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Yes, Marc!! Bernie Sanders for president!!! Where do I get my tee shirt? Even if he loses in 2016 (heaven forbid!), I'll always wear it with pride. - AIW
Fox News: it will have to do until we can get the Ministry of Propaganda, the Office of Censorship and the Agency of the Moral Police.
Poor old Jimmy Stewart lost half his money...others lost a lot more.
"Imagine a Global Fraud network with corporate fronts and straw men stretching around the world. This complex and ongoing financial debacle goes back to the Savings & Loan frauds of the 1980s, and it has cost American taxpayers billions and billions of dollars.
This is a forensic study of global fraud.
In Denver, there was M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. the parent company of Silverado Savings and Loan, Silverado Elektra, and Richmond Homes, controlled by Leonard Yale Millman, Stew Webb’s former-father-in-law."
http://www.stewwebb.com/2013/08/11/junk-bond-daisy-chain-frauds-the-denv...
The author of this web site, Stew Webb, claims that he is a federal whistleblower and that there has been several attempts on his life...including a very questionable auto "accident", involving the FBI, that broke his neck.
"FBI Stalkers-Assassins after stalking Stew Webb for 90 days drove up left lane on Interstate scrapped wall bounced off hit Stew left rear of his van, flipped van and rolled 3 times on concrete barrier and broke Stew’s neck and cut his skull October 25, 2010."
This web site is interesting because it shows how they did it...selling property to each other for double the values each time they sold it..jacking up the value so that the junk bonds they sold could sucker investors in buying those junk bonds based on the faulty hyped values of those companies. A lot more than that was going on as well. BCCI...Saudis..Wacko WACL Singlaub..Bush crime family...9-11.
It irritates me that Charles Keating lived to be such a ripe old age. I wonder how many of his victims' lives were cut short as a direct or indirect consequence of being robbed of their life savings. While I agree that our government's response to the S&L scandal was more fitting than what followed the Big Heist of '08, I still think that for a crime of the magnitude committed by Keating, a four-year prison term is pretty lame. People have served life sentences without parole just for smoking a joint. Injustice never takes a holiday. - Aliceinwonderland
Kend, your son chose to marry an American. If he and his family wind up settling permanently in this banana-republic shit hole, that too is their choice. If you decide to migrate here, that is also a matter of choice. On the other hand I, and most of these bloggers, were born here, and that was not a choice. Sorry Kend, but I'm a little short on sympathy. However I'm assuming your son and his family are white. I doubt they will be subjected to the immigrant-bashing kinds of abuse that Mexicans and other darker-skinned newcomers have had to tolerate in "my country 'tis of thee" as these "huddled masses" struggle to make up for all that NAFTA took from them. No one will be bitching about the American jobs they've taken from more-deserving Americans, because they are white. And as we all know, white makes right!
You don't know doodily-do about economics, Kend. You obviously are clueless about what, or who, caused this country's economic meltdown. You apparently aren't that interested in the facts of the matter either. Yet how sanctimoniously and relentlessly you pontificate about this godawful debt your grandchildren might inherit someday, as if we liberals were to blame! And it gets so old. But go ahead, keep on "fighting" anyway (whatever that means) if it makes you happy. Then maybe someday you can self-righteously preach to your grandchildren about how you "fought" those evil liberals who were so hell-bent on stealing "their" money. - Aliceinwonderland
"The two major US foundations promoting nonviolence, both overseas and domestically, are the Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) and the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). Both receive major corporate and/or government funding. The latter comes mainly through CIA “pass-through” foundations. While the ICNC is funded mainly by the private fortune of hedge fund multimillionaire (junk bond king Michael Milken’s second in command) Peter Ackerman, the AEI has received funding from the Rand Corporation and the Department of Defense, as well as various CIA-linked foundations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the US Institute of Peace and the Ford Foundation (see The Ford Foundation and the CIA),which all have a long history of collaborating with the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA in destabilizing governments unfriendly to US interests."
http://www.dailycensored.com/the-cia-and-nonviolent-resistance-3/
Aliceinwonderland and Mark Saulys ~ With respect to Wendalore's post #20 God bless you both. You both have way more PATIENCE than I do.
On a living wage, I can't speak for a Walmart employee, however, I did once work for McDonalds many, many years ago. It is typical with this franchise to not only pay minimum wage, but to also short their workers on every pay check. The way they get away with it is with a policy that if you dispute your hours on your check you have to return it to management. Then it gets sent back to the corporate office for evaluation. If the "Big Office" decides you were right you get another check issued. The entire process took about three weeks meaning that you are completely broke for almost a month and a half; and, you have no guarantee that they will add the missing hours to the check when you get it eventually back. The result, no one complains because they so desperately need their money. Any money. Thus the pay is actually less than minimum wage.
I don't know if Walmart does this too; however, I have always thought that such practices should be very illegal.
The people in the countries that undergo the "nonviolent conflict" suffer a lot of violent conflict. And when the US manages to overthrow these governments...and if they get the puppet kind of dictators they want...the people in those countries have to further suffer the economic woes of austerity and oppression. The supposed goals of ICNC is to bring democracy to these countries non-violently. But that is total bullshit!
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/overthrow-inc-peter-ackerman%E2%8...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Center_on_Nonviolent_Conflict
https://gowans.wordpress.com/tag/iran/
So, Reagan and Bush regimes prosecuted fraudsters and of course Obama's regime has not prosecuted anyone. Hmmmm!;-{
But, let's not forget Michael Milken's right hand man, Peter Ackerman. Ackerman's nickname was "sniff" because he had his head so far up Michael Milken's ....! He was also known as "Michael Milken's right hand man". Ackerman got very wealthy from all of that and he never went to jail. In fact, he went on to get involved with overthrowing other governments, something the CIA used to do before they were brought to task for that in the 70s. They overthrow other governments through subversion.
Peter Ackerman founded American's Elect which was an operation that was trying to get people to vote on line, ostensibly, for politicians who represented the people instead of monied interests. That's the gist of what they were trying to sell us when they paid all of these petitioners $1 per signature in malls, or in front of stores, a few years ago. But, the problem was that AE was never up front about who was funding them. I learned that there were some very wealthy right wingers who were funding them. So, beware of any petitioners who sound like they are for the people...they aren't. They are after your votes and donations to further entrench their own wealthy interests.
Beware of liberal or peace sounding names like Freedom House and International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. It's not really about Freedom or Nonviolent Conflict. The nonviolent conflict really means that they don't have to send in the troops to invade countries (very costly)...they instead, send in money and support in trying to bribe and destabilize and foment unrest hopefully to get the people to rise up and overthrow regimes the US doesn't like....like in Libya..Egypt..Syria..and now Ukraine. These private groups are doing what the CIA used to do so that the CIA can act like they had no part in it. But they do! Still!
The International Center for Nonviolent Conflict was founded by Jack Duvall and Peter Ackerman.
The Supreme Court just handed down a decision that removes limits on campaign contributions--in effect, removing the last impediment to legalized bribery. When money is free speech, only people with money will be heard. Thus, SCOTUS just put our Democracy up for sale to the highest bidder. The need for Move to Amend has never been greater. No one should be above the law and bribery should never be legal. Therefore, it should also be a crime for any lawmakers or judges to knowingly act to make bribery legal The Move to Amend legislation should also include fines and penalties including jail time for anyone accepting or offering bribes; and, also for any Court Justices or Congressmen who misinterpret or construct the law in anyway that allows legal bribery. This isn't rocket science this is common sense. Such a basic law is a fundamental necessity in any form of a functional Democracy.
Very well said! However big banks aren't the only people who are getting away with crimes. Ever since Nixon walked away from Watergate and the illegal War in Vietnam without answering for high crimes, our leaders have been repeating and steadily increasing the scope of those crimes. After all, why not? Like a child needs to get his first spanking before he understands the meaning of the word, "No," we need to give our politicians spankings too. Spare the rod spoil the President. The same way banksters must be held accountable for their actions so do people who lie the country into illegal wars, rifle our treasury, break their oath of office, defile the Constitution, and deliberately hold up government function. If you let a criminal get away they will always repeat the behavior seeking to out do themselves until caught. It's time we bring discipline back to our nation. It's time we hold our elected representatives and anyone else in positions of power fully accountable for their actions.
Also, Walmart gets its merchandise from sweatshop labor in Asia and backs these nefarious campaigns to do things like eliminate environmental laws and destroy public school systems. It just goes out of its way to be nasty and evil.
What you're missing, Wendalore, is that people do, in fact, expect a living wage at Walmart. Those are the only kinds of jobs around now and they're not for high school kids anymore, manufacturing is gone and very overqualified people and heads of households are doing them. The fast food restaurant and big box retail outlet are to today's economy what the factory was to the economy of the Grea Depression. Even so, there's no excuse for Walmart's starvation wage. Nobody should work full time or nearly full time (Walmart refuses to give its people a full week and then changes their schedule around so much so they can't get another job) for the privilege of going on welfare.
Also, Walmart destroys more jobs than it creates and because other employers can't compete with its low wage model they either have to go out of business, move to another location or also adopt the low wage model. Whenever Walmart moves into a community Safeway has to leave, Certified has to leave, Schwaggman's has to leave because they are union shops and can't compete with Walmart's low wage model. Those that stay must also pay a starvation, welfare case wage.
If Walmart is allowed to do what it will and run amok then there will soon be no jobs left but Walmart type, starvation wage, welfare case jobs and nobody will be able to afford to shop anywhere but Walmart.
Kend, you mean the dictator steals from his people - a dictator whom we most often installed, i.e., hired, to do just that - and we pay the dictator. That's theft, Kend.
Germany's solar power was 20% of its energy. That's an old figure. It's higher now and ever increasing.
We'll work out the birdie thing, we don' wanna hurt no birdies but if we don't go carbonless there'll be no more birdies
I would have hoped they would have seen the damage of Citizens United and developed a small bit of conscience about it. This was their chance to redeem themselves a bit and perhaps roll Citizens United back a bit, but instead they doubled down for the Billionaire Oligarchs.Perhaps it is time to impeach a few justices.
I was crossing the English Channel on a ferry, standing at the railing looking at the beauty of the vast expanse of water. Some school kids started throwing paper into the water and I took the paper from them and said to them that they were just polluting and not a good thing to do. They looked at me as if I was some kind of crazy person and another passenger that I had just met said 'Wow, you're concerned about pollution? I never gave it a thought, but I suppose you're right.' Just then a worker came on deck and threw a box full of garbage over the railing. I just shook my head in disbelief. The year 1972.
Aliceinwonderland ~ We have a winner! Pay the lady! Actually, I've spoken with at least three who do have degrees. One was a former programmer. Another, an engineer. Very sad to see them holding a cardboard sign at the intersection and panhandling in the taco truck parking lot.
Kend:
The Waltons are why we should have death taxes. They did not earn the wealth they inherited. (As is true with the second/third generation family company my husband works for that is carelessly run and may close because of poor greedy decisions.) The Waltons filled their father's stores (that used to sell proudly American-made products) with Chinese junk.
American infrastructure is failing because the wealthy and corporations have not paid their fair share of taxes. They whine for tax breaks to locate in a town or county, using "jobs" as blackmail, so the town and county lack the revenue to make improvements. The wealthy/corporations benefit but they do not contribute. They leave taxpaying to working Americans.
The corporations/wealthy do not have their wealth but for the grace of the worker--who makes--and the consumer--who buys. The wealthy are like 100 vampires descending on the last 10 humans. On whom will they dine tomorrow? They are as ungrateful as any monarchy.
As a liberal American, who can agree with conservatives on issues of fiscal responsiblity (I live debt-free and paid all my school loans in full) and taking care of yourself, unless you need help, then you should have it, I do appreciate reading your opinions, because I think it is meaningful to listen to those who differ from me, but I think the one downfall of everyday conservatives is rich-ass-kissing. It remindes me of the King George ass-kissers in the early days of our country.
My father's family came to America in 1650. My mother's family came here in 1659. They had to fight the king and the rich-ass-kissers to make us free. Unless we are ALL, conservative and liberal, unified on this issue, things will continue as they always have:
Don't forget that most men without property would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor.
--John Dickenson
Also, I am reminded of a passage in Animal Farm by George Orwell, filled with the very ideas my conservative brother-in-law never stops repeating:
...At the beginning they met with much stupidity and apathy. Some of the animals talked of the duty of loyalty to Mr. Jones [the drunken ungrateful farmer on whose farm they lived and worked and sought to rebel against], whom they referred to as "Master," or made elementary remarks such as, "Mr. Jones feeds us...[the wealthy give us jobs]. Others asked such questions as "Why should we care what happens after we are dead?" [heard that gem more than once]....
The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses,...who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy, and a tale-bearer...he told tales and did no work.
We are in this together. When wealth is shared, we all do better. I would think that conservatives and liberals could at least agree on that score.
Here's something that might cheer everyone up. It's a Bernie Sandars for President 2016 T-Shirt you can wear proudly while supporting him:
BERNIE SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT 2016
Isn't it intriguing how this pattern repeats itself, every eighty or a hundred years? Life for most people is good for awhile and everyone gets complacent and takes it all for granted, until a piggish few swipe the money out from under everyone's noses and society gets run into the ditch, and "ordinary" working folks are reduced to abject poverty and lives of squalor... and this goes on and on until the "masses" have had enough, and they rise up and overthrow the pigs. Goes back as far as recorded history, I reckon. But people never learn, and the same thing happens again and again and again, century after century... 'round and 'round we go! Now if that isn't at least indicative of reincarnation, I don't know what is! (Sorry Palin; couldn't resist...) Because I could swear, it's always the same psychopaths pulling the same old piggish tricks on the rest of humanity. Capitalism seems tailor-made for this stupid, ugly drama to keep repeating itself infinitum ad nauseam, until we manage to wipe ourselves off the planet in one big poof. And from the perspective of the whales, tigers and birds, none too soon. - Aliceinwonderland
Actually, what was later known as AFDC was written into FDR's Social Security Act as a response to reality. Even during improved economic times, not everyone can work, due to health or circumstances, and jobs aren't available to all who need one. No one wants to talk about it, but the fact is that when the going gets tough, many American men today get going -- right out the door. This generation looked at the policies and programs that had been in place from FDR to Reagan, which took the US to its height of wealth and productivity, and chose to reverse course. The inevitable happened. The public lacks the will to actually do anything about it, since this would require bringing an end to the scapegoating of those pushed into poverty. We would need to put the rungs back on the ladder out of poverty to rebuild the middle class, and we don't wanna.
Yep, we've spent decades calling for job creation. Since Reagan, several trillion taxpayer dollars have beeb redistributed upward, largely to corporations -- always saying that this is "vital to job creation." Corporations have continued to use this money to build factories and offcies outside the US, shipping out our jobs. We've lost a huge portion of our working class jobs -- and when Clinton declared that "there is NO excuse" for long-term unemployment, the middle class applauded. Reality: Not everyone can work, due to health or circumstances, and there aren't jobs for all who need one right now. You can't get a job without a home address, phone, bus fare -- but you need a job to get those things. You can't buy a loaf of bread with promises of eventual jobs. The longer we ignore poverty, the bigger it grows.We have a surplus population. What should we do about them? This question terrifies liberals.
That's 3833 job applicants per job available! And the GOP thinks the recession is over!
In 1934, when I was a boy and my father lost his ministerial assignment in the Methodisd Episcopal church, he went to Guide Lamp, a division of GM to get a job to support his wife and three boys. He found 50 or 60 men at the dock wanting any kind of a job. The plant foreman would hire five or six each morning and fire five or six every evening, thereby showing his power over the unemployed and keeping them hungry. There was no unemployment insurance in those days. Apparently it is worse today!
Can anyone who has a split-screen copy post it to YouTube?
So CO2 can drop if we actually go to zero emissions immediately. May I say, "over the fossil fuel industry's cold, dead body." (and consequently the rest of us.) I would feel better about Dr. Mann's position if there were an emphasis on the methane problem's dynamics. That threshold may have already been passed or be in the guaranteed pipeline. (Pun noted)