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Perhaps you’ve noticed. Some people and institutions are working feverishly to convince us that real social change is not possible. Their target is Bernie Sanders and the growing army of his supporters who are fed up with politics as usual and the grip of Wall Street and corporate America on our political, economic and social system. The theme is to desperately convince us that Sanders can’t win. They repeat it over and over, even though Sanders polls as well or better than Hillary Clinton does against every leading Republican candidate. Behind this effort is an alarmed corporate old guard that still runs the Democratic Party establishment and their allies in the corporate think tanks and the media, with a special nod to NBC/MSNBC, which is owned and operated by General Electric and Comcast.

In this scenario to blunt the Sanders’ surge, and what it represents for the millions of people who want to reverse income inequality, guarantee health care to everyone, break up the banks, carry out meaningful environmental justice and criminal justice reform, and all the other far reaching planks of Sanders’ campaign and the coalition supporting it. A thrust of their effort is to persuade Sanders supporters that he cannot win, in large part by using all the well-funded mechanisms in their control to retard wider exposure to the message of Sanders and his allies. The power elite form of turning down the gaslights. Here’s a small part of how the manipulation works. 

The Democratic National Committee slashes the number of debates and schedules debates on Saturday nights when far fewer people are watching, and pressures its elected officials and convention super delegates for an early endorsement in an effort to lock down a coronation of their preferred candidate. Meanwhile the media, in particular NBC/MSNBC which has the biggest network audience of presumed Democratic Party voters, limits coverage of Sanders while it’s parent company, GE, also directs its Hollywood subsidiaries, including Universal Studios (co-owned by Comcast) and its NBC shows, to line up its contracted celebrities to endorse the politics as usual campaign. Other national media, which also has a stake in the status quo, contributes as well. While Sanders has now drawn more than 400,000 people to his rallies – far more than any other candidate – he routinely receives less coverage than most of the other leading candidates. A report, circulated by Media Matters, found that on one network alone Donald Trump has been given 81 minutes of coverage compared to less than one minute for Sanders, even though, as The Nation’s John Nichols notes, Sanders has broader support among Democratic voters than Trump does among Republicans in the first voting state, Iowa.

President Obama on Thursday took the rare step of vetoing a major defense policy bill, upping the stakes in a faceoff with Republicans over government spending.  Obama used his veto pen on the National Defense Authorization Act during a photo-op in Oval Office.  “I’m going to be vetoing this authorization bill. I’m going to be sending it back to Congress, and my message to them is very simple: Let’s do this right,” Obama said. ADVERTISEMENTIt’s highly unusual for a president to veto the defense legislation, which typically becomes law with bipartisan support. The move amounts to a public rebuke of congressional Republicans, who warned that vetoing the $612 billion measure would put the nation’s security at risk.  The veto was Obama’s third this year and the fifth of his presidency. The Defense authorization bill has been vetoed four times in the last half-decade.  

Obama argues the bill irresponsibly skirts spending caps adopted in 2011 by putting $38 billion into a war fund not subject to the limits, a move he called a "gimmick." He has called on Congress to increase both defense and nondefense spending. “Let’s have a budget that properly funds our national security as well as economic security, let’s make sure that we’re able in a constructive way to reform our military spending to make it sustainable over the long term,” Obama said.  The president also objects to language in the bill that requires the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison to remain open. Republican leaders expressed outrage with Obama’s decision to veto the bill, pointing out that it puts a scheduled pay raise for troops, among other policy changes, at risk. “By placing domestic politics ahead of our troops, President Obama has put America’s national security at risk,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.  “This indefensible veto blocks pay and vital tools for our troops while Iranian terrorists prepare to gain billions under the president’s nuclear deal."  

The move forces Congress to revisit the bill and send it back to the president. The military will continue to operate under last year’s defense policy if lawmakers cannot reach an agreement.  Republicans have pledged to attempt to override Obama’s veto, but it’s unlikely they have the votes to do so.  The Senate voted 70-27 to pass the bill, and overriding the veto would require 67 votes. But Democratic leaders have said some members would switch their vote to avoid defying the president.  The House vote count, 270-156, would not be enough to override a veto, which would take 290 votes. Asked how confident the White House is Obama’s veto will be sustained, White House spokesman Eric Schultz replied: “very.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro unveiled  a series of economic measures on Tuesday following the release of a new poll predicting a victory for the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) in December parliamentary elections. Among the measures are various modifications to Venezuela’s Fair Price Law aimed at fighting speculation by private retailers, which has become rampant amid soaring inflation.

A new category of maximum price will applied to all goods and services, stipulating a 30% maximum profit for retailers determined on the basis of “real costs of production and commercialization”. Within this new schema, importers will be entitled to a maximum profit of 20%, while domestic producers will be allowed to take in a 30% maximum gain in an effort to stimulate national production. By capping profits in each rung of the production chain, the government aims to put a halt to the speculative spiral rapidly driving up the prices of everyday goods, which constantly erodes the purchasing power of Venezuela’s popular sectors. Additionally, Maduro announced a modification applying to food and health services, a category, which the government says has been manipulated by private retailers. The new “Fair Price” registry will be determined unilaterally by Venezuela’s National Superintendence of Fair Prices over the next 30 days. In order to enforce the new “fair price” regime, Maduro also unveiled tougher punishments for speculation, which will be detected by evaluating the net income of private firms in light of new regulations on maximum price and maximum profit. The government will now impose steeper penalties on retailers who remark the price of goods, which may include jail time. Furthermore, the common practice of fixing prices on the basis of the parallel dollar will now be considered an offense. Apart from measures against speculation, Maduro also announced a 30% across-the-board salary increase for public sector workers and armed forces personnel, which comes on the heels of a 30% raise in the national minimum wage announced last week. The salary adjustment was coupled with the approval of 110,000 new pensioners as part of the national pension system, which has been massively expanded under the Bolivarian administrations of Chávez and Maduro.

Lastly, the Venezuelan president indicated that the ministries of industry and commerce would be fused in order to better coordinate efforts to combat speculation and guarantee the distribution of essential goods.

The International Monetary Fund agreed Monday to add the Chinese yuan to its reserve currency basket. The decision — which marks another step in China's global economic emergence — came after the IMF evaluated the Asian nation's standing as an exporter and the yuan's role as a "freely usable" currency. In a statement, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde noted the yuan's inclusion is a "clear representation of the reforms" taking place in China.

The addition of the yuan, or renminbi, will take effect next October. Lagarde and the United States had supported its inclusion in the basket, known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR). It will join the euro, yen, pound and dollar in the reserves basket. The yuan will have about an 11 percent weighting in the SDR.

The IMF said the yuan's inclusion will make the SDR more diverse and representative of the international community. The basket determines the currency mix countries like Greece receive when the IMF disburses financial aid. The decision to add the yuan will likely increase demand for the currency.

Senior Whitehall figures are drawing up controversial plans to ensure that Britain’s armed forces will no longer be subject to legal claims by their enemies over human rights violations.Guaranteed to have Brits in Middle England choking on their morning croissants, Saturday’s claims from right-wing mouthpiece, The Telegraph, insisted that taxpayers are facing a bill of £150 million to defend British soldiers being sued by “enemy fighters” for breaching their human rights. The Telegraph claimed that over 2,000 compensation claims and judicial reviews are being prepared by lawyers in the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a growing litigation culture that is encroaching on the ability of the armed forces to do their jobs.So far, 500 judicial review applications have been lodged, with 1,200 claims for compensation against the Ministry of Defense for alleged abuse, unlawful detention, and unlawful killing in Iraq.Further, an estimated 800 compensation cases from Afghanistan could follow.

Defence secretary Michael Fallon is so dismayed at what he calls the “increasing encroachment of human rights law into the battlefield,” that he is determined to take steps to stem the tide of legal action.Some of the planned fightback by ministers should concern everyone:Pulling out of the European Convention: Ministers could declare a temporary withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) before sending British forces into action in future.Taking legal action against law firms that have brought “bogus” cases against the Armed Forces: This includes referring lawyers to legal watchdogs and bringing fraud prosecutions against firms found to have made false allegations.A time limit on legal action to stop compensation claims being made years after incidents occur: Further reforms would end legal aid for claimants who are living outside the U.K.Planned new laws would also allow the government to recover the costs of “bogus judicial reviews,”  but one proposal is the most worrying of all:

A new Bill of Rights: Michael Gove is working on a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, according to ministers. It will reportedly include safeguards for the Armed Forces to protect them from being sued.In contrast to Michael Fallon’s indignation, a report by Stop The War claims “The long history of British abuse and torture in Kenya, Malaya, Aden, Cyprus, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan cannot be explained as the work of a few ‘bad apples.’”.BottomResponsiveBanner{width:300px;height:250px}@media (min-width:420px){.BottomResponsiveBanner{width:336px;height:280px}}@media (min-width:1300px){.BottomResponsiveBanner{width:728px;height:90px}} The report lists abuses committed by British forces and also references the “loss of the moral compass evident in the behaviour of British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.”Some might say that by scrapping the Human Rights Act, the government fears being challenged and wants to take away the public’s ability to contest decisions and policies. One thing is for sure: without it, the British government will be allowed to act with almost complete impunity.

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday that if he wins the White House he will “fix” the Federal Reserve by throwing bankers off its boards and increasing transparency and regulation as a way of reining in Wall Street. Sanders criticized the pivotal decision by America’s central bank a week ago to raise interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. He declared that the move was “the latest example of the rigged economic system”, in an opinion article for the New York Times on Wednesday. “Wall Street is still out of control,” he said in the article.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of an independent monitor’s review of HSBC’s internal cleanup after a landmark $1.92 billion settlement for laundering drug money and for sanctions violations. The U.S. Justice Department and the bank had claimed that disclosing the report could harm law enforcement efforts and provide criminals with a “road map” to holes in HSBC’s defenses against money laundering. But U.S. District Judge John Gleeson ruled that the court and the public had a right to know whether HSBC was living up to its agreement to improve internal controls and merited a deferral of prosecution by the government.

Gleeson also said it was “equally appropriate and desirable for the public to be interested and informed now in the progress” of the HSBC settlement. HSBC in 2012 reached a landmark settlement with the federal government, admitting that it had deliberately laundered funds for drug cartels and countries under trade sanctions. Prosecutors described the settlement as a “sword of Damocles” hanging over HSBC. Should the bank fail to improve, it would face prosecution for unbridled financial wrongdoing. A condition of the settlement was that the bank submit to extensive outside review of its reform efforts. The former New York State ethics chief Michael G. Cherkasky was appointed as the HSBC monitor in 2013. A leaked copy of his report recounted instances of U.S. bank managers bullying and shouting at compliance team members, and drew attention to the bank’s dealings with clients that had possible links to terrorism, according to Bloomberg.

The recent economic “correction” in the U.S. markets, which saw stocks drop back down from recent record-highs, has begun to spread to the east, reaching the stock exchanges in Tokyo, Taiwan and Shanghai. While all three of these markets depend, to some extent, on the performance of Wall Street, one is likely to emerge stronger as the U.S. market corrects itself. Many Western economic analysts — such as those at the pillar of U.S. financial journalism, Bloomberg — have continued to predict future financial downturns would be caused by Chinese debt, or the country’s massive “shadow” economy (or, more specifically, low level loans that aren’t tightly regulated by the central government). This latest downturn, however, shows once again that Wall Street is still the primary factor in sinking global markets. China has been faced with — and continued to grow throughout — a previous U.S.-triggered global recession just under a decade ago. While the current condition of the markets is nothing like the end of 2008, there is still the same fear in the West that China is somehow on the brink of catastrophe. Yet China pulled through the Great Recession, despite a huge decrease in demand for Chinese export goods. Beijing presided over GDP growth only falling below 8 percent in the last quarter of 2008 and first of 2009 and made a faster recovery than any Western nation.

China is obviously in a position much different now from that of 2008. Now — as a clear competitor with the U.S. in key economic sectors such as cutting-edge technology, and playing a unifying role for a large portion of the global population — Beijing is making even more major domestic economic reforms and preparing to project its new prosperity outward. In order to better understand how China is likely not just to survive any fluctuations in the U.S. market but also to thrive, it is best to understand both how China managed to recover from the last recession faster than any other country and the new economic policies of President Xi Jinping, which will harness the power of the world’s largest planned economy in its march into the future.

Wells Fargo WFC -9.22%Wells FargoWFC$58.16$-5.91(-9.22%)As of 02/06/2018, 01:01am EST is facing far more than a fine for its fake accounts scandal, in which employees at the lender's branches across the country opened over a million fraudulent checking and credit card accounts to hit their numbers. Late on Friday, the Federal Reserve decided to restrict growth at America's third-largest bank by assets until its risk and governance is improved. The order, which also called for a revamp of Wells Fargo's board of directors, sent the bank reeling in early trading Monday. Wells Fargo shares plunged 9% lower in Monday trading, erasing most of its gains over the past 12 months. For its top shareholder, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, the Fed-inspired stock slide meant its Wells Fargo holdings lost over $2.7 billion in value. "We cannot tolerate pervasive and persistent misconduct at any bank and the consumers harmed by Wells Fargo expect that robust and comprehensive reforms will be put in place to make certain that the abuses do not occur again," said chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday. The order was her last as head of the Federal Reserve. On Monday, successor Jerome Powell was sworn in. Added Yellen, "the enforcement action we are taking today will ensure that Wells Fargo will not expand until it is able to do so safely and with the protections needed to manage all of its risks and protect its customers." In September 2016, Wells Fargo paid a $185 million fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the agency found branch bankers had opened well over a million fake accounts, which generated millions of dollars in fees to the lender. When the scandal, which occurred over almost a decade, was first revealed, Wells Fargo and its board didn't immediately overhaul their leadership, or sanction top executives in the divisions where fake accounts were created. Only after significant public outcry, in addition to a widening scope of the scandal, did Wells Fargo begin a revamp, firing CEO John Stumpf and clawing back bonuses for numerous executives. Backer Warren Buffett later said in an appearance on CNBC the bank and its leadership had misjudged the severity of the problem.

In addition to harsh words, the Fed is ordering a sanction of almost unprecedented severity. It will restrict the bank's growth until its governance and risk management improve, though it will allow Wells to continue current operations from taking deposits to offering loans.

Three Wells Fargo long-standing board directors, John Chen, Lloyd Dean and Enrique Hernandez, will likely retire at the firm's annual meeting as part of the Fed's additional order for a refreshment of four board directors. Analysts did not brush off the Fed's move, as they have large fines coming out of the crisis.

After years of deriding the U.S. war in Afghanistan as “complete waste”, U.S. President Donald Trump trumped his previous position and election promises on Monday, when he said he now believes it is in the United States’ interest to remain committed to Afghanistan. 

In an evening address from a military base outside Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his administrations new policy without unveiling many details of it. Trump said his policy was base on a “condition-based” approach to defeating terrorism in the country and said the United States will no longer use its military to construct democracies or rebuild other countries in its own image. His goal, he said, is to stop the re-emergence of safe havens for terrorists to threaten America and make sure they do not get their hands on nuclear weapons. “We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities,” Trump told about 2,000 service members at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.” Trump has reportedly approved up to 4,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Currently, there are about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Most are advising Afghan forces, though some are tasked with carrying out counterterrorism operations against groups such as the Taliban or the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate. That number is down significantly from the height of former President Barack Obama’s troop surge, which saw nearly 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in August 2010. However, there has also been a significant resurgence of the Taliban and ISIS has entered the Afghan theater since.

Following Trump’s speech, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released a statement saying: “We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions. We look to the international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbors, to join us in supporting an Afghan peace process.” Trump, in his address, put Pakistan on notice. “We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists they are fighting. But that will have to change and that will change immediately,” Trump said. Many perceived Trumps statement to “not allowing terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons” as a reference to Pakistan as well. The conflict in Afghanistan, a country with a factionalized unity government, with former war lords holding key government positions, and riddled with systemic corruption,  has dragged on for 16 years. It is becoming the longest U.S. war ever, since the September 11, 2001 “incidents” in the United States. It is worth noting that a growing number of U.S. Americans no longer believe in the “official narrative” about the events on 9/11 and would like to see an independent investigation. Expressing frustration Trump informed Afghanistan that the commitment by the United States is not unlimited and America’s support not a blank check. The American people, he warned, expect “to see real reforms and real results.” Trump’s policy announcement follows a months long review. However, there are many Afghan politicians including former President Hamid Karzai who are opposed to an increase in troops and who call for a political settlement instead.