Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday, 24 September 2014


 Daily Headlines
There were alternatives. The U.S. and the international community could have contained and shrunk ISIS by cutting off its funds and its revenue from sale of oil on the black market. We could have looked to strike a deal with Syria and Iran. In foreign policy, the administration has failed.

covering capitalism, corporatism, Obama's suicidal pushing Russia towards China, and more.
The U.S. government likes international law when it serves Washington's purposes, but not when it constrains U.S. desires to use military force. Then, the rules are bent, ignored or subjected to novel lawyering, as President Obama is doing with airstrikes into Syria, reports Robert Parry.

The huge march in New York Sunday calling for climate action was big on numbers but tame on message. The sitdown near Wall Street the next day was militant and focused on Wall Street's key role in climate change. Together the two days' actions could signal the birth of a new movement to blunt capitalism's rapacious greed, writes TCBH's Dave LIndorff, and might even save the planet
t was just over a year ago that Obama officials were insisting that bombing and attacking Assad was a moral and strategic imperative. Instead, Obama is now bombing Assad's enemies while politely informing his regime of its targets in advance. It seems irrelevant on whom the U.S. wages war; what matters it that it be at war, always and forever.
Research by Amnesty International (AI) and the Omega Research Foundation has uncovered a "flourishing trade" in the "export of tools of torture by Chinese companies" which is fueling human rights violations worldwide.
If there is no pressure from the left, political debate will continue to shift ever rightward, just as it has under Bill Clinton and during Obama's first term. Without that pressure, important policy options will go unmentioned, depriving the public of the policy debate it needs and deserves. Primary challenges are a critical part of that effort.
Who is really running ISIL? Why are fighters from the Republic of Georgia and China now taking center stage in ISIL leadership? What are the real goals of ISIL?
President Obama not only has reversed his campaign pledge to bring greater transparency to the news business, he has acted to demolish one press freedom after another.
By Danny Schechter
The Quick Slide From Hope to Despair As War Returns--If It Ever Went Away
The bombing has begun changing the conversation away from climate change, argues News Dissector Danny Schechter
Sept. 27 is National Public Lands Day, an annual volunteer event hosted by the National Environmental Education Foundation, and which spotlights the environment and America's natural beauty. Entrance fees will be waived at many sites for both visitors and volunteers, who may also earn a fee-free day coupon that can be used for another visit at a national park during the next year.

ISIS Crisis - by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes
The rise of the Islamic State, also known and ISIS, is triggering some long overdue, brutally honest, soul-searching by Arabs and Muslims about how such a large, murderous Sunni death cult could have emerged in their midst. The Lebanese Shiite writer Hanin Ghaddar in an essay in August on Lebanon's Now website wrote: "To fight the I.S. and other radical groups, and to prevent the rise of new autocratic rulers, we need to assume responsibility for the collective failures that have produced all of these awful tyrants and fanatics. Our media and education systems are liable for the monster we helped create. ... We need to teach our children how to learn from our mistakes instead of how to master the art of denial. When our educators and journalists start to understand the significance of individual rights, and admit that we have failed to be citizens, then we can start hoping for freedom...
Meek and Mild Francis has finally proven that he's made of sterner stuff: his arrest of former papal nuncio Woslowski has taken time - but proves that Francis indeed has "zero tolerance" when it comes to child abuse cases in the clergy.

By Marguerite Chandler
Peace Imagined: The March
OEN member Marguerite Chandler's first person report of her experiences marching with fellow Quaker Nancy Strong captures the emotion and excitement of being part of the 9/21 Peoples Climate March in Manhattan. If you couldn't be there, you'll want to read this to get the inside view of what the marchers saw and felt.

"Activists are mounting their latest--and likely doomed--push to grant residents of the nation's capital more voice in their government."--Andrew Giambrone
The Air Force has instructed force support offices across the service to allow both enlisted members and officers to omit the words "So help me God" from enlistment and officer appointment oaths if an Airman chooses.
There is, however, a bigger, more important story that these tapes tell. They tell us of a debate we must have not only in the 2014 elections but for years to come. What is crystal clear from these tapes and from all the other evidence in terms of the money that Koch-backed groups are spending is that the Kochs now mostly control the Republican Party. Their speakers were some of the most powerful Republicans in the country: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; one of the frontrunners in the 2016 presidential race, Marco Rubio; candidates in four of the most important Senate races in the country, two of the most competitive gubernatorial races, and two of the closest House races; ....

By Robert Weiner
Democratic Messages to Avoid Wave Election: A Ten-point Plan
Most pundits believe Democrats will lose their majority in the Senate and suffer losses in the House in a "wave election." We've taken the liberty of developing a message to help Democrats with their own persuasive Ten Point Plan in 2014 to stem such a tide.
Sarah Darer Littman: The Gates Foundation as a Trojan Horse, Disabling Democracy
See how the insidious 'cult' of our oligarchs are taking over the education of our citizens, in this Ravitch post about what Sarah Darer Littman uncovered. "She writes about education issues in Connecticut and tells a shocking story here of power and money. The Hartford, Connecticut, schools are under mayoral control; the mayor appoints 5 of 9 members of the board of education. The other four are elected by the public. But the Board is bound by its bylaws to act as a whole. The five are not supposed to hold secret meetings to make policy. But that is exactly what happened. The mayor's five appointees met in secret with the Gates Foundation and charter school advocates. The Gates Foundation announced a $5 million grant in December 2012. "On 6-29-12, staff members of the Gates Foundation came to Hartford for a meeting. According to a memo ..." READ HOW OUR SCHOOLS ARE BEING subverted...
A dozen years after he ran his last political campaign, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is gearing up for a 2016 presidential bid -- a campaign that would open up a new front in the Republican Party's ongoing civil war. For all the GOP elite's eagerness to see another Bush presidency, there's scant evidence that American voters are ready to see any such thing. In head-to-head match-ups against likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bush performs worse than Tea Party favorites like Huckabee and Rand Paul (a candidate whose "independent" streak gives many donors discomfort), and barely outperforms Ted Cruz.

In an interview Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) admitted that the Republican plan is to win the Senate then begin work on taking health care away from the estimated 10.3 million people who have gotten coverage thanks to the ACA. Ryan wants to replace the ACA and Medicare/Medicaid with health vouchers. It doesn't matter to Republicans that millions of people have access to affordable healthcare that they didn't have before. It doesn't matter that the ACA is working.
NJ Gov Chris Christie likes to pretend he's a moderate, bipartisan straight-talker, but he's just as beholden to the Tea Party/Koch Brother agenda as any Republican. He governs a blue state, but his actions make it clear where his ideological allegiance lies. He repeatedly cuts pensions for public workers to "balance the budget" while refusing to raise taxes on the 1%. He attacks unions while pledging taxpayer-funded subsidies to massive corporate projects. He abuses his powers as governor to punish Democrats Against this backdrop, it's no surprise that Christie opposes efforts to combat the dire threat of climate change.
A GOP Senate? Calamity or opportunity? Well, that all depends upon just how the Democrats would be respond. Just remember the Chinese nugget on "crisis/opportunity."
Wisconsin "Militia" Promises Armed Intimidation of Recall Signers at the Voting Booth (Updated)
Wisconsin "Militia" Promises Armed Intimidation of Recall Signers at the Voting Booth.A Facebook group calling themselves the "Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia" is threatening armed intimidation of voters who signed the Scott Walker recall in 2012 who also have any outstanding warrants or tax defaults. The page claims "Our militia will watch polling places and report known felons and other people wanted by law enforcement. The police are looking for you, so are we." They boast: "Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia is a force that is armed. Do not approach our members by engaging in a physical hostile act because you are going to get put down like a rabid dog. We are going to be around neighborhoods that may be crime-filled. These areas are heavy democrat-voting areas because it is a result of a poor education.Wisconsin has been a conceal-carry state since 2011 and they can stand 3 ft. from...
Surveillance helps confine millions of Palestinians to their territorial ghettos, ensures their total dependence on Israel, and even forces some to serve as undercover go-betweens for Israel, buying land to help the settlements expand. Palestinians who resist risk jail or execution.

By Eugene Elander
Attacking Iraq and now Syria: It's deja vu all over again!
After analyzing the shortcomings of the new bombing of Iraq and Syria in a futile attempt to eliminate ISIS and other terror groups based in those countries, this article points out the tragic killings of innocent civilians and the creation of even more refugees through our misguided and ineffective new wars.
By Dave Lefcourt
"Made in America"
Yesterday US planes & missiles were launched on Islamic State targets officially expanding the war into Syria. Yet what is one to make of US military entanglement into Syria's civil war? Why & what are we doing? One thing is for sure; we have brought havoc to the Muslim world;all of it "Made in the USA". We hardly manufacture anything in America nowadays but "Made in America" is now our stoking the flames of war in the world.

 Latest Articles
Russia's Putin is none-too-happy about the airstrikes and has condemned the US for arming Syrian militants and forging ahead with the missile attacks without permission from his buddy Bashar Assad. Assad, for his part, has thus far remained silent on the matter, but has indicated his tacit approval.

Ebola to kill three and a half billion people within 20 months?
Get survivors of Ebola to donate blood to a a blood bank to save the rest of humanity.
Economist Paul Krugman's, comment explains what will happen, "When faith meets evidence, evidence doesn't stand a chance." And this is the culture media for willful ignorance to flourish.

Peter Van Buren: Back to the Future in Iraq
Former State Department whistleblower and TomDispatch regular Peter Van Buren spent his own time in Iraq and wrote We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People about it. Now, he considers the mind-boggling strangeness of Washington doing it all over again, this time as the grimmest of farces.
To both drug makers and those afflicted with insomnia, the barbiturate/Dalmane/Halcion/Ambien sagas reveal two overarching truths: there is a huge market/need for insomnia drugs and the drugs have fallen woefully short when it comes to dangerous side effects.

 Best News Links from the Web
Yet another set of ominous projections about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was released Tuesday, in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that gave worst- and best-case estimates for Liberia and Sierra Leone based on computer modeling. In the worst-case scenario, the two countries could have a total of 21,000 cases of Ebola by Sept. 30 and 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps spreading without effective methods to contain it. These figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported.

Outgoing President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday blamed the United States for Afghanistan's long war in a final swipe at the country that helped bring him to power 13 years ago but towards which he has become increasingly bitter. His farewell speech came days ahead of the swearing in of a new president, Ashraf Ghani. Karzai blamed both the United States and neighboring Pakistan for the continuing war with the Taliban-led insurgency and warned the new government to be "extra cautious in relations with the U.S. and the West."
Moving against tax avoidance by corporations, the Obama administration took several actions on Monday to curb inversion deals that allow companies to escape high US taxes by reincorporating abroad. President Barack Obama, who has sharply criticized inverting companies, said the Treasury Department's steps would "discourage companies from taking advantage of corporate inversions -- moving their tax residence overseas on paper to avoid paying their fair share in taxes here at home."
Israel shot down a Syrian warplane on Tuesday, saying the aircraft crossed the battle lines of Syria's civil war and flew over the Israeli-held Golan Heights, perhaps by accident. It was the first time in three decades that Israel had downed a Syrian warplane. Syria described the downing of the aircraft as an act of aggression.
Heirs to Rockefeller oil fortune divest from fossil fuels over climate change
Heirs to Standard Oil fortune join campaign that will withdraw a total of $50bn from fossil fuels, including from tar sands funds.The former vice-president, Al Gore, will present the divestment commitments to world leaders, making the case that investments in oil and coal have an uncertain future.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 18:34