‘Glenn Greenwald is not a journalist’ Former lead Obama auto adviser Steven Rattner

By Madison Ruppert: In statements made on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, former lead auto advisor to Obama, Steven Rattner, said that the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald “is not a journalist.”
Instead, claims Rattner, Greenwald, who broke the PRISM story along with several other major stories on government surveillance programs, is actually “an activist portraying himself as a journalist.”
Greenwald has been attacked many times in the media and elsewhere over his reporting on the information leaked by Edward Snowden, and there is a possibility that he might testify before the European Parliament on the issue.
The members of the panel on Monday’s Morning Joe were discussing how one might hide from the National Security Agency (NSA). Mika Brzezinski, the host of the show, stated that the story surrounding the NSA surveillance is not black-and-white, though she claims Greenwald believes it is.
“That’s exactly the point,” Rattner said. “First of all, Glenn Greenwald is not a journalist, he’s an activist portraying himself as a journalist.”
“That’s maybe another conversation than what we’re having,” he continued. “But you’re right, it’s not a black-and-white story.”

A House Divided Over NSA Spying on Americans

Ron Paul: Last week’s House debate on the Defense Appropriations bill for 2014 produced a bit more drama than usual. After hearing that House leadership would do away with the traditional “open rule” allowing for debate on any funding limitation amendment, it was surprising to see that Rep. Justin Amash’s (R-MI) amendment was allowed on the Floor. In the wake of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extent of US government spying on American citizens, Amash’s amendment sought to remove funding in the bill for some of the NSA programs.
Had Amash’s amendment passed, it would have been a significant symbolic victory over the administration’s massive violations of our Fourth Amendment protections. But we should be careful about believing that even if it had somehow miraculously survived the Senate vote and the President’s veto, it would have resulted in any significant change in how the Intelligence Community would behave toward Americans. The US government has built the largest and most sophisticated spying apparatus in the history of the world.
The NSA has been massively increasing the size its facilities, both at its Maryland headquarters and in its newly built (and way over-budget) enormous data center in Utah. Taken together, these two facilities will be seven times larger than the Pentagon! And we know now that much of the NSA’s capacity to intercept information has been turned inward, to spy on us.

As NSA expert James Bamford wrote earlier this year about the new Utah facility:

“The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.”

The Purpose Of A Human & Islam Is Divided On Music + Ramadan And Cat Stevens An Intro - Shaykh Babikir

Morris: Two Questions Answered.

Are You Smarter Than An 8th Grader From 1912?

By Jim Quinn: Yes. The US national intelligence has fallen that far. The morons in West Philly can't spell 'Cat'. At least 75% wouldn’t know the Vice President of the U.S.. More than 50% can't add 5 + 5. And 80% wouldn't know when and why the Civil War was fought.

Young Greek And Unemployed - A Great Depression Steals the Nation's Future

By Stephan Faris: Outside an unmarked green metal door in the hallway of a suburban Athens high school, Tina Stratigaki waits for a job interview. It’s a Tuesday in mid-July. Stratigaki, 29, applied for the job as a social worker weeks ago and had taken an hour-long test the Friday before. Based on the list of applicants posted on the wall outside the exam, she estimates there were some 2,000 candidates for 21 open positions. This is the last interview she’s likely to get before Greece shuts down for the summer holidays. Her unemployment benefits—about €360 ($475) a month from her previous job working with disadvantaged women and children—have just run out. “I’m a little bit stressed,” she says.
Jobs of any kind are scarce in today’s Greece. Nearly six years of deep recession have swept away a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product, the kind of devastation usually seen only in times of war. In a country of 11 million people, the economy lost more than a million jobs as businesses shut their doors or shed staff. Unemployment has reached 27 percent—higher than the U.S. jobless rate during the Great Depression

Cyprus 37.5% Depositor Haircut Upgraded To 47.5% Brazilian Wax

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Once upon a time (in April), a few weeks after reversing its initial disastrous decision to haircut all deposits (including insured ones) the Troika slammed large Cypriot depositors (read evil Russian oligarchs) with a "bail-in" template, soon coming to all insolvent European nations, that included not only a forced assignment of equity in broke Cypriot banks, but far more importantly a haircut that amounted to 37.5% of deposits over €100,000. Since then a few things have happened in Cyprus, neither of them good, i.e., an a record collapse in bank deposits despite capital controls and a record crash in the local real estate market.

The confluence of both these events meant that as bank liabilities shrank (deposits), asset fair values (home mortgages) collapsed even faster. Which, as we warned in March, would entail bigger and more aggressive deposit haircuts, and ultimately: another bailout of Cyprus (something the president floated but promptly denied upon rejection by Merkel ahead of her September elections). Today, we learn that while the inevitable next 'bailout' of Cyprus is still on the table, the deposit "haircut" just upgraded to an aggravated Brazilian wax, as the 37.5% gentle trim initially proposed was revised to 47.5%.
InCyprus reports:

The Finance Ministry and the Troika appeared to be converging on an agreement on the haircut of uninsured deposits over 100,000 euros in the Bank of Cyprus at 47.5%.

Now Obama joins the statistics benders. So we have Obamanomics, Osbornomics, Draghinomics and Troikanomics + Real life under the Obaman ‘recovery’

Roll up, roll up….every nomic’s a winner!

The Slog: Following the earlier post here this morning, voilà in the FT:

‘US economic history will be rewritten this week, as the most far-reaching methodological changes in years will add the equivalent of a country the size of Belgium to output in the world’s largest economy.

The most important change by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, to be announced on Wednesday, will be to start counting spending on research, development and copyrights as investment, and reflect pension deficits for the first time. Combined they are expected to add 3% to gross domestic product.’
Waydergo Barry! The Black Dude strikes again.
You know that part of quantum theory where there is speculation about having several realities at once? It’s arrived right here on Earth, the most insolvent planet in the known Universe, and you can create these quantum reality choices by simple having nomics. A nomic isn’t like a mnemonic (which is the essence of reality) it’s more like a sort of four-dimensional harmonica that plays a different tune depending on who’s playing it.

Gaddafi son facing ‘show trial’, ICC & Libya at loggerheads

RT: Almost two years after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed, his son is to stand trial for alleged crimes against humanity. Saif al-Islam is set for a hearing in Libya; his lawyer says he faces an “entirely unfair” show trial.
If the proceedings continue in Libya, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi will most likely be executed. Once seen as the most likely successor to his father, he has been indicted by the ICC on war crimes charges relating to the 2011 uprising. He faces charges of harming state security and insulting Libya's new flag. On top of this, Saif al-Islam is wanted by the ICC for the murder and persecution of protestors during the 2011 uprising.

He was captured by local militia in the town of Ubari in November 2011, allegedly trying to flee the country.

“He’s facing a show trial, clearly, an entirely unfair trial; trial in which he’s not able to get any defense witnesses to testify on his behalf because they’ll be too terrified to testify. And at the end of that he’s going to be executed,” his lawyer John Jones told RT, adding that  Gaddafi has been held in “appalling conditions, regarding his mental state.”

35 Facts To Scare US Baby Boomers

By Michael Snyder: If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article.  The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it.  At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years.  The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises have been made to them.  So will we be able to keep those promises to the hordes of American workers that are rapidly approaching retirement?  Of course not.  State and local governments are facing trillions in unfunded pension liabilities.  Medicare is facing a 38 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.  The Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.

Mid-Staffs A+E set to close,the whole country should be ashamed + Senior Nurse of a London Trust.. The controlled demolition of the NHS

The artist taxi driver

I Can't Know What it's Like 2 B Me - Victim Ideology Violated + Feminist Kickstarter (Parody)

St37One: Men don't know how it really feels to be a woman, but neither do women. What exactly are we trying to understand here? What sort of knowledge are we looking for? How could I possibly understand what it is really like to be me? If the peasants have no bread, then why can't they eat cake?