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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (840518)	3/4/2015 8:52:24 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1573433

This misinformation is being spouted by members of your tribe and no one else.

To: Bill who wrote (840518)	3/4/2015 9:38:15 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573433

The right is equally daft. The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Get Poorer, While the Middle Class Gets Decimated OCTOBER 10, 2011 DAVE LEFCOURT The following article originally appeared on OpEdNews.com. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That should be the theme that best describes this “great recession.” Only the poor are expanding in numbers with members of the middle class (that have been treading water since the late 1970’s with flat incomes that barely kept up with inflation) now being decimated with job losses, expiring unemployment benefits, depletion of savings, foreclosures and bankruptcy; some falling so far and having to rely on food stamps just to survive. Meanwhile the rich have remained whole, thank you very much. Wall Street tycoons were bailed out. The stock market has recovered with the Dow now over 11,000 so all is well with the investor class. Of course the big corporations, having moved their labor operations to 3rd world countries are quite profitable, as are the private health insurance behemoths, their brother pharmaceutical giants as well as all the defense related industries (with their huge government contracts) that never had it better. But for the working men and women (on whose backs made this country the envy of the world) have seen their fortunes go with the globalization of manufacturing and outsourcing of their once good paying jobs. Small towns have withered and died with the loss of their manufacturing plants while the town’s small businesses got decimated and replaced by the likes of Wal Mart and big corporate franchising of the stores, businesses and restaurants that were once owned and operated by local entrepreneurs. And where has the government been in all of this? It’s been subsidizing the corporations that pulled up stakes with tax breaks and NAFTA type agreements. Where were the governmental incentives, the tax breaks and infrastructure improvements to help keep those corporate outfits in this country? But with this “great recession” (more like a depression for many) where are the 1930’s depression era WPA’s and CCC’s? Where are the giant government sponsored infrastructure projects of roads, bridges, schools, railroads and the like? Is it just nostalgia when one thinks about FDR and the Depression of his time where there was a commonness of purpose (even in the face of Republican Congressional resistance) of initiating huge government programs to get people back to work, regulate the fat cat financial interests and have government act to the benefit of its people? Instead, what are most loud today are the “tea party” activists, bankrolled by the likes of the ultra-conservative Koch brothers and other behind the scene corporate sponsors that underwrite the anti-government, ant-tax, fear mongering rants (which depict all governmental action as “Socialism”) by these misinformed and misguided fools. There ought to be a middle class rebellion in this country to demand our government initiate policies that benefit the majority of people in this country. But the upper middle classes, traditionally the ones who are best able to articulate the sufferings of the downtrodden masses and mobilize them into action have separated themselves from the middle and working classes. These upper middle class professionals, doctors, lawyers, university professors, school teachers and clergy et al (many of whom came from lower middle class origins) have lost their connection with the greater working class population. Presumably, the former, too scared or worried of losing what they have attained, preferred to acquiesce and thus enable the larger injustices to be rained down upon those less fortunate than themselves. This may reveal (as much as anything) why there has been a collective passivity exhibited by the majority of people in the face of the worst economic calamity since the 1930’s, instead of the massive collective demand by the people that would have spurred effective governmental actions similar to what was enacted during the 1930’s, the time most akin to our own.

To: Bill who wrote (840518)	3/4/2015 9:44:15 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 1573433

“Three Lost Decades” – How the American Middle Class is 20% Poorer Now vs. 1984 Michael Krieger \| Posted Wednesday Jul 30, 2014 at 11:23 am Like so many other things in popular American culture, this quaint notion of a “middle class” in the U.S. is at this point nothing more than a myth; a rapidly fading fantasy from a bygone era. As myself and many others have noted for quite some time, the decimation of the middle class began long ago. It really got started in the early 1970’s after Nixon defaulted on the gold standard and financialization began to take over the American economy. Median real wages haven’t increased since that time and the rest is history. Although the evolutionary process toward oligarchy began long ago, its finishing touches have been applied in recent years. This has been easily achieved by the Federal Reserve and U.S. government’s response to the financial crisis, which was and continues to be characterized by an intentional funneling of all the nation’s wealth into the hands of their patrons; the 0.01%. As the chart below demonstrates clearly (and as I highlighted in the post: Where Does the Real Problem Reside? Two Charts Showing the 0.01% vs. the 1%), it is the tiny oligarch class that is reaping all of the benefits. This was further demonstrated in full color recently in a report by Oxfam International, which showed that 85 people have as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion on earth. There is nothing moral, decent or “free market” about such an outcome. It can only happen in a world characterized by militarism, exploitation, cronyism and fraud. We are living in a global feudalism. In case you needed any more proof of our current predicament, the Washington Post notes that: Nostalgia is just about the only thing the middle class can still afford. That’s because median wealth is about 20 percent lower today, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was in 1984. Yes, that’s three lost decades. Now, as you might expect, the middle class has been hit particularly hard by the Great Recession and the not-so-great recovery. It’s all about stocks and houses. The middle class doesn’t have much of the former, but it does have a lot of the latter. And that’s bad news, because, even though the crash decimated both, real estate hasn’t come back nearly as much as equities have. So the top 1 percent, who hold more of their wealth in stocks, have made up more of the ground they lost.But, as the Russell Sage Foundation points out, the slow housing recovery means that, in 2013, median households were still 36 percent poorer than they were a decade earlier. Though, to put that in depressing perspective, it’s still a heckuva lot better than households in the bottom 25 percent, whose wealth never grew during the good times, and then plunged 60 percent during the bad ones. That’s because, for both the middle and working classes, real wages have been stagnant the past 30 years, and housing equity has taken a nosedive. So what if the stock market is up? Most Americans are too dead broke to own equities, and in fact, an increasing number need debt and welfare just to survive. Meanwhile, Obama is hosting $32,000 a plate fundraisers all over California, while the median wage in America is only $27,000. That’s just how the oligarchs like it. Full article here. In Liberty, Michael Krieger

To: Bill who wrote (840518)	3/4/2015 10:41:26 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573433

Twice-Deported Illegal Alien With Terror Ties, DUI Convictions Gets Sweetheart Plea Deal FEBRUARY 19, 2015 judicialwatch.org The twice-deported illegal alien who plotted a Chicago truck bombing with two of the FBI’s “most wanted” terrorists has received a sweetheart plea deal for yet another violation of U.S. federal law 18 USC § 1326 (Unlawful Reentry of a Removed Alien). In a federal court hearing covered by Judicial Watch, Hector Pedroza-Huerta appeared before the same judge—Frank Montalvo in El Paso, Texas—that also presided over another one of his immigration cases in 2009. After conducting an off-the-record meeting with Pedroza-Huerta’s attorneys, Judge Montalvo issued concurrent sentences of eight and 15 months with no deportation or supervised release for the illegal immigrant. A restricted court record, labeled “Sealed Statement of Reasons as to Hector Pedroza Huerta,” in Judge Montalvo’s proceedings, probably contains the facts the American public deserves to know about Pedroza-Huerta’s criminality – and perhaps even his pledges of future cooperation with law enforcement and counterterror officials. Pedroza-Huerta’s latest arrest, reported by Judicial Watch back in August, was for driving under the influence, a crime he has been twice convicted of (in 2009 and 2011). Deportations supposedly followed the convictions, thus the two charges of Unlawful Reentry of a Removed Alien before this one. In this most recent DUI, the feds quickly took over, charging Pedroza-Huerta for the third time in five years with “reentry of a deported alien,” according to court records obtained by Judicial Watch. The recent plea hearing in Judge Montalvo’s courtroom, held in mid-December, was punctuated by events that a veteran law enforcement officer confirmed to be “irregular” in such proceedings. Pedroza-Huerta’s hearing was the last of five and by far the shortest of the morning. Judge Montalvo came off the bench and met with Pedroza-Huerta’s two defense attorneys , off-the-record, for several minutes – in his courtroom and in private side meetings not entered into official court records. The federal prosecutor sat in the courtroom and watched this all happen, without participating in any way. Judge Montalvo returned to the bench. Pedroza-Huerta’s lawyers went back to their table and said they were ready to proceed. Judge Montalvo simply announced that Pedroza-Huerta was to receive two sentences of eight and 15 months – to be served concurrently. No deportation. No supervised release. Judicial Watch has obtained the official court transcript. This was the only case of the day with no plea or argument, no supervised release, no rebuttal from the defendant or the federal prosecutor about the sentence, terms, or conditions. Pedroza-Huerta was the only defendant that the judge had no questions for other than to ascertain that the charges were for two illegal re-entries into the United States. The federal plea deal was followed by a February 6, 2015 plea deal for last year’s “Driving While Intoxicated” charges before Judge Thomas A. Spieczny of the El Paso County Court. Judicial Watch also covered that hearing. Pedroza-Huerta was sentenced to 50 days, time served. The good news is that Pedroza-Huerta is still incarcerated. Unfortunately, his side-kick, fellow narco-terror ringleader Emad Karakrah, appears to be on the loose following his recent release from the Cook County Jail. The connection between Pedroza-Huerta and Karakrah is through both their terror-bombing plotting and their personal lives. Karakrah’s ex-wife, Sandra, introduced him to her then-best friend “Cindy” (now deceased) who was romantically involved with Hector Pedroza-Huerta.