Video -abc SEC + Pornography: Workers Spent Hours on Porn Sites Instead of Stopping Fraud; Gov’t Report Finds Securities and Exchange Commission Employees Surfing Pornographic Websites at Work. April 22, 2010, ABC News. On a day when President Obama argued for more government regulation over the financial industry, a new government report reveals that some high-level regulators have spent more time looking at porn than policing Wall Street. The Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to be the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for financial crimes like Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. But the new report, obtained by ABC News, says senior employees of the SEC spent hours on the commission’s computers looking at sites like naughty.com, skankwire, youporn, and others. The investigation, which was conducted by the SEC’s internal watchdog at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found 31 serious offenders over the past two and a half years. Seventeen of the offenders were senior SEC officers with salaries ranging from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.
China’s Policy Checkmate
By Michael Hudson — Instead of rolling back bad mortgage debts and other debts to reflect the ability to pay, the Obama administration has bailed out the banks for their losses – leaving the debt overhead in place. This means that more and more income needs to be paid to creditors, leaving less available to be spent on goods and services. The result is a squeeze on living standards, which have not risen for the past thirty years or so.
Wikileaks, Resistance, Genuine Heroes, And Breaking The Goddamned Rules
By Arthur Silber / 28 July, 2010 – Powerofnarrative Blog — With regard to the particular role he seeks for Wikileaks and, relatedly, in connection with the mechanics of how that role can be made to function with astonishing effectiveness, Assange is nothing less than brilliant. This is a man who understands the system he’s up against, and he knows how to jam the gears of that system.
Beware Rich Political Saviors
Joel S. Hirschhorn / American Pendulum — Consumer confidence is terrible; citizen confidence is worse: Only 11 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress. No surprise there is record-setting anti-incumbency anger rampant among Americans. But the sad truth is damned if you do and damned if you don’t vote for incumbents. The problem is that the reformers, populist outsiders, tea party candidates, surprise primary winners and others expecting to oust incumbents in the coming mid-term elections for members of Congress and state governors and other officials mostly suck. Why? They are nutty, ignorant, dishonest or racist.
US Treasury Running on Fumes
By Paul Craig Roberts — Americans can get no help out of Washington, but the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, declared that Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security is “not negotiable.” Washington’s commitment to California and to the security of the rest of us is negotiable. War spending has run up the budget deficit, and the deficit precludes any help for Americans. With the US bankrupting itself in wars, America’s largest creditor, China, has taken issue with America’s credit rating. The head of China’s largest credit rating agency declared: “The US is insolvent and faces bankruptcy as a pure debtor nation.”
The Year America Dissolved
By Paul Craig Roberts — The Roman Empire lasted for centuries. The American one collapsed overnight. Rome’s corruption became the strength of her enemies, and the Western Empire was overrun. America’s collapse occurred when government ceased to represent the people and became the instrument of a private oligarchy. Decisions were made in behalf of short-term profits for the few at the expense of unmanageable liabilities for the many. Overwhelmed by liabilities, the government collapsed.
Did BP Accidently Tap Into the RIGEL Gas Field?
By Washington’s Blog — On July 23rd, Admiral Thad Allen said that the seep 3 kilometers from the leaking BP well was from the Rigel gas field:
Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul’s Resolution Aimed at U.S. Withdrawl From Pakistan
Dennis Kucinich — This week we have two very important votes for the future of this country and the future of the world. The first deals with Pakistan – House Concurrent Resolution 301, and the second deals with supplemental funding which will provide another 33-billion dollars to keep the War in Afghanistan going. I would like to speak to you briefly about both of those votes.
The Love Police vs. The Globalist Ian Goldin, Former VP World Bank
Filmed By Charlie Veitch / The Love Police — 23rd July 2010 at Secret Garden Party 2010 in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. “I was giving a speech at this festival and realised they’d invited a globalist as well. The Love Police go to investigate. As usual, the minions of the borg stand by their mainstream man.”
Ellen Brown on Debt Money, Why Money is Collapsing and Why Central Banks Need Adult Supervision
Daily Bell Interview of Ellen Brown — “Our money is an illusion. Except for coins, which compose only one ten-thousandth of the money supply, all of our money today consists of debt to private banks. Banks always take back more money in principal and interest than they put into the money supply as principal, making the system basically a pyramid scheme. After 300 years, this scheme has spread around the world and has now reached its mathematical limits. The whole world has been captured in the debt trap of a private international banking monopoly.”
The Real Tea Party Begins Here!
Video Based on Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt — Reclaiming our sovereignty with publicly-owned banks. Public banking has a long history in the United States despite being challenged by the private banking cartel at every turn. Here’s a brief history of the battle and a call to action.
Whitehouse Condemns Wikileaks for Releasing Afghan War Logs
By Catalina Hanna — The biggest leaks appear to involve unreported NATO killings of Afghan civilians and new information that Pakistan spy agencies are aiding the Afghan insurgents. The U.S. is not only condemning Wikileaks but also Pakistan. There are 180 files that relate to the ISI spy agency supplying, arming, and training insurgents since 2004. There will be much more to come on this breaking story, as over 90,000 files were released. For sure, there will be much “blowback” one way or another with more horror stories of aggression are bound to be published.
You can visit the Wikileaks website to view the files.
The Time of Testing Is Here
By Richard C. Cook — Are we at “the end of the age?” In social life, the overriding characteristic of our era is the increasing division in the world between haves and have-nots, masters and slaves, controllers and controlled, rich and poor. The power of the wealthiest class of people has never been so great. The weapons of mass destruction they–and the armed forces who work for them–monopolize have the force to destroy the earth many times over.
Until They are Awake They are a Threat to You
By Charlie Vietch / The Love Police — It’s not the psychopathic international banksters who pose a threat to us. In essence, they have no power. They are fat, gout-riddled, unfit and spiritually empty vessels pressing forward the agenda of some anti-human but albeit very testing alien code. We can handle them. We know where we stand. The battle-lines are drawn. Our most pressing enemy is not them. Our most pressing enemy is the hordes of droids who obey blindly. Until they are woken up, they are the foundations of the pyramid of control.
Surveillance State: On the Edge With Alex Jones
On the Edge from Friday, July 23rd with Alex Jones to talk about the surveillance state now being reported in MSM.
“New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship” – Andrew Gavin Marshall Interview
7/23/2010 – Gene interviews Andrew Gavin Marshall, Research Fellow at Global Research, regarding his July 2010 article “New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship”.
Repubs Plot Israel-Iran Apocalypse and the Collapse of the US Economy
By Juan Cole / www.juancole.com — The move is reminiscent of the 1998 letter the Project for a New American Century signatories sent to President Clinton, putting pressure on him to initiate war on Iraq. They did maneuver him into pulling out UN weapons inspectors and bombing Iraq. The US removal of the inspectors made the West blind as to the lack of Iraqi weapons programs, since their absence could no longer be certified. In turn, Iraq’s opaqueness as a result of the Clinton actions allowed the Bill Kristol crowd and the rest of the Israel, war industry and oil lobbies to propagandize America into the fruitless and ruinous Iraq War. Now they are repeating this pattern with regard to Iran.
Don’t Let Congress Green-Light Attack on Iran
Nearly one third of the Republican Caucus in the House of Representatives has introduced a resolution giving Israel a green light to attack Iran. H.Res.1553 declares unwavering support for Israel to “use all means necessary,” to “eliminate nuclear threats” posed by Iran. The game plan of these Members of Congress was spelled out by John [...]
Who Killed The Gulf?
By J. Speer Williams / Rense.com — If there’s ever to be an honest final analysis of what killed the Gulf of Mexico, it will not be Mother Earth’s crude oil and gases. What did kill the Gulf? The man-made chemical dispersant, Corexit. Well then, WHO killed the Gulf? British Petroleum, of course; but, they were only the paid killers. The important parts of the article below tell us – WHO paid the killers to do the killing, and paid the cops to look the other way, and paid the courts to declare the murder to have been an unavoidable homicide.
Ray McGovern On CIA and Government Supression
Video Ray McGovern Interview — Last week, a Federal Judge ruled that the government can suppress information about basically whatever they would like, even if it is illegal. The decision was made as a response to the Freedom of Information Act, which was filed by the ACLU. Ray McGovern says the CIA has broken into two organizations that differ in their ideology about information.
Whatever Happens Israel Can Always Count On U.S. Evangelicals
By Natasha Mozgovaya — Thousands of Christians from across the United States descended on Capitol Hill on Thursday in order to lobby Washington lawmakers on behalf of Israel. Organizers of the event, called Christians United for Israel, showed their strength by lobbying over 85 percent U.S. Congress offices.
Attendees of this year’s gathering are visibly different from those in the past: about one in five of the 5,000 participants was from a Hispanic Church.
The New Order Of Oz
By John Pilger —The Order of Mates celebrated beside Sydney Harbour the other day. This is a venerable masonry in Australian political life that unites the Labor Party with the rich elite known as the big end of town. They shake hands, not hug, though the Silver Bodgie now hugs. In his prime, the Silver Bodgie, aka Bob Hawke or Hawkie, wore suits that shone, wide-bottomed trousers and shirts with the buttons undone. A bodgie was a Australian version of the 1950s English Teddy Boy and Hawke’s thick grey-black coiffure added inches to his abbreviated stature.
Sayanim: Israeli Operatives in the U.S.
By Jeff Gates / Veterans Today — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was candid in his assessment four weeks after 911. He may have been thinking about John McCain when he made this revealing comment: “I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.” [October 3, 2001] Americans know that something fundamental is amiss. They sense—rightly—that they are being misled no matter which political party does the leading. A long misinformed public lacks the tools to grasp how they are being deceived. Without those tools, Americans will continue to be frustrated at being played for the fool.
Austerity Measures Could Force a Depression
By Bob Chapman / International Forecaster — The crisis affecting Europe is nothing new. It goes back three years and the beginning of the credit crisis, 60% of the subprime CDOs, collateralized debt obligations, had been sold to European institutions. These were the mortgage bonds, which contained a variety of toxic waste, which the rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, in collusion with banks and brokerage houses, had sold as AAA bonds, when in fact their ratings should have been considerably lower. The holders of these bonds in many instances became insolvent and had to be bailed out by capital injections from central banks, most of the funds were lent by the Federal Reserve.
Inside the ‘Class War’
by Danny Schechter / CommonDreams.org — While the government doesn’t appear to have the fortitude to clean up more crime on Wall Street, the Supreme Court is trying to insure that prosecutors will not have the tools they need to jail wrong doers if and when they do. The Washington Post reports, “A Supreme Court ruling last month that gutted an anti-corruption tool favored by federal prosecutors is jeopardizing high-profile investigations into politicians and business executives…” So, there you go, Wall Street has wriggled off the hook with a little help from their friends, and is winning the new “class war.” 2.1 million Americans-that’s the new number-can’t even get unemployment benefits extended.
Taking Financial Reform into Our Own Hands
by Stacy Mitchell / Yes Magazine — With the passage of the financial reform bill, giant banks see a golden opportunity to finally put the financial crisis, along with their culpability for wrecking our economy, in the rearview mirror.
The Rot from Within: Character Disorders of the Republic
By Robert Logan — “But one of the key insights from the literature on personality disorders is that they know best themselves exactly what they are doing. What is missing is the moral compass. You are wasting your time arguing with them, “informing” them, or trying to change them. The same has been true with my political experience and all the futile ancillary efforts.”
“But what the children are getting instead is the slickest death-merchant we have yet seen in our republic, simultaneously winning the Nobel Peace Prize while accelerating the longest war in our history. Obama is the poster boy for covert aggression: war crimes in the name of award-winning humanitarian objectives; announcing a surge at the same time he insists there will be a draw-down. “
Terror on Wheels: History of the Car Bomb
Video: Robert Baer: Forget about nuclear missiles – the decisive weapon of the twentieth century is the car bomb. After Iraq we now know you can defeat a Superpower, start a civil war or just blow up your own government with a trunk load of homemade explosives and a battered old car. Former CIA agent Robert Baer investigates the hidden history of the car bomb in the 20th century, from the little known but devastating car bomb attack on 1920s Wall Street to the present use of car bombs in Iraq. Robert Baer was in Lebanon in 1983 when the US embassy and marine barracks were hit by this most inconspicuous yet deadly weapon. Robert Baer’s life was depicted by George Clooney in the Oscar-winning movie Syriana.
George Bush Sr, JFK and the Men Who Stole America
by Len Hart / The Existentialist Cowboy — Many years later, a little known self-professed ‘liberal’, Steve Kangas, would publish to his website, ‘Liberal Resurgent’ an article exposing a sordid history of of CIA crimes and interventions from Guatamala to Cuba, from Iran-Contra to Watergate. The article is entitled: The Origin of the Overclass. Kangas would be found dead in a men’s room in the Pittsburgh office building owned and occupied by Richard Mellon Scaife, the spider behind the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. Kangas, it is said, committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the mouth! It is a story that one must accept upon bad faith.
Iranian Scientist Would Not Play Curveball
by Ray McGovern / CommonDreams.org — “The next war hangs largely on whether U.S. intelligence analysts with integrity are allowed to ply their trade without fear or favor; or, failing that, whether they will decide to give priority to the supervening value of preventing another unnecessary war, as opposed to keeping a promise not to divulge classified information. Most of them are well aware that all too often such information is stamped “SECRET” simply to keep the truth from the American people.”
Disaster Scenarios of Earth
Video: Host: George Noory — Journalist and science consultant Lawrence E. Joseph discussed threats to life on Earth, including collapse of power grids from solar flares, the weakening of the magnetic field, and the solar system’s move into a new area of space. Political, economic, and natural forces are all leading us into a “deadly convergence,” he said. Specifically, a solar EMP blast could knock out electricity by permanently destroying transformers in the grid. If a blast like the Carrington Event of 1859 occurred again, we could see 100 million people out of electricity for a couple years, he cautioned.
They’re All Grovelling and You Can Guess the Reason
By Robert Fisk / The Independent — It is the season of grovelling. Only a week after CNN’s Octavia Nasr and the British ambassador to Beirut, Frances Guy, dared to suggest that Sayyed Hassan Fadlallah of Lebanon was a nice old chap rather than the super-terrorist the Americans have always claimed him to be, the grovelling began. First Ms Nasr, already fired by the grovelling CNN for her effrontery in calling Fadlallah a “giant”, grovelled herself. Rather than tell the world what a cowardly outfit she had been working for, she announced that hers was “a simplistic comment and I’m sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah’s life’s work. That’s not the case at all”.
The End-Game and The Illusory Gold Bubble
Darryl Robert Schoon, Jul 14, 2010 / 321Gold.com — Midway through 2010 we are approaching the end of the end-game, the resolution of the monetary imbalances that began in 1971. For more than 2500 years, gold was money: but, in 1971 that changed. After 1971, money was no longer connected to gold. For the first time in history, money had no intrinsic value.
Not the Toronto Hilton: Torontonamo Bay 2010
Charlie of Love Police talks about his incarceration in Toronto during the G20 Police State.
Obama Can’t Say “No” to the Rich
by Glen Ford / Black Agenda Radio —Having transferred trillions of public treasure for the sake of Wall Street’s health, Obama now picks up where George Bush left off on Social Security. Obama’s deficit commission is pre-programmed to assault the last vestiges of the social safety net. The president “is the right wing’s most potent weapon, the one before which liberal Democrats throw up their hands in surrender without the dignity of a fight.”
America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer
By Clancy Sigal / the Guardian — With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years? I hallucinate easily, a hangover from time spent in an acid-rock commune in London in the fevered 60s. Most evenings when I switch on the television 6.30 news with its now cliched pictures of deep sea oil spurting from BP’s pipe rupture, I see not bleeding sludge but human blood surging up into the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil Disaster Breakthrough: BP Says Cap Stops Leak
NEW ORLEANS – BP finally choked off the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday — 85 days and up to 184 million gallons after the crisis unfolded — then began a tense 48 hours of watching to see whether the capped-off well would hold or blow a new leak. To the [...]
Bill Kristol’s ‘Emergency Committee?’ Give me a break
By Stephen M. Walt — To be more specific, Smith reports that hardline neoconservatives such as William Kristol, Michael Goldfarb, Noah Pollak, and Rachel Abrams have joined forces (again) with rightwing Christian evangelical Gary Bauer to establish a new group: the “Emergency Committee for Israel.” The group says it is going to target candidates in key Senate and Congressional races, along with the Obama administration.
“The Secret of Oz” Movie Review By Silver Futurist
SilverFuturist — I consider this movie to be outstanding. The first few minutes were slow for me, and then it took off as it poured facts and information into my head.
The Fed is Steering the Economy into Deflation, Deeper Recession
By Mike Whitney — Obama intends to double exports within the next decade. Every other nation has the exact same plan. They’d rather weaken their own currencies and starve workers than raise salaries and fund government work programs. Class warfare takes precedent over productivity, a healthy economy or even national solvency. Contempt for workers is the religion of elites.
Centralized Power is Always a Danger
By PrMaine / OpEd News-– Just as concentration of power in government should be contained by a considered system of checks and balances, power in the economic sphere should be contained. Unfortunately, the founders left it to future legislators to establish mechanisms for this important task and it is the failure to properly contain the growth of economic power that has now led us to this brink of failure both in the economic and political sphere.
Rising Tensions on the Korean Peninsula: The Sinking of the Cheonan, Reviewing the Evidence
By Gregory Elich — Did a North Korean submarine fire a torpedo at the Cheonan? It seems improbable. If it was a torpedo that sank the Cheonan, then it certainly was not the one that the JIG put on display. It would have been foolhardy for the North Korean government to order such a strike. It had nothing to gain, and absolutely everything to lose by such an act. It may be that a rogue commander ordered the attack as revenge for an incident near Daecheong Island the previous November, when South Korean ships chased a North Korean patrol boat, firing on it and sending it up in flames, thereby causing the deaths of several sailors. That attack, incidentally, failed to elicit any concern whatsoever from the same U.S. officials who so sternly pontificate on the unacceptability of allowing the sinking of Cheonan to go unpunished.