Meet Alexandra Elbakyan – The 27 Year Old Student Who Put 50 Million Stolen Research Articles Online

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The issue of academic journals and whether or not they should be available to everyone for free online was a topic that catapulted into the national consciousness a little over three years ago with the untimely and tragic death of child prodigy Aaron Swartz.

For those of you not up to speed on that story, here’s a brief summary from the post, Remembering Internet Prodigy and Activist Aaron Swartz (1986-2013): Your Life is an Inspiration:

Aaron ran afoul of the law due to his actions in the fall of 2010 when he downloaded millions of academic journal articles from the nonprofit online database JSTOR.  While JSTOR could have pursued charges against Aaron for his activities, they decided against it.  However, our Federal Government was not so kind.  They decided to make an example of Aaron and charged him with multiple felonies.  Charges that carried up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.  Aaron was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment this past Friday, in an apparent suicide.

Many contend, and I agree with them, that the U.S. government is responsible for driving Aaron to his death by going after him as if he was a mass murderer for an act of civil dissidence.

Interestingly enough, attempts to scare others from following in his footsteps have backfired spectacularly, as the actions of 27-year old Alexandra Elbakyan of Kazakhstan demonstrate.

As reported by the Washington Post:

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Change Your “Tone” – Hillary Clinton Caught on Tape Erupting at Greenpeace Activist

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Just the other day, the Clinton campaign shamelessly suggested there may not be a debate in New York unless Bernie Sanders changes his “tone.”

Interestingly enough, Clinton lost it earlier today when questioned by a Greenpeace activist.

Finger pointing, irritated, that’s some pleasant tone you’ve got there Hillary.

Of course, Hillary Clinton is quite famous for her “tone.” It’s known for being abrasive, phony and generally unpleasant.

Here’s another recent example of her “tone.”

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Comeback Kid – Sanders Slashes Clinton’s New York Primary Lead to 12 Points

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Nothing would please me more than to see Bernie Sanders defeat Hillary Clinton in the state of my birth, and where I spent most of my life: New York.

While it’s not going to be easy, the latest poll from Quinnipiac shows Sanders narrowing her lead to only 12 points. There’s a little less than three weeks until the April 19th primary, which means plenty of time to further close the gap.

Mother Jones reports:

Sanders is slowly gaining on Clinton in New York ahead of the April 19 primary. Clinton now leads Sanders by 12 points in New York’s Democratic primary, according to a Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday. A poll in February showed Sanders 21 points behind Clinton in New York, and another in March showed him 48 points behind.

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Liberty Links 3/31/16

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25 links today. Enjoy! In Syria, Militias Armed by the Pentagon Fight Those Armed by the CIA (This is a real headline, LA Times) “We Are the Death Merchant of the World”: Ex-Bush Official Lawrence Wilkerson Condemns Military-Industrial Complex (Must read, Salon) Financial-Crisis Panel Suggested Criminal Cases Against Stan O’Neal, Charles Prince, AIG Bosses (Yet nothing happened, … Read more

“We’re Going to War” – Oliver Stone Opines on the Dangerous Extremism of Neocon Hillary Clinton

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When fear becomes collective, when anger becomes collective, it’s extremely dangerous. It is overwhelming… The mass media and the military-industrial complex create a prison for us, so we continue to think, see, and act in the same way… We need the courage to express ourselves even when the majority is going in the opposite direction… because a change of direction can happen only when there is a collective awakening… Therefore, it is very important to say, ‘I am here!’ to those who share the same kind of insight.

— Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Monk, The Art of Power

Oliver Stone has penned a powerful and emotional takedown of Hillary Clinton, focusing on her insane neocon foreign policy chops in a piece published in the Huffington Post titled, Why I’m for Bernie Sanders.

What follows are just a few paragraphs, I suggest reading the entire thing:

We’re going to war — either hybrid in nature to break the Russian state back to its 1990s subordination, or a hot war (which will destroy our country). Our citizens should know this, but they don’t because our media is dumbed down in its “Pravda”-like support for our “respectable,” highly aggressive government. We are being led, as C. Wright Mills said in the 1950s, by a government full of “crackpot realists: in the name of realism they’ve constructed a paranoid reality all their own.” Our media has credited Hillary Clinton with wonderful foreign policy experience, unlike Trump, without really noting the results of her power-mongering. She’s comparable to Bill Clinton’s choice of Cold War crackpot Madeleine Albright as one of the worst Secretary of States we’ve had since … Condi Rice? Albright boasted, “If we have to use force it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.”

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John McCain Linked Nonprofit Received Million Dollar Donation From Saudi Arabia

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Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, maintains the FBI is covering up a Saudi support cell in Sarasota for the hijackers. He says the al-Hijjis’ “urgent” pre-9/11 exit suggests “someone may have tipped them off” about the coming attacks.

Graham has been working with a 14-member group in Congress to urge President Obama to declassify 28 pages of the final report of his inquiry which were originally redacted, wholesale, by President George W. Bush.

“The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,” he said, adding, “I am speaking of the kingdom,” or government, of Saudi Arabia, not just wealthy individual Saudi donors.

Sources who have read the censored Saudi section say it cites CIA and FBI case files that directly implicate officials of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks — which, if true, would make 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war by a foreign government.

– From the post: The New York Post Reports – FBI is Covering Up Saudi Links to 9/11 Attack

For just and obvious reasons, it’s illegal under U.S. law for foreign governments to finance individual candidates or political parties. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop them from bribing politicians and bureaucrats using other opaque channels.

A perfect example is the shady, influence peddling slush fund known as The Clinton Foundation, which entered the public consciousness last year and was the central topic of multiple posts here at Liberty Blitzkrieg. Although they remain the reining champions of cronyism, being a shameless, corrupt fraud isn’t limited to the Clintons. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a John McCain linked nonprofit has been found accepting million dollar contributions from the most barbaric, backwards nation on planet earth: Saudi Arabia. Naturally, the absolute monarchy remains a very close ally of the U.S. government.

Bloomberg reports:

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Charting America’s Descent Into Peasantry

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Earlier today, I published a post titled Americans Have Been Turned Into Peasants – It’s Time to Fight Back. In the hours since, I came across an article in the Washington Post which offers some additional details and graphics on the subject.

Here are a few excerpts from the piece titled, 2015 Was a Terrible Year for the Common Working Man:

By at least one measure, inequality among working men has grown for decades. But, in 2015, it accelerated: The wage gap among men saw its largest single-year increase on record.

Top earners — men who made more than 95 percent of their peers — saw wages last year rise by 9.9 percent, according to an analysis of federal data. Men in the middle — with earnings higher than half their peers — saw a much-smaller 2.6 percent increase.

Now here’s a graphic of the trend:

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Americans Have Been Turned Into Peasants – It’s Time to Fight Back

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America used to be the land of opportunity and optimism. Now opportunity is seen as the preserve of the elite: two-thirds of Americans believe the economy is rigged in favour of vested interests. And optimism has turned to anger. Voters’ fury fuels the insurgencies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and weakens insiders like Hillary Clinton.

The campaigns have found plenty of things to blame, from free-trade deals to the recklessness of Wall Street. But one problem with American capitalism has been overlooked: a corrosive lack of competition. The naughty secret of American firms is that life at home is much easier: their returns on equity are 40% higher in the United States than they are abroad. Aggregate domestic profits are at near-record levels relative to GDP. America is meant to be a temple of free enterprise. It isn’t.

– From the recent Economist article: The Problem with Profits

In the 1970’s, Goldman Sachs CEO Gus Levy famously encouraged his employees to be “long-term greedy.” In order to understand how far we have fallen as an economy and culture, it’s important to understand the meaning of the phrase and reflect upon it.

“Long-term greedy” implies two very important principles that define a well functioning and ethical free market economy. First, is the unrepentant belief that earning a good profit and striving for financial success is a reasonable and admirable goal for both individuals and corporations. Second, is the understanding that such financial success should be earned, not stolen. If one’s focus is the long-term, the implication is that you’re committing yourself to building something real, and that the marketplace will ultimately reward you handsomely for your product or service.

Throughout my childhood, and much of my adult life, I naively assumed this was the way the U.S. economy functioned. This was partly a result of propaganda, and partly a result of it still being somewhat true. What’s become abundantly clear; however, is that from my birth in 1978 to the present day, the U.S. economy has been, gradually at first, and then rapidly transformed into a rigged, oligarch-dominated, crony Banana Republic system.

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Liberty Links 3/29/16

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14 links today. Enjoy! New $25 Million Fraud on Wall Street Is Making Some Rich Guys Nervous (This is excellent, Wall Street on Parade) We Must Smash the Clinton Machine: Democratic Elites and the Media Sold out to Hillary This Time, but Change Is Coming (Great read, Salon) Twitter Just Responded to Hillary Clinton’s Refusal to Debate … Read more

MSNBC Host Admits Democratic Primary Rigged, While Station Simultaneously Rigs Coverage

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While it might sound strange, a coronation of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary will mark the end of the party as we know it. There’s been a lot written about the “Sanders surge,” with much of it revolving around Hillary Clinton’s extreme personal weakness as a candidate. While this is indisputable, it’s also a convenient way for the status quo to exempt itself from fault and discount genuine grassroots anger. I’m of the view that Sanders’ support is more about people liking him than them disliking Hillary, particularly when it comes to registered Democrats. He’s not merely seen as the “least bad choice.” People really do like him.

The Sanders appeal is twofold. He is seen as unusually honest and consistent for someone who’s held elected office for much of his life, plus he advocates a refreshingly anti-establishment view on core issues that matter to an increasing number of Americans. These include militarism, Wall Street bailouts, a two-tiered justice system, the prohibitive cost of college education, healthcare insecurity and a “rigged economy.” While Hillary is being forced to pay lip service to these issues, everybody knows she doesn’t mean a word of it. She means it less than Obama meant it in 2008, and Obama really didn’t mean it.

– From the post: It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

I just finished watching a surprisingly good and honest 14 minute segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe which covered how the Democratic National Committee has been rigging the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. Host Joe Scarborough even went so far as to admit the media’s complicity in the process with regard to superdelegates. He notes:

“And I know the Republican party wishes they rigged the process as well as the Democratic party did right now, because they could rig it against Trump — but the Democratic party rigs their process so that these superdelegates, which by the way can move any direction they want, actually skew the process and the reporting so badly that the voters actually don’t have their say when it comes to voting.”

This is a key issue that has been driving me up a wall lately. It is journalistic malpractice for media outlets to include superdelegates in the total tally when these Democratic operatives can switch their support at any point between now and the convention. As we learned in the post Did Hillary Clinton Really Win More New Hampshire Delegates Than Sanders Despite a Landslide Loss?:

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