Renowned cellular biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton narrates the process of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly over a milieu of imagery in "The Evolution of the Butterfly". The film combines first hand footage from the Occupy Wall Street movement with stylized portraits of the recent economic collapse and gives a backdrop of hope to sometimes bleak reality.
By William K. Black, Henry N. Pontell, Gilbert Geis, Janet Tavakoli, Barry Ritholtz & Lynn A. Stout As white-collar criminologists (and a former financial regulator and enforcement head) and experts in ferreting out sophisticated financial frauds, our careers and research focus on financial fraud by the world’s most elite private sector criminals and their political cronies. Therefore, we write to thank Congress and the President for preparing to adopt a JOBS Act that will provide us with job security for life.
Cenk: “No cops ever get punished, no mayors ever get punished. If you go out there to exercise your First Amendment rights, should you expect an ass-kicking by your own police that you paid for?”
Lobbyists write legislation, they take your representatives out to lunch, they throw fundraisers, they abide by absurdly specific rules to avoid appearance of graft and bribery, but nonetheless, Lobbyists influence your government for the benefit of corporate interests.
In a discussion on money, politics, and the growth of organic political reform movements in America over the last few years, Dylan Ratigan talks with Lawrence Lessig about his new book, One Way Forward: An Outsiders Guide to Fixing the Republic.
When Republic Report launched Sell Out Of The Week, our initial winner was President Obama, who earned the prize for embracing his super PAC, essentially endorsing unlimited corporate cash invading the democratic process, after having failed to take some critical steps to clean up the system. We’ve chosen him again this week, but for a different money in politics offense.
Obama campaigned on a promise of reform and transparency, pledging as a candidate that lobbyists “will not run my White House… and will not drown out the voices of the American people.” But three years into his presidency, Obama’s lobby reform is broken. The rules once seen as revolutionary are counterproductive, meaningless, and frankly ridiculous.
If laws like the new Trespass Bill (HR 347) had been in effect during the Civil Rights movement, there would have been no March on Washington. Martin Luther King Jr. and his fellow activists would have been rendered criminals. And King's call for "militant nonviolent resistance" would have been silenced by police in riot gear.
Facing Global Protest, G8 Retreats | #Occupy News Roundup | How to Fund an American Police State | Thousands Protest Soaring Education Cuts | "This Is Our Land:" Lakota Form Human Blockade to Stop Tar Sands Trucks | Tech Firms Help Arab Dictators | Vermont Town Meetings Will Move to Amend
Richest 1% Swipe 93% of All Income Gains | Wall Street speculators continue to rake in billions | SEC Dropped the Ball on $7 Billion Ponzi Scheme | Goldman's Massive Conflicts of Interest | Gaming the Greek bailout | Market Recovery Is an Illusion | BP to Pay $7.8 Billion | Legality of Targeted Killings of US Citizens Overseas
Voters Back Grassroots Campaign to Abolish Corporate Personhood | It’s Not Just Citizens United | FEC’s bad rap getting worse | Super Tuesday’s winner: Big-money politics | Most Former Members Of Congress Work In Lobbying | Stanford's been convicted, will lawmakers return stolen money? | Super PAC aims to wrest grip of incumbents
What’s worse: to be persecuted and indicted for trying to expose an act of wrongdoing -- or to be ignored for doing so? The Obama administration has set a record by accusing no fewer than six government employees, who allegedly leaked classified information to reporters, of violating the Espionage Act, a draconian law dating back to 1917. Yet when it comes to workers who have risked their careers to expose misconduct in the corporate and financial arena, the government has often left whistleblowers feeling isolated and discouraged.
Editor's Note: The following is the first of a new seven-part series featuring statements from occupiers, organizers and supporters of the 99% Movement. The statements are excerpted from the new book, "The Economic Elite Vs. The People: 99% Movement Call to Action." In this installment, we feature comments from Tom Morello, Nomi Prins, Shepard Fairey, Miles Mogulescu, Margaret Flowers, Danny Goldberg, Stephen Marshall, Glen Ford and Lee Camp.
AIG Still Robbing US Taxpayers; Fed Lets Banks Pay Shareholders Billions; Costs of Extreme Weather; War with Iran; Global Insurrection Roundup; Occupy the SEC; Occupy Food Justice; More
Broadcasting on the road from Kansas City, Missouri, we’re joined by William Black, a white-collar criminologist, former financial regulator, and author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.” Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and recently took part in Occupy Kansas City. “If you look [at the Occupy protests], not just nationwide, but worldwide, you will see some pretty consistent themes developing,” Black says. “Those themes include: we have to deal with the systemically dangerous institutions, the 20 biggest banks that the administration is saying are ticking time bombs, that as soon as one of them fails, we go back into a global crisis. We should fix that. There’s no reason to have institutions that large. That’s a theme. That accountability is a theme, that we should put these felons in prison… That we should get jobs now, and that we should deal with the foreclosure crisis. So those are four very common themes that you can see in virtually any of these protest sites… I think, over time, you won’t necessarily have some grand written agenda, but you’ll have, as I say, increasing consensus. And it’s a very broad consensus.”
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Previous Comments:
Occupy Wall Street around the world.... Your thoughts and feelings about it! - Page 3 said:
[...] Bill Black: #OccupyWallStreet A Counter to White-Collar Fraud | AmpedStatus. . AmpedStatus – Knowledge Is [...]
October 21st, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Farrukh Haroon said:
HI,
Thank you for sharing this nice article for us. Make sure everyone, gets a job so they can get back to paying into the system, and the protestors will simply go away before they cause some kind of real upset to the apple cart.
tualein gym
November 18th, 2011 at 5:07 am