July 6, 2015

Number of young homeless people in Britain is 'more than three times the official figures'

(Independent UK) The true number of young people who are homeless far exceeds government figures, according to a major new study by housing experts at Cambridge University being released on Monday.

Some 83,000 homeless young people have had to rely on councils and charities for a roof over their heads during the past year – more than three times the 26,852 young people recorded in homeless figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government. And there are about 35,000 young people in homeless accommodation at any one time across Britain.

The “worryingly high” levels of young people using homelessness services across Britain is “a minimum estimate and it is likely that in reality more homeless young people access support across the UK”, the research said. ...............(more)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/number-of-young-homeless-people-in-britain-is-more-than-three-times-the-official-figures-10366229.html

July 5, 2015

My favorite picture from the Greece "No" vote celebration......

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/05/live-updates-greece-referendum_n_7718020.html

July 5, 2015

Wikileaks Exposes How TISA Will Gut Financial Regulations All Over the World

By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at Wolf Street, who also writes at Raging Bull-Shit. Originally published at Wolf Street

It’s almost impossible to keep anything secret these days – not even the core text of a hyper-secret trade deal, the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which has spent the last two years taking shape behind the hermetically sealed doors of highly secure locations around the world.

According to the agreement’s provisional text, the document is supposed to remain confidential and concealed from public view for at least five years after being signed! But now, thanks to WikiLeaks, it has seeped to the surface.

The Really, Really Good Friends of Services

TiSA is arguably the most important – yet least well-known – of the new generation of global trade agreements. According to WikiLeaks, it “is the largest component of the United States’ strategic ‘trade’ treaty triumvirate,” which also includes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).

“Together, the three treaties form not only a new legal order shaped for transnational corporations, but a new economic ‘grand enclosure,’ which excludes China and all other BRICS countries” declared WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange in a press statement. If allowed to take universal effect, this new enclosure system will impose on all our governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial risk, and social and environmental responsibility.

Thanks to an innocuous-sounding provision called the Investor-State Dispute Settlement, every investment they make will effectively be backstopped by our governments (and by extension, you and me); it will be too-big-to-fail writ on an unimaginable scale. ............(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/don-quijones-wikileaks-exposes-how-tisa-will-gut-financial-regulations-all-over-the-world.html

July 5, 2015

Keiser Report: Greece! Start Fresh

Published on Jun 30, 2015
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the idea of “nothing to fear but fear itself” as Greece puts an end to sovereign asset forfeiture as capital controls and bank holidays are declared after its government called a referendum. In the second half, Max interviews American defense attorney Craig Brand about civil asset forfeiture.

July 5, 2015

Declaration of Independence (cartoon)

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/the_independentists_20150705

July 5, 2015

Angela's Ashes: How Merkel Failed Greece and Europe

(Der Spiegel) Angela Merkel was already leaving for the weekend when she received the call that would change everything. The chancellor had just had a grueling day, spending all of it in meetings with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras -- sometimes as part of a larger group, and others with only him and French President François Hollande.

They discussed debt restructuring and billions of euros in additional investments. When it comes to issues important to him, Tsipras can be exhaustingly stubborn. In the end, though, Merkel was left with the feeling the EU summit was the milestone that could quite possibly mark a turn for the better.

Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, had pulled Merkel aside in Brussels and whispered to her that Tsipras was seeking allies in the opposition, with whom he could push a reform program through Greek parliament even without the consent of the radical wing of Syriza, if necessary. "Can you help me?" Tsipras had asked Schulz. Schulz has good connections in the Social Democratic PASOK Party.

But when Merkel returned to Berlin, she received a call from Tsipras. He told her that he was not interested in a deal, but that he intended to hold a referendum in Greece first. A short time later, he tweeted: "With a clear 'NO,' we send a message that Greece is not going to surrender."

.....(snip).....

Instead, she did what no German chancellor had ever done before. She followed a policy of pedagogical imperialism, with the lesson plan calling for budgetary discipline, labor market reform and privatization. It worked in Spain, Portugal and Ireland, but in Greece, the conditions imposed by creditors were not seen as necessary medicine but as a poison that was destroying society. ...........(more)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/merkel-s-leadership-has-failed-in-the-greece-crisis-a-1042037.html

July 5, 2015

New Reporting: US Spied on German Media

While previous revelations showed that German officials have been the target of U.S. government spying, new reporting indicates that German press was targeted as well.

Both CNN and The Intercept reported Friday on incidents that took place in the summer of 2011 involving the CIA station chief in Berlin, who also represented the NSA at the U.S. Embassy; a top German government intelligence official, Günter Heiss; another senior intelligence official, Hans Josef Vorbeck; and the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

The publications' new stories detail an incident Heiss confirmed in testimony to the German parliament on Thursday.

CNN's Jake Tapper reports that that CIA official met at the time with Heiss and his assistant to urge action against Vorbeck for leaking classified information to reporters.

The Intercept also reported Friday that the CIA official told Heiss that Vorbeck was leaking information to the press—a disclosure that the Obama administration told the German publication was because of national security concerns. Further, the revelation appears to have prompted Vorbeck's demotion later that summer. Tapper adds that Vorbeck's reassignment was "a move widely seen as a punishment for his cooperating with reporters." ..............(more)

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/03/new-reporting-us-spied-german-media

July 5, 2015

City in Drought-Stricken California Forced to Dump 550,000 Gallons of Water

Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water went to waste in California at a time when water conservation efforts are more serious than ever for the drought-stricken state.

The mayor of Poway, a city in San Diego County, defended the decision to dump 550,000 gallons of drinking water into a nearby canyon, according to ABC affiliate KGTV.

“It was a perfect storm of conservation and heat,” Poway Mayor Steve Vaus told KGTV.

In an ironic twist, the reason so much water was lost was because of conservation efforts. The water sat in the Blue Crystal Reservoir for too long, according to KGTV. Heat created a chemical imbalance of chloramine, a combination of chlorine and ammonia used to disinfect drinking water, making the water, according to state regulations, unsafe to drink. .............(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/city-drought-stricken-california-forced-dump-550-000-202441770--abc-news-topstories.html

July 5, 2015

Richard Wolff at Left Forum 2015: Marx: The System is the Problem

July 5, 2015

In Front of 10,000 in Madison, Bernie Sanders Calls for Wealth Redistribution

from In These Times:


In Front of 10,000 in Madison, Bernie Sanders Calls for Wealth Redistribution
[font size="3"]“Our job is to redistribute wealth back into the hands of working families.”[/font]

BY DAVID GOODNER


MADISON—Anyone on the Left who says Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders isn’t a real independent or socialist missed the speech he gave in Madison last night, when he called on 10,000 supporters to help build a mass social movement powerful enough to redistribute the wealth from the rich to the poor.

Forget about Bernie’s catchphrases about the “billionaire class,” the “oligarchy” and how no president can fight them and win without an “organized grassroots movement” strong enough to make a “political revolution.” Those powerful words are all well and good, and they are having a real impact on the public debate.

So are Bernie’s calls to implement an agenda that reads like a progressive wish list: bust up big banks, overturn Citizens United, raise the minimum wage, paid medical/family and vacation leave, equal pay for women, more taxes on the super-rich and big corporations, tuition-free university education, Medicare-For-All, single-payer health care, public campaign financing, an end to climate change, yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea. The Madison crowd collectively swooned upon hearing such ideas.

But when was the last time you actually heard a presidential candidate openly call for “wealth redistribution”? Forget descriptions of “income inequality”—he wants wealth redistribution.

Okay, so Bernie’s call didn’t exactly include bold proposals for nationalization of the economy or collectivizing agriculture. Still, the kind of boldly progressive rhetoric Bernie was using last night showed just how incredibly honest and unapologetically to the left he is. Sanders is quickly becoming the vessel for mass social movements that the “Yes We Can” Obama campaign never truly was. ...................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18136/bernie-sanders-madison