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ALL LINKS OPEN A NEW WINDOW!!! Click on anything below and be INSTANTLY SMARTER! MORTGAGE FRAUD MELTDOWN Last week started out with a bang so if you weren't paying attention let's get to it! First Max Keiser posts this article from the NYT Obama taunts public to riot on behalf of banks and prison industry READ Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal at nyt.
Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com throws the book at them! Corrupt Obama Administration Pressuring New York Attorney General to Support Mortgage Whitewash It is high time to describe the Obama Administration by its proper name: corrupt. Admittedly, corruption among our elites generally and in Washington in particular has become so widespread and blatant as to fall into the “dog bites man” category. But the nauseating gap between the Administration’s propaganda and the many and varied ways it sells out average Americans on behalf of its favored backers, in this case the too big to fail banks, has become so noisome that it has become impossible to ignore the fetid smell. The Administration has now taken to pressuring parties that are not part of the machinery reporting to the President to fall in and do his bidding. We’ve gotten so used to the US attorney general being conveniently missing in action that we have forgotten that regulators and the AG are supposed to be independent. As one correspondent noted by e-mail, “When officials allegiances are to El Supremo rather than the Constitution, you walk the path to fascism.” ... Yet rather than address real, serious problems, senior administration officials are instead devoting time and effort to orchestrating a faux grass roots campaign to con a state AG into thinking his supporters are deserting him because he has dared challenge the supremacy of the banks.So how does the Administration rationalize its failure to do anything effective? It goes deeper into its propaganda hall of mirrors: Mr. Donovan said…“our view is we have the immediate opportunity to help a huge number of borrowers to stay in their homes, to help their neighborhoods and the housing market.” This doesn’t even qualify as competent three card monte. “No, don’t look at what we are trying to do for the banks. Really, all we care about is homeowners!” Marcy Wheeler, who has more patience for this vomititious tripe than I do, explains why Donovan’s assertion does not pass the credibility test. ... If you are a New York resident, I hope you’ll call (800 771-7755 or 212 416-8000) or e-mail Schneiderman and thank him for standing up to the corruption of the banks and their enablers in the Administration. I think he will appreciate the show of support. Go read it all because the next day Yves dissects said NYT article Mirabile Dictu! New York Times Tells Obama Administration Off, Backs Schneiderman on Mortgage Settlement The editorial in today’s New York Times may be a sign that the tide is turning. The elites are starting to break ranks with the mortgage industrial complex. Gretchen Morgenson reported yesterday that the Obama Administration was pressuring the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to drop his opposition to the so-called 50 state attorney general mortgage settlement. The short form is the banks want a “get out of liability for almost free” card, which is patently absurd. Not only have they caused a colossal economic train wreck, but sadly, they remain such central actors that they need to be involved in remediation. Letting them off cheaply would be tantamount to putting a band-aid on gangrene. ... As much as Morgenson’s expose was key, the editorial page of the New York Times throwing its weight behind Schneiderman gives him real political cover. (mirabile dictu -n. - A Roman phrase used to describe a wonderful event/happening) And Nobel Laureate Joe Stigllitz piles on Justice for Some Part of the rule of law is security of property rights – if you owe money on your house, for example, the bank can’t simply take it away without following the prescribed legal process. But in recent weeks and months, Americans have seen several instances in which individuals have been dispossessed of their houses even when they have no debts. To some banks, this is just collateral damage: millions of Americans – in addition to the estimated four million in 2008 and 2009 – still have to be thrown out of their homes. ... The procedural shortcuts, incomplete documentation, and rampant fraud that accompanied banks’ rush to generate millions of bad loans during the housing bubble has, however, complicated the process of cleaning up the ensuing mess. To many bankers, these are just details to be overlooked.Most people evicted from their homes have not been paying their mortgages, and, in most cases, those who are throwing them out have rightful claims. But Americans are not supposed to believe in justice on average. We don’t say that most people imprisoned for life committed a crime worthy of that sentence. The US justice system demands more, and we have imposed procedural safeguards to meet these demands. But banks want to short-circuit these procedural safeguards. They should not be allowed to do so. ... Growing inequality, combined with a flawed system of campaign finance, risks turning America’s legal system into a travesty of justice. Some may still call it the “rule of law,” but it would not be a rule of law that protects the weak against the powerful. Rather, it would enable the powerful to exploit the weak. In today’s America, the proud claim of “justice for all” is being replaced by the more modest claim of “justice for those who can afford it.” And the number of people who can afford it is rapidly diminishing. As BTV's legal counsel once quipped, "People come to court for Justice. Instead what they get is Just Us." If all this hasn't made your blood boil, we go to Countdown's interview with Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi Exclusive: Matt Taibbi on SEC covering up Wall Street crimes Then read his RS blog Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal The AGs initially talked about $20 billion as a settlement number, money that would “toward loan modifications and possibly counseling for homeowners,” as Gretchen Morgenson reported the other day. The banks, however, apparently “balked” at paying that sum, and no doubt it will end up being a lesser amount when the deal is finally done. To give you an indication of how absurdly small a number even $20 billion is relative to the sums of money the banks made unloading worthless crap subprime assets on foreigners, pension funds and other unsuspecting suckers around the world, consider this: in 2008 alone,the state pension fund of Florida, all by itself, lost more than three times that amount ($62 billion) thanks in significant part to investments in these deadly MBS. ... The banks are going to claim that all they’re guilty of is bad paperwork. But while the banks are indeed being investigated for "paperwork" offenses like mass tax evasion (by failing to pay fees associated with mortgage registrations and deed transfers) and mass perjury (a la the “robo-signing” practices), their real crime, the one Schneiderman is interested in, is even more serious. The issue goes beyond fraudulent paperwork to an intentional, far-reaching theft scheme designed to take junk subprime loans and disguise them as AAA-rated investments. The banks lent money to corrupt companies like Countrywide, who made masses of bad loans and immediately sold them back to the banks. The banks in turn hid the crappiness of these loans via certain poorly-understood nuances in the securitization process – this is almost certainly where Schneiderman’s investigators are doing their digging – before hawking the resultant securities as AAA-rated gold to fools in places like the Florida state pension fund.
WHOOPS! More Taibbi in BTV Alerts! Seems Mr. Schneiderman got sacked! From HuffPo New York Attorney General Kicked Off Government Group Leading Foreclosure Probe Top Obama administration officials recently reached out to Schneiderman and his allies, effectively requesting he get in line, people familiar with the discussions said. The New York Times editorial board on Tuesday declared that Schneiderman "should stand his ground in not supporting the deal. The administration says that a settlement would quickly deliver much needed relief to hard-pressed borrowers, but it’s doubtful it would provide redress on a par with the banks’ wrongdoing or borrowers’ needs," the board wrote. ... Schneiderman's removal will likely make it easier for state and federal officials to reach an accord with the five banks. However, the potential amount of money they'll be able to extract will likely decrease. Schneiderman, armed with New York state's Martin Act, can bring suit against alleged fraudsters without having to prove that they intended to commit fraud, a much more lenient standard than available to federal securities regulators. New York's top legal officer is investigating whether banks followed the state's laws when bundling mortgages into securities. That probe could prove explosive. "If mortgages were not properly transferred in the securitization process, then mortgage-backed securities would in fact not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever," Adam J. Levitin, a bankruptcy expert and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told a congressional panel last November. Levitin said the problem could "cloud title to nearly every property in the United States" and could lead to trillions of dollars in losses. There's much more damning stuff in this HuffPo article so do read it all. Then, as reported by Nathaniel Popper and Walter Hamilton, Los Angeles Times Goldman Sachs CEO hires criminal defense lawyer Lloyd Blankfein retains Reid Weingarten amid the governments inquiry into the financial crisis. The move hints there could be new push to investigate the firm and its executives on criminal grounds. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the CEO reached out to Weingarten some months ago after the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations wrote a report about the financial crisis that accused Blankfein of lying to Congress — a report that was then handed on to the Department of Justice. ... "He's got an incredible amount to lose, and there's a lot of anger out there," said Philip Hilder, a criminal-defense attorney in Houston. "It signifies that the investigations are serious in tone and that he's not taking them lightly." Given the high stakes, Blankfein had to make sure somebody is watching out for his personal interests, experts said. "I would have been more surprised if he had not retained counsel," said Terree Bowers, a partner at Arent Fox in Los Angeles. But the subcommittee's most explosive claim was that Blankfein and other executives had lied to investigators when asked about how much the firm had profited from the mortgage meltdown. The panel's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said at the time that "Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress." Goldman said then that "the testimony we gave was truthful and accurate." ... Weingarten did not return telephone calls for comment. "Truthful and accurate"? OOPS! Malloy economic affairs correspondent prarie2 finds another bigwig jumping ship Spending more time with the family or the FBI The top man at Standard & Poor’s, Deven Sharma will quit before the end of the year. The Wall Street Journal says that he will be replaced by Douglas L. Peterson, currently the Chief Operating Officer of Citibank, one of the world’s biggest banks. No reason was given for Mr Sharma leaving but there is an ongoing investigation of S&P’s practice of fraudulently rating worthless sub-prime debt as AAA for banks much like Citibank for example. Sales of new homes were down for the third straight month in July, this puts a further drag on the economy. At the current rate, 2011 will be the worst year for new-home sales in nearly half a century. ... A report that came out last week showed that more home sales than expected fell apart at the last minute, often because appraisals come in far below the agreed to price. At least one in six deals were canceled head of closings last month which is four times the rate in May. The collapsed housing industry is hurting the broader economy, in the past half century following a recession, housing contributed up to 20 percent to economic growth. That has fallen to 4 percent in the current Depression and is falling still. And it took 19 years for prices to fully recover after the Republican Great Depression. If you are hoping to recover lost home value, you are not going to see it. While prices will start rising eventually, it will be mostly from inflation. The big run up in home prices during Bush was a bubble deliberately created by Greenspan and the Republicans to hide the real state of the economy. Except in really hard hit areas, this is about what prices should be and as wages continue to fall even these prices cannot be supported in real dollars. In 1937 the Republicans that were newly elected to Congress pushed through a balanced budget and plunged the recovering economy back into the Depression. We are of course repeating history, not because this history is unknown and we are thus doomed, but because the Republicans want to get it right this time. They let the country slip away from them then, and its taken Republicans 70 years to put themselves again in a position to end America as a democracy and as the land of opportunity for anyone but the Rich. They have indeed learned from their mistakes and are the odds on favorites to pull it off. Thanks prairie2, always cheerful! As various lawsuits regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act meander their way to the SCOTUS have you noticed your health insurance premiums going up in the last few years? Wonder why? Small businesses overpay for health insurance, collaborative research finds Research published in the August issue of the American Economic Review finds that small businesses have been overpaying for health insurance. The collaborative research paper “Unhealthy Insurance Markets: Search Frictions and the Cost and Quality of Health Insurance” highlights difficulties that small employers have in searching for health insurance. The difficulties of comparison shopping increase average health insurance premiums paid by small businesses by an estimated 29 percent, according to researchers at Case Western Reserve, Carnegie Mellon and Boston universities.... The study of search frictions is an important part of the economics of labor markets, leading to last year’s award of the Nobel Prize in Economics to Peter Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Dale Mortensen (Northwestern University) and Christopher Pissarides (London School of Economics). The current paper is the first to apply these theories to the operation of health insurance markets. ...Search frictions arise whenever consumers are unable to easily compare all the options available to them in the marketplace. This, Votruba, Cebul, Rebitzer and Taylor argue, is exactly the case for purchasers of individual and small group health plans.“Consumers have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of different options, and each plan has its own unique set of benefit details. In this complex environment, it’s hard for consumers to find the plan that offers them the best value. What our paper shows is that this ‘shopping problem’ has important implications for how market competition plays out. If consumers have a hard time evaluating value, competition becomes less about value and more about marketing,” Votruba said. ... If search frictions in health insurance markets cause small businesses to pay too much for low quality policies, can the health insurance exchanges mandated by health care reform law do better? This paper’s findings suggest they probably can. “In theory, they should,” said Rebitzer, “as long as the exchanges are designed so that shoppers can easily evaluate the value that they should expect for the prices of different plans. We will know that the exchanges are successful if turnover rates and marketing expenses decrease.” These "health insurance exchanges" won't come on-line until New Year's Day 2014 so stay tuned! FRONT PAGE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE THURSDAY: Health care measure seeks public option, rollbacks The initiative, aimed at California's November 2012 ballot, is being organized by Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group responsible for Proposition 103, the landmark 1988 ballot measure that established regulatory and cost oversight of state auto insurance rates. Consumer Watchdog Executive Director Jamie Court said the proposal represents "about the only forward movement toward patients" in the U.S. health care debate since the Affordable Care Act, the president's bill that passed Congress last year. Republicans refer to it as "Obamacare." "This will be a bellwether for America," Court said in an interview Wednesday. "If California passes a 20 percent rate rollback and the right of citizens to bypass private insurances in favor of a public plan, then every other major state will do that, too." Sign up HERE now (more in BTV Action).
Shifting to education "reform" if you believed in gwb's "No Child Left Behind", if you believed Senator Obama when he said "being against No Child Left Behind is not an education policy", or maybe after a Rhode Island school fired ALL their teachers pResident O wanted "strategies like replacing a school’s principal and at least half of its staff", if you believe the Three Stooges of Charter Schools Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the Rev. Al Sharpton and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who applauded Obama for showing "real courage on the issue of charter schools" and all the regressive governors who are attcking teachers' unions' right to collectively bargain and have pensions then DON'T READ THIS: MICHAEL WINERIP at NYT Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal Why won’t Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today? Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement. It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. ... At the end of March, three of the [USA Today] paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor. At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. ... Still, she would not talk to USA Today. ... The three reporters still hope to interview Ms. Rhee. “Absolutely,” said Mr. Toppo. Which brings things full circle: Why won’t Ms. Rhee talk to USA Today? More debunking at RheeFirst.com (h/t jen) Following up on the CWA/IBEW strike against Verizon now that the CWA/IBEW for Verizon Wireline have stopped their strike and gone back to work under their old contract, Ralph Nader observes a Dark Horizon for Verizon [T]he tax lawyers for their bosses have figured out how to turn Verizon into a vast tax escapee. According to the super-accurate Citizens for Tax Justice, Verizon Communications made a total of $32.5 billion dollars in pretax U.S. profits during 2008, 2009, 2010. Far from paying the maximum federal corporate income tax rate of 35 percent on these ample profits, Verizon's federal income tax was negative $951 million or negative 2.9 percent! ...Verizon keeps saying that what they're doing just "reflects the changing times." The times are changing - skyrocketing executive pay packages and corporate profits - slashing benefits for the workers and their families - shredding of all moral authority by example from the top. Speaking of "moral authority from the top" TheStreet.com has the Text of Bernanke's Jackson Hole Speech from Friday and an "Investing Opinion" Bernanke Speech: Was That It, Ben? by TheLFB-Forex.comTranslation: We are outta here, you are on your own. Market Reaction: Traders will be watching the 10-year Treasury Futures contract ZNU1 and a break above 130.40, which would signal ESU1 (S&P 500) weakness. ESU1 has 1145 and 1130 support, followed by a move to 1110. Upside resistance will be found at 1180 and 1195. There are no reasons to believe that anything positive will be taken from this widely anticipated speech. Equity investors will have as many questions as answers. Traders will watch the equity reaction, and trade the consequences of moves in the global futures markets. European equity futures valuations are closing out at the lows of the week, month, and year. Participation levels are very low, and bullish sentiment for stocks is non-existent. Ahead of the weekend, it would seem that only a low-volume ramp at the close would stop negative stock sentiment rolling into next week. Oil trade looks weak, Treasury note values look strong as interest rates weaken, gold and silver look robust after absorbing a margin-increase induced drop. The US dollar is starting to be bought. The dollar index will run into 74.50 and 74.90 resistance. So much for "leadership" from Helicopter Ben and his "quantitative easing" printing machine!
Blogger oddmanout215 tells a joke! Obama bans war criminals. Very funny. It’s good to see something by Nat Hentoff, who wrote for Village Voice when it was worth reading and is still fighting the good fight against people in powerful positions who break the law. The subject matter of Hentoff’s recent article should surprise no one: By executive order on Aug. 4, President Barack Obama refused entry to the United States of war criminals and human-rights violators (jurist.org, Aug. 4). He ignored, as he often does, the deeply documented factual evidence of war crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney administration along with grim proof that the Obama administration also violates our anti-torture laws and the U.N. Convention Against Torture we signed. Take, for example, right now under Obama, “The CIA Secret Sites in Somalia” (the nation.com, July 12).
In what will be an historic 108-page report, “Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees,” Human Rights Watch is further accelerating the rising insistence here on accountability from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet for having not only authorized these war crimes, but also failing “to act to stop mistreatment, or punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses” (www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0711webwcover.pdf).
Not only has President Obama rejected an independent criminal investigation of these highest-profile officials, but also, adds Human Rights Watch, of Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, David Addington (counsel to Cheney) and, among others, John Yoo, author of the unsparingly cruel, aptly dubbed “torture memos” from the Ashcroft Justice Department that gave “legal cover” to allow torture.
Huh. Salon's Glenn Greenwald explains further The fruits of elite immunity But thanks to the decision to block all legal investigations into his chronic criminality, those matters have been relegated to mere pedestrian partisan disputes, and Cheney is thus now preparing to be feted -- and further enriched -- as a Wise and Serious Statesman with the release of his memoirs this week: one in which he proudly boasts (yet again) of the very crimes for which he was immunized. As he embarks on his massive publicity-generating media tour of interviews, Cheney faces no indictments or criminal juries, but rather reverent, rehabilitative tributes, illustrated by this, from Politico today: The Arena: Will book improve Cheney's Image? Has the former vice president been proven right about the Iraq invasion and other global issues? That's what happens when the Government -- marching under the deceitful Orwellian banner of Look Forward, Not Backward -- demands that its citizens avert their eyes from the crimes of their leaders so that all can be forgotten: the crimes become non-crimes, legitimate acts of political choice, and the criminals become instantly rehabilitated by the message that nothing they did warrants punishment. That's the same reason people like John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales are defending their torture and illegal spying actions not in a courtroom but in a lush conference of elites in Aspen. OpEdNews provides some key great headlines- just a wealth of information.
Last word goes to TarSandsAction.org where you can read about all the arrests in DC last week and the ongoing protests against the Keystone XL pipeline NOT COVERED by the Hurricane/Libya-transfixed shiny-object Corporomedia. Go read! And jen adds this news State Department Environmental Impact Study of Keystone XL Pipeline Released, Skids Greased for Approval dday firedoglake As expected, the State Department essentially gave its environmental blessing to the Keystone XL pipeline today, which would stretch nearly 1,700 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas, and which would deliver as much as 700,000 barrels of noxious tar sands oil every day. This is not a final approval on the project, but getting a favorable environmental impact study (EIS) is a necessary hurdle before final approval. ... Gary Doer, the Canadian ambassador to the US, said flatly, “If you ask Americans, would you choose Canada over the Middle East, they’d say yes.” ...The tar sands industry claims it is working on techniques to reduce the carbon intensity of production. I don’t think we should accept this at face value.... UPDATE II: James Hansen calls the report “greenwashing.” NASA scientist James Hansen, who galvanized the environmental movement decades ago with his congressional testimony about the dangers of climate change, said yesterday that President Obama has a rare opportunity to show he is not a “hopeless addict.”
The climatologist, who will appear at the National Press Club on Monday before joining protests at the White House, where he expects to be arrested, told ClimateWire in an email interview that the Keystone XL pipeline awaiting approval from the president is like a dirty needle from a fellow oil addict, Canada.
“If Obama chooses the dirty needle it will confirm that Obama was just greenwashing all along, like the other well-oiled coal-fired politicians, with no real intention of solving the addiction,” Hansen said.
Check Majority Report (below) for Seder's interview with dday! Let's remember 360.org's Bill McGibbon "We think we may have a chance because for once Obama gets to make the call himself. He has to sign – or not sign – the permit. As environmentalists this is the one clean test we are ever going to get of Obama's real commitment to climate issues."(link from last week.) We also recommend The Truth About the Situation in Libya: Cutting through the government propaganda and media lies By Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition. Then listen to AntiWarRadio with Our Man in Pipelineistan Pepe Escobar and DN! for The One Billion Dollar Question: Who Are the Libyan Rebels? MAKE NO MISTAKE: This is clearly COEHM with NATO weapons and more neo-liberal exploitation of resources. So where does this all leave us? Blogger natasha at Suburban Gorilla chimes in with Near-As-No-Matter Feudalism To recap, once more with feeling, an activist can go to jail for lying to prevent energy companies from participating in an illegal auction, but an energy company can get away with lying to the government about the yield from an energy lease and get the government to pay the liabilities for it. W.T.F? You can call this whatever you want to, but to be shocked when the peasants revolt against the widening inequality of their society is misguided at the least. To rub salt in the wound, public institutions that formerly provided the hope of class mobility are being dismantled, one by one, across the ‘free world’, while politicians and business people climb to power by bragging about how much they can cut the stupid, inefficient wages that ordinary families have to live on. People don’t like being hungry or poor or treated badly. They don’t need an ideology to dislike those outcomes and, eventually, they’re going to get tired of any ideology used to justify them, along with the people who wield those justifications. Our own ljm sums it up nicely. The author of Political Ponerology [Andrew M. Lobaczewski] says that Communism and probably whatever other ideology that gets sold to a population didn't end up being what was sold. What they got was facism. He said the bad name Communism got was as much due to the propaganda machine in the west as to what was actually going on behind the iron curtain. The political psychopaths get into power and it winds up being the same old same old no matter where it happens in the world. Whole populations get hoodwinked and brainwashed by their masters. Normal people get gobsmacked and have to find a way to survive the insanity thrust on them. Eventually, the people topple these psychopathocracies, but it takes a long time. Pretty much everything is looted. Russia was a great example of that after the end of the USSR. All the wealth was extracted, which is a high-falootin way of saying stolen. And our Maddy puts a nice little bow on it all: Time to come to terms with the fact that we live in a Fascist country, I guess. If you made it this far you know the Sunday Bubalas will NOT discuss the real facts about Libya but instead infuse the populace with their stock talking points and also will focus on The Hurricane as Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate takes the WH Limo to FAKE SNOOZE, Meet the David, This Anampout and State of the Candy who also gets former Homeland Security Secretary MICHAEL "HELLUVAJOB Equine Lawyer" CHERTOFF for his, uh, WHAT exactly? Meet the David deep-sixes an interview with GOP presidential candidate JON HUNTSMAN for their coverage of said hurricane, or maybe because Huntsman isn't crazy enough? Or because he wears "magic underwear" like MITT ROMNEY? and HARRY REID? The Tribe made 2-in-a-row late-inning comebacks against KC and inched to within 6 games of division-leading Tigers as the Central Division race heats up. And the Tribe claimed JIM "600 HR Club" THOME off waivers from The Twinkies and he hit his 602nd Saturday on his 41st birthday! The Tribe basically has to go 24-10 the rest of the way to get to 88 wins including 6 more games against the Tigers, with the last three games of the season in Detriot. Anybody need TOMATOES? The BTV garden is crazy! And we've got hot peppers and cukes too! Too bad local critters ate our brocolli, cabbage, zuchinni, butternut squash. We're planting spinach now, which grows good in cooler weather. And more beans! Hope your personal Victory Garden is doing well! Enjoy and have a great week!
BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©
»»» Robin Waudo, International Red Cross spokesperson @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Report from Libya: Gaddafi Regime on Brink of Collapse as Rebels Storm Tripoli RELATED "Libya Has Reignited the Flame of Liberty in the Arab World": Juan Cole, Khaled Mattawa on Uprising Aug 22, 2012
»»» Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW As Fighting Continues in Tripoli, A Look at Role of the U.S., NATO and Oil Firms in Libya Uprising Aug 22, 2012
»»» Bill McKibben WATCH NOW Over 160 Arrested in Ongoing Civil Disobedience Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Aug 23, 2011
»»» Matt Taibbi @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Covering Up Wall Street Crimes: Matt Taibbi Exposes How SEC Shredded Thousands of Investigations Aug 23, 2011
»»» Gilbert Achcar, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW The One Billion Dollar Question: Who Are the Libyan Rebels? Aug 24, 2011
»»» Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW The 9/11 TV News Archive: 3,000 Hours of Video News Coverage of 2001 Attacks Posted Online RELATED Pioneering Internet Archivists Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger on Preservation in the Digital Age Aug 24, 2011
»»» Matt Apuzzo, co-author of the Associated Press investigative report @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW With CIA Help, New York Police Secretly Monitored Mosques, Muslim Communities Post-9/11 RELATED Investigative Reporter Trevor Aaronson & former FBI agent James Wedick "Terrorists for the FBI:" How the FBI Uses Informants to Surveil and Entrap Americans Aug 25, 2011
»»» Rev. Jesse Jackson & Dr. Vincent Harding WATCH NOW MLK National Monument Inspires Calls to Continue Civil Rights Leader’s Work to End Poverty and War Aug 26, 2011
»»» Brian Jones and Diane Ravitch @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW “Poverty Is the Problem”: Efforts to Cut Education Funding, Expand Standardized Testing Assailed Aug 26, 2011
»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW Tim Wise: Dragging Racial Bias Into the Open
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!©
»»» MLB on TBS Cubs @ Brewers! 2 pm et
»»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Dodgers @ Rangers! 8 pm et
»»» Monday Night Baseball on ESPN Phillies @ Reds at 7 pm et
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!©
CONSUMER WATCHDOGI WANT TO HELP COUNT ME IN! I want to help with a California ballot measure that will rollback health insurance rates by 20% and create a public option alternative to private insurance companies. Please keep me informed and let me know what I can do. SIGN UP NOWI WANT TO HELP Entire San Francisco Chronicle Front Page story from Thu Aug 25, 2001 at link!
October2011.org October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions. Take this pledge at October2011.org
- "I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America's resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning."
CHANGE.ORG The First Cause: A Plan to Claim Food As Food We're losing the right to manage our own health. Even the right to choose our food is being stolen. We can stop it, but only by ending the basis on which it's being done—not by addressing each action. A new website has been set up to allow people to post responses from politicians, along with their own articles: Free Choice - Health Defining food as food is not the only issue that must be tackled, but it's a key one. As it gets rolling, we'll start others. We are literally in a battle for our lives!
If you're in Europe, click HERE to sign the petition.
If you're in the United States, click HERE to sign the petition. Do it NOW!
UPDATE! Watch this interview with constitutional law attorney Jonathan Emord on ProjectCamelotLive JONATHAN EMORD INTERVIEW
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
MOVE TO AMEND! www.movetoamend.org SIGN HERE NOW! Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net And Alan Grayson is running again in FL-8! Help out at CongressmanWithGuts.com
SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org UPDATE! Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed at wired.com plus The Deeply Personal Details in New Bradley Manning Chat Logs and Bradley Manning Support Network Much more at link.
EMAIL UPDATE! Help us reach our goal of a half million by signing the petition, and passing it on. Add your name! AND Vote for Bradley in the 2011 Time Magazine 100 Poll here!
Add your name to this petition Eminent US legal scholars protest 'torture' of Bradley Manning.
DONATE YOUR OLD CELL PHONES TO T.J. MARTELL FOUNDATION Help save lives. Donate your old & used iPhone, Blackberries, Droid and other phones to help the T.J. Martell Foundations fund life-saving cancer & AIDS research. For more information, go to www.tjmartellfoundation.org
B R I C K T E E V E E
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The essential guide for watching government propaganda
IRAQ: 4,474 US Military Dead as of Aug 27, 2011
AFGHANISTAN: 1,750 US Military Dead as of Aug 27, 2011
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative
- This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour - Jake Tapper live from Ames, Iowa
• Fact Checking ABC's "This Week" at NPR "On the Media" - Jake Tapper, interim host of ABC's "This Week," liked the idea of fact-checking his guests' comments, so he set up a partnership with Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking organization. See Politifact Statements ABC News 'This Week'
• FEMA director Craig Fugate
• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
• ROUNDTABLE: George Will and Cokie Roberts, political strategist Donna Brazile and National Journal's Ron Brownstein
• LIBYA ROUNDTABLE: George Will, Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, Robin Wright, author of "Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World," and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post, - Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
• Former Secretary of State Colin Powell. - 60 Minutes (CBS)
• Greg Mortenson - He's written inspiring best sellers, including "Three Cups of Tea," but are the stories all true? Steve Kroft investigates. Andy Court, Kevin Livelli and Maria Usman are the producers
• Gospel for Teens - Lesley Stahl spends a year following the inspirational leader of a gospel music program for teenagers in Harlem and her students as they learn to sing this original American art form and build the confidence and character it inspires. Shari Finkelstein is the producer. - Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
• Meet the Facts at NPR "On the Media" - Last December, NYU professor Jay Rosen proposed something simple yet revolutionary: why don't the Sunday morning chat shows fact check their guests? After "Meet the Press" host David Gregory declined, two college students launched a website to do it for him. One of them, Chas Danner, explains what they're trying to accomplish. See their website MeetTheFacts.com updating soon!
• FEMA Director Craig Fugate
• PROGRAMMING NOTE: Our Meet the Candidates series with Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has been postponed due to the developing story of Hurricane Irene.
• ROUNDTABLE: New York Times Columnist, David Brooks; Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson; ashington Correspondent for the BBC, Katty Kay; and National Correspondent for NBC'S TODAY, Jamie Gangel, who interviewed VP Cheney exclusively. - State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) live from Iowa
At 9 AM ET, Candy talks to the power players: politicians, business leaders and international newsmakers who will make Monday morning's headlines. At NOON ET, Candy wraps it all up with fresh interviews and the best of the earlier hours.
• Complete coverage of Hurricane Irene as it bears down on the Eastern seaboard. CNN has deployed unparalleled resources up and down the East Coast to keep you abreast of the storm’s movement and the damage left in its wake.
• FEMA Director Craig Fugate
• Hurricane Center Director Bill Read
• former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
• Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy
• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - HEAD ON RADIO with Bob Kincaid
Headon Radio with Bob Kincaid 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific, 2300 GMT. Duration: 3 hrs. To be part of the conversation on Head-on Radio, call toll-free (877) 443-2366, or use our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email: bob [at] headonradio [dot] com.
• Prayer Meetin' Wednesday!!!!!! Listen HERE (mp3)!
• Catch the PRISM-WV Summer Academy video stream on the Head-On With Bob Kincaid USTREAM Channel!
Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE! - YOUR GREEN NEWS REPORT
The Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen: 6 minutes of green news, politics, analysis & snarky comment!
Go see greennews.bradblog.com!
• 'Green News Report' - August 25, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bracing for Irene; Hey, how's your infrastructure? Earthquakes and now hurricanes test the East Coast; Fukushima Exclusion Zone to become permanent; Hundreds more tar sands protesters arrested at the White House; PLUS: Did Fox "News" just accidentally acknowledge human-caused climate change?!?! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!!
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): 'Hockey Stick' climate scientist vindicated again; India & China spar over water; TX record-breaking drought getting 'worse by the day'; BP Oil Spill Fund has paid out $5B; 'Green Scissors' proposal to cut billions oil subsidies; EPA to creates mini-Civilian Conservation Corps for Great Lakes; Van Jones slams misleading NYT article on green jobs; "The Intermittency of Fossil Fuels"; Shell plugs North Sea pipeline spill; Shell’s shoddy safety record in the UK; GOP bashes Obama Admin for refusing to promote oil shale; Since 9/11, Koch Industries has fought tougher rules on chemical plants; National Review twisted in knots over GOP science denial; US natural gas reserve estimates cut by 80% ... PLUS: Climate cycles are driving wars: When El Nino warmth hits, tropical conflicts double: study... Visit BradBlog.com to see who counts yer votes! Reference yer background/research at Who's Counting? too.
UPDATE: Prosecutor Declines Criminal Charges Against WI's Justice Prosser for 'Choke-hold' on Fellow Justice. - The Peter B. Collins Show PODCAST!
Listen at PeterBCollins.com!
The Peter B. Collins Show covers American news and politics from the Left Coast. Veteran talk radio personality Peter B. Collins, based in San Francisco, delivers fresh interviews, commentary and analysis on a range of important topics, with views and voices you don’t often find in the corporate media.
• PBC Live! Weekly on KGO PBC Live! Weekly on KGO Your humble host has been remiss in keeping you apprised of his other media activities. Since February, I’ve been hosting a regular weekly show on KGO, the leading San Francisco talk station with a huge coverage area–at night, you can hear it anywhere on the West Coast. TFN (till further notice), you can hear me every Friday night–or, more precisely, Saturday morning, from 1-5 am (PDT) on 810-AM or streaming at www.kgoradio.com. If you’d like to be alerted each week, sign up on Facebook as a fan of “Peter B. Collins Show” or you can follow me on Twitter, @pbcsf
• PBC Podcast 280 Journalist Ralph Steiner Gives Us an In-Depth Recounting of the UFO Event at Roswell, New Mexico Ralph Steiner is a journalist with a background in physics who has investigated the 1947 Roswell UFO event for many years. With credit and thanks to Steiner’s archives, we include interview clips from many credible people, framed by the rich detail of Steiner’s commentary. It’s a follow-up to our interview with Annie Jacobsen about her book Area 51 in PBC podcast 266 on 6/22/11.
• PBC Podcast 281 Should Aldous Tyler Challenge Obama in Primaries? Roger Shuler Updates Alabama Bingo Trial, Examines Rick Perry’s Pay-to-Play Corruption Aldous Tyler, the Wisconsin activist, is considering a primary challenge to Obama–woud you support it? Roger Shuler of Alabama returns to update us on the “Bingo trial”, incoherent actions of the Holder Justice Department, and Gov. Rick Perry’s legal problems–if he were treated the way former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was.
• PBC Podcast 282 Boiling Frogs: “Jersey Girl” Lorie van Auken Still Looking for Truth About 9/11 Lori van Auken, whose husband was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01, continues to search for the truth. This powerful interview is part of the Boiling Frogs series, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds. - Ring of Fire Radio
Find us at http://ringoffireradio.com and http://goleft.tv/ hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
Ring of Fire Radio - GoLeft TV - Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder - Politics, Commentary, and News.
This Week on Ring of Fire! August 26, 2011
• This week on Ring of Fire: Steve Clemons from The Atlantic will join us to talk about the challenges that currently face Libya now that Gaddafi has been driven from power.
• Author Robert Dreyfuss from The Nation will be here to tell us why he believes the US should have stayed clear of the situation in Libya.
• We’ll hear from author and historian Rick Perlstein about how the Democrats need to step up their game and continue to fight to preserve the social safety net.
• We’ll also be talking with Ben Adler from The Nation about how the conservatives are whining like babies because Obama has once again proven that he can handle National Security issues better than the GOP.
• Join our blog at www.ringoffireradio.com. You can now SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST by clicking on the “Podcast” tab at the top of the Ring of Fire blog. Please help support progressive radio by signing up!
Ring of Fire Radio Ring of Fire, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder: Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm (4 pm on XM 167) featuring The PAP Attack! "We’ll bring you the stories that the mainstream media didn’t feel like reporting this week." - Majority Report with Sam Seder Streaming LIVE weekdays 11:30 am et @ Majority.fm!
• Heather Hurlburt on Libya & the Fall of Gaddafi [08•22•11]
• Don Peck of The Atlantic discusses Can the Middle Class Be Saved? [08•23•11]
• A Conversation Between David Cross and Sam Seder from Right After Yesterday's Earthquake [08•24•11]
• David Dayen of firedoglake on the NY AG Schniederman Banks Story [08•24•11]
• Amanda Terkel of Huffington Post on Progressive State Ballot Initiatives [08•24•11]
• Sam Seder Talks with John Amato of Crooks and Liars [08•25•11]
MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityreport.official.fm! - On the Edge with Max Keiser Podcasts and more @ MaxKeiser.com!
"HI Y'ALL! Tell the people! Tell the people!"
WHO IS MAX KEISER? Max Keiser is a financial expert, Prediction Markets analyst, inventor and filmmaker. He is the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) the first Prediction Market. Max Keiser co-hosts “The Truth About Markets” on ResonanceFM 104.4 in London. He also produces and presents documentary films covering markets and finance for Al Jazeera’s “People & Power” series. Max Keiser started his career on Wall Street in 1983. He is the creator of KarmaBanque a site that enables activists to challenge corporate power.
• VISIT PirateMyFilm.com!!! Crowd Funding for Pirates!
• VIDEO! The Official Silver Liberation Army! See SilverLiberationArmy.com !
• VIDEO! Max Keiser Standup Rage Mott St. NYC; August 2nd, 2011 In two parts, about 90 minutes. Must Watch!
• VIDEO! Max on the Big Screen!?!? Watch "Four Horsemen - Official Trailer"
• VIDEO Gold, Chavez, and "Operation Twist 2" the sequel at King World News Eric King interviews Jim Rickards VIDEO Mike Maloney on Debt Collapse & the Case for $20,000 Gold Stacy Summary: We’ll be interviewing Mike Maloney in the next two weeks, so if you have any questions after viewing the film. Please post below.
• Obama taunts public to riot on behalf of banks and prison industry READ Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal
• When the U.S. is finally liquidated, JP Morgan’s interests are senior to the U.S. government. READ JPMorgan Is Foreclosing On The U.S. Treasury at businessinsider.com
• A Comment on Keiser Report with Catherine Austin Fitts Stacy Summary: Here is an interesting letter sent to Catherine Austin Fitts by an attorney in Ohio specializing in foreclosure defense. READ A Comment on Foreclosure Fraud at solari.com
• KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Bankers & Aliens (E175) We interview Catherine Austin Fitts about exponential fraud and the financial coup d’etat.
• KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Myotonic Markets (E176) This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the Fainting Bankers of Wall Street and the myotonic markets they inspire. In the second half of the show Max talks to Chris Martenson about the insolvency of the banking system and about Dr. Bernanke's misdiagnosis of the cause of the financial crisis.
• ON THE EDGE [OTE120] On the Edge with Alex Jones
• ON THE EDGE On the Edge with Dr. Michael Hudson Interview with Dr. Michael Hudson. Hudson maintains that President Obama’s second-term plan is to shrink US wages by 30% because his Chicago-school casino capitalist backers demand it.
• THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM-1202] The Truth About The Holy Dial Tone – 13 August 2011. Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here. - ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
Listen at antiwar.com/radio
• Francis Boyle August 25, 2011: Francis Boyle, Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, discusses how in 2004 the FBI and CIA tried to make him an informant to betray his Arab and Muslim legal clients; how his refusal landed him on several terrorism watch lists, guaranteeing him a lifetime of harassment when traveling; the list of five thousand Arabs, Muslims and their sympathizers that the FBI interrogated and attempted to “turn;” the US government’s habit of rounding up entire groups of Americans (or planning to) and sending them to prison camps during a crisis – Constitution notwithstanding; and why we already live in a police state, which will become a military dictatorship after one more major terrorist attack.
• Eric Margolis August 25, 2011: Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the ragtag Libyan rebels entering Tripoli and seizing Gadhafi’s compound (courtesy of massive NATO air support); the similarity with Egypt’s governmental reforms, where the head autocrat is deposed yet former ministers and the power structure remain intact; why the disparate rebel factions, united in hatred of Gadhafi, will splinter and fight amongst themselves; and the return of European colonialism in N. Africa, as the British and French look to stay in Libya for the long term.
• Nick Turse August 25, 2011: Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, discusses his article “Uncovering the Military’s Secret Military”; how JSOC became “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine” and the president’s own private army; rebuilding US special operations after the 1980 Iran hostage embarrassment and greatly expanding them after 9/11; how SOCOM has developed the clout and influence of an independent military branch, like the Navy or Army; the war-porn addicts in Congress who get excited by every Navy SEAL operation and fund them accordingly; and why the precision airstrikes in Libya were probably guided by special operations forces on the ground.
• Pepe Escobar August 26, 2011: Pepe Escobar, journalist and author of Obama Does Globalistan, discusses his article “Welcome to Libya’s ‘democracy’” and whether Gadhafi’s apparent defeat is instead a strategic retreat – presaging a guerrilla war; how NATO filters all information from Libya’s National Transitional Council, making it very difficult for outsiders to determine what’s really going on; why eastern Libya may become an emirate ruled by heavily armed Islamists, much to the delight of the Persian Gulf monarchies; how Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron are all taking credit for a victory and reaping some domestic political rewards for it; why occupation forces will likely be composed of a Persian Gulf “task force;” and how the BRIC countries, opposed to Libya intervention from the start, are getting shut out of lucritive oil contracts. See Why the Syrian Regime won't fall at AsiaTimes
• Will Grigg August 26, 2011: Will Grigg, blogger and author of Liberty in Eclipse, discusses the AP news story about the CIA/NYPD joint venture into “mapping” minority neighborhoods – essentially domestic spying; rendering moot the prohibitions on domestic CIA intelligence gathering and military law enforcement; why recruiting government informants through blackmail is a sign of creeping totalitarianism; why Americans are not protected by the rule of law, so long as the government can ignore it at will; and why the real threat to liberty is not from terrorists abroad, but from government at home.
• Lew Rockwell August 26, 2011: Lew Rockwell, founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses why Ron Paul is the first real peace candidate for president since Eugene McCarthy in 1968; the prime importance of foreign policy, since waging imperial wars abroad inevitably harms liberty and prosperity at home; Paul’s bold challenge to Rick Santorum’s Iran warmongering in the Iowa debate; why the US unnecessarily provoked the Cold War and kept it going; why democratic wars fail to differentiate between soldiers and civilians (the people ARE the government, right?); ending the morality double standard that prohibits individuals from grave acts but allows the government to kill and steal; and Dick Cheney’s book promotion media tour, where he defends torture, regrets he couldn’t start a war with Syria, and laughs all the way to the bank.
Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio! - fauxnews
• Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Craig Fugate
• Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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