Good morning 99percenters!
Morning news dump and music by Maceo Parker

Noam Chomsky Wants You to Wake Up From the American Dream
10 principles of oligarchy.

If you've just seen Michael Moore's movie and are wondering how in the world the United States got diverted into the slow lane to hell, go watch Noam Chomsky's movie. If you've just seen Noam Chomsky's movie and are wondering whether the human species is really worth saving, go see Michael Moore's movie. If you haven't seen either of these movies, please tell me that you haven't been watching presidential debates. As either of these movies would be glad to point out to you, that's NOT HOW YOU CHANGE ANYTHING.

Justice Scalia spent his last hours with members of this secretive society of elite hunters

Good Morning, 99%'ers! Today's Open Thread is a short vignette (thank you, Smiley). Because this is an Open Thread, please feel free to post whatever you wish.

Today's number is Twenty-Two

Good morning 99percenters!
Morning news dump and music by Martha and the Vandellas

Meanwhile, as the media and puppeteers decide who shall lord over us for the next four years, we inch closer to WWIII and the world burns.

U.S. kicks off its new bombing campaign in Libya killing 2 Serbian embassy workers
Serbian officials say they were close to freeing the two ISIS hostages, but U.S. airstrikes killed them

"For in order for capitalism to work — in order for it to produce a good and a stable society — the traditional Christian virtues are essential."
Antonin Scalia

Good Morning, 99%'ers!

Today I am on the road, traveling south for a couple of days and I will not be on line for the next couple of days. Since my last several Open Thread essays have been of a serious nature, I thought I would post a more light hearted Open Thread today. Since we are in the primary season and President's Day was on Monday, I thought I would post ten fun facts about our Presidents.

Today's number is Fifteen

Good morning 99percenters!
Morning news dump and music by Buddy Holly.

This is how the CIA botched Iraq post-9/11: Bob Gates, careerist sycophancy, and the real history of the Deep State
A veteran CIA officer explains to Salon exactly where the agency has gone wrong for decades — and the consequences

In a lengthy exchange with Ray McGovern, or when you listen to him speak, a lot comes at you. This is a former C.I.A. officer who, as branch chief in the analysis section, counted daily White House briefings among his tasks. Given his years out in Langley, Virginia—from the early Kennedy days until he retired in 1990—he was witness to the agency’s collapse into a factory producing politically and ideologically motivated “intelligence.” Long before the end, Langley had turned into a building full of “prostitutes”—McGovern’s word “not too strong.”

Good morning fabulous citizens of C99.

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
― Charles Darwin