It’s really 19th century behavior in the 21st century. You just don’t invade another country on phony pretexts in order to assert your interests. - Secretary of State, John Kerry, “Meet the Press”, March 2nd, 2014
By Felicity Arbuthnot:Were it not so serious it would be hilarious. The British have voted to leave the European Union on the basis of the combination of a pack of lies by Government Ministers backing the “out” campaign and a whipped up xenophobia about all those “foreigners” taking jobs, homes, places on public transport etc. A truly shameful throwback to the era of hotels and boarding houses exhibiting signs saying: “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish.” Now they would add “and no Europeans, no Arabs, no Muslims – only UK passport holders”, were the garbage in the media and spewed by the “Outers” is to be believed.Targets of especially vicious denigration are “illegal immigrants.” Never mind many have fled for their lives, risking their all, from regions the UK has enjoined in destroying, hardly in a position to garner the right paperwork, renew or apply for a passport, thinking they will at least find a safe haven on entry. They are treated like criminals and sneered at by a swathe of politicians. They “threaten our way of life” is the political mantra. RIP humanity. Actually our “way of life” is kept going by those who surmount the bureaucratic hurdles. Before their arrival there were no shops open from 6 a.m., to midnight, take-away food outlets of every culinary culture, ditto restaurants.
Max and Stacy discuss the reckless gamble that Governor John Kasich of Ohio - one of the ‘legitimate’ and ‘respectable’ candidates (as per the media) in the Republican primaries - chose to take with the state’s pension funds. In the second half they interview Francine McKenna of Marketwatch.com about what Donald Trump’s tax returns might show. Francine suggests that they would show ‘yuge’ business losses but that ordinary people wouldn’t understand investing for the specific purpose of such losses. They also discuss what the IRS audit of the Clinton Foundation might show and what the transcripts of Hillary’s talks to Goldman Sachs would show.
By Paul Elam: I have about 4,500 friends on Facebook. Most days, the only question I have is how many of them are whores. I am serious. I guess I average about three to five friend requests a day, sometimes more. My policy has always been to just automatically approve them. I mean, what the fuck, except for a handful of people that actually are my friends on there, I don’t know most of these people from Adam. Or apparently Eve. So I just ok them as friends, then cull out the whores when they start to send me private messages. Lemme show you some of the recent ones. Sara Diane Cole, who just wrote me to say hi.
Sara Diane Cole
I mean, I get it, ok? After all, hey, just look at me. Hot chicks like this just can’t help themselves. And not only is there my devilish handsomeness, I am sure that they can tell from reading all my posts that I am a real ladies man. Number one hombre material. And speaking of hombre material, there is Carla Cepedo, who wrote me to say, “Hola! Buenos noches. Como esta? And so being the polite kind of guy I am, I answer. Es fantastico, puta! Adios! Beverly Cobah Baskins just writes to say, “Hello, how are you dear?” Well, I’m fine, dear. How’s business?
By Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson: According to various reports, the Russian government is reconsidering the neoliberal policy that has served Russia so badly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. If Russia had adopted an intelligent economic policy, Russia’s economy would be far ahead of where it stands today. It would have avoided most of the capital flight to the West by relying on self-finance. Washington, however, took advantage of a naive, gullible and demoralized Russian government which looked to Washington for guidance in the post-Soviet era. Russians thought that the rivalry between the two countries had ended with the Soviet collapse and trusted American advice to modernize the Russian economy with best-practice Western ideas. Instead, Washington abused this trust to saddle Russia with an economic policy designed to carve up Russian economic assets and transfer ownership into foreign hands. By tricking Russia into accepting foreign capital and exposing the ruble to currency speculation, Washington made sure that the US could destabalize Russia with capital outflows and assaults on the ruble’s exchange value. Only a government unfamiliar with the neoconservative aim of US world hegemony would have exposed its economic system to such foreign manipulation.
By Mike Buchanan J4MB:Yesterday a very silly report on the purported sexual harassment of women in the workplace was published. It was produced by the TUC – the General Secretary of which is Frances O’Grady, a radical feminist, what are the chances? – in collaboration with Special Snowflake and her Everyday Whining Project. Needless to say, the mainstream media reported the ridiculous ‘findings’ uncritically.On Channel 4 News this evening Cathy Newman interviewed both Special Snowflake and an intelligent woman, Dr Catherine Hakim. It’s the penultimate piece (6:29) here.
