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Brick TeeVee and 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol 'Clean' Coal Now that we've recovered from Saturday night's FLASH PARTY we finally have gotten back to the keyboards to finish up this week's missive! We'll have more on the on-going industrial "accidents" involving the extraction industries in a bit. We begin with Campaign for America's Future Blog and Richard Eskow at CommonDreams.org Now We Know. JPMorgan Chase is Worse Than Enron. It’s beginning to look as if JPMorgan Chase has had a hand in every major banking scandal of the last decade. In fact, it’s the Zelig of Wall Street crime. Take a snapshot of any major bank fraud and chances are you’ll see JPMorgan Chase staring out at you from the frame. Foreclosure fraud, investor fraud, cheating customers, market manipulation, LIBOR … and now, the coup de grâce to JPM’s tattered reputation: a $2 billion fine for closing its eyes and covering up as Bernie Madoff literally bilked widows and orphans, along with a lot of other families and charities. (Here’s a list of investors.) Does Jamie Dimon, the bank’s CEO, still think people don’t say enough nice things about him? Do his friends? More importantly, how does the largest bank in the country (measured in assets) get away with being worse than Enron? That one’s easy: By being the largest bank in the country. .............. There’s no question about it: JPMorgan Chase is worse than Enron. It’s true that Enron’s energy market manipulations were horrible. Enron executives and employees deprived people of their life savings, drove up the price of a vital public utility, and concealed their crimes with all the wiliness of history’s worst master conspirators. But JPMorgan Chase did everything Enron did – and much, much more. Consider: .............. All in all, JPMorgan Chase has paid $20 billion in fines in the last year alone. But none of these fines were personally charged to the executives who committed the crimes. Instead, they were paid by shareholders – some of whom were also bilked by the executives in question. What’s more, most (if not all) of these fines are tax-deductible. That means that taxpayers will take a hit for JPM’s criminality. Even the Enron guys didn’t think of that. Do some good people work at JPMorgan Chase? Of course. I have a couple friends there myself, and they’re honorable people. But they’re living in a nest of fraudsters. Either CEO Dimon thinks that’s just fine, or he’s not competent enough to clean the place out and should be fired forthwith. It’s who you know … How does the JPM Gang get away with all of this fraud? One simple answer is: Access. ........... Click over the rest of the horror story that is Jamie Dimon and JPMC. Ugh.
Now have a look-see at Here's Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free If we were we scrapping our current system and starting from scratch, Washington could make public college tuition free with the money it sets aside [in] its scattershot attempts to make college affordable today.
KOOK BROS UPDATE: We go to the Washington Post and Matea Gold's exposé called
Koch-Backed Political Coalition, Designed to Shield Donors, Raised $400 Million in 2012 The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors, according to an analysis of new tax returns and other documents. The filings show that the network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the Kochs and fellow donors in the 2012 elections financially outpaced other independent groups on the right and, on its own, matched the long-established national coalition of labor unions that serves as one of the biggest sources of support for Democrats. The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations. Key players in the Koch-backed network have already begun engaging in the 2014 midterm elections, hiring new staff members to expand operations and strafing House and Senate Democrats with hard-hitting ads over their support for the Affordable Care Act. Its funders remain largely unknown; the coalition was carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors. But they have substantial firepower. Together, the 17 conservative groups that made up the network raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign, according to the analysis of tax returns by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. ............... The system involved roughly a dozen limited-liability companies with cryptic, alphabet-soup names such as SLAH LLC and ORRA LLC, and entities that dissolved and reappeared under different monikers. Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a University of Notre Dame Law School professor who studies the tax issues of politically active nonprofits, said he has never seen a network with a similar design in the tax-exempt world. “It is a very sophisticated and complicated structure,” said Mayer, who examined some of the groups’ tax filings. “It’s designed to make it opaque as to where the money is coming from and where the money is going. No layperson thought this up. It would only be worth it if you were spending the kind of dollars the Koch brothers are, because this was not cheap.” .............It is unclear how much of the network’s funds came directly from the Kochs, who head Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held companies in the country. The brothers, who fund a host of libertarian think tanks and advocacy groups, are heralded on the right and pilloried on the left for their largess. While “the Koch network” has become a shorthand in political circles, the coalition is financed by a large pool of other conservative donors as well, according to people who participate in the organization. ........... In all, the feeder funds and the groups they financed raised an estimated $407 million in the last election cycle. That figure is a conservative one, since it does not account for the complete revenue of eight groups that have not yet filed their tax returns for the latter half of 2012. Of the $407 million, $302 million can be traced to Freedom Partners or TC4 Trust. ............. Much more! Then see Lisa Graves of PRWatch.org & ALECexposed.org on DN! Tues From Funding Climate Deniers to Shadowy Groups, Koch Brothers Network Spent $400 Million in 2012
Speaking of large privately-held companies (and not-so-privately-held for that matter) Who Controls The World By James B. Glattfelder and the TPP Trade Deal Physicist and researcher Mr. James B. Glattfelder analyzes the inner workings of a system such as the global economy which is more than a sum of its parts that illustrates who has the power to control the world. in Glattfelder study, he shows how the distribution of control of power works through the global economy and how the concentration of power is in a few small number of hands becoming a greater threat to the world than any terrorist act. This concentration of ownership networks show that corporate control and operating revenues has risen substantially over time. .....In his study, key players are analyzed to find out who really controls the world and their connections. His measurements reveal how vulnerable the global economy is with a system that concentrates control in a very few corporate hands and thus in a small group, how dangerously these economies can be manipulated.
The accumulation of power and control shows that 737 top shareholders control 80% of the TNC’s value. (Transnational corporations). There are 146 Top Players in the core -that now control 40% of the transnational corporations ( TNC’s) value. These 146 people actually control the world. Five years after the Wall Street meltdown this control of these few banks, by the same few CEO’s must be adjusted. It is not as if we have no warning of the massive control that corporations, banks and 147 people in the world actually have amassed unto themselves. The One Percent of the One Percent, a small but powerful group of networked people, own and operate the transnational corporations: TNC’s that make up so much of the wealth and therefore power. ....... Much more! Also see this Ted Talk by James B. Glattfelder: Who Controls The World filmed at TEDxZurich dated October 2012 at UTOOB!
NEXT watch The Big Picture from Tuesday The Republican Sabotage of America "The Republican sabotage campaign against Obamacare is working. I'll tell you why" and Full Show 1/9/14: Christie In A (Traffic) Jam "Thom talks Chris Christie's bridgegate scandal with Radio Host and Attorney Mike Papantonio, big banks with former big banker Larry Doyle and debates Conservative Rusty Humphries on extending unemployment benefits. "
At The New Yorker Lawrence Wright explains The Al Qaeda Switchboard .......... Last month, two federal judges came to opposing conclusions about these issues. On December 16th, Judge Richard J. Leon, in Washington, D.C., ruled that the indiscriminate hoarding violates the Fourth Amendment right to privacy and its prohibition of unreasonable searches. Two weeks later, in New York, Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that the metadata-collection program was lawful and effective. Judge Pauley invoked the example of Khalid al-Mihdhar, a Saudi jihadist who worked for Al Qaeda. On 9/11, he was one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. In early 2000, Mihdhar made seven calls from San Diego to an Al Qaeda safe house in Yemen. According to Pauley, the N.S.A. intercepted the calls, but couldn’t identify where Mihdhar was calling from. Relying on testimony by Robert Mueller, the former director of the F.B.I., Pauley concluded that metadata collection could have allowed the bureau to discover that the calls were being made from the U.S., in which case the bureau could have stopped 9/11. If he is right, advocates of extensive monitoring by the government have a strong case. But the Mihdhar calls tell a different story about why the bureau failed to prevent the catastrophe. The C.I.A. withheld crucial intelligence from the F.B.I., which has the ultimate authority to investigate terrorism in the U.S. and attacks on Americans abroad. ........ Judge Pauley cites the 9/11 Commission Report for his statement that telephone metadata “might have permitted the N.S.A. to notify the [F.B.I.] of the fact that al-Mihdhar was calling the Yemeni safe house from inside the United States.” What the report actually says is that the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. already knew that Al Qaeda was in America, based on the N.S.A.’s monitoring of the Hada phone. If they had told the F.B.I., the agents would have established a link to the embassy-bombings case, which “would have made them very interested in learning more about Mihdhar.” Instead, “the agents who found the source were being kept from obtaining the fruits of their work.” ........... Yes, the F.B.I. could have stopped 9/11. It had a warrant to establish surveillance of everyone connected to Al Qaeda in America. It could follow them, tap their phones, clone their computers, read their e-mails, and subpoena their medical, bank, and credit-card records. It had the right to demand records from telephone companies of any calls they had made. There was no need for a metadata-collection program. What was needed was coöperation with other federal agencies, but for reasons both petty and obscure those agencies chose to hide vital clues from the investigators most likely to avert the attacks. .......... WOW! Listen to Lawrence Wright’s Comment about whether phone surveillance could have prevented 9/11 at Comment Podcast: The Al Qaeda Switchboard
AND at ConsortiumNews.com NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public. .......... Mr. President, we trust you are aware that the lack-of-enough-intelligence argument is dead wrong. Feinstein’s next dubious premise – that bulk collection is needed to prevent another 9/11 – is unproven and highly unlikely (not to mention its implications for the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment). Given the closed circle surrounding you, we are allowing for the possibility that the smell from these rotting red herrings has not yet reached you – even though your own Review Group has found, for example, that NSA’s bulk collection has thwarted exactly zero terrorist plots. The sadder reality, Mr. President, is that NSA itself had enough information to prevent 9/11, but chose to sit on it rather than share it with the FBI or CIA. We know; we were there. We were witness to the many bureaucratic indignities that made NSA at least as culpable for pre-9/11 failures as are other U.S. intelligence agencies. We prepared this Memorandum in an effort to ensure that you have a fuller picture as you grapple with what to do about NSA. What follows is just the tip of an iceberg of essential background information – much of it hidden until now – that goes to the core of serious issues now front and center. ....... Much more at the link! Be sure to read Our Man in AFRICOM Nick Turse Tomgram: Nick Turse, Special Ops Goes Global ....Then, at the last moment, just before my filing deadline, Special Operations Command got back to me with an answer so incongruous, confusing, and contradictory that I was glad I had given up on SOCOM and tried to figure things out for myself...... Good on Nick Turse for his persistence in trying to find out just how big the reach is of the U.S. military-industrial complex! Great read!
DEEPWATER HORIZON UPDATE: At BBC News BP loses bid over Gulf oil payouts BP has lost an appeal to cancel the terms of its multi-billion-dollar settlement with businesses over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. A US federal appeals court on Saturday upheld the terms of the original 2012 settlement. The UK oil giant has supported compensation for businesses harmed by the disaster. But it argued that the terms of the existing deal meant that some huge sums were being paid for false claims. ......... On Friday, the US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the original judge, Carl Barbier, did not err by failing to determine whether the class of eligible claimants included individuals who haven't actually suffered any injury. It means that the UK oil giant may have to pay out much more than it originally thought it would have to. BP originally projected that the settlement would cost $7.8bn (£4.8bn) but last year increased its estimate to $9.6bn. BP has faced about $42.4bn in criminal and civil charges since the disaster.
AND Staff writers at SpaceDaily.com tell us Canada PM predicts Keystone pipeline 'will proceed' Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper predicted Monday that the United States will approve construction of the last leg of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. "I am confident that in due course -- I can't put a timeline on that -- that the project will one way or another proceed," Harper told a gathering of the Vancouver Board of Trade. ........
Last week we told you about a North Dakota town evacuated after multiple explosions from train carrying soybeans derailed and was struck by train carrying crude oil Listen to The H.O.R.N.
Tuesday, January 7th, 2014 for an interview with John Wathan "Hurricane Creek Keeper" fresh off covering this train car explosion in Castleton, North Dakota starting around the 11:00 mark into the show discussing the makeup of the Bakken tar sands and its extreme volatility. Visit these two website for more info BakkenDebate.blogspot.com AND HurricaneCreek.org
FREEDOM INDUSTRIES WEST VIRGINIA CHEM SPILL: At Reuters Ann Moore reports West Virginia chemical spill triggers tap water ban Up to 300,000 West Virginia residents were told not to drink tap water on Friday after a chemical spill called its safety into question, and health officials said water in the affected area should only be used for flushing toilets and fighting fires. "We don't know that the water's not safe, but I can't say it is safe," Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Co, told a televised news conference. The company runs the state's largest water treatment plant. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for nine counties, and President Barack Obama issued an emergency declaration on Friday. The spill forced the closure of schools and businesses in the state capital. Tests were being done on the water, McIntyre said, but he could not say when it would be declared safe for normal use. The spill of 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, or Crude MCHM, a chemical used in the coal industry, occurred on Thursday on the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia's capital and largest city, upriver from the plant run by West Virginia American Water. Water carrying this chemical has an odor like licorice or anise, McIntyre said. he chemical is not highly lethal, but since the company does not regularly see it as a contaminant, the level that could be considered safe has yet to be quantified, McIntyre said. A company spokeswoman said the chemical could be harmful if swallowed and could cause skin and eye irritation. The spill originated at Freedom Industries, a Charleston company that produces specialty chemicals for the mining, steel and cement industries. .............. The Kanawha-Charleston and the Putnam County Health Departments ordered the closure of all restaurants and schools receiving water from the West Virginia American Water company. Schools also were closed in many counties, including Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Pocahontas and Putnam. The spill was discovered after the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection received a report of a strange odor on Thursday morning and visited the Freedom Industries site, where they found a leaking storage unit, a spokeswoman for Governor Tomblin said. CSMonitor.com Staff writer David J. Unger explains West Virginia chemical spill: What's 4-methylcyclohexane methanol? (+video) ......... The West Virginia chemical spill occurred when a compound called 4-methylcyclohexane methanol leaked from a hole in the bottom of a storage tank, Thomas Aluise, a WVAW spokesman told the New York Times. The liquid then filled a container designed to contain leaks before flowing into the Elk River, about a mile north of a water treatment plant. What is 4-methylcyclohexane methanol? The compound involved in the West Virginia chemical spill is used to rid coal of impurities before it is burned to generate power. "Short version – it is used in removing some sulfur from coal," David Bayless, director of Ohio University's Ohio Coal Research Center, wrote in an e-mail to the Monitor. "That is a separation process ... usually done at the mine before the coal is shipped to the utility to burn." How does that work? Coal straight from the mine brings with it various types of shale, clay, and impurities. To burn it more efficiently and with less pollution, the energy-dense coal must be separated from its associate waste. One method is coal washing, which leverages natural differences in density to separate coal from the sulfur, ash, and rock that we'd rather not burn. The raw material is ground up into tiny chunks, sorted, and initially screened for impurities. Then a fluid (often water) is pulsed upward through a bed of crushed coal and its impurities. Lighter coal particles rise to the top of the slurry, while the heavier impurities fall and are removed from the bottom. The purified coal is then dried in a final preparation process before being shipped off to the power plant. Water alone is not enough to purify coal. Chemicals like 4-methylcyclohexane methanol are added to create a frothy, heavy consistency that enhances the process. Is it dangerous? Officials say the West Virginia chemical is not lethally toxic. It is considered potentially harmful if swallowed or inhaled and can cause eye and skin irritation. There had been no official reports of hospitalizations or fatalities as of midday Friday.
Greg Botelho and Tom Watkins at CNN report on Saturday
Chemical levels in West Virginia water drop, but still no end in sight to ban The level of odorous chemical in West Virginians' water dropped Friday, but not enough for authorities to lift a warning to avoid drinking, cooking or bathing with it or to give a clear idea as to when things will change. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin described the situation in nine counties Friday night as "pretty bad," both for residents being told the only thing they should do with their running water is flush their toilets and schools, restaurants, hotels and other businesses forced to close. One bit of good news is tests on the affected water supply, which are being conducted on an hourly basis, show "the chemical level is declining." "But we're just not sure exactly how long it's going to take before it's acceptable to lift the do-not-drink ban," the governor told CNN. ....... West Virginia American Water's president Jeff McIntyre said Friday he didn't believe the substance -- 4-methylcyclohexane methanol -- was still flowing. But that doesn't mean the situation will be resolved soon. "It is not intended to be in the water (or) distribution system," McIntyre said. "... Once it's in there, there's no more treatment for it." ........ Daniel Stewart sued the water utility and Freedom Industries, saying his kidney transplant surgery was canceled because of the ordeal "forcing (him) to undergo dialysis, pain and suffering and continued illness due to his renal failure and other medical damages." West Virginia American Water "failed to maintain an appropriate emergency response plan," Stewart claimed, while Freedom "failed to properly maintain and store its chemicals." A lawsuit was filed Friday by a man whose scheduled kidney transplant was canceled due to the water issue, said attorney Jesse Forbes said. ........
Also listen to The H.O.R.N. Friday, January 10th, 2014 for Bob's take on the giant chemical spill.
And CNN's Tom Watkins and Ralph Ellis follow up with this report Sunday Official: No quick fix for West Virginia water woes West Virginia's water crisis won't end any time soon, officials said Saturday. Testing must be completed to determine whether chemicals from a leak are still contaminating the water system in nine counties in the southwest section of the state, West Virginia American Water President Jeff McIntyre told reporters Saturday. That means the do-not-use order issued Thursday won't be lifted for days, he said. Some 300,000 West Virginia residents, in the meantime, still won't be able to use tap water to wash hands, brush teeth or take showers. They're being urged to watch for symptoms of exposure to the chemical, such as skin irritation, nausea, vomiting and wheezing. Homeland Security is trucking in 16 tractor-trailer loads of bottled water to help. ......... Officials will know that the water is safe for more than firefighting and toilet flushing -- its only sanctioned uses now -- when tests find less than 1 ppm of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol in treated water, McIntyre said.
Four laboratories have been set up to measure the levels in a uniform manner. "The treatment plant must consistently produce samples at or below this level before the current do-not-use order is lifted," McIntyre said. He said there was an inadequate number of sampling results to report current levels. ......... Mike Dorsey, chief of the Department of Environmental Protection's homeland security and emergency response division, said officials estimate that 7,500 gallons -- the equivalent of about 10 hot tubs that can accommodate eight people each -- leaked through a one-inch hole in the tank's stainless steel wall. "It's an old system," he said about the physical plant, adding that the company had planned to upgrade it. ......... The chemical overflowed a containment area around the tank run by Freedom Industries, then migrated over land and through the soil into the river. The leak happened about a mile upriver from the West Virginia American Water Co. plant. After concluding late Thursday afternoon that the tap water was contaminated, a stop-use warning went out to customers in Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane counties. Since then, the offending material has been hauled from the site, officials said. Some residents have directed their anger at the coal industry company from whose storage tank the chemical leaked. "It's caused us more problems than you could ever imagine," said Danny Jones, the mayor of Charleston, the state's capital and most populated city. "It's a prison from which we would like to be released." .......... An investigative team from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board on Saturday deployed to the scene of the spill. The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. Freedom Industries President Gary Southern said two Freedom employees noticed material leaking from a storage tank into a dike around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. They contacted authorities and began the cleanup process -- including hauling away the chemical still in the tank and vacuuming up some from the nearby ground, he said. "We have mitigated the risk, we believe, in terms of further material leaving this facility," said the head of Freedom, which supplies products for the coal-mining industry. West Virginia American Water's McIntyre had a different take, as evidenced by the company's unprecedented stop-use warning: "We don't know that the water is not safe, but I can't say it is safe."
Our BTV Last Word goes to TruthDig.com's Chris Hedges The Last Gasp of American Democracy This is our last gasp as a democracy. The state’s wholesale intrusion into our lives and obliteration of privacy are now facts. And the challenge to us—one of the final ones, I suspect—is to rise up in outrage and halt this seizure of our rights to liberty and free expression. If we do not do so we will see ourselves become a nation of captives. The public debates about the government’s measures to prevent terrorism, the character assassination of Edward Snowden and his supporters, the assurances by the powerful that no one is abusing the massive collection and storage of our electronic communications miss the point. Any state that has the capacity to monitor all its citizenry, any state that has the ability to snuff out factual public debate through control of information, any state that has the tools to instantly shut down all dissent is totalitarian. Our corporate state may not use this power today. But it will use it if it feels threatened by a population made restive by its corruption, ineptitude and mounting repression. The moment a popular movement arises—and one will arise—that truly confronts our corporate masters, our venal system of total surveillance will be thrust into overdrive. ............ The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant. The object of efficient totalitarian states, as George Orwell understood, is to create a climate in which people do not think of rebelling, a climate in which government killing and torture are used against only a handful of unmanageable renegades. The totalitarian state achieves this control, Arendt wrote, by systematically crushing human spontaneity, and by extension human freedom. It ceaselessly peddles fear to keep a population traumatized and immobilized. It turns the courts, along with legislative bodies, into mechanisms to legalize the crimes of state. ....... The corporate state, in our case, has used the law to quietly abolish the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution, which were established to protect us from unwarranted intrusion by the government into our private lives. The loss of judicial and political representation and protection, part of the corporate coup d’état, means that we have no voice and no legal protection from the abuses of power. ............. The corporate forces behind inverted totalitarianism do not, as classical totalitarian movements do, replace decaying structures with new structures. They instead purport to honor electoral politics, freedom of expression and the press, the right to privacy and the guarantees of law. But they so corrupt and manipulate electoral politics, the courts, the press and the essential levers of power as to make genuine democratic participation by the masses impossible. The U.S. Constitution has not been rewritten, but steadily emasculated through radical judicial and legislative interpretation. We have been left with a fictitious shell of democracy and a totalitarian core. And the anchor of this corporate totalitarianism is the unchecked power of our systems of internal security. Our corporate totalitarian rulers deceive themselves as often as they deceive the public. Politics, for them, is little more than public relations. Lies are told not to achieve any discernable goal of public policy, but to protect the image of the state and its rulers. These lies have become a grotesque form of patriotism. ..............The structures of the corporate state must be torn down. Its security apparatus must be destroyed. And those who defend corporate totalitarianism, including the leaders of the two major political parties, fatuous academics, pundits and a bankrupt press, must be driven from the temples of power. Mass street protests and prolonged civil disobedience are our only hope. A failure to rise up—which is what the corporate state is counting upon—will see us enslaved. Do click over to read the entire Hedges piece! Spot-on as usual! Plenty more news and views below in out BTV Alerts and all our regulars! There's enough to keep you busy until next Sunday! We'll see you then! Have a great week!
BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!©
Headlines Monday, Jan. 6, 2014
- Gabriel Sayegh, director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s New York policy office Rethinking Marijuana: As Colorado Opens World’s First Pot Retail Stores, NY to Allow Medical Usage
- Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University "Drugs Aren’t the Problem": Neuroscientist Carl Hart on Brain Science & Myths About Addiction
- Kshama Sawant, newly elected Socialist member of the Seattle City Council A Socialist Elected in Seattle: Kshama Sawant on Occupy, Fight for 15, Boeing’s "Economic Blackmail"
- Derek Kitchen, along with his partner Moudi Sbeity, they are plaintiffs in lawsuit challenging Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage Court Ruling on Gay Marriage Ban Makes Utah an Unlikely New Front in Struggle for LGBT Equality
- Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground Weather Whiplash: As Polar Vortex Brings Deep Freeze, Is Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change?
- Peter Dykstra, publisher of DailyClimate.org & EnvironmentalHealthNews.org From Sandy to Haiyan, Year of Extreme Weather Brings More Coverage of Climate Change
- Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy and publisher of PRWatch.org and ALECExposed.org From Funding Climate Deniers to Shadowy Groups, Koch Brothers Network Spent $400 Million in 2012
- FBI, Domestic Spying, COINTELPRO "It Was Time to Do More Than Protest": Activists Admit to 1971 FBI Burglary That Exposed COINTELPRO Joining us now in our studio are three of the activists who broke into the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, on March 8th, 1971. The break-in led to revelations about the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO program that targeted activists across the country.
- Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now! co-host and award-winning columnist at the New York Daily News Will New Jersey’s Traffic Scandal Jam Gov. Christie’s Presidential Hopes for 2016?
- More Juan Gonzalez In New York City’s Transformed Political Era, Progressives Take Major Posts Under Mayor de Blasio
- Peter Edelman, faculty director at the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy at Georgetown University 50 Years After LBJ’s "War on Poverty," a Call for a New Fight Against 21st Century Inequality
- French-Iraqi journalist Feurat Alani & Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the U.S. State Department As U.S. Rushes Weapons to Iraq, New Assault on Fallujah Threatens Explosion of Sectarian Conflict
- Felipe Luciano, Sonia Sanchez, Komozi Woodard & Larry Hamm Amiri Baraka (1934-2014): Poet-Playwright-Activist Who Shaped Revolutionary Politics, Black Culture We spend the hour looking at the life and legacy of Amiri Baraka, the poet, playwright and political organizer who died Thursday at the age of 79. Baraka was a leading force in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!© »»» NFL PLAYOFFS on CBS Chargers @ Broncos 4:30 pm et Sunday »»» NFL PLAYOFFS on FOX 49ers @ Panthers 1:00 pm et Sunday »»» NBA on TNT Thursday Doubleheader! Knicks @ Pacers 7 pm et then Thunder @ Rockets 9:30 pm et
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!© The 1st Amendment is Our Permit Our permit to occupy is The First Amendment. Quickly sign the following statement which will be delivered to mayors, police chiefs and major media across the country:
- Our permit to occupy public squares and parks is in The First Amendment, which affirms "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." When people across the Middle East occupied public squares, leaders in Washington mostly cheered those protesters and warned Middle Eastern governments not to use force to clear them. Those other societies don’t have a First Amendment. Yet Washington affirmed the universal right to assembly and protest. We do have a First Amendment. The force being used to clear nonviolent protesters from public squares in our country is unacceptable. It must stop.
StrikeDebt.org & RollingJubilee.org! A bailout of the people by the people Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits. ADDENDUM: Naked Capitalism reports Top Tax Expert Confirms Our Doubts About Occupy Wall Street’s Debt Buying/Forgiveness Scheme
STOP the ACHE NEW WEBSITE! AcheAct.org and Appalachian Community HEALTH EMERGENCY Advocating for government action and protection of the public from the health crisis in mountain top removal communities. The A.C.H.E. Act Is Re-Introduced In The 113th Congress!
- Washington, DC – Today a group of U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers introduced the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE Act, H.R. 526) to protect Appalachian families and communities from the nation’s most extreme form of coal mining, mountaintop removal. The Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act’s leading sponsors are Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), joined by original cosponsors Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD), Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Michael Honda (D-CA), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Rep. Janice Schakowksy (D-IL), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Rep. Jared Polis (DCO).
Community-Wealth.org community-wealth.org a project of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland Community-Wealth.org brings together, for the first time, information about the broad range of community wealth building activity. Featuring Overview: The Cleveland Model—How the Evergreen Cooperatives are Building Community Wealth Something important is happening in Cleveland. The Democracy Collaborative—the host of C-W.org—in partnership with the Cleveland Foundation, the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, Shorebank Enterprise Cleveland, the City of Cleveland, and the city's major hospitals and universities—is helping to implement a new model of large-scale worker-owned and community-benefiting businesses. The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation's decaying economy. Increasingly, this model is being referred to nationally as The Cleveland Model. Initial planning is now underway to assist other cities in Ohio and nationwide to replicate and adapt this innovative approach to economic development, green job creation, and neighborhood stabilization. Find more many resources at Community-Wealth.org!
NET NEUTRALITY! SaveTheInternet.com Declaration of Internet Freedom Tired of fighting bad bills like SOPA, PIPA and CISPA? Want to stand up against those who are trying to control what we do and say online? It's time for something different. A group of more than 1,500 organizations, academics, startup founders and tech innovators has come together to produce a Declaration of Internet Freedom, a set of five principles that put forward a positive vision of the open Internet. Our goal: Get millions of Internet users to sign on to this Declaration. Build political power for Internet users to make sure that we get a seat at the table whenever, and wherever, the future of the Internet is being decided. It's time to stop playing defense and start going on the offensive. The open Internet is central to people’s freedom to communicate, share, advocate and innovate in the 21st century. But powerful interests want to censor free speech, block the sharing of information, hinder innovation and control how Internet users get online. And all too often, people in power are making political decisions behind closed doors about how the Internet should operate — and they're doing this without the involvement of actual Internet users. The result: policies that could close down the open Internet and destroy our freedom to connect. It’s time for us to reclaim the Internet for its users. Take action now and sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom. ACTION! Meet the New CISPA. Same as the Old CISPA. Last year, thanks to a public outcry, the effort to pass overreaching cybersecurity legislation stalled in the Senate. Now supporters have reintroduced the House version of that legislation — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The “new” version is in fact identical to the original CISPA — and poses the same threat to our digital civil liberties. If CISPA becomes law, it will be a major blow to our online privacy. But more than that, CISPA’s passage would have a chilling effect on our freedom to connect online. We won’t feel as free to state unpopular opinions, or to speak truth to power, if we know that Big Brother could get a feed of everything we say and do. This is not what the free and open Internet is about. We must tell Congress: Vote NO on CISPA and bury this bill for good.
NEW!!! Stop Media Consolidation! Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is trying to change the agency’s ownership rules to pave the way for Murdoch to get exactly what he wants. Worse, Genachowski and Murdoch are keeping this all very hush-hush, hoping you won't notice.3 These changes wouldn’t just benefit Murdoch. If the FCC proposal passes, one company could own the major daily newspaper, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in your town. And that one company could be your Internet provider, too. What is the FCC thinking?!? We can still stop the agency from taking this perilous step — but we have less than a month to do it. By taking action, you’re joining a movement of millions who are working to stop big media from getting even bigger. Please take action today. Click HERE to view our infographic and send a message to the FCC! More info at Another FCC Cave-In: Julius Genachowski’s Media Consolidation Christmas Gift to Murdoch at StopTheCap.com! And Sign Senator Bernie Sanders petition to the FCC Protect Media Diversity: Stop Media Consolidation!
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
MOVE TO AMEND! www.movetoamend.org SIGN HERE NOW! And check out more actions on the Move to Amend Calendar for more! Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net GET INVOLVED! And Alan Grayson is BACK in the 113th Congress! Help out at CongressmanWithGuts.com and check out his latest effort DontAttackSyria.com!
REPRESENT.US IT’S TIME TO GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS SO THE GOVERNMENT CAN REPRESENT US. Represent.Us is a fresh campaign to pass the American Anti-Corruption Act: a law that would overhaul campaign finance, impose strict lobbying and conflict of interest laws, and end secret political money. We are mobilizing millions of Americans — conservatives and progressives, young and old, every issue group fighting K Street, online and offline — to join this campaign. Represent.Us is not just building a movement to pass the Act. The campaign will use hard-hitting accountability tactics to unseat politicians who fail to endorse the Act. If passed, the Act will completely reshape American politics and policy-making and give people a voice. See this Guest Blog at Greenpeace by Executive Director Josh Silver The $6 Billion Auction: Finally, A Plan to Get Money Out of Politics for more information!
SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org and Bradley Manning Support Network From the Bradley Manning Support Network Announcing the Private Manning Support Network! August 26, 2013, By attorney David Coombs and the Private Manning Support Network (formerly the Bradley Manning Support Network). Additional clarification on PVT Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning's request regarding her gender and name. With your continued support, our network will continue its advocacy efforts in support our heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower through this new phase of her life. ....... UPDATE! Based on NYT criteria, Snowden and Manning deserve clemency January 10, 2014. By the Private Manning Support Network. Last week, the New York Times editorial board thrilled government transparency advocates worldwide when they released an article calling on President Obama to grant clemency to Edward Snowden. The same criteria all apply equally to Chelsea Manning. ..... AND Update 1/6/13: Solidarity event in Wales to raise funds to cover Chelsea's family visitation costs Join Chelsea Manning’s Irish supporters along with her family and friends in west Wales for two days of events celebrating Truth. All proceeds will go to the Private Manning Family Fund, raising money to support family members in Wales with the cost of prison visits to Chelsea in Kansas. .....
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
- This Week (ABC) Host George Stephanopoulos
• former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R)
• crisis management expert Judy Smith
• ROUNDTABLE: ABC News contributor Donna Brazile, ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and former Obama White House senior adviser and ABC News contributor David Plouffe.
• "SPECIAL PANEL examines women in the workplace": Good 360 Chair and former Hewlett-Packard Chair and CEO Carly Fiorina (who BTW ran HP into the ground and they're still trying to recover not to mention her terrible 2010 bid to unseat Babs Boxer, FACTS Snafugopolis won't mention and ABC will make only a feeble attempt at a disclaimer. Save some bricks for Carly! Just sayin' -Ed); U.S. Air Force Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the first female fighter pilot and first female active duty fighter wing commander; Atlantic contributor and New America Foundation program director Liza Mundy, author of “The Richer Sex”; and Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, author of “Women Who Don’t Wait in Line.”
- Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
• Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio
• New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski
• Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD
• Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009
• ROUNDTABLE: Rana Foroohar of Time, Michael Gerson of The Washington Post, John Harris of Politico, and Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal.
- 60 Minutes (CBS)
• The Fox 'News'-ification of CBS News and '60 Minutes': 'The Cleantech Crash'
• Coming Up Sunday, Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT
• First details in Rodriguez case: 60 Minutes reveals details in MLB's doping case against Alex Rodriguez, including text messages from MLB's star witness, who says that he injected him with banned substances
• Scientists study child with super memory: A 60 Minutes story on people with super memories caused dozens more, including 10-year-old Jake Hausler, to come forward, giving science more subjects to study
- Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
• Microsoft, NBC News Dissolve MSNBC.com Joint Venture NBC is buying Microsoft's 50 percent interest in the MSNBC website for an undisclosed amount. MSNBC.com will be rebranded as NBCNews.com, and readers who logged into MSNBC.com late Sunday were automatically redirected to NBCNews.com. Microsoft is preparing to launch its own news service this fall. Although he declined to provide many details about the operation general manager of MSN.com Bob Visse said the news staff will be about the same size as the roughly 100 people who created original content for the MSNBC.com. "There is no question that we are going to have more flexibility to make our own decisions," said Vivian Schiller, NBC News' chief digital officer. "This is really an amicable breakup. We think competition will make us better." Okay then.
• Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus
• Maria Shriver tells David about her groundbreaking Shriver Report on the impact of poverty on women and families.
• NJ GUV CHRISTY CREME 'Bridgegate' ROUNDTABLE: Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake; Wall Street Journal Columnist Kim Strassel; former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs; NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and Political Director, Chuck Todd; and TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin.
• FOREIGN POLICY ROUNDTABLE: former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), now president of the Wilson Center; Former GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum (Excuse us but WTF is Frothy Mixture "let's let the kids play with our jarred fetus" Sanitarium doing on ANY news show ESPECIALLY a "Foreign Policy" panel? Unless it is to promote the pro-Israeli view? Ya think? Throw bricks! In a related matter The Rude Pundit reports Hey, Anti-Choicers: By Your Own Logic, You're Paying for Abortions in Israel -Ed) ; Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg; and host of MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews.
- State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) Sunday at 9 am ET and Noon ET.
• Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (R)
• Sen. John "Crazy Train" McCain
• ROUNDTABLE: RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer, DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee, and Karen Tumulty, National Political Reporter for the Washington Post.
- 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 toll-free (877) 443-2366, or use our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email bob [at] headonradio [dot] com during the show!
• Prayer Meetin' Wednesday! First Prayer Meetin' of 2014 with Uber Pope/Imam/Rabbi Bob at the Alter of Common Sense! Pull up a cold one! Listen NOW HERE - Wednesday, January 8th, 2014 (mp3)! Be sure to tune in for the Special New Year's Eve show on Tuesday! 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' - January 9, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: '60 Minutes' becomes a dirty word - Inside their new hit piece on America's clean energy industry; Don't tell the Fox 'News'-ified CBS News, but clean tech is booming; PLUS: Record drought in California, with no end in sight ... All that and more in today's Green News Report! IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links at site): Nature Bombshell: Observations point to 10°F warming by 2100; Global warming warning stickers at gas pumps?; Food industry’s secret plan for a GMO (non)-labeling law; Radio Disney's pro-fracking elementary school tour sparks outrage; Mass Extinction: Let's not.; Big Oil moves to overturn oil export ban in U.S.; The endgame of GMO controversy; Record heat wave kills 100k bats in Australia; Senegal siezes Russian factory trawler; Not enough bees for Europe's crops; Hungarian town goes green after massive toxic sludge spill; Rising sea levels threaten L.A. ... PLUS: Stephen Colbert calls out Fox News on climate change: "Well Done. All The Best News Reports End With 'I Don't Know Where We Got This'" ... and much, MUCH more! ...
• 'Green News Report' - January 7, 2014 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Baby it's record cold outside (but only in the U.S.); PLUS: It's that time of year again --- deniers pretend snow and cold means no more global warming ... All that and more in our first Green News Report of the year!...
• BRADBLOG UPDATE! Another Cold Blast of 'Global Warming is a Hoax!' Nonsense Set to Grip Gullible in U.S. What Fox 'News' tools hope you don't understand, as the Arctic's polar vortex breaks down and moves over U.S...
• BRADBLOG UPDATE! The Fox 'News'-ification of CBS News and 60 Minutes The President of CBS News is the former VP of News at Fox "News". Perhaps that answers the questions being asked again today about the latest failure at 60 Minutes...
• BRADCAST! KPFK 'BradCast': Christie's 'BridgeGate'; Foxified CBS News; My Obamacare 'Nightmare'; MORE... It was a very busy day back on our first live BradCast of the year...
• BRADBLOG UPDATE! VIDEO! Christie's Implausible Deniability and Maddow's Alternate Theory Why doesn't the NJ Governor seem to want to know what really happened? An alternate scandal theory could offer answers...
- 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
• PBC News & Comment 8 Jan 2014 PBC News & Comment: Obama Mulls NSA Changes, Talks to Critics President Obama is meeting with a range of people, including the ACLU and critical senators, about changes to surveillance programs…
• PBC News & Comment 10 Jan 2014 PBC News & Comment: After 12 Years, the Myths of Gitmo Linger 12 years ago this week, Bush opened the Guantanamo prison, pretending it was beyond the reach of laws against torture…
• PBC Standard Podcast January 8, 2014Center for Responsive Politics and Washington Post Uncover Koch Brothers’ Secret Political Networks
• PBC Standard Podcast January 10, 2014Journalist Steve Horn Returns to Update us on Tars Sands, Fracking, the North Dakota Rail Tanker Explosion, and much more
- 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 Weekend on Ring of Fire Radio! January 10, 2014 Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern. Best of Ring of Fire Radio!
• Representative Keith Ellison will join us to discuss the cutting of unemployment benefits.
• Author and journalist Joe Conason will tell us why Republicans are so terrified of Pope Francis.
• BillMoyers.com senior digital producer Joshua Holland will explain how gridlock in Washington helps the wealthy elite.
• Attorney James Kauffman will discuss the JP Morgan settlement that gets them off the hook for some very serious criminal behavior with Bernie Madoff.
• And Dr. Tom Schneider will join us to discuss his new book “A Physician’s Apology.”
• NEW! This Week on Ring of Fire on Free Speech TV! January 11, 2014 Sundays at NOON!
»» Attorney Seth Katz will explain the problem with corporate fines, specifically, why they do absolutely nothing to curtail criminal behavior.
»» Attorney Howard Nations will tell us what an economic disaster NAFTA has been for America, and we’ll discuss dangers of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership.
»» Attorney Joe Cotchett will tell us about the rising tide of populism among Democrats in Washington.
»» And author Les Leopold will explain concept of “reverse eminent domain” and how it is being used to stop home foreclosures.
• Ring of Fire’s Weekly Rewind Posted on December 21, 2013 by Joshua Schwitzerlett - Ring of Fire’s top stories from the past week.
• VIDEO! THE HISTORY OF CORPORATE CORRUPTION & FRAUD with Robert Kennedy Jr & Mike Papantonio “Call us if you have a personal story about Fraud on Taxpayers or False Claims for Payment made by Corportations at 1-866-389-FIRE (3473) or contact us by email at info@ringoffireradio.com if you have evidence of fraud that robbed taxpayer dollars. If our government is paying too much due to fraud by a corporation, Ring of Fire wants to do a story on it.”
• Ring of Fire’s Weekly Rewind Posted on January 4, 2014 by Joshua Schwitzerlett
• VIDEO! Papantonio: JPMorgan’s Destructive Rap Sheet (VIDEO) There is absolutely no question that banking giant JPMorgan knew that Bernie Madoff was ripping people off, and that they did nothing to stop it. In order to stop any further investigations into the bank’s involvement, they’ve agreed to pay $2 billion dollars to make the whole thing go away. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio discusses why this settlement is a bad deal with attorney James Kauffman.
• VIDEO! Pap and Seder: Could “Bridgegate” Ruin Christie’s Career? (VIDEO) Ring of Fire hosts Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder discuss this week’s news from Chris Christie’s camp, which showcased a massive scandal stemming from the Fort Lee lane closures in September 2013.
• 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 1/6/14 Mark Kleiman: Benefits & Pitfalls of Weed Legalization
• TUESDAY 1/7/14 Jesse A. Myerson: Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For
• WEDNESDAY 1/8/14 The Chris Christie Email Bombshell & The War on Poverty 50 Years Later
• THURSDAY 1/9/14 Chris Christie Press Conference & Amanda Hess: Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet
• FRIDAY 1/10/14 Casual Friday: Cliff Schecter & Richard Kind
• 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
• The Federal Reserve 100th Anniversary Road Show Spectacular! by alexschaefer - Paint Provocateur Alex Schaefer wants to say “Happy Birthday, Federal Reserve!’ You made it to 100 years of conducting the nation’s monetary policy! Since mainstream media didn’t send a card, a painter, a protestor, a filmmaker, a freedom fighter and a mad crew are going on a road trip across the USA to visit all twelve of your branches to help you celebrate! Come rain or monkey shines, they are on a mission to throw the birthday party nightmares are made of. A party to highlight the historic END of the original 100 year charter the Federal Reserve Bank has with the U.S. Government December 23rd, 2013! CLICK HERE FOR THE CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN & HELP GET THE SHOW ON THE ROAD! Lots of great donation perks, all original works of art by Alex Schaefer and Cain Motter! This is a great way to collect some art AND help fund this amazing journey and film. It’s a win-win situation! Let’s some history and shake things up around here!
• 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)
• VIDEO! History about to repeat: “Convicted murderer and millionaire gambler John Law spotted an opportunity to leverage paper money and credit to finance trade.” by maxkeiser - READ When A Stock Bubble Goes Horribly Wrong And Hyperinflation Results
• No ‘polar vortex’ here: Record heat grips Australia killing thousands of animals by Stacy Herbert - READ No ‘polar vortex’ here: Record heat grips Australia killing thousands of animals
• Excellent piece by Felix Salmon: 10 Reasons Barry Ritholtz Is Wrong About Gold by Stacy Herbert - Stacy Summary: Very well argued, thorough piece from Felix Salmon. I love John Auther’s “Hindsight Capital,” where the returns are most awesome. I hear oh so many claim to have sold at top and bought again at bottom, whether gold or S&P. Sure they did. Nobody does. And of this concern-trolling which people feel compelled to lob at gold holders is bizarre . . . for, do they ever troll those who bought car insurance last year and yet got in no accidents? Or a health insurance policy at the cost of 10% of their income and yet FAILED to get sick! “What a BAD investment on your insurance policy,” do they exclaim? Tsk. Tsk. Anyway, interesting piece, I encourage all to read the entire thing: 10 Reasons Barry Ritholtz Is Wrong About Gold
• The International Criminal Court has been asked to investigate allegations of abuse and torture by British soldiers in Iraq by maxkeiser
• KEISER REPORT [KR546] Keiser Report: UK’s Economics of Extinction We discuss the Ka-Boom! and Ka-bust! of the economics of extinction in the UK property market as Thatcher’s slow-motion housing timebomb ticks away under the British economy where demand continues to outstrip supply by a factor of two and where one woman being forced out of social housing complains, “I’m sure if they had their way they would kill us. I really believe that.” In the second half, Max interviews Liam Halligan of the Telegraph about austerity, extinction economics, bitcoin and all those towns up North, of which Max can only name three.
• KEISER REPORT [KR547] Keiser Report: United States of Jamaica We discuss how the cannabis boom may benefit China which holds half of all cannabis related patents. They also discuss the fracking wells in Wyoming abandoned for the taxpayer to clean up. In the second half, Max interviews Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project about Colorado’s legalization of marijuana and what it means for the state’s economy.
• KEISER REPORT [KR548] Keiser Report: Let’s Encrypt the Internet! (ft. Kim Dotcom) We discuss the word ‘because,’ the humble conjunction which “exploded with new grammatical possibilities” in 2013. So the news that the FBI and Department of Justice have ‘lost faith in the value of bitcoin,’ because concern trolling. And the news that the FBI has stopped enforcing the law and is, instead, ‘protecting national security,’ because MPAA. In the second half, Max interviews Kim Dotcom about Chris Dodd, the MPAA, Hollywood’s failed business model and an encrypted internet and crypto-currencies.
• THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM-1302] The Truth About Markets – 11 January 2014 Stacy Summary: First episode of 2014! We discuss the recent Keiser Report interview with Kim Dotcom; their observations on Jacob Applebaum’s talk at Chaos Computer Club conference about the NSA spying programs – Turbine and Turmoil. They also talk about the role of corporations like Microsoft and Yahoo degrading the infrastructure and security of the internet. And they ask what hope is there when Bill Gates is voted the ‘most admired person in the world.’ Download show HERE (mp3)
• Donate to ResonanceFM here!
- 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 from 3-5 PM Eastern HERE.) Plenty of archives too!
• Scott Horton Radio Show Progress Report: All right, yall, welcome back to the show to the inaugural Scott Horton Show progress report! It’s been an eventful year since the show and I (amicably) parted ways with Antiwar.com, so I thought I would highlight just a few of the show’s important milestones, as well as preview some of the exciting projects to look for in the near future. ........ The show on Pacifica KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A., still called Antiwar Radio, has now moved to join their Sunday morning public affairs line up (8:30 am pt), and remains the largest source of listeners, with 15,000-20,000 people tuning in weekly. The future: Liberty Express Radio is growing and bringing me along for the ride. The great Charles Goyette hooked me up with Alan Butler and the Liberty Express earlier this year, and what has been the daily replay there from 3-5 eastern time has become my best listened-to show. And now they’re adding my friend Tom Woods to the lineup from 2-3 PM. That does it. I’m making the switch! Starting Monday, October 14, the live show is moving to 3-5 PM Eastern time on LibertyExpressRadio.com, as well as NoAgenda and my own stream.......
• Scott Horton Radio Show 01/09/14 Bruce Schneier: Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security technologist, discusses how the NSA threatens national security; breaking the “trust of the internet;” and how to push back against the NSA using technical and legal means.
• Scott Horton Radio Show 01/10/14 Sheldon Richman: Sheldon Richman, vice president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses why U.S. foreign policy is a shambles; the temptations to reenter Iraq to fight Al Qaeda in Fallujah; Obama’s flip-flopping on Syria; and how the Camp David Accords effect US relations with Egypt.
• Scott Horton Radio Show 01/12/14 Barry Lando: Barry Lando, former producer for 60 Minutes and author of The Watchman’s File, discusses the American legacy in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein’s early days in power, America’s role in the Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, and the calculated destruction of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure during post-war sanctions.
• Visit his blog Stress. See ScottHorton.org for archives! Send emails to Scott at scotthorton.org to help Scott keep his podcast going!
• Older interviews at Antiwar Radio!
- fauxnews
• Sen James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Do you really think Fake Snooze will bring up Regressive long time climate-change-denier Senator James Inhofe Rejects The ‘Global Warming Thing’ Because It’s Cold Outside? Who also accepted over a half million dollars IN 2012 ALONE from The Oil & Gas industries? False Nooze won't even attempt any kind of disclaimer. Sure. -Ed.)
• Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD) member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• ROUNDTABLE: George Will, Bob Woodward, KKKarl Rove & Juan Williams
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Phillip "Phil" Everly
January 19, 1939 – January 3, 2014
