Politics
- via R i g h t a r d i a: Opinion – Al Jazeera English: Enshrining the lies of the US’ 1%
“There is a potential lie-of-the-year in that paragraph. It’s just not the one that PolitiFact thinks it found.
The real lie is the claim that Ryan’s plan “is necessary because of the programme’s soaring costs”. In fact, the problem isn’t Medicare per se, it’s the entire cost structure of American medicine as a whole, which is roughly twice the per capita cost of healthcare spending in other advanced countries – even those that have 50 per cent more people aged 65+ than the US has.
The reason for that cost structure is non-competitive private oligopolies – insurance companies, drug companies, hospital chains, etc., – in sharp contrast to other countries with their government-run systems of various different kinds. There’s another name for these oligopolies -they are the cash cows of the one per cent. Paul Ryan is their man, and PolitiFact is part of their protection system.
Indeed, as Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson explained just over a year ago, in their paper “A World Upside Down? Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession”, all of the US long-term federal debt is due to just three oligopoly sectors: the military-industrial complex (the backbone of empire, with bases all around the world and almost half the world’s military spending), the medical-industrial complex (with twice the per capita costs of other systems), and the financial sector (which has recently cost trillions of dollars in lost wealth and economic activity).”
source: Enshrining the lies of the US’ 1% – Opinion – Al Jazeera English
- Poll: Overwhelming optimism in 2012 – Mackenzie Weinger – POLITICO.com
- Robert Reich: Obama-Clinton ticket in 2012 – Mackenzie Weinger – POLITICO.com
- Right Wing Watch: The Year in Video | Right Wing Watch
Politics — Ron Paul
- Ron Paul’s Pastor Problem
- Ron Paul touts endorsement of pastor who defends death penalty for gays, delinquent children & adultery — Warren Throckmorton.
- Phillip Kayser, Ron Paul Endorser, Called For Executing Homosexuals Under ‘Biblical Law’
- The Maddow Blog – Ron Paul site pulls Kayser press release
- In Iowa, Ron Paul is on time and on message – Roger Simon – POLITICO.com
Climate & Climate Politics
- A piece of pseudo-skeptic global warming denial fro the serial Heartland Institute propagandist James Taylor: Climate Science Reaches a Landmark That Chills Global Warming Alarmists – Forbes
Economics & The Economy
- ‘Economics’ doesn’t have to be a code word for inequality – Letters – The Boston Globe
- Economists underwhelmed by Obama’s policies, pick Romney over his Republican rivals – chicagotribune.com