Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday, 24 October 2014


 Daily Headlines
By Thom Hartmann
The Lost Generation
Before lawmakers in Washington got hooked on Reaganomics and libertarian economics, our country never had a student loan debt crisis. To compound their problem, while millenials are struggling to pay off their student loan debt, they're also struggling to find employment, another consequence of libertarian economics.

Reports on how government is having a chilling effect on news gathering is reminiscent of what American reporters found in Germany after Hitler took over. That is, people were afraid to talk to the press and the press had to meet in secret. Spies were everywhere, just as Mr. Obama would have one government employee spy on another government employee.
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter James Risen has a new bestseller, "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War." With access to previously undisclosed emails, he provides a disturbing account of collusion between the American Psychological Association and the CIA. The APA's response to the book fails to rebut Risen's key claims and evidence.

how personal wealth and national power intersect
Rick Weiland, 56, has been visiting every city in S. Dakota in his mini-van since winning the Democratic nomination for the US Senate. Jim Dean, Chair of Democracy for America calls Weiland "an insurgent Democrat whose bolt-from-the-blue campaign for U.S. Senate is now the hottest race in the country and could be the tipping point that saves the Senate from GOP control." Even MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is talking about Weiland.
By Michael Roberts
New American Racism
Changing The Language On Racism And Segregation; Persistent Ugliness And A False Narrative Hides The Modern Version of Racism
On 11 November -- the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia -- he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers," Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its true independence.

By William K. Black, J.D., Ph.D.
Liar's Loans Ain't "Rocket Science"
From the fraudulent controlling officers who are the bank's decision-makers perspective, however, liar's loans are ideal.
A country doesn't get to run around for years wallowing in war glory, invading, rendering and bombing others, without the risk of having violence brought back to it. Rather than being baffling or shocking, that reaction is completely natural and predictable. The only surprising thing about any of it is that it doesn't happen more often.
Americans think the nation is heading in the wrong direction. My biggest worries are 1) that our democracy is increasingly being transformed into a plutocracy, and 2) we are failing to address the pressing emergency of global climate change. On both issues, the Republicans are playing a destructive role, while the Democrats are failing to press the battle with the needed vigor. This pattern shows the core of America's crisis.
By Stewart Howe
TSA Patriot Games
Air travel in the USA, and dealing with the Reich 3.5

Second chapter in this series of articles on thinking.
By Will Fantle
Powerful Organic Trade/Lobby Group Recruiting Family Farmers
The Organic Trade Association is now pandering to small farmers, seeking their membership in what is really an agribusiness lobby and using their names to garner respect. The Cornucopia Institute, organic watchdog group, discusses the OTA's newest ploy in the fight for an organic check-off.
By Kathy Malloy
Magic Undies
The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints -- aka the Mormons -- have their panties in a twist over the misconception of their magic underwear. Never heard of it? Well, the Mormons want to make sure you are well versed in the nature of their underclothes. Or "temple garments" as they are known.

Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Mercer were looking at America in 1939. I was looking at America in 2014. I wondered what had caused so much change. Then it came to me. We were in the southern red states where the Republican economic policies abound in freedoms.
You hear it all over the media and from politicians. Someone was "radicalized" from a good, normal American or European life to join al Qaeda or ISIS and do violent things. It's a misuse of the term radical. What they mean is to recruit someone to extremism. It gives radical thinking a bad name. Using myself as an example, here's how one responsible American was "radicalized."
It may be paranoid to allege that activists who challenge the cattle industry risk their lives, yet activist nun Sister Dorothy Stang was shot six times outside the town of Anapu, Brazil for doing exactly that. A rancher in Brazil's Amazon was sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering the killing.
The columnist kicks on third down.
The Journal Science - Scienceinsider discusses the science, statistics and disease situation and methodology behind the estimate of 2.0 to 2.5 times undercounting of Ebola cases and Ebola deaths.

Masked assailants Wednesday set fire to the city hall in Iguala in a rampage triggered by the failure of Mexican authorities to resolve the case of 43 missing student teachers. Flinging rocks and using poles as battering rams, the protesters broke into the city hall, which was closed, and shattered windows and smashed computers. Several protesters carried Molotov cocktails, and around 1:30 p.m., acrid black smoke began billowing out of several areas of the building.
Alison Lundergan Grimes' message is focused like a laser on McConnell and his record, because at the end of the day the question Kentucky faces is simply this: Whether or not the people of the state want Mitch McConnell to represent them in the Senate for another six years.
Washington for its part is manipulating Kobani to completely legitimize its crusade against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh (we should always remember how the whole thing started with a barrage of spin about the bogus, ghostly Khorasan group preparing a new 9/11).
A soldier guarding the National War Memorial was shot and killed Wednesday in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, and dozens of shots were fired minutes later in the halls of Parliament, witnesses and authorities said. Lawmakers barricaded themselves in their offices for safety. There was no immediate information on a motive. The attack came at a time of heightened concern about terrorism in Canada. On Monday, a man described as a radical Islamic convert ran down two Canadian soldiers with his car, killing one. And NBC News reported earlier this week that Canadian officials have been concerned about the potential for knife and gun attacks there, including on military personnel, because of the nation's involvement in international fight against ISIS.
According to New York Times journalist James Risen, the American people should ask themselves if what they really want is a "mercenary class that feeds off unending war and makes sure that the United States never stops finding new threats to go after."
Note the eyes. They would tell exactly what they saw, wouldn't they? She had two children, this beautiful Lebanese-American woman. She was 30 years-old, hard-working and dedicated. Perhaps it was Napoleon who spoke about his Marshalls "marching towards the sound of the guns." She didn't need the advice. She followed the danger instinctively.
By John Whitehead
Hollow Justice and Courts of Order in an Age of Government-Sanctioned Tyranny
With every passing day, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice. This is especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is more concerned with protecting power than upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
By Eric Zuesse
Pew Finds: Conservatives Get Their News from Fox; Liberals Get Theirs Everywhere
Only five news-media have any significant impact.
Muhammad was a champion of women far ahead of his time. In general, women recognized him as a prophet on their side.

Every taxpayer, business, and government agency in America is supposed to be able to pass a financial audit by the feds, every year. It's the law, so we do our duty. There's one exception: the Pentagon. It's high time the Defense Department fulfilled its commitment to account for every taxpayer dollar in its $555-billion budget.
Three security guards working for the private US contractor Blackwater have been found guilty of the manslaughter of a group of unarmed civilians at a crowded Baghdad traffic junction in one of the darkest incidents of the Iraq war. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was found guilty of one charge of first-degree murder. All face the likelihood of lengthy prison sentences after unanimous verdicts on separate weapons charges related to the incident. The Nisour Square massacre in 2007 left 17 people dead and 20 seriously injured.

 Latest Articles
The good news is that our nation's Afghan debacle is scheduled to end this year. The bad news is that it won't -- a contingent of U.S. troops will remain, we will keep paying $5 billion a year to sustain the Afghan army and police, and we're on the hook for billions more each year to fund that country's bankrupt government.

 Best News Links from the Web
Crony Capitalism is a Primary Source of Opportunity Inequity in America Just prior to July 4th of this year a follow activist, Frank Puig published an article titled Hedge Fund Madness! at http://goo.gl/K17RYI which pointed out: In 2013, the top hedge fund manager made $3.5 billion ($1,750,000 per hour, $29,167 per minute), based a forty-hour workweek and 50 weeks. In 2 minutes the manager made 15% more than the national median household income. As a follow-up to that article, Frank Puig has launched a MoveOn petition to end "End Tax Loopholes" among them those which benefit hedge fund managers and is poster tax policy of Crony Capitalism. Adding your name to the "End Tax Loopholes" Petition is the one thing YOU can do, in the moment, toward eliminating Crony Capitalism. Thank you!

There is ample evidence that Christianity (as we know it) is not what Jesus of Nazareth intended. Christianity is the largest religion in the world for two reasons. One is because the true Christian message is good and it survived in spite of competing against erroneous doctrines. And the other reason is because theocratic hypocrites who preach erroneous doctrines can be very cunning and clever, and many even believe they serve God. That has been the case since not long after Jesus died, and has especially been the case since the fourth century.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 00:58