Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday, 6 April 2013


The Administration says their budget that reduces Social Security payments with the "Let them eat Cat Food" Chained CPI is "about reducing the deficit in a balanced way that economists say is best for the economy and job creation."

Gov. Tom Corbett (R-Pa.) says he opposes an expansion of Medicaid because it is "financially unsustainable for Pennsylvania taxpayers" and would require a "large tax increase." This would be the same governor who believes that extending a $1.65 billion corporate welfare check to the Royal Dutch Shell Corp., a foreign-owned company, is acceptable but protecting Pennsylvanians' health is not.

By Eugene Elander
Don't betray America's elderly, Mr. President!
The Obama Administration's renewal of pandering to Republicans in Congress by proposing adverse changes in Social Security and Medicare is both shameful and counter-productive. The Republicans will merely see these proposals as signs of Obama weakness.
By Gail Sistrunk McTiernan
Mrs. John McTiernan's Statement Regarding her Husband's Surrender
John McTiernan, director of Die Hard, Predator, The Hunt for Red October and other films, surrendered to federal prison. His wife, Gail, breaks the silence they've maintained for years after the Government multiplied his charges for challenging the prosecutor's actions.
Because Congress is structurally designed to create gridlock, what happens at the state level doesn't necessarily translate into congressional action. So while even a state in the traditionally pro-gun Inter-mountain West can pass gun regulations, Washington may have more trouble doing the same.

By Paul Craig Roberts
The Assault On Gold
For now it seems that the Fed has succeeded in creating wariness among Americans about the virtues of gold and silver, and thus the Federal Reserve has extended the time that it can print money to keep the house of cards standing. This time could be short or it could last a couple of years.

The way to break through the 2-party duopoly is to create a single-issue party focused on saving Social Security and Medicare, argues TCBH! journalist Dave LIndorff

Washington has ordered the training of some 3,000 officers for the so-called Syrian rebels to be completed sooner than originally planned. The aim is to finish the training program by the end of this month to exploit advances made by anti-government militias along Syria's 230-mile border with Jordan.

Over $1.6 TRILLION in tax-dodging cash!!? Over 2.5 million leaked documents - 160 times larger than the wikileaks expose tell a story of hoarded cash throughout 170 countries. So just how much was hoarded by the U.S.? And by whom? Inquiring minds want to know!!

By Philip Giraldi
Failed by the Fourth Estate
Today's corporate media continue to work towards their apparent goal to provide less and less information and more and more opinion. Recent coverage of the President's visit to the Middle East invariably referred to the militarily occupied West Bank as "disputed," a usage that has also become common over at the State Department and which obscures the injustice being committed against the Palestinians.

By Mark Sashine
Russian Smile (Sidebar)
Honest opinion with a smile:)

By James Armstrong II
Slithery When Wet: Tales From The "Slippery Slope"
I had to write this because if I hadn't my head would have exploded and I wouldn't have to be worried about the government sodomizing me further.
By Kathy Malloy
Bush Redux?
Many of Obama's campaign promises to reverse the worst of the Bush Crime Family foreign policy measures have been abandoned. Not only has the president ignored his promised platform planks, he's actually reinforced and strengthened some of the most egregious portions of Bush-era abuses of power.

There was a link between the growing influence of Turkey among Arab and Islamic countries and Turkey's challenge to Israel's violent behavior in Palestine and Lebanon, and its rattling against Syria and Iran. Turkey's return to its political roots was unmistakable, yet interestingly, was not met by too strong an American response.

Environmentalists are hoping the recent Exxon pipeline spill in Arkansas will do what no other event has been able to do so far: turn Americans against the Keystone XL pipeline extension project. The 1,700-mile project, which would bring crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta to refineries in Port Arthur, Tex., enjoys broad support from the public. A Pew Research Center poll released Tuesday found 66 percent of Americans back the project, as opposed to 23 percent who oppose it.

The common woman encounters a surprising reaction to the challenge of media power in a small town newspaper.

We are more attracted to simulations than reality. Maybe it's better this way because reality is looking pretty dismal.

There are signs of significant rifts among Syrian militias trying to overthrow Assad.

Linking the respect of LGBT Rights in Africa to economic aid.

By Bob Burnett
Keystone XL: Obama the Pragmatist
On April 3 rd and 4 th , President Obama spoke at several San Francisco fundraisers. While he didn't specifically mention the Keystone XL pipeline, the tenor of his remarks indicated that he's likely to approve the controversial project. Obama seems to be most influenced by his inherent political pragmatism.
By Richard (RJ) Eskow
The Long Depression
They're taking our economy apart, one piece at a time. We have a way out: through concerted action. But there's no World War-sized event looming that could summon our will -- or our willingness to accept government spending. There's no sign of a new "Greatest Generation," either.

Are We Heading Towards Cyprus or Socialism?
What will happen the next time the largest banks in America gamble their way into chaos? Will taxpayers bail them out again or will the "stakeholders" be forced to make up the losses?
By Senator Bernie Sanders
Too Big to Jail?
Sen. Sanders writes about his bill to break up big banks.

The North Korean army warned the United States on Wednesday it has been cleared to wage nuclear war using "smaller, lighter and diversified weapons." But those who watch North Korea closely don't think the audience for Kim's saber-rattling was the wider world he appeared to be threatening, but the small band of elites without which he can't maintain total control.

By Stephen Lendman
Playing the North Korea Card
For decades, North Korea's wanted normalized relations with Washington. It's been repeatedly rebuffed. Promises made were broken. America needs enemies.
Dangerous gases have been discovered under the slabs of at least two homes adjacent to the sinkhole, and an oil slick covers the enlarging surface.

By Robert Reich
What's The "Chained CPI"?
The White House and prominent Democrats are talking about reducing future Social Security payments by using a formula for adjusting for inflation that's stingier than the current one. It's called the "Chained CPI." Why are Democrats even suggesting the inflation adjustment be reduced? Republicans aren't asking for it. Not even Paul Ryan's draconian budget includes it.



Latest Articles
Institutionalized Barbarism: Official Israeli Policy
A previous article discussed Arafat Jaradat. Shin Bet interrogators killed him. They tortured him to death. Independent autopsy results proved it.
Veteran-rights activist calls on American grandparents and other concerned citizens to join #AumfHungerStrike, a nationwide hunger strike to last until AUMF 2001, the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, is repealed.


Best News Links from the Web
Ice That Took 1,600 Years to Form in Peru's Andes Melted in Only 25, Scientists Say - By JUSTIN GILLIS NYTimes.com
"Glacial ice in the Peruvian Andes that took at least 1,600 years to form has melted in just 25 years, scientists reported Thursday, the latest indication that the recent spike in global temperatures has thrown the natural world out of balance.The evidence comes from a remarkable find at the margins of the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru, the world's largest tropical ice sheet. Rapid melting there in the modern era is uncovering plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago....Throughout the Andes, glaciers are now melting so rapidly that scientists have grown deeply concerned about water supplies for the people living there. Glacial meltwater is essential for helping Andean communities get through the dry season."
A Twitter and Flickr account associated with a North Korean news agency has been taken over by hackers claiming to be from the hacktivist collective Anonymous. Instead of pro-North Korea propaganda, the accounts are now criticizing North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un for building nuclear weapons. The hackers controlling the Twitter account also claimed to have hacked the news agency's website and other North Korean websites, which appear to be offline. The Twitter and Flickr accounts represent Uriminzokkiri (meaning "Our Nation"), a North Korean news and propaganda site. When Uriminzokkiri established a Twitter account in 2010, the IDG News Service described the news site as "the closest thing North Korea has to an official home page" and "one of the few Web sites believed to be run from the secretive nation." The Twitter page, with 14,000 followers, switched from posting in Korean...

Anyone who's looking for an in-depth and more than a little disturbing look into how the rich and powerful use offshore tax havens need look no further than a new report from the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists out today. The findings shed light on 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, almost 130,000 individuals, and pertain to nearly 170 different countries. Given the size of the trove, there's myriad ways for the data to be cut and nearly countless stories to tell, but few paint a rosy picture of international finance.

There is considerable circumstantial evidence, however, that materialism, as an overweening paradigm, is collapsing under its own weight. The collapse of the Cartesian partition in quantum mechanics has led some physicists to express similar views. In The Emperor's New Mind (1989), eminent mathematical physicist Roger Penrose writes "I am arguing for some kind of active role [in physics] for consciousness, and indeed a powerful one ..." Two Nobel laureates in physics, Eugene Wigner and Wolfgang Pauli, earlier concurred. In particular, Pauli envisioned a new science in which "physics and psyche could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality." Consciousness is not the magical by-product of a mechanical cosmos. It's an inherent attribute of the stuff of the universe. And some day, prophesied William James, "we will get round to that higher and simpler way of looking at nature."

Astronomers have spotted the most distant massive star explosion of its kind, a supernova that could help scientists better understand the nature of the universe. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists recently caught sight of Supernova UDS10Wil which exploded more than 10 billion years ago. It took more than 10 billion years for the light of this violent star explosion to reach Earth. "This new distance record holder opens a window into the early universe, offering important new insights into how these stars explode," research leader David Jones said in a statement. "We can test theories about how reliable these detonations are for understanding the evolution of the universe and its expansion." By understanding when massive stars began exploding, scientists can get a sense of how quickly the universe was seeded with the elements needed to create planets and other cosmic bodies.

NASA's first manned outpost in deep space may be a repurposed rocket part, just like the agency's first-ever astronaut abode in Earth orbit. With a little tinkering, the upper-stage hydrogen propellant tank of NASA's huge Space Launch System rocket would make a nice and relatively cheap deep-space habitat, some researchers say. They call the proposed craft "Skylab II," an homage to the 1970s Skylab space station that was a modified third stage of a Saturn V moon rocket. Over the past year or so, NASA has been drawing up plans for a possible manned outpost at EM-L2. A station there would establish a human presence in deep space, serve as a staging ground for lunar operations and help build momentum for exploring more distant destinations, such as asteroids and Mars, advocates say. The Skylab II concept could also help ferry astronauts to these far-flung locales, Griffin said.

An enormous leak of confidential financial records has revealed the identities of thousands of wealthy depositors -- including European officials and corporate executives, Asian dictators and their children, and even American doctors and dentists -- who have stashed immense amounts of money in offshore tax havens. The leak of records covers 2.5 million files that disclose information about more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts and nearly 130,000 individuals and agents, including the wealthiest people in more than 170 countries. It said the files "illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy to avoid taxes, fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations." The current banking crisis threatening Cyprus, it said, "is one example of how the offshore system can impact an entire country's financial stability."

An endangered Florida panther rescued as a kitten and raised in captivity has made a rare run back into the wild. The sandy-colored, 120-pound panther cautiously poked its head out of the crate that wildlife officials drove Wednesday from northeast Florida to Palm Beach County, then it trotted out onto a gravel road in the Rotenberger Wildlife Management Area. "It was picture perfect," Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission biologist Darrell Land told CBS Miami. "The cat must have followed the script even though we didn't give him a copy of it." It built up speed with longer and longer strides, sprinting several hundred yards before veering off into the brush and disappearing. "To see him run straight like that for such a distance and running free off into the woods makes everything worthwhile," said Dave Onorato, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission scientist...
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 01:40