JIMMY DORE

This three-part Chris Hedges interview on YouTube was amusing, interesting, enlightening and frightening. Well worth your time.

Reporter Tells Truth About War & Gets Fired By NYTimes

(Chris Hedges on The Jimmy Dore Show)

Part 2: Can Far Right & Left Fight Together Against Corporatism?

(Chris Hedges on The Jimmy Dore Show)

Part 3: Late Stage Capitalism Is Killing America

(Chris Hedges on The Jimmy Dore Show)

TWO FACED OR...

ONE FACE THAT'S TWICE AS BAD?

'Lives Hang in the Balance': 21 Days Before Midterms, McConnell Admits GOP Still Salivating to Gut Medicare and Social Security

"Mitch McConnell wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to pay for Republicans' massive giveaway to the rich and large corporations," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Enough!"

(Jake Johnson at Common Dreams.org)

"Openly confirming that it has been the GOP's plan all along to ram through deficit-exploding tax cuts for the rich and then gut crucial safety net programs to pay for the difference, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday falsely blamed America's soaring deficit on "entitlements"—the scare word Republicans use in place of Medicare and Social Security—and said these programs must be cut to bring federal spending under control."

DISTRACTING BULL USING A RED CAPER

The Shaky Case That Russia Manipulated Social Media to Tip the 2016 Election

(Gareth Porter at Consortiumnews.com)

"The idea promoted by the NYT’s Shane & Mazzetti that the Russian government seriously threatened to determine the 2016 election does not hold up when the larger social media context is examined more closely, reports Gareth Porter."

* * * * *

"In their long recapitulation of the case that Russia subverted the 2016 election, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times painted a picture of highly effective Russian government exploitation of social media for that purpose. Shane and Mazzetti asserted that “anti-Clinton, pro-Trump messages shared with millions of voters by Russia could have made the difference” in the election.

“What we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come,” they write elsewhere in the 10,000-word article.

But an investigation of the data they cite to show that the Russian campaigns on Facebook and Twitter were highly effective reveals a gross betrayal of journalistic responsibility. Shane and Mazzetti have constructed a case that is fundamentally false and misleading with statistics that exaggerate the real effectiveness of social media efforts by orders of magnitude."

_____________________________

AUDIO: Shady Claims by NYT on Russia-gate: Peter B. Collins interviews Gareth Porter

(Peter Collins at Consortiumnews.com)

This interview on The Peter Collins Show

(YouTube.com)

"Gareth Porter discusses with radio host Peter B. Collins his Consortium News article exposing exaggerated claims of Russian skulduggery on Facebook in 2016."

GOD BUBBLE

"How Can You Be Moral?": Here are 9 Questions You Don't Need to Ask an Atheist -- And Their Answers

(Greta Christina at Alternet.org)

"Here are nine questions you shouldn’t ask atheists. I’m going to answer them, just this once, and then I’ll explain why you shouldn’t be asking them, and why so many atheists will get ticked off if you do."

MAX BUTT

Corporate media has for decades given megaphones to spokesmodels serving the U.S. oligarchs. Examples abound, in fact finding an alternative is all but impossible. I try to highlight the efforts of those dedicated to speaking truth to both power and the powerless here at Talkingbag.

Despite being horrifically wrong about virtually everything, these scions and sycophants are provided megaphones to amplify their flawed and disastrous rhetoric. The list of misinformers is endless, Boot is just another turd currently floating in the Main Stream punch bowl.

MAX BOOT IS VERY SORRY FOR BACKING THE GOP AND THE IRAQ INVASION. WHY IS HE BEING PRAISED FOR THIS?

(Peter Maass at The Intercept.com)

"It’s easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is an irresistible spectacle — the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to join the army of righteousness. But here’s the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And because he’s been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided with nothing more than a polite handshake as he’s led out of the sanctuary of politics, forever.

CorrosionOfConservatism_9781631495670-1539285151 Photo: Courtesy of Liveright Publishing

WHEN I SAY wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, “Out of Order,” Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation violated the Constitution (“I am not proud of ‘Out of Order,’” he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq (“Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul,” he proclaimed in 2001); he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations (“He seems like a good choice to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants”); he thought Ahmed Chalabi was “the most unfairly maligned man on the planet” long after the Iraqi exile’s dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. “It’s amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed,” he squeaks."

RALPH IS THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PROBLEM

Ralph Nader: Democrats Are Weak, Corrupt and Could Still 'Blow It'

Unrepentant about the 2000 race, Nader argues that Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton “enabled” Donald Trump

(Andrew O'Hehir at Alternet.org)

"Gore lost to Bush in that fateful election, Nader says, for what he calls “the following sine qua non reasons.” (He hasn’t practiced law for quite a while, but must have been the kind of lawyer you hate seeing on the other side.)

He lost because they stole it from him in Florida and blocked him 5-4, in Scalia's Supreme Court, from an ongoing Florida Supreme Court recount. It would have come out in his favor. He also knows he lost his home state of Tennessee, which is really not often done. He was a senator and a representative [from that state]. He lost for a lot of other reasons: He didn't come out authentic during the debates. Everybody thought he was going to totally plow George W. Bush under, but each time he came out, you didn't know which Al Gore you would get. ... In one debate, he and George Bush agreed over 23 times during the debate: "I agree with him!" He didn't run a very good campaign.

Now, I believe everyone has a right to run for election in this country. I don't think any of my critics would keep me from doing that. The real problem is that they're looking for scapegoats. The Green Party is an easy scapegoat because I got 97,000 votes [in Florida], and there were 537 votes, before the recount, that separated Bush and Gore. But what they don't point out is that 300,000 Democrats in Florida voted for George W. Bush. Or that the Secretary of State and Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, who was the governor, engaged in a lot of shenanigans, including disqualifying people whose name sounded like ex-felons -- thousands of them, not just a few crazy ballots.

So there were a lot of sine qua nons, and what I tell people is, “You're giving the Green Party delusions of grandeur.” They are responsible for the Electoral College, which put [the decisive result] in Florida, because Gore won the popular vote nationwide. They're responsible for the 5-4 Scalia Supreme Court. They are responsible for 300,000 Democrats in Florida voting for George W. Bush. They're responsible for Tennessee. And how about sunspots? Why don't you add sunspots, right?"

NAOMI KLEIN

Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and the Rule of Pampered Princelings

(The Intercept.com)

"How exactly do you rationalize being lifted up by an intricate latticework of familial and social supports (tutors, prep schools, connections at the best universities, entry-level executive jobs, capital to play with), and then setting about shredding the meager safety net available to those without your good luck? How do you convince yourself that, despite having been handed so much, you are not just right but righteous in attacking the “handouts” received by single mothers working two jobs? How, when you know your own family fortune has benefited from enormous government subsidies (cheap housing loans for the Trumps, oil subsidies for the Kochs and Scaifes, direct weapons contracts for the Olins) do you begrudge paying the same tax rate as your employees?"