OBAMA’S NEW TAX PLAN WOULD SLASH CORPORATE RATES BY UP TO 10 PERCENT. (New York Times) Seeking to beat potential Republican vials to the fore of the “tax debate,” President Obama on Wednesday announced sweeping proposals for overhauling the nation’s corporate tax code. Currently sitting at a listed rate of 35 percent, the White House [...]
At a pace much faster than anyone could have projected, the landscape of campaign finance in American politics has undergone a dramatic transformation to a point where deregulated outside groups hold a distinct advantage over individual campaign war chests. The monumental presidential contest of 2012 appears to be the dawn of the super-PAC age in [...]
PAYNES PRAIRIE IS NOT VERY COMPANIONABLE TO BUFFALO ROAMING THEREON. (Gainesville Sun) Local “cowboys” begin a long talked-about process of thinning the herd of about 70 bison who roam the state preserve of Paynes Prairie just south of Gainesville, Florida (coincidentally the locale of a fog-induced disastrous traffic pile-up 3 weeks ago—an event which no [...]
A QUIVERFULL OF KIDS: DON’T LAUGH, THE “CULT” OF ANTI-CONTRACEPTION MAY BECOME POLITICALLY MAINSTREAM. (In These Times) “Quiverfull” is a movement promoting an agenda of couples having multiple children under an ideological flag of patriarchal domination. It is depicted on a Learning Channel show called “19 Kids and Counting,” a couple who are literally expecting [...]
IN SOUTH AFRICA, THE FREEDOM CHARTER IS A DEAD LETTER (BUT NOT TO WORRY, NELSON MANDELA’S PICTURE IS ON THE NEW SOUTH AFRICAN CURRENCY.) (Black Agenda Report) The current President of South Africa, of the revolutionary ANC party, makes it clear that nationalization of the mining industry, as pledged in the 1950s-era Freedom Charter of [...]
PORTUGAL: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AUSTERITY DOESN’T WORK… (New York Times) Greece is in flames, with hundreds of thousands of citizens taking to the streets and clashing with authorities over more mandated austerity measures that bankers and financiers claim are a vital step on the path to economic recovery for Europe. Greece is in bad shape, [...]
TWO VARIETIES OF U.S. REACTION TO “ARAB SPRING”: SUPPORT OPPOSITION FORCES AGAINST “BRUTAL OPPRESSION” IN SYRIA; HELP THE BAHRAINI REGIME “DIFFUSE TENSION” BY SUPPRESSING ITS HOMEGROWN OPPOSITION. (Asia Times) Pepe Escobar explores this apparent cognitive dissonance between U.S. and Western powers’ divergent reactions to events in Bahrain and Syria. A year after a genuine expression [...]
“PLEASE TORTURE ME IN THE OLD WAY.“ (UK Independent) This is the plaintive appeal of the last Briton imprisoned at Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, as he is about to observe the 10th anniversary of his being held as a terrorism suspect without any formal charges being filed. His complaint is that his continued separation from his [...]
Already poised to blow out records for the most expensive campaign in American history, the financial stakes attached to the 2012 presidential election were raised to unprecedented levels by a monumental flip-flop from Barack Obama. Having long promised to raise as much as one billion dollars in direct donations to the campaign to win a [...]
NEO-CON KEYBOARD WARRIORS ARE IN FULL CRY: AS IN “WE WANT A WAR, AND WE WANT IT NOW!” Pepe Escobar of Asia Times uses some of his globe-circling travel time to read neo-con “intellectual” Niall Ferguson, and finds Ferguson’s arguments for invasion of Iran all too typical of a raging effort by neo-cons to promote [...]
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