Category: US Politics
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Saturday, August 11, 2012
NASA Sends a Golf Cart to Mars / Politics / US Politics
Bernard Grover writes: All the hype and hyperbole surrounding the Curiosity rover landing on Mars is really quite humorous. Terms like "biggest", "best", "most ambitious", and "powerful" have been landing with thuds as resounding as the rover itself. Frankly, it all calls for a little reality check, which we love to do around here.
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Friday, August 10, 2012
President Obama in January 2009 and Now / Politics / US Politics
Why Read: To test the contemporaneous views I expressed four years ago, to observe similarities and differences then and now, and to determine if you agree with my current views.
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Friday, August 10, 2012
The Decline of Empire: 'Why America Failed' / Politics / US Politics
To say that Morris Berman has a 'dark vision' to share is an understatement.
I think his view is legitimate, but only if you look at one somewhat narrow aspect of the American character, and ignore all the rest. It seems to be singularly focused to the point of distortion by a depressive fatalism.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Ron Paul - U.S. Moving Towards War in Syria / Politics / US Politics
Last week the House passed yet another bill placing sanctions on Iran and Syria, bringing us closer to another war in the Middle East. We are told that ever harsher sanctions finally will force the targeted nations to bend to our will. Yet the ineffectiveness of previous sanctions teaches us nothing; in truth sanctions lead to war more than they prevent war.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Obamacare Hidden Taxes Will Cost You More Than You Think / Politics / US Politics
David Zeiler writes: The bill for Obamacare is on its way, and guess what? It's addressed to you.
You see, all those great benefits included in the Affordable Care Act don't come cheap, which is why the new healthcare law includes a barrage of new "Obamacare taxes."
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Monday, August 06, 2012
U.S. Says Iran Violates International Obligations, What Are International Obligations? / Politics / US Politics
What are “international obligations? Does the United States have to uphold them along with other counties? Does Washington even know they are defined as “obligations owed by states to the international community as a whole, intended to protect and promote the basic values and common interests of all.” By this very definition, no one state can decide what’s best for all.
When the United States stepped up its sanctions on Iran last past week, it cited Iran’s failure to adhere to its “international obligations.” There was, of course, no reference to domestic politics where President Obama, under attack from adversary Mitt Romney, criticized his failure to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
The Political Significance of Gore Vidal / Politics / US Politics
The Gore Vidal legacy encompasses his numerous novels, literary writings, plays and essays. Few 20th century authors can match the volume of his compositions and consistency in the quality of his thoughts. If one can ignore his anti-religious beliefs and get past his complex sexuality, one can justly focus on the significance within his political viewpoints. Not since Oscar Wilde, has there been a man of letter with comparable wit and ridicule, that capsulated the age of his lifetime. Based upon a keen command of history and a flare for original insights, Vidal was the master political polemicist.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Firearms A Virus in the Lifeblood of America / Politics / US Politics
Several weeks ago on a Friday, Americans were shocked awake by a mass massacre in Aurora, Colorado. Two weeks after, on a Sunday, Americans awoke to a sequel played-out at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin. These are dubbed "mass murders" by law enforcement, the politicians and media. The Sikh massacre on the fifth of August was quickly labeled of a "domestic terrorism-type", with no supporting evidence given by the FBI. One comment left by a poster at Reuters pointed out that while this rampage occurred and received media-wide coverage, five murders were committed in Chicago that very morning and received little media coverage. Anyone who lives in or near an urban center in America knows the truth about underreported murders.
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Monday, August 06, 2012
Who do You Trust? President? Congress? Treasury Secretary? Federal Reserve? / Politics / US Politics
“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” ― J.M. Barrie – Peter Pan
"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks." – Lord Acton
Who do you trust? Do you trust the President? Do you trust Congress? Do you trust the Treasury Secretary? Do you trust the Federal Reserve? Do you trust the Supreme Court? Do you trust the Military Industrial Complex? Do you trust Wall Street bankers? Do you trust the SEC? Do you trust any government agency or regulator? Do you trust the corporate mainstream media? Do you trust Washington think tanks? Do you trust Madison Avenue PR maggots? Do you trust PACs? Do you trust lobbyists?
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Thursday, August 02, 2012
Corporatist Coup d'Etat Led By Think Tanks, Democracy Sold to the Highest Bidder / Politics / US Politics
“The mess we’re in now did not begin on Wall Street. Long before the financial collapse, the dismantlement of government regulation was well under way. All the consequences are the result of a brilliantly executed coup. This is the story of the biggest heist in American history.”
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Thursday, August 02, 2012
Obama Tells Entrepreneurs "You Didn't Build That" / Politics / US Politics
Gary Galles writes: President Obama's "you didn't build that" statement to successful business owners has created a serious backlash. In rebuttal, his defenders point to his more complete statement for "clarification":
Read full article... Read full article...If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Justice Roberts is Right: Obama Healthcare Plan Won't Work / Politics / US Politics
Now that the Supreme Court has given its narrow blessing to the Affordable Care Act, the big question is whether it will deliver the benefits that its proponents promise. Unfortunately, as it is now constructed, the plan will backfire causing fewer healthy people to buy insurance, raise premiums for those who do, destroy employment opportunities, cripple the health insurance industry, and weaken the economy.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
The Ignorance of “Intelligence” / Politics / US Politics
Some years ago, I meet a major in American intelligence, a member of the “Red Cell Unit.”
As he explained it to me, his unit was actually charged with assessing other spy shops by offering other views, critiquing intelligence estimates and perhaps even evaluating security systems like the specialists who test airport systems by probing for their soft spots and vulnerabilities, and seeing if they can beat them.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Ron Paul - Audit the Fed Moves Forward! / Politics / US Politics
Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed my legislation calling for a full and effective audit of the Federal Reserve. Well over 300 of my Congressional colleagues supported the bill, each casting a landmark vote that marks the culmination of decades of work. We have taken a big step toward bringing transparency to the most destructive financial institution in the world.
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Sunday, July 22, 2012
America's Right to National Bankruptcy and Healthcare / Politics / US Politics
Andrew Foy writes: People like me who believe the government should play a less active role in subsidizing healthcare costs are often asked the question "Do you believe healthcare is a basic human right?"
While this is an important philosophical question to ponder, it often lends itself to unexamined answers and political demagoguery. The imprecise answer "yes" to this question by most governments around the world (including the United States) has served mainly to accelerate healthcare-cost growth and benefit the medical-industrial complex at the expense of the public. To appreciate this point, one must consider the reality of what having a right to healthcare, as it is presently understood, actually means, and then consider who wins.
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Thursday, July 19, 2012
Brace Yourself, the American Empire Is Over / Politics / US Politics
Chris Hedges offers an interesting 3 hour interpretation of events that one rarely hears in the mainstream media.
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Thursday, July 19, 2012
Corruption and Mismanagement See Much of the US Without Power / Politics / US Politics
Amidst record-high temperatures and a very anti-climactic 4th of July, power outages have left millions without air-conditioning and even water in rural areas where households rely on electric pumps. At least 52 people have died from heat and three million people are still without power.
No it's not Yemen, where power outages in the capital Sana'a have sparked a new round of protests. It's the United States of America, where corruption converges with a moribund electricity distribution system to produce increasingly frequent blackouts across the Midwest and East Coast.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Disclose Act (s. 3369) Destroying the First Amendment / Politics / US Politics
John Rolls submits, KrisAnne Hall writes: ALERT: The Disclose Act (s. 3369)has been resurrected and it will further destroy the remnants of our 1stAmendment and diminish the power of our grassroots groups!
It is always shocking to me that those we elect are absolutely clueless to the true government that they were elected to support and defend. Day in and day out we hear our representatives refer to our government as a “democracy.” Our founders did not establish a democracy, they established a republic. At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a women referred to as Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia, “Well, Doctor, what have we, a republic or a monarchy?” It is said that Dr. Franklin, without hesitation, said, “A Republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.” Here we are 225 years later and our own representatives do not know the correct answer to this question.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Exposing Obama, Revealing the Depth of US Government Corruption / Politics / US Politics
The solution for the United States is not to elect more "good" people to government because they are quickly co-opted and compromised by the corrupt political system.
It may sound cynical, but the solution is to make it politically advantageous for bad people to do the right thing.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Democracy, Tyranny and the 'good American' –the clock is approaching Midnight / Politics / US Politics
What is so difficult for the majority of Americans to recognize, and for a majority of critical writers to accept, is that they—the so-called "people"—have turned to stone. They—the so called "people"—have become "good Germans". They—the so-called "people"—have been induced into an authoritarianism that threatens to open the door to tyranny: tyranny in government, in religion, in corporatism, in finance, and in and through a mushrooming military-security state that already is the deadliest toxin permeating every air molecule democracy inhales. Fascism and Totalitarianism are the watchwords of the day. The solution is not a Gold Standard, but a Moral Standard.
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