Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, June 09, 2014
Taliban Release Video - America Does Do Deals with Terrorists - Surrender in Afghanistan / Politics / US Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The following video clip shows the Taliban releasing Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to U.S. special forces as they great one another as apparent equals as filmed by the Taliban ahead of which the U.S. released 5 senior Taliban commanders to the luxury of Qatar.
Monday, June 09, 2014
NRA - An Assault Upon Our Civility / Politics / Social Issues
By: Walter_Brasch
For awhile, it appeared the NRA leadership committed an act of sanity. But, a few hours later, the pills wore off.
The story begins with a group called Open Carry Texas (OCT). This fringe group rubbed both its brain cells together, wrapped itself in what it erroneously believes is the Second Amendment, and decided it would be great theatre to bring semi-automatic carbines into family restaurants. Waving the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, a common sight at Tea Party rallies, OCT members handed out leaflets, proclaimed their rights to carry weapons and confronted citizens who had little desire to be in a place where civilians were carrying weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, any one of which could shred any one of their internal organs.
Sunday, June 08, 2014
D-Day Normandy Landing World War II Lies Grow More Audacious / Politics / Propaganda
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
If there were any doubts that Western “leaders” live in a fantasy make-believe world constructed out of their own lies, the G-7 meeting and 70th anniversary celebration of the Normandy landing dispelled the doubts.
The howlers issuing from these occasions are enough to split your sides. Obama and his lap dog Cameron described the Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, as “the greatest liberation force that the world has ever known” and took all the credit for the US and Britain for the defeat of Hitler. No mention was made of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, which for three years prior to the Normandy landing had been fighting and defeating the Wehrmacht.
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Friday, June 06, 2014
Dumbing Down D-Day / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Darwin Couldn't Explain
If he was still alive, Darwin would have big problems explaining Dumbed Down D-Day. It wasn't natural evolution. It was probably “saltationist evolution” literally meaning an evolutionary leap – in the dark. D-Day ceremonies are laughed off by some, as antique or even pathetic, but that ignores their strange or bizarre evolution, showing that something else is happening.
Friday, June 06, 2014
Obama's Climate Plan Is Leaking Methane / Politics / Climate Change
By: OilPrice_Com
The Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 30 percent will no doubt lead to a cleaner economy. But the road there will be paved with methane. By requiring reductions in the energy intensity per megawatt-hour of electricity generation, utilities will have the ability to choose from an array of options for how to meet the targets.
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Friday, June 06, 2014
US Foreign Wealth Confiscation Begins Under the Code Names FinCen, FATCA and FBAR / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
We have been reporting on how the US government is using very nefarious and egregious methods on tracking its own citizen's financial information, fining them and even instituting the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as a form of subterfuge capital controls which is closing off international banking to Americans (as we reported yesterday in Mexico)
Friday, June 06, 2014
Euroskeptic Election Victories Raise Global Risk Of Return To 2012 Crisis / Politics / European Elections
By: Dan_Amerman
In one of the most stunning political developments in recent decades, the group of political parties that are being collectively called "Euroskeptics" won more votes than any other individual party in several major European nations in the May elections for the EU Parliament.
Thursday, June 05, 2014
The Battle of Midway / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Fred_Sheehan
The Battle of Midway was fought 72 years ago, from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942. Air strikes from U.S. aircraft carriers maimed beyond repair the four Japanese aircraft carriers. The Japanese fleet, and Japan, never recovered.
Less than six months earlier, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack swept across the Pacific. Franklin Roosevelt, in his "Day of Infamy" speech, told the damage:
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Thursday, June 05, 2014
China-Vietnam Conflict in The South China Sea / Politics / China US Conflict
By: EconMatters
China is on a roll upsetting neighbors from all directions in its aggressive stance towards territorial claims.
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
U.S. Media, Military/Security Complex Driving the World towards Final War / Politics / US Military
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words:
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
The Wealth Divide Never Wider / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
The Robber Barons of the 19th and 20th century had nothing over the elites of today’s globalist transnational financial conglomerates. The Richest Americans, listed in Forbes conceals the real power that controls the economy. Net worth is deficient in gauging dominance in financial commercialism and monetary preeminence. The Top 50 Highest-Paid CEOs as reported by ABC News ties into Michael Hiltzik’s account that CEO-to-worker pay gap is obscene, "The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 2012 was about 350 to 1." Yet the divide in pay does not exemplify the exact lose in a livable standard of living for the ordinary staffer.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
European Commission Advises Booming Britain to Burst Housing Market and Collapse UK Economy / Politics / UK Housing
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The clueless academics employed by the European Commission's political elite of the euro-zone, who for the glory of power over the european people are hell bent on driving much of the european union into the abyss of a socialist utopia where the masses own and earn nothing but become wholly reliant on ECB central bank money printing funded government hand outs as bought and paid for vested interests in exchange for votes for career european union politicians who have nothing in common with their electorates, today have been busy issuing advice to the one Island of Independence on a continent of conformity as to how Britain should ruin its booming economy.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Here's How the U.S. Will Play the Russia-China Oil Deal / Politics / Russia
By: Money_Morning
Dr. Kent Moors writes: Pundits have been quick to label last week's mammoth gas deal between Russia and China as "historic."
That may be true. But the fact is there are a number of important elements in the $400 billion agreement that have yet to be decided.
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Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Geopolitical Journey, European Borderlands Part 2 / Politics / European Union
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: A borderland is a region where history is constant: Everything is in flux. The countries we are visiting on this trip (Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland) occupy the borderland between Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. Roman Catholic Hapsburg Austria struggled with the Islamic Ottoman Empire for centuries, with the Ottomans extending northwest until a climactic battle in Vienna in 1683. Beginning in the 18th century, Orthodox Russia expanded from the east, through Belarus and Ukraine. For more than two centuries, the belt of countries stretching from the Baltic to the Black seas was the borderland over which three empires fought.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Ellen Brown - Infrastructure Sticker Shock: Financing Costs More Than Construction / Politics / US Politics
By: Ellen_Brown
Funding infrastructure through bonds doubles the price or worse. Costs can be cut in half by funding through the state’s own bank.
“The numbers are big. There is sticker shock,” said Jason Peltier, deputy manager of the Westlands Water District, describing Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water tunnels through the California Delta. “But consider your other scenarios. How much more groundwater can we pump?”
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Monday, June 02, 2014
U.S. Mental Health Screening a Good Way to Decrease Liberty, Poor Way to Increase Security / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week Americans were shocked and saddened by another mass killing, this one near a college campus in California. We all feel deep sympathy for the families of the victims.
As usual, many people responded to this shooting by calling for new federal gun control laws, including the mental health screening of anyone attempting to purchase a firearm. There are a number of problems with this proposal. Federally-mandated mental health screenings would require storing mental health records in a government database. This obviously raises concerns about patient privacy and doctor-patient confidentiality, as well as the threat of identity theft. Anyone who doubts that these are legitimate concerns should consider the enormous privacy problems with the Obamacare website; some have even suggested that healthcare.gov be renamed indentifytheft.gov.
Sunday, June 01, 2014
How Global Agri-Business Destroys Farming / Politics / Agricultural Commodities
By: Global_Research
Colin Todhunter writes: A new review carried out by the organization GRAIN reveals that small farms produce most of the world’s food. However, they are currently squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world’s farmland. The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of the rich and powerful. If we do nothing to reverse this trend, the world will lose its capacity to feed itself.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
An Open Letter to Edward Snowden - Stand Your Ground / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
Dear Edward Snowden,
Rumor has it you are contemplating a return to your beloved country, the country whose crimes against liberty and justice forced you to take a moral, principled position by revealing truths about a surveillance state so wide-sweeping it is totalitarian - ever expanding in lawlessness and reach. Your efforts have been both reviled by the powerful and praised by the powerless. Your life has been threatened. You have been turned into a pariah and criminal by the very agents you sought to expose to divert focus away from them and place upon you. Now, after the rigors and humiliations you experienced you are considering a return to your country which has only persecuted and avenged you; a country led by a President and Congress whose war crimes, militarism, imperialism, desecrations of the Constitution and Bill of Rights will forever by seen as leading America into the greatest crucible in its history from which she may or may not recover her birthright.
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Friday, May 30, 2014
The Nihilists Said Keep Calm And Carry On / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
The First Ones Did
Plenty of hair-splitting but not much real difference separates “the heroic philosophies” from what ended up, in Europe as Nihilism and Existentialism. The first say that nothing exists while the others say that only existence exists. Both reject society. Both reject all previous socially-imprinted ideas or “social facts”. Both are in play in the crisis we have today.
Friday, May 30, 2014
America's Gun Insanity Extends Beyond the Shooters / Politics / Social Issues
By: Walter_Brasch
During this past week, in Scranton, Pa., a 16-year old put two bullets into the head of a taxi driver and then stole about $500 earned by the cabbie that evening.
The teen, who showed no remorse when arrested a few hours later, mumbled a few words about his reasons. He said he murdered the cabbie “’Cause that’s what I do to people that don’t listen.” The teen thought the cabbie was taking too long to get him to his destination. The driver was a 47-year-old man with a wife and two children. The gun was an unlicensed 9-mm.
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