Things to consider—

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. —Stephen LendmanFor over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.•••••"The dead end identity politics of SF Pride, which sells out a peace hero like Bradley Manning to curry favor with the American ruling class, is what I had in mind. The empire loves your tameness, irrelevance and cowardice, SF Pride. You don’t bother the American ruling class — a five foot two, 105 pound soldier does because he has a conscience and because he didn’t make comfort the guiding principle of his life...." —Randy Shields
  • Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby versus Prince Harry and his polo-playing American friends

    Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby versus Prince Harry and his polo-playing American friends

    By David Walsh, wsws.org “Prince Harry rounded off his hugely successful week-long tour of the U.S. today very much in his comfort zone – playing polo. … He was greeted by club founder Peter Brandt [sic] and his model wife, Stephanie Seymour. Brandt, 65, – whose wife is 44 – is an American industrialist and [...]

  • Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

    Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

    by Stephen Lendman Capitalism has succeeded in capturing governments around the world. Forget everything you learned about markets, economics and finance. Perhaps Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and other noted figures were wrong.  Central banks run today’s world. Major ones matter most. Money printing madness controls everything. Love doesn’t make the world go round. [...]

  • Can America Come to Terms with Boston Bombing Suspect's Stated Motives?

    Can America Come to Terms with Boston Bombing Suspect’s Stated Motives?

    Consortium News [1] / By Ray McGovern [2] Quick, somebody tell CIA Director John Brennan about the handwriting on the inside wall of the boat in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was hiding before Boston-area police riddled it and him with bullets. Tell Brennan that Tsarnaev’s note is in plain English and that it needs neither translation nor interpretation in solving the [...]

  • A new film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    A new film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    By David Walsh, wsws.org Directed by Baz Luhrmann, co-written by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald “It’s not all rubbish,” cried Amory passionately. “This is the first time in my life I’ve argued Socialism. It’s the only panacea I know. I’m restless. My whole generation is restless. I’m sick [...]

  • Obama’s New Appointments Prove that He Will Continue to Lick Wall Street’s Boots In His Second Term

    Obama’s New Appointments Prove that He Will Continue to Lick Wall Street’s Boots In His Second Term

    by WashingtonsBlog Puts Fox In Charge of the Henhouse … Again The party line is that Obama’s new pick for SEC boss – Mary Jo White – will be tough on Wall Street. For example, the Wall Street Journal writes: Obama Taps Ex-Prosecutor Mary Jo White, Portending Increased Policing of Wall Street In reality, this is putting the [...]

  • Pole dancing for the faint-hearted

    Let the Real Housewives try this for a change. Did you like this? Share it:

  • IRS Scandal Headlines: More Than Meets the Eye

    IRS Scandal Headlines: More Than Meets the Eye

    by Stephen Lendman More than targeting political enemies is involved. More on than below. The practice is longstanding. Republican and Democrat administrations use the IRS abusively.  During the Coolidge administration, Republican Senator James Couzens investigated the IRS’ predecessor – the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).  Did you like this? Share it:

  • Putin v. Obama et al

    Putin v. Obama et al

    by Stephen Lendman On May 16, the Wall Street Journal headlined “Russia Raises Stakes in Syria,” saying: Russia “sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that US and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene [...]

The Ryan budget plan and the Beltway media

 ANNOTATED NEWS, HEADLINERS, MEDIA SCUM  Comments Off
Apr 122011
 

A FAIR Media Advisory—
“Mr. Serious”

Paul Ryan in his natural milieu.

THE BUDGET PROPOSAL released last week by Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.) includes tax cuts for the wealthy, tax hikes for the middle class, drastic cuts in spending and a radical restructuring of Medicare that would shift most of the cost of healthcare to seniors. Its dubious claims of deficit reduction rely on fatally flawed assumptions and inexplicable projections (Center for Budget & Policy Priorities, 4/7/11; CEPR, 4/11).

Editor‘s Note: At The Greanville Post we have covered the topic of Medicare financing, its supposed risk of bankruptcy and other issues extensively, and —we’d like to think— conclusively.  Just do a search of our files and you’ll find plenty of solid material debunking the alarms and cries for reform (read: privatize and toss it to the Wall Street sharks) uttered by so many in the media and government these days, including, of course, many Democrats and Obama himself. See, for example, Steve Lendman’s

Republican Plan to End Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

But much of the media coverage about the plan has presented Ryan’s proposal as a serious solution to long-term budget problems, or at least the starting point of a serious conversation about the topic.
Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 2:39 pm

Obama Team Is Oddly Quiet About Evidence That Renewable Energy Beats Nuclear in Job Creation

 CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE, ENVIRONMENTAL STRUGGLES  Comments Off
Apr 122011
 

By Brad Jacobson, AlterNet, a Fraternal Site

ON THE HEELS OF President Obama’s big energy speech and in the wake of the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, the Obama administration — along with many members of Congress and the nuclear industry — remains steadfast in its promotion of nuclear energy here at home.

With nationwide unemployment still hovering around 9 percent, job creation has been one of the leading support points for the so-called “nuclear renaissance.” Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 1:59 pm

Radiation and Everyday Life

 CITIZEN TOOLS, HEADLINERS, HEALTH & MEDICINE  Comments Off
Apr 122011
 

The FDA is Asleep at the Switch

By ROBERT ALVAREZ  |  April 4, 2011

Recently, a senior scientist with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made this comment to the news media about radioactive fallout being detected in milk in the United States from the nuclear catastrophe in Japan:

“Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared Fukushima-Daiichi to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials.” Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 1:44 pm

Government by People Who Hate You

 CLASS STRUGGLE, HEADLINERS, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS, SCUMWATCH  Comments Off
Apr 122011
 

As could be expected, the utterly pestilential Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been cheerfully presenting his “budget adjustment” plan to a largely polite corporate media audience. We must let them know such treatment is ill-advised. That’s not the way to treat dangerous criminals.

Monday 11 April 2011

By Dean Baker, Truthout

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisconsin) budget plan would cut $5.8 trillion over the next decade by cutting programs like Medicare.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan put out a budget proposal last week that will leave the vast majority of future retirees without decent health care by ending Medicare as we know it. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, most middle-income retirees would have to pay almost half of their income to purchase a Medicare equivalent insurance package by 2030 [3]. They would be paying much more than half of their income in later years. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 12:53 pm

The rumble of revolution grows

 CLASS STRUGGLE, THE USA  Comments Off
Apr 122011
 

From solidarity to resistance …and beyond—

Americans have been indoctrinated to see good things in the word “revolutionary” when applied to electronics, cars, and the latest vacuum cleaner, but to conjure up horrors when applied to politics…who wins by this artificial fracture?  Can revolutionary be good and bad at the same time?

By Gaither Stewart

IN A COLUMN A YEAR OR SO AGO, Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of Treasury under Reagan (!), warned that unless Congress impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the USA could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran. That suggestion prompted me to continue with my own ideas as to what should follow on the heels of popular resistance to the burgeoning police state. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 11:53 am