Stephan: This is a well documented exegetic essay on the future of U.S. military usage. Click through to get all the URLs which lead to the source material upon which it is based. I think this policy is going to prove to be a disaster, and a source of unhealable anti-Americanism. I believe history will see this as part of the country's decline.
It looked like a scene out of a Hollywood movie. In the inky darkness, men in full combat gear, armed with automatic weapons and wearing night-vision goggles, grabbed hold of a thick, woven cable hanging from a MH-47 Chinook helicopter. Then, in a flash, each ‘fast-roped
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KENNETH P. VOGEL and TARINI PARTI, - Politico
Stephan: Here is more on America's frightening trend allowing individuals and corporations to more easily buy the government; a trend brought into full flower by Citizens United. These uber-rich are completely clear about what they want. And they are prepared to buy it. Are you clear about what you want? You better be, and you better vote that way, because otherwise we are going to be a soft fascist plutocracy.
The Koch brothers’ political operation has increasingly come to resemble its own political party – and later this month in San Diego, it will hold what amounts to its most ambitious convention to date.
Many of the dozens of rich conservative invitees are expected to write huge checks to a pool of cash distributed among Koch-approved groups, potentially boosting the Kochs’ 2012 spending plan beyond their historic $395 million goal. And it’s also a chance for the Kochs to show off their increasingly robust political machine, including a growing voter database project called Themis that played a major role in conservatives’ recent efforts in Wisconsin and in which POLITICO has learned Koch operatives have discussed investing $20 million.
It’s part of an ambitious expansion of the billionaire brothers’ political operation that includes the recruitment of new donors and fundraisers into their network by a development team led by summit emcee Kevin Gentry, and their recent hiring of in-house political operative Marc Short to oversee the spending of funds raised at the summits.
The expansion is also reflected in Charles and David Kochs’ bid to take over the libertarian Cato Institute as well as their operations steering cash to groups that aren’t commonly thought […]
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PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, - The New York Times Magazine
Stephan:
One afternoon last August, at a hospital on the outskirts of Los Angeles, a former beauty queen named Emma Coronel gave birth to a pair of heiresses. The twins, who were delivered at 3:50 and 3:51, respectively, stand to inherit some share of a fortune that Forbes estimates is worth a billion dollars. Coronel’s husband, who was not present for the birth, is a legendary tycoon who overcame a penurious rural childhood to establish a wildly successful multinational business. If Coronel elected to leave the entry for ‘Father
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IAN MACLEOD, - Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
Stephan: The rise of the surveillance state is beginning to define a class of Caucasian dominated, high technology, English language democracies, including the U.K., the U.S. and, now, Canada. This report from Canada is straight out of Orwell, and it would make North Korea envious.
Bear this in mind as you travel through the Ottawa airport. You could get into serious trouble telling a joke of the wrong type.
OTTAWA — Sections of the Ottawa airport are now wired with microphones that can eavesdrop on travellers’ conversations.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is nearing completion of a $500,000 upgrade of old video cameras used to monitor its new ‘customs controlled areas,
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Saturday, June 16th, 2012
CORA CURRIER, - ProPublica
Stephan: We have reached a level of public corruption at the top of government that equals any Central or South American banana republic of the 1920s through 1970s. It is one of the several great lies we tell ourselves about ourselves that we have this vaunted democratic republic. The truth is we have government for the rich, by the rich. Of the 535 members of the Senate and the House, about 47 per cent -- 249 -- are millionaires.
This morning, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, faced a Senate hearing over more than $2 billion in bank losses caused by risky hedges that blew up. Dimon said that the hedges-investments meant to protect the bank-had grown into ‘complex and hard-to manage risks.
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