This video from the USA says about itself:
How Pfizer Is Going To Rob You
28 November 2015
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is planning on merging with a counterpart in Ireland called Allergan. Critics are pointing out that if this merger is successful, it could save Pfizer a lot in taxes. Corporations like to base their company in Ireland because of their low corporate tax rate. The merger could cost American tax payers millions. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) hosts of The Young Turks discuss.
Should the government stop this merger? Will they? Let us know in the comments below.
Read more here.
“At the intersection of runaway corporate greed, the cold-blooded profiteering of pharmaceutical companies, and the generations-old, self-inflicted, crippling regulatory impotence of the U.S. government, the pending inversion of Pfizer is dancing a little jig in a leprechaun costume and taking a steaming dump on the American flag.
So, inversions. Say a big U.S. corporation has already used up all the other tricks for avoiding paying taxes to our government. Here’s another neato trick they can pull: they can “merge” with a foreign-owned company—even a much smaller company—and, because they have been absorbed into this other company, they can now be headquartered wherever that other company calls home. Now, because they are no longer an American company, they pay corporate taxes to their new home country, where the corporate tax rate is substantially lower.
Voila! Just like that, an American company gets out of paying corporate taxes in America, because rinky-dink Sven’s Totally Not Fake Company LLC came on board. Sorry, Americans! It can’t be helped!”
By Luke James in Britain:
Smith challenged to back public NHS
Friday 22nd July 2016
Leadership hopeful under fire for Pfizer lobbyist past
JEREMY CORBYN challenged Owen Smith to back a fully public NHS yesterday after his leadership rival defended his past as a lobbyist for drug privateer Pfizer.
Mr Smith is under scrutiny over the £80,000-a-year post as “head of government affairs” for the US company, which is famous for producing sexual aid Viagra, he held between 2005 and 2008.
When he unsuccessfully stood for Parliament in 2006, he claimed privateers could bring “good ideas” and “valuable services” into the NHS without undermining its public ethos.
And shortly after being elected in 2010, he used a Commons speech to call for the government to offer to “improve incentives” for pharmaceutical privateers and warned against the NHS using cheaper non-patented alternatives.
Mr Smith has insisted he was not a lobbyist and has “never advocated privatisation of the NHS.”
But shadow health secretary Diane Abbott told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is no issue closer to party members’ hearts than the NHS.
“I don’t believe that someone whose history is having been a special adviser and a pharmaceutical company lobbyist is going to enthuse the base,” she said.
Asked about his rival’s record at his campaign launch, Mr Corbyn recalled how pharmaceutical companies blocked access to low-cost, life-saving HIV drugs in Africa.
Mr Corbyn might also have mentioned Big Pharma not being interested in making drugs against Ebola as the epidemic killed mainly poor Africans. Eg, Pfizer estimating that selling Viagra to impotent well-off men is better for profits.
He said: “I hope Owen will agree with me that our NHS should be free at the point of use, should be run by publicly employed workers working for the NHS not private contractors and that medical research shouldn’t be farmed out to big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and others but should be funded through the Medical Research Council.”
Mr Corbyn’s allies also hit back at Mr Smith for criticising the leader’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Mr Smith told the Guardian he was left “furious” by his latest display and said: “Jeremy is just not up to the job of taking them on at the despatch box.”
Ms Abbott pointed the finger at rebel Labour MPs, saying: “They refuse to cheer, they sit on their hands, they sulk, they chat among themselves.
“Some of these Labour MPs need to understand it is not about supporting Jeremy as a person, it is about going into the chamber for Prime Minister’s Questions and supporting your party.”
The attempt to remove UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is being spearheaded by right-wing supporters of former Labour leader Tony Blair. These forces, who aim to either take over or destroy the Labour Party and set up a new right-wing party, are working in intimate collusion with the security services in Britain and the United States: here.
Labour MP Sarah Champion who quit Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench last month ‘unresigns’ and gets her old job back. The MP was previously one of dozens to quit: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Friday 22nd July 2016
posted by Morning Star in Britain
A LEFT-WING festival will centre on rallying support for Jeremy Corbyn to remain as Labour leader, writes Cassie Fitzgerald.
Organisers of the second annual Leftfest in Southampton on Saturday have sent out a big message of solidarity for Mr Corbyn amid the Labour leadership campaign.
The event, from 11am to 4pm, will see bands, radical poetry and fun for every age group throughout the day at “The Hub” in Southampton City College.
Unite Community local branch spokesman Joe Dukes said: “All of us who want to see an end to cuts in local public services knows that this will only be achieved with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm.
“We in Southampton want to send out a huge message to the country that we want Jeremy to stay in the job to which he was democratically elected just a few months ago.”
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-5c7b-Southampton-lefties-rally-for-Jeremy-Corbyn#.V5HzraKZ0dU
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Thursday 21st July 2016
posted by Luke James in Britain
But Team Corbyn taking nothing for granted as Jeremy begins campaign
JEREMY CORBYN is on course to claim a second Labour leadership victory — and could emerge with an even bigger mandate, his team predicted yesterday.
A spokesman for the Labour leader said he is not taking victory over Owen Smith for granted but believes the evidence shows support for Mr Corbyn within the party has grown since he won with a landslide 59.5 per cent of the vote last summer.
Speaking ahead of his campaign launch today, he said that Mr Corbyn “is not complacent in any way.
“He was elected with a landslide a year ago. By a lot of measures his support has increased among Labour Party members and activists and supporters. And I think there is every reason to think he will be re-elected.”
The 48-hour window to sign up as a registered supporter and vote in the contest for a fee of £25 — up from £3 last summer — closed at 5pm yesterday.
Labour was set last night to reveal the number of people who had signed up, but the total was “already in the tens of thousands” and expected to “accelerate” as the deadline approached.
The secretive Saving Labour group, which has not declared who is leading it or how it is funded, has taken out full-page ads in national newspapers in its campaign to recruit anti-Corbyn voters.
But the party source said: “I think it will be reasonable to assume the majority of them are supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.”
A Times poll this week found support for Mr Corbyn among Labour members had increased by 4 percentage points since the Westminster Palace coup against his leadership began.
It suggested that he would beat Mr Smith by 56-34.
Mr Smith claims to be a “credible and radical” alternative to Mr Corbyn, and has said he would rewrite clause four of Labour’s constitution — stripped of socialist content by Tony Blair — to “put tackling inequality right at the heart of everything we do.”
But the Pontypridd MP has faced yet more questions about his past as an £80,000-a-year lobbyist for transnational drugs giant Pfizer.
Mr Smith insisted yesterday that he has “never advocated privatisation of the NHS” — a claim at odds with what he told the South Wales Echo in 2006, in which he said privateers could bring “good ideas” and “valuable services” to the NHS.
“Broadly speaking, we made a mistake, the last Labour government, in not appreciating how a Tory government would ride a coach and horses through the language,” he told BBC Radio 4.
“In employing words like ‘choice’ I think we allowed them to use that as a Trojan horse to try and marketise the NHS. I’m opposed to that.”
Mr Corbyn’s spokesman told the Star: “The question of where Owen Smith stands is one open to debate. I’m sure that will be discussed in the campaign.”
Asked by another journalist whether Mr Smith was more left-wing than Mr Corbyn, the spokesman replied: “Owen Smith? You’ve floored me there.
“I’m sure during this campaign there will be plenty of scrutiny of Owen and Jeremy’s political records and their positions now.”
Mr Corbyn will formally set out his platform in central London this morning.
His campaign website jeremyforlabour.com, launched yesterday, hails victories in the London and Bristol mayoral elections and parliamentary by-elections as proof of Mr Corbyn’s electability.
It also notes how, under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has overturned Tory plans to cut tax credits and disability benefits and has grown the party to over half a million members.
“He’s only just getting started, and has kept going in the face of huge pressure,” it states.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-32c0-Victory-in-his-Sights#.V5Hz9KKZ0dU
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Friday 22nd July 2016
posted by Morning Star in Editorial
MOST Labour members and supporters will have drawn inspiration from Jeremy Corbyn’s self-assured and witty address to his leadership re-election campaign launch yesterday.
His assertion that the Labour Party is strong and “going places” and that he looks forward to leading it to general election victory is in marked contrast to the mood of doom that too many of his parliamentary colleagues encourage.
To have 183,000 people — more than the existing membership of the Tory Party — sign up to Labour to vote in the leadership poll speaks volumes for the transformation effected by his election as leader last September.
His “hand of friendship” offer to Labour MPs was doubtless genuine, but he hinted that, while his own capacity for compassion and forgiveness is all but limitless, party members may have other ideas.
They delivered a massive victory to Corbyn but have seen their expressed will treated contemptuously by his “comrades” in Parliament.
Diane Abbott’s description of Labour backbenchers doing the Tories’ job for them by undermining their elected leader at Prime Minister’s Questions illustrates the scale of their estrangement from the party.
Despite proclaiming undying love and commitment to Labour, they are oblivious to the harm they are doing to their party and those outside Parliament who depend on it to represent their interests.
Their conduct betrays a level of arrogance that presumes superiority for the attitudes of this small group over the mass of the party.
There have been spurious attempts to counterpose the votes cast by the electorate for Corbyn’s current opponents and the number that voted for the leader.
But the votes they gained at the general election or subsequent by-elections are not personal testimonials.
Electors backed them because of the party they represented.
If they are in any doubt about that, let them stand as independents or in the name of another party and that reality will sink in pretty quickly.
Labour supporters did not cast their votes for MPs in the expectation that they would go on strike against the rest of the party in an interminable tantrum against the refusal of grassroots members to back the leadership candidate of their choice.
There are already whisperings that, if as expected, Owen Smith fails to dislodge Corbyn, the leader’s most intransigent adversaries will continue their sabotage tactics in preparation for yet another challenge next summer.
There is no constitutional way to prevent them from doing that if they are so determined.
But Corbyn’s reminder that new parliamentary boundaries, reducing the number of House of Commons seats by 50 and affecting Labour-held constituencies disproportionately, will come into effect in 2018, necessitating a full selection process in every rejigged constituency, ought to introduce a note of caution.
While every sitting MP would have the right to have their candidacy considered, it’s unlikely that constituency parties would fall over themselves to back those who have tried to prevent the parliamentary party from operating effectively.
This would mean that Labour would probably fight the 2020 election with a qualitatively different list of candidates.
The problem, however, is that working people, benefit claimants and state pensioners are suffering cuts in their living standards now.
Health and education services in England are under threat from the Tories. Britain’s exit from the EU has to be carried through alongside defence and extension of workplace rights.
The need for labour movement unity, including Labour MPs, has never been more pressing.
Personal self-indulgence was never justifiable, but MPs have the summer now to ponder whether they want to be part of the solution or continue as part of the problem.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-755e-Rebel-MPs-must-wise-up#.V5JNbaKZ0dU
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Saturday, 23 July 2016
HYSTERICAL WITCH HUNT LAUNCHED ON LABOUR LEADER CORBYN
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents within the Labour Party have stepped up their hysterical witch hunt against him, accusing him of ‘stirring up’ his supporters and alleging that he is responsible for ‘abuse and intolerance, misogamy and anti-semitism in the Labour Party’.
Angela Eagle who has abandoned her leadership bid now accuses him of allowing a ‘permissive environment’ where abuse is allowed to flourish. In fact the bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party have been abusing his leadership for months.
Eagle dropped out of the leadership contest after she failed to get the majority of MPs to endorse her. Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said yesterday: ‘It looks as though Angela Eagle was forced off the ballot paper by pressure from Owen Smith’s campaign.’ He added: ‘Owen Smith compared Jeremy to the owner of Sports Direct! ‘We want a political discussion, not a personal discussion like this.’
Corbyn answered the allegations yesterday, stating: ‘I deeply regret the language that Angela is using there. As soon as I heard about the brick that was thrown through part of the building where her office is I called her and her office immediately, expressed my regret for what happened and absolutely condemned it.
‘I have made it clear that harassment and abusive language have absolutely no place in our political discourse. I receive plenty of abusive language and I don’t want to demean myself or promote the person who is using that kind of abusive language. I think we should lower the temperature and increase the quality of our debate.’
Piling on the anti-Corbyn attack, Owen Smith squarely blamed the Labour leader for what he sees as his supporters abusing MPs, alleging: ‘After all we didn”t have this sort of abuse and intolerance, misogamy, anti-semitism in the Labour Party before Jeremy Corbyn became the leader. . . Angela is right, it has effectively been licensed in the last nine months.’
Meanwhile Smith made the extraordinary statement that if he got elected as the next Labour leader he would have a second referendum on whether Britain should be in or out of the European Union, effectively pitting parliament against the British people.
http://wrp.org.uk/news/12299
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Monday 25th July 2016
posted by Luke James in Britain
Packed houses and net page hits affirm support for Corbyn
THE campaign to re-elect Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has reached more than two million people since its public launch event on Saturday, organisers revealed yesterday.
Around 1,800 supporters packed Salford’s Lowry Theatre to hear Mr Corbyn set out the need to transform Labour into a “social movement” in order to defeat the Tories.
He told them: “We will win the next general election only as a social movement.“Some people don’t get this yet. They think a movement is something instead of parliamentary politics.
“It’s not. It’s what will make a Labour government possible. We have lost the last two general elections — we cannot carry on as before.”
Thousands more watched his speech via an internet stream on Facebook at simultaneous events being held in London, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Newcastle, Stoke, Cambridge and Glasgow.
And, since then, Mr Corbyn’s vision has been heard or read by millions more through social media.
Another 10,000 Labour members and supporters have already been contacted by volunteers taking part in phone canvassing sessions for Mr Corbyn’s campaign.
Organisers of the campaign said they have taken inspiration from socialist US Senator Bernie Sanders, who by mobilising an army of young supporters and raising millions of dollars in small donations was able to pose a serious challenge to corporate-funded Hillary Clinton’s ultimately successful drive for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
A source said: “The incredible number of people we have reached through this launch has shown how we will communicate with voters across the country, build our movement and secure a Labour government.”
By comparison, just 100 people attended a meeting staged by rival candidate Owen Smith in south London.
Mr Smith told the event, organised by supporter and former deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman, that there has been an “upsurge in the volume of misogynistic and anti-semitic abuse” since Mr Corbyn became leader.
This allegation follows claims by former leadership challenger Angela Eagle that Mr Corbyn has “stirred” trouble and contributed to a “permissive environment” that led to a brick being thrown through a window in the building which contains her constituency office — although the culprit and motive are unknown.
Mr Corbyn addressed the claims directly on Saturday, saying: “I make it clear today, as I have made it clear many times before: I don’t do personal abuse. I don’t respond to personal abuse. I condemn any abuse from others. It has no place in our party.”
But shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon said Mr Corbyn’s opponents were attempting to discredit him by “demonising” his supporters — in an echo of the miners’ vilification by the media during the 1984-85 strike.
He told the rally: “The crime [the miners] were guilty of, in the eyes of the Establishment, was working together in a positive way to stand up for the interests of working-class people and a better society.
“I am not — and others are not — going to stand by and see every one of you portrayed as the striking miners were, as Women Against Pit Closures were — as thugs, brick-throwers, bullies and misogynists.”
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-8fa5-Jez-reaches-millions,-100-there-for-Smith#.V5ZTlqKZ0dU
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Monday 25th July 2016
posted by Morning Star in Features
A new study proves Corbyn’s leadership has been deliberately delegitimised to undermine his huge popularity with the public, says CHARLEY ALLAN
A CRUCIAL element of the coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn has been the mass media’s relentless assault on his legitimacy as leader.
We all know the fourth estate will never treat Labour fairly — unless of course the party’s led by someone who dances to Murdoch’s tune — but there’s no doubt that Corbyn has faced historic levels of hostility.
A recent report by the London School of Economics media department revealed that almost a quarter of Corbyn-related newspaper articles it studied had been “scathing, disingenuous, insulting or mocking” towards him.
Media@LSE head Nick Couldry analysed the output of the eight major daily papers — sadly not including the Star — from September and October last year.
Categorising articles as either positive, neutral, critical or antagonistic, his team found massive anti-Corbyn bias across the board.
Unsurprisingly, right-wing titles led the way in fear and hatred, but even the centre-left press carried more critical pieces than positive ones, along with plenty of antagonism.
The study exposes “an important way in which Corbyn was delegitimised by the press” — it denied him a voice in over half of its coverage.
And even when his views were reported, they were taken out of context 46 per cent of the time.
With three out of 10 pieces pouring “ridicule and scorn” on the Labour leader and 13 per cent loaded with personal attacks, Couldry highlights “the vengefulness and sneering tone with which Corbyn’s character was assassinated.”
He also looks at the “arguably more harmful” technique of delegitimising Corbyn through association with terrorism (9 per cent of articles) and denoting him a danger to Britain (22 per cent).
That narrative dovetailed nicely with the Tories’ top line of attack, after David Cameron tweeted: “The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security.”
What’s shocking is that, in over a quarter of the pieces claiming Corbyn was dangerous, this charge came from fellow Labour MPs — “yet another indication of the civil war being waged within the Labour Party,” according to the study.
And this red-on-red infighting has only increased since then, rolling the pitch for the current putsch against Corbyn.
In December, MP for Birmingham Yardley Jess Phillips said she’d told Corbyn that if he starts “hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back — I’ll knife you in the front.”
Now she’s threatening to leave Labour if Corbyn wins, like professional troll Katie Hopkins and her promise to emigrate rather than live under an Ed Miliband premiership.
Violent imagery was on display more recently when the Mail on Sunday declared: “Labour must kill vampire Jezza” alongside an illustration of Corbyn in a coffin.
The newspaper knew it had crossed a line — eventually changing the word “kill” to “dump” on its website — but coming just 10 days after Batley & Spen MP Jo Cox’s assassination, the headline looked an awful lot like incitement to violence.
Cox’s murder has slipped from the news and we still know next to nothing about the only suspect, Thomas Mair, who faces trial in November.
If the killer had cried “Allahu akbar” instead of “Britain first” while shooting and stabbing her, the papers would still be fighting for every last bit of local gossip.
Far-right terrorism isn’t as newsworthy as the Islamic variety, it appears, or maybe it just doesn’t fit the narrative.
And there are plenty of other examples of offences that seem to matter much more if a particular group is implicated.
Take anti-semitism in Labour, for example. Members, even MPs, on the left only have to make a clumsy comment on social media before they are suspended.
But when rightwingers are accused of deliberately making false accusations of anti-semitism, thereby hurting Jews by undermining the fight against genuine anti-semitic behaviour, no-one does a thing about it.
Or look at the alleged bullying problem.
Two constituency parties — Wallasey and Brighton & Hove — with prominent Corbynistas in positions of power have recently been suspended amid accusations of intimidation, despite no known complaints at a local level.
Yet when MPs describe their members as “dogs” and insult them on social media — carefully chronicled under the “LabourCoupAbuse” banner — the party says nothing.
And then there’s the ongoing #HackingLabour scandal, in which Blairite faction Progress was caught encouraging campaigners to misuse membership data to boost the vote against Corbyn.
After this column raised the issue last week, the Information Commissioner’s Office contacted Labour, which immediately announced “a moratorium on any access to membership lists” unless for normal party business.
It also warned that anyone “using Labour Party membership data in an unauthorised way will be referred to the Office of the Information Commissioner and may be subject to disciplinary action.”
That’s all very well, but what’s going to happen to Progress, which produced a how-to guide for doing exactly this?
Imagine if instead it had been Momentum caught red-handed trying to mine membership lists — the media would have had a field day and there would be mass suspensions on the spot.
But because reality doesn’t fit the narrative, it gets ignored. (By the way, if you want Labour to investigate this scandal, sign the petition at http://www.tinyurl.com/hackinglabour.)
The party bureaucracy has used the pretext of bullying to ban all local meetings, denying members a democratic voice at this critical moment in Labour’s history.
Yet strangely there’s an exception — constituency parties are considered civil enough to make leadership nominations, despite such meetings carrying the most risk of rancour.
Corbyn’s enemies think that, with only one candidate facing off against him, they can secure support from the majority of party branches and deny Jez the same propaganda victory he enjoyed last year.
That’s the real reason Angela Eagle had to drop out before the contest began, even though her rival Owen “normal” Smith had been caught “doing a Leadsom.”
There was never any danger of splitting anti-Corbyn support among members because leadership elections use a single transferable vote, meaning that Jez needs the backing of half the membership no matter how many opponents he faces.
It certainly didn’t make sense for Eagle to drop out just because she had slightly less support than Smith among Labour MPs. Even from the plotters’ narrow perspective, it’s far more important to have broad appeal across the membership.
The centre-left has fallen for a classic “bait and switch” confidence trick.
Bassetlaw MP John Mann, a fierce Corbyn critic, recently revealed that Smith approached him six months ago canvassing support for a leadership bid — despite Smith assuring the BBC in June: “I won’t be entering a contest against Jeremy Corbyn.”
People are fed up with two-faced politicians playing them for fools, which is why Corbyn’s integrity has inspired such respect.
Birmingham Selly Oak MP Steve McCabe tried to defend Labour’s £25 “democracy tax” last week by tweeting: “In my experience those trapped in poverty have little time to engage in party politics or see it as a priority.”
To McCabe, Smith, Eagle and the rest, Labour’s mass membership is a problem, not a solution.
We need a different narrative. Only Corbyn can mobilise the millions necessary to win a general election, he’s stronger and more popular than ever despite all the dirty tricks, and the reason the Labour right has conspired with Tories and the mainstream media is because they’re terrified he could be our next prime minister.
Labour MPs have chosen to spend the summer fighting a pointless civil war instead of healing their communities from Brexit divisions and rising far-right violence.
If the judge at tomorrow’s High Court hearing doesn’t put the whole contest on ice while she picks apart the plethora of dodgy decision-making, this will be Corbyn’s chance to cement his leadership credentials.
No matter what madness the media throws at us over the next two months, just remember this — it’s nothing compared to what we’ll face when he finally makes it to Number 10.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-f6c0-Media-manipulation-behind-coup-chaos#.V5ZVDKKZ0dU
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