Tuesday, July 31, 2012

GOOD NEWS WE NEVER HEAR ABOUT



Here is a story you may not have encountered, since it is hardly ever mentioned in mainstream news. Its' more of the good news that never gets reported by the corporate media machine in the US.  Not hard to see why we don't hear about it. It's a success story of people rising up against the banks and claiming back their nation from the grasp of the greedy elites.  Can't have the rabble hearing about THIS!  They might get ideas...

http://crazyemailsandbackstories.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/icelands-amazing-peaceful-revolution-still-not-in-the-news-backstory/ 


ICELAND (GP) – No news from Iceland? Why? Last we heard, people were rising up and overthrowing the bankers. Then, no news on the television or newspapers for two years. What happened? Why won’t the papers and TV tell us how the bankers successfully crushed or minimized another rebellion? Because… THEY DIDN’T! This time, the people won.

The people of Iceland have overwhelmingly risen up and forced their government puppets of the banks to resign. Primary banks have been nationalized. The debt scam imposed by Great Britain and Holland money printers was declared null and void. A public assembly has been created to rewrite Iceland’s constitution.

The best part is, all of this happened without violence or bloodshed. A whole country’s revolution succeeded against powers that created the current global crisis without a shot being fired. A very good reason exists for the apparent failure of television and newspapers to provide any publicity on this unprecedented event: what would happen if the rest of the EU and the United States took this as an example?


 





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Sunday, July 29, 2012

Mitt the Twit

MITT'S OLYMPIC MEDDLE

by Maureen Dowd

 

SO the Republican presidential contender, eager to show off more than gubernatorial experience, travels overseas to bolster his foreign policy credentials. Then, in a TV interview, he blurts out a shockingly ill-considered, if undeniably true, observation that snowballs until the poor guy collapses into an international punch line.

It was a vertiginous fall for George Romney, who, while running for president in 1967, asserted that generals and diplomats had given him “the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get” when he toured Vietnam two years earlier.

And it was painful for Mitt, who had to watch his father’s epic gaffe from afar, while he was over in France struggling to drum up a few Mormon converts.

In their book “The Real Romney,” Michael Kranish and Scott Helman quoted Mitt’s sister Jane as saying the episode deeply affected Mitt: “He’s not going to put himself out on a limb. He’s more cautious, more scripted.”

That’s when Mitt began to build his own sterile biosphere, shaping his temperament and political career to make sure he never stumbled into such a costly moment of candor.

Even though the Mormon doesn’t drink coffee, he has measured out his life in coffee spoons, limiting access to reporters, giving interviews mostly to Fox News, hiding personal data, resisting putting out concrete policy proposals, refusing to release tax returns, trimming his conscience to match the moment, avoiding spontaneity. But somehow he ended up making the same unforced error that his dad did.

It’s like the epigraph in John O’Hara’s “Appointment at Samarra.” You can run from fate, but fate will be waiting in the next town, at the next marketplace.

Even as he angled to appear Anglo-Saxon and obsequiously vowed to restore the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, Mitt condescended to the nation that invented condescension. The Brits swiftly boxed his ears for his insolence and foul calumny.

Conservatives in London oozed scorn. Mayor Boris Johnson mocked “a guy called Mitt Romney,” and Prime Minister David Cameron suggested it was easier to run an Olympics “in the middle of nowhere.” Fleet Street spanked “Nowhere Man” and “Mitt the Twit.”

Conservatives on Fox News were dumbfounded. “You have to shake your head,” Karl Rove said. Charles Krauthammer pronounced the faux pas “unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives.”

The alarming thing about Romney is that he has been running for president for years, but he still doesn’t know how to read a room. He doesn’t take anything in, he just puts it out. He doesn’t hear himself the way the rest of us hear him.

In the Mitt-sphere, populated by his shiny white family, the Mormon Church and a narrow, homogenous inner circle, Romney’s image of himself as wise, caring, smart and capable is relentlessly reinforced. That leaves him constantly surprised that other people don’t love what he is saying.

We may wince when the blithering toff, or want-wit, as Shakespeare would say, arrives at the Brits’ home and throws his Cherry Coke Zero can in the prize rose bushes. But what drives his gaffes is his desire to preen over accomplishments.

As a candidate, he’s expected to stoop to conquer, to play a man of the people. But he really wants voters to know that he earned $250 million, and not even in the same business where his dad made a name for himself.

So he keeps blurting out hoity-toity stuff to make sure we know he’s not hoi polloi — about his friends who are Nascar owners, his wife’s Cadillacs, how he likes to fire people and how he, too, is unemployed. And he builds a car elevator in the middle of an economic slough.

In his interview with Brian Williams in London, Romney couldn’t resist giving himself the laurels for saving the Salt Lake City Games by analyzing whether the British ones were off by a hair, or a hire.

Then he tried to scamper back to the obligatory common-man script and ended up looking clumsy and the one thing he most certainly is not: unuxorious.

After going all the way to London to see the Olympics, he decides he won’t watch his wife’s mare, Rafalca, compete in horse ballet? He tries to win the political horse race by going to the Games, which are literally a race in which he has a horse, and then feigns disengagement?

“This is Ann’s sport,” Romney told Williams dismissively. “I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it. I will not be watching the event.”

He came across like a wazzock, as The Daily Telegraph called him, using a British insult for a daft know-it-all.

Romney programmed himself into a robot, so he wouldn’t boil over with opinions and convictions, like his more genuine dad.

But if we’re going to have someone who’s removed, always struggling to connect and emote, why not stick with the president we already have?

Better the android you know than the android you don’t know.

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Bill Moyers interviews Chris Hedges -- don't miss this one!

Chris Hedges on Capitalism’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’ | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com

 

EXCERPT:

There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are 
trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a
direct result of capitalistic greed. Journalist *Chris Hedges* calls
these places “sacrifice zones,” and joins Bill this week on /Moyers &
Company/ to explore how areas like Camden, New Jersey; Immokalee,
Florida; and parts of West Virginia suffer while the corporations that
plundered them thrive.
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Bill Moyers Interview of Chris Hedges -- Don't miss this one!

The tragic results of unbridled GREED.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism’s-‘sacrifice-zones’/
 

EXCERPT: There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a direct result of capitalistic greed. Journalist Chris Hedges calls these places “sacrifice zones,” and joins Bill this week on Moyers & Company to explore how areas like Camden, New Jersey; Immokalee, Florida; and parts of West Virginia suffer while the corporations that plundered them thrive.

These are areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. We’re talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed,” Hedges tells Bill.

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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Chris Hedges interviewed by Bill Moyers-a must watch interview


The tragic results of unbridled GREED.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism's-'sacrifice-zones'/
 

There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a direct result of capitalistic greed. Journalist Chris Hedges calls these places "sacrifice zones," and joins Bill this week on Moyers & Company to explore how areas like Camden, New Jersey; Immokalee, Florida; and parts of West Virginia suffer while the corporations that plundered them thrive.

These are areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. We're talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed," Hedges tells Bill.



 







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Friday, July 27, 2012

Chris Hedges interviewed by Bill Moyers-a must watch interview


The results of unbridled GREED.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism's-'sacrifice-zones'/
 

There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a direct result of capitalistic greed. Journalist Chris Hedges calls these places "sacrifice zones," and joins Bill this week on Moyers & Company to explore how areas like Camden, New Jersey; Immokalee, Florida; and parts of West Virginia suffer while the corporations that plundered them thrive.

These are areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. We're talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed," Hedges tells Bill.



 




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Al Gore was right: U.S. infrastructure threatened by global warming


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/rise-in-weather-extremes-threatens-infrastructure.html?_r=2&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

Even when it's happening before their very eyes, the nay-saying right wing will continue to deny it.  The same idiots who ridiculed Al Gore and his dire predictions are those who voted for Cheney/Bush and will now vote for Romney, enabling even more obstructionism and do-nothing-ism to continue in government.  They are in denial about global warming and just about everything else.  They concentrate on swatting flies while swallowing camels.  But how to get around these duped Bubble dwellers?  They have no concern for the planet or the struggling families around them and are only concerned for the continued wealth of the 1% while willingly watching the middle class be killed off before their eyes.  They are bamboozled and conned daily by Rush Limbaugh who correctly calls them his "dittoheads." 

What can be said about such naive, foolish people who will let their planet die (and their kids and grandkids, too!) while they waste our precious time and spend their energy on hating the man in the White House because of the color of his skin?  The Tea Party types they elect would rather obstruct any and all measures put forth by Obama than to help turn things around for their country and the world. They send out absurd e-mails objecting to Obama putting his feet up on desks in the White House and send lies about his not saluting the flag at military ceremonies (always lies!) -- and label Obama as "disgusting" when it is their own behavior that is disgusting for the rest of us to observe and put up with.  They seem to be uneducable, and will not allow new information into their rigid mindsets. Most of this type are said to be old white men -- I'm hoping their children and grandchildren are not following in their footsteps and are able to see past the prejudices and bigotry of these old men who will soon be leaving the planet.  Our Mother Earth needs new, cooperative thinking if she and we are to be saved from the guns-and-war mindset of the ultra-conservative right wing obstructionists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/rise-in-weather-extremes-threatens-infrastructure.html?_r=2&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto




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Yep, let's make it easy for this guy to get more guns

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/26/florida-man-kills-door-to-door-salesman-i%E2%80%99ll-kill-anybody-that-steps-on-my-property/

Right wing hero.  I'll bet the Tea Party wants him to run for Congress.  The NRA would love him as their poster boy.
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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Chris Hedges interviewed by Bill Moyers-a must watch interview

The results of unbridled GREED.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism's-'sacrifice-zones'/

There are forgotten corners of this country where Americans are trapped in endless cycles of poverty, powerlessness, and despair as a direct result of capitalistic greed. Journalist Chris Hedges calls these places "sacrifice zones," and joins Bill this week on Moyers & Company to explore how areas like Camden, New Jersey; Immokalee, Florida; and parts of West Virginia suffer while the corporations that plundered them thrive.

These are areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. We're talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed," Hedges tells Bill.




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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Al Gore's prediction coming true

Greenland Ice Melt Reaches Unprecedented Levels, Stuns NASA Scientists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/greenland-ice-melt-nasa_n_1698129.html

Gee, wouldn't you like to live in the la-de-da Bubble World of right-wing conservatives who refuse to believe global warming is caused by humans?  And who think nothing needs to be done to reduce the human impact on our planet?  Ignorance may be bliss for a while -- but Truth always catches up eventually. In this case, it's catching up too late -- and ignorant denial still rules the right wing and their obstructionist Obama-hating representatives in Washington, thereby insuring that nothing will be done to temper this fast-approaching disaster. 

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The Next Killer/Gun Out There

We are a broken people, with a broken government that can't accomplish even the simplest, most sensible action.  Brought down by the greed and power lust of the elite few, the rest of us are captive to their rule.  We are the Fall of the Roman Empire redux.

THE NEXT ONE OUT THERE
By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON -- Will we even pretend to do anything to prevent the next mass shooting by a crazed loner? I doubt it. We'll just add Aurora to the growing list -- Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson -- and wait for the inevitable.

When that next atrocity comes, we'll tell each other we're shocked and stunned, knowing full well we should be neither. We'll probe the assailant's life in search of a motive, knowing full well we won't find one that makes any sense. We'll comfort the survivors and the victims' families and assure them their suffering will not be in vain.

Meanwhile, somewhere out there, another disturbed young man will be purchasing an assault rifle and making unspeakable plans.

I can only conclude that we, as a society, have decided this state of affairs is acceptable, that the occasional murderous rampage is the price we pay for ... for what? For freedom? For the Second Amendment? For campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association?

Forgive me if I sound cynical. I'm afraid I am. Five years ago, I arrived on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., just hours after student Seung Hui Cho's murderous rampage left 33 dead, including himself. I will never forget what it felt like -- the stunned disbelief, the white-hot anger, the unbearable sadness of so many young lives being extinguished for no reason, no higher purpose. No purpose at all.

I was there as a journalist, so I interviewed witnesses and survivors, took notes, wrote columns. But I was hardly an objective observer because I'm a father who has sent two sons off to college.

And to the movies.

At Sunday night's prayer vigil in Aurora, speakers took pains not to mention the name of the assailant who murdered 12 people at the premiere of the new Batman film, "The Dark Knight Rises." President Obama, too, deliberately failed to mention the killer's name in his remarks. It was appropriate to keep the focus on the victims rather than the monster.

But James Eagan Holmes does have a name -- and an all-too-familiar story. An intense young man becomes unmoored, obsessed, unhinged, somehow divorced from reality. Those who notice the change have no authority to do anything. He assembles a high-powered arsenal obviously meant not for sport but for killing.

Almost before the last shell casing clatters to the ground, the fruitless debate begins: Do we focus on the man or the gun?

Clearly, there are two issues involved in these mass killings. The more difficult one has to do with mental health.

We know that young adulthood is a volatile time for young men in general. We know that symptoms of a number of serious mental disorders, such as paranoid schizophrenia, typically appear between the teens and the mid-30s. We know that the mobility that characterizes modern life can foster a sense of rootlessness, perhaps a sense of alienation.

We also know that parents and other loved ones are often powerless to intervene -- if, indeed, they even become aware of a potential problem. There is no simple way to identify the handful of individuals who are quietly spinning out of control, unseen behind closed doors. We should make society more caring; we should be more connected with one another. But this does not constitute a legislative agenda.

The simple issue is access to weapons and explosives. Among the three guns that Holmes brought into the movie theater was a Smith & Wesson M&P assault rifle with an oversized 100-round magazine. This weapon jammed, according to police, leaving Holmes with a shotgun and a pistol. Had the assault rifle worked properly, the toll surely would have been much higher.

An unstable person can walk into a gun shop and buy a weapon designed for deadly combat. No meaningful questions asked. Have a nice day, Mr. Joker.

This is crazy. Minimal gun control -- such as prohibiting assault weapons -- wouldn't eliminate these massacres, but it would prevent some and mitigate others. Lives would be saved. Congress should pass an assault weapons ban this morning and the president should sign it tonight.

Right. Dream on. Instead, we'll argue endlessly about whether we should focus on the man or the gun, and the effect will be to focus on neither. The next James Holmes is out there, so is his instrument of murder, and we will do nothing to keep them apart.

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Monday, July 23, 2012

He was all prepared to shoot an intruder -- Uh oh...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/23/cop-shoots-son-dead-after-mistaking-him-for-intruder/

Gun enthusiasts/NRA members will have an excuse regarding this terrible incident...such as "accidents will happen" -- It wouldn't have happened if the man didn't have a gun.  He'll have to live with this "accident" for the rest of his life.
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Loading the Climate Dice

Yet the right wing-nuts continue their denials and keep voting in Tea Party idiots.  The inmates are running the asylum.  We are all going down together because of the insanity that rules our political scene.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/opinion/krugman-loading-the-climate-dice.html?_r=1

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Report: Global Elite Hide Up to $32 Trillion in Offshore Tax Havens

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/23/global-elite-hide-up-to-32-trillion-in-offshore-tax-havens-report/

That shoots the trickle-down theory into the trash can. Note that this report shows: --
with $32 trillion, the Euro crisis could be solved and portions of Africa could become more habitable. Diseases could be eradicated. It could literally end world hunger.“These estimates reveal a staggering failure,” the Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen told The Guardian. “Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people. This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich.”

EXCERPTS:  Nations’ problems of debt and deficit could be easily solved by applying taxes to profits held in offshore tax havens, where the global business elite have hidden up to $32 trillion to skirt their responsibilities to tax agencies all over the world, the Tax Justice Network reported this week.

The Tax Justice Network said that its estimates of wealth held in offshore havens ranged from $21 trillion to $32 trillion — the lowest of which is still massively larger than the roughly $11.5 trillion held in those same havens in 2005. The latest report refers to the practice of hiding wealth as “the dark side of globalization” — and shows that practice is still growing rapidly.

For perspective, the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. economy for 2011 was $15.9 trillion, whereas U.S. public debt (household debt plus government debt) stands at about $15.8 trillion. If $32 trillion were dolled out evenly to every single American citizen, each person would receive about $102,698.

But the profits don’t just come from U.S. shores: all over the world, business elites are sending their money offshore and away from government taxing authorities, a phenomena the study’s authors say is making social inequality much worse.

From a global perspective, the figures are even more staggering: with $32 trillion, the Euro crisis could be solved and portions of Africa could become more habitable. Diseases could be eradicated. It could literally end world hunger.

“These estimates reveal a staggering failure,” the Tax Justice Network’s John Christensen told The Guardian. “Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people. This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich.”





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Americans are like African wildebeest

An essay filled with truth by Robert Parry:

AMERICA: A NATION OF WILDEBEEST

Whenever some deranged gunman, armed with an assault rifle or some other combat weapon, slaughters young Americans – at a college or a high school or a mall or, now, a movie theater – I think of those documentaries showing Wildebeest on their migrations through crocodile-infested rivers.

In their frightened eyes, you can see that the herd knows that each crocodile will pick off an individual Wildebeest, flip it in the air, break its back and then drag it away to be devoured. But the herd still crashes through the river presumably with the understanding that most of them will survive. The Wildebeest may even be emotionally numbed to the fate of the unlucky ones.

In a way, that is what Americans have become. As we send our children off to school or off to a party or off to the movies, we know instinctively that some of them may well die at the hands of some troubled person who has obtained a powerful weapon and has decided to avenge some imagined slight by murdering strangers.

Sometimes, the dead are in large numbers (like at the Aurora, Colorado, multiplex theater), but usually it’s just one or two at a time. We just hope that it’s not our kids.

We weep over the tragedy of strangers, but our secret thought is thank goodness it wasn’t my son or daughter. We are like the Wildebeest continuing the migration hoping that at the next river it won’t be our turn.

At such moments, it’s also typical for news media pundits to wave their fingers at politicians for not having the “courage” to stop this mayhem by standing up to the ruthless National Rifle Association and its gun-obsessed fringe. But the harder truth is that the problem is not with America’s politicians; it’s with the American voters.

There have been politicians who have favored common-sense gun control, but most of them are now former politicians. Remember Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He favored strong gun control, and his Republican rival, George H.W. Bush, clobbered him over the issue.

Bush accused Dukakis of wanting to disarm all private citizens. “That is not the American way,” declared Bush at one campaign rally. “I feel just the opposite.”

Some political observers believe that Dukakis’s brave stand for gun control was a key factor in his landslide defeat. And, today, Dukakis is a punch line synonymous with “loser” while Bush is revered by Official Washington, recently honored with a flattering documentary on HBO.

Bush and other pro-gun Republican presidents then packed the U.S. Supreme Court with like-minded justices who reversed long-standing precedents and reinterpreted the Second Amendment as an individual right to bear arms, rather than a communal need to have a “well-regulated Militia.”

There is merit to both sides of that argument. When the Second Amendment was adopted by the First Congress (and was then ratified in 1791), the young United States was a frontier nation where firearms also were important for hunting and for protection from such threats as outlaws, European rivals disputing America’s boundaries, and Native Americans resisting encroachment into their lands.

But the Founders’ real intent for the Second Amendment can be better understood from their actions in the Second Congress when the Militia Acts were passed, mandating that every white man of military age must purchase a musket and other equipment. Black men were excluded from this provision.

In those early decades, the Second Amendment also wasn’t regarded as a universal right. African-American slaves and even many free blacks were denied the right to own guns in Southern and border states under the so-called “Black Codes,” laws largely affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

As the United States became more urban – and even in some frontiers towns of the Wild West – laws were passed to reduce violence by placing restrictions on guns. During the Prohibition Era, when gangsters began using machineguns, the federal government stepped in with legislation to restrict these dangerous weapons.

However, the political tide began to turn in the 1980s as a resurgent Right saw a potent issue championing broader “gun rights.” The National Rifle Association evolved from being mostly a gun club training young people in the safe use of firearms into a ruthless and feared political lobby.

The 1988 election – with George H.W. Bush portraying Michael Dukakis as an un-American weakling for favoring gun control – marked a turning point in the national debate, but Dukakis was far from alone as a politician whose career ended ignominiously because he crossed the NRA.

By the early 1990s, the anti-gun-control lobby was drawing populist support from right-wing “militias” who saw the violent standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco as signs of a massive federal (even global) conspiracy to disarm Americans. Right-wing radio talkers and pols recognized guns as another wedge issue to divide the nation.

Advocates for “common-sense gun laws” soon were reeling, as the NRA punched loophole after loophole in gun restrictions. Pro-gun politics also merged with the Right’s larger strategy of undoing all kinds of federal regulations. In effect, the populist rhetoric of “gun rights” gave macho muscle to freeing Wall Street bankers to have the “freedom” to do whatever they wanted.

So, as the nation grieves the 12 dead moviegoers who were gunned down while watching the new Batman film – as Aurora takes its place with Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson and other sites of infamous slaughters – it’s almost tiresome to see the various players reprise their predictable parts.

We have politicians offering prayers; celebrities expressing shock via Twitter; gun lobbyists blaming the latest deranged individual, not his weapons; and, yes, sanctimonious pundits lamenting the lack of “courage” among politicians (though many of the same pundits join in snickering whenever the name “Dukakis” is mentioned).

We also have the latest group of grieving families with that stunned look of disbelief in their eyes. The rest of us will join the candle-burning vigils and tear up over the stories of promising lives cut short. But privately we will thank goodness that the victims of this latest massacre (or the more numerous dead from the many daily examples of less-newsworthy gun violence) weren’t our own children.

We know in our gut that it is really only a matter of luck. We are like the Wildebeest on migration, plunging into a crocodile-infested river hoping that we and our loved ones emerge on the other side.

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Sunday, July 22, 2012

What Romney voters don't understand

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/opinion/krugman-policy-and-the-personal.html?_r=1

The Rich versus the Rest
By Paul Krugman

EXCERPT:  According to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the Romney plan would reduce the annual taxes paid by the average member of the top 1 percent by $237,000 compared with the Obama plan; for the top 0.1 percent that number rises to $1.2 million. No wonder Mr. Romney’s fund-raisers in the Hamptons attracted so many eager donors that there were luxury-car traffic jams.

What about everyone else? Again according to the policy center, Mr. Romney’s tax cuts would increase the annual deficit by almost $500 billion. He claims that he would make this up by closing loopholes, in a way that wouldn’t shift the tax burden toward the middle class — but he has refused to give any specifics, and there’s no reason to believe him. Realistically, those big tax cuts for the rich would be offset, sooner or later, with higher taxes and/or lower benefits for the middle class and the poor.

This election is, in substantive terms, about the rich versus the rest, and it would be doing voters a disservice to pretend otherwise. Trust me: you will see very few news analyses saying that Mr. Romney proposes huge tax cuts for the rich, with no plausible offset other than big benefit cuts for everyone else — even though this is the simple truth.

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Quote of the Day

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."
-- Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
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Saturday, July 21, 2012

GREAT VIDEO: The God Within



Excellent guide for us earth humans toward universal understanding and real common sense.  Especially good for anyone who has asked him/herself "I wonder what this is all about. I wonder what this universe is. Who are we and what are we doing here?"  All others who have no curiosity about the subject should just pass it by as you'll be tempted to waste your time ridiculing it.





Natural News' Mike Adams, releases this
mind-expanding documentary on "conscious
cosmology," about consciousness, particle
physics, the nature of reality, the Big Bang,
quantum physics, origins of life, free will,
and more. 

     

 
Video:













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Friday, July 20, 2012

Romney cries the blues and puts his foot in his mouth...again

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/44435/mitts-kampaign-klown-kar

MITT'S CAMPAIGN CLOWN CAR
By William Rivers Pitt

 EXCERPT: 
Kerry actually released 20 years of returns when he challenged President George W. Bush in 2004.

"John Kerry ran for president," Mitt Romney said Monday morning on 'Fox & Friends.' "You know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. Somehow, this wasn't an issue."

So...let me get this straight: John Kerry's wife, who never ran for president, didn't release her tax returns, which is relevant to Mitt Romney's offshore accounts and tenure with Bain Capital because...wha?

Even if you leave all that aside, Vanity Fair's expose on Romney's vast offshore financial holdings revealed that a sizeable chunk of his fortune is in his wife's name, safely sequestered in several accounts spread across the globe. Ergo, by asking for - or even questioning - tax returns from the wife of a failed presidential candidate from eight years ago, doesn't that make the tax returns from the wife of the current GOP candidate for president fair game?

Hm.

As far as the release of more Romney tax records go? From the same article:

"The Obama people keep on wanting more and more and more," Romney said Monday, noting that he had already released more than is required by law. "More things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try to make a mountain out of, and to distort, and to be dishonest about."

I live in Massachusetts, and endured Romney's failed run for Ted Kennedy's seat in 1994. I witnessed his successful 2002 bid to be governor of Massachusetts. I enjoyed his 2008 presidential campaign, and have been keeping an eagle-eye on this current effort...and have learned one basic, immutable truth: the less time Mitt spends in front of cameras, the better his campaign fares. Period, end of file.

When run through the Universal Republican Bullshit Translation Device I built in my basement, that plaintive cry becomes, "McCain vetted me for the VP slot in 2008, saw my financials, and went with Palin instead...my tax records would be lethal to my campaign, and I am terrified of releasing them...Obama is being mean to me...O God, I hope my ill-advised blurt about Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns doesn't inspire anyone to ask about my wife Ann's returns...c'mon, America, I'm the white guy in the race, this was supposed to be easier..."

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Article in USA Today Jan, 2012, related to Franklin Coverup



https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WbQSxoBkDuGXvvsiA5FBn4q5LdYVRMiEwxLTnjW0buY/edit?pli=1

Then read the following Amazon reviews of Nick Bryant's book, The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Power Brokers, Child Abuse and Betrayal  (see: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005H3AUIC/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb#reader_B005H3AUIC  for sample reading from the book and, if you are a curious person who recognizes sincerity and truth when you hear it,  I guarantee you will want to buy the book to learn more)  As the publisher of the book states in a Foreword to the book, We the people need to become informed and take action. "What kind of action? Stand up, speak out and tell your friends. Write your representatives, call your local news--ask them to cover this story. Get involved globally on the Internet. In this computer age, we the people do have the tools to bring about true change. Do we have the courage? The will? We shall see, for time has certainly brought us a way."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
85 of 87 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it and weep, then seethe... April 22, 2010
Format:Hardcover
"Deep politics" is scholar Peter Dale Scott's term for historical machinations such as drug-running and assassinations which form covert if systemic features of the contemporary state and which are all-too naively dismissed as "conspiracy theories." A number of people who study such matters seriously have long suspected that the scandal centering on Omaha, Nebraska's Franklin Credit Union in the 1970s and `80s forms the conceptual linchpin to a truly critical understanding of the perverse, brutal and predatory nature of power in late-imperial America. Having read former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp's brave if somewhat desultory 1992 book on the subject, THE FRANKLIN COVER-UP, and watched the unaired British television documentary CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE on the internet, we have also sensed, with a certain despair, that the nature and details of this scandal were so shocking, ugly, confusing and strange as to forever defy broader public credulity and scrutiny. It is with a profound sense of relief, admiration and gratitude, then, that one reads Nick Bryant's THE FRANKLIN SCANDAL, which accomplishes the seemingly impossible: an eminently gripping, thorough and accessible account of perhaps the grimmest aspect of contemporary U. S. history.

It is amusing to see the sole negative reviewer on these pages (as of this writing) suggest that Bryant has gullibly relied only on the apparent victims of the scandal, when in fact the author has taken pains to bolster accusations voiced in his book with the testimony of law-enforcement, governmental, mental health, legal and social-service officials, as well as journalists and others whose professions and/or personal relationships brought them into the orbit of this lurid story.

Anything but the ramblings of a susceptible naïf, Bryant's book appears as a model of journalistic integrity and a triumph of the investigative craft. Relying on official court and law enforcement documents and an extensive array of interviews with those involved in a variety of aspects of the scandal, it conveys a massive amount of carefully corroborated and meticulously researched data while maintaining all the tension and drama of the very best true-crime narratives. Bryant's own natural skepticism allows him to ultimately ground what appear to be Franklin's most far-fetched elements--Satanism, mind control, and the trafficking of children among our nation's elite for the purpose of sex--in an historical context that casts these admittedly outlandish phenomena in an intelligible and empirical light. Bryant's treatment of these subjects is deft, and his light touch and firm command of the overall material combine to a disarming effect that is sure to challenge all but the most recalcitrant of doubters.

While it provides well over a hundred pages of documentation in support of its disturbing thesis that there appears to be validity to the wrenching accusations of gravely scurrilous behavior on the part of an elite element in our society, among the other merits of Bryant's book is that it dispels certain myths that have accrued about Franklin over the years, even as it deepens our understanding of little-appreciated aspects of the story, such as Alicia Owen's protracted legal nightmare. The author's treatment of the scandal is highly comprehensive, but also circumspect; aficionados will want to consult DeCamp's THE FRANKLIN COVER-UP to fill in the names of certain apparent perpetrators, a few of whose identities Bryant--unable to finally track down every source he pursued over the several years he has worked on this story--only alludes to. (As the skeptical reader will no doubt appreciate, Bryant does not overstep his bounds, though given the vast amount of information he has collected, he hardly needs to.) There are certain other details found in DeCamp's book, pertaining for example to the exact nature of the extreme abuse apparently suffered by certain victims, which Bryant does not reiterate; given the acute nature of these violations, Bryant's overall eschewal of the sensational, and his palpable concern and respect for the victims' dignity, this elision appears understandable, especially as these horrific accounts have found a life of their own on the Web. This said, the author's description of the abuse conveys its iniquity, and there is much in this book that will be new to readers of DeCamp, who as an attorney close to the case lacks Bryant's journalistic precision, clarity, sense of narrative structure, and critical distance. This is not said to detract from DeCamp's compelling book, but to point out that Bryant brings a great deal that is new to this important story.

In all, this is an enraging book, and toward its conclusion the reader reels in disgust at its main point: the subsequent abuse suffered by victims when they were subjected to the federal and state legal systems during the cover-up phase of the scandal. What this suggests about the state of our public institutions is one of the most disturbing aspects of this book. Still, aside from a cast of shameless villains there are heroes and heroines who emerge in the story, whose efforts in the face of obdurate corruption, selfishness and cruelty are--though it might seem a trite word in this context--inspiring. That these examples of human fortitude and decency finally have the chronicler in Mr. Bryant that they deserve is enough to reaffirm the faith in our species that this book otherwise shakes to its core.

Bryant's account of the Franklin scandal joins David Ray Griffin's extensive analyses of 9/11 and James Bamford's exposures of military-industrial and intelligence agency malfeasance as one of the most important historical documents of our time. In its own way, given the extremities of the depravity it confronts THE FRANKLIN SCANDAL is, if possible, even bolder than those valiant efforts. It is most highly recommended to anyone willing to face vicious realities that too many others remain too complacent, timorous or arrogant to acknowledge. It is must-reading for those seeking to comprehend the madness of our cultural moment, and who yearn for an example of a meaningful and courageous response to it.
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68 of 72 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading! August 28, 2009
By T. Gray
Format:Hardcover
Nick Bryant's book is an excellent, even-handed investigation of a decades old scandal that is still being covered up to this day, and rewards the reader with even greater levels of detail and corroboration than the previous books on the subject (Franklin Cover-up and Carefully Crafted Hoax, both written well over a decade ago). Witness after witness corroborates the story of child trafficking and prostitution used to blackmail and ensnare powerful politicians, and the blatantly obvious cover-up that was "carefully crafted" by the FBI, law enforcement and the media. Readers of ex-Senator John DeCamp's book were probably already completely convinced of the corruption and cover-up surrounding Franklin, but Bryant's book nails that point home with even greater corroboration and updated information from the past few years. I would consider this book required reading and recommend it to everyone!
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50 of 53 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos to Nick Bryant and his "Franklin Scandal." September 5, 2009
By Elliott
Format:Hardcover
The Franklin Scandal is a comprehensive account of how a few, powerful, conceited individuals can abuse children, strip them of there dignity, leave them voiceless, and then hide their evil deeds through a campaign of fear, intimidation and bribes. Nick Bryant is one of the few individuals who has had the resolve to stand up to these bullies and not be intimidated to write this gut-wrenching story. People can't believe something this sinister could happen in the "Heartland," Omaha, Nebraska. However, as a youth, I remember hearing warnings that I should "stay away" from Alan Baer's Brandeis department store. If people in Omaha knew about Alan Baer's pandering, why didn't someone do anything about it? I dare you to read this book. Read, not only Nick's stories, but, also, read the actual notes from the trials and the original documents found in the appendices.




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Nebraska Senator John DeCamp re. Franklin Coverup and Wm. Colby's death

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWW25Mbs928

There is a new documentary out on Wm. Colby's life -- made by his son. Most of Colby's family do not believe he died in a boating accident or committed suicide.  He was murdered because he was a man, like JFK, who wanted Peace in our world instead of War and was trying to do something about that.  Colby, a strict Catholic and head of the CIA, knew MUCH about what was going on behind the scenes in government -- and also was aware of the pedophilic sex ring in high government circles, which DeCamp talks about in this video.  DeCamp tells all about his being awakened to the truth of the sex ring in other online videos you will find in the sidebar while watching this 9 minute video.  The Larry King he speaks about is NOT Larry King of CNN, but an African American man who was prominent in Nebraska politics and was (very much like Sandusky) involved in pedophilia and a sex ring in which he provided children to high government officials for sexual purposes and drug trafficking.  King was arrested, tried and convicted of the charges.  But every time someone tried to bring this to the higher level, an iron curtain descended, directed from Washington, D.C.  At one point, the BBC had made an investigation and had prepared a documentary called Conspiracy of Silence, which was to be aired on the Discovery channel -- it was even listed in the TV Guide of that week. But lo and behold, when it came time for the showing, the channel showed something else as the BBC special had been canceled, now and forever.  This very important documentary has never been aired on U.S. major media.  You can see it online now -- at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdbnABgHf44&feature=related

More about this story at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcWrrBceuP4&feature=related

We, the people have to be made aware of what is happening in our country at the highest levels!  Please share this e-mail with others if you find it of interest and believability.  I'm aware some people don't like to hear anything negative of this nature. But we have had to digest the Sandusky coverup recently and here is another coverup of the same type that has gone on for far too long!  I know it is hard to digest information like this.  We always want to think of our leaders as good--and moral people. But many of us have learned differently.  Watch this documentary and see for yourself if you can retain that belief.  The more people who know about this, the more likely at some point we will be able to change things in our country.  There are more of us, the 99%, than there are of the 1% who think they are above the law and morality.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Greal movie to see in full online at youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pst-2wprw6c

Called The Brotherhood of the Bell, starring Glenn Ford and several other excellent actors.  I guarantee you won't forget this movie once you have seen it.  Compare it to Yale and the Skull and Bones Society, whose secret rituals were written about in Esquire Magazine in September 1977. (For that fascinating/revealing full article, go to: http://www.prisonplanet.com/skull_and_bones_esquire.html ). 

The Brotherhood of the Bell actually reveals truth about how things are run in our country by elite families that are connected with each other.  Don't miss it!  Click on the link above.  It will bring you to the first 9 minute segment, and successive links are provided in the right sidebar.  Another link exists online that gives access to the full movie, but the film is too blurry.  The link above gives the clearest view of it.  The writing is excellent, and the acting is superb. Besides being entertained, viewers can also be educated and informed.  Even if you don't believe it could possibly be true, you will admire the writing, acting, and direction.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Romney has only himself to blame for his problems

PROBLEM OF HIS OWN MAKING
By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney has every right to cloak his personal and professional finances in secrecy -- and voters have every right to assume he has something embarrassing to hide. If this seems unfair, Romney has only himself to blame.

Through a series of miscalculations, Romney has managed to turn what should have been a minor hiccup into what may be a defining moment, and not in a good way. Attacks by President Obama's campaign serve mainly to draw attention to the train wreck.

On the Sunday morning talk shows, even Republicans urged Romney to release more tax returns while wondering what secrets he's trying to keep. And the campaign's latest attempt to explain how and when Romney left Bain Capital -- he's supposed to have "retired retroactively" at some unspecified date -- became an instant punch line.

If Romney really does have the power to bend time and space, he might want to retroactively clean up the mess he's made.

The only reason anyone cares when Romney left Bain Capital, the private equity firm he founded and ran, is because Romney made a totally unreasonable claim: When Democrats pointed to outsourcing and job cuts at companies Bain owned or controlled, Romney denied any responsibility since these unfortunate developments took place after he left to run the Winter Olympics in 1999.

This was an absurd position to take. Romney has boasted of his prowess at creating jobs by pointing to successful companies in which Bain invested, such as Staples, the office-supply chain that went on to expand and hire tens of thousands of employees. But much of this growth took place after 1999. Romney was trying to take credit for post-departure successes but not for failures.

On such shaky ground, Romney planted his flag. He then tried to insist on another ridiculous proposition, which is that he left Bain suddenly and completely in 1999. This cannot possibly be true. Romney was Bain Capital -- chairman, chief executive and sole stockholder. There is no way he could have disentangled himself from the firm so abruptly.

Indeed, he did not. As late as 2002, Bain's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission list Romney as chairman, chief executive and sole stockholder.

If you look at Romney's signature on those documents and listen to what he's been saying on the campaign trail, you have to conclude that either he lied to the SEC or he's lying to voters now. Romney's defenders have had to fall back to the position that the SEC doesn't really expect companies to file accurate information. So, all you corporate compliance officers, take the day off!

All of this flows from a fundamental misrepresentation: Bain Capital's purpose wasn't to create jobs, it was to create wealth. If Romney had spoken honestly from the beginning about his company's goals and actions, his campaign surrogates wouldn't have to be out there trying to explain how retroactive retirement works.

Maybe a little early candor would also have made the question of Romney's personal income tax returns a non-issue. Then again, maybe not.

Romney has spent the better part of a decade running for president. Did it never occur to him that if he ever won the Republican nomination, surely there would come a time when he was under pressure to release multiple years' worth of tax returns? Did he think everyone would forget that it was his own father, George Romney, who set the modern standard for financial disclosure? Did he not recall that when he was being considered for the vice presidential nod four years ago, he furnished tax returns spanning more than two decades to the John McCain campaign?

Clearly he knew the subject would come up. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that Romney believes that while stonewalling on his taxes may cost him some support, releasing them would cost him more.

Some conservatives are becoming restive; Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, for example, said Sunday it was "crazy" for Romney not to release more than the one tax return he has grudgingly surrendered. If Romney is trying to hide something, what might it be? Could there have been more offshore accounts? Some additional undisclosed mansions? Might Romney have made some kind of profitable -- but impolitic -- bet against the U.S. economy?

Going out of your way to invite this kind of speculation, as Romney is doing, seems an awfully unpromising campaign strategy.

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