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Why the Washington Post's Campaign Against Glass-Steagall?
Paul Gallagher
Jan. 20: It is astonishing that the {Washington Post} should run exactly the same, lengthy "Fact Checker" column on two consecutive Sundays -- Jan. 10 and Jan. 17 -- with no explanation, nor even a note on the fact that it was publishing the identical edition of this regular column a second time.
But consider that this column was an attempt to debunk the idea that the Glass-Steagall Act would have stopped Wall Street from causing the 2008 global financial crash. That suggests what the {Post} is up to, as does regular columnist Catherine Rampell's furious anti-Glass-Steagall rant Jan. 20, and other pieces in the same vein.
This "Fact Checker" column, by regular author Glenn Kessler, intended to disprove Sen. Bernie Sanders' widely reported New York speech, asserting that Glass-Steagall would have stopped the big commercial bank holding companies from lending vast sums to "shadow banks" -- hedge funds, investment banks, private equity funds, money market mutual funds, etc. -- for securities speculation. The activities of those London and Wall Street "non-banks" clearly triggered the 2008 crash, by their wildly leveraged securities and derivatives speculations. But who provided them the leverage?
Meaningless EU Criticism of Israel
Stephen Lendman
Decades of critical Security Council and General Assembly resolutions did nothing to deter Israeli ruthlessness. War without mercy rages on defenseless Palestinians, an entire population at risk.
Peace is pure fantasy, democracy nonexistent. Settlement expansion continues unabated on stolen Palestinian land. Longstanding ethnic cleansing facilitates it.
A unanimously adopted critical EU resolution was meaningless without teeth, saying in part:
Its member states “unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. This does not constitute a boycott of Israel, which the EU strongly opposes.”
“The EU will continue to closely monitor developments on the ground and their broader implications and will consider further action in order to protect the viability of the two-state solution, which is constantly eroded by new facts on the ground.”
MPs Debate Banning Trump from Britain
Stephen Lendman
Following Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” a UK petition began circulating to prevent him from entering Britain.
It gathered over 570,000 signatures, passing the required threshold for mandatory parliamentary debate.
The irony wasn’t lost on observers - the hypocrisy of denouncing Trump’s opposition to Muslim immigration in America while voting up or down on banning his entry to Britain - along with attacking his free expression right, no matter how offensive. A Trump Organization statement said “Westminster would create a dangerous precedent and send a terrible message to the world that the United Kingdom opposes free speech and has no interest in attracting inward investment.”
Unprecedented Global Wealth Disparity
Stephen Lendman
Ahead of wealthy and powerful financial and political elites meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam released a report, titled “An Economy for the 1%,” highlighting global inequality “reaching new extremes.”
“The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Power and privilege is being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest,” it said.
“A global network of tax havens further enables the richest individuals to hide $7.6 trillion. The fight against poverty will not be won until the inequality crisis is tackled.”
In 2015, 62 billionaires had more wealth than half the world’s population - compared to 388 in 2010. The wealth of 62 richest people increased 44% since 2010 to $1.76 trillion. In contrast, resources of humanity’s bottom half fell over $1 trillion, a 41% decline.
Half of all newly created new millennium wealth went to the top 1% - at the expense of the world’s least advantaged
America’s Arab Allies Debate Need for Genocide Against ‘Infidels’
Eric Zuesse
Two key allies of the United States are the fundamentalist-Sunni governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia — two fundamentalist Sunni countries whose ruling families are (like the U.S. Government) hostile to countries that are ruled by Shiites, particularly Iran and Syria. (In Syria, most Shiites, including the leader Bashar al-Assad, are called Alawites.)
Qatar is owned by the anti-Shiite Thani family; Saudi Arabia is owned by their friends the anti-Shiite Saud family. All of the Arabic royal families are Sunnis who support one-another, and the leading family of them all, and the world’s wealthiest by far, are the Sauds. Here are photos of the royals of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain, relaxing together in 1959. Here a book (p.48) notes that, “Through intermarriage with Al-Thani line, Al-Khalifa [Bahrain’s royals] remain perhaps the second most powerful and influential tribe in Qatar.” And, here was a news-report that CNN refused to air because it showed Saudi soldiers using American tanks against Shiites in Bahrain who were peacefully demonstrating for Shiites to have rights in Bahrain; another report there shows the fired reporter herself, courageously talking about American censorship.
No Solution But To Shut Down Wall Street Now
Lyndon LaRouche
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Mass deaths and economic devastation are now on the immediate agenda for the population of the United States, as well as Europe, as the effect of Wall Street's policy as implemented under the Obama Presidency. "There is no possibility of keeping people alive, under the present trends of conditions," Lyndon LaRouche warned in a discussion with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee today, emphasizing that the collapse of the international financial system of which he had warned in mid-December, is fully underway.
"Your economic policy of the United States, and of the British Empire in general, demands the immediate mass genocide of the people of the trans-Atlantic community," LaRouche stated. "That's a fact! If we expose that now, we still have a last moment of chance to reverse that effect by shutting down Wall Street and removing Obama from office."
Two Palestinians Left to Die
Stephen Lendman
New examples of Israeli viciousness surface daily. Palestinians are fair game for unspeakable abuses, high crimes against humanity.
Last November, Israeli forces lawlessly arrested Palestinian journalist Mohammed Elqeiq violently. He committed no crimes.
He was targeted for doing his job, reporting responsibly on horrific Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians. Rogue states want their high crimes suppressed. He’s administratively detained uncharged and untried, close to death, hunger-striking for justice for 54 days - hospitalized in critical condition.
World No Safer Following Iran Nuclear Deal
Stephen Lendman
Longstanding US imperial policy fosters endless wars, violence and chaos, an agenda threatening world peace and stability, risking WW III.
Iran’s nuclear deal changed nothing. As long as America targets all independent countries for regime change, its endless wars of aggression will continue.
Direct and proxy US conflicts rage in multiple theaters. New ones are planned. More than ever before in world history, humanity’s survival is up for grabs.
Hawkish US policy risks the unthinkable. Nuclear war if launched may kill us all. New York Times editors have it backwards, headlining “A Safer World, Thanks to the Iran Deal” - ignoring how Washington threatens humanity.
Implacable US Hostility Toward Russia
Stephen Lendman
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Hostile US policy toward Russia is longstanding. Washington tolerates no sovereign independent governments, wants Western-controlled vassal states replacing them - especially Russia and China.
State Department Coordinator for Sanctions Policy Daniel Fried lied, saying “cooperat(ion) with Russia” is possible. “(B)ad relations (aren’t) permanent.”
They’ve been implacably hostile for nearly a century. Nothing in prospect indicates positive change. Suggesting otherwise is duplicitous. Washington invents ways to maintain adversarial relations. False accusations of meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs, propping up the Assad government, bombing nonexistent “moderates” and killing civilians in Syria, along with illegally imposed US sanctions are glaring examples.
Israel’s Nuclear Submarines
Stephen Lendman
Israel is thermonuclear armed and dangerous. Its arsenal likely includes 200 or more warheads, its delivery systems able to strike far distant targets.
It operates five Dolphin-class, nuclear-capable submarines, its newest just added to its fleet - “a formidable war machine, the most advanced, complex and most expensive” military hardware Israel possesses, according to President Reuven Rivlin.
Germany is Israel’s supplier, the first three vessels commissioned in 1999 and 2000, the fourth and fifth ones agreed to in 2006.
They have a maximum speed of 20 knots, a range of 4,500 km. New boats are equipped with 650mm torpedo tubes, capable of launching thermonuclear-armed cruise missiles.
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