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.

The evidence is now overwhelming. The United States government has facilitated the theft of trillions of dollars of national wealth and 99% of the US population no longer has political representation.

Read the full six-part report in one post. You can also download the full report with links and graphics or as a print-friendly document. HELP SPREAD THE WORD!

David DeGraw appeared on the Keiser Report to discuss his new book, "The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the USA." DeGraw: "The American public needs to understand that we have been attacked. We are in an economic war right now and all economic indicators say that things are going to get worse...."

These are the core common-ground issues that we must urgently rally around and support. Unless we organize and take decisive action on all these issues, we will all suffer the consequences of our collective inaction.

The entire bailout is strategically designed to eliminate the US middle class. Every time you hear the word "bailout," you should think "coup d’état."

AmpedStatus Report: It's time for 99% of Americans to mobilize and aggressively move on common sense political reforms. This is the first part of a six-part report. Introduction & Part I: Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage.

AmpedStatus Report: The economic elite have escalated their attack on the U.S. public by surging military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate.

France has seized upon reports of the execution of a French aid worker by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in July to escalate its military intervention in its former colonies in the strategic Sahel region of Western Africa. Tags: Africa France

Earlier this week, when the Daily Caller asked neoconservative war hawk John Bolton if he wanted to run for president in 2012, the former (recess-appointed) U.N. ambassador wouldn’t rule out the possibility. “You know, as somebody who writes op-eds and appears on the television, I appreciate as well as anybody that…there is a limit to what that accomplishes,” he said. But today on Fox News, Bolton indicated that he’s getting more interested in making a run for the White House, saying, “I’m not saying ‘no’”:" Tags: Election

As the president talks about ending the War in Iraq, a former soldier is speaking out about his role in the war. One Wichita man, who served in Iraq also appeared in a controversial video that went viral. The video captures an attack that happened more than three years ago. A website leaked it in April. It documents American soldiers shooting down a group of people, mistaking their camera gear for weapons. Then, the soldiers fire at a van that stopped to collect the bodies. After ground troops moved in, they found there were two children in the van. Now, the man who discovered those children is speaking out." Tags: war crimes Iraq

Globalisation has made military intervention in rogue regimes overseas more necessary than ever, Tony Blair argues in his memoirs. Not toppling Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, is one regret voiced by the former prime minister. His belief that Iran needs to be confronted in its nuclear ambitions and as a last resort prevented by force shines through. The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan has not diminished his commitment to taking on opponents. His appetite for international affairs, he admits, has been sharpened by his role as a mediator in the Middle East. "Personally I have never felt a greater sense of frustration or indeed a greater urge to leadership," he writes in his postscript." Tags: UK

"The government of Sudan has been miffed that it cannot get off of the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. It could be because of the history of arbitrary arrests, killings and torture by the administration of Sudan President Omar Al Bashir, as documented in a recent report by Amnesty International. Or it could be because the Sudanese government is widely reported to back the Jangaweed militia attacks against citizens of Darfur, a campaign that has killed over 300,000 people and displaced approximately three million more. Or perhaps it is Sudan’s political support (and possibly military aid) to Hamas, foe of the U.S., the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority? In any case, the Obama administration has not seen fit to take Sudan off their list of bad guy countries." Tags: CIA Africa

What an irony that the Palestinians' arch-enemy, Israel, should also be their saviour. There is a real danger that the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks due to starton September 2 in Washington could yield a botched deal that falls far short of the needs of international law or elemental justice, and sets back the cause of Palestine for decades, if not for ever. Fortunately this will not happen as long as Israel's obduracy can be relied on to save the Palestinians from such an outcome. Time and again, when Israel was thrown a lifeline by Arab neighbours that could have ensured its legitimacy and security, its folly and greed lost it those opportunities. But, since they came at great cost to Palestinian rights, Israel's obduracy had the perverse effect of safeguarding those rights. All peace proposals after 1967 were based on maintaining Israel as a regional power and forcing the Palestinians to settle for less than they were entitled to. They were repeatedly offered paltry settlements that legitimised Israel's hold on most of their land and undermined their right of return. Had Israel agreed, the Palestinian cause would have been lost long ago." Tags: Israel-Palestine

They' say that it really isn't healthy to keep things bottled up inside. On Wed. evening's MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the liberal host and his guest, The Nation's Jeremy Scahill went the healthy route and let it rip. Discussion centered around President Obama's address on the Iraq war and the ensuing criticism from neocons who complained Obama should've thanked and praised President George W. Bush for the 'success' of the surge in Iraq." Tags: Iraq Bush Bush Crimes

The Rwanda crisis threatens to reveal the United States’ role as enabler in the deaths of as many as six million people while Washington’s allies occupied and looted the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. At stake is not only the reputation of Ugandan President Paul Kagame, an alumnus of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, but the larger American strategy for militarization of Africa and exploitation of her riches. The 545-page report details crimes committed in Congo by the Rwandan military and its allies between March, 1993, and June, 2003, and reinforces long-standing charges that Kagame’s forces were also aggressors and mass murderers during the Rwandan mass killings of 1994. When Kagame’s Tutsi rebels – previously based in Uganda – gained control of Rwanda after 100 days of fighting and ethnic cleansing, they pursued more than a million Hutu refugees into neighboring Congo. There, they hunted down and killed untold thousands of old men, women and children in 600 documented incidents that are, at the least, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report’s authors clearly believe the Tutsis engaged in outright genocide – the purposeful eradication of a people – since Kagame’s men made no distinction between Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutus; they killed them all. Congolese Tutsis and kinsmen from Burundi joined Kagame’s Rwandan Tutsis in the mass murder – confirming the racial or ethnic nature of the slaughter. Tags: Africa war crimes

The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit commission said Tuesday. Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson's comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes. "The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess," said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee." Tags: Deficit US Soldiers Obama Illusion Economic Death Squad

"South Korea and the United States are planning a second round of combined military drills including Aegis destroyers and several Korean submarines from Sunday to Sept. 9 in the Yellow Sea, a South Korean military source said yesterday. "South Korea and the U.S. had actually agreed on implementing the second joint exercise this Sunday," the military official said. The official said the U.S. will send two Aegis-equipped ships and there will be other Korean warships involved, such as a 1,200-ton submarine, corvettes and destroyers. " Tags: North Korea China

On September 14, 1982, Ronald Reagan's (secret) National Security Decision Directive/NSDD 55 established a National Program Office (NPO), tasked with ensuring the federal government's survive in case of a national emergency, specifically a nuclear attack. Reporting to Vice President Bush, NPO developed and coordinated secret plans with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), CIA, and Departments of State and Defense to maintain large underground bunkers, high-tech software, and procedures to let government function under emergency conditions - originally in case of nuclear attack, now terrorist ones or any "emergency," including natural disasters. In 1988, Reagan's Executive Order 12656 authorized a COG response, including full-scale militarization in case of a "national security emergency," defined as: "Any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States." The policy remained largely in place under GHW Bush's April 1990 National Security Directive (NSD) 37, June 1992 NSD 69 (both titled Enduring Constitutional Government), and Bill Clinton's October 1998 Presidential Decision Directive/National Security Council (PDD/NSC) 67, titled Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations, stating. Tags: CIA Cheney 9_11 NSA

Tomorrow’s WikiLeakers may have to be sneakier than just dumping military docs onto a Lady Gaga disc. The futurists at Darpa are working on a project that would make it harder for troops to funnel classified material to WikiLeaks — or to foreign governments. And that means if you work for the military, get ready to have your web, email and other network usage monitored even more than it is now. Darpa’s new project is called CINDER, for Cyber Insider Threat. It’s lead by a legendary hacker-turned-Darpa-manager. CINDER may have preceded Pfc. Bradley Mannings’ alleged disclosure of tens of thousands of documents about the Afghanistan war from Defense Department servers. But the idea is to find someone just like him. By hunting for poker-like “tells” in people’s use of Defense Department computer networks, Darpa hopes to find indications of indicate hostile intent or potential removal of sensitive data. “The goal of CINDER will be to greatly increase the accuracy, rate and speed with which insider threats are detected and impede the ability of adversaries to operate undetected within government and military interest networks,” according to the defense geeks’ request for contractor solicitations on the project." Tags: Hacking Cyberwar

While the US invasion and occupation of Iraq over the past seven years has inflicted multiple disasters on the country, many argue that the US assault on Iraq really began 20 years ago with the US-imposed economic sanctions. Joy Gordon, author of Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions, writes, "U.S. policymakers effectively turned a program of international governance into a legitimized act of mass slaughter."" Tags: Iraq

Democracy Now: In his Oval Office address, President Obama said the US had closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis. But many US bases remain in Iraq as well as the massive US embassy in Baghdad–the size of eighty football fields. We play a report on US bases in Iraq by independent journalist Jacquie Soohen of Big Noise Films. Tags: Iraq Obama Illusion

The US will today send another Predator drone on patrol flights along its border with Mexico, allowing authorities for the first time to monitor the entire frontier with the unmanned aircraft. National Guardsmen will also arrive at the border this week as part of the Obama administration's plan to strengthen security and combat smuggling. With immigration a critical issue in midterm elections in November, the President, Barack Obama, last month signed into law a $US600 million ($674 million) bill aimed at reinforcing border security, including programs aimed at countering the smuggling of drugs and migrants." Tags: Drones surveillance mexico Immigration drug war

A top Swedish prosecutor said Wednesday she would reopen a rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, overturning a previous ruling to quash a probe of the Australian. "There is reason to believe that a crime has been committed. Considering information available at present, my judgement is that the classification of the crime is rape," director of prosecutions Marianne Ny said in a statement. "The basis for further considerations is not sufficient at the moment. More investigations are necessary before a final decision can be made (concerning possible charges)," she added." Tags: Sex Laws whistleblower

"As Middle Eastern leaders gathered in Washington to inaugurate a new round of Israeli-Palestinian talks, Hamas gunmen killed four Israeli settlers in their car outside the West Bank city of Hebron. " Tags: Israel-Palestine

The number of US soldiers killed in the Afghan war in 2010 is the highest annual toll since the conflict began almost nine years ago, according to an AFP count Wednesday. A total of 323 US soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war this year, compared to 317 for all of 2009, according to AFP figures based on the independent icasualties.org website. Foreign forces suffered a grim spike in deaths last month as the Taliban insurgency intensified, with NATO confirming on Wednesday that a sixth US soldier was killed on one of the bloodiest days this year." Tags: af-pak US Soldiers

Obama issued an executive order Monday giving broad new authority to impose financial sanctions on North Korean entities and individuals doing business with and for the secretive communist state. Stuart Levey, Treasury Department under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the new order "targets a wide range of illicit activities undertaken by the government of North Korea." Obama specifically named three North Korean entities, but his order covers much more ground, directing the State and Treasury departments to target any individuals or entities that facilitate North Korean trafficking in arms and related materiel; procurement of luxury goods; and engagement in illicit economic activities, such as money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods and currency, bulk cash smuggling and narcotics trafficking." Tags: North Korea

Of course the number of private contractors - who perform many of the same roles as troops, but for a lot more money - is expected to double. So this is a funny way of ending combat operations in Iraq. We are still meddling in their affairs and we are still putting our men and women in danger, and we are still spending money we don’t have. This looks more like an escalation than a draw-down to me!" Tags: Iraq private military