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By Rob Kall
Obama's Latest Gaffe-- Further Signs of Weak, Failed Leadership ![]() we must face the reality that Barack Obama is a wimp, a smart guy, even a nice guy, who just doesn't have the spine to be as tough as the people of the United States and the rest of the world need. By paul craig roberts
In America The Rule Of Law Is Vacated ![]() The practice of sending heavily armed teams into American homes has resulted in many senseless murders of US citizens. The practice must be halted and SWAT teams disbanded. SWAT teams have murdered far more innocents than they have dangerous criminals. A country this utterly corrupt is certainly no "light unto the world." By David Swanson
Cheney's Kettle Logic
On "Morning Joe" on MSNBC on Thursday, the former Vice President claimed that the intelligence used to invade Iraq had been sound and accurate; the faulty intelligence was all Bill Clinton's fault; the invasion didn't do any damage but rather it was the Iraqis who damaged Iraq; and any invasion causes horrific things to happen, that just comes with the territory. By Sherwood Ross
Pentagon's New Slavery System Triggers Riots in Occupied States
Conveniently looking the other way, the Pentagon has allowed employment subcontractors to hire 70,000 support workers from Third World countries at substandard wages in conditions that resemble nothing so much as modern slavery. By Cenk Uygur
Is Obama Playing Rope-a-Dope?
Here was the headline on Yahoo tonight: Obama bows to Boehner on jobs speech By Bernard Starr
Advocacy For the Young Is the Best Advocacy For Seniors ![]() Senior advocacy organizations like AARP should place advocacy for younger generations at the top of their priorities---it is the economic well being of younger generations that will generate the tax revenues for maintaining senior By Andrew Steele
Libya, War, and the Individual World Order-- a call for Noncompliance ![]() Rebellion need not always come in the form of mutiny but in quiet resolve. A decision to not follow illegal orders, whether openly stated or secretly practiced, is more powerful than a bullet penetrating flesh. By Robert Reich
Obama's Jobs Plan: Will it be Policy Miniatures or Give em Hell?
At exactly the same time the President is laying out his jobs plan next Wednesday night, Republican presidential hopefuls will be holding their first big debate. The winner will be the one who comes off as the toughest fighter for average Americans. And the winner of the 2012 presidential election will be the person who comes off as the toughest fighter for average Americans. By John Grant
Return of the Malaise ![]() Harry Frankfort made the term "bullshit" acceptable and no other term can quite characterize the state of American politics at this juncture. It is deeper than it has ever been. It's a harbinger of even worse times to come. Cutting Soot: Fastest, Most Economical Way to Slow Global Warming? ![]() Mark Z. Jacobson, Ph.D., cited concerns that continued melting of sea ice above the Arctic Circle will be a tipping point for Earth's climate, a point of no return. That's because the ice, which reflects sunlight and heat back into space, would give way to darker water that absorbs heat and exacerbates warming. And there is no known way to make the sea refreeze in the short term. By Jack Flash
Cognitive Impairment and Belief ![]() Is religious belief a part of human nature, or is it acquired from our parents and culture. Do we really make the decision on what we believe? By Dan Lieberman
NATO Conquers Libya ![]() On the day its planes and drones attacked North African ground, NATO decided the outcome of the Libyan rebellion. By Leah Bolger
Why You Won't See Veterans For Peace on the Cover of TIME Magazine ![]() The mainstream media is a major force in keeping the U.S. war machine rolling by selectively reporting only feel-good stories. TIME magazine does this in a big way with their Aug 29, 2011 cover story written by right-wing author Joe Klein which celebrates Iraq and Afghanistan Vets of America (IAVA) calling them the "New Greatest Generation." Why doesn't TIME talk to anti-war veterans, like those in Veterans For Peace? Allan Lichtman: Never-Wrong Pundit Predicts 2012 Win for Obama ![]() Allan Lichtman, an American University professor who has gone 7-for-7 at predicting presidential elections since he developed his candidate-picking system roughly two decades ago says that based on the 13 criteria he has used to correctly forecast every presidential election since Ronald Reagan's re-election victory in 1984, Team Obama can rest easy. By Kathy Malloy
Dead Man Talking ![]() Cheney promised that "heads will explode all over Washington" as a result of his book, probably just another in a series of violent, bloody fantasies, but in reality the book seems to contain little new information, facts, or insights. It's just a mundane laundry list of revisionist history from the twisted and tormented psyche of a very sick man. Ari Berman: The GOP War on Voting ![]() In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council -- and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party -- 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process. Candidates Increasingly Connected to Supposedly Independent PACs - ProPublica ![]() It looks like most of the 2012 presidential hopefuls have one thing in common: They have close ties to the people who run some so-called Super PACs. By Dana Gabriel
Advancing U.S.-Canada Economic, Energy and Security Integration
Canada has already enacted many U.S. security measures. As part of a continental security perimeter arrangement, Canada could be forced to comply with any new U.S. requirements, regardless of the risks they may pose to privacy and civil liberties. A Venn Diagram for Rick Perry: Social Security Is Not a Ponzi Scheme ![]() When politicians make clearly false claims, reporters have an obligation to explain to readers why those claims are false--or at least quote someone who can. I would suggest political scientist Jonathan Bernstein: Obama requests joint session of Congress for Sept. 7 jobs speech ![]() President Obama has requested a joint session of Congress at 8 p.m. next Wednesday to lay out new jobs proposals aimed at boosting the economy. That would be the same night as a scheduled debate in California among the 2012 Republican presidential candidates. By David Swanson
Can Coffee Prevent Military Suicides? ![]() Ashley Joppa-Hagemann recounts her husband's struggles before he killed himself to avoid an eighth or ninth tour in the Iraq-Afghanistan Wars. By Robert Parry
In Libya, a Bloodbath Looms
The Orwellian hypocrisy of NATO's mission "to protect civilians" in Libya has now been encapsulated in a vow from a NATO-backed Libyan rebel who announced plans to crush the few towns still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi with the words, "sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood." By Bev Harris
New Report on Key Public Safeguards -- Who Can Vote -- Who Did Vote ![]() Are there any problems with the software design in the ES&S/Diebold ExpressPoll system? (You betcha.) As they say, humans err but a computer can REALLY mess things up. In absentee voting locations -- and over 25 states now have no-fault absentee voting -- inaccurate "who voted" lists offer a direct connection to vote stuffing for insiders willing to exploit the lists. ![]() Latest Articles
9-11 was a national job
This is a wider perspective on 9-11, starting with the widespead belief that the event was not brought about by Al Qaeda but Americans. The responsibility for the event, therefore, extends across the nation, not with a small coterie. Liberals & the Two Nation Theory
There is a media war going on this subject in Pakistan. The GMMR Project: Libya's achievement and NATO as war criminal party-pooper... ![]() September 1, 2011 is the twentieth anniversary of the celebrations marking the completion of Phase I of the Great Man-Made River Project, Libya's great achievement, and the world's largest water transfer civil engineering venture. NATO has bombed sections of the pipeline, therby destroying essential civilian infrastructure, which is a war crime. This Labor Day, remember animal shelters' unsung heroes
This Labor Day weekend, please give a thought to the brave people who pour their hearts and souls into helping animals at open-admission shelters. We can all make shelter workers' lives a little bit easier by having our animal companions spayed and neutered and always adopting homeless animals, rather than buying animals from breeders or pet stores. HR 2829 Targets Palestinian Statehood
Palestinian statehood LEADING FROM BEHIND ![]() During the eight years that Bush controlled the White House, Dick Cheney seemed more a shadow President than a Vice President particularly on matters of national security and foreign policy. Cheney's recently-published memoir, In My Life, reminds us of the toll taken on the ex-president's legacy resulting from Bush's willingness to make him perhaps the most powerful Vice President in history. Super Democracy and Supreme Imperatives ![]() We All Know the Problems - Now Where do We Focus Our Attention? Is there an underlying connection to all our problems? Yes - it's a dysfucntional economic/ monetary system. What do we do about it? In the final analysis money is a public system. In America we make public systems work for ALL people not just the ruling elite who run those systems. THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA) AND THE MORMON CHURCH (LDS): AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE ![]() In 1975 Senator Frank Church of Idaho was chair man of the Senate Intelligence Committee seeking to curb in the excessive domestic spying by NSA of Americanns. A FISA law was passed requiring NSA to seek special court warrant to spy on Americans. After 9/11 NSA welcomed President Bush's executive order telling NSA it didn't need to comply with the law. Today it seems to be working in harmony with the Mormon quest for empire ![]() Best News Links from the Web
WikiLeaks: Iraqi children in U.S. raid shot in head, U.N. says ![]() A U.S. diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi. Top firms pay CEOs more than they do in US taxes
Twenty-five of the best-paid chief executive officers in the United States earned more in salary and other compensation in 2010 than their companies' federal income tax expenses as disclosed in public filings, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies. The nonprofit group's report, released Wednesday, examined 100 publicly traded U.S. corporations with the highest-paid CEOs. It found that companies whose CEOs' compensation exceeded reported tax expense in 2010 had average global profits of $1.9 billion. What Nestlé's Water Win Means ![]() The farming industry poses the next big water challenge, if Nestlé's water win provides any indication. Per-Arne Malmqvist, scientific director at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), highlighted Nestlé's training program for 300,000 farmers as the main reason why it received the SIWI award, presented last week at World Water Week in Sweden. The think tank's annual award recognizes a corporation and a scientist for their water conservation efforts and research. "I think it's very important for a company like Nestlé to address water issues. Nestlé is dependent on water not only for their food and beverages, but also in their entire production supply chain." Over 25 million people are a part of the Vevey, Switzerland-based food giant's supply chain. According to the UN World Water Development Report, irrigation uses about 70% of all available fresh water. Do Ask, I'll Tell: Gay Parents and Back to School Time ![]() The Hello Kitty backpack is ready, as are the Justin Bieber notebook and the shiny purple pencil box freshly larded with Ticonderoga #2s. All that's left now is to pack the first lunch and saddle up for the first day of school drop-off, knowing that our simple presence will provide an education of its own. As the only two-dad family in an elementary school with almost 500 kids, we become the default face of same-sex parenting for some of the children and their caregivers. And that's OK -- when we filled out paperwork to adopt six years ago, we literally signed up for this. Unredacted WikiLeaks Cables Published ![]() WikiLeaks in recent days has faced criticism for publishing some of the cables without redacting the names of individuals, such as government informants, who theoretically could be jeopardized by publication of the information. In a statement Thursday, the Guardian said it "utterly rejects any suggestion that it is responsible for the release of the unedited cables." Why It Took Eleven Months Instead of Three Weeks to Show that Haiti's Cholera Is Nepalese: a Tale of Noble and Ignoble S ![]() It took nearly a year since the start of Haiti's cholera epidemic for scientists to get conclusive proof that the cholera bacteria in Haiti are identical to bacteria in Nepal. This should have taken at most a month. The reason the source of the cholera took so long to find is because scientists had until now not bothered to compare the cholera from Haiti to cholera from Nepal. Nepalese U.N. (MINUSTAH) troops brought the cholera into Haiti in October 2010. Might the reluctance to look in the right place have been due to a desire by some enterprising scientists to benefit from selling useless cholera vaccines that the U.N. would have purchased? State Elimnators in Kashmir - Shaukat ![]() The memory of the Serb atrocities is Bosnia is still been fresh in the minds of Kashmir's Muslims, while India's state eliminators have followed the same practice in Indian-occupied Kashmir. In 2008, a rights group reported unmarked graves in 55 villages across the northern regions of Baramulla, Bandipore and Handwara. Then researchers and other groups reported finding thousands of single and mass graves without markers. In this regard, in the last few years, rights groups discovered nearly 3,000 unnamed graves in the various districts of Kashmir. Public Debt, by Al Schumann of Stop Me Before I Vote Again ![]() When I was a young lefty, the ideal form of public debt, sometimes called national debt, was explained to me as labor contributed, today, in excess of immediate compensation, with deferred compensation down the line. In other words, it's not a threatening obligation. It's an investment. That's a simplification, but it makes a lot more sense than deficit terrorists' death-dealing Debt Bomb of Doom scenarios and the lazy Micawberisms of the sensible liberals. {See the 'Popular Culture' heading under Wilkins Micawber at Wiki.} AND {Pictured is Obama, by Martin Schoeller.} Your Tab, Sir (or Mam): From the CIA ![]() The Gulfstream IV's itinerary, as well as the $339,228.05 price tag for the journey, are among the details about shadowy CIA flights that have emerged in a small Upstate New York courthouse in a billing dispute between contractors. The court documents offer a rare glimpse of the costs and operations of the controversial program. Obama jobs speech request in limbo after Boehner pushback ![]() Within hours of Obama's request to deliver a joint economic address to Congress -- intended, on its surface, to promote bipartisanship -- the situation had devolved into Marx Brothers-style partisan political scrum that mingled the arcana of congressional procedure, presidential pride and the fate of Cheese-Heads everywhere. Matt Taibbi: GOP Hearts End-Times Insanity ![]() Michele Bachmann says Hurricane Irene is God's way of telling Washington that it is spending too much. For his part, Ron Paul says hurricane relief isn't the responsibility of the state and we should stop using tax dollars to rescue people. Ron Paul wants to abolish FEMA ![]() Move over, Federal Reserve. The latest opponent of Republican Congressman Ron Paul is FEMA. Even in the wake of Hurricane Irene, the presidential hopeful from Texas said this week that abolishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency could only help the country. The Sketchy Fundraising Apparatus of Rick Perry's Go-To Bundler ![]() What is George Seay III, Perry's Texas finance chair, hiding in his tangled web of politically oriented nonprofits? Earlier this month, George Seay III, the Texas finance chair for the presidential campaign of Gov. Rick Perry, found himself under scrutiny. Politico reported that Seay (pronounced "see"), the grandson of former Texas Gov. Bill Clements, had been soliciting Perry donations through his Dallas investment firm, Annandale Capital. Corporations are barred by law from donating directly to federal candidates or giving them in-kind gifts such as office space. It wasn't the first time that Seay's political activities seemed to have run afoul of campaign laws... Eric Cantor Voted Against Bill To Offset Disaster Relief In 2004 ![]() Some of the same voices demanding cuts in exchange for relief today balked at applying such fiscal restraints in the past. That list includes the most vocal champion of offsetting the costs of repairing the damage caused by Hurricane Irene, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting reveals subpar dam safety regulations ![]() An investigation released by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting last week revealed that Maine is violating its own laws by skipping regularly scheduled state-mandated inspections of nearly 100 hazardous dams. Of these, 24 have been classified by the state as having "high-hazard potential," meaning that mis-operation or failure could cause loss of life. The remaining are "significant hazard dams," meaning that failure could cause property or environmental damage. Records provided to the Maine Center by the Maine Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) said that many of these dams are two to seven years overdue for state-mandated inspection. Where Pay for Chief Executives Tops the Company Tax Burden
At least 25 top United States companies paid more to their chief executives in 2010 than they did to the federal government in taxes, according to a study released on Wednesday. "Ample evidence suggests that CEO's and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before -- at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people." Sabotage of the US Educational System, by Paolo Lionni ![]() Educational results far exceeded those of modern schools. One has only to read old debates in the Congressional Record or scan the books published in the 1800's to realize that our ancestors of a century ago commanded a use of the language far superior to our own. Students learned how to read not comic books, but the essays of Burke, Webster, Lincoln, Horace, Cicero. Their difficulties with grammar were overcome long before they graduated from school, and any review of a typical elementary school arithmetic textbook printed before 1910 shows dramatically that students were learning mathematical skills that few of our current high school graduates know anything about. The high school graduate of 1900 was an educated person, fluent in his language, history, and culture, possessing the skills he needed in order to succeed.
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