Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Obama's Party Joke Spotlights North Korea / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Don't Obamify His Name
Kim Jon Bama, AKA president Barack Obama delivered his own party joke at what was billed as his end-year conference and Q&A, December 19. This was two day's after Vladimir Putin did his own often light-hearted and boisterous same thing. Commentators warned us to only take what Jon Bama was saying as a last pirouette of presidential power and privilege, before Republicans take full control of the floors of both houses in January. So Obama was witty, formal, stern and forthright about finally ending the 50-year blockade of Cuba, a small island country run as the Castro family firm, and starting a spanking "new" crusade - against equally small and unimportant North Korea. Which has been US-blockaded about 60 years
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Ukraine Headed for Disaster / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: Stephen_Lendman
Perfect storm conditions threaten Ukrainians. In Europe's heartland. Fascist dictatorship. Mass impoverishment. Growing deprivation.
Civl war. Potential economic collapse. Troubled nuclear reactors. Facing possible meltdown. More on this below.
Ukraine's economy is rife with problems. Potential bankruptcy looms. IMF aid caused more harm than good. Largely used to pay Western bankers. Wage war on Donbas.
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Saturday, December 20, 2014
Ruble Takedown Exposes Cracks in Putin’s Defense / Politics / Russia
By: Mike_Whitney
Russian President Vladimir Putin suffered a stunning defeat on Tuesday when a US-backed plan to push down oil prices sent the ruble into freefall. Russia’s currency plunged 10 percent on Monday followed by an 11 percent drop on Tuesday reducing the ruble’s value by more than half in less than a year. The jarring slide was assisted by western sympathizers at Russia’s Central Bank who, earlier in the day, boosted interest rates from 10.5 percent to 17 percent to slow the decline. But the higher rates only intensified the outflow of capital which put the ruble into a tailspin forcing international banks to remove pricing and liquidity from the currency leading to the suspension of trade. According to Russia Today:
Friday, December 19, 2014
Is Russia Being Driven Into the Arms of China? / Politics / Russia
By: GoldCore
The “isolation of Russia” idea is one which has been receiving a lot of traction of late. Russia’s recent economic woes have sometimes been covered with barely contained glee despite the hardships that average Russians may have to endure if the rouble continues to collapse … not to mention the inevitable geo-political backlash.
Russia has become isolated from its western neighbours on account of the putsch in Ukraine which led to the predominantly ethnically Russian Crimea seceding from Kiev through a democratic process.
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Friday, December 19, 2014
Putin's Kremlin Q&A Show / Politics / Russia
By: Andrew_McKillop
Not the BBC Version
This was billed as Vladimir Putin's end-of-year question and answer session for the press, pressure groups, the public, and anybody else who is interested in Russia. The BBC however, true to its role of unsinkable US aircraft carrier anchored near Calais, rivaling Israel's role in the so-called American "empire", treated Putin's Q & A session as a rather pathetic attempt to ignore the US-led attempt to destroy the Russian economy. The BBC screened only 15 minutes of Putin's conference, ignoring the other 2 hours of Q & A. BBC News TV had former UK ambassador to Russia, Andrew Wood, in its early-morning studios to proclaim Putin's death sentence.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
The United States and Cuba Begin Restoring Relations / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
The United States and Cuba on Dec. 17 took their most assertive step in several decades toward normalizing relations. The most important announcements concerned the resumption of high-level political discussions focused on renewing formal diplomatic ties between the countries, which have been nonexistent since 1961. Cuban and U.S. officials will hold high-level meetings in the coming months, and the two countries will work toward establishing embassies in Havana and Washington. The United States will also immediately relax some sanctions on trade and travel to Cuba. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would loosen certain restrictions on financial transactions with Cuba, remove some restrictions on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba, and authorize the export of certain goods to the Cuban private sector. The U.S. State Department will also review Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Obama has the legal authority to immediately implement the measures he announced, but he left the issue of formally lifting the trade embargo up to Congress. Together, the announcements signaled a gradual process of reopening Cuba to the United States.
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Thursday, December 18, 2014
Outrage at Taliban Islamic Fundamentalists Massacre of 132 Pakistani School Children in the Name of God / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
There is NO JUSTIFCATION for the Murder of Children. NONE Whatsoever. Virtually everyone reading this will agree with this statement.When bearded Black Turbaned Taliban appear on broadcast news in front of the Black flags with Islamic verses on them to justify their murderous actions then virtually everyone reacts with the same disgust that THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION for killing 132 children.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Oil Prices And The Waziristan Republic - BEWARE OF THE AKOND OF SWOT / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Does He Beat His Wife With a Gold-topped Cane?
When she lets the gooseberries grow too ripe – or rot? The rot accelerated in royal (or caliph) fashion on 16th of December. Financial markets were in something of a profitable tizwas for short sellers of oil futures and Russian rouble futures – a money now AKA as Russian Rubble – but the sheer horror of the Pakistani school atrocity trumped the financial massacre.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
German Chancellor Merkel Won’t Let Ukraine Get in the Way of Business / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: Marin_Katusa
The Ukraine crisis has moderated for now, but it should have awakened the world to the new “great game” being played in Eastern Europe. Vladimir Putin is positioning Russia to control the global energy trade, knowing that he holds the trump card: Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.
This epic struggle between the US and Russia could change the very nature of the Euro-American trans-Atlantic alliance, because Europe is going to have to choose sides.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Euro Crisis Deepens / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: BATR
The alarm warnings are going off in Europe. International markets under pressure, global tensions rising and the financial system stressed to the point of breaking. Europe is ready for a relapse. It may be a very cold winter without Russian gas. Yet the technocrats in Brussels just go on their merry way in dictating the future to the vastly different societies and economies that make up the EU block. The Guardian expands this theme in the article, The eurozone crisis - history is repeating itself … again.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Torture, Terror And Elite Schizophrenia In The UK / Politics / UK Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Keep Calm and Carry On
First reaction and respnse from the "mainsream media" in the UK. if not from alternate media and bloggers to the US Senate report on CIA-initiated torture, was to talk it down and dump it. Editorials in true-blue papers like the 'Telegraph' and in every single media outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch, Sky Tv and of course the BBC told consumers of pap-news that torture was necessary if a wee bit distasteful, saved lives, and thwarted Islamic terror plots - but is never used by the UK!
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Viewing Russia From the Inside / Politics / Russia
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: Last week I flew into Moscow, arriving at 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 8. It gets dark in Moscow around that time, and the sun doesn't rise until about 10 a.m. at this time of the year — the so-called Black Days versus White Nights. For anyone used to life closer to the equator, this is unsettling. It is the first sign that you are not only in a foreign country, which I am used to, but also in a foreign environment. Yet as we drove toward downtown Moscow, well over an hour away, the traffic, the road work, were all commonplace. Moscow has three airports, and we flew into the farthest one from downtown, Domodedovo — the primary international airport. There is endless renovation going on in Moscow, and while it holds up traffic, it indicates that prosperity continues, at least in the capital.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
The Financial Industry Pigmen Win Again / Politics / Market Regulation
By: James_Quinn
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else." - George Carlin
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Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Spain's Publishing Industry Commits Internet Suicide as Google Quits News / Politics / Internet
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Spain at the heart of a luddite Europe Union has forced Google to quit its news service following its law makers succumbing to Spain's lunatic publishing industry that was expecting profit from taxing Google for every news story that it linked to on Google News as of 1st of Jan 2015. That's just for posting the title of news stories with a short snippet to prompt google news searchers to link through to the source content, a lot of free traffic that Spain's publishing industry had greatly profited from.
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Monday, December 15, 2014
A U.S. Court Practically Declared Insider Trading Legal / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Wednesday, December 10, 2014, was a big day for insider trading.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned insider trading convictions of former hedge fund managers Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson.
Not only did the appeals court reverse the much-publicized guilty verdicts against the two traders, its 28-page decision effectively rewrites the meaning of insider trading.
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Monday, December 15, 2014
A Brief Financial Moment in Time / Politics / Social Issues
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system; for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
-Henry Ford
I have a small confession.
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Monday, December 15, 2014
CIA, Democracy, Quo Vadis, America? / Politics / US Politics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Where are you going, America?
I don’t like to discuss politics too much. There are not enough smart, kind and honest people in politics wherever I look in the world for me to want to have anything to do with that game. I’d just spend all my time wondering what kind of mindset it takes to want to tell other people what to do, and be in control of the millions, billions and trillions of dollars that are taken from these people on a daily, yearly, basis.
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Monday, December 15, 2014
Ron Paul - All I Want for Christmas is a Real U.S. Government Shutdown / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The political class breathed a sigh of relief Saturday when the US Senate averted a government shutdown by passing the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. This year's omnibus resembles omnibuses of Christmas past in that it was drafted in secret, was full of special interest deals and disguised spending increases, and was voted on before most members could read it.
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Saturday, December 13, 2014
Cyprus-style Bank Bail-ins to Take Deposits and Pensions - The Global Bankers' Coup / Politics / Banksters
By: Ellen_Brown
On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20's new "bail-in" rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
How To Renounce Your US Citizenship And Become Stateless / Politics / Social Issues
By: Jeff_Berwick
I recently had the pleasure to speak with Glen Roberts, a self-described "techno-geek", blogger and the author of How to Renounce Your US Citizenship in Two Easy Steps. The book was written as a guide to cut through opinions and describe the requirements and process of renouncing US citizenship… something in high demand lately. Glen renounced his US citizenship after living in various Central and South American countries for more than a decade and currently resides, statelessly, in Paraguay.
His story is one of the most interesting we’ve heard in the neverending Escape from Amerika struggle. Here was our conversation.
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