As details of the Senate’s coronavirus stimulus plan slowly trickled in Wednesday, progressive critics characterized the sprawling legislative package as a brazen attempt by both political parties to use trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to bail out and further enrich large corporations while tossing mere crumbs to the most vulnerable.
“This is a robbery in progress,” wrote David Dayen, executive editor at The American Prospect. “And it’s not a bailout for the coronavirus. It’s a bailout for twelve years of corporate irresponsibility that made these companies so fragile that a few weeks of disruption would destroy them.”
“We can call it a bailout. But this is so big it is more like Congress is creating a new government for our economy, replacing our old government. And this one doesn’t have any meaningful democratic protections. A pandemic coup.”
—Zephyr Teachout, Fordham Law
While progressives applauded some provisions in the massive package—including the significant expansion of unemployment benefits and protections for airline workers—Dayen said the stimulus package as a whole is an “outrageous betrayal” of the U.S. public and “a rubber-stamp on an unequal system that has brought terrible hardship to the majority of America.”
“The people get a [one-time] $1,200 means-tested payment and a little wage insurance for four months,” Dayen wrote. “Corporations get a transformative amount of play money to sustain their system and wipe out the competition.”
A Senate vote on the stimulus plan is expected as early as Wednesday afternoon, even though the full legislative text has not yet been released to the public.
It is horrendous that reporters and the public don’t have access to the bailout bill text with a Senate vote imminent.
The bill would establish a $500 billion fund designed to bail out large corporations hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. Around $75 billion of the program, which would be controlled by the Trump Treasury Department, is earmarked for the airline industry.
But, Dayen wrote, the “enormity of this bailout is being under-reported.”
“The other $425 [billion] helps capitalize a $4.25 trillion, with a T, leveraged lending facility at the Federal Reserve,” Dayen said. “So it’s not a $2 trillion bill, it’s closer to $6 trillion, and $4.3 trillion of it comes in the form of a bazooka aimed at CEOs and shareholders, with almost no conditions attached.”
The Washington Postreported Wednesday that the stimulus package also includes a little-noticed $17 billion federal loan program that was inserted largely for the benefit of aerospace giant Boeing.
Dayen appeared on HillTV‘s “The Rising” Wednesday morning to discuss his thoughts on the Senate bill:
But a new forensic investigation into the collapse of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11, published in Europhysics News – a highly respected European physics magazine – claims that “the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that all three buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition.”
While many in the mainstream have attempted to label anyone questioning the official narrative as “tin foil hat” conspiracy theorist, many highly respected experts have come forward to lampoon the idea that the buildings collapsed due to the intense heat and fires following two terrorist-directed plane crashes.
“Given the far-reaching implications, it is morally imperative that this hypothesis be the subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities,” the four physicists conclude in the damning report.
(Antiwar) It is undoubtedly my favorite part of every wedding. That awkward, but strangely forthright moment when the preacher asks the crowd for any objections to the couple’s marriage. No one ever objects, of course, but it’s still a raw, if tense, moment. I just love it.
I suppose we had that ubiquitous ritual in mind back in 2007 when Keith – a close buddy and fellow officer – and I crafted our own plan of objection. The setting was Baghdad, Iraq, at the start of the “surge” and the climax of the bloody civil war the U.S. invasion had unleashed. Just twenty three years old and only eighteen months out of the academy, my clique of officers had already decided the war was a mess, shouldn’t have been fought, and couldn’t be won.
Me and Keith, though, were undoubtedly the most radical. We both just hated how our squadron’s colonel would hijack the memorial ceremonies held for dead troopers – including three of my own – and use the occasion of his inescapable speech to encourage we mourners to use the latest death as a reason to “rededicate ourselves to the mission and the people of Iraq.” The whole thing was as repulsive as it was repetitive. More
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
In yet another major move from the great folks over at the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and 9/11 victim family members Robert McIlvaine and Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, a joint federal lawsuit has been filed to assess any evidence the FBI may have known about that contributed to the destruction of the towers on 9/11 which they may have kept from Congress.
The complaint cites the failure of the FBI and its 9/11 Review Commission to assess key 9/11-related evidence that the FBI can be shown to have had, or been aware of, regarding:
the use of pre-placed explosives to destroy World Trade Center Buildings, 1, 2, and 7;
the arrest and investigation of the “High Fivers” observed photographing and celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11;
terrorist financing related the reported Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers;
recovered plane parts, including serial numbers from all three crash locations;
video from cameras mounted inside and outside the Pentagon; and
cell phone communications from passengers aboard airplanes.
According to the press release on Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, this is evidence relevant to the 9/11 Review Commission’s and the FBI’s compliance with the mandate from Congress, which should have been assessed by the FBI and the 9/11 Review Commission and reported to Congress. The complaint also cites the destruction by the FBI of evidence related to the “High Fivers.” Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth has joined in bringing the counts that involve the evidence of the World Trade Center’s explosive demolition and evidence related to the “High Fivers,” while the other plaintiffs are party to all counts.
As TFTP reported, a monumental step forward in the relentless pursuit of 9/11 truth took place in December when a United States Attorney agreed to comply with federal law requiring submission to a Special Grand Jury of evidence that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade Centers. Now, the group behind the submission, the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, announced the filing of a “petition supplement” naming persons who may have information related to the use of said explosives.
According to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, the 33-page document contains 15 different categories of persons who may have information material to the investigation, including contractors and security companies that had access to the WTC Towers before 9/11, persons and entities who benefited financially from the WTC demolitions, and persons arrested after being observed celebrating the WTC attacks.
A names-redacted version of the petition supplement, which was filed with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York on February 14, 2019, has been made available to the public. The un-redacted version filed with the U.S. Attorney today will remain undisclosed in the interest of maintaining the secrecy, security, and integrity of the grand jury proceeding.
As TFTP reported in December, for the first time since 9/11 the federal government is taking steps to prosecute the the use of explosives to destroy the world trade centers. READ MORE HERE
Ashland City, TN — Last August, Mark Campbell was sitting in his house when two strangers showed up at his door. These two strangers lightly knocked and told Campbell that they had guns. Moments later, bullets came flying through Campbell’s door and nearly killed him and his wife. Instead of the two strangers getting arrested for attempted murder, Campbell found himself in jail—because the two strangers were cops.
That night, Campbell had done nothing wrong when Cheatham county sheriff’s deputies — Sgt. Doug Fox and Chris Austin showed up to his home. The deputies claim they were responding to a 911 hang up, but according to Campbell’s attorney, he never made a 911 call until after these two maniacs started shooting through his door.
As the body camera footage shows, when the deputies arrived, they had on no flashing lights and no sirens. They never once announced themselves as police and simply started quietly knocking on Campbell’s door and calling his name.
Not knowing who was at his door, Campbell was naturally scared—especially when the unidentified men started talking about guns.
A shocking new report from the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women paints a disturbing picture of law enforcement and their role in sex trafficking. The report found that instead of preventing child and adult sex trafficking, many police officers are participating in it.
The report is titled “Sex Trafficking in Hawaii: The Stories of Survivors,” which detailed the testimonials from multiple victims. One particularly disturbing part of the report was the fact that almost half of all the victims interviewed reported that police officers participated in their abuse and victimization.
“The corruption of members of the criminal justice system reported by the participants in the study was pervasive in their stories of being prostituted,” the report noted.
The report found that the average age of those being trafficked is just 14-years-old, showing how early the abuse began.
One of the victims interviewed, who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reasons explained that “the same people that are charging you for prostitution are the people turning around and buying it from you.”
(MPN) — In a leaked military manual on “unconventional warfare” recently highlighted by WikiLeaks, the U.S. Army states that major global financial institutions — such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — are used as unconventional, financial “weapons in times of conflict up to and including large-scale general war,” as well as in leveraging “the policies and cooperation of state governments.”
The document, officially titled “Field Manual (FM) 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare” and originally written in September 2008, was recently highlighted by WikiLeaks on Twitter in light of recent events in Venezuela as well as the years-long, U.S.-led economic siege of that country through sanctions and other means of economic warfare. Though the document has generated new interest in recent days, it had originally been released by WikiLeaks in December 2008 and has been described as the military’s “regime change handbook.”
What’s happening with Venezuela? @WikiLeaks‘ publication of US coup manual FM3-05.130, Unconventional Warfare [UW], provides insight
WikiLeaks’ recent tweets on the subject drew attention to a single section of the 248-page-long document, titled “Financial Instrument of U.S. National Power and Unconventional Warfare.” This section in particular notes that the U.S. government applies “unilateral and indirect financial power through persuasive influence to international and domestic financial institutions regarding availability and terms of loans, grants, or other financial assistance to foreign state and nonstate actors,” and specifically names the World Bank, IMF and The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), as “U.S. diplomatic-financial venues to accomplish” such goals.
A new level of “fact checking” and “fake news” counter attacks are coming. This time, however, it won’t just be on Facebook or Twitter or Google, it will be internet and device wide. This fact checking service is being sold to the public under the name “NewsGuard” but the only thing it appears to be guarding is the establishment.
Newsguard attempts to set itself outside of the other allegedly “unbiased” fact checkers like Snopes and Politifact by setting out to monetarily cripple independent media sites by having their ads pulled.
“By licensing the NewsGuard ratings, advertisers limit their advertising, including programmatic advertising, to sites that meet the NewsGuard criteria. Advertisers use this data and related information about sites to craft efficient—and safe—ad campaigns,” their website reads.
But, what this really means is that sites like the Free Thought Project, who are entirely open about the subjective nature of our content (meaning we really love peace and freedom and have disdain for tyrants) will be hit in our only source of substantial revenue.
Newsguard employees contacted TFTP in the middle of last year to conduct a series of interviews in which we answered all of their questions honestly. We were not secret about our pro-freedom and antiwar stance. We also were not accused of ever knowingly publishing anything false and noted how if we got something wrong a retraction was issued and a statement released. However, they still gave us a rating in which their extension warns visitors that they should “proceed with caution.” Read More HERE!!
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
An essentially pointless video of a white Catholic teen wearing a MAGA hat staring at a Native American veteran—who approached him—was at the forefront of every major news outlet this week. The video did not show a crime or government corruption, yet it was able to draw a line through this country on a massive scale. The video is being used by both sides of the political spectrum to paint the other side as monsters. Regardless of which “side” you take, however, the society as a whole will still lose.
The video only affected two people, Nick Sandmann and Nathan Phillip, yet the entire country—quite literally at the direction of mainstream media—allowed it to affect them. The media is getting so good a cutting the country in half on random issues that there is actually a term for it. Videos and instances like this are called a “scissor.”
As Ross Douthat recently pointed out, in a short story published last October, “Sort by Controversial,” Scott Alexander imagines a Silicon Valley company that accidentally comes up with an algorithm to generate what it calls a “Scissor.” The scissor is a statement, an idea or a scenario that’s somehow perfectly calibrated to tear people apart — not just by generating disagreement, but by generating total incredulity that somebody could possibly disagree with your interpretation of the controversy, followed by escalating fury and paranoia and polarization, until the debate seems like a completely existential, win-or-perish fight.
This win or perish fight has become the go to reaction for nearly every news story. Instead of critical thought on news articles, people simply build their defenses and prepare for war—actual truth be damned.
“OMG, the MAGA hat is literally a swastika! It represents everything wrong with society!” Or, “those stupid libtards are trying to ruin this country by preventing Trump from building that wall!” Meanwhile, both sides are missing the point. Their ridiculous infighting is keeping them distracted from actual issues that affect their lives. More
The PPJ Gazette 