Politicians // Current TV

VoteSane

The new non-partisan site that shows donations contributors and votes for the members... more

figgdimension
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10 months ago
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15 comments

We Are Going To Washington!!!

OPEN LETTER: THE U.S. OCTOBER 2011 MOVEMENT STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH OUR GLOBAL... more

demsbeans527
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10 months ago
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79 comments

Rick Santorum has a frothy, dirty problem.

Rick Santorum made an enemy of Dan Savage. That was eight years ago, and Santorum... more

giaimo13
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11 months ago
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1 comment

LulzSec final release; Battlefield Heroes, Others Hacked

On Saturday, Lulz Security announced what would be their final release, indicating... more

worrg
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11 months ago
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5 WikiLeaks Revelations Exposing the Growing Corporatism Dominating America Diplomacy

By Rania Khalek
One of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy.
June 21, 2011 |

One of the most significant scourges paralyzing our democracy is the merger of corporate power with elected and appointed government officials at the highest levels of office. Influence has a steep price-tag in American politics where politicians are bought and paid for with ever increasing campaign contributions from big business, essentially drowning out any and all voices advocating on behalf of the public interest.

Millions of dollars in campaign funding flooding Washington's halls of power combined with tens of thousands of high-paid corporate lobbyists and a never-ending revolving door that allows corporate executives to shuffle between the public and private sectors has blurred the line between government agencies and private corporations.

This corporate dominance over government affairs helps to explain why we are plagued by a health-care system that lines the pockets of industry executives to the detriment of the sick; a war industry that causes insurmountable death and destruction to enrich weapons-makers and defense contractors; and a financial sector that violates the working class and poor to dole out billions of dollars in bonuses to Wall Street CEO's.

The implications of this rapidly growing corporatism reach far beyond our borders and into the realm of American diplomacy, as in one case where efforts by US diplomats forced the minimum wage for beleaguered Haitian workers to remain below sweatshop levels.

In this context of corporate government corruption, one of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the exorbitant amount of influence that multinational corporations have over Washington's diplomacy. Many of the WikiLeaks US embassy cables reveal the naked intervention by our ambassadorial staff in the business of foreign countries on behalf of US corporations. From mining companies in Peru to pharmaceutical companies in Ecuador, one WikiLeaks embassy cable after the next illuminates a pattern of US diplomats shilling for corporate interests abroad in the most underhanded and sleazy ways imaginable.

While the merger of corporate and government power isn't exactly breaking news, it is one of the most critical yet under-reported issues of our time. And WikiLeaks has given us an inside look at the inner-workings of this corporate-government collusion, often operating at the highest levels of power. It is crystal clear that it's standard operating procedure for US government officials to moonlight as corporate stooges. Thanks to WikiLeaks, here are five instances that display the lengths to which Washington is willing to go to protect and promote US corporations around the world.

1. US officials work as salespeople for Boeing. The merger of state and corporate power is striking in a slew of cables detailing US State Department officials acting as marketing agents on behalf of one lucky corporation. Earlier this year the New York Times revealed details about how US diplomats have actively promoted the sale of commercial jets built by the US company Boeing.

Hundreds of cables from WikiLeaks show that Boeing had a sales force of US diplomats that went up to the highest levels of government, even going as far as sabotaging sales for Boeing's European rival Airbus. Enticing deals for the jetliners were offered to heads of state and airline executives in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey and other countries. The WikiLeaks documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least payment to suspicious intermediaries, still take place.

In a deal that was valued at about $3.4 billion, the US Embassy in Istanbul pushed for the sale of Boeing jetliners to Turkish Airlines (THY), according to a cable from January 2010. In return, the president of Turkey asked the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA space flight.By Rania Khalek One of WikiLeaks' greatest achievements has been to expose the... more

figgdimension
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11 months ago
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38 comments

What is an American? Have we, the American people, and our nation's politicians, forgotten what an American is?

According to a study by the late Stanford Universtity social psychologist Alex Inkeles... more

pawms1
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12 months ago
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WHACKO-TV ANTHONY'S WEINER

The Internet has always been a place that brings out the best and worst of human... more

dwightdouglas
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12 months ago
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From the community: Falling home prices, corporate donations and the KKK

We're taking a daily look at some of the most popular stories from the... more

sgwhites
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12 months ago
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1 comment

Voters get to choose the UK's sexiest MP on new website

The joy of making fun of people in power has just been taken to a whole new level... more

sbacker
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12 months ago
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Cutting Edge - "Judas of D.C."

The video "Judas of D.C." by rock/alternative band Cutting Edge is a musical... more

MusicDishTV
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1 year ago
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The Future...What do you know about it?

This is a challange...for some people to work on their character developement...and... more

ColeRayne
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1 year ago
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10 Politicians Defined by Indiscretion

These Politicians join an extensive list of public officials who are defined by their... more

sunnyspeaks
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1 year ago
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Cutting Edge - If The Walls Could Talk

The band Cutting Edge knows how to make a political statement with both impact and... more

MusicDishTV
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1 year ago
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Trojan Lies

Ilargi: Please note, apparently [politicians] don't lie all the time. After all, only "When it becomes serious, you have to lie". Up to you to guess how often they feel any given situation is serious, or not serious.

I labeled these untruths Trojan Lies because once they become established and accepted in an -alleged- democratic society, that society is lost and bound to die. Prosperity can hide that fact temporarily, but prosperity never lasts forever. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this is not a financial crisis, it's a political one.

Look, I know you're thinking: we know politicians lie, what else is new? But how many of them have you seen come out like Juncker did and try to admit, explain and rationalize their lying? Ever seen Obama say: of course I lie, I do it all the time, but only in the best interest of my voters?! He still does it, though, and on a daily basis. Every politician of any standing does. And not just about finance: they lie about everything that could possibly hurt their careers.

Perhaps politicians in a country at war can claim a right to lie, in those cases where their population would be at risk of their lives if they didn't. What's happening here, though, is not the same at all. It's the exact opposite. Politicians like Juncker, and Geithner, and Obama, and Merkel, and the whole lot of them, keep the people they supposedly represent from properly preparing for the inevitable fallout of failing financial systems. It's the systems they try to protect, not the people, because they owe their high positions to the systems, not the people. Even if they lie about that too.

What's more, they use the same people's money, trillion after trillion euros and dollars of it, to play a seemingly endless game of double or nothing in order to temporarily prop up those systems and hide the truth from the people ever longer. Not only are people consistently being lied to, they pay through their nose, and through their grand-children's noses, to enjoy that privilege.

The lying politicians, meanwhile, tell themselves, and each other, that they have not just the right, but indeed the duty, to lie to their constituents. Who, as far as they're concerned, can't handle the truth. And might just vote them out of office if they became aware of the mess their countries are in. Can’t have that. Moreover, people like Juncker feel so highly elevated above real people's issues, they have no qualms about admitting that they routinely lie.

Every single EU bailout and default to date has been denied, until it couldn't be any longer. And every subsequent one will too, no matter how inevitable. It's their modus operandi, it's the only way they know how to do things. But that takes nothing away from the fact that Greece and Ireland and Portugal and Spain, and then Belgium and Hungary and name your favorites, will all have to default on their debt. And that these defaults will bankrupt European -and subsequently US- banks left, right and center.

Spain will be the pivotal one. It has a 20%+ unemployment rate and - every single year for an entire decade(!), from 1997 to 2006 - built more homes than France, Germany and Britain combined. Way beyond salvation.

Talking about Germany, it looks to be doing just fine so far. That is, if you would believe that Greece is their main issue. If you do, I’ll leave you to ponder this [below] graph, from Germany's own Der Spiegel. I think you can spot the truth, even if not a single one of your leaders is willing to tell you.

Read the entire story at:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/05/may-7-2011-trojan-lies.html

..Ilargi: Please note, apparently [politicians] don't lie all the time. After all,... more

Schnookums
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1 year ago
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21 comments

From pop star to Haiti's president

It was just before Christmas when Michel Martelly mulled over events in his troubled land and concluded that everything had been done to ensure loss for him at the polls.
An election rife with fraud had ousted him from the race. Martelly's dreams of leading Haiti were all but dead. But four months of recounts and reviews and then a runoff changed everything, and the unexpected candidate is poised now to move into the presidential office.
Unexpected because Martelly has never been a politician.
He's better known as "Sweet Mickey," a popular kompa singer who enthralled his fans with bad-boy antics on stage. He cursed and swayed with a bottle of Barbancourt rum in his hands and on occasion, mooned his audience.
It's an image that Martelly said he cultivated solely for the stage. Still, it led many to question whether he was fit to run a nation, especially one as beleaguered as Haiti.
Already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is reeling from devastation caused by last year's massive earthquake followed by a cholera epidemic later in the year.
A perceived lack of progress prompted Haitians to vote against Jude Celestin, the government-backed candidate. Martelly, they said, was a fresh face in politics, untainted by the corruption that has marred many a presidency in Haiti.
"To Haitians, particularly the legions of young and jobless, Martelly is an outsider who can bring change to Haiti," longtime Haiti observer Jocelyn McCalla said on Twitter.
Martelly's victory falls in line with the signal the Haitian people have been sending for a while, said Garry Pierre-Pierre, editor and publisher of the New York-based newspaper The Haitian Times. "They don't want the establishment. They don't want the status quo," he said.
On the streets of Port-au-Prince, thousands turned out to chant one of his most popular nicknames: "Tet Kale," which means bald head in Creole. Haitians, especially the youth, were starving for a fresh face. And they got it Monday when the election council announced preliminary results.
Martelly won by a landslide with 67.6% of the vote, soundly defeating his challenger, former first lady Mirlande Manigat, who received 31.5%.
Pierre-Pierre called Martelly's campaign impressive. He came out of nowhere and stunned established politicians with his strong showing in November.
"This was a man who could move millions with a microphone," Pierre-Pierre said.It was just before Christmas when Michel Martelly mulled over events in his troubled... more

iGoogle
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1 year ago
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Harper Escapes Ridicule By The Skin Of His Teeth

Election visit of Stephen Harper to Winnipeg ends in odd scene.

mollymew
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1 year ago
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0 comments

GOP Will Propose Eliminating Medicare, Replacing it With Voucher-Like "Subsidies"

No exaggeration here: On Tuesday, the GOP will officially propose eliminating the... more

bundlebear
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1 year ago
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175 comments

Politicians, prostitutes, priests....(Update) - Lexington courts | Examiner.com

A few days after my most recent article; Politicians, prostitutes, priest and... more

Monkey_Films
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1 year ago
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5 comments

‘Wonderful World’ – A Tribute to F**ked Up GOP Priorities (VIDEO)

With the Republican’s move to slash every social, education and health program... more

bundlebear
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1 year ago
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4 comments

Politicians, prostitutes, priests and pedophiles: The Lexington connection - Lexington courts | Examiner.com

Have you seen me? That is the question posed by the missing children ads on milk... more

Monkey_Films
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1 year ago
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54 comments

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