Front and Center,
She called on Congress to condemn what she called the Trump Administration’s protection of al-Qaeda in Idlib and slammed Washington's policies in Syria as "a betrayal of the American people" — especially the victims and families that perished on 9/11.
Considering that Congresswoman Gabbard herself is an Iraq war veteran and current Army reserve officer who served in the aftermath of 9/11, it's all the more power and rare that a sitting Congress member would make such forceful comments exposing the hypocrisy and contradictions of US policy.
The owners of American power are who Congresswoman Gabbard is up against. She is brave. She knows. Hawaii supports her.
Cat sends this article about America's smug ruling elite.
Cat also sends this article about rapidly escalating censorship of ideas and history, in this case, Amazon's new policy.
Since it is "not government", there is no explanation and no recourse. Anything distasteful to the owners just disappears.
It's never been about Alex Jones. It's invisible book burning. This is what happens in wartime, but starts just before the conflagration...
Trump administration comes down hard on criticizing Israel. "Antisemitic", hate speech.
Calling Isreal "racist" is hate speech. Palestinians are haters. Boycotting Israei products is illegal.
Get back in line! Bad College Students!
The latest threat to our fragile minds is here. Please protect us!
Thanks to modern technology, the U.S. government ruling class now has another scary fear-mongering problem they are dubbing “deep fakes.” Technology has reached a point where people can now create near-perfect faked videos of people saying things they never actually said, reported Tech Crunch. “Deep fakes” use existing footage mixed with artificial intelligence and machine learning to be made to look like, or at least come close to, the real thing...“Deep fakes could become a potent tool for hostile powers seeking to spread misinformation,” wrote Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, in a letter to Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence. “As deep fake technology becomes more advanced and more accessible, it could pose a threat to United States public discourse and national security, with broad and concerning implications for offensive active measures campaigns targeting the United States,” said the letter, co-signed by Representatives Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) and Carlos Curbelo (R-FL). If you guessed that the government is more likely than not going to use this as an excuse to continue to kill free speech, you’d most likely be correct.
This is what WW-3 has to be about, the restructuring of global economy out of the capitalist mold, which depends on cheap fuel and resources and cheap labor, and broad markets. All of that is exhausting... There will be survivors and losers.
Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN secretary general. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources and the shift to less efficient energy sources.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/capitalism-un-scientists-preparing-end-fossil-fuels-warning-demise-a8523856.html
One of the first things Roosevelt did, even before he took office, was to embarrass powerful financiers. He did this by encouraging the Senate Banking Committee to continue its probe, under investigator Ferdinand Pecora, of the most powerful institutions on Wall Street, which were National City (now Citibank) and JP Morgan. Pecora exposed these institutions as nests of corruption. The Senate Banking Committee made public Morgan’s "preferred list," which was the group of powerful and famous people who essentially got bribes from Morgan. It included the most important men in the country, like former Republican President Calvin Coolidge, a Supreme Court Justice, important CEOs and military leaders, and important Democrats, too.
To put it in perspective, the War on Terror has cost America about $5.6 trillion since 9/11, or about $32 million an hour.
The bailouts probably dwarf that effort. Most studies suggest it was a world-war-level mobilization of cash, a generation of savings used to plug a single hole.
The Special Inspector General of the TARP put the gross government outlay at $4.6 trillion, with over $16 trillion in guarantees. Bloomberg concluded the rescue expenditure was $12.8 trillion. Fortune (which saluted the investment as hugely profitable for America in the end) put the number at $14 trillion. The Levy Institute at Bard College did probably the most extensive study, and put the number at $29 trillion.
The EU prepares to do a Greek-colonization on Hungary, which land locked country has the gall to refuse refugees from wars perpetrated by former colonialists and NATO members.
Two leading scientists have issued a call for massive swathes of the planet’s land and sea to be protected from human interference in order to avert mass extinction.
Current levels of protection “do not even come close to required levels”, they said, urging world leaders to come to a new arrangement by which at least 30 per cent of the planet’s surface is formally protected by 2030.
Chief scientist of the National Geographic Society Jonathan Baillie and Chinese Academy of Sciences biologist Ya-Ping Zhang made their views clear in an editorial published in the journal Science.
Japanese gastroenterologist Akira Horiuchi won the medical education prize for an experiment in which he reviewed the comfort and efficiency of self-colonoscopy in the sitting position by performing a colonoscopy on himself while seated. He reported only “mild discomfort.”
Charles Hugh Smith explains the tightly interlinked global financial system, where each part of the system depends upon the stability of the whole system, which is fine until it suddenly collapses. All that happened with "nonlinear dynamics" in 2008, just got more and more that way.
The massive wealth redistribution that happened in 2008 can't happen again. there just aren't enough resources. What's Plan-B?
The response to the financial crisis was about reorganizing property rights. If you were close to power, you enjoyed unlimited rights and no responsibilities, and if you were far from power, you got screwed. This shaped the world into what it is today...
Matt Taibbi, with Rolling Stone gets the perspective clear on the 2008-2009 bank bailout. this will "unwind" this next time. Who will be in power?
The public to this day has no understanding of the scale of the intervention.
The bailouts probably dwarf that effort. Most studies suggest it was a world-war-level mobilization of cash, a generation of savings used to plug a single hole.
The Special Inspector General of the TARP put the gross government outlay at $4.6 trillion, with over $16 trillion in guarantees. Bloomberg concluded the rescue expenditure was $12.8 trillion. Fortune (which saluted the investment as hugely profitable for America in the end) put the number at $14 trillion. The Levy Institute at Bard College did probably the most extensive study, and put the number at $29 trillion.
The EU prepares to do a Greek-colonization on Hungary, which land locked country has the gall to refuse refugees from wars perpetrated by former colonialists and NATO members.
Poland says it will vote in Hungary's favor, to prevent Hungary's vote being revoked. (Hungarians got particularly screwed by financial capitalism as they exited the soviet sphere and were deeply and ruthlessly exploited, which is not yet over.)
Hungary's Fighting-Vic Orban goes into the ring with George Soros funded European Parliament, with only Poland in his corner, but plenty of resolve.
"A few months ago ... there was an election in Hungary. The Hungarian people decided what should happen, and during the election campaign we discussed all of the issues — including CEU, the NGOs, and all of the important political issues. And the people decided on these issues. And now the European Parliament is taking upon itself the task of overruling the decision made by the people of Hungary and forcing the Hungarian government to implement what they are attempting to impose on us in place of the people's decision."
Palm oil destroys massive swathes of forest every year, until... The forest can never come back.
"Sustainable biofuel" is a scam. Use less fuel.
The biosphere is going away forever, as far as life forms like us are concerned. Somebody, somewhere has to stop it, right?
Current levels of protection “do not even come close to required levels”, they said, urging world leaders to come to a new arrangement by which at least 30 per cent of the planet’s surface is formally protected by 2030.
Chief scientist of the National Geographic Society Jonathan Baillie and Chinese Academy of Sciences biologist Ya-Ping Zhang made their views clear in an editorial published in the journal Science.
Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded again:
Other winners included a team that demonstrated that most people who use complicated products do not read the instruction manual (Literature Prize); researchers who surveyed Spanish drivers to determine the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while in a car (Peace Prize); a group that investigated whether using Voodoo dolls to retaliate against abusive bossesmakes employees feel better (Economics Prize); and a team that tested the effectiveness of a “spit shine” by cleaning 18th century sculptures with saliva and several alcohol-based cleaners(Chemistry Prize). Spit won.
Passing Kidney Stone
