Right on the heels of the release of his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore stirs up controversy again on Link TV, taking on Obama, the media, and America's very financial underpinnings. Link's special features Michael Moore's standing-room only talk at the Commonwealth Club of California, as he gives insight into his new film while getting in his trademark jabs at the rich.

What makes his latest movie a love story, a "romantic documentary", as Moore calls it? "It is a love story. It's about the wealthy, who love their money. Except the movie has a twist - they not only love their money, but they love our money too. And they want all of it."

The critics have weighed in with fairly positive reviews of Capitalism: A Love Story, though Manohla Dargis in the New York Times takes Moore to task for his lack of "any real answers... which tends to be true of most socially minded directors in the commercial mainstream." And while some of Moore's cinematic decisions left Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, blogging on the website True/Slant, a bit perplexed, he was nevertheless impressed that the film addressed "a taboo subject for every other major media outlet in the country": a society undergoing a "rapid peasant-ization."

Need Moore? Check out this interview with Blanche Shaheen (who has appeared recently as a host on Link TV), where the filmmaker reveals his premonition that the economic "house of cards was about to come down" even before the global economy officially tanked. And he pulls no punches for the capitalists, who he depicts as continually concocting new schemes to part working folk from their cash: "In capitalism, for the wealthy, there's no such thing as the word "enough". "Enough" is the dirtiest word in capitalism."

What do you think? Does Moore speak the truth, and does he have the answers? What do you think the repercussions will be after Moore's exposé of Wall Street and the capitalist system? Be sure to watch Link's special and let us know!

The debate over health care reform in the United States has now turned into more of a battle, replete with guns and anger. The divisive rancor that had seemingly disappeared following Obama's election amid calls for national unity has resurfaced at contentious town halls on the health care issue, fueled in part, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, by "conflict-driven cable news." Linguistics professor and author George Lakoff, featured previously on Link in the special "There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America," takes the Democrats to task in this video for failing to sell a national health care plan to the American public. (Video courtesy of our partners at FORA.tv!) Instead, according to Lakoff, conservatives are successfully framing the debate with phrases like "death panels" and "government takeover," while Democrats refuse to risk touting the real and tragic failures of insurance company-based health care in the United States. (For an interesting look at the ill effects of the American health care system on ordinary folk, check out Andrew Sullivan's blog series at the Atlantic Monthly, "The Views From Your Sickbeds," and another article in the September 2009 edition of the Atlantic, "How American Health Care Killed My Father" by David Goldhill.)

Yesterday, Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! also looked at the health care debate, interviewing Chad Terhune, a senior writer at BusinessWeek covering health care issues. Terhune's article, "The Health Insurers Have Already Won," looks at the real potential winners in health reform -- the health insurance industry. He writes, "The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable." (Watch the complete interview below, and read more at DemocracyNow.org.) And what do you think -- is a better health care system on the horizon for the U.S.? Or will insurance companies be the only winners in this battle?

U.S. President Barack Obama visited Russia in early July to much media fanfare in the West, but was anything really accomplished? In a carefully choreographed diplomatic dance, Obama met first with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and allocated only a breakfast with Prime Minister (and de facto Russian leader?) Vladimir Putin. Clearly Obama hoped, in the Bushian turn of phrase, to "see into the soul" of Medvedev and lure him away from the omnipresent Putin-Sputnik.

But during the visit, the Russian leaders both seemed steadfast in their attempts to slip out of America's crumbling unipolar dominance of world affairs and maintain their own sphere of influence over the former Soviet Union. And although there were some agreements made between the U.S. and Russia on cuts in nuclear arms, at least one prominent supporter of nuclear disarmament, journalist Jonathan Schell, told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman that he found the nuclear agreement between Obama and Medvedev to be "disappointing".

On a lighter note, somehow the trim President Obama was able to mostly resist the temptation of this fantastic Saint Basil's Cathedral cake, featured in this Russia Today report: 

Cake aside, the diplomatic ballet continued earlier this week, as Vice President Joe Biden paid a requisite visit to NATO hopefuls and Russian archenemies Ukraine and Georgia. While Russians merely yawned in the face of Obama's star power, Biden was greeted with adoring crowds in Georgia's capital of Tbilisi, as he drove by "George W. Bush Street" (the former president was always a popular figure in Georgia, due to his support of Georgian independence from their domineering Russian neighbors).

In Ukraine, Biden affirmed U.S. support of Russia's near abroad, rejecting Russia's "sphere of influence" in the region. But it remains to be seen if Washington can back up these words of support with true action. With Russia's civil society and politics drifting back to the authoritarian, stifling dissent from human rights activists, journalists, and competing politicians, the U.S. has some tough decisions to make in dealing with the Russian bear.

Link's Mosaic and the Mosaic Intelligence Report are on vacation this week, but intrepid Mosaic Producer Jamal Dajani has not been slacking. Dajani has been reporting from Paris on the burqa controversy, where French president Nicolas Sarkozy inflamed his country's Muslim population with recent comments stating that the burqa would "not be welcome" in France.

It wasn't easy, but Dajani was able to interview a French woman dressed in burqa for his latest article in the Huffington Post, and it sounds like Sarkozy isn't winning any friends in France's Muslim communities. You can follow Dajani's interesting updates on this story on Twitter.

For more background, this Al Jazeera English piece gives the "inside story" on the call for a burqa ban in France:

Is this anti-burqa campaign really a question of women's rights? (This, of course, coming from the same man caught opening oogling the female form in these photos. Don't you worry -- Obama's wandering eye has apparently been exonerated, according to this ABC News video analysis.) Can France reconcile its values as a secular nation with its growing Muslim immigrant population? We know what Dajani and Sarkozy think -- what about you?

This week on Global Pulse, the focus is on torture, politics and accountability. Obama declassifies Bush administration documents that detail and attempt to legalize what some have called "torture techniques." While the U.S media seem focused on the political ramifications, media worldwide present the brutality of torture and point the finger of blame directly at Bush.

SOURCES: FOX, CBS, ABC, CNN, The Daily Show, U.S; TV5, France; Press TV, Iran; TVN, Chile; Al Jazeera English, Qatar