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Bold and Daring: The Way Progressive News Should Be
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| If you have a problem reading this email, please click here to see the web page version You received this email because you signed up for it at OpEdNews. Unsubscribe instructions are at the bottom of this email. URGENT: Fund raising is off to a painfully slow start this month.
There's no way to sugar coat it.
Three days into the month, we should be at about $500-- a tiny amount
compared to the other progressive sites who ask for financial support.
Currently, we're at $55.00
It's so frustrating. On Monday
opednews and I received the Pillar Humanitarian award, for supporting
whistleblowers and the first amendment.
There's so much more we'd like to
be doing, but we can't do this without some support. Thank you SOOoo
much to all who made donations last month. We need the help of people
who have never donated or who have not donated in a while. Even $5.00
helps.
If you believe in the work we're doing, please help.
thanks,
rob kall
PS. no newsletter was sent out yesterday, if you're wondering if you missed it.
Support Opednews. Make a tax deductible donation to make OEN Strong.  Daily Headlines
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sizes up his new competition for 2014, and maybe even breaks a sweat.
The recent mass protest gatherings in Egypt and other places around the world need to happen again in Washington D.C.
By Dave Lefcourt
Cacophony from U.S. Politicos over Russia Granting Asylum to Snowden Nothing but Bluster 
The
cacophony from the White House & two Senators the past few days
over Russia granting asylum to Snowden is all bluster. Press Sec'y
Carney intoned the summit between Obama & Putin could be cancelled.
From Sen. Shumer, "Each day Snowden is allowed to roam free is another
twist of the knife. Sen.McCain said it was a slap in the face to all
Americans. Nice try boys but Putin's holding all the cards & he
isn't intimidated.
Thanks
to Manning, vast troves of information have become public knowledge,
making possible more informed debate about war and peace. For instance,
he leaked the now-infamous "collateral murder" video, with a soundtrack
of chilling banter as U.S. servicemen in a pair of gunships fired on
civilians in Baghdad.
By David Swanson
Global Hot Spots Remarks at the War Resisters League's 90th Year Convention at Georgetown University, August 2, 2013.
the
July 3 military coup was not in response to calls for a second wave of
the revolution as falsely presented by the anti-Morsi forces. It was a
determined and well-orchestrated plot to oust the democratically elected
president after a single year in power.
My
response to Amanda Marcotte's dismissal of "radical feminism" and the
existence of stay-at-home feminists, as well as an apparent tin ear for
the relationship between gender in race in the history of feminism.
So
what is the "extremely disappointed" Obama administration, the
Orwellian/Panopticon complex and the discredited US Congress to do? Send
a Navy Seal Team 6 to snatch him or to target assassinate him --
turning Moscow into Abbottabad 2.0? Drone him? Poison his borscht?
Shower his new house with depleted uranium? Install a no-fly zone over
Russia?
What
is more devastating: wages that relegate millions of people to a life
of poverty or having to fork over just a bit more pocket change during
your next trip to McDonalds and Wal-Mart? As Congress contemplates
raising the minimum wage and more workers take collective action in the
fight for better pay, the answer should be more obvious than ever.
Ever
since the breaking of the news that the US government has a
multibillion dollar program for rooting through everyone's mail,
internet browisng habits and (of course) phone chatter, the journalists
of the NYT have been engaged in a curious, sycnonized dance to rreassure
and explain why. Could it have anything at all to do with the paper's
long history of collusion with the secret government agencies?
A
new study in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
reveals that preschoolers who get less than 10 1/2 hours of sleep per
night have a greater chance of behavior problems later in childhood,
adolescence and adulthood.
Ocean City, N.J., is having a wonderful summer--and much of it is because of a hermit crab and Mark Soifer.
7 tips to deal with Yahoo's TOS update that lets them snoop in your emails and chats.
Shifts
in climate change are strongly linked to human violence around the
world, according to a comprehensive new study released Thursday by the
University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. The
research, which was published in Science, examined 60 previous studies
from all major regions of the globe.
Radically
new technique uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water
into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way for the broad
use of hydrogen as a clean, green fuel.
If
you've ever wondered why someone like Bradley Manning gets far less
media coverage than, say, a "royal" birth or a mayoral candidate's
penis, well" you can always count on the "newspaper of record" to reveal
the method behind the madness.
By Franklin Lamb
A Formula for Palestinian Survival in Damascus The overwhelming sense among Palestinians here with whom this observer has discussed the proposal, is that there can be no progress with respect to returning Palestinian refugees to their homes in Yarmouk until a political solution is reached among all the major parties to the Syrian Crisis. And some predict that may take decades.
CNN
has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly
happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.
Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in
the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.
By Brad Friedman
PA Police Chief Turns Self Into Poster Boy for Propagandized NRA Stooges & Tools Everywhere 
Super
genius Chief Mark Kessler calls Vietnam war hero, long-time U.S.
Senator and now Sec. of State John Kerry a "piece of sh*t traitor"
before continuing with a long string of expletives followed by a long
burst from his very manly automatic weapon.
Any
government interested in making peace will have to grapple with the
settlers. The hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews now living in the
new neighborhoods there do not think of themselves as settlers at all,
they have forgotten all about the Green Line. Indeed, they are quite
surprised when reminded of it. They could not dream of ever acquiring
anything similar in Israel proper.
Republican
Sen. Mitch McConnell and his major Democratic opponent, Alison
Lundergan Grimes, will take the same stage Saturday for the first time
as rivals in next year's Senate race in Kentucky. The occasion will be
the political speaking program Saturday afternoon at the 133rd annual
Fancy Farm picnic in the far Western Kentucky county of Graves, where
candidates often unleash old-school stemwinders laced with political raw
meat.
By Dori Sig
Bradley Manning verdict, Partly celebrated in Iceland - video and photos Bradley manning
Sixty
troops have been fired as sexual assault counselors, recruiters or
drill instructors after the military investigators found they had
committed violations ranging from alcohol-related offenses to child
abuse and sexual assault. George Wright, an Army spokesman, said it is
looking at 20,000 recruiters, sexual-assault counselors and drill
instructors and expects to have completed its screening by Oct. 1. More
suspensions could occur as the review continues. It is unclear whether
the suspended soldiers have been discharged, Wright said, or if they can
be reassigned to other units.
Speaking
before J Street, Indyk placed the blame for the bloodshed of the Second
Intifada squarely on Yasser Arafat's shoulders. He derided the late PA
chairman as having "that big sh*t-eating grin of his." Indyk is back at
the center of heavily ballyhooed negotiations that seem doomed from the
start. Is he preparing to blame the Palestinians again?
The
United States on Friday issued a worldwide travel alert to all
Americans through Aug. 31 due to an unspecified al-Qaeda threat that led
to embassy closures. The alert was issued after the U.S. said that all
American embassies and consulates that normally open on a Sunday would
close on Aug. 4 because of a possible al Qaeda-related threat. A senior
State Department official warned they could remain shut for an extended
period.
There
is also something puzzling about a peace process driven by a nine-month
timetable rather than the logic of the negotiations. The most worrying
indication that the US is heading down the same failed path is the
announcement of Martin Indyk's return as mediator. Mr Indyk, a long-time
Israel lobbyist, has been intimately tied to previous diplomatic
failures.
The
one theory to explain Snowden's motivation that hasn't been offered to
my knowledge is the possibility that he might be part of a growing
resistance within the intelligence community and military to being used
to create a global corporate New World Order.
More
than a half million American high school students are enrolled in the
Junior Reserve Officers' Training Program, (JROTC). The Army's
junior-year text book is analyzed here. The text contains a wildly
reactionary and inaccurate view of American history during World War
II, particularly regarding Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Latest Articles
Death of a Teenager
An article on the Trayvon Martin shooting.
The
USBIG NewsFlash is both the newsletter of the U.S. Basic Income
Guarantee (USBIG) Network and the U.S. edition of the Basic Income Earth
Network's NewsFlash. The USBIG Network promotes the discussion of the
basic income guarantee (BIG) in the United States. BIG is a policy that
would unconditionally guarantee at least a subsistence-level income for
everyone.
Everyone
has a different experience of the economy. We can understand economic
problem by studying what creates the different perspectives. This
chapter introduces Transactional Economics, which explains a lot about
the automatic divide in wealth, and how our economic position changes
over time.
First speech by new head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy, outlines her agenda. Climate deniers beware!
This article is in response to the Pope's comments about the role of women in the Catholic Church.
This
is a delphi paper, based on the article, written by William Walker. It
includes the international order, role of weapons of mass destruction,
and its implications on the order and how the global powers assert to
maintain the order through the weapons of mass destruction.
Imran tells Kerry drones helping terrorists
Pakistan Tahreek Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, in a one-on-one meeting in Islamabad Thursday, told visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry that US drone attacks in Pakistan's volatile tribal territory were helping the terrorists.
How to be street smart, the difference between straight Anglo and the street angle and the best game to learn how to read liars.
Lyndon Johnson, his sub rosa war with the Kennedys & the JFK assassination.
Abortion Politics
There are indications America is becoming more liberal: recent Supreme Court rulings opened the door to same-sex marriage; more and more states are legalizing access to marijuana; and Rush Limbaugh is losing sponsors. Nonetheless, since the 2010 mid-term elections, Republicans have waged an aggressive campaign to limit abortion rights.
By From unknown English professor - short and to the point
Importance of Capital Letters In the world of hi-tech gadgetry, I've noticed that more and more people who send text messages and emails have long forgotten the art of capital letters.
The
Syrian Support Group was the 'go to' NGO for funding Syrian rebels.
Sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the group had it all.
Then the curtain was lifted and it turned out it was about oil.
Assange
is confined to an embassy, Snowden to an airport and Manning to a jail
cell. But make no mistake; it's the Masters of the Universe who are
afraid, very much afraid. Afraid of anyone with a conscience; afraid of
you; afraid of the whole wide world.
Washington,
having turned the US into a lawless state, no longer has any conception
of legal procedure. Law is whatever serves Washington. As Washington
sees it, law is nothing but Washington's will. Any person or country
that interferes with Washington's will is behaving unlawfully.
Washington expected Russia to hand over Snowden simply because
Washington demanded it.
Interview
with Luxemburg scholar and the co-editor of the Letters Of Rosa
Luxemburg and the Rosa Luxemburg Reader, Professor Peter Hudis
It
was a Saturday evening, but Chester's main drag, Avenue of the States,
was mostly empty. Even fifteen years ago, there would have been many
shoppers, or loiterers, at least. Now, there was hardly a parked car to
break in. On both sides of the street for an entire block, there was
only one business open, Huddle Barbershop.
Republicans
are still ignoring reality. They're trying to extend and even double
down on the sequester's destructive spending cuts, despite the economic
evidence -- and despite our crumbling infrastructure. It's time to
invest in jobs, as well as roads, highways, bridges, and schools.
The Need to Teach Students How to Practice Active Listening
An article that dives into the necessity of active listening in everyday life. Yet, more importantly, the need for more educators to teach students what active listening is and how to practice it.
Resist Push To Repeal Or Cripple Affordable Care Act: Claude Pepper's National Health-Repeal Lesson
This was the headline across cable TV news shows on July 23: "Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, threatens a government shutdown over Obamacare." Opposition to the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") -- with 39 House-passed repeals but none in the Senate -- and the administration agreeing to delays and funding cuts are reminiscent of opposition to the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, originally written by the great Claude Pepper.
Peaceful coexistence and sectarianism
Comment on growing sectarianism in Pakistan. Suggested steps to reduce it.
Marxism, the Taliban, and Plato
Review of Simon Blackburn's article "Taliban and Plato" in the TLS 7-19-2013.
It
becomes more and more evident that America is becoming a Democracy in
name only; that our system of government, actually a Republic, is under
attack by elements situated with the U.S. government itself. The supreme
power that determines the direction of this country is no longer vested
in the people but rather is solely held by the government.
A
completely answer-free list of questions by which Americans can
practice their critical-thinking skills. Obvious questions.
Fundamental questions. Important questions. And big ones -- so big
that most of them will never make it to the front page, destined instead
to remain buried in the obits of our consciousness.
If
you want your neocon news straight from the source, the Washington Post
is the way to go. It will explain to you why we should be prepared to
intervene militarily worldwide and why some bureaucrat reading your mail
or reviewing your phone calls is not a bad thing as all that stuff will
make you a lot safer.
Snowden
was granted temporary asylum in Russia and was allowed to enter the
country's territory. According to the issued documents, the former CIA
employee who broke PRISM spying scandal to the world is free to stay in
Russia until at least July 31, 2014. Then the asylum status may be
extended. Snowden cannot be handed over to the US authorities, even if
Washington files an official request.
In
Part 1 we examined what parts of the original law have been
implemented, what parts are on hold, and what parts are gone. In this,
Part 2, we assess the law as it stands so far--its hits and its misses,
as well as the parts that get mixed reviews.
Edward
Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia. He left Sheremetyevo
airport in Moscow with WikiLeaks staffer and legal advisor Sarah
Harrison who has accompanied him during his 39-day stay in the transit
zone and continues to do so.
Karl
Rove ignored the Republican obstructionism that led to the 2011 debt
ceiling crisis, falsely claiming President Obama was entirely to blame
for automatic government spending cuts and misleadingly accusing Obama
of hypocrisy for criticizing the devastating effects of the law.
Permanent Recession for Workers vs. the Pro-Growth Fantasies of Politicians & Most Economists
There are major obstacles to rising standards of living for ordinary Americans, among them the leveling off of educational attainment, globalization, rising resource costs, high fiscal deficits and rising private indebtedness. The rise in real disposable incomes of those outside the top 1% will stop. Contrary to the pep talks of most economists & pols, this is not going to change. This means permanent recession for workers.
The
following is an emailed response to Scott Baker, Senior Editor at
Opednews, who submitted this response as an article a response to a
query about the NSA
 Best News Links from the Web
"We don't want animals in captivity or enclosed in any way," says Costa Rica's Environmental Minister.
"Whistleblowers, Journalists, and the New War Within" Video Now Online
'Video is now available online of the GAP sponsored presentation by thought leaders, whistleblowers and journalists. The event brought members of the press and public to the National Press Club in Washington, DC to participate in a very necessary discussion on the current state of US national security, the NSA surveillance program, and the future of whistleblowing and journalism in the United States of America. The first panel -- moderated by nationally syndicated columnist David Sirota -- focused on the stories of three NSA whistleblowers -- Thomas Drake, Bill Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe -- and one telecom whistleblower Babak Pasdar. They were joined by experts from the Cato Institute and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack. James Risen of the New York Times moderated the second panel ...'
House
Republicans' latest fiasco confirms the suspicion: The GOP loves the
Paul Ryan budget in theory, but even Republicans can't get it to work in
practice. The problem with Ryan's budget is that it works in
abstractions, and is never binding. And Republicans learned that, for
the sake of saving face while going back to their districts, the heavy
cuts projected in the Ryan budget just weren't workable.
Researchers
have brought next generation energy storage closer with an engineering
first -- a graphene-based device that is compact, yet lasts as long as a
conventional battery.
"Al
Qaeda is linked to a terror threat that has prompted the State
Department to close embassies in key Middle East nations, including
Egypt, as a precaution beginning Sunday, U.S. Rep. Ed Royce told CNN's
"New Day" on Friday."
The
company's war on bookstores and book culture is increasingly supported
by, yes, the Obama administration. This is an eye-opening story.
Amazon is spending a lot of money lobbying to get tax advantages, to
avoid state taxes, to make the playing field uneven so there it has an
advantage over brick and mortar book stores. It has a history of
making employees work in horrific conditions, even making them work in
heat so extreme they've had to keep ambulances on the ready. The word
"monopoly" is used in this article for good reason. And that's being
helped by the Obama administration big time, which uses Amazon as a PR
tool.
World changing technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air - The University of Nottingham
A
major new technology enables crops to 'feed' themselves by extracting
nitrogen from the air, eliminating the need for environmentally damaging
fertilizer.
Can
a woman effectively run the Federal Reserve? That shouldn't even be a
question. And Janet Yellen, the vice chairwoman of the Fed's Board of
Governors, isn't just up to the job; by any objective standard, she's
the best-qualified person in America to take over when Ben Bernanke
steps down as chairman.
Light completely stopped for a record-breaking minute
Using lasers and magnetic fields, the fastest thing in the universe, light, has been halted for a minute -- the time it takes to make 20 round-trips
There
just aren't as many "middle class jobs" as there used to be. In fact,
just six years ago there were about six million more full-time jobs in
our economy than there are right now. Those jobs are being replaced by
part-time jobs and temp jobs. The number one employer in America today
is Wal-Mart and the number two employer in America today is a temp
agency (Kelly Services) but you can't support a family on those kinds of
jobs. We live at a time when incomes are going down but the cost of
living just keeps going up - as a result, the middle class in America is
being absolutely shredded and the ranks of the poor are steadily
growing..
The Greatest Generation?
The Greatest Generation? by Howard Zinn I add by "the late Howard Zinn," for those who didn't know he died a few years ago. And I reiterate that if you didn't read his book, "A People's History of the United States," you really should, if you want a viable platform to speak from.
Sister
Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun and executive director of NETWORK, a
Catholic social justice lobby, testified to lawmakers about the
effectiveness of government subsidized welfare programs and
public-private partnerships with faith-based charities. not everyone at
the hearing was happy with Campbell's faith-based support for federal
programs that help the poor. Instead of focusing on how the government
can assist the millions of Americans who struggle to put food on the
table, Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) indicted Campbell and the Catholic Church
for not doing enough to fix poverty on their own, asking, "What is the
church doing wrong that they have to come to the government to get so
much help?"
Remember
the big dustup last summer over the contraception mandate in President
Obama's health reform initiative? It required companies with more than
50 employees to provide insurance, including for contraception, as part
of their employees' health care plans. The constitutional question was
whether employers with religious objections to providing coverage for
birth control could be forced to do so under the new law.
Michele
Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her
husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday
morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their
house to see if they were terrorists. Which prompts the question: How'd
the government know what they were Googling?
House
Republicans failed to pass an appropriations bill on Wednesday that
would have cut federal transportation spending by $4.4 billion, halting
their first attempt to implement the deep cuts to federal spending they
have campaigned on and supported in the past. Talking Points Memo"s
Brian Beulter called the collapse of the bill as the House breaks for
its August recess "the GOP's long-predicted comeuppance."
Newly
released documents include lots of black censorship bars and no real
clarity on the government's secret surveillance programs. The documents
were released before the start of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing
on the government's secret surveillance programs, details of which were
disclosed in documents published by The Guardian, a British newspaper,
showing that the United States has been vacuuming up data on every phone
call made by every American.
One
of the three women held captive and brutalized for years by Ariel
Castro in his Cleveland home told a spellbound courtroom on Thursday
that she would overcome all that has happened to her. "I spent 11 years
in hell," Michelle Knight told Castro at a hearing where he was
sentenced to life without parole. "Now, your hell is just beginning."
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