Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Marine Le Pen Will Reap What The EU Has Sown / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Many people are cheering now that yesterday Marine Le Pen and her Front National (FN) party didn’t get to take over government in any regions in the France regional elections. They should think again. FN did get a lot more votes than the last time around, and, though she will be a little disappointed after last weekend’s results, it’s exactly as Le Pen herself said: “Nothing can stop us”.
And instead of bemoaning this, or even not believing it, it might be much better to try and understand why she’s right. And that has little to do with any comparisons to Donald Trump. Or perhaps it does, in that in the same way that Trump profits from -people’s perception of- the systemic failures of Washington, Le Pen is being helped into the saddle by Brussels.
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Monday, December 14, 2015
Ron Paul - If You Want Security, Pursue Liberty / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Judging by his prime-time speech last week, the final year of Barack Obama's presidency will be marked by increased militarism abroad and authoritarianism at home. The centerpiece of the president's speech was his demand for a new law forbidding anyone on the federal government's terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. There has never been a mass shooter who was on the terrorist watch list, so this proposal will not increase security. However, it will decrease liberty.
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Saturday, December 12, 2015
CON21 - Paris Climate Change Conference Show / Politics / Climate Change
By: Raul_I_Meijer
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius just announced, in Paris, a “legally binding agreement” that no-one has agreed the financing for. We can hear a couple thousand lawyers across the globe snicker. But it’s all the COP21 ‘oh-so-important’ climate conference managed to come up with. No surprises there. They couldn’t make the 2ºC former goal stick, so they go for 1.5ºC this time. All on red, double or nothing. Because who really cares among the leadership, just as long as the ‘targets’ are far enough away that they can’t be held accountable.
Friday, December 11, 2015
America Living a Lie / Politics / US Debt
By: James_Quinn
"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The lies we tell ourselves are only exceeded by the lies perpetrated by those controlling the levers of our society. We've lost respect for ourselves and others, transforming from citizens with obligations to consumers with desires. The love of mammon has left our country a hollowed out, debt ridden shell of what it once was. When I see the data from surveys about the amount of debt being carried by people in this country and match it up with the totals reported by the Federal Reserve, I'm honestly flabbergasted that so many people choose to live a lie. By falling for the false materialistic narrative of having it all today, millions of Americans have enslaved themselves in trillions of debt. The totals are breathtaking to behold:
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Friday, December 11, 2015
How Far Can The Syria Conflict Spiral Out Of Control - Interview With Pelicourt / Politics / Syria
By: OilPrice_Com
Business is business, so why not buy oil from ISIS. The Russians claim the Turks are doing it, and in all likelihood even Assad is buying it. No one can fight a war without oil, according to Robert Bensh, partner and managing director of Pelicourt LLC oil and gas company. But while the politically unhinged are coming out the woodwork, the more important aspects of this story remain elusive to the public. Is the dangerously unspoken theory that ISIS is a bulwark against Iran what's keeping the West from tackling the Islamic State wholeheartedly on its territory? With no nation that can control it, the threat is now out of control and a war of ambiguous targets is emerging.
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Misleading The American Public: Social Security & The National Debt / Politics / US Debt
By: Dan_Amerman
We are told that many economics experts don't worry about the total national debt because $5 trillion of that debt doesn't really exist; it is rather just a theoretical bookkeeping transaction for money that the federal government owes to itself. Netting out this bookkeeping entry then allows some authorities assert that while the debt is a bit on the high side relative to the size of the economy, it is far from historically unprecedented, and certainly no cause for despair or rash talk about insolvency.
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Downsizing the News Staff; Downsizing Quality and Credibility - Part 2 / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Walter_Brasch
For more than a decade, advertising, circulation, and news quality in both print and electronic media have been in a downward spiral. That spiral has twin intertwining roots.
The first root is the rise of social media. The complacent and stodgy print media were slow to catch onto the concept and rise of social media and its influence upon a generation that conducts its life by a fusion of smart phones to ears. When owners figured out they needed to have a digital presence, they first gave away content in a desperate bid to keep readers, and then began to charge for it to those who didn’t have subscriptions.
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Monday, December 07, 2015
Downsizing the News Staff; Downsizing Quality and Credibility / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Walter_Brasch
On Monday, Nov. 2, every National Geographic staffer was told to report to the magazine’s Washington, D.C., headquarters the next day to await a phone call or e-mail from Human Resources.
Ever since Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox corporation bought the magazine in September, there were rumors the new owner would maximize profits by terminating employees. Those predictions came through when Management fired 180 people, and told dozens of others they were being offered “voluntary buy-outs.”
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Sunday, December 06, 2015
Greece Is A Nation Under Occupation / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Perhaps the best way to show what a mess Europe is in is the €3 billion deal they made with Turkey head Erdogan, only to see him being unmasked by EU archenemy Vlad Putin as a major supporter, financial and who knows how else, of the very group everyone’s so eager to bomb the heebees out after Paris. It could hardly have been more fitting. That’s not egg on your face, that’s face on your egg.
But Brussels thinks it’s found a whipping boy for all its failures. Greece. It’s fast increasing its accusations against Athens’ handling of the 100s of 1000s of refugees flooding the country. Everything that goes wrong is the fault of Greece, not Brussels. The EU has so far given Greece €30 million in ‘assistance’ for the refugee crisis, while the country has spent over €1.5 billion in money it desperately needs for its own people. But somehow it’s still not done enough.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
China South Sea Martime Dispute, an Overture to World War III? / Politics / China US Conflict
By: Casey_Research
By Doug Casey
It’s always been true, as Bourne said, that “war is the health of the State.” But it’s especially true when economic times get tough. That’s because governments like to blame their problems on outsiders; even an imagined foreign threat tends to unify opinions around those of the leaders. Since economies around the world are all weakening, and political leaders are all similar in essential mindset, there’s good reason to believe the trend towards World War III is accelerating.
Many politicians and pundits in the U.S. blame “those damn Chinese” for taking “our jobs” by filling Walmart with tons of cheap goods, and the swarthy ragheads for making the price of oil too high (usually, but now too low).
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Friday, December 04, 2015
Why Is The U.S. Reluctant To Bomb ISIS Oil Fields? / Politics / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
There has been some revealing new information coming out recently regarding the strategy against ISIS. One aspect many find troubling is the apparent failure of U.S. and coalition forces to sufficiently target and destroy oil infrastructure located in ISIS territory, which accounts for a significant portion of the terror group's annual income. The argument goes, if we want to impact their operations, we should target their primary sources of income, and choke off their operational funds. So, why does ISIS oil infrastructure still stand? Is this the result of an intelligence failure? Negligence? Or, is there a more purposeful reason?Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 03, 2015
David Cameron Declares Jihad on Islamic State Syria - 'Bombs Away Chaps' / Politics / ISIS Islamic State
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britain's industrial military complex smarting from having failed to profit form the four year long Syrian civil war will today be toasting after the success of much costly lobbying of MP's, who led by the Prime Minister have followed their instructions to start to empty the munitions dumps of bombs and missiles to be dropped right across Syria, joining US, French, Turkish and Russian militaries as they rain hell fire missiles down onto civilian populations, with the probable resulting carnage of many hundreds of innocents killed for every ISIS gangster killed, akin to flattening Rome to kill members of the mafia, all in the name of defending Britain from the terror threat that the likes of the CIA and MI5 amongst other secret police agencies have been busy creating and fostering so as to support the need for the exponential expansion of the surveillance state.
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
The Economic Costs of Terrorism Hit an All-Time Peak / Politics / War on Terror
By: John_Mauldin
The world can change quickly, and last week it did. The most immediate and heartbreaking impacts of the Paris attacks were suffered by the victims themselves and their families, but from there the ripples of terror spread outward around the world.
The Paris events didn’t happen in isolation. Recent bombings in Lebanon, Iraq, Mali, and Nigeria, plus the Russian airline disaster, showed us how far evil can reach.
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Wednesday, December 02, 2015
It Will Take Trillions of Euros to Save the European Union / Politics / European Union
By: John_Mauldin
The EU’s political leaders and other elites are committed to holding the European Union together. To them, united Europe is an article of faith. They hold the idea with as much ferocity and fervor as any religious belief. But while the European Union is a wonderful political idea, it’s economically terrible. And the EU nations will have to face up to bearing enormous costs to save the Europe we wished for.
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Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Putin’s Revenge? The Fight for Syria's Nothern Border / Politics / Syria
By: Mike_Whitney
“We have received additional information confirming that the oil controlled by Islamic State militants (ISIS) enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale. We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure the security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers.” –Russian President Vladimir Putin, Paris, 11-30-15
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Renewable Green Energy Bankruptcies / Politics / Renewable Energy
By: BATR
With the approach of the much ballyhooed Paris Climate Summit, the world is being conditioned to accept the spread of the renewable energy gospel. As shams go this one is a doozy. Absent from the filtered media coverage is the actual record of failure and fraud that produces more bankruptcies than usable energy. Hold onto your socks, the waste of public money is about to accelerate. All these projects will enrich the few, while soaking the multitude. Aye, global warming is such a blessing . . .
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
The Demographic Nightmare Caused by Gender Selection / Politics / Demographics
By: Rodney_Johnson
I took a year off after college. I don’t remember it having a cool name like “gap year” back then. Most people considered it goofing off. I spent the summer and fall on the coast in Florida waiting tables, then moved out west to Jackson Hole, WY for the ski season. I worked at a hotel at night and skied during the day. It was a modest existence, no doubt, but it was also just as awesome as it sounds.Back then Jackson Hole was still a hole. The airport had not been expanded, so there was no large jet service. However, changes were already happening. It was clear the place was about to explode. The owner of the hotel at which I worked called me into his office at the end of season. He offered me a job as a real estate agent, working with him selling vacation properties to tourists.
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Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Globalist Lockdown is here to Stay / Politics / New World Order
By: BATR
The theater that has become the international political scene is entering its last act. As the actors play out their specific roles and read from the script that was written for them by the mega elites, the general audience in the crowd do not know to clap or hiss the production. All the absurd instances that rip apart the last vestige of civilized culture are ready for the final imposition of the Illuminati system for total control. The few brave souls that remain in the struggle for combating the evil forces of globalism are the prime target for elimination.
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Thanksgiving Amid the Terror Threats / Politics / Religion
By: John_Mauldin
“Nobody in Europe will be abandoned. Nobody in Europe will be excluded. Europe only succeeds if we work together.”
– Angela Merkel, December 15, 2010
“Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. Believe me, it will be enough.”
– Mario Draghi, July 25, 2012
“We have to safeguard the spirit behind Schengen,” Mr Juncker told the European Parliament on Wednesday. “Yes, the Schengen system is partly comatose. But . . . a single currency does not exist if Schengen fails. It is one of the pillars of the construction of Europe.”
– London Telegraph, November 25, 2015
Monday, November 30, 2015
Ron Paul Warns America's The War on Terror is Creating More Terror / Politics / War on Terror
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The interventionists will do anything to prevent Americans from seeing that their foreign policies are perpetuating terrorism and inspiring others to seek to harm us. The neocons know that when it is understood that blowback is real - that people seek to attack us not because we are good and free but because we bomb and occupy their countries - their stranglehold over foreign policy will begin to slip.
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