Oil Cash Waning, Venezuelan Shelves Lie Bare - NYTimes.com

Oil Cash Waning, Venezuelan Shelves Lie Bare - NYTimes.com

CARACAS, Venezuela — Mary Noriega heard there would be chicken.

She hated being herded “like cattle,” she said, standing for hours in a line of more than 1,500 people hoping to buy food, as soldiers with side arms checked identification cards to make sure no one tried to buy basic items more than once or twice a week.

But Ms. Noriega, a laboratory assistant with three children, said she had no choice, ticking off the inventory in her depleted refrigerator: coffee and corn flour. Things had gotten so bad, she said, that she had begun bartering with neighbors to put food on the table.

  I was listening to a news broadcast from a Houston network affiliate a day or so ago. The report concerned Conocophillips plans to lay of thousands of workers in Texas if the price of oil stays depressed. It would appear the Texas Perry economic miracle is as diverse and solid as Venezuela.

Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy's Son Jailed After Allegedly Resisting Arrest

Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy's Son Jailed After Allegedly Resisting Arrest

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's son Ryan was jailed Tuesday after he allegedly resisted arrest when officers approached him about an outstanding warrant.

Salt Lake City TV station KSTU reported that Ryan Bundy, 42, was in Iron County court Tuesday for a separate case when police approached him about the warrant, which was for interfering with an animal control officer.

  

Ten True Facts Guaranteed to Short-Circuit Republican Brains

Ten True Facts Guaranteed to Short-Circuit Republican Brains

As a public service to those who find themselves inextricably cornered by aggressively ill-informed Republicans at work, on the train or at family gatherings, presented here are ten indisputably true facts that will seriously challenge a Republican’s worldview and probably blow a brain cell or two. At the very least, any one of these GOP-busters should stun and confuse them long enough for you to slip quietly away from a pointless debate and allow you to get on about your business.

  

Bibi Netanyahu -- aka 'The Republican Senator From Israel' -- May Have Made A Fatal Political Mistake

Bibi Netanyahu -- aka 'The Republican Senator From Israel' -- May Have Made A Fatal Political Mistake

At least the American President had the good sense not to further endanger his relationship with Netanyahu and the Israeli people.

In reviewing Netanyahu’s political ploy, and his ambassador’s duplicitous behavior, it seems fair to ask whether this is really how friends treat friends?

  

Representative Linda Sanchez Smacks down Republicans and Fox News

Post by Media Matters for America.

Are there more welfare recipients in the U.S. than full-time workers? | PunditFact

Are there more welfare recipients in the U.S. than full-time workers? | PunditFact

One of the turning points in the 2012 presidential campaign was Republican nominee Mitt Romney privately saying that 47 percent of the population -- supporters of President Barack Obama, he said -- were people who are "dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it."

The 2012 election is long over, but this theme -- sometimes framed as "makers" vs. "takers" -- is an enduring topic in American politics.

  The poor and working poor are not your enemy. Corporations are not your ally. Register and vote accordingly. Remember that you'll probably never enlighten the mind of the fright wing minion with who you share facts at the water cooler. It's the reasonable person within ear shot to whom you are speaking.

Mitch McConnell Begs Senate Democrats To Stop Filibustering Keystone XL

Mitch McConnell Begs Senate Democrats To Stop Filibustering Keystone XL

The obstructor has become the obstructed. The fast start that McConnell promised during the 2014 campaign has evaporated as he has been pinned down by Senate Democrats on one end and President Obama on the other. The Keystone XL debate is about more than a certain to vetoed pipeline authorization bill. The deeper meaning of the debate is that Democrats are showing that they won’t be pushed around while for Republicans Keystone XL was supposed to be a symbol of their newly won power.

  And they best not back down.

France and England Teach America How to Take Down Fox

France and England Teach America How to Take Down Fox

Ever since October 7, 1996, American journalism has been slowly dragged down into the highly partisan, opinion based, no need to fact check, false equivalency, lowest common denominator, racist swamp that is Fox "News." Americans have been subjected to almost two decades of their lies, and as Leonard Pitts Jr. suggests in his blog "Why serious people discount Fox News" we have perhaps accepted numbly that they are just a normal part of the journalistic landscape.

  

FOCUS | 'American Sniper' Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize

FOCUS | 'American Sniper' Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize

Post by AlterNet.

“Getting back to Chris Kyle,” Chomsky said, arriving at his larger point. “He regarded his first kill as a terrorist — this woman who walked in the street — but we can’t really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer, because we’re all tarred by the same brush insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy.”

“Now, that [sniper] mentality helps explain why it’s so easy to ignore what is most clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever — Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.”

  

Chomsky on the NTY's review of the sniper

Post by AlterNet.

“Getting back to Chris Kyle,” Chomsky said, arriving at his larger point. “He regarded his first kill as a terrorist — this woman who walked in the street — but we can’t really attribute that to the mentality of a psychopathic killer, because we’re all tarred by the same brush insofar as we tolerate or keep silent about official policy.” “Now, that [sniper] mentality helps explain why it’s so easy to ignore what is most clearly the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern history, if not ever — Obama’s global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us.”