At one point in the movie, Jackson's character tells another ch...See MoreThe "Russia did it people" need to go watch the 2017 movie "Kong: Skull Island" - because it portrays America today. Samuel L. Jackson's character is a crazy military officer who wants to kill Kong even after being told that Kong protects the humans from other horrible beasts.
At one point in the movie, Jackson's character tells another character played by Tom Hiddleston, "It's time to show Kong that man is king!" This is little different from America today saying, "It's time to show Russia that America is king!" Such is American arrogance!
Hiddleston's response describes the whole "Russia did it" and the desperate need of the military industrial complex in this one simple line:
"Sometime's there's no enemy until you look for one."
Seriously, Russia spends about 80 billion per year on its military compared to America's approximately one trillion dollars. Plus, just where in the world is Russia expanding its borders and in which countries is Russia building military bases?
Then ask the same question of America! Where are we building even more military bases? You can start with Africa on top of the hundreds of bases around the world. Military expenditure is sucking up America's wealth and turning this country into a third world backwater.
What you do not get about this "Russia is a threat" thing is, the biggest threat to world peace is America! The biggest bully on the planet is America!
Many Americans need to get over this American arrogance - this American Exceptionalism - because it is not just destroying our credibility; it is also turning America into a country that is hated by the rest of the world!
Then, after doing things like we are currently doing to the tiny, poor country of Yemen, we ponder the origins of terrorism!
PS: It is not about my "Putin petticoat." It is about not seeing enemies everywhere, when there are none!
When it comes to messing with elections, America is number one by far! If you are into the Russia thing, I have a News Flash! Israel and Saudi Arabia have been into our elections for decades. In fact, IMHO, our Middle East foreign policy is really that of Israel's.
Yet, this is the best description by John Atcheson of why the "Russia screwing with our elections" is irrelevant.
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Democrats have been losing for going on four decades now, at every level of government except cities, and you can't pin that on Putin. What you can pin it on is running feckless candidates who mouth progressive and populist positions every two to four years, then govern for the elite and uber-wealthy in between.
Basically, people are fed up with that routine, and they're not buying it any longer. And that's the lesson Democrats in particular and candidates in general need to focus on, not any of "the dog ate my homework" stories that the elite media and the neoliberal Democrats are ginning up around the Russian intervention.
Karen CWhy do some people keep making excuses for trump's lies and corruption? trump and his campaign conspired with the Russians to subvert the election. That information is coming out now. Crooked donald really is the most corrupt human ever to sit in the oval office. He makes Nixon look like a choirboy.
The system is still on course to collapse! The article is tr...See MoreMaybe not panic, but we should start planning for change. Obamacare is still a failure. It is unsustainable. The graph below shows the projected cost of Obamacare and the estimates are correct. In 2016, the per capita cost for US healthcare was $10,345 - what the graph predicted.
The system is still on course to collapse! The article is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Medicare for All, here we come!
PS: Remember, if you do not also remake our industrial food system into something that does not make us sick with Metabolic Syndrome, even with Medicare for All, healthcare will bankrupt this country! 75% of health care costs are for Metabolic Syndrome, and 75% of those costs would go away if people changed their diet.
Karen CThe ACA is steadily being sabotaged and eroded by the GOP. They want it to fail, so they make sure it fails. The fact that so many people are enrolling shows that they WANT good, reliable healthcare, not that fake crap from republicans who only want the big tax cut from repealing the ACA would give their corporate and billionaire owners.
"One of President Trump's most trusted confidants, a security chief who served as his sounding board for nearly two decades, will face questions from congressional investigators next week about Trump's 2013 trip to Moscow, according to people familiar with their plans.
The excursion is at the center of some of the most salacious allegations in a now-famous dossier, which contains unverified charges that Trump has vehemently disputed."
To believe the "Trump Dossier" is to say you will believe any accusation that someone will invent. No, I take that back. You will believe any accusation that someone makes up, because they are paid a lot of money!
But a question, "Just when do you people get the connection between "unverified charges" and the term "witch-hunt!"
PS: There are plenty of reasons to go after Pres. Trump on policy issues, and I support such moves. However, if you want to rip this country apart, tell the Trump supporters that you do not care about his election win! Tell them you are going to remove Pres. Trump from office over these gossip-ridden innuendos.
Or put another way, you clearly do not see the consequences of what you are trying to do!!!!
Bob R/CAYou beat me to it - there's so little surprise at this point that Crooked Donald has refused to implement the sanctions against his syndicate cronies. With leaders like this, who needs enemies?
4. Having logged in...See MoreThis whole Russia thing has reached the level of McCarthyism. For example, in the congressional hearings, we find that Twitter had defined being "Russia linked" or "possibly a Russian agent" as:
1. Having a Russian email account!
2. Having a Russian cell phone!
3. Having a Russian credit card!
4. Having logged in to social media from a Russian IP address! (This includes every western journalist in Moscow and any American visiting Russia who then checks their Facebook!)
5. Having used Cyrillic on social media!
This brings us to a great question, "Just what is the real or legal definition of "Russian linked?" Frankly, the Russia fanatics are making this up as they go along.
In the case of the linked article, we find the definition, in this case, is "established links between Ross and Russian finance." Frankly, if you are rich enough and have diverse investments, you can probably be linked to Satan himself.
Again, at the core, this is about the election the Democrats lost! Their loss was not because of Russia, and our elections are far from sacred. You people are lost in a non-issue and the oligarchs, who run this country, love you being such lemmings in the witch-hunt distraction they have created.
PS: Again, tell us your definition of "Russian Linked!"
Farinata is what they want to use in Brazil to feed the poor and children. This is capitalism's solution to inequality and growing poverty. So now we know what will happen in America in the future, because capitalism will never abandon the cherished economic principle of "You only eat, if you can pay for it!" The article below says this:
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Prosecutors in Brazil's biggest city have opened an inquiry into a controversial plan to feed poorer citizens and schoolchildren with a flour made out of food close to its sell-by date that critics have described as "human pet food".
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Poverty, homelessness and unemployment have risen in recent years as Brazil struggled with a debilitating recession. But nutritionists attacked the plan, arguing that nobody knows exactly what farinata is made of - nor even whether it is safe.
"It is not food, it is an ultra-processed product," said Marly Cardoso, a professor of public health and nutrition at the Federal University of Sao Paulo. "You don't know what is in it."
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The truth is, this is capitalism trying to make money on products that are normally discarded. To continue:
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Cardoso also criticised a law sanctioned by the mayor that gives tax breaks to companies donating food as part of his hunger eradication policy.
"Is city hall trying to resolve the problems of these companies who are looking for a use for this food that they can't sell?" she said. "It is a situation of collective embarrassment."
Vivian Zollar, a nutritionist and member of Regional Council of Nutritionists for Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais states said she was worried about plans reported in local media to give farinata to schoolchildren because the council had not been able to confirm that the product had undergone the safety and nutritional tests legally required for school meals.
(End quote)
You can bet that, over time, the composition of this fake food would deteriorate - if for no other reason than it increases profits. If you do not know, the world food supply is 2700 calories/person/day. More than enough if distributed more equitably!
"The Trump administration released a dire scientific report Friday calling human activity the dominant driver of global warming, a conclusion at odds with White House decisions to withdraw from a key international climate accord, champion fossil fuels and reverse Obama-era climate policies."
We are now waiting for a complex set of event...See MoreWe need to face the fact that the world has collectively denied climate change and continues to do so. It is clear that disasters from Puerto Rico to the burning of the west are not enough to cause the American public to change its mind, and without America on board, the world is going nowhere.
We are now waiting for a complex set of events that will cause a massive fall in food production. A fall that is large enough that the food producing countries band exports of food, because when people starve governments fall.
Food importing countries will starve on a massive scale, but don't worry. Our news media will protect you from those awful images, or alternatively, tell you their suffering because of socialism.
After maintaining a stable government in the food producing countries like America, some may still go very hungry, because capitalists will work very hard to maintain that important economic principle of "You only get to eat, if you can pay for it!"