A "shadow bank lobby" has played a prominent role in shaping the financial reform process, pushing amendments that will weaken consumer protections, water down regulation of the Wall Street casino, and increase the likelihood of continuing fraud and future bailouts.

The financial reform process is providing definitive proof as to what the true priorities are for each Senator. 10 Senators have emerged as American heroes, 37 Senators have revealed themselves as puppets of the Financial Oligarchy.

AmpedStatus has joined a new coalition to fight for economic justice. We are sick of reporting upon the crimes of Wall Street and watching our future go up in flames without any accountability or measures being taken to defend against blatant criminality. The Wall Street Elite have controlled our political process for too long! The following is our first announcement and call to action.

Democracy is devolving into fascism before our eyes, the "iron law of oligarchy" is once again asserting itself. You cannot have a concentration of vast wealth and Democracy at the same time, and we currently have the greatest concentration of wealth in history...

By David DeGraw & Max Keiser
The stock market plunge on May 6th was an act of domestic financial terrorism in America. A day that will live in infamy.

Keiser and DeGraw discuss the unreported underlying elements of the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson's background and role in causing the economic crisis, the Federal Reserve's illegal activities, the epidemic of accounting fraud on Wall Street, and expose clear examples of trillions of dollars stolen through market manipulation.

Not only did Goldman Sachs profit on betting against CDOs they designed to fail; more importantly, they insured them through AIG which led to a $182 billion taxpayer bailout.

David DeGraw recently gave a speech to World War II veterans summing up his recent reporting: "The Robber Barons of the Gilded Age have now been displaced as America's most despotic and depraved ruling class."

For those of you who want to know what the internet will end up like when the Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner interests take it over, you need to look at this shocking new case of censorship by Google News.

Mike Papantonio talks with David DeGraw about the REAL America, the one that those of us who aren't CEOs of major corporations live in. David also appeared on RT TV and called for "a mass movement to restore the rule of law."

A Goldman Sachs-owned college conglomerate taps a controversial lobbying shop to battle Education Department. It's a classic move by an industry player feeling the squeeze of pending regulation: Hire a lobbying firm to create the appearance of widespread opposition via a carefully stage-managed astroturf campaign. One of the latest outfits to give this strategy a try: Education Management Corporation (EDMC), a multibillion-dollar heavyweight in the for-profit higher education industry that's the subject of multiple lawsuits and ample criticism from investors, lawmakers, and government officials who accuse the company of a range of deceptive business practices. The company, whose majority stockholder is Goldman Sachs, recently hired a GOP-linked lobbying shop known for its astroturfing prowess to fight a proposed federal rule that has the entire industry fretting about its future. Tags: Goldman Sachs Education Economic Death Squad Astroturf

"“Seven Key Facts About Social Security and the Federal Budget,” functions as a primer on some of the most important topics in the Social Security debate, topics that are essential for any policymakers, reporters or anyone else concerned about the future of Social Security." Tags: Social Security Deficit

A federal court in California has issued a ruling that’s raising widespread alarm among advocates for civil liberties. Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said law enforcement agents can sneak onto a person’s property, plant a GPS device on their vehicle, and track their every movements. The court’s ruling means the spying is legal in California and eight other Western states. Tags: Civil Liberties surveillance

Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) recently introduced legislation that would make it a lot easier for the public to access thousands of congressionally mandated reports. These reports are created when Congress requires agencies to give an accounting of their actions or plans for addressing a particular issue. Once received by Congress, the reports become House or Senate documents, and often provide valuable insight into what the federal government is (or should be) doing. House documents, according to the Clerk of the House, originate from congressional committees and including annual reports of executive departments, investigative reports made to congress, presidential messages, and other similar publications. (House or Senate documents should not to be confused with House or Senate reports, which are prepared by congressional committees on proposed legislation and issues under investigation.) Rep. Dreihaus’ bill applies to congressionally mandated reports only." Tags: Transparency congress

Three House lawmakers -- two Republicans and one Democrat -- may soon be under investigation by the House ethics committee for potential links between their political fundraisers and subsequent votes on the financial reform bill. The Office of Congressional Ethics -- an independent body -- has referred cases involving John Campbell, R-Calif., Tom Price, R-Ga., and Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., to the ethics committee, but did not recommend further investigation of five other lawmakers it had previously included in its probe. " Tags: campaign finance congress

A failure of the left to innovatively fill this space will inevitably spawn a reinvigorated right with fewer apprehensions about state intervention, one that could combine technocratic Keynesian initiatives with a populist but reactionary social and cultural program.There is a term for such a regime: fascist. As Roger Bootle, author of The Trouble with Markets, reminds us, millions of Germans were disillusioned with the free market and capitalism during the Great Depression. But with the failure of the left to provide a viable alternative, they became vulnerable to the rhetoric of a party that, once it came to power, combined Keynesian pump-priming measures that brought unemployment down to 3 percent with a devastating counterrevolutionary social and cultural program. Fascism in the United States? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think. Tags: Economic Death Squad Economic Predictions Economic Justice

Democrats in Congress are poised to play a leading role this month in thwarting their party's effort to raise income tax rates on the wealthy. Tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 expire at the end of this year. President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have been eager to extend the breaks for individuals who earn less than $200,000 annually and joint filers who make less than $250,000. Those who earn more would pay higher, pre-2001 rates starting next year. However, a small but growing number of moderate Democrats are balking at boosting taxes on the rich. Many face electorates that recoil at the mention of any tax increase. Some represent areas that are loaded with wealthier taxpayers. Further, some incumbent senators who don't face voters this fall are reluctant to increase taxes on anyone while the economy remains sluggish. " Tags: Economic Death Squad Obama Illusion congress

This has not been a kind year for campaign finance reformers. Setting aside the now-famous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling from the Supreme Court, which allowed corporations and unions to spend freely on campaign advertisements, there has been a flurry of challenges to other campaign finance laws in the courts. Although several of these challenges were filed before the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, that decision encouraged opponents of campaign finance reform to push their challenges even further, according to experts on campaign finance cases. These ongoing lawsuits have challenged three broad sections of campaign finance law: corporate spending restrictions, public financing of candidates and disclosure laws. Supporters of reform have seen some success against challenges to restrictions on soft money contributions. But public funding for candidates has been stymied in several cases, even in the middle of campaign season. " Tags: campaign finance Economic Death Squad Supreme Court

The number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. has dropped for the first time in two decades — decreasing by 8 percent since 2007, a new study finds. The reasons range from the sour economy to Mexican violence and increased U.S. enforcement that has made it harder to sneak across the border. Much of the decline comes from a sharp drop-off in illegal immigrants from the Caribbean, Central America and South America attempting to cross the southern border of the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center, which based its report on an analysis of 2009 census data." Tags: Immigration

As he walks the quiet Main Street of Farmville, Virginia, Rep. Tom Perriello has his work cut out for him. Wearing khakis, brown boots, and an open-collar shirt in the 100-degree heat, the freshman Democrat pops into stores and offices—he's not always recognized—and asks how business is going and what he can do to help. He tells his constituents that America needs to "make things," and "the elites" in Washington don't get this. At Key Office Supply, owner Jim Ailsworth thanks Perriello for his health care reform vote, noting that he plans to use the law's small-business tax credit for his staff. At Davenport & Company, an independent stock brokerage, manager Brad Watson says he's worried that the stimulus (which Perriello also supported) won't yield long-lasting public works. Perriello points out that he argued "for a stimulus that is focused on 10 years—not 18 months." After Perriello leaves, Watson points to campaign literature on his desk for state Sen. Robert Hurt, who vanquished several tea party candidates to become Perriello's Republican challenger. "Hurt's a nice, moderate Republican," Watson says; he intends to vote for him." Tags: DNC Election

Meet Honeywell CEO David Cote [Business Roundtable member] - the most dangerous man in America. David Cote is so dangerous that he's willing to risk nuclear fallout in order to demand that uranium workers agree to cutting their retiree health care and pension plans. Honeywell runs the only conversion facility in the world that can distill pure uranium in Metropolis, Illinois. On June 28th, Honeywell locked out its union workers during contract negotiations because the union, United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669, refused to accept the company proposal to eliminate retiree health care and pension plans for new hires and increase workers' out of pocket health care to $8,500 a year. Good health care coverage for retirees is especially important to uranium workers who suffer rates of cancer ten times higher than the general public due to their daily interaction with radioactive material; thus the workers refused to give in to demands to cut their retiree health care coverage entirely." Tags: Deficit Business Roundtable Obama Illusion

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Tuesday night conceded the Republican primary election to Joe Miller, the tea party backed challenger who maintained his Election Day lead after thousands of additional absentee and other ballots were counted through the day. "We know that we have outstanding votes to count in the primary but based on where we are right now I don't see a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor. And that is a reality that is before me at this time," Murkowski said in a news conference broadcast live over statewide television from her campaign headquarters in Anchorage." Tags: Tea Party Election

Exactly one century ago, on August 31, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt called on his fellow citizens to smash the nation’s rich down to democratic size. As President, between 1901 and early '09, Roosevelt had taken on a plutocracy just as entrenched as ours today. We must “prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes,” TR enunciated, and hold corporate officials “personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.” Tags: Economic Justice

Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency whose reputation should rightfully have been shattered by the economic crisis, is now dictating policy to the US government. S&P just put our elected officials on notice: Submit to the proclamations of the Deficit Commission or we'll downgrade our rating of government debt. That's blackmail, plain and simple. This threat comes from a privately-owned company whose rating process is riddled with conflicts, and which has gotten virtually every critical assessment of recent years spectacularly wrong. Enron? Lehman? Subprime mortgages? They were zero for three. Yet rather than reining back their penchant for reckless proclamations, the chairman of S&P's "sovereign rating committee" said that our elected officials' response to the Deficit Commission would be crucial to its analysis of US debt. John Chambers said last week: "It is very important for the credit standing of the United States that the Congress considers very carefully what the fiscal commission proposes." Just in case his intent wasn't clear enough, he added: "It is very important for Congress to take the required steps." Tags: Economic Death Squad Deficit Debt

The commission will almost certainly be biased toward benefit cuts, and away from raising taxes, when it presents its report on December 1. Below, the cast of characters who will be making the calls. Tags: Social Security Deficit

Under pressure to revive the faltering recovery, President Obama said Monday that he and his economic team are discussing "additional measures" to bolster growth and spur hiring, including "further tax cuts" to encourage businesses to create jobs.Obama offered no new proposals during brief remarks in the Rose Garden, saying he would provide details "in the days and weeks to come." Meanwhile, he urged Senate Republicans to drop their "blockade" of a Democratic measure aimed at aiding small businesses by cutting their taxes and creating a $30 billion loan fund to give them easier access to credit. Tags: Obama Illusion Economic Death Squad

Fellow Americans, and Iraqis who are watching this speech, I have come here this evening not to declare a victory or to mourn a defeat on the battlefield, but to apologize from the bottom of my heart for a series of illegal actions and grossly incompetent policies pursued by the government of the USA, in defiance of domestic US law, international treaty obligations, and both American and Iraqi public opinion. The United Nations was established in 1945 in the wake of a series of aggressive wars of conquest and the response to them, in which over 60 million people perished. Its purpose was to forbid such unjustified attacks, and its charter specified that in future wars could only be launched on two grounds. One is clear self-defense, when a country has been attacked. The other is with the authorization of the United Nations Security Council. " Tags: Iraq war crimes Obama Illusion

Reporters and editors at major news outlets may also want to review these questions, since it seems that they could also use some additional background knowledge on the program. 1) How much higher are real wages projected to be in 2040 than today? In other words, how much richer do we expect the average worker to be 30 years from now? 2) How did the 2010 Trustees Report change the projections for 2040 wages compared with the 2009 report?" Tags: Social Security Economic Death Squad

Obama spoke to the criticism of the federal response following Hurricane Katrina Sunday, vowing that his administration would “put an end to the turf wars between agencies, to cut the red tape and the bureaucracy” that he said had been obstacles to the region’s continued recovery. “I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you, and fight alongside you, until the job is done,” Mr. Obama said.

With people finally paying attention to the atrociousness of Alan Simpson, I thought it’d be a good time to take a quick look at his partner, Erskine Bowles. Former investment banker, chief of staff to Clinton, and neoliberal Senate candidate, he’s revealed himself to be nothing less than a budget cutting fanatic. You probably heard that he called our debt a "cancer." You might not be aware of his other recent pubic pronouncements. And mind you, he’s the Democrat chosen by Obama to head the commission. Tags: Obama Illusion Deficit Economic Death Squad