War Is A Crime

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report: Senate tax plan would increase deficit by $1.4T over 10 years – CNNPolitics

Report: Congressional Budget Office cost estimate of the of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – cbo.gov

Trump’s tax bill faces opposition by two Republican lawmakers who could prevent the legislation from reaching the Senate floor, Corker wants to add a backstop measure to prevent tax cuts from ballooning the deficit – Reuters

GOP senator Lankford seeking back-up revenue plan on taxes to secure his vote – CNNPolitics

Republican deficit hawks could be the real barrier to passing tax reform – Vox

How can Congress pass a tax bill that increases the deficit? Lawmakers have many ways to get around their own rules on fiscal discipline – MarketWatch

Experts are battling over Republicans’ tax bill, economic growth and federal tax revenues – Business Insider

Tax reform’s growth: A balm for deficit worries – U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The Wall Street Journal editorial: Tax reform, growth and the deficit – whitehouse.gov

How read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Consider the latest news from America’s war zones, still spreading across the Greater Middle East and Africa.  The U.S. military is now reportedly building up its troop strength (mostly Special Operations forces) in Somalia. Their number has already doubled, read more

“Imagine being so bad at drumming that you become a Nazi,” someone tweeted in response to the recent and scandalous New York Times’ article about an Ohio Nazi. “Or at painting,” I replied.

That part of the explanation of where Nazis come from is not new.

What’s newest about the article is the reaction to it: a flood of outrage filling my social media and email, including demands that Nazis not be “humanized” or “normalized,” and insistence that they be simply condemned, ignored, read more

By Dave Lindorff

            For a number of years now, I have been periodically interviewed as a source or a commentator on news programs and as an occasional panel participant on RT TV, the Russian government-funded English-language television station. For the past year, I’ve been paid a small amount for my work.

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            Effective Monday, November 13, something changed, though. read more

By Dave Lindorff

In late September, AmerisourceBergen, one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical distribution companies with revenue of $150 billion, was fined $260 million by the US Food and Drug Administration for emptying pre-filled glass syringes of expensive cancer drugs and reloading the drugs, in slightly smaller doses, into cheap plastic syringes before distributing them to oncology centres. For years, the company allegedly pocketed the profits obtained by creating and selling 10 per read more

NAFTA round closes with talks bogged down by conflict – The New York Times

NAFTA talks hit wall as Mexico, Canada push back on U.S. demands – Reuters

Trump administration blasts Mexico, Canada for limited NAFTA ‘headway’ – Fox Business

USTR Lighthizer Statement on the conclusion of the 5th Round of NAFTA renegotiations – United States Trade Representative

Official: Canada, Mexico make no counteroffers on key U.S. NAFTA demands, including on autos and dispute settlement mechanisms – Reuters

Freeland calls U.S. proposals ‘extreme’, says Canada ‘prepared for the worst’ amid squabbles over NAFTA – CBC News

VIDEO: Freeland asked about Canada’s NAFTA negotiating tactics – CBC News

U.S. ‘poison-pill’ demands make prospect of reaching NAFTA agreement remote: Scotiabank report – Financial Post

Canada warns U.S. businesses to speak up or lose NAFTA – Bloomberg

Canada, Mexico push US to explain NAFTA auto plan – PLANT

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This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Who even remembers that, back in September 2002, Lawrence Lindsey, then President George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, offered an upper limit estimate on the cost of a future war in Iraq at $100 billion to $200 billion?  He also suggested that the “successful prosecution” of such a war “would read more

            Edward Samuel Herman, who died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 92 on Nov. 11, didn’t just cry out “fake news” like so many politicians and media pundits do today referring to stories that they object to. Rather, he explained why so much of the news in the US is and has long been fake and how the seemingly independent system of news organizations go about creating it, almost as if they were operating under the direction of some government of propaganda.

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