Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
RED ALERT: Paris Terror Attacks - What to Expect Next / Politics / ISIS Islamic State
By: STRATFOR
Update (6:00 CST): According to French media reports, French security forces have stormed and secured the Bataclan theater. The attackers apparently used grenades inside the main concert hall, Aujourd'hui Paris reported Nov. 13. Details are still emerging.
As many as 60 people died Nov. 13 in multiple terrorist attacks throughout Paris. At least five gunmen – likely jihadists judging from witness's accounts – conducted the attacks.
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Friday, November 13, 2015
Why Black Friday Needs to be a National Holiday / Politics / Shopping
By: Walter_Brasch
At one time, people placed carved pumpkins with a candle inside on their front porches to announce the beginning of the Halloween season.
And then it became a contest. First, best Halloween pumpkin. And then who could decorate their trees and hedges with the best fake cobwebs, followed by fake witches in trees.
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Friday, November 13, 2015
Africa Population Explosion - Why Europe's Migrant Crisis is Going to Get A Lot Worse - Video / Politics / Africa
By: Nadeem_Walayat
What's lost in the midst of this year’s migration crisis of as many as 1 million migrants heading for Europe's shores, near five times the number for 2014, is the consequences of the REAL MEGA-TREND, that is not just of the war in Syria but the fact that Africa (both North and South) is undergoing a population explosion, that is literally manifesting in an exponential trend, one of MORE than doubling of Africa's population every 40 years that looks set to make today's migrant crisis look like a picnic when compared against the several of millions per year that will be arriving on Europe’s borders within a few short years as the global population graph based on UN data illustrates.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
UK BrExit Referendum as European Union Faces Migration Catastrophe / Politics / UK EU Referendum
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This week David Cameron kick started his negotiations with the European Union to head off the risk of a Referendum vote to leave the European Union due to be held some time during 2017. The latest opinion polls put the LEAVE camp in the minority on 39%, however faced with continuing out of control immigration could by referendum day bring the vote closer to a 50/50 knife edge result.
By most accounts David Cameron's demands in his letter to to Donald Tusk (President of the European Council) are pretty weak, most of which are designed to be achieved in what amounts to a pantomime act for an gullible electorate to swallow.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Israel Detaining and Imprisoning Palestinian Children for Political Reasons / Politics / Israel
By: Stephen_Lendman
Israel doesn’t just violate inviolable international laws. It smashes, tramples on and ignores them, writing its own rules, setting its own standards, doing whatever it pleases, consistently justifying the unjustifiable - longstanding rogue state practice.
It treats children like adults, already abducting, detaining and imprisoning them for political reasons.
America and Israel are the only two nations incarcerating young children for life without parole (LWOP). It’s a 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) signatory, mandating protection for their rights, safety and welfare - “without discrimination of any kind,” regardless of “race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status," including their "right to life…survival (and) development.”
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Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Social Security The Long Slow Default / Politics / Government Spending
By: MISES
Kirby R. Cundiff writes: When an investor buys an annuity or another retirement product from an insurance or mutual fund company, the contract is constant and enforceable through the United States court system. When a United States taxpayer is forced to pay for a government backed retirement system such as the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program (OASDI) — also known as Social Security — the “contract” can be, and is, changed on a regular basis by the United States government, and those changes are generally not to the benefit of the taxpayer.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
The American Way of Endless Wars / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Lendman
America is addicted to endless direct and proxy wars of aggression. Peace is anathema, social justice discarded to devote national resources to warmaking and militarizing the homeland.
Washington’s criminal class is bipartisan. Duopoly power rules, one party with two wings, serving monied interests exclusively, not a single identifiable administration, congressional or top-level judicial profile in courage, all in lockstep with what makes America the most feared and hated of all nations.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Portugal Government Resignation Is Potentially A Very Big Deal / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: John_Rubino
Portugal has entered a phase change, with potentially huge ramifications.
After handing a parliamentary majority to a coalition of leftist (i.e., anti-austerity, anti-euro, anti-NATO) parties, and then trying to prevent them forming a government, the country now looks likely to stand back and let it happen. Here’s an update from today’s Wall Street Journal:
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Monday, November 09, 2015
Does the Bell Toll for the Fed? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen hinted that the Federal Reserve Board will increase interest rates at the board's December meeting. The positive jobs report that was released following Yellen's remarks caused many observers to say that the Federal Reserve's first interest rate increase in almost a decade is practically inevitable.
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Sunday, November 08, 2015
Turkey Goes to War / Politics / Turkey
By: Mike_Whitney
“ISIS threatens our way of life and security…We have plans to act militarily against them in the coming days. You will see.” — Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu
A landslide victory in Turkey’s November 1 snap elections has removed the last obstacle in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s drive to war. The surprise outcome of the balloting, which was widely denounced as “unfair and marred by fear and violence by international election observers”, has given Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) 49 percent of the vote restoring single-party rule in Ankara. Shortly after the election results were announced, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Turkey’s political parties to scrap the existing constitution in order to grant President Erdogan nearly-limitless executive authority.
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Sunday, November 08, 2015
Snuggling Up to Celebrities Not Part of Journalism Training / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Walter_Brasch
One of the basic tenets of journalism ethics and practices is that reporters must keep their distance from news sources.
They’re allowed to be friendly. They’re even allowed to share a meal with a news source. But, they must be independent. It’s a “Caesar’s wife” thing—they must be above suspicion.
Friday, November 06, 2015
Doug Casey on the Nanny State’s Interference in Our Lives / Politics / Social Issues
By: Casey_Research
By Doug Casey
(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)
Editor’s Note: In yesterday’s Weekend Edition, Casey Research founder Doug Casey explained why you should be skeptical of government “science.”
In today’s edition, Doug says the nanny state is tightening its grip on people’s lives…
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Friday, November 06, 2015
The Israelites Connections of the Brahmanic Hinduism and the Ideological Crisis of the BJP and RSS in the Indian Politics / Politics / Religion
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
Had Adolf Hitler been alive, he would have been shocked to know the Jewish or the Israelite connections of the Aryan ideology and Brahmanic Hinduism of India, now propagated and practiced by the RSS and the BJP Government in India. They include cow worshipping, the ban on cow slaughtering and killing beef eaters and those who oppose the RSS ideology besides, reintroduction of the Vedic Practices and projecting the epic heroes as the symbol of the Indian nationalism. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, November 06, 2015
Volkswagen and China: A Perfect Fit / Politics / China
By: Raul_I_Meijer
If Angela Merkel wants to get rid of one of her major headaches, we suggest she should tell Volkswagen to move its operations from Wolfsburg to China. It may seem a strange thing to do at first blush, with 750,000 German jobs on the line, but bear with us here, because this could well be the only way to preserve at least some value for VW’s stock- and bondholders.
Friday, November 06, 2015
Obamacare - The Gift That Keeps On Taking / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
Isn't it interesting the mainstream media makes barely a peep about the ongoing and worsening Obamacare debacle. Healthcare premiums, co-pays and deductibles are soaring, while doctor and plan choices contract to a minuscule level. Recent surveys reveal the hardship being inflicted upon families across the nation. Those who are willfully baffled by the lack of consumer spending need look no further than Obamacare and its impact on the budgets of hard working Americans.
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Thursday, November 05, 2015
Government - The Most Devious Liars In The Room / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
There were a few different stories coming out over the last few days that reveal the true nature of government and the apparatchiks who use disinformation, devious machinations, fraudulent accounting, and taxpayer money to cover up their criminality, lies, and the true state of the American economy. The use of government accounting tricks to obscure the truth about our dire financial straits is designed to keep the masses sedated and confused.
A few weeks ago, to great fanfare from the fawning faux journalists who never question any Washington D.C. propaganda, they announced the lowest annual deficit of Obama's reign of error.
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Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Doug Casey on the Nanny State / Politics / Social Issues
By: Casey_Research
Editor’s Note: As you may have heard, the World Health Organization (an arm of the United Nations) issued a major report this week. The report claims that eating processed meat, like bacon, causes cancer. The report also says eating any kind of red meat may cause cancer.
In today’s Weekend Edition, Casey Research founder Doug Casey explains why you should always be skeptical of government “science”…
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Wednesday, November 04, 2015
When Will America Jail their Banksters? / Politics / Banksters
By: BATR
The most dramatic contrast in the rule of law against the architects of financial theft can be seen in the way America protects their banksters and the accountability that Iceland imposed on their financial crooks. The fact that the orthodox financial press refuses to cover the incarceration of Iceland’s Bankers Face 74 Years in Prison While US Banks Profit After Your Bailout, is clear proof who really controls the political and economic institutions in the United States. As for the courts, America has long ago shredded the rule of law in this country.
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
CISA Systemic Domestic Spying, U.S. Police State is Here / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: BATR
Technology in cyber space is designed to be the instrument of a totality surveillance society. Secretive methods, back doors, observation and collection of data have been in place for decades. CISA is the latest legislation authorization agreement that provides liability exemption for law enforcement and spooks to conduct their systematic assimilation with the codes and functions of technological development for the intended purpose of efficient monitoring of electronic communication.
Monday, November 02, 2015
Human Evolution - 2 Million Years of Increasing Brain Size - Video / Politics / Evolution
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The primary evolution for the Genus HOMO of the past 2 million years has been largely in the brain, that in the fossil record has seen our cranial capacity expand from what was little different in size to that of a Chimpanzee some 2.5 million years ago to now triple the size, as natural selection selected those humans who were able to utilise a constant flow of new ideas whilst those individuals and populations who just could not make the leap in understanding were literally killed off by superior strategies, as one can imagine the leaps in cognition were a mixture of steady progress coupled with great leaps in insight such as using fire for first warmth then for protection and eventually realising that cooked meat / food is far more easily edible and digestible, that greatly boosted our calorific intake giving fuel for the brain to grow.