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Moment of Clarity: Is The Secret To Happiness Being Kept A Secret?

As JPMorgan announced a $2 billion trading loss, members of Congress called for federal regulators to scrutinize and tighten banking rules and trades. New rules are being drafted as part of the Dodd-Frank bill that prevent federal banks from making investments that might put taxpayers at risk.

“The argument that financial institutions do not need the new rules to help them avoid the irresponsible actions that led to the crisis of 2008 is at least $2 billion harder to make today,” said Democratic Rep. Barney Frank.

After the creation of the Volcker Rule, a regulatory law meant to prevent overly risky trading, JPMorgan Chase sent lobbyists to Washington to argue for loopholes that would allow for trades much like those that led to a $2 billion loss announced by the bank on Friday. Bank chief executive Jamie Dimon and other members of upper management paid regular visits to lawmakers to argue that, while they thought some parts of the rule were useful, others would hurt the bank’s ability to hedge against risk. The result, said Senator Carl Levin, was a “big enough loophole that a Mack truck could drive right through it.”

Via ChicagoSpring.org:

On May 19, Mayor 1% Emanuel will bring to Chicago military and civilian representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers.

They meet on behalf of the 1% of the world, the rich and the powerful, the bankers and generals. Their agenda is to continue to impose austerity, or poverty, by cutting social spending for workers and the poor to maintain profitability for the rich and to launch more wars to stop the rise of the poor nations of the Third World.

The people of this fine city do not want these summits. The mayor has his own agenda. In anticipation of widespread opposition to the war & poverty agenda of the NATOG8, Mayor Emanuel passed a set of first-amendment crushing ordinances, known as "Sit Down Shut Up", to stifle the exercise of free speech and assembly during the summits. The mayor single-handedly gave himself the abililty to issue no-bid security contracts and deputize out-of-town law enforcement while imposing harsh restrictions on parades, marches and demonstrations.

But we will not be silenced. We will stand up to this corrupt system and say enough! Join Occupy Chicago, Coalition Against NATO/G8 (CANG8), the Midwest Antiwar Mobilization and many more as we gather in Chicago in May!

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After the news that JP Morgan Chase lost $2 billion on high-risk credit derivatives this week, as usual, Sen. Bernie Sanders was one of our few voices of reason out there about what to do with these still too-big-to-fail institutions -- break them up.

From the Senator's press releases: Break Up Big Banks:

J.P. Morgan Chase revealed that its in-house trading operation lost $2 billion in the past six weeks. "The debacle at J.P. Morgan Chase reaffirms my view that the largest six banks in this country, including J.P. Morgan Chase, which have assets equivalent to two-thirds of our GDP, must be broken up. This is important in order to bring more competition into the financial marketplace and to prevent another ‘too-big-to-fail' bailout," Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "At a time when 23 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed, huge financial institutions should not be involved in ‘making wagers or high-stake bets.' They should be investing in the productive economy creating jobs and improving our standard of living."

Good Morning! Today is Saturday, May 12, 2012. What are you most outraged about today?

The Disabled National Veterans Foundation has spent more on marketing services than on actually helping veterans. A private company runs its fundraising, which often ends up costing more than $1 to raise $1. The foundation does sometimes send charities "badly needed" donations. "They sent us 11,520 bags of coconut M&M's," said one charity's executive director. "We didn't have a lot of use for 11,520 bags of coconut M&M's."

Full Transcript:

A national charity that vows to help disabled veterans and their families has spent tens of millions on marketing services, all the while doling out massive amounts of candy, hand sanitizer bottles and many other unnecessary items to veteran aid groups, according to a CNN investigation.

The Disabled Veterans National Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., and founded in 2007, received about $55.9 million in donations since it began operations in 2007, according to publicly available IRS 990 forms.

Yet according to the DVNF's tax filings with the IRS, almost none of that money has wound up in the hands of American veterans.

Instead, the charity made significant payments to Quadriga Art LLC, which owns two direct-mail fundraising companies hired by the DVNF to help garner donations, according to publicly available IRS 990 forms.

Those forms show the charity paid Quadriga and its subsidiary, Brickmill Marketing Services, nearly $61 million from 2008 until 2010, which was the last year public records were available.

The independent group CharityWatch gave the DVNF an "F" grade. More than 30 veterans charities were rated by the independent group by the amount they spend on fundraising compared to actual donations, and two-thirds were given either a D or F grade, according to CharityWatch president Daniel Borochoff.

"Up to $2 billion is raised in the name of veterans in this country and it's so sad that a great deal of it's wasted," Borochoff said. "Hundreds of millions of dollars of our charitable dollars intended to help veterans is being squandered and wasted by opportunists and by individuals and companies who see it as a profit-making opportunity."

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May 9th, 2012, Charlotte, North Carolina: This is footage begins with one of three separate marches (Green March) converging with two others at the intersection of N. College and E. 5th streets. This is then followed by a rally at the intersection while the Bank of America Shareholders meeting takes place inside their headquarters. Finally, all three marches joined for one major march to BOA stadium. This protest consisted of members of Occupy Raleigh, Occupy Chapel Hill, Occupy Charlotte, Occupy Wall Street, and many other groups from around the nation ( #occupyraleigh #OWS #occupywallst #occupywallstreet #occupychapelhill). Occupy Wall Street dubbed it "Occupy Wall Street of the South".

There were only a few arrests including one victim of Bank of America's foreclosure practices who tried to enter the building during the demonstration (highlighted in this video).

Shown in this video:

Green March convergence: beginning - 2:00
Rally: 2:00 - 10:55
Main March: 10:55 - end

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is shown in a video from January of 2011 saying he would use a 'divide and conquer' strategy against unions. He said the first step would be to go after collective bargaining. The statement came as a response to a question from a donor that asked him what she could do to help Walker make Wisconsin a right-to-work state. Walker didn't deny or comment on the right-to-work agenda of the donor, clearly intending to give her the impression that he supported moving Wisconsin in that direction.

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After President Obama finally came out in support of gay marriage this week, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart explained this Thursday evening just how far we've come as a nation on the issue when this is the change in the narrative over at Fox News.

STEWART: And this is the true measure of how far we’ve come as a nation. In like five years, the prime talking point from Republicans about people who support gay marriage has gone from, "It will destroy society via turtle f**king," to, "Oh, of course you’re for it. You’ll say anything popular to get re-elected." And that is progress.

Blockupy Frankfurt prepares for the European Days of Action, May 16th -- May 19th.

Homepage: blockupy-frankfurt.org
International Blog: http:// 17to19m.blogsport.eu
Twitter: twitter.com/blockupy
Facebook: facebook.com/blockupyfrankfurt
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