 Daily Headlines
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| The Mirage of the USA Freedom Act Protecting American's 4th Amendment Constitutional Rights
By Dave Lefcourt
President Obama just signed into law the USA Freedom Act essentially prohibiting the NSA from bulk collection of phone records whose storage now shifts to the phone companies. But it's just tweaking the NSA's more blatant excesses giving the "appearance" it is being brought under control by our politicos & making it "appear" they're doing something to protect American's 4th amendment constitutional rights. It's all a mirage.
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 | Our Lives in the Larder: Celebrating Another Defeat for Freedom
By Chris Floyd
The intense focus on some activities of the NSA occasioned by the Edward Snowden saga (coming soon to a multiplex near you) has totally obscured the dozens of other agencies and programs that feast on the corpse of privacy and keep our lives locked in their larders, ready to be devoured at their pleasure.
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 | America: Not the Home of the Brave, but of the Scared Shitless
By Thom Hartmann
At the same time as Rand Paul was hamming it up for the cameras last night, the Senate voted to take up the so-called USA Freedom Act. Passed by the House earlier in May, this bill would extend the three parts of the Patriot Act that expired at midnight and make a few minor changes to the NSA's mass surveillance program. Despite its nice-sounding name, the USA Freedom Act is really just more of the same.
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 | The South China Sea word war
By Pepe Escobar
There's no mistake Washington is allowing the remilitarization of Japan. So it's time to launch a South China/East China Sea Watch. As in monitoring them for any dangerous pretext for a casus belli between the declining hegemon and the no longer "keep a low profile" re-emerging power.
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 | American Horror Show
By Kathy Malloy
What a joke. We've come a long way since Candid Camera, and it ain't pretty. No wonder Americans keep voting a**holes into office -- we've been numbed and dumbed into idiotic stupors. I don't know what's worse -- that the billionaire Caesars at CBS think Americans will watch their manipulated, starved savages struggle with their dilemma on the televised coliseum, or the sad fact that they probably will.
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 | Swimming Left, into the Mainstream
By Bill Moyers
Despite pundits dismissing Sen. Bernie Sanders's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, he is drawing big and enthusiastic crowds who seem eager for ideas about rebuilding the middle class and ending plutocracy, as Bill Moyers and Michael Winship note.
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 | "95 Percent of the Consumers Outside the U.S." Only Half True
By Paola Casale
the 95 percent trade illusion that Paul Ryan has painted is a pretty picture, yet only half true. While it is true that Americans make up only 5 percent of the world's population, there is a big difference betweenconsumers and customers. This takes us back to Marketing 101. The term consumer and customer are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same entity. Consumers consume, or use products while customers actual
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| | The 5 Most Dangerous States to Live In (and 5 Safest)
In honor of June being National Safety Month, the personal finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of the safest places to live in the United States. The study quantifies safety by the amount of assaults per 100,000 residents, the amount of fatal work accidents per 100,000 employees, and the amount of people in the state without health insurance.
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| | Film: Costa Rica Abolished its Military, Never Regretted it
By David Swanson
The forthcoming film, A Bold Peace: Costa Rica's Path of Demilitarization, should be given every possible means of support and promotion. After all, it documents the blatant violation of laws of physics, human nature, and economics, as understood in the United States -- and the violators seem positively gleeful about it.
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 | Washington Politicizes Football
By Paul Craig Roberts
FIFA is a Swiss-based organization. Yet the arrests of FIFA officials is based on a Washington-initiated "investigation" by the FBI. By asserting the universality of US law, Washington is asserting the authority of its police and prosecutors over sovereign countries.
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 | Carl Hiaason - Jeb Bush's "high-stakes political weaseling"
Carl Hiaason is the master of Florida political prose. In this column from the Miami Herald. Hiaason points out that like HRC, Jeb is postponing an official announcement as a candidate. The delay allows him to raise much more than he could as a declared candidate. The candidates are revealing their fraudulent intent even before the primaries.
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 | How Bibi Alienated All His Jewish Allies at the White House
When David Axelrod, then a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, first learned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly had referred to him and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as "self-hating Jews," he remembers feeling stung. "For people to suggest that I would be anti-Israel or worse, anti-Semitic -- it hurts," Axelrod recalled of the 2009 episode. "The trust is gone on both sides; there's too much water under the bridge between those two leaders now," said interviewee Martin Indyk, who served as the administration's special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian peace in 2013 and 2014.
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 | A Palestinian's guide to Palestine
By Amer Zahr
You can observe how black Americans were treated in 1935, how black South Africans were treated in 1975, and how Indians were treated in 1905. Why would you read history books? You can just visit Palestine, the living museum of colonialism, oppression, and apartheid. It's like nowhere else the world. We look forward to your visit.
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 | Did Elizabeth Warren go too far this time?
Wall Street and the White House had a swift and furious reaction to Elizabeth Warren's blazing attack on Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White: Senator, you've gone too far. Defenders of White's tenure at the regulatory agency said Warren's 13-page letter attacking the SEC chair raised highly questionable points. Warren has been particularly critical of the SEC's granting of waivers allowing financial institutions to continue practicing certain lines of business after they admit wrongdoing, a system that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew defended last week.
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 | Martin O'Malley is Wall Street's "public enemy number one"
O'Malley became Wall Street's bête noire by taking a shot at the financial industry during his announcement. In that speech, O'Malley accused Wall Street of essentially trying to anoint Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) as nominees in the 2016 race. Fox Business Network correspondent Charles Gasparino said Wall Street fears this O'Malley effect could stop Clinton from doing "some of the things they want her to do like water down Dodd-Frank."
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 | When a School Board Victimizes Kids - NYTimes.com
The privatization of the school system has religious ramifications, especially when public money is channeled into private schools. School boards which favor the private schools over the public ones can have devastating effects on public education, destroying not only the schools but the chances of the children who go there. This is what's happening in Ramapo, NY.
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| Free Speech, Facebook and the NSA: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
By John Whitehead
Whatever recent victories we've enjoyed--the Second Circuit ruling declaring the NSA's metadata program to be illegal, Congress' inability to reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act, even the Supreme Court's recognition that free speech on the internet may be protected--amount to little in the face of the government's willful disregard of every constitutional safeguard put in place to protect us from government abuses.
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 | America's Epidemic of Unnecessary Care
Overkill: An avalanche of unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially. Millions of people get tests, drugs, and operations that won't make them better, may cause harm, and cost billions. What can we do about it? Bestselling author of "Being Mortal", surgeon, Dr. Atul Gawande, reports.
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Latest Articles
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 | NYT's New Propaganda on Syria
The New York Times' new conspiracy theory about Syria is that the Assad regime is in cahoots with the Islamic State, calling those two bitter foes only "nominal enemies" and using this new story to implicitly push for another U.S.-imposed "regime change," writes Robert Parry.
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 | Women Crossing the Korean Divide: Reflections and Resolutions
The absence of a peace treaty and the ongoing militarization of North and South Korea and other countries in northeast Asia are global threats. The international community and the UN which took part in the Korean War have a responsibility to close this tragic chapter in Cold War history. Thus, we will continue our efforts until a peace settlement is achieved in Korea for peace in northeast Asia and our world.
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 Best News Links from the Web
 | Forty Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation's jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the US, totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults. We are far and away the world leader in putting our own people in jail. Most of the people inside are poor and Black. Here are 40 reasons why "- - and there are more"-. One: It is not just about crime. Our jails and prisons have grown from holding about 500,000 people in 1980 to 2.2 million today. The fact is that crime rates have risen and fallen independently of our growing incarceration rates.
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| | Bernie Rails Against Bill That 'Threatens Everything You Care About'
With President Barack Obama "in overdrive" pushing his trade agenda and the House expected to take up so-called Fast Track authority "any day now," progressives are flooding Capitol Hill on Wednesday with phone calls and petitions expressing their opposition to corporate-friendly trade deals. Flanked by boxes holding upwards of two million petition signatures, elected officials including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) stood with labor, environmental, public health, and civil society groups outside the Capitol building, vowing to defeat Fast Track as the battle moves into what the AFSCME trade union called "a critical stage."
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 | Santorum's Clueless Pope Bashing Is Not Even Accurate
Santorum, who is Catholic, said he was a "huge fan" of the Pope but that he disagreed with his viewpoint on climate change. "The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists," he said. The thing that Santorum does not mention is that Pope Francis actually is a scientist. He has a Masters in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires.
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 | A Reminder: This Book "Why the Common Core is Psychologically and Cognitively Unsound." is Free for This Week Only,by D
Terry Marselle has written a research-based review of the Common Core standards. The title is: "Why the Common Core is Psychologically and Cognitively Unsound." His book is available on amazon for FREE on Kindle from June 1-5. Not to be confused with the Common Core itself -- which has absolutely no science behind it - this book screams research. If one is looking for a go-to, desk-check reference for literally every topic beneath the Common Core umbrella, this book comes close. Written in a reader-friendly kitchen table conversational style, Marselle's narrative delivers gobs of scientific evidence without the drudgery of jargon and coma-inducing explanations. On the contrary, an eBook with over 600 images and 700 hyperlinks? This has to be a first. There are even two executive summaries, 54 and 33 pages, respectively. What's not to like?
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 | Ed investment tax credit scrambles N.Y.'s priorities
Governor Cuomo's proposal for "Education Tax Credits" is a voucher plan with a different name, usually offered by rightwing Republicans, not Democrats who claim to be progressive.The rhetoric is about "parental choice," but the big beneficiaries would be wealthy donors to private and religious schools.For those who support private and parochial education systems, with a true spirit of generosity, we say good for them. But tax revenue shouldn't be diverted away from state coffers -- which is what tax credits end up doing -- so more money makes its way to private schools. One controversial part of the bill includes access to tax credits --75 percent of any gift up to $1 million -- for donors. The pool of money for the tax credits is limited; the dollars would be doled out on a first-served basis. Large corporations with fancy accounting firms can quickly grab the tax credits, ...
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 | Amazing! Atlanta TV Exposes ALEC; by Diane Ravitch
In Atlanta, local NBC channel 11 station did an expose of the secretive far-right group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC. Under the aegis of ALEC, Georgia legislators met in a posh resort with corporate lawyers to decide their priorities for the next session. Except for Bill Moyers on PBS Link when you go to the article) , this is a topic the mainstream media won't touch. For a thorough and chilling review of ALEC's plans to privatize education, see ALEC Exposed in this Ravitch post.. ALEC loves charters and vouchers, hates unions, loves profits.ALEC has model legislation, which legislators introduce into their states. It even has tax credit legislation, similar to the one that Governor Cuomo introduced in New York. It has already been adopted by several states to benefit private and religious schools.
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 | Indiana University Dean Agrees that Education in the State is Headed to "Disaster" Under Former Governor Daniels' Course
'Unless Indiana changes course, its public education system is headed for disaster. Already teacher shortages are being felt across the board, not just in traditional shortage areas;"wrote 'Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the College of Education at Indiana U. "Indiana's downward trend in education enrollments can be traced directly to the policies under then-Gov. Daniels and schools sup't Bennett. Between 2000 & 2012 constant-dollar teacher salaries in Indiana decreased by 10% outpaced nationally only by No. Carolina's 14%, :he wrong-headed Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability policies increased regulation of education schools and licensure requirements for teacher education students while lowering standards of preparation for nontraditional teacher prep programs; Equally flawed testing and test-based teacher evaluation policies have driven out experienced, effective teachers
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| Borowitz Satire: Bush Sorry Patriot Act Repealed Before He Could Read It
Just hours after the United States Senate voted to reverse key provisions of the Patriot Act, former President George W. Bush said that he regretted that the law had been partially repealed before he ever got a chance to read it. "I think they have it down at my Presidential library, so maybe one of these days I'll set aside some time and read it," he said, before adding, "Ha ha, who am I kidding? That's not gonna happen."
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