RTWed, 23 May 2012 16:14 UTC
Illegally downloading songs off the Internet has become a common trend around the globe, but a student at Boston University was specifically targeted for the practice. Joel Tenenbaum was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for sharing 30 songs and now has to cough up a total of $675k. He joins us with more on his ongoing case against the RIAA, which the US Supreme Court decided this week not to hear.
RTThu, 24 May 2012 16:09 UTC
First there was the housing bubble, but now a new crisis has emerged in America. The student debt bubble has now accumulated over $1 trillion in student loan debt and, starting July 1, Federal Pell Grants are set to be cut for thousands of student across the US. Sarah Jaffe, associate editor for AlterNet.org, joins us with her take on student debt.
Obama administration under fire for granting access to Hollywood film-makers in apparent violation of official policyThe
Obama administration is under fire for granting Hollywood film-makers clandestine access to the Navy Seal team that killed
Osama bin Laden in apparent violation of official policy.
Oscar-winning director
Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal were given unprecedented information about the 2011 raid to help them make
Zero Dark Thirty, a forthcoming film about the event.
Documents released under freedom of information laws showed the Pentagon and
CIA divulged secret information about the commando unit, known as Seal Team Six, which killed the September 11 mastermind.
Corporate news blackout as Obama appoints John Brennan as the sole person in charge of designating people to be assassinated.
John Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor was a name that you did not see on the Mainstream media today as they continue to run stories that serve to distract the masses from stories that matter.
Most recently he publicly spoke about the drone program calling it moral and ethical and just.
According to reports from the Associated Press, John Brennan has now seized the lead in choosing who will be targeted for drone attacks and raids after Obama delegated him as the sole authority to designate people for assassination under the United States top-secret assassination program.
Yes, if it such a secret program then why is the Associated Press running a story on it? Because it is only a "top-secret" matter of National Insecurity when the public and organizations such as the ACLU request more details on it than is revealed int the propagandized reports the public is fed through the corporate media.
While this story deserves to have been put before the eyeballs of every U.S. citizens it was merely a side note ran by the Associate Press that didn't make corporate news headlines anywhere.
These look like scenes from a Bond film or perhaps the start of World War Three.
Dressed in full combat gear with guns raised, members of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) looked like they were on serious business as they swooped on Tampa, Florida, in boats, assault vehicles and helicopters.
But fortunately for the thousands of bystanders there was no need to be frightened - it was a 'mock' assault as part of a training exercise.
© UnknownDon't shoot! Spectators watch with cameras as a demonstration by special operations troops on an Army MH-60 Blackhawk near the Tampa Convention Center draws crowds yesterday
took place at the Tampa Convention Center yesterday, when 14 SOF members from the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force showcased their combat skills in a half-hour demonstration.
Representing
10 different nations, they roared through the water in two inflatable boats and leaped ashore using Humvees and all-terrain vehicles.
Others jumped from the rear of a helicopter directly into the water.
Jonathan Cable & Steven Johnson
ReutersThu, 24 May 2012 10:04 UTC
The shadows over the global economy darkened this month as the euro zone's private sector contracted, U.S. manufacturing growth slowed and China's once-booming factories faltered, surveys showed on Thursday.
In Europe, a downturn that started in smaller states on the euro zone's periphery is now taking root in the core countries of Germany and France, where tepid growth had been the main ballast of support for the euro area economy.
"We are very much in a period of weakening global growth. It doesn't quite feel like 2008 yet but the danger is we could get there quicker than we think," said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank.
The euro zone composite PMI, comprising the services and manufacturing sectors, fell to 45.9 from April's 46.7, its lowest reading since June 2009 and its ninth month below the 50-mark that divides growth from contraction.
Comment: The economy has been in shambles since 2007. Is it Greece's fault? How about the Bankrupt United States, it's wars, lack of investment in infrastructure? Could less wars of deception have helped if Joe Public were to have an income and purchased good/services that were imported or homegrown vs. his Tax Dollars buying more bullets, missiles, bombs..?
Could it be the constant strain on our brains from the fear-mongering (War on Terror™), war profiteering and sabre rattling of the Western World that is pushing the economy over the edge? Could it be the hyper inflated cost of fuel that has and is tightening the spending of the average household? There are many factors pushing and pulling at peoples wallets and purses, and it's the persons who control the economic strings that are ruining the World Economy, and it's evident, to those paying attention, that it's intentional.
The economic crimes against people are not just in Greece, or the United States..
The real statistics on the economy are kept out of mainstream news. 5 years into the current Depression and the people with Jobs and money still don't consider the economy as bad as during the Great Depression. Others going without, losing their homes, jobless, know this to be a much worse situation. And yet somehow the illusion of an economy limps along. And it is this illusion that is milking the last of the middle class into complete economic loss.
Here's a recent sample of how it works:
Shareholders Weren't Invited to the Real Party -and it works well. Sadly, yet intentionally, the mainstream media doesn't want to talk about the puppetry, war, price fixing/gouging etc.. that are really causing the Great Global Economic Depression.
Chicago police kettle anti-NATO protestors then beat them, leaving hundreds injured.
Remember when police beat Tea Party activists with batons, raided homes without warrants, unjustly arrested and strip-searched Tea Party protesters, or attacked and intimidated journalists covering Tea Party rallies?
Me neither. But then again, the Tea Party took to the streets in favor of higher profits and less regulations for the richest 1 percent, whose ranks they hope to but will never join. The media is more than happy to inflate their crowd estimates, and police are more than happy to let pro-status quo protests take to the streets undisturbed. The Tea Party has since phased out street protests to take over a major political party and make it bend to their every radical whim.
While it hasn't yet taken over a major party, the Occupy movement has successfully exposed the
oppressive,
fascist police state that has
reared its
ugly head in the past year. If you want to see what tyranny looks like, consider what happened to the estimated
75,000 protesters who took on the military-industrial complex at last weekend's
NATO summit in
Chicago, after the mayor
revoked protesters' attempts to lawfully assemble.
© Martin GodwinAlexis Tsipras in his office at the Greek parliament building on Friday. He says Greece has been used as a guinea pig for the rest of Europe.
"I don't believe in heroes or saviours," says Alexis Tsipras, "but I do believe in fighting for rights ... no one has the right to reduce a proud people to such a state of wretchedness and indignity."
The man who holds the fate of the euro in his hands - as the leader of the Greek party willing to tear up the country's €130bn (£100bn) bailout agreement - says Greece is on the frontline of a war that is engulfing Europe.
A long bombardment of "neo-liberal shock" - draconian tax rises and remorseless spending cuts - has left immense collateral damage. "We have never been in such a bad place," he says, sleeves rolled up, staring hard into the middle distance, from behind the desk that he shares in his small parliamentary office. "After two and a half years of catastrophe, Greeks are on their knees. The social state has collapsed, one in two youngsters is out of work, there are people leaving en masse, the climate psychologically is one of pessimism, depression, mass suicides."
This week, Julian Assange talks to the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa. Correa is a left wing populist who has changed the face of Ecuador. But unlike his predecessors he holds a Ph.D. in economics. According to US embassy cables, Correa is the most popular President in Ecuador's democratic history. But in 2010 he was taken hostage in an attempted coup d'etat. He blames the coup attempt on corrupt media and has launched a controversial counter-offensive. Correa says the media defines what reforms are possible. Assange tries to figure out is Ecuadorian president justified and what is his vision for Latin America.
John Ray
NBC NewsWed, 23 May 2012 12:40 UTC
© Omar Ibrahim/ReutersA man hides behind sandbags amid clashes in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Thursday.
It only takes a two minute stroll down Syria Street to see why so many people are so worried about what might happen next in Lebanon.
A hole punched through the wall of the local mosque by a rocket or mortar shell, smoke blackened masonry, shops and apartments bearing the pock marks of fierce gun battles.
Syria Street is the aptly named thorough-fare that separates rival factions in Lebanon's second city.
For much of the past week, the two sides have been waging a mini-civil war.
It is a direct spill over from the chaos in neighboring Syria.
One side of the street is home to a hard-line Sunni Muslim militia who run guns to rebels across the border.
"President Assad is trying to destroy us," says Sheik Bilal Masri, by way of explanation. "They cause trouble here to take the pressure of[f] them in Damascus."
Comment: The economy has been in shambles since 2007. Is it Greece's fault? How about the Bankrupt United States, it's wars, lack of investment in infrastructure? Could less wars of deception have helped if Joe Public were to have an income and purchased good/services that were imported or homegrown vs. his Tax Dollars buying more bullets, missiles, bombs..?
Could it be the constant strain on our brains from the fear-mongering (War on Terror™), war profiteering and sabre rattling of the Western World that is pushing the economy over the edge? Could it be the hyper inflated cost of fuel that has and is tightening the spending of the average household? There are many factors pushing and pulling at peoples wallets and purses, and it's the persons who control the economic strings that are ruining the World Economy, and it's evident, to those paying attention, that it's intentional.
The economic crimes against people are not just in Greece, or the United States..
The real statistics on the economy are kept out of mainstream news. 5 years into the current Depression and the people with Jobs and money still don't consider the economy as bad as during the Great Depression. Others going without, losing their homes, jobless, know this to be a much worse situation. And yet somehow the illusion of an economy limps along. And it is this illusion that is milking the last of the middle class into complete economic loss.
Here's a recent sample of how it works: Shareholders Weren't Invited to the Real Party -and it works well. Sadly, yet intentionally, the mainstream media doesn't want to talk about the puppetry, war, price fixing/gouging etc.. that are really causing the Great Global Economic Depression.