Archive for the 'Elite' Category
Facebook Hires Former Bush Aides as Washington Lobbyists
May 28th, 2011Via: Los Angeles Times: Facebook just made two more friends in D.C. It’s hiring two aides of former President George W. Bush as lobbyists. Joel Kaplan, previously deputy chief of staff in the Bush White House, is joining Facebook as vice president of U.S. public policy, a new position in which he will oversee the […]
Top Lobbying Banks Got Biggest Bailouts
May 28th, 2011Mmm hmm. Via: Reuters: The more aggressively a bank lobbied before the financial crisis, the worse its loans performed during the economic downturn — and the more bailout dollars it received, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research this week. The report, titled “A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the […]
Priest in Archdiocese of Pope’s Adviser On Pedophilia Scandals Arrested on Pedophilia and Drug Charges
May 27th, 2011Via: Time: The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests. Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was […]
Fed’s Secret Loans to Big Banks
May 26th, 2011Via: Bloomberg: Credit Suisse Group AG (CS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details weren’t revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public. The $80 billion initiative, called single-tranche open- market […]
Groups Sue FDA to Stop Addition of Antibiotics in Livestock Feed
May 26th, 2011Via: Washington Post: Several environmental and public health groups filed suit against the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday to try to force the government to stop farmers from routinely adding antibiotics to livestock feed to help animals grow faster. The groups say widespread agricultural antibiotic use and the FDA’s allowance of the practice are […]
For Any Obama Zombies That Remain
May 26th, 2011Via: TruthDig: The liberal class, which attempted last week to discredit the words my friend Cornel West spoke about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, prefers comfort and privilege to justice, truth and confrontation. Its guiding ideological stance is determined by what is most expedient to the careers of its members. It refuses to challenge, […]
A Fifth of Russia’s State Defence Spending Is Stolen Every Year
May 25th, 2011Putin the Apostle? Via: Calgary Sun: A fifth of Russia’s state defence spending is stolen every year by corrupt officials, dishonest generals and crooked contractors, Russia’s chief military prosecutor said in an interview published on Tuesday. President Dmitry Medvedev says endemic corruption is holding back Russia’s development, but anti-bribery groups say the problem has become […]
Facebook Is Coming for Your Children
May 23rd, 2011Via: Today: Wearing the mantle of education reform, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told attendees at a recent summit on innovation in education that, “My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age.” A really, really good way to do that, Zuckerberg said, is to let kids […]
The Death of Catherine Hurd in Manhattan
May 23rd, 2011Via: Telegraph: Lord Hurd’s daughter-in-law has been found dead after apparently committing suicide by jumping from the roof of her home in New York. Catherine Hurd, a mother of five, fell the four storeys from the top of the rented townhouse in Manhattan where she lived with the former foreign secretary’s son Thomas, a British […]
Utah Embraces Gold and Silver as Currency
May 23rd, 2011The Utah Gold and Silver Depository is an interesting idea, but remember how fractional reserve banking got started in the first place? That’s right: Gold depositories started issuing paper promissory notes that people used instead of their actual gold. The depositories noticed that only a small number of notes were redeemed in the physical gold. […]
