In this video Lawrence O’Donnell explains just how poor Donald Trump is.

The article 10 stories more important than Weinergate by David Sirota is subtitled:

From record greenhouse gas emissions to the failed War on Drugs, here are the real scandals the media ignored

The Salon article In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war, Glenn Greenwald ties this coincidence to several factors.

But now, in a pure coincidence, there is hope on the horizon for these Western oil companies, thanks to the war profoundly humanitarian action being waged by the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner and his nation’s closest Western allies

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The reason — the only reason — we know about any of this is because WikiLeaks (and, allegedly, Bradley Manning) disclosed to the world the diplomatic cables which detail these conflicts.

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Is there anything easier to understand than why U.S. Government officials are so eager to punish WikiLeaks and deter future transparency projects of this sort?

This article makes reference to an article in The Washington Post,  Conflict in Libya: U.S. oil companies sit on sidelines as Gaddafi maintains hold

As I have asked in previous posts, “Is there some higher power than the President of The United States. that makes President Obama behave this way?”

From the article Study: Students who resist change see teachers as biased,

Now a study has concluded that this sort of bias does not actually exist and that the students who perceive it — whether coming from the left or from the right — are those who are most resistant to change in their own lives and attitudes. In contrast, students who are open to new ideas, no matter what their political persuasion, show little perception of faculty bias.

I wonder where that puts me. I started out as resisting change, but came to appreciate it around sophomore year.  If you read this blog, you will probably surmise that now that I am old and crotchety,  I am back to resisting.  However, now that I am older and wiser, I can sometimes rise above my initial resistance.

The starting sentence from the article, Key Dem Senator: Obama ‘snookered’ by GOP into talking deficit over jobs, is

Urging the administration to enact new measures to lower the unemployment rate, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) said President Barack Obama got “snookered” by Republicans into prioritizing deficits over jobs.

Remember, just because I would use the word patsy for some of President Obama’s actions, I did not feed this choice of words to Senator Harkin.

Perhaps with Austan Goolsbee leaving as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the pernicious influence of the University of Chicago economics department will finally fade from prominence.  Then President Obama will finally be free to listen to people who really understand recession economics and how to recover from a recession.

If the President appoints a new chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers that is from the same Chicago school of thought, then all is probably lost.

It is so unfortunate for our erstwhile progressive President to have chosen to start his professional career in Chicago and even join the faculty of the University of Chicago.  Had he chosen some other city, perhaps he would have avoided being tainted by the Milton Friedman cult of shock doctrine economics.

The story Therapy to change ‘feminine’ boy created a troubled man, family says on the CNN web site is a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to fix what isn’t broken.

Can the Republicans ignore this message from wealthy people pleading for higher taxes on their incomes? How about the electorate? Can they continue to ignore it, too?

The above 38 minute interview with Keith Olbermann was conducted by Terry Gross on her NPR show Fresh Air.

For the record, I used to watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann, but I started to feel the show was too over the top and the format too contrived, so I stopped watching it. I was also disturbed to see some of the same contrivance on the Rachel Maddow show. I stopped being a regular watcher of that show, too.

The above interview had none of the bombast of the show. For what I learned, I thought it was worth posting here.

Florida used to have the tax that is discussed in the above video. Can you guess how this tax got eliminated in Florida? Repeal of Annual Intangible Personal Property Tax.

Of course it is up to you to decide whether or not to pay to support this particular news organization. As I have stated on this blog before (see Monetizing Internet Content), I would prefer a micropayment model.