Jingoist Warmongering Democrats

Republicans don't hold a monopoly on jingoism. The Democrats excelled at it at their 2012 convention. In an article titled, "Democrats parade Osama bin Laden's corpse as their proudest achievement," Glenn Greenwald saw the Democratic National Convention for what it was: an attempt to out-warmonger the Republicans:

I thought, or at least hoped, that such vulgar crowd celebrations of leader-reverence, jingoism and militarism would not soon be replicated. But on Thursday night, the final night of the Democratic party convention, it was. It is hard to count how many times a Democratic party speaker stood up proudly to proclaim: Osama. Bin. Laden. Is. Dead! Almost every time Bin Laden's scalp was paraded around on its pike – all thanks to the warrior spirit and unflinching courage of our commander-in-chief – the crowd of progressives, liberals and party faithful erupted into a prolonged "USA. USA" chant.

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Romney Economics

This is insane. How can a guy running on the economy not read the work of an economist he is citing on the campaign trail? Romney's definition of "middle class" is also astounding, given that only 2% of households have incomes of $250,000 per year. Alternet reports on a recent Romney interview:

Democrats say Romney’s plan would cause a $2,000 tax hike on the middle class - something Romney disputes and points to a number of studies that say his plan to cut taxes will not increase the deficit, including one by Harvard professor Martin Feldstein. Feldstein says Romney’s math will work, but he would have to eliminate the home mortgage, charitable, state and local tax deductions for incomes greater than $100,000. When I pressed Romney on that point, he conceded that he actually hadn’t read the Feldstein report that he and Paul Ryan cite on the campaign trail. “I haven’t seen his precise study,” he said. “I said that there are five different studies that point out that we can get to a balanced budget without raising taxes on middle income people. Let me tell you, George, the fundamentals of my tax policy are these. Number one, reduce tax burdens on middle-income people. So no one can say my plan is going to raise taxes on middle-income people, because principle number one is keep the burden down on middle-income taxpayers,” he said. Romney defined middle income as $200,000 to $250,000 a year and less.

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Bernie Sanders discusses money in politics with Bill Moyers

On its program of September 7, 2012, Moyers & Co. presented a detailed no-nonsense conversation between Bernie Sanders and Bill Moyers on may critically important issues. Mr. Sanders early attacked dialing for dollars:

BILL MOYERS: Tell me how that money works. I mean, you've been on the inside 20-some-odd years, as I sit. How does it actually work? We hear "money in politics." SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Well, this is how it works. And this is what people do not appreciate. And it's true for Republicans and Democrats, as well. You do not know how many hours every single week, how many hours every single day people walk into the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee or the Republican Committee. And you know what they do? They dial for dollars. They dial for dollars, hour after hour after hour. BILL MOYERS: Who are they calling? SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: They're calling a list of people who have money. That's who they're calling. And what happens when you do that day after day, month after month, your worldview becomes shaped by those people. And most of the money coming into your campaign coffers comes from those people. And you begin representing their perspective. BILL MOYERS: Well, there are more--it's more than that, isn't it? Because you just released a long report on the billionaires. SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Absolutely. BILL MOYERS: --who are pouring money into the— SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Absolutely. We have right now, and this should frighten every American, as a result of this disastrous Citizens United decision, we're looking now at people like the Koch Brothers, putting in one family, $400 million. Adelson, worth $20 billion, putting in $100 million. We have over 23 billionaire families making large contributions, and I think that's a conservative number. So what you are looking at is a nation with a grotesquely unequal distribution of wealth and income, tremendous economic power on Wall Street, and now added to all of that is you have the big money interests, the billionaires and corporations now buying elections. This scares me very much. And I fear very much that if we don't turn this around, Bill, we're heading toward an oligarchic form of society. [More . . . ]

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What the Federal Reserve is doing behind our backs

Thanks to an audit conducted last year (reported by Senator Bernie Sanders), it has now been confirmed that the Fed secretly handed out $16 Trillion. Before It's News puts that number in perspective:

$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious – the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs. To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is “only” $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is “only” $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.

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Media reluctance to expose and criticize Barack Obama’s many constitutional violations

Obama Administration’s is waging a war on the Constitution, but you'll barely hear anything about it in the mass media. At Truthout, John Cusack of Truthout recently interviewed law professor Jonathan Turley. It's an extended interview that raises many serious points. They explore at depth the moral quandary many voters SHOULD feel, but won't, when enter the voting booth. In a related matter, they suggest that many Obama supporters are followers of a personality cult. And repeatedly, the mass media is going Obama license to do more of the same, despite the lies, despite the trashing of the U.S. Constitution. Here are two excerpts from the long interview:

CUSACK: I hate to speak too much to motivation, but why do you think MSNBC and other so-called centrist or left outlets won't bring up any of these things? These issues were broadcast and reported on nightly when John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez and Bush were in office. TURLEY: Well, there is no question that some at MSNBC have backed away from these issues, although occasionally you'll see people talk about – CUSACK: I think that's being kind, don't you? More like "abandoned." TURLEY: Yeah. The civil liberties perspective is rarely given more than a passing reference while national security concerns are explored in depth. Fox is viewed as protective of Bush while MSNBC is viewed as protective of Obama. But both presidents are guilty of the same violations. There are relatively few journalists willing to pursue these questions aggressively and objectively, particularly on television. And so the result is that the public is hearing a script written by the government that downplays these principles. They don't hear the word "torture." They hear "enhanced interrogation." They don't hear much about the treaties. They don't hear about the international condemnation of the United States. Most Americans are unaware of how far we have moved away from Nuremberg and core principles of international law. [More . . . ]

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