re: this song…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Minutes_(Bonzo_Goes_to_Washington_song)
https://youtu.be/h3CUHnUsk8M?t=10s
re: this song…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Minutes_(Bonzo_Goes_to_Washington_song)
https://youtu.be/h3CUHnUsk8M?t=10s
‘The majority of American families on public assistance or Medicaid are headed by at least one full-time worker, according to a report released Monday by U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education.
Researchers who analyzed annual state and federal spending on public assistance programs — including food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) — found that more than 56 percent of that funding goes to working families.
In other words, employers, such fast-food restaurants, are paying their employees so little that they must rely on government assistance to make ends meet. In total, these employees seek an estimated $153 billion in public assistance each year, according to the report (PDF)….’
via Most Public Assistance Goes to Working Families | Al Jazeera America.
‘I decided it was necessary to bring forward our publication schedule by four months and contact the State Department to get it on record that we had given them advance warning. The situation would then be harder to spin into another legal or political assault. Unable to raise Louis Susman, then US ambassador to the UK, we tried the front door. WikiLeaks investigations editor Sarah Harrison called the State Department front desk and informed the operator that “Julian Assange” wanted to have a conversation with Hillary Clinton. Predictably, this statement was initially greeted with bureaucratic disbelief. We soon found ourselves in a reenactment of that scene in Dr. Strangelove, where Peter Sellers cold-calls the White House to warn of an impending nuclear war and is immediately put on hold. As in the film, we climbed the hierarchy, speaking to incrementally more superior officials until we reached Clinton’s senior legal advisor. He told us he would call us back. We hung up, and waited….’
via Julian Assange – Google Is Not What It Seems.
The Economist
‘Today, only five states have no minimum-wage laws; all were Confederate 150 years ago. Of the ten states that lock up the highest proportion of their citizens, seven were Confederate. A further two that make the top ten—Oklahoma and Arizona—were created since 1865 and settled in the late 19th century by southerners escaping the depression that followed defeat. In only 12 states do most residents think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Five were in the Confederacy….’
via The Economist – Timeline Photos.
The Clinton Foundation is the slush fund
A recent report has emerged revealing that Venezuelan billionaire and media tycoon, Gustavo Cisneros, donated up to US$ 1 million dollars to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation between 2009-2013, while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State for the Obama administration.
A recent review of the foundation’s disclosures, carried out by the Wall Street Journal, brings to light a number of donators that were previously unknown to the public.
The figures include Argentinian and Ukrainian businesspeople, as well as Prince Turki al-Faisal of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family, who collectively donated up to US$68 million to the organisation over the course of four years. The majority of large donations came from residents in the Ukraine (US$10 million), England (US$8.4 million) and Saudi Arabia (US$7.3 million), according to the report.
Described as Latin America’s “Berlusconi,” Gustavo Cisneros appears in the report as having donated up to US$ 1 million to the couple’s foundation between 2009 and 2013. The exact amount and number of donations that he made are still unclear, however, as the foundation’s disclosure reports only cite donations in ranges as opposed to specific amounts.
Venezuelan Coup Plotter Gustavo Cisneros Donated $1M to Clinton Foundation | venezuelanalysis.com.
The Clinton Foundation is the slush fund
‘…Yet as union leaders and human rights activists conveyed these harrowing reports of violence to then-Secretary of State Clinton in late 2011, urging her to pressure the Colombian government to protect labor organizers, she responded first with silence, these organizers say. The State Department publicly praised Colombia’s progress on human rights, thereby permitting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to flow to the same Colombian military that labor activists say helped intimidate workers.
At the same time that Clinton’s State Department was lauding Colombia’s human rights record, her family was forging a financial relationship with Pacific Rubiales, the sprawling Canadian petroleum company at the center of Colombia’s labor strife. The Clintons were also developing commercial ties with the oil giant’s founder, Canadian financier Frank Giustra, who now occupies a seat on the board of the Clinton Foundation, the family’s global philanthropic empire.
The details of these financial dealings remain murky, but this much is clear: After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation — supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself — Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Having opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it “strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.” The change of heart by Clinton and other Democratic leaders enabled congressional passage of a Colombia trade deal that experts say delivered big benefits to foreign investors like Giustra.
via As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations.
Former Ambassador Seyed Hossen Mousavian on Democracy Now….
‘I think there’s no difference between Israel and North Korea because North Korea has a few number of nuclear bombs. Israel has about 400 nuclear bombs. Therefore, they both are the same. They have nuclear bombs. There is a big difference between Iran and Israel. They really belong to two different wars on nonproliferation. Iran is member of the Nonproliferation Treaty and Israel has never been ready to accept it. There is no evidence in Iranian nuclear program. Iran does not have nuclear bomb. Israel has about 400 nuclear bombs. During last 10 years, Iran has given more than 7000 mandate inspections to International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. This is completely unprecedented during the history of IAEA, no other country in the world has given access to IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, like Iran during the last decade. Israel, during last 50, 60 years, has not given even one inspection to the IAEA. Therefore, I believe the war and international community, they should judge who is wrong, who is right. Iran does not have nuclear bomb. Iran has accepted every level of inspection, transparency. Iran has accepted to have completely open nuclear program, and Israel does have a nuclear bomb and the country which does have nuclear bomb is blaming Iran, which does not have nuclear bomb.’
via Former Iranian Ambassador: Historic Nuclear Dear has Prevented a New War in the Middle East | Democracy Now!.
Trevor Timm writes:
‘…If Obama is an anti-war president, he’s the worst anti-war president in history. In the last six years, the Obama administration has bombed seven countries in the Middle East alone and armed countless more with tens of billions in dollars in weapons. But that’s apparently not enough for Republicans. As the Isis war continues to expand and Yemen descends into civil war, everyone is still demanding more: If only we bombed the region a little bit harder, then they’ll submit.
[….] But as the Council on Foreign Relations’ Douglas Dillon Fellow Micah Zenko tweeted recently, “If 30 years of US as military hegemon in the Middle East resulted in the region today, why would more suddenly stabilize things?” No one seems to be willing to face the stark fact that US involvement is as much the cause of the instability as it is the alleged solution….’
via If this is what an anti-war presidency looks like to you, you're detached from reality | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | The Guardian.
In September of 2011 Occupy Wall Street lit a match to a movement. Today that movement is known for what it did and didn’t do. Occupy connected income inequality to political corruption and put both issues at the center of our political debate. What it didn’t do, by design, was provide a blueprint for economic reform or build a more institutional movement to secure it.
what we now have, an economy that outperforms nearly all other developed nations and a middle class that underperforms the one in Canada. Some people are better off. Unemployment is down. CEO pay rose 37 percent while workers’ wages shrank by 0.6 percent. Never before have average wages fallen as the economy grew. The number of people living in poverty also rose, another first for an economic expansion.
We’ve fixed little even of what we acknowledged was broken in 2009. Banks we called too big to fail are bigger now; the 10 biggest now control over 50 percent of all our financial assets. JPMorgan Chase deposits have grown 29 percent. Small banks, on the other hand, are an endangered species. In 1995 we had over 12, 000 banks. Today there are fewer than 7,000, the fewest since the Great Depression.
via What would Paul Krugman do: Imagining the plan which defeats the ultra-rich – Salon.com.
…But there is a real scandal here, and that’s Israel using stolen intelligence as part of a deliberate campaign of messing around with American partisan politics. That’s why the White House is angry: "It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy," a senior US official told Entous.
If Entous’ reporting is correct, the Israeli government used the leaked information to help Republicans build support for new sanctions among Democrats, which would be necessary to overcome Obama’s veto. Israel was using stolen information to help Mitch McConnell and John Boehner foment a Democratic rebellion against the president….’
via Israel stole classified US information and used it to help congressional Republicans – Vox.
JERUSALEM (JTA) — More than 90 percent of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection funds have come from the United States.
Of the total contributions of nearly $259,000 — slightly over 1 million shekels — about $237,000 came from American donors, according to records made public by Israel’s State Comptroller and first published by BuzzFeed. Three wealthy families donated about half the amount from the Americans. Israeli politicians may accept a maximum donation of about $11,500.
The three families are the Falics of Florida, owners of the Duty Free Americas stores found in airports; the Books of New Jersey, owners of Jet Support Services, Inc.; and the Schottensteins of Ohio, owners of the American Eagle clothing chain.
via US donors providing most of Netanyahu’s reelection funds – Israel News – Jerusalem Post.
‘…A new analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Stateline blog, shows that the percentage of middle-class households — defined as those earning between 67 and 200 percent of a state’s median income — dropped in every U.S. state between 2000 and 2013. Median income also fell in most states during that period.
[….] The decline of the American middle class is unsurprising by now. The middle class has seen its wages change little since the turn of the millennium, while high-earning individuals keep making more and more each year. And middle-class wages are a long way from catching up to the rising costs of child care, tuition, and hospital visits…’
via The Middle Class Has Gotten Smaller In Every State Since 2000.
Dr. Cornel West Interview on the Late Show with David Letterman
Part one…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyn-W4W6bHQ
Part two…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz6MtrfKvRw
Lesson 1: Clearly identify the enemy.
Lesson 2: Against the oligarchs and the “totalitarianism of the market” which serves as a cover for their interests, we, the forces of democracy, have to fight back.
Lesson 3. Inequality is objectionable, but more fundamental is people being denied the things that they need.
Lesson 4. Draw a link between what working people need and what society as a whole needs.
Lesson 5. Have a program. Say what you will do—don’t get dragged into debates about how you will do it.
Lesson 6. A program needs spokespeople, and it really helps when those spokespeople are or will be in government.
Lesson 7. Like Greeks, Americans think that their political system is broken—and they want an alternative.
Lesson 8. No mourning for golden days.
via 8 Lessons American Progressives Can Take From Greece’s Syriza and Spain’s Podemos – In These Times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Txrcpl49GQ
Rahm Emanuel always was early proof that Obama was not and never had any intention of being Liberal, let alone an authentic progressive.
‘….[Rahm Emanuel] left Clinton in 1998. With no prior experience in finance he walked into a job at a Clinton-friendly investment bank. Two and a half years later he walked out with $16 million. He had no background in housing, either, but got appointed to the board of Freddie Mac where he made even more money while watching it slip slowly into ruin.
In Congress he hewed right on economic and fiscal policy and was a hawk on defense. As Obama’s chief of staff he purged Clinton-era liberals, which resulted in a team of economic advisers more conservative than that of any Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. Whether following their advice or his own instincts, Obama ditched ethics reform, aid to homeowners with bad mortgages, a minimum wage hike and the public option; a disastrous set of choices from which he never fully recovered….’
via Rahm Emanuel’s moment of reckoning: How he ended up in a fight for his political life – Salon.com.
If I was a Democrat, I’d accuse Jeb of spitting in the face of the active duty US soldiers fighting his brother’s wars today.
‘Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) isn’t interested in talking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially as it relates to his brother, former President George W. Bush. “I won’t talk about the past,” Bush said on Friday when a reporter asked him about an upcoming foreign policy speech in Chicago…’
via Jeb Bush On Iraq And Afghanistan Wars: ‘I Won’t Talk About The Past’.
‘…Jeb Bush, a rumored 2016 Republican presidential candidate, just decided to publish hundreds of thousands of emails sent to him during his time as governor of Florida. On its face it seems like a great idea in the name of transparency, but there’s one huge problem: neither Bush nor those who facilitated the publication of the records, including the state government, decided to redact potentially sensitive personal information from them…’
via Jeb Bush dumps emails including social security numbers of Florida residents online | The Verge.
I am not a friend of Hillary Clinton, but apparently she is the only pro-science. pro-reason candidate for the US of A in 2016. #wtf
The former secretary of state said Tuesday on Twitter that she supported vaccinating children:
The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2015
via The Definitive Guide To Potential 2016 Contenders And Vaccines.