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Clinton now red-baiting Sanders: Desperation in Hillary Camp as Bernie Gains in Iowa and New Hampshire
By Dave Lindorff
Someone should have warned Hillary Clinton and the goon squad at the Democratic National Committee that old-fashioned red-baiting isn't going to cut it in today's United States. It's not the 1950s anymore and the Soviet Union and Comintern are ancient history.
Rethinking Bernie Sanders: Attacking Wall Street and the Corrupt US Political System Makes Sanders a Genuine Revolutionary
By Dave Lindorff
I admit I’ve been slow to warm up to the idea of supporting Bernie Sanders. Maybe it’s because I publicly backed Barack Obama in 2008 and quickly came to rue that decision after he took office.
Is T-Mobile’s video app an attack on net neutrality?: Binge On, Opt In, Truth Out
By Alfredo Lopez
Last week, T-Mobile's CEO John Lagere pubicly asked the Electronic Frontier Foundation a straightforward question: "Who the f*** are you anyway, EFF? Why are you stirring up so much trouble and who pays you?"
Yellen has to raise rates: What’s Behind the Fed’s Decision to Raise Interest Rates in a Struggling Economy?
By Dave Lindorff
Much has been written over the past few weeks in the financial press and the business pages of general interest newspapers debating the wisdom of the decision in December by Janet Yellen and the Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade.
Saudis and Turks Diddling Obama
The US-Russia Proxy War in Syria
Editor Note: The risk of Syria becoming a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia became real last week when Turkey and Syrian jihadists used U.S.-supplied weaponry to shoot down a Russian warplane and rescue helicopter, killing two Russians.
By Ray McGovern
Belatedly, at a sidebar meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Paris climate summit on Monday, President Barack Obama reportedly expressed regret for last week’s killing of a Russian pilot who was shot down by a Turkish air-to-air missile fired by a U.S.-supplied F-16 and the subsequent death of a Russian marine on a search-and-rescue mission, apparently killed by a U.S.-made TOW missile.
Focus: Wall Street Reform - Nov 13, 2015
Clinton to target ‘risky' financial institutions but not reinstate Glass-Steagall - The Daily Caller
VIDEO : Hillary Clinton On Glass-Steagall And Big Banks - YouTube
Who is Wall Street backing for president? Clinton raised $5.5 million from the financial sector, Bush comes in second with $4.2 million - bizjournals
GOP Says Big Banks Are Bad (But Don't Touch Them) - Bloomberg View
Republicans Are Obsessed With Deregulating Wall Street - huffingtonpost.com
Former Citigroup CEO John Reed says it was mistake to repeal Glass-Steagall - CNN
Former Citigroup CEO John Reed op-ed: We were wrong about universal banking - FT.com
Opinion: If Glass-Steagall hadn't been repealed, there's little doubt it would have lessened the depth and breadth of the 2008 financial crisis - huffingtonpost.com
VIDEO: The Wall Street Bonus Squeeze Is On - Yahoo Finance
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Flipped out: Last Mexican of Venice
The latest from ThisCantBeHappening!:
Last Mexican of Venice
By Rip Rense
Of scientists and charlatans: Noted Argentine Chemist Warns of Climate Disaster
By Robert M. Nelson
Republican presidential aspirants Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum all describe themselves as devout Catholics and, like most Republican candidates, they argue that religion should play an expanded role in American politics and government. However, on matters related to global warming, Messrs. Bush and Rubio both agree with Mr. Santorum, stating that we should, “...leave science to the scientists.”
Mainstreaming the Preferential Option For the Poor: Pope Francis Drops a Bomb on Washington
By John Grant
A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk.
-- Pope Francis speaking to the US Congress
Wall Street reporting is a joke: The Stock Market is Getting Harder to Rig
By Dave Lindorff
It’s entertaining to watch and to read reports in the corporate media about the current stock market decline, which over the course of the last six business days erased $2.1 trillion in the market value of stocks of publicly-traded US corporations (and in a lot of ordinary Americans’ retirement savings).
“Now I get it!”: Katie Couric’s Hit Job on Social Security
By Dave Lindorff
Puerto Rico's the new Greece, DC's the new Berlin, bankers are the same: Washington and Wall Street to Puerto Ricans: Drop Dead!
By Dave Lindorff
You can read the entire article in the New York Times Tuesday business section reporting on Puerto Rico’s default on a payment on its staggering $72 billion debt without once learning that the little Caribbean island, home to 3.5 million US citizens, is a territory of the United States, or more properly, a colony, insofar as its residents have no representation in Washington, cannot vote for national candidates for office, and furthermore, are subject to US federal courts, whose judges are all appointed by the federal government.
Is this taking democracy too far?: The Greek People Have Said ‘No!’ to Austerity and Economic Blackmail
By Dave Lindorff
Something huge has happened in Greece, though you wouldn’t know it if you rely on the US corporate media for your information.
Finally! Some climate crisis honesty: Forget About a 2 Future; It Will be 4˚-6˚C Degrees, and Soon
By Dave Lindorff
A tectonic shift is occurring suddenly in the debate over climate change.
The US needs the Iceland option: If ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’’ Means Too-Big-To-Jail’ It Should Mean ‘Too-Big-to-Be’
By Dave Lindorff
In a couple of days, the so-called US Justice Department will be announcing an “agreement” reached with five large banks, including two of the largest in the US -- JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the holding companies for Chase and Citibank -- under which these banks or bank holding companies will plead guilty to felonies involving the manipulation of international currency markets.
Getting what’s been stolen by raising employer FICA tax : Time to Recover Productivity Gains Our Bosses Have Expropriating
By Dave Lindorff
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christy, trying to change the subject from his own shabby performance as governor, has called for $ billion in cuts to Social Security and Medicare, claiming it’s time for a “grownup discussion” of the alleged funding crisis facing both critically important programs.
Looking for enemies: Venezuela, the Latest ‘National Security Threat’
By Dave Lindorff
Seriously? Venezuela is a “national security threat”?
That is what President Obama has reportedly declared today in a new executive order.
And how exactly is poor Venezuela, a nation of 29 million, with a small military upon which it spends just 1% of GDP, one of the lowest rates in the world (the US spends 4.5% of GDP on its own bloated military), a threat to the US?
Republicans and Many Democrats are on the attack: If We’re Going to Defend Social Security We Need to Understand It
By Dave Lindorff
The Republican-dominated Congress, with the help of a cadre of sell-out conservative Democrats in both chambers, are gearing up to attack Social Security again, under the guise of “saving” the program.
This is what corporatocracy looks like!: Trading US Democracy for Corporate Profits with TPP
By Dave Lindorff
If you want to get a good understanding of how thoroughly corrupted and sold-out our government in Washington is, you need only look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the latest in a series of trade “deals” that is heading towards passage right now, and that, like its predecessors, NAFTA and CAFTA, as well as the World Trade Organization, will be sucking jobs out of the US for years.
Where’s the US ‘Syriza’ party?: Greek Voters Have Tossed a Grenade into the Banker/Bureaucrat-Controlled European Establishment
By Dave Lindorff
There is certainly exciting news from Greece today, with confirmation that the leftist coalition party Syriza has won a decisive victory, and, with the help of just one small party, the Greek Independence Party, is assured of a parliamentary majority. That means Syriza’s dynamic marxist leader, the 40-year-old former student radical
Alexis Tsipras, will shortly become Greece’s prime minister, pledged to undo years of crippling austerity and to turn Greece back into a real democracy, instead of a scene of corporate pillage.
Phony baloney: Picking Apart Obama's "Progressive" State of the Union Speech
By Dave Lindorff
There were two times Republicans broke into fervent applause during this lame duck president's seventh State of the Union speech: the first was when he called for passage of "fast track" authority to negotiate and send to the Senate a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact -- basically a NAAFTA for the Pacific region; the second was when he noted that he "won't be running for president again."
Hitting a journalistic nadir: Cold-War-Style Propaganda Posing as News at the New York Times
By Dave Lindorff
As shameful a propagandist for Washington’s war machine as the New York Times has been over the years, sometimes I still cannot believe the brazenness of its abandonment of even a pretext of dispassionate journalistic standards. One of those moments came today, when I read the left-column page-one article by Jim Yardley and Jo Becker headlined “How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal that Derailed.”
I’ve had it!: Eleven Reasons I’m Ashamed to be an American Citizen
By Dave Lindorff
I’m going to say it: I am ashamed to be a US citizen. This doesn’t come easily, because having lived abroad and seen some pretty nasty places in my time, I know there are a lot of great things about this country, and a lot of great people who live here, but lately, I’ve reached the conclusion that the US is a sick and twisted country, in which the bad far outweighs the good.
I’ve had it!: Eleven Reasons I’m Ashamed to be an American Citizen
By Dave Lindorff
I’m going to say it: I am ashamed to be a US citizen. This doesn’t come easily, because having lived abroad and seen some pretty nasty places in my time, I know there are a lot of great things about this country, and a lot of great people who live here, but lately, I’ve reached the conclusion that the US is a sick and twisted country, in which the bad far outweighs the good.
They’re everywhere!: NY Times Report Documents Metastasizing of the Police State of America
By Dave Lindorff
Hot tub poll shows Republicans don’t like their politicians: Election Night Wasn’t a GOP Victory, It was a Democratic Rout
By Dave Lindorff
The sclerotic Democratic Party was trounced yet again yesterday, as Republicans outdid projections and appear to have taken at least seven Senate seats away from the Democrats, giving them control of the both houses of Congress.
Federal Reserve Policy Keeps Fracking Bubble Afloat and That May Change Soon
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
In August 2005, the U.S. Congress and then-President George W. Bush blessed the oil and gas industry with a game-changer: the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Act exempted the industry from federal regulatory enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Going, going, gone, but let’s not forget him: Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder Leaves Office
By Dave Lindorff
Good riddance!
Eric Holder has announced that he is leaving his post of Attorney General, which he has sullied and degraded for six years.
