Bold and Daring: The Way Progressive News Should Be
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Henry Paulson and Charles Eisenstein both support CO2 reduction to mitigate climate change, but they are coming from very different places, with different ideas of how to go about reducing emissions, and different visions of our future.
We are not, as we thought when we entered Iraq, the omnipotent superpower able in a swift and brutal stroke to bend a people to our will. We are something else. Fools and murderers. Blinded by hubris. Faded relics of the Cold War. And now, in the final act of the play, we are crawling away. Our empire is dying.
By Samuel Vargo
Police brutality? Watch this YouTube video -- It's not meant for those with weak stomachs 
The Long Beach, Calif., police are justifying the severe beating of a man, saying there's more to the story than meets the eye. But after watching this YouTube torture for five minutes, most would click off the video after less than a minute of this sadistic bludgeoning.
Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice. In the police state being erected around us, the police and other government agents can probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.
Pregnant women who lived in close proximity to fields and farms where chemical pesticides were applied experienced a two-thirds increased risk of having a child with autism spectrum disorder or other developmental delay, a study by researchers has found. The study examined associations between specific classes of pesticides, including organophosphates, pyrethroids and carbamates, applied during the study participants' pregnancies and later diagnoses of autism and developmental delay in their offspring.
We thought that by loving guns, but hating abortion, by loving Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Allen West, while hating blacks, browns, immigrants, gays and the poor, the Republicans could not possibly move further to the right. It would be like learning the Titanic is sinking deeper.
Iraq poses no national security threat to the US. US war planners already got what they want. There's no reason to go back and cause more trouble, to restart the war, to tear the country apart, and to split it into pieces. The only reason to dissolve Iraq, is Israel. Israel does not want a unified Iraq. Israel does not want an Iraq that can stand on its own two feet.
The total number of people displaced from their homes by war and political persecution now exceeds 50 million, the highest number since World War II, according to a report issued Friday. The report was released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Half of all these displaced persons are children.
Former contractor for the US National Security Agency (NSA) Edward Snowden received a symbolic award for civic courage from the Humanist Union non-governmental organization. "Ex-NSA and CIA serviceman Edward Snowden, now residing in Russia, was awarded a Fritz Bauer Prize in Germany," head of the Humanist Union non-governmental organization Werner Koep-Kerstin said, Reuters reported. "Snowden showed outstanding civic courage by disclosing the practice of shadowing that violates human rights," Koep-Kerstin noted.
Manning is serving a 35-year prison sentence for sharing intelligence documents with the website WikiLeaks. The revelations have made news around the world, providing a glimpse into the US military's own assessments of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a glimpse at various US diplomatic efforts.
A testament to the change investigative reporting can bring to the world, often at great risk to those on the front lines.
I knew who he was, though the garments were the homespun style of 150 years ago. The voice was calm and reassuring--emitted from a sparsely whisker-fringed face, crowned with somewhat unruly hair. A long, thin nose, like the prow (not the rudder) of a boat parted expressive eyes--the left slightly larger, looking straight at one (or upon whatever it focused) while the right looked slightly right and downward and within.
Two things I thank God for. I made it to my sixties and I never worried about death prior to that.
Two years after he took refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says he fears for the safety of his family. Speaking at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, Assange said unspecified individuals had made threats against his children and his mother. He complained that he has been unable to see them in four years.
The latest sign of Detroit's decline came from the city's water department, when it said in March it would begin shutting off water for up to 3,000 homes and businesses a week in an attempt to stop the utility from sliding even further into debt. The announcement sparked outrage among activists groups, who say the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is going after the city's most vulnerable citizens to shore up its bottom line.
WATCH: John Oliver's Latest Epic Rant Hilariously Nails Dr. Oz and the Supplement Industry
Look, even John Oliver can admit that Dr. Oz is a terrifically good-looking man. "Any seat Dr. Oz is in is the hot seat," Oliver cracked about the TV huckster's turn being grilled last week in a Senate hearing about the dietary supplement industry.
A man with almost no hair on his body has grown a full head of it after a novel treatment. There is currently no cure or long-term treatment for alopecia universalis, the disease that left the 25-year-old patient bare of hair. This is the first reported case of a successful targeted treatment for the rare, highly visible disease. [Though the treatment was for a specific condition, alopecia universalis, not general baldness, it naturally attracted my attention.]
"Throughout history, aspiring Cassandras have regularly proclaimed that new waves of technological innovation would render huge numbers of workers idle, leading to all manner of economic, social and political disruption. ... The trick is not to protect old jobs, as the Luddites who endeavored to smash all machinery sought to do, but to create new ones. And since the invention of the wheel, that's what has occurred." (read more)
Israel launched multiple air strikes across Syria on Sunday in response to an attack on an Israeli defense contractor's vehicle in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on the Syria border.
By Franklin Lamb
Will ISIS Create al-Sham Caliphate & Liberate Palestine? Time will reveal if DAASH achieves one or both of its objectives. Many believe if they eject the Zionist regime from Palestine, the expanding Islamist group will set in motion historic currents that in all likelihood will be rather different from the Ehud Omert-Condeleeza Rice fantasy of "a New Middle East."
Brand, best known for his work as an actor, comedian, television personality and self-effacing Messiah, has become a high-profile poster boy for the disaffected with his anti-system rants and calls for revolution. When asked if he still wanted a revolution to take place, Brand, who has predicted a "peaceful, effortless, joyful revolution," said, "Yes."
By Eric Malone
Got a Match? I Think My Gas Tank Is Empty... Eric Malone reviews our recent history in Iraq in light of the horrifying events of the past few weeks and President Obama's decision to deploy "military advisers" in-country.
As of this weekend, there's a new New World Order on Earth and its enemy is the United States, the EU, the UN Security Council and the world's shadow government led by the IMF and WTO. This new alliance of poor countries wouldn't be much of a threat, except it includes two-thirds of the world's nations including China and India.
In north Texas, a family court judge ruled that two fathers cannot add their names to their own biological children's birth certificates. The legally married couple, Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs, each fathered one twin boy via surrogate--and they've even proved this with DNA tests.
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who spent five years as a Taliban prisoner of war before being released last month, has been discharged from a military hospital in Texas and will continue treatment as an outpatient, the Army said Sunday. Army spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Carol McClelland said Bergdahl's next phase of recovery, during which he'll continue to get medical care and undergo psychological treatment tailored for soldiers who have spent time in captivity, could last anywhere from a few days to a month.
Across the country, Republican legislatures -- encouraged and financed, as usual, by corporate money and right wing think tanks-- have undertaken a stunning array of initiatives designed to weaken unions and otherwise undermine American workers. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, along with several other Republican governors, has moved aggressively and conspicuously to disempower public sector unions. Nikki Haley, the Republican Governor of South Carolina, recently declared that unionized businesses are not welcome in South Carolina.
IF THERE is a God, he surely has a sense of humor. The career of Shimon Peres, who is about to finish his term as President of Israel, is clear evidence. Here is a life-long politician, who has never won an election. Here is the world-renowned Man of Peace, who has started several wars and never done anything for peace.
Anthropologists uncovered a series of mass graves filled with the human remains of immigrants stuffed into shopping and garbage bags in a county-owned section of a cemetery in South Texas. In those plots, they found the remains of multiple people instead of just one. Now, a local politician is calling for an inquiry.
Yesterday Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, "The US is seeking an Iraq under its hegemony & ruled by its stooges". Meanwhile Sec'y of State John Kerry mouthed, "The US would like the Iraqi people to find leadership that is prepared to represent all the people in Iraq that is prepared to be inclusive & share power". Need we guess which quote is the truth & which is propaganda?
By Tom Engelhardt
Laura Gottesdiener, Security vs. Securities I live in Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill neighborhood. I can more or less roll out of bed into the House of Representatives or the Senate; the majestic Library of Congress doubles as my local branch. (If you visit, spend a sunset on the steps of the library's Jefferson Building. Trust me.) You can't miss my place, three stories of brick painted Big Bird yellow. It's a charming little corner of the city. Latest Articles
Many thanks to that person who, that day years ago, forgot to put "1984" back on the bookshelf.
There is a family living close to us that has been almost wiped out by various forms of cancer. I found out that heavy-equipment operators working in the Pahrump area are or were made to wear radiation badges that had to be turned in twice a week. The man I spoke with who has now changed his vocation told us about this deadly phenomenon in Pahrump and it literally sent a chill up my spine.
The 300 Million-Immigrant Factor Facing America
We jumped from 194 million people to 300,000,000 (million) in 42 years. That same bill guarantees our country another 100 million immigrants within three decades; that's 30 years.
To get elected chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2009, Yukiya Amano agreed to carry water for the U.S. on the Iranian nuclear issue, a chore that he is continuing in a dispute over Iran's work on detonators, as Gareth Porter explains for Inter Press Service.
Ending Empire and the War Culture that Supports It are as Important as Confronting Wall Street
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When pressed on ABC's This Week for a solution to the problems in Iraq, former vice president Dick Cheney's Obama criticism fell apart as he couldn't come up with an answer. Former vice president Cheney's criticisms fell apart when pressed by ABC's Jon Karl for some real ideas about what the United States could be doing differently now. Cheney is stuck in the past and can't get over the fact that combat troops left Iraq, but instead of blaming Obama, he should be blaming his former boss for signing the agreement to leave Iraq. Does this scum have to die before we don't have to watch him propped in front of a microphone so he can spew his B.S.? I'd prefer to see him marched to prison where he belongs.
If you refer to www.teaparty.org/about-us/ you will find among the core beliefs, intrusive government must be stopped. This element of the Tea Party dogma is the basis for equating the mission of the Export-Import Bank (XMB), a government-sponsored credit provider as crony capitalism. In his article, Cantor and Crony Capitalism, Jared Bernstein points out that something like 60 countries have credit subsidy agencies to help boost exports. In labeling the activities of the XMB as crony capitalism the Tea Party turns a blind-eye to the export subsidy activities of these five dozen countries and fails to see the activities of Export-Import Bank as meeting competition in the 21st Century. This and other fragmented views of intrusive government, not supporting the labeling China as a currency manipulator, can only be lethal to American's Standard of Living in the 21st Century!
Some churches give away televisions or vacations. Others sell homemade pies and quilts. And some raffle off semiautomatic rifles. Ignite Church went with the last option. On Father's Day, June 15, the church at 710 S. Maiden Lane gave area fathers an opportunity to put their names in a hat to win one of two AR-15 rifles. Each father entering in the free raffle could submit a ticket for himself and was able to obtain tickets for each of his children who went to church with him. He also could get another ticket for bringing his own dad.
Israeli warplanes bombed a series of targets inside Syria early on Monday, the Israeli military said, in response to a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli teenager the previous day. In all, Israel said it struck nine military targets inside Syria, and "direct hits were confirmed."
Avaaz.org. The delicate balance of the planet's biosphere is tipping -- threatening all life on earth. Scientists are ca
Posted on June 12, 2014 by V.K. Durham Dear friends, The delicate balance of the planet's biosphere is tipping -- threatening all life on earth.Tipping points are a critical concept that many folks seem to overlook or be unaware of. If you took high school or college chemistry, you may recall "titrations," where you patiently (hopefully) wait for a color change for a clear liquid to turn pink (for example), waiting for the indication that the solution is "acidic" rather than neutral Ph.
A Job Seeker's Desperate Choice
This heartbreaking story unveils the plight that our Congress has created for our citizens. It begins On the morning of March 20, Shanesha Taylor had a job interview. It was for a good job, one that could support her three children, unlike the many positions she'd applied for that paid only $10 an hour. The interview, at an insurance agency in Scottsdale, Ariz., went well. "Walking out of the office, you know that little skip thing people do?" she said, clicking her heels together in a corny expression of glee. "I wanted to do that." Bu this story is ended by the system that our congress has created and it is the metaphor for the opportunities that our middle class no longer enjoys. Don't miss it.
Prosecutors Allege Scott Walker At Center Of Campaign Finance Criminal Conspiracy-by Paul Blumenthal
Prosecutors allege that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) was at the center of a criminal conspiracy to illegally coordinate the activities of independent conservative groups during recall elections in his state in 2011 and 2012, according to documents released Thursday and first reported on by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Prosecutors contend in the documents that Walker had direct knowledge that his top deputies R.J. Johnson and Deborah Jordahl were involved in the alleged illegal coordination between the Walker campaign and 12 conservative groups.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit is reviewing the case and is responsible for the release of the documents. Read the documents here:
Robert Scott was right by Jason Stanford, Behind Frenemy Lines
Texas journalist Jason Stanford says it is time to recognize one of the heroes of the Education Spring: former Texas Commissioner Robert Scott, who bluntly said that high-stakes testing had grown too powerful. He warned that Common Core was intended to create a national curriculum and testing system. He came under a lot of criticism at the time and had to step down, but he has been proven right. The movement against high-stakes testing continues to escalate, and the number of states dropping out of Common Core seems likely to increase. "Scott announced his resignation as Texas Education Commissioner but his public career effectively ended when he said that standardized testing had become a "perversion of its original intent." Testing was wagging the dog! Scott blamed testing companies and lobbyists that have "become not only a cottage industrybut a military-industrial complex."
Our Children and the Common Core - Letters to th editor, NYTimes
Lesson plans for any and all lessons began (until Common Core changed the paradigm) with MOTIVATION. No objective could be reached if the children were not interested, or worse , bored to death or frightened. This letter from a teacher addresses the truth and reveals the simple but deep flaw in the Core Curricula written ny non-educators. The writer is a fourth-grade teacher in the West Windsor-Plainsboro (N.J.) School District. "When I was getting my teacher certification in graduate school 20 years ago, student motivation and interest were deemed to be two important ingredients in successful learning. Reading your article, I realized that we have forgotten how student interest drives motivation.Students who feel that they are competent in a subject will be more motivated to work harder at learning new concepts in that subject. This has been an accepted precept in education
Iraq's Military Seen as Unlikely to Turn the Tide - By ALISSA J. RUBIN and MICHAEL R. GORDON NYTimes.
As Iraqi Army forces try to rally on the outskirts of Baghdad after two weeks of retreat, it has become increasingly clear to Western officials that the army will continue to suffer losses in its fight with Sunni militants and will not soon retake the ground it has ceded. Recent assessments by Western officials and military experts indicate that about a quarter of Iraq's military forces are "combat ineffective," its air force is minuscule, morale among troops is low and its leadership suffers from widespread corruption. As other nations consider whether to support military action in Iraq, their decision will hinge on the quality of Iraqi forces, which have proved far more ragged than expected given years of American training.In the face of that, some experts have declared the Iraqi Army a defeated force, posing a dire counterpoint to the hopes and assessments of American trainers...
'Best Execution' and Rebates for Brokers - NYTimes.com
THE BANKS ARE AT IT AGAIN, gaming the system. A recent groundbreaking study found that undetected insider trading occurs in a stunning one-fourth of public-company deals. Experts have long debated the pros and cons of high-frequency trading, another pervasive practice, but there is no doubt that it gives superfast traders the jump on others in trading stocks. And the very idea of trading on a public exchange, where stock prices and trading volumes are visible to all, is being eclipsed by private trading of public stocks in off-exchange venues, called dark pools, usually operated by banks.The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations recently held a hearing on "maker-taker" pricing in which stock exchanges pay rebates to brokers for sending them buy-and-sell orders. What is new is the compelling evidence that the rebates are corrupting.
Voter Exasperation With Washington - by Charles M. Blow; NYTimes
Americans' confidence in American leadership is flagging to such a degree that it poses a critical threat to our democracy, particularly as moneyed interests seek to manipulate the malaise and stir policy and politician away from principle and toward profit.As many Americans, particularly those in the middle, throw up their hands in disgust and walk away in dismay, hyperpartisans -- particularly conservatives -- exert more influence. According to a Pew Research Center report issued this month, while there are more moderates than consistent liberals or conservatives, those moderates are the least likely to be politically active. The ambivalent middle appears to be the cradle of apathy. And while the consistently liberal are more likely to do things like volunteer for a candidate or a campaign, consistent conservatives are much more likely than liberals to vote.
Confronting the threat of civil war in Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Baghdad on Monday to personally urge the Shiite-led government to give more power to political opponents before a Sunni insurgency seizes more control across the country and sweeps away hopes for lasting peace. The meeting scheduled between Kerry and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was not expected to be friendly, given that officials in Washington have floated suggestions that the Iraqi premier should resign as a necessary first step toward quelling the vicious uprising.
Emissions taxes are the Economics 101 solution to pollution problems; every economist I know would start cheering wildly if Congress voted in a clean, across-the-board carbon tax. But that isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future. A carbon tax may be the best thing we could do, but we won't actually do it.
The EPA proposal is results oriented and highly flexible. It proposes to set a target for each state based on that state's potential to reduce carbon pollution. This means that states can tailor their federal carbon-pollution plans to align with state priorities. It also means that everything a city does to cut pollution will help its state meet the target. Cities have the opportunity to adopt policies that help states achieve the proposed EPA carbon-pollution standards and prevent the worst effects of climate change.
The effects of Monsanto's RoundUp and its key ingredient glyphosate are becoming clearer with time as more research continues to be carried through. But even for years, scientists have suspected it of altering hormone and reproductive function. One of the most recent studies suggests it can impact testicular function in just eight days after exposure, meaning the need for precautions and interventions is an urgent one indeed. Research is beginning to catch up and show that RoundUp, its glyphosate, and its creator Monsanto, are all detrimental to our collective health.
The South Dakota Republican Party has passed a resolution that calls for the impeachment of President Obama. It is interesting that Republicans believe that getting tens of millions of Americans access to health insurance, freeing a prisoner of war, and trying to clean up the air we breathe are impeachable offenses. The Republican vision for America is a country where people lack health insurance, the air is unfit to breathe, and prisoners of war are left with their captors to die.
States Ranked by Gun Sense and Gun Violents/Deaths
Articles like this always brings them out. Enjoy the logic, dispute of facts, and just plain humor as you go through the comments. Meanwhile, facts are facts. Those states with more common sense laws have less gun violence than those who want to return to the old "Wild West" days. Twist it anyway you want, facts are facts. |
