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Ever wonder what’s happening to words once they fall into the hands of corporate and government propagandists? Too often reporters and editors don’t wonder enough. They ditto the words even when the result is deception or doubletalk. Here are some examples. Day in and day out we read about “detainees” imprisoned for months or years…
After several weeks of protests at Senate hearings and health care events by single payer advocates (visit FactCheck.org reports that “a notorious analysis of the House health care bill contains 48 claims. Twenty-six of them are false, and the rest are mostly misleading. Only four are true. For example, false are claims that the bill…
Among Senator Ted Kennedy’s many accomplishments in the U.S. Senate was a little-heralded but critical boost he gave to the Freedom of Information legislation in 1974. At a time when the opposition to this key bill was in need of a countervailing champion, we visited Senator Kennedy, had a very substantive meeting and secured his…
The Obama White House—full of supposedly smart political advisors led by the President of the “Change You Can Believe In” campaign movement of 2008—is in disarray. Worse, multiple, confusing varieties of disarray provoking public confusion, internal Democratic Party strife, and the slow withdrawal of belief in Mr. Obama by his strongest supporters around the country.…
Never much of a fighter against abusive corporate power, Barack Obama is making it increasingly clear that right from his start as President, he wanted health insurance reform that received the approval of the giant drug and health insurance industries. Earlier this year he started inviting top bosses of these companies for intimate confabs in…
Companies that specialize in stock market forecasting and trading—such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase—pay very high salaries to their employee-vendors. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just released data showing that these and other large banks are giving each of their 5000 trader-forecasters bonuses of at least one million dollars. In…
August 5, 2009 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, We are writing again to urge you to restore the obliterated rights of victims of defective GM and Chrysler cars. Our earlier letter of July 14 has received no reply. The bankruptcy process for GM and…
Every week, Marcia Carroll collects examples of privatization (that is, corporatization of the peoples’ assets). Looking at her website, privatizationwatch.org, will either make you laugh helplessly or make your blood boil. The “off the wall” giveaways at bargain-basement prices of what you and other Americans own eclipses imagination. The latest escapes from responsible government are…
About the only lesson Barack Obama has learned from the Hillary and Bill health insurance debacle of 1993-1994 is to leave Michelle Obama out of his current drive to get something—anything—through the Congress labeled “reform”. Otherwise, he is making the same mistakes of blurring his proposal, catering to right-wing Democrats and corporatist Republicans, who want…
On July 30th, an American manufacturer in China and Korea will officially announce the move of its tool manufacturing facilities to Houston, Texas. Farouk Systems will open a factory with the goal of creating 1277 jobs at a new 189,000 sq. ft. facility in the South’s largest metropolis. Farouk Shami, founder and executive chairman, says…