Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Whither The Economy? By Paul Craig Roberts The 5.3% unemployment rate is phony, because it does not count any discouraged workers, and there are millions of them. Indeed, the absence of jobs is the reason the labor force participation rate has continually declined, a contradiction to the alleged recovery. Read More >>

#BlackLivesMatter Hurts Democrats' Feelings By Glen Ford #BlackLivesMatter organization this week rejected the endorsement of the Democratic National Committee, embarrassing top members of the party. However, the DNC resolution was a perfectly logical outcome of the #BlackLivesMatter strategy to make no substantive demands of presidential candidates." No demands on power, no threat. Why not endorse? Read More >>

The Unplucked Eye: Sinister Machinations Behind Kentucky's Manufactured Martyr By Chris Floyd Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis swore an oath -- before God -- to "faithfully execute the duties of my office" when she took the post. These duties now include issuing same-sex marriage licenses, in line with the laws of Kentucky and the United States. If she now feels, upon her conscience, that she cannot do that, then she should simply resign her office. Read More >>

What Happened to the Moral Center of American Capitalism? By Robert Reich The Dodd-Frank bill was an attempt to rein in Wall Street, but Wall Street lobbyists have almost eviscerated that act and have been mercilessly attacking the regulations issued. Republicans have not even appropriated sufficient money to enforce the shards of the act that remain. The Glass-Steagall Act must be resurrected. There has to be a limit on the size of big banks. Read More >>

Scott Walker Is Trying to Save His Failing Campaign by Bashing Unions By John Nichols Walker's agenda, which was always based on economic fabulism, has been revealed as political fantasy as well. He has no story to tell from Wisconsin. His "reforms" did not work. His approval rating has fallen to 39 percent in statewide surveys, and 75 percent of Wisconsin Republicans tell pollsters they are not backing Walker for their party's 2016 nomination. Read More >>

A Deflategate Slapdown of NFL and MSM By Robert Parry To the surprise of the mainstream U.S. media, a federal judge threw out the NFL's Deflategate suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, citing an arbitrary and unfair process that should have been obvious to any independent observer from the start, writes Robert Parry. Read More >>

NYT Claims U.S. Abides by Cluster Bomb Treaty: The Exact Opposite of Reality By Glenn Greenwald As Americans, we should feel proud that our government, though refusing to sign the cluster ban treaty, has nonetheless "abided by its provisions" -- if not for the fact that this claim is totally false. The U.S. has long been and remains one of the world's most aggressive suppliers of cluster munitions, and has used those banned weapons itself in devastating ways. Read More >>

Intellectual Honesty and the absence of the Sacred By Carter stroud How ethics impact debates and choices of on-the-ground decisions Read More >>

Obama Defeats Netanyahu In Iran Accord Battle By James Wall In the same week that Prime Minister Netanyahu lost his battle with Obama, Israel received a second serious blow to its already sagging world image. A video of an Israel soldier trying to arrest a 12-year-old Palestinian boy with a cast on his arm during a protest, went viral. Read More >>

Map: How student poverty has increased since the Great Recession "What we're seeing is a huge spreading of poverty, but potentially more problematic is a deepening of poverty,"says Emma Brown, who reports a dramatic increase in student poverty rates and increased segregation of the poorest students since the "Great Recession" of 2008. Student poverty has increased most in the South and the MidWest. New Mexico saw a huge increase in student poverty, from half its students to 87%.The state th ... Read More >>

A Purpose For Education By Hal O'Leary We must first ask why we are educating before we consider how. Currently, the system is designed to meet the demands of Industry and a sick society. It should be to meet the student's need for personal fulfilment. Read More >>

New Books of Note: September 4, 2015 Edition By Anis Shivani I have been full of anticipation for this essential biography of one of the most colorful men of letters of the second half of the twentieth century: Vidal lived the kind of explosive, interconnected, indispensable literary life--without which the shape of American letters would have been different--that feels altogether extinct now. Read More >>

E-cigs: A way to quit smoking or new way to get hooked? By Bob Gaydos E-cigarettes are being marketed as a way to reduce the harm to longtime smokers. That may be true. But why also market an addictive product -- nicotine -- to those who have never smoked, who have suffered no harm? Read More >>

MSNBC Blows Hillary Clinton Exclusive Interview Hillary Clinton has only granted three national interviews since launching her presidential campaign, MSNBC got the latest one and completely wasted it by obsessing over Clinton's emails. MSNBC has been struggling in the ratings for years. They have been a rudderless network that is desperately looking for a direction. They landed an interview with the most well-known presidential candidate in either party and proceeded to blow the whole thing. C ... Read More >>

Time to Spread the Joy By Karen Davis Bird Flu, Animal Suffering, Rainforest Destruction, and Reversing the Trends Read More >>

New Yorker Magazine: "The Populists" Thomas E. Watson, the populist from Georgia who had a long and increasingly demagogic career in American politics, wrote in 1910:The scum of creation has been dumped on us. Some of our principal cities are more foreign than American. The most dangerous and corrupting hordes of the Old World have invaded us. The vice and crime which they have planted in our midst are sickening and terrifying. What brought these Goths and Vandals to our shores? The ... Read More >>

New Black Panthers documentary tells the story behind the berets Black Read More >>

Migrants Can Enter Austria and Germany, Official Says Thousands of migrants who have been bottled up in Hungary, demanding passage to the West, will be allowed into Austria and Germany, the Austrian chancellor said late Friday. Early Saturday, the first buses carrying them arrived at the Hungary-Austria border. The people in the encampment had hoped to travel by train to Austria and Germany, and the Hungarian authorities had let six trainloads of them through on Monday before closing off the station ... Read More >>

The Face of a Boy By Uri Avnery The Israel that presents itself to the world now is a state of occupiers, of oppressors, of brutal colonizers, of soldiers armed to the teeth who arrest people in the middle of the night and persecute them during the day. The terrified face of young Muhammad Tamimi may well haunt us for a long time to come. Read More >>

The GOP's Problem Is Not Donald Trump By David Corn Trump is tapping into a current that runs throughout the various strains of the GOP. It's a current of frustration, despair, anger, and yearning--a yearning for a time when the United States will not be confronted by difficult economic and national security challenges, and when you will not have to press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish. Read More >>

Reuters: Russia Says Syria's Assad Ready to Share Power Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is ready to hold snap parliamentary elections and could share power with a "healthy" opposition.  Russia, along with Iran, has been Assad's principle international ally in the war that has raged in Syria for four-and-a-half years and has claimed a quarter of a million lives.  Read More >>

Three more senators support Iran nuclear deal Three more Democratic senators announced their support Thursday for the Iran nuclear agreement, increasing the possibility the deal's supporters may be able to block a Senate vote on a resolution disapproving of the pact. The announcements by Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia bring the number of pro-deal senators to 37. President Obama needed 34 to prevent the Senate from overriding his ve ... Read More >>

Our Supposed Democracy By Steve Dustcircle Democracy is the assumption that people have a choice in the election process. While we Americans have choices to choose from, are these choices our own or the governments? Read More >>

Dramatic increase in concurrent droughts, heat waves: Researchers use unique statistical analysis to identify dual clima A team from UCI's Center for Hydrometeorology & Remote Sensing examined data gathered from ground sensors and gauges during a 50-year period beginning in 1960. Applying a statistical analysis to the half-century data set, the researchers observed a significant increase in concurrent droughts and heat waves.  Read More >>

'Despair of a Generation' as Violence Blocks Education for Millions Even sanctuaries of learning are not spared from the war and upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, where nearly 14 million children are prevented from attending school both within their home countries and as refugees, a devastating new report from UNICEF finds.Released Thursday, Education Under Fire (pdf) concludes that the school systems in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey are profo ... Read More >>

Policy Failures 'Permeated All Aspects' of Police Reponse in Ferguson: Report In the direct aftermath of Michael Brown's death in August 2014, police in Ferguson, Missouri displayed inconsistent leadership, used ineffective strategies to respond to protests, and failed to understand endemic problems within the community—among other shortcomings—according to a new report published Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department.The report, After-Action Assessment of the Police Response to the August 2014 Demon ... Read More >>

Egypt billionaire offers to buy island for refugees Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has offered to buy an island off Greece or Italy and develop it to help hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Syria and other conflicts. The telecoms tycoon first announced the initiative on Twitter. "Greece or Italy sell me an island, I'll call its independence and host the migrants and provide jobs for them building their new country." Those who took shelter would be treated as "human beings," he said. ... Read More >>

Venezuela Slams US Interference in Colombia Border Closure Case While Santos is planning to take Venezuela to the International Penal Court for alleged violations of Human Rights of Colombians in Venezuela and recent deportations of the undocumented Colombians, Maduro (in Beijing) asks Ban Ki-Moon for advisory to stop the flow of Colombians to Venezuela escaping Colombia's disastrous humanitarian situation. The RW press is blaming Maduro and his capital controls for the "economic disaster", the traders in Cuc ... Read More >>

Maintaining the veneer of a democracy By Dave Lefcourt The West is @ a crisis crossroad. First w/ colonialism & exploitation now w/ coups, assassinations, false flag events, wars, occupations, torture, the crisis is exacerbated. Syria, Ukraine, the refugee crisis in Europe, a direct result of war in Africa & the Middle East. And in America overseeing these horrors sits the president, the "unitary executive", the dictator in charge, where the "veneer" of democracy is maintained. Read More >>

 Latest Articles

TB-Diabetes is a formidable challenge in Asia Pacific When TB and diabetes co-morbidities are alarmingly high, then why do TB and diabetes programmes work in silos? Read More >>

New Silicone 3D Printing Technology Announced Silicone 3D printing might be coming soon. Read More >>

After years of neglect, growing attention to TB in children in Asia Pacific Tuberculosis in children have been neglected for far too long. It was only in recent years, childhood TB started getting its long overdue attention and WHO and partners came out with Childhood TB Roadmap in October 2013 to further galvanize response on all fronts. Dr Steve Graham, one of the lead experts involved in this process, speaks to CNS on the way forward! Read More >>

Future of War and Peace at Stake in Streets of Japan So why does Japan, of all places, have streets full of antiwar demonstrations for the first time since the U.S. war on Vietnam? I don't mean the usual protests in Okinawa of U.S. bases. I mean Japanese protests of the Japanese government. Why? Who did Japan bomb? And why do I say the future of war and peace in the world is at stake in Japan? Read More >>

We're at a Dangerous Climate Crossroads -- Here's How We Can Save the Planet Even that two degree Celsius benchmark might be not be enough to hold off environmental devastation on a scale we haven't seen in millennia. Two degrees Celsius warming is what the world's climate negotiators have decided is "possible" and "acceptable," but according to former NASA scientist James Hansen, even that little warming is a recipe for disaster. Time really is running out to save the planet. Read More >>

Music+Movement+Mantras=Magic: Shrink Session Sweat Therapy The truth is that we are using 'mantras' all the time: while we exercise and while we move through life. It isn't always a positive one. We have phrases and things that we repeat to ourselves all the time. It's just that more often than not, they are not the most supportive and loving phrases. So in this case, with my workout, we are CHOOSING them, so that you can develop the most loving, supportive voice possible. Read More >>

Say hello to China's new toys China's V-Day parade specifically celebrated "the 70th anniversary of China's victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression." None of Japan's TV networks -- NHK included -- showed the parade live. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, officially invited, snubbed it -- in line with the White House and what the State Department ordered the European minions. Read More >>

The rebellious spirit of Matthew Maguire's first Labor Day is spreading again across our country. Join the parade! Corporations view workers (now including white-collar professionals) not as assets, but as costs to be cut and then disposed of as soon as possible. Corporate greed has knocked down, held down, and stomped on so many workaday people that wage earners are realizing anew that their only hope is to organize. Read More >>

One Day Soon, That Drone Overhead May Be Pointing a Taser at You Drones are increasingly used for surveillance in the United States. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), which patrols almost half the Mexican border with drones, has loaned its drones to local agencies and other national agencies, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Drones were used 700 times for domestic surveillance between 2010 and 2012. Weaponized drones of any sort should be outlawed. Read More >>

Dangerous Redefinition of "Terrorism" "Terrorism" is a word of condemnation, referring to the coldblooded killing of civilians to advance a political cause. But U.S. pundits and officials have blurred its meaning to cover attacks on American soldiers in foreign lands, a word game that can contribute to more wars, writes Robert Parry. Read More >>

 Best News Links from the Web

Why You Hate Google's New Logo  Whenever a brand wants to freshen itself up, you start hearing talk about “clean lines,” as if a few gorgeous, old-fashioned letters were keeping us in the Dark Ages. Google’s new logo, announced and unveiled this week, is the latest victim. Its old logo’s typeface—reminiscent of literature, newspapers, printing—had a reassuring hint of history, paying its respects to what it had come to improve upon and replace. The letters’ literary old serifs were subtly authoritative: the sturdy, handsome “G,” the stately, appealing little “oo,” the typewriterish, lovable “g,” the elegant “l,” the thoughtful “e.”  Read More >>

Iran deal: Why did Bibi pick a futile fight in Washington? If Netanyahu and his advisors actually knew all along that Congress would not be able to block a presidential veto, their game seems far more cynical — throwing AIPAC into a battle it could not win, and putting the Jewish American community in the worst possible corner, forcing them to choose between a president most of them supported and the Israeli government. Not everybody handled the moment very well: Tablet published an editorial comparing the White House to white supremacists, for example. And all this – for what?  Read More >>

Unforgettable Night: Music in Memory I don't think I have ever linked to one of my own pieces, but making an exception here. Roots World may be the only place on the Internet where one can find authentic roots music from every culture on the planet. So this link serves as an introduction to Roots World and a means to tell the story of the Banyamulenge in a different fashion. "Rya Joro" means "Unforgettable Night" or "Bad Night." The video was created to remember what happened during the Gatumba massacre, but also makes mention of other massacres and displacements. All of the artists are Banyamulenge living in Kenya.Music, dance and poetry are among the most important parts of the Kinyarwanda culture. Viewers of “Rya Joro” will notice that the stories of massacres of the Banyamulenge people are told in epic fashion.   Read More >>

Lawmaker wants Conway to 'reject' Kim Davis Lawmaker wants Conway to 'reject' Kim Davis'The national controversy was inserted into Kentucky's tightly contested race for governor after Republican Matt Bevin said he "absolutely" supports Davis' actions, which resulted in a heated exchange between the clerk and gay couples seeking a marriage license this week.'  Read More >>

UPDATE: Guatemalan President Perez Molina Resigns During the presidential campaign of the Grl (R) Otto Perez Molina 4 years ago, one of his security guards shot a transit cop for giving parking instructions to his caravan. The candidate had to apologize in public and to cover the medical bills of the cop. Then the retired Grl. won the election on the promise of applying the iron-hand against the insecurity. Behind the curtain of respecting apparently the democratic laws and institutions, Molina's Govt. applied army's iron-hand to drive peasants resisting the foreign corporations occupying their land out. His VP Roxana Baldetti, who presented herself as the great sponsor of social programs, is the leading figure in this corruption scandal. People protesting demanded the Sep. 6 elections to be postponed so to reform the system, but Guatemala business community and the US Embassy opposed.  Read More >>

New Study Shows How Climate Change Is Already Reshaping The Earth A landmark study in the journal Nature documents an expansion of the world’s dry and semi-arid climate regions since 1950 — and attributes it to human-caused global warming.This expansion of the world’s dry zones is a basic prediction of climate science. The fact it is so broadly observable now means we must take seriously the current projections of widespread global Dust-Bowlification in the coming decades on our current CO2 emissions pathway — including the U.S.’s own breadbasket.The new study, “Significant anthropogenic-induced changes of climate classes since 1950,” looks at multiple datasets of monthly temperature and precipitation over time.   Read More >>

Santorum Mocks Liberals For Believing That Diversity Benefits America In a Tuesday appearance on Mickelson in the Morning, a popular Iowa radio show among conservatives, the former Pennsylvania senator recounted a debate he had had with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D).“We were asked a question by a student, what’s the greatest virtue of the United States of America? You know what Howard Dean said? Diversity.” Santorum incredulously noted as the host laughed.“But that’s what they believe!” Santorum continued. He later went on to criticize President Obama for accepting refugees who are persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Read More >>

Defiant Kentucky clerk remains jailed after rejecting deal The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed after refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples turned down a deal that would have allowed her to be released. Kim Davis was ordered to jail Thursday after a federal judge found her in contempt for refusal to issue marriage licenses. She stopped issuing marriage licenses — for all couples — after the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in June. She was elected to the post in November; her mother was the county clerk for nearly 40 years before her.  Read More >>

What Percentage of the U.S. Population is Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual? A survey released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports:"Based on the 2013 National Health Interview Survey data, 96.6% of adults identified as straight, 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identified as bisexual.  The remaining 1.1% of adults identified as “something else,” stated “I don’t know the answer,” or refused to provide an answer."  Read More >>

Edward Snowden Slams Hillary Clinton For Private Email Server Edward Snowden argues in an interview scheduled to air Friday that Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state jeopardized national security secrets, and calls Clinton’s claims to the contrary “completely ridiculous. When the unclassified systems of the United States government, which has a full-time information security staff, regularly gets hacked, the idea that someone keeping a private server in the renovated bathroom of a server farm in Colorado is more secure is completely ridiculous,” Snowden told Mehdi Hasan in an interview that will air Friday on the debut episode of UpFront, Hasan’s new weekly talk show on Al Jazeera English.  Read More >>

Humankind Has Halved the Number of Trees on the Planet The good news: there are over 3 trillion trees covering the Earth—that's far higher than the 4 billion estimated just two years ago, a team of international researchers has found.But here's the bad news: there were far more trees—46 percent more—before human civilization got hold, with an estimated 15 billion trees being lost own each year, with just 5 billion replanted.  Read More >>

Bernie Bias: The Mainstream Media Undermines Sanders at Every Turn The pattern:  ignore, downplay and mischaracterize Sanders' position.Not only has he met with hostility from his main opponent's chief surrogates, but that the media acquiesces and even colludes,  When analyzing the quantity and content of the vast majority of what is said and written about Sanders;one finds a running theme across the so-called liberal media on his campaign platform, and appearances,! The NYTimes has been called out by more than one analyst, for its complete lack of serious coverage of Bernie Sanders. In articles that address various aspects of the Democratic side of the primary, Sanders' ability to succeed is always described in doubtful terms. The media bias has been by omission by the vast majority of the mainstream media in not typically reporting on Sanders, especially on policy. Overall there is  a version of a “wall of silence!”   Read More >>

Kentucky clerk jailed over refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples A county clerk in Kentucky who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on her religious beliefs has been held in contempt of court and ordered to jail. US district judge David Bunning told Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis she would be jailed until she complied with his order to issue the licenses. Davis said “thank you” before she was led out of the courtroom by a US marshal. She was not in handcuffs.  Read More >>