Pages: << 1 ... 1251 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 1258 1259 1260 1261 ... 1279 >>
The Republicans Have Nothing to Party About
by Walter and Rosemary Brasch
Every House Republican and 11 Democrats voted against President Barack Obama's $819 billion stimulus package. It still passed by a vote of 244 to 188.
There are enough votes in the Senate to pass the bill, but the obstructionist Republican minority, still nursing the wounds inflicted by the public in the November election, can block it by endless political maneuvering and a filibuster.
The Republicans wail that the President's stimulus package is laden with spending proposals that don't directly attack the recession. However, instead of debating the merits of the package, instead of proposing amendments to add to or subtract from the $819 billion, the Republicans ganged up, voted as a bloc, and placed party loyalty above the needs of the nation.
Competing Ideologies: Davos v. Belem
Stephen Lendman
Founded in 1971, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) meets annually in Davos, Switzerland to bring together top business and political leaders as well as mostly neoliberal minded intellectuals, economists, journalists, and others.
WEF calls itself "an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas." It aims for "world-class governance (read dominance)." Its motto is "entrepreneurship in the global public interest (read for the top 1%)." This year's theme - "Shaping the Post-Crisis World" - a tall order addressing what they caused that's heading the world for a calamitous depression.
A MATTER OF DEFIANCE, Let The World Rain Shoes On Israel
William C. Carlotti
A friend of mine recently sent me the following two reviews of the newly released film Defiance and recommended that I be sure to see it.
(SEE: Consider The Source, by Kim Voynar, Movie City News, Oscar Outsider Dec. 24, 2008 and Heroes in the Family, by Eric Herschthal, The Jewish Week, Dec. 12, 2008 ) www.thejewishweek.com | www.moviecitynews.com
The film Defiance is one of a group of films that have appeared this year with a similar theme involving the decade long nazi led German government's assault on humanity. The spate of films include The Boy With The Striped Pajamas, Valkyrie, and The Reader.
From Gaza to Tehran: Israel Asserting Middle East Supremacy
James Petras
"The Israeli Defense Force is the most moral army in the World!" –Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany bombed, invaded and annexed countries and territories as a prelude to their quest for World Empire. Israel's drive for regional dominance has followed in their footsteps, imitating their style: Indiscriminate aerial bombings of civilian and military facilities, a savage blitzkrieg led by armored vehicles, disdain and repudiation of all criticism from international agencies was accompanied by an open, military buildup for a new and bigger war against Iran. Like the Nazi leadership, who played on the 'Bolshevik threat', the Israeli high command has set in motion a vast world-wide propaganda campaign led by its world Zionist network, raising the specter of 'Islamic terror' to justify its preparations for a military assault on seventy-four million Iranians. Just as Nazi Germany interpreted the passivity, sympathy and impotence of the West when confronted by 'facts on the ground' as license for aggression, the Israeli military machine receives a powerful impetus for new wars by the Western governments' inaction and flaccid response to its invasion of Lebanon, the bombing of Syria and now its Nazi style blitz and conquest of Gaza. For the Israeli high command, the impotence and complicity of the Western states, marks the way to bigger and bloodier wars to establish Israel's supremacy and dominance of the Middle East, from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.
Ceasefires, Israeli-Style
Stephen Lendman
Waging war while talking peace is customary Israeli practice. On January 19, Haaretz headlined: "Israel declares unilateral cease-fire. The security cabinet last night authorized a unilateral cease-fire (to take effect) at 2AM (Sunday morning), ending three weeks of intense fighting."
Dear Mr President, An Open Letter
Link: http://ddjango.blogspot.com/2009/01/dear-mr-president-open-letter.html
ddjango
Dear President Obama:
I am a citizen of the United States. I am one of your constituents. Since you have billed yourself as a public servant, one who is honored and even grateful for the chance to be "Leader of the Free World", you owe me. Yes, that's exactly what I said - "You." "Owe." "Me." That might seem a bit, well, cheeky, I guess, but I stand by my demand.
First, I want you to know right up front that I did not vote for you. I did not vote for your opponent(s) either. I proudly withheld my vote because there was no presidential candidate on the ballot in my state whom I believed represented my best interests as a citizen of this country or the best interests of the nation as a whole. My vote is a valuable commodity. I wasn't about to waste it by casting it against someone or for a "lesser of two evils". Evil is evil. I won't vote for it.
I didn't vote for you, sir, because, with all due respect, I didn't buy the hype. I experienced your campaign as a finely-tuned, extremely well-run exercise in creative vagueness and media manipulation. You were too disingenuous for me: "hope" doesn't feed the bulldog; "change" happens, like it or not - try to stop it. In fact, did you not declare finally that the "change" was you? I find that insulting. In a democracy, sir, the change is the people. You represent us, you do not rule us. Governing and ruling are not the same thing.
Edgar Allan Poe: A Tragic, but Talented, American Original
William Hughes
“[Poe] would dress in ‘black’...It was his color...He liked to wander through cemeteries.” - Peter Ackroyd.
Edgar Allan Poe died at the age of 40, in Baltimore, Maryland, under mysterious circumstances. The exact truth of what really happened to him has evaded historians. I think even the experts on the popular TV program, “Forensic Files,” would be baffled by the case. Poe is a both a legendary and tragic figure. He is one of America’s greatest men of letters. Was his death related to “a vote-rigging” scheme? Poe was found on Election Day, Oct. 3, 1849, “stupefied,” and dressed in shabby clothes, at or near “Ryan’s Tavern.” It was used by political thugs. Their gambit was to target an individual, get him drunk, and then run him from one polling place to another to vote for their candidates. We do know that an incoherent Poe was taken to a nearby hospital. According to the treating physician, Dr. John J. Moran, his last words, on Oct. 7, 1849, were: “Lord help my poor soul!” (1)
War on Gaza: Israeli Action, Not Reaction
Nicola Nasser
Stubbornly insisting on getting the carriage before the horse as the approach to a “durable and sustainable” ceasefire in Gaza Strip, U.S. and European diplomacy in particular is building on an Israeli misleading premise that the 22 – day military operation, dubbed “Cast Lead,” against the Palestinian Gaza Strip was a reaction and not a premeditated long planned scheme that found in the change of guards in Washington D.C. an excellent timing. It was “not simply a reaction,” but “a calculation," Daniel Klaidman wrote in Newsweek on January 10.
Tax Solution to Wretched Greed
Joel S. Hirschhorn
By now most Americans have experienced extreme disgust upon hearing about the nearly $20 billion in bonuses given to people in New York City’s financial sector at the end of 2008. After sending the nation into the current economic black hole there is no way of comprehending the audacity of financial company executives in giving themselves and their colleagues shameful rewards for abysmal and disgraceful performance. Other than screaming and moaning about all this dishonorable behavior what should the Obama administration and Congress do?
Here is the solution that the overwhelming majority of Americans should demand: A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax. Call it justice. Call it getting even for too many years of uncontrolled greed that has given the nation nothing but economic injustice and inequality, and given capitalism a very bad name. Call it a sensible way to raise federal revenues to help offset the cancerous national debt.
March THIS for Stupidity: Taxing a House of Cards
Walter Brasch
My wife is a smoker. Except for one year when she quit, she's been a smoker since she was about 18. But she's cut back, from as many as three packs a day to just three cigarettes. And, she now smokes outside the house.
At various times, she was asked to show an ID. When in her 20s she saw it as an annoyance. By her 30s and 40s, it was a compliment. Now it's just downright annoying.
The law restricts persons under 18 years of age from buying or smoking cigarettes. My wife understands why she must be "carded."
Yesterday she was carded when she wanted to buy two lighters. The sweet lady at the grocery checkout counter said that the chain store is carding everyone who buys lighters. Something about a juvenile who used a lighter and accidentally set his house on fire.
<< 1 ... 1251 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 1258 1259 1260 1261 ... 1279 >>
