Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday, 3 November 2014


 Daily Headlines
How have the Koch brothers decided they can most effectively buy elections and advance their ultra-conservative agenda? By using non-ideological appeals to convince independent voters to support Republican candidates, even if these voters don't agree with the GOP's right-wing policies.

By carol wolman, MD
Fukushima mother's tweet
The Japanese people are living in denial of the radiation which is all around them. This woman talks about the conflicts and anguish which gives her "cancer of the heart". The two petitions will help those around her face reality.
A Republican Senate take-over victory on November 4th could be just the first blow to hopes for positive change, let alone retaining any progress made in recent years. Most analysts expect gridlock-- and that's the best hope-- one that may not be very realistic.

By Tom Engelhardt
Rebecca Solnit: The War Is Over (If You Want It), Feminism and Men
And here's what it all means: the winds of change have reached our largest weathervanes. The highest powers in the country have begun calling on men to take responsibility not only for their own conduct, but for that of the men around them, to be agents of change.
The EU High Commissioner for foreign affairs says the elections in Donetsk and Lugansk are an "obstacle to peace." Why does the EU hate democracy?

Sacco is perhaps best known for marrying his reporting with his graphic art to create serious and important nonfiction books about conflicts in places such as Palestine and Bosnia. And his graphic novels, especially "Palestine," have introduced a generation to the injustices and suffering inflicted on the Palestinians by Israel.
Dempsey, who played a key role in persuading Obama to launch the war in Iraq and Syria, had previously stated that he would not hesitate in recommending that US special operations troops be sent into action alongside Iraqi government forces if he felt they were needed, regardless of Obama's assurances to the contrary.
While it has been widely reported how the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling open the flood gates of money into politics through Super PACS and other means, what has been largely overlooked is the timing of the 2010 ruling.
Today, November 2, 2014, is the first annual International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
Why the world should applaud this act of democracy and courage against Ukrainian nationalism and chauvinism and take western democracies to task for supporting nationalists in the first place.
By Elayne Clift
Two Nobel Prizes, 65 Million Girls Absent From School
This year's Nobel Peace Prize winners have helped shine a light on the urgency of girls' education but millions still have no access. It's an important challenge.
By Craig K. Comstock
Taking PTSD Seriously
PTSD is being taken seriously by communities and by artists. Examples include a welcome home ceremony, a play, a potential movie. The syndrome is tough to deal with, but some methods show promise.

By Robert Reich
An Election Day Carol
The corruption brought on by the Supreme Court's decision in "Citizen's United versus Federal Election Commission," opened the floodgates to big money in elections. Unless that horrific case is reversed, elections -- and democracy -- will fall by the wayside.
Tim Cook's announcement has caused consternation - abroad. Can global corporate America survive?
Brittany Maynard, who became the public face of the controversial right-to-die movement over the last few weeks, ended her own life Saturday at her home in Portland, Oregon. She was 29.
The US Embassy in Abu Dhabi confirmed that Dr Robert Black, an architect and author who speaks at conferences around the world, is being held at Al Wathba prison. An embassy official recently visited Dr Black, who is diabetic, and has been in jail since October 21. The official told the family Dr Black is receiving medical care and has been assured "that he would be allowed to access his belongings either [Sunday] or [Monday] to purchase phone cards and other items from the prison commissary." Dr Black had been in Abu Dhabi for the second annual Creative Thinkers Conference. The night before he was arrested, the avid photographer told a colleague he wanted to shoot photos of local mosques.
Debby's addiction to benzos and alcohol lands her in a psych ward after she threatens to kill her parents if they take her two young sons--and tries to slash her wrists with a ballpoint pen. Matt ends up arrested after joining a Latin gang to avenge the death of his father who was also in a gang.
My personal account with hospitals in the UW, my subsequent seizure, Meningioma surgery, and Medicaid
The state of Utah is studying higher-than-average infant deaths in the oil and gas boomtown of Vernal, with some people pointing to pollution created by drilling. For some reason, thirteen infants died in this oil-booming basin last year. Was this spike a fluke? Bad luck? Or were these babies victims of air pollution fed by the nearly 12,000 oil and gas wells in one of the most energy-rich areas in the country?

Climate change is happening, it's almost entirely man's fault and limiting its impacts will require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero this century, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a report published Sunday. "Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the report's launch in Copenhagen. The report is meant to serve as a scientific roadmap for U.N. climate negotiations, which continue next month in Lima, Peru. The meeting will be the last major conference on the issue before a 2015 summit in Paris, where a global agreement on climate action is supposed to be adopted.
Obviously, corporate media is not interested in the truth or abuses of power, and now that the Koch brothers have successfully extended their influence into print journalism, newspapers are not only failing to keep watch at the abuse of power, they are working for, and in concert with, the conservative movement as dictated by the Koch brothers. What makes newspapers actions more despicable is that they are not owned by the Kochs, but they are using so-called "opinion and editorial" pages to promote Republican candidates, and push Kochs' ideology and vision for America as the country's salvation.
Will we ever see the Senate's 6,000 page report on CIA torture without someone leaking it? A leak always been the most likely resolution for the transparency-seeking public, but, in this case, it's increasingly looking like the only one. In a surprise to absolutely no one, the CIA has, for the fourth time, asked a federal court for more time to make a decision about releasing the torture report. The ACLU and journalist Jason Leopold have separately sued for the report's release, while the White House and Senate Intelligence Committee continue to haggle over what to redact and what to release since the committee voted it be declassified all the way back in April. While the Obama administration continues to say it wants the report released, their actions continue to show the opposite.
Big Money: Who Is Trying to Buy Control of Schools?; by Diane ravitch
IMPORTANT NEWS! The Network for Public Education has issued a BIG MONEY ALERT about efforts to swamp state and local school board races with outsize campaign contributions. The ALERT focuses on a handful of races where corporate reformers are using their vast financial resources to win control. Many of the biggest donors are out-of-state and have NO TIES TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS other than a desire to promote charter schools, high-stakes testing, and test-based evaluations of teachers.The race for state school superintendent in California has attracted the most corporate reform money. Marshall Tuck is the favorite of the billionaires and hedge fund managers. State superintendent Tom Torlakson is an educator with solid support among the state's teachers and administrators. Eli Broad's donated1,375,000; Walton $950,00:Bloomberg contributed $250,000; Robertson Foundation with $1,000,000...
Joni Ernst, if elected, will be a new incarnation of a US Senator: Don't like a law or its messenger? Why just use your weapon.

These arrived without my consulting a burning bush, or even having to leave the comfort of my home. People like rules. So here is a fresh set of commandments, a divine path for putting America on the straight and true.
Will the US elections make any difference to Palestinians in Gaza now suffering under their third Israeli military invasion in six years, each invasion funded by, and approved by, U.S. political leaders? The answer is no. When it comes to foreign policy it makes little difference which political party controls the Congress.
People should not be surprised when the grand jury fails to indict police officer Darren Wilson, because this is the predetermined outcome intended. And no one should be surprised when people protest in response to Officer Wilson's acquittal. This too is an intended consequence.
The Ebola crisis highlights the absurdity of pretending that a private, for-profit health system can do what a real public healthcare system must.
The Chickenshit Lobby, otherwise known as Israel's amen corner in the US, is mad as hell -- but just how mad are they? I don't know the answer to that question, but as the prospect of a peace agreement with Iran looms larger, those whose job it is to protect the President need to take this potential threat seriously. As we've seen recently, the White House isn't exactly an impregnable fortress.
Pro-Russian rebels elected a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday in a vote President Petro Poroshenko called "a farce".

 Latest Articles
A wake up call to wake up and VOTE!

Now you got to ask yourself, why are people eating fruit bats? Obviously, they're more nutritious than say eating at McDonalds, but still. McDonalds has a drive through and thousands of locations but remember you have to catch fruit bats yourself. These are hungry people; fruit bat isn't their first choice of entree. So, it's not so much an epidemic as it is a famine, instead of sending food, we're sending the military
I doubt that I vote well, though I certainly try. We should be given more written information re the candidates and the issues without having to laboriously explore the internet for such information.
Call to action to halt the looming TB-diabetes co-epidemic
People with diabetes have a three times greater risk of contracting TB than those without diabetes. People with TB have high rates of diabetes that often go undiagnosed.
Politicians often don't know about a problem -- never mind fix it -- unless people organize and make their feelings known. When you sign an online petition, send an email and especially donate to a cause, it can make a real difference. In the case of companies "renouncing their citizenship" in order to dodge their taxes, it really did work.

WHO launches new guidelines on management of latent TB infection
For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidelines on testing, treating and managing latent TB infection (LTBI) in individuals with high risk of developing the disease. These guidelines were launched today at the Global TB Symposium just before the start of the 45th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Barcelona.
Is it possible to parent nonviolently? Ana Joanes's new documentary follows three families as they try to parent without threat or coercion, yet with the general philosophy that everyone's needs (both their children's and their own) matter.

 Best News Links from the Web
Brittany Maynard fulfilled her final wish Saturday, purposely ending her own life on her own schedule, activists close to her family confirmed Sunday night. She was 29. She was diagnosed earlier this year with a fatal brain tumor -- told the cancer likely would kill her in six months. But she had no intention, she said, of allowing the disease to control how she lived, or how she died. Maynard had planned since spring -- a bittersweet stretch packed with "bucket list" moments, seizures and excruciating headaches -- to escape the final stages of her cancer on Saturday by drinking a lethal mixture of water, sedatives and respiratory-system depressants.

NYC Kids PAC Endorses Green Party; by Diane Ravitch
Vote for Public Education! A Message to New Yorkers NYC Kids PAC is a parent group formed to advocate for children's issues and endorses Howie Hawkins for Governor and Brian Jones as Lieutenant Governor on the Green Party Line. Why? Cuomo said he was determined to "break" our public school system, which he called "one of the only remaining public monopolies." He failed our children: slashed state aid for education, despite a court decision that found that our public schools underfunded. He pushed for more high-stakes testing, and for a teacher evaluation system based on test scores that will drive good teachers out of the profession. He has imposed a new requirement that any new charter school get space on demand, at city expense, while thousands of public school students sit in overcrowded classrooms,on waiting lists for Kg, or in trailers.It's time for someone to stand up for our kids
The Bank of Japan, this country's equivalent of the Federal Reserve, has lately been making a big effort to end deflation, which has afflicted Japan's economy for almost two decades. At first its efforts -- which involve printing a lot of money and, even more important, trying to assure investors that it will keep printing money until inflation reaches 2 percent -- seemed to be going well. But more recently the economy has lost momentum, and last week the bank announced new, even more aggressive monetary measures.

A Taliban suicide attack killed at least 55 people and left more than 120 wounded on Sunday at the main Pakistan-India border crossing. The bomber hit as crowds were leaving the Wagah border gate, near Lahore, after the daily "flag-lowering" ceremony. Live TV footage showed people drenched in blood and crying in pain as they were evacuated to hospitals.
Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda. on Saturday night Harakat Hazm surrendered military bases and weapons supplies to Jabhat al-Nusra, when the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria stormed villages they controlled in northern Idlib province.
There's evidence to support America's perception of who is and is not trustworthy. PunditFact, an offshoot of PolitiFact, has issued a report card on the truthfulness of broadcast pundits by network. Over 60 percent of Fox pundit statements have been found to be some flavor of false. CNN? Just 22 percent. Americans, for as much as they will say otherwise, really don't want to be informed so much as to be confirmed in their political biases. It's not that we can't handle the truth. It's that some of us prefer the lie.
Daniel S. Katz: Cuomo Declares War on Teachers and Public Education; by Diane Ravitch
Only days before the election, enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo unleashed a tirade against teachers and the very concept of public education. He vowed to make test-based evaluations tougher, so more teachers would be found ineffective and fired. And he denounced public education as a monopoly that he is determined to break. Daniel S. Katz of Seton Hall University reviews Cuomo's remarks and finds that he is dangerously misinformed. He is a threat to the future of public education in New York state. He is clearly unaware of the failure of test-based teacher evaluation. He has obviously never read the research that shows how this method produces incoherent results and is no better than a roll of the diceBut even more disturbing is his hostility to public education, which is one of the bedrock responsibilities of society. He sounds like a tight-wing
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 17:17