Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Republican Budget Plan Targets Medicare With $4 Trillion in Total Spending Cuts / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: Money_Morning
Kerri Shannon writes:
House Republicans will release their 2012 budget plan today (Tuesday), proposing more than $4 trillion in cuts over the next decade and trimming billions of dollars from Medicare expenses.
House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-WI, prepared the spending outline for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
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Tuesday, April 05, 2011
U.S. Wars of Humanitarianism / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
There are wars in pursuit of interest. In these wars, nations pursue economic or strategic ends to protect the nation or expand its power. There are also wars of ideology, designed to spread some idea of “the good,” whether this good is religious or secular. The two obviously can be intertwined, such that a war designed to spread an ideology also strengthens the interests of the nation spreading the ideology.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Fed Lending Increases Bank Failures as 111 Banks Fail, FDIC is Fraudulent / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Mike_Shedlock
Via emergency lending mechanisms recently released data shows that 111 banks the fed tried to keep alive via emergency lending procedures ultimately failed.
Monday, April 04, 2011
San Francisco Rainwater Radiation 181 Times Above US Drinking Water Standard / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: DK_Matai
Radiation from Japan rained on Berkeley, California, during recent storms at levels that exceeded drinking water standards by 181 times. A rooftop water monitoring program managed by the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering detected substantial spikes in rain-borne iodine-131 during those torrential downpours. The levels exceeded federal drinking water thresholds, known as Maximum Contaminant Levels -- or MCLs -- by as much as 181 times or 18,100%. Iodine-131 is one of the most cancer-causing toxic radioactive isotopes spewed when nuclear power plants are in meltdown. It is being ingested by cows, which have begun passing it through into their milk and radioactivity has been detected. [Multiple Sources]
Monday, April 04, 2011
U.S. Jobs Report, Take This Job And Shove It / Politics / Employment
By: James_Quinn
Barack Obama and his minions were out in force on Friday declaring that the 216,000 jobs added in February are proof of a recovering economy. The unemployment rate fell to 8.8%, down from 9.8% in April 2010. All it took was 2.8 million Americans to leave the labor force to achieve this fabulous reduction in the unemployment rate. The percentage of Americans in the labor force of 64.2% is the lowest since 1983. The employment to population ratio of 58.5% is also the lowest since 1983. These atrocious figures are after a supposed economic recovery that has been underway for the last 18 months.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Speculators, Cartels and Myths of Scarcity: How War Pushes up the Price of Oil / Politics / Crude Oil
By: Global_Research
Dean Henderson writes: Last week, as if to justify his Libyan crusade, President Obama echoed the prevailing “peak oil” myth, stating that “we must accept the new reality that from here on out, demand for oil will always exceed supply”. It was music to the ears of the Rockefeller/Rothschild energy cartel and tax-dodger oil traders in Zug, Switzerland alike. Both know full well that oil companies pay around $18/barrel to get crude out of the ground.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Fixed Interest Rate Savings Bonds At 13 Month High / Politics / Savings Accounts
By: MoneyFacts
High demand for savers’ money and expectations of a rise in bank base rate in the near future has pushed short term fixed bond rates to their highest level in more than a year.
The average rate on one year bonds fell to an all time low of 2.52% in August 2010, but has steadily risen since then.
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Sunday, April 03, 2011
Nuclear Scandal in Japan, The Disgraceful Role of the U.S. Embassy / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers writes: "…Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so…" – Bertrand Russell
Things have calmed down quite a bit concerning the nuclear accident at the Fukushima reactors. While it is going to take more time to completely control the situation, things are not getting worse, and they are much more stable than they were two weeks ago.
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Saturday, April 02, 2011
Class Warfare Scoreboard : Guess Who's Winning? / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Whitney
This has gotta be a joke. According to a new report by the BEA, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased by $69 billion (7 percent), while personal income rose by only $38 billion (3 percent) in February.
So consumers are back to their old ways again, spending more than they earn?
Friday, April 01, 2011
Fukushima Fallout Reaches U.S.A, Radiation Found in Rainwater from California to Massachusetts / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Mike_Whitney
Three of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have partially melted down and highly toxic plutonium is seeping into the soil outside. Plutonium is less volatile than other radioactive elements like iodine or cesium, but it's also more deadly. According to Businessweek, "When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation." If plutonium leaches into groundwater or pristine aquifers, the threat to public health and the environment will be extreme. This is an excerpt from an article in the Guardian:
Friday, April 01, 2011
Libya, Another Unconstitutional, Undeclared Illegal Killerthon / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Statement on Libya – Defining U.S. National Security Interests, Before the Foreign Affairs Committee, US House of Representatives, 31 March 2011
The American people have once again been suckered into an unconstitutional, undeclared, illegal, and unwise war. This is not a war in response to an attack on the United States. This is not a war against a regime that has threatened the United States. This is a preventative war. The president never claimed that any large-scale slaughter of civilians was taking place in Libya. Rather, the president has spent close to a billion dollars – so far – bombing a country because its government might at some point harm its civilians.
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Friday, April 01, 2011
The Birth of New Colonialism in Libya / Politics / New World Order
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
What we are observing in Libya is the rebirth of colonialism. Only this time it is not individual European governments competing for empires and resources. The new colonialism operates under the cover of "the world community," which means NATO and those countries that cooperate with it. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was once a defense alliance against a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Today NATO provides European troops in behalf of American hegemony.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Are American Workers Just Getting What They Deserve? / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
If you don’t think American workers are being inexorably scr*wed by our governing establishment’s embrace of “free” trade, stop reading right here. If you do, I have a dark question for you, one that may have occurred to you in private already:Did we bring this whole mess on ourselves?
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Conquest of Africa: NATO Wages War On Third Continent / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Rick_Rozoff
At its summit in Lisbon, Portugal last November the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted its first strategic concept for the 21st century, one in keeping with its expansion into not only a pan-European but a self-styled international military force.
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
U.S. Government Shut Down, The Next Crisis / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
"Political Language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable"... George Orwell
Forget Libya; the real bombing is not underway there. Pay less attention to Pakistan; the drone attacks there pale in comparison.
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
Rebooting the American Dream / Politics / Resources & Reviews
By: Ian_Fletcher
Thom Hartmann is famous as a liberal commentator on the radio, on TV, and in over a dozen books. But he has written here a book that is of far more than partisan value. Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country will please liberal readers, but it will also challenge them to revisit some of their own lazy beliefs. It will annoy conservatives, but the smarter ones will take notes and absorb some of his trans-partisan insights into their own politics.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Imperialist Carve-Up Libya at London Conference / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Barry_Grey
The conference on Libya held Tuesday at London's Lancaster House was a repulsive exercise in hypocrisy and cynicism. In the name of liberating the Libyan people, the United States and Britain brought together foreign ministers from 40 countries and dignitaries from international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO and the Arab League to sanction an escalation of the air war against the former colony and set the stage for the installation of a stooge regime.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Why Religious People Struggle with Economics / Politics / Economic Theory
By: Jeffrey_A_Tucker
For years I've puzzled over the question of why religious people have such trouble coming to terms with economics. This problem applies only to modern religious people, for it was Catholics in 15th- and 16th-century Spain who systematized the discipline of economics to begin with. That was long ago. Today, most of what is written about economics in Catholic circles is painful to read. The failing extends left and right, as likely to appear in "progressive" or "traditionalist" publications. In book publishing, the problem is so pervasive that it is difficult to review the newest batch.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Obama Raises American Hypocrisy to a New Level / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.
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Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Why Economists Love the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. It was founded by Congress in 1913 to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Over the years, its role in banking and the economy has expanded.