Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday 21 November 2014


 Daily Headlines
The CIA is fighting congressional demands to release a report on its covert program for torturing "war on terror" suspects, even as the spy agency contemplates a reorganization that could give the covert-action side more ways to bend the truth, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

Economic and social science data show little need for concern about immigration reform.
The logic of escalation is on. The economically devastated EU is a joke; the only thing that counts for the US is NATO -- and the overwhelming majority of its members are in the bag, sharing the prevailing mood in Washington of treating Putin as if he were Milosevic, Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi. There are no signs whatsoever Team Obama is willing to de-escalate.

The White House's briefing to Democrats on immigration Thursday erupted instead into a confrontation over the Senate's classified torture report.
By Joan Brunwasser
A Soldier's Story
His mother contacted me and I heard the anguish in her voice. I thought of all the mothers who had watched their children go to war, all the mothers who just want what is best for their children. Of my father who was a soldier in WWII.. Of his two good high school friends who were killed on the beaches of Normandy. How I had been spared from going to Vietnam because I won a football scholarship to go to college.
increasing, expanding electrosmog, from phones, wifi, cell-towers, hybrid vehicles, computers-- are all changing the electromagnetic ecosystem. Katie Singer tells us how, including new approaches to dealing with autism.
President Obama Is giving the finger to the Republican-led congress tonight.
One of the biggest and most public corporate inversions last summer was the deal cut by Burger King to slash its tax bill by purchasing the Canadian company Tim Hortons and then "inverting" the American company to Canadian ownership. And Weiss was right there, working on Burger King's tax deal.
Dr. Margaret Flowers is on the front lines of the battle for net neutrality. She a medical doctor and an organizer of popularresistance.org which engaged last week in a series of direct actions at the FCC Headquarters in a last-minute call for true net neutrality. On Monday Flowers and a number of activists confronted the chairman of the FCC as he was coming out of his house to drive to work.
This article is about an important metaphor we can use right now in this difficult moment. It suggests a direct, grass roots based approach to dealing with the corrupt corporate hold on our governments at every level, and the article provides examples and links to important resources.
By Martin Hill
Free And Independent Media & Free Flow Of Information Key In Preventing Terrorism, Experts Proclaim In Annual Report
The Global Terrorism Index includes some important information about independent media in a free society.
By Thomas Riggins
Piketty for Progressives -- Part 5
Fifth part of a review of the introduction to Capital in the 21st Century.
Article provides supportive evidence that the grand plan is to bring anarchy to the Middle east and offers the footprint of US intervention in that area of the world.

Article seeks to distinguish the religious from the purely cultural aspects of the Christmas event celebratory in the non-sectarian and secular setting of the public schools.

Congressional climate wars were dominated Tuesday by the U.S. Senate, which spent the day debating, and ultimately failing to pass, a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. While all that was happening, and largely unnoticed, the House was busy doing what it does best: attacking science.
Some GOP lawmakers insisted Obama could face a flurry of legal action including impeachment proceedings, while others have urged the entire federal government be shut down if Obama goes through with his plan. Yet according to executives at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, Obama's address isn't worth covering.
By Bob Patterson
Student Protest at UCB
Photo Report on Student Protest at University of California Berkeley campus.
First, what the President did was legal. Second, what the President did has long precedent behind it. Third, Republicans don't care about facts or legality, so they planned on simply defunding Obama's executive actions while still funding the government but they found out today that they can't do that. It turns out they are not in charge of funding for immigration actions. Fourth: Republicans have told everyone that Obama should be impeached for doing something legal.

I enthusiastically support President Obama's new immigration initiative. It's a simple matter of human decency. So there are some difficult issues in immigration policy. I like to say that if you don't feel conflicted about these issues, there's something wrong with you. But one thing you shouldn't feel conflicted about is the proposition that we should offer decent treatment to children who are already here -- and are already Americans in every sense that matters. And that's what Mr. Obama's initiative is about.
At a crucial juncture, many Americans remain misinformed or jaded with respect to the Affordable Care Act. What is it that causes so much passion on both sides of the isle, when so few seem to actually understand the actual purpose of the policy? I can speak from personal experience where health-care reform could have drastically changed the course of my life as a young child.
We are thrilled and honored to announce that just hours ago, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Brady's 2013 ruling overturning Albert's conviction for a third time in a 3-0, unanimous decision. Though the courts have finally ruled in the interest of justice, it may still be months or years before this innocent man is released from his solitary cell. This is THE moment those of us whose lives have been touched by these men and this case over the years have been waiting for. This is the time when we must call upon the whole of our connections, creativity, and courage to call with one voice for the immediate, unequivocal release of Albert Woodfox from prison once and for all without delay. Even with a unanimous decision in Albert's favor, firmly planted in a mountain of innocence evidence, the State can still tie up his release in a number of appeals and even choose to...
A much needed speech announcing an executive order due to the failure of Congress to deal with the problem of illegal immigration.
It's long overdue but better late than never that Europe might just be back-pedalling on America's aggressive agenda towards Russia. The business-like visit to Moscow this week by Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggests that Europe can come to its senses to seek a diplomatic resolution of the escalating tensions over the Ukraine crisis -- tensions that could spark a wider continental war, or worse. Steinmeier met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in which the pair stressed the need to find a political end to the violence in Ukraine. The German diplomat -- the first high-level European envoy to Moscow in several months -- also talked about normalizing relations between his country and Russia and of finding a way to rescind the economic sanctions that Brussels has imposed on Moscow over recent months.
House Republicans filed a long-threatened lawsuit Friday against the Obama administration over unilateral actions on the health care law that they say are abuses of the president's executive authority. The lawsuit -- filed against the secretaries of the Health and Human Services and Treasury Departments -- focuses on two crucial aspects of the way the administration has put the Affordable Care Act into effect.
By Kathy Malloy
Sons of Anarchy
The Right-wingers are collectively freaking out over Obama's forthcoming immigration plan, which he will announce in a (selectively) televised speech tonight. The lies and distortions from the detractors are flying fast and furious.
Official Washington's "group think" on Syria and Ukraine is so delusional that it is putting the whole world in danger, but -- as with the Iraq War -- the major U.S. news media is part of the problem, not part of any solution, writes Robert Parry.
By Bob Burnett
Five Lessons From the Midterm Elections
Democrats got shellacked on November 4th. Republicans gained at least 8 Senate seats, 12 House seats, and 3 governorships. Democratic partisans spread the blame around: President Obama, Party leaders, lethargic blue voters, and a hostile media. Nonetheless, there are five elementary lessons to be learned from the debacle.
By Michael Roberts
Throwing Down The Gauntlet On Immigration
5 Million People Impacted; Felons To Be Deported and Relief For Immigrant Families
There is no excusing the brutal killing of innocent Israeli Jews in Jerusalem on Tuesday by two Palestinian cousins. But when Palestinian's are brutalized for decades by a brutal Israeli occupier such revenge type killings will occur. The facts are these: It is the pivotal role taken by the US & its unequivocal support of Israel's apartheid rule, policies & actions that create the revenge type killing of Israeli Jews.

 Latest Articles
"let he who is without sin, cast the first stone!"?

Know the Enemy: The Koch Brothers (BOOK REVIEW)
Military strategists have long been told to know the enemy. For understandable reasons, progressives and liberals should also know the enemy -- the Koch brothers. Charles Koch and David Koch are highly competitive and very combative in promoting their libertarian ideas -- and rich. Charles Koch is the mastermind. Daniel Schulman of MOTHER JONES magazine has profiled them in his enlightening book about the Koch family.
'Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.' Martin Luther King, Jr.

Triangulating the Base
Opinion piece on the aftermath of the 2014 midterm elections, and how we got there.
A review of the Egon Schiele exhibit of portraits at the Neue Galerie in New York City, with an interview by the show's curator Alessandra Comini.

 Best News Links from the Web
It is unclear if some Democrats are suffering an internal conflict of, and search for, identity because, as the recent midterms demonstrated, a lot of them cannot come to grips with how to express their political affiliation. One would like to think that as Democrats, they would at least make a nominal effort to delineate themselves from Republicans or, dog forbid, at least tell voters the truth. It may have been Democrat Howard Dean who said not long ago that if given a choice between voting for a Republican, or a Republican-lite, voters of both parties will always opt for the real Republican; because they cannot trust a Democrat pandering for votes as a Republican. It is a lesson Senator Mary Landrieu, and soon-to-be-former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, would do well to heed. Landrieu is a DINO and this showing of lack of spine should be a landslide loss for her

Wall Street is Taking Over America's Pension Plans - ; by MURTAZA HUSSAIN, The Intercept
If you are counting on your pension as retirement income, you must read this article.Wall Street insiders, it says, pumped $300 million into the last election. In return, they get to invest your pension funds. Some of those investments are very risky. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island all recently elected governors who were previously executives and directors at firms which managed investments on behalf of state pension funds. These firms are now, consequently, in position to obtain even more of these public funds. But Wall Street's agenda goes beyond any one election cycle. It has been fighting to turn public pensions into private profits for quite some time, steering retirement nest eggs into investments that are complex, charge hefty fees, and that generate big profits for management firms. And it has been succeeding. Of the $3 trillion in public assets currently in pension fu
Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb became the first person from either major party to officially launch a presidential exploratory committee to consider running for president in 2016. Webb announced the exploratory committee Wednesday in a 14-minute online video in which he touts his military background and explains his motivations for considering a White House bid. Webb, a Democrat, would seek the Democratic nomination for President, likely facing off against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is widely expected to announce her candidacy in the coming months.

A second band of lake-effect snow pounded cities and towns near Buffalo, New York, early Thursday, piling more misery on communities already paralyzed by a 5-foot blanket of snow. Authorities confirmed an eighth death blamed on the storm. The Buffalo area was buried under as much as 5-1/2 feet of snow Wednesday. Two additional feet were expected in some areas during the day, topping off with another 5 to 8 inches on Thursday night.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 21:06