Notes 32
When you daily address the absurdities and inequities of the American scene and try to give witness to them and restore sanity, you end up distraught and burned out. We’ll miss ye, Keith.
Keith Olbermann gives abrupt goodbye to MSNBC show
Writer David Bauder, Ap Television Writer – Sat Jan 22
NEW YORK – Keith Olbermann was MSNBC's most popular personality and single-handedly led its transformation to an outspoken, left-leaning cable news network in prime time. Despite that, he often seemed to be walking on a tightrope with his job. Friday night, it snapped.
MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines insisted Olbermann's exit had nothing to do with the acquisition of parent company NBC Universal by Comcast, which received regulatory approval last week.
______________________________________________
A few years ago, an historian said history was dead. Now democracy may be dead.
Does "Democracy" Still Mean Anything? (And in Case It Does, What Is It?)
Zygmunt Bauman, Truthout: "Henry A. Giroux wonders how one can possibly explain 'the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power?'... One is the successful creation of 'punitive justice and a theatre of cruelty' as the political formula accepted (or at least acceptable) by the majority of Americans. The other is the accelerated pace of 'social amnesia': The most outrageous misdemeanor of the rulers, not so long ago a cause of public outcry, is pushed aside or forgotten altogether in time for the midterm elections. But there is another possibility as well, one that is perhaps too gruesome for the future of democracy to be seriously broached. It is the possibility - nay, the likelihood - that the link between public agenda and private worries, the very hub of the democratic process, has been broken, with each of the two spheres rotating by now in mutually isolated spaces….”
____________________________________________
Common Cause alleges that both justices were paid guests at exclusive gatherings organized by Koch Industries, where conservative business leaders and elected officials secretly strategized around elections. The justices were among those who provided the critical votes in the 5-4 ruling, a ruling that has prompted an unprecedented flood of corporate expenditures on electoral campaigns over the last year.
On Anniversary of Citizens United Ruling, Calls for DOJ to Investigate Scalia and Thomas
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "Today marks the one-year anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns. We speak with Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, which has filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Justice urging it to investigate whether Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves from the case last year because of a conflict of interest."
______________________________________________
Oh, hell, why wouldn’t you expect Obama to put wolf in charge of hen house when his re-election is at stake? He’s a blessed pragmatist. To hell with principle.
Volcker Out, Immelt In on Economic Board
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Anahad O'Connor, The New York Times News Service: "President Obama will name Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive officer and chairman of General Electric, on Friday to run his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who is stepping down, the White House said. Mr. Immelt will chair a new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that Mr. Obama intends to create by executive order.... The changes signal what the White House describes as 'a new phase of our recovery,' a shift from crisis to job creation."
_______________________________________________
Ancient Aphorism: To the victor belongs the spoils and corporations are collecting on their investments
Court and Chevron's "Crude" Attacks Continue
Thursday 20 January 2011
by: Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
A recent Fortune magazine cover proclaimed it "the most pro-business court we have ever seen," and, as the Times more understatedly noted last month, "It is clear ... that the Supreme Court these days is increasingly focused on business issues."
Joe Berlinger's back is against the wall. Last week the independent filmmaker, already facing crushing debt from legal bills, was dealt a major blow in his continuing fight against the third-largest company in America: Chevron.
In May, federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage used to create the film, how Ecuadorians challenged the pollution of rivers and wells from Texaco's drilling in the Lago Agrio oil field, a rainforest disaster savagely damaging the environment and the local population's health that's been described as the Amazon's Chernobyl.
In case you missed the Times story over the holidays, it was headlined "Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests." Scholars at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago prepared a report analyzing nearly 1,500 Supreme Court decisions across almost six decades. It found that, "The Roberts court, which has completed five terms, ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953."
_________________________________________________
"...an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society - cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian." -Howard Zinn,
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Giffords, an American reality check
Notes 31
American Optimism vs. reality.Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world and in the inequities of our own country. Typical of media dishonesty.
The front part of her skull is missing. One eye is gone. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and her brain can't move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality of prognosis for her rehabilitation.
HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.
______________________________________________
Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens
A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
________________________________________________
Unlimited budget for war. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.
23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
_______________________________________________________
No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.
Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey
Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
____________________________________________
A reader writes
The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.
"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
_________________________________________________
Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is at risk
According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
______________________________________________
The American Way. Nothing is sacred
A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum
Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?
_______________________________________________
American Optimism vs. reality.Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world and in the inequities of our own country. Typical of media dishonesty.
The front part of her skull is missing. One eye is gone. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and her brain can't move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality of prognosis for her rehabilitation.
HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.
______________________________________________
Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens
A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
________________________________________________
Unlimited budget for war. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.
23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
_______________________________________________________
No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.
Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey
Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
____________________________________________
A reader writes
The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.
"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
_________________________________________________
Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is at risk
According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
______________________________________________
The American Way. Nothing is sacred
A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum
Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?
_______________________________________________
Fetuses not written into Constitution, only citizens
Notes 31
No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.
Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey
Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
____________________________________________
American Optimism vs. reality. Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world the inequities in our own country. One eye is gone. Part of her skull is blown away. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and can’t move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality.
HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.
______________________________________________
Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens
A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
________________________________________________
Unlimited budget for war and neat technological successes. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.
23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
_______________________________________________________
A reader writes
The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.
"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
_________________________________________________
Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is fallin down.
According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
______________________________________________
The American Way. Nothing is sacred
A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum
Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?
_______________________________________________
No sperm, eggs, zygotes, fetuses, possibilities, or potentialities defined as citizens in Constitution to which Santorum refers. Why can’t they get it after all these centuries. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God”s.
Thu Jan 20, 12:58 pm ET
Santorum invokes Obama’s race in abortion debate
By Holly Bailey
Rick Santorum says President Obama should be against abortion because Obama is black.
"The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no," Santorum says.
____________________________________________
American Optimism vs. reality. Why we misunderstand conditions in the rest of the starving, impoverished world the inequities in our own country. One eye is gone. Part of her skull is blown away. She is a web of tubes keeping her alive. Her brain needs constant draining. She can’t swallow. She is paralysed on one side and can’t move her legs. If she survives, she will never function better than a damaged child. That’s the hard reality.
HOUSTON – She heard them, smiled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
The caravan carrying Rep. Gabrielle Giffords swept past cheering crowds Friday as she left the hospital in Tucson, Ariz., where she dazzled doctors with her recovery from being shot in the head two weeks ago, and was moved to Houston for rehabilitation.
______________________________________________
Infuriating. The (liberal) Obama started this with GM bailout. Let the states raise taxes like Illinois did instead of reneging on their guarantees to their citizens
A Path Is Sought for States to Escape Debt Burdens
MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, On Thursday January 20, 2011
Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions.
Discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.
Discussion of a new bankruptcy option for the states appears to have taken off in November, after Mr. Gingrich gave a speech about the country’s big challenges, including government debt and an uncompetitive labor market.
“We just have to be honest and clear about this, and I also hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy,” he said.
________________________________________________
Unlimited budget for war and neat technological successes. Need to make the budget unlimited for peace. Give Peace a chance.
23-story rocket blasts off in California
By Brett Michael Dykes, Fri Jan 21,
On Thursday afternoon the Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle, 235 feet tall -- roughly 23 stories--was the largest rocket ever to launch from the West Coast.
The three-engine rocket is thought to carry a top-secret U.S. spy satellite, the Times said, that is "capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the make and model of an automobile hundreds of miles below."
_______________________________________________________
A reader writes
The al-Qaida leader questioned why the French would consider the resistance against Nazi German troops occupying their nation in World War II to be heroic while the fight against French and other foreign troops in Afghanistan is labeled terrorism.
"Why do you judge in a double standard?" he said
_________________________________________________
Birds from heaven. Makes you wonder what else is fallin down.
According to the Christian Science Monitor:
"The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
"Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans."
______________________________________________
The American Way. Nothing is sacred
A reader writes about donation to restore Roman Colliseum
Does this mean he gets naming rights now??? Is it now going to be called the "Tod's Luxury Leather Goods and Shoes Colosseum"?
_______________________________________________
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Reclaiming the air and the natural selection of seed stock
Notes 30
Naming and claiming the Commons
Rewriting the "Tragedy of the Commons"
Wednesday 19 January 2011
by: Bill McKibben | YES! Magazine | Op-Ed
What cooperation and sharing have to do with saving the world.
Things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes.
If we are to somehow ward off the coming catastrophes, we have to reclaim this atmospheric commons. We have to figure out how to cooperatively own and protect the single most important feature of the planet we inhabit—the thin envelope of atmosphere that makes our lives possible. Wrestling this key prize away from Exxon Mobil and other corporations is the great political issue of our time, and some of the solutions proposed have been ingenious—most notably the idea put forth by commons theorist Peter Barnes and others that we should own the sky jointly, and share in the profits realized by leasing its storage space to the fossil fuel industry. For that to work, of course, we would have to reduce that storage space quickly and dramatically. Barnes’ Cap-and-Dividend plan offers one way to make that economically and politically feasible.
_______________________________________________
When I was in Kauai a couple of years ago, natives were worried about Monsanto
Experimental farm contaminating local seeds through pollination by bees, butterflies
Ryan Stock, Truthout: "'A fabulous Easter gift,' commented Monsanto Director of Development Initiatives Elizabeth Vancil. Nearly 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn seeds and other vegetable seeds were donated to post-earthquake Haiti by Monsanto. In observance of World Environment Day, June 4, 2010, roughly 10,000 rural Haitian farmers gathered in Papaye to march seven kilometers to Hinche in celebration of this gift. Upon arrival, these rewarded farmers took their collective Easter baskets of more than 400 tons of vegetable seeds and burned them all. 'Long live the native maize seed!' they chanted in unison. 'Monsanto's GMO [genetically modified organism] and hybrid seed violate peasant agriculture!'"
_______________________________________________
Biggest arm of self serving propaganda in the government
Countering Pentagon Propaganda About Prisoners Released From Guantanamo
Andy Worthington, War Is A Crime: "For several years now, one organization in the US government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantanamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration's ill-conceived response to the 9/11 attacks. That organization is the Pentagon, and its habit of issuing announcements regarding the alleged recidivism of prisoners released from Guantanamo - without documentation to back up its claims - has also exposed a startling lack of journalistic integrity in the mainstream media."
_________________________________________________
Obama’s picks for Administration supported vested interests not transformation but he persists in pretending to be the good guy--and we buy it
Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story
Matthew Skomarovsky, LittleSis: "Larry Summers' path to the Obama administration, and his record within it, are symptomatic of a new American plutocracy, and his new job at Harvard will keep the gears of corruption greased. Summers rose to power under the protective wing of Wall Street and Democratic Party mogul Robert Rubin. He aggressively advanced Rubin's program of financial deregulation and faithfully rescued his cronies when deregulation went wrong. Despite the economic catastrophes these policies have contributed to, Summers and other Rubinites have continued their political ascendancy in recent years, filling top positions in the Obama administration
_____________________________________________________________
Propagating the myth. Keeping the faith
Ira Chernus | How the Power of Myth Keeps Us Mired in War
Ira Chernus, TomDispatch: "When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh. He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked. Conservatives are often the nicest people - that's what I told him - the ones you'd like to have as neighbors. Then I said: I bet you're always willing to help your neighbors when they need it. Absolutely, he replied. So why, I asked, don't you to want to help out people across town who have the same needs, even if they're strangers--because we’re nice people and THEY are not.
_____________________________________________________________
Christian model does not work any better at solving world’s problems than Chinese model--but the Chinese ARE at peace. No imperial policy there.
WASHINGTON – Chinese President Hu Jintao denied his country is a military threat despite its arms buildup. "We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development," Hu told the luncheon. "We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy."
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House members "raised our strong, ongoing concerns with reports of human rights violations in China, including the denial of religious freedom and the use of coercive abortion" as a result of China's one-child policy.
Naming and claiming the Commons
Rewriting the "Tragedy of the Commons"
Wednesday 19 January 2011
by: Bill McKibben | YES! Magazine | Op-Ed
What cooperation and sharing have to do with saving the world.
Things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes.
If we are to somehow ward off the coming catastrophes, we have to reclaim this atmospheric commons. We have to figure out how to cooperatively own and protect the single most important feature of the planet we inhabit—the thin envelope of atmosphere that makes our lives possible. Wrestling this key prize away from Exxon Mobil and other corporations is the great political issue of our time, and some of the solutions proposed have been ingenious—most notably the idea put forth by commons theorist Peter Barnes and others that we should own the sky jointly, and share in the profits realized by leasing its storage space to the fossil fuel industry. For that to work, of course, we would have to reduce that storage space quickly and dramatically. Barnes’ Cap-and-Dividend plan offers one way to make that economically and politically feasible.
_______________________________________________
When I was in Kauai a couple of years ago, natives were worried about Monsanto
Experimental farm contaminating local seeds through pollination by bees, butterflies
Ryan Stock, Truthout: "'A fabulous Easter gift,' commented Monsanto Director of Development Initiatives Elizabeth Vancil. Nearly 60,000 seed sacks of hybrid corn seeds and other vegetable seeds were donated to post-earthquake Haiti by Monsanto. In observance of World Environment Day, June 4, 2010, roughly 10,000 rural Haitian farmers gathered in Papaye to march seven kilometers to Hinche in celebration of this gift. Upon arrival, these rewarded farmers took their collective Easter baskets of more than 400 tons of vegetable seeds and burned them all. 'Long live the native maize seed!' they chanted in unison. 'Monsanto's GMO [genetically modified organism] and hybrid seed violate peasant agriculture!'"
_______________________________________________
Biggest arm of self serving propaganda in the government
Countering Pentagon Propaganda About Prisoners Released From Guantanamo
Andy Worthington, War Is A Crime: "For several years now, one organization in the US government has persistently undermined attempts to have a grown-up debate about the perceived dangerousness of prisoners at Guantanamo, and the need to bear security concerns in mind whilst also trying to empty the prison and to bring to an end this particularly malign icon of the Bush administration's ill-conceived response to the 9/11 attacks. That organization is the Pentagon, and its habit of issuing announcements regarding the alleged recidivism of prisoners released from Guantanamo - without documentation to back up its claims - has also exposed a startling lack of journalistic integrity in the mainstream media."
_________________________________________________
Obama’s picks for Administration supported vested interests not transformation but he persists in pretending to be the good guy--and we buy it
Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story
Matthew Skomarovsky, LittleSis: "Larry Summers' path to the Obama administration, and his record within it, are symptomatic of a new American plutocracy, and his new job at Harvard will keep the gears of corruption greased. Summers rose to power under the protective wing of Wall Street and Democratic Party mogul Robert Rubin. He aggressively advanced Rubin's program of financial deregulation and faithfully rescued his cronies when deregulation went wrong. Despite the economic catastrophes these policies have contributed to, Summers and other Rubinites have continued their political ascendancy in recent years, filling top positions in the Obama administration
_____________________________________________________________
Propagating the myth. Keeping the faith
Ira Chernus | How the Power of Myth Keeps Us Mired in War
Ira Chernus, TomDispatch: "When I try to figure out why we are still in Afghanistan, though every ounce of logic says we ought to get out, an unexpected conversation I had last year haunts me. Doing neighborhood political canvassing, I knocked on the door of a cheerful man who was just about to tune in to his favorite radio show: Rush Limbaugh. He was kind enough to let me stay and we talked. Conservatives are often the nicest people - that's what I told him - the ones you'd like to have as neighbors. Then I said: I bet you're always willing to help your neighbors when they need it. Absolutely, he replied. So why, I asked, don't you to want to help out people across town who have the same needs, even if they're strangers--because we’re nice people and THEY are not.
_____________________________________________________________
Christian model does not work any better at solving world’s problems than Chinese model--but the Chinese ARE at peace. No imperial policy there.
WASHINGTON – Chinese President Hu Jintao denied his country is a military threat despite its arms buildup. "We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development," Hu told the luncheon. "We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy."
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said House members "raised our strong, ongoing concerns with reports of human rights violations in China, including the denial of religious freedom and the use of coercive abortion" as a result of China's one-child policy.
7% the tipping point pushing us over the cliff
Notes 28
Can’t pay the bill on the back of workers and students and the elderly.
AUSTIN, Texas – Public education in Texas is facing billions in proposed budget cuts that would include slashing arts education, pre-kindergarten programs and teacher incentive pay as lawmakers take on a massive deficit with the promise of no new taxes.
_____________________________________________________
Maybe Republicans could set tax rates at Eisenhower levels instead. By thinnest of margins in 2010, Republicans won 65 seats and are determined to turn the country upside down
by Chris Bowers
Sun Jan 16, 2011
A 7% national popular vote victory is a landslide in contemporary American politics. Democrats showed this in 2006 when they took back the House of Representatives with a 6.49% victory. President Barack Obama again made this point in 2008, when he defeated Senator John McCain by 7.27%. Just eleven weeks ago Republicans provided a third example when they won the national popular vote for Congress by 6.83%. A 7% victory isn’t just a win--it’s a thumping, a shellacking, or some such catch-phrase.
_____________________________________________________
Getting the word out and making it a matter of conviction like the NRA does
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon | A Time for Action - Not Servility
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, RootsAction: "While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility - a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever. But this is not a time for despair. It's a time for new activism - built upon one of the great achievements of the last decade: the rise of independent media."
________________________________________________________
Time to keep the money home. RAISE TAXES
Think China Has a Big Stake in US Business? Not Yet
Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers: "China holds almost $1 trillion in U.S. government bonds, but it's made only modest investments in the nuts and bolts of the U.S. economy. China lags far behind its Asian and European competitors in direct investment in the US - taking stakes in manufacturers, suppliers, warehouses and other businesses. In fact, cash-rich China is near the back of the pack."
___________________________________________________________________
The rats under the rocks are overreaching. Maybe America will be revulsed by what it has done.
Is decline in workers’ power behind slow job growth?
By Zachary Roth
"For corporate America, the Great Recession is over. For the American work force, it's not."
That's how David Leonhardt of the New York Times puts it.
Leonhardt, a respected economics columnist for the Times, appears to disagree. One "obvious" explanation for slow job growth, he argues, is a shift in power away from workers and toward management. Leonhardt writes.
"For all their shortcomings," Leonhardt writes, "unions remain many workers' best hope for some bargaining power."
______________________________________________________________________
Escape from emptiness. Make your life mean something
I Joined the Peace Corps Because of Angelina Jolie
by Sean Smith Info
“When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow,” Jolie said.
So I was seeking something authentic when I arrived in India, and I got more than I bargained for. A reported 43 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people live in slums, and the depth of poverty is soul-sickening. By the time I met with Jolie, I felt raw and rattled, and I was eager to learn how she coped with this kind of suffering in her role as a U.N. ambassador. She said it was painful, yes, but it wasn’t debilitating because she was active. Her work was bringing attention to crises in the world. “If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know how I’d be around it, because I’d feel helpless,” she told me as we drove through the city. “You know, we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow. Then when I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I’d done the right things with my life. It’s as simple as that.”
__________________________________________________
An abandoned dream financed through FANNIE MAE/FREDDIE
MAC, a middle class of homeowners
by Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter and Charles B. Stockdale
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The single biggest problem in the U.S. real estate market is simple: There are very few homebuyers.
That seems obvious, but the "buyers' strike" has caused house prices to drop, along with an epidemic of foreclosures. What's worse, the long depression in real estate is probably not over. S&P has forecast that home prices will drop by 7% to 10% this year. The S&P Case-Shiller Index has dropped for most of the 20 largest real estate markets over the last several months. RealtyTrac recently reported that more than 1 million homes were foreclosed upon in 2010.
Many economists argue that the housing market may take four or five years to recover. Even if that's proven to be true, the all-time highs of 2006 may never be reached again.
_____________________________________________________
Can’t pay the bill on the back of workers and students and the elderly.
AUSTIN, Texas – Public education in Texas is facing billions in proposed budget cuts that would include slashing arts education, pre-kindergarten programs and teacher incentive pay as lawmakers take on a massive deficit with the promise of no new taxes.
_____________________________________________________
Maybe Republicans could set tax rates at Eisenhower levels instead. By thinnest of margins in 2010, Republicans won 65 seats and are determined to turn the country upside down
by Chris Bowers
Sun Jan 16, 2011
A 7% national popular vote victory is a landslide in contemporary American politics. Democrats showed this in 2006 when they took back the House of Representatives with a 6.49% victory. President Barack Obama again made this point in 2008, when he defeated Senator John McCain by 7.27%. Just eleven weeks ago Republicans provided a third example when they won the national popular vote for Congress by 6.83%. A 7% victory isn’t just a win--it’s a thumping, a shellacking, or some such catch-phrase.
_____________________________________________________
Getting the word out and making it a matter of conviction like the NRA does
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon | A Time for Action - Not Servility
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, RootsAction: "While Washington pundits are talking up a new civility, many progressives are bracing for the old servility - a bipartisanship that is servile to a corporate elite that is unquenchably greedy and more powerful than ever. But this is not a time for despair. It's a time for new activism - built upon one of the great achievements of the last decade: the rise of independent media."
________________________________________________________
Time to keep the money home. RAISE TAXES
Think China Has a Big Stake in US Business? Not Yet
Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers: "China holds almost $1 trillion in U.S. government bonds, but it's made only modest investments in the nuts and bolts of the U.S. economy. China lags far behind its Asian and European competitors in direct investment in the US - taking stakes in manufacturers, suppliers, warehouses and other businesses. In fact, cash-rich China is near the back of the pack."
___________________________________________________________________
The rats under the rocks are overreaching. Maybe America will be revulsed by what it has done.
Is decline in workers’ power behind slow job growth?
By Zachary Roth
"For corporate America, the Great Recession is over. For the American work force, it's not."
That's how David Leonhardt of the New York Times puts it.
Leonhardt, a respected economics columnist for the Times, appears to disagree. One "obvious" explanation for slow job growth, he argues, is a shift in power away from workers and toward management. Leonhardt writes.
"For all their shortcomings," Leonhardt writes, "unions remain many workers' best hope for some bargaining power."
______________________________________________________________________
Escape from emptiness. Make your life mean something
I Joined the Peace Corps Because of Angelina Jolie
by Sean Smith Info
“When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow,” Jolie said.
So I was seeking something authentic when I arrived in India, and I got more than I bargained for. A reported 43 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million people live in slums, and the depth of poverty is soul-sickening. By the time I met with Jolie, I felt raw and rattled, and I was eager to learn how she coped with this kind of suffering in her role as a U.N. ambassador. She said it was painful, yes, but it wasn’t debilitating because she was active. Her work was bringing attention to crises in the world. “If I couldn’t do that, I don’t know how I’d be around it, because I’d feel helpless,” she told me as we drove through the city. “You know, we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. When I was famous for just being an actress, my life felt very shallow. Then when I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I’d done the right things with my life. It’s as simple as that.”
__________________________________________________
An abandoned dream financed through FANNIE MAE/FREDDIE
MAC, a middle class of homeowners
by Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter and Charles B. Stockdale
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The single biggest problem in the U.S. real estate market is simple: There are very few homebuyers.
That seems obvious, but the "buyers' strike" has caused house prices to drop, along with an epidemic of foreclosures. What's worse, the long depression in real estate is probably not over. S&P has forecast that home prices will drop by 7% to 10% this year. The S&P Case-Shiller Index has dropped for most of the 20 largest real estate markets over the last several months. RealtyTrac recently reported that more than 1 million homes were foreclosed upon in 2010.
Many economists argue that the housing market may take four or five years to recover. Even if that's proven to be true, the all-time highs of 2006 may never be reached again.
_____________________________________________________
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
save your Confederate money. Slavery is coming back
Notes 27
Taking back America--pretty soon slavery will be popular again
New Ala. gov: Just Christians are his family
AP – Gov. Robert Bentley delivers a speech after being sworn in during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol …
Jay Reeves, Associated Press – Tue Jan 18
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told a church crowd just moments into his new administration that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned Tuesday whether he can be fair to non-Christians.
"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," Bentley said Monday, his inauguration day, according to The Birmingham News
_________________________________________
Obama proves he’s a loser by trying to be a winner. Perhaps, instead of continuing to transfer wealth to the wealthy, Obama could focus review on how to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth based on benefits derived
from the Nation’s natural resources and the productivity not only of capital but of labor.
Obama announces review of government regulations
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Obama said some government regulations have placed "unreasonable burdens on business -- burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs."
He said he would require that in the future government agencies "ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth."\
_____________________________________________
Lies, damned lies, and Republican Congressmen
FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate
Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press –
WASHINGTON
A recent report by House GOP leaders says "independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy."
It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A
What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job.
"The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount _roughly half a percent_ primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply," budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year.
__________________________________________________
Obama’s tax policy for businesses is headed wrong way. Easiest way to keep money home is to let the government tax it and spend it since corporations are spending it abroad where they can make more money.
China cuts loan target; foreign investment hits record
On Tuesday January 18, 2011
By Soo Ai Peng and
Aileen Wang
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters)
Data which showed China drew a record amount of foreign investment in December and for all of 2010 underscored the difficulties it faces in draining its economy of an abundance of money that is helping to fuel inflation.
_____________________________________________________
Trying to put out the fire of protest against abominable conditions
2 Egyptian men attempt self-immolation
CAIRO – Two Egyptian men, possibly inspired by events in Tunisia, attempted to set themselves on fire Tuesday in downtown Cairo, just a day after another man burned himself in front of parliament.
Police managed to quickly extinguish the fire engulfing lawyer Mohammed Farouq Mohammed el-Sayed after he set himself alight outside the prime minister's office and he was rushed to hospital with minor burns.
Taking back America--pretty soon slavery will be popular again
New Ala. gov: Just Christians are his family
AP – Gov. Robert Bentley delivers a speech after being sworn in during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol …
Jay Reeves, Associated Press – Tue Jan 18
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley told a church crowd just moments into his new administration that those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior are not his brothers and sisters, shocking some critics who questioned Tuesday whether he can be fair to non-Christians.
"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," Bentley said Monday, his inauguration day, according to The Birmingham News
_________________________________________
Obama proves he’s a loser by trying to be a winner. Perhaps, instead of continuing to transfer wealth to the wealthy, Obama could focus review on how to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth based on benefits derived
from the Nation’s natural resources and the productivity not only of capital but of labor.
Obama announces review of government regulations
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Obama said some government regulations have placed "unreasonable burdens on business -- burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs."
He said he would require that in the future government agencies "ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth."\
_____________________________________________
Lies, damned lies, and Republican Congressmen
FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate
Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press –
WASHINGTON
A recent report by House GOP leaders says "independent analyses have determined that the health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy."
It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A
What CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can downshift to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job.
"The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount _roughly half a percent_ primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply," budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year.
__________________________________________________
Obama’s tax policy for businesses is headed wrong way. Easiest way to keep money home is to let the government tax it and spend it since corporations are spending it abroad where they can make more money.
China cuts loan target; foreign investment hits record
On Tuesday January 18, 2011
By Soo Ai Peng and
Aileen Wang
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters)
Data which showed China drew a record amount of foreign investment in December and for all of 2010 underscored the difficulties it faces in draining its economy of an abundance of money that is helping to fuel inflation.
_____________________________________________________
Trying to put out the fire of protest against abominable conditions
2 Egyptian men attempt self-immolation
CAIRO – Two Egyptian men, possibly inspired by events in Tunisia, attempted to set themselves on fire Tuesday in downtown Cairo, just a day after another man burned himself in front of parliament.
Police managed to quickly extinguish the fire engulfing lawyer Mohammed Farouq Mohammed el-Sayed after he set himself alight outside the prime minister's office and he was rushed to hospital with minor burns.
Monday, January 17, 2011
News unfit to print
Notes 26
How corporations became incarnate
Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishers: "We the People are the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution; and from its adoption until the Robber Baron Era in the late nineteenth century, people meant human beings. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, however, the court reporter of the Supreme Court proclaimed in a 'headnote‚' - a summary or statement added at the top of the court decision, which is separate from the decision and has no legal force whatsoever - that the word person in law and, particularly, in the Constitution, meant both humans and corporations."
______________________________________________________________
ETC.
State Employee Actions: layoffs and furloughs ... Actions and Proposals to Balance FY 2011 Budgets: State Employee Actions: Furloughs and Layoffs
Maryland Politics: Maryland state worker layoffs coming
...Rendell administration announces 50 state employee layoffs
...Layoff Tracker: Budget cuts cost 159 Florida state workers jobs
More State Employee Layoffs Anticipated With Budget Cuts ...
______________________________________________
For whom the bell tolls--The ultimate message that a society has failed to deliver on the promises of social contract
Tunisia copycat burnings in 3 North African countries
By Marwa Awad and Lamine Chikhi Marwa Awad And Lamine Chikhi – Mon Jan 17, 8:08 am ET
CAIRO/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The self-immolation that set off the protest wave which toppled Tunisia's leader has led to apparent copycat protests in other north African states, with four men setting themselves on fire in Algeria and one each in Egypt and Mauritania.
In Cairo, a man set himself ablaze on Monday near parliament in a protest against poor living conditions.
______________________________________________________________
Why don’t we go to war against Arizona, maybe against every state where domestic terrorists have used weapons to kill innocent victims?
Extremist Killing Is as American as Apple Pie: Murders Grow on the Far Right Four Decades After Martin Luther King
Stephan Salisbury, TomDispatch: "The landscape of America is littered with bodies. They've been gunned down in Tucson, shot to death at the Pentagon, and blown away at the Holocaust Museum, as well as in Wichita, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Brockton, and Okaloosa County, Florida. Total body count for these incidents: 19 dead, 26 wounded. Not much, you might say, when taken in the context of about 30,000 gun-related deaths annually nationwide."
Remarks of Jeh C. Johnson at Martin Luther King Observance Day, The Pentagon January 13, 2011
For his efforts, Martin Luther King, the man we honor today alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, was the target of government surveillance and harassment. He was also the target of racist insults, bricks, bottles, numerous death threats, a knife in the chest in Harlem in 1958, and finally, he was murdered in Memphis in 1968.
The most controversial and difficult stand Dr. King took the final year of his life was against the war in Vietnam. Other civil rights leaders urged him to remain silent on the issue, not to alienate President Lyndon Johnson, who had been their best friend on civil rights.
In accepting his own Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, our President recognized that, in response to an unprovoked terrorist attack, war is inevitable to secure peace, and that the role of the military is to keep peace.
_____________________________________________________________
Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – LONDON – A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.
"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.
__________________________________________________
In name of anti-terrorism, unprecedented international lawbreaking and invasion of privacy
Swiss lawmakers angry at alleged US spying program
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press John Heilprin, Associated Press – Mon Jan 17, 8:47 am ET
GENEVA – Angry Swiss lawmakers called Monday for the ouster of U.S. diplomats suspected of illegally spying on people around their diplomatic missions, in a standoff over the use of counterterrorism measures.
The Swiss government said it has demanded a stop to any surveillance and is investigating the scale of what it calls an unauthorized spying program by the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the U.S. embassy in Bern.
The probe follows outrage in Iceland, Norway and Sweden over reports that U.S. diplomats were monitoring some of their countries' citizens — including allegedly taking pictures of street demonstrations and of people deemed security risks, sparking a wave of anti-American sentiment.
____________________________________________________
Our heroes defending our border against dangerous hordes. Sound like Gaza has come to the American border?
SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (Reuters) – The parents of a Mexican teenager allegedly killed last year by a bullet fired by a U.S. Border Patrol agent across the Rio Grande river, on Monday sued the U.S. government for $25 million.
The U.S. Border Patrol says Sergio Hernandez Guereca, 15, was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river last June when Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side shot him to death.
The FBI has said that he was attacking the border agents with rocks at the time.
The incident was videotaped by several individuals and was broadcast on the Spanish-language Univision television network, and posted on the internet.
"We have seen brutality captured on video tape that stuns us as a country, when we think that law enforcement are trained and should not do that," Bob Hilliard, attorney for the Mexican family
said.
How corporations became incarnate
Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishers: "We the People are the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution; and from its adoption until the Robber Baron Era in the late nineteenth century, people meant human beings. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, however, the court reporter of the Supreme Court proclaimed in a 'headnote‚' - a summary or statement added at the top of the court decision, which is separate from the decision and has no legal force whatsoever - that the word person in law and, particularly, in the Constitution, meant both humans and corporations."
______________________________________________________________
ETC.
State Employee Actions: layoffs and furloughs ... Actions and Proposals to Balance FY 2011 Budgets: State Employee Actions: Furloughs and Layoffs
Maryland Politics: Maryland state worker layoffs coming
...Rendell administration announces 50 state employee layoffs
...Layoff Tracker: Budget cuts cost 159 Florida state workers jobs
More State Employee Layoffs Anticipated With Budget Cuts ...
______________________________________________
For whom the bell tolls--The ultimate message that a society has failed to deliver on the promises of social contract
Tunisia copycat burnings in 3 North African countries
By Marwa Awad and Lamine Chikhi Marwa Awad And Lamine Chikhi – Mon Jan 17, 8:08 am ET
CAIRO/ALGIERS (Reuters) – The self-immolation that set off the protest wave which toppled Tunisia's leader has led to apparent copycat protests in other north African states, with four men setting themselves on fire in Algeria and one each in Egypt and Mauritania.
In Cairo, a man set himself ablaze on Monday near parliament in a protest against poor living conditions.
______________________________________________________________
Why don’t we go to war against Arizona, maybe against every state where domestic terrorists have used weapons to kill innocent victims?
Extremist Killing Is as American as Apple Pie: Murders Grow on the Far Right Four Decades After Martin Luther King
Stephan Salisbury, TomDispatch: "The landscape of America is littered with bodies. They've been gunned down in Tucson, shot to death at the Pentagon, and blown away at the Holocaust Museum, as well as in Wichita, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Brockton, and Okaloosa County, Florida. Total body count for these incidents: 19 dead, 26 wounded. Not much, you might say, when taken in the context of about 30,000 gun-related deaths annually nationwide."
Remarks of Jeh C. Johnson at Martin Luther King Observance Day, The Pentagon January 13, 2011
For his efforts, Martin Luther King, the man we honor today alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, was the target of government surveillance and harassment. He was also the target of racist insults, bricks, bottles, numerous death threats, a knife in the chest in Harlem in 1958, and finally, he was murdered in Memphis in 1968.
The most controversial and difficult stand Dr. King took the final year of his life was against the war in Vietnam. Other civil rights leaders urged him to remain silent on the issue, not to alienate President Lyndon Johnson, who had been their best friend on civil rights.
In accepting his own Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, our President recognized that, in response to an unprovoked terrorist attack, war is inevitable to secure peace, and that the role of the military is to keep peace.
_____________________________________________________________
Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press – LONDON – A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.
"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.
__________________________________________________
In name of anti-terrorism, unprecedented international lawbreaking and invasion of privacy
Swiss lawmakers angry at alleged US spying program
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press John Heilprin, Associated Press – Mon Jan 17, 8:47 am ET
GENEVA – Angry Swiss lawmakers called Monday for the ouster of U.S. diplomats suspected of illegally spying on people around their diplomatic missions, in a standoff over the use of counterterrorism measures.
The Swiss government said it has demanded a stop to any surveillance and is investigating the scale of what it calls an unauthorized spying program by the U.S. mission to the United Nations in Geneva and the U.S. embassy in Bern.
The probe follows outrage in Iceland, Norway and Sweden over reports that U.S. diplomats were monitoring some of their countries' citizens — including allegedly taking pictures of street demonstrations and of people deemed security risks, sparking a wave of anti-American sentiment.
____________________________________________________
Our heroes defending our border against dangerous hordes. Sound like Gaza has come to the American border?
SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (Reuters) – The parents of a Mexican teenager allegedly killed last year by a bullet fired by a U.S. Border Patrol agent across the Rio Grande river, on Monday sued the U.S. government for $25 million.
The U.S. Border Patrol says Sergio Hernandez Guereca, 15, was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river last June when Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side shot him to death.
The FBI has said that he was attacking the border agents with rocks at the time.
The incident was videotaped by several individuals and was broadcast on the Spanish-language Univision television network, and posted on the internet.
"We have seen brutality captured on video tape that stuns us as a country, when we think that law enforcement are trained and should not do that," Bob Hilliard, attorney for the Mexican family
said.
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