. Now, in fact, the debate has shifted its tone, and it’s looking to me like it’s a much more neutral, much more positive outcome....... FDL's Kevin Gosztola also did a story on the Five Stages of Impunity for Torture back in September 2012 for more info on this. The BTV LAST WORD goes to Charles Davis at Salon.com America, nation of torturers: Stop saying “this isn’t who we are” — here’s the real truth Terrible findings in the torture report "are not who we are," John Kerry claims. Well, here's a U.S. history lesson ............ Saying the United States has always been garbage is not going to be terribly popular in a nation that still fondly refers to a group of sadistic slave-owners as its “founding fathers” — so politicians savvy enough to know that openly embracing torture is not a good look for the world’s leading state-sponsor of holier-than-thou rhetoric, appeal to a history and set of values that never was and never were in practice, as a way to give political cover to their middling, public relations-minded critiques of the national-security state’s least defensible excesses. It’s entirely false, this narrative of extreme goodness marked by occasional self-correcting imperfection, but it satisfies our national ego to think the American phoenix rises from a store of ethically traded gold, not a pile of rotting trash. “We will likely hear these false appeals to an imaginary history a great deal with the release of the Senate report on CIA torture,” writes Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan. But even historians can fall victim to America’s easier to digest mythology, with Cole proceeding to characterize the ugly truth about the United States – that it was founded on the “exaltation of ‘whiteness’ over universal humanity, and preference for property rights over human rights” – as but a right-wing lie. As he tells it, the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were actually progressives who would almost certainly “have voted to release the report and . . . been completely appalled at its contents.” Cole follows that assertion up with a list of things that some of these founding fathers said they believed: Jefferson, for instance, argued that the formal abolition of torture in the French legal system was in keeping with “the progress of philanthropy and civilization.” And the Bill of Rights of course prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.” But, naggingly, the actual record of those who gave those nice speeches and drafted the Constitution suggests we shouldn’t just believe what they said and wrote down. “Fascists will argue that the Constitution does not apply to captured foreign prisoners of war, or that the prisoners were not even P.O.W.s, having been captured out of uniform,” writes Cole. “But focusing on the category of the prisoner is contrary to the spirit of the founding fathers.” Except, it isn’t at all – and if fascism is denying human rights on the basis of nationality or appearance, than the exalted founders were of course fascists themselves. The same document that ostensibly prohibits torture also defined an African slave as three-fifths of a person – and even then, only for purposes of bolstering the political power of those who enslaved them: in practice, they were treated as property whose master could torture or murder them with impunity. This is not pedantry: Hundreds of thousands of people were denied their ostensibly inalienable rights because of the color of their skin; nearly four million by the time of the Civil War, or almost half the population of the South. ................ Instead of renouncing this history, we have chosen to celebrate a mythical, white-washed version of it, with genocide relegated to a footnote. If our leaders were more honest, they’d admit that the CIA’s recently revealed torture isn’t a break from this legacy, but the fruit of it – the product of decades of dehumanizing counter-insurgency warfare that expanded the USA from 13 colonies on the East Coast to much of North America and, ultimately, a global empire (it’s no coincidence that the code-name for Osama bin Laden was “Geronimo,” taken from the famed Apache leader). After almost wiping out America’s original inhabitants, the U.S. government went on to declare total war on differently pigmented people around the globe. .................... Pointing all this out – noting that the U.S. government has rarely lived up to its stated ideals – is not to engage in mere pedantry, nor is it an attempt to suggest this country is irredeemably evil. This nation was born in genocide and slavery, sure, still it could conceivably change – but only if, instead of ignoring the institutionalized injustice, we recognizing and call out the systemic cause of the alleged “aberrations” our leaders are forced to distance themselves from every 18 months. The problem is not that the tree of liberty has produced a few bad seeds, but that the settler-colonists who planted it on someone else’s land watered it with blood of slaves and native peoples. It’s not George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who are responsible for making America a state that tortures, but George Washington and that other dick Tom Jefferson. Avoiding the routine departure from “our values” requires confronting our actual history; it’s the only way to learn from it. Torture and total war are not the work of a few bad people, but the product of a system that from its inception treated human beings as property and the right to property as more important than the rights of women and men – it’s who we are, and if we want the violence wrought by our system to end, we must honestly address the systemic cause. ......... Very much more so click over! And a hat-tip to Robert Barsocchini at Washington's Blog for re-posting the entire article! Great comments too! THANKS AGAIN to EVERYBODY for stopping by every Sunday for all our posts this year! We appreciate yer support! And we appreciate all our regulars for throwing their own bricks at the corporate status quo and the Washington Consensus! And Special Thanks to our BTV Correspondents in "Da Bunker" for their input, contributions, encouragement and their collective VAST KNOWLEDGE of The Earth and ALL its inhabitants! Without Da Bunker none of this would be possible. Happy Solstice 2014 everybody! And remember: There is NO SANITY CLAUSE.

BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!_©

Headlines Monday, December 15, 2014

• Countrywide Police Protests Why Are Our Sons Gunned Down? Parents of Black Victims of Police Killings Lead D.C. March
  
• Democracy Now!’s Aaron Maté and Samantha Riddell Black Youth-Organized Millions March NYC Draws Tens of Thousands in Movement’s Biggest Protest Yet
  
• Roundtable with guests from three continents: in Peru, Suzanne Goldenberg, U.S. environment correspondent for The Guardian; in London, Asad Rehman, head of international climate for Friends of the Earth; and in New Delhi, Nitin Sethi, associate editor at Business Standard Emissions-Cutting Deal Reached at COP 20 Lima, But Will It Help Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?
  

Headlines Tuesday, December 16, 2014

• Dr. Steven Reisner, founding member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology & Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison After Duo Created CIA Torture Methods, Did World’s Largest Group of Psychologists Enable Abuses?
  
• Reisner & McCoy "Psychological Torture is Enshrined in U.S. Law": Complicity in Abuses Began Long Before Bush
  
• Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel Mike Gravel to Senator Mark Udall: Make Full Torture Probe Public Like I Did with Pentagon Papers AND on-line Exclusive Part Two of the interview
  
• Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network Indigenous Women: Earth Defenders Speak Out from the Front Lines of Climate Change
  
• Pablo Solón, executive director of Focus on the Global South A Global Climate Deal is Within Reach, But Only Public Pressure Can Ensure It Meets Earth’s Needs
  
• Chile, Africa and New Zealand climate protesters Climate Justice Activists from Around the World Show Solidarity with Philippines
  

Headlines Wednesday, December 17, 2014

• Tariq Ali, British-Pakistani political commentator, historian, activist, filmmaker & Asad Hashim, Al Jazeera English web correspondent in Pakistan The Destabilization of Pakistan: Tariq Ali on Taliban School Massacre & U.S. Afghan War Blowback
  
• William Bastone, editor of "The Smoking Gun" Was Key Grand Jury Witness in Michael Brown Case a Racist, Mentally Ill, Lying Ex-Felon? His latest at thesmokinggun.com 'Witness 40': Exposing a Fraud in Ferguson
  
• Marcy Wheeler, investigative blogger who runs EmptyWheel.net Press Freedom Fight: Reporter James Risen Faces Subpoena in CIA Whistleblower Case
  

Headlines Thursday, December 18, 2014

• Peter Kornbluh, directs the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University "Cut Loose the Shackles of the Past": U.S. and Cuba Announce a New Dawn in Diplomatic Relations
  
• Robert Muse, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who is an expert in U.S. laws relating to Cuba & Kornbluh, Ratner Can Obama Lift the Embargo on Cuba Without Congress in Effort to Normalize U.S.-Cuba Relations?
  

Headlines Friday, December 19, 2014

• Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now! co-host From Free Pre-K to Paid Sick Leave to Pay Raises, NYC Mayor de Blasio Fulfills Progressive Promises
  
• Sandra Steingraber, co-founder both New Yorkers Against Fracking and Concerned Health Professionals of New York & Tony Ingraffea, professor emeritus and Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow at Cornell University New York Says No to Fracking: State Bans Drilling Following Grassroots Outcry over Public Health
  
• Martin Garbus, considered a leading attorney in the United States & Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights Should Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & CIA Officials Be Tried for Torture? War Crimes Case Filed in Germany
  
• Garbus & Ratner Assata Shakur: What Does New U.S.-Cuba Pact Mean for Exiled Black Panther Wanted in New Jersey?
  

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 Cardinals @ Eagles 8:30 pm et
»»» MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL on ESPN Broncos @ Bengals 8:30 pm et
»»» THURSDAY NBA XMAS MARATHON! ESPN 12 pm Wizards @ Knicks; ABC 2:30 pm Thunder @ Spurs; ABC 5 pm CAVS @ Heat; TNT 8 pm Lakers @ Bulls; TNT 10:30 pm Warriors @ Clippers

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! New Action- write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea! AND Chelsea's new appeals team named a leading US firm Dec 2, 2014. The National Law Journal and Law.com has named Freedman, Boyd Hollander, Goldberg, Urias & Ward as one of the "Top 50 Leading Plaintiff Firms in America"..........

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

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...
  • Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
  • ROUNDTABLE: former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, ABC News contributor and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, ABC News contributor and Republican strategist Ana Navarro, and ABC News’ Cokie Roberts.
  

  
  

• Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
  • Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)
  • Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-N.C.)
  • Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
  • The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg
  • ROUNDTABLE: Nancy Cordes, David Martin, John Dickerson, Margaret Brennan, Major Garrett and Jan Crawford.
  

  
  

• 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
  • Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
  • ROUNDTABLE: tba
  

  
  

• State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) Sunday at 9 am ET and Noon ET.
  • President Obama
  • Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
  • ROUNDTABLE: Newt Gingrich, Donna Brazile, LZ Granderson and Amy Walter
  

  
  

• 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!
  • FRONT PORCH FRIDAY! Bob and The HORN/Malloy chatters discuss the week's news! Listen here NOW! Friday, December 19th, 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 18, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Nothin' but good news for a change! New York issues first permanent ban on fracking; Obama permanently protects Alaska's Bristol Bay; PLUS: More accountability, more indictments in West Virginia toxic chemical spill... All that and more surprisingly good news in today's Green News Report! IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): Drone video footage reveals massive toxic lagoons of pig feces; Warming oceans killing off Maine's cod; Big Coal evicts villagers in Columbia; Ohio coal companies ask government for bailout; Why oil prices keep falling; What is the 'atmospheric river' hitting California?... PLUS: The most brazen political lie of 2014: "Climate change is a hoax"... and much, MUCH more! ...
  • 'Green News Report' - December 16, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Congress wraps up for the year with Republican anti-environment initiatives to be signed by the President; UN climate summit wraps up in Peru - ALL nations are in for final talks in Paris; PLUS: Another Bush, another climate change denier... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
  • BRADCAST! The Clint Curtis Story, Ten Years Later: A KPFK 'BradCast' Special Edition Plus MUCH MORE this week...
  • 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! Brad on Hartmann Radio: Wrapping Up a Few More Election 2014 Races Yes, some of us are still paying attention. Plus: A BRAD BLOG 'Programming Note'...
  • 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..
  • BRADBLOG UPDATE! SOLVED: Mystery that Flipped Maine Senate Election! 21 'phantom ballots' flipped the results of a Nov. 4th state Senate election from D to R. But a dramatic turn of events and hand-counted paper ballots have now resolved the mystery...
  • BRADBLOG UPDATE! Proponents of Oregon GMO Measure 92 Concede Defeat Adverse court ruling, barring inclusion of 4,600 rejected ballots, signals end of road (for now) of state's most expensive campaign, decided by just 800 votes out of 1.5 million cast...
  

  
  

• 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
  • Peter B Collins, Truthout | Op-Ed An Insider's View of the Progressive Talk Radio Devolution
  • 16 Dec 2014 PBC News & Comment: Majority of Americans Think Torture is Justified We’re awesome and exceptional! New national poll shows majority of Americans think torture is OK, and that it works….
  • 17 Dec 2014 PBC News & Comment: After 47 Years, Obama Ends Failed Embargo of Cuba! Obama accepts reality, agrees to prisoner swap and end to failed embargo against Cuba; Fidel Castro lives to see it!
  • 18 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…
  • PBC Standard Podcast Decmber 16, 2014 Reporter Jason Leopold Talks About CIA Torture “Architect” James Mitchell, and What Is–and Isn’t–in Senate Report Jason Leopold is now reporting for Vice News, where he has scooped the mainstream media with video and text interviews of James Mitchell, the CIA contractor who admitted to Leopold that he was involved in waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and Abu Zubaydeh. We also talk about the limited scope of the Senate report, and important issues that were not covered.
  • 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 18, 2014 Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern.
  »» Nick Hanauer will be here to tell us why the argument against increased worker pay is completely false.
  »» Salon.com contributor David Dayen will tell us how Wall Street exploited Democratic infighting to help pass the budget bill.
  »» David TeSelle will explain how big box retail stores like Walmart and Home Depot are gaming everything from labor laws to environmental standards through their campaign donations.
  »» Author Paul Waldman will tell us why Obama’s executive order on immigration has left the Republican Party feeling defeated.
  »» And best-selling author Cliff Schecter will be here to discuss the biggest news of the week that the corporate media ignored.
  • 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
  • VIDEO! Dick Cheney — The Disgusting Torture Apologist by Gary Bentley - Ring of Fire’s Sam Seder and author Cliff Schecter discuss Dick Cheney’s disgusting apologist attitude towards the CIA torture report.
  • VIDEO! Papantonio: How To Buy A Legal System by Gary Bentley - The midterm elections didn’t just hand Congress over to the Republican Party – they also gave a host of courthouses all over the country to big business. Corporate money was the big winner in judicial elections. America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio, and attorney David Haynes explain what that means for our civil justice system.
  • VIDEO! Papantonio: Another Wall Street Appointee by Gary Bentley - President Obama has presented his nominee for Treasury Secretary, and as expected, we’ve been given another corporate Wall Street shill. Not only is this another slap to the face of progressives, but it could have a huge impact on fiscal policy. America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio, discusses the president’s nominee with attorney Peter Mougey.
  • VIDEO! Jesse Ventura Body Slams Sick Dick Cheney by Joshua Schwitzerlett
  • Largest Tar Sands Pipeline into US Shut Down after Spilling Nearly 60,000 Gallons of Oily by Amy Eddings
  • 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 12/15/14 Jihadi or Crazy & Fox Attacks Millions March
  • TUESDAY 12/16/14 Mohammad Khan: Fighting to Protect Public Schools From Wall Street
  • WEDNESDAY 12/17/14 Thomas Geoghegan: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement
  • THURSDAY 12/18/14 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
  • FRIDAY 12/19/14 Casual Friday: Cliff Schecter & Tom Scharpling
  • 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)
  • Havana Found by Ellen Brown — Here’s a summary from my advocacy of this move last year: "Should We Help End Cuba’s Special Period?" What is it like to live in a country where the government has been accused of torture, fickle application of the law to imprison citizens, unfair courts, repression of journalists, and a huge prison system? I’m not talking about the United States—in case you thought I was—I’m talking about Cuba. read more…
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • KEISER REPORT [KR693] Keiser Report: Oil can combust & blow it all We discuss the blood-bathing in the oil related markets – from the Dubai stock exchange to the West Australian fracking company gone bust to some of the highest paid jobs in America being laid off. In the second half Max interviews former banker turned independent media star, Brian Rose of London Real TV and Silicon Real. They discuss whether or not London can ever be a new Silicon Valley.
  • KEISER REPORT [KR694] Keiser Report: Bubonic Plague of Finance We discuss the arrival of the ‘shakedown times’ as our deposits and pension funds are now open to confiscation to Too Big To Fail banks in ‘resolution’… something that used to be known as ‘bankruptcy.’ In the second half Max interviews Karl Denninger about the likely oil price collapse impact on credit markets and the “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution”…say what? And, finally, the discuss the latest shenanigans from Jamie Dimon who lobbied to roll back certain Dodd Frank provisions regarding derivatives.
  • KEISER REPORT [KR695] Keiser Report – Ruble’s Baptism by Fire We are joined by Liam Halligan of BNE.eu. They talk rubles, sanctions and diversifying the economy with some technology investments. In the second half, Max interviews Konstantin Gurdgiev about the ruble, the Russian budget and David Cameron’s take on the causes and consequences of the crisis and sanctions. They also discuss the ruble’s ‘baptism by fire’ as it only just joined the five trillion dollar per day forex markets.
  

  
  

• 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
  • Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
  • Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI)
  • Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD)
  
  
  

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