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Trans-Pacific Partnership is the answer to the question: How can we make the rich richer?

Dean Baker, Truthout | 28 Oct 2013

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) stands at the top of the Obama administration’s trade agenda. The argument from its supporters is that this agreement is part of the never-ending quest for freer trade. The evidence from what we know of this (still secret) pact is that the TPP has little to do with free trade. It can more accurately be described as a pact designed to increase the wealth and power of crony capitalists.

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The TPP is about crafting rules that will favor big business at the expense of the rest of the population in both the United States and in other countries. For example, we can expect to see limits on the ability of national and sub-national governments to impose environmental restrictions, such as requirements that companies engaging in fracking disclose the list of chemicals they use. There may also be limits on the extent to which governments can restrict the sale of genetically modified foods, with rules on labeling. And, the TPP may prevent governments from imposing restraints on financial firms that would prevent the sort of abuses that we saw during the run-up of the housing bubble. 

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Jon Stewart to The Media for using him to attack Obamacare: 'Go F*ck Yourselves!'

31 Oct 2013 | Wit Happens
The media uses Jon's lampooning of the Affordable Care Act as evidence of its impotence. (05:51)

Russell Brand's revolutionary interview

Actor-slash-comedian-slash-Messiah Russell Brand, in his capacity as guest editor of the New Statesman's just-published revolution-themed issue, was invited to explain to Jeremy Paxman why anyone should listen to a man who has never voted in his life.

"I don't get my authority from this preexisting paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people," Russell responded. "I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity."



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Oasis in a Food Desert | Bill Moyers

An Oasis in a Food Desert

24 Oct 2013 | BillMoyers.com

Since opening last month, America’s first nonprofit grocery store is bringing fresh and affordable fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy to Chester, Pa., a community that has struggled to find healthy food options since the city’s last supermarket closed in 2001.

Chester, home to 35,000 people, has been designated a food desert, a low-income area lacking easy access to healthy food, by the US government. For the residents of Chester the Fare & Square grocery store — seven years in the making — is a welcome relief: “It’s a beautiful supermarket,” said employee Geraldine Carter.

The store is the brainchild of Bill Clark, the executive director of Philabundance, a nonprofit hunger relief organization. Chester has a 36 percent poverty rate and unemployment is 13 percent. Clark said at one time Chester had five grocery stores, but they all closed when the city fell on hard times after manufacturing virtually disappeared.



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Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty?

740 Park Ave, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US -- the American Dream only applies to those with money to lobby politicians for friendly bills on Capitol Hill.



How much inequality is too much? To find out more and get teaching resources linked to the film, go to www.whypoverty.net

Krystal Ball tells the truth on Obamacare

25 Sept 2013 | MSNBC.com
Krystal Ball stated the truth that Conservatives’ alternative to Hillarycare’s liberal healthcare proposal was one by  Wharton Business School professor Marl V. Pauly. That proposal was subsequently adopted by Conservative/Republican Think Tank Heritage Foundation. His proposal required individuals to purchase private insurance called an individual mandate. It was within a bill cosponsored by 22 GOP Senators. It is the same bill that was adopted by Mitt Romney (Romneycare) and it was adopted by President Obama who went against his initial support of Single Payer in order to appease Republicans.

American Winter

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Bernie Sanders: Watch out, 1 Percent

'What the Guardian is doing is important for democracy'

There's been a concerted effort among some politicians and a few of their pet media to accuse The Guardian – you remember, the paper that published the Edward Snowden material? – of treason. So, The Guardian showed one of these articles, from The Daily Mail, to some publishers and editors at various important newspapers, and printed their responses.

Yes, there's a lot of two-faced stuff, here. Papers like the New York Times, which regularly flacks for the US government, for example. But it's fair to say that all these media owners and editors at least understand the principle that's at stake when politicians defend secrecy and lies.

10 October 2013 | The Guardian
On Thursday the Daily Mail described the Guardian as 'The paper that helps Britain's enemies'. We showed that article to many of the world's leading editors. This is what they said:

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Grim report on press freedoms under Obama

Zoë Carpenter | The Nation | 10 Oct 2013

What sets the Obama administration apart from others, said Downie, is not its attempt to control the media narrative but rather its ability to do so. “What’s significant here is the very sophisticated, very successful, very determined way they’ve gone about doing this,” Downie told The Nation. “Most administrations aren’t very successful. This one has been very tightly disciplined.”

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Republican governors and Medican't | The Daily Show

10 Oct 2013 | Health-challenged states like Texas and Mississippi refuse to take advantage of a federally subsidized Medicaid expansion.

The Daily Show
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Bill Moyers essay: On the sabotage of democracy

4 Oct 2013 | BillMoyers.com

Once upon a time when I was a young man working on Capitol Hill, it was commonplace that when a bill became law, everybody was unhappy with it. But you didn’t bring down the government just because it wasn’t perfect. You argue and fight and vote and then, due process having been at least raggedly served - on to the next fight." - Bill Moyers

RNC chairman can't answer simple question of what do Republicans want

3 Oct 2013 | MSNBC.com

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bernie Sanders explains how the Koch Brothers are keeping the government shutdown

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explained on The Ed Show how the Koch brothers are using threats and their money to keep the government shut down.

The Shutdown... brought to You by Citizens United

2 Oct 2013 | TheBigPictureRT

The first government shutdown in 17 years might never have happened if the Supreme Court didn't open up the floodgates of corporate money with its 2010 Citizens United decision.

Elizabeth Warren: Why government matters

4 Oct 2013 | Elizabeth Warren speaks the truth with class and passion:

You Decide. By Clay Bennett.

Republican shutdown... "irrational, avoidable and predictable"

San Antonio Express-News makes it very clear that one party is responsible for an "irrational, avoidable and predictable" government shutdown.

READ MORE: http://bit.ly/1g443mX