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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico
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Quote of The Day:
From the 1921 Teapot Dome Scandal ‘Bribery’ to the current ‘Lobbying’ — What’s Changed? — Now it’s not a scandle. — Roland Sheppard The Teapot Dome Scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1921 to 1922, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies and became the first Cabinet member to go to prison. No person was ever convicted of paying the bribes, however. Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the “greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics”.[1] The scandal damaged the public reputation of the Harding administration, which was already severely diminished by its controversial handling of the Great Railroad Strike of 1922 and the President’s veto of the Bonus Bill in 1922.[2]
Videos of the Day:
Undoing the New Deal: Clinton Rolled Back the Deal, Obama Blew an FDR Moment (pt6) Historian Gerald Horne says that President Clinton’s “reforms” were a staggering blow to the social safety net; President Obama had a rare political moment where he could have created a modern New Deal, but he wouldn’t do it
TRNN Replay: Chris Hedges on Reality Asserts Itself On RAI with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges discusses the psychology of the super rich; their sense of entitlement, the dehumanization of workers, and mistaken belief that their wealth will insulate them from the coming storms
Corporate Media Perpetuates Climate Science Denial – Gabriel Byrne on RAI (4/4) On Reality Asserts Itself, Gabriel Byrne says that mutant capitalism seeks only profit and corporate media’s agenda avoids the climate crisis; Byrne says its up to us, no superhero will save us – with host Paul Jay
U.S.:
Homeland Security’s Multibillion Dollar Comedy Show After the 9/11 attacks, Congress and the Bush administration pretended that unlimited federal spending was one of the best ways to thwart terrorist threats. In 2002, Congress created the Homeland Security Department (DHS), sweeping some of the most inept federal agencies, such as the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), into the new mega-department. Congress also created numerous programs — some run directly by FEMA — to shovel out more than $30 billion in anti-terrorism funding to local and state governments. by James Bovard
Big Media on Last Thursday’s Vote in Catalonia: “Never Mind” What was played to audiences as a biting satirical joke about the ignorant presumptuous of certain old people in the 1970s, is now standard operating procedure in the US corporate press, and its ever-increasing corps of slavish imitators in Europe. When a crisis comes up somewhere in the world, we are treated to instant analyses on the matter from “experts”, generally media colleagues of the person reading the news, whose knowledge of the subject amounts mostly to repetitions of the memes generated by the people in the center-right, so-called quality press (all so-called quality presses are today in Europe and Latin America are now center-right if not flat out right in orientation) of the country they have just flown into. by Thomas S. Harrington
Environment:
Meet the Most Dangerous Man on Earth We are all immersed in an evolving Trumpocalypse. As for us, the rest of us here in the United States at least, we already know something about the nature of our caring. A Yale study released last March indicated that 70% of us — a surprising but still less than overwhelming number (given the by-now-well-established apocalyptic dangers involved) — believe that global warming is actually occurring. Less than half of us, however, expect to be personally harmed by it. So, to quote the eminently quotable Alfred E. Newman, “What, me worry?”By Tom Engelhardt
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
It’s Official: Government Report Says Market Risks are “High and Rising” During Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s press conference on December 13, she had this to say about financial stability on Wall Street: “And I think when we look at other indicators of financial stability risks, there’s nothing flashing red there or possibly even orange. We have a much more resilient, stronger banking system, and we’re not seeing some worrisome buildup in leverage or credit growth at excessive levels.” Where does Fed Chair Janet Yellen get her information on financial stability risks to the U.S. financial system? A key source for that information is the Office of Financial Research (OFR), a Federal agency created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to keep key government regulators like the Federal Reserve informed on mounting risks. On December 5, the OFR released its Annual Report for 2017. It was not nearly as sanguine as Yellen. In fact, it flatly contradicted some of her assertions. The report noted that numerous areas were, literally, flashing red and orange (OFR uses a color-coded warning system) – raising the question as to why Yellen would attempt to downplay those risks to the American people. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Jeremy Corbyn pledges to make pollution crackdown ‘a national priority’ after damning report Jeremy Corbyn is known for his strong position on environmentalism. Jeremy Corbyn has spoken out about pollution this morning, saying Britain’s air is being “dangerously and illegally polluted.” Corbyn’s message on social media came in response to a new report showing nearly two-thirds of British youngsters are living in areas with illegal levels of air pollution. Analysis by the Labour Party, based on figures from the House of Commons Library, showed that around 8.3 million people under the age of 18 were living in local authority areas where levels of nitrogen dioxide exceeded legal limits two years ago. In response, Corbyn, a committed environmentalist who has opposed fracking and backed the creation of a Green Investment Bank, wrote on Twitter: “Millions of our young people are breathing air that is dangerously and illegally polluted. “The next Labour government will ensure that cleaning up our environment is a national priority.” By Gareth Platt
Millions of British children living in areas with illegal and harmful air quality Nearly two thirds of youngsters in the UK are living in areas where illegal levels of air pollution have been recorded, new figures suggest. Around 8.3 million under-18s were found to be living in local authority areas where levels of the harmful pollutant nitrogen dioxide exceeded legal limits in 2015, analysis by the Labour Party of figures from the House of Commons Library show.
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
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