Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday 27 July 2013

Bold and Daring: The Way Progressive News Should Be
  • Candidate Obama's Tribute to "Courage and Patriotism" of Whistleblowers Disappears 2 Days after First Snowden Revelation
  • CBC Chair Marcia Fudge, Senators Ron Wyden, Rand Paul and OpEdNews / Rob Kall honored with the Pillar Human Rights Award
  • The Battle for the Amash Amendment: Victory in Defeat
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This articles report makes me proud that OEN has earned such a distinction:
I've long believed that Whistleblowers are heroes who we depend upon to keep our democracy, our freedoms, our environment safe. 
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Daily Headlines

the Obama Administration has removed access to his 2008 campaign promises from the White House website. It suggests one of the promises Obama may want to hide has to do with his support for whistleblowers.

Representative Marcia Fudge, Senators Ronald Wyden and Rand Paul to be honored with the prestigious Pillar Human Rights Award at the Whistleblower Summit for Civil & Human Rights. Rob Kall, OpEd News (New Media) and Ambrose Lane (Journalist) Host on WPFW will also be honored. The Pillar is awarded to notable civil and human rights champions; previous recipients include Senators Daniel Akaka, Charles Grass and Claire McCaskill.

There hasn't been a vote like this in the House -- nor a debate quite like it -- since the last time the Patriot Act came up for renewal, in 2011. What -- or, rather, who -- jolted GOPers out of their somnolent indifference to the Fourth Amendment? Two words: Edward Snowden.

Now we had situation where a Private First Class was allowed to access sensitive information that showed beyond a reasonable doubt that the American military was committing atrocities and crimes that were against not only his moral code, but were against military law and the Geneva Conventions

It is just a face. It has no skull structure, no bones, and no body to give it context because it was peeled from her skull by a Ukrainian pilot working for the Congolese Army. Afraid to be hit by enemy fire, he was flying too high to identify military targets.

We tend to think of love as an emotion, which of course it is, but it is also a choice. It is a choice we can make in regard to not only a romantic partner but also a friend, a stranger, and even someone we regard as an enemy. Unlike emotional love, this kind of love is not fleeting. soft or irrational. Rather, it is an orientation toward justice and healing.

I don't mean to sound like a prude, but what the hell do you have to do to be disqualified from high-level politics in this country? When someone told me a while back that Weiner was running for Mayor, I thought it was a joke. This married politician sent unsolicited pictures of his penis to female strangers on the Internet!

While the most talked-about news out of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday was the defeat of the so-called Amash amendment that would have defunded the NSA's massive data collection program, another amendment related to NSA spying was quietly passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers.

what we have in the President's Knox College speech is an exercise in political stealth. In essence, his message is: "I know how unfair society is. Trust me." It was what Charles Keating said to his S&L depositors. It worked for Bill Clinton. The more clearly a candidate can vocalize peoples' desires for prosperity, upward mobility and deterrence of wrongdoing, the better they seem likely to legislate a solution.

By Margaret Kimberley
The Corporate Media's Mass Hypnosis
We live in age when it is all but impossible to escape media influence. As with all things, the quality of that media varies greatly from one outlet to another, but the corporate media is most ubiquitous while also being the least informative.

Some cynics write off citizen action including petitions and sign-carrying protestors. They don't believe such small efforts can make any big difference. But the more than 600,000 people of Dutch city Rotterdam disagree. Their efforts, which began with a petition, have led to a "green initiative" in their city including the banning of Roundup, Monsanto's flagship product.

By Patrick Mattimore
Why Universities Still Need Affirmative Action
A defense of race in college admissions
By Reginald Johnson
WBAI in Crisis
Article talks about the problems at WBAI in New York, one of the oldest listener supported radio stations in the country. Layoffs loom at the progressive station, which is in a severe financial crisis.
By Mark Sashine
American Fellatio
In its character and effects, the sexual act of fellatio reflects a broad range of human, psychological, cultural, and spiritual maladies in America.

By Sherwood Ross
"Hiroshima"
This poem is based on the reportage of John Hersey, found in his book "Hiroshima." The nuclear bombings of Japan overwhelmingly claimed the lives of civilians. This crime was compounded by the fact that Japan had already been saturated with napalm that destroyed much of 60 cities and the country was trying to surrender. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945.
We've seen the Greek and Italian heads of state replaced by revolving-door-type technocrats. We've seen an Egyptian president replaced recently by military coup. Myriad ways, we've seen democracy undermined and postponed to favour things deemed more pressing by conventional wisdom. Some things might be 'too big to fail' but democracy, apparently, isn't one of them.

By Joe Giambrone
The Great Gatsby (2013)
Class conflict? What is the internal logic of the story of Jay Gatsby? And is this a truly great film, to be talked about for the next century?

To understand Oswald, the most important person to watch may be CIA case officer Ann Goodpasture. She had a hand in the tap operations, the photo operations, and more. Sometimes described as Win Scott's principal aide, she was a force majeur. I believe she used Oswald's file with CIA HQ to conduct a molehunt, which created a paper trail between them. The need to hide this paper trail is tied to the coverup of JFK's killing.

Transitioning California public school to the emerging trend of online instruction faces major economic hurdles.

Here's A Campaign Ad That Might Actually Make You Cry. And vote against Mitch McConnell if you happen to live in Kentucky.

By Rafe Pilgrim
A Veteran Confesses
Although many yet blindly deny the past dozen years of treachery, many others now see it more clearly, but there has been no effort of sufficient magnitude -- including mine -- to take a credible stand against it.
Right wing ideologue and reactionary gun enthusiast / militia supporter Mark Kessler posts inflammatory and arguably threatening material on a fairly regular basis. He also suffers from cognitive dissonance.

NSA growth fueled by need to target terrorists
'Twelve years later, the cranes and earthmovers around the National Security Agency are still at work, tearing up pavement and uprooting trees to make room for a larger workforce and more powerful computers. Already bigger than the Pentagon in square footage, the NSA's footprint will grow by an additional 50 percent when construction is complete in a decade. And that's just at its headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. The nation's technical spying agency has enlarged all its major domestic sites -- in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Texas and Utah -- as well as those in Australia and Britain. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its civilian and military workforce has grown by one-third, to about 33,000, according to the NSA. Its budget has roughly doubled, and the number of private companies it depends on has more than tripled, from 150 to close to 500, according to a 2010 Washington Post count.
The full House is now set to consider a plan that would, among other things, phase out door-to-door mail delivery by 2022. Instead of the traditional and highly popular delivery model that now exists, mail would be left in so-called "neighborhood cluster boxes" that would serve multiple residences.

The obituary of Rep. Justin Amash's amendment to claw back the sweeping powers of the National Security Agency has largely been written as a victory for the White House and NSA chief Keith Alexander, who lobbied the Hill aggressively in the days and hours ahead of Wednesday's shockingly close vote. But Hill sources say most of the credit for the amendment's defeat goes to someone else: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. It's an odd turn, considering that Pelosi has been, on many occasions, a vocal surveillance critic.

Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington--including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner--has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation," according to documents obtained by Mother Jones.

The bill eliminates practically everything that encourages people to vote in North Carolina, replaced by unnecessary and burdensome new restrictions. At the same time, the bill expands the influence of unregulated corporate influence in state elections. Just what our democracy needs--more money and less voting!

By William T. Hathaway
The Fall of Empire
The defeat of the US empire is both inevitable and desirable.
By Bill van Auken
The militarization of America
What is being upended, behind the scenes and with virtually no media coverage, no public debate, are constitutional principles dating back centuries that bar the use of the military in civilian law enforcement. In the Declaration of Independence itself, the indictment justifying revolution against King George included the charge that he had "affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."

Photo caption: AFP Photo / Alain Guilhot. 'First of all, let's take the songbook that Monsanto and other GMO companies are using. That GMO crops are the solution to world hunger. Fact is, there is absolutely no patent on GMO crop that increases harvest yield. Long term studies in the US and other countries show that after one or two slight gains in harvest yield -- if any at all - the actual yield per hectare or per acre begins to drop. Number two [of the songbook] is that they use less pesticides or herbicides. Well, in fact there's weed resistance that develops after three or four harvest years of Monsanto roundup spraying, meaning that superweeds grow up and need more -- not less - chemicals. So you're losing on both counts. The thing is a marketing fraud. It's designed to lock farmers into long-term contracts for their seeds. Once they get that, [farmers] can't plant normal seeds ...



Latest Articles
Anthony Weiner's serial sexting suggests he might be better off trying a 12-step program than running for mayor of New York City.

Ramadan is a good time to reflect on what Islam has to say about two of Canada's burning problems--our penchant for environmental destruction and Prime Minister Harper's attempt to return to a blatant assimilation policy for Natives.

It seems that Kerry has the gift of inspiring such trust. Let's hope he does not squander it. So, with or without a turkey to keep the wolf from devouring the lamb, and in spite of all the past disappointments, let's hope that this time real negotiations get going and lead towards peace. The alternative is too dismal to contemplate.

Truth Seeker
This political poem is about seeking the truth in politics and policy.
Maj Ashton Fein made the closing argument for the Army. He opened by saying that Manning violated a special trust that the Army puts in all-source intelligence analysts. He described Manning as someone who cared for no one but himself and was seeking notoriety. Fein immediately contradicted himself by arguing that while Manning was seeking ways to remain anonymous, his real motive was to become famous.

In the final installment of Chris Hedges' appearance on "Reality Asserts Itself" with Real News Network senior editor Paul Jay, viewers ask the Truthdig columnist questions, including about the American public's complicity in the crimes of empire, if there's any hope for Bradley Manning and whether the U.S. or Israel will attack Iran.

Show-me State Endorses Cold Fusion
Our world is so full of disasters waiting to happen. Here's the opposite: a godsend to which we may wake up one day soon. Cold fusion works, but it's still too touchy and unreliable for commercial use. A ragtag army of experimenters around the world is searching for ways to turn it on and off.
New York Times columnist David Brooks suggests John Wayne in The Searchers symbolizes the current plight of the American male worker. He's got it all wrong.

Is it too soon to report that polling for a 2016 election contest with JEB Bush and Hillary Clinton is "too close to call"?

Stella, a CAFO Pig
Another plea to consider the life a an incarcerated pig. She wanted to enjoy life like all of us, but she and all the other CAFO farm animals are not given that chance. Shouldn't we be ashamed?
Bernie Buzz: Wal-Mart Welfare In the midst of all the discussion about welfare reform, it turns out that the major welfare beneficiary in our country is the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame. The wealthiest family in America is worth more than $100 billion. One way they got so rich is by paying workers so little that tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees use food stamps to feed their families and Medicaid to pay doctor bills.

This essay offers a a new perspective on worksite and other wellness programming. The question is posed - are employees and other participants in such educational efforts being shortchanged? Are the goals too limited? The focus is largely physical, such as fitness and wise dining. Fine, but might there might more that How about improving the nature and character of men and women?

Is china worried with Burma's look west policy?
Burma watchers believe the frequent visits of Chinese high-level delegations indicate about China's serious concerns due to Burma's look west foreign policy towards the US and EU countries.
With Syria as the new magnet of global jihad -- once again a direct consequence of a US power play, via Barack "Assad must go" Obama -- al-Qaeda is resurgent on both fronts. Washington has already destroyed the social fabric of Iraq. Now it's helping to destroy Syria's. If Abu Ghraib was the new normal in 2004, the jailbreak cannot but be the new new normal of 2013.

Should the WikiLeaks Party be successful in the polls, Assange would have to take his seat within one year of being elected, according to Australian law. Technically, the senate could also grant him an extension. It has been a point of controversy as to whether the US and the UK would stop their persecution of Assange if he wins an Australian Senate seat, granting him protection by the country's parliamentary privilege rules.

Not Larry the Loser Again -- especially not chairing the Federal Reserve!
Public outrage is needed to head off the pending appointment of Larry Summers to head the Federal Reserve System, for reasons given in this urgent article.
In case you don't dwell in the plutocratic, narcissistic, Ayn Randian fantasyland where the Kochs hang out, "labor mobility" is right-wing psychobabble for social Darwinism. Remove all remnants of America's economic safety net, they coldly theorize (while wallowing in their nests of luxury), and the poor will be "freed" to become billionaires.

Thomas Friedman is the perfect mirror for the undeserved self-infatuation which has infected our corporate, media, and political class. He's the chief fabulist of the detached elite, the unfettered Id of the global aristocracy, the Horatio Alger of self-deluded, self-serving, self-promoting techno-hucksterism.

Small Businesses Support President Obama's Climate Plan
Small business people speak out about their support of Gina McCarthy & the need for a sustainable economy.
There are many who would contend that America has already established a world police state but I think not, at least not yet. At least two great obstacles stand in the way of that objective; namely Russia and China. But that matters little to those in the White House and Pentagon as they shift their agenda of world domination and control into high gear.

The Edward Snowden revelations show the infrastructure of a police state emerging in Europe, especially Britain. Yet people are more aware than ever before; and governments fear popular resistance -- which is why truth-tellers are isolated, smeared and pursued. There is no other way now. Direct action. Civil disobedience. Unerring.

Think there's too much media coverage of the royal birth? The alternate is even worse.

The history of Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi isn't one of opposition to mass NSA spying when Bush was in office, only to change positions now that Obama is. The history is of pretend opposition -- of deceiving their supporters by feigning opposition -- while actually supporting it.

Why is it the problems and issues plaguing America continue to go unresolved, while effective laws, regulations, oversight and enforcement fail to be implemented? A perspective.


Best News Links from the Web
(Photo caption: AFP Photo / Daniel Leal-Olivas) 'The siege of Abu Ghraib started with nine bombs thrown at the entrance, and dozens of mortars, followed by a battle against the guards; a group of suicide bombers attacked the walls while another group of car bombers attacked the main entrance. And then the critical gambit, when a series of car bombs exploded all along the main road up to the bridge that links the prison to the highway leading to Baghdad, cutting all its connections with the capital... According to Hakim al Zamili, a member of Parliament who's part of the Committee for Defense and Security, this operation has been prepared for at least two weeks -- and plenty of guards were onto it. Kamal reveals that at least 15 men dressed in military garb got inside and "released" - as in escorted to freedom - selected al-Qaeda princelings ; and left the rest to fend for themselves.'

'For the past few years speech has moved online, leading to fierce debates about its regulation. Most recently, feminists have led the charge to purge Facebook of misogyny that clearly violates its hate speech code. Facebook took a small step two weeks ago, creating a feature that will remove ads from pages deemed "controversial." But such a move is half-hearted; Facebook and other social networking websites should not tolerate hate speech and, in the absence of a government mandate, adopt a European model of expunging offensive material...The negative impacts of hate speech cannot be mitigated by the responses of third-party observers, as hate speech aims at two goals. First, it is an attempt to tell bigots that they are not alone...The second purpose of hate speech is to intimidate the targeted minority, leading them to question whether their dignity and social status is secure.'

A new report projects that by the middle of this century there will be an average 56 percent drop in the amount of water stored in peak snowpack in the McKenzie River watershed of the Oregon Cascade Range -- and that similar impacts may be found on low-elevation maritime snow packs around the world.

Many people complain about poor sleep around the full moon, and now a report offers some of the first convincing scientific evidence to suggest that this really is true. The findings add to evidence that humans -- despite the comforts of our civilized world -- still respond to the geophysical rhythms of the moon, driven by a circalunar clock. [I have spent much time discussing this with my wife, and it appears I may have been wrong! Gasp!]

Congress will hear testimony from critics of the National Security Agency's surveillance practices for the first time since the whistleblower Edward Snowden's explosive leaks were made public. Democrat congressman Alan Grayson, who is leading a bipartisan group of congressman organising the hearing, told the Guardian it would serve to counter the "constant misleading information" from the intelligence community. The hearing, which will take place on Wednesday, comes amid evidence of a growing congressional rebellion NSA data collection methods.

The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday that the State Department and Huma Abedin, the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner, have put up "a stone wall" in the face of his inquiry about her final months at the agency, and vowed to continue raising questions about Abedin's employment status. "So far, the State Department and Ms. Abedin haven't provided a single document that I requested," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "Putting up a stone wall raises a lot more questions about how the program is being used than it answers. I intend to pursue more complete answers to my questions."

As Republican politicians seem ready to go on the offensive, there's a palpable sense of anxiety, even despair, among conservative pundits and analysts. Better-informed people on the right seem, finally, to be facing up to a horrible truth: Health care reform, President Obama's signature policy achievement, is probably going to work.

Tell the makers of infant formula to remove unsafe GMOs
Tell the makers of infant formula to remove unsafe GMOs, used by several large corporations that fought to ban labeling demands for GMOs in California.
An environmentally friendly battery made from wood | Human World | EarthSky
Scientists have developed a battery made from a sliver of wood coated with tin that shows promise for becoming an environmentally friendly energy source.
Early polling for the 2016 election has shown a trend, among Republicans, of favoring candidates who have the best chance of being clobbered by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the latest from Democratic-leaning (but dead-on accurate) Public Policy Polling continues that pattern. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has surged to the lead in PPP's national Republican primary poll, holding a three-point lead over his nearest competitors, but still trailing Hillary by eight points in head-to-head general election matchups.

By now the world knows about the revolt within the Republican Party over civil liberties and foreign policy, as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and others condemn PATRIOT Act--style encroachments on citizens' rights, Iraq-style projections of power abroad, and a drone war that threatens to blur the difference. Lately there's been talk of another rebellion, this one directed at the economic policies that have come to define much of the Republican Party, and for that matter much of the Democratic Party as well. The members of this movement, to the extent that a nascent tendency can be described as a movement, have been labeled libertarian populists--"libertarian" because they aim their fire at big government, "populists" because they aim their fire at other large, centralized institutions too.

Former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden would not face the death penalty or be tortured and would have all the protections of the U.S. civilian court system if he were sent home,U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter to his Russian counterpart this week.

The US government has completed its case against Bradley Manning, the source of the massive WikiLeaks trove of state secrets, accusing the 25-year-old soldier of being a traitor who used his training and skills to deliberately and systematically harm the US and provide assistance to al-Qaida.Major Ashden Fein, the lead prosecutor, unleashed a wave of rhetoric against the army private at the conclusion of his closing arguments in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the trial is in its eighth week. At the culmination of almost four hours in front of the judge, Fein sought to press home the most serious and contentious charge against Manning -- that he knowingly "aided the enemy" by transmitting state secrets to WikiLeaks.

US multinational Halliburton has agreed to admit it destoryed evidence related to its part in the huge 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the US Department of Justice announced. Halliburton will pay the maximum fine available, be on probation for three years and continue to cooperate with the government's criminal investigation, a news release by the department said on Thursday. It did not spell out the fine amount. The Houston-based multinational also made a separate, voluntary $55 million payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, US Justice Department said, adding that it was not a condition of the court agreement.

Syrian opposition leaders and rebels have criticized what they see as US disengagement from a conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives. Kerry's news on promised US arms may do little to change that view. Last week Kerry faced a barrage of complaints from Syrian refugees when he visited a sprawling refugee camp in Jordan. Kerry pointed out that the US is the largest donor of humanitarian assistance for Syrians displaced by the war, but his pleading was largely drowned out by protests of US abandonment.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Thursday the first step the Justice Department will take to restore the voting rights gutted by a Supreme Court decision neutering a key prong of the Voting Rights Act. In remarks prepared for the National Urban League's annual conference, Holder announced that the Justice Department "will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the State of Texas to a preclearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act" -- effectively restoring the safeguards against voter suppression in Texas that were stripped by the five Republican justices' decision in Shelby County v. Holder.

Almost ten years ago in November, 2003 Warren Buffett and Carol Loomis authored the article: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling The Nation Out From Under Us. Here's A Way To Fix The Problem--And We Need To Do It Now. It included the following sentence: "We were taught in Economics 101 that countries could not, for long, sustain large, ever-growing trade deficits." Until the U.S. trade deficit is systemically and holistically addressed America's unemployment problem will continue to be structural and not cyclical as in previous recessions. The best way for President Obama to challenge CEOs on jobs is to label China a currency manipulator, promptly on October 15th and publicly state he will sign the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (HR 1276); only then will CEOs have something to fear.

"We have seen news reports that were false of protesters doing thousands of dollars of damage to be a fraud. We have seen claims of attacks by protesters of the Zimmerman verdict that turned out to be false. Now we can add to the list of false news reports the story about George Zimmerman heroically rescuing a family of four from a burning SUV."

Federal authorities announced a raft of criminal charges on Thursday against SAC Capital, the hedge fund run by the billionaire Steven A. Cohen, an unusually aggressive move that could cripple one of Wall Street's most successful stock trading firms. The problems at SAC, according to the indictment, partly stemmed from a breakdown in internal controls -- and ethics. The indictment cited "an institutional indifference" to wrongdoing that "resulted in insider trading that was substantial, pervasive and on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry."

The Spanish government has decreed three days of official mourning after Wednesday's train crash near Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, which left at least 78 people dead and 130 injured, 20 of them seriously. Few of the 218 people on board escaped injury, although both drivers were unhurt. As the investigation is ongoing there has been no official statement on the cause of the accident, but one of the drivers reportedly told local government representatives that he was travelling at 190km/h on a curve with an 80km/h speed limit.

President Obama nominated Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, to be ambassador to Japan on Wednesday. The move, anticipated for several months, comes after Tokyo recently gave its approval to receive the first woman U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Scientists have investigated the role of heat exchange between ocean and atmosphere in long-term climate variability in the Atlantic. The scientists analyzed meteorological measurements and sea surface temperatures over the past 130 years. It was found that the ocean significantly affects long term climate fluctuations, while the seemingly chaotic atmosphere is mainly responsible for the shorter-term, year-to-year changes.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 19:31