James Petras

On July 16, 2013, Goldman Sachs, the fifth largest US bank by assets announced its second quarter profits doubled the previous year to $1.93 billion. J. P. Morgan, the largest bank made $6.1 billion in the second quarter up 32% over the year before and expects to make $25 billion in profits in 2013. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank, reaped $5.27 billion, up 20%. Citigroup’s profits topped $4.18 billion, up 42% over the previous year.

The ruling elite, the financial CEOs pay is soaring: John Stumpf of Wells Fargo received $19.3 million in 2012; Jamie Dimon of J. P. Morgan Chase pocketed $18.7 million and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs took $13.3 million.

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by Stephen Lendman

Japan's apocalypse continues. Emergency conditions persist. No end in sight looms. Fukushima's radioactive discharges can't be stopped. They continue. They're uncontainable.

At issue is by far the worst environmental disaster in history. It's multiples worse than Chernobyl. It's an unprecedented catastrophe. It's reason enough to abolish nuclear power.

According to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, about 300 tons of radioactive groundwater flow into the Pacific daily.

It's done so since Japan's March earthquake and tsunami triggered Fukushima's meltdown.

Tokyo Electric (TEPCO) says water's getting over and around "chemical walls." It can't be stopped. Three Fukushima reactors suffered meltdowns. A fourth was badly damaged. The worst fear remains. Unit Four's structural integrity was seriously undermined. It contains hundreds of tons of highly radioactive water.

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By Rady Ananda
Activist Post

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced an Obama Administration policy change on mandatory sentences as they relate to drugs. The new policy includes the “compassionate release” of some prisoners and expanding “at-risk” programs for teens.

“Prisons are operating at 40% above capacity,” Holder told the audience at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco, which was broadcast on C-SPAN.

“Incarceration rates have increased 800% since 1980,” he added, putting over 200,000 people in federal prisons this year. Half of those inmates are incarcerated for drug-related crimes, he said, costing $80 billion a year.

"The plain and simple truth is that alcohol fuels violent behavior and marijuana does not," said Norm Stamper, Seattle's former Chief of Police, in the forward to Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?"

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By Vincent L. Guarisco

"Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it... There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment...You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." ~~George Orwell, 1984

There's no denying Mr. Orwell was a visionary before his time. However, if George was with us today, he would surely cringe (even in darkness) and blush three shades of red if he knew about today's night-vision technology. The following information should send goose bumps rippling across your skin. It did for me. This essay is no science fiction novel. It is real. All societies are in big trouble. We are facing a most egregious situation that extends much further than Orwell's large fictional country -- "Oceania." This is worldwide and, once again, it's real.

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by Stephen Lendman

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perhaps the longest one in modern times. It's festered for decades. Resolution's nowhere in sight.

Multiple peace talk rounds don't work. They never did. They were orchestrated to fail. They're pretense. They're fake. Nothing's different this time.

Conflict arguably began on November 2, 1917. UK Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour's Declaration "establish(ed) in Palestine (a) home for the Jewish people."

At the time, Palestinians way outnumbered Jews over ten to one (about 550,000 to 50,000). They lived peacefully with each other. They did so for generations.

Balfour changed things, saying:

"His majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object(ive)..."

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Franklin Lamb
The Syria/Lebanon border crossing at Masnaa

On 8/5/13 this observer decided, quite on the spur of the moment, to take a three day break from Damascus the next morning and make a quick trip to Beirut to do some errands because offices would be closed starting at dawn for Eid al Fitr celebrations (a day later for Shia Muslims). The annual Eid al-Fitr, being the festival of the breaking of the month long Ramadan fast, which observance is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. And by the way, this year has been undertaken, approximately 16 hours each day in inordinately hot weather in the Middle East.

Let me say from the start: I did not anticipate the delay into which I was about to run. In fact, I felt that with a little bit of luck—and by leaving Damascus by no later than six in the morning—I might even break my record of 205 minutes total from Sameriyeh bus station to my apartment in Dahiyeh, south Beirut.

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by Stephen Lendman

Hardline extremists run Israel. Netanyahu's the worst. He's lawless. He's unprincipled. He's duplicitous.

So are other coalition partner members. They say one thing. They do another. Same old, same old is policy.

Netanyahu's incorrigibly hardline. He exceeds the worst of previous Israeli leaders. On August 12, Haaretz said he takes "(o)ne step forward, three steps back."

If he "wants the Americans, Palestinians and most of all the Israelis to take him seriously, he must leave his old tactics behind." He shows no signs of doing so.

On August 14, peace talks resume. At the same time, 26 Palestinian political prisoners will be released. They've been held longterm.

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By Rady Ananda
Activist Post

At the Justice Begins with Seeds biosafety conference held in Seattle August 2-3, it was announced that a recent court decision prevented Monsanto from suing farmers for patent infringement when their crops become genetically contaminated with lab-engineered patented seeds.

But the ruling is insufficient to protect farmers in the real world, where contamination events are often much higher than only one percent of a field, as specifically prescribed in the ruling.

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by Stephen Lendman

When his Fed chairmanship term ends in January, Bernanke's expected to step down. Wall Street wants Summers replacing him. It usually gets what it wants. More on that below.

Money power runs America. The Federal Reserve isn't federal. It's privately owned and controlled. Wall Street decides who runs it.

Bankers choose chairmen and governors. It's always been this way. It's more than ever so now. Presidents have no say. They announce pre-selected choices. They pretend otherwise.

America's founders knew the dangers. Letting bankers control money assures trouble.

James Madison called them "Money Changers," saying:

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by Stephen Lendman

Previous articles discussed institutionalized NSA spying. It's a rogue agency. It's out-of-control. It operates lawlessly. It manufactures fake security threats. The only real ones are state-sponsored.

NSA subverts fundamental freedoms. It targets dissent. It wants whistleblowers silenced. It conducts espionage on allies. EU nations are prime targets.

On August 10, Der Spiegel headlined "Secret Documents: NSA listens to EU representations with bugs." More on that below.

A previous discussed NSA spying on Europe. It's longstanding practice. Enormous amounts of meta-data are collected. It's unrelated to national security.

It's pure espionage. It's for economic advantage. It's to be one up on foreign competitors. It's for information used advantageously in trade, political, and military relations.

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