Bloomberg reporters accused of spying on Goldman Sachs traders | The Raw Story

Financial services news group restricts access to client information from terminals after complaint from Goldman

Financial services news group Bloomberg was facing questions on Friday about how reporters used information about clients gleaned from its widely-used terminals.

The New York Post reported that journalists at Bloomberg had been caught using the financial news service’s $20,000-a-year terminals to “spy” on Goldman Sachs bankers.

Bloomberg said it had blocked journalists’ access to client data within 24 hours of receiving a complaint from Goldman.

The concerns raised by Goldman could be a major headache for Bloomberg, which makes most of its money from renting the terminals to traders. IT NOW faces complaints from other Wall Street banks that believe they too were spied upon by reporters in a breach of confidentiality.

The Post said that a Bloomberg reporter asked a Goldman executive if a partner was still with the firm, saying that he had not logged into his terminal for some time.

Sources at JP Morgan told the Guardian they believe the news organisation may have used information they believed was confidential while pursuing stories about Bruno Iksil, the London trader blamed for massive losses at the bank last year.

More than 300,000 of the world’s most influential people in finance including top bankers, treasury officials and hedge fund managers have access to a Bloomberg terminal. Almost all users are identified by name and their terminals are often highly tailored to give them access to the financial information they need. Access to the types of information those users are looking up would give a reporter invaluable insight.

“Limited customer relationship d

Bloomberg reporters accused of spying on Goldman Sachs traders | The Raw Story

Electoral Dysfunction, 2012 | The Nation

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, greets supporters at his caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

For all the talk about the “town hall meeting” character of the Iowa caucuses, this is not what democracy looks like. Awash in big money, manipulated by distant donors and Super PAC consultants, defined by negative TV advertising and the crude calculus of party insiders, caucuses that might once have provided a credible opening for presidential campaigning have degenerated into bad theater. The fight encouraged the worst instincts of a news media more prone to stenography than journalism and narrowed the political options for a nation in desperate need of an expanded discourse. As such, the caucuses provided an ugly start to a nominating process that needs to be reformed—not in isolation but as part of a much broader agenda to renew the promise of American democracy.

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Entertainment Hospitality Iowa Social Issues

What was striking was that at a point when Republicans are supposedly all charged up to take on President Obama, their 2012 caucuses drew barely 3,000 more voters than they did in 2008. The relentless negativity didn’t help. Mitt Romney spent millions to take apart anyone who began to get traction. Rick Perry aired negative ads to prevent Rick Santorum from becoming the default choice of social conservatives. Then Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann ganged up on libertarian outlier Ron Paul. After the better part of a decade of campaigning for his party’s nomination, after spending millions from his own accounts and having millions more spent on his behalf by Super PACs, Romney could manage only an eight-vote “victory” over Santorum, who just weeks ago was polling less than the margin of error.
The problem goes beyond this year’s crop of candidates. There’s an old and still unresolved debate about whether Iowa and New Hampshire are the right places to begin the nominating process of the two major parties that dominate our politics. These small states are particularly unrepresentative this year: not only are they disproportionately white; their unemployment rates are roughly three points below the national average. While neither has been immune to the recession, both are dramatically more prosperous than bigger and more battered states like Michigan and Ohio. The national debate, driven by the media focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, has been warped to underemphasize the need for job creation and overemphasize the far right’s focus on killing Obama’s health insurance reforms and promoting Representative Paul Ryan’s schemes to turn Medicare into a voucher program and begin the privatization of Social Security.
The GOP caucuses are so skewed toward the hard right that, as former Iowa Lieutenant Governor Art Neu said before the event, “The Republican Party has been overtaken by evangelicals and the Tea Party. This is not the same Republican Party I used to be active in.” The GOP candidates made no effort to appeal to the great mass of voters. Indeed, as the Rev. Jesse Jackson noted, “You’ve got $12 million in ads being pushed at 150,000 people, at most. It’s a very unrepresentative slice of America, sold as the mainstream…. There’s not a single ad on poverty, on more Americans being on food stamps than ever…. The issues that really matter to most people are not on the agenda.”
So this is how the 2012 election season begins, on a note of dysfunction that exposes the structural flaws of our political process. Americans who want a better politics should be at least as concerned about those structural flaws as they are about the positioning of the contenders.
A hundred years ago Nebraska Congressman George Norris argued for open and uniform primaries that would give the fullest possible power in the nominating process to the people. “Norris recognized that if you want to reform politics, you have to pay attention to how the candidates are nominated,” says FairVote’s Rob Richie, a leading reform advocate. “What we’ve seen in Iowa this year, and what’s playing out in other states, reminds us that he was right.”
The need to reform the nominating process can’t be separated from the need for other reforms. In the shadow of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, there is chilling evidence that a new class of bosses—consultants running Super PACs funded by corporations and wealthy donors—is gaming the process with such skill that 2012 is seeing the renewal of Gilded Age politics. Remarkably, one of the first victims was a veteran defender of money in politics: Newt Gingrich. At the start of December, he was leading in the polls of likely Iowa caucus-goers. After a month in which, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, 45 percent of the political ads in Iowa attacked Gingrich, the former House Speaker plummeted in the polls.
But it’s likely that nothing we’ve seen so far will rival what happens when Karl Rove swings his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS operations into full gear—or, for that matter, when Super PACs run by Obama’s allies start firing back. This reliance by both parties on secretive groups funded by big donors leads Fred Wertheimer of the Democracy 21 watchdog group to refer to Super PACs as “the most dangerous vehicles for corruption in American politics today.” He’s right, and one of the most reassuring signals from Iowa was the ramped-up fight by activists for a constitutional amendment to challenge the “corporate personhood” premises underpinning Citizens United.
The push can’t stop there. The GOP debates illustrated the need for reforms of an increasingly dumbed-down major-media “journalism” that does not counter what Paul Krugman describes as “post-truth politics,” in which candidates feel free to make absurd claims like Romney’s that Democrats are determined “to put free enterprise on trial.” And where was the media outcry about the barriers to ballot access in Virginia that kept all candidates except Romney and Paul off that state’s primary ballot? That’s one of many new, unsettling constraints on electoral democracy. Republican governors and legislatures across the country have implemented restrictive voter-ID laws and erected new barriers to early voting and same-day registration. These are already a factor during the primary process and will be a serious threat to participation in November by low-income voters, students and the elderly. Indeed, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, as many as 5 million eligible voters will find it “significantly harder” to cast ballots.
The progressives of a century ago were right when they declared that the best way to cure the ills of democracy is with more democracy. And the best way to get more democracy is by reforming the electoral process, getting corporate cash out of politics, renewing journalism’s spirit of holding the powerful accountable and, above all, fighting to assure that every American can vote and that those votes will be counted. The Iowa caucuses started the 2012 campaign on plenty of sour notes. Too many politicians and pundits are satisfied with that dysfunction. But we the people should not let it end there.

The Editors

January 4, 2012 | This article appeared in the January 23, 2012 edition of The Nation.

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Electoral Dysfunction, 2012 | The Nation

LETTER: A government takeover of worker rights | wausaudailyherald.com | Wausau Daily Herald

LETTER: A government takeover of worker rights | wausaudailyherald.com | Wausau Daily Herald

"EDITOR: One of the things that makes this state great is our willingness to work together to solve our problems. For 50 years, Wisconsin managers and the public service workers who make our state and community strong solved problems together. But now some politicians in Madison want to take away the rights of thousands of teachers, nurses and other trusted public employees. They're trying to take away any say public employees have in the workplace. And these politicians are trying to make it happen right now, with almost no public input, discussion or debate.


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Bahrain

Bahrain

"On this page:

* Profile
* People
* History
* Government
* Political Conditions
* Economy
* Defense
* Foreign Relations
* U.S. Relations
* Travel/Business
* Background Notes A-Z

January 20, 2011Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs [Flag of Bahrain]
Background Note: Bahrain

Official Name: Kingdom of Bahrain

[Map of Bahrain]

PROFILE

Geography
Area: 727 sq. km. (274 sq. mi.); approximately four times the size of Washington, DC. Bahrain is an archipelago of 36 islands located off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. The four main islands are joined by causeways, and make up about 95% of the total land area.
Cities: Capital--Manama, pop. (2002 est.) 148,000. Other cities--Al Muharraq.
Terrain: Low desert plain (highest elevation point--122 m).
Climate: Hot and humid from May-September, with average highs ranging from 30o-40o C (86o-104o F). Maximum temperatures average 20o-30o C (68o-86o F) the remainder of the year.

People
Nationality: Noun and adjective--Bahraini(s).
Population (January 2008 est.): 1,046,814, including about 517,368 non-nationals.
Annual population growth rate (2008 est.): 3.6%.
Ethnic groups: Bahraini 63%, Asian 19%, other Arab 10%, Iranian 8%.
Religions: 98% Muslim (approximately Shi'a 70%, Sunni 30%), with small Christian, Jewish, Baha’i, and Hindu communities.
Languages: Arabic (official), English, Farsi, and Urdu are also widely spoken.
Education: Education is not compulsory, but is provided free to Bahrainis and non-nationals at all levels, including higher education. Estimated net primary school attendance (1991-2001)--84%. Adult literacy, age 15 and over (2003 est.)--89.1% for the overall population (male 91.9%, female 85%).
Health: Infant mortality rate (2007 est.)--16.18 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy--72 yrs. males, 77 yrs. females.
Work force (2006 est.): 352,000 of which 44% are foreigners.

Government
Type: Constitutional hereditary monarchy.
Independence: August 15, 1971 (from the United Kingdom).
Constitution: Approved and promulgated May 26, 1973; suspended on August 26, 1975; the National Action Charter was approved by a national popular referendum on February 14-15, 2001, and a new constitution was issued on February 14, 2002.
Branches: Executive--King (chief of state); Prime Minister (head of government); Council of Ministers (cabinet) is appointed by the King and headed by the Prime Minister. Legislative--The bicameral parliament (al-Majlis al-Watani) consists of a 40-member elected Council of Representatives and a 40-member Shura (Consultative) Council appointed by the King. Members of both chambers serve 4-year terms. Judicial--High Civil Appeals Court. The judiciary is independent with right of judicial review.
Administrative subdivisions: 12 municipalities (manatiq): Al Hidd, Al Manamah, Al Mintaqah al Gharbiyah, Al Mintaqah al Wusta, Al Mintaqah ash Shamaliyah, Al Muharraq, Ar Rifa' wa al Mintaqah al Janubiyah, Jidd Hafs, Madinat Hamad, Madinat 'Isa, Juzur Hawar, Sitrah.
Suffrage: Universal at age 18.

Economy
GDP (2009 est.): $19.36 billion.
Real GDP growth rate (2009 est.): 2.9%.
Per capita GDP (2009 est.): $38,400.
Natural resources: Oil, aluminum, textiles, natural gas, fish, pearls.
Agriculture (less than 1% of GDP): Products--fruit, vegetables, poultry, dairy products, shrimp, fish.
Industry: Types--oil and gas (13.1% of GDP), manufacturing (12.4% of GDP), aluminum.
Services: Finance (24.2% of GDP), transport and communications (8.9% of GDP), real estate (9.2% of GDP); government services (14.8% of GDP).
Trade (2009 est.): Exports--$12.5 billion: oil and other mineral products, aluminum, textiles. Major markets--Saudi Arabia (3.4%), U.S. (3%), India (2.7%), Japan (2.3%). Imports--$10.37 billion: crude oil, machinery and appliances, transport equipment, foodstuffs. Major suppliers--Saudi Arabia (26.7%), Japan (8.9%), U.S. (7.8%), China (6.2%), Germany (4.8%), South Korea (4.7%), U.A.E. (4.2%).


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The Hill Poll: Voters troubled over future of Social Security - TheHill.com

The Hill Poll: Voters troubled over future of Social Security - TheHill.com


"A sizable majority of likely voters is worried about Social Security’s future but much more divided over whether the retirement age for the program should be raised, according to a new poll conducted for The Hill.

Seventy-seven percent of likely voters believe Social Security is in trouble, while just 15 percent believe the program is financially sound.

Still, a plurality – 48 percent – also believed that the Social Security age should not be raised for people born after 1960, who are currently slated to begin receiving full benefits at age 67. Forty percent favored pushing back the retirement age.

Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to support raising the retirement age, the poll found.

Reforms to Social Security and other entitlement programs are being discussed by policymakers struggling to deal with a budget deficit the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will grow to $1.5 trillion this fiscal year. The CBO has also recently reported that Social Security also posted a deficit last year for the first time in years, and CBO has also projected it would do so again this year.


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What new budget says about President Obama - David Rogers - POLITICO.com

What new budget says about President Obama - David Rogers - POLITICO.com

Barack Obama’s 2012 budget lands on Capitol Hill on Monday, and more than any of the president’s prior efforts, this one makes choices that help define the man himself. He bets big on education spending — an 11 percent increase next year — while altering the Pell Grant program to try to save the aid levels now allowed for college students from the poorest families, The National Institutes of Health will grow by about $1 billion, even as old antipoverty programs and heating assistance are cut. And $62 billion in Medicare savings will be plowed back into paying physicians who care for the elderly.

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US Homelessness and Poverty Rates Skyrocket While Billions are Spent Overseas on Occupation

US Homelessness and Poverty Rates Skyrocket While Billions are Spent Overseas on Occupation


"As I watch far away images of body bags being filled, I see much closer images of bodies. I went by a local park the other day and it looked like a concentration camp crossed with a mass murder scene.

There were people in rags and covered with filth lying scattered all over the place. At least twenty people were on crutches, had parts bandaged, or with open wounds not even covered. They were all hungry and a large majority was sick.

All around this city I live in, and nationwide, the level of homelessness and poverty is growing alarmingly. From the last counts and estimates nation wide, there has been at least a 35-45% increase in homelessness and poverty. The increases have come over the last two years with the biggest increases being in 2002 and especially in the first six months of 2003.

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Fighting Modern-Day Slavery | Southern Poverty Law Center

Fighting Modern-Day Slavery | Southern Poverty Law Center

"When Sabulal Vijayan left India for America, he hoped to build a better life for his family.

He had paid nearly $20,000 to labor recruiters for the opportunity to work at a Gulf Coast shipyard. The advertisement for the job offered green cards for workers and their families to become permanent U.S. residents. It was a chance to live the American dream.

Raising the money to pay the labor recruiters pushed him deep into debt, but he couldn’t let this opportunity pass. His Indian co-workers felt the same way. They also mortgaged their futures for a dream job.

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Obamacare heads toward Supreme Court showdown - San Francisco Bay Area Moderate Conservative | Examiner.com

Obamacare heads toward Supreme Court showdown - San Francisco Bay Area Moderate Conservative | Examiner.com

"U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson rendered his surprisingly candid decision on Obamacare Monday afternoon. He dismissed President Barack Obama's signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Act (Obamacare), as unconstitutional.

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Van Jones and Other Marxist Scum Protest Koch Brothers’ Meeting : The Other McCain

Van Jones and Other Marxist Scum Protest Koch Brothers’ Meeting : The Other McCain

"Yesterday I told you that Herman Cain would be speaking at a conference in Rancho Mirage, California, sponsored by the Koch Foundation. Well, about a thousand smelly hippies turned out to protest the conference and guess who was helping lead them?

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Nancy Altman: Social Security Under Attack

Nancy Altman: Social Security Under Attack

"Washington's policy elites just don't get Social Security. On Thursday, Congress passed the Obama-GOP compromise tax bill, replacing 15 percent of revenue dedicated to Social Security with borrowed money that will increase the federal deficit in 2011. On Dec. 3, a majority of the president's fiscal commission voted to support unprecedented cuts in Social Security benefits and changes in the structure of this program, which has served American families so well.

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House Republicans Consider Privatizing Medicare

WASHINGTON — Months after they hammered Democrats for cutting Medicare, House Republicans are debating whether to relaunch their quest to privatize the health program for seniors. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is testing support for his idea to replace Medicare with a fixed payment to buy a private medical plan from a menu of coverage options.Party leaders will determine if the so-called voucher plan will be part of the budget Republicans put forward in the spring."No decisions have been made on the details of our House GOP budget." Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Thursday. "There are a lot of ideas out there, and we're going to listen to our members and the American people."

House Republicans Consider Privatizing Medicare

Blogged with the Flock Browser

House Republicans Consider Privatizing Medicare

WASHINGTON — Months after they hammered Democrats for cutting Medicare, House Republicans are debating whether to relaunch their quest to privatize the health program for seniors. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is testing support for his idea to replace Medicare with a fixed payment to buy a private medical plan from a menu of coverage options.Party leaders will determine if the so-called voucher plan will be part of the budget Republicans put forward in the spring."No decisions have been made on the details of our House GOP budget." Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Thursday. "There are a lot of ideas out there, and we're going to listen to our members and the American people."

House Republicans Consider Privatizing Medicare

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Op-Ed Columnist - The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party - NYTimes.com

"ANOTHER weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who. Last Sunday the site was Lower Manhattan, where they jeered the “ground zero mosque.” This weekend, the scene shifted to Washington, where the avatars of oppressed white Tea Party America, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, were slated to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream exactly 47 years earlier.

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Georgia congressman calls Obama Marxist, warns of dictatorship - - POLITICO.com

Georgia congressman calls Obama Marxist, warns of dictatorship - - POLITICO.com

"A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship.

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”


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Terrorism directed at 'liberal' and 'government' targets since July 2008: An interactive map | Crooks and Liars

Terrorism directed at 'liberal' and 'government' targets since July 2008: An interactive map | Crooks and Liars: "Since all those isolated incidents involving terroristic violence directed at 'liberals' and the 'government' keep adding up into a serious trend, we've decided it's time to start keeping systematic track of the problem -- especially because mainstream media seem intent on refusing to recognize the trend.

Here's the text for the 20 events we've enumerated so far:

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The Man Who Blacked Out World Series Blames Politicians - Bloomberg

News Corp.’s Chase Carey, the man who oversaw Fox’s talks with Cablevision Systems Corp. during a two- week blackout, has advice for government officials who want to keep more TV channels from going dark: Stop meddling.




The Man Who Blacked Out World Series Blames Politicians - Bloomberg

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Bush tax cuts: Obama will negotiate - Nov. 6, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A door opened this week to resolving one of Washington's most divisive money issues: the Bush tax cuts.The White House indicated more than once that President Obama would be willing to negotiate with Republicans to ensure the tax cuts remain in place on Jan. 1.

Bush tax cuts: Obama will negotiate - Nov. 6, 2010

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Bloomberg Attacks Congressmen Who Can't Read, Don't Have Passports And Want To Start A Trade War With China

Michael Bloomberg went on an awesome globalist tirade at yesterday's C40 conference in Hong Kong (via gothamist).

Bloomberg Attacks Congressmen Who Can't Read, Don't Have Passports And Want To Start A Trade War With China

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Fed's Bernanke `Doesn't Understand' Economics, Jim Rogers Says - Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s decision to pump a further $600 billion into the economy shows his grasp of economics is weak, said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.

Fed's Bernanke `Doesn't Understand' Economics, Jim Rogers Says - Bloomberg

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