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Technically, the federal government has now reached the limit of its capacity to borrow money. Raising the debt ceiling used to be a technical adjustment, made almost automatically. Now it's a political football. Democrats should never have agreed to linking it to an agreement on the long-term budget deficit. But now that the debt ceiling is in play, there's no end to what the radical right will demand. John Boehner is already using the classic "they're making me" move, seemingly helpless in the face of Tea Party storm troopers who refuse to raise the ceiling unless they get their way. Their way is reactionary and regressive - eviscerating Medicare, cutting Medicaid and programs for the poor, slashing education and infrastructure, and using most of the savings to reduce taxes on the rich. If the only issue were cutting the federal deficit by four or five trillion dollars over the next ten years, the President and Democrats wouldn't have to cave in to this extortion. That goal can be achieved by doing exactly the opposite of what radical Republicans are demanding. We can reduce the long-term budget deficit, keep everything Americans truly depend on, and also increase spending on education and infrastructure - by cutting unnecessary military expenditures, ending corporate welfare, and raising taxes on the rich. I commend to you the "People's Budget," a detailed plan for doing exactly this - while reducing the long-term budget deficit more than either the Republican's or the President's plan does. When I read through the People's Budget my first thought was how modest and reasonable it is. It was produced by the House Progressive Caucus but could easily have been generated by Washington centrists - forty years ago.

The 30-minute speech I gave last month at the Symphony Space in New York is now available on video, and is posted below in three YouTube segments (the first segment also contains the 4-minute introduction of my speech). The speech pertains to the evolution of my views on media criticism, the nature of media propaganda and what drives it, and what can be done to combat it. A DVD of the entire event -- featuring the three other speeches: from Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore -- is available at FAIR's website. I want to note one example, from today, that vividly illustrates many of the themes I discussed in that speech.  It is found in the following passage from this Reuters article on Obama's escalation of the covert war in Yemen and his targeting of U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki for assassination: A U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that a U.S. strike last Friday killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel al Qaeda operative, which followed last month's attempted strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Whether Awlaki has any operational role in Al Qaeda at all is a matter of intense controversy.  The U.S. Government has repeatedly asserted that he does, but has presented no verifiable evidence to support that accusation.  But what is not in dispute is the notion that Awlaki is "the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."  He unquestionably is not, and never has been, as multiple Yemen experts have repeatedly noted.  The Reuters claim is factually and entirely false. Whatever one's views are on Obama's assassination program, targeting U.S. citizens without due process obviously raises extraordinary and vitally important questions.  As The New York Times' Scott Shane put it when confirming Awlaki's inclusion on Obama's hit list: "The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen. . . . It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an America

I've written before about the crisis of inequality in the United States and about the quasi-religious abhorrence of "wealth redistribution" that causes many Americans to oppose tax increases, even on the ultra rich. The conviction that taxation is intrinsically evil has achieved a sadomasochistic fervor in conservative circles-producing the Tea Party, their Republican zombies, and increasingly terrifying failures of governance. Happily, not all billionaires are content to hoard their money in silence. Earlier this week, Warren Buffett published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he criticized our current approach to raising revenue. As he has lamented many times before, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary is. Many conservatives pretend not to find this embarrassing. Conservatives view taxation as a species of theft-and to raise taxes, on anyone for any reason, is simply to steal more. Conservatives also believe that people become rich by creating value for others. Once rich, they cannot help but create more value by investing their wealth and spawning new jobs in the process. We should not punish our best and brightest for their success, and stealing their money is a form of punishment. Of course, this is just an economic cartoon. We don't have perfectly efficient markets, and many wealthy people don't create much in the way of value for others. In fact, as our recent financial crisis has shown, it is possible for a few people to become extraordinarily rich by wrecking the global economy. Nevertheless, the basic argument often holds: Many people have amassed fortunes because they (or their parent's, parent's, parents) created value. Steve Jobs resurrected Apple Computer and has since produced one gorgeous product after another. It isn't an accident that millions of us are happy to give him our money. But even in the ideal case, where obvious value has been created, how much wealth can one person be allowed to keep? A trillion doll

Congress, a number of states, and even some cities will raise or consider raising minimum wages this year. Meanwhile, the economy is suffering what may prove to be the fourth consecutive year of a geographically widespread labor market slump, with most states facing uncertain economic situations. In this environment, the minimum wage becomes more important than ever, as a weaker labor market is unlikely to provide low-wage workers the bargaining power required to negotiate fair wages for their labor. Despite the necessity of a minimum wage that allows low-wage workers to meet basic needs, there is still strong opposition to minimum wage increases, especially from those who don't view the weak labor market as an imperative to raise minimum wages, but rather as a reason to oppose them. In particular, opponents of state-level minimum wage increases claim that these increases are the cause of weak labor markets, especially in the form of high unemployment rates. That argument, however, rests on the simplistic observation that some of the states with high minimum wages also have high unemployment rates. Without more examination, this observation is as useful in understanding state job markets as noting that joblessness has been on the rise in New York since the last time the Yankees won the World Series. It might be true, but it doesn't mean one is causing the other.

It's tax time. It's also a time when right-wing Republicans are setting the agenda for massive spending cuts that will hurt most Americans. Here's the truth: The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.

My dad emailed this article to me. The Koch brothers lied about solar energy raising energy expenses for their own agenda. I told my dad "Sounds like capitalists compelled to do evil by the were-wolf hunger of capital. Know what I mean?" The article's own abstract: On July 11, Georgia's Public Service Commission will determine if Georgia Power, run by Southern Company, will have to acquiesce to local government demands to add 525-megawatts (MW) of solar power, despite already agreeing to acquire 270MW of solar. In the controversial debate, billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have pressured regulators to reject the plan. But ahead of the vote, the Associated Press found the billionaires' group, Americans For Prosperity, has used misleading data to tip the debate. The billionaires claimed that new solar mandates would raise energy bills by 40%. But an analysis shows that even if solar power is more expensive than conventional energy, the amount demanded is equal to only 1% of Georgia Power's electric fleet. As a result, it's highly unlikely that adding more solar will impact electricity rates so significantly.

"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."- John F. KennedyThere's one thing for sure: 2008 isn't anything like politics as usual.The corporate media (with their unerring eye for the obvious point) is fixated on the narrative that, for the first time ever, Americans will likely end this year with either a woman or a black man headed for the White House. Bloggers are telling stories from the front lines of primaries and caucuses that look like something from the early 60s - people lining up before dawn to vote in Manoa, Hawaii yesterday; a thousand black college students in Prairie View, Texas marching 10 miles to cast their early votes in the face of a county that tried to disenfranchise them. In recent months, we've also been gobstopped by the sheer passion of the insurgent campaigns of both Barack Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom brought millions of new voters into the conversation - and with them, a sharp critique of the status quo and a new energy that's agitating toward deep structural change.There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be - at long last - that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government - and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season - the kind we get every 20 to 30 years - or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we're going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?Recently, I came across a pocket of sociological research that suggested a tantalizing answer to these questions - and also that America may be far more ready for far more change than anyone really believes is possible at this moment. In fac

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated. Young people have heard of this mythical time - but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981." Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" - to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves. And they've succeeded. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden did not put cuts in national security spending on the table, but the debt-ceiling debate finally did. And mild as those projected cuts might have been, last week newly minted Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was already digging in his heels and decrying the modest potential cost-cutting plans as a "doomsday mechanism" for the military. Pentagon allies on Capitol Hill were similarly raising the alarm as they moved forward with this year's even larger military budget. None of this should surprise you. As with all addictions, once you're hooked on massive military spending, it's hard to think realistically or ask the obvious questions. So, at a moment when discussion about cutting military spending is actually on the rise for the first time in years, let me offer some little known basics about the spending spree this country has been on since September 11, 2001, and raise just a few simple questions about what all that money has actually bought Americans. Consider this my contribution to a future 12-step program for national security sobriety. Let's start with the three basic post-9/11 numbers that Washington's addicts need to know:

In December, President Obama signed legislation to extend hundreds of billions of dollars in Bush tax cuts, benefiting the wealthiest Americans. Last week, Obama agreed to billions of dollars in cuts that will impose the greatest burden on the poorest Americans. And now, virtually everyone in Washington believes, the President is about to embark on a path that will ultimately lead to some type of reductions in Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid benefits under the banner of "reform." Tax cuts for the rich -- budget cuts for the poor -- "reform" of the Democratic Party's signature safety net programs -- a continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies and a new Middle East war launched without Congressional approval. That's quite a legacy combination for a Democratic President. All of that has led to a spate of negotiation advice from the liberal punditocracy advising the President how he can better defend progressive policy aims -- as though the Obama White House deeply wishes for different results but just can't figure out how to achieve them. Jon Chait, Josh Marshall, and Matt Yglesias all insist that the President is "losing" on these battles because of bad negotiating strategy, and will continue to lose unless it improves. Ezra Klein says "it makes absolutely no sense" that Democrats didn't just raise the debt ceiling in December, when they had the majority and could have done it with no budget cuts. Once it became clear that the White House was not following their recommended action of demanding a "clean" vote on raising the debt ceiling -- thus ensuring there will be another, probably larger round of budget cuts -- Yglesias lamented that the White House had "flunked bargaining 101." Their assumption is that Obama loathes these outcomes but is the victim of his own weak negotiating strategy. I don't understand that assumption at all. Does anyone believe that Obama and his army of veteran Washington advisers are incapable of discovering these tactics on th

In recent months, the federal debt ceiling - last increased in February 2010 and now standing at $14.3 trillion - has become a matter of national debate and political hysteria. The ceiling must be raised by Aug. 2, Treasury says, or the government will run out of cash. Congressional Republicans counter that they won't raise the debt limit unless Democrats agree to large budget cuts with no tax increases. President Obama insists that closing tax loopholes must be part of the package. Whom and what to believe in the great debt-limit debate? Here are some misconceptions that get to the heart of the battle.

कब तक शांत रहोगे, कुछ तो कभी बोलोगे ही ना (फेसबुक और insta स्टेटस के अलावा) अगर सच में शासन-प्रशासन से परेशान हैं तो Raise Your Voice के मदद से आवाज उठाईए। #RaiseYourVoice against political dogmatism.

In the midst of fast-moving events in Syria and in the shadows of tyranny, oppression, lethality and massacres practiced by the Syrian regime, the Nation of Islam has been stabbed once again. Another waterfall of Muslim blood has been shed without any humanity. These stabs have been hurting the Muslim nation often and raise many questions about our disbanding and enemy's plots and plans from all sides. In the past weeks, Muslim advocates have been exposed to a gruesome massacre after being attacked by a Buddhist group that killed many Muslims. The media have posted terrible images of the victims of this massacre. The Myanmar government turned a blind eye, and it seems that they agree with the criminal killers. Things did not stop at this massacre but transcended to burn homes and farms of a large number of Muslims and killed dozens by fire. All this happened with the help of police junta Buddhism. On July 10, 2012 a curfew was imposed on villages that was inhabited by the Muslim minority, then the Buddhist groups covered by the Myanmar government started a campaign of ethnic cleansing and religious preference that killed 100 Muslims and injured about 300 people and burned nearly a thousand homes. Also, in this awful campaign they have been targeting scientists, doctors and intellectuals. Away from these events and tension, the main thing that everyone knows is that the Muslims there have been suffering for decades from the oppression and persecution of Buddhists via systematic violations. The group of Buddhists are committed against the Muslims there at different intervals, and force displacement, removal of citizenship, and the sophistication in the torture and "ethnic cleansing." Unjust arrests and the demolition of mosques and Islamic schools have deprived Muslims from the lowest human rights.

Why did Treasury ignore its own guidelines?

CAMPAIGNING AND RAISING MONEY INSTEAD OF FIXING PROBLEMS: THE ABSENTEE PRESIDENT.

Burma is a country with about 0.7 million Muslim population out of total 75 million population. Muslims in Burma have been suffering badly since the year 1962 after the military took over. Since then thousands of Muslims have been killed and thousands of women have been raped but the recent wave of violence is worse than all the previous incidents. Almost every family of Muslims is a victim of Buddhist led regime of Burma. Suffering from such deliberate genocide, many of the Muslims have been compelled to leave their houses and migrate to neighboring countries. The most sad and tragic aspect of this genocide is that nobody is willing to speak against this cruelty. The entire mainstream media is showing criminal silence upon this mass killing going on in Burma against Muslims. We are not seeing any projection for Burmese Muslims in British Broadcasting Corporation, Cable News Network; Fox New, Bloomberg, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and other mainstream print and electronic sections of the media. The response from various Human Rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others is also very tragic and disappointed. These human rights organizations have failed to project this inhuman genocide against Muslims which is going on in Burma. Like is the case with international platforms or so called representatives of the world. The United Nations Organizations also failed to show significant and powerful response against mass killings of Muslims in Burma. The only considerable response we have seen yet is from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and a few Islamic countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan etc. Similarly, social media campaigns are also projecting this inhuman incident effectively; there are a number of pages on Facebook and other social media websites that are raising voice for this cause.

Series of protests took place all over the world and didn't spare Pakistan - Muslim country. Muslims around the country came up with huge anger and disappointment against the making of anti-Islam film. In many other parts of the world, protests captured huge attention of the international media as U.S. embassies were burnt and stormed. For instance, Egypt, Syria, Yemen etc. Muslims gathered in a great number and raised their voice against the making of the film. In some parts of the world, U.S. flag had been burnt and replaced with a black flag having words written on it as "There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his messenger" A small budget movie named "innocence of the Muslims" was made by an individual of California and put over the internet. This movie didn't get any attention until the subtitles were poste din Arabic and sent to the Egyptian journalists. Movie made humiliates the sentiments of the Muslims as it tried to shun the image of beloved Prophet (peace and blessings upon him). Movie made touches the themes of paedophilia and homosexuality. In Pakistan, security measured were tightened by the local police and made sure no violence hit and destroy U.S. embassy. Recently, violence hit the security of the U.S. embassies in many Muslim countries. Many U.S. embassies such as in Egypt, Libya, Yemen were stormed by the protestors greatly. The brazen attack on the U.S embassy also killed an American; the angry souls were tickled by "video linked to Florida pastor Terry Jones, whose public burning of the Koran in 2010 led to deadly protests in Afghanistan. The film reportedly mocks the prophet Muhammad." as per the sources.