Category Archives: History

Mass Incarceration in the US Viral Video

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Though many of us may be aware of the widespread societal harm caused by the prison-industrial complex, as is the case with many complex issues, it’s helpful to compile and organize the multitude of relevant data through infographics or short videos to drive the message home for others who may be less familiar with the issues. This is exactly what the Vlogbrothers did in collaboration with Visual.y, Kurzgesagt and The Prison Policy Initiative with this recently released video:

Notes from the vlogbrothers YouTube channel:

Thanks to Visually (http://Visual.ly) for facilitating the creation of this video, to http://youtube.com/kurzgesagt for the animation, and to The Prison Policy Initiative for research help and fact checking. (http://www.prisonpolicy.org).

It wasn’t easy to pick this topic, but I believe that America’s 40-year policy of mass incarceration is deeply unethical, not very effective, and promotes the security of the few at the expense of the many.

It’s hard for me, as a person who was born into privilege, to imagine the challenges convicted criminals face, often for crimes that are utterly non-violent.

If you’re feeling like you want to do something about this, I’m mostly just making this video as an informational resource and to encourage people to think of felons not as bad, scary people but just as people.

The people at The Prison Policy Initiative were very helpful in the creation of this video and if you want to learn more about their work and how to get involved go to http://www.prisonpolicy.org

 

A lot of people have been asking why I didn’t cover race in this video. It is absolutely true that our justice system has serious racial bias at every step: arrest, prosecution, conviction, and sentencing. But as I researched this video (I started this project three months ago) it was very clear that I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors if I tried to make this a comprehensive study of the US criminal justice system.

Racism, the war on drugs, sentencing laws, class bias…I found that as soon as I started hitting those topics there was no way to do it justice without a lot more time. It’s not a simple discussion (though many would have you believe that it is). So I decided to make this video a top-down introduction for people who know very little about our incarceration policy (the vast majority of people.) I wanted to discuss how this policy is bad for /everyone/ whether you’re black or white, privileged or not.

Do I feel bad about not talking about race? Absolutely…but I had a goal and I determined what I thought was the best path for accomplishing it.

 

New Cover-up in Boston Bombing Saga—Blaming Moscow

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By Russ Baker

Source: WhoWhatWhy.com

Maybe you heard: the Russians are responsible for the Boston Marathon Bombing. At least indirectly.

That’s what the New York Times says. Had the Russians told the Americans everything they knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombing might have been averted by the FBI. The Times knows this because it was told so by an anonymous “senior American official” who got an advance look at a report from the “intelligence community.”

***

Anyone who still entertains the fantasy that America is a vigorous, healthy democracy with an honest and reliable security apparatus and an honest, competent, vigilant media need only consider this major news leak just published as a New York Times exclusive. It pretty much sums up the fundamental corruption of our institutions, the lack of accountability, and the deep-dyed complicity of the “finest” brand in American journalism.

Killing Two Birds with One Stone

Just days before the first anniversary of the Boston bombing on April 15, some unnamed “senior American official” puts the blame for the bombing squarely on…Vladimir Putin.

It takes a keen understanding of certain members of the American media to know they will promote, without question, the latest “intelligence community” version of events. Which is that responsibility for the second largest “terror attack” after 9/11 should be pinned on the Russians, currently America’s bête noir over Ukraine.

Consider the cynical manipulation of public opinion involved here. The government permits, presumably authorizes, a high official—the Attorney General or someone of that status, perhaps even the Vice President—to leak confidential information for no apparent purpose beyond seeking to put a damper on legitimate inquiries into the behavior of the American government at the most fundamental level.

And the world’s vaunted “newspaper of record”—its brand largely based on insider access and the willingness of powerful figures to give it “hot stuff” in return for controlling public perceptions— shamelessly runs this leak with no attempt to question its timing or provenance.

Let’s look at what this article actually says. Here’s the opening paragraph:

The Russian government declined to provide the FBI with information about one of the Boston marathon bombing suspects two years before the attack that likely would have prompted more extensive scrutiny of the suspect, according to an inspector general’s review of how U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies could have thwarted the bombing.

And here’s the “takeaway”:

While the review largely exonerates the FBI, it does say that agents in the Boston area who investigated the Russian intelligence in 2011 could have conducted a few more interviews when they first examined the information.

The FBI agents also could have ordered turkey sandwiches instead of pastrami, which surely would have been a little healthier.

***

So, New York Times, should we trust the anonymous individual, or more importantly, the report that none of us have seen?

The report was produced by the inspector general of the Intelligence Community, which has responsibility for 17 separate agencies, and the inspectors general from the Department of Homeland Security and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Now, the Times doesn’t offer any useful context on why these reviews took place, beyond a pro forma effort to respond to complaints from a handful of congressional members (see this and this). The article does not address the quality or credibility of this “self-investigation” and the overall track record of these investigators. Nor does it express undue interest in why the report appears to have been finished just in time for the anniversary of the bombing.

In our view, the article is one hundred percent “stovepiping.” That’s when claimed raw intelligence is transmitted directly to an end user without any attempt at scrutiny or skepticism. This is irresponsible journalism, and it is the kind of behavior (from The New York Times again) that smoothed the way for the U.S. to launch the Iraq war in 2003.

The Times doesn’t even point out how self-serving the report is, coming from an “intelligence community” that has been publicly criticized for its actions leading up to the Boston Marathon bombing and its behavior since. (For more on the dozens of major reasons not to trust anything the authorities say about the Boston Bombing, see this, this, and this. For perspective on the media’s cooperation with the FBI in essentially falsifying the Bureau’s record throughout its history, see this).

Now let’s consider the core substance of the new revelations:

[A]fter an initial investigation by the F.B.I., the Russians declined several requests for additional information about Mr. Tsarnaev….

Did the Times ask the Russians about this? Did they find out if the Russians actually “declined” several requests, or whether they ever got back to the FBI?

The anonymous official notes one specific piece of evidence that the Russians did not share until after the bombing: that intercepted telephone conversations between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother included discussions of Islamic jihad. The official speculates that this information might have given the FBI greater authority to conduct surveillance of the suspects.

However, the reality is that the Russians had already warned that Tamerlan was an Islamic radical, and it is not clear how this additional information would necessarily have provided anything truly substantive to add to a request for spying authority.

It’s also highly questionable, based in part on Edward Snowden’s revelations, whether the FBI or the NSA were actually adhering to such restrictions on spying anyway. Finally, it’s worth noting how truly remarkable it is that the Russians shared such intelligence at all. That they didn’t want to volunteer that they were capturing telephone calls is not that surprising, on the other hand.

Hiding the Real Story?

The Times does mention, almost in passing, what should have been the key point of an article: the timing of the “news” regarding the report:

It has not been made public, but members of Congress are scheduled to be briefed on it Thursday, and some of its findings are expected to be released before Tuesday, the first anniversary of the bombings.

This leak, which clears the FBI of all charges of incompetence or worse, comes just when the “American conversation” will again intensely focus on the nature of the “war on terror” and the trustworthiness of our vast secret state.

It also comes, most conveniently for the Bureau, at the precise moment when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense counsel has been seeking to learn the exact chronology and nature of the FBI’s interaction with the Tsarnaev family.

Months ago, we ran Peter Dale Scott’s rumination on whether the FBI could have recruited Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an informant, as it has done thousands of times before with other immigrants of a similar profile. Recently, the defense for Tamerlan’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, essentially claimed this was correct—that the Bureau at least attempted to recruit the older Tsarnaev. That has been cursorily reported by the major media, but no one seems to have connected the dots linking this claim to the new report that conveniently exonerates the FBI for failing to take action against the Tsarnaevs in time to stop the bombing.

A Curious Little Slip

As we have previously reported, it was the same duo of New York Times national security reporters, Schmidt and Schmitt, who had first, inadvertently it seems, raised a tremendously important question: when did the Tsarnaev family first come to the attention of the FBI?

The Russian warning to the US about Tamerlan Tsarnaev purportedly came in March 2011.

But according to an earlier article by Schmitt and Schmidt (along with a third reporter), the Bureau’s first contact with the Tsarnaevs came in January 2011. Though the Times did not make anything of this fact, it would be enormously consequential—because it would mean that the FBI was interacting with the Tsarnaevs two months before the Russians suggested the US take a close look at Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

If that was in error, the Times should have issued a correction. But it hasn’t. (Neither Schmidt nor Schmitt responded to WhoWhatWhy’s emails requesting comment.)

Interestingly, Schmidt and Schmitt, in subsequent articles, including the recent one, make no more mention of this early FBI contact. As it stands, the New York Times is on record of having asserted, again based on what sources told it, that the FBI was interacting with the Tsarnaevs before the Russians ever contacted it. If that early report was true, then by definition, the Inspector General’s report (and the leaked article about it) would be calculated parts of a cover-up about an FBI foul-up.

Conversely, if the early report was in error, then we need to know who provided it, or how they got that information wrong. Serious investigators know not to reject anomalies and “wrong” early reports as simply the result of haste or rumor without at least checking out the possibility that the early reports were right—but were later suppressed because they might cause problems to someone in power.

***

It is worth noting that the revelations in the new report—sure to be picked up by other media outlets that tend to repeat unquestioningly whatever the Times publishes—will be all the average American remembers about the FBI’s failure to prevent the Marathon bombing, and what may lie behind that failure.

Most members of the public will never know of the substantial indications that something is seriously wrong with what the government has put out about this affair. They will only recall that the FBI was somehow “cleared.” And they will probably remember that Putin’s Russia was somehow at fault.

In the final analysis, what we have just witnessed is the kind of arrant manipulation that shows the contempt of the “system” for the “people.” The “best” news organization gets another exclusive story. The US government gets to point its finger again at the Russian bogeyman. The FBI and the security apparatus get another free pass.

And the American people, once again, are fed pig slop and told to imagine sirloin.

Is the US or the World Coming to an End?

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Source: Paul Craig Roberts

2014 is shaping up as a year of reckoning for the United States.

Two pressures are building on the US dollar. One pressure comes from the Federal Reserve’s declining ability to rig the price of gold as Western gold supplies shrivel and market knowledge of the Fed’s illegal price rigging spreads. The evidence of massive amounts of naked shorts being dumped into the paper gold futures market at times of day when trading is thin is unequivocal. It has become obvious that the price of gold is being rigged in the futures market in order to protect the dollar’s value from QE.

The other pressure arises from the Obama regime’s foolish threats of sanctions on Russia. Other countries are no longer willing to tolerate Washington’s abuse of the world dollar standard. Washington uses the dollar-based international payments system to inflict damage on the economies of countries that resist Washington’s political hegemony.

Russia and China have had enough. As I have reported and as Peter Koenig reports here http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38165.htm Russia and China are disconnecting their international trade from the dollar. Henceforth, Russia will conduct its trade, including the sale of oil and natural gas to Europe, in rubles and in the currencies of its BRICS partners.

This means a big drop in the demand for US dollars and a corresponding drop in the dollar’s exchange value.

As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, the US economy has not recovered from the downturn in 2008 and has weakened further. The vast majority of the US population is hard pressed from the lack of income growth for years. As the US is now an import-dependent economy, a drop in the dollar’s value will raise US prices and push living standards lower.

All evidence points to US economic failure in 2014, and that is the conclusion of John Williams’ April 9 report.

This year could also see the breakup of NATO and even the EU. Washington’s reckless coup in Ukraine and threat of sanctions against Russia have pushed its NATO puppet states onto dangerous ground. Washington misjudged the reaction in Ukraine to its overthrow of the elected democratic government and imposition of a stooge government. Crimea quickly departed Ukraine and rejoined Russia. Other former Russian territories in Ukraine might soon follow. Protesters in Lugansk, Donetsk, and Kharkov are demanding their own referendums. Protesters have declared the Donetsk People’s Republic and Kharkov People’s Republic. Washington’s stooge government in Kiev has threatened to put the protests down with violence. http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-violence-threats-405/ Washington claims that the protests are organized by Russia, but no one believes Washington, not even its Ukrainian stooges.

Russian news reports have identified US mercenaries among the Kiev force that has been sent to put down the separatists in eastern Ukraine. A member of the right-wing, neo-Nazi Fatherland Party in the Kiev parliament has called for shooting the protesters dead.

Violence against the protesters is likely to bring in the Russian Army and result in the return to Russia of its former territories in Eastern Ukraine that were attached to Ukraine by the Soviet Communist Party.

With Washington out on a limb issuing threats hand over fist, Washington is pushing Europe into two highly undesirable confrontations. Europeans do not want a war with Russia over Washington’s coup in Kiev, and Europeans understand that any real sanctions on Russia, if observed, would do far more damage to Europeans. Within the EU, growing economic inequality among the countries, high unemployment, and stringent economic austerity imposed on poorer members have produced enormous strains. Europeans are in no mood to bear the brunt of a Washington-orchestrated conflict with Russia. While Washington presents Europe with war and sacrifice, Russia and China offer trade and friendship. Washington will do its best to keep European politicians bought-and-paid-for and in line with Washington’s policies, but the downside for Europe of going along with Washington is now much larger.

Across many fronts, Washington is emerging in the world’s eye as duplicitous, untrustworthy, and totally corrupt. A Securities and Exchange Commission prosecuting attorney, James Kidney used the occasion of his retirement to reveal that higher ups had squelched his prosecutions of Goldman Sachs and other “banks too big to fail,” because his SEC bosses were not focused on justice but “on getting high-paying jobs after their government service” by protecting the banks from prosecution for their illegal actions. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/

The US Agency for International Development has been caught trying to use social media to overthrow the government of Cuba. http://rt.com/news/cuba-usaid-senate-zunzuneo-241/

This audacious recklessness comes on top of Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government, the NSA spying scandal, Seymour Hersh’s investigative report that the Sarin gas attack in Syria was a false flag event arranged by NATO member Turkey in order to justify a US military attack on Syria, Washington’s forcing down Bolivian President Evo Morales’ presidential plane to be searched, Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” the misuse of the Libyan no-fly resolution for military attack, and on and on. Essentially, Washington has so badly damaged other countries’ confidence in the judgment and integrity of the US government that the world has lost its belief in US leadership. Washington is reduced to threats and bribes and increasingly presents as a bully.

The self-inflicted hammer blows to Washington’s credibility have taken a toll. The most serious blow of all is the dawning realization everywhere that Washington’s crackpot conspiracy theory of 9/11 is false. Large numbers of independent experts as well as more than one hundred first responders have contradicted every aspect of Washington’s absurd conspiracy theory. No aware person believes that a few Saudi Arabians, who could not fly airplanes, operating without help from any intelligence agency, outwitted the entire National Security State, not only all 16 US intelligence agencies but also all intelligence agencies of NATO and Israel as well.

Nothing worked on 9/11. Airport security failed four times in one hour, more failures in one hour than have occurred during the other 116,232 hours of the 21st century combined. For the first time in history the US Air Force could not get interceptor fighters off the ground and into the sky. For the first time in history Air Traffic Control lost airliners for up to one hour and did not report it. For the first time in history low temperature, short-lived, fires on a few floors caused massive steel structures to weaken and collapse. For the first time in history 3 skyscrapers fell at essentially free fall acceleration without the benefit of controlled demolition removing resistance from below.

Two-thirds of Americans fell for this crackpot story. The left-wing fell for it, because they saw the story as the oppressed striking back at America’s evil empire. The right-wing fell for the story, because they saw it as the demonized Muslims striking out at American goodness. President George W. Bush expressed the right-wing view very well: “They hate us for our freedom and democracy.”

But no one else believed it, least of all the Italians. Italians had been informed some years previously about government false flag events when their President revealed the truth about secret Operation Gladio. Operation Gladio was an operation run by the CIA and Italian intelligence during the second half of the 20th century to set off bombs that would kill European women and children in order to blame communists and, thereby, erode support for European communist parties.

Italians were among the first to make video presentations challenging Washington’s crackpot story of 9/11. The ultimate of this challenge is the 1 hour and 45 minute film, “Zero.” You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU961SGps8g&feature=youtu.be

Zero was produced as a film investigating 9/ll by the Italian company Telemaco. Many prominent people appear in the film along with independent experts. Together, they disprove every assertion made by the US government regarding its explanation of 9/11.

The film was shown to the European parliament.

It is impossible for anyone who watches this film to believe one word of the official explanation of 9/11.

The conclusion is increasingly difficult to avoid that elements of the US government blew up three New York skyscrapers in order to destroy Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah and to launch the US on the neoconservatives agenda of US world hegemony.

China and Russia protested but accepted Libya’s destruction even though it was to their own detriment. But Iran became a red line. Washington was blocked, so Washington decided to cause major problems for Russia in Ukraine in order to distract Russia from Washington’s agenda elsewhere.

China has been uncertain about the trade-offs between its trade surpluses with the US and Washington’s growing encirclement of China with naval and air bases. China has come to the conclusion that China has the same enemy as Russia has–Washington.

One of two things is likely: Either the US dollar will be abandoned and collapse in value, thus ending Washington’s superpower status and Washington’s threat to world peace, or Washington will lead its puppets into military conflict with Russia and China. The outcome of such a war would be far more devastating than the collapse of the US dollar.

Podcast Roundup

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4/2: Guillermo Jimenez has a conversation with Danny Benavides at Traces of Reality to discuss the drug war, the surveillance state, and the increasing use of violence by the Border Patrol among other topics:

http://tracesofreality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Traces-of-Reality-Radio-2014.03.28-Danny-Benavides.mp3

4/2: At Red Ice Radio, host Henrik Palmgren interviews Mark Gray to discuss occult symbolism, synchronicity and geomancy in  connection to a number of current events. Mystical phenomenon or pattern recognition gone awry? You decide:

http://rediceradio.net/radio/2014/RIR-140402-markgray-hr1.mp3

4/3: Dave Lindorff of This Can’t Be Happening interviews Elena Teyer mother-in-law of Ibragim Todashev, the man executed by the FBI during their “investigation” of the Boston Bombing. They reveal many details about the case which were ignored by corporate news coverage:

http://media62.podbean.com/pb/ca9ac429bc5bf18a823cf98eb9a28f7a/533db613/data1/blogs18/661545/uploads/ThisCantBeHappening_040214.mp3

4/4: On the Meria Heller show, Meria and guest Catherine Austin Fitts deliver useful information on the banking system, investing on priorities and improving one’s lifestyle:

http://meria.net/ipod/040114.mp3

4/5: Computer security expert Conrad Jaeger joins host Greg Carlwood at The Higher Side Chats to talk about the deep web, cyber security and the surveillance state:

http://thehighersidechats.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/101-Deep-Web.mp3

Saturday Matinee: The Fourth World War

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From Big Noise Films:

From the front-lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, and the North; from Seattle to Genova, and the War on Terror in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq, The Fourth World War is the story of men and women around the world who resist being annihilated in this war.While our airwaves are crowded with talk of a new world war, narrated by generals and filmed from the noses of bombs, the human story of this global conflict remains untold. The Fourth World War brings together the images and voices of the war on the ground. It is a story of a war without end and of those who resist.The product of over two years of filming on the inside of movements on five continents, The Fourth World War is a film that would have been unimaginable at any other moment in history. Directed by the makers of This Is What Democracy Looks Like and Zapatista, produced through a global network of independent media and activist groups, it is a truly global film from our global movement.

For English speakers, portions of the film may need translation, activated by clicking on the “CC” button on bottom right corner of the video (on some mobile device browsers the function can be found on the upper right corner).

It’s Not Just the Stock Market That’s Rigged: the Entire Status Quo Is Rigged

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By Charles Hugh-Smith

Source: InvestmentWatch

One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we’ve become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting.

As in the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, the onlooker who declares the obvious– in this case, that the stock market is rigged–shatters the consensus lie. In the current saga, author Michael Lewis plays the role of the truth-telling boy, and everyone who went along with the fiction that the Emperor’s high-frequency trading finery was resplendent is revealed as credulous, complicit or worse.

Lewis’ new book is Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.

The high-frequency trading (HFT) scam is old news, and a number of fine books have addressed the mechanics of the skim, for example Dark Pools: High-Speed Traders, A.I. Bandits, and the Threat to the Global Financial System by Scott Patterson.

Many in the alternative financial media have written about HFT for years. Here are two of my own entries on the topic:

The Stock Market Is an “Attractive Nuisance” and Should Be Closed (August 22, 2012)

We Need a New Stock Market (September 14, 2012)

Interestingly, Mr. Patterson outlined the solution that the heroes of Lewis’ book ended up pursuing. Here is a Q&A I conducted with Patterson in September 2012:

CHS: While there are various regulatory “tweaks” that could be put in place, I wonder if we don’t need a more fundamental “re-set” that asks what role the market should play in finance and the economy inhabited by everyday investors.Scott: I think there are a lot of people in the industry wondering about whether there needs to be a massive overhaul. But it’s probably not a good idea for that to be imposed on the market by the SEC. The uncertainty would be potentially destabilizing. And I just don’t see it happening.

I think the change needs to come from within the market and needs to be imposed by its most important users–I mean, not the high-frequency traders, who are running the show at the exchanges in many ways–but the institutions, the giant mutual fund companies, the pension funds, the long-short hedge funds. They need to exert pressure on the exchanges to stop giving advantages to high-frequency firms.

If we pull back from the media frenzy about HFT, we find the market is rigged in many other ways. The Federal Reserve’s policies, stripped of Orwellian mumbo-jumbo, are all about rigging the market to go in one direction–up.

Consider this chart, courtesy of long-time contributor Harun I., of the Dow Jones Industrial Average: I call it the tale of Two Dows. In the Great Bull Market of 1982 – 2000, a market fueled by an extraordinary economic expansion, the DJIA gained an average of 610 points a year.

In the anemic “recovery” of 2009 – 2013, the DJIA gained an average of 2,500 points per year. While the Fed rigged the 1990s Bull Market with low interest rates and other policies, it pulled out all the stops in the last five years:

The stock market is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s being rigged. For a taste of what’s rigged, ask yourself this question: if Mr. Elite Insider perpetrates a scam, and Mr. John Q. Citizen breaks similar laws, is there any difference between the treatment each receives?

Let’s go even deeper and ask: why is looting legal, even though it is obviously crooked? Why is high-frequency trading legal? Why is it legal for the Fed to offer money at 0% to its buddies but not to Mr. John Q. Citizen?

Why is it legal to issue student loans to future debt-serfs that is unlike all other debt in that it cannot be discharged in bankruptcy?

Since the legal looting continues unabated regardless of what party or toady is in office, then what actual difference is there between the Demopublicans and Republicrats?

It’s not just the stock market that’s rigged–the entire Status Quo is rigged. There are two sets of laws and two sets of opportunities: one for those holding the concentrated wealth and power, and the other for the rest of us debt-serfs.

If the system isn’t rigged, then why are insolvent banks and bankers protected from the creative destruction of capitalism that befalls John Q. Citizen when his risky bets go bad? Why do we as a nation keep insisting the Emperor’s new clothes are splendid when he is in fact parading around buck-naked?

One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we’ve become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting. Perhaps, in Joseph Conrad’s phrase, we hope to escape the grim shadow of self-knowledge. Here is the passage from Chapter 7 of Lord Jim:

I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn’t know how much of it he believed himself. I didn’t know what he was playing up to–if he was playing up to anything at all–and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

Stressed: What Are They Trying To Tell Us?

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By Danny Schechter

Source: Disinfo.com

Ok, I have to admit it, I feel as my faith in economic justice is being tested with these stress tests. Truth is, I  am becoming more stressed than ever.

The reason: despite all the “regulations” in the Dodd Frank Financial “reform” and the Volcker Rule and The Fed’s “oversight:’ the banks seems to have free reign to do what they will despite the financial crisis, and the pathetic “recovery.”

There have been fines and settlements but nothing is settled. None of them have or will go to jail.

Economic conditions continue to stress out millions even as the Fed announces “stress tests” that appear on the surface to be a way of insuring that big banks won’t need more bailouts.

Sad to say, it’s more of the charade. Partially that’s because the banks dominate the Federal Reserve, a private, not public, institution.

And, partially, because when it comes to economic crises, the stories are buried in the business pages and rarely surface as topics of concern on popular talk shows and media that most folks watch.

Even the financial channels like CNBC prefer superficial soundbite chatter to in-depth-interviews according to “Money Honey” Maria Bartiromo who publicly criticized her old network when she took a better deal at Fox.

Many of us have seen the reports that Citibank, the biggest enchilada of finance, the bank that provided refuge to the likes of Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert “the great deregulator” Rubin and Obama Budget director, whiz kid Peter Orzag, who has been in Court lately hiding how much he made from Citi in a divorce proceeding, is in trouble.

Citi failed the Fed’s latest Stress test designed to see if it had adequate reserves to withstand the widely anticipated next financial jolt to the economy.

Washington’s Blog quotes the business news honchos at Bloomberg and then adds context:

“Citigroup Inc.’s capital plan was among five that failed Federal Reserve stress tests, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. passed only after reducing their requests for buybacks and dividends.

Citigroup, as well as U.S. units of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc and Banco Santander SA, failed because of qualitative concerns about their processes, the Fed said today in a statement. Zions Bancorporation was rejected as its capital fell below the minimum required. The central bank approved plans for 25 banks.”

In reality, Citi “flat lined” – went totally bust – in 2008.  It was insolvent.

And former FDIC chief Sheila Bair said that the whole bailout thing was really focused on bringing a very dead Citi back from the grave.

Indeed, “the big banks – including Citi – have repeatedly gone bankrupt.”

Why didn’t I read that in the news? Didn’t Citi “pass” earlier tests?  I thought they were stronger than ever.

Think again, says Washington:

“So why did the U.S. government give Citi a passing grade in previous stress tests?

Because they were rigged to give all of the students an “A”.

Time Magazine called then Secretary Treasury Tim Geithner a “con man” and the stress tests a “confidence game” because those tests were so inaccurate. (DS: Geither was just rewarded by the industry and named president of the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus.)

But the bigger story is that absolutely nothing was done to address the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, or to fix the system.”

That’s one good reason for all of us to be stressed because we can have absolutely no confidence in the stability of our economy, whatever they say about how it’s all getting better.

Here’s James Kwak of BaselineScenario.com, on the stress test story. He sees it as one more financial fraud:

“Despite the much-publicized black eye to Citigroup’s management, the bottom line of the Federal Reserve’s stress tests is that every other large U.S. bank will be allowed to pay out more cash to its shareholders, either as increased dividends or stock buybacks. And pay out more cash they will: at least $22 billion in increased dividends (that includes all the banks subject to stress tests), plus increased buyback plans.

Those cash payouts come straight out of the banks’ capital, since they reduce assets without reducing liabilities. Alternatively, the banks could have chosen to keep the cash and increase their balance sheets—that is, by lending more to companies and households. The fact that they choose to distribute the cash to shareholders indicates that they cannot find additional, profitable lending opportunities.”

Rather than just speculate with my own I believe well grounded if  cynical suspicions, let me quote a few more experts like Mike Harrison, an expert on Credit Write Downs who wrote earlier,

“I would say the stress tests were a mock exercise to instill confidence in the capital markets. This was important first and foremost because it would induce private investors to pay for bank recapitalization instead of taxpayers. But it was also important for the economy as a whole as the sick banking sector was dragging the whole economy down. The key, however, is that the tests were a mock exercise. Despite the additional capital, banks are still hiding hundreds of billions of dollars in losses in level three, hold to maturity, and off balance sheet asset pools. If asset prices fall and/or the economy weakens, all of this subterfuge would be for nought.”

He quotes Mike Konzcal who did his own line-by-line assessment of the actual numbers the banks report on earlier tests. He noted that banks often have to worry about several liens on the properties they have financed and hold mortgages on.

“So the original loss from second-liens, as reported by the stress tests, was $68.4 billion for the four largest banks. If you look at those numbers again, and assume a loss of 40% to 60%, numbers that are not absurd by any means, you suddenly are talking a loss of between $190 billion and $285 billion. Which means if the stress tests were done with terrible 2nd lien performance in mind, there would have been an extra $150 billion dollar hole in the balance sheet of the four largest banks. Major action would have been taken against the four largest banks if this was the case.”

Are you still with me? What comes to mind is the old adage: ‘what a web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’

Why are they doing this?

Here’s Harrison again, from his posts on the authoritative website, Naked Capitalism:

“The real question is: why is the Obama Administration running victory laps, unrolling the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner on the credit crisis, as Mike Konczal describes it? I suspect this is just a political stunt to provide cover in the mid-term elections to somehow demonstrate that the Democrats fixed the problem that the Republicans created.

I think it could backfire if only because the (real) underemployment rate is still 17%. Nobody wants to hear the “I saved the economy routine” when they’re unemployed and losing their home.”

Now, do you see why we should be stressed too?

News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org and blogs at newsdissector.net. He investigated financial fraud in The Crime of Our Time (Disinformation). His latest book is Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela (Madibabook.com. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

Kony 2012 Redux

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PHONY 2012

Two years ago it was difficult for most of us online to avoid the KONY 2012 viral video. It was a slickly produced ad by the Invisible Children advocacy group for their campaign to assist efforts to capture or kill Joseph Kony, leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (a militia infamous for using child soldiers). The video spread rapidly through social media, getting millions of views. Criticism and suspicion towards Invisible Children spread just as rapidly as people spoke out against the group’s methods and started noticing how the majority of their money went towards advertising, staff, and transportation rather than children of Uganda. Many also questioned the group’s motives, pointing out that Kony hasn’t been seen for years and how Uganda happened to be a source of natural resources the U.S. government has an interest in such as oil and valuable minerals. Uganda’s President and friend of Obama, Yoweri Museveni, has also used child soldiers and was the focus of a recent Human Rights Watch report uncovering his government’s high-level corruption. Possibly as a result of the public pressure, about two weeks after the release of KONY 2012 leader and co-founder of Invisible Children, Jason Russell, had a very unusual and scandalous public breakdown.

Despite the rapid loss of much of their public support following the incident, Invisible Children’s campaign still impressed the U.S. government enough to extend a military advise-and-assist mission to central Africa the following month (if we are to believe their stated motives). In addition, the European Union established a Joint Operations Centre to assist central Africa’s counter-LRA regional task force in a show of support (again, if we take them for their word). Congress also passed the Rewards for Justice Bill authorizing $5 million for information leading to Kony’s capture in January 2013.

Just last Sunday, the Obama administration announced the deployment of about 150 Special Operations troops and military aircraft to Uganda, ostensibly to search for Joseph Kony. According to the Pentagon, at least four CV-22 Osprey aircraft will arrive in the country by midweek, together with refueling planes and Special Operations forces airmen to fly and maintain them.

For more information on Kony, Invisible Children and the recent troop surge, read Patrick Henningsen’s report at 21st Century Wire: KONY 2014: Obama Orders New Troop Surge to ‘Find Ugandan Warlord’