Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday, 19 November 2014


 Daily Headlines
As Use Of GMO's Crops Glyphosate Rise So Do Critical Diseases

New reports that over 40 US agencies use undercover agents to entrap and spy on citizens, along with massive NSA spying and local police militarization, mean the US is not becoming a police state -- it is one, writes TCBH! journalist Dave Lindorff
Most interesting of all is that US shipyard workers would be building warships for a brutal and unforgiving monarchy that is known for making ISIS look like amateurs. Saudi Arabia is one of the last places on earth where capital punishment is a public spectacle - carried out in what is called Chop Chop Square in Riyadh.

A real alternative to deal with climate change and world pollution is a Global Environmental Standard for power plants, steel mills and other factories.
There are thousands, even tens of thousands of items in supermarkets. Most of them are highly processed, often un-nutritious or even dangerous and unhealthy. Some barely deserve to be called "food."
The point needs to be stressed. The status quo is not leading us where we need to go. At the level that matters most, even our "victories" are not winning the battle. We are losing at the level where, fundamentally, this battle is being fought. That's at the level of the spirit.
Statistics guru Nate Silver simply can't understand why every single legitimate poll indicated that Democrats should have gotten 4% more votes in the midterm elections than appeared in the final count.
In 2004, the CBC ran a TV series called "The Greatest Canadian." The show conducted national polling in the spirit of "American Idol" to identify the greatest Canadian in history.The winner: Tommy Douglas, who started Canada's first province-based single-payer health care system in 1962 Saskatchewan.The system was later adopted nationally. [not Wayne Gretsky, Alexander Graham Bell, Celin e Dion, Mike Myers or Michael J Fox]
There is some truth to Gruber's comment in that most people are ill-informed about major public policy issues, including health insurance. But when people do take the time to get informed, the media let them down badly. Stories even in the best of outlets, like the New York Times and National Public Radio, often present information in ways that are misleading and often meaningless to nearly all readers.
The ultra nationalist Ukrainian government is lobbying the US government through the nationalist UCCA for weapons, money, and to start asking for troops. This article shows why your Senator may not be electable if they go along with this.
This just happened -- while trying to figure out a colorful way to begin the story you're reading, I toggled to Twitter and saw a link to a short film by two Brooklyn directors who used a drone to film actors having sex. Their project, somewhere between art and porn, hovers on the R-rated margins of a thriving cultural movement in which artists of all stripes are exploring what it means to live in a state of surveillance.

There's no way to anticipate the emotional impact of leaving your home planet. You look down at Earth and realize: You're not on it. It's breathtaking. It's surreal. It's a "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" kind of feeling. But I've spent a total of 55 days in space, over the course of"
Over the last week, Lee County, North Carolina, residents have learned that Duke Energy plans to store coal ash in the five clay pits on property used by the former Cherokee Brick and Tile plant. Coal ash is the waste material left after coal is burned, and it can contain numerous toxic materials.
An analysis of the factual problems in the case against Oswald. These would have turned into legal problems. If Oswald had lived and gone to trial, the chain of custody of most of the items of evidence is so weak that the case would have probably been dismissed by the judge, simply because there was no reasonable basis for the case to proceed to a jury for verdict.
The human rights heroes we admire today were the surveilled villains of yesteryear. The real dregs of human history are not those who illegally opposed systems of oppression, but rather those who allowed such egregious systems to continue unchallenged.
By Richard Girard
The South's Gonna Lie Again
The re-emergence of Confederate thought and sentiment in the 21st Century is a carefully orchestrated piece of propaganda orchestrated over the last 150 years making Lee, Davis, and Jackson saints, and demonizing good men like James Longstreet. It is an immoral ploy, worthy of a look only due to it's growing success, beginning in the 1930's,and it's relation to todays oligarchs.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that President Barack Obama has the authority to act without Congress on immigration, and that when the president does so, he should do as much as possible to protect families. "I think when the president decides to do his executive order, he should go big," Reid told reporters at a press conference. "As big as he can."
Why is it that the mainstream media is so gung-ho about promoting war and military intervention, and so quick to silence antiwar voices? It's because we no longer have news in this country. We have infotainment. Infotainment lacks patriotism or humanism - it cares neither about the good of our nation or its people. It's instead exclusively about getting the most eyeballs, and bringing in the most dollars.
Al Sharpton owes millions in state and federal liens, according to a New York Times report out today about the activist and MSNBC host's finances. Sharpton owes more than $4.5 million and has "regularly sidestepped" his financial obligations, the report finds. His advocacy group National Action Network has not paid federal payroll taxes for years, and has "repeatedly failed" to pay money owed for travel and living arrangements.

Staffers from the ADL's Washington office and the Simon Wiesenthal Center rejected the Conyers amendment on the grounds that right-wing Ukrainian parties like Svoboda with documented records of racist extremism had "moderated their rhetoric." The Wiesenthal Center pointed to meetings between far-right political leaders in Ukraine and the Israeli embassy as evidence that groups like Svoboda had shed their extremism.
The US has no plans to humiliate Russia, but instead wants to subdue it, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that no one had ever succeeded in doing so -- and never will. The Russian leader said that history was not about to change, and that no one would manage to suppress the country.
For years, many journalists have busied themselves asking or trying to answer questions regarding the anticipated Third Intifada. Some did so in earnest, others misleadingly. But most of them, using a supercilious approach to understanding the Palestinian collective, failed to understand what an uprising is in the first place.
Legislation to keep most Americans' phone records out of government hands was defeated in the Senate on Tuesday, dooming at least for now the prospects of national security reforms that supporters said would protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens. A motion failed to get the necessary 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the bill sponsored by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., with most Republicans voting against.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday defeated a bill, 59 to 41, that would have approved the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, rebuffing a Democratic colleague, Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who had hoped to muscle the legislation through in advance of her uphill runoff election fight back home.
Palestinians all over East Jerusalem are subject to unrelenting occupation and persecution. But for American officials, the terror killings of four Jewish men in a West Jerusalem synagogue today is the one and only story. "Pure terror," as our secretary of state puts it. President Obama condemned the killings with not a word about the Palestinian experience
By Eugene Elander
Keystone XL: America Wins, Landrieu Loses!
The inspiring role of several Sioux tribes in opposing the dirty-oil Keystone XL pipeline going through their lands is contrasted with the despicable role of Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana in attempting to force the pipeline through the Senate in a probably-futile attempt to keep her seat. Now, President Obama should veto the next try at this unwise and unneeded project.
By Michael Roberts
Democratic Mid-Term Comedy Of Errors
The Rise of the Republican Right: Extremism Upsurge;Democrats Must Take A Cold Sober Look At The Party Or Lose The Presidency In 2016
By Kathy Malloy
In Peace and Insecurity
The events of the last several decades should be a clear demonstration that while we had a hand in creating the issue that divides the region, we have no power to affect a solution. And the events of the last 24 hours should be a clear indication that the divide between Palestine and Israel has never been greater.

 Latest Articles
The bilateral visit which was aimed at rebuilding investor confidence and attracting huge foreign investments had been a great success as Pak-China friendship has reached new heights of mutual co-operation and understanding.

Criticism of how Israel treats Palestinians has become a firing offense in some circles, including academia where professors must muzzle themselves or face accusations of anti-Semitism. In the case of Steven Salaita, Twitter posts about Gaza cost him his job, as Dennis J. Bernstein explores in an interview.
Who Says Ferguson Can't End Well
Just as a police officer in a heightened state of panic surrounded by the comfort of impunity will shoot an innocent person, the Governor of Missouri has declared a state of emergency preemptively, thus justifying violence in response to something that hasn't happened. Bombing Iraq in response to nonexistent weapons and Libya in response to nonexistent threats worked out so well, we may as well try it domestically.
If you want to know what's happened to the American economy, follow the money. That will lead you to the richest .01 percent. And if you want to know what's happened to our democracy, follow the richest .01 percent. They'll lead you to the politicians who have been selling our democracy.

No Anti-War Voices on TV -- Well, Sort of
Here's FAIR's excellent report on pro-war bias in the corporate media, and here's Peter Hart describing it well on Democracy Now.
Watch Schooling the World, Stop Schooling the World
We should have one eye on what our governments and billionaires are doing to educate the rest of the world with the way of thinking that we are beginning to question.
Countries representing over 85 percent of the world economy get together to (in theory) discuss some really heavy economic/financial issues, and virtually the only thing pitiful Western corporate media blabbers about is Russian President Vladimir Putin cutting an "isolated figure."

Text of a letter written by the author to President Obama (cc: various other officials) encouraging action to direct immediate release by all government agencies, most notably the CIA, of still withheld records pertaining to JFK's assassination.
Consequently the sanctions will remain and be intensified according to the House Committee on Financial Services. Meanwhile the Mossad is watching closely Iran's activities in Iraq, Syria and now Lebanon and has once more telegraphed its intentions to continue its serial violations of those countries sovereignty while implementing other projects in order to eliminate what it sees as Iran's threat to its existence.

 Best News Links from the Web
What On Earth Were They Thinking? Rachel Maddow On The Democratic Party
What On Earth Were They Thinking? Rachel Maddow On The Democratic Party. By now, if you don't realize there is no difference between the democrats and republicans, then this video was made for you. If you want comic relief, same. If you want to cry, don't watch it.
The Newsroom - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore...(Restricted language) - YouTube
Must viewing: Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) hits the nail straight on the head in the opening minutes on HBO's new series 'The Newsroom'. He is asked by a college student why America is the greatest country in the world. His answer is stellar and correct. [Disclosure: One of my favorite movies is "The Butcher's Wife.]
Joe Conason: Immigration, Impeachment and Insanity on the Republican Right
Like so many of the familiar accusations against the president, complaints that his executive orders on immigration are "Nixonian" or "lawless" lack merit. Such orders are well within the recognized authority of his office and considerably more conservative than the official conduct of some of his predecessors, such as George W. Bush--who issued about 100 more executive orders than Obama has done so far. With respect to constitutional principle--the camouflage favored by Obama's antagonists--their flexibility is telling. The separation of powers only matters when they say so.
Horace Meister: The "Mass Hysteria" at the U.S. Department of Education;by Diane Ravitch
IF TRUTH ABOUT THE EDUCATION ISSUES IS WHAT YOU SEEK , here from the Diane Ravitch site, is MUST READ ESSAY was written by Horace Meister, a young untenured scholar who cannot use his own name for fear of retribution. Read it and judge it by the evidence. This is what happens when policy is based on ideology, not evidence. He writes: " The power and reach of the federal Department of Education (DOE) has grown dramatically since 2009. The DOE has used Race to the Top and the controversial granting of waivers from the legal mandates of No Child Left Behind to force states to implement very specific policies. These policies include increasing the number of charter schools, evaluating teachers through value-added measures, and implementing the Common Core Standards and associated assessments. The DOE has also attempted to improve the "lowest-achieving schools" by closing them!READ...
Wyoming: Attorney General Says Parent Choice Is Illegal (for Opting Out); by Diane Ravitch
The Wyoming Attorney General issued an opinion that parents are not legally allowed to withdraw their children from state testing. They can do it in other states, but not in Wyoming. Wyoming does not believe that parents should control the education of their children. Wyoming believes that the state may compel parents and children to take exams that they believe are harmful to their children. Parents of Wyoming, don't let the Attorney General bully you. When you grew up, there was no annual testing. There were no harsh consequences attached to test scores. This is all nonsense. Stop it by your determination. Stand up for your children. In NY, the same plot unfolds: "Yesterday, despite the strong objections of tens of thousands of parents across the state, the New York Board of Regents agreed to make field testing of the Common Core testing mandatory." and the beat goes on...
Sen. Bernie Sanders went on CNN Monday and knocked down questions that were nothing but thinly disguised Republican talking points by using facts, truth, and the history of Republican obstruction. The pro-Republican talking points were obvious. The idea that President Obama and Democrats have been unwilling to compromise. The false notion that Obama's executive orders will poison the well and make it impossible for Republicans to pass an immigration bill. The whole mentality of Democrats lost so Republicans get to do whatever they want. These Republican talking points were all reflected in the questions that Sen. Sanders was asked.
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 21:40