In a brief mention in the mainstream media that as far as we can tell only Reuters reported, former Merck vaccine scientists, who have become whistleblowers and have had a federal lawsuit pending against Merck since 2010 for vaccine fraud, have filed another court document in their case accusing Merck of withholding evidence and not complying with court orders. Brendan …
How Big Business Invented the Theology of ‘Christian Libertarianism’ and the Gospel of Free Markets By Kevin Kruse
During the Great Depression, big business needed rebranding. Blamed for the crash, belittled in the press, and beset by the New Deal’s regulatory state, corporate leaders decided they had to improve their image, and soon. “The public does not understand industry,” an executive complained, “because industry itself has made no effort to tell its story; to show the people of …
The Fox Political Cult By James Hoover
Probably the most infamous cases of mass mind control involves religious cults, with the People’s Temple Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, South America being the most tragic. In 1978, Jim Jones, most likely suffering from megalomania, forced 912 followers into committing mass suicide. Attempts to rescue the followers, ultimately by a member of the US House of Representatives, ended in the representative’s …
Bernie Sanders Just Introduced Legislation to Fund Free Undergrad Ed with Wall Street Transaction Taxes – Deirdre Fulton
A broad coalition of nurses, students, religious and civil rights groups, environmentalists, labor and housing advocates on Tuesday praised Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) plan to use a so-called Robin Hood tax on stock transactions to fund tuition at four-year public colleges and universities. Sanders introduced two bills on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.—one to eliminate undergraduate college tuition fees for students attending public colleges and universities …
Obamacare: Death to Physicians? Suicide Rates Climb Since ACA Passed – Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D
Chaos and disruptions in medical care have had one tragic and destructive effect that no one is addressing: the deaths of more than 2,000 physicians by suicide since Obamacare was passedby means of strong-arming and bribery. Physicians in general have a higher rate of suicide than other professional groups and the general public. Women physicians’ suicide rates are reported to …
Right-Wing Pressure in Academia – James DiEugenio
In 1951, at the height of Sen. Joe McCarthy’s hunt for disloyal Americans, William F. Buckley wrote a polemic against liberal education entitled God and Man at Yale, accusing Yale instructors of advocating collectivism and undermining Christianity. Buckley was relatively unknown at the time, but his book contained a foreword by the famous journalist John Chamberlain, who had worked for the New York …
Wall Street Just Got More Pessimistic About the U.S. Economy. Will the Fed Follow Suit? – Matthew Boesler Catarina Saraiva
Federal Reserve officials will probably cut their forecasts for economic growth when they gather again next month, though not enough to deter their intent to raise interest rates later this year. The median respondent to a survey of 79 economists conducted by Bloomberg from May 8 to May 13 said U.S. gross domestic product would grow 2.3 percent in the final quarter of 2015 …
Shelby’s Fed Reform Bill Is Just Moving Deck Chairs on the Titanic – Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Senator Richard Shelby, Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, is set to release details of his proposed financial reform legislation today which Wall Street hopes will have so much smoke and mirrors to appease the liberal and conservative factions on the Committee that no one will notice that it’s another big sellout to Wall Street. The bill will hold out …
With Banks ‘Still Too Big to Fail,’ Another Financial Meltdown Looms – Deirdre Fulton
Seven years after the financial crisis began, many of the conditions that helped cause the near collapse of the U.S. banking system—and that were used to justify the multi-trillion-dollar U.S. government bailout of mammoth financial institutions—endure, warns a new report from the Corporate Reform Coalition (CRC). Titled Still Too Big to Fail (pdf), Thursday’s report charges that since the meltdown began in …
The media misses the point on ‘proxy war’ – Gareth Porter
The term “proxy war” has experienced a new popularity in stories on the Middle East. Various news sources began using the term to describe the conflict in Yemen immediately, as if on cue, after Saudi Arabia launched its bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen on 25 March. “The Yemen Conflict Devolves into Proxy War,” The Wall Street Journal headlined the following …