Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, July 01, 2013
The End of American Independence Day / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
The 4th of July should be a day of historic retrospection. For a proper understanding into the significance of the birth of the nation, start with an examination of the perennial BREAKING ALL THE RULES essay, The Meaning of Independence Day. Then contrast our circumstances and heritage in the article - Independence Day for Whom? Both of these columns are essential. If one forgets from where, how and why our country was created, it is impossible to appreciate the uniqueness of the American Revolution and the meaning of the "shot heard ‘round the world".
Monday, July 01, 2013
Is NSA Blackmail Inc. for the U.S. Military Industrial Complex? / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Toby_Connor
Jon Rappoport writes: Every director of the NSA is a general or an admiral.
The NSA is organized under the US Dept. of Defense.
Imagine that you are a powerful player who straddles two worlds – the Dept. of Defense and the private sector where corporate defense-contractors live and flourish.
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Monday, July 01, 2013
France Being Wrecked by Socialism, Nationalism and Germanophobia / Politics / France
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: Nice, France – I’m just down to sea level from the 2,600 meter high mountain forts on France’s wild, vertiginous Alpine border with Italy.
The Cote d’Azur, or Riviera, is buzzing with summer activity: packed beaches, traffic jams, crowded restaurants, outrageously priced hotels and an armada of yachts jostling for scarce marina space.
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Monday, July 01, 2013
Are Intelligence Agency Analysts Profiting From Spying by Front Running Markets? / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Washingtons_Blog
We’ve previously documented that the government has been giving our private information to big companies so they can make money. And see this.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the NSA spies on Americans’ credit card transactions. Many other agencies are doing the same. In fact, virtually all U.S. intelligence agencies – including the CIA and NSA – are going to spy on Americans’ finances. The IRS will also be spying on Americans’ shopping records, travel, social interactions, health records and files from other government investigators.
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Monday, July 01, 2013
Ron Paul - If You Like The Surveillance State, You'll Love E-Verify / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
From massive NSA spying, to IRS targeting of the administration's political opponents, to collection and sharing of our health care information as part of Obamacare, it seems every day we learn of another assault on our privacy. Sadly, this week the Senate took another significant, if little-noticed, step toward creating an authoritarian surveillance state. Buried in the immigration bill is a national identification system called mandatory E-Verify.
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Global Cooling And The Great Mandrake / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE GREAT DROWNING
For the Dutch, the Grote Mandrake is nothing to do with Linux software, but means “The Great Drowning” and is named for the epic and massive flooding that occurred, more and more frequently in the Low Countries of Europe's North Sea region as Europe's Little Ice Age intensified.
Normal or predictable spring and autumn flooding was increasingly replaced by large-area and intense flooding, sometimes outside spring and autumn from about 1300, in recurring crises which lasted into the 18th century. In the Low Countries and across Europe, but also elsewhere, the cooling trend starting in the late 13th century became more intense. It brought long cold winters, heavy storms and floods, loss of coastal farmlands, and huge summer sandstorms in coastal areas further damaging agriculture. Climate historians estimate that major flooding on an unpredictable but increasingly frequent basis started as early as 1250. Extreme events like the Grote Mandrake flood of 1362 which killed at least 100 000 people became darkly repetitive.
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Gambling Banksters - How Many Warnings Do You Need? / Politics / Banksters
By: Rudy_Avizius
If you knew someone with a gambling problem, you probably would not give them your money to hold. If you knew that they had placed bets that were 30 to 70 times more than the amount of money they had, you would certainly consider them totally reckless. If you knew that the money they were holding and betting with was with borrowed money, other peoples’ money not their own, you would probably conclude that they are hopelessly addicted to money. Remember these thoughts as you continue to read this article.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Washington Is Driving The World Towards The Final War / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
“V For Vendetta,” a film that portrays evil in a futuristic England as a proxy for the evil that exists today in America, ends with the defeat of evil. But this is a movie in which the hero has super powers. If you have not seen this film, you should watch it. It might wake you up and give you courage. The excerpts below show that, at least among some filmmakers, the desire for liberty still exists.
Whether the desire for liberty exists in America remains to be seen. If Americans can overcome their gullibility, their lifelong brainwashing, their propensity to believe every lie that “their” government tells them, and if Americans can escape the Matrix in which they live, they can reestablish the morality, justice, peace, freedom, and liberty that “their” government has taken from them. It is not impossible for Americans to again stand with uplifted heads. They only have to recognize that “their” government is the enemy of truth, justice, human rights and life itself.
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
What Level of Taxation Is Too Much? / Politics / Taxes
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno, Editor, International Man
You are technically a slave when 100% of the fruits of your labor is taxed or otherwise confiscated by force. So, at what percentage are you not a slave?
When you consider the totality of the countless direct and indirect taxes on the local, state, and federal levels in the US, as well as the pernicious effects of inflation – the hidden tax – many of us are at least already halfway to 100%.
Friday, June 28, 2013
You Can’t Hide From These Spying Eyes / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Walter_Brasch
The media have been playing “cops and robbers,” trying to track down the location of Edward Snowden, who had fled to Hong Kong and said the U.S. was spying on its citizens.
The citizens are scared and paranoid; visions of Big Brother are peering into their lives.
But, the government’s knowledge of the lives of individuals is little more than the equivalent to a children’s coloring book compared to the library that private companies have on everyone.
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Bankers Still Playing Russian Roulette With Someone Else's Head / Politics / Banksters
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Last week, Britain's Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards issued a report that lists a number of recommendations for an overhaul of the country's banking sector. The idea is that Chancellor George Osborne includes them in his Banking Reform Bill, a preliminary draft of which was publicly criticized by the Commission in March.
Whether the government will actually follow the recommendations, however, remains to be seen; PM David Cameron and his cabinet have sung their praises of the City and its importance for Britain's economy on countless occasions. Which looks a little strange at times, especially those times when the state is forced to bail out, save, break up and/or nationalize yet another bank. Lately RBS has been added to the roll, and by now every "High Street" bank must have had some sort of government "treatment". A few CEOs were fired, with Downing Street 10 obviously hoping that would calm the waters. So far, amazingly, it seems to work: it's all bout keeping the customer satisfied. And clueless.
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Friday, June 28, 2013
What's Really reducing Carbon Emissions in America? Hint: It's Not Obama / Politics / Climate Change
By: Money_Morning
Garrett Baldwin writes: President Obama this week declared war on coal when he announced that he'll sidestep Congress and address the "manufactured" climate change crisis through regulatory fiat. He wants to establish himself as the eco-warrior to appease his left-wing environmental base.
His global warming crusade will cost the U.S. thousands of jobs and impose higher electricity bills across the land. All in the name of pandering to junk climate science.
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Where Might the NSA Whistleblower, Edward Snowden Be Relatively Safe? / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Don_Miller
By Nick Giambruno, Editor, International Man
The recent events surrounding Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, gives us the chance to engage in an interesting thought experiment.
Where would you go if you were Edward Snowden and were being hunted by the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet?
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Obama's Crazy Climate Change Plan / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
NO TIME FOR FLAT EARTHERS
Saying he had no time for Flat Earth Society meetings, but in fact running one himself, US President Barack Obama laid out his so-called climate action plan to 2017, which is subtitled “Taking Action For Our Kids” on the White House website.
Plenty of commentators, including the Wall Street Journal said Obama's pitch was above all “surreal”, in fact the WSJ said that unreality was the “particular hallmark” of Obama's climate plan. Noting that 12 million Americans still can't find work, real wages have fallen for five years, three-quarters of Americans now live from paycheck to paycheck, 48 million Americans depend on food stamps and the economy continues to struggle after four years of so-called recovery, critics including the Wall Street Journal slammed President Obama for getting his priorities wrong. However, for reasons that are perhaps “surreal”, that is political, Obama has soldiered along with vintage and extremist global warming fear, using it to justify a radical increase in energy taxes and energy regulatory mandates that will ensure fewer jobs – analysts suggest as many as 160 000 - will reduce incomes, and will slow down economic growth. Why did he do this?
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
The Federal Reserve after Ben Bernanke / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: BATR
Speculation is mounting that "Helicopter Ben" will exit the Fed at the end of his current term. When the Bernanke era ends, what expectation will the next head of the central bank face? Remember the In Greenspan We Trust experience, and the designed pump and dump, crash and burn markets that led to the need to inflate the debt bubble. Bernanke did not save the economy; he merely bailed out the international banksters at the expense of productive main street enterprises. Throwing money to the air currents, when the prevailing winds only blow to Wall Street is the true legacy of Ben Bernanke.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
What The Shadow Banking System Knows / Politics / Banksters
By: Andrew_McKillop
GLOBAL REACH
PIMCO's Paul McCulley defines the shadow banking system as follows; “I coined the term “shadow banking system” in August 2007 at the (US) Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole. Unlike conventional regulated banks, unregulated shadow banks fund themselves with uninsured short-term funding, which may or may not be backstopped by liquidity lines from real banks. Since they fly below the radar of traditional bank regulation, these levered-up intermediaries operate in the shadows”, outside the regulated conventional bank system. Paul McCulley summarized shadow banking as: "The whole alphabet soup of levered up non-bank investment conduits, vehicles and structures". These financial intermediaries operating off the radar screen of international financial regulators were therefore “unknown” to, and credited by the official banking system with a near-zero role in 2002, but were worth about $60 trillion and turnover-wise represented about 25% of the global bank-finance system at end-2011.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
US - UK Digital Totalitarianism. What is to be Done? / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
All past warnings about NSA and GCHQ are now confirmed. It is a crisis of American and British democracies. A political columnist writing about an earlier AP spy scandal warned: "Anyone who speaks to the media about any matter has to assume that their phone numbers and contact information have been or could be made available to the government by secret court order."
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Moody’s Downgrades Hong Kong Over Snowden / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Patrick_Henningsen
Yesterday the world made some sense, but then you wake up today and realise how far-reaching the international white collar mafia truly is…
International financial ratings agency Moody’s is not known for being a political enforcement arm of Washington DC… until now that is.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
... / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nadeem_Walayat
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Monday, June 24, 2013
Why People Tolerate a Total State / Politics / Social Issues
By: Jeff_Berwick
Wendy McElroy writes: “Why do so many people not realize America has become a total state?”
Anyone who points out the politically obvious and is accused of panic-mongering has considered this question. The NSA's massive spying, the TSA frisking their children, the IRS targeting people politically, the longest war in American history, the militarization of law enforcement, the indefinite detention of prisoners at Gitmo...nothing, nothing seems to budge some people from the belief that the US is the freest, grandest nation on earth. It is an article of faith as deeply held as any belief in God.
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