Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
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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Sunday, January 03, 2016
Mass Saudi Executions Reflect Regional Violence of Pro-Western Despotic Regimes / Politics / Middle East
By: Stephen_Lendman
Most Arab League states are run by pro-Western despotic regimes - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait and Egypt the worst of a bad lot.
Palestinians get rhetorical support only, nothing meaningful done on their behalf. In March 2011, League members backed UN Resolution 1973 - prelude to US-led NATO war on Libya, a devastating conflict creating endless violence and chaos continuing unabated.
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Saturday, January 02, 2016
Saudi Arabia Executes Four Dozen Prisoners ISIS Style / Politics / India
By: Stephen_Lendman
Riyadh and Washington are close allies, partnering in each other’s high crimes - both countries notably supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups, used as US imperial foot soldiers.
Domestically, Riyadh’s human rights record is abominable. Fundamental freedoms don’t exist. Criticizing ruling authorities risks arrest, imprisonment or death.
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Saturday, January 02, 2016
Iraq’s Longstanding Nightmare Continues / Politics / Iraq War
By: Stephen_Lendman
Washington bears full responsibility for the Middle East’s longstanding nightmare, partnered with rogue Israeli, NATO and Arab regimes. Call it the curse of oil - Iraq Exhibit A.
From America’s orchestrated Iran/Iraq war to Operation Desert Storm, to years of genocidal sanctions, to Operation Iraqi Freedom, to ongoing out-of-control raging violence and chaos, its imperial madness destroyed the cradle of civilization, replacing it with endless dystopian harshness - one of history’s greatest crimes, accountability nowhere in sight.
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Tuesday, December 29, 2015
A Crisis Worse than ISIS? Bank Bail-Ins Begin / Politics / Banking Stocks
By: Ellen_Brown
At the end of November, an Italian pensioner hanged himself after his entire €100,000 savings were confiscated in a bank “rescue” scheme. He left a suicide note blaming the bank, where he had been a customer for 50 years and had invested in bank-issued bonds. But he might better have blamed the EU and the G20’s Financial Stability Board, which have imposed an “Orderly Resolution” regime that keeps insolvent banks afloat by confiscating the savings of investors and depositors. Some 130,000 shareholders and junior bond holders suffered losses in the “rescue.”
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
The World is Safer For Big Government, War and Fiat Money / Politics / Social Issues
By: Mario_Innecco
Highlights Tuesday December 29 2015 this morning I'll be making a video about how
democracy has made the world safe for big government war and fear money and
you have been thinking about this subject for the last day or so and it's
very interesting because this morning . LBC radio there was a presenter called
me in pain and he was talking about the new law that has gonna come into books
in the UK and he talked about it on Twitter Ian Payne the radio presenter on
LBC and he said and I quote social media bosses face two years jail time if they
warned uses mi5 are watching them so basically here in the UK
you know the boss is a Google Facebook Twitter all the companies that give
people access to social media they'll be arrested for two years they could face
arrest forty years if they warn you know their customers that mi5 which is the....
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
2016 Is An Easy Year To Predict / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
No year is ever easy to predict, if only because if it were, that would take all the fun out of life. But still, predictions for 2016 look quite a bit easier than other years. This is because a whole bunch of irreversible things happened in 2015 that were not recognized for what they are, either intentionally or by ‘accident’. Things that will therefore now be forced to play out in 2016, when denial will no longer be an available option.
Monday, December 28, 2015
What Are The Chances For Peace in 2016? / Politics / US Military
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Each year more than one trillion dollars goes up in smoke. More accurately, it is stolen from the middle and working classes and shipped off to the one percent. I am talking about the massive yearly bill to maintain the US empire. Washington's warmongers have sold the lie that the military budget has been gutted under President Obama, but even when the "Sequester" was in effect military spending continued to increase. Only the pace of increase was reduced, not actual spending.
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Monday, December 28, 2015
Happy Hunger Games - The Odds are Never in Your Favor / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
The irony of the phrase "may the odds be ever in your favor" is not lost on the readers of the Hunger Games trilogy of novels or the film adaption. Despite the grimness of the story, over 65 million copies of the books have been sold. The total box office take so far has exceeded $1.4 billion for the four movies. The dystopian series tackles real issues like severe poverty, starvation, torture, oppression, betrayal and the brutality of war. It doesn't fit into the standard film making success recipe of feel good fluff, politically correct storylines and happy endings. Each film in the series gets progressively darker, with the final episode permeating doom and gloom. The books and the movies capture the deepening crisis mood engulfing the world today. And they realistically portray the world as a place where there are no good guys in positions of power. The ruling class, in all cases, is driven by a voracious appetite for supremacy, wealth, and control.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Christmas Wins Again! / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
The mythical War on Christmas is over and once again Christmas won.
The war was created out of fairy dust, and then neatly wrapped up and delivered to religious right-wing extremists by pretend-generals Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and a cast of dozens who have seized the public airways.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
The Force Awakens Star Wars U.S. Evil Empire vs Islamic JEhaDI Rebels? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Star Wars franchise has returned with a block buster movie 'The Force Awakens' that once more pits a resurgent technologically advanced First Order Evil Empire against the religiously motivated but lightly armed desert dwelling JEhaDI warriors in an apparent war that involves the fulfillment of ancient prophecies.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
The International Court for Religious Crimes, Terror and Human Rights Violations / Politics / Religion
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
Till recently religions had purely been personal concerns of the members of the religions concerned and not the domain of the humanity as a whole. Along with religious people, secular and irreligious people also coexisted in almost all societies. As such there was no need for any international covenants or interventions on matters of the religion. But now Religions have become the epicenters of the Blatant Crimes, Terror and Human Rights Violations affecting the entire Humanity.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Trump Muslim Ban Prevents British Family Pilgrimage to DisneyLand Florida / Politics / Social Issues
By: N_Walayat
The latest news from the war on Muslims follows hot on the heels of Donald Trump pledging to ban all muslims from entering America, that today manifested itself in a British muslim family of 11 heading for their once in a life time pilgrimage to the DisneyLand in Florida, who were all turned back at Gatwick airport by a smirking British border official.