Workers and Wage Slaves, The IT Crowd, Corporatocracy; Elizabeth Warren, Wall Street, JPMorgan, Accountability; Obamacare; NSA Spying vs. Journalism, Jeremy Hammond

Workers and Wage Slaves

• The 40-Year Slump—"From 1954 thought 1974, American workers brought home most of the wealth that they produced. Since 1974, they've steadily lost power—and they're getting just a fraction of the wealth they produce today."
• Investment Manager Explains Why 99.5% Of Americans Can Never Win
• Paid Sick Leave is Popular — So Corporate America is Lobbying Against Democracy
• Swiss outrage over executive pay sparks a movement in Europe
• Bangladeshi garment workers win a 77% pay rise

The IT Crowd

• "Because Marissa Said So" — Yahoos Bristle at Mayer's QPR Ranking System and "Silent Layoffs"
• Microsoft axes its controversial employee-ranking system
• Facebook and Microsoft help fund rightwing lobby network, report finds—"State Policy Network rejects climate change, opposes workers' rights – and is backed by some top US tech and telecoms firms."
• Deal Reached in Inquiry Into Visa Fraud at Tech Giant—"Infosys has agreed to pay $34 million to settle claims of 'systemic visa fraud and abuse' involving temporary workers brought to the United States." Paying for cheap foreign labor so as not to pay for Americans' just wages. NYT
• What Contract IT Workers Miss About Being Full-Time

Corporatocracy

• It's business that really rules us now—"Lobbying is the least of it: corporate interests have captured the entire democratic process. No wonder so many have given up on politics."
• Corporate America's new scam: Industry P.R. firm poses as think tank!—"How the media fell hook, line and sinker for the propagandist, respectable-sounding 'Employment Policies Institute.'" Salon
• Corporate Welfare: Boeing Gets Jaw-Dropping $9 Billion to Stay in Washington State
• Michael Sandel: Why we shouldn't trust markets with our civic life
• The Whitewater Scandal and Our Two Americas in the Raw

Elizabeth Warren

• Wall Street's nightmare: President Elizabeth Warren—Also Hilary Clinton's. Politico
• Elizabeth Warren: 'Too Big To Fail' Is Worse Than Before Financial Crisis
• Elizabeth Warren challenges Obama to break up 'too-big-to-fail' Wall St banks—"Amid speculation that she might run against Hillary Clinton in 2016, firebrand senator attacks regulators for multiple failings."
• Elizabeth Warren: quiet revolutionary who could challenge Hillary Clinton in Democrats' 2016 race—"Senator's tough stance against Wall Street is attracting voters on the left who are disenchanted with the party establishment."
• Democrats quietly throwing presidential support behind Elizabeth Warren: report

Wall Street

• Video: The Wall Street Code—"A Goldman Sachs/UBS 'quant' turned whistle blower explains how the market is rigged."
• Fed Official Who Helped Orchestrate QE: 'I'm Sorry, America,' QE Really Was A Huge Wall Street Bailout
• You Know Something's Wrong When Billionaire Fund Managers Are Worrying About Inequality
• A great idea for making Wall Street pay its fair share—"Here's an idea for raising government revenue whose time may have come. Instead of taxing the income of the wealthy, tax investment transactions that don't contribute much, if at all, to economic growth."
• Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans' personal debt—"Rolling Jubilee spent $400,000 to purchase debt cheaply from banks before 'abolishing' it, freeing individuals from their bills."

JPMorgan

• JPMorgan's #AskJPM Twitter Hashtag Backfires Against Bank—Being asked the tough questions [Salon].
• JP Morgan agrees $4.5bn mortgage settlement—"US investment bank JP Morgan has agreed to pay $4.5bn (£2.8bn) to investors who lost money on mortgage-related securities during the financial crisis."
• Rogue Spanish trader says no to US extradition—"A former JPMorgan bank trader arrested in Spain refused Friday to be extradited to the United States where he faces criminal charges in the massive 'London Whale' fraud scandal."
• JPMorgan allegedly paid $80,000 a month to Wen Jiabao's daughter
• Korea's Financial Regulator Forewarns Local JP Morgan of Information Disclosure

Accountability

• Judge criticizes lack of prosecution against Wall Street executives for fraud
• Moody’s cuts ratings of three big US banks—"Moody's has cut the credit ratings of big U.S. banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, after deciding that the federal government is less likely to bail the financial institutions out if they get into future difficulties."
• Ex-Bank Executive May Face Death in Vietnam Fraud Trial

Obamacare

• House Passes GOP 'Fix' For Obamacare Cancellations
• Liberals Should Fight Like Hell for Single Payer Health Care
• Conservatives Confident America Rejecting Obamacare, Ready for Every-Man-for-Himself Care
• Alaska won't expand Medicaid
• They've learned nothing!: Media's Obamacare coverage is humiliating—"Betraying any knowledge of political science, media embarrasses itself with a phony frenzy. Here's how bad it was." Salon

NSA Spying vs. Journalism

• European, US Media Face New Tests With NSA Spying
• NSA files: New York Times defends the Guardian's Snowden leaks
• UK's reputation is damaged by reaction to Edward Snowden, says UN official—"Special rapporteur on freedom of expression says he is alarmed at political response to revelations of mass surveillance."

Jeremy Hammond

• Jailed Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond: 'My days of hacking are done'—"Hammond calls his 10-year sentence a 'vengeful, spiteful act' by US authorities eager to put a chill on political hacking." Wikileaks has released the rest of their Stratfor files.
• Jeremy Hammond: FBI directed my attacks on foreign government sites—"Anonymous hacktivist told court FBI informant and fellow hacker Sabu supplied him with list of countries vulnerable to cyber-attack."
• Blast from the Past: The Rise and Fall of Jeremy Hammond: Enemy of the State—"As a devastating series of cyberattacks struck the heart of the national-security establishment, the Feds set out to destroy the legendary hacker and radical anarchist by any means necessary."

Workers and Wage Slaves, Occupational Hazards; Economy, Inequality, Class War, Monsanto; Financial Troublemakers; Homes for the Taking: Liens, Loss and Profiteers; Syria, NSA Spying

Workers and Wage Slaves

• Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor—Why pay fair wages when you can get overseas workers on the cheap?
• Most U.S. Workers Likely to Lose Out from Proposed Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement, Report Finds
• Indiana judge finds right-to-work unconstitutional—"A Lake County judge has determined Indiana's right-to-work law violates a provision in the state constitution barring the delivery of services 'without just compensation.'"
• Majority of U.S. Workers Say Job Doesn't Require a Degree—"Even four in 10 working college grads say their work doesn't require a degree."
• Teen employment hits record lows, suggesting lost generation
• One more reason it's crap to be a waiter in America—"The IRS is cracking down on tips – again. Why go after billionaires when you can squeeze more out of servers?"
• Jobs, Debt And Home Prices Since The Crisis, In Five Charts

Occupational Hazards

• Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray Vetoes Living Wage Bill—"In explaining his veto Gray said the bill was not a 'true' living-wage bill because it would only raise minimum wage for a small fraction of DC's workforce, only affecting a handful of retailers whose stores are supermarket-sized or larger and whose workforces are not unionized."
• Agency: Firms can't only use debit cards to pay—"Federal regulators say companies cannot require employees to receive their pay on debit cards, citing complaints from workers of high and unexpected fees on the cards."
• Pay is delayed for 40,000 federal workers
• Lake County to terminate dozens of older-than-65 employees
• Canada: Intern's Death After Overnight Shift Sparks Outcry—"The sudden death of a 22-year-old Alberta practicum student, who crashed while driving home after being made to work long hours, has his loved ones pushing for laws to protect unpaid interns from exploitation."

Economy

• Revealed: The Secret Koch Group That Gave Conservatives $236 Million In 2012
• Elizabeth Warren Calls Supreme Court Right-Wing, 'Pro-Corporate'—A "subsdiary of big business."
• Boehner Seeking Democrats' Help on Fiscal Talks—"As Speaker John A. Boehner sought a deal to avert a government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, a bloc of Republicans demanded a delay in the federal health care law, which the White House called 'a nonstarter.'" NYT
• Columnist calls out PolitiFact for covering up Scott Walker's debt problem
• 10 Ways America Has Come to Resemble a Banana Republic

Inequality

• Income gap between rich and poor is biggest in a century
• Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse
• Years after recession, many in U.S. still struggling, polls show
• Krugman: Rich Man's Recovery—"While the great majority of Americans are still living in a depressed economy, the rich at the very top are doing just fine." NYT
• Recovery for the Rich, Recession for the Rest

Class War

• Mindlessly Gutting Food Stamps—"House Republicans blame the needy for the lingering costs of recession." NYT
• The wealthy 'make mistakes', the poor go to jail—"I left my Wall Street trader job and began photographing drug addicts in NYC. These two worlds have entirely different rules."
• Exposing How Donald Trump Really Made His Fortune: Inheritance from Dad and the Government's Protection Mostly Did the Trick
• How Wal-Mart’s Waltons Maintain Their Billionaire Fortune
• Billionaire's Hit-and-Run Crash Leaves Single Mom With $4K Bill

Monsanto

• 'Monsanto Protection Act' quietly extended by Congress
• Monsanto, DuPont pour millions into GMO fight
• Daily Show: Monsanto & Seed Patent Laws—"Aasif Mandvi learns that greedy farmers have threatened the livelihood of Monsanto's heroic patent attorneys."

Financial Troublemakers

• In fiery speech, Warren calls for limiting size of banks
• The Case Against Larry Summers
• This is a complete list of Wall Street CEOs prosecuted for their role in the financial crisis
• The jerks got away with it! 5 years after economic collapse, they’re still smiling—"Five years ago this week, titans of finance wrecked the American economy. Here's why they're still happy as ever." Salon
• Morgan Stanley CEO Gorman Says Chance of Another Financial Crisis Near Zero
• Banks Warned Not to Flout $25 Billion Foreclosure Deal—"[R]egulators say lenders may be flouting the spirit of the deal by repeatedly asking for additional paperwork from borrowers seeking loan modifications and then foreclosing while treating the applications as incomplete."
• Despite Big Bank Threats, City Approves 'Eminent Domain for the People'—"Richmond, Calif. approves measure to seize 'underwater homes' in order to write-down mortgages and save homeowners."

Homes for the Taking: Liens, Loss and Profiteers

• Left with nothing—"Too old, too tired and not enough money to fight. The District sold their small debts to investors, now their homes are gone for good.
• Suspicious bidding—"Unusual bidding at D.C. tax auctions went undetected: With thousands of homes on the line, the city's tax sales have been undermined by unusual bidding."
• Mistakes put homes in peril—"D.C. tax office mix-ups put homes in peril. Agency sells hundreds of liens by mistake, even after bills are paid."
• D.C. officials want changes to tax lien practices but ignored earlier calls for reform—"Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and a key D.C. Council member said they would pursue emergency legislation next week to reform the practice after learning about it Sunday in an investigative report published in The Washington Post. But both Gray and council members were warned 16 months ago..."
• Tax lien sales canceled after Post investigation; Gray calls for reforms—Another feather in the cap for the WP.

Syria

• US-Russia Reach Agreement on Syria Weapons
• The US: world's policeman or schoolyard bully?—"Ever since 9/11, it seems America's just been itching for a fight – and any Muslim country will do. Really, who acts like this?."
• Malala Raising $500 Million For Syrian Refugees

NSA Spying

• Judge Urges U.S. to Consider Releasing NSA Data on Calls NYT
• Jesse Kline: The NSA's undemocratic push toward a digital surveillance state
• NSA gets data from Germany’s domestic security agency - reports

Workers and Wage Slaves, Minimum Wage, Wal-Mart; Economy; Wall Street, Accountability, Housing; Class War; NSA Spying, Your Rights Online

Workers and Wage Slaves

• Fast-food workers call for nationwide walkout Aug. 29
• Elderly More Likely to Be Employed Than Teens WSJ
• Abracadabra, You're a Part-Timer: How Corporate America Used the Great Recession to Turn Good Jobs Into Bad Ones
• BofA intern dies after reportedly working 3 straight days—"A 21-year-old intern who worked grueling hours at Bank of America's London office died just a week before his internship was to conclude."
• Plutocrats' New Pitch: Let Us Rob You Now So You Can Plan Ahead for Poverty—"Pete Peterson & Co. kindly want to take your Social Security away to prevent you from imagining a dignified future."
• How Much You Should Save for Retirement, Based on 139 Years of Data
• Flipside: Ad agency gives workers 500 paid hours to pursue passions

Minimum Wage

• Study: Welfare pays more than minimum wage in most states
• How low can you get: the minimum wage scam—"Wonder why benefit spending is rising? Simple: corporations get away with crappy wages, so government has to make up the rest."
• Campaign seeks to push Seattle minimum wage to $15
• Ex-McDonald's CEO: Raising The Minimum Wage To $15 Would 'Absolutely' Kill Jobs
• Cyprus: President pledges a 'Guaranteed Minimum Income—Phasing out welfare.

Wal-Mart

• Why I'm standing up to Wal-Mart—"For six years, I worked for the company. But when I decided to strike, they fired me. Now I'm firing back." Salon
• No, Walmart doesn't create jobs
• Walmart 'Suspends' 10 Workers For Taking 5 Minute Break In 90+ Degree Weather
• Walmart's Latest 'Buy America' Sham—"In a way, Walmart's Buy America program represents the home stretch of the economic transformation the company set in motion decades ago."
• Flipside: Meet the Low-Key, Low-Cost Grocery Chain Being Called 'Walmart's Worst Nightmare'

Economy

• Dems have an ace in the hole in coming battle—""Republicans will face a fundamental question. Do they care more about preventing deep cuts to defense, or protecting special interest tax breaks for big oil companies and hedge fund managers?"
• Reich: Here's Why America Stopped Caring About The Public Good
• Prisons, Post Offices and Public Schools: Some Things Should Not Be For Profit
• The CIA Is Closing the Office That Declassifies Historical Documents—Another victim of sequestration.
• Texas Converts 80 Miles Of Paved Road To Gravel Thanks To Lack Of Funds

Wall Street

• Lobbyist Secretly Wrote House Dems' Letter Urging Weaker Investor Protections—"Thirty-two liberal Democrats signed onto a letter drafted by a financial-industry lobbyist that aims to block protections for millions of Americans' retirement accounts."
• Congressman Doesn’t Believe White Collar Crime On Wall Street Exists—"Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It’s pretty simple."
• Obama Presses Regulators to Finish Financial Rules—"Meeting at the White House Comes as Many Dodd-Frank Measures Still Not in Place." WSJ
• A mayor who puts Wall Street first—Bloomberg the billionaire. NYT
• Why Wall Street & Co. Will Do Anything to Stop Eliot Spitzer from Championing the Public Interest
• Secrets of a former high speed trader—"High speed trader turned whistleblower David Lauer explains why he left the industry and how certain practices at computerized trading firms negatively affect the markets."
• Goldman Sachs banker charged with rape in New York state

Accountability

• Greg Palast: The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis
• The Great Bubble Era Was Caused by Financial Deregulation, Not Easy Money
• The SEC is now demanding that companies admit wrongdoing. That's a big deal.—"For certain violations, the agency would no longer allow financial institutions to simply pay a fine without admitting wrongdoing (also known as a 'nolo contendere' plea)."
• Ex-JPMorgan Traders First Charged in $6.2 Billion Loss—"Two former JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) employees were charged by federal prosecutors with attempting to conceal trading losses at the largest U.S. bank last year as part of a probe of its $6.2 billion loss on derivatives bets."
• JP Morgan in US probe over links to influential Chinese—"US authorities are investigating investment bank JP Morgan over claims it hired children of influential Chinese officials [NYT] to gain business."

Housing

• Eric Holder Owes the American People an Apology—"The Justice Department made a long-overdue disclosure late Friday: Last year when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder boasted about the successes that a high-profile task force racked up pursuing mortgage fraud, the numbers he trumpeted were grossly overstated."
• Elizabeth Warren says mortgage settlement too lax on banks
• Unsealed court-settlement documents reveal banks stole $trillions' worth of houses
• New Fraud Evidence Shows Trillions of Dollars in Mortgages have No Owner
• Bank of America Employees We Were Told To LIE To Struggling Home Owners
• Denver family evicted after mom murdered—"Federal housing officials are condemning a decision by the Denver Housing Authority to evict the relatives of a mother killed by a rampaging gunman three days after her slaying, saying there is room for compassion in federal law."
• Why the 30-Year Mortgage Could Be Coming to an End

Class War

• Does Wealth Breed Narcissism: The New 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' Study
• Girl parks Maserati in middle of the road, says those who complain are just jealous
• Upper West Side condo has separate entrances for rich and poor

NSA Spying

• The NSA is losing the benefit of the doubt
• New York Times Partnering With Guardian On Snowden Reporting
• Snowden suspected of bypassing electronic logs—Making it very difficult for the NSA to determine what and how much he has taken.
• NSA Officers Sometimes Spy on Love Interests—"The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT." And a movie!
• Lawmakers Probe Willful Abuses of Power by NSA Analysts—And are any of these lawbreakers going to jail?
• Why Nobody Cares About the Surveillance State—"When you've been groped by the TSA, what's a little NSA spying?" All part of the program to stamp out dissent.
• Three Illusory "Investigations" of the NSA Spying Are Unable to Succeed
• The More Likely Reason for Spying: It's For Protecting the Profits of the Oligarchs—And the Corporatocracy.

Your Rights Online

• Schneier: U.S. enables Chinese hacking of Google—"In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access."
• Julian Assange: Google and the NSA—"Google is not only getting paid by the U.S. Government to provide them with surveillance information, it is more or less an arm of the U.S. State Department. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange explains."
• Why NSA Snooping Is Bigger Deal in Germany
• New Zealand appears to have used NSA spy network to target Kim Dotcom—"'Everything goes into the US-based spy cloud,' Kim Dotcom tells Ars."
• NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies
• Obama pick for NSA review panel wanted paid, pro-government shills in chat rooms—There's definitely for astroturfing activity going on in forums and comment sections.
• justdelete.me—"A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services."

Surveillance and Privacy, Bolivia; World News; Free Speech; Dirty Money; Ecology

Surveillance and Privacy

• Rally to Restore Your Rights on July 4th
• Text of a July 2, 2013, letter to Edward Snowden from his father and father's attorney
• NSA revelations: why so many are keen to play down the debate—"The mass surveillance that Edward Snowden has exposed asks questions not only of government but of telecoms companies too."
• America's founders would be horrified at this United States of Surveillance—"How did we become so fearful and timid that we've given away essential liberties? Some are even afraid to speak up."
• To those who say 'trust the government' on NSA spying: Remember J. Edgar Hoover's FBI?
• FISA Court Judges Aren't Happy That The Public Is Upset Secret Court Issuing Secret Rulings Allowing NSA To Spy On Them
• Police State Canada: Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) Runs Massive Domestic Spying Program

Bolivia

• Bolivia denies Snowden on Morales' plane—"Bolivia is furious its president's plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Austria because of a rumour US fugitive Edward Snowden was on board." No such thing as sovereignity to the world police.
• 'Act of aggression': Bolivia to file UN complaint over airspace blockade
• Bolivia vs. Europe over Snowden-linked plane delay

World News

• Bulgarian protests continue, is the world watching?
• Showdown? Egypt's Morsy defies military 'ultimatum'
• Bug Found in Ecuador's Embassy in London—Where Assange is still holed up.
• Czech Businessman Resists Corruption—"A Czech businessman refused to bribe two officials, instead reporting them to the police. His actions came amid recent corruption scandals that have proliferated the Czech upper political ranks lately."
• Canada: Meet Neil, better known as Slurpy, the Rob Ford lookalike at centre of scrapped plot to film fake crack video

Free Speech

• In Uzbekistan, Everyone's A Pop Critic, Including The Government—"Uzbekistan's Culture and Sports Ministry has announced a ban on 'meaningless' songs that fail to 'praise the motherland.'"
• Insult someone on Twitter or Facebook? A crime in Grenada—"Lawmakers on the island of Grenada are tired of online "mischief." So they've banned it. How might this affect the nation's discourse?"
• First Evidence Of Iranian Internet Throttling as a Form of Censorship—"Internet security expert publishes first evidence that Iran uses internet throttling to prevent the spread of information during periods of public unrest." But there are signs of change.

Dirty Money

• EU charges 13 banks, ISDA, Markit with breaching EU antitrust rules—"Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Morgan Stanley also among banks charged."
• Major banks still vulnerable to money laundering, says top regulator—"Britain's major banks remain vulnerable to being used to fund terrorism and money laundering by criminal gangs, despite being fined billions of pounds in recent years for failing to crackdown on illegal financing."
• Judge OKs HSBC laundering penalty—'A judge in New York has approved a deal that will allow HSBC to pay a record 1.9 billion-dollar (£1.25 billion) penalty to settle claims that the British bank helped Mexican drug traffickers, Iran, Libya and others under US suspicion or sanction move their money around the world."
• OLAF may reopen Dalli case over Bahamas trip to 'move millions' - International Herald Tribune
• Vatican scandal: Two high-profile resignations follow arrest of monsignor

Ecology

• Africa's Western Black Rhino is Now Officially Extinct
• Over 30 Million Bees Found Dead In Elmwood Canada
• Japan's Whaling Is Not Science, Expert Witness Tells World Court
• Deforestation rising in Amazon countries outside Brazil
• All Coral Reefs Could Die by Century's End
• Dead fish fill Mexico reservoir—"Tens of thousands of dead fish have washed up on the banks of a Mexican reservoir, amid allegations that a local firm contaminated the water."
• Biggest Dead Zone Ever Forecast in Gulf of Mexico—"Oxygen-deprived area may be size of New Jersey, scientists say." Incidentally, an oil platform there hasn't stopped leaking for 9 years.

Workers, Wage Slaves, Sick Leave, Unemployment; Dirty Money, Bunk of America; That's Rich

Workers

• The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed—"America is now dotted with “temp towns” – places where it’s difficult to find blue-collar work except through a temp agency and where workers often suffer lost wages, no benefits and high injury rates."
• On-call shifts: The latest corporate shame—"[T]askmasters-in-suits have now redefined the term "hired" to mean that you're tethered to a corporation full-time, but you actually work and get paid for only the few hours a week when the boss calls."
• No, manufacturing jobs won’t revive the economy—"Stop claiming a factory boom will save the country and lift people up. Here's what these jobs really look like." Salon
• The Roberts Court on labor rights: be afraid. Be very afraid.—"[W]hile Justice Roberts and company were busy shredding the Voting Rights Act, they decided to trash the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act while they were at it. Title VII is the provision of the Act that prohibits employment discrimination."
• Greg Kaufmann on the Truth About American Poverty—"People are working and they're not getting paid enough to feed their families, pay their utilities, pay for their housing, pay for the healthcare… if you're not paying people enough to pay for the basics, they’re going to need help getting food."
• More Evidence That US Middle Class is Sliding Toward the Third World
• The 4 A.M. Army—"Every morning, hundreds of thousands of workers show up for jobs that are unseen, uncertain and underpaid—and vital to the U.S. economy."

Wage Slaves

• Employers Still Dodging Minimum Wage Law 75 Years After Its Passage
• Fast-Food Workers Denounce Wage Theft 'Crime Wave' At New York City Hearing
• Paid via Card, Workers Feel Sting of Fees—"For many hourly workers, paper paychecks have been replaced by prepaid cards, which often involve fees that can quickly add up and take a bite out of their pay." NYT

Sick Leave

• Forced to Work Sick? That's Fine With Disney, Red Lobster, and Their Friends at ALEC—"America's one of the only industrialized nations that doesn't mandate paid sick leave. These guys want to keep it that way."
• Florida Gov. Rick Scott Preemptively Blocks Paid Sick Leave—"If a worker or their child is sick, should they really be forced to choose between their health and their paycheck?"
• City Council overrides Mayor Bloomberg's veto of paid-sick leave bill in early morning session

Unemployment

• Krugman: War on the Unemployed NYT
• North Carolina Dropped From Federal Unemployment Program
• Tennessee ends $40 million in child allowances for unemployed

Dirty Money

• World Bank Insider Blows Whistle on Corruption, Federal Reserve
• Inside Anglo: the secret recordings—"Exclusive: Tapes reveal the lies and deception that led to the bank bailout."
• Where Are the Libor Cases Against U.S. Banks?—"It would look awfully strange if the U.S. government wound up targeting only foreign banks as part of its investigation into the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate."
• EU forges bank bailout deal to protect taxpayers—"Negotiations end in agreement on who should bear the brunt of losses caused by banking failure." Unfortunately, it will probably get ignored.

Bunk of America

• It's Official: Bank of America Has the Worst Reputation in the Banking Industry
• New Bank of America whistle-blower emerges: More customer abuse secrets—"Bank of America whistle-blower details latest scheme to abuse homeowners, evade settlement rules and pocket cash." Salon
• He chalks the line: City Attorney prosecutes man for writing anti-bank slogans in water soluble chalk—So much easier to go after the little guy. Update: He was found not guilty.
• Bank of America suit under scrutiny of settlement watchdog

That's Rich

• What's more important: a college degree or being born rich?—In related news, student loan rates double today, making it even harder for debts to be repaid.
• Chilean nanny to sue NY socialite family claiming she was a virtual slave
• Malibu homeowners who hide access to beautiful beaches foiled by $30K Kickstarter campaign

Snowden, Surveillance and Privacy; Workers and Wage Slaves; Politics and Economy; Public-Private Partnerships, Uncharitable; Wall Street and Financial Institutions; Corporations; Monsanto; Plane Fare

Snowden

• NSA leaker Snowden on flight to 'third country' via Moscow with WikiLeaks help—So much for extraditing him from Hong Kong.
• Edward Snowden: Shooting the messenger?—"Mainstream media in the US seems to be more interested in the character of the leaker than in the content of the leak."
• Petition to pardon Edward Snowden passes 100,000 signatures, forcing White House response—Non-response more like it, but at this least this continues to keep up awareness.

Surveillance and Privacy

• US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden—"The US government is stealing millions of text messages in their hacking attacks on major Chinese mobile phone companies, Edward Snowden has told the Post."
• Amid NSA spying scandal, the gloves are off for EU's justice chief—"No longer is the EU standing for U.S. lobbying and policy pushing. The EU's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding is back in the trenches. The gloves are off, and she's fighting back."
• Bill Clinton on NSA: Americans need to be on guard for abuses of power by US—"Former president tells Scottish audience there needs to be accountability and transparency when surveillance is used."
• Pelosi booed at Netroots while defending espionage charges against Snowden
• Google handed over years of e-mails belonging to WikiLeaks chatroom admin—A secret warrant was used to get them.
• NSA surveillance: don't underestimate the extraordinary power of metadata—"President Obama has reassured US citizens that 'nobody is listening to your calls', but it's not the content of conversations that intelligence agencies crave."
• There's a New Fascism on the Rise, and the NSA Leaks Show Us What It Looks Like—"The power of truth-tellers like Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema, the corporate academy and the corporate media."
• Tradeoff—"The stupidest framing of the controversy over ubiquitous surveillance is that it reflects a trade-off between 'security' and 'privacy.' We are putting in jeopardy values much, much more important than 'privacy.'"

Workers and Wage Slaves

• Graphics worker: 'The shouting of the bankers resembled constant gunfire'—"A woman working night shifts in graphics for a major bank, talks of the systematic abuse and poor conditions she faced."
• Former intern: Don't step on us
• Disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it's legal
• How I Got Fired from the Job I Invented
• Round Lake village residents in uproar over library employee's firing—"The tiny village is in an uproar, Mayor Dixie Lee Sacks said, over the firing of a well-liked veteran library employee who closed the library 40 minutes early last week, without permission, because of the threat of tornados in the area."
• Firing of Five Walmart Strikers Condemned by Rep. Ellison: 'Completely Unjust and Illegal'
• Laws fail to protect pregnant women who need special accommodations on the job

Politics and Economy

• Poll: Congress' new level of awfulness—"Asked about a list of institutions in American society, only 10% of those questioned in a Gallup survey released Thursday say they have confidence in Congress. That's down three percentage points from last year, and according to their release, 'this is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found, not only for Congress, but for any institution on record.'"
• Sanders: We must not accept this economic 'new normal'—"Yes, the economy is improving, but too many Americans are being left behind, while the rich keep getting richer."
• Big Lie: America Doesn't Have #1 Richest Middle-Class in the World...We're Ranked 27th!—"America is the richest country on Earth. We have the most millionaires, the most billionaires—and a increasingly poor 'middle class.'"
• Decline and fall: how American society unravelled—"Thirty years ago, the old deal that held US society together started to unwind, with social cohesion sacrificed to greed. Was it an inevitable process – or was it engineered by self-interested elites?"
• Rising US wealth doesn't generate spending surge

Public-Private Partnerships

• State legislators' ties to nonprofit groups prove fertile ground for corruption—"New York scandals reveal unsavory pattern of 'quid pro quo' links between lawmakers and 'charities.'"
• Leaker's Employer Is Paid to Maintain Government Secrets—"Booz Allen Hamilton has become one of the largest and most profitable firms in the United States almost exclusively by serving one client: the government." NYT
• The Great Farm-Bill Ripoff—"A confusing clutter of programs that pay farmers not to farm, reward them for undue risk, write checks to rock stars and Rockefellers, give special treatment to certain crops without rationale, and ladle out welfare to the wealthy while ignoring those on the margins." To everyone's surprise, the Farm Bill goes down in flames.
• Scott Walker Plans To Sell Off Many Of Wisconsin's University Buildings, Prisons
• How Tea Party Favorite Rick Scott Helped Cook Up a Sweetheart Deal for His Florida Friends
• Residents of Blue Mound, a small North Texas town, upset with water veto—"The town's water is provided by a private company...." and Gov. Perry's veto made sure it stayed that way despite the town having "considerably higher water rates than the town's neighbors"
• Flipside: Attempted Land Grab Ends With Voters Booting Entire City Council

Uncharitable

• America's 50 worst charities rake in nearly $1 billion for corporate fundraisers
• Why is Nancy Brinker still CEO of the Susan G. Komen foundation?
• Lax IRS Oversight Fostered Costly Charity Scams

Wall Street and Financial Institutions

• The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis—"It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it."
• Obama Rewards Wall Street Again, Thwarts Reform By Sacking Gensler
• A Wall Street regulator’s race against time—"Can Gary Gensler finish the most important piece of financial reform before he’s out?"
• Wall Street is winning the long war against post-crash regulation—"Feeble as it was, Dodd-Frank was a high point of reining in abuses. Thanks to financial lobbying, it's business as usual."
• Credit Unions Fight Back against Big Banks—...and the lobbying efforts "that would strip them of their tax-exempt status."
• UK's Co-op Bank agrees to £1.5 billion 'bail-in' rescue plan
• 6 Unbelievable Ways the Big Banks Are Scamming You—"Five years since the crash, the big banks continue to screw over their customers.:
• Fox commentator paid $50,000 to tout stock
• Ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling to leave prison early—"In seeking to reduce the sentence, the government had emphasized that $40 million in restitution, currently held up as Skilling pursued appeals, would be released to victims."
• Depositing a Little Common Sense into the Law—"Did you know that small business owners can be prosecuted for making repeated cash deposits of under $10,000?"

Corporations

• Sen. Warren Blasts Pro-Corporate Trend of Federal Courts—"[Y]ou will end up with a Supreme Court that's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce."
• In Major Blow To Consumers, Supreme Court Protects Mega-Corporations From Liability
• McConnell: 'Absurd' to ban corporations from having same rights as 'people'
• California To Wal-Mart: Enough! No More Taxpayer Subsidized Profits For You
• Criminal charges laid against Nestle Canada, other companies for chocolate price fixing
• Business Leaders Urge President to Allow G8 to Close Corporate Tax Loopholes
• Flipside: Marlins Park Is Satisfyingly Empty

Monsanto

• Appeals Court Makes Monsanto Promise Not To Sue Organic Farmers
• Monsanto Turns To Blackwater For Increased Security, Intelligence And 'Infiltrate Activist Groups'
• Monsanto snubs Puerto Rico Senate

Plane Fare

• Ryanair plans to put only one toilet on planes in latest scheme to slash fares
• Oof! Airline Fees Rise Yet Again: At Least $200 to Change a Flight
• Give them an inch and they take $773,074,040

Wall Street, Too Big to Jail, Mortgages and Foreclosures, Financial Institutions; Economy, That's Rich, Workers; GOP; Racism; Public-Private Partnerships

Wall Street

• U.S. states, regulator drop objections to $8.5 billion BofA deal
• Defang Dodd-Frank To Protect Wall Street Vampires? A Look At The Proposed Changes
• Krugman: More on the Roots of Bernanke Hatred NYT
• Wall Street is writing its own regulation bill
• See How Citigroup Wrote a Bill So It Could Get a Bailout—"Citigroup lobbyists drafted a bill to allow more risky dealings by taxpayer-backed banks and—what do you know?—the House financial services committee passed nearly identical legislation."

Too Big to Jail

• Elizabeth Warren to Obama Administration: Take the Banks to Court, Already!
• No Arrests on Wall Street, But Over 7,700 Americans Have Been Arrested Protesting Big Banks
• Why Are Homeowners Being Jailed for Demanding Wall Street Prosecutions?—"Bankers go free while cops tase peaceful protesters and the Department of Justice targets journalists."
• Elizabeth Warren Grills Treasury Secretary on Too Big to Fail—And whether he'll allow banks to get even bigger.
• Jon Stewart rips Obama for aggressive investigation of whistle-blowers instead of bankers

Mortages and Foreclosures

• Turns out much-hyped settlement still allows banks to steal homes—"New data reveals mega-banks still illegally foreclosing on thousands. Get this: The housing settlement allows it." Salon
• Wells Fargo Forecloses On Homeowner For Making Early Mortgage Payments
• New York claims more proof of bank mortgage abuses

Financial Institutions

• Bankers Explain How They Cannot Possibly Live On $1 Million Pay
• Zombie corpse of Lehman Brothers sues Intel over bad billion-dollar deal
• JPMorgan Caught in Swirl of Regulatory Woes—"The nation's biggest bank, which faces several federal investigations, was warned by energy regulators about 'manipulative schemes' it used in California and Michigan."

Economy

• Paul Krugman accused of 'spectacularly uncivil' behavior
• Paul Krugman on Debt, but Are Soaring Interest Rates Running Against Him?
• Entitlements in America—"[D]eficit projections are falling fast. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now says it will shrink to 4% of GDP in this fiscal year and 2.1% by 2015. No wonder Republicans would rather talk about the Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi than the budget."
• Why Nobody Cares That The Deficit Is Shrinking
• Stop celebrating our falling deficits—"Our deficits aren’t dropping because we're doing something right. They're dropping because we're doing everything wrong."

That's Rich

• Top U.S. tax breaks to cost $12 trillion over decade, benefit wealthy: CBO
• How Far Did PBS Go to Avoid Offending a Sponsor?—"Public television's attempts to placate David Koch."
• Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World

Workers

• The Financialisation of Labour—"Frances Coppola argues that flexibility in the labour market could be harming the UKs prospects."
• House GOP Votes To End Overtime Pay With 'Working Families Flexibility Act'—How Frank Luntzian.
• The Long Shadow of Bad Credit in a Job Search—"Many companies, especially some retailers, use an applicant's credit report in making hiring decisions." NYT
• 84 Percent of NYC Fast Food Workers Report Wage Theft in a New Survey
• Valley farm-labor shortage boosts wages for workers
• Working past retirement: 75% will do it, most because they want to
• Old Economy Steve Is A New Meme That Will Enrage All Millennials Everywhere

GOP

• Krugman: The Closing of the Conservative Mind—"Is there new flexibility? No." NYT
• Bob Dole: GOP should be 'closed for repairs'—"The Republican Party has changed so drastically in recent years, the current GOP wouldn’t welcome the likes of Ronald Reagan...."
• The Wisdom of Bob Dole—"Old-school Republicans no longer recognize a party full of Tea Party lawmakers that wants to break the government." NYT
• GOP dilemma: draw new voters without irking base—"The Republican Party, having lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, confronts a dilemma that's easier to describe than to solve: How can it broaden its appeal to up-for-grabs voters without alienating its conservative base?"
• Paul Ryan admits GOP can't govern without a hostage crisis
• Tea Party Favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann Leaving Congress—Ding, dong, the witch has fled.
• I was a liberal mole at Fox News: From Bill O'Reilly to Roger Ailes, here's all the inside dope Salon

Racism

• The Long, Sordid History of the American Right and Racism—"Other factors have come and gone for the Right, but racism has always been there."
• Virginia Parents Outraged After Walmart Security Allegedly Suspected Father Of Kidnapping Biracial Daughters—"Well, the customer was concerned because they saw the children with your husband and he didn't think that they fit."
• Ann Coulter Decries "Ethnic Composition" Of Today's US Immigrants
• Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Racially Profiled Latinos, Federal Judge Rules
• Racist opera voicemail on WorldStar gets Papa John's employee fired
• Family: Michael Clarke Duncan's Grave Desecrated By Racists
• Teacher Fired For Using Word 'Negro' During Spanish Class—Hard to determine what really happened.

Public-Private Partnerships

• Does the husband of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein chair a company that brokers sales of USPS facilities?
• Sweet deals are business as usual in Florida government
• Bail bonds dispute surfaces in resignation fracas—"Brawley wrote to Tillis that the legislature had passed 'a bill giving a monopoly to the family of a Republican legislator.'"

Corruption; Banks, Eurozone, Cyprus; Fascism, Racism, Israel and Gaza; Iraq'd, Military Disservice, Journalism

Corruption

• Spanish government to sue El Pais—"Spain's conservative ruling party has launched a lawsuit against top newspaper El Pais for allegations of corruption among the party's leaders."
• Pakistani activist for poor shot dead in Karachi
• Lima's first woman mayor Villaran 'survives recall vote'—"Ms Villaran's supporters have accused the country's business elite and powerful conservative politicians of trying to oust her because of her progressive social policies."
• Swaziland government sells maize donated by Japan and banks the cash—"Government sold 12,000 tonnes of maize and deposited money in central bank, even though Swaziland has not been able to feed itself since 1970s."
• Poor-quality Chinese concrete could lead to skyscrapers collapsing

Banks

• Britain fails in last-ditch bid to dilute bankers' bonus law—"Britain has failed in a last ditch effort to alter EU proposals to cap bankers' salaries from next year."
• Barclays announces £38.5m bonuses on budget day—"Bank awards its investment bank chief Rich Ricci £17.5m of shares – which he immediately cashes in - and chief executive Antony Jenkins £5.3m shares."
• This Is What Happens When A Journalist Forces A Banker To Actually Answer A Question

Eurozone

• The next supermodel—"Politicians from both right and left could learn from the Nordic countries."
• Leaders wrestle with austerity as thousands protest
• What British 'austerity' would look like if we were in the eurozone

Cyprus

• Cypriots stunned by forced savings cuts
• The Botching of the Cyprus Bailout: Worse Than Lehman Brothers
• How German fears of underwriting Russian oligarchs pushed Cyprus to crisis
• Cyprus's wealth tax makes perfect sense – its rich won't escape unscathed—"Ignore the hysterical reaction to the tax on Cypriots' bank deposits. This is a practical, fair solution to a complex problem."
• Saving Cyprus: Tapping Bank Customers Is the Right Move
• Eurozone crisis live: Cyprus crisis deepens as MPs reject bailout terms
• Russia rebuffs Cyprus, EU awaits bailout "Plan B"

Fascism

• Texas tea party leader promotes Fascist Party as 'pro-Constitution, pro-America'
• Fascism mounts a comeback in Italy
• Over half of Austrians think the Nazis would be elected if the party was readmitted to politics
• Greek footballer Giorgos Katidis banned for Nazi salute
• Greek neo-Nazi MP can be prosecuted for attacking left-wing rivals on live TV

Racism

• 'It's not racism. The Muslim players just shouldn't be here': Beitar Jerusalem fans walk out over signing of two Muslim Chechen players
• Bus taunts that sparked Australian racism debate
• India-born football fan assaulted in UK racist attack before 200 onlookers
• BBC gets heat for censoring Elvis Costello's 1979 hit "Oliver's Army"—"The Mail reports that BBC censored the 'one more widow, one less white nigger' lyric, despite the fact that the song has generally played uncensored on the radio for more than thirty years." Salon
• Blast from the Past: Racism: The Arab world's dirty secret NYT

Israel and Gaza

• Obama: Settler Violence Against Palestinians Shouldn't Go Unpunished
• Gaza rockets fired at Israel during Obama visit
• Australia MPs: Gaza is world's largest outdoor jail

Iraq'd

• Dick Cheney Marks Tenth Anniversary of Pretending There Was Reason to Invade Iraq
• Former Halliburton Subsidiary Received $39.5 Billion In Iraq-Related Contracts Over The Past Decade
• Charts: Bush Lowballed Us on Iraq by $6 Trillion
• Punished for telling truth about Iraq war—"Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki dared to call out the Bush administration for inadequate preparation for the Iraq war and lost his job...."
• Canada's 'No' To Iraq War A Defining Moment For Prime Minister, Even 10 Years Later
• The Iraq War Ten Years After: Declassified Documents Show Failed Intelligence, Policy Ad Hockery, Propaganda-Driven Decisionmaking
• Iraq Anniversary: 10 Lessons from America's 'Dumb War'
• Iraqis' Pain Never Abates as Attacks Kill Dozens—"Nineteen bombs and an assassination on Tuesday served as a reminder of the violence that regularly afflicts Iraq a decade after the American-led invasion." NYT
• Bush promised Iraqi civilians a better future. What are their lives like now?
• Ten Years After the Iraq Invasion: Baghdad Then and Now

Military Disservice

• America's combat veterans: The waiting wounded—"The government is failing to keep faith with ex-soldiers."
• Returning from Iraq, the Damage Done—"It's easy to send soldiers off to war. It's harder to face them when they come home."
• AP: Costs of US wars linger for over 100 years—"If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat."

Journalism

• Bang the Drum Loudly: The Failed Journalism That Sent America to War in Iraq
• Why WPost's Hiatt Should Be Fired—"Toting up the Iraq War's cost is staggering, including nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. But a decade later, few of its architects in government or apologists in the press have faced accountability."
• How to Write an Iraq War Apologia
• The Speechwriter: David Frum on the Rhetoric of Iraq
• Iraq War Anniversary New York Times - Pleased To Be Shutting The Piehole Now—"The 'public editor' of The New York Times tells us today that the paper's coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War is likely to be less of a hoot than back in the drum-banging days when Judy Miller was standing atop a great pile of stove-piped bullshit while Bill Keller threw roses at her feet."

Wall Street, Reckoning, Banks, Libor and Rates, Money

Wall Steet

• The Untouchables—"FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street's leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages."
• Who Decided U.S. Megabanks Are Too Big to Jail?
• Bill Moyers and Matt Taibbi: Everyone Pays If the Banksters Don't Go to Jail
• Why Do Banks Get Away With Murder?—"Big banks have copped to heinous crimes that have cost citizens billions of dollars. And it just keeps happening. Daniel Gross on why the madness never ends—and no one goes to jail."
• Obama nominates Mary Jo White as SEC chair—"When lawyers at the Securities and Exchange Commission went after ­JPMorgan Chase for misleading mortgage investors, they came up against a defense team led by the tenacious Mary Jo White."
• Why Republicans' Explanation Of The 2008 Crash Is Dangerously False
• Bailed out TARP execs cashed in with fat paychecks
• JP Morgan CEO condemns 'five years of scapegoating' of banks
• Too Fast To Fail: Is High-Speed Trading the Next Wall Street Disaster?

Reckoning

• Lawmakers seek mortgage settlement documents from regulators
• Wonder Warren—"The senator from Massachusetts is making sure information about foreclosures during the recession gets out to the public."
• 4 Reasons Why the S&P Fraud Lawsuit May Be a Game-Changer

Banks

• Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan profits rise sharply
• The latest foreclosure horror: the zombie title
• Intense criticism over planned Danske Bank fee changes
• So God made a banker
• Report: Your Salary Data May Be For Sale
• Debt collection horror stories—"There are threats to dig up the dead relatives of those who couldn't pay their funeral bills, promises to imprison debtors or take their children into custody -- even warnings that pets will be killed."
• Anonymous posts over 4000 U.S. bank executive credentials—"Anonymous appears to have published login and private information from over 4000 American bank executive credentials its Operation Last Resort, demanding US computer crime law reform."

Libor and Rates

• RBS fined £390m / $612m for rigging Libor interest rate
• Libor Lies Revealed in Rigging of $300 Trillion Benchmark
• Traders laughed as Libor rates rigged
• U.S. targeting more banks in Libor probe
• Bank probes find manipulation in Singapore's offshore FX market - source

Money

• Should We Kill The Dollar Bill?
• No, Switching To Dollar Coins Would Not Save The Government Money
• Don't mess with the penny lobby—"The chorus arguing America should scrap the 1-cent coin has grown. Here's why it might never go away."