The Empire Strikes Out

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Home of The Brave, Not.

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JEB! wants another Bush War

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Fairness AND Growth: the Progressive Economic Alternative

Sep 28, 2015 ~ New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Raul Grijalva, progressive movement advocates, and business leaders make the argument for a progressive economic agenda.

Bernie Sanders: In-depth explanation of Income Inequality

Chris Hedges: The Real Enemy Is Within

Chris Hedges | Truthdig.com
6 Sept 2015

If you are not dedicated to the destruction of empire and the dismantling of American militarism, then you cannot count yourself as a member of the left. It is not a side issue. It is the issue. It is why I refuse to give a pass in this presidential election campaign to Bernie Sanders, who refuses to confront the war industry or the crimes of empire, including U.S. support for the slow genocide carried out by Israel against the Palestinians. There will be no genuine democratic, social, economic or political reform until we destroy our permanent war machine.
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Militarists and war profiteers are our greatest enemy. They use fear, bolstered by racism, as a tool in their efforts to abolish civil liberties, crush dissent and ultimately extinguish democracy. To produce weapons and finance military expansion, they ruin the domestic economy by diverting resources, scientific and technical expertise and a disproportionate share of government funds. They use the military to carry out futile, decades-long wars to enrich corporations such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. War is a business. And when the generals retire, guess where they go to work? Profits swell. War never stops. Whole sections of the earth live in terror. And our nation is disemboweled and left to live under what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” Libertarians seem to get this. It is time the left woke up.

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Hunter S. Thompson on Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72: George McGovern (1997)

Corporate America tried to kill Investigative Journalism: they didn't anticipate Social Media

K.J. McElrath
Ring of Fire
30 August 2015

Five years ago, the word in the media was that investigative journalism was dying. No longer would corruption and morality be kept in check through journalists such as Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (Nellie Bly), Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and Seymour Hersh.

Well, to paraphrase another famous news man, Samuel (“Mark Twain”) Clemens, reports of the death of investigative reporting have been greatly exaggerated.  Thanks to Progressive digital media sites like Huffington Post and The Intercept,that tradition is returning with a vengeance – and heaven help the corporate and political villains who attempt to hide under rocks and in the shadows.

What happened to investigative journalism in the first place? The short answer: it was about the money. Traditional investigative reporting is very expensive and time-consuming. It requires travel, research, extensive interviews with many people and rigorous documentation. It also entails risks; not surprisingly, investigative reporters are targeted by those persons and institutions who are the subject of their reports. Small wonder that Corporate America, which has been consolidating media under its control for years (and often the target of investigative reports), has been happy to see investigative journalism killed off.

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Rachel Maddow: Bernie Sanders' track record distinguished by consistency

The Next GOP Debate

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How to beat the senile old teabaggers

The city of Troy, Michigan was facing a budget shortfall, and was considering closing the Troy Public Library for lack of funds. Even though the necessary revenues could be raised through a miniscule tax increase, powerful anti-tax groups in the area were organized against it.

Koch Brothers built it

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The Bernie Sanders Moment

Todd Gitlin | New York Times
11 July 2015

"The white-haired politician stands before 10,000 cheering supporters in Madison, Wis., and calls for “political revolution,” denouncing a 'rigged economy' that produces 'a grotesque level of inequality,' returning to a theme that ’60s radicals have long been trumpeting.

"It may have seemed, only a few years ago, that the ’60s radical moment was consigned to documentaries on Woodstock, pushed out of the spotlight for Occupy Wall Street and a new generation of activists to enter stage left. But here it is again. And it is perfectly timed to crusade against what Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, calls an 'oligarchy.'

"In Mr. Sanders’s run — and in the absence of a White House bid from Senator Elizabeth Warren — progressives have found a candidate they can support wholeheartedly. To understand the moment that the 73-year-old Mr. Sanders is enjoying, we have to see how he got here, waiting for national politics to catch up.

"The road he took out of the 1960s student movement was not the most conspicuous one, but it was the widest. And Senator Sanders now represents a culmination of one of the primary currents of the left in the past half century."

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U.S. Marine Band - John Philips Sousa - The Stars and Stripes Forever

Still Flying

Luckovich

Senator Bernie Sanders on TPP Vote: Wall Street steals more from America and Obama promotes it

Bernie Sanders beats the Hell out of Wall Street dope Alan Greenspan in 2003

Charleston

Bernie Sanders on G.E. and The Five Chinas

Rick Perry's accomplishments

B.B. King on Austin City Limits in 1983

“B.B. King personified blues music for the whole world...He was larger than life, but a gentle man with a kind soul and big heart. His ACL performance ranks as one of my personal favorites, and I was never more proud than when he somehow slipped ‘Austin City Limits’ into the lyric of his classic rendition of Willie Nelson’s ‘Night Life.’ We’ve lost a giant.” – Terry Lickona, ACL Executive Producer

Birds of a feather

Traitors

The Great Texas Teapublican Freak Out

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Senator Sanders: "The American people are angry"

Senator Bernard Sanders Floor Statement - June 27, 2012

excerpt
"I think what the American people are saying is enough is enough. This country, this great country, belongs to all of us. It cannot continue to be controlled by a handful of billionaires who apparently want it all. You know, I, for the love of me, I cannot understand why people who have billions of dollars are compulsively driven for more and how many people have got to die because they don'€™t go to a doctor because you want to avoid paying your taxes?€œ

"Well, that is not what America is about. That is not what people fought and died to create. With that, we have got a fight on our hands. The job of the United States national is to represent the middle-class families of this country, all of the people, and not just the super-rich. I hope we can begin to do that".



Link to transcript

Subsidized

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Verily.

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We don't have emperors yet, but...

Johnny & The Hurricanes - Red River Rock (1959)

No connections

Not kidding

The overdue prosecution of Rick Perry

1 February 2015
Last August, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was indicted by a grand jury on felony charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public official. Perry’s legal team has been trying to get the case dismissed, but has failed each time. The most recent denial came from Judge Bert Richardson, a Republican judge in San Antonio. After a second request made by Perry, a judge denied a motion to have a criminal case against the governor dismissed. America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio, appears on The Thom Hartmann Program to discuss Rick Perry’s claims of wearing his indictment as a 'badge of honor.' 

The Last Real Texas Blues Band

Bill Moyers: Fighting for FDR's Four Freedoms

April 11, 2014

If you believe America desperately needs a great surge of democracy in the face of fierce opposition from reactionary and corporate forces, then remembering and reviving the spirit of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died 69 years ago this week, is in order.

In January 1941, FDR’s State of the Union address made it clear that a fight was inevitable, a fight to preserve, protect and defend four essential freedoms: freedom from fear and want and freedom of speech and religion.

This week, Bill speaks with historian Harvey J. Kaye, author of the new book, The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great, about how FDR’s speech was a rallying cry to build the kind of progressive society that Roosevelt hoped for but did not live to see at war’s end.

Kaye says the president was able to mobilize Americans who created “the strongest and most prosperous country in human history.” How did they do it? By working toward the Four Freedoms and making America “freer, more equal and more democratic.”




Nine things people should understand about Lyndon Johnson

Julian E. Zelizer | www.vox.com
17 January 2015

For decades, Lyndon Johnson was reviled as one of the worst presidents in American history, the person who brought the nation into the disastrous war in Vietnam. More recently, there has been a revival of interest in Johnson's legendary ability to make Washington work.

During his presidency, Congress passed a huge agenda of domestic legislation — which he called the Great Society — that included Medicare and Medicaid, civil rights and voting rights, a War on Poverty, food stamps, immigration reform, federal aid to elementary and secondary schools, higher education funding, environmental regulations, and much more.

Americans have learned a great deal about the president through the wonderful work of writers such as Robert Dallek, Robert Caro, and Randall Woods. The White House presidential recordings, which are now available to the public online, have provided people with a seat inside the inner sanctum of the Oval Office to hear LBJ interacting with his friends and foes. Last year a Tony Award-winning play starring Bryan Cranston, 'All The Way', brought LBJ's frenetic energy to Broadway. Johnson is currently in the news as a result of a vigorous debate over how he is depicted in the film 'Selma'.

But much of our understanding about Johnson is still based on misunderstandings about who he was and how he got things done. My new book, 'The Fierce Urgency of Now', provides a narrative history of the Great Society that challenges some of the popular myths about LBJ. While writing the book, I learned a great deal from the archives about Lyndon Johnson.

Here are nine things I wish people knew about the 36th president.
NINE THINGS HERE:

Jeff Healey Band - Sittin' On Top Of The World

Jeff Healey at the Islington Academy (2007)

Stevie Ray Vaughan - 'Cold Shot'

from 'Couldn't Stand The Weather' (1984)

Elizabeth Warren on fighting back against Wall St. giants | Bill Moyers

September 5, 2014

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her brothers grew up in “an America that invested in kids like us and helped build a future where we could flourish.” But, as she writes in her memoir, A Fighting Chance, “Today the game is rigged – rigged to work for those who have money and power… The optimism that defines us as a people has been beaten and bruised. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Elizabeth Warren on Fighting Back Against Wall St. Giants from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Gun sale time