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I think you'll find my interview
with Tom Devine in which he updates the status of legislation and
presidential policy on whistle blowing to be very interesting. It looks
like he's putting on a show-- with one hand, giving rights, with his
other hand, dangerously changing policy to kill whistleblower rights.
rob kall
Support Opednews. Make a tax deductible donation to make OEN Strong.  Daily Headlines
By Paul Craig Roberts
Double-Feature: "Bradley Manning Verdict Convicts Washington" and "Hiding Economic Depression With Spin" 
Time
is running out for the US economy and the American people. The
financial press and economic commentators, with few exceptions, do a
good job of keeping this fact from the public. They are immune to
reality. Until the real situation is understood, nothing can be done. It
is difficult to sell a solution when the problem is not recognized and
understood.
The
question today is whether cities and counties can afford not to set up
their own municipal banks, both to protect their money from confiscation
and to take advantage of the very low interest rates and other perks
available exclusively to the banking club.
Update from Tom Devine, Legal Director Government Accountability Project.
The
nation's main media got the Manning story wrong. He's no traitor, but
the kangaroo military court is making him one, with the media's help,
says TCBH! journalist Dave Lindorff
This
is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a
dangerous precedent and an example of national security extremism. It
is a short-sighted judgment that cannot be tolerated and must be
reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the public
is "espionage."
By John Whitehead
The American Surveillance State Is Here. Can It Be Evaded? On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on, and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears.
"U.S. policy is to shoot the proverbial messenger."
A
federal judge in Wisconsin handed down an opinion yesterday granting
the Catholic Church -- and indeed, potentially all religious
institutions -- such sweeping immunity from federal bankruptcy law that
it is not clear that it would permit any plaintiff to successfully sue
any church in any court. While the ostensible issue in this case is
whether over $50 million in church funds are shielded from a bankruptcy
proceeding triggered largely by a flood of clerical sex abuse claims
against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Judge Rudolph Randa reads the
church's constitutional and legal right to religious liberty so broadly
as to render religious institutions immune from much of the law.
Can
we rebuild coherence when one-third of the country stridently thrashes
Constitutional abortion, voting rights, gay marriage, plus evolution and
climate change, while righteously asserting the absurdity of Biblical
literalism and the perfection of the "free" market system?
A
top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search
with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails,
online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals,
according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The NSA
boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its
"widest-reaching" system for developing intelligence from the internet.
Upgrading
the nation's Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all
ages would yield over a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in
its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality,
comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a
lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.
Capitalism
is built on a Royal Act of sacrilege, reports Fred Harrison. The
historic injustice created a statecraft of greed and the financial model
on which modern nations are built. This legitimized the violent streak
in capitalism. In Part 2 of The Treason Trilogy, Harrison explains that
current policies will not defeat the War on Terror.
Evolutionary
biologists offer new evidence that evolution doesn't favor the selfish,
disproving a theory popularized in 2012. [Presently I'm reading Naomi
Klien's Shock Doctrine, and it certainly shocks me how much of our
economic policy, thank you Mr. Greenspan, is based fundamentally on the
long disproven and ultimately never advocated or proposed, even by
Charles, the so-called "social Darwinism."]
By Daily kos
Montana Experiment Brings NHS-Style Health Care to USA; Saves State Millions, Patients Delighted 
Daily Kos: Montana Experiment Brings NHS-Style Health Care to USA; Saves State Millions, Patients Delighted
By Andrew Willner
Preserving the Past to Serve the Future, *Transition, Permaculture, and Slow Technology* Using Transition and Permaculture to preserves the skills of the past to serve the needs of a post-carbon future.
By Suzana Megles
Monet and Mattisse, Foie Gras Ducks For anyone who has feelings for suffering animals, you will hope that foie gras disappears forever. Farm Sanctuary has helped some of the lucky ones who made it out of these cruel foie gras factories alive.
O.J.
Simpson won a small victory Wednesday in his bid for freedom as Nevada
granted him parole on some of his 2008 convictions for kidnapping and
armed robbery involving the holdup of two sports memorabilia dealers at a
Las Vegas hotel room.
Washington
D.C. is adapting to this "regime exchange" in order to prevent a
"change in the regime," which the successive US administrations have
nurtured as a strategic asset to both the United States and its Israeli
regional ally since the Camp David accords of 1979
By Tom Engelhardt
Laura Gottesdiener, The Backyard Shock Doctrine African Americans had every reason to celebrate Barack Obama's election in 2008. History was made. Then reality set in. Economically speaking, the Obama era has been a five-year nightmare for Black America.
By Franklin Lamb
The morning after blacklisting Hezbollah: is the EU experiencing "buyer's remorse'? The best move for the EU now, as it tries to recover from the current self-inflicted debacle is to do nothing to inflame the situation by cooking up some dubious terrorist lists. Rather, in six months the EU should assure that this month's blacklisting decision acquiesced in under US-Israel pressure, lapses.
This
week the President offered Republicans a corporate tax reform plan that
basically gives them everything they want (before negotiations even
begin,) in exchange for please allow We the People to have some jobs and
infrastructure and education. The Republican leadership pre-demanded
additional tax cuts for the wealthy, while rejecting out-of-hand the
idea that government should do anything to help the economy or people.
Tea Party Republicans went further, saying taxes are theft and and
government is socialism, and demanding an end to or at least drastic
reductions in government programs that help people, plus the repeal of
Obamacare, or they will both shut down the government and force a
default when the debt-ceiling is reached.
So
who's helping the enemy? The US government destroyed Iraq and enabled
al-Qaeda. The US government is enabling al-Qaeda in Syria. Manning may
die behind bars. Meanwhile Dubya, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie -- certifiable
war criminals -- remain at large. If karma applies, the Angel of History
may grant them a future in some realm of sub-zoology.
The
Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who broke the details
revealed by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden regarding
that agency's information gathering and warehousing practices, was
scheduled to testify about those programs before members of Congress. On
Tuesday, Greenwald revealed that this informal hearing, organized by
Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Alan Grayson (D-FL), has been cancelled.
The
"Real House Thieves of New Jersey," and of the nation -- America's big
banks -- continue to enjoy the fruits of government assistance. That
aid's moved from direct bailouts to indirect subsidies like the implicit
market advantage that comes with being "too big to fail"; immunity from
prosecution; low tax rates as corporations and as individuals; and a
string of cushy settlement deals.
By Ahmad Barqawi
In Defense of a "Terrorist" Organization The EU has reluctantly black-listed the Lebanese Shiite Movement Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, succumbing to both American and Israeli pressures. Gulf Cooperation Counsel member states heaved a collective sigh of relief over the EU's decision.
resident
Obama clashed with some congressional Democrats Wednesday over the
possibility that former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers might be
named to succeed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman. In a tense
exchange with Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) during a closed-door meeting
with House Democrats, Obama defended Summers' role in helping to restore
the U.S. economy and "expressed frustration" with a growing negative
campaign against him.
The
MSM are bulging with issues concerning Election Integrity at last,
thirteen years after the gut-wrenching devastations we refer to as
Election 2000 et seq. An analysis/hypothesis.
By Philip Weiss
Jeff Toobin says he trusts State Dept officials more than Manning on what to make public 
I
want to reach out to Bradley Manning and thank him for his strength of
character and lonely courage during a long ordeal. But it's been a
bloodbath for Manning in the mainstream media, with John Hockenberry of
NPR lately describing him as a "disturbed" young man, after Bill Keller
of the New York Times gave him permission, by saying that Manning is a
"complicated young man" who suffered a "lot of personal unhappiness."
By Dave Lefcourt
Main Stumbling Blocks in Palestinian/Israeli Conflict Won't be Overcome in Latest Round of "Peace Talks" 
Palestinian
& Israeli negotiators were in Washington Mon. & Tues.
supposedly to begin a new round of peace talks. Yet polls show
majorities of Palestinians & Israeli's believe nothing will come
from the talks. In truth, the main stumbling blocks in this 46 yr. old
saga (since the 67' war) rests solely w/the policies & actions of
Israel w/unwavering support of the U.S. which won't be overcome in this
latest round of peace talks
Latest Articles
Today
Bradley Manning was convicted on 20 of 22 counts, including violating
the Espionage Act, releasing classified information and disobeying
orders. That's the bad news. The good news is he was found not guilty on
the charge of "aiding the enemy." That's 'cause who he was aiding was
us, the American people. And we're not the enemy. Right?
 Best News Links from the Web
It
will cost $8 million to settle allegations that Dubuis Health System
and Southern Crescent Hospital for Specialty Care, Inc. filed false
claims for payment to Medicare, the Department of Justice announced last
week. According to the allegations of the lawsuit the groups faced, the
facilities were taking advantage of individuals needing long-term acute
care. "Individuals needing care for complex and acute ailments are
often unaware of how the hospital is billing for the care they are
receiving," commented James Kauffman, an attorney with the Levin,
Papantonio law firm who practices in the areas of false claims and
whistleblower litigation. "Unfortunately, this lack of awareness can
translate into facilities erroneously billing and overcharging the
government for services on the patient's behalf."
Sarah
Palin may not be as well liked as she thinks she is in her home state
of Alaska. According to a Public Policy Polling poll released on
Tuesday, the former governor and vice-presidential hopeful currently
holds a dismal 39 percent favorability rating among Alaskan voters.
Earlier this month Palin told Sean Hannity that she was considering
entering the U.S. Senate race to replace Senator Mark Begich (D-AK).
"I've considered it because people have requested me considering it,"
Palin told the Fox News host.
President
Barack Obama hadn't yet left the White House on Tuesday to unveil his
latest economic pitch when Republicans began tearing it apart. Congress
is scheduled to leave Friday for a recess that is to last until Sept. 9.
So far, there have been no serious talks between the two parties over
how to fund the federal government after Oct. 1, when the new fiscal
year begins. Without an agreement, much of the government would shut
down.
Huma
Abedin, Hillary Clinton's transition office chief and the wife of
embattled New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, is expected to
take extended vacation time from her job with the former first lady in
the coming days. The move is not a leave of absence, two sources
familiar with the move insisted. It was a loose plan she'd had for
weeks, since Hillary Clinton has close to no schedule next month - the
Clintons are expected to vacation in the monied East Hampton enclave on
Long Island - and Abedin had been expected to take the final few weeks
leading up to the mayoral primary to be with her husband.
President
Barack Obama is planning to bypass congressional Republicans with a
surge of executive actions and orders on issues like voting rights,
health care, job creation, the economy, climate change and immigration.
And this time, he really, really, really means it. Really. Obama's
started to sell his pitch to congressional Democrats, meeting with
caucus groups at the White House and going to the Hill on Wednesday
morning to speak with House and Senate Democrats.
Mistakes
like a bounced check or a small overdraft have effectively blacklisted
more than a million low-income Americans from the mainstream financial
system for as long as seven years as a result of little-known private
databases that are used by the nation's major banks. The problem is
contributing to the growth of the roughly 10 million households in the
United States that lack a banking account, a basic requirement of modern
economic life.
A
new report finds that a proposal would increase poverty and illness,
resulting in billions of dollars in federal and state health care costs.
Nearly half a million people who receive food stamps but still do not
get enough to eat would lose their eligibility for the program under
proposed cuts. An additional 160,000 to 305,000 recipients who do get
enough to eat would also lose their eligibility and the ability to
adequately feed themselves.
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