–America’s most underpaid workers feeling the brunt of corporate greed even when passing out receipts.

The US Should Stop Meddling | By Mark Weisbrot

Today in the American Superpower, one of every six Americans is living on food stamps. The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive.
The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain.
And the American sheeple remain acquiescent. | Paul Craig Roberts

“The “there will there be a third Lebanon war” myth is now being peddled by former US ambassador to Tel Aviv, Daniel Kurtzer. Kurtzer’s latest wisdom would be outrageously funny if it wasn’t taken seriously in Washington. It includes the recommendation that there should be an “upgrade” in US and Israeli “intelligence exchanges” and that the United States “should study … the possibility of exploiting hostilities in Lebanon to launch a diplomatic initiative in the broader peace process.” The idea that peace prospects of the Middle East would improve if more Lebanese were slaughtered is close to obscene.”

Yep.

By Gareth Porter | CounterPunch

An op-ed from the blog Lenin’s Tomb.

An Interview with Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, and Greg Albo | By Sasha Lilley

By Lawrence Scanlan | The Ottawa Citizen | “A few months ago, Ned Franks, a retired political science professor and constitutional expert, spoke in the wake of the proroguing of Parliament (yet again). He gave compelling statistical evidence that the rapid turnover of MPs and senior ministry staff in recent years has left Parliament weak and dysfunctional. Parliament sits less now, and when things don’t go the way the PM likes it, he just shuts it down. A power vacuum has been created, and the PMO is rapidly filling it.”

The business and political leaders generated by the last 30 years of neoliberal capitalism simply assumed that they could impose the costs of their crisis on their countries’ people. That assumption is now being contested. The European people are beginning to fight back. And here, in the US? | Rick Wolff | MR Zine

“…hundreds of foreign labourers in the United Arab Emirates are suffering a far worse fate as a result of the Dubai-centered economic bust.

“The Greek government has ordered fuel-truck drivers who have been on strike for three days to go back to work, with fuel shortages affecting the country.

Police used tear gas on Thursday to disperse protesting drivers who had gathered outside the transport ministry after the requisition was issued.

The strike has hit Greece’s tourism industry, with hoteliers saying they were facing cancellations.”

-The bourgeois capitalist state faces political strikes and will use all available tools to crush them.

Sara Landreth and her husband, James Brooke-Smith, teach English literature at the University of Ottawa. Both have doctorates in English literature, but Canada’s immigration rules require each of them to take a $280 test proving they are fluent in the language. | Brigitte Bouvier for The Globe and Mail

An op-ed by Paul Craig Roberts. | “The government cannot explain why the war is necessary, because it is not necessary to the American people. Any necessary reason for the war has to do with the enrichment of narrow private interests and with undeclared agendas. If the agendas were declared and the private interests being served identified, even the American sheeple might revolt.”

Jane D’Arista: This crisis has brought forth the notion of class warfare, the haves vs. the have-nots | The Real News

By Linda McQuaig | rabble.ca | We hear a great deal about the lives of the rich, much of it sympathetic and often fawning. The poor rarely get such sympathetic attention. And they’re soon to get even less.

“We point to these examples, which contain real lessons for all those interested in the liberation of the Palestinian masses. The consumer boycott holds no real significance. Neither does divestment, attempting to convince the world’s capitalists to withdraw their investments from Israel. Nor do sanctions, as they rely on the world’s imperialist governments and their den of thieves, the UN, carrying them out. Such bodies only act on their own material interests, and this means the interests of the capitalist class.

These are empty methods, alien to the working class. They are easy to agree to, because they require nothing of those leaders who declare themselves in support. The way forward is being shown by our class, which has no time for pretty but meaningless talk, taking concrete action where others can only appeal to the hearts of the capitalists. “

“Several hundred people were taken back to the Rahat area where they originally came from,” [a police spokesperson] told the AFP news agency, referring to a nearby Bedouin town in Israel’s arid south.

“The new legislation stipulates that the first 25% of gross income from oil sales must go to the state. Costs, including fees to to the companies, will come from the remainder.”

“The US defence department has launched an investigation to identify who leaked tens of thousands of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan to whistleblower website… Bradley Manning, a US army intelligence analyst, was charged earlier this month in connection with the leak of a classified video, showing a 2007 helicopter attackthat killed a dozen civilians in Baghdad, to Wikileaks.”

• Coalition commanders hid civilian deaths, war logs reveal
• US, Afghanistan and Pakistan trade angry accusations
• Leak poses ‘very real threat’ to US forces – White House

“David Cameron used a visit to Turkey to make his strongest intervention yet in the intractable Middle East conflict today when he likened the experience of Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza strip to that of a “prison camp”.”