Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Picking Apart One of the Biggest Lies in American Politics: "Free Trade" By Thom Hartmann President Obama continues to follow his predecessors -- Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush -- in the religious belief that "free trade" will save us all. It's nonsense. "Free trade" is a guaranteed ticket to the poorhouse for any nation, and the evidence is overwhelming. Read More >>

The Plague of American Authoritarianism By Henry Giroux In the United States an emerging totalitarianism has appeared in a form different from what we have seen in the past. Instead of a charismatic leader, the government is now governed through the anonymous and largely remote hands of corporate power and finance capital. The more money influences politics, the more corrupt the political culture becomes. Read More >>

Obama Administration Supports Privacy-Invasive "Cybersecurity" Bill By Electronic Frontier Foundation Right before Congress left for its annual summer vacation the Obama Administration endorsed the Senate Intelligence Committee's Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). EFF opposes the bill because its vague definitions, broad legal immunity, and new spying powers allow for a tremendous amount of unnecessary damage to users' privacy. Read More >>

Trump, Sadly, Will Bomb, But Even If He Doesn't.... By Rob Kall I'm rooting for Trump. I'm hoping he'll continue leading in the Republican primary polls and eventually win the primaries. It's possible. Read More >>

Symone Sanders: "We Must Commit Ourselves to a Multiracial Political Revolution" By Scott Galindez We must pursue policies that transform this country into a nation that affirms the value of its people of color. That starts with addressing the four central types of violence waged against black and brown Americans: physical, political, legal and economic. Read More >>

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran with lies, lies, lies By Pepe Escobar AP, an American news agency whose dispatches are reproduced in full by countless newspapers and magazines all across the world, once again is being used as a crude propaganda vehicle -- just like US corporate media as a whole was used as a crude propaganda vehicle in the run-up towards the invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq. Read More >>

"Project Omega" Reveals Secrets Of Dark Pools Stock Trading By Corp Watch Most traders buy and sell stocks on public stock exchanges -- but "dark pools" are essentially private stock markets located inside big banks that allow clients to place secret orders. Such systems have been in existence for 30 years and have become increasingly popular among institutional buyers who want to hide their identity or ensure that a large order does not cause the price to fluctuate. Read More >>

Globalization, Free Trade, and David Ricardo's Theory By Jerry Lobdill David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage is shown to be hopelessly impractical and not at all descriptive of our experience with globalization. Read More >>

Trump: Don't Make Corporations Pay Their Taxes By Dave Johnson we know why Republicans are always, always saying we need to cut taxes, cut government, cut wages, cut environmental protections, cut worker-safety protections, cut health inspections, cut programs for the elderly, cut services for the mentally disabled, cut every damn thing that makes lives better for We the People. "Because they don't want to pay the tax." Read More >>

The Riddle of Obama's Foreign Policy By Robert Parry For nearly seven years of his presidency, Barack Obama has zigzagged from military interventionist to pragmatic negotiator, leaving little sense of what he truly believes. Yet, there may be some consistent threads to his inconsistencies, writes Robert Parry. Read More >>

For What It's Worth By Keith Pope A place you know well enough, seen from a different viewpoint. Read More >>

The Big Seed: It Takes 26 Fundamental Constants To Give Us Our Universe, But They Still Don't Give Everything When we think about our Universe at a fundamental level, we think about all the particles in it and all the forces and interactions that occur between them. If you can describe those forces, interactions and particle properties, you have everything you need to reproduce our Universe.Our Universe is an intricate, amazing place, and yet our greatest hopes of a unified theory — a theory of everything — ought to decrease the number of fun ... Read More >>

The Secret of Winning Against a Bigger Attacker! By Kim Goh Why not to 'fight' to defend yourself. And how to use the Yin Yang Principle to shift the battlefield to win against any attacker. Read More >>

Review: Dying Unneeded: The Cultural Context of the Russian Mortality Crisis By Natylie Baldwin The book is deeply sad at times, but the reader does not walk away simply feeling sorry for Russians, something this proud people likely wouldn't want. In addition to the sadness, one also comes away with a glimpse of what gives the Russian people their character and resilience as well as their mystique. Read More >>

Animal Stories With A Wide Range of Emotions By Suzana Megles Who of us as a child didn't wish that they could have either a pony or horse? This 8 year old wanted a horse and she tried her level best to convince the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center that she deserved one. Read More >>

A World on Fire? July Was Hottest Month Ever Recorded The world is burning up. The previously available evidence for that statement is staggering and it was announced that July was the hottest month the planet has ever experienced...[That OEN continues to post "global warming deniers" along with folks who write a regular column and claim, "My knowing is that our planets were inhabited many times by many cosmic civilizations. There were many wars and destruction of life over billions o ... Read More >>

Donald Trump -- Man Of War We should all give thanks to Donald Trump’s reality-TV-show run for the Republican presidential nomination because of what it reveals about his fan base. Assuming Trump’s supporters have actually listened to what the narcissistic real estate developer has been saying, what they want is multiple ground wars, an America that steals from other countries, an America that kills people because of their religion, and a massive police state c ... Read More >>

The Atlantic: "Maybe This Time Really Is Different" Historical context is a great asset. But is history always an accurate guide? Does past performance always give us the best predictor of future outcomes?This election season provides a fascinating frame to see if the polarization in politics, from Washington to the states to the public, is no different than what we have seen in the past; if the angry populism evident especially on the right but also to some degree on the left, is no different fro ... Read More >>

The Atlantic: "No, Liberals Don't Control the Democratic Party" In a classroom in Harlem, the liberal new mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, appeared with union leaders in support of his plan to raise taxes on incomes higher than $500,000 to fund public pre-kindergarten. "We're asking this of the wealthy," de Blasio said, "because there are too many working parents in this city today" who need help. At the same time, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was presenting his budget in Albany under a sig ... Read More >>

Moscow and Tehran align before US vote “One should not limit Russia-Iranian relations to Iran’s nuclear portfolio. The two nations are neighbors and have a track record of bilateral relations, complex as they are. Now they share common interests in certain regions: the Middle East, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Caspian Sea. This goes beyond the nuclear dossier. It all ties the two countries together. It is no coincidence that Tehran is considering joining the Shanghai ... Read More >>

Donald Trump: His rise demonstrates the alarming success of Internet trolls According to this author, Donald Trump's base consists mostly of internet trolls who are into birtherism, along with truthers, anti-taxers and anti-government.  Their political beliefs and style of language are typical of the extreme comments you generally see at the end of many online news articles, facebook etc.  You know, the comments that generally end up deleted from most credible news sites.  In other words, the disgruntled, ... Read More >>

Americans Foil Gunman on Train, French Officials Say A heavily armed gunman opened fire aboard a packed high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris late Friday afternoon, wounding several passengers before he was tackled and subdued by two Americans, according to French officials, who said the pair had averted a mass killing. At least one of the Americans was a member of the armed services, and some news reports said they were both Marines.  Read More >>

Kim Jong Un Orders Troops To Prepare For Battle North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday declared his frontline troops in a "quasi-state of war" and ordered them to prepare for battle a day after the most serious confrontation between the rivals in years. South Korea's military on Thursday fired dozens of artillery rounds across the border in response to what Seoul said were North Korean artillery strikes meant to back up a threat to attack loudspeakers broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda. ... Read More >>

Pregnancy is painful, difficult, and dangerous. No one should be forced into it. While this is not the first time I've heard this argument, this article puts it together quite well - and shows just how appalling the "pro-life" movement is. (And how it is anti-females'-lives.) Similarly, the analogy of organ donation has been made before; this Vox writer says it's not analogy, it's a description of forced pregnancy. Every politician and journalist should read this.  Read More >>

Donald Trump Just Stopped Being Funny Win or lose, Trump's campaign threatens to unleash the Great American Stupid. Trump is probably too dumb to realize it, or maybe he isn't, but he doesn't need to win anything to become the most dangerous person in America. He can do plenty of damage just by encouraging people to be as uninhibited in their stupidity as he is. Trump is striking a chord with people who are feeling the squeeze in a less secure world and want to blame someone – ... Read More >>

Donald Trump's Appalling Reaction to a Hate Crime Committed in His Name "Two Boston men were charged yesterday in the beating of a homeless Mexican man. The victim was allegedly sleeping outside a subway station when brothers Scott and Steve Leader rummaged through his things, then started beating him around the face and neck and hitting him with a metal pole. One witness heard the brothers laughing as they walked away." Dara Lind, Vox. Trump said, "I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. The ... Read More >>

Nicole Foss's Thoughts on Peak Oil, Financial Crisis and Resilience. By Burl Hall This short article leads the reader towards an interview with Nicole Fox on the relationship of oil, economy and environment. Read More >>

Israeli-Hamas Truce: An Opportunity In Disguise By Alon Ben-Meir The prospective Israeli-Hamas truce presents a momentous opportunity, albeit in disguise, for all parties concerned to turn a new page in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and change its geopolitical and security dynamics, which succeeding Israeli and Palestinian governments could build on. Read More >>

 Latest Articles

The Puritanical Glee Over the Ashley Madison Hack That the cheating scoundrels of Ashley Madison got what they deserved was a widespread sentiment yesterday. Despite how common both infidelity and online pornography are, tweets expressing moralistic glee were legion. Websites were created to enable easy searches of the hacked data by email address. Read More >>

Ta-Nehisi Coates' BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME (Review Essay) In light of the riots in Baltimore recently, progressives and liberals may want to read Ta-Nehisi Coates' short new book BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME. Coates in an African American who grew up in West Baltimore. He candidly recounts how fear pervaded his life growing up there. More importantly, he recognizes how fear underlies the dominant American culture against which he sees himself struggling. Read More >>

An extended 'state of denial' By by James Duglous Crickton for Abdul Saboor Sarir The author, a veteran Afghanistan journalist, makes a strong case for the West to rally in 'defense of the future of Afghanistan' and says that the death of Mullah Omar at the hands of Pakistani ISI provides the opportunity. The courage shown by Afghans towards their democratic experiment should not be allowed "to sink under a conspiracy from Pakistan that continues to maintain the fiction of a peacemaker", he asserts. Read More >>

Xinjiang to Tianjin By by James Duglous Crickton for Maria Rutowicz The author sees a clear Uyghur hand behind the "unexplained" explosion in Tianjin and the less-intensive Bangkok explosion and terms the denial of such linkage by the Chinese officials as the fudging of one who would rather prefer smoke and mirrors. By covering up the facts of the explosion, Beijing is providing enough opportunities for further action by Uyghur terrorists. Read More >>

Not an Ordinary Convention A short introduction to Islam and Ahmadiyyat and its conventions. Read More >>

Heretic: Don't Demonize Ayaan Hirsi Ali Because She Tells It Like It Is Although there might be other reasons for the violence perpetrated by some Islamists, Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that the root cause of this violence is the Islamic texts and hadiths. Without the proper reformation of Islam, we cannot effectively deal with global terrorism and its related ills. Despite all the opposition and resistant to changes, she argues that reformation is imminent. Read More >>

Children of a Lesser God, Part 2 Twenty percent of our nation's wealth and fifteen percent of its income has been redistributed upwards, mostly to the top one percent of population in terms of wealth, over the last thirty-five years. This has left millions of Americans in despair, without hope for the future for themselves, or their children. As John Berger said, "the modern poor are not pitied"but written off as trash." God help us all. Read More >>

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Paul Krugman: Debt Is Good Issuing debt is a way to pay for useful things, and we should do more of that when the price is right. The United States suffers from obvious deficiencies in roads, rails, water systems and more; meanwhile, the federal government can borrow at historically low interest rates. So this is a very good time to be borrowing and investing in the future, and a very bad time for what has actually happened: an unprecedented decline in public construction spending adjusted for population growth and inflation.  Read More >>