17 April 20
Corporate Infotainment has a job: Pacify you. And they get paid very well for doing it.
You have a choice: Follow the sheep in front of you or forge a new path on higher ground.
What does it really take to keep RSN strong?
Not very much.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
16 April 20
John Prine: The Last Days and Beautiful Life of an American Original
Patrick Doyle, Rolling Stone
Doyle writes: "John Prine's 50-year career had taken him from the folk clubs of Chicago to sold-out venues in London, Australia, and beyond. But as he planned the schedule for the final leg of his Tree of Forgiveness tour, there was still one place he needed to play: Paris."
READ MORE
Patrick Doyle, Rolling Stone
Doyle writes: "John Prine's 50-year career had taken him from the folk clubs of Chicago to sold-out venues in London, Australia, and beyond. But as he planned the schedule for the final leg of his Tree of Forgiveness tour, there was still one place he needed to play: Paris."
READ MORE
Sen. Marco Rubio speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington as the Senate works to pass a coronavirus relief bill. (photo: Patrick Semansky/AP)
White House Says New Small Business Loan Program Is Out of Money, Leaving Many Firms Grasping for Lifelines
Erica Werner, Aaron Gregg and Renae Merle, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "A new lending program for small businesses maxed out Thursday morning and stopped accepting claims, but a bitterly divided Congress looked unlikely to address that growing problem as the nation plunged into unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression."
READ MORE
Erica Werner, Aaron Gregg and Renae Merle, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "A new lending program for small businesses maxed out Thursday morning and stopped accepting claims, but a bitterly divided Congress looked unlikely to address that growing problem as the nation plunged into unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression."
READ MORE
Travelers in Wuhan, China. (photo: AFP)
"Pure Baloney": Zoologist Debunks Trump's COVID-19 Origin Theory, Explains Animal-Human Transmission
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "With the largest one-day death toll in the U.S. yet - 2,400 in just 24 hours - President Trump is trying to deflect attention from his handling of the pandemic by waging a war on public health experts and science, threatening to cut World Health Organization funding and fueling a theory that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China."
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "With the largest one-day death toll in the U.S. yet - 2,400 in just 24 hours - President Trump is trying to deflect attention from his handling of the pandemic by waging a war on public health experts and science, threatening to cut World Health Organization funding and fueling a theory that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China."
Michelle Caruso-Cabrera at CNBC and Institutional Investor's Delivering Alpha conference on July 18, 2018, in New York City. (photo: Heidi Gutman/Getty)
Wall Street Titans Are Financing a Direct Challenge to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Lee Fang, The Intercept
Fang writes: "Wall Street titans are financing a direct challenge to firebrand progressive lawmaker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the New York primary on June 23."
Lee Fang, The Intercept
Fang writes: "Wall Street titans are financing a direct challenge to firebrand progressive lawmaker Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the New York primary on June 23."
Disclosures show that over four dozen finance industry professionals, including several prominent private equity executives and investment bankers, made early donations to Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC contributor who is challenging Ocasio-Cortez. Caruso-Cabrera was a registered Republican until a few years ago and authored a 2010 book advocating for several conservative positions, including an end to Medicare and Social Security, which she called “pyramid schemes.”
The donors include Glenn Hutchins, the billionaire co-founder of Silver Lake Partners; James Passin of Firebird Capital; Bruce Schnitzer of Wand Partners; Jeffrey Rosen of Lazard; and Bradley Seaman, managing partner of Parallel49 Equity. The chief executives of Goldman Sachs, PNC Bank, and Virtu Financial, are also among the Caruso-Cabera donors.
“I met Michelle when she was a business reporter and she is bright and understands the financial markets well,” said Doug Cifu, the chief executive of Virtu Financial, one of the donors who gave $2,800 to Caruso-Cabrera. “Her opponent,” Cifu added, “does not in my view.”
The Caruso-Cabrera campaign announced last week that it had collected nearly $1 million in fundraising over the first quarter of this year. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is funded by anonymous corporate donations and has spent tens of millions of dollars electing congressional Republicans, also said recently that it would mobilize business interests in support of Caruso-Cabrera.
In her first year in office, Ocasio-Cortez has used her perch in Congress to eviscerate leading figures on Wall Street. During congressional hearings last April, she pushed JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon over whether bankers should have been criminally prosecuted over the 2008 financial crisis.
“I wasn’t sent here to safeguard and protect profit, I was sent here to safeguard and protect people,” said Ocasio-Cortez in November during a hearing over the conduct of the private equity industry and its role in downsizing companies.
Ocasio-Cortez has served as a lightning rod in the Democratic Party, attracting criticism from more business-friendly elements of the establishment over her outspoken support for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and her advocacy for policies such as Medicare for All.
The lurch towards that left has provoked some traditionally Republican interests, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to use the New York primary this summer as an opportunity to push back on the ideological shift represented by Ocasio-Cortez.
Kenneth Langone, a billionaire investor and major donor to GOP causes, donated the legal maximum to Caurso-Cabrera.
Steve Holzman, the head of the hedge fund Vantis Capital and a previous donor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, donated to Caruso-Cabrera. Lobbyist Ron Christie, a former aide to Dick Cheney, also gave to the challenger’s campaign.
Other donors include Facundo Bacardi, an heir to the Bacardi fortune; Thaddeus Arroyo, a leading executive at AT&T; and Jeff Kwatinetz, an entertainment industry promoter who has represented Korn and Limp Bizkit in the past.
Ocasio-Cortez released her fundraising numbers, showing that she has brought in over $8 million this election cycle, with $3.5 million in cash on hand.
Caruso-Cabrera does not have a policy page outlining her beliefs or positions on her campaign website. In recent radio interviews, she has positioned herself as a stalwart of the moderate faction of the Democratic Party, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Joe Biden. “I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-same sex marriage, I’m very pro-immigrant, I am centrist for sure,” Caruso-Cabrera said on New York’s AM 970.
But the candidate’s beliefs are explained in detail in a book she authored in 2010 titled, “You Know I’m Right: More Prosperity, Less Government,” which included a forward by Larry Kudlow, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s director of the National Economic Council.
In the book, Caruso-Cabrera calls Medicare and Social Security “the country’s biggest pyramid schemes,” and wrote that she would end both programs in favor of a privatized voucher system. Medicare, Caruso-Cabrera wrote, “is another pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme” that should be replaced with a health savings account that gives “seniors $1,000 or $2,000 a year to start.” Social Security, she notes, should be replaced with a private account system, in which Americans are incentivized to invest in the stock market.
Caruso-Cabrera devotes an entire chapter to the many policy successes of the Reagan administration, and writes that she favors tax cuts and deregulation, including eliminating entire federal agencies such as the Labor Department.
Some of the most strident language in the book is reserved for the Obama administration’s attempts to crack down on wealthy individuals who had taken advantage of offshore tax havens. The push to force Switzerland to hand over the names of U.S. nationals using secret bank accounts to dodge taxes, she wrote, put America on a “dangerous path” that would enable foreign dictatorships to similarly seize wealth kept abroad.
“Freedom and democracy are best secured when banking secrecy and tax havens exist,” Caruso-Cabrera wrote.
Flag-waving, honking protesters drove past the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday to show their displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's orders to keep people at home and businesses locked during the COVID-19 outbreak. (photo: Paul Sancya/AP)
Michigan Stay-at-Home Order Prompts Honking, Traffic-Jam Protest
Abigail Censky, NPR
Censky writes: "Several thousand cars flooded the streets around the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday to protest the governor's extended stay-at-home order. Cars jammed the streets around the Capitol building, filling the air with a cacophony of honking. People draped in American and 'Don't Tread on Me' flags blared 'We're Not Gonna Take It' and 'God Bless The USA' out of car stereos."
Abigail Censky, NPR
Censky writes: "Several thousand cars flooded the streets around the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday to protest the governor's extended stay-at-home order. Cars jammed the streets around the Capitol building, filling the air with a cacophony of honking. People draped in American and 'Don't Tread on Me' flags blared 'We're Not Gonna Take It' and 'God Bless The USA' out of car stereos."
EXCERPT:
The state of Michigan has the third-highest number of COVID-19 cases and one of the most stringent stay-at-home orders. Among other things, it bars landscapers from working and shutters greenhouses and nurseries.
The new version of the order banned travel between homes and didn't grant exemptions for workers such as landscapers, who politicians argue can work while remaining socially distant. Protesters were also upset that normal life has been shut down all over the state.
Presently, the governor's stay-at-home order extends through April 30. Since the governor issued the order, there have been more than 28,000 cases of COVID-19 in Michigan. The disease has killed more than 1,900 Michiganders.
Ammunition that displaced villagers was fired by the Tatmadaw, in September 2019. (photo: Verena Hoe/Al Jazeera)
Myanmar Military Steps Up Attacks as Coronavirus Spreads
Verena Hoelzl and Cape Diamond, Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "As deaths from the new coronavirus mounted in South Korea, Iran and Italy in early March, Myanmar's military called off grand plans to mark the 75th anniversary of its World War II revolt against Japanese forces."
Verena Hoelzl and Cape Diamond, Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "As deaths from the new coronavirus mounted in South Korea, Iran and Italy in early March, Myanmar's military called off grand plans to mark the 75th anniversary of its World War II revolt against Japanese forces."
EXCERPTS:
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency said it has "observed a sharp upward trend in civilian casualties" since February.
In a statement on March 27, the agency said at least 21 civilians were killed amid clashes on the border between Rakhine and Chin states earlier in March, while an additional 10,000 people were displaced in Rakhine in that period alone. The UN humanitarian office said a total of 70,000 people have been displaced in the fighting between the military and the Arakan Army in the past 12 months, most of them since December last year.
Renewed chaos
Observers say the conflict between the Arakan Army and the military has brought new chaos to the impoverished region from where more than 730,000 Rohingya fled a bloody military crackdown in 2017.
The rising death toll and displacement has prompted concern, with 139 civil society organisations issuing a joint statement on Wednesday, calling for the immediate protection of those who have nothing to do with the fighting.
"The current targeting of innocent civilians in the conflict between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military amounts to war crimes and must immediately cease," the statement said.
The US State Department also said it "is deeply troubled by the escalating violence in Rakhine and Chin states".
"At a time when everyone needs to work together to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the government of Burma and the Burma Army seem to see the global focus on the pandemic as an opportunity to further crack down on ethnic people," said Naw Htoo Htoo, a spokeswoman for the Karen Peace Support Network.
"Until the international community force the military and the government to pay a price for killing and oppressing our people, they will continue to do so," she said.
South Korean president Moon Jae-in's landslide victory in the country's parliamentary election gives his party a clear mandate to implement its Green New Deal. (photo: Jon Han/Republic of Korea)
South Korea to Implement Green New Deal After Ruling Party Election Win
Chloé Farand, Climate Home News
Farand writes: "South Korea is on track to set a 2050 carbon neutrality goal and end coal financing after its ruling Democratic Party won an absolute majority in the country's parliamentary elections on Wednesday."
READ MORE
Chloé Farand, Climate Home News
Farand writes: "South Korea is on track to set a 2050 carbon neutrality goal and end coal financing after its ruling Democratic Party won an absolute majority in the country's parliamentary elections on Wednesday."
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.