People shouldn’t fear their government; government should fear its people. Publishers and journalists will not be intimidated nor silenced. Now entering day 626 of the financial blockade against WikiLeaks, Julian Assange sits in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London awaiting safe passage.
Following a massive release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables in November 2010, donations to WikiLeaks were blocked by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union on December 7th, 2010. Although private companies certainly have a right to select which transactions to process or not, the political environment produced less than a fair and objective decision. It was coordinated pressure exerted in a politicized climate by the U.S. government and it won’t be the last time that we see this type of pressure.
Sher Valenzuela, who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention next week, embodies the American Dream. The 58-year-old, who is running for lieutenant governor in Delaware, started an upholstery business with her husband in their garage more than a decade ago to pay for their son's autism treatments. The business, which makes padding for baseball umpires and vests for the Israeli military, now employs at least 40 workers and pulls in millions in revenue each year.
But there's one problem for Republicans, who hope to align Valenzuela's story with the convention's "We Built It" theme: She didn't actually build her company without the government's help.
Mitt Romney argued in an interview aired Sunday that President Obama's decision to forgo public financing for his campaign sparked a spending war.
"To be competitive we are obviously following suit, but I would far rather have a setting where we had both agreed to the federal spending limits," Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, said in an interview on Fox.
The sixteenth anniversary of TANF hit this week, and the Republican presidential candidate spent his time lying about the president’s position on it. President Obama, Mitt Romney insists, stripped the work requirements out of the temporary assistance program that replaced welfare for poor families under Bill Clinton in 1996.
Although every fact-check has shown he’s wrong, Romney and the Romney-phile propaganda groups keep pounding away at their message with ads like this one:
Unidentified male: “Under Obama’s plan you wouldn’t have to work and you wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.”
Britain has "given up its threat" to enter Ecuador's London embassy to arrest Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Ecuador's president has said.
Rafael Correa told reporters "we consider this unfortunate incident over", following assurances by the UK.
A diplomatic row broke out after Ecuador granted asylum to Mr Assange, who faces extradition to Sweden to face questions over alleged sexual offences. He denies any wrongdoing.
The UK says it never made any threats.
The Foreign Office (FCO) said it sent the Ecuadorean embassy an official letter on Friday, aimed at "calming things down" and allowing talks to resume.
There's a lot of sturm und drang these days about who wrecked the economy. And there is a lot of yelling about how to fix it. But the economy is complicated, so it's easy to get fooled by someone who is yelling persuasively, especially if they play for your favorite political team.
And the truth is that the "government" is never going to fix our economy. The government can't fix our economy. The only people who can fix our economy are us.
MEDIA ROOTS — Ever since the Internet took off there has been a positive push back against the corporate controlled mainstream media establishment. Many educated people now rightfully believe that they are being lied to and manipulated by these large corporate organizations that use sensationalism, fear mongering and titillation to emotionally effect the viewer into reacting on a base reptile level rather than with their higher critical brain.
In response to the criticisms about RT being 'state sponsored propaganda,' Abby Martin did a segment called 'Media Wars' for RT America where she breaks down the ownership of the corporate and state media establishment while encouraging viewers to critically think in the face of a barrage of differing media/infotainment/news bombardments.
Today, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the first-ever Kids’ “State Dinner” at the White House, welcoming 54 budding chefs to a formal luncheon in the East Room. The guests, all between the ages of 8 and 12, represent all U.S. states, three territories and the District of Columbia.
Each of the guests, along with their parents, submitted a healthy recipe as part of the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, which invited families to create an original lunchtime recipe that is healthy, affordable and delicious, and follows the nutritional guidelines of MyPlate.
One can only wonder why average working class Americans would vote for a party that is so obvious in their bias towards the wealthy. It would make sense that someone in the top 1% of the income bracket would vote for the Republican party since they have the wealthiest American's best interest at heart. You could even make the case that highly religious Christians would vote for Republicans even though, at times, they vote against their own best economic interests. So the question remains, while scratching your head, why do working class Americans vote for Republican candidates?
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