Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Another U.S. Constitutional Convention: An Idea Whose Time Has Not Come / Politics / US Politics
By: Antonius_Aquinas
In the midst of the seemingly indeterminable presidential electoral campaign, some of the candidates have been asked about the possibility of convening a constitutional convention in the hope of addressing the nation’s most pressing issues, most ominously the gargantuan federal deficit now in excess of $18 trillion.
Governor John Kasich supports such a notion with the explicit purpose of passing a balanced budget amendment.
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Monday, January 25, 2016
Ron Paul Warns Congress is Writing the President a Blank Check for War / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
While the Washington snowstorm dominated news coverage this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was operating behind the scenes to rush through the Senate what may be the most massive transfer of power from the Legislative to the Executive branch in our history. The senior Senator from Kentucky is scheming, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, to bypass normal Senate procedure to fast-track legislation to grant the president the authority to wage unlimited war for as long as he or his successors may wish.
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Sunday, January 24, 2016
Sarah Palin’s Quixotic Quest for Relevance / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
She’s back and tightly holding Donald Trump’s coattails.
That’s right, Sarah Palin, having again found the media spotlight, is casting her shadow across the more thoughtful conservatives.
This past week she declared her undying love and support of Trump’s attempt to seize the presidency from the more experienced and knowledgeable candidates in the Democratic, Republican, and Green parties, and is blathering her way throughout Iowa, New Hampshire, and several early primary states to stir up Trump’s far-right base.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Ron Paul on When Peace Breaks Out With Iran... / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
This has been the most dramatic week in US/Iranian relations since 1979.
Last weekend ten US Navy personnel were caught in Iranian waters, as the Pentagon kept changing its story on how they got there. It could have been a disaster for President Obama's big gamble on diplomacy over conflict with Iran. But after several rounds of telephone diplomacy between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, the Iranian leadership - which we are told by the neocons is too irrational to even talk to - did a most rational thing: weighing the costs and benefits they decided it made more sense not to belabor the question of what an armed US Naval vessel was doing just miles from an Iranian military base. Instead of escalating, the Iranian government fed the sailors and sent them back to their base in Bahrain.
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Sunday, January 17, 2016
New US Sanctions on Iran? / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Lendman
With Iran celebrating international sanctions lifted on its entirely peaceful nuclear program, the US Treasury imposed new ones unilaterally and illegally - again solely for political reasons.
A Treasury press release said Iran’s ballistic missile program was targeted, unrelated to its nuclear activities.
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Friday, January 15, 2016
Re-Covering Oil and War / Politics / Crude Oil
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The first thing that popped into our minds on Tuesday when WTI oil briefly broached $30 for its first $20 handle in many years, was that this should be triggering a Gawdawful amount of bets, $30 being such an obvious number. Which in turn would of necessity lead to a -brief- rise in prices.
Apparently even that is not so easy to see, since when prices did indeed go up after, some 3% at the ‘top’, ‘analysts’ fell over each other talking up ‘bottom’, ‘rebound’ and even ‘recovery’. We’re really addicted to that recovery idea, aren’t we? Well, sorry, but this is not about recovering, it’s about covering (wagers).
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Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Obama's 2016 State of the Union Address - Brilliant Bullshit! / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Shedlock
On Tuesday evening I watched president Obama's state of the union address. It was brilliant.
Obama rang all the bells, dotted all the i's, and attacked all the ghosts. At times, he even made sense.
All in all, it was a brilliant effort, possibly his best speech ever, even though his speech was essentially bullshit.
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Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Escalating Crisis of the Muslim World for the Koranic Backing of Radical Islam, Terrorism and Sunni – Shiite Clashes / Politics / Religion
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
Till the end of the twentieth century over 90 % of the world Muslims and almost all the rest of the Humanity believed that Islam was a Religion of Peace and it was one of the best religions having solutions to most of the problems of the Humanity. People belonged to other religions or even irreligious people had been attracted towards Islam or converted to Islam for the example of peace-loving and spiritual Muslims, including Sufis. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Feeling Abandoned, Saudi Arabia Ups the Ante / Politics / Saudi Arabia
By: John_Browne
Last week a major diplomatic crisis developed between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the Saudi execution of Nimr al Nimr, a charismatic Shiite cleric and anti-Sunni political activist. Nimr's execution was an important political decision. On its face, it served to increase tensions in the developing struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence, a drama that has come to full boil as a result of decades of American policy mistakes. This Middle Eastern cold war, which divides Islam along Sunni/Shia sectarian lines, now threatens international oil supplies and regional peace.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Your Guns Will be Consficated, Disarm Americans Ensure Full-blown Submission / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
Ladies and Gentlemen; the Imperial Storm Troopers are ready to neutralize the threat from the American people against the Colonial Empire. Obama has declared war to the cheers of the progressive imbeciles, who are the most avid abettor of the Totalitarian Collectivist society. You may not get a visit from ATF, DHS or FBI any day soon, but you can be sure your society is being SWAT by the government domestic terrorists carrying out the wishes of a tyrannical regime. The political class and the underlings that implement their illegitimate dictates want to disarm the public out of fear the peasants may storm the castle. Guns and bullets are only instruments of protection. The crucial war on populist independence is waged against the minds, hearts and souls of thinking and fearless Americans.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
The U.S. Wants to Seize Your Passport…Here’s What You Can Do About It / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a talented Russian writer and outspoken critic of the Soviet Union’s totalitarianism. He helped raise global awareness of the Gulag forced labor camp system.
For his efforts, the Soviet government stripped him of his citizenship in 1974. It did the same - and worse - to many other people it considered internal enemies.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Oregon Standoff: Isolated Event or Sign of Things to Come? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The nation's attention turned to Oregon this week when a group calling itself Citizens for Constitutional Freedom seized control of part of a federal wildlife refuge. The citizens were protesting the harsh sentences given to members of the Hammond ranching family. The Hammonds were accused of allowing fires set on their property to spread onto federal land.
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Sunday, January 10, 2016
Does North Korea Need Nukes to Deter US Aggression? / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: Mike_Whitney
Here’s your U.S. foreign policy quiz for the day:
Question 1– How many governments has the United States overthrown or tried to overthrow since the Second World War?
Answer: 57 (See William Blum.)
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Sunday, January 10, 2016
End Injustices Now, Not Later / Politics / US Politics
By: MISES
Gary M. Galles writes: Tim Carney recently highlighted how Iowa’s important early role in the Republican primaries has produced “a gravitational pull to pander” on the Renewable Fuel Standard. Its ethanol mandate is “an indefensible subsidy” to Iowans from others’ transportation and grocery budgets for, at best, highly questionable environmental benefits.
Carney cited examples of cognitive dissonance, such as between Chris Christie’s “I want the free enterprise system,” and “we should enforce the Renewable Fuel Standard,” and similarly between Carly Fiorina’s criticism that “government favors … the big, the powerful and the well connected,” and “I support the Renewable Fuel Standard as it currently stands.”
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Sunday, January 10, 2016
Rose Parade - Journalists Blathering in Front of TV Cameras / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Walter_Brasch
Several TV networks covered the entire Rose Parade.
ABC, NBC, RFD, the Hallmark network, and Univision had frequent interruptions to unleash commercials on us. The Home and Garden network ran the two hour parade uninterrupted—except for endless on-air self-promotion about HGTV and its programs.
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Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Financial Repression Authority Predicts Massive Tax Grab Coming in 2016 at All Levels of Government / Politics / Taxes
By: Gordon_T_Long
A Massive 'Tax Grab' Must Now Be Expected
The Financial Repression Authority sees the massive government tax grab already quietly underway accelerating in 2016 in most of the developed economies.
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Wednesday, January 06, 2016
America's Right-wing Fascism, Millennials and why good people must do something. And the time for doing it is Now / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
America is to be judged by its citizens, not its politicians. But if Americans lose contact with one another; substitute real, tangible realities with virtual ones projected on internet and television screens; refuse to engage in the democratic process and choose passivity over involvement, nihilism over hope, fatalism over self-determination; remain complacent about if not ignorant of US actions and wars in the world; adopt definitions of themselves that are crafted by self-serving special interests, profiteers or merchants of war and hate running now for president from both political parties, they lose all concepts of who they are, what they stand for, and what really constitutes American values. As it stands, Americans are on the cusp of recognizing that they are losing their historic identity, or the one they embraced before 9/11. Some might feel "I like it just the way it is." Others might not and blame the government, blame the Fed, blame an ethnic minority, blame Obama, blame the other party, blame the terrorists, blame Islamists or blame today's "Hitler of the Moment", Vladimir Putin, whose endorsement of Donald Trump has signaled alarm bells even among some Kremlin defenders.
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Future of Corporatism in 2016 / Politics / Corporate News
By: BATR
Economists, stock pickers and financial analysts are eager to play the forecast game. Clients of these erudite soothsayers would like you to believe that their study of trends and markets are founded on empirical maxims. What they carefully avoid admitting is that predicting the political climate is even more important than knowing the direction that monitory central banking will follow. 2016 promises to be a pivotal year. Depend upon the overactive drive of a lame duck President to complete his task of ruining the economy before he leaves office.
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
The American Melting Pot versus the European Salad Bowl / Politics / Social Issues
By: Rodney_Johnson
I recently took a car service from the outskirts of Washington, DC to Baltimore. Along the way I struck up a conversation with the driver, who was from Uganda. After the weather and other pleasantries, the topics turned to social issues of the day, eventually landing on marriage. We discussed the benefits of a great marriage, and how finding the right partner can be a struggle.He then mentioned how some people get “postal maids,” and that’s where things got interesting. I asked if he meant “mail-order brides,” which made him laugh as he corrected himself.
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Sunday, January 03, 2016
Saudi Arabia Beheadings Illustrates that ISIS are Amateurs When it Comes to State Executions / Politics / Social Issues
By: John_York
It's Happy New year from Saudi Arabia's royal family that kicks off the year by offing 47 people of their heads as enemies of the state. Which was met with widespread condemnation from not just the usual suspects such as Iran and human rights activists but also a number of allies have frowned on the blood bath as on the one hand the West is engaged in a war on Islamic State for its barbaric beheadings of prisoners whilst on the other hand Saudi Arabia repeats the same in the interests's of the Saudi mafia family ruling over it's population by means of fear.
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