The Digger

The Magic Socialist So here it is, the announcement we’ve been waiting for … all aboard for another cruise on the new and improved U.S.S. Magic Socialist with your captain Bernie Sanders at the helm! If you’re not familiar with this extraordinary vessel, it’s like the luxury liner in  The Magic Christian , except catering to credulous American socialists instead of the British filthy rich. Tickets start at just $27 dollars … so hurry, because they’re going fast! That’s right, folks, Bernie is back, and this time it’s not just a sadistic prank where he gets you all fired up about his fake “revolution” for fifteen months, gets cheated out of the nomination, then backs whichever corporate-bought candidate the Democratic Party orders you to vote for. No, this time the Bernster really means it! This time, when the DNC rigs the primaries to hand the nomination to Harris, or Biden, or some billionaire android like Michael Bloomberg, Bernie is not going to break your heart by re...

“An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews.” – Joe Sobran February 25, 2019 " Information Clearing House "   -  In his novel  1984  George Orwell invented the expression “newspeak” to describe the ambiguous or deliberately misleading use of language to make political propaganda and narrow the “thought options” of those who are on the receiving end. In the context of today’s political discourse, or what passes for the same, it would be interesting to know what George would think of the saturation use of “anti-Semitism” as something like a tactical discussion stopper, employed to end all dispute while also condemning those accused of the crime as somehow outside the pale, monsters who are consigned forever to derision and obscurity. The Israelis and, to be sure, many diaspora Jews know exactly how the expression has been weaponized. Former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni  explained how it is done  “An...

Posted on   February 26, 2019   by  Yves Smith By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with  New Economic Perspectives Donald Trump  promised to deliver a middle-class tax cut of epic proportions. “The largest tax reductions are for the middle class, who have been forgotten,” Trump said in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 22, 2016. If Trump had fulfilled that campaign promise, it would have made him spectacularly popular and vastly increased his support beyond his base.  He, not the ‘Republican Party,’ controlled the House and the Senate. Many Democrats would have supported a serious cut in middle-class taxes.  Better yet, from Trump’s perspective, many Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and ‘Chuck’ Schumer would have bitterly opposed the Trump Tax Trium...

"In June last year fascist and hard right forces staged their biggest demonstration in Britain since the 1930s, as 15,000 people called for the release from prison of Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), incarcerated for contempt of court. Robinson’s imprisonment became a cause célèbre for the international far right, and the demonstration symbolised the drawing together of Europe’s major extreme right parties and their willingness to ally themselves with more-or-less openly fascist movements. Speakers included Belgian MP Filip Dewinter of the Flemish Vlaams Belang (formerly Vlaams Blok) and Geert Wilders of the Muslim-baiting Dutch Party for Freedom. Messages were read out from numerous international far right parties and personalities, including the French National Front now called the National Rally–Rassemblement National (RN). Another key speaker was former UKIP MEP Janice Atkinson, who, along with Geert Wilders, has used her position in the European parliament...

"Since Hugo Chávez Frias became president of Venezuela in 1998 and immediately fulfilled his promise to have the people write their own Constitution and its provisions for social improvements were being rapidly instituted, the U.S. has had the Bolivarian Revolution in its crosshairs. Since then, the income gap in Venezuela has narrowed; people have been educated and their health (including dental and vision) taken care of; housing and food became human rights instead of privileges for the wealthy; and so forth. Not only these things, but the people of Venezuela were empowered to have a say in their government. For example, the only way the Bolivarian constitution can be amended is through public referendum. With the elitist Constitution of the U.S., only the elites can realistically amend it. . ." https://www.workers.org/2019/02/21/anti-war-activist-cindy-sheehan-i-proudly-stand-with-president-maduro-and-the-people-of-venezuela/

Brought to us by Grayzone https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/02/21/venezuela-humanitarian-crisis-max-blumenthal-supermarket-caracas/

In case anyone doubts the title, I'm excerpting the last paragraphs. They enraged me. Read it all at  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51152.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maduro is "illegitimate", says Trump (who won the US presidency with three million fewer votes than his opponent), a "dictator", says demonstrably unhinged vice president Mike Pence and an oil trophy-in-waiting, says "national security" adviser John Bolton (who when I interviewed him in 2003 said, "Hey, are you a communist, maybe even Labour?"). As his "special envoy to Venezuela" (coup master), Trump has appointed a convicted felon, Elliot Abrams, whose intrigues in the service of Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush helped produce the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and plunge central America into years of blood-soaked misery. Putting Lewis Carroll aside, these  "crazies" belong in newsreels from the 1930s. And yet their lies abo...