The Nation profiles the fear mongering, safety-net-shredding desires and deep pockets of the “Campaign to Fix the Debt,” group.---

Top of the Alty World

“Stacking the Deck: The Phony ‘Fix the Debt’ Campaign”—The Nation

The East Bay Express examines the gun-industry barons profiting off the weapons used by violent criminals in Oakland, Calif.—East Bay Express

Drone companies are trying to sell the public on the idea that the industry isn’t all about surveillance and killing.—Rolling Stone

Top of Alty Utah

Lieutenant Gov. Greg Bell is under criminal investigation for allegedly using an audit to try and sabotage a Child Protective Services investigation into the daughter of a friend of Bell’s.—Salt Lake City Weekly

A Native American round dance protest hit the Utah Capitol Thursday, protesting tar-sands mining.—Salt Lake City Weekly

In a committee vote, Democrat Rebecca Chavez-Houck is the only vote against passing out a bill requiring corporations and nonprofits to disclose their political donors.—Salt Lake City Weekly

The director of Equality Utah believes a bill to prohibit LGBT discrimination in housing and the workplace statewide has a good chance of passing the Legislature this year.—Q Salt Lake

A proposal to relocate the Draper prison and develop the land underneath it brought jeers from activists at a recent committee meeting.—Salt Lake City Weekly

Rantosphere

As media reflects on the 10-year anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many will cite the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but Truthout argues they will neglect the influence of the hawkish Washington, D.C., think tank The Project for a New American Century, whose associates profited off the war.

“Every bullet fired, every bomb dropped, every MRE eaten, every helicopter shot down, every missile fired, every truck destroyed by an IED, every oil well guarded, every uniform worn and every body bag filled translated into a slice of that money going to a company connected to the PNAC members of the Bush administration, who lied us into that war as an expression of their personal principles and in fulfillment of their dreams.”—Truthout

The Long View

 International bank HSBC settled with the U.S. Department of Justice for money laundering and fraud without facing any criminal penalties or losing its license. A settlement was offered because the DOJ admitted the bank was too big to fail, or as Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi puts it: “too big to jail.”

“For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that "they make the guys on Wall Street look good." The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaida and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.”—Rolling Stone