SAR #15292

Love is not love which alters when alteration finds.

Kick Them While They're Down: A couple of globally prominent law firms are gathering high powered clients for a $40 billion class-action lawsuit against VW for the shareholders' cumulative losses caused by the company's various frauds. They should check with the French, who have raided VW's French headquarters searching for documentary evidence.

Gained In Translation: A Chinese general claims that China will not recklessly resort to force in the South China Sea. Vide 'recklessly'.

Unconditional Surrender: In return for not forcing the United States into default, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell demands major reductions Medicare spending and Social Security benefits as well as repeal of EPA Clean Water regulations that interfere with the coal industry's dumping mountaintops into our streams and rivers. McConnell is giving Obama less than three weeks to capitulate to all these demands. Ain't gonna happen. Then, come December, the crazies want to shut down the government if Obama doesn't defund Planned Parenthood. And this ain't gonna happen, either.

Default Position: All the independent focus groups and online polls show that Bernie Sanders 'won' the first debate, so naturally the media continues to insist that Clinton prevailed. Because they don't want him, even if we do.

Assignment: If you haven't read Jeremy Scahill's The Assassination Complex, detailing the horror of the American drone program, do.

Previews: John Kerry assures us that the current migrant crisis in Europe is but a small-scale rehearsal for the mass migrations that the rising sea levels, intense droughts and other impacts of global climate change will bring. Brace yourselves.

Your Money or Your Lies: Ben Carson, self described tough guy who warded off a gun waving robber, now 'thinks' that Popeye's didn't actually call the police after the robbery. Me, I'd like fries with that.

About That War: Tony Blair agreed with George Bush to launch a war in Iraq at least a year before Dick Cheney got around to starting it. And we don't even have the decency to be embarrassed about our military adventuresome.

Clarification: The government will soon require that all drones be registered; yours, not theirs.

Evidence: The Social Security Administration's 2014 Wage Report confirms that the economic recovery has done little for the majority of workers. Median wages rose $366 last year, bringing wages back up to 1999 levels. But corporate profits are soaring.

What Big Teeth You Have: The CEOs of several of the world's largest oil and gas companies - BG Group, BP, Eni, Pemex, Reliance Industries Ltd., Repsol SA, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Statoil and Total – now claim ““Our shared ambition is for a 2 degree Celsius future. … Over the coming years we will collectively strengthen our actions and investments to contribute to reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of the global energy mix.”

Quoted: “The only upside of the concentration of the wealth at the top is that they have more money to pay in taxes.” Joseph E. Stiglitz

Noted: “The idea that globalization is a force that is good and beneficial for all is an illusion. Tectonic economic changes such as those brought by globalization always have winners and losers.” And you know which you are.

Porn O'Graph: Bad moon rising...