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Tuesday 15 May 2012

JPMorgan Chase Chairman Jamie Dimon, the Whale Man and Glass-Steagall
Nomi Prins, Nomi Prins' Blog: "It was fitting that while President Obama and his Hollywood apostles broke fundraising records at a sumptuous $40,000 per plate dinner at George Clooney's place, word of JPM Chase's 'mistake' rippled through the news. Not long ago, Dimon's name was batted about to become Treasury Secretary. But as lines are drawn and pundits take sides in the Jamie Dimon ego deflation saga - or, as I see it - why big banks should be made smaller and then, broken up into commercial vs. speculative components ala Glass-Steagall - it's important to look beyond the size of the $2 billion dollar (and counting) beached whale of a trading loss."
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Richard D. Wolff | Capitalism Is Taboo in America
Richard D. Wolff in Conversation With David Barsamian, City Lights Publishers: "Americans have criticized and debated their educational, medical, welfare, transportation, mass media, political, and many other institutions and systems. They have questioned and at least partly transformed such traditional institutions as racism, sexism, the heterosexual family and the state. They have even sometimes challenged this or that aspect of the economy such as prices, Federal Reserve actions, and so on, but almost never the particular economic system. Questioning and criticizing capitalism have been taboo, treated by federal authorities, immigration officials, police and most of the public alike as akin to treason. Fear-driven silence has substituted for the necessary, healthy criticism without which all institutions, systems, and traditions harden into dogmas, deteriorate into social rigidities, or worse."
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Studies Suggest Economic Inequity Is Built Into, and Worsened by, School Systems
Paul Thomas, Truthout: "As Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan represents both the discourse and policy currently driving education reform in the US. On September 24, 2009, Duncan spoke about equity, education reform and the possibility of reauthorizing the federal education legislation known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB)."
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A US Financial Transaction Tax: How Wall Street Can Pay for Its Mess
Robert Pollin, Moyers & Co.: "As we continue to suffer the consequences of the 2008-2009 global financial crash caused by casino capitalism, one idea for bringing some measure of control over speculative financial practices that has gained worldwide support is to impose a tax on financial market transactions. This has been variously termed a financial transaction tax (FTT) and, more vividly, a 'Make Wall Street Pay tax,' an 'anti-speculation tax,' and a 'Robin Hood tax.'"
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Outside a Women's Prison in New York for Mother's Day
Natasha Lennard, Truthout: "Anarchist Black Cross - a network of collectives which have organized prisoner solidarity actions since the early twentieth century - regularly set up letter writing to individuals seemingly imprisoned because of their political positions and organize noise demonstrations worldwide. The call out for Saturday's demonstration from NYC Anarchist Black Cross spoke specifically to the issue of imprisoned mothers: '[O]n the eve of Mother's Day NYC Anarchist Black Cross calls for a world without cages for all. We call for it during this time, because 2/3 of all women in prison are mothers and we recognize the forced separation of a child from their caregiver by the state as an act of violence,' it read."
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Key Murdoch Aide Rebekah Brooks to Be Prosecuted in Hacking Case
John F. Burns and Alan Cowell, The New York Times News Service: "Once among the most powerful figures in the British media, with close contacts stretching from her boss, Rupert Murdoch, to her friend, David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Mr. Murdoch's British newspaper empire, was told by prosecutors on Tuesday that she, her husband and four others will face charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice in the hacking scandal that has burrowed into public life here."
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Sen. Mark Warner, Leading Democratic Critic of Volcker Rule, Invests With JPMorgan Unit Likely Affected by Volcker Rule
Lee Fang, Republic Report: "In March, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) led members from both parties in introducing legislation to delay the implementation of the Volcker Rule, a new regulation to limit risky trading by big banks. He was joined by Pat Toomey (R-PA), one of the biggest proponents of financial deregulation in the Senate. The legislation may come back to haunt Warner, who has cultivated close financial ties with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co."
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The National Security State Wins (Again)
William J. Astore, TomDispatch: "Now that Mitt Romney is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, the media is already handicapping the presidential election big time, and the neck-and-neck opinion polls are pouring in. But whether President Obama gets his second term or Romney enters the Oval Office, there's a third candidate no one's paying much attention to, and that candidate is guaranteed to be the one clear winner of election 2012: the U.S. military and our ever-surging national security state."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: A Lawsuit Could Put an End to the GOP's Perpetual Senate Filibuster, and More
In today's On the News segment: Common Cause files suit against the US Senate over filibuster rules, all signs now point to a Greek default and exit from the euro, the Virginia House of Delegates is guilty of blatant discrimination, and more.
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Paul Krugman | In South America, Separating Fact From Fiction
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "The columnist Matt Yglesias, who just spent time in Argentina, recently wrote in Slate about the lessons of that country's recovery following its exit from the one-peso-one-dollar 'convertibility law.' As he says, it's a remarkable success story, and one that arguably holds lessons for the euro zone."
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Trayvon Martin, a Man of His Time: White Supremacy and the Murders of Young People of Color
Jimmy Johnson, Truthout: "Once again, the US black community is up in (figurative) arms about systemic white supremacy raising up (literal) arms. Once again, white America is faced with what philosopher Charles Mills called the 'reoccupation of nonwhite moral and political thought with issues of race, puzzling alike to a white liberalism predicated on colorless atomic individuals and a white Marxism predicated on colorless classes in struggle.' What indeed is the focus on race? Part of this puzzle's solution - and part of stopping such killings in the future - lies in understanding Trayvon Martin as a man of his time."
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Iraq War Vet Wants to Return His Medals During NATO Summit
Read the Article at The Chicago Tribune

Rachel Maddow | Rush Limbaugh, Busted
Read the Article at MSNBC

Boehner Threatens to Take the Debt Limit Hostage Again
Read the Article at ThinkProgress

The New Right-Wing Meme - Obama Is Gay
Read the Article at Addicting Info

The Civilian Toll in Afghanistan
Read the Article at The Nation

Wisconsin Democrats Furious With DNC for Refusing to Invest Big Money in Walker Recall
Read the Article at The Washington Post

Wrong Man Executed in Texas, Probe Says
Read the Article at Agence France-Presse

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