Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1312

Recent Win for Cop Resister

stuartbramhall:

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87 year old woman locks cop in her basement after he physically assaults her and tries to search her home without a warrant.

Originally posted on Tiffany's Non-Blog:

This woman is my inspiration.

“I said, ‘No, you don’t have a warrant. You don’t go down in my house like that. He wasn’t shot in here.’” Green said the officer replied, “I’m going to find that gun. I’m going to prove that you did it.”

A struggle ensued between a male officer and Green.

“He dragged me, threw me across the chair, put handcuffs on me and just started calling me the ‘b’ name. He ridiculed me,” Green said.

An officer went into the basement and Green locked him inside.

“She locked the door, the basement door. She basically took matters into her own hands,” Nilson said.

“This was my private home, and if I latched it, that was my prerogative because he had no search warrant to go in my basement. So, I had to right to latch it,” Green said…

“I was once a block watcher, department…

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The Greedy Bastards Who Gave Us Enron (and Bankrupted California)

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Alex Gibney (2005)

Film Review

The subject of this documentary is the historic Enron collapse in September 2001.

The Enron scandal occurred prior to the blossoming of social media, and the corporate media deliberately minimized the criminal behavior that led to the collapse of the world’s largest energy company.  They blamed Enron’s demise on “bookkeeping irregularities.” This film tells a very different story.

When Enron, which was founded in 1985, went bankrupt it was the largest corporate bankruptcy in history. Its late founder, Ken Lay, was close personal friends with Bush senior, who engineered millions in federal subsidies to help launch the company. Lay subsequently donated heavily to Bush junior’s presidential campaign.

Trading Energy Like Financial Derivatives

A big proponent of corporate deregulation, Lay teamed up with Jeff Skilling in 1990 to transform energy production and delivery (natural gas and electricity) into financial instruments that could be traded like derivatives.

To manipulate their stock prices, Enron employed two novel (and illegal) bookkeeping practices. With the first, mark-to-market accounting, they recorded potential future profits as real time revenue. The second accounting scam involved creating hundreds of “subsidiaries” to hide $30 billion of Enron debt from investors and regulators. Each subsidiary was personally managed by Enron Chief Financial Officer Andy Fastow, who pocketed $45 million from one deeply indebted subsidiary.

These devious accounting schemes allowed Enron to conceal that their company was losing millions of dollars a year. They kept the company afloat via $25 million bank loans from all the major Wall Street investment banks, using their overpriced stock as collateral.

Enron Bankrupts California

Prior to seeing this film I was vaguely aware that Enron was responsible for the California power crisis in 2000-2001 and the $38 billion deficit that led California governor Gray Davis to be recalled and replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I had no idea of the criminal behavior behind the power crisis.

Enron’s purchase of Pacific Gas and Electric in the late nineties gave them total control of most of the state’s power generation and 26,000 miles of power lines. To drive up the cost of power, Enron’s unscrupulous energy traders caused rolling blackouts by “loaning” California power to other states and creating artificial shortages. They jacked the price of power even higher by deliberately shutting down regional power plants for “routine maintenance.” In this way, they succeeded in driving the cost of electricity from $30 per kilowatt to $1,000 per kilowatt.

Governor Davis declared a state of emergency while he pleaded with Bush junior and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to impose a price cap on California electricity. By the time Congress forced FERC to implement a price cap, California was $38 billion in the hole and the Terminator was the new California governor.

Management Screws Enron Employees

Even more scandalous was the decision by Enron management to freeze trading by employees as the stock price plummeted. This enabled all the top executives to dump their stock while 29,000 employees had their pension plans wiped out.

Andy Fastow pleaded guilty to fraud and embezzlement charges (receiving a $23 million fine and 10 years in jail) in return for testifying against Skilling and Lay.

Skilling would receive a 14 year sentence for insider trading. Ken Lay was also convicted of insider trading but died of a heart attack (2006) prior to sentencing.

ExxonMobil Funding of “Climate Change Denial”

stuartbramhall:

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The climate deniers have been out in force leading up to the Paris climate change conference – just as they were in Copenhagen in 2009.

Originally posted on Counter Information:

The Funding of Influential Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy

By Steve Horn


Global Research, December 04, 2015


Desmogblog.com 1 December 2015

In a sentence buried at the very bottom of a story making headlines nationwide, Politico revealed for the first time one of the funders of Columbia University’s influential Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP).

The funder: ExxonMobil, the company embroiled in a New York state Attorney General investigation for its extensive internal knowledge of the impacts of climate change since the 1970s, followed by Exxon’s funding of climate change denial campaigns to the tune of $31 million. Politico got its numbers from ExxonMobil’s 2014 Worldwide Contributions and Community Investments report.

While Politico reported on Exxon’s grievances about the Los Angeles Times’ two–part investigation conducted by students and staff at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism that exposed what Exxon knew about climate…

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The Billionaires at 740 Park Avenue

Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream

Directed by Alex Gibney (2012)

Film Review

Park Avenue is about the 31 billionaires who live in the luxury cooperative building at 740 Park Avenue. The building was originally commissioned by Jackie Kennedy’s grandfather James T Lee. He lived there with a consortium of Wall Street millionaires who engineered the 1929 stock market crash. Most of the present residents are hedge fund managers.

The documentary examines how 740 Park Avenue billionaires use their money and power to become even richer – funding election campaigns and lobbying for tax cuts and laws that reduce financial, environmental and health and safety regulation.

I’ve always found this level of geed quite puzzling. A psychologist featured in the film discusses his research into the sense of entitlement conferred by extreme wealth. An interview with the building’s doorman is even more revealing.

Among the billionaires profiled, two of the most powerful are Steve Schwarzman and David Koch. Schwarzman headed mergers and acquisitions at Lehman Brothers when they went bankrupt and is presently CEO of the Blackstone Group*. He (and his pal Senator Charles Schumer) were personally responsible for blocking the repeal of the “carried interest provision” in the federal tax code. This provision taxes the earned income of a hedge fund manager at the capital gains rate of 15%. Largely thanks to Schumer (who has raised the most Wall Street money of any Democratic candidate), Obama’s initiative to repeal this loophole failed, even with a Democratic majority in both houses.

David Koch, whose primary wealth is in oil and coal, has (with his brother Charles) donated to the campaigns of over half the members of the house and senate, as well as numerous right wing think tanks. The Koch brothers are also the big money behind the Tea Party, numerous right wing think tanks they have created and (along with Exxon) the climate denial movement.

The brothers are personally responsible for the recent anti-union legislation in Wisconsin and other Midwest states. They’re also the main sponsors of Paul Ryan’s rise to fame, as well as the Republican Party’s adoption of Ryan’s Path to Prosperity. The latter advocates for privatizing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to trillions in tax cuts that would virtually do away with all public services outside the military and police.

*An American multinational private equity, investment banking, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in New York City.

Activists Replace 600 Advertisements In Paris With Truthful Art [Watch]

stuartbramhall:

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Clever brandalism (we used to call it culture jamming) protest in Paris in which activists highlighted the link between advertising, the promotion of consumerism and climate change. No coincidence that the protest occurred on Black Friday.

Originally posted on Talesfromthelou:

Source: Activists Replace 600 Advertisements In Paris With Truthful Art [Watch]

http://www.trueactivist.com

by Amanda Froelich

November 30, 2015

For the Brandalism project, 82 artists from 19 countries joined forced to protest the corporate takeover of COP 21.

 

Just days before the launch of the UN Climate Conference in Paris, 82 artists from 19 different countries collaborated on a project to protest the corporate takeover of COP 21 and urge the public to care about climate change.

The activists replaced 600 advertisements throughout the city with artwork that calls out heads of state and corporations that have been complicit in the destruction of the Earth’s climate, reports AddictingInfo. 

Their aim was to reveal the connections between advertising, the promotion of consumerism and climate change. One might say they succeeded.

It wasn’t coincidence the activism took place on Black Friday, the day the group refers to as the “annual day of…

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Migrants Who Cross the Deadly Sonora Desert

Sonya Dooley in the USA – Border Wars

BBC (2013)

Film Review

Most Sonya Dooley documentaries are contextless valley girl puff pieces, but this one isn’t too bad.

Border Wars is about the one million migrants who attempt to cross the Sonora Desert every year to gain illegal entry to the US. The Mexico-Arizona border is sparsely patrolled in the desert. The US Border Patrol catches approximately 300,000 illegal migrants every year and returns them to Mexico. An estimated 600,000 make it safely to major US cities, where they find work. Several thousands become lost during the five day desert crossing and die of dehydration.

The documentary begins in the small Mexican town of Alta, which is under the control of Mexican drug cartels. In addition to smuggling illegal drugs across the border, the cartels also provide the coyotes (people smugglers) who charge up to $7,000 each to escort migrants across the border.

Dooley interviews migrants staying in a charity hostel while they wait for their coyote. She also visits a Red Cross trailer that provides free medical care, as well as an informational leaflet providing tips for surviving the five-day desert crossing.

Two migrants she interviews are mothers leaving small children behind because she has no way to provide for them in Mexico. Her only hope is to try to find subsistence-level work in the US and send money home for them.

One man Dooley interviews was raised in the US and deported after twenty years, despite having a US-born wife and children. Several migrants tell her they’re from Guatemala.

Out of the seven migrants she profiles, only one succeeds in making it to California, where she now earns $300 a week as a farm worker. To earn a comparable sum in her southern Mexico village would take two months.

4chan Starts Operation ‘Allahu Quackbar’ By Photoshopping ISIS As Rubber Ducks

stuartbramhall:

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I love 4chan. I know I shouldn’t. I can’t help it. This really cracks me up.

Originally posted on YOUR PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY:

‘Quack, quack, quack, quack, goooooo ducks!’

The 4chan pranksters didn’t make a guy cut off his toe this time. They decided to take up the fight against ISIS.

Their weapon of choice… Photoshop.

In has been declared operation “ALLAHU QUACKBAR,” 4chan users are altering photos of ISIS by replacing the terrorists’ faces with yellow rubber ducks and their guns with toilet bowl brushes.

The idea gained traction on the 4chan board Shit4chanSays, a forum that ironically hosts “the best” of all the horribly racist and violent content posted around the site’s dozens of different image boards.

Photo source 4Chan, DailyDot

SOURCE:

http://dudecomedy.com/4chan-starts-operation-allahu-quackbar-by-photoshopping-isis-as-rubber-ducks/

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Deja Vu All Over Again

With the US, Britain, France and Russia rapidly escalating military aggression against Syria, I thought it would be useful to look back at this Al Jazeera documentary from 2004. Al Jazeera analysts were the first to predict (2003) that the US and their allies would lose the war in Iraq.

The Control Room – Propaganda of the Iraq War

Directed by Jehane Noujaim (2004)

Film Review

The Control Room is about the Qatar TV network Al Jazeera and their coverage of the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. It alternates between footage of the Doha control room and the US Central Command media center. Highlights include vignettes of US officials condemning Al Jazeera for showing footage of civilian casualties and dead and captured Americans.

Because of the Pentagon’s tight control over US media, Al Jazeera was the only mainstream outlet to address the issue of civilian or GI deaths.

Al Jazeera was first launched in 1996 and several Arab countries banned it for criticizing their regimes. In 2003, they would broadcast coverage of the US invasion to 40 million Arab viewers, eventually becoming the most popular Arab TV station.

Their analysts would also be the first to predict (in 2003) that the US had “miscalculated” by invading Iraq – that the Iraqi resistance would eventually defeat the occupation.

The commentary by Al Jazeera senior producer Samir Khader is definitely the high point of the film, especially his discussion of the importance of propaganda in war. I was really surprised by his strenuous efforts to balance pro-US and pro-Iraqi propaganda.

I was astounded by his comment that he would take a job at Fox News if they offered it to him – to “trade the Arab nightmare for the American dream.” He speaks openly about his plans to send his children to the US to study.

The most heart-wrenching part of the film involves the deliberate assassination (via a US missile) of Al Jazeera reporter Tarek Ayyoub as he was broadcasting from the roof of the Al Jazeera building in Baghdad. His death would result the first of many anti-occupation protest marches.

Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President

stuartbramhall:

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Interesting coincidence: Russia bombs more than 500 oil tankers smuggling ISIS oil to Turkey where the president’s son is raking in a gadzillion dollars selling it to the rest of the world and his father retaliates by shooting down a Russian jet in Syrian airspace. Follow the money.

Originally posted on Talesfromthelou:

Flag of the Islamic Front. WIKI

Source: Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President

With permission of

http://www.blacklistednews.com

Source: Zero Hedge

Russia’s Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said“a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack”, had this to say: “We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation” by Turkey.

But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to Turkey has since canceled such plans).

As Sputnik transcribes, according to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov pointed…

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My First Flash Mob

Yesterday New Plymouth was one of 35 New Zealand communities kicking off the global Peoples Climate March calling for real action on climate change at COP21.

In our community, 100 people celebrated with a Peoples Climate Picnic and rally, followed by a flash mob in our mall and a march down Devon Street.

We chose City Centre mall, based on predictions it will be under water with a 6 meter rise in sea levels (to be honest, I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing).

Fifteen thousand people marched in Auckland, ten thousand in Wellington and eight thousand in Christchurch.

More coverage of other marches here: New Zealanders Rally to Global Peoples Climate March