Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday 22 October 2014


 Daily Headlines
Every taxpayer, business, and government agency in America is supposed to be able to pass a financial audit by the feds, every year. It's the law, so we do our duty. There's one exception: the Pentagon. It's high time the Defense Department fulfilled its commitment to account for every taxpayer dollar in its $555-billion budget.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she isn't running for president. At this rate, however, she may have to. Her weekend swing through Colorado, Minnesota and Iowa to rally the faithful displayed something no other potential contender for the 2016 presidential nomination, including Hillary Clinton, seems able to present: a message.
By John Whitehead
Hollow Justice and Courts of Order in an Age of Government-Sanctioned Tyranny
With every passing day, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice. This is especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is more concerned with protecting power than upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
By Eric Zuesse
Pew Finds: Conservatives Get Their News from Fox; Liberals Get Theirs Everywhere
Only five news-media have any significant impact.
You hear it all over the media and from politicians. Someone was "radicalized" from a good, normal American or European life to join al Qaeda or ISIS and do violent things. It's a misuse of the term radical. What they mean is to recruit someone to extremism. It gives radical thinking a bad name. Using myself as an example, here's how one responsible American was "radicalized."

According to a new report, the richest one percent have got their mitts on almost half the world's assets. Think that's the end of the story? Think again. This is only the beginning. What the researchers find is that global wealth has increased every year since 2008, and that personal wealth seems to be rising at the fastest rate ever recorded, much of it driven by strong equity markets. But the benefits of this growth have largely been channeled to those who are already affluent. While the restaurant workers in America struggled to achieve wages of $10 an hour for their labor, those invested in equities saw their wealth soar without lifting a finger. So it goes around the world.
The Fed is driving the markets. The whole "free market" trope is baloney. No one is loading up on stocks because they're a good deal or because they think the economy is going gangbusters. Investors are buying stocks because they still believe in the power of money.
The day may come when the cogs of the American Death Machine are brought into a courtroom and transformed back into human beings. It is imperative for this to happen. Because if it does not come to pass ... we shall continue to be ruled by -- and ourselves become -- monsters.
By Mike Malloy
No Accounts
The soon-to-be-released Senate report on the torture, kidnapping, illegal detention, and interrogation of Afghan citizens and others swept up and delivered to the CIA during the initial stages of Bush's "war on terror" does not even mention the responsibility of the Bush Administration in organizing, ordering, and carrying out these criminal activities.
Justice Is Served: Court Finally Overturns Marissa Alexander's 20 Year Sentence
The appellate court ruling erased a decision by a jury that took just 12 minutes to convict Marissa Alexander, a mother of three, of aggravated assault
It may be paranoid to allege that activists who challenge the cattle industry risk their lives, yet activist nun Sister Dorothy Stang was shot six times outside the town of Anapu, Brazil for doing exactly that. A rancher in Brazil's Amazon was sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering the killing.

The Obama administration has until early December to detail its reasons for withholding as many as 2,100 graphic photographs depicting US military torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge ordered on Tuesday. By 12 December, Justice Department attorneys will have to list, photograph by photograph, the government's rationale for keeping redacted versions of the photos unseen by the public, Judge Alvin Hellerstein instructed lawyers. But any actual release of the photographs will come after Hellerstein reviews the government's reasoning and issues another ruling in the protracted transparency case.
The truth can sometimes come from surprising places. Shepard Smith, a Fox News anchor, took a few minutes to give the REAL facts about Ebola this past week. His message was shared with thousands on YouTube as well.
Benjamin C. Bradlee, who presided over The Washington Post newsroom for 26 years and guided The Post's transformation into one of the world's leading newspapers, died Oct. 21 at his home in Washington of natural causes. He was 93. From the moment he took over The Post newsroom in 1965, Mr. Bradlee sought to create an important newspaper that would go far beyond the traditional model of a metropolitan daily. The most compelling story of Mr. Bradlee's tenure, almost certainly the one of greatest consequence, was Watergate, a political scandal touched off by The Post's reporting that ended in the only resignation of a president in U.S. history.
Toledo: Imagine Charter Rent Stirs Outrage; by Diane Ravitch
Here is an example of how the fraud of charter schools is perpetrated in OHIO. Ravitch asks: "Where have the state watchdogs been while Imagine Charters have profited handsomely with taxpayer dollars? Where has the media been!" The Toledo Blade reports: "The charter school Imagine School for the Arts is paying rent of nearly $1 million a year on a downtown building with the education funding it gets from the state!"The state of Ohio and its oversight have been asleep at the wheel. If you look at the Imagine schools and the annual rents, they are outrageous," said Brian Rothenberg, executive director of ProgressOhio in Columbus. "These for-profit management corporations have become profiteers! ProgressOhio receives union funding, as though that changes the facts. No, it does not. " And the state won't investigate!, Read on, because the fraud is coming to your school district...
Paralysed man Darek Fidyka walks again after pioneering surgery
Medical team regrow cells of patient's severed spine in breakthrough that offers hope to millions with injury caused paralysis. Professor Geoffrey Raisman, whose team at University College London's institute of neurology discovered the technique, said: "We believe that this procedure is the breakthrough which, as it is further developed, will result in a historic change in the currently hopeless outlook for people disabled by spinal cord injury."
SeePolitical demystifies confusing and detailed issues in short, entertaining animated video clips, so you actually understand what your vote means before you get to the polls. OEN interviews founder Nate Kaplan.

As a culture in transition, we need to be discovering and using new sources of energy. Our psyches also need to access new energy, So why not give the Cosmos a try? If you believe all humanity is really one, then that has to include the Earth's energy as well as our cosmic energies. The movement of the planets set up cosmic rhythms that affect us all. Work consciously with these energies and your psyche will bless you!
Note the eyes. They would tell exactly what they saw, wouldn't they? She had two children, this beautiful Lebanese-American woman. She was 30 years-old, hard-working and dedicated. Perhaps it was Napoleon who spoke about his Marshalls "marching towards the sound of the guns." She didn't need the advice. She followed the danger instinctively.

Muhammad was a champion of women far ahead of his time. In general, women recognized him as a prophet on their side.
Three security guards working for the private US contractor Blackwater have been found guilty of the manslaughter of a group of unarmed civilians at a crowded Baghdad traffic junction in one of the darkest incidents of the Iraq war. A fourth, Nicholas Slatten, was found guilty of one charge of first-degree murder. All face the likelihood of lengthy prison sentences after unanimous verdicts on separate weapons charges related to the incident. The Nisour Square massacre in 2007 left 17 people dead and 20 seriously injured.
The Kentucky Republican Party is offering volunteers all-expenses-paid trips to join Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign bus tour and "contribute to an enthusiastic atmosphere" at his events.Taylor Bumgardner, a Kentucky Republican Party regional political director, said "Senator McConnell is seeking volunteers to join him on a 3-day campaign bus tour around the state on October 20-22 to show our support for Kentucky coal. You would join local supporters in contributing to an enthusiastic atmosphere at each of his events."
Dallas: Coalition of Pastors Join to Defend Public Schools Against Defunding and Privatization; by Diane ravitch
Public SCHOOLS IN THE NEWS: Taking back our schools! "we must keep our attention upon the real and pressing -- and constitutionally mandated -- need for full funding for public education. Dabbling in political diversions that are peripheral to the adequate education of all the children of Texas is dangerous and foolhardy. This is not the time to divert funding away from our neighborhood schools, which provide a place of refuge and support for all Texas children, no matter their background, situation or educational need. More important, it is the loving thing to do." A coalition of pastors in Dallas has issued that stirring call for public support of public schools. This comes at a time when billionaire John Arnold has been organizing a campaign to turn Dallas into an all-charter district.
American detainee Jeffrey Fowle has been released from North Korea, nearly six months after he was taken into custody on charges of leaving a Bible in a nightclub, the State Department said Tuesday. Two other Americans who have been tried and convicted of crimes in North Korea are still being held.

Without a clear course of action to help Palestinians gain their freedom, the British vote will remain another symbolic gesture in a conflict in which military occupation, war, siege, death and destruction are very much real.
[Note: The following article is reprinted from issue No. 323, October 15, 2014, of Informations Ouvrières / Labor News, the weekly newspaper of the Independent Workers Party (POI) of France. It was written by a correspondent in Turkey.]
More information is available that suggests the the government had advance information that ebola was coming to the US and that the government expects a much larger outbreak of the disease in the US than it admits.
It's important that liberals talk about Republicans with pejoratives that attack their wealthy lifestyles.
By Robert Reich
Getting a Grip on Ebola
The real crisis is the hysteria over Ebola that's being fed by media outlets seeking sensationalism and politicians posturing for the midterm elections. That hysteria is causing us to lose our heads. Parents have pulled their children out of a middle school after learning the school's principal had traveled to Zambia. Are we planning to quarantine Dallas next?

 Latest Articles
There was no advance preparedness on what to do with the patient, there was no protocol, there was no system. The nurses were asked to call the Infectious Disease Department. The Infectious Disease Department did not have clear policies to provide either.

Our graduates carry a debt load of $1.2 trillion dollars while the cost of a college degree in the United States has increased "12 fold" over the past 30 years, far outpacing the price inflation of consumer goods, medical expenses and food.
These "trade" deals will, if passed by Congress and signed by the president, cement a corporate right to profits above the rights of citizens to pass laws to protect our health, environment, wages, working conditions and anything else we might decide to do to make our lives better. These trade agreements place corporate rights above national sovereignty, and they do this behind a veil of secrecy.
Here's a fairly typical image of a sort that constantly clogs up my FaceBook page. I take it to be the full and open expression of someone or some group's honest outlook. I don't think they'd identify themselves at the bottom as "Jesus, Republicans & Other Bullshit" if they were self-censoring.
Karen Greenberg: Will the U.S. Go to "War" Against Ebola?
As TomDispatch regular Karen Greenberg points out today, given an administration already on the ropes over its new war in the Middle East, it would be all too easy for U.S. officials, amid the usual panic, to fall back on that comfortable template of the post-9/11 years, the war on terror, when it comes to Ebola.
I would not have guessed that people cared so much and so well about U.S. prisoners. The Governor of Pennsylvania is expected to sign into law a dangerous precedent that we all need to speak out against and put a quick stop to.

Next month Obama must send a delegation to Geneva to appear before the "Committee Against Torture", the UN panel that monitors compliance w/ the UN treaty banning "cruel, inhuman & degrading treatment". The administration hasn't done so in the almost 6 yrs. of Obama's presidency. Anyway, where was the committee after the Abu Ghraib videos went viral on the Web in 2004? They clearly revealed the US was torturing detainees.

 Best News Links from the Web
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has been given five years in jail for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa also gave Pistorius a three-year suspended sentence for a firearms charge. The parents of Reeva Steenkamp told the BBC they were happy with the sentence and relieved the case was over. The defence said it expected Pistorius to serve about 10 months in prison. Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide but cleared of murder.

Some DAM Poet on Charters; Diane Ravitch
The Ravitch blog habits its own poet, who signs as "Some DAM Poet---Devalue Added Model." Do read this delightful poem about charter schools.: ""Imagine" (sincere apologies to John Lennon) it poses this future. Imagine charters in Ohio: Imagine no regulation It's easy if you try-- No tax below us -- Above us only $ky --Imagine all the charters --Living for today.-- Imagine there's no oversight-- It isn't hard to do-- Nothing to sweat or lie for-- And no inspections, too--- READ MORE... IT IS FUN AND SUCH SMART SATIRE!
Earth at risk after cuts close comet-spotting program, scientists warn
Astronomers sound alarm after closure of the Australian early-warning program that spotted the Siding Spring comet. "The comet that went past Mars, that was a southern hemisphere comet, it came from deep in the southern hemisphere's sky. The northern hemisphere would never have seen it." The task of searching the southern galactic plane was now left to "amateurs and enthusiasts" with a decent telescope in the backyard, Adams said.
A Senate committee and an outspoken U.S. Congressman are seeking further information about a deal under which a top National Security Agency official is being permitted to work part-time for a private company run by the spy agency's former director. The Senate Intelligence Committee has requested a copy of an "internal review" which NSA said last week it had opened into an arrangement under which Patrick Dowd, the spy agency's chief technical officer is being allowed up to 20 hours per week for IronNet Cybersecurity Inc, a venture created by retired Gen. Keith Alexander, who stepped down as NSA director in March.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 19:49