How Americans are efficiently trained to acquiesce to ideas once deemed so radical as to be unthinkable
Remember when, in the wake of the 9/11 attack, the Patriot Act was controversial, held up as the symbolic face of Bush/Cheney radicalism and widely lamented as a threat to core American liberties and restraints on federal surveillance and detention powers? Yet now, the Patriot Act is quietly renewed every four years by overwhelming majorities in both parties (despite substantial evidence of serious abuse), and almost nobody is bothered by it any longer.
Despite insistence from GOP leadership that the White House was behind the so-called “Fast and Furious” gunwalking program, a report from House Republicans released Tuesday names five officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as culprits in the misguided effort.
In 1979, a young Phil Donahue challenged legendary economist Milton Friedman on the principles of capitalism. And specifically he went after the concept of greed.
But Friedman eloquently articulated what capitalism was really about. And how it was behind so much good and wealth that was created in history.
But, Donahue tried to poke holes in Friedman argument.
"But it seems to reward not virtue as much as it does the ability to manipulate the system," said Donahue.
"And what does reward virtue?" asked Friedman rhetorically. "Does a communist commisary reward virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virture?"
Mitt Romney recently said in Israel that Palestinians don't have as high a GDP per capita as Israelis do because their culture is not as good as Jewish culture. That is both deeply racist and deeply stupid.
According to that logic, Jewish culture must not be as good as Arab culture because the GDP per capita of Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait crush Israel's.
Mitt Romney also talked about divine hand of providence as a possible explanation of why Israelis are richer than Palestinians. Did God, or should I say Allah, change his mind and decide that he likes Arabs in the Gulf States more than even the Jews?
The world's 20th richest man declared recently that a living wage bill passed (over his veto) by New York's city council was the next best thing to Communist central planning. Michael Bloomberg, who's also made news recently trying to ban large sodas, today took the next step in proving how serious he is about keeping wages low--I mean, keeping New York City a "business-friendly" climate.
Bloomberg is suing to prevent not just the living wage bill, but a companion "prevailing wage" bill that the City Council also passed over his veto, from going into effect. The living wage bill requires employers that get more than $1 million in taxpayer subsidies to pay their workers at least $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 an hour without them, and the prevailing wage bill would up wages to $20 an hour for certain building services workers in buildings that receive subsidies of over $1 million or where the city leases a significant amount of property.
Republic Report has covered how political money can corrupt government by influencing the actions of elected representatives. But professional hacks can also disrupt democracy by interfering with the voting process itself.
Late last year, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign began paying Nathan Sproul, a political consultant with a long history of destroying Democratic voter registration forms and manipulating ballot initiatives. Sproul, who changed his firm’s name from Sproul and Associates to Lincoln Strategies, has received over $70,000 from Romney’s campaign. Much of the campaign coverage has focused on the rhetoric of surrogates and the role of high-priced television advertisements. But if Sproul continues to play a role in the campaign, and if his previous work is any guide, his firm may have an impact on key swing states.
In 2002 the Winter Games held in Salt Lake City, Utah, home of the Mormon Church, Mitt Romney canvassed the White House for a bailout of the Olympic Games.
The Final Bill was: 2.7 Billion Dollars given to Romney by George Bush, the then, President to complete the Games which was grossly over-budget from the initial costs.
The taxpayer saved the Olympic Games from what was corruption, greed and misappropriations of funds.
Today, Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weekly reports that there's now evidence of a possible police agent provocateur, a woman spotted at first defending police and showing off what she claimed was a police badge tattoo, and then later caught shouting at police and throwing a water bottle. (Since throwing bottles was what originally led the police to sic dogs and shoot rubber bullets into a crowd of women and children, that's sort of important to note.)
The dates and venues have been announced for the 2012 Presidential debates between President Obama and Mitt Romney. The date for the Vice Presidential debate has also been announced.
Tickets for the 2012 general election debates are controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates and are extremely limited since the debates are primarily produced for television. The majority of tickets are distributed to host university students and faculty through a lottery system with the remaining tickets going to friends and families of the campaigns and the media. Please contact the individual colleges hosting the debates for specific ticketing information.
Some 1,600 years ago, the Temple of the Night Sun was a blood-red beacon visible for miles and adorned with giant masks of the Maya sun god as a shark, blood drinker, and jaguar.
Long since lost to the Guatemalan jungle, the temple is finally showing its faces to archaeologists, and revealing new clues about the rivalrous kingdoms of the Maya.
Social media site sparks wave of indignation for banning Independent journalist Guy Adams after complaint from NBC.
Twitter has brought down a hail of critical tweeting on its own head by suspending the account of a British newspaper's Los Angeles correspondent following his acerbic reporting of NBC's coverage of the Olympics.
The social media network hummed with the indignation of thousands of its users after the Twitter feed of Guy Adams of the Independent disappeared. The paper's deputy editor, Archie Bland, confirmed the suspension, calling it "heavy-handed".
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