Best of the Web:


Pirates

Best of the Web: Former Anglo Irish Bank CEO David Drumm in 'Anglo Tapes': We'll tell the Central Bank that if they don't give us billions now, the economy will collapse

Paul Williams
Irish Independent
Sat, 29 Jun 2013 12:46 UTC
Image
Psychopathic bankster David Drumm, believed to be hiding out in the U.S., laughs as he does his part to turn a booming economy into a broke nation.
Tapes of David Drumm, just days before he lost his job as Anglo Irish Bank CEO, reveal the frenetic atmosphere in the bank.

For the first time, Anglo's own executives speak about how the Brian Cowen-led government ignored the advice of international bankers Merrill Lynch to shut down Anglo, in recordings exclusively revealed today in the Irish Independent.

The bankers even tell how their own institution is described as a "basket case" by the firm, which were the government's external advisers.

"They're knifing us," Drumm tells colleague John Bowe, before telling him how he had prepared a plan to burn bondholders.

Mr Drumm reveals a conversation he's apparently had with former Fine Gael leader and ex-finance minister Alan Dukes - the government-appointed member of the board of the bank, where the former politician allegedly reported that the Government had decided to keep the bank going. Mr Dukes was appointed as public-interest director at Anglo days beforehand.

Read More...
Handcuffs

Best of the Web: Caught On Tape: Irish bankers laugh about never repaying bailout


Real News
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 12:23 UTC
Bill Black is interviewed by Real News on the 'Anglo Tapes', which reveal how Anglo Irish Bank executives laughed as they manipulated the Irish Government into a 16 billion dollar bailout in 2008 that they knew neither the government nor the people would ever be able to repay...


Comment: Leaked recordings of Anglo-Irish phone conversation during outbreak of 2008 financial crisis: Banksters joked about defrauding the Irish people

Read More...
Handcuffs

Best of the Web: Leaked recordings of Anglo-Irish phone conversation during outbreak of 2008 financial crisis: Banksters joked about defrauding the Irish people

Julia La Roche
Business Insider
Fri, 28 Jun 2013 10:37 UTC
Image
Once again, we have more embarrassing conversations between bankers...

The Irish Independent, a Dublin-based newspaper, has uncovered tapes of an internal phone conversation from September 2008 between two executives at Anglo Irish Bank during its bailout deal and they sound pretty scandalous. The Irish Independent points out that the recordings show they misled the Central Bank.

The executives from the recording have been identified as John Bowe (head of the bank's capital markets) and Peter Fitzgerald (director of retail banking).

However, Bowe "categorically denied" that he misled the Central Bank and Fitzgerald, who wasn't involved in discussions with regulators, said he was unaware of any intention to mislead, the report said.

Either way, the newly revealed recordings are still embarrassing.

Comment: Note that the Irish Independent is no angel in this: part and parcel of the Irish political establishment, this mainstream media outlet sat on the tapes for the longest time...

Read More...
Clipboard

Best of the Web: Obama supporters sign petition to repeal the Bill of Rights to support the President

MarkDice
Youtube
Fri, 12 Jul 2013 07:41 UTC
Media analyst, political activist, and author Mark Dice asks California beach goers if they'll sign a petition showing support for Obama in his quest to repeal the Bill of Rights.


Comment: Far from showing people willingly signing over their freedom, what this video demonstrates is that appealing to people's sense of freedom through the constitution and the Bill of Rights is a complete waste of time. People either don't know or don't care what these documents and ideals are.

Now, how many of these people would have signed if they were asked to support reducing the real value of wages and increasing home foreclosures in order to increase the elite's wealth?

None.

People are concerned with practical measures of freedom, not 'high-falutin' ideals. '

Will me and my family have enough to eat today?'

'Have I done enough to ensure we have a roof over our heads for the foreseeable future?'

Only at the point where enough SEE this happening because they can viscerally FEEL this happening to them and the people immediately around them in their social networks are they motivated to DO anything about it.

Then, and only then, when they're educating themselves in open fora like we saw at Occupy Wall Street and Tahrir Square, can there be any meaningful discussion about 'bills of rights'.

Read More...
Question

Best of the Web: Matrix: Who is Edward Snowden?

Jon Rappoport
jonrappoport.wordpress.com
Mon, 08 Jul 2013 15:35 UTC
Image
This article is a compilation of a number of pieces I've written about Ed Snowden and the NSA. It doesn't replace them, but it hits the high points...

Let's begin here: If you absolutely must have a hero, watch Superman movies.

If your need for a hero is so great, so cloying, so heavy, so juicy that it swamps your curiosity, don't read this.

If you can't separate Snowden's minor revelations from the question of who he is, if you can't entertain the notion that covert ops and intelligence-agency games are reeking with cover stories, false trails, and limited hangouts, you need more fun in your life.

NSA? CIA? These guys live for high-level bullshit. They get down on their knees and worship it. They fall into a suicidal funk if they aren't lying on at least three or four levels at once.

Okay. Let's look at Snowden's brief history as reported by The Guardian. Are there any holes?

Is the Pope Catholic?
Read More...
USA

Best of the Web: Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) force-fed under standard Guantánamo Bay procedure - video


UK Guardian
Mon, 08 Jul 2013 10:41 UTC
As Ramadan begins, more than 100 hunger-strikers in Guantánamo Bay continue their protest. More than 40 of them are being force-fed. A leaked document sets out the military instructions, or standard operating procedure, for force-feeding detainees. In this four-minute film made by Human Rights organisation Reprieve and Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadia, US actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), experiences the procedure

Read More...
Books

Best of the Web: Twelve-year-old Ali Ahmad explains the situation in Egypt in under 3 minutes

HandsoffSyria
Youtube
Mon, 08 Jul 2013 05:58 UTC
This 12 years old boy is just stunningly, incredibly smart. Listen to him as he excruciates the Muslim Brotherhood, relentlessly dissecting their power grab in Egypt. Interview by Egyptian newspaper El Wady, in Cairo on October 19, 2012.

Thanks to the Youtube channel 'FreeArabsChannel' for the video


Follow us on Facebook

Comment: Most adults of the world apparently have some catching up to do to reach the Ali's level of awareness. Whether the Egyptian, Arab or global revolution is 'successful' or not, this is exactly what Brzezinski warned his fellow elites about - the politicization of the masses:

Wikileaks and the War for your Mind
In November 2008, current advisor to President Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, described to a group of British political and corporate elite two very basic transforming developments that he believes are occurring on the world scene:

"The first change concerns the surfacing of global issues pertaining to human well being as critical international issues such as climate, environment, starvation, health and social inequality. The second change concerns a global political awakening."

Brezezinski described this second change as "a truly transformative event on the global scene". He said that: "for the first time in all of human history, almost all of mankind is politically awake, activated, politically conscious and interactive. There are only a few pockets of humanity here or there in the remotest corners of the world which are not politically alert and interacted with the political turmoil and stirrings and aspirations around the world. And all of that is creating a world wide surge for the worldwide surge for personal dignity and cultural respect in a diversified world."

To an audience in the US he described the global 'terror threat' in this way:
"I'm deeply troubled that a very vague emotionally stated semi-theologically defined diagnosis of the central global menace is obscuring our national ability to comprehend the historically unprecedented challenge which is being posed in our time"
The historically unprecedented challenge is:
"A massive global political awakening and this is obstructing our ability to deal effectively with the global political turmoil that this awakening is generating."
Brzezinski went on to describe another new reality that global powers such as the US must face: "while the lethality of [our] power is greater than ever, [our] capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at an historical low". He further noted that:
"In earlier times, it was easier to control a million people than physically to kill a million people. Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people."


Read More...
Sheriff

Best of the Web: 4th of July DUI Checkpoint: Drug dogs, Searched without consent, Rights taken away while innocent

PurpleHat1991
YouTube
Sat, 06 Jul 2013 10:02 UTC
Image
© File photo
The officer orders me to pull over and get out of my car, bullies me around, gets the drug sniffing K-9, lies about me having "Illegal Drugs" in the car, searches without consent, and tells me that it is ok to take away my freedom. All while not being detained. All this harassment because my window was not lowered enough to his preference. I broke no laws whatsoever. All of this on a day that we are supposed to be celebrating freedom and liberty. At the end of the encounter, the officer did not want to give me his name when I asked him. After I repeatedly asked him, he finally gave it to me.

Read More...
Vader

Best of the Web: NSA/GCHQ - The New Praetorians and the New Cold War


Golem XIV
Wed, 03 Jul 2013 08:57 UTC
Image
© After Banksy
In a democracy rule is by consent. In a dictatorship it is by control.

Which do we have in the West? It seems to me, it is no longer clear. We certainly still have the rituals of rule by consent. But behind the elected front men and women is a shadow state. It's people ritually swear allegiance to those we elect. They declare themselves there to serve and protect. But when it is us they spend their time spying on, whose interests are they protecting? Can you really serve those you do not trust?

In 2008 we discovered that behind the banking system we knew about, there was a vast shadow banking system whose size most of us never suspected. In 2013 we have glimpsed not only the scale of the shadow state but the degree to which it, like the shadow banking system, is out of control and not working for us at all.

Of course Mr Obama and the 'security chiefs', brought blinking into the unwelcome light, justify themselves by telling us that all those things they never saw fit to mention to us, or even to the people we spend so much time electing, have been saving us from un-named terrors. Are we to take such unverifiable assurances at face value from people who we know do not trust us and who make a profession of lying to us? I remember when Treasury Secretary Paulson told the US Congress that unless they stopped asking questions and simply handed him $600 billion to bail out the shadow banking system, there would be anarchy and tanks on the streets. Am I wrong to see a parallel?
Read More...
Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Largest demonstration in world history? 20 million people take to the streets in Egypt, give Muslim Brotherhood leader Morsi two days to step down... or face rebellion


Russia Today
Mon, 01 Jul 2013 04:32 UTC
Egypt's protest movement has given the president an ultimatum to step down by Tuesday or face a mass rebellion. Some 20 million outraged citizens have flooded cities across the nation in a show of frustration at Mohamed Morsi's failure to keep the promises he made when he came to power a year ago. At least 7 people have been killed and more than 600 injured during the rallies so far. RT's Bel Trew reports from Cairo.

Read More...