by Greg Palast

The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul “The Vulture” Singer, Ken Langone and the Kochs – and why they need to buy the White House.

Hedge fund magnate Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new tablemates: billionaires Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers, Charles and David.

Singer has called together the billionaire boys’ club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old-fashioned way of choosing presidents – democracy and counting ballots and all that – has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d’état.

Welcome to the nightmare. Singer, Langone and the Kochs last month decided to elect Chris Christie for us. The New Jersey governor’s pseudocampaign went belly up before it began. But that’s beside the point. Now that the Supreme Court has effectively ended campaign finance limits and allowed secretive contributions through “corporations,” this new combine of the ultrawealthy should not be viewed as just a political threat to the Democrats, but as a threat to democracy.

Let me give you a rundown from my sulphur-scented files on these men who would be king-makers.

Billionaire 1: Ken Langone

Langone likes to be known as the founder of Home Depot, just your local tool guy in a blue apron with a little bag of screws.

But he was also the man, with his right-wing partners, behind Database Technologies (DBT). It was in my first investigation of Langone in 2000 that I discovered that DBT had created a list of several thousand “felons” – most of them black, all of them innocent, all of them purged from Florida’s voter rolls by DBT’s client, Katherine Harris. And Langone’s company knew exactly what was going on.

What qualifies Langone to pick our president? In his own words: “I’m nuts; I’m rich.”

Billionaires 2 and 3: David and Charles Koch

You think you’ve read all about the billionaire brothers. Well, there’s more:

In 1996, an FBI agent, Richard Elroy, told my team that oil had been pilfered from the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. He and other G-men filmed the filch-theft, say witnesses, personally ordered by Charles Koch. A few barrels here, a few barrels there.

It all added up: to about a billion and a half dollars in looted petroleum, says one expert, a third of the Koch fortune at the time. David and Charles shared in the booty via their private company, Koch Industries.

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This Sunday (Oct 9) #OccupyLA will #OccupySGRadio for a very special show which will simultaneously be broadcast on Indie1031.com and livestreamed via OWSLosAngeles from 10 PM til Midnight PST…

We’ve witnessed financial theft on a mass scale, yet the only mass arrests on Wall Street have been of those brave enough to protest about it. We’ve seen the laws that were put in place to protect investors eroded, and new laws enacted to protect those that are robbing us blind from prosecution. We’ve seen banks repossess homes they don’t even have the correct paperwork for, and families made homeless while vacant home stocks are at an all time high. We’ve seen corporations gain “citizen” status to buy influence, yet refuse to submit to one of the basic responsibilities of being one – paying taxes. We’ve seen the already obscenely rich get even richer, while an indecent amount of ordinary folks have fallen below the poverty line. We’ve seen tax breaks reward the wealthy, at the expense of the poor. We’ve seen corporations enjoy welfare, while those that own them bemoan the “entitlements” of those who have worked hard and earned their benefits.

In short, we, the 99 percent, have seen enough.

We’re taking to the streets, we’re taking back our country – this is what democracy looks like.

Please join us this Sunday as #OccupyLA takes over the Indie1031 studios to #OccupySGRadio.

Show your support and be sure to friend and follow #OccupyLA on Facebook and Twitter.

We Are The 99 Percent.

XOX

Listen to SG Radio live Sunday night from 10 PM til Midnight on Indie1031.com

Got questions? Then dial our studio hotline digits this Sunday between 10 PM and midnight PST: 323-900-6012

Busy on Sunday? Then find all our podcasts on iTunes and listen at your leisure.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

#OccupyLA Begins – SG Was There…

See photo gallery for more images from #OccupyLA.

by Blogbot

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by Floydian

There are many milestones one encounters in life when heading down the road to becoming a daily user of marijuana. The first time you ever smoked. That first trip to the head shop to buy your own pipe. Which would inevitably be followed by the first time your parent’s found your pipe; Who could have imagined your mom could have penetrated the impregnable fortress of the back of your underwear drawer, right?

The only thing worse than mom and dad finding your Zig Zags is the first time your parent’s found your stash. That’s the “Oh, shit!” moment. You’re thinking, “Oh, shit! I’m, so busted!” Your parents are thinking, “Oh, shit! Do I still have the record player and that Dark Side of the Moon album?”

Outwardly, they must punish you and explain that drugs are bad, have no positive role in society, and will be a dead end in your life. But on the inside, they are secretly waiting for your next sleepover at a friend’s house so they can re-live their glory days, thanks to your freshly confiscated grass. In reality, the legal status of marijuana is the only thing stopping a majority of parents out there from enjoying it in their free time.

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by Blogbot

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by Aaron Colter

At the time of writing this, protesters in lower Manhattan have been occupying public spaces for five days now. Over the weekend, the ranks of marchers swelled to over 5,000, but only around 200 seem to be holding down the area on a regular basis, with a handful arrested each day in Zuccotti Park, formerly known as Liberty Plaza until a real estate company and architecture firm donated $8 million to renovate the area and rename the public space. Fitting, is it not?

First proposed by Adbusters, I covered #OccupyWallStreet and reasons why the movement was valid earlier this month. Although AdBusters gained a huge boost in notoriety when members of Anonymous decided to throw support behind the protest, the magazine fell short of the 20,000 strong army it called for to take to the streets.

It’s pretty easy to understand why there aren’t more people in the parks in New York City right now – we’re broke and busy. Whether keeping workers in America right on the edge of poverty to quell uprisings is a reality or a radical conspiracy doesn’t matter, the fact is that, socially, there is huge online support for the protests, but very few bodies taking action.

Why? Probably because getting to one of the most expensive cities in the world and taking two months off of work to write on cardboard signs and chant slogans would be financially devastating to millions who may otherwise come out for an afternoon rally. Lupe Fiasco and Roseanne Barr, who restated her run for President to protestors, might be some of the only people talking about the #OccupyWallStreet protest on a regular basis who can afford to take time off from grinding out a living each day.

Just as law enforcement officials enacted an obscure law from long ago to arrest protestors in Toronto for the G20 demonstrations, the NYPD has been arresting individuals covering their faces, specifically with V for Vendetta masks, under an ordinance that originally sought to stop a peasant farmer revolt.

You can watch a live steam of the protests on the AnonOps Blog. I just watched another protestor be arrested as people chanted “The whole world is watching!” But as reporter Will Bunch pointed out, many mainstream news sources have been rather quiet about the events happening in New York.

Tensions are running high as the police and protestors continue a dangerous game, walking a tightrope between out-of-control riots and peaceful demonstrations. The impending execution of Troy Davis in Georgia this week, as well as Yahoo flagging outgoing emails which referenced ‘occupywallst.org’ as spam, have caused further anger among protesters who see, real or imaginary, forces working against their efforts to be heard.

In some ways #OccupyWallStreet is a failure. I suspect more and more people will be arrested, and if the police are smart, they will do it in the most peaceful way possible, slowly, day by day, until the core of the group is hollowed out and the remaining protestors give up and go home. Because the numbers of demonstrators is so low, and fluctuates so wildly depending on the time of day, this tactic could very well work. If, however, police become more violent, or if protestors can find a catalyst for broad public appeal, more and more people could start to flood into Manhattan from Brooklyn and outlying areas – those who are right on the cusp of heading down to Liberty Plaza.

However, in other ways #OccupyWallStreet is already a win. It’s shown that the youth are no longer afraid to take to the streets, and while we may be more likely to post on Twitter than we are to dress up as a comic book character and mock cops, there are some of us who are not afraid. But if this movement is to be successful, we must have a long view. Look at what the Pirate Party just accomplished in Berlin.

No matter what happens this week, at least some people in America and around the world know there are still some bold enough to go to jail for what they believe (and others who are willing to order pizza for them while they await arrest), and that spark, that idea, can be used to mold the next generation to become freer and fairer than the last.

To watch what is happening in New York, follow the search trend #OccupyWallStreet on Twitter and visit OccupyWallSt.org.

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By Theodore O. Lawrence

A federal class action lawsuit was filed on Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union charging Linn State Technical College with violating their students’ right to privacy by forcing them to submit to drug tests. At this publicly funded university, even attendees with clean academic and criminal backgrounds are made to undergo urinalysis at their own expense, which could potentially reveal other private medical conditions such as pregnancies and current prescriptions. This is information that students have a right to protect according to the ACLU. Though the policy was halted by order of a Federal District Court Judge just a few hours after the suit was filed, the case is yet to be decided and could represent a wider change in thinking about the way universities can treat their students.

“This case goes beyond Linn State. We filed our complaint in federal court not to just stop Linn State, but to stop any other college that thinks they can drug test their student body,” writes Will Matthews on the ACLU blog.

This new policy requires all first-year students as well as those returning after a semester or more of absence to pay $50 for the test. Those testing positive after their first go around will be required to re-submit in 45 days. If the results are positive again, students will be dismissed without even the benefit of a refund on their tuition fees.

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