US Politics // Current TV

Gore, and the c u r r e n t. . . . scene

Is Keith Olbermann the Last Hope for Gore's Current TV? - The Daily Beast from-... more

remanns
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22 hours ago
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If You Are Anti War Please Share This!

If You Are Anti War Please Share This! If you are Anti War, if you believe that the... more

critic
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4 days ago
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62 comments

petition @current to give @nicolesandler from Radio or Not a show on Current TV

I will let her ustream bio speak for it’s self. Nicole Sandler hosted The... more

V1ct0rCR0cc0
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9 days ago
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If you missed a Cenk Uygur program or need a transcript, please visit the Barefoot Accountant's blog for some full videos of certain segments of the show.

If you missed a Cenk Uygur program or need a transcript, please visit the Barefoot... more

progressivecpa
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26 days ago
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Billionaire Belarusian president offered US pension?

Among other things, during the meeting that lasted for about four hours, Aleksandr... more

MotherForTruth
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28 days ago
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13 comments

New Report: Obama as bad as Bush?

Barack Obama has been just as zealous as George Bush in stripping away environmental,... more

pdy
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2 months ago
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65 comments

Border Alert: Nuke war risk rising, Russia warns

The danger of local armed conflicts along Russia's borders exploding into full-scale nuclear war has grown following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s chief of staff said on Thursday.
General Nikolai Makarov told the Russian Public Chamber there is a dangerous level of mistrust with former Soviet states that border the country.
"The possibility of local armed conflicts virtually along the entire perimeter of the border has grown dramatically," Makarov said. “I cannot rule out that, in certain circumstances, local and regional armed conflicts could grow into a large-scale war, possibly even with nuclear weapons.”
Makarov mentioned NATO’s steady encroachment toward Russia’s borders as one of the key reasons for the heightened level of mistrust in the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"Almost all countries formerly belonging to the Warsaw Pact have become NATO members, and the Baltic States that were earlier a part of the USSR have also joined the alliance,” Russia’s top military official said.
Moscow has often criticized the western military bloc for going back on its word not to expand following the collapse of the USSR.
"At time of the withdrawal from Eastern Europe, the NATO Secretary General promised the USSR it could be confident that NATO would not expand beyond its current boundaries," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in a past comment. "So where is it now?” I asked them [the NATO officials]. They have nothing to say. They deceived us in the rudest way.”
Meanwhile, the comments by Chief of Staff Makarov did contain a silver lining in the nuclear cloud.
Speaking on the prospects of the New START treaty, signed by President Dmitry Medvedev and his US counterpart Barack Obama, Makarov was optimistic.
"The previous START treaty was flawed, but there were attempts to extend it,” he said. “The new START is the first treaty that satisfies us.”
On the US missile defense system planned for Eastern Europe, the Russian general said the new START gives Moscow the flexibility its new defense measures require.
“This treaty gives us the ability to secede in certain cases,” he said, specifically mentioning the “European missile defense problem” as a national security threat that could force Moscow to breach the treaty.

http://rt.com/politics/makarov-nuclear-russia-nato-575/The danger of local armed conflicts along Russia's borders exploding into... more

MotherForTruth
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3 months ago
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Voice in the Wilderness: First Amendment to the United States Constitution says about Protesting

First Amendment to the United States Constitution says about Protesting... more

charkeseharvey
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3 months ago
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When the Bad Deeds of a Few Destroy the Good Work of Many

Around 5:00 p.m. PST Oakland’s Mayor Jean Quan and her fellow officials held a... more

V1ct0rCR0cc0
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3 months ago
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Stupidity May Be the Answer

In the late 1930's with the U.S. economy depressed and the march to world war... more

John_Doran
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4 months ago
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US Responds to Alleged Iran Assassination Plot with Military Action

The US has begun to take military action against Iran, labeling the alleged Iranian... more

graysea
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4 months ago
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48 comments

Chronicles of False Equivalence, Chapter 2,817

Fallows: "Since Scott Brown's victory over Martha Coakley and the end of the... more

Cabal
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4 months ago
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1 comment

A Sincere Proposal From Anonymous

. A Sincere Proposal In my observation of this movement of the American people, I... more

goldenways
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4 months ago
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3 comments

6 Reasons Why Occupy Wall Street Protests Won't Help Democrats

Can the Occupy Wall Street movement do for the Democrats what the Tea Party has done for the Republicans? Will a spontaneous grass-roots uprising against the rich neutralize the manipulated “Astroturf” Tea Party movement’s assault on big government, assure a second term for Barack Obama and lead to the new New Deal that progressives have been waiting for?

Alas, probably not. Ever since Richard Nixon won his reelection victory in 1972 by appealing to many of the discontented populists attracted to George Wallace, the Republican Party, formerly a party of big city boardroom types and small-town Rotarians, has been based at least in its rhetoric on right-wing populism. The Tea Party movement is merely an extreme exaggeration of the mainstream GOP.

But the Democrats since George McGovern captured the party’s presidential nomination in the same fateful year of 1972 have been the opposite of a left-wing populist party. Thus while right-wing populism reinforces the existing Republican story about America, any genuine left-wing populism would challenge the basic constituencies and values of the McGovern-to-Obama Democrats. There are six reasons in particular why Democrats are unlikely to benefit as much from populism as Republicans.

Reason No. 1: The Democrats depend on Wall Street for campaign donations.

Both national parties are captured to a large degree by financial industry contributors. But this is not as much of a problem for the Republicans as for the Democrats. Since Nixon, the Republicans have successfully channeled anger away from Big Money to Big Government. They have done so by manipulating the classic populist paradigm of producers vs. parasites. They have treated private sector workers, business owners and investors as allies in a common struggle of producers against parasitic public sector employees and poor people dependent on welfare.

To counteract this powerful neo-Jacksonian narrative, the Democrats would have to be equally pungent in their criticism of plutocratic bankers and overpaid CEOs. But how can President Obama and Democrats in Congress wave pitchforks at Wall Street while engaging in Wall Street fundraisers for their 2012 campaigns?

Barack Obama, who went without federal matching funds in 2008 so that he would be free to shovel in unlimited amounts of big money, is a particularly unlikely critic of Wall Street. In 2008, if professors at universities are not counted, the top institutional donors to the Obama campaign were Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Time Warner.

Obama’s 2008 campaign looks less like William Jennings Bryan’s outsider challenge than like William McKinley’s successful fundraising in 1896 from the banking and corporate elite.

Reason No. 2: The Democrats rely increasingly for votes on elite professionals.

Having lost the white working class to the Republicans decades ago, Democrats have had some success in winning over upscale white professionals with liberal attitudes on social issues and the environment. But identification with the professional-class minority poses as many problems for would-be Democratic populists as does the party’s reliance on the financial sector.

The majority of Americans do not go to college and are not likely to be inspired by the elite progressive vision of a society where anyone with high test scores can study until his or her 30s, earn an expensive credential, and then get an interesting and fulfilling office job. The populist ideal is the horny-handed son of toil who can fix a car engine, not the meritocratic nerd who could flourish in a lightning round on “Jeopardy.”

More @ link http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152693/6_reasons_why_occupy_wall_street_protests_won%27t_help_democrats/Can the Occupy Wall Street movement do for the Democrats what the Tea Party has done... more

goldenways
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4 months ago
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1 comment

Bill Clinton In Chicago: Occupy Wall Street Movement Can Create 'Good Positive Debate'

Former President Bill Clinton spoke Tuesday evening as part of Chicago Ideas Week at a... more

goldenways
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4 months ago
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0 comments

Mayor Bloomberg Claims ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Are Targeting Bankers Who ‘Are Struggling To Make Ends Meet’

Cue the violins....

For 13 days, hundreds of demonstrators have encamped themselves on Wall Street in New York City, hoping to call attention to the financial sector’s greed and inequities in the American economic system.

This morning, while on local radio host John Gambling’s show, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was asked about the demonstrations on Wall Street. Bloomberg condemned the protests, claiming that the protesters are targeting people who making “$40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet.” He then went on to say people are focusing too much on the causes of the financial crisis and that we need to be nicer to the banking industry so that it starts lending again. He concluded by saying that we are “blaming the wrong people” by “blaming the banks” for the recession:
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GAMBLING: Mr. Mayor, let’s talk about Zuccoti Park and the protesters. How do you end that thing?

BLOOMBERG: The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the bottom line. Those are the people that work on Wall Street or on the finance sector. [...] People in this day and age need support for their employers. We need the banks, if the banks don’t go out and make loans we will not come out of our economy problems, we will not have jobs. And so anything we can do to responsibly help the banks do that, encourage them to do that is waht we need. I think we spend much too much time worrying about how we got into problems as to how we go forward. [...] Also we always tend to blame the wrong people. We blame the banks. They were part of it, but so were Frddie Mac and Frannie Mae and Congress.
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Actually, the median salary for stockbrokers is approximately $88,000 a year. But that is besides the point. The demonstrators are not targeting the individuals who work on Wall Street, they are targeting the financial institutions and practices they represent.

Recall, the banks were the primary actors who set off the global recession, and that recession plunged 60 million people into extreme poverty worldwide. By protesting in favor things like a financial transactions tax, Americans can hope to get some of that wealth back from financial institutions that are anything but “struggling to make ends meet.”Cue the violins.... For 13 days, hundreds of demonstrators have encamped themselves... more

WakeUpPeople
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4 months ago
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55 comments

Occupation of Wall Street Appears To Have Escalated In To Thousands

My friend posted this on Facebook, the occupation of Wall Street seems to be growing... more

fauxsherrrr
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5 months ago
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0 comments

Michelle Bachmann calls gays “sad” and “satanic” - this person hopes to become the new President of the USA

"And again, don't misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are... more

sbacker
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7 months ago
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2 comments

How the Middle Class Got Screwed

This is really well done!

KB723
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7 months ago
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103 comments

Scary Movie: Sarah Palin's The Undefeated teaser trailer

Can you stomach watching the trailer for the upcoming Sarah Palin documentary The... more

sbacker
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7 months ago
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2 comments

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