Charter flights for the privileged few

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Houston

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It's toppling time.

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Two asshats

Mike Luckovich

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Why is one of America's top cancer researchers running for Congress? Meet Jason Westin

Howie Klein | 7 August 2017
crooksandliars.com

The DCCC hasn't seriously contested Texas' 7th congressional district since 1966 when George H.W. Bush beat ultra-conservative Harris Co. District Attorney Frank Briscoe (D) to become the first-ever Republican to represent Houston. It's been a deep red district ever since... or at least until Trump came along and started waking people up. Last year Hillary beat Trump in this R+13 district-- 48.5% to 47.1%. Trump did almost 13 points worse than Romney had done in the well-off, minority-majority west Houston congressional district.

This year there's a crowded primary of Democrats eager to take on Trump and Ryan rubber-stamp John Culberson. Jason Westin's enthusiastic and well-reasoned support for Medicare-For-All differentiates him not just from Culberson but from the other primary candidates running in his district.

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Tangled web connects Russian oligarch money to GOP campaigns

Ruth May, contributor
4 August 2017 | Dallas Morning News

Party loyalty is often cited as the reason that GOP leaders have not been more outspoken in their criticism of President Donald Trump and his refusal to condemn Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. Yet there may be another reason that top Republicans have not been more vocal in their condemnation. Perhaps it's because they have their own links to the Russian oligarchy that they would prefer go unnoticed.

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Keith Olbermann: Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven.

Trump's been laundering Russian mob money for decades

Waco Veterans Affairs office denies 92% of Gulf War claims

Department of Veterans Affairs benefits officials in Waco have denied a whopping 92 percent of claims related to Gulf War illness, giving Central Texas veterans one of the highest denial rates in the nation, according to data in a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

The report found serious and persistent problems with how the VA handles the complicated Gulf War benefits claims, ranging from poorly trained examiners to inconsistent methods of handling claims in different regions of the country. For example, in the continental United States denial rates ranged from 47 percent in Boston to 95 percent in Roanoke, Va., according to an analysis by the advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense.

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Two Trumps Confess to Conspiracy

The Fab Faux – Abbey Road Side 2 (mostly)

The Fab Faux - Abbey Road Side 2 (mostly) from The Fab Faux on Vimeo.

Luckovich

Pigs at the trough

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ACLU issues Texas travel advisory

Online Privacy Guide for Journalists 2017

Online Privacy For Journalists: A must-have guide for journalism in 2017 will guide professionals (and could and should guide anyone) about safeguarding their communications, browsing, and data, from any unwanted Big Brother or intruder. It is published now as the world is reshaping, and there's a real threat, even in the Western world, to the free press. All proceeds from this book are donated straight to the EFF.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF:

Three of a kind

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Roll 'em

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The same old, same old

Jerry Brown's message to climate scientists

Darrin Bell: Watch This Space

Getting money out of politics: Cenk Uygur

He doesn't

Jimmy Fallon interviews Dan Rather about Facebook and Donald Trump

Who voted for Steve Bannon?

The Loser

Mike Luckovich

Deal makers

David Horsey

Clay Bennett

Incoming

Henry A. Wallace

How Trump voters see themselves

Webb Wilder - Sputnik

Mike Luckovich

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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Journalism

Say Her Name: Sandra Bland

American Battlefields

Delaying the coronation

Bernie Sanders | Second interview | The Young Turks

27 May 2016

Which Hillary?

The Young Turks: Why Trump Will NEVER Release His Tax Returns

Tom Toles

Biden: No Democrat wins saying 'we can't think that big'

Confederates for Donald Trump | The Young Turks

Bernie Sanders speech on Democratic Socialism at Georgetown University

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)

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