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How to Escape the Federal Debt Trap
by Ellen Brown
The U.S. national debt just passed $36 trillion, only four months after it passed $35 trillion and up $2 trillion for the year. Third quarter data is not yet available, but interest payments as a percent of tax receipts rose to 37.8% in the third quarter of 2024, the highest since 1996. That means interest is eating up over one-third of our tax revenues.
Total interest for the fiscal year hit $1.16 trillion, topping one trillion for the first time ever. That breaks down to $3 billion per day. For comparative purposes, an estimated $11 billion, or less than four days’ federal interest, would pay the median rent for all the homeless people in America for a year. The damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone is estimated at $53.6 billion, for which the state is expected to receive only $13.6 billion in federal support. The $40 billion funding gap is a sum we pay in less than two weeks in interest on the federal debt.
The current debt trajectory is clearly unsustainable, but what can be done about it? Raising taxes and trimming the budget can slow future growth of the debt, but they are unable to fix the underlying problem — a debt grown so massive that just the interest on it is crowding out expenditures on the public goods that are the primary purpose of government.
Unmasking the Propaganda: OpEdNews and the Rise of Controlled Dissent
By Cathy Smith
Opednews.com resembles Goerge Orwell's Animal Farm
In this time of manipulated truths, sites like OpEdNews.com have cropped up as alternatives to the corporate-controlled mainstream media. Initially, these sites posed as havens for independent journalism and free speech, affording space to those marginalized by the traditional outlets. As OpEdNews grew, however, it increasingly mimicked the structures it initially positioned itself against, taking on an increasingly authoritarian stance towards editorial control, censorship, and ideological purity at the cost of a very substantial erosion of trust from readers.
Despite Rob Kall, the founder of OpEdNews, presenting himself as a champion of free speech and alternative voices, the website's editorial policies and treatment of dissenting writers reveal a more insidious reality. As OpEdNews has grown, its tactics bear uncomfortable similarities to those employed by the U.S. government in historic operations such as COINTELPRO, CIA's Operation Chaos, and the more covert Project Mockingbird. These operations were designed to suppress, control, and manipulate political dissent. The parallels with the censoring activities of OpEdNews, in contrast with such state-oriented surveillance and control activities, raise serious concerns about its commitment to free speech and independent journalism.
War on Humanity: Gaza Tells Horrors of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
“The Horror, The Horror”
The Making of Genocide on Screen
Is PM Netanyahu an egomaniac leader to Israelis? Most would question his delusional hold on power and demand his resignation but agree, he made Gaza inhabitable and delivered impunity from foreign dictates to the naked eyes of the conscientious world. To a rational observer, human understanding cannot be tempered with impunity for crimes against the civilian population. His arrest warrant by the ICC is often a puzzle as nobody would enforce its implementation. The latest report by Amnesty International confirms the ‘crime against humanity’ and Genocide’ were committed by the Israeli forces on Gaza. “Hell on Earth” – The UN Secretary General warns the conscientious global community of appalling and catastrophic conditions in Gaza from all spectrum of reason with more than 44,000 civilian massacred, more than 100,355 injured, more than 16,000 children and women massacred and 16,000 or more women and children still buried under rubble and unaccounted for, and the rest of humanity under continuous bombardment by the Israeli war machines supported and aided by the US supplied weapons of mass destruction. Even the hospitals, places of worship, schools, graveyards and safe zones are not spared by the Israeli war machines. Israeli leaders reportedly have dropped more than four equal to Hiroshima nuclear bombs on Gaza. International observers spell out the tragic events: words cannot describe the humanitarian calamities and sufferings of the besieged people of Gaza and the West Bank.
Precrime, Genocide, and Media Manipulation: Global and Local Implications; Unit 8200 and Mossad
Chris Spencer
The most disturbing phenomena within global political discourse are genocide technologies, manipulation of media, and Precrime strategies. These mind-control critical junctures between ethics, power, and technology affect the lives of billions of individuals and broader societal structures. Whereas surveillance has gone beyond governments into private enterprise, media manipulation has moved way beyond with big data and algorithmic AI precision.
Precrime- the notion of acting before violence or terrorism occurs - began in science fiction but has increasingly found its way into real world abusive, rights-denying security and policing strategies. Intelligence agencies at the center of such developments include Unit 8200 and Mossad of Israel, whose use of surveillance technologies has international ramifications. This essay examines the intersection of surveillance, media manipulation, and Precrime intelligence, focusing on Israel's operations in Gaza and its international relevance.
Brian Thompson's Tragic Murder
Chris Spencer
On December 4, 2024, UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel. He had arrived early for an investor meeting - an event typically centered on company profits and strategy. This time, however, the headlines were not about Thompson's leadership or financial gains but about his targeted killing. The crime has sparked an investigation into the identity and motive of the murderer, but beneath the sensationalism lies a far more disturbing reality about America's healthcare system.
A System That Profits From Pain
Brian Thompson's murder is a grim symbol of a larger issue: the profit-driven healthcare system in the United States, where corporate decisions are made at the expense of human lives. In such a system, health insurance is no longer a safety net but a means of control, turning healthcare into a financial transaction where patients' needs are secondary to the bottom line.
The U.S. Congress Pretends to Exist
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War
Whether you object to genocide or internalize every scrap of Israeli propaganda, there isn’t any way in ordinary English to dispute that each shipment of weapons from the United States to Israel, whether given or sold, violates numerous U.S. laws, including the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, and the Leahy Law, and at the very least assists Israel in committing the acts criminalized by the Genocide Convention Implementation Act and the U.S. War Crimes Act.
There’s also no way to dispute that Secretary of State Blinken was told in writing by his own staff and the staff of USAID that some of these laws were being violated, and proceeded to lie to Congress about it.
It would be even harder to dispute that Congress Members know that laws that Congress created are being blatantly violated, and that Congress is being blatantly — and illegally — lied to.
The Moral "Free Speech" Bastion of Earth: Hollywood, Media, and Progressive Hypocrisy
Chris Spencer
Based, in part, on: Raymond Chandler, on the Struggles of Hollywood Writers, The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/11/writers-in-hollywood/
Raymond Chandler was an author and a screenwriter. He is best known for his detective novels and their protagonist, the private detective Philip Marlowe. More...
Hollywood likes to fancy itself as the moral guardian of the world, a fearless lighthouse of justice, equality, and social activism. The red carpet is a platform for star-studded declarations of steadfast support for human rights, climate change activism, gender equality, and advancing cause of wokeness. The Oscars are no longer a celebration of cinematic achievement, but have morphed into a freakish, politically-correct ritual where actors lecture us on the evils of the world and demand change from their gilded platforms.
Hollywood manages to juggle a rather odd set of moral contradictions - glaring silence and active complicity when it comes to some of the most horrific and ongoing human rights abuses on Earth. It's the same Hollywood that boasts about its "moral bastion" that dares to lecture the world on matters concerning human dignity, equity, and justice.
Rising Death Rates and Health Injuries from Covid Vax Can No Longer Be Covered up
Paul Craig Roberts
Joining Ireland’s call is Dr. Francis Boyle, author of the U.S. ‘Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorist Act of 1989’
Do you remember when myself and a very few others warned you to avoid the Covid “vaccine”? We were accused of spreading misinformation that would increase the lethality of Covid-19 by discouraging people from protecting themselves with a “safe and effective vaccine,” to use words from the lying mouths of Tony Fauci and Joe Biden.
Now medical experts and public authorities are calling for a halt to all mRNA vaccination. The rising deaths and enormous increase in deadly diseases and health conditions following the mass vaccinations can no longer be denied.
Talk World Radio: Feroze Sidhwa on Israel Shooting Children in Head
From David Swanson
Talk World Radio is recorded on Zoom.
Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.
This week on Talk World Radio: Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma surgeon who volunteered for two weeks in March and April at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. He is one of 99 doctors who recently signed an open letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris that estimated Palestinian war deaths in Gaza at no less than 118,908. He is also the author of an October 9th article in the New York Times based on his surveying of 65 healthcare workers, documenting — among much else — that Israeli soldiers are regularly shooting children in the head and chest.
The New York Times article discussed:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-doctor-interviews.html
The letter discussed:
https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music: Brush Strokes by texasradiofish (c) copyright 2022 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Ft: billraydrums
Are Bing.com, Bing's AI Chat, and Microsoft Copilot Biased? Pro-Zionist and Pro-Corporatist Like Bill Gates?
Chris Spencer
In the modern technological world, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in daily digital platforms is rapid. As people increasingly rely on search engines and AI-powered tools for tasks ranging from simple queries to complex problem-solving, platforms such as Bing.com, Bing's AI Chat, and Microsoft Copilot have profoundly shaped how information is accessed, processed, and delivered. However, as these platforms become central to everyday life, questions about bias and corporate influence particularly regarding their pro-Zionist leanings have emerged.
This issue gains more relevance when discussing Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Gates' corporate ties and philanthropic ventures have often aligned with pro-corporate and Zionist political causes, raising questions about whether these ideologies influence Microsoft products, including Bing and its AI tools.
This article examines potential bias within Bing's algorithms, its AI-generated content, and content moderation practices. We also consider how Microsoft's corporate relationships especially the personal ties of Bill Gates could affect the ability of its platforms to serve specific political interests, particularly those connected to Zionism.
Bing: The Secret World of a Search Engine with Corporate and Political Connections
