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Friendly relations between US and Israel could turn sour over revelations that the NSA tapped Netanyahu, revealing efforts to block the Iran nuclear deal. The U.S. National Security Agency spied on close ally Israel, exposing how Israelis lobbied U.S. authorities to undermine the Iranian nuclear deal, RT reports.   The monitoring came in spite of a U.S. pledge to tone down surveillance of friendly states, while the latest snooping even included some Congress members private conversations. Former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra called the interceptions an “abuse of power” and called for an investigation into the allegations. “WSJ (Wall Street Journal) report that NSA spied on Congress and Israel communications very disturbing. Actually outrageous. Maybe unprecedented abuse of power,” Hoekstra wrote on his official Twitter account. “NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports. NSA loses all credibility. Scary,” he added.

Friendly relations between US and Israel could turn sour over revelations that the NSA tapped Netanyahu, revealing efforts to block the Iran nuclear deal. The U.S. National Security Agency spied on close ally Israel, exposing how Israelis lobbied U.S. authorities to undermine the Iranian nuclear deal, RT reports.   The monitoring came in spite of a U.S. pledge to tone down surveillance of friendly states, while the latest snooping even included some Congress members private conversations. Former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Pete Hoekstra called the interceptions an “abuse of power” and called for an investigation into the allegations. “WSJ (Wall Street Journal) report that NSA spied on Congress and Israel communications very disturbing. Actually outrageous. Maybe unprecedented abuse of power,” Hoekstra wrote on his official Twitter account. “NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports. NSA loses all credibility. Scary,” he added.

Massive surveillance has continued under President Barack Obama’s two terms, and the revelations of Edward Snowden in 2013 over the extent of the data harvested from civilians did little to dent the spy agency’s activities, according to the Wall Street Journal. A “protected list” rapidly pulled together by the Obama administration in the wake of the scandal to safeguard its closest allies from monitoring included countries including Germany and France. Israel, however, was not on this list, and was instead placed as NSA’s top monitoring priority, as was Turkey. A senior US official said told the Wall Street Journal, “Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that,” using Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname.

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday that if he wins the White House he will “fix” the Federal Reserve by throwing bankers off its boards and increasing transparency and regulation as a way of reining in Wall Street. Sanders criticized the pivotal decision by America’s central bank a week ago to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. He declared that the move was “the latest example of the rigged economic system”, in an opinion article for the New York Times on Wednesday. “Wall Street is still out of control,” he said in the article.

the ultimate bait-and-switch."

The White House and leaders of both parties actually agreed to this preposterous document, but it died in the House when 95 Democrats lined up against it.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are discussing whether Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz should step down as Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman before the party’s national convention in July.Democrats backing likely presidential nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonSanders: Clinton shouldn't pick VP from Wall Street McAfee on chances of Libertarian win: 'We're not that stupid' Libertarian candidate raps at party convention MORE worry Wasserman Schultz has become too divisive a figure to unify the party in 2016, which they say is crucial to defeating presumptive GOP nominee Donald TrumpDonald TrumpSanders: Primary isn't 'rigged,' just 'dumb' Trump University judge to unseal documents Dole: Gingrich should be Trump's running mate MORE in November.ADVERTISEMENTWasserman Schultz has had an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the party’s other presidential candidate, Bernie SandersBernie SandersSanders: Clinton shouldn't pick VP from Wall Street Sanders: Primary isn't 'rigged,' just 'dumb' Dick Van Dyke introduces Sanders at rally MORE, and his supporters, who argue she has tilted the scales in Clinton’s favor.“There have been a lot of meetings over the past 48 hours about what color plate do we deliver Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s head on,” said one pro-Clinton Democratic senator.

President Trump signed two directives on Friday, ordering a review of financial industry regulations known as Dodd-Frank and halting implementation of a rule that requires financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. Trump himself made his intentions clear in a meeting with small business owners Monday. "Dodd-Frank is a disaster," Trump said. "We're going to be doing a big number on Dodd-Frank."

These executive actions are the start of a Trump administration effort to reverse or revise financial regulations put in place by the Obama administration and seen by Trump and his advisers as onerous and ineffective. Based on the description given by the administration official who briefed reporters, the directives the president is expected to sign Friday won't immediately do a big number on the law. The directive will instruct the Treasury secretary to meet with the agencies that oversee the law to identify possible changes.

"Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we're not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year," said National Economic Council director Gary Cohn in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Cohn, who was president and COO at the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs before joining the administration, added, "The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers." The president of the nonprofit Wall Street watchdog Better Markets issued a statement blasting Friday's actions.

Venezuela's foreign minister lambasted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday as a "murderer" fomenting unrest that has killed 28 people in the South American OPEC member nation. Since street demonstrations began against President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government in early February, Venezuelan officials have been accusing Washington of stirring the country's worst political troubles in a decade.

"Every time we're about to isolate and reduce the violence, Mr. Kerry comes out with a declaration and immediately the street protests are activated," Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said in a speech carried on state TV."Mr. Kerry, we denounce to the whole world, you encourage the violence in Venezuela ... We denounce you as a murderer of the Venezuelan people."

But the bitterness and incidents have continued, with Maduro last month expelling three U.S. diplomats he accused of recruiting protesters. Washington responded in kind."In Guatemala, you said to me 'you have to lower the tone'," Jaua added in his speech. "We are not going to lower the tone to any empire until you order your lackeys in Venezuela to cease the violence against the people."Despite the harsh words, pragmatism has continued to trump politics when it comes to oil, with shipments unaffected and the United States remaining Venezuela's main export market.

The notional value of derivative financial instruments is now estimated at $1.2 quadrillion – that is, one thousand two hundred trillion dollars. This statistic is fantastic in every sense of the word, amounting to 16.7 times the Gross World Product, which is the value of all the goods and services produced per year by every man, woman and child on the planet: $71.83 trillion. Derivatives are valued at six times more than the total accumulated wealth of the world, including all global stock markets, insurance funds, and family wealth: $200 trillion. The great bulk of known derivative deals are held by banks that are considered too big to be allowed to fail, with the top four banks accounting for more than 90 percent of the exposure: J.P. Morgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. We are told that derivatives are simply bets between knowledgeable partners – hedges against loss – and that every time one of these financial institutions loses, another gains, so that there is no net loss or threat of global collapse. But that’s a lie. Never in the history of the world has finance capital so dominated the real economy, and only in the past two decades have derivatives been so central to finance capitalism. The players do not know what they are doing, nor do they care. The meltdown of 2008 was caused primarily by derivatives, requiring a bailout in the tens of trillions of dollars that is still ongoing, with the Federal Reserve buying up securities that no one would purchase – that is, bet on – otherwise. Yet, the universe of derivatives deals has grown much larger than in 2008, effectively untouched by President Obama’s so-called financial reforms.

The casino has swallowed the system. The sums the players are betting are not only far larger than the value of the rest of their portfolios, but six times larger than the combined assets of every human institution and family on Earth, and almost 17 times bigger than the worth of humankind’s yearly output. Even if the whole planet were offered as collateral, it could not cover Wall Street’s bets. The events of 2008 demonstrated that derivatives collapses, like other speculative financial events, behave as cascades of consequences, rather than orderly “resolutions.” Derivatives deals infest or overhang every nook and cranny of the U.S. and other “mature” economies, poisoning pension systems and municipal finance structures. Detroit has been rendered a failed city by the full range of derivatives and securitization. When the casino is the economy, everyone is forced to play, and the poor go broke first. Reformers of various stripes tell us that derivatives can either be regulated to a less lethal scale or abolished, altogether, while leaving Wall Street otherwise intact. That’s manifestly untrue. Finance capital creates nothing, reproducing itself through the manipulation of money. The derivatives explosion occurred because Wall Street needed a form of “fictitious” capital to continue posting ever higher profits, and ultimately, fictitious portfolios full of tradable bets. Derivatives deals are the ultimate expression of financial capitalism: they are primarily bets on transactions, rather than investments in production. The rise of derivatives signals that capitalism has run its course, and can only do further harm to humanity. The derivatives economy – all $1.2 quadrillion of it – is the last stage of capitalism.

Congressman Walter Jones, a Republican who represents a wide swath of eastern North Carolina, might not strike you as a populist. But as a lawmaker, the veteran politician with a slow Southern drawl has become a gadfly in his own party for thumbing his nose at powerful political interests. He is the only GOP co-sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, a measure to reveal the donors of dark-money campaign advertisements. He is among the loudest critics of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling an audience one that “Lyndon Johnson’s probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War, and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney.” And Speaker John Boehner removed Jones from the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees Wall Street. His sin? Bucking leadership and supporting many bills to further regulate the financial sector, along with serving as the last remaining House Republican to have voted for the Dodd-Frank reform package. The Republican establishment has attempted to remove Jones from office by dispatching a number of primary challengers over the years. For this cycle, a former Bush administration aide named Taylor Griffin is the party favorite to finally wipe out Jones. Several outlets, such as Bloomberg News, have reported that Griffin’s candidacy is being heavily promoted by the financial industry. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other banks helped fuel the $114,000 fundraising haul Griffin reported in his first campaign disclosure report. Earlier this week, a Super PAC financed in part by hedge fund titan Paul Singer went on air with a negative ad against Jones.

What hasn’t been reported, however, is that Griffin himself is a longtime political consultant for the biggest predators on Wall Street. Republic Report has obtained a disclosure report that shows that Griffin’s client list reads like a who’s who of financial interests that have preyed upon North Carolina families for short term gain.

I live in Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood. I can more or less roll out of bed into the House of Representatives or the Senate; the majestic Library of Congress doubles as my local branch. (If you visit, spend a sunset on the steps of the library's Jefferson Building. Trust me.) You can't miss my place, three stories of brick painted Big Bird yellow. It's a charming little corner of the city. Each fall, the trees outside my window shake their leaves and carpet the street in gold. Nora Ephron, if she were alive, might've shot a scene for her latest movie in one of the lush green parks that bookend my block. The neighborhood wasn't always so nice. A few years back, during a reporting trip to China, I met an American consultant who had known Capitol Hill in a darker era. "I was driving up the street one time," he told me, "and walking in the opposite direction was this huge guy carrying an assault rifle. Broad daylight, no one even noticed. That's what kind of neighborhood it was." Nowadays, row houses around me sell for $1 million or more. I rent.

Washington's a fun place to live if you're young and employed. But as a recent Washington Post story pointed out, the nation's capital is slowly pricing out even its yuppies who, in their late-twenties and early-thirties, want to start families but can't afford it. "I hate to say it, but the facts show that the D.C. market is for people who are single and relatively affluent," a real estate researcher told the Post. The District's housing boom just won't stop; off go those new and expecting parents to the suburbs. And we're talking about the lucky ones. Elsewhere in the country, vulnerability in the housing market isn't a trend story; it's the norm. The Cedillo family, as Laura Gottesdiener writes today, went looking for their version of the American housing dream and thought they found it in Chandler, Arizona. They didn't know that the house they chose to rent rested on a shaky foundation -- not physically but financially. It had been one of thousands snapped up and rented out by massive investment firms making a killing in the wake of the housing collapse. As Gottesdiener -- who has put the new rental empires of private equity firms on the map for TomDispatch -- shows, the goal of such companies is to squeeze every dime of profit from their properties, from homes like the Cedillos', and that can lead to tragedy.

Drowning in Profits A Private Equity Firm, a Missing Pool Fence, and the Price of a Child’s Death By Laura Gottesdiener

Senator Bernie Sanders announced legislation Wednesday that would break up the country’s largest financial institutions. It’s the third time he’s introduced such a measure, but this time around he wields the large microphone of a presidential candidate. The bill, titled the “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act,” will also be introduced in the House by Representatives Brad Sherman and Alan Grayson. If passed, it would require regulators at the Financial Stability Oversight Council to come up with a list of too-big-to-fail institutions whose failure would threaten the economy. One year later, those banks would be broken up by the secretary of the Treasury. Sure to be included on that list, based on the standards outlined in the legislation, would be JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley.

It also unavoidably poses a test for Hillary Clinton, the other declared Democratic candidate. Much of the Draft Warren movement launched by progressive activists focused on the Massachusetts senator’s advocacy for combating the financial sector’s power generally, and breaking up the big banks in particular—and Clinton’s perceived weakness on that front.

Another likely Democratic candidate, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, wrote an op-ed in The Des Moines Register in March that also called for the biggest financial institutions to be broken up. Elsewhere, Senators Sherrod Brown and David Vitter have introduced similar legislation in the past, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Tom Hoenig also favors break-ups. Sanders and Sherman cited the danger posed to the economy by big banks, many of which are dramatically larger than they were before the 2008 financial crisis. JPMorgan Chase, for example, has increased its assets by $1.1 trillion since 2007. “In 2008 we learned that if Wall Street calls and says ‘bail us out or we’re going to take the economy down with us,’ that even if there is no statutory provision for bailouts, which there really isn’t today, Congress will pass as we did in 2008 a bill mandating the bailout,” said Sherman. “So ‘too big to fail’ means you will be bailed. That isn’t capitalism. That is socialism for the wealthy.”

“I had absolutely no idea this was coming,” Parada said. Sitting in a glass-walled meeting room in his offices, at the law firm Foley Hoag, he paused, searching for the right word to describe what has happened in his field. “Rogue,” he decided, finally. “I think the investor-state arbitration system was created with good intentions, but in practice it has gone completely rogue.”