The Digger

"In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s evil genius matters less than pressures from the ultrarich, US foreign policy, and the ravages of the neoliberal Yeltsin years" Excerpt: "Wood’s Russia isn’t a reascendant superpower on the march. It’s a relatively weak, isolated nation teetering on the brink of instability and held together by a nationalism that has become newly powerful this decade. Its GDP per capita is around a sixth of the US’s and a quarter of the OECD average, with sluggish growth forecast for the future. Its mortality rate has long outpaced its fertility rate, with its population forecast to plunge in the coming decades. And far from a military threat, its 2015 military budget wasn’t even a tenth of that of NATO’s, let alone that of the US, while more and more of its neighboring states join the Western military alliance and China grows in power on its southern border (though Russia does still possess a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons). Moreover, it’...

Excerpt: " Black Agenda Report has spent over a decade analyzing the numerous manifestations of the Obama family’s hatred of Black America. Michelle Obama is currently on a book tour of her latest release,   Becoming . The overpriced book is but another addition to the post-Obama Presidency family fortune. Barack and Michelle Obama have been busy building a   billionaire brand   with book deals and speaking arrangements with Wall Street. As Paul Street noted, the Obama Foundation is putting the donations of Wall Street corporations to good use   by opening a “library” in the heartland of Black Chicago. Just as during its tenure in the White House, the Obama family is profiting from the promotion of white supremacist policy and ideology directed against Black America. Nowhere is this clearer than in the very words that have come out of the mouths of both members of the Obama “power couple.” At a recent speaking event at the Barclay’s Center in New York City, Miche...

" The whole focus of classical economics is to tax wealth not income, and obviously, the tax burden was going to fall on the wealthy, on the landlords first and foremost, then on the bankers and then on the monopolists. That was what socialism was, the idea of creating an economy with a circular flow that the taxes would be paid by the wealthy and the government would use this tax revenue to spend on infrastructure, schools, productive credit to help the economy and to make economies more competitive. It seems that in that sense socialism was going to be the most efficient capitalist economy." Two interviews with Bonnie Faulkner of Guns and Butter: "You can’t bail out the banks, leave the debts in place, and rescue the economy. It’s a zero-sum game. Somebody has to lose. That’s what happened in 2009 when President Obama came in. He invited the bankers to the White House and he said, “ I’m the only guy standing between you and the mob with pitchforks,” by whic...

By now, the response to such a headline: what else is new?! Two paragraphs deep, however, the lede: " According to  strategy documents obtained   by   The Intercept   and the watchdog group Documented, the private healthcare industry is working aggressively alongside corporate Democrats to spread   anti-single payer propaganda   and "minimize the potential" for Medicare for All as an alternative to the current for-profit status quo. Folks at the  @theintercept  got their hands on some documents that show how private insurers intend to join with centrists who want to confuse what single-payer and, specifically, what Medicare for All mean  https://t.co/fyYGYv7g9l   pic.twitter.com/y5t4CkiRGB — Chris Middleman (@_Middleman)  November 20, 2018 Directed by former Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton staffers and leading insurance industry lobbyists, an alliance called the Partnership for America's Health Care Future worked h...