Daily Headlines
Code-Pink founder, Medea Benjamin, took President Barack Obama head-on during a major foreign policy speech the president was giving Thursday on drone policy and related issues. Benjamin demanded that the president close the Guantanamo Bay prison immediately.
The Senate today rejected an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to let states require labels on food or beverages made with genetically modified ingredients.
Obama gave what the pundits are calling one of his major speeches. And one of America's leading activists interrupted it brilliantly.
By Don Ardell, Ph.D.
Pat Robertson's Marital Advice: Pretty Bad But Consider How Surprising That It Was Not So Much Worse
What advice would you offer a woman, someone you don't know, who on the phone asks, ""I've been trying to forgive my husband for cheating on me. We have gone to counseling, but I just can't seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again? God says to forgive, but it's been so hard to do. I want to forgive, so we can get on with our lives."
Pat Robertson's Marital Advice: Pretty Bad But Consider How Surprising That It Was Not So Much Worse
What advice would you offer a woman, someone you don't know, who on the phone asks, ""I've been trying to forgive my husband for cheating on me. We have gone to counseling, but I just can't seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again? God says to forgive, but it's been so hard to do. I want to forgive, so we can get on with our lives."
Technology companies willingly provided information to U.S. government agencies to help the Obama administration snoop on reporters from the Associated Press (AP) and Fox news in order to ostensibly crack down on leaks that pose a "threat" to national security.
he upcoming trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning is to be held in secret. A group of journalists and activists, including Julian Assange, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Department of Defense and the military judge, demanding access to the trial. Along with WikiLeaks founder, Assange, co-plaintiffs will include Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald and also the Nation magazine.
Can it really be the case that when western nations continuously kill Muslim civilians, that's not "terrorism," but when Muslims kill western soldiers, that is terrorism? The US has even imprisoned people at Guantanamo and elsewhere on accusations of "terrorism" who are accused of nothing more than engaging in violence against US soldiers who invaded their country.
Whenever a stunning episode occurs, such as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, most everyone whether on the right or left goes along with the government's explanation, because they can hook their agenda to the government's account.
A bold assertion that--in wake of the deep disrepute Bush and Co. brought to corporate fascism--Obama may find his real legacy in proving its savior. Also, a clever (and I hope, insightful)analyis of Obama's timing, speculating that he's starting to show signs of open fascism (and hence normalize it) for an event where it will be needed most--his almost guaranteed, wildly irresponsible approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Rob Kall's timely observation included a key to personal action when he said: "I'm coming to believe that the answer to rescuing America is not to take the giant corporate behemoth head on. Mammals did not make war with the dinosaurs. They were ready to adapt when the world changed." Next-culture human mammals are relocalizing and building communities that will survive. Do your thoughtmaps allow you to adapt?
Why does it take us so long to address puppy mill cruelty? Hopefully, this Congress will pass the PUPS Act which would hopefully stop further dog cruelty in puppy mills.
Baylor University's ban on homosexuality and the consequent "don't ask don't tell" approach to lesbians on the basketball team needs to be repealed!
By Justin Samuels
Web Series Black Folk Don't Explores Stereotypes of African Americans
Black Folk Don't is a web series that explores stereotypes of Black Americans, and debunks them.
Web Series Black Folk Don't Explores Stereotypes of African Americans
Black Folk Don't is a web series that explores stereotypes of Black Americans, and debunks them.
The major highway bridge linking the Washington state city of Seattle with Canada and the rest of the Pacific north-west region collapsed late on Thursday, dumping several vehicles and the people inside into a river. The bridge was built in 1955 and has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, according to federal records. That is well below the statewide average rating of 80, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data.
Even Olivia finally says, "The things we did to get you [Fitz] here. We went too far." I'll say! The same is true in the real life backstory because it is impossible that those in power do not know what voting rights activists, including myself, and computer scientists have been writing about election rigging since the presidential election of 2000 in Florida.
The president and chief executive officer of a medical equipment company invoked the Fifth Amendment at Senate hearing Wednesday, declining to answer questions about aggressive marketing tactics used to sell scooters, sleep apnea machines and other home medical supplies to Medicare recipients who may not need or want them. Jon Letko of U.S. Healthcare Supply LLC, based in Milford, N.J., exercised his constitutional right not to incriminate himself at the hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight.
A series of scandals that began last year with the abuse of young recruits at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland has roiled the Pentagon and stoked calls to remove the discretion over sex-assault cases from the hands of commanders.
What do stories of GMOs and sexual violence have in common? Too often, the tragic ending.
recently fierce consumer advocate and needler of banks Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called out Wall Street regulators for their habit of giving tepid punishments to misbehaving banks, and asked the agencies to justify their policy of settling with the wrongdoers out of court.
As we move on the notion of immigration reform the question arises, mightn't we be better served with reforming citizenship itself? Even our own?
These days we are, in economic terms, all Japanese -- which is why the ongoing economic experiment in the country that started it all is so important, not just for Japan, but for the world. The really remarkable thing about "Abenomics" -- the sharp turn toward monetary and fiscal stimulus adopted by the government of Prime Minster Shinzo Abe -- is that nobody else in the advanced world is trying anything similar. In fact, the Western world seems overtaken by economic defeatism.
We are in a golden age of exposes, detailed revelations about out-of-control polluters, corporate tax escapees, corruption of government, cheating of consumers, abandonment of workers, freezing or reduction of wages, and a general hijacking of America for perpetual wars, militarism and profiteering.
President Obama plans to open a new phase in the nation's long struggle with terrorism on Thursday by restricting the use of unmanned drone strikes that have been at the heart of his national security strategy and shifting control of them away from the CIA. to the military. As part of the shift in approach, the administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged for the first time that it had killed four American citizens in drone strikes outside the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, arguing that its actions were justified by the danger to the United States.
By Franklin Lamb
How Lebanon's Palestinians Are Being Pulled Into Syria's War
This single act by Lebanon's Parliament, would help repair Shia-Sunni
How Lebanon's Palestinians Are Being Pulled Into Syria's War
This single act by Lebanon's Parliament, would help repair Shia-Sunni
By Angola 3 News
Abusing Prisoners Decreases Public Safety --An interview with educator, author, and former prisoner Shawn Griffith
Abusing Prisoners Decreases Public Safety --An interview with educator, author, and former prisoner Shawn Griffith
If given the attention it deserves, an important new book entitled "Facing the US Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong," is certain to make significant contributions to the public discussions of US prison policy. The author, Shawn Griffith, was released last year from Florida's prison system at the age of 41, after spending most of his life, almost 24 years, behind bars, including seven in solitary confinement.
By Bob Burnett
Good Grief, Barack Obama!
The most famous running joke in the Peanuts comic strip repeats at the beginning of every football season. Charlie Brown asks Lucy to hold the ball for him so he can kick it. At the last moment, just before Charlie gets his foot on the pigskin, Lucy snatches it away. Sound familiar? It's the story of Barack Obama and the Republican Congress.
Good Grief, Barack Obama!
The most famous running joke in the Peanuts comic strip repeats at the beginning of every football season. Charlie Brown asks Lucy to hold the ball for him so he can kick it. At the last moment, just before Charlie gets his foot on the pigskin, Lucy snatches it away. Sound familiar? It's the story of Barack Obama and the Republican Congress.
Companies want a break letting them pay much lower taxes than they already owe to reward then for keeping the money out of the country away from their own shareholders! On top of that they want something called a "Territorial Tax" that lets them do this from now on with no taxes at all!
The Guatemalan genocide of the 1980s does not just implicate President Ronald Reagan and his senior aides but the Israeli government which secretly supplied helicopters, guns and computers that were used to hunt down and exterminate Ixil Indians and other perceived enemies of the state.
As the women's movement (remember "women's lib"?) turns fifty, two icons gaze into our past, present, and future, as question marks orbited around my head if not the whole, overcrowded room.
Latest Articles
First Francis I, then Wolff Blitzer - is the world bowing to (gasp!) atheism? Glenn Beck thinks it's Obama's fault, of course.
Review of Gran Torino.
Best News Links from the Web
Austerity's Vicious Cycle Spurs Record Cash Hoarding
Big corporations have been stockpiling cash rather than investing in expansions to their operations for years, but a report Thursday indicates that recovery-bridling behavior is worsening in 2013. Cash hoarding sped up in the first quarter of the year, and American companies are now holding a record $1.73 trillion on the sidelines.Rather than encouraging greater private-sector spending, which Republicans insist is the natural consequence of cutting government spending, the shift to austerity in the U.S. has companies sitting on their hands. That slowdown in corporate investment could lock the economy into below-average growth, corporate hoarding is both a symptom of shaky economic growth and a contributing factor to it.
Big corporations have been stockpiling cash rather than investing in expansions to their operations for years, but a report Thursday indicates that recovery-bridling behavior is worsening in 2013. Cash hoarding sped up in the first quarter of the year, and American companies are now holding a record $1.73 trillion on the sidelines.Rather than encouraging greater private-sector spending, which Republicans insist is the natural consequence of cutting government spending, the shift to austerity in the U.S. has companies sitting on their hands. That slowdown in corporate investment could lock the economy into below-average growth, corporate hoarding is both a symptom of shaky economic growth and a contributing factor to it.
House Republicans pushed through a bill Wednesday to bypass the president to speed approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. Democrats criticized the legislation as a blatant attempt to allow a foreign company to avoid environmental review. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., called the bill a "reckless attempt to avoid environmental review." The bill would deem the project approved without a presidential permit, as required under current law, and with no further environmental review. The legislation also would limit legal challenges to the project. The White House says President Barack Obama opposes the bill because it would "circumvent longstanding and proven processes" by removing the requirement for a presidential permit.
Sri Srinivasan -- the principal deputy solicitor general President Obama has nominated to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was confirmed in a 97 to 0 vote Thursday. The vote is significant for several reasons. Srinivasan is the first D.C. Circuit nominee confirmed since 2006; Obama has been hoping to shift the conservative tilt of the court, which is poised to rule on several key elements of his second-term agenda in the months ahead.
Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service's division on exempt organizations, was put on administrative leave Thursday, a day after she invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to testify before a House committee investigating her division's targeting of conservative groups. Whether her suspension will lead to dismissal was unclear, given civil service rules that govern federal employment. "The I.R.S. owes it to taxpayers to resolve her situation quickly," said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. "She shouldn't be in limbo indefinitely on the taxpayers' dime."
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) this week said that prayers to God will ensure Obamacare's repeal, after 37 House of Representatives attempts to do so. "I think the President will ultimately be forced to repudiate his own signature piece of legislation because the American people will demand it," she told an evangelical radio host Tuesday. "And I think before his second term is over, we're going to see a miracle before our eyes, I believe God is going to answer our prayers and we'll be freed from the yoke of Obamacare."
President Barack Obama outlined new regulations for drone strikes and reiterated his desire to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay in a wide-ranging speech about the future of American national security. During the Guantánamo Bay portion of his speech, Obama was repeatedly interrupted by a heckler from the left-wing activist group Code Pink. Although Obama appeared annoyed by the interruptions, he defended the woman's right to speak. "The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said. And obviously she wasn't listening to me and much of what I said. But these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong."
Mark Rice: The Need for Common Frames of Reference
On the internet, "I think a very real problem is the difficulty in finding common frames of references from which to have discussions about how to find consensus on major political issues. Until we can find some way to resolve that problem, I'm not optimistic that we'll be able to overcome the attitude polarization that is a hallmark of American life today." "In my nostalgic recollections of the not-too-distant past there was a relatively small set of news sources -- newspapers, magazines, television, and radio -- from which a majority of Americans gathered most of their news. It wasn't a perfect system and it didn't include all voices.Despite its flaws, that smaller set of news sources helped foster a common understanding of what the major political issues of the day were, and provided shared touchstones for discussing and formulating positions on those issues.That's no longer the cas
On the internet, "I think a very real problem is the difficulty in finding common frames of references from which to have discussions about how to find consensus on major political issues. Until we can find some way to resolve that problem, I'm not optimistic that we'll be able to overcome the attitude polarization that is a hallmark of American life today." "In my nostalgic recollections of the not-too-distant past there was a relatively small set of news sources -- newspapers, magazines, television, and radio -- from which a majority of Americans gathered most of their news. It wasn't a perfect system and it didn't include all voices.Despite its flaws, that smaller set of news sources helped foster a common understanding of what the major political issues of the day were, and provided shared touchstones for discussing and formulating positions on those issues.That's no longer the cas
