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Bold and Daring: The Way Progressive News Should Be
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By Rob Kall
Marcy Wheeler/Empty Wheel; The Really Bad Committee Obama is Creating To Review NSA Policy 
an
in depth discussion of Obama's creation of a committee to purportedly
review surveillance policies-- but that's really designed to make us
more comfortable with them continuing doing what they have been doing.
Her article about Cass Sunstein, the guy who advocated for using sock
puppets to confuse and disrupt online Conspiracy Theory discussions.
Blowing the lid off of the conspiracy to impoverish the world.
This
is the first time the Independent has published any revelations
purportedly from the NSA documents, and it's the type of disclosure
which journalists working directly with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
have thus far avoided. That leads to the obvious question: who is the
source for this disclosure? Snowden this morning said he wants it to be
clear that he was not the source for the Independent.
By Julian Gresser, Esq.
FUKUSHIMA: A Blueprint for Action by Julian Gresser Esq. The escalating danger of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima requires bold innovation. The author offers a method of quickly assembling the best minds in the world to solve its many problems.
Greg
has uncovered a bombshell memo that shows how vile Larry Summers is.
His article gives the details. This interview covers what's in the memo
and then expands to give background on the roots and top levels of one
of the most malevolent conspiracies in the world.
Imagine
the Congolese poet's shock and fear when she received a letter from
"SECO" demanding to know about her "relationship" with the M23 rebel
leader Colonel Sultani Makenga. Her crime? She wrote a poem in an
ethnic language and posted it on her Facebook Page.
More
than 1000 acres found to have been planted with genetically altered
maize crops have been destroyed in Hungary. Standing up to the biotech
giants of Monsanto, Dow, and BASF, the country has boldly banned GMO
seed.
Once a government watchdog fooled the media about another Fannie and Freddie "scandal," others ran with it.
Corporate
profits at all-time highs, CEO's salaries and bonuses skyrocketing; at
the same time millions of unemployed Americans are barely surviving and
this nation's economy remains stagnant and lifeless. How much longer can
such a conflicted condition continue until this entire House of Cards
collapses?
Wednesday's
sentencing marks one of the most important watersheds in U.S. history.
It marks the day when the state formally declared that all who name and
expose its crimes will become political prisoners or be forced, like
Edward Snowden, and perhaps Glenn Greenwald, to spend the rest of their
lives in exile. Our nation has become a vast penal colony.
my first day checking it out, with more info from wikipedia on the new Aljazeera America
This
is my second column discussing Federal Reserve (Fed) regulation in the
context of the question of who President Obama should appoint to be Ben
Bernanke's successor. This column focuses on the sudden discovery by
economists (and, purportedly, Obama) that the Fed Chair's most important
function is to regulate. (If that sounds like common sense to you, (1)
you are not an orthodox economist and (2) you do not understand the
Fed's culture.) This column begins the process of explaining why most
of the economists and finance scholars (Robert Prasch is the exception)
writing to urge that the new Fed Chair be chosen based on their
regulatory skills demonstrate that they lack any understanding of the
fundamentals of financial crises and supervision (and aiding
prosecutions). This column begins my response to Amar Bhide's op ed
entitled "Wanted: A Boring Leader for the Fed."
We're
drowning in laws. Up to 160,000 new ones swamping us each year in the
US alone. Who's responsible? Why do we put up with it? What's the
solution? This article is an attempt to answer these questions.
There
is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get your OWN local radio station
- but almost nobody knows about it. There are fewer than 70 days left
to apply - so who will step up to the microphones?
A
huge part of our economy is invisible, invaluable, and under siege.
"The commons" is a term that denotes everything we share as opposed to
own privately. Some parts of the commons are gifts of nature: the air
and oceans, the web of species, wilderness, and watersheds. Others are
the product of human creativity and endeavor: sidewalks and public
squares, the Internet, our languages, cultures, technologies, and
infrastructure.
The
editor-in-chief of Utne Reader said " YES! Magazine's message of hope
and optimism is both inspiring and essential in these uncertain times." I
think he summed it up well. Helping people to see how we can make our
way through these turbulent times to something better is an urgent
task. Sometimes at YES! we say that "no" is a losing strategy. You can't
resist the old; you must build the new. That's what we spotlight.
Does
the media have to be owned by megalithic corporations? Or do sites
such as Oped and documentary films made by producers like Peter Charles
Downy have a chance? Downy's latest release is "United Natures" which
comes on the heals of his "Anima Mundi."
Were the Sixties just on "pause" for a few years?
Right
groups slammed the move on the part of London police, which used
Britain's controversial anti-terrorism legislation to apprehend Miranda.
UK officials, meanwhile, attempted to justify the detention of Miranda
on the grounds that he was believed to be carrying classified
information that could aid terrorists.
our
national security system's definition of "terrorism" has become so
broad that it apparently now includes lawful and peaceful protests by
citizens exercising their constitutional freedoms of speech and
assembly. That seems like a sign of totalitarian behavior. But it's also
a sign of fear. A mobilized public can change the world at any moment.
Those who oppose your cause know that.
You
can now add "spymaster" to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's various titles.On
June 14, a US GAO report elaborated on previous reports that Amazon had
won a $600 million contract to build a "private cloud" for the CIA. (The
GAO report was generated when IBM, which had been competing for the
contract, protested that it had lost unfairly.)Just look at the two key
players in spying on democracy in Boghosian's book title: government
surveillance and corporate power. In Bezos's purchase of the Washington
Post,you have the critical mass combination.And that's not to mention
the potential for combining intelligence surveillance, customer buying
habits and marketing information, and news preferences.Those who argue
that Bezos is socially progressive on issues such as gay marriage and
therefore will be a positive influence on the Post forget that President
Obama is socially progressive, but
Environmentalists today marched in Washington, DC, to the Department of the Interior to Protest against Fracking
A
health care system designed to make a profit from pain and sickness is a
health care system designed by psychopaths. You know the propaganda has
taken hold when FOX viewers, who would be bankrupted by a medical
catastrophe, parrot the FOX mouthpieces and decry the evils of a
single-payer health care system.
Why do we focus on the ridiculous and ignore the substantive issues we face in the country today?
Texas
Gov. Rick Perry and other neo-Confederate politicians are citing the
Tenth Amendment in claiming the federal government has no authority to
protect minority voting rights. But they're wrong both in their
constitutional analysis and their ignorance of the Fifteenth Amendment.
A
new tactic has been added to the US democracy promotion arsenal, where
"color revolutions' are too difficult, and "postmodern coups' fail.
The
Arab Spring so promising in Egypt almost 3 yrs. ago has ended w/ the
military releasing Hosni Mubarak from prison. This has to bring disgust
to the protesters who put their lives on the line & were the
catalysts behind the military removing him from power. It's a
contemptuous spitting in the face of the Egyptian people by Gen'l al
Sisi who had Mubarak's released & a sure sign the military is the
preeminent power in Egypt.
Irony can also be a powerful tool when used by activists in their actions.
By Bob Burnett
Why Don't Republicans Understand the Economy? On September 9 th , when Congress returns from its summer vacation, negotiations will begin on a new Federal budget and a US debt limit increase. As a quid pro quo Republicans will demand restrictions on Obamacare. Once again, this raises the specter of the GOP pushing the government into default. Why don't Republicans understand that's a terrible idea that would crater the economy?
The
media should be Manning's greatest defender, for her unflinching
bravery in the pursuit of journalistic integrity. But no, there's a sexy
angle to expose, so they splash that around instead of discussing the
gross miscarriage of justice that turned this hero into a prisoner.
Latest Articles
"Stop And Frisk" and Justin Timberlake
A song parody addressing New York City's "Stop and Frisk" policy based on Justin Timberlake's "Suit and Tie."
Treatment of the homeless by the city of Nashville, Tennessee.
This
piece is meant to build on three previous Dollar Vigilante posts
written by Gary Kinghorn, relating to the voluntary nature of our level
of participation in a corrupt and failing system.
Ryan
has been among the prime beneficiaries of the money-in-politics moment
ushered in by the High Court. As the House Budget Committee chairman, he
has collected millions of dollars from individuals and groups that
stand to benefit from initiatives such as Social Security privatization
and the development of voucher schemes to "reform" Medicaid and
Medicare.
 Best News Links from the Web
The Absent Father Impact on Children: Divorce & Separation
This article draws attention on the growing divorce rate and family separation; leaving a growing number of children without fathers. It discusses two major implications of this and inspires moving forward.
"Some
will object to my statement that Manning is being tortured today. They
will acknowledge that he was held in solitary confinement and forced to
sleep naked for months on end (among other inhumane practices), and that
unquestionably was torture. But all that is over, and now he is "only"
being imprisoned because of his actions. And he may still be sentenced
to decades in prison, but he will not be subjected to inhumane
conditions again (they hope). And he was provided a trial, but of
course, it was a show trial from beginning to end, so perhaps we'd best
not dwell on that. But at least he had a trial, and he was able to put
on a defense, although a defense hideously constricted in its scope by
the court's rulings, where every issue of significance was forbidden to
be spoken of, so perhaps we'd better not dwell on that, either."
So,
another BRIC hits the wall. Actually, I've never much liked the whole
"BRIC" -- Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- concept: Russia, which is
basically a petro-economy, doesn't belong there at all, and there are
large differences among the other three. Still, it's hard to deny that
India, Brazil, and a number of other countries are now experiencing
similar problems. And those shared problems define the economic crisis
du jour.
Washington
is split over how to respond to the latest attack, which it believes
may have killed between 1,000 and 1,800 people. Military leaders such as
John Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, have urged
caution, for fear of becoming further embroiled in a Middle East
conflict when it is unclear whether the rebels would back US interests.
"Syria today is not about choosing between two sides but rather about
choosing one among many sides," Dempsey said in the letter dated 19
August to Representative Eliot Engel. "It is my belief that the side we
choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the
balance shifts in their favor. Today, they are not."
On
paper,the Senate bill's "benign" goal is to ensure that new rules
appropriately balance costs and benefits.But this is simply a euphemism
for more deregulation, which itself is a euphemism for unleashing the
corporate hounds on a hapless public. The bill would hollow out
protection for investors, patients,consumers and workers.For example,it
would essentially eliminate the possibility of the meager financial
reforms in Dodd-Frank from ever seeing the light of day.This bill is
just a warm-up act. While the public and the media sleep, the real
corporate "Death Star," the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), is being
forged in secret. The term "partnership" hardly sounds ominous.But for
the last two years TPP negotiations that could have unprecedented
consequences to citizens throughout the world have been going on among a
dozen Pacific Rim nations.No information has been made available
Rand Paul Teaming Up With Dems? For This Cause, He Thinks It's Worth It
As Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) explores the possibility of a presidential run, he's trying his hand at something that's become a rite of passage for the GOP's other 2016 hopefuls: Expanding the appeal of the Republican Party by turning to policies important to minority voters. Specifically, the state of the nation's schools... and the lies about charter schools as a choice are flying... see first comment at the end.
Former
Secretary of State Colin Powell took aim at North Carolina's new voting
law Thursday, saying it hurts the Republican Party, punishes minority
voters and makes it more difficult for everyone to vote. "I want to see
policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more
difficult to vote," said Powell, a Republican, at the CEO Forum in
Raleigh.
The
U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that it will challenge
Texas's Voter ID law, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act, as well
as the Constitution's 14th and 15th Amendments. In a separate case, the
Justice Department will also join in a challenge to the state's
GOP-drawn redistricting plans.
After
halting all trading in stocks listed on its exchange because of a
technical problem, Nasdaq said at 3:25 p.m. ET that it had resumed
trading in all shares. The shutdown began at about 12:15 p.m. ET. Until
3:25 p.m., the Nasdaq composite stood unmoving at 3,631, with a gain of
31 points, or nearly 1 percent. After it resumed trading it rose further
and closed at 3,639, up 39 points. After Nasdaq suspended trading on
its own exchange, the NYSE and the BATS exchanges halted all trading in
Nasdaq listed securities. Nasdaq, heavily concentrated with technology
stocks, is home to bellwether shares such as Apple, Microsoft, Ebay,
Yahoo and more recently Facebook.
Nine
fired workers and one current one were arrested at the end of a rally
at which they gave Walmart a deadline to raise wages and reinstate fired
workers. The planned act of civil disobedience concluded a noon rally
at which workers announced a Labor Day deadline for Walmart to raise
wages and reinstate workers they allege were fired for their activism.
Twenty workers who joined a June strike by the labor group OUR Walmart
have since been terminated; another fifty-some have been otherwise
disciplined by Walmart.
Thursday's
announcement that Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning wants to live as a woman
thrust the issue of treatment of transgender Americans into the national
spotlight. Manning's announcement, coming just a day after being
sentenced to 35 years in military prison for giving classified documents
to WikiLeaks, also comes at a moment when the treatment of transgender
Americans in the workplace, schools and prison have become a more
prominent part of the nation's political and legal debate.
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