Via Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The NDAA lawsuit is one of the key topics we have written about over the past year or so. For those of you that aren’t up to speed, one of the most popular posts we ever wrote was NDAA: The Most Important Lawsuit in American History that No One is Talking About. Basically, Section 1021 of the NDAA allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charges or a trial. Journalist Chris Hedges and several others sued Obama on the grounds of it being unconstitutional. Judge Katherine Forrest agreed and issued an injunction on it. This was immediately appealed by the Obama Administration to a higher court, which promptly issued a temporary stay on the injunction.

Yesterday, oral arguments began in front of this aforementioned higher court; the 2nd Circuit. As Chris Hedges states in the interview below, if they win the case then it will likely be brought in front of the Supreme Court within weeks. On the other hand, if the Obama Administration wins and the Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeal, Hedges states: “at that point we’ve just become a military dictatorship.”

To get a full update on the progress of the NDAA lawsuit make sure to watch this video.

Six years ago today, with the S&P 500 around 1460 – having risen 20% without a correction for seven months – a handful of Wall Street’s best and brightest joined CNBC’s Larry Kudlow and Bob Pisani to discuss the Goldilocks economy, why the bears are wrong, and where the market is going next. Sometimes, we just need a reminder to snap us out of that recency bias… for example, Bob Pisani: “We have got a global rally going on… and the important thing is… there’s a floor to the market – every time, for the last seven months, they sell the market down for 2 days, it comes right back.”

Ralph Acampora: “I’m bullish, but I don’t think I am bullish enough…there’s new leadership”

Larry Kudlow: “Goldilocks kicks some more butt and the bears of the last four years are wrong… as they climb the ‘wall of worry'”

Bob Pisani: “Transports have been rallying – as the disaster that the bears keep talking about hasn’t happened… When you are in a global expansion like this, to sell…is foolish.”

and our favorite:

Bob Pisani: “People who keep talking about this real estate bubble don’t understand… there are 3 things that bring down real estate markets: 1) the economy falls apart, 2) liquidity is withdrawn, and 3) supply overwhelming market – NONE of that has happened.”

From Rodrigo Serrano of Rational Capitalist Speculator,

This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week. It is not geared to push an agenda. Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases.

Bull:

+ The service sector, which accounts for almost 80% of the U.S. economy, remains in growth mode.  The Institute of Supply Management’s Non-Manufacturing survey reports a healthy 55.2 composite reading and an extremely bullish Employment subindicator of 57.5, its strongest reading since February 2006.  Furthermore, Export New Orders crossed into expansion territory and imply improving global trade conditions.  Indeed, today’s U.S. International Trade report “suggests exports – a key engine of the U.S. recovery – are finding their footing after stalling last year…”

+ The global expansion thesis is further boosted by Singaporean manufacturing ending its spell of contraction, German Factory Orders showing signs of bottoming (mirroring improvement in recent Ifo surveys), and Japanese Machinery Orders increasing for the 3rd consecutive month. 

+ The bears have severely erred on their assumption that China wouldn’t be able to execute a soft landing.  In addition to improving manufacturing surveys, HSBC’s Services PMI survey is now solidly in expansion territory, notching a reading of 54 from 51.7 in December.  China is in position to lead the global recovery again.

+ The U.S. consumer remains quite resilient.  Chain Store sales surge the most since September 2011 and are much better than expected, while Gallup’s Consumer Spending report shows a 4-week average YoY gain of almost 30%.

+ Fed officials are optimistic that a positive wealth effect has taken hold and Q4 GDP numbers reflect only a transitory blip (due to weather-related events) towards continued recovery (Q4 GDP will be positive when the second revision is published).  Rising home values as well as gains in U.S. stock markets have improved consumer psychology.  Furthermore, investors can take solace that the FOMC won’t be backtracking on its promise to continue providing monetary stimulus even in the face of improving economic conditions.

+  The U.K. has seen a string of improving economic numbers this week: the Services Purchasing Manager’s Index swings into expansion in January; Same Store Sales improve 1.9% as well; and Industrial Production for December prints better than expected.  In addition, investors are nodding at recent economic improvement in Europe.     

Bear:

The European political and economic storm looks to pick up strength in the months ahead: 

• On the political front, Spain’s “Gürtel Scandal” is dampening confidence in the government’s ability to continue its EU-mandated austerity policies.  As a result, Spanish 10-yr yields are back on the rise, advancing 2.3% for the week.  Meanwhile, in addition to a festering bank scandal, February 24-25 will market an important day for Italy and global markets as Silvio Berlusconi’s shocking surge in the polls have already begun to unnerve investors.  Since Jan. 28, Italy’s FTSE MIB has declined more than 7%.  
• On the economic front, Spain posts some depressing Industrial Production numbers for January, while European Retail Sales plunged in December by the most since February 2009 on a YoY basis.  France looks to downgrade its 2013 growth forecast placing Mr. Hollande in a pickle, indeed he’s now asking for a lower Euro.  Pressure on the ECB to join central bankers worldwide in weakening their respective currencies marks an end to the cease fire in the “Global Currency War.”  

– Inter-market trends are deteriorating.  A look at the XLF/XLU ratio indicates that deflation fears may resurface soon and would be a negative for equity markets and bullish for Treasury bonds.  In fact, 10-yr Treasury yields are showing a negative divergence vs. equity markets and is a red flag.  Furthermore, equity markets are at long-term resistance, all the while investor sentiment is very bullish.  The stage is set for a correction over the coming weeks. 

– U.S. Weekly sales metrics (Goldman ICSC and Redbook) show continued weakening consumption trends.  Tepid growth readings over the course of January, in addition to a third consecutive weak reading from Discover’s U.S. Spending Monitor, are a shot across the bow for a subpar January Retail Sales report, due on Feb. 13.  Perhaps this is because job creation has stalled according to Gallup’s Job Creation indicator, which just slumped to an 11-month low.  Or perhaps it’s because the nation’s average gas price has risen 17 cents from a week ago.  

– Q4’s Productivity and Unit Labor Cost report portends deteriorating earnings trends for corporations.  Productivity (output per worker) declined  2.0% and was more than expected; meanwhile, unit labor costs surged 4.5% vs. market expectations of a 3.1% increase.  Real wages, vs. nominal, continue to shrink.  ”Hourly pay for American workers fell for the second straight year after factoring out inflation, marking the worst two-year stretch in the U.S. since World War Two.”  

– Does Canada have a popping housing bubble?  Canadian building permits in December plunged 11.2%, after a 17.9% drubbing the month before.  Meanwhile housing starts crater 18.5%.  

February 8, 2013  |  

Even without the spending cuts included in the so-called “sequester,” America’s domestic spending levels are scheduled to hit historic lows in the coming years. That’s because the Budget Control Act, signed into law as part of the plan to raise the debt ceiling in August 2011, capped future spending levels.

Those caps will ultimately reduce spending to its lowest level as a percent of the economy since the 1970s, according to a report from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee:

Already, many programs on which Americans depend have faced significant cuts. Here are eight examples from the report:

Education: 44 federal education programs have been totally eliminated, saving $1.1 billion, since 2010. Title I, which funds schools in low-income areas, has not faced cuts, but it has not received scheduled funding increases. As a result, it has absorbed 1.2 million more students with no additional funds, meaning districts now have $140 less per student in those schools. The capped spending levels will also result in a significant shortfall in the Pell Grants program.

Food safety: The Food and Drug Administration nearly doubled its inspection of food imports between 2007 and 2011, but such inspections would be reduced by 24 percent under scheduled spending caps. Food imports are skyrocketing, but the FDA inspects only 2.3 percent of them. In addition, budget cuts have jeopardized implementation of major food safety reforms.

Women, Infants, and Children programs: The WIC program helps low-income women who are pregnant or have infant children up to age five. “If the same rate of growth that the discretionary budget caps permit through 2022 had been used to determine WIC funding over the last eight years, some 970,000 women, infants, and children would not have been able to receive much-needed supplemental foods this year,” according to the report.

Housing: A program to help house low-income seniors was cut in half from 2010 to 2012, resulting in the construction of no new housing, even as there are 10 seniors on waiting lists for each existing unit. Another program to build low-income housing was cut from $1.8 billion in 2010 to just $1 billion in 2012, resulting in the construction of fewer homes and the creation of 8,000 fewer jobs. And a program that helps heat low-income homes in the winter was cut by a third, resulting in assistance for a million fewer homes last year and cuts for those who still receive assistance, even as energy prices have risen by 31 percent in that time.

Social Security: A rising number of senior citizens and disability claims has put a strain on the Social Security Administration’s operating budget, which has not increased in two years. SSA has cut 6,500 workers and closed 23 offices, with plans to close 11 more. There were more than 800,000 claims made to SSA last year, an increase of 100,000 from the previous year.

Child Care: Federal funding for the Child Care Development Block Grant, which helps low-income families access subsidies for child care, has declined by 13 percent since 2002. Only one in six children who are eligible for that assistance now receive it.

Aviation Safety: The Federal Aviation Administraton has faced $205 million in cuts to programs meant to help update its infrastructure, even as the department is switching its monitoring system to a safer one based on satellites.

Community Investment: Community Development Block Grants help localities fund economic development, housing, and public services. The program has been cut by a quarter, a total of $1 billion, in the last two years. The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development estimates that the $1 billion reduction resulted in 21,000 fewer jobs being created last year.

Excess cash on corporate balance sheets has been a hot topic the better part of the last decade, but ConverEx’s Nick Colas believes it’s about to become even more important to capital markets. U.S. companies have, after all, regained all the profitability they collectively enjoyed prior to the Financial Crisis. Moreover, they’ve accomplished that by rationalizing their business models to succeed in a period of distinctly subpar growth. Combine that with markets that will likely offer only average returns, and activist investing seems like a worthwhile approach to alpha generation. Sometimes, however, it pays to look at the world through the eyes of the fox rather than the hounds. As the Einhorn-Cook battle commences, we graciously offer up a few kernels of advice for other companies who get the “Where’s my money at?” call from an activist.

Via ConvergEx’s Nick Colas, You Never Give Me Your Money… Only Your Funny Paper

I have a bad habit of rooting for the underdog.  If I happen to turn on a random game that’s already started, I find myself totally invested in the losing team’s cause. If I see a betting line, I think more about the presumptive loser’s chance of closing the gap, rather than the winning team’s ability to blow out the game. And yes, this is largely why I don’t gamble.

Moving to issues inside the capital markets, my bias is coming to the fore as I hear more and more about activist investors who want public companies to start using their cash balances in more shareholder-friendly ways.  I do get why these are usually sensible requests. Cash is a lousy asset — it earns almost nothing and it can easily cause managements to grow lazy since strategic failure isn’t often fatal when there’s 10 years’ worth of cash in the bank. Shareholders ultimately own the company and its capital. Yes, there’s that pesky agency problem — management wants the company to be stable enough to endure, but any diversified shareholder couldn’t care less if one company in their portfolio went bust. But at the end of the day, the shareholder’s desire to earn a competitive rate of return on all their assets should — and usually does — trump everything else.

But what should we say to the fox, rather than the hound?  There are plenty of theoretically valid arguments for higher dividends, special payouts, and stock repurchases for companies with unusually high levels of cash on their balance sheets. But if you were a Chief Financial Officer, or Chief Executive, or board member, and wanted to push back on these requests — what would you say? How would you rally investors to your side of the cause, rather than voting with your cash-hungry critics in a proxy fight?

Here are five potential messages for the activist-beleaguered company and its management:

#1 — The country’s central bank doesn’t think we are really out of the crisis — why do you?  Using cash for buybacks and incremental dividends makes sense if the macroeconomic environment is stable and improving. In a downturn — even a shallow one — cash becomes a critical asset. Working capital leverage turns negative. Competitors cut price to clear inventory, and even stronger competitors have to follow. On the plus side, this is the part of the economic cycle where you can do M&A on the cheap. Cash is extremely useful for all that.

For the corporate manager going toe-to-toe with an activist on this point, he or she has a strong ally in the U.S. Federal Reserve. Just read the latest FOMC minutes and you’ll see that their confidence about the continued growth of the domestic economy is muted, at best. The U.S. central bank still feels that the U.S. economy needs unusually large — unprecedented, really — levels of monetary stimulus. And this is the environment where you think it would be wise to reallocate our cash?

#2 — That “Extra” cash is to maintain stability among our other stakeholders — primarily our intellectual capital. The line between intellectual capital (largely in the form of employees) and investment capital (provided by shareholders) is remarkably thin, especially in a technology company. Yes, shareholders own the company. But the employees ARE the company. It’s more of a Mexican standoff than the pyramid structure taught in business schools.

Everything else equal, most people probably — especially a lot of great ones – prefer to work for a company with a large cash balance than a small one.  The former is well-placed to pay a good salary, provide benefits, and grow the business. They can also afford to issue stock and use excess cash to execute buybacks to eliminate dilution. All good stuff. The less cash rich company? Not as much.

#3 — We are not alone in our efforts to hold cash — our competitors do it as well. In one key respect, cash is only a competitive advantage if you have more than your nearest competition. Consider what happens during an economic downturn — one of the key planning scenarios which cash-rich companies use to defend their outsized liquidity. If every competitor can cut price to try to hold market share because they all have the same relative cash position, they will all burn through their cash. Only the company with MORE cash than its peers will be able to leverage that advantage, and only after everyone else has burned through the contents of their piggy banks.

This is a point that is often overlooked in the discussion of appropriate cash balance, but it actually matters quite a bit.  There are case studies galore — just consider why Ford was the only domestic auto OEM to not need bankruptcy protection during the financial crisis — which bring this point home. At its core, it is a simple but powerful observation: “Yes, we have a lot of cash. But so does everyone else. So we need more. Go away.”

#4 — History shows that cash-activists usually get it wrong in terms of when to ask for the money. At the bottom of an economic cycle there is precious little arguing between shareholders and companies about the appropriate level of corporate cash — no one has any. Then, as things improve from a macro perspective, the conversations start. By the time they get to peak earnings, they are at full bore. That’s pretty much where we are now, but it is the worst time to pull capital out of companies. If they do a stock buyback, it’s likely to be at the peak. If the company chooses to pay an ongoing dividend, they’ll likely set it too high. As for a special dividend, anyone receiving it will likely reinvest it in other equities. Also at a cyclical peak.

#5 — If you like it so much, bid for the whole company.  At the end of the day, there is really only one way to create lasting change in the financial strategy of a public company — buy it. All of it. This is not as easy as it was in prior cycles. Mammoth bank or public debt market — funded leveraged buyouts aren’t yet back in vogue. And given the fragility of the financial system, they may not make an appearance during this particular cycle. And without that threat, the role of the activist is much more that of an unpaid investment banker — offering up ideas in the hopes of getting paid — than anything else. 

February 8, 2013  |  

On Thursday, police hunting for Chris Dorner, a veteran and former LAPD officer who allegedly launched a killing spree on Sunday, opened fire on a blue pickup truck driving without its headlights in the early morning hours. Two short Latina women delivering newspapers — 71-year-old Emma Hernandez and her 47-year-old daughter, Margie Carranza — were hit in the hail of gunfire. Hernandez was shot twice in the back and is in intensive care as of this writing.

Chris Dorner, who is a large black man bearing no resemblance to the victims, was reportedly driving a blue pickup.

Nearby, officers also opened fire on a black pickup truck. Fortunately, the innocent driver wasn’t hit in that shooting.

The first thought that came to my mind when I read about these incidents was that they reminded me of the accounts veterans returning from Iraq shared with me about what it was like manning check-points in Baghdad.

Our wars always come home to us. That’s been notably apparent in recent weeks. First, Eddie Ray Routh, an Iraq vet who was suffering from PTSD allegedly gunned down famed American Sniper Chris Kyle. (Kyle was lauded as a hero despite writing that, “our ROEs [rules of engagement]… were pretty simple: If you see anyone from about sixteen to sixty-five and they’re male, shoot ’em. Kill every male you see.”) Then, this week, Dorner allegedly went bonkers.

It’s important not to demonize military vets as crazy and dangerous — that kind of stigma results in veterans who end up in the criminal justice system getting two more years in jail, on average, than non-veterans convicted of the same offense. But the reality is that we’ve seen a number of similar incidents in recent years: an Iraq war vet was accused of killing six people in Orange County last March; that same month, another killed his 11-year-old sister before turning his gun on himself; and another killed a park ranger in Washington last January.

Most people are at least somewhat aware of the struggles some veterans have readapting to normal society. But a question that’s rarely asked is how the wars we’ve fought for over a decade may be affecting our domestic policing. Police departments provide a lot of jobs to former vets. According to GI Jobs.com, a Web site for veterans seeking civilian employment, 80 percent of the Dallas Police Department’s hires over a two-year period were military vets; approximately 20 percent of LAPD officers have military backgrounds.

The image of the truck Hernandez and Carranza were driving brought to mind the terrifying accounts relayed to me in 2008, when I interviewed more than a dozen returning Iraq war vets, many of whom had served multiple tours. Several told me how the Rules of Engagement had shifted between their first and last tours; early on, they were told to fire only on people who posed an immediate threat — Iraqis carrying weapons. Later in the conflict, “force protection” became the overarching principle, and several soldiers told me they were ordered to open fire on Iraqis caught walking in the wrong area or carrying tools that might be used to bury a roadside bomb.

None of the vets I interviewed told me that they’d killed innocent civilians at checkpoints, but several said it was a relatively common occurance, and that it was a product not of monstrous soldiers run amok, but rather the nature of the beast in a war fought in densely populated urban environs: a car approaches, the occupants don’t understand a soldier’s hand-signals or don’t respond quickly enough, and a horrible tragedy ensues.

By Dennis Bernstein

B: We continue our discussion of the revelations around a memo coming out of the Justice Department that the administration plans to keep up these assassinations and expand the program. Joining us to take a legal look at this is Marjorie Cohn, Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former President of the National Lawyers Guild. She is also the editor of “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.” Welcome back to Flashpoints, Marjorie. You say the White Paper runs afoul of international and US law. Please explain.

MC: The White Paper allows the government to kill a US citizen who is not on the battlefield, if some high government official who is supposedly informed about the situation thinks that the target is a senior Al Queda leader who poses an imminent threat of a violent attack against the United States. So how do they define “imminence”? Well, it doesn’t require any clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future. So it completely dilutes this whole idea of imminent threat. Under well-established principles of international law and the UN Charter, one country can use military force against another only in self-defense. But under the Caroline case, which is the gold standard here, the “necessity for self-defense must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.”

That means we are going to be attacked right away and we can use force. But the very nebulous test that the White Paper lays out even allows the targeted killing of somebody who is considered to be a “continuing” threat, whatever that means. The most disturbing part of it says that US citizens can be killed even when there is no “clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” So we have a global battlefield, where if there is someone, anywhere, who might be associated with Al Qaeda, according to a high government official, then Obama can authorize (it’s not even clear Obama himself has to authorize these targeted killings, these drone attacks) on Terror Tuesday (thanks to the New York Times expose several months ago) who he is going to kill after consulting with John Brennan. John Brennan, of course, is his counter-terrorism guru who is up for confirmation to be CIA Director. Very incestuous. John Brennan has said that targeted killings constitute lawful self-defense.

One of the most disturbing things here is the amassing of executive power with no review by the courts, no checks and balances. So the courts will have no opportunity to interpret what “imminence” means, or what “continuing” threat means.

The White Paper cites John Yoo, who claims that courts have no role to play in what the President does in this so-called War on Terror where the whole world is a battlefield. I say so-called War on Terror because terrorism is a tactic. It’s not an enemy. You don’t declare war on a tactic. And the White Paper refers Yoo’s statement that judicial review constitutes “judicial encroachment” on the judgments by the President and his National Security advisors as to when and how to use force.

The White Paper cites Hamdi v. Rumsfeld which says the President has the authority to hold US citizens caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan as enemy combatants. But in Hamdi, the Supreme Court stated that a US citizen who is being detained as an enemy combatant is entitled to due process. Due process means an arrest and a fair trial. It doesn’t mean just taking him out with a drone. Also, there’s another interesting passage in this White Paper. It says “judicial enforcement [a court reviewing these kill orders of the executive] of such orders would require the court to supervise inherently predictive judgments by the president and his national security advisors as to when and how to use force against a member of an enemy force against which Congress has authorized the use of force.”

Inherently predictive. Does that mean that the court can’t review decisions made with a crystal ball because it’s too mushy? I don’t know. Certainly courts are competent to make emergency decisions under FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The FISA Court meets in secret and authorizes wiretaps requested by the executive branch. Courts can do this. Courts can act in emergencies to review and check and balance what the executive is doing. That’s what our Constitution is all about.

DB: Congress is looking for some original documents about what’s going on here. The White Paper is sort of a restatement of National Security documents that we probably haven’t been able to see yet. What about the Geneva Conventions? It sort of throws that in the garbage.

MC: Well, it does because the Geneva Conventions define willful killing as a grave breach. And grave breaches are punishable as war crimes. So this also violates the Geneva Conventions. Although the White Paper says that they are going to follow the well-established principle of proportionality — proportionality means that an attack cannot be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage — I don’t see how they can actually put that into practice because the force is going to be excessive. When you see how they are using drones, they are taking out convoys, and they are killing civilians, large numbers of civilians.

There’s another principle of international law called distinction, which requires that the attack be directed only at legitimate military targets. We know from the New York Times expose that the kill list that Brennan brings to Obama to decide who he is going to take out without a trial — basically execute — can be used even if they don’t have a name, or if they are present in an area where there are suspicious “patterns of behavior.” These are known as signature strikes.

That means that bombs are dropped on unidentified people who are in an area where suspicious activity is taking place. That goes even beyond targeted killings. Targeted killings are considered to be illegal. The UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Christof Heyns, expressed grave concerns about these targeted killings, saying that they may constitute war crimes. He called on the Obama administration to explain how its drone strikes comport with international law and to specify the bases for the decisions to kill rather than capture particular individuals.

The White Paper says that one of the requirements before they can take someone out is that capture is “infeasible.” As you go on and read this memo, infeasible begins to look like inconvenient. We have these very mushy terms, with no clear standards that comply with international law. Yet there is no oversight by any court, and Congress has no role either. So we don’t have checks and balances. Even the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that Congress passed a few days after 9/11 doesn’t authorize this. The AUMF allows the President to use force against groups and countries that had supported the 9/11 attacks. But when the Bush administration asked Congress for open-ended military authority “to deter and preempt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States,” Congress specifically rejected that open-ended military authority. Congress has not authorized this, and it’s not clear whether Congress would authorize it. There are several congresspersons who are trying to get a hold of the actual documents that you have referred to, beyond this White Paper, which is the tip of the iceberg.

DB: That includes Ron Wyden who is on the Intelligence Committee and can’t get a hold of this. When one looks at this Obama policy and compares it to Bush, essentially Obama has chosen well, we’ll do a little less torture, or skip the torture, and we’ll just kill them.

MC: Obama has expanded these drone attacks far beyond what the Bush administration was doing. There are many thorny issues, such as indefinite detention, how detainees are treated, and under what circumstances they can be released. The Obama administration evidently feels that it’s cleaner and easier just to kill them. Then you don’t have to worry about bad publicity from housing them at Guantanamo, not giving them a fair trial, holding them indefinitely. This goes beyond the torture policy. Now I don’t want to say that killing with drones is worse than the illegal and outrageous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that the Bush administration began, in which thousands and thousands and thousands of people have been killed or seriously maimed. So I wouldn’t say that Obama is worse than Bush. But certainly Obama is following in the tradition of the Bush administration and John Yoo’s expansive view of executive power where whatever the President does is unreviewable.

DB: I would say they continue the process of destroying the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the necessary checks and balances that restrain war, that the people depend on. We are out of time. Marjorie, thanks for being with us on Flashpoints.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor of human rights at Thomas Jefferson School and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her most recent book is “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.” See www.marjoriecohn.com.

Dennis J. Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.  You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net. He can be contacted at dennisjberstein@gmail.com.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has urged police to investigate the hundreds of deaths put down to the Mid-Staffordshire NHS scandal.

In the wake of the damning report into care failings at Stafford Hospital, he said it was “absolutely outrageous” that nobody had been “brought to book” for the premature deaths of up to 1,200 people.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said the police should look at the evidence already in the public domain.

Jeremy hunt has said police should investigate the hospital deaths

“I think it’s absolutely outrageous that potentially more than a thousand people lost their lives because of poor care and not a single person has been brought to book,” he said.

“This was a public inquiry that was designed to help us understand why the system didn’t pick up what went wrong but I think it is absolutely disgraceful with all those things happening, whether it is doctors, nurses or managers, nobody has been held to account.”

Asked whether the information should be passed to the police, he added: “Well that evidence is in the public domain. And you know, it’s there for the police – and it’s there for the professional bodies, the GMC (General Medical Council) and the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) to look at and they should do that.”

Hunt stressed that it was not for him to say who was guilty and who was not.

“As a politician, I am not in a position to say this nurse is guilty, this nurse is not, and all these things have to be decided at arm’s length following due process. This is about people’s careers and livelihood and there has to be fairness of course,” he said.

Robert Francis QC, who led the inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, uncovered a “disaster” in the standards of basic care and medical treatment for some of the most vulnerable and elderly patients.

Reporting this week, Francis said there were failings at every level of the NHS and that the culture among healthcare staff must change.

He said: “What we need to avoid is yet another wholesale reorganisation of abolishing organisations and creating new ones.

“This is about how people behave when they go to work and their ability to raise concerns and be honest about what’s going on in their hospitals.”

He said none of the 290 recommendations covered in his report “have been made lightly” and hoped all would be adopted in full.

The change would only happen when NHS managers, clinicians and staff started to address the failings “rather than waiting to be told what to do from Whitehall, or by the top of the NHS,” he added.

His comments came after it emerged there were 3,000 more deaths than expected at another five NHS trusts between 2010 and last year.

Professor Keogh has now launched a review into Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Patients’ campaigner Julie Bailey, whose elderly mother Bella died at Stafford hospital, called for individuals in the NHS to be held accountable for the failings in care.

She said: “This is an opportunity to put down the gauntlet and say enough is enough.

“From today you will be held accountable for your actions – it’s no good saying in the future you will be held accountable.

“We want accountability for the hundreds of deaths and the suffering our loved ones had to put up with.”

Chris Huhne’s disgrace is “in the past”, the Tory battling to snatch his former seat declared as she promised a “clean campaign”.

But critics speculated a ‘nudge-wink’ at the Huhne scandal in Conservative candidate Maria Hutchings’ campaign material, which calls on votes to elect a ‘local MP you can trust’.

Hutchings was speaking at the launch of what is expected to be a brutal battle with the party’s Liberal Democrat Westminster coalition partners.

Maria Hutchings, the Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate for Eastleigh, during campaigning

Sat alongside party chairman Grant Shapps she also made clear she was opposed to David Cameron’s gay marriage reforms and strongly eurosceptic.

Hutchings, who failed to topple Huhne in 2010 by 3,864 votes, has been picked to fight the seat again after the former cabinet minister resigned in disgrace.

Polling carried out by Tory former treasurer Lord Ashcroft in the wake of Huhne’s dramatic guilty plea to dodging speeding points gave the party a three-point lead.

But – after senior figures yesterday highlighted the issue of voter “trust” – the peer warned they should “not expect many to switch out of disgust”.

The Lib Dems will choose their candidate on Saturday after a hustings meeting.

Hutchings said: “We are running a clean campaign. I want to talk about the issues that affect the people of Eastleigh.

“I do not want to talk about Chris Huhne – that issue is in the past.”

She said that she would have joined the scores of Tory MPs who took advantage of a free vote to register opposition to same-sex marriage legislation championed by the Prime Minister.

“I would not have voted for same sex marriage, if I had been able to.”

And she said she backed the premier’s efforts to secure a renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with Brussels but would vote for exit if there was a referendum today.

“David Cameron has said he wants a renegotiation and I’m happy to see how that goes.”

Maria Hutchings’ campaign poster

Shapps denied that both parties had decided on a short campaign to limit the damage to them both and avoid further strain to the coalition.

He added: “The incumbent chose the date and they moved the writ, and we have no idea why they have done that.”

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has urged voters not to exact retribution for former leadership rival Huhne’s disgrace in the February 28 poll.

The Lord Ashcroft-commissioned survey put the Tories on 34% and Lib Dems on 31% – down five and 19 respectively on their 2010 showings.

Labour on 19% and Ukip on 13% were both up by nine points but despite hoping for a strong showing, sources privately accept they have little chances of winning.

Maria Hutchings, the Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate for Eastleigh, chats to Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps

Ukip leader Nigel Farage decided not to fight the seat in person this week, seen as a boost to Mrs Hutchings’ chances.

Lord Ashcroft, a major Tory donor who was deputy chairman of the party until 2010, said the poll suggested both coalition parties have “everything to play for”.

He said Huhne was “a popular and, by all accounts, assiduous MP, and many in Eastleigh will be sad to see him go and circumstances of his departure”.

In 2000 the Lib Dems had five MPs in the south of the county and the Isle of Wight but if they lose on February 28 there will be only one left.

For the Tories, capturing Eastleigh would be a huge prize for Prime Minister David Cameron, under fire from his backbench MPs over gay marriage, Europe and high-speed rail routes, although it may increase tension with the Lib Dems.

If the Conservatives do win, it will be the first by-election gain for a Government party since Mitcham and Morden in 1982 – even if it is from another Government party.

The dark horse in the race could be Labour, which polled less than 10% in 2010 – possibly because of tactical voting for the Lib Dems.

The party has a mountain to climb but in the last Eastleigh Commons by-election in 1994 it came second, pushing the Tories into third place. The closest Labour has ever got to winning the constituency since the Second World War was in 1966 when the Conservatives hung on by 701.

A strong Labour performance this time will be in defiance of its long-term decline in the South East.

A Ukip victory would return its first MP although it had just 3.6% in the constituency in 2010.

It has made some progress in becoming the party of mid-term protest as well as benefiting from the return of Europe to the political spotlight.

The party managed to take second place in November’s by-elections for safe Labour seats at Middlesbrough and Rotherham and came third at Corby, overtaking the Lib Dems. But it was nowhere near a gain.

Its chances in Eastleigh may have faded after the decision by its leader, Nigel Farage, not to fight the by-election. He contested the seat in 1994.

The constituency is wrapped around the east of Southampton from the town of Eastleigh and Southampton Airport in the north to the Hamble in the south. This river, which joins Southampton Water, is a major yachting venue.

Growth came to the area when the London and South Western Railway’s carriage and wagon works moved to Eastleigh in the late 19th century followed by locomotive building.

But with the decline in railway engineering it has now diversified into light hi-tech industries. Another employment source is the airport.

The constituency is a dormitory area for Southampton and London.

Sacramento, Calif. – February 8 – California Governor Jerry Brown today proposed to end the widespread use of highly toxic fire retardant chemicals in foam furniture sold in the state.

“The new rules, when enacted, will ensure that furniture doesn’t pose unintended health risks,” said Bill Allayaud, director of government affairs for the California office of Environmental Working Group. “California’s current fire safety rule does not protect us against fire dangers but contaminates our bodies and those of our children with chemicals linked to cancer and other serious dangers to health.”

Brown’s move is expected to have an impact nationwide because California, with 10 percent of the U.S. population, exercises so much purchasing power that most American furniture makers fabricate their products to comply with California flammability standards.

“This decision is a public health victory for all Americans,” said Sonya Lunder, EWG senior research analyst.

Last year, in a directive to overhaul the state’s fire safety law, Brown cited a groundbreaking EWG study, conducted in 2008, which found that children’s blood contained concentrations of fire retardants three times higher than their mothers’ blood. The reason: children who play on the floor come into contact with fire retardant chemicals shed from treated foam furniture.

EWG has been investigating the toxicity of fire retardants in furniture since 2003. That year, EWG’s tests found toxic fire retardants called PBDEs in the breast milk of 20 American mothers, with an average concentration 75 times higher than the average PBDE level in European mothers. This dramatic distinction was attributed to California’s inflexible fire safety rules. The California legislature banned PBDEs, and several other states enacted their own restrictions. Eventually, PBDEs were phased out across the U.S.

Recently, tests by scientists and consumer advocates found that California fire safety rules had triggered the widespread use of chemical fire retardants in couches, car seats, changing table pads and other baby products, both in California and the rest of the country. Chlorinated tris has been substituted for PBDEs in many cases, even though California regulators have formally listed this chemical as a carcinogen. Firemaster 550, another replacement for PBDEs, is suspected of disrupting the hormone system.

The new regulations proposed by Brown will allow manufacturers to use safer technologies like fire-resistant fabrics in place of chemically-treated foam. Baby products will no longer be required to contain fire retardants, since their small size makes it unlikely that they could cause a serious house fire.

Sacramento, Calif. – February 8 – California Governor Jerry Brown today proposed to end the widespread use of highly toxic fire retardant chemicals in foam furniture sold in the state.

“The new rules, when enacted, will ensure that furniture doesn’t pose unintended health risks,” said Bill Allayaud, director of government affairs for the California office of Environmental Working Group. “California’s current fire safety rule does not protect us against fire dangers but contaminates our bodies and those of our children with chemicals linked to cancer and other serious dangers to health.”

Brown’s move is expected to have an impact nationwide because California, with 10 percent of the U.S. population, exercises so much purchasing power that most American furniture makers fabricate their products to comply with California flammability standards.

“This decision is a public health victory for all Americans,” said Sonya Lunder, EWG senior research analyst.

Last year, in a directive to overhaul the state’s fire safety law, Brown cited a groundbreaking EWG study, conducted in 2008, which found that children’s blood contained concentrations of fire retardants three times higher than their mothers’ blood. The reason: children who play on the floor come into contact with fire retardant chemicals shed from treated foam furniture.

EWG has been investigating the toxicity of fire retardants in furniture since 2003. That year, EWG’s tests found toxic fire retardants called PBDEs in the breast milk of 20 American mothers, with an average concentration 75 times higher than the average PBDE level in European mothers. This dramatic distinction was attributed to California’s inflexible fire safety rules. The California legislature banned PBDEs, and several other states enacted their own restrictions. Eventually, PBDEs were phased out across the U.S.

Recently, tests by scientists and consumer advocates found that California fire safety rules had triggered the widespread use of chemical fire retardants in couches, car seats, changing table pads and other baby products, both in California and the rest of the country. Chlorinated tris has been substituted for PBDEs in many cases, even though California regulators have formally listed this chemical as a carcinogen. Firemaster 550, another replacement for PBDEs, is suspected of disrupting the hormone system.

The new regulations proposed by Brown will allow manufacturers to use safer technologies like fire-resistant fabrics in place of chemically-treated foam. Baby products will no longer be required to contain fire retardants, since their small size makes it unlikely that they could cause a serious house fire.

Jackson, MS – February 8 – Today, the Children’s Defense Fund – Southern Regional Office released a new report, Dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipelineâ„¢: Preventing Pushouts in Mississippi Schools. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, gave a call to action on the critical need to reform Mississippi zero tolerance school discipline policies immediately and end the practice of suspensions and expulsions for nonviolent offenses. Edelman and her organization have been working in Mississippi for 40 years and see this as a crisis point for Mississippi children.

The new report is a wake-up call for Mississippi to change course and work to keep children in school and learning and in the pipeline to college and successful adulthood. “Too many school districts in Mississippi and around the country are pipelines to prison instead of pipelines to college,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund. “It’s time for Mississippi education leaders to take action now and stop flooding our juvenile justice system with children who don’t pose a threat to others.”

Edelman said the top priority of the Children’s Defense Fund is to dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis that leaves a Black boy born in 2001 with a one-in-three chance of going to prison in his lifetime, and a Latino boy with a one-in-six chance of the same fate. Abusive zero tolerance school discipline policies are a key feeder system fueling the school-to-prison pipeline, pushing students out of school and deepening the dropout crisis in Mississippi.

CDF’s Southern Regional Office has been documenting disciplinary practices in Mississippi, district by district, as the foundation upon which to mobilize students, parents, and community leaders as well as administrators and teachers to halt zero tolerance policies that are pushing children out of school. The new report reveals that in 59 of the school districts in Mississippi, Black students were more than twice as likely as White students to have a disciplinary incident and a disciplinary disposition. The student population in those districts was 52 percent Black and 43 percent White, similar to all districts in the state in terms of racial breakdown, district size and median family income. Forty-four percent of the dispositions were out-of-school suspensions–a rate of 21 per 100 students a year.

Recommendations for critical steps Mississippi should take include mandating all school districts submit data at least annually to the State Department of Education on the types of incidents and dispositions for these incidents, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, age, disability status and school, using uniform incident and disposition definitions and for all school districts to establish discipline protocols and practice to ensure all students are treated fairly and uniformly.

Additional recommendations include the need to develop and provide meaningful alternatives to suspensions and expulsions for nonviolent offenses. CDF recommends an overhaul of alternative school models that are punitive and replace them with models that support appropriate student behavior with trained case managers involved in the lives of students engaged in or at risk of repeat discipline violations. Some alternative discipline procedures recommended by CDF are Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports, peace circles to promote “win-win” solutions to discipline problems, restorative justice strategies and student-led peer mediation.

Jackson, MS – February 8 – Today, the Children’s Defense Fund – Southern Regional Office released a new report, Dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipelineâ„¢: Preventing Pushouts in Mississippi Schools. Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, gave a call to action on the critical need to reform Mississippi zero tolerance school discipline policies immediately and end the practice of suspensions and expulsions for nonviolent offenses. Edelman and her organization have been working in Mississippi for 40 years and see this as a crisis point for Mississippi children.

The new report is a wake-up call for Mississippi to change course and work to keep children in school and learning and in the pipeline to college and successful adulthood. “Too many school districts in Mississippi and around the country are pipelines to prison instead of pipelines to college,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund. “It’s time for Mississippi education leaders to take action now and stop flooding our juvenile justice system with children who don’t pose a threat to others.”

Edelman said the top priority of the Children’s Defense Fund is to dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis that leaves a Black boy born in 2001 with a one-in-three chance of going to prison in his lifetime, and a Latino boy with a one-in-six chance of the same fate. Abusive zero tolerance school discipline policies are a key feeder system fueling the school-to-prison pipeline, pushing students out of school and deepening the dropout crisis in Mississippi.

CDF’s Southern Regional Office has been documenting disciplinary practices in Mississippi, district by district, as the foundation upon which to mobilize students, parents, and community leaders as well as administrators and teachers to halt zero tolerance policies that are pushing children out of school. The new report reveals that in 59 of the school districts in Mississippi, Black students were more than twice as likely as White students to have a disciplinary incident and a disciplinary disposition. The student population in those districts was 52 percent Black and 43 percent White, similar to all districts in the state in terms of racial breakdown, district size and median family income. Forty-four percent of the dispositions were out-of-school suspensions–a rate of 21 per 100 students a year.

Recommendations for critical steps Mississippi should take include mandating all school districts submit data at least annually to the State Department of Education on the types of incidents and dispositions for these incidents, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, age, disability status and school, using uniform incident and disposition definitions and for all school districts to establish discipline protocols and practice to ensure all students are treated fairly and uniformly.

Additional recommendations include the need to develop and provide meaningful alternatives to suspensions and expulsions for nonviolent offenses. CDF recommends an overhaul of alternative school models that are punitive and replace them with models that support appropriate student behavior with trained case managers involved in the lives of students engaged in or at risk of repeat discipline violations. Some alternative discipline procedures recommended by CDF are Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports, peace circles to promote “win-win” solutions to discipline problems, restorative justice strategies and student-led peer mediation.

WASHINGTON – February 8 – In response to John Brennan’s admission to the CIA and NYPD’s arrangement to spy on American Muslims, Muslim Advocates and the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

We are deeply concerned by John Brennan’s admission that he was aware of the arrangement between the CIA and NYPD, which has led to widespread unlawful spying on innocent American Muslims in New York, New Jersey, and other locations throughout the northeast. Mr. Brennan was the deputy executive director of the CIA at the time the NYPD-CIA collaboration was developed. His admission raises even more questions that should be immediately probed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, including what Mr. Brennan knew, when he knew it, and what steps, if any, he took to stop the discriminatory surveillance program. In April 2012, after a number of news stories revealed the program, Mr. Brennan issued conflicting statements that initially suggested he believed the NYPD acted consistent with the law, even as a congressional request to the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the NYPD’s unconstitutional conduct was – and still is — pending. Government officials who knew about the discriminatory program, yet condoned it, should be held accountable.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) recently joined Muslim Advocates’ lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s discriminatory spying program targeting American Muslims. For more information on the case, visit www.muslimadvocates.org/endspying and http://www.ccrjustice.org/hassan.

WASHINGTON – February 8 – In response to John Brennan’s admission to the CIA and NYPD’s arrangement to spy on American Muslims, Muslim Advocates and the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

We are deeply concerned by John Brennan’s admission that he was aware of the arrangement between the CIA and NYPD, which has led to widespread unlawful spying on innocent American Muslims in New York, New Jersey, and other locations throughout the northeast. Mr. Brennan was the deputy executive director of the CIA at the time the NYPD-CIA collaboration was developed. His admission raises even more questions that should be immediately probed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, including what Mr. Brennan knew, when he knew it, and what steps, if any, he took to stop the discriminatory surveillance program. In April 2012, after a number of news stories revealed the program, Mr. Brennan issued conflicting statements that initially suggested he believed the NYPD acted consistent with the law, even as a congressional request to the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the NYPD’s unconstitutional conduct was – and still is — pending. Government officials who knew about the discriminatory program, yet condoned it, should be held accountable.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) recently joined Muslim Advocates’ lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s discriminatory spying program targeting American Muslims. For more information on the case, visit www.muslimadvocates.org/endspying and http://www.ccrjustice.org/hassan.

WASHINGTON – February 8 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today released a four-year work plan detailing how it will implement a far-reaching 2011 settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity that requires Endangered Species Act protection decisions for 757 species. The work plan lays out the years in which all the species in the agreement will get protective decisions or critical habitat designations. Under the settlement, 54 species have so far been protected and 66 have been proposed for protection, including American wolverines, lesser prairie chickens and Ozark hellbenders. 

“Our agreement is already working to speed up protection for hundreds of species across the country,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. “This work plan is important because it sets out exactly when species will receive protection, which is important for local governments, landowners and others to begin the tough job of ensuring the survival and recovery of these species.”

In some cases the plan provides additional detail about what protection species will receive. For example, it specifies that Fish and Wildlife will propose critical habitat for lesser prairie chickens this year, providing some hope the agency is serious about protecting these showy and severely imperiled birds. In another case it specifies that, in addition to protecting Mexican garter snakes, the agency will make a protection decision for narrow-headed garter snakes. Both snakes are residents of southwestern rivers and were petitioned by the Center. 

Other species to receive protection decisions this year include eastern small-footed bats and northern long-eared bats, two species the Center petitioned because of the threat of the epidemic called white-nose syndrome, which has killed more than 7 million bats and continues to spread; Kittlitz’s murrelets, also petitioned by the Center and threatened by climate change; and Oregon spotted frogs, which have disappeared from more than 90 percent of their native range over the past half-century. 

“The settlement agreement is working to move protection forward for some of the most endangered wildlife in the United States,” said Greenwald. “The Endangered Species Act is recovering hundreds of species across the country, but it can only start helping species once they’re actually listed as threatened or endangered.” 

Read more about the Center’s 757 agreement here.

WASHINGTON – February 8 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today released a four-year work plan detailing how it will implement a far-reaching 2011 settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity that requires Endangered Species Act protection decisions for 757 species. The work plan lays out the years in which all the species in the agreement will get protective decisions or critical habitat designations. Under the settlement, 54 species have so far been protected and 66 have been proposed for protection, including American wolverines, lesser prairie chickens and Ozark hellbenders. 

“Our agreement is already working to speed up protection for hundreds of species across the country,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. “This work plan is important because it sets out exactly when species will receive protection, which is important for local governments, landowners and others to begin the tough job of ensuring the survival and recovery of these species.”

In some cases the plan provides additional detail about what protection species will receive. For example, it specifies that Fish and Wildlife will propose critical habitat for lesser prairie chickens this year, providing some hope the agency is serious about protecting these showy and severely imperiled birds. In another case it specifies that, in addition to protecting Mexican garter snakes, the agency will make a protection decision for narrow-headed garter snakes. Both snakes are residents of southwestern rivers and were petitioned by the Center. 

Other species to receive protection decisions this year include eastern small-footed bats and northern long-eared bats, two species the Center petitioned because of the threat of the epidemic called white-nose syndrome, which has killed more than 7 million bats and continues to spread; Kittlitz’s murrelets, also petitioned by the Center and threatened by climate change; and Oregon spotted frogs, which have disappeared from more than 90 percent of their native range over the past half-century. 

“The settlement agreement is working to move protection forward for some of the most endangered wildlife in the United States,” said Greenwald. “The Endangered Species Act is recovering hundreds of species across the country, but it can only start helping species once they’re actually listed as threatened or endangered.” 

Read more about the Center’s 757 agreement here.

WASHINGTON – February 8 – AP reports: “Saturday mail may soon go the way of the Pony Express and penny postcards. The Postal Service said Wednesday that it plans to cut back to five-day-a-week deliveries for everything except packages to stem its financial losses in a world radically re-ordered by the Internet. …

“But change is not the biggest factor in the agency’s predicament – Congress is. The majority of the service’s red ink comes from a 2006 law forcing it to pay about $5.5 billion a year into future retiree health benefits, something no other agency does. Without that payment – $11.1 billion in a two-year installment last year – and related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion for the past fiscal year, lower than the previous year.”

JEFF MUSTO, [email]
Musto is researcher and spokesperson for the Center for Study of Responsive Law, founded by Ralph Nader. Nader wrote in response to the Post Office’s announcement: “Postmaster General Donahoe would have us believe that this is one of many tough decisions that must be made to save the USPS, but nothing could be further from the truth. These are the decisions that are made by a leader without a clue and without a sense of what it takes to right the ship. He has ignored calls to implement ways of expanding postal services, many of which have been urged by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

“The USPS’s financial crisis has primarily been caused by a congressional mandate, coming from the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, that the USPS prefund the next 75 years of retiree health benefits in just a decade, by 2016. This is something that is not required of any other federal government agency or private corporation. Not to mention that there is no actuarial justification for such an accelerated schedule to prefund this future obligation. PAEA effectively forces the USPS to prefund retiree health benefits for some of its future employees who haven’t even been born yet!

“As a result, the USPS pays at least $5.5 billion each year into a fund for 75 years of future retiree health benefits in addition to paying $2.6 billion for the employer’s share of insurance premiums for the Postal Service’s current retirees. On top of this, according to reports from the USPS’s Inspector General, the USPS has overpaid $80 billion dollars to the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System which the federal government refuses to return.

“If Congress were to reverse PAEA and return the billions owed to the USPS, the U.S. Postal Service would not be facing a financial crisis.”

WASHINGTON – February 8 – AP reports: “Saturday mail may soon go the way of the Pony Express and penny postcards. The Postal Service said Wednesday that it plans to cut back to five-day-a-week deliveries for everything except packages to stem its financial losses in a world radically re-ordered by the Internet. …

“But change is not the biggest factor in the agency’s predicament – Congress is. The majority of the service’s red ink comes from a 2006 law forcing it to pay about $5.5 billion a year into future retiree health benefits, something no other agency does. Without that payment – $11.1 billion in a two-year installment last year – and related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion for the past fiscal year, lower than the previous year.”

JEFF MUSTO, [email]
Musto is researcher and spokesperson for the Center for Study of Responsive Law, founded by Ralph Nader. Nader wrote in response to the Post Office’s announcement: “Postmaster General Donahoe would have us believe that this is one of many tough decisions that must be made to save the USPS, but nothing could be further from the truth. These are the decisions that are made by a leader without a clue and without a sense of what it takes to right the ship. He has ignored calls to implement ways of expanding postal services, many of which have been urged by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

“The USPS’s financial crisis has primarily been caused by a congressional mandate, coming from the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, that the USPS prefund the next 75 years of retiree health benefits in just a decade, by 2016. This is something that is not required of any other federal government agency or private corporation. Not to mention that there is no actuarial justification for such an accelerated schedule to prefund this future obligation. PAEA effectively forces the USPS to prefund retiree health benefits for some of its future employees who haven’t even been born yet!

“As a result, the USPS pays at least $5.5 billion each year into a fund for 75 years of future retiree health benefits in addition to paying $2.6 billion for the employer’s share of insurance premiums for the Postal Service’s current retirees. On top of this, according to reports from the USPS’s Inspector General, the USPS has overpaid $80 billion dollars to the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System which the federal government refuses to return.

“If Congress were to reverse PAEA and return the billions owed to the USPS, the U.S. Postal Service would not be facing a financial crisis.”

Over 50,000 mourners lined the streets of the Tunisian capital on Friday for the funeral procession of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was shot outside of his home earlier this week.

Mourners carry the coffin of murdered opposition leader Chokri Belaid during his funeral procession in Tunis on Friday, February 8. (Photo: Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images) Protests spilled over into the burial service in southern Tunis where, according to witnesses, police fired teargas at people outside the cemetery.

The day of unrest follows a nation-wide general strike on Friday. The strike was called by the country’s biggest labor union in protest of Belaid’s killing, which “brought the capital Tunis to a near standstill” with banks, factories and shops shuttered in a number of cities, Democracy Now reports. Tunis Air also took part, cancelling all their flights for the day.

For the three days since the shooting, demonstrators have taken to the streets calling for the dissolution of the coalition government, headed by the Islamic Ennahda party.

Reporting on today’s service, Al Jazeera writes:

As Belaid’s body was lowered into the ground, thousands of people cried “Allahu akbar!” [God is greatest] before singing the national anthem and reciting the opening verse of the Quran.[…]

The interior ministry said 132 people were arrested and estimated the size of the funeral crowd at 40,000.

Belaid’s widow Besma held two fingers in the air in a victory sign as a chant of “The people want a new revolution” rang out.[…]

Hamma Hammami, a leader of the Popular Front, the alliance of leftist parties to which Belaid belonged, gave a graveside oration, followed by a minute’s silence.

“Rest in peace, Chokri, we will continue on your path,” Hammami told the huge crowd of mourners thronging El-Jellaz cemetery.

Demonstrations of mourning and rebellion took place in other cities, as well. Reuters reports in the southern town of Gafsa, which was a stronghold of support for Belaid, “police fired teargas to disperse anti-government protesters throwing stones and petrol bombs.” 

Also, in the town of Sidi Bouzid–where the 2011 self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi triggered a chain of popular revolts across the Arab World–about 10,000 marched to mourn Belaid and shout slogans against Ennahda and the government.

Though many are claiming Belaid’s murder was politically motivated, the details are still unknown. In a news conference late Thursday night, presidential spokesman Adnan Mancer announced that police were questioning a possible suspect.

Human rights watchdog groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, are calling for a thorough examination into, what appears to be, the assassination of the outspoken opposition leader.

WASHINGTON – February 8 – Common Cause is taking its drive to hold power accountable to Vine, the new social networking tool that lets users keep in touch through brief video messages.

The non-partisan advocacy group’s first six-second Vine posting spotlights a bid by some Republicans to get electoral votes out of Pennsylvania for GOP presidential candidates — even in years when those candidates lose the popular vote — by making up their own rules.

In the video, a person playing the legendary board game Monopoly is seen turning over a “Chance” card with the message: “Partisans Rig Electoral College, Advance to Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“That’s not fair!” the voice says.

“Kids have an innate sense of right and wrong,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “They understand that making up rules in the middle of the game so that you can win is cheating.”

“That lesson seems in danger of being lost in Pennsylvania,” Edgar said, referring to Republican leaders’ consideration of a bill to change the way the state’s electors are awarded in the 2016 presidential race and beyond. “They want to use their legislative control to pull Republican electoral votes out of a state they keep losing, while benefitting from winner-take-all rules in the states where that’s to their continued advantage,” he added.

“It’s called cherry picking, and it’s cheating plain and simple,” Edgar said.

Common Cause’s Vine debut may mark the tool’s first early use in advancing political reform. Less than a month old, Vine catapulted into public view on Sunday, when a power failure interrupted the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Advertisers including Oreo cookies, Tide detergent and Calvin Klein underwear used the break to peddle their wares on social networks; their impromptu commercials included a Klein ad made using Vine and shared on Twitter.

European Union leaders have agreed a historic budget deal at a summit in Brussels.

The breakthrough was declared in a tweet from the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, saying: “Deal done! #euco has agreed on #MFF (Multi-annual Financial Framework) for the rest of the decade. Worth waiting for.”

Initial reports said the agreement fixes a spending limit of 960bn euros (£820bn) for projects the EU can promise to fund between 2014 and 2020. That is far less than the 1.03tn euros (£871bn) that the EU Commission originally proposed, reflecting Europe’s tough economic times.

But not all those projects will ever be completed, meaning the maximum amount it will ever pay out is 908.4bn euros (£774bn).

The current spending limit is 942.8bn euros (£803.4bn) so the actual spending cap will be reduced by 34.4bn euros (£29.3bn).

However, the EU Parliament must still approve the deal – and they have suggested that such drastic cuts are unacceptable.

More follows…

Egyptian women demonstrate in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on January 27, 2012 (AFP Photo/Khaled Desouki)

Hard-line Egyptian clerics have called for the assassination of opposition leaders and claimed sexual assaults were justified against women protesters. Security has been bolstered around the homes of opposition members following the death threats.

On Friday, opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahy said that death threats against him or other members of the opposition umbrella group, the National Salvation Front (NSF), would not deter him or his supporters from peaceful protests.

“Our faith in the revolution kills any threats,” Sabahy said on his official Twitter account on Friday.

Egypt was braced for wide-scale protests on Friday, fueled by the recent death threats and other statements advocating violence against anti-government demonstrators.

Protesters are expected to march to central Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the presidential palace, both of which were the scene of violent clashes between police and demonstrators last week.

Last week, hard-line Salafi Muslim cleric Mahmoud Shaaban, issued a de facto fatwa saying leaders of the main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, saying they would be condemned to death under Islamic law.

The NSF leadership also includes Mohamed ElBaradei and former presidential contender Amr Mouss. Shaaban named both Sabahy and ElBaradei in the video, which was posted online.

Another cleric, Wagdi Ghoneim, mirrored Shaaban’s sentiments by calling on supporters to “kill the thugs, criminals, and thieves who burn the country.”

“Strike with an iron fist. Otherwise, the country will be lost at your hand and they’ll say it is your fault,” he said. Ghoneim warned that if Morsi’s government does not act, citizens will.

Death, Crucifixion or the amputation of limbs, were all cited by the clerics as punishments under Sharia law for those who attempted to overthrow their ruler.

Islamist President Mohamed Morsi condemned the religious edicts on Thursday, saying “Practicing religious violence or threatening to do so has become one of the gravest challenges facing the Arab Spring,” Ahram Online cites a presidential statement as saying.

“Some are promoting and inciting political violence while others who claim to speak in the name of religion are permitting ‘killing’ based on political differences and this is terrorism,” he continued.

Morsi further called on all sides, religious and secular, to reject hate speech and language that incites people to violence.

On Thursday, the country’s chief prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim ordered an investigation into Shaaban for his fatwa.

Egypt’s interior ministry moved to provide extra security for Sabahy and ElBaradei following the threat, but Sabahy refused, saying he “lives and will continue to live as a private citizen.”

Their edicts took on considerably more weight following the assassination of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid. Belaid, a secularist who was highly critical of Tunisia’s Islamist-led government, was gunned down outside his home on Wednesday, sparking violent demonstrations across the country.

Belaid’s murder “sounds danger alarms from Tunisia to Cairo, and warns of the cancerous growth of terrorist groups cloaked by religion and carrying out a plot to liquidate the opposition morally and physically,” The NSF said in a statement.

­

‘They are going to get raped’

Further adding fuel to the fire, a third cleric justified rampant, mob fueled sexual assaults against women protesters in Tahrir Square.

“They are going there to get raped,” cleric Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah said, characterizing the woman as “devils” who “speak with no femininity, no morals, no fear…” He further cast aspersion on opposition calls to make sexual assault against women a “red line” that must not be crossed.

“Does that apply to these naked women?” he said. “Nine out of 10 of them are Crusaders (Christians) and the rest are … widows with no one to rein them in.”

He further implored them to “Learn from Muslim women, be Muslims.”

Violent mobs often consisting of hundreds of men have been responsible for a series of increasingly frequent and brutal sexual assaults against women. The highest-ever number of such assaults was reported on the January 25 protest to mark the two-year-anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.

At least 19 women were attacked, with one having to undergo surgery after her genitals were sliced with a knife, Global Post cites health officials as saying.

Women of all ages, veiled and unveiled, have been attacked on the square, the paper cites activists who compile reports on sexual violence as saying. The say the attackers are using the women as a political tool.

“These people are not revolutionaries. They are part of the counterrevolution, trying to stop us from succeeding,” 52-year-old Nadia Refaat, a self-described leftist and feminist protester in Tahrir, told the Global Post. “They are trying to scare women. But we will not be afraid.”

Top choirmaster Michael Brewer and his ex-wife have been found guilty of indecently assaulting a former music student more than 30 years ago.

The former national youth choir music director, aged 68, was convicted of sexually abusing the victim in his office at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester when she was aged 14 and 15.

His ex-wife, Kay Brewer, 68, was also convicted of indecently assaulting her when she was an adult at their former family home.

The jury at Manchester Crown Court is still deliberating on charges that Brewer raped the same victim when she was aged 18 and that Mrs Brewer aided and abetted the attack.

Brewer was cleared of one charge of indecently assaulting the victim as a child in his home.

One of the defendants’ four daughters audibly gasped in the public gallery when the jury returned its verdict on Kay Brewer.

The sole complainant in the case said she was abused by Brewer as she visited his office. The jury was told she did not consider it sexual abuse at the time and did not make an official complaint.

In a separate incident, Brewer quit Chetham’s in 1994 after an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl.

The court heard she regularly visited his office and recalled he would persuade her to take off her top and bra and he would fondle her.

Giving evidence, Brewer admitted the 1994 affair. The full extent of the relationship was covered up as he resigned.

Brewer went on to become the artistic director of the National Youth Choirs of Britain and has directed the World Youth Choir.

More follows…

BEIRUT, Feb 8 – It was an extraordinary moment in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Live on state radio, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani exchanged insult after insult in the assembly chamber last Sunday as shocked lawmakers shouted their disapproval.

The stormy session peaked when Ahmadinejad aired a video showing Larijani’s brother Fazel allegedly seeking a bribe in exchange for political favours from one of Ahmadinejad’s closest allies, former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi.

But the real struggle that played out amid the accusations and posturing pits Ahmadinejad against the man at the top of the system in Iran – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In late October, Khamenei warned that any top officials from the three branches of the state who bickered publicly, particularly in the lead-up to a presidential election in June, would be guilty of treason.

Ahmadinejad, approaching the end of his second term and unable to run again straight away but keen to protect his legacy and his welfare, has ignored that warning this month.

“To openly challenge Khamenei publicly is unprecedented. It will have long-term repercussions. It shows that Khamenei does not have the authority he once did,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies programme at Stanford University.

“Neither of the previous two presidents ever publicly defied Khamenei the way Ahmadinejad has.”

For Khamenei and his powerful supporters in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), each brazen challenge from the president not only erodes their political authority but also tarnishes the image of the Islamic Republic.

The accusations of financial impropriety and corruption among top government officials comes at a time when economic sanctions, imposed by Western powers seeking curbs on Tehran’s nuclear programme, are biting hard in Iran and millions of ordinary Iranians are struggling to make ends meet.

The impression that top government officials are embezzling money rather than addressing the needs of the masses could lead to unrest, analysts say.

“Khamenei is afraid that with the bad economic situation, the economic disgruntlement could turn into political disgruntlement,” said Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Instead of following the government line and blaming Western sanctions for their economic woes, people might start to blame the politicians: “This is a big worry for him,” Khalaji said.

RETIREMENT PLANS

At stake for Ahmadinejad is not only his political legacy for the two terms he served as president but also his welfare and the welfare of a tight-knit circle of political allies once he leaves office.

Many of his top allies face serious legal charges and could serve jail time. Some have already gone to jail.

Ahmadinejad himself could face charges because of his behaviour in parliament this week.

Last Tuesday, judiciary head Sadeq Larijani, the brother of the parliament speaker, held an emergency meeting with the Supreme Leader, according to Fars News, a semi-official news outlet linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

In a meeting with judiciary officials the following day, Sadeq said that he considered Ahmadinejad’s actions to be a crime but he would not pursue the issue for now at the behest of the Supreme Leader.

“Even though the accusations of the president toward the judges of the judiciary, the representatives of parliament and the heads of the branches were lies, defamatory and against all legal standards, which I consider a crime, I will keep quiet for now in the interests of the regime and to adhere to the orders of the Supreme Leader,” Sadeq said, according to Fars News.

“And at another time I will speak about the details of this matter,” he added. Sadeq went on to say that he would expose the “economic, ideological and operational corruption” of Ahmadinejad’s allies.

REFORMIST CLASH

The roots of the conflict go back to the 2009 presidential election when tens of thousands of Iranians poured into the streets to dispute Ahmadinejad’s victory over reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi.

At the time, the Supreme Leader faced a stark choice: support Ahmadinejad or cast him aside. Khamenei chose to go all in. What followed was a bloody crackdown, which led to the deaths of dozens of protesters and the jailing of hundreds more.

Even though Khamenei sacrificed enormous political capital to keep Ahmadinejad in power, he got little loyalty back.

In the spring of 2011, Ahmadinejad dismissed intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi, a close ally of the Supreme Leader. Within days, Khamenei intervened and reinstated Moslehi, leading Ahmadinejad to boycott cabinet meetings for over a week.

After the feud spilled out into the open, Khamenei loyalists went after Ahmadinejad and arrested more than a dozen officials linked to his controversial former chief-of-staff and key adviser Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie.

The pressure kept building.

In the autumn of 2011, Ahmadinejad’s opponents tried to link Mashaie to a $2.6-billion dollar embezzlement scandal, the largest in Iranian history, and he could still face charges in that case. Last September, Ahmadinejad’s top media adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, was jailed for printing articles critical of the law which mandates the Islamic veil for women in Iran.

And just this week Mortazavi, the notorious Tehran prosecutor once dubbed the “Butcher of the Press” by reformist critics in Iran for his role in jailing dozens of journalists, was arrested and sent to the Evin prison, a facility where he had sent many others.

He was taken in on charges of financial corruption, Fars News said. Mortazavi, now at liberty again, also faces criminal charges over the deaths of protesters at the Kahrizak prison in the crackdown following the disputed 2009 election.

If Ahmadinejad loses his struggle with Khamenei, these allies will go down with him, analysts say.

“When Ahmadinejad’s term as president is finished, the judiciary will go after them one by one,” said Khalaji. “Ahmadinejad knows that if he becomes a former president who is marginalised and without any power, all of his key people will be wiped out.”

INSURANCE POLICY

So far, Ahmadinejad’s main tool in fighting back has been the political dirt he has dug up and threatened to use on his rivals, a tactic he has employed often with great effect, and which his critics have dubbed “begam begam”, which roughly translates as “I’ll tell, I’ll tell.”

After the clash in parliament last Sunday, one Ahmadinejad ally at the Ministry of Interior said that there were 1,000 more damaging documents that the president could reveal, according to reports in the local media.

“He wants to make it extremely costly for the regime, if not prohibitively costly for the regime, to go after him and his coterie,” said Milani at Stanford.

And the best way to protect himself and his group is not only to intimidate rivals with secret files and documents but also to keep some of his people in the government if he can, analysts say.

Ahmadinejad has long backed his key adviser Mashaie, who is also a relative – Mashaie’s daughter is married to Ahmadinejad’s son – as a possible successor as president.

But Mashaie is loathed by many hardliners for his controversial statements, such as a 2008 comment that Iranians and Israelis were friends. It is unlikely that he could pass the stringent vetting process to stand for election.

Still, Ahmadinejad could try to bring his supporters into the street to get a candidate of his choosing in the running. After the arrest of Mortazavi earlier this week, some 50 Ahmadinejad supporters protested in front of the judiciary offices, according to local media reports.

While the chances of an Ahmadinejad-endorsed candidate getting on to the ballot are slim, it is even less likely that any candidate from the reformist camp will be allowed to run. The top two reformist candidates from the 2009 election, Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, have been under house arrest for two years, accused of fomenting unrest after the vote.

Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards are likely to keep a close eye on the vetting process for candidates and voting in this presidential election because of the high stakes, analysts say: “This will be the most rigged election in the history of the Islamic Republic,” said Khalaji.

In the feud between the president and the Supreme Leader, a potential role of arbiter is filled to some extent by the Revolutionary Guards, who control vast swathes of the economy and are the most powerful security force in the country.

For now, the Guards have not entered the fray but they might, especially if there is unrest in the upcoming elections.

In an interview with the Qanoun newspaper in mid-January, Revolutionary Guard commander Nasser Shabani said the Guards expected unrest linked to the elections to start from provincial towns rather than Tehran – unrest which could start with grass roots complaints, but which the Guards had already warned potential candidates not to stir up.

Shabani also issued a stark warning to Ahmadinejad.

“Ahmadinejad, for all the good he could have done, is transforming from an opportunity into a threat to the regime, unfortunately. This is an important point,” he said, according to the Qanoun interview.

“Overall we must pray that his fate turns out well. And that he returns and boards the ship of the revolution.”

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

I’m still not sure why they keep saying this is such a historic storm (a couple feet of snow is not unheard of in the Northeast) but it still sounds like a real bad one, with destructive winds. I feel very, very bad about the Hurricane Sandy victims who are still living in primitive conditions. This is where government should step in — and they’ve done a pretty crappy job.

Stay off the roads and stay safe, everyone! Dr. Jeff Masters at Weatherunderground.com:

Snow has begun falling from New York City to Massachusetts, where blizzard warnings are flying in anticipation of the arrival of one of the most severe and dangerous Nor’easters in U.S. history. The great storm, dubbed “Nemo”, has just emerged into the waters off the coast of Virginia, and is predicted to “bomb” to a central pressure of 975 – 980 mb by Saturday afternoon.

Cold, Arctic air spilling southwards behind a strong 1038 mb high over Canada will collide with warm, moist air over the Atlantic, where ocean temperatures are unusually warm–about 5°F warmer than average over a large swath from New Jersey to Nantucket, Massachusetts. The contrast between the cold and warm air will help intensify the storm, and the unusually warm waters will pump large quantities of moisture into the air, which will be capable of feeding record-breaking snows over New England. The latest NWS forecast for Boston calls for 22 – 30″ of snow by Saturday morning, with additional snows though Saturday afternoon. Since Boston’s all-time heaviest snow storm is 27.5″ (February 17-18, 2003), Winter Storm Nemo has a chance of exceeding that.

According to NWS, here are the top snowstorms since 1936 for Logan Airport:

1. February 17-18, 2003 27.5″
2. February 6-7, 1978 27.1″
3. February 24-27, 1969 26.3″
4. March 31-April 1, 1997 25.4″
5. January 22-24, 1945 22.8″
6. January 22-23, 2005 22.5″
7. January 20-21, 1978 21.4″
8. March 3-5, 1960 19.8″
9. February 16-17, 1958 19.4″
10. February 8-10, 1994 18.7″
11. January 7-8, 1996 18.2″
11. December 20-22, 1975 18.2″
11. December 26-27, 2010 18.2″

The weight of all that heavy snow on rooftops will create the danger of roof collapses. In addition to the heavy snow, the storm will bring coastal wind gusts over hurricane force, and moderate to major coastal flooding. During the peak of the storm, Friday night into Saturday morning, snowfall rates of 2 – 3″ per hour can be expected. These intense bursts of snow may be accompanied by lightning and thunder.

The cities of Hartford, Providence, and Portland are all likely to get more than a foot of snow, and two feet of snow will probably fall along a swath from South Central Connecticut to Southwest Maine, with isolated amounts of 3′. Ferocious sustained winds near 50 mph will occur at the coast, with wind gusts in excess of hurricane force–74 mph. The combination of heavy snow and high winds will make travel extremely dangerous or impossible, with near-zero visibility in white-out conditions. The snow and high winds are likely to cause many power outages.

Statue of Will Rogers at Will Rogers World Airport (Image from flyokc.com)

A 10-year veteran of the US Air Force is once again unable to return to his home after being mysteriously added to a federal no-fly list for a second time.

Saadiq Long, a Muslim American born in the state of Oklahoma, is stranded near his hometown despite having purchased a plane ticket to return to Qatar, a small Arab nation where he teaches English and lives with his wife and children.

Long has been visiting his family in the United States to tend to his ailing mother, who still lives in the small Midwest town of McAlester, Oklahoma, and intended on leaving on Wednesday to return to Qatar. He tells the Associated Press that while attempting to catch his flight, however, he was refused a boarding pass and was referred by the TSA to a group of armed police.

“I think about three police officers arrived after that,” Long, a US citizen, tells the AP. “It was very, very strange, by the way, and very intimidating.”

Long tells the AP that an agent with the US Transportation and Security Administration informed him after the incident that he was barred from boarding any and all aircraft. He claims he hasn’t been given a reason, however, and his attorneys are now attempting to get confirmation from the FBI.

Last year, Long was attempting to fly from Qatar to Oklahoma to visit his mother when he was denied boarding a US-bound aircraft. He says he has never been accused of a crime and is a veteran of the US military, but for reasons unknown has been added at least twice now to a federal no-fly list.

“I don’t understand how the government can take away my right to travel without even telling me,” Long told The Guardian last November after the first incident kept him abroad for six months. “If the US government wanted me to question or arrest or prosecute me, they could have had me in a minute. But there are no charges, no accusations, nothing.”

After being barred from flying to the US last year, Long went public with his plight and was eventually approved to travel home after an onslaught of media coverage. Now that he has returned to the US, though, he is once again at the mercy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who maintains no-fly lists for the US government.

“We had hoped that cleared things up when he was allowed to fly here, and now we’re confused because he’s not trying to get into the country, he’s trying to leave and get back to Qatar, where his wife and child are, and he can get back to work,” a spokesperson for the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) tells KOTV News.

“He’s almost back to square one,” CAIR Executive Director Adam Soltani adds in a statement delivered Wednesday. “He was cleared to fly into the country. Why won’t he be allowed to fly out?”

“CAIR’s concern is that Saadiq is an American citizen and he, like any other American citizen, should not be barred from leaving or entering the country without due process of law. If there’s a reason, it should be communicated properly,” Soltani says. “We can only speculate that this has something to do with his faith.”

Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson has successfully claimed more than £900,000 from car insurers to repair his rare and valuable McLaren F1.

His claim, which is thought to be the highest ever recorded in the UK, follows a 2011 crash on the A605 near Haddon, Cambridgeshire, that left Atkinson with a badly damaged shoulder.

The unusual repair job is extensively documented in Classic & Sports Car magazine, with a picture of the burgundy McLaren on the cover.

Ben Stagg, specialist insurer with RK Harrison, said the quality components used to make an F1 are one reason the repair costs were so high.

The high-performance car makes extensive use of carbon fibre and needed specialist care – it took weeks just to get a proper insurance estimate.

“All modern supercars are predominantly carbon fibre – most Lamborghinis, most Ferraris – and the smallest ding in carbon fibre is a big repair job,” said Stagg.

“And part of the engine bay is gold, that’s the best heat conductor. It’s the materials they used compared to everyday cars that make it so expensive.”

He said many owners baby their expensive cars, driving them only a few times a year in perfect weather conditions, but Atkinson actually drives his McLaren extensively.

The Blackadder star told the magazine he believes supercars should be used, not sequestered in garages.

“It depresses me when great cars are hidden away,” he said. “It’s a crime not to use it.”

Magazine editor Alastair Clements said Atkinson, 58, should be applauded.

“He let us do the story because he wanted other enthusiasts to know that he loves it, that he isn’t just some celebrity with an expensive car, that he’s owned it for 15 years and loved it for 15 years,” he said.

“He’s put it back exactly as it was. He’s a bit of a hero. It’s much more than the value.”

Although the insurance claim may seem eye-watering to most drivers, the last used McLaren F1 sold on the open market went for about £3.5m, said Stagg.

After the year-long repair project, it is thought the actor’s annual insurance premium could be as high as £60,000.

Atkinson, whose Mr Bean act was revived during the Olympics opening ceremony last summer, is currently appearing on the West End stage in Quartermaine’s Terms, by Simon Gray.

He has received rave reviews for his portrayal of St John Quartermaine, a hapless and lonely English language teacher at a Cambridge school in the early 1960s.

The ex-wife of Chris Huhne has claimed he tried to force her to have a second abortion.

Vicky Pryce, on trial for taking her husband’s speeding points in 2003, told Southwark Crown Court that the former Energy and Climate Change Secretary was a ‘bully’.

She had already revealed in court that she had undergone a termination in 1990 after feeling pressure from Mr Huhne that was “very, very firm”.

Under cross-examination, she said a few years later she fell pregnant again: “The same argument ensued, it was all booked and I was meant to go (for the procedure) that morning.

“I woke up and knew how I had felt about the previous one and knew I couldn’t do it.”

Their child was born and Pryce said Huhne had loved and raised the child normally.

The prosecution argued that the incident proved that she could stand up for herself.

Pryce described her husband as a highly ambitious politician.

She said: “He was someone who wanted to achieve his aims and nothing would come in his way of doing so.”

Her phone and email records were analysed in court and she was also asked about her defence of ‘marital coercion’.

She said: “It is clear from my emails: if you are pressurised and bullied you should not be prosecuted.”

Pryce has already told the jury that she found it ‘morally repugnant’ to accept the points but that her husband had forced her to sign the form.

After protesting his innocence for months, Huhne dramatically changed his plea to guilty earlier this week and is likely to face a prison sentence.

Pryce denies perverting the course of justice and her trial is expected to conclude next week.

Dale Cregan fired 32 shots at his unarmed victims in 31 seconds then handed himself in confessing: “I’ve just done two coppers,” a court has heard.

Dale Cregan unleashed a hail of bullets at PC Fiona Bone, 32 and PC Nicola Hughes, 23 – many as they lay injured on the ground, Preston Crown Court was told.

The jury heard how Cregan later handed himself in to police at Hyde Police station telling them: “Sorry about those two that have been killed, I wish it was men.”

He allegedly went on: “I’ve dropped the gun at the scene and I’ve murdered two police officers. You were hounding my family so I took it out on yous (sic). I’m wanted by the police and I’ve just done two coppers.”

The jury was shown video of the moment Cregan was arrested at the front desk of the police station.

He is seen speaking on his mobile phone, cradling it, after a police officer jumps over the front desk and handcuffs him.

Relatives of the two murdered police officers wept as they watched footage of the pair leaving the police station for the last time.

Chilling details of the double shooting were revealed for the first time in court this morning.

The court was told how On September 18 last year, Cregan was in hiding in a house in Abbey Gardens, Hattersely, Manchester.

He made a 999 call to police claiming there was a burglary and when told an officer was on the way, Cregan replied: “I’ll be waiting,” said the prosecution.

Nicholas Clarke QC told the jury: “He had carefully put in place a plan that he knew would ensure that an unsuspecting police officer or officers would be sent to the door, to attend to a household who had been the victim of damage to his house.

“Cregan knew that the officers who attended would have no idea what would be waiting for them.”

PC Hughes and PC Bone were assigned the call and made their way from Hyde Police station to the address.

“On arrival, the two officers stepped out of their van and walked forward the short distance to number 30.

“Cregan’s carefully laid plan had been successful,” said Mr Clarke.

“He had lured two unarmed officers to his door and he was armed, ready and waiting for them.

“As Nicola and Fiona walked through the small front garden, he opened the front door and immediately fired his Glock.”

The jury heard how both officers were shot in the chest. The body armour they were wearing protected them and the bullets did not penetrate, the prosecution said.

The officers, the court heard, made a “tactical retreat”.

“PC Fiona Bone moved to the right, getting out of the line of sight and PC Nicola Hughes turned to run up the path. As they retreated more shots were fired.

“PC Hughes was shot just below her armoured vest in the middle of her back and was immediately paralysed causing her to fall forwards onto the path.

“As she was falling or lying flat on her stomach she was shot three more times.

“Cregan then turned his attention to PC Fiona Bone. She was trapped in front of the lounge window and he discharged 24 shots at her. Some struck the officer others the house,” the court heard.

She managed to draw and fire her Taser but it was discharged into a hard surface, probably the paving, the jury was told.

The court was told that only a matter of 31 seconds had passed between PC Hughes switching off the engine of their vehicle and PC Bone firing the Taser.

Mr Clarke said: “Most of the bullets struck her body armour or the wall at the front of the house but she was the central target.”

PC Bone was shot between five and eight times receiving a total of eight gunshot-related injuries, the prosecution said.

“As she turned and fell one bullet managed to get through under her arm. She was killed by a perforating shot to the upper left side of her chest which caused fatal injuries to the top of her heart.

“Cregan wasn’t finished. He turned his attention to PC Hughes and fired three more shots into the back and side of her head. She was shot eight times causing a total of seven gunshot-related injuries,” the jury heard.

The court was told that Cregan fired a total of 32 bullets at the two unarmed police officers.

Mr Clarke added: “Before he fled Abbey Gardens he made sure he left his usual calling card.

“He launched a fragmentation grenade back towards the garden of number 30 where the two police officers were lying on the floor.”

Writing in National Geographic in December 2012 about “small-scale irrigation techniques with simple buckets, affordable pumps, drip lines, and other equipment” that “are enabling farm families to weather dry seasons, raise yields, diversify their crops, and lift themselves out of poverty” water expert Sandra Postel of the Global Water Policy Project cautioned against reckless land and water-related investments in Africa. “[U]nless African governments and foreign interests lend support to these farmer-driven initiatives, rather than undermine them through land and water deals that benefit large-scale, commercial schemes, the best opportunity in decades for societal advancement in the region will be squandered.”

That same month, the online publication Market Oracle reported that “[t]he new ‘water barons’–the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires–are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.” The report reveals two phenomena that have been gathering speed, and that could potentially lead to profit accumulation at the cost of communities and commons –the expansion of market instruments beyond the water supply and sanitation to other areas of water governance, and the increasingly prominent role of financial institutions.

In several instances this has meant that the government itself has set up public corporations that run like a business, contracting out water supply and sanitation operations to those with expertise, or entering into public—private—partnerships, often with water multinationals. This happened recently in Nagpur and New Delhi, India. In most rural areas, ensuring a clean drinking water supply and sanitation continues to be a challenge. For-profit companies such as Sarvajal have begun setting up pre-paid water kiosks (or water ATMs) that would dispense units of water upon the insertion of a pre-paid card. It is no surprise that these are popular among people who otherwise have no access to clean drinking water.

With climate change, however, the water crisis is no longer perceived as confined to developing countries or even primarily a concern related to water supply and sanitation. Fresh water commons are becoming degraded and depleted in both developed and developing countries. In the United States, diversion of water for expanded commodity crop production, biofuels and gas hydro-fracking is compounding the crisis in rural areas. In areas ranging from the Ogallala aquifer to the Great Lakes in North America, water has been referred to as liquid gold. Billionaires such as T. Boone Pickens have been buying up land overlying the Ogallala aquifer, acquiring water rights; companies such as Dow Chemicals, with a long history of water pollution, are investing in the business of water purification, making pollution itself a cash-cow.

But chemical companies are not alone: GE and its competitor Siemens have extensive portfolios that include an array of water technologies to serve the needs of industrial customers, municipal water suppliers or governments. (In the last year and a half two Minnesota based companies have become large players in this business–Ecolab, by acquiring Nalco and Pentair by merging with Tyco‘s Flow Control unit–both now belonging to S&P’s 500.)

The financial industry has also zeroed in on water. In the summer of 2011, Citigroup issued a report on water investments. The much quoted statement by Willem Buiter (chief economist at Citigroup) gives an inkling of Citigroup’s conclusion: “Water as an asset class will, in my view, become eventually the single most important physical-commodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals.” Once again, several others had already seen water as an important investment opportunity, including GE’s Energy Financial Services, Goldman Sachs and several asset management firms that are involved investing in farmland in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe.

Given these recent trends, initiatives that track the water use of companies or map information regarding water related risks could be double edged. Some examples include the ‘water disclosure project’ and the ‘water-mapping project’. Both are initiated by non-profits/ think-tanks, the former by UK-based Carbon Disclosure Project and the latter by the US-based World Resources Institute. While distinct, they are linked by their shared constituency: global investors concerned about water-related risks. These initiatives could help companies identify and reduce their water footprint, or could lead to company investments that follow water and grab it.

The Carbon Disclosure Project’s water disclosure project seeks to help businesses and institutional investors understand the risks and opportunities associated with water scarcity and other water-related issues. According to its most recent report, issued on behalf of 470 investors with assets of $50 trillion USD, over half the respondents to their survey have experienced water-related challenges in the preceding five years, translating into disruptions in operations, increases in expenses and other detrimental impacts.

Aqueduct Alliance and its water mapping project, which aims to provide companies with an unprecedented level of detail on global water risks, seems at one level a direct response to the findings of the global water disclosure reports by CDP. General Electric, Goldman Sachs and the Washington-based think tank World Resources Institute are the founding members of the Aqueduct Alliance. All of them identify water-related risks as detrimental to profitability, continued economic growth and environmental sustainability. The water maps, with their unprecedented level of detail and resolution, seek to combine advanced hydrological data with geographically specific indicators that capture social, economic, and governance factors. But this initiative has given rise to concerns that such information gives companies and investors unprecedented details of water-related information in some of the world’s largest river basins.

Many of these investors, described as the “new water barons” in Jo-Shing Yang’s article ”Profiting from Your Thirst as Global Elite Rush to Control Water Worldwide,” are the same ones who have profited from speculating on agricultural contracts and contributing to the food crisis of the past few years. The food crisis and recent droughts have confirmed that controlling the source of food–the land and the water that flows under or by it–are equally or even more important.

A closer look at the land-related investments in Africa, for example, show that land grabbing is not simply an investment, but also an attempt to capture the water underneath. At the recent annual Global AgInvesting Conference (with well over 370 participants), the asset management groups and global farm businesses showcased their plans, including purchases of vast tracts of lands in varying locations around the globe. With tools such as water maps, such investors are further advantaged. The global rush for land grabbing, as well as the resistance to it, shows that all stake-holders–pension funds, Wall Street or nation-states on the one hand or the people who currently use these lands and waters, and their advocates on the other–are well aware of the life-and-death nature of land (and water) grabbing, especially in the case of developing countries.

National and international regulatory mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that basic resources such as land, water and the means for accessing fresh water do not become merely the means for profit accumulation for the wealthy, but are governed in a way that ensures the basic livelihood of those most dependent on it. The last session of the Committee on World Food Security  (a United Nations mechanism set up to address the food crisis) was a good starting point, and has set in motion a series of consultations on principles for agricultural investments. Civil Society Organizations are tracking the various ways in which regulations may develop in national contexts: simply facilitate land grabbing, mitigate negative impacts and maximize opportunities or block (or roll-back) land grabbing altogether. Ultimately, any policy approaches must prioritize local communities’ access to food and water: Any water-related investments needs to be about allaying their livelihood risks and enhancing their ability to realize their rights, whether it is in developing countries or developed countries.

China’s Three Gorges dam, completed in 2006 and put into use last summer, is the world’s largest source of ‘clean’ hydroelectric power. With a generating capability equal to that of 15 nuclear reactors, the project has been hailed as a solution to China’s massive energy crisis. However, before the project had even been completed, major concerns were voiced over the potentially disastrous environmental repercussions of this massive engineering project. Seven years later, the Three Georges dam appears to be China’s greatest short-sighted decision in its era of modernization and industrial development.

The dam has certainly been a crucial element of China’s ‘green’ initiative, aimed at decreasing reliance on non-renewable sources of energy, in particular, coal. However a decrease in carbon emissions does not necessarily create an environmentally friendly energy strategy — for example, the use of the colossal reservoir had led to weakening of the river banks, causing massive landslides in populated areas. And these are just the beginnings of the problems.

The creation of the dam has slowed the normally quick flowing river, causing silt in the water to settle on the riverbed. This not only decreases the concentration of nutrients in the water, but damages existing ecosystems. Stagnant water in the reservoir could also boost pollution levels and water-borne diseases; already major issues for the population in the area. While constructing the dam, the Chinese government moved an estimated 1.3 million people from their ancestral homeland along the river valley. As the reservoir continues to weaken the riverbank, erosion is expected to displace another 100, 000 people. Decreased level of silt downriver of the dam may lead to poorer agricultural yields , with important nutrients settling to the bottom of the reservoir. Perhaps the most frightening possible consequences of the reservoir is an increase in earthquakes. Geologists fear that the weight of the reservoir may actually cause seismic activity over the two major fault lines that the dam rests on.

In addition, vulnerability of China’s already endangered species is increasing, as huge amounts of water are moved around the watershed. Many fragile ecosystems have been destroyed when water levels have changed dramatically. Wetlands, home to many unique species, are especially susceptible to changes in the river — populations of species such as the Baiji dolphin, Chinese sturgeon, and the Siberian crane are endangered because of the Three Gorges dam project.

The Three Gorges Dam shows with brutal clarity, that China traded short-term gains for long-term social and ecological problems. The energy gained by this project is not clean, and it will have long-lasting effects on a waterway that runs through over half of the country. The environmental effects of this dam will be long-term, and in most cases, irreversible.

Now that the Three Gorges Dam is in full use, these environmental problems will have to be solved rather than prevented. The world’s largest ‘clean energy’ project has already caused and will continue to cause permanent geological and ecological damage.

Shooting suspect Christopher Jordan Dorner is seen in this handout picture released to Reuters February 7, 2013. (Reuters)

The manhunt for suspected cop-killer Christopher Dorner has led police to a California ski resort, where the suspect’s demolished pickup truck was found on the mountain, with tracks in the snow leading away from it.

After police stumbled upon the burning truck near Big Bear Lake, they followed the suspected shooter’s tracks, but failed to catch up to him. Dorner continues to be on the run as authorities continue the largest manhunt in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department.

The manhunt has led police to three states and the north of Mexico. Police are now conducting door-to-door searches of the 400 homes near the ski resort at Big Bear Lake, Calif. Authorities do not know if Dorner remains in the area, but will continue to search the area as long as the weather cooperates, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman told ABC.

Bystanders are escorted from a crime scene while police detectives investigate a shooting incident involving a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup truck in Torrance, California, February 7, 2013 (Reuters / Patrick T. Fallon)

While police will be knocking on the doors of all area residents, Bachman urged residents not to answer the door unless they know the person or see a law enforcement officer in uniform. Area schools closed down on Friday as the manhunt progressed.

But even though authorities continue to search the mountains, they admit that Dorner might no longer be in the area and that the demolished vehicle could have been a diversion or even a trap.

“He could be anywhere at this point,” said San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon.

Naval security personnel lock down Naval Base Point Loma as police search for suspect, former LAPD officer Christopher Jordan Dorner, February 7, 2013 in San Diego, California (AFP Photo / Denis Poroy)

About 150 miles south, as many as 16 San Diego County sheriff’s deputies spent the night surrounding a rural home after receiving fake reports that Dorner was there. Investigators plan to seek criminal charges against the suspect responsible for the hoax.

But in their desperation to find the man who threatened to kill more people, police are searching for him throughout California, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico. All of Dorner’s cell phone connections have been cut off, making it even more difficult for police to track him.

“We don’t know what he’s going to do,” Bachman said. “We know what he’s capable of doing. And we need to find him.”

Traffic goes past a sign at San Diego State University along Interstate 8 with information about a murder suspect’s vehicle, former LAPD officer Christopher Jordan Dorner, February 7, 2013 in San Diego, California (AFP Photo / Denis Poroy)

The suspected cop-killers actions increasingly point towards a deliberated scheme that was planned out in advance. On Thursday, CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper announced that the Dorner had sent his office a package, which arrived on Feb. 1 and must have been mailed prior to that — days before Dorner fatally shot his first two victims on Feb. 3.

The parcel contained a DVD, a letter, and a bullet-riddled coin. A sticky-note on the DVD read, “I never lied! Here is my vindication.” The coin was an LAPD token that bears the name of William Bratton, former LAPD Chief of Police. The coins are symbolic gifts sometimes given to officers to wish them good luck and are a symbol of respect. Written on duct-tape attached to the coin was the inscription, “Thanks, but no thanks Will Bratton.”

Cooper’s staff did not discover the contents of the package until Thursday, after which Cooper went on the air with Bratton to discuss its significance.

“What you’ve shown me is, to be quite frank with you, very disturbing,” said Bratton, who does not remember meeting Dorner several years ago.

“I was the Chief of Police that signed off on his discharge from the LAPD, so in terms of his grievances, I could understand his grievance directed toward me in my capacity as Chief of Police,” he said. “A lot of police officers get discharged and none of them resort to the actions that this young man has taken.”

Dorner, a 33-year-old former LAPD officer and Navy reservist, is suspected of killing two civilians and one police officer and injuring two other officers. The suspected killer has published an online manifesto on his Facebook page in which he lays out his grievances against the LAPD, includes a list of people he plans to kill, and pledges to take down their families too. In an alleged act of vengeance, Dorner’s shooting spree is in response to being “unjustly” terminated from the LAPD in early 2009. Dorner was dismissed for “making false statements” about another officer using excessive force against a schizophrenic subject. Dorner was fired, while his colleague was cleared from the accusation.

“The LAPD’s actions have cost me my law enforcement career. They cost me my naval career. … I’ve lost my relationship with my mother and sister because of the LAPD. I’ve lost a relationship with close friends because of the LAPD. In essence, I’ve lost everything because the LAPD took my name and [knew] I was INNOCENT!!!” Dorner wrote in his manifesto.

“This is my last resort. The LAPD has suppressed the truth and it has now led to deadly consequences.”

The police department has dispatched protection teams to guard uniformed officers and their families. Dozens of officers have built a line of defense outside of the LAPD headquarters and officers who normally patrol on motorcycles have been ordered to use patrol cars. Officers are also being dispatched in teams of at least two as the LAPD’s largest manhunt in history continues.

“I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty,” Dorner threatened. “You will now live the life of the prey.”

James F. Tracy says that the gun control package proposed by Barack Obama is not going to be effective in reducing the rampant amount of gun-related violence in the country.

In the background of this President Obama on Wednesday formally proposed the most expansive gun-control policies in generations and initiated 23 separate executive actions aimed at curbing what he called “the epidemic of gun violence in this country.” Meanwhile a Nobel Prize-winning economist has described America’s largest gun lobby group as an “insane organization” that is pushing the country towards dystopia. “What strikes me is we’ve actually gotten a glimpse into the mindset, though, of the pro-gun people…It’s bizarre,” Krugman said, adding that the NRA believes “America cannot manage unless everybody’s prepared to shoot intruders.” Krugman’s remarks come nearly two months after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut where 20 small children and six school staff members were murdered. Experts believe the deadly mass shooting served as a tipping point in the gun control debate and that the NRA is targeted to fail as a result.

Press TV has talked with James F. Tracy, associate professor at the Florida Atlantic University to further discuss the issue at hand. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Considering the figures that have come in with nearly 1500 people killed in gun-related violence since just December alone and one mass shooting taking place once a month since 2009.

Do you think that Barack Obama’s package of gun-control law reforms is enough?

Tracy: Well, thank you for having me. I believe that more or less what he is proposing involves making things more strict for law-abiding citizens.

It is not going to make things more difficult for criminals or the equivalent from purchasing guns.

If we really want to have a solution to the epidemic of mass shootings in this country, one thing we could do is to look at the fact that many of these shooting involve individuals who have been on psychotropic drugs, anti-depressants, atypical anti-psychotics; that cause homicidality and suicidality.

That is something that is not actually being concerned. I do not think that there is actually anything that the government can do to prevent criminals or those intent on mass shootings or the equivalent from obtaining weapons.

Press TV: Right but professor, also looking at the way guns have been marketed thus far, specifically by gun lobbyist groups; they seem to be really banking on the second amendment, which gives the constitutional rights of bearing arms.

However do you think that it has been marketed in such a way that Americans do feel that they need to have guns in order to preserve their freedoms?

Tracy: Well, gun sales are certainly up and there is concern among many regardless of their political stride, that they are going to be increased governmental measures preventing individuals from being able to lawfully purchase and own firearms.

So that may very well be a concern. I am not sure as to whether or not it is not a matter of marketing.

I think there is also a concern among a good percentage of the population that we could face an economic crisis or the equivalent and one would desire that sort of protection.

Press TV: Well, also on the one hand there is this debate about stricter gun control and basically a tight-fixing loopholes within the laws that already exist but on the other hand we are seeing steps taken such as schools requiring the teachers and janitors to be armed to protect the children.

Is this the answer?

Tracy: It may very well be because these schools and other areas where no one is actually armed, you do have police in some schools and certainly in schools that are located to more affluent group of individuals and their children, they have armed guards but it is not the case with the majority of the public schools, so if someone is intent on doing harm, they know where to go to find disarmed body of people.

Autonomous Robots Coming Soon to a Hospital Near You

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013

FDA has approved the use of autonomous telemedicine robots in U.S. hospitals; although President Obama’s second term inaugural speech was inclusive and liberal, it failed to mention the growing crisis of inequality our nation faces; meanwhile, a new book details the scandalous antics of hard-partying authors. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

FDA Approves First Autonomous Telemedicine Robot for Use in Hospitals
iRobot and InTouch Health have received the FDA’s stamp of approval for their RP-VITA autonomous robot, clearing the way for the bot to begin wandering hospitals throughout the United States.

Classical: What If It’s (Gasp) Entertainment?
It just may be time to give up on one of the most exhausted, long-lived cliches about classical music: that it is “high” art, uniquely deserving respect and support for its greatness.

Even Balzac Had To Intern
A young man graduates from college. At his father’s insistence, he begins interning at a law firm.

Value Evolution, Not Just Revolution, in Higher Ed
Ever since the country’s top universities teamed up last year in loose federations to offer free online classes to the masses, MOOCs have become a household word in higher-education circles.

The Real Problem With Colleges’ Business Model
The simple problem with the existing higher education business model in the United States is that it has involved aggregate per student spending that rises faster than inflation for a long time.

Bad Actors
A continuing source of frustration for many Americans has been the fact that no one on Wall Street has gone to jail for the mortgage fraud that nearly crashed the world financial system in 2008.

The Missing Link in Obama’s Liberalism
Consensus! Left and right agree that Barack Obama not only gave a powerfully liberal inaugural address, but that he touched on all the important bases.

What You Need to Know About Genetically Engineered Food
American farmers started growing genetically engineered (GE) crops (which are also commonly referred to as “GMOs”) in 1996, and now plant 165 million acres annually.

Netflix, ‘House of Cards,’ and the Golden Age of Television
TV is replacing movies as elite entertainment, because players like Netflix, HBO, and AMC are in an arms race for lush, high-quality shows

A Portrait of the Adult Children of Immigrants
Second-generation Americans–the 20 million adult U.S.-born children of immigrants–are substantially better off than immigrants themselves on key measures of socioeconomic attainment, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

Why Social Movements Should Ignore Social Media
There are two ways to be wrong about the Internet.

How the Internet Reinforces Inequality in the Real World
Maps have always had a way of bluntly illustrating power.

The Study That Could Upend Everything We Thought We Knew About Declining Urban Crime
Bill Bratton took the job as commissioner of the New York Police Department in 1994 under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, setting the stage for a Cinderella story in urban law enforcement that went on to change how virtually every major U.S. city tackles crime.

America’s New Vietnam Syndrome
The kind of questioning that Hagel had to face at his confirmation hearing only goes to show that the ideological divisions of the 1970s have survived into the 21st century, reborn now as arguments over whether Iraq was ‘worth it.’

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On February 6, Obama chose Jewell as new Interior Secretary. More on her below.

She’ll replace Ken Salazar. He supported BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation. He ignored environmental risks. He approved BP’s exploration plan with no environmental analysis.

His negligence permitted Gulf of Mexico disaster. After BP’s rig exploded, he granted “categorical exemptions” to expand offshore drilling. He surpassed Bush administration policies.

He and Obama share culpability. They back dangerous nuclear expansion. They’re beholden to oil and gas interests. Drill, drill, drill is official policy. Lip service alone is paid to environmental concerns.

Salazar’s environmental record was deplorable. As junior Colorado senator, he opposed fuel efficiency. He supported unrestricted oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

He voted against Gulf of Mexico drilling protections. He fought them as Interior Secretary.

Center for Biological Diversity’s Kieran Suckling accused him of being “very closely tied to ranching and mining and very traditional old time, Western, extraction industries.”

He proved it throughout his tenure. Expect no change from Jewell. Suckling remains “guarded.” She’ll withhold judgment for later.

“America’s public lands and endangered species are in dire need of visionary leadership,” she said.

She hopes Jewell will reverse Salazar’s damage. It’s hard imagining how.

Her “challenge is whether she will value our wildlands and wildlife in the face of endless pressure by industry to drill for fossil fuels in areas within Interior’s jurisdiction.”

“Nature needs a true champion at this point in history.” Obama has other priorities. Jewell was chosen to serve them. Expect no positive changes on her watch.

Suckling’s colleague, Bill Snape, said he’s “not joining the (Jewell) love fest.”

“Our public lands are not a publicly-traded commodity on Wall Street.”

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit called on Obama to set aside one acre for conservation permanently for each one devoted to oil and gas development.

“So far under Obama,” he said, “industry has been winning the race as it obtains more and more land for oil and gas.”

“Over the past four years, the industry has leased more than 6 million acres, compared with only 2.6 million acres permanently protected. In the Obama era, land conservation” got short shrift.

Speaking in the White House State Dining Room, Obama announced Jewell’s appointment.

She’s Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) president and CEO. It sells outdoor gear and sporting goods. It does so through dozens of US retail outlets. Its sales approach $2 billion annually.

“Sally spent the majority of her career outside of Washington,” said Obama. She’s “an expert on the energy and climate issues that are going to shape our future.”

Obama thanked Ken Salazar. He “cracked down on waste,” he said. He claimed he improved Interior’s management. He “ushered in a new era of conservation for our land, our water and our wildlife.”

He spent four years wrecking them. He gave industry free reign. Expect no change from Jewell. She was chosen to serve industry interests. She won’t disappoint.

She’ll be low key and soft spoken. She’ll conceal official policy. Whatever Big Oil wants it gets. Jewell’s their Washington representative.

She’ll oversea oil and gas production. She’ll give industry free reign. She’ll back Keystone XL Pipeline System construction. Word is Obama supports it. He hasn’t officially said so.

It’s a controversial 1,661-mile Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, TX pipeline. It’ll carry toxic tar sands oil from Western Canada to refineries on America’s Gulf coast. It’ll pass through environmentally sensitive areas in six states.

They include waterways and the Ogallala Aquifer. It’s one of the world’s largest. In America, it supplies about 30% of the nation’s irrigation ground water. It’s also used for human consumption.

Friends of the Earth says Keystone XL “will carry one of the world’s dirtiest fuels: tar sands oil.”

Its route “could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health.”

It’ll double America’s dirty tar sands oil supply. Doing so will increase environmental toxicity exponentially.

No matter the stakes, Big Oil wants it. So do Republicans, many Democrats and Obama. Expect Jewell to support it. It’s part of her mandate at Interior. She won’t disappoint.

She was chosen not to. Her background shows why. It includes banking and Mobil Oil employment.

From 1978 — 1981, she performed oil field engineering services. From 1981 — 1992, she was a Ranier Bank/Security Pacific executive.

From 1992 — 1995, she was WestOne Bank president. From 1996 — 2000, she was Washington Mutual (WaMu) commercial banking group president. Before collapsing, it was the nation’s largest mortgage lender.

It was one of the biggest option-ARM mortgage issuers. They let borrowers make unreasonably low payments. Doing so increases indebtedness exponentially. It compromises the ability to repay.

WaMu was rife with fraud. Senate investigators discovered gross deception. Loan officers got bonuses for speedy subprime mortgage closures, overcharging, and levying stiff prepayment penalties.

Senior bank executives knew all about fraudulent practices. Nothing was done internally to stop them. Bottom line priorities came first.

High-risk subprime loans were prioritized. They were securitized as toxic junk. They were sold to unwary buyers. Doing so was the bank’s undoing. It profited hugely until its house of cards collapsed. Accountability never followed.

Environmentalists and conservationists express caution about Jewell. They have good reason to do so. She wasn’t chosen to be a friend of the earth. Responsible stewardship’s excluded from her mandate.

Western Energy Alliance president Tim Wigley said he hopes Jewell’s background translates into expanded oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

“We hope to see a better balance of productive development on non-park, non-wilderness public lands that enhances the wealth of America and creates jobs while protecting the environment” on her watch, he said.

Left unsaid is you can’t have one with the other. Drill, drill, drill runs counter to good stewardship.

Bush administration Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, praised Jewell. He knew her from earlier consultations. “She was always someone I wanted there because she’s a catalyst,” he said.

In other words, she supported Big Oil administration policies. She’s well suited for Interior, added Kempthorne.

She’s “effective and time-tested on taking on a variety of issues, deciphering them, and determining what is the most important and making a decision.”

Big Oil’s in good hands with Jewell. Friends of the earth have good reasons for concern.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/big-oils-in-good-hands-with-sally-jewell/

Former U.S. presidents George H.W. Bush (L) and George W. Bush (R) (Reuters/Mike Blake)

An elusive computer hacker claims to have compromised email accounts belonging to members of the Bush family, intercepting private images and correspondence sent from two former US presidents and others.

The Smoking Gun website has published a series of personal photographs that they say were obtained after a hacker who uses the online moniker “Guccifer” breached the AOL email account of Dorothy Bush Koch – the daughter of former US President George H. W. Bush – and at least five others.

On Friday morning, the Associated Press quoted a spokesperson for the forty-second president as saying a criminal investigation into the incident has been launched. Speaking to ABC News, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirms that his agency is conducting a probe as well. Representatives for Mr. Bush’s son, fellow former-Pres. George W. Bush, have been hesitant to comment on the report, though, and Houston FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap tells the AP, “We do not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation.” According to what has been released by the Smoking Gun so far, however, both former presidents are directly linked to the hack.

In an email conversation between Guccifer and the Smoking Gun, the hacker says he swiped “a lot of stuff,” including “interesting mails” relating to the senior president’s recent hospitalization and his family.

“[Y]our dad’s funeral team is having an emergency meeting at 10 a.m. just to go through all the details,” reads one email the Smoking Gun says a Bush aide sent to President 42’s children. That communiqué, Bush aide Jean Baker writes in the email, “fell under the broadening category of things NOT TO TELL YOUR MOTHER.”

In another exchange, George W. Bush writes about planning a eulogy for his ailing father, who was hospitalized in his native Houston, Texas late last year after a case of bronchitis intensified. In yet another, Bush Jr.’s brother Jeb reflect on “how kind” his father has been to former-Pres. Bill Clinton and how “he helped restore his sordid reputation.”

“A very tough thing to do but with kindness, dad probably helped Bill Clinton than anything he himself has done,” Jeb Bush writes.

The photographs, published on the website with a large “Guccifer” watermark on each image, offers a candid look at the presidential family. Included in their report is a picture of Bush. Sr. posing alongside Pres. Clinton and another of the ailing one-term leader laid out on a hospital bed.

The Smoking Gun says that the emails hacked by Guccifer were sent between 2009 and 2012 and include an undetermined amount of correspondence between the former presidents, their associates and others. Additionally, the website says family friend Willard Heminway, CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz and former first lady Barbara Bush’s brother all had their online accounts compromised in the incident.

Reached for comment by the Smoking Gun before they went live with their report Thursday evening, Dorothy Bush Koch told that she had no idea that she had been hacked. Although the website does not mention how they were able to easily contact the victim, they claim that one of the hacked emails included a list of home addresses, cell phone number and email addresses for dozens of members of the Bush family.

“Why would someone do this?” the 53-year-old brother of Pres. George W. Bush asked the outlet.

Other emails provided to the Smoking Gun by Guccifer that have been published in part on the website allegedly include messages from Pres. Barack Obama and the address for Bush 44 and the security code needed to bypass his home security system.

A preliminary search for Guccifer has returned little to no information on the hacker, but he tells the Smoking Gun that he has hacked “hundreds of accounts” and has been under federal investigation since a “long time ago.”

Pew Charitable TrustsIn 2011, more antibiotics were sold for use in meat and poultry production than ever before–at least four-fifths of all antibiotics used in the US–according to a new report by Pew Charitable Trusts.

The report, which is based on new data released by the Food and Drug Administration, shows that antibiotics used in the big-ag industry to make livestock grow faster and resist bacteria in unsanitary living conditions, broke all previous records–a practice which is drastically contributing to the emergence of drug-resistant superbugs that render many antibiotic treatments for humans useless, the report points out.

In 2011, 29.9 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in the U.S. for meat and poultry.

Writing for Mother Jones, Tom Philpott adds:

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a set of voluntary “guidelines” designed to nudge the meat industry to curb its antibiotics habit. Ever since, the agency has been mulling whether and how to implement the new program. Meanwhile, the meat industry has been merrily gorging away on antibiotics–and churning out meat rife with antibiotic-resistant pathogens–if the latest data from the FDA itself is any indication. […]

Takeaway: While the FDA dithers with voluntary approaches to regulation, the meat industry is feasting on antibiotics and sending out product tainted with antibiotic-resistant bugs.

As a result, as Pew stated in an email to Mother Jones, bacteria such as Salmonella is showing rates of up to 78% resistance to at least one antibiotic, among other startling facts.

Pew Charitable TrustsIn 2011, more antibiotics were sold for use in meat and poultry production than ever before–at least four-fifths of all antibiotics used in the US–according to a new report by Pew Charitable Trusts.

The report, which is based on new data released by the Food and Drug Administration, shows that antibiotics used in the big-ag industry to make livestock grow faster and resist bacteria in unsanitary living conditions, broke all previous records–a practice which is drastically contributing to the emergence of drug-resistant superbugs that render many antibiotic treatments for humans useless, the report points out.

In 2011, 29.9 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in the U.S. for meat and poultry.

Writing for Mother Jones, Tom Philpott adds:

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a set of voluntary “guidelines” designed to nudge the meat industry to curb its antibiotics habit. Ever since, the agency has been mulling whether and how to implement the new program. Meanwhile, the meat industry has been merrily gorging away on antibiotics–and churning out meat rife with antibiotic-resistant pathogens–if the latest data from the FDA itself is any indication. […]

Takeaway: While the FDA dithers with voluntary approaches to regulation, the meat industry is feasting on antibiotics and sending out product tainted with antibiotic-resistant bugs.

As a result, as Pew stated in an email to Mother Jones, bacteria such as Salmonella is showing rates of up to 78% resistance to at least one antibiotic, among other startling facts.

For more than a year, several major US media outlets–including theWashington Post and the New York Times –deliberately concealed the existence of a US drone base in Saudi Arabia. The base was used to carry out many of the CIA’s extra-judicial assassinations, including the killing of at least two US citizens.

The decision not to report on the location of the base was made at the direct request of the Obama administration, underscoring once again the role of the media as an auxiliary arm of the state.

The drone base’s location was finally reported in an article published this week in the Times, shortly before a Senate hearing for John Brennan, who has been nominated by Obama to head the CIA. Brennan reportedly played a key role in establishing the base in Saudi Arabia, and has been central in the drawing up of the administration’s “kill list” of individuals to be assassinated.

The revelation came a day after NBC News released a leaked Justice Department white paper giving the administration’s legal rationale for assassinating US citizens, including Anwar Al-Awlaki in September 2011, one of those killed using drones from the Saudi base. Al-Awlaki’s 16-year old son, also a US citizen, was assassinated in a separate attack. (See, “The police state implications of Obama’s assassination program”)

Attempting to justify the decision not to report on the location of the drone base, Times managing editor Dean Baquet told the newspaper’s public editor, Margaret Sullivan, that, until the nomination of Brennan, the location of the drone base was a mere “footnote” to stories about the assassination program.

This false rationalization–that the location of the base was not particularly important or newsworthy–is contradicted by further statements from Baquet. Sullivan writes, “The government’s rationale for asking that the location be withheld was this: Revealing it might jeopardize the existence of the base and harm counterterrorism efforts. ‘The Saudis might shut it down because the citizenry would be very upset,’ [Baquet] said.”

Baquet added, “We have to balance that concern with reporting the news.”

Baquet and the Times are so deeply integrated into the state apparatus that they do not realize how devastating this statement is. The interests of the state–in engaging and covering up criminal actions abroad–have to be “balanced” with the ostensible task of the Times, to report the news. The newspaper accepts, moreover, the entire rationale of the “war on terror.”

Sullivan adds, “Mr. Baquet said he had a conversation with a C.I.A. official about a month ago and, at that time, agreed to continue withholding the location, as it had done for many months.”

According to Sullivan, as this week’s Times article was being prepared, the CIA and government were informed that the newspaper was planning on revealing the location and that “officials should contact Mr. Baquet if they wanted to discuss it further.” This time, there was no objection from the Obama administration.

In other words, the Times and its reporters are in regular discussion with the CIA over what is and is not “fit to print.”

By Baquet’s own admission, the Times decided not to expose the location of the base because it could cause problems for US ally Saudi Arabia, a despotic monarchy that is a lynchpin to the broader strategy of American imperialism in the Middle East. The monarchy plays a key role not only in the drone assassination program, but also the war in Syria and efforts to suppress popular uprisings throughout the region against pro-US governments.

There is widespread opposition within Saudi Arabia to the presence of the US military. After the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, bases were formally removed, though there remained a large military-intelligence presence in the country.

The Times was also covering for Brennan, currently the director of the National Counterterrorism Center under Obama. Brennan was a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia and evidently had close connections to the Saudi monarchy, helping to negotiate the establishment of the base. A base in Saudi Arabia is particularly important due to its proximity to Yemen, where al-Awlaki was killed; Iran, where US spy drones are known to operate; and North Africa.

The American media in general, and the New York Times in particular, has a long and sordid record of collusion with the government in promoting war and covering up for crimes, at home and abroad. Particularly since the attacks of September 11, the media has integrated itself more thoroughly into the state apparatus, going far beyond the “embedded” reporters that travel with the US military.

One particularly egregious example was the decision by the New York Timesto withhold publication of National Security Agency’s illegal domestic spying program at the request of the Bush administration for over a year. The period in which the newspaper sat on the information without informing the American people included the 2004 US elections. (See, “A damning admission: New York Times concealed NSA spying until after 2004 elections”)

When the newspaper published a report on the destruction of the CIA videotapes of torture in 2007, it acknowledged that this came only after discussions with the government and evidently another lengthy delay. (See, “New York Times bows to White House pressure over CIA tapes story”)

There can be no doubt that there are many more crimes carried out by the government that are known to the editors of the Times and other major American media, but remain concealed from the American people.

A picture taken on January 7, 2009 shows gas pipelines at the Slovakian gas border delivery station in the eastern Slovak town of Velke Kapusany, near the border with Ukraine (AFP Photo/Samuel Kubani)

Ukraine could start importing Slovakian and Hungarian gas as soon as first quarter of 2013 in attempt to diversify its supplies away from Russia’s Gazprom.

­“There are some technical difficulties from the Slovakian side which we are currently negotiating,” Ukrainian Minister of Energy and Coal industry, Eduard Stavitsky said on Friday. “With Hungary, almost everything is settled.”

Kiev started importing gas from Germany’s RWE in November last year at a price cheaper than Gazprom is offering. 

Ukraine is also in talks with RWE over shipping the natural gas from Slovakia. Kiev is also considering importing Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from Turkey through Bulgaria and Romania, RBC news outlet reports.

Ukraine could reach energy autonomy in 10 years if it develops energy-saving technologies and explores shale gas, the US State Departments Special Envoy for International Energy Carlos Pascual said at a meeting with Ukrainian energy ministers and other officials in Kiev earlier this month.

Earlier on Friday Mr. Stavitsky said Ukraine still sees no reason to pay $7bln to Gazprom for importing less gas in 2012 than it agreed. In 2012 Ukraine bought 32.9bn cubic metres of Russian gas, but Gazprom insists that under a 2009 contract Ukraine should buy 52bn cubic metres of Russian gas a year, with the possibility of it being reduced by 20% — to 42bn cubic metres. The lower volumes are linked to the ‘take it or pay it’ clause in the contract, which means Ukraine needs to pay for a set minimum of 42bn cubic metres of gas whether the country uses it or not.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich says Gazprom isn’t following market rules.

“Such conditions don’t fall into market relations and should be disputed. So our answer to Gazprom was: we consider the contract being not correct and are ready for further negotiations and talks with Russia in particular,” Yanukovich stated.

Meanwhile Gazprom estimates, its net profit in 2012 could fall by 15% compared to the previous year. Experts say it’s down to slide in exports to Europe and Ukraine in particular.

There is an astounding level of confusion surrounding the current US deficit. There are three irrefutable facts about the deficits:

First, the United States has large deficits because the collapse of the housing bubble sank the economy.President Obama speaks at a White House press conference. Photograph: Rex Features

Second, if we had smaller deficits the main result would slower growth and higher unemployment.

Third, large projected long-term deficits are the result of a broken health care system, not reckless government “entitlement” programs.

The first point can be easily shown by examining the Congressional Budget Office’s projections from January 2008 (pdf), before it recognized the impact of the collapse of the housing bubble on the economy. The deficit in 2007 was just 1.2 percent of GDP. The deficit was projected to stay near 1.5 percent of GDP until well into the current decade, even if the Bush tax cuts did not expire.

With deficits of this magnitude, the debt-to-GDP ratio was actually shrinking. In fact, the deficit exploded.

It wasn’t because of a surge in reckless spending and/or a splurge of tax cuts, it exploded because tax collections plummeted when the economy went into a downturn. In addition, we increased spending on programs like unemployment insurance. We also had temporary stimulus measures that were explicitly intended to raise the deficit in order to boost the economy.

All of these changes were temporary. If the economy returned to its pre-recession level of unemployment tomorrow, deficits would again be quite manageable, even with no further budget cuts or tax increases.

This feeds directly into the second point: deficits are supporting the economy at present. Any steps that we take to reduce the deficit, either by cutting spending or raising taxes, would pull money out of the economy. This means slower growth and higher unemployment.

There is no plausible story that private sector demand will expand to fill the gap. In more normal times, lower deficits might mean lower interest rates, which could lead to more investment and consumption. However with interest rates already at extraordinarily low levels it is not plausible that deficit reduction would have a noticeable impact.

This means that deficit reduction is throwing people out of work. This will ruin the lives of millions of workers. It can also be a disaster for their families. One of the surest ways of hurting the life prospects for today’s children is to put their parents out of work.

Finally, the long-term deficit horror stories that fill Washington parlor discussions are entirely the result of a health care system that now costs more than twice as much per person as the average for other wealthy countries. The ratio is projected to rise to three and four to one in the decades ahead.

Serious people talk about fixing the health care system, a process that may have already begun with Obamacare. Health care costs have increased far less than projected for the last five years. If this slower growth path continues, we will have no long-term deficit problem.

In short, we need deficits today to fill a huge hole in demand created by the private sector. We can best see this as an opportunity to finance public investments in the future. With a negative real long-term interest rate on federal debt, this is a great time to borrow for those with any business sense. By contrast, austerity is a great recipe for pain today and even more pain tomorrow.

© 2012 The Guardian

While innocently researching something completely different, we couldn’t help but notice David Cameron has a habit even his nearest and dearest have never noticed – he absolutely loves stroking his chin.

“Why?” was our first question, before we found endless images of the PM fondling his face.

Shortly afterwards we just giggled our way through the gallery.

So here’s 74 pictures of David Cameron stroking his chin.

This handout picture, taken by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on March 18, 2011 and released on February 1, 2013 shows water discharged against unit 3 reactor building at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture. (AFP Photo/TEPCO)

At least 350 people affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown will file a class action lawsuit against the Japanese government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on the second anniversary of the disaster.

Lawyers representing residents whose homes and farms were hit by radiation in the wake of the disaster said it was the largest suit on the issue filed against the government.

The plaintiffs will further seek some US$535 each in compensation from TEPCO for every month they have been displaced as a result of the accident.

They also plan to seek a court injunction that will require both the government and TEPCO to reduce radiation levels in the affected area to pre-disaster levels.

The suit will be filed on March 11, the two-year anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Several other similar class-action suits against both the government and TEPCO will be filed with the Tokyo District Court on the same day.

“The government promoted nuclear power as a national policy and has been closely involved with it,” lawyer Izutaro Managi told AAP news agency.

“Being fully aware of the danger of losing power due to a tsunami, the government neglected its duty to prevent such an event,” he said. “This is a suit to recover a Fukushima with neither radiation nor nuclear power,” he continued.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami crashed into the power station and knocked out its cooling system leading to the meltdown of three reactor cores. Tens of thousands were forced to flee the area and many are still unable to return.

We need your help to sustain grassroots, groundbreaking journalism. Make a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout now by clicking here.

Britain’s ambitious plans to store all government data on the so-called G-Cloud have led to warningsfrom the European Union that security will be compromised now that U.S. intelligence agencies have the legal right to survey all data held on U.S. owned Cloud services.

At least four U.S. companies are involved in the U.K. government’s G-Cloud project which Whitehall hopes will slash costs and “deliver fundamental changes in the way the public sector procures and operates.”

Eventually, it is hoped the G-Cloud will hold the bulk of State data in addition to that of schools, charities, the BBC and police, even the Bank of England.

While the recent amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have received scant attention in the British Press, there are a few Members of Parliament so concerned that they want Britain to think about ending all intelligence cooperation with the U.S.

“The Americans have got to remember who their allies are and who their enemies are,” Conservative MP David Davis told The Independent, warning of “a whole cascade of constitutional and privacy concerns for ordinary British people”.

Cloud storage is increasingly popular in the U.K. where around 35 per cent of businesses and an unknown number of private users employ some form of remote storage from U.S. based companies like Apple, Amazon and Google. The government wants to see even greater use of Cloud storage across all sectors in what it describes as a robust “public cloud first policy.”

The FISA amendments now give the CIA and NSA the right to access all this data not just in Britain or Europe, but anywhere in the world. U.S. citizens are excused this intrusion by the Fourth Amendment, but everybody else is included.

In the case of Britain, by putting all government data online — including health and criminal records — every facet of peoples’ lives will be open to scrutiny by intelligence analysts across the Atlantic.

Many warn that this will also lead to activists, journalists, politicians, Muslims and others being specifically targeted without the need to justify national security.

“In other words, it is lawful in the U.S. to conduct purely political surveillance on foreigners’ data accessible in U.S. Clouds,” warns the report for the European Parliament, Fighting Cyber Crime and Protecting Privacy in the Cloud by the Centre for the Study of Conflicts, Liberty and Security.

While most of the attention has been focused on Cloud storage and the effect FISA will have on Europe, the actual wording of the amendment speaks of “remote computing services” which could literally mean anything stored on a computer other than your own.

As it is, every financial transaction passes through U.S. intelligence channels. With the new extension, no stone need remain unturned. Every time you comment on a book, join a club, or do absolutely anything that passes through a computer owned by a U.S. company, you are open to scrutiny.

The Cloud, however, comes with other concerns. There is debate as to who legally owns what if it is stored or edited in the Cloud, and you can’t even bequest your online music collection to a loved one when you die.

NSA aside, hackers can easier access data en-route to the Cloud than they can on a local area network, and the Cloud administrators might one day be compromised. The companies themselves may go bust or be taken over. They might suffer some catastrophic event or decide to amended their terms and conditions.

The European Union is being urged to add a warning to all U.S. based Cloud services, with clear wording that anything stored in the Cloud will be under direct scrutiny by Federal authorities. The report also wants to see E.U. citizens given the same rights as Americans in U.S. courts.

“A lot of people wouldn’t realize where data is stored, and hence wouldn’t expect to be subject to U.S. law,” cautions another Member of Britain’s Parliament, Julian Huppert of the Liberal Democrats.

He wants to know if the government has received any guarantee from Washington that sensitive data will not be scrutinized as foreign intelligence fodder.

“If the U.S. will not give a clear assurance about government data,” he says. “Then we will have to stop using the Cloud, as we cannot allow that to happen.”

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: While immigration reform is shaping up to be a top issue of President Obama’s second term, little attention has often been paid to the individuals at the center of that story: the millions of immigrants, many from Latin America, who come to the United States. Their stories often go untold. A new radio program is attempting to change that. It’s called Radio Ambulante. The new podcast gathers compelling stories told in Spanish from around Latin America and the United States, using a network of journalists from around the hemisphere. The monthly program fills a gaping hole in the radio landscape for Spanish speakers. The novelist Daniel Alarcón is the show’s executive producer.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: In 2007, I published a novel about radio, and the BBC asked me to do a documentary about Andean migration to Lima, the city where I was born. I was really excited to do this, and I got to travel all over the country and hear these amazing stories. When we did the final edit, a lot of the voices were translated into English, and I thought something was lost. Years later, my wife and I decided to do something about it.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ll be joined in a few minutes by Radio Ambulante‘s founder and executive producer, Daniel Alarcón, and by producer Annie Correal. But first I want to turn to one of the stories from their show. It was read live during a recent public performance. It takes place in Tijuana, the world’s busiest border crossing. Producer Ruxandra Guidi tells the story, which begins with her search for a U.S. border guard named Angelica DeCima.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: When I find her, she’s straight-faced and a little nervous, wearing the official Navy blue of Customs and Border Protection. I’ve come to learn about what she does, what this border looks like to her. She must be baking beneath this unforgiving sun.

All right, so we’ll just head out. We’re going to follow you guys, probably be about 10 feet away from you as you do your job, just not going to interview you, anything like that.

Technically speaking, we’re still in Mexico, but there’s no question who’s in charge of this part of the border. Angelica and I are facing the U.S. Behind us, the endless rows of idling cars extend deep into Tijuana; to our right, the long orderly line of pedestrians heading the same direction. We walk a few steps behind another officer and his guard dog, zigzagging our way through the cars heading into San Diego. The smoke and the heat radiating from the engines is making me nauseous.

OK, let’s go.

BORDER AGENT: Go ahead.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: Go ahead, you guys. Run. We’ll just follow you.

BORDER AGENT: Nine-fifteen.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: Then I hear one of the agents calling out the number 915. And this, it turns out, is at least part of the reason for the traffic jam. Nine-fifteen, that’s code for human smuggling. A couple of other guards rush past us, the guard dog leading the way. Angelica and I race after them. And we come to an old Honda Accord being driven past a booth by a U.S. guard. The middle-aged man who was at the wheel is staring down at his feet while another guard leads him away from the car in handcuffs. My interview with Angelica had barely begun, and now this.

ANGELICA DECIMA: You see this every day, people trying to come into the country hidden in the trunks, and then even deeper concealment methods, like a special–specially built compartment. A lot of times we call them “coffin compartments.” People cannot get out of them. And it is dangerous.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: To say that it’s dangerous is an understatement. It’s a rectangular box made up of pinewood planks and metal sheets, held by wires and rigged to the undercarriage of this old car. It’s so low to the ground, it must have been banged up so many times along the ride.

BORDER GUARD: They’ve been in there for a while.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: I’m with Angelica and about a dozen other guards, and we’re all gathered around the old cream-colored Honda. Everyone’s eyes are on that trunk. And one of the guards, a young Latino guy with a heavy build and jet black, intense eyes, reaches into it, and deeper still, into the makeshift compartment underneath it. I stop breathing for a moment and look around. We’re all staring, shamelessly, as if trying to predict who or what will come out.

The young guard grabs onto a hand, ever so carefully, and then pulls out the whole arm, then the shaking and sweaty body of a kid, probably 15 or 16. He has indigenous features and a skinny, long body. He looks terrified. And my heart sinks as we make quick eye contact. He’s not saying a word, but then again, what could he say?

The Honda’s engine is still running, spewing smoke right into our faces. Then the guard reaches in again, and again, and yet again. Three more people come out of this tiny space, an absolutely impossible number emerging from under this car–four people in all–a second young man and two girls probably in their teens. They have no shoes, no IDs or bags of any kind, just bodies, scarcely alive, from the looks of them. Who knows how long they’ve been stuck in traffic inside this wooden box? Angelica seems desensitized by the whole thing.

ANGELICA DECIMA: The first time I found somebody in the trunk, I think I was more nervous than the driver. I mean, you’re looking for it, but it’s shocking, the first time you actually find people in the trunk.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: I can imagine. This is my first time seeing someone in a trunk, and I feel nothing else but helplessness, shame and sadness. I mean, I know this happens every day at the border, for many years, but it’s different when you see it.

ANGELICA DECIMA: Oftentimes when people have been in the trunks of a vehicle, especially on a hot day in the summertime, especially, oftentimes they can be in that vehicle for hours at a time. And they come in kind of looking like these folks.

RUXANDRA GUIDI: These folks are looking tired, hot, sweaty, dehydrated. Sometimes, Angelica tells me, they’re pulled out unconscious. Though I try, of course, I’m not allowed to talk to the girls and boys who have just been taken from the coffin compartment. They’re lined up on the curb, still shoeless, and they won’t meet my gaze. Moments later, they’re taken away.

I’ve worked on the border, on and off, for years, long enough to know that as soon as they’re sent right back, they’ll pool all their energy and whatever little money they can get into crossing again. And because I’ve talked to so many people on this side, men and women who have made the same crossing, I know this, too: If they keep trying, they’re likely to make it.

AMY GOODMAN: That was producer Ruxandra Guidi of the new podcast, Radio Ambulante. While the show’s podcasts are in Spanish, they occasionally produce stories in English.

For more, we’re joined by its co-founder and executive producer, Daniel Alarcón, also an acclaimed author. His most recent novel is Lost City Radio. His next novel, due out this fall, At Night We Walk in Circles. He is a fellow in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley School of Journalism.

We welcome you to Democracy Now!

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. It is hard to put down Lost City Radio. And your–I attended your event here in New York as you unveiled Radio Ambulante. Explain, first, why “Ambulante.”

DANIEL ALARCÓN: An ambulante is a kind of a street vendor. It’s one who pushes a cart, someone who’s out on the streets selling. There’s a lot of things about the ambulante that we feel is symbolic and representative of the Latino experience. One, you see them in every Latin American city and in every American city that has a sizable Latino population. For us, el ambulante is dynamic, is a go-getter, you know, is on the streets, hears the stories of his neighborhood and of his people. And so, when we were trying to think of a name, we went through maybe 300 names. That was one the really difficult parts of the process, just trying to–what you’re going to name your baby.

AMY GOODMAN: Which you’re about to have.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Which I’m about to have.

AMY GOODMAN: Your first baby.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Yeah, so my first baby would be Radio Ambulante, my second baby. And we–it was a terrible process. But when we hit on ambulante and the idea of this, you know, dynamic figure in the community who doesn’t take no for an answer–you know, you don’t find work, you make work–we really liked that. And we tried to translate it to like “Radio on the Move” also, you know, because he’s always out there.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the–and the idea of just being able to tell the stories by radio, especially the–that particular medium, why you think it’s so important to get the stories out that way?

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Well, Latinos listen to so much radio. You know, radio is a part of Latin American life. It’s part of–you know, in every household, the radio is on all the time. And also, the new technologies have made radio–kind of given radio a new life. You know, used to be, if you didn’t hear it live, it was gone. And now radio is archivable and searchable. We can, you know, draw sounds from all over the world and then push them back out. So we’ve been listened to in 120 countries. You know, I can look on the analytics of my website and see that we’ve got downloads from all over the world. And that’s very exciting. And, you know, being a writer, coming from the world of literature, radio is what most closely approximates the experience of reading, the experience of having an author and a voice whispering in your year. So, the intimacy of radio is something that’s pretty unparalleled.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about your novel, Lost City Radio, how that fits in.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Well, I see now that it fits in, you know? I think–you know, my family is a radio family. My father was a radio announcer in his youth, before he, you know, went on to do other things. I have uncles and cousins who have worked in radios all over Peru. And for me, you know, I sort of became obsessed with one program called Busca Personas, People Finders, in Peru, that was basically a way–it was like a public bulletin board, radio bulletin board, every Sunday night for people to find their missing loved ones. And it struck me as kind of a symptom of these growing Latin American cities–economic dislocation, political violence, you know, all these forces that are moving people into these giant urban centers where they might not be able to connect with their families and loved ones. And I just took that show and created a universe around it.

AMY GOODMAN: This woman who becomes the voice of a nation, and particularly around the disappeared.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Particularly around the disappeared, yes, in one particular story. The novel opens when a boy named Victor, who’s around 11 years old, shows up at the radio station, and he has a list of all the people who have gone missing from his village. And there’s one particular name on that list that shocks her. And so, the story is really how did that name wind up on that list. And in the present tense, it’s maybe a day and a half, two days with the woman and the boy. But to tell the story of how the name wound up on that list, we have to go back and tell the history of the war itself.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to ask you, in terms of the–your decision to get involved in this project and the emphasis on the–on the border itself, because–

AMY GOODMAN: But before we do that, if we could take a break, and then we will introduce our next guest, and perhaps we’ll do it through her story, through her story on radio. We’ll let you know her name when we come back. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue our look at Radio Ambulante. Let’s turn to a radio report by our next guest, Annie Correal, who will be joining Daniel Alarcón. In this piece, she talks about how her father was kidnapped in Colombia by members of the FARC in 1999. He was held in the jungle for nine months, later rescued in a military raid. There’s a radio show there called Voices of Kidnapping that broadcasts to people who go missing. Annie’s family used to go on the show every week to speak to their father. Ten years later, she and her father returned to Colombia to produce this piece about his story. This clip picks up the story at the point when they arrive at the spot on the road where he was kidnapped.

JAIME CORREAL: Right where I’m standing, the guy came from behind that post, and he came with a gun up, was screaming, “Police! Police!” I tried to get into the traffic, and I couldn’t get in because it was bumper to bumper. And that’s when they hit the window, and they pulled me out, and they threw me in the back seat with two guys with a weapon.

ANNIE CORREAL: Back then, Colombia was the kidnapping capital of the world. At the peak of the kidnapping craze, there were around 3,000 people kidnapped a year. That’s like eight people a day. Carjackings happen in Bogota all the time and in plain view, like my dad’s.

JAIME CORREAL: There it is. You know, I had in my mind that it was not so close to the road, but it’s right there.

ANNIE CORREAL: Is that the first time you’ve been back to that spot?

JAIME CORREAL: Uh-huh, yeah.

ANNIE CORREAL: As we sat at the spot where it happened, he said if he had taken a left, it would have taken him 20 minutes to get home.

JAIME CORREAL: Instead, it took me eight-and-a-half months, 265 days.

ANNIE CORREAL: While my dad was kidnapped, I was in the States, but my stepmom, Sammy, used to call into the radio show, Voices of Kidnapping, and try to get word out from our family. And some of our messages actually got through. When my dad was rescued eight-and-a-half months later, he told us he had had a radio and had listened for us obsessively.

JAIME CORREAL: It was a black machine. I don’t know. It was–it wasn’t a brand name that everybody knows. It was something like Cauliflower, OK? I mean, it was as valuable as my cigarettes, OK? It’s something I would wrap really well with my clothes, so it wouldn’t get hurt, it wouldn’t get damaged.

ANNIE CORREAL: Although it was the military that ultimately got my dad out of the jungle, I think it was that radio that actually saved his life. A guard gave it to him at the first camp, and he held onto it for most of his kidnapping. Radios aren’t officially allowed, but they’re passed around as contraband, and guards usually turn a blind eye. For the first six months he was held captive by the FARC, my dad was held alone. The radio was his only companion.

JAIME CORREAL: It’s really an exercise of patience to be awake for 12 hours, 13 hours and not being able to do anything.

ANNIE CORREAL: So, when he first heard my stepmom, Sammy, talking to him over the radio, it was like a miracle.

JAIME CORREAL: You know, it was like 6:20 in the morning. I was laying in bed with my radio. It said, “This is a message for Jaime Correal.” I mean, my heart stopped. I said,
Wow!” She said, “Your kids are fine. Hold up. Pray.” You know, all the encouraging words they can give you. So, from then on, that was my lifeline.

ANNIE CORREAL: My dad would stay up all night listening to the show. But it wasn’t easy.

JAIME CORREAL: A lot of times you lose the station because actually you’re always deep in the jungle and there’s a lot of clouds, and then you just go very softly trying to locate it again. And then you don’t want to move the radio, so you end up in these awkward positions and just listening. You know, when they call your name, when they mention your name, you just–your heart always pounds.

ANNIE CORREAL: This is a radio message from my family recorded 10 years ago when my dad was held captive. My stepmom made this tape to send to the radio station, hoping he would hear it, wherever he was. She calls him by his nickname, “Lumpy.”

She chose one of her favorite love songs to mix with the radio message. She says every time she hears it, she thinks of him intensely. She asks if he can imagine how much they’re going to enjoy making up for lost time.

Then she introduces my little sister. My little sister says she hopes he comes back soon safe and sound and that he’ll be very, very, very hungry, because they’ll have his favorite, eggs and sausage, waiting for him.

Then my brother comes on. He says he’s the goalie on the school soccer team, and he’s blocked a lot of shots. Then he says he loves him and misses him.

My stepmom says that she’s waiting for him, that she’ll always wait for him and he’s the love of her life, and she can’t wait to pick up where they left off in November.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from “Kidnap Radio,” produced for Transom Radio and also featured on This American Life. It’s by our guest, Annie Correal. Her father was released after nine months, but thousands were never reunited with their families. In this piece, she goes on to talk more about their struggles. We are also joined by Daniel Alarcón, who is the founder and executive producer of Radio Ambulante. Welcome, both. Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Annie, in that piece, obviously, most Americans are not aware of the enormous impact of the continuing wars in Colombia, not only the civil war, but the drug wars of the ’80s and ’90s, and the impact on Colombian life, that so many Colombians who have come here to the United States were, in essence, fleeing what was going on in their own country.

ANNIE CORREAL: That’s right.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk about the–your hope to get these stories out here in the United States?

ANNIE CORREAL: Well, what we just listened to was my first radio story. And it did have a much greater ripple effect than anything that I had done before. It was actually through that radio piece that I was connected with Daniel and his partner, Carolina, and they said, you know, “Let’s make a radio program that can reach this enormous population.” But I think we also felt that it wasn’t just something that we wanted to make for the Spanish-speaking population, but also something that would represent these really fascinating, rich stories of, like you said, so many immigrants who have come here that often go untold, the reasons for why they are here, for why they’ve left their home countries, that it’s not always pull, sometimes it’s push, whether natural disaster or political violence. So, I think that there’s just no lack of stories to be told.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about discovering Annie and how that so remarkably resonated with Lost City Radio and your project, Daniel.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Yeah, it’s uncanny. It’s uncanny. I was listening to the piece, and I was just–the echoes between my novel and Annie’s piece are really tremendous. And what happened was that so many people heard her story on This American Life, when it was featured there, and sent the link to me. And I think after they heard your piece, many people sent her my novel. And my wife, Carolina, who’s the executive producer of Ambulante, she heard Annie’s piece and had been in touch with Annie, because she’s Colombian, as well. And it was based on that. When Carolina and I finally said, “OK, we really want to make this happen,” we–one of the first people we contacted was Annie.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s play a part of a piece from Radio Ambulante called “The Ballad of Daniel D. Portado.” It visits–it revisits the political debate in California in 1994 over Prop. 187, which would have blocked undocumented immigrants from access to healthcare or education. A cartoonist named Lalo Alcaraz decided to make up a name and a character to join the debate over his name. His name, again, Daniel D. Portado. Alcaraz told his story to Nancy López. This is a clip from her report.

LALO ALCARAZ: I remember the day. In the summer, I was driving my friend Esteban Zul to the airport, because he lived in the Bay Area. I could feel in the pit of my stomach, I was–we were talking about Prop. 187 and how awful it was and all the hate that it generated and legitimized to some people and–

NANCY LÓPEZ: He thought, it’s as if the writers of the proposition wanted to make California so unwelcoming for immigrants that they would leave the U.S. on their own. Lalo and his friend Esteban decided to roll with this idea. First they came up with a fake group called Hispanics for Wilson. The group was so militant, its members were willing to deport themselves.

LALO ALCARAZ: And that’s where self-deportation, the concept, was born.

NANCY LÓPEZ: That’s also how the fake leader of this organization was born.

LALO ALCARAZ: We had to come up with a name for the leader of this group. And I don’t know how it came to me, but this guy was–had to be so staunchly anti-himself, you know, a self-hating, right-wing Republican, you know, like Herman Cain or someone like that, that his very name had to say–state the obvious, that he was deported, Daniel D. Portado.

NANCY LÓPEZ: They wrote a fake press release calling for the most outrageous things they could think of–the creation of self-deportation centers, so that all Hispanics return to their country of origin; they denounced Mexican food as biological weapons.

LALO ALCARAZ: We had the 10K Border Fun Run into Mexico, where we’d give you a free pair of tennis shoes, but as long as you don’t come back.

NANCY LÓPEZ: The press release went on to pledge that the group, Hispanics for Wilson, would retrain white-collar workers in agricultural, restaurant and hotel maintenance arts, once all illegal immigrants were successfully removed from the country. They listed Dr. Daniel D. Portado, or Daniel D. Portado, as a contact person. And they sent this fake press release out to real news agencies all across the state. It was dated September 16, 1994, coincidentally or not, the anniversary of Mexico’s Independence Day.

AMY GOODMAN: Part of a Radio Ambulante podcast, the piece called “The Ballad of Daniel D. Portado,” featuring the cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And that, of course, is where Mitt Romney got his idea about self-deportation.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s the whole joke, like you start with an outrageous idea to make fun of some, you know, crazy, right-wing extremists, and then they make it part of their platform.

AMY GOODMAN: So, where are you headed with this, Daniel? You’re a great novelist. You’re now doing this radio podcast and radio show, hoping to do it monthly.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Mm-hmm, yeah. We produced our first season, ended in December. We’ve done two live shows on the West Coast. We just did one in New York. We’ve trained journalists in six countries. And we’re starting our new season in March, going to do a story a month. We’ve got stories on human trafficking through Argentina. We’ve got stories on a community afflicted with blindness in Peru. We’ve got stories about a murder case in the Central Valley. We’ve got stories from New York, stories from Florida, from Mexico, from Central America.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I have to cut you off here, but I’m happy that this is going to go on, and we’ll be reporting on what you’re doing. Thanks so much.

DANIEL ALARCÓN: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Alarcón, executive producer of Radio Ambulante, and Annie Correal, a producer and consulting editor with the program.

Activists on the island of Mokokai, Hawaii staged a ‘Decontamination Event’ along the side of the road to warn drivers of Monsanto’s toxic ways. (Photo: occupy_monsanto)The fight to label genetically modified (gmo) foods is now on in Hawaii and Connecticut signaling that, despite big agriculture’s defeat of California’s Proposition 37 in November, proponents of seed and food sovereignty refuse to back down. 

On Thursday, the group GMO Free CT held a press conference at the state’s legislative office to launch a new anti-GMO initiative calling on the Connecticut Legislature to support and pass a bill to label genetically engineered food in the state, the New Haven Register reports.

Calling the use of GMOs in food “a very large, uncontrolled experiment with human health,” William Duesing, Executive Director of the Connecticut branch of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), spoke before the group. “The vast amount of GMO crops are designed as sales tools for specific herbicides. The majority of those sales tools are for Roundup (which) kills most green plants that haven’t been engineered to resist it,” he said. 

Among those present at the event included bill-sponsor Representative Phil Miller (D-Essex), Food and Water Watch Executive Director, Wenonah Hauter, as well as a number of local activists and farm-to-table chefs and proponents.

Backing the effort, the group Food Democracy Now! has put together a letter of petition for Connecticut residents to send to their local representatives and Governor Dan Malloy encouraging them to support the legislation.

Food activists in Hawaii won a partial victory this week when the House Committee on Agriculture passed a measure to require labeling on genetically modified food.

Originally, House Bill 174 required any food product that is produced or sold in Hawaii to have a label saying it contains or was made using genetically engineered materials, but Thursday’s committee hearing amended the requirements so it only applies to produce imported from outside Hawaii, Associated Press reports.

Despite this provision, Hawaii is a ripe battleground for new legislation. According to the anti-GMO organization Hawai’i Seed, “Hawai‘i is the genetic engineering experimental capital of the world,” with thousands of acres of arable farmland being used to test seed crops for agriculture giants, including Monsanto.

Last month, pioneering anti-GMO activist Dr. Vandana Shiva visited the islands. Speaking before hundreds at a rally in Honolulu on the opening day of the 2013 Hawaii State Legislature, she said:

What could be more stupid than putting toxic genes in our food? What could be more obscene then saying, ‘After I put in these toxic genes, I am the creator of life on Earth and now I will collect rent from nature, farmers’, making us all poorer.

This is a slavery system in new garb. Worse than any slavery that’s ever been known, because it is enslaving the future, it is enslaving nature.

At the end of the speech the crowd chanted in response, “Ê»AÊ»ole GMO!,” Hawaiian for No GMO!

Your Newspaper Works for the State

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013

EleArt (CC BY 2.0)

Major papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have complied with requests from the Bush and Obama administrations to conceal sometimes-illegal acts performed by the government in the name of national security, writes Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian.

Since those deeds include The New York Times’ withholding during the 2004 campaign season of knowledge of the Bush administration’s illegal warrantless eavesdropping program–a concealment that helped Bush get re-elected–we should not assume that such acts and their subsequent cover-ups are in the public interest.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post revealed that two years ago, the Obama administration established a drone base in Saudi Arabia from which it has targeted and killed people in Yemen, including U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. But the Post admitted that it and a number of other U.S. media outlets had long known about the base but had cooperated to keep it secret from the U.S. public:

“The Washington Post had refrained from disclosing the specific location at the request of the administration, which cited concern that exposing the facility would undermine operations against an al-Qaeda affiliate regarded as the network’s most potent threat to the United States, as well as potentially damage counterterrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia,” the paper wrote.

“The Post learned Tuesday night that another news organization was planning to reveal the location of the base, effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organizations that had been aware of the location for more than a year.”

That “other news organization” was The New York Times.

“[N]one of these facts–once they were finally reported–ultimately resulted in any harm,” Greenwald writes. “Instead, it has everything to do with obeying government dictates; shielding high-level government officials from embarrassing revelations; protecting even the most extreme government deceit and illegality; and keeping the domestic population of the US (their readers) ignorant of the vital acts in which their own government is engaged.”

Dr. Jack Lule, a professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University, suggested in an article on the censorship that “the real reason [the government wanted to hide the existence of the base was] that the administration did not want to embarrass the Saudis–and for the US news media to be complicit in that is craven.”

–Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Glenn Greenwaled at The Guardian:

There are, of course, instances where newspapers can validly opt to conceal facts that they learn. That’s when the harm that comes from disclosure plainly outweighs the public interest in learning of them (the classic case is when, in a war, a newspaper learns of imminent troop movements: there is no value in reporting that but ample harm from doing so). But none of these instances comes close to meeting that test. Instead, media outlets overwhelmingly abide by government dictates as to what they should conceal. As Greensdale wrote: “most often, they oblige governments by acceding to requests not to publish sensitive information that might jeopardise operations.”

As all of these examples demonstrate, extreme levels of subservience to US government authority is embedded in the ethos of the establishment American media. They see themselves not as watchdogs over the state but as loyal agents of it.

… The entity that is designed to be, and endlessly praises itself for being, a check on US government power is, in fact, its most loyal servant. There are significant exceptions: Dana Priest did disclose the CIA black sites network over the agency’s vehement objections, while the NYT is now suing the government to compel the release of classified documents relating to Obama’s assassination program. But time and again, one finds the US media acting to help suppress the newsworthy secrets of the US government rather than report on them. Its collaborative “informal” agreement to hide the US drone base in Saudi Arabia is just the latest in a long line of such behavior.

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Calls from within government to fully criminalise squatting gather momentum. It could have serious implications for political occupations, and will it backfire on the government’s plans to reduce its welfare budget?

TRANSCRIPT:

Hassan Ghani

As Britain’s economists speculate over the prospects of a triple-dip recession, the future looks bleak for those already struggling to make ends meet.

Across England, the cost of renting is going up, house repossessions are on the rise, and particularly here in London more and more people are finding themselves homeless. One path out of that is squatting, but that is now under serious threat.

Tens of thousands of people have been squatting in empty buildings across the UK for many many years. But last year the government criminalised squatting in residential buildings, and now it’s considering doing the same for commercial buildings. Mike Wetherly is a Member of Parliament whose been campaigning to make this happen.

Mike Weatherly, Member of Parliament, Conservative Party

“I’m no fan of empty buildings either, and I think we ought to do various things to encourage empty buildings to be put back into use. What I don’t want to see is vulnerable people, and these are often very vulnerable people, drug addicts and alcohol and so on, going into these vulnerable properties, commercial ones which have been abandoned, are unsafe, they don’t have sanitation, they don’t have electricity. The local authorities should be looking after homeless people.

Now, some squatters have got nothing to do with homelessness, they are basically anarchists who just want to have rent-free accommodation, they’re well educated and web savvy. I don’t mind people having alternative views on life, and they can live the way they want to, but what they can’t do is just take what doesn’t belong to them and rob people of their own property.”

Hassan Ghani

It’s true that many in Britain do see squatters as a scourge on society, that threaten to steal their property and land. It’s an image perpetuated by much of the media. So we decided to visit some squats in London and find out what they’re like for ourselves.

Leon, Squatter at Rochester Square

“Welcome to One Rochester Square”

Hassan Ghani

Rochester Square is nestled in a residential neighbourhood of North London. The rare green space lay unused for years until the squatters arrived six months ago.

Leon, Squatter at Rochester Square

“We’ve got six rooms in the main area, and one room at the back of the kitchen. The kitchen is built in a way that all our water that we use for cleaning our clothes and cleaning our dishes is recycled back round to the toilet and used also as water to flush the toilet, saving about 70 litres a day. We have a bike workshop, where two people who are amateur bike mechanics work on fixing people’s bikes, and building up new ones from spare parts.

When we arrived, there were alcohol bottles, there were hypodermic needles, there was pornography, so when we came we did a lot of cleaning up. We’ve tried to contact the owner, tried to show him what we’ve done. Unfortunately he only wanted to deal with us through his solicitor and hasn’t come down to his site, to have a look at what we’ve done here, which is a bit unfortunate.

If you look up you can see that most of the wood is rotting, and this is what happens if you don’t take care of a place.”

Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square

“We have to be very careful to separate media scare stories, because there is a campaign of right wing media vilification against squatters, from the fact.”

Hassan Ghani

Pete is a masters student and a part time teacher. He says that all the squatters he knows think carefully before choosing to occupy a space.

Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square

“Squatters tend to go for places which have been left empty for a very long time anyway. And if they find that this place has just been sold, or if its to become somebody’s home, they’re not going to squat it. A) because the legislation which existed even before the new law meant that they would be evicted very rapidly anyway as a consequence, and B) because squatters are not in the business of taking people’s homes, they’re in the process of putting a temporary shelter over their heads.

I wonder if many landlords didn’t just talk to the squatters, as rational individuals, and they’d be able to see that actually they’re not just druggies who’re going to tear the place apart, but can actually improve the place.”

Hassan Ghani

And he says squatters, like wider society, are composed of a diverse range of people.

Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square

“I used to believe that squatters were a subculture of people who were anarchists, and didn’t work, and all had mohicans. And then I learned, actually, that they’re just people. And that many of the people who were serving me food in a restaraunt, or many people in healthcare, are squatters. People who are providing essential services are squatters. They are a very diverse range of poeple. They’re just people on low incomes, and they’re just finding a solution to the fact that this is an incredibly expensive city to live in, and property ownership is getting more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.”

Hassan Ghani

London is among the most expensive places to live in the world. Ana previously rented a room in private accommodation, but even that cost her half her earnings each month. She now lives in the garden squat.

Ana, Squatter at Rochester Square

“If I’m working and I need to pay the rent, I will use more than 50% of that money to pay the rent, plus feeding, plus transportation, and basically that will mean that I will be living to pay my housing, and I don’t believe that that’s fair. Housing, food and health are a human right. So many people without houses, so many houses without people – why?”

Hassan Ghani

While filming at the squat, we stumbled into a gathering of neighbourhood residents, who’d come to voice their opinions on its use. And we were surprised to find that overall they were supportive of the squatters, telling us the space had previously been a den of crime.

Will, Local Resident

“If somebody owns land then what they do with it, and this is a privately owned space, it should be to a degree up to them. But if there’s no action taking place, and that continues for a significant number of years, then those decisions need to be made by somebody else who’s more capable. Especially because this is such a significant area of land, we’re not talking about a small garden space in the middle of a few other houses, this is maybe even ten thousand square foot in the very centre of a very built up area, in very central London.

There’s certain times when I feel very strongly that squatters shouldn’t get into private properties, and there’s certain times when I think ‘go for it’, I’m really pleased to see that unused spaces in central London are being used, especially when they’re being used as productively as this. However, I’ve seen people’s properties damaged in a number of unpleasant ways by people who don’t have the same moral code, I guess.”

Hassan Ghani

The squatters, however, have been served a notice of eviction. Their efforts to convince the local authorities to buy the land from the landlord, so that it can be used by the local community, have so far failed.

The next squat we went to see was quite different. An industrial building in south London, the Colorama squat was previously a printing workshop. It too lay abandoned for several years, until squatters arrived. It now serves as a multi purpose hall downstairs, and accommodation for squatters upstairs.

Tom, Squatter at ‘Colorama’

“It was in a really really bad state, it was a complete wreck when we first moved in. I came on the second day and it took a lot of work to make it livable, and also so we could hold events here. We’ve got a free shop, we’ve got free events, free music, free movies, an info-shop, a library, for people who want to read up and access that kind of stuff. And we’ve got a lot of people from the community turn up, we’ve got families and kids running around here. We also get squatting networks, which is a very broad range of people, political types, people who are squatting just to have a roof over their heads, and the neighbourhood.”

Hassan Ghani

Tom was homeless until he found this squat. He says he doesn’t want to be dependent on the welfare state, and that squatting has given him the motivation and the independence he needs to change his life.

Tom, Squatter at ‘Colorama’

“Before I came here I was homeless for eight months, so I had nowhere else to live. Without squatting I would have been on the streets, there was no way I could afford to live. And it’s the same with a lot of people here, people who squat out of necessity. This place gives you motivation, I had no motivation, I was homeless because of the rent, and this place has given me motivation, it’s given me order, it’s given me structure.”

Hassan Ghani

Listening to Tom it’s clear that for him squatting is more than just about necessity, he has some very strong views on what he sees as serious inequality in society.

Tom, Squatter at ‘Colorama’

“My dad worked forty odd years in a factory, for nothing. He had no money whatsoever. He worked his entire life, and he was a clever bloke. The people who had the privilege, had the ability to go and get that kind of stuff, that’s what was given to them by birth, by their education.

Hassan Ghani

“If you can’t squat in buildings like this anymore, where does that leave you?”

Tom

“Either in prison, or homeless.”

Hassan Ghani

We arrived at Colorama on a Thursday, when they have their weekly people’s kitchen. They open their doors to the public and provide freshly cooked meals to anyone who comes in, donations are welcome but not necessary.

So, who pays for all this food then, you might wonder. Well, we were invited to meet two squatters just after midnight, in sub-zero temperatures, to find out.

It all looks a bit unhygienic, piling through the bins of a supermarket. But these two have built up experience of where to go and what to look for, and they seem to be wearing appropriate clothing. Some of the food they find is actually quite expensive in the stores, but all of it has been thrown out, even though much of it is still edible. On this night we found plenty of fruit and vegetables, almost too much to carry, in perfect condition. Many squatters live on this supply of food which would otherwise end up in landfill. Another example, they say, of how society is wasting its resources

Laura, Squatter at ‘Colorama’

“I think it’s totally fine to eat the food we find in the bins, because most of it’s actually quite nice. You just wash it, chop it up, cook it, and it’s totally fine to eat. Most employees will understand, because they see everyday that they have to throw away vast amounts of food, and most of them will realise that it’s actually a really stupid thing to do, you could just give it to people who are in need of food. Sometimes they’re not allowed to give food to us, or sometimes they have to shoo us away, we’re not allowed to enter the premises, and sometimes they even build like big fences, electric wires, and put padlocks in front of the bins, just because they don’t want people to get food, they want people to buy stuff, this is how capitalism works. I think it’s such a waste of resources, throwing food away.”

Hassan Ghani

We’ve got one last squat to visit. This is one that critics like Mike Weatherley would possibly approve of. It’s based in an abandoned pub in North London. Nathan showed us around – he lives here with up to sixteen others, spread across several floors. He says the building has been empty for around ten years, and although they moved in without asking anyone, when the landlord finally turned up and met them, he was impressed in the way they’d maintained the property, and let them stay if they agreed to leave when he wanted it back.

Nathan, Squatter

“Before we moved in, the garden was full of sewage. The whole place was derelict. We’ve redecorated all in here, so it looked nothing like this. It looked a real state. We’ve had to sort out the plumbing…”

Hassan Ghani

I asked him if he thought that other squatters who occupied a building against the landlord’s wishes were essentially stealing that property.

Nathan Squatter

“I don’t think it’s necessarily stealing, because the idea of squatting isn’t that you nick something from someone, you don’t want to permanently deprive someone of a place. If a place is empty, you want to be able to utilise it to give other people a home, create more homes, if it genuinely is empty. So I’m not talking about going into a building stopping people from doing work on their home, or they’ve just gone on holiday, or they popped to the shops and you’re in there, because that thing doesn’t happen, nobody really wants to do that because A) you deprive someone of a home, and second you’re going to be out on the streets because they’re going to get a court order and the police are going to drag you out. There are obviously people who squat buildings that are in use, and I don’t think that should be done, but you can do your homework, you can research a building and find out if it is unused and the planning permission on it and everything.

In the UK there’s 700 thousand empty properties, and there’s an estimated half a million hidden homeless. Squat’s are a great social safety net. The fact that there’s so many vulnerable people in squats goes to show how much the system is failing them, outside of squat society. I think rather than come down on the squatters, maybe we should come down on the inequality within society. There are people in this house who work, and yet still have to squat to be able to get by. More and more people are struggling just to be able to get by, because they’re paying so much in rent. If the possibility was accessible to not squat, I think most people would not squat.”

Hassan Ghani

“There isn’t a problem when the landlord and the squatters come to an agreement, and that’s probably a way forward. But a lot of the time, when the landlord and the bailiffs come to evict them, the squatters don’t let the bailiffs, in, they physically stop them from getting in.”

Nathan, Squatter

“When someone’s got bailiffs on you, I think it’s come to a point where the owner has not engaged with you at all to be able to talk with you, to come to an agreement, and they’re forcing you out the property. There’s a place just down the road here, it’s been empty for I think seven years. It’s been squatted three or four times, and each time they get the bailiffs in and evict people. And then it stands empty. You’re just going to leave the building empty for another five years, can we not just stay in here until you use it? And they just force them out into the street. I can understand why people would want to resist and hold their home.”

Hassan Ghani

But that’s not how supporters of criminalising squatting see it.

Mike Weatherley, Member of Parliament, Conservative Party

“These buildings aren’t being wasted, they belong to somebody. If I don’t drive my car for a year, that doesn’t give a squatter a right to drive my car, or if someone’s not using their property which they’ve bought. So it does belong to somebody, and they are stealing something that doesn’t belong to them. Anything that they say about making the premises better or improving it, is actually false. They don’t run round the hoover before they leave. I’ve seen open fires in these, some of these buildings have been destroyed, and there is a lot of drug taking and anti-social behaviour associated with a lot of squats, not all squats, but a lot of squats. And if you talk to some of the residents that I do, that are around squats, they are very disturbed about the squats. There’s late night parties, there’s music, there’s all sorts of people coming and going through the night, and they don’t really like that type of intrusion into their lives.”

Hassan Ghani

It is true that some squatters occupy buildings or land for political reasons, such as the campaign to stop a new runway at Heathrow airport, or others who object to way wealth is distributed and society is organised. But should they be imprisoned for doing so? And as for anti-social squatters:

Nathan, Squatter

“There’s a whole range of squatters and squats. Just as in society you’ve got nice people and you’ve got dickheads. It’s the same in the squat community, you’ve got the same thing. The majority of people are quite understanding. Whenever anyone goes into a home, they want to create a home, they don’t want to go into a place and destroy it, because then it’s shit to live there. You obviously want to make it your home to live there, so you want to keep it nice, and make it comfortable. But then there are other people who are party crews, and they like to open up a building and throw parties once in a while, and often sometimes too often. But then again, when I was a student I had more complaints from the neighbours than I do now. (When you were a student living in rented accommodation?) Yeah.

Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square

“There are cases of squats that are bad. It would be absolutely short-sighted of me to sit here and say that all squatting is good, that’s not the case. But there’s no evidence to suggest that squatters are any more anti-social than any other sector of the housing population. I’ve lived in private rented accommodation with incredible violent anti-social people, who take drugs, and listen to loud music, and are bad neighbours. Many of the most community minded people I’ve known are squatters.

Hassan Ghani

The squats we visited certainly seemed to be well organised, and as far as we could tell, responsible within their respective communities. But with residential squatting already criminalised, with a penalty of up to six months in prison, and squatting in commercial buildings probably next, something is going to have to change.

Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square

“The average rent in London is over £1300. There are 80 thousand empty buildings in this city, many of those are registered in tax-havens. We’ve got lots of companies which are absentee landlords, leaving buildings empty and speculating on them, and that’s the crime. The conservative government has decided to legislate in favour of landlords to the point where it says that the right to own private property, even if you own lots and lots of buildings, and keep them empty for 20, 30 years, is so much more important than the human right to have a temporary shelter over your head, that they’re willing to throw people who do the latter into prisons.”

Mike Weatherley, Member of Parliament, Conservative Party

“We should do other things to encourage empty properties back into use, but that doesn’t mean that we should then say ‘well it’s a free-for-all for everybody to go and take what doesn’t belong to them’.”

Hassan Ghani

Perhaps the most important question is where do these people go next, if squatting in empty commercial buildings also becomes a criminal act. Statistics show that 40% of homeless people are squatters at some point. At a time when the government is trying reduce its welfare budget, the last thing it needs is more people on low or no income joining the queue for housing benefits. Is it on route to scoring an own goal? Hassan Ghani, for the Real News, London.

Paul Jay is CEO and Senior Editor of The Real News Network. As Senior Editor of TRNN Paul has overseen the production of over 4,500 news stories and is the Host of our news analysis programming. As Executive Producer of CBC Newsworld’s independent flagship debate show counterSpin he produced over 2,000 shows during its 10 yrs on air. He is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with over 20 films under his belt and was founding Chair of Hot Docs!, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival (now the largest in North America).

Activist Heavyweights Convene Against NDAA

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013

StopNDAA

After a court hearing over the 2012 NDAA in Manhattan on Wednesday, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges appeared on a panel of activists who are suing the Obama administration over its attempt to claim the right to indefinitely hold U.S. citizens in military detention.

The group convened to discuss the state of the lawsuit. Joining Hedges were these co-plaintiffs: Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg; Revolution Truth Executive Director Tangerine Bolen; journalist and U.S Day of Rage founder Alexa O’Brien; and Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal. They were joined by legal counsel Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran.

For a second panel on the “broader context of the case,” Hedges, Ellsberg and Bolen remained and were joined by filmmaker Michael Moore, NSA whistle-blower Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack, an attorney for CIA whistle-blower John Kiriakou and a director of the Government Accountability Project.

Natasha Lennard of Salon.com and Matt Sledge of The Huffington Post moderated the discussion, which was organized by StopNDAA.

Joe Friendly:

Said Carl Mayer: “In broad terms, the stakes I think are very high, because what our case comes down to is, are we going to have a civil justice system in the United States, or a military justice system? The civil justice system is something that’s ingrained in the Constitution and was always very important in combating tyranny and building a democratic society. And what the NDAA is trying to impose is a system of military justice that allows the military to police the streets of America, to detain U.S. citizens, to detain residents in the United States, in military prisons. And I say that probably the most frightening aspect of the NDAA is that it allows for detention, quote, ‘until the end of hostilities.’ We’re now, by my count, at day 4,163 of this war, which is an open-ended war against al-Qaida, the Taliban, and now it’s defined as ‘associated forces’ in the NDAA.”

Said Chris Hedges: “The drone wars … the NDAA … the FISA Amendment Act … what they’re attempting to do is legally justify what they’re already doing. They have argued that under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force they have the right to assassinate American citizens. I have read that act innumerable times … and none of us find that in the act. That is, to be generous, a radical interpretation of the AUMF. And so what they’re seeking to do is legally justify, in the same way that [Bush assistant attorney general John] Yoo was attempting to legally justify torture, they’re essentially looking for kind of legal cover. … It’s all a part of this very rapid descent into a frightening form of corporate totalitarianism.”

–Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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February 8, 2013  |  

During John Brennan’s confirmation hearing for CIA director, the architect of Obama’s drone program unapologetically defended targeted assassinations–even of American citizens. Given his adamant defense of the program, there’s still a lot the America people deserve to know.

But the Senate Intelligence Committee failed us. Rather than asking the tough questions, senators battled Code Pink protestors, kissed a lot of ass, and even told a waterboarding joke. 

Several journalists and bloggers listed important questions for Mr. Brennan prior to his hearing. Most went unasked and unanswered. Here are some questions for Brennan that we still don’t have answers to:

1. Will You Please Recite the Fifth Amendment?

Brennan and Sen. Diane Feinstein engaged in a lengthy exchange over Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who was killed by way of drone strike in 2011. The U.S. citizen, accused of aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, did not get a chance to stand trial before the Obama administration pulled the trigger. Yet, Feinstein fed Brennan everything he needed to defend the administration’s complete disregard for due process, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. If al-Awkali was such a “bad guy,” as Feinstein repeated over and over, why couldn’t we indict him? Writer Jeremy Scahill put it best in a tweet: “The faux trial that Feinstein & Brennan gave Anwar Awlaki today (with no evidence) was the only trial they gave him–and it was posthumous.”  

2. Why Did the President Kill an American Teenager?

While we heard Anwar al-Awlaki’s name numerous times through the hearing, another drone target of the Obama administration didn’t get a single mention: al-Awlaki’s son, 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. The Denver-born teenager was killed in an airstrike two weeks after his father died. We know hardly anything about his death, and the administration has not been eager to give answers.

3. Are there ANY Qualifications for Authorizing Death Sentences?

Mr. Brennan described waterboarding as “reprehensible” and “something that should not be done,” but refused on multiple occasions to call it torture. Why? Because, as Brennan reminded us over and over, he is “not a lawyer.” While Senator Carl Levin, pressed him on torture, no one took the opportunity to question the drone architect on the broad language used to justify targeting U.S. citizens, as revealed by a leaked DOJ white paper this week. The memo made headlines. In particular, civil liberties advocates took issue with a section detailing how “informed, high-level officials” get to decide if a target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.”

Blogger Marcy Wheeler notes the absurdity of Brennan appealing to legal ignorance to deflect on torture, while claiming the authority to give out death sentences: “In other words, according to the guy who has been acting as judge and jury for the last four years, the guy who has been acting as judge and jury is completely incompetent to act as judge and jury.”

4. Why did the Obama administration wait until election season to codify rules for assassinating people?

The New York Review of Books’ David Cole raised this excellent question before Brennan’s hearing took place. While committee members did grill Brennan on transparency with the drone program, we didn’t get a clear picture on why “Terror Tuesdays” went on for so long without some set rules. As Cole put it, “Don’t you think there should have been clear rules and fair procedures in place before the Obama administration ordered the killing of hundreds of human beings?” Furthermore, Cole adds that any rules that are adopted won’t apply to Pakistan.

Obama Drone Program

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013

Adam Zyglis, Cagle Cartoons, The Buffalo News

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Spring Season Soon to Sprout Earlier

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013

mendhak (CC BY-SA 2.0)

By Tim Radford, Climate News Network

This story first appeared at Climate News Network.

LONDON–Appalachian spring — and springtime in the Rockies, and mountain greenery too — will tune up a little earlier: up to a month earlier, according to new studies from the United States.

Scientists report in Geophysical Research Letters that careful analysis of observations of budburst — that promising moment near the end of winter when green shoots begin to appear on the first trees — show that spring could arrive dramatically earlier by the end of this century.

Although meteorologists and climate scientists base their forecasts on the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and an expected parallel rise in temperatures, a group of observers known as phenologists take another approach.

Phenologists — they could be university botanists, or keen amateur gardeners, or government agencies, or schools and colleges, or just citizen scientists — have been recording the behaviour of plants, birds, insects and so on for decades and noting the first bud, the first leaf, the first bloom, the first signs of nesting and so on.

And, over the past 30 years, spring in the northern hemisphere has arrived steadily earlier. Since daylight length does not change, the implication is that plants and animals are detecting a steady rise in temperatures and responding ever earlier.

Su-Jong Jeong of Princeton University and colleagues looked at data from the USA National Phenology Network for budburst in five tree species at 196 sites in the continental US and fed the data into models for climate change.

Knock-on effects

They tested these with four climate scenarios and found that on average spring could announce itself 17 days earlier in the future. In the case of specific trees, such as the red maple, budburst could occur anything between eight and 40 days earlier, depending on the part of the country, by 2100.

Trees in the northernmost states — Maine, New York, Michigan and Wisconsin — could bud up to 38 days earlier. In the southern states, the effect will be much less pronounced. And, the scientists predict, the “green wave” that rolls north over continental North America with each new spring will also accelerate.

It now takes just over 74 days for budburst to spread from the southern states to the Canadian border. By the end of the century, the phenomenon will have shortened to 59 days, they predict.

There is a practical aspect: this kind of research is concerned with understanding in detail how the world works, and how changes in temperature might affect ecosystems, which in turn could feed back into climate change.

“We expect that climate-driven changes in phenology will have large effects on the carbon budget of US forests and these controls should be included in dynamic global vegetation models,” the authors say.

But while plants and animals seem to be aware of global warming, humans are much more fickle, according to new research from Canada. Researchers at the University of British Columbia report in Climatic Change that although periods of intense heat can increase concern over the possible effects of climate change, a cold snap can lead to scepticism.

Simon Donner and Jeremy McDaniels studied data from national opinion polls taken between 1990 and 2010, and analysed opinion pieces from US journals such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today.

They then tried to put a value on the relationship between average national temperatures and responses in the polls, as well as the heated — or cool — expressions of opinion in the newspapers.

They found that people do tend to “blow hot and cold” according to the evidence around them. When seasons were warmer than normal, Americans were more convinced about human-caused climate change.

“The study demonstrates just how much local weather can influence people’s opinions on global warming,” said Professor Donner. “We find that, unfortunately, a cold winter is enough to make some people, including many newspaper editors and opinion leaders, doubt the overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue.”

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If Washington sincerely wants to reduce the budget deficit and national debt while protecting the broader economy, it should learn from other nations which have succeeded. One country stands out: Norway.

Norway has the largest budget surpluses in the developed world, no net national debt, citizens enjoy a robust safety net, and unemployment is below 3%. (1) (2)

What is Norway’s secret, other than refusing to join the European Union?

Before the discovery of off-shore oil in the late 60s, Norway’s lackluster economy earned the nickname ‘Europe’s ugly duckling’. But Norway’s subsequent success has as much to do with public policy as their fortuitous location near petroleum reserves.

Norway’s overall tax as a share of GDP is among the highest in the OECD—for corporations, it is the highest. Norway’s corporate tax revenue as a share of GDP is above eight percent–the highest in the world and four times higher than the US. (3) By comparison, the US is the third lowest taxed country and the second lowest for corporations. (4) In other words, if a US company sought lower tax rates by relocating to another country, as they regularly threaten, there is only one country in the world they could go: Iceland. (5) Contrary to the myth of job creators, high rates have not crippled Norwegian entrepreneurs. In fact, Norway produces more successful business start-ups than the US. (6)

By far the largest source of Norway’s tax revenues is from off-shore oil and gas development. In addition to the 28 percent corporate rate, the government collects 50 percent surtax on oil and gas profits for a combined tax of 78 percent. (7) The majority of oil revenue is saved in a sovereign wealth account estimated at $640 billion–the largest in the world. (8) Norway limits the amount of oil revenue that can be spent on the annual budget to no more than 4 percent of the fund’s returns, although the government broke the rule during the global recession to prevent a collapse in spending.

The US also possesses one of the largest oil and gas deposits in the world, but profits from its development accrue in the accounts of Exxon and BP rather than the public ledger.

Numerous polls show Americans want their representatives to focus on jobs and the economy. Americans strongly oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Two of the most popular proposals for reducing the debt, aside from deep cuts in military spending, are raising taxes on corporations, as well as a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Fortunately, the solutions which are the most politically popular are also the most economically effective and morally defensible.

Norway’s economic miracle proves that responsible fiscal management starts with protecting the safety net and asking the people who have benefited the most to pay their fair share–the opposite of what the apostles of austerity tell us.

1. Norway’s budget surplus largest in OECD
2. Norway’s net national surplus
3. Norway: highest corporate taxes
4. US third lowest tax rate in OECD
5. US corporate tax, second lowest
6. Norway’s entrepreneurs love socialism
7. Norway’s 78% oil tax
8. Sovereign wealth fund

John Brennan tried to elude his questioners at his confirmation hearing as CIA director.

On one question after another, he excreted octopus ink to dodge or obfuscate.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said, “Every American has the right to know when their government believes it’s allowed to kill them.”

Brennan tried to reassure Wyden that the government is “very disciplined and very judicious” in the way it makes these selections. He also said that the Obama Administration has not stretched to the “outer limits” of its justifications, which was not exactly reassuring.

After a welcome disruption by members of CodePink who denounced him and got ejected from the hearing, Brennan said that there is a “misimpression” and a “misunderstanding” about “the care we take” and–he added obscenely–“the agony we go through” in deciding who to kill. (Compare his “agony” to the agony of the families of the innocent people he’s killed with his drones.)

“We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there’s no other alternative,” he said.

Well, then, what about his drone killing of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the son of Anwar Al-Awlaki? Was that really a last resort to save lives? Unfortunatley, I didn’t hear a Senator ask that question.

Nor was Brennan reassuring on full disclosure, responding with classic doublespeak: “We need to optimize transparency and at the same time optimize secrecy.”

Brennan also spewed out misinformation about the CIA’s history of torture and paramilitary operations, saying that after 9/11, the agency got involved in activities that were “an aberration from its traditional role.”

Actually, those activities were not an aberration at all but fully in keeping with what the CIA did in Vietnam and Laos in the 1960s and early 1970s, and what it did in El Salvador and Guatemala in the late 1970s and 1980s, just to name a few examples.

While he denounced and renounced waterboarding, he refused to call it torture.

And he confirmed that “foreign partners” were holding most of the people the U.S. has under interrogation today, and that the CIA is involved in those interrogations, sometimes directly. “The CIA should be able to lend its full expertise,” he said.

That “full expertise” includes all sorts of techniques that are banned by the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

© 2013 The Progressive

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.

European leaders have agreed a cut in the EU budget after German chancellor Angela Merkel sided with David Cameron’s demand that Brussels tighten its belt, however the European Parliament may veto the deal.

When the 27-way summit finally got under way, the opening bid presented to the leaders for agreement amounted to a budget proposal of 913 billion euros (£778 billion) for 2014-2020.

On Friday afternoon, after all night negotiations, leaders finally agreed 908bn euro budget – a cut of five billion euros.

Speaking after an agreement was reached, the prime minister said he had done a “good deal” for Britain and had worked with other European leaders to secure the cut.

“We wanted to cut this credit card,” he said. “On any fair way of looking at it, that is exactly what we have done.”

“We worked hard with the Dutch, Danes, Swedes and Angela [Merkel] to make sure Europe’s taxpayers got a good deal,” he said.

It has also been reported that Merkel sided with Cameron against French President Francois Hollande on the budget. “We had some debates and discussions,” the prime minister acknowledged.

European Council president Herman Van Rompuy announced the deal had been done with a Tweet.

The settlement will allow Cameron to claim that his basic demands that Europe at least nods towards the austerity being endured by national treasuries have been met.

In October Labour joined with eurosceptic Tories in a Commons vote to demand the prime minister argue for a real-terms cut in the EU’s long-term budget during the negotiations.

Tory Douglas Carswell, one of the more eurosceptic MPs and not a huge fan of the prime minister, welcomed the deal by declaring “three hearty cheers” to Cameron.

“Under pressure from the taxpayer, MPs instructed ministers not to hand over extra amounts of money. And ministers appear to have responded by securing a deal that does precisely that,” he said.

And Rochester and Strood MP Mark Reckless, who led the rebellion in the Commons over the budget, offered his congratulations in a video message posted on You Tube.

“His [Cameron’s] diplomats, his permanent representative in Brussels, the Liberal Democrats all said the best we could hope for was a freeze,” he said.

“By passing my amendment, Parliament voted to strengthen that negotiating mandate and demand a cut. With Parliament behind him, the Prime Minister has delivered at the EU council today.”

However even though the overall budget for the next seven years may come down, the UK’s contribution could actually increase.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage dismissed the deal: “Shaving a few pence off our daily contribution is inconsequential; the question now is why are we paying anything at all?”

Even if the terms are endorsed at the summit, the deal must run the gauntlet of the European Parliament, which now looks likely to call a secret ballot.

Parliament President Martin Schulz confirmed last night that he intended deploying the rarely used procedure.

If so, by allowing MEPs to vote anonymously, the move will effectively stop EU leaders galvanising their own members of the Parliament to support the budget deal.

European Parliament officials said it looked certain the bid to call a secret ballot would be backed, as required, by one fifth of MEPs, with a secret vote held within three months.

Jean Lambert MEP: Why Cuts in the EU Budget Are Just Another Austerity Measure That Will Hit the Poorest Hardest

However, Tory MEP Martin Callanan condemned the idea as a “highly cynical and unaccountable act” on one of the Parliament’s most important ever votes.

Callanan, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, said others had to be able to see how their representatives voted on their behalf.

“If MEPs want to reject an agreement made by their own prime ministers then they should have the courage of their convictions and not try to cower behind a procedural technicality.

“The European Parliament must be accountable to its voters which it cannot be if MEPs connive to hide their voting record on an issue that they should be judged on at the ballot box. This is not some small vote; it is one of the most important decisions of the entire legislature.”

He added: “This kind of behaviour brings the EU and politicians into disrepute. My group will argue for a roll call vote on any deal reached so that all MEPs can stand on the doorsteps in their constituencies and explain why they cannot support their prime minister.”

Related on HuffPost:

The results weren’t nearly as dire as many predicted. The Israeli elections last month didn’t bring about a complete victory for the far right (and Israel’s far-right is very far indeed!). Right-wing prime minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s Likud Party, in alliance with the right-wing extremist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, lost at least 10 seats.Yair Lapid, a leader of Israel’s new centrist political party, speaks to supporters on election night. Photo by The Israel Project.

The biggest victor was the new centrist party Yesh Atid, led by charismatic television personality Yair Lapid. He ran on the basis of personality and a claim to represent Israel’s middle-class interests, from the price of cheese to affordable housing to his most popular call, for “sharing the burden”–a euphemism for drafting ultra-Orthodox young Jewish Israelis into the military. Israeli commentators described the new Knesset as divided almost down the middle between center-right and center-left blocs.

That’s all good. But. The campaign was waged virtually entirely on economic and social issues affecting the 80 percent Jewish population of Israel; the needs of the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Palestinians were largely ignored. Israel’s continuing occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip were off the agenda, let alone its violations of international law and human rights. On the question of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the elections represented a clear victory for Israel’s status quo: the occupation will be left in place.

The far-right settler party known as Jewish Home, led by the American-Israeli Naftali Bennett, won 12 seats, and is a likely coalition partner with the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu bloc. It calls directly for annexing about 60 percent of the West Bank, with few, if any, rights for Palestinians living there. And while it may be useful to clarify what mainstream discourse means in Israel, the rising power of a party explicitly calling for consolidation and legalization of Israeli apartheid —defined in international law as a legal system that privileges one group over another–is hardly something to cheer about.

Sure, Yair Lapid says he supports a two-state solution, and has said that even though the Palestinians can’t be trusted, Israel should still negotiate. (On exactly what Israel should negotiate isn’t so clear.) But doing anything to actually end Israel’s occupation wasn’t anywhere on his election platform. And of course Bibi Netanyahu says he supports a two-state solution, too–the kind of “two-state solution” that leaves Israel in permanent control, that leaves non-contiguous Palestinian Bantustans scattered across 40 percent of the West Bank while 60 percent remains fully under Israeli control, that leaves East Jerusalem part of the “undivided” capital of Israel, and Gaza remains permanently under siege.

Some optimistic Israelis seem to be hoping that the elections reflect the broad social protests that erupted in the summer of 2011, with hundreds of thousands pouring into the streets and the creation of a protest tent community on Tel Aviv’s upscale Rothschild Boulevard. That may be so, but one of the unfortunate things that the election results share with those protests was the complete sidelining of the occupation. Israeli activists made a conscious decision–rejected by a few brave Palestinian and Jewish participants–not to include ending the occupation in their wide-ranging demands for social justice. To do so, they felt, would have divided the “left.”

Looking beyond the election

The real optimism of the moment stems not from the Israeli elections, but from the continuing rise of nonviolent resistance across the Palestinian territory and throughout the world. The most recent development is the creation of Palestinian villages on Palestinian land under Israeli control. Utilizing the tactics of illegal Jewish settlers, who seize and hold Palestinian land, and build outposts considered illegal even under Israeli law (which of course does not acknowledge that under international law, specifically Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions, all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal), the young Palestinian activists are claiming land as well. The difference is that they are building these new villages on Palestinian land, not occupying someone else’s.

The Israeli government response, of course, has been entirely different when those claiming land are Palestinians. The Jewish outposts are mostly left alone, with legal efforts underway in the courts and in the Knesset to legalize them. On the rare occasion that one is shut down, there is great care taken that no violence is used. In closing down the Palestinian villages, however, significant violence has been routine. At least six Palestinian protesters were hospitalized after the first resistance village was shut down by the military.

Outside of the occupied territories, Palestinians continue to investigate possible trajectories for engaging the International Criminal Court, perhaps the International Court of Justice, and other United Nations-related agencies. The goal is to take advantage of the U.N. General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member state on Nov. 29–a status that allows the State of Palestine to sign treaties, join the ICC, and potentially the ICJ as well.

And globally, the civil society movement known as BDS–or boycott, divestment and sanctions–continues to grow. Initiated by a call from Palestinian civil society in 2005, the movement continues to bring nonviolent economic and cultural pressure on Israel to end its violations of international law and human rights. In one recent victory, the great musician Stevie Wonder cancelled a long-scheduled benefit concert for the Israeli military after other cultural workers, African and African-American leaders, and a wide range of international activists urged him to do so.

And the widely anticipated (and multi-million dollar) SuperBowl ad for SodaStream was spoofed on Youtube, mimicked online, and ridiculed on Twitter–undermining the popular upscale soft drink machine’s appeal. SodaStream is marketed as “made in Israel,” but is actually manufactured in the industrial zone known as Mishor Adumim, a sector of the huge city-sized illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank. The factory exploits Palestinian land, resources, and labor.

Israel’s settlement policy began and continued throughout years of Labor Party governments. A new Knesset, even one including a new “centrist” party that is centrist only relative to Israel’s far-right polity, is not likely to change things now.

As Palestinians have learned, after 46 years of occupation and 65 years of dispossession, they’re going to have to rely on international law, human rights, changing U.S. and global policy, and their own work to end the occupation.

Phyllis Bennis wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions.

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“When the post office is closed, the flag comes down. When the human side of government closes its doors, we’re all in trouble”

— Jennings Randolph, senator from West Virginia 1958-’85

For the post office the end game is on. This year, the U.S. Postal Service will close half its processing centers. By late spring a first-class letter will take one to three days longer to arrive at its destination. By the end of this summer, Saturday delivery is scheduled to end. Over the next year the post office plans to close over 3,000 local post offices while slashing some 220,000 of its 650,000 employees.

Looking back, it is easy to distinguish three discrete stages in the 221-year life of the Postal Service. 

Stage 1: Post Office Has a Broad Public Mandate

The first stage began in 1792 when President George Washington signed legislation making the United States Post Office a cabinet-level department. It was a public institution with a clear mandate: to enable universal low-cost access to information. In its early years this led it to initiate free and low-cost delivery of newspapers, and eventually, to offer a special rate for periodicals and books.

The post office helped tie the country together physically as well as intellectually. Post roads were essential to the early development of the country. Rural free delivery established in the late 19th century, spurred improvements in roads and bridges since the post office would not offer service where roads were bad. In the 20th century, mail contracts underwrote the embryonic aviation industry.

In the 1820s, when private companies began charging a handsome fee to deliver information faster, enabling cotton speculators to make a killing on the difference in prices at the docks of New York and the plantations of Alabama, the post office responded by establishing its own express mail service. The private sector complained. A congressional investigation concluded “(T)he Government should not hesitate to adopt means…to place the community generally in possession of the same intelligence at as early a period as practicable.”

In the 1840s, when the private sector began siphoning off the most profitable mail routes, leaving to the post office only money-losing routes, Congress gave the post office a monopoly, enabling it to dramatically reduce the price of postage and initiate free door-to-door delivery in cities. In 1858, the first mailboxes appeared on street corners.

At the end of the 19th century, when private parcel companies began treating their customers badly, the post office introduced parcel post. The competition resulted in reduced prices and improved customer service.

In the 1890s and early 1900s, financial panics and the closures of hundreds of banks led the post office to introduce postal savings banks. At its peak after World War II postal banks had over 4 million accounts and deposits exceeding $3.3 billion. 

Stage 2: Post Office Becomes a Public-Private Institution

But after World War II, the post office’s inability to borrow money and invest long-term coupled with the dramatic increase in the volume of mail put an increasing strain on its system. In 1966 the mail system in Chicago literally collapsed under an avalanche of mail, leading LBJ to appoint a commission to study the future of the post office. The commission’s chairman, retired CEO Frederick R. Kappel, envisioned a more corporatized post office. Indeed, in testimony before Congress Kappel revealed his ultimate goal: “If I could, I’d make (the post office) a private enterprise…and the country would be better off financially. But I can’t get from here to there.”

In the l950s, low-paid postal workers often moonlighted to make ends meet. It took 21 years for an entry-level worker to reach the maximum wage level. Strikes were illegal. Workers demonstrated, lobbied and even held prayer services to publicize their plight.

In 1970, Congress voted itself a pay raise while stalling postal wage increases, sparking a wildcat strike by letter carriers in New York City. Other postal workers honored the picket lines and the strike spread throughout the nation. President Nixon sent in 25,000 National Guard and Army troops to attempt, unsuccessfully for the most part, to sort and deliver the mail. 

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 was a compromise between management and labor. Unions were given the right to collectively bargain over wages and hours and working conditions for the first time. Wages increased significantly. For the first time, postal work became a middle-class job for hundreds of thousands, many of them minorities.

For management the Act gave the new quasi-public corporation now called the United States Postal Service (USPS) the right to borrow money and make long-term investments. In return Congress eliminated taxpayer subsidies, which amounted to 25 percent of the budget in 1971 (about $18 billion in current dollars) and demanded the USPS act more like a business.

Largely as a result of huge capital improvements, productivity soared. In 1966Fortune magazine credited USPS with improving its service more than any other company or agency in America. In 1997, audits by Price Waterhouse found on-time delivery at 92%. The U.S. Postal Service was by far the most popular public agency. And between 1995 and 1997, postal operations produced a surplus of $4.6 billion.   

But the tension between the public mission of the post office and the demand that it act more like a business, continued to grow. Management tried to close post offices and raised the possibility of ending Saturday service as early as the 1980s, leading Congress to pass laws forbidding the latter and significantly restricting the former. Under President Clinton, the Postal Service began contracting out services. Today, contracts comprise about 20 percent of its operating budget or $12 billion.  

In 2000, the USPS began a formal partnership with FedEx and later UPS. Fed Ex provides air service for USPS parcels domestically as well as providing international logistics. In 2011, Alan Robinson, executive director of the Center for the Study of the Postal Market, determined that USPS delivers 30.4 percent of FedEx ground shipments. The USPS Fed Ex partnership is known as SmartPost. The USPS-UPS partnership is known as UPS Basic or UPS Mail innovations, and may be the fastest growing parts of their businesses.  

Stage 3: The Dismantling of the Post Office

The third and current part of the life of the post office began in 2006 with the passage of the misleadingly titled Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. 

A bit of background is necessary to understand this historic piece of legislation. In 2001 the GAO placed the Postal Service on its high-risk list because of concerns about its economic future given the poor management and labor relations and increased competition from electronic mail. At the request of Congress and GAO, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) conducted a review of the Postal Service’s liability to the Civil Service Retirement System. Almost everyone expected OPM to discover huge liabilities. Instead, it concluded that USPS had overfunded its pension plan by more than $70 billion. In 2003, GAO raised the estimated overfunding to more than $100 billion.

In a sane world, USPS would have been able to use these funds to expand services, pay down existing debt and invest in new technology. But Washington is anything but sane. The USPS is considered part of the unified budget used for scoring purposes to estimate any legislation’s impact on the deficit. If USPS were to tap into its surplus funds it would increase the overall federal deficit.

For three years Congress debated what to do. Finally, in 2006 it passed a law that requires the Postal Service to pre-pay its health insurance fund by depositing an additional $5 billion a year for the next 10 years into the insurance fund to offset for the phantom accounting deficit under the unified budget. No other public or private agency is required to do anything remotely comparable.

In 2007, unsurprisingly, USPS suffered a $5 billion deficit. Today that deficit is over $20 billion and is used to justify the death of the post office by amputation of its work force, its processing centers and its local offices. The 2006 law also specifically prohibited USPS from offering new products that would create “an unfair or otherwise inappropriate competitive advantage for the Postal Service….”

Elaine C. Kamarck of Harvard Kennedy School of Government has observed the essential contradiction in Congress’ attitude toward the post office from the very beginning of its new life as a corporation. “Congress wants it to be self-sufficient but doesn’t want it to make money.” Kamarck continues:

“For example, in the mid-1970s, the post office was told to remove copy machines from post offices under pressure from lobbyists representing office equipment stores who feared that USPS was taking away its business. Later when the USPS initiated a ‘Pack and Send’ service, the outcry from Mailboxes Etc. and other private packing stores successfully challenged the service.

“Years later, when Internet shopping took off, the delivery of packages to individual households should have resulted in a dramatic increase in USPS business. But parcel shipments were generated by large organizations and the USPS was not allowed to negotiate discounts and thus lost business. It was forbidden by law from lowering prices to get more business. This resulted in the entirely incredible situation in the 1990s where the United States government negotiated an agreement for the delivery of U.S. government package services with Fed Ex because the USPS was not allowed to negotiate for lower prices!”

Today the strongest force in shaping the future of the Postal Service, aside from Congress, is the bulk mailers. Indeed, bulk mailers are formally represented in the USPS through the Postmaster General’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee. Bulk mailers don’t care about post office closings because big mailers present their mail at Bulk Mail Entry Units. Saturday delivery is not a major concern either because advertising mail would do fine with even three-day delivery. Nor do they care about having a blue collection box on every corner, half of which have disappeared in the past 20 years.   

What bulk mailers do care about is price. They receive huge discounts for pre-sorting that is far in excess of what the Postal Service saves by receiving mail pre-sorted.  

Where Do We Go From Here?

So here we are, at the end game. Few any longer are even talking about saving the post office as is. Fewer still are talking about resurrecting the post office as an institution with a broad public mission. The debate now focuses on how many parts of the post office we can lop off.

Kevin A. Hassett, then director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, has written, “The Postal Service owns or operates 33,000 facilities nationwide and owns 219,000 vehicles. If we were to auction it off to private investors, the bids would likely be enormous.”

Tad Dehaven of the Cato Institute insists, “The one-size-fits-all model where you have six-days delivery to every home in the country at a fixed price just doesn’t make any economic sense. What I envision is eventually consumers and customers dictate what they want and entrepreneurs figuring out how to satisfy those wants and needs.”

The National Academy of Public Administration will issue a report this spring on what it calls a “Thought Leader proposal” submitted in January. The eight-page paper urges the post office to be engaged only in last mile delivery and pickup. All other parts of the post office would be sold to private companies. Among the four signatories to the paper, astonishingly, is the director of advocacy of the Atlas Institute, dedicated to promoting the writings of Ayn Rand.

The post office can and should be saved, but doing so will require a massive grassroots and lobbying effort. It is an effort that could cut across class and race and geography, cutting across rural Republican and big city Democratic districts. Such an effort could educate the American public about five key issues. 

First, savings from cutting back postal services are largely illusory, even if we use the narrow cost-benefit analysis used by USPS. In 2008, GAO found that USPS had no way to measure savings from contracting out. Ending Saturday delivery will not save nearly the amount of money USPS predicts. There are alternatives to closing processing centers that achieve comparable savings. 

But we should argue for a wider cost-benefit lens. Remarkably, the post office does not need to take into account the actual cost to the local community of closing a local post office! It does not have to take into account the increased out-of-pocket costs for people who have to travel longer distances, often on dangerous roads in the winter. The only cost benefit analysis that did bring these community costs into the equation concluded that the out-of-pocket costs to the community exceed the internal savings to the post office even in the worst-case scenario.  

Second, the deficit is illusory. Over 80 percent of the deficit is a result of a phantom accounting system that imposes on the USPS an unprecedented, unparalleled and unfair financial burden.

Third, the post office remains a world-class institution and a remarkable bargain. A first-class letter in the United States costs 20-75 percent less than in countries a fraction of our size, like Austria, Germany, Norway, Great Britain, and Italy. 

Fourth, the universal infrastructure of the post office is of enormous value and could be the foundation not only for it to provide increased services, but also to compete with the private sector if it were allowed to do so using the same marketing and pricing tools the private sector uses.

Fifth, the post office plays an important unquantifiable part in American life. In rural areas, the local post office may be the only community gathering place remaining, a place to meet one’s neighbors and share truly local needs and news. In a nation where more than one in five votes are cast by mail and in some states mail ballots have to be received by the close of polls, closing post offices can significantly burden some groups. In Nevada, for example, about half of the 27 Indian tribes rely heavily on the post office to register and to vote, and the closure of a post office will effectively strip them of that right. 

Closing post offices and delaying the delivery of mail places a significant burden on the most vulnerable of our citizens.

William C. Snodgrass, owner of a USave Pharmacy in North Platte, Nebraska, talked about the end-of-next-day, first-class delivery to local areas. His store mails hundreds of prescriptions a week to residents in mostly rural areas of the state that lack local pharmacies. If first-class delivery were lengthened to three days and Saturday mail service also were suspended, a resident might not get a shipment mailed on Wednesday until the following week.

“A lot of people in these communities are 65 or 70 years old, and transportation is an issue for them,” said Snodgrass. “It’s impossible for many of my customers to drive 100 miles, especially in the winter, to get the medications they need.”

The Postal Service can still be saved. But the grave has been dug. The coffin has been built. And funeral music is in the air. Only the most aggressive effort by AARP, the NAACP, Consumers Union and other affected constituencies can save this most public of all public institutions.

Stephen Colbert had a bit of trouble pretending to remain objective about his sister’s run for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district, which was vacated by now Sen. Tim Scott: Colbert touts his sister’s House bid:

Colbert, in his trademark sarcastic style, discussed her race on “The Colbert Report,” saying, “Holy cow, my sister is running for Congress.”

He referred to her as “Lulu,” saying that was her childhood nickname.

“No free air time Lulu. As a broadcast journalist I am obligated to maintain pure objectivity. It doesn’t matter that my sister is intelligent, hardworking, compassionate and dedicated to the people of South Carolina,” he said.

He added, “Besides, I’m not sure I can support her because she’s running as a Democrat.”

Sixteen Republicans are running for the seat, including former Gov. Mark Sanford and Teddy Turner, the son of business mogul Ted Turner.

“Republicans are all over this election like white on Republicans,” Colbert noted.

“At this point I’m leaning toward actual candidate and former governor of the Appalachian Trail – Mark Sanford. I’m a family values conservative, and Mark, he just seems so steady.” […]

Colbert concluded his segment on his sister with this note: “Lulu is kind of tough. She could win this one and, if you do Lulu, I certainly hope you’ll sit down with me for a ‘Better Know a District,'” referring to a recurring segment from his TV show in which Colbert irreverently interviews House members.

“It will give you a chance to defend some shocking revelations I’ve found in your middle school diary.”

The Great Recession has quietly devastated public services on a state-by-state basis, with Republican and Democratic governors taking turns leading the charge. Public education has been decimated, as well as health care, welfare, and the wages and benefits of public sector workers. The public sector itself is being smashed. Since the recession began, states have made combined austerity cuts of at least $337 billion, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities.Seattle teachers protest budget cuts, Jan. 24, 2012

The 2012-2013 budget deficits for 34 states resulted in $55 billion in cuts, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. The coming budgets for 2013-2014 that begins on July 1st is becoming clear as well, and the deficits are rolling in by the billions: Connecticut, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington, and many others have large deficits projected.

You’d expect after years of austerity cuts to public services, state politicians would think of new ways to raise revenue from those who can afford it – the wealthy and corporations. Not so. The cuts that began as a consequence of the 2008 recession are set to continue; raising revenue from the wealthy is “off the table” for Republicans and Democrats alike.

The pattern of budget cuts has revealed that the age-old distinction between Republican and Democrat has evaporated on the state level. The state budget trends – what’s getting funded and what’s not – are similarly aligned across the country. Both parties have merged their state-level agendas into a singular focus on “economic growth,” a bi-partisan euphemism meaning “corporate profits.”

Below is the bi-partisan funding trends for the states that began with the 2008 recession and continue to this day:

1) The Attack on Public Employees and Pension “Reform”

It wasn’t long ago that everyone understood that the states’ budget crises was caused in part by the recession, itself caused by the big banks and greedy corporations, and in part by the politicians continuing willingness to lower taxes on the rich. Now the corporate media and politicians have re-written history: suddenly it’s “greedy” public workers and their “lavish” pensions that are bankrupting the states. Two years ago it was the health care of public employees that was bankrupting the states, which resulted in large cuts to workers in many states.

The pre-recession pension system was working fine, but it, too, suffered under the bank-caused financial crisis; pension returns sank and right-wing economists projected ruin for the states in the future (they conveniently assumed that recession era rates would continue forever, thus under-funding the system).

Democratic governors are now as eager as their Republican counterparts to destroy the pensions of public employees. Democratic politicians in Oregon, Washington, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachusetts, and several other states are leading the charge to erode the last bastion of retirement security for working people, while continuing to lay off public employees by the thousands. This national shrinkage of state governments is a long-standing right-wing dream: the smaller the state, the greater the “growth opportunities” for corporations that take over privatized public services and the lower their taxes since a smaller state requires less revenue for operating expenses.

2) Education Reform

The National Governors Association (NGA) spoke for both political parties when announcing a renewed focus on education funding for the states during the annual “state of the states” address. The funding is necessary because schools across the country are expecting an influx of students, while school districts everywhere have been starved funds by the ongoing austerity cuts; the system has been literally crumbling. But the new funding is to be used for the undermining and destruction of public education, since it is based on Obama’s pro-corporate Race to the Top education “reform” where charter schools replace public schools.

Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement over Obama’s education policy, which closes “failing schools,” (those in poor neighborhoods), opens privately run, non-union charter schools, and fires “bad teachers,” (typically those who teach poor students). The whole system is based on standardized testing, which poorer students will spend most of their education preparing for, (those who don’t drop out from sheer boredom). Bi-partisan education reform targets teacher unions while privatizing education – the Democrats have adopted the ideas from the right-wing think tanks of the 1990′s.

3) Raising Revenue – But Not From the Wealthy or Corporations

Many states have implemented – or are planning to implement – a variety of taxes that disproportionally affect working and poor people, including increased sales taxes, alcohol, tobacco and other “sin” taxes, not to mention increases in different fees, from state parks to driver registration.

At the same time that these taxes have been upped, a consistent clamor has been raised by the media and politicians to lower the taxes for corporations, give them new subsidies or “freeze” their already-low taxes so that future tax increases will be impossible. In Oregon the Democratic governor declared a “special session” emergency in order to ensure that NIKE’s super low tax status would be frozen in place for decades, outside the reach of the public, which might want to raise corporate taxes to fund public services.

Democrat and Republican controlled states are equally competing for the adoration of corporations by lavishing a never-ending flow of taxpayer money on them, while “guaranteeing” them “investment security,” i.e., promising low taxes and an open spigot of taxpayer money. This is the basis for several states implementing “right to work” laws that target unions for destruction, while also attempting to “revamp the tax code,” which is a euphemism for lowering corporate taxes.

4) Welfare Reform: Attacking the Safety Net

Waging war against the safety net is like picking a fight with road kill – the states’ safety net is already disfigured beyond recognition, but the bi-partisan assault nevertheless continues. Bill Clinton started welfare “reform” as president, and the 2008 Great Recession accelerated the attack on those in poverty. The year 2011 was a devastating one for welfare, now called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

In 2011, states implemented some of the harshest cuts in recent history for many of the nation’s most vulnerable families with children who are receiving assistance through [TANF] … The cuts affect 700,000 low-income families that include 1.3 million children; these families represent over one-third of all low-income families receiving TANF nationwide.

But these TANF “reforms” continue, to the detriment of the neediest. Newly released budgets in several states – including California and Oregon – further tighten the program, a relentless boa-like constriction that’s already suffocated millions of the country’s poorest citizens. Typically TANF reform either lowers the monthly payment, shortens the time one can receive benefits, or raises the standards for staying in the program.

Before the giant TANF cuts in 2011, the program was already shrunken such that TANF only assisted 28 families for every 100 in poverty – the ludicrous definition of “poverty” being a family of four that makes only $22,000 or less.

There is a direct link between the assault on TANF and the rising poverty levels in the United States. Cutting TANF in a time of mass unemployment means consciously consigning millions of families to grinding poverty, hunger, homelessness, and the many other barbarisms associated with extreme poverty.

Conclusion:

It wasn’t long ago that the Democrats understood that the government can and should create jobs, especially during a recession. But now the Democratic Party has fully adopted the economics of Reaganism. As a result, the only “job creators” now recognized are the corporations. This bi-partisan agreement not to tax the rich and use the revenue for public spending to create jobs – hiring more teachers, firefighters, roads and parks workers, etc. – is unnecessarily prolonging the job crisis, ensuring more years of deficits and a deeper gouging of the public sector.

These cuts are having a devastating effect on public sector unions, the last bastion of union strength in the country. These unions are being weakened to such an extent that stripping them of their right to collectively bargain – the nail in the coffin – becomes a real possibility. No state is safe from this threat.

If unions don’t unite with community groups to demand that public services be fully funded by taxing the wealthy and corporations, the cuts will continue, communities will feel helpless, inequality will continue to spiral out of control, and working people will be further subjected to the policies of the 1%, now implemented in chorus by Republicans and Democrats alike. But, of course, this means that the unions will have to break with the suicidal strategy of relying on the Democrats for handouts. Time and again the Democrats have demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice the needs of working people in order to curry favor with the rich and corporations, their greatest benefactors when it comes to election campaign contributions.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@gmail.com

Critics came out in force following Thursday’s confirmation hearing of John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency and lead architect of the United State’s secret drone warfare playbook.

Brennan applying for job as CIA Director the Senate Intelligence Committee. (Photo: Alex Wong/ Getty Images) Many attacked the questioning senators, remarking–as Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce did–”They never laid a glove on him.“

And despite the CODEPINK protestors’ welcome reminder that “We are killing children” there was little mention of the brutal civilian casualties attributed to this “targeted” warfare. In response to this obvious lapse, The Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild wrote.

“We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there’s no other alternative,” [Brennan] said.

Well, then, what about his drone killing of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the son of Anwar Al-Awlaki? Was that really a last resort to save lives? Unfortunately, I didn’t hear a Senator ask that question.

Calling the hearing “pure show,” Pierce writes it was clear that “both sides [were] operating under a tacit agreement that there are things that the American people must not, and should not, know about what it being done in their name.”

He said that this was particularly evident when Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked Brennan “point-blank” whether the president could order a drone strike on an American citizen inside the US, following up with “What evidence does the president need to engage a drone strike? And could that power be used inside the United States?”

“I have been a strong proponent of being as open as possible,” Brennan answered. “I believe we should optimize transparency and optimize secrecy and national security concerns. We can do both. The Office Of Legal Counsel advice established the boundaries, and we don’t operate at those boundaries.”

Pierce writes:

The man whom the administration has put up to head the CIA would not say whether or not the president of the United States has the power to order the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen within the borders of the United States. (And a thousand heads on conspiracy websites explode.) And the hearing, remarkably, went on as though nothing untoward had happened.

On last night’s “Viewpoint,” Current TV’s John Fugelsang also listed the many questions that were not asked in the hearing:

But, I was surprised that no one asked Mr. Brennan about how drone bombs don’t just kill America haters–they create new ones.

I was surprised no one asked him why all adult males are considered combatants, and that’s how they keep the civilian death casualties numbers so low.

I was surprised no one asked him about the CIA’s new definition of the word “imminent” for all those imminent threats. Turns out, all they have to do is think you might be a threat one day. Nothing like a little pre-emptive Bush/Cheney nostalgia – forgive us our trespasses as we trespass against those we think might one day trespass against us.

But I guess I was most surprised by Mr. Brennan’s unwillingness to say if waterboarding was torture. He said, “I can’t say if it’s torture, I’m not a lawyer.” The only thing we learned for sure today was that John Brennan should’ve coached Chuck Hagel.

Brennan’s lawyer remark was particularly worrisome to critics, given the scope of authority entrusted to him by the current Administration. Investigative blogger Marcy Wheeler said that this comment alone “utterly decimated the drone program’s legitimacy.” She added:

In other words, this man, who can’t (or refuses to) say whether waterboarding is torture because he is not a lawyer, is entrusted every Tuesday to make far more difficult legal decisions, both on the subjective feasible and imminent questions, but also on specific international laws.

In other words, according to the guy who has been acting as judge and jury for the last four years, the guy who has been acting as judge and jury is completely incompetent to act as judge and jury.

Rothschild concludes that, despite all of the “octopus ink” Brennan excreted to “dodge or obfuscate” the facts, one particularly revealing remark, that “the Obama Administration has not stretched to the ‘outer limits’ of its justifications,” left him even less assured.

February 8, 2013  |  

Last night, Jon Stewart interviewed Neil Barofsky, the former overseer of the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and author of the new book Bailout. 

According to Barofsky, TARP turned into a colossal betrayal of the American people, a disaster aided by the corrosive and defensive environment in Washington.

“Everybody was more concerned about looking out for themselves, the next newspaper report, rather than the giant financial meltdown that we had walked into,” Barofsky said. Barofsky was appointed by President Bush in 2009 as Special Inspector General to TARP, but resigned in 2011.

Part of the $700 billion was supposed to help homeowners, but only an infinitesimal portion ended up actually going to families struggling under the weight of toxic, ballooning mortgage payments. In particularly, the home mortgage modification program (HAMP) was completely corrupted to aid Wall Street while ignoring homeowners.

“There was almost no effort,” said Barofsky. “The justifications for not doing the right thing, among them was, ‘Oh well, we can’t help an undeserving homeowner. It would be terrible if we did that,’” Barofsky said. “Meanwhile, the financial institutions that drove this country into the ditch … those guys, ‘let’s not only get them their money, but let’s make sure their still able to pay their million dollars in business.’”

Barofsky and Stewart also discussed how unless the “too big to fail” exemption for Wall Street, our broken financial system will continue to screw over everyday Americans.

“A lot of the biggest banks did and still do hold the guns to our heads,” said Barofsky.

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Once again, it wasn’t a good week to be a horse. But it was a good week to be on Twitter if you had a new horse joke.

Yes, this week’s round-up of funny tweets include Findus horsemeat gags, Richard III gags, Super Bowl gags and funnies about many, many more of this week’s news events. Including: the passing of the gay marriage bill, Michael Gove’s Ebacc U-turn, England vs Brazil, Chris Huhne and the death of the inventor of the Etch A Sketch. Apparently, his ashes have been scattered inside a small rectangular screen.

And so, without further ado, here are some of the tweets that made us giggle, smile and whinny in delight this week. (Disclaimer: we may have mad horse disease.)

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Center of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: publications@globalresearch.ca

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“Handsomely equipped to fail, I went out into the world.”
― John Fowles, from The Magus
 
In the consumer paradigm, one is induced to exist by Eric Hoffer’s dictum: “You can never get enough of what you really don’t need.” Wherein: The individual exists in a state of perpetual adolescence, emotionally oscillating between life lived as a bliss ninny and evincing chronic dissatisfaction.
 
Ever shifting, inchoate compulsions and endless distractions define the days of the denizens of the consumer state. Text messages and tweets gibber like souls stranded in a limbo realm between the worlds of the living and the damned.
 
Craving and angst are interwoven. Held by the dazzle of light playing over the surface of a deep abyss, the consumer floats along on waxen wings of debt. The landscape does not seem solid.
 
Constant craving and callous disregard ascend to the throne room of consciousness in this empire of ephemera. The passions of the heart are circumvented by chronic discontent. In this manic mythos of the eternal moment, consumer items are collected, clutched, and discarded, like the idols and talismans of a dying cult. But there is neither the time nor inclination to erect statues to these gods of the limbic system; the gods exist as ever-reconfiguring constellations of pixels…As noxious as nixies, they hold the senses enthralled as the global, capitalist paradigm sinks beneath a drowning tide of self-created illusion.  
 
Beneath the endless obligation of debt servitude and the manic distractions of the consumer state, an amorphous dread gathers. Shunted aside, it is experienced as free floating, low grade paranoia.
 
As I place these words to pixel, members of the U.S military sit hunched before computer screens, enacting slaughter by means of predator drone strike. These cubicle-bound soldiers of the consumer state (who have spent their lifetimes within the mass media hologram of late capitalism) regard delivering death from across vast distances as a type of instant, consumerist gratification.
 
But their actions do not instill a sense of safety within the homeland. Incrementally, it increases the gathering dread; thus, this war-by-remote-control is self-perpetuating: warfare experienced as consumer craving, the mode of mind of a shopping addict, but instead of possessing closets bloated with unneeded consumer items, the empire collects corpses.  
 
Izzy Stone famously averred, “Governments lie.”
 
It is a given, government and corporate insiders scheme and plot. In the days before they had to create the illusion that government officials were responsive to the dictates of the electorate, rulers, their advisors and counselors created deceptive strategies in pursuit of holding and acquiring greater power, in secret, behind closed doors. Withal, their plots were not termed conspiracies; their machinations and attendant acts were called…a day at work.
 
“Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive.” — William S. Burroughs, from Ghost of Chance
 
The U.S. possesses a cheap seats view of reality but skybox level self-deceptions.
 
A conspiracy-apprehending mode of mind attempts to find connections and detect affinities. In this respect, it is similar to a poetic sense of awareness. Although, this distinction is imperative: a habitually paranoiac perspective must have a tendency toward introspective self-awareness i.e., an ego-leavening element, or it tends to become pathologically self-centered. Thus: An inner conspiracy is locked into place, confining the psyche of the sufferer in a mental realm of self reference — whereby life itself, in its unknowable vastness, threatens to penetrate, causing the fragile ego-construct of the paranoia prone to erect even greater barriers of insularity, thus creating the effect of a psychical room of infinity mirrors.
 
The U.S. is a paranoid culture. The nation has no foreign enemies posing an existential threat, yet it swoons in collective fear and bristles with the apparatus of the national security state.

The U.S. is a paranoid culture. The nation has no foreign enemies posing an existential threat, yet it swoons in collective fear and bristles with the apparatus of the national security state.The corporate/militarist government of the U.S. is paranoid by nature; therefore, the populace has good reason to be fearful.
 
It is not a lack of conviction that brings so much suffering to humanity; it is a lack of rigorous imagination.
 
Rigorous imagination is not the same thing as a desperate need for belief or a tendency to become convinced of the reality of any notion that arrives in your head.
 
Rigorous imagination allows you to engage in democratic discourse with the disparate beings inhabiting the polis of your psyche, but not be swept away by mob rule or entranced by charismatic, neurotic, or paranoiac characters within you who have a monomaniacal agenda.
 
These inner characters, gods, animals, and monsters can be helpful to you; it is futile to attempt to repress them. But you must have a grip on them — or they will have a grip on you.
 
Ergo, this is the difference between clinging to narrow convictions and a heart-opening, senses-awakening, mind-vivifying embrace of rigorous imagination.
 
Our convictions, beliefs, and motives have been formed from a mixture of apprehensions (sprung from seeds of bias) and misapprehensions (that contain a tiny measure of truth). Generally, what we term thinking and knowing is, more often than not, an autonomous process — an unconscious seeking of affinities — a mating dance of known quantities and recognizable possibilities allowing one to view the world as the unfolding of the plausible — a trek across recognizable, navigable terrain — and not a bewildering bog of proliferating novelty, lacking both familiar landmark and the lexicon of a known tongue.
 
As a people, what is our legacy to future generations? Depressing, isn’t it? Ecocide. Debt slavery. War without end. A social milieu in which privileged psychopaths not only thrive but decide the fate of the multitudes.
 
Let’s take a digressive scan of the known landscape of the late capitalist era where there exists a desperate campaign by the economic elite to have the floundering system be accepted as not only viable — but the only rational option available to all concerned. Yet a predominance of evidence stands to the contrary. Withal, the present economic system can only maintain the illusion of viability — growing ever tenuous by the hour — by lurching from market bubble to market bubble, in combination with governmental infusions of trillions upon trillions of dollars, as well as the complicity of the corporate media and government officialdom in the swindle (swindles past and ongoing) by abandoning their roles as advocates for the many and assuming the position of operatives of a moneyed elite.  
 
Whistleblowers, dissidents — all of those who harbor a proclivity to apprehend the true nature of the circumstances that the forces of self-serving power have wrought and ruthlessly strive to maintain — innately carry within and speak a language that is both alien and threatening to the status quo.

Yet, through it all, a mutant seed, nourished by the composting convictions of our culture, dreams within my soul, that contains a blueprint that will allow me to live my way into the unknowable future.Opening oneself to one’s condition, even when the criteria is depressing, allows one to open a window to the verities of the heart and gaze upon a kind of beauty that is both awful and awe inspiring. Thus: One is called upon, regardless of the degree of success or the extent of failure, to attempt to align these visions as a corrective to culture.
 
Circumstances do not change unless perceptions change. Accordingly, the big lie promulgated by the elite of our corrupt era is…there is something wrong with an individual who will not or cannot accept their version of events.
 
On a personal basis, I am deficient in those qualities that would allow me to adapt to the conventions of our age.
 
Yet, through it all, a mutant seed, nourished by the composting convictions of our culture, dreams within my soul, that contains a blueprint that will allow me to live my way into the unknowable future.
 
In the final years and the concomitant, violent death throes of the corporate/consumer paradigm, the compulsive pursuit of happiness brings the opposite effect: insatiable craving, chronic dissatisfaction, panic, paranoia, nettling resentment, burnout, and disillusionment. Instead, try this: embrace the inherent sorrow that comes at the end of things: The blank countenance of an indifferent winter sky; the spiraling dance of the ashes of prior convictions in a clashing cross breeze; the manner that trees, buildings, birds rise from the earth like musical notes.
 
You can attempt to check-out i.e., approach life, as people in the U.S. do, as virtuosos of reality avoidance — but reality knows your home address: the human psyche. Your psyche is with you for life. You cannot drop off your psyche at an Interstate rest stop, and drive away. Glance in the rear view mirror and it will be lounging in the backseat of your vehicle tapping its foot to the music swelling from the car radio.
 
You can no more discard the psyche than rid yourself of its organ of expression — the human heart — by storing it in a deep freeze. The images of the psyche pulse through your veins.
 
Neglect of the psyche causes it to become a thief in the night that, by stealth, steals back into consciousness, and is misapprehended as a home invasion…of which, a private arsenal, no matter its degree of firepower, would prove of zero use in warding off.

It is anathema to the human heart for one to imagine oneself as being primarily an economic animal whose fate is yolked to the crackpot pragmatist’s bottom line-fetishizing mindset of late capitalist feudalism.
In contrast, by living among…by conversing, collaborating, grappling…being moved, mortified, and transfigured by the images dwelling in the polis and the ecosystem of my heart (also known as the imagination) — I become myself, by losing myself. The shackles of the first person singular have been lightened, allowing me to wend in the direction of my calling.
 
By means of rigorous imagination, one must seek collaboration with the figures populating the landscape of the psyche. Because: how is it possible to navigate the bewildering terrain of one’s fate alone?

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil’s website or at FaceBook.

The corporate media and front groups for big business and political parties leave out what we believe are important details. That’s why at It’s Our Economy we focus on articles that go deeper into current news. This week: the real national security budget is bigger then acknowledged, the growth in GDP before the election seems to be due to government spending being sped up, the poor don’t live well as the right wing claims, and the U.S. is a ‘managed democracy’ or polyarchy where the people do not rule. Economist David Cay Johnson digs deep to show that while attention is focused on the President’s budget proposal for military spending and cuts to Social Security and Medicare, a large sector of spending is being ignored. That is total spending on the National Security State and it is as much as 2.5 times the base Defense budget; that’s $1.3 trillion not the $525 million the corporate media trumpets. And labor economist Jack Rasmus reports that GDP was artificially inflated in the third quarter last year (just prior to the elections) by record levels of federal defense spending. Was this to make the economy look good for the election?  We may never know the reason for this rapid spending of government funds. It might not had even been noticed, but on the other side, in the fourth quarter, the GDP declined.  Why? A rapid drop in military spending. The shrinkage of GDP in the fourth quarter had people looking more closely at the numbers. Rasmus still cautions that we are headed for a double-dip recession in 2013-14. A recession can be mitigated by job creation, but unemployment is rising and technology is permanently destroying middle class jobs. The likelihood of a recession is increasing because of an unprecedented drop in federal spending. As we warned, experience shows that cuts in spending during an economic collapse makes a long and deep recession more likely.  Thomas Edsall busts the myths about Americans in poverty being promulgated by the right. He says, “the presence in the United States of 42.6 million people officially living in poverty – no matter that they have access to a trickle of consumer goods – must be recognized as a powder keg.” And Greg Kaufmann writes that if we are serious about education, we must address poverty. And while we are often told that we live in a democracy, Cliff DuRand explains the conflict between real democracy and a global corporate state. He calls the US government “polyarchy” or a form of low-intensity democracy or as Sheldon Wolin calls it a “managed democracy.” Chris Hedges tells us in simple terms these terms mean “political theater” to hide the rule of the elites behind a thin veil of expensive campaigns.  Democracy is literally translated as “people power.” An area of the world where true democracy (participatory democracy) is growing is Venezuela, but the corporate media goes to great lengths to hide this. We interviewed Cliff Durand and Chris Hedges on “Clearing the FOG” this week, and next week we will speak about participatory democracy in Venezuela and the United States. The good news is that economic and participatory democracy are growing in the US. We are pleased to announce the first It’s Our Economy State Chapter in Colorado. If you are interested in starting a chapter, contact us at itsoureconomy.us@gmail.com. Knowledge is power. That is why we try to bring you information that is not prominent in the media. Please share this email with others. Kevin Zeese, JD and Margaret Flowers, MD co-direct It’s Our Economy and co-host Clearing the FOG. This article is based on the weekly newsletter for the organization, sign up to receive it for free here.

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Vicky Pryce was shocked and horrified, and “wanted to turn the clock back”, when the story about Chris Huhne getting someone to take his speeding points hit the headlines, she told a court today.

The former Cabinet minister’s ex-wife said she felt “ashamed and upset” when the story appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times on May 8 2011, and wanted nothing more to do with it.

It later emerged that it was Pryce who had taken the points. Huhne finally admitted lying about the matter this week, but his former wife denies perverting the course of justice, claiming marital coercion.

Pryce, 60, who yesterday revealed that Huhne once bullied her into having an abortion, told Southwark Crown Court he made her take the points in a “fait accompli” in 2003.

She first revealed the offence to Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott over a lunch many years later, in March 2011.

Pryce said today that the revelation got Ms Oakeshott “excited” as she planned how to run the story in the newspaper.

The pair agreed that the claims would be made through an interview with Pryce, and an agreement was put in place in a bid to protect the economist.

But Pryce told the court today that she was shocked and horrified to see the story on the front page, and that it included details which could reveal her as the person who took the points.

“I felt actually that I was already being exposed,” she said.

“I was a bit shocked and horrified and of course started worrying very significantly about the whole process that led to this article.

“So in many ways I just wanted to turn the clock back and not have anything to do with it.”

She added: “I was quite shocked about the way that the information had come out and I was beginning to feel that actually I had been perhaps manipulated in a way and that things had probably been pushed too far.”

She told the court she decided not to deal with the Sunday Times again after that.

“I had actually been quite upset about the front page and also in the end the article coming out because clearly there was already a lot of interest from the press and I felt actually pretty bad and really not happy with having been involved in any of this.

“Mostly I felt I wished really to have nothing to do with it if I could and felt quite ashamed and upset.”

Pryce said when she made four calls to Huhne, recorded in a bid to catch him admitting the offence, her main aim was to find out who was leaking information suggesting she was the one who took his points.

Asked about her motives for taking the scandal to the press, she said: “I wanted the story to go in the newspapers in the right way and because I wanted the story explained in the right way.

“If I had wanted to ruin my husband at the time I could have thought of lots of other things to expose publicly.”

Asked in cross-examination by prosecutor Andrew Edis QC: “You are a very experienced, clever, powerful woman, aren’t you?”, she replied: “I wouldn’t call myself powerful.”

She said that, despite causing the media storm by revealing the story to the newspapers, her family “came first”.

“It certainly came first as well in 2003 when I actually signed the piece of paper,” she said.

“2010 was a very difficult circumstance when the family had really been torn apart and where the person they were relying on, who was me, was actually very fragile.

“I am not proud of what happened. Now of course I would never ever have gone down that road.

“I did not perhaps behave rationally, there’s no doubt about that.”

She said she did not expect the fall-out of the revelations to be as strong and followed up to the extent that it was.

“I was not experienced in that respect, I was not a journalist or a PR person or a politician. I was simply a vulnerable person at the time.

“I was shocked about what happened afterwards; in fact I was so shocked that I went into hiding with one of my children.

“And in fact, despite it all, we all kept together very, very close.

“I apologised to them straight afterwards and they have been very supportive of me ever since.

“I was not probably thinking straight at the time, there’s no doubt about it.

“It was a very, very tough time for me and also for the rest of my family and I did things which I am not proud of.”

The court heard that several high-profile figures wrote glowing testimonials about Pryce.

John Scarlett, former head of MI6, said she was “exceptionally well-informed and of good judgment”, adding: “I regard her a person of clear integrity in whom I have confidence.”

Former senior civil servant John Gieve said Pryce was “highly organised and energetic and confident and fits more into her diary than most would find possible”, while Baron Stern of Brentford described her as “an excellent economist, administrator and manager and very professional in all her activities”.

“She is a fine human being, extraordinarily kind, helpful, trustworthy and reliable.”

Pryce denied a six-month campaign to try to get the story in the newspapers, having already spoken to the Mail on Sunday in November 2010.

The court heard she met a freelance journalist who was providing a story to the newspaper, and told him Huhne forced constituency aide Jo White to take points for him.

“I did give him a name, a Jo White, which was an aide of my husband’s at the time, as somebody who I had been told by my husband had taken his points.”

She had previously revealed that when Huhne demanded she take his points in 2003, he said an aide had already done something similar.

Pryce said it never crossed her mind how inconvenient it would be for her if Huhne lost his licence – she later spoke of having to drive him around for months.

“It did not even enter my head at the time what the consequences of him losing his licence would be on me driving him around,” she said.

Mr Edis suggested the only reason Pryce described Huhne standing in the hallway with a pen – something she did not describe to Ms Oakeshott or the Mail on Sunday, or to police – was because her defence of marital coercion requires a husband to be physically present.

But the 60-year-old said: “In fact it’s probably one of my strongest memories of this whole sad affair, him standing at the hallway table, lots of paper around and the form, and being made to sign, so I am afraid it’s absolutely true.”

Related on HuffPost:

Over the past four decades, of all the reasons people over a certain age have given for their becoming radicalized against US foreign policy, the Vietnam War has easily been the one most often cited. And I myself am the best example of this that you could find. I sometimes think that if the war lovers who run the United States had known of this in advance they might have had serious second thoughts about starting that great historical folly and war crime.

At other times, however, I have the thought that our dear war lovers have had 40 years to take this lesson to heart, and during this time what did they do? They did Salvador and Nicaragua, and Angola and Grenada. They did Panama and Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and Iraq. And in 2012 American President Barack Obama saw fit to declare that the Vietnam War was “one of the most extraordinary stories of bravery and integrity in the annals of military history”. 1

So, have they learned nothing? When it comes to following international law, is the United States like a failed state? The Somalia of international law? Well, if they were perfectly frank, the war lovers would insist that the purpose of all these interventions, and many others like them, was to keep the atheists out of power — the non-believers in America’s god-given right to rule the world — or to at least make life as difficult as possible for them. And thus the interventions were successful; nothing to apologize for; even the Vietnam War achieved its purpose of preventing that country from becoming a good development option for Asia, a socialist alternative to the capitalist model; precisely the same reason for Washington’s endless hostility toward Cuba in Latin America; and Cuba has indeed inspired numerous atheists and their alternatives for a better world.

If they were even more honest, the war lovers might quote George Kennan, the legendary State Department strategist, who wrote prophetically during the Cold War: “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.” 2

But after all these years, after decades of American militarism — though not a day passes without some government official or media acolyte expressing his admiration and gratitude for “our brave boys” — cracks in the American edifice can be seen. Some of the war lovers, and their TV groupies would have us believe that they have actually learned something. One of the first was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in February 2011: “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.”

And here’s former Secretary of State George Shultz speaking before the prestigious Council of Foreign Relations last month (January 29): “Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be the template for how we go about” dealing with threats of terrorism.

A few days earlier the very establishment and conservative Economist magazine declared: “The best-intentioned foreign intervention is bound to bog its armies down in endless wars fighting invisible enemies to help ungrateful locals.”

However, none of these people are in power. And does history offer any example of a highly militaristic power — without extreme coercion — seeing the error of its ways? One of my readers, who prefers to remain anonymous, wrote to me recently:

It is my opinion that the German and Japanese people only relinquished their imperial culture and mindset when they were bombed back to the stone age at the end of WWII. Something similar is the only cure for the same pathology that now is embedded into the very social fabric of the USA. The USA is a full-blown pathological society now. There is no other cure. No amount of articles on the Internet pointing out the hypocrisies or war crimes will do it.

So, while the United States is busy building bases and anti-missile sites in Europe, Asia and Africa, deploying space-based and other hi-tech weapons systems, trying to surround Russia, China, Iran and any other atheist that threatens American world hegemony, and firing drone missiles all over the Middle East I’m busy playing games on the Internet. What can I say? In theory at least, there is another force besides the terrible bombing mentioned above that can stop the American empire, and that is the American people. I’ll continue trying to educate them. Too bad I won’t live long enough to see the glorious transformation.

Afghanistan: Manufacturing the American Legacy

“A decade ago, playing music could get you maimed in Afghanistan. Today, a youth ensemble is traveling to the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. And it even includes girls.”

Thus reads the sub-heading of a Washington Post story of February 3 about an orchestra of 48 Afghan young people who attended music school in a country where the Taliban have tried to silence both women and music. “The Afghan Youth Orchestra is more than a development project,” the article informs us. For “the school’s many international donors, it serves as a powerful symbol of successful reconstruction in Afghanistan. And by performing in Washington and New York, the seats of U.S. political and financial power, the orchestra hopes to showcase what a decade of investment has achieved.”

“The U.S. State Department, the World Bank, the Carnegie Corporation and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education have invested heavily in the tour. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul awarded nearly $350,000 footing most of the estimated $500,000 cost. For international donors, the tour symbolizes progress in a country crippled by war.”

The State Department’s director of communications and public diplomacy for Afghanistan and Pakistan declares: “We wanted Americans to understand the difference their tax dollars have made in building a better future for young people, which translates into reduced threats from extremists in the region.”

“There’s a lot of weariness in the U.S. and cynicism about Afghanistan,” said William Harvey, an American violinist who teaches at the school, where 35 of 141 students are girls. “What are we doing there? What can be achieved? These concerts answer those questions in the strongest way possible: Cooperation between Afghanistan and the international community has made it safe for young girls and boys to learn music.”

There can be no question that for the sad country of Afghanistan all this is welcome news. There can also be little doubt that a beleaguered and defensive US foreign policy establishment will seek to squeeze out as much favorable publicity as possible from these events. On the issue of the severe oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan, defenders of the US occupation of that desperate land would have you believe that the United States is the last great hope of those poor females. However, you will not be reminded that in the 1980s the United States played an indispensable role in the overthrow of a secular and relatively progressive Afghan government, one which endeavored to grant women much more freedom than they’ll ever have under the current Karzai-US government, more probably than ever again. Here are some excerpts from a 1986 US Army manual on Afghanistan discussing the policies of this government concerning women:

“provisions of complete freedom of choice of marriage partner, and fixation of the minimum age at marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men”
“abolished forced marriages”
“bring [women] out of seclusion, and initiate social programs”
“extensive literacy programs, especially for women”
“putting girls and boys in the same classroom”;
“concerned with changing gender roles and giving women a more active role in politics”. 3

The US-led overthrow of this government paved the way for the coming to power of Islamic fundamentalist forces, which led directly to the awful Taliban. And why did the United States in its infinite wisdom choose to do such a thing? Because the Afghan government was allied with the Soviet Union and Washington wanted to draw the Russians into a hopeless military quagmire — “We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War”, said Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Adviser. 4

The women of Afghanistan will never know how the campaign to raise them to the status of full human beings would have turned out, but this, some might argue, is but a small price to pay for a marvelous Cold War victory.
Guantánamo Bay

People on the left never tire of calling for the closing of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The fact that President Obama made the closing a promise of his 2008 campaign and repeated it again in the White House, while the prison still remains in operation, is seen as a serious betrayal. But each time I read about this I’m struck by the same thought: The horror of Guantánamo is not its being open, not its mere existence. Its horror lies in its being the site of more than 10 years of terrible abuse of human beings. If the prison is closed and all its inmates are moved to another prison, and the abuses continue, what would have been accomplished? How would the cause of human rights be benefitted? I think that activists should focus on the abuses, regardless of the location.
The War on Terror — They’re really getting serious about it now

For disseminating classified materials that exposed war crimes, Julian Assange is now honored as an official terrorist as only America can honor. We Shall Never Forget 9/11, Vol. II: The True Faces of Evil — Terror, a graphic coloring novel for children, which comes with several pages of perforated, detachable “terrorist trading cards”. Published by Really Big Coloring Books Inc. in St. Louis, the cards include Assange, Timothy McVeigh, Jared Lee Loughner, Ted Kaczynski, Maj. Nidal Hasan, Bill Ayers, and others. 5
Superpower — the film

Starring Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Michel Chossudovksy, Karen Kwiatowski (Pentagon “defector”), William Blum, Sergei Khrushchev (son of Nikita), Kathy Kelly, and many others: https://vimeo.com/55141496 (enter password when prompted: barbarasteegmuller) — 2 hours long.
New Book and talk

The eagerly awaited (I can name at least three people) new book by William Blum is here at last. “America’s Deadliest Export — Democracy: The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else” is made up of essays which are a combination of new and old; combined, updated, expanded; many first appeared in one form or another in the Anti-Empire Report, or on my website, at various times during the past ten years or so.

As mentioned in the book, activists like myself are sometimes scoffed at for saying the same old things to the same old people; just spinning our wheels, we’re told, “preaching to the choir” or “preaching to the converted”. But long experience as speaker, writer and activist in the area of foreign policy tells me it just ain’t so. From the questions and comments I regularly get from my audiences, via email and in person, I can plainly see that there are numerous significant information gaps and misconceptions in the choir’s thinking, often leaving them unable to see through the newest government lie or propaganda trick; they’re unknowing or forgetful of what happened in the past that illuminates the present; or knowing the facts but unable to apply them at the appropriate moment; vulnerable to being led astray by the next person who offers a specious argument that opposes what they currently believe, or think they believe; and, perhaps worst of all, many of them suffer pathetically from an over-abundance of conspiracy thinking, often carrying a justified suspicion or idea to a ridiculous level; virtually nothing is taken at face value.

The choir needs to be frequently reminded and enlightened to be better able to influence others, to be better activists.

To order a signed copy directly from me you can go to my website: http://killinghope.org.

I’ll be speaking about the new book at Politics and Prose bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW, in Washington, DC, Saturday, March 2 at 1 pm.
26

Notes

May 28, 2012, speaking at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington ↩
George Kennan, Wikipedia entry ↩
US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986), pp.121, 128, 130, 223, 232 (Library of Congress Call Number DS351.5 .A34 1986) ↩
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Wikipedia entry ↩
View the press release; see the cards ↩

Context: As yet there are no context links for this item.

Transcript

Hassan Ghani

As Britain’s economists speculate over the prospects of a triple-dip recession, the future looks bleak for those already struggling to make ends meet.Across England, the cost of renting is going up, house repossessions are on the rise, and particularly here in London more and more people are finding themselves homeless. One path out of that is squatting, but that is now under serious threat.Tens of thousands of people have been squatting in empty buildings across the UK for many many years. But last year the government criminalised squatting in residential buildings, and now it’s considering doing the same for commercial buildings. Mike Wetherly is a Member of Parliament whose been campaigning to make this happen.Mike Weatherly, Member of Parliament, Conservative Party“I’m no fan of empty buildings either, and I think we ought to do various things to encourage empty buildings to be put back into use. What I don’t want to see is vulnerable people, and these are often very vulnerable people, drug addicts and alcohol and so on, going into these vulnerable properties, commercial ones which have been abandoned, are unsafe, they don’t have sanitation, they don’t have electricity. The local authorities should be looking after homeless people.Now, some squatters have got nothing to do with homelessness, they are basically anarchists who just want to have rent-free accommodation, they’re well educated and web savvy. I don’t mind people having alternative views on life, and they can live the way they want to, but what they can’t do is just take what doesn’t belong to them and rob people of their own property.”Hassan GhaniIt’s true that many in Britain do see squatters as a scourge on society, that threaten to steal their property and land. It’s an image perpetuated by much of the media. So we decided to visit some squats in London and find out what they’re like for ourselves.Leon, Squatter at Rochester Square“Welcome to One Rochester Square”Hassan GhaniRochester Square is nestled in a residential neighbourhood of North London. The rare green space lay unused for years until the squatters arrived six months ago.Leon, Squatter at Rochester Square“We’ve got six rooms in the main area, and one room at the back of the kitchen. The kitchen is built in a way that all our water that we use for cleaning our clothes and cleaning our dishes is recycled back round to the toilet and used also as water to flush the toilet, saving about 70 litres a day. We have a bike workshop, where two people who are amateur bike mechanics work on fixing people’s bikes, and building up new ones from spare parts.When we arrived, there were alcohol bottles, there were hypodermic needles, there was pornography, so when we came we did a lot of cleaning up. We’ve tried to contact the owner, tried to show him what we’ve done. Unfortunately he only wanted to deal with us through his solicitor and hasn’t come down to his site, to have a look at what we’ve done here, which is a bit unfortunate.If you look up you can see that most of the wood is rotting, and this is what happens if you don’t take care of a place.”Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square“We have to be very careful to separate media scare stories, because there is a campaign of right wing media vilification against squatters, from the fact.”Hassan GhaniPete is a masters student and a part time teacher. He says that all the squatters he knows think carefully before choosing to occupy a space.Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square“Squatters tend to go for places which have been left empty for a very long time anyway. And if they find that this place has just been sold, or if its to become somebody’s home, they’re not going to squat it. A) because the legislation which existed even before the new law meant that they would be evicted very rapidly anyway as a consequence, and B) because squatters are not in the business of taking people’s homes, they’re in the process of putting a temporary shelter over their heads.I wonder if many landlords didn’t just talk to the squatters, as rational individuals, and they’d be able to see that actually they’re not just druggies who’re going to tear the place apart, but can actually improve the place.”Hassan GhaniAnd he says squatters, like wider society, are composed of a diverse range of people.Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square“I used to believe that squatters were a subculture of people who were anarchists, and didn’t work, and all had mohicans. And then I learned, actually, that they’re just people. And that many of the people who were serving me food in a restaraunt, or many people in healthcare, are squatters. People who are providing essential services are squatters. They are a very diverse range of poeple. They’re just people on low incomes, and they’re just finding a solution to the fact that this is an incredibly expensive city to live in, and property ownership is getting more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.”Hassan GhaniLondon is among the most expensive places to live in the world. Ana previously rented a room in private accommodation, but even that cost her half her earnings each month. She now lives in the garden squat.Ana, Squatter at Rochester Square“If I’m working and I need to pay the rent, I will use more than 50% of that money to pay the rent, plus feeding, plus transportation, and basically that will mean that I will be living to pay my housing, and I don’t believe that that’s fair. Housing, food and health are a human right. So many people without houses, so many houses without people – why?”Hassan GhaniWhile filming at the squat, we stumbled into a gathering of neighbourhood residents, who’d come to voice their opinions on its use. And we were surprised to find that overall they were supportive of the squatters, telling us the space had previously been a den of crime.Will, Local Resident“If somebody owns land then what they do with it, and this is a privately owned space, it should be to a degree up to them. But if there’s no action taking place, and that continues for a significant number of years, then those decisions need to be made by somebody else who’s more capable. Especially because this is such a significant area of land, we’re not talking about a small garden space in the middle of a few other houses, this is maybe even ten thousand square foot in the very centre of a very built up area, in very central London.There’s certain times when I feel very strongly that squatters shouldn’t get into private properties, and there’s certain times when I think ‘go for it’, I’m really pleased to see that unused spaces in central London are being used, especially when they’re being used as productively as this. However, I’ve seen people’s properties damaged in a number of unpleasant ways by people who don’t have the same moral code, I guess.”Hassan GhaniThe squatters, however, have been served a notice of eviction. Their efforts to convince the local authorities to buy the land from the landlord, so that it can be used by the local community, have so far failed.The next squat we went to see was quite different. An industrial building in south London, the Colorama squat was previously a printing workshop. It too lay abandoned for several years, until squatters arrived. It now serves as a multi purpose hall downstairs, and accommodation for squatters upstairs.Tom, Squatter at ‘Colorama’“It was in a really really bad state, it was a complete wreck when we first moved in. I came on the second day and it took a lot of work to make it livable, and also so we could hold events here. We’ve got a free shop, we’ve got free events, free music, free movies, an info-shop, a library, for people who want to read up and access that kind of stuff. And we’ve got a lot of people from the community turn up, we’ve got families and kids running around here. We also get squatting networks, which is a very broad range of people, political types, people who are squatting just to have a roof over their heads, and the neighbourhood.”Hassan GhaniTom was homeless until he found this squat. He says he doesn’t want to be dependent on the welfare state, and that squatting has given him the motivation and the independence he needs to change his life.Tom, Squatter at ‘Colorama’“Before I came here I was homeless for eight months, so I had nowhere else to live. Without squatting I would have been on the streets, there was no way I could afford to live. And it’s the same with a lot of people here, people who squat out of necessity. This place gives you motivation, I had no motivation, I was homeless because of the rent, and this place has given me motivation, it’s given me order, it’s given me structure.”Hassan GhaniListening to Tom it’s clear that for him squatting is more than just about necessity, he has some very strong views on what he sees as serious inequality in society.Tom, Squatter at ‘Colorama’“My dad worked forty odd years in a factory, for nothing. He had no money whatsoever. He worked his entire life, and he was a clever bloke. The people who had the privilege, had the ability to go and get that kind of stuff, that’s what was given to them by birth, by their education.Hassan Ghani“If you can’t squat in buildings like this anymore, where does that leave you?”Tom“Either in prison, or homeless.”Hassan GhaniWe arrived at Colorama on a Thursday, when they have their weekly people’s kitchen. They open their doors to the public and provide freshly cooked meals to anyone who comes in, donations are welcome but not necessary.So, who pays for all this food then, you might wonder. Well, we were invited to meet two squatters just after midnight, in sub-zero temperatures, to find out.It all looks a bit unhygienic, piling through the bins of a supermarket. But these two have built up experience of where to go and what to look for, and they seem to be wearing appropriate clothing. Some of the food they find is actually quite expensive in the stores, but all of it has been thrown out, even though much of it is still edible. On this night we found plenty of fruit and vegetables, almost too much to carry, in perfect condition. Many squatters live on this supply of food which would otherwise end up in landfill. Another example, they say, of how society is wasting its resourcesLaura, Squatter at ‘Colorama’“I think it’s totally fine to eat the food we find in the bins, because most of it’s actually quite nice. You just wash it, chop it up, cook it, and it’s totally fine to eat. Most employees will understand, because they see everyday that they have to throw away vast amounts of food, and most of them will realise that it’s actually a really stupid thing to do, you could just give it to people who are in need of food. Sometimes they’re not allowed to give food to us, or sometimes they have to shoo us away, we’re not allowed to enter the premises, and sometimes they even build like big fences, electric wires, and put padlocks in front of the bins, just because they don’t want people to get food, they want people to buy stuff, this is how capitalism works. I think it’s such a waste of resources, throwing food away.”Hassan GhaniWe’ve got one last squat to visit. This is one that critics like Mike Weatherley would possibly approve of. It’s based in an abandoned pub in North London. Nathan showed us around – he lives here with up to sixteen others, spread across several floors. He says the building has been empty for around ten years, and although they moved in without asking anyone, when the landlord finally turned up and met them, he was impressed in the way they’d maintained the property, and let them stay if they agreed to leave when he wanted it back.Nathan, Squatter“Before we moved in, the garden was full of sewage. The whole place was derelict. We’ve redecorated all in here, so it looked nothing like this. It looked a real state. We’ve had to sort out the plumbing…”Hassan GhaniI asked him if he thought that other squatters who occupied a building against the landlord’s wishes were essentially stealing that property.Nathan Squatter“I don’t think it’s necessarily stealing, because the idea of squatting isn’t that you nick something from someone, you don’t want to permanently deprive someone of a place. If a place is empty, you want to be able to utilise it to give other people a home, create more homes, if it genuinely is empty. So I’m not talking about going into a building stopping people from doing work on their home, or they’ve just gone on holiday, or they popped to the shops and you’re in there, because that thing doesn’t happen, nobody really wants to do that because A) you deprive someone of a home, and second you’re going to be out on the streets because they’re going to get a court order and the police are going to drag you out. There are obviously people who squat buildings that are in use, and I don’t think that should be done, but you can do your homework, you can research a building and find out if it is unused and the planning permission on it and everything.In the UK there’s 700 thousand empty properties, and there’s an estimated half a million hidden homeless. Squat’s are a great social safety net. The fact that there’s so many vulnerable people in squats goes to show how much the system is failing them, outside of squat society. I think rather than come down on the squatters, maybe we should come down on the inequality within society. There are people in this house who work, and yet still have to squat to be able to get by. More and more people are struggling just to be able to get by, because they’re paying so much in rent. If the possibility was accessible to not squat, I think most people would not squat.”Hassan Ghani“There isn’t a problem when the landlord and the squatters come to an agreement, and that’s probably a way forward. But a lot of the time, when the landlord and the bailiffs come to evict them, the squatters don’t let the bailiffs, in, they physically stop them from getting in.”Nathan, Squatter“When someone’s got bailiffs on you, I think it’s come to a point where the owner has not engaged with you at all to be able to talk with you, to come to an agreement, and they’re forcing you out the property. There’s a place just down the road here, it’s been empty for I think seven years. It’s been squatted three or four times, and each time they get the bailiffs in and evict people. And then it stands empty. You’re just going to leave the building empty for another five years, can we not just stay in here until you use it? And they just force them out into the street. I can understand why people would want to resist and hold their home.”Hassan GhaniBut that’s not how supporters of criminalising squatting see it.Mike Weatherley, Member of Parliament, Conservative Party“These buildings aren’t being wasted, they belong to somebody. If I don’t drive my car for a year, that doesn’t give a squatter a right to drive my car, or if someone’s not using their property which they’ve bought. So it does belong to somebody, and they are stealing something that doesn’t belong to them. Anything that they say about making the premises better or improving it, is actually false. They don’t run round the hoover before they leave. I’ve seen open fires in these, some of these buildings have been destroyed, and there is a lot of drug taking and anti-social behaviour associated with a lot of squats, not all squats, but a lot of squats. And if you talk to some of the residents that I do, that are around squats, they are very disturbed about the squats. There’s late night parties, there’s music, there’s all sorts of people coming and going through the night, and they don’t really like that type of intrusion into their lives.”Hassan GhaniIt is true that some squatters occupy buildings or land for political reasons, such as the campaign to stop a new runway at Heathrow airport, or others who object to way wealth is distributed and society is organised. But should they be imprisoned for doing so? And as for anti-social squatters:Nathan, Squatter“There’s a whole range of squatters and squats. Just as in society you’ve got nice people and you’ve got dickheads. It’s the same in the squat community, you’ve got the same thing. The majority of people are quite understanding. Whenever anyone goes into a home, they want to create a home, they don’t want to go into a place and destroy it, because then it’s shit to live there. You obviously want to make it your home to live there, so you want to keep it nice, and make it comfortable. But then there are other people who are party crews, and they like to open up a building and throw parties once in a while, and often sometimes too often. But then again, when I was a student I had more complaints from the neighbours than I do now. (When you were a student living in rented accommodation?) Yeah.Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square“There are cases of squats that are bad. It would be absolutely short-sighted of me to sit here and say that all squatting is good, that’s not the case. But there’s no evidence to suggest that squatters are any more anti-social than any other sector of the housing population. I’ve lived in private rented accommodation with incredible violent anti-social people, who take drugs, and listen to loud music, and are bad neighbours. Many of the most community minded people I’ve known are squatters.Hassan GhaniThe squats we visited certainly seemed to be well organised, and as far as we could tell, responsible within their respective communities. But with residential squatting already criminalised, with a penalty of up to six months in prison, and squatting in commercial buildings probably next, something is going to have to change.Pete, Squatter at Rochester Square“The average rent in London is over £1300. There are 80 thousand empty buildings in this city, many of those are registered in tax-havens. We’ve got lots of companies which are absentee landlords, leaving buildings empty and speculating on them, and that’s the crime. The conservative government has decided to legislate in favour of landlords to the point where it says that the right to own private property, even if you own lots and lots of buildings, and keep them empty for 20, 30 years, is so much more important than the human right to have a temporary shelter over your head, that they’re willing to throw people who do the latter into prisons.”Mike Weatherley, Member of Parliament, Conservative Party“We should do other things to encourage empty properties back into use, but that doesn’t mean that we should then say ‘well it’s a free-for-all for everybody to go and take what doesn’t belong to them’.”Hassan GhaniPerhaps the most important question is where do these people go next, if squatting in empty commercial buildings also becomes a criminal act. Statistics show that 40% of homeless people are squatters at some point. At a time when the government is trying reduce its welfare budget, the last thing it needs is more people on low or no income joining the queue for housing benefits. Is it on route to scoring an own goal? Hassan Ghani, for the Real News, London.

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by Ralph Lopez

Connecticut State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky has argued that unsealing warrants in the Sandy Hook case might “seriously jeopardize” the investigation by disclosing information known only to other “potential suspects.”

Sedensky said that unsealing the warrants would also:

“”identify persons cooperating with the investigation, thus possibly jeopardizing their personal safety and well-being.” “

The statement by the CT prosecutor’s office is the first indication from state authorities that Adam Lanza may have not acted alone. The statement was made in support of a motion to continue the seal on the results of five search warrants for 90 more days.

CT State Police Public Affairs Officer Lt. Paul Vance said in an official press release on December 16th that:

“The male subject identified as the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School has been identified as ADAM LANZA DOB: 04/22/92; he resided at 36 Yogananda Street. His cause of death was gunshot wound and his death is ruled a suicide.”

However, neither Vance nor the CT Attorney General’s office have ever ruled out the possible presence of other suspects. The New Haven Register reports Vance as having said: “Whenever you conduct an investigation you don’t speculate as to where it’s going to take you, as I said, we’re going to look at every single thing, every piece of material and we’ll take it from there.”

The CT State Attorney General’s Office is handling the investigation of the mass shooting, in which 20 children and 8 adults died last December 14th.

The motion to extend the seal on the records for 90 days was granted by Superior Court Judge John Blawie, who wrote in his decision that:

“”The court finds that due to the nature and circumstances of this case and the ongoing investigation, the state’s interest in continuing nondisclosure substantially outweighs any right to public disclosure at this time,””

The warrants were for searches, on different dates, of the Lanza home, and of Adam Lanza’s mother’s two cars. One of the cars, a 2010 black Honda Civic, was the vehicle which Lanza allegedly drove to the crime scene. The other, a 2009 silver BMW, was parked in the garage attached to the Lanza home. The court motion seals the affidavits stating what was found upon execution of the warrants for another 90 days, until late March.

Little else is known about what the authorities may be referring to in support of the motion to seal the affidavits for another 90 days beyond the normal statutory allowance of 14 days. Lt. Vance did say in a press conference on December 15, 2012, somewhat apologetically for not being able to answer all of the reporters’ questions, that there were “some cards that we’re holding close to our vest.”
State’s Attorney Sedensky wrote in the motion that:

““No arrests have been made and none are currently anticipated, but have not been ruled out.”” Sedensky said:

“”There is information in the search warrant affidavits that is not known to the general public””

An image of the key passages in the court motion is below. The entire document has been uploaded at Scribd by the New Haven Register, the venerable New England newspaper associated with the home of Yale University.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/342829#ixzz2KJ4Vd8pA

On Tuesday a huge majority of MPs lent their support to gay marriage. However those campaigning against the Bill admit only that they lost that battle, not the war.

Following the 400 to 175 Commons vote, several overseas news organisations including CNN and Al Jazeera were quick to report that Britain had made it legal for gay people to marry. But the Bill is still a bill. And is not yet law.

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill will next be examined line by line by a committee of MPs. Opponents, including the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) campaign group, hope to regroup after the second reading retreat and substantially change the legislation at this stage with a view to eventually killing it.

“Tuesday was Dunkirk,” a C4M spokesman told the Huffington Post UK. “There will be lots of amendments given the strength of the rebellion.”

The cross-party committee, which includes many pro-gay marriage MPs such as Labour’s Chris Bryant and shadow equalities minister Kate Green, also includes leading anti-gay marriage Conservatives David Burrowes and Tim Loughton.

Green expects MPs to offer amendments designed to ensure the European Court can not force a religious body to conduct a same-sex marriage and to allow teachers to refuse to teach gay marriage if it conflicts with their religious beliefs. But she is also wary of anti-gay marriage MPs attempting to blow the Bill up in committee.

“There is real danger of people looking for an opportunity wreck it,” she told HuffPost UK.

And Lib Dem Julian Huppert, who is supporting an amendment to expand civil partnerships to include mixed-sex couples, says he expects many “dinosaur” Tories to try and wreck the Bill.

Civil partnerships for heterosexual couples is also being pushed by some anti-gay marriage MPs. But this is seen as an attempt by them to restrict marriage to religious ceremonies while the state just conducts civil partnerships.

“What we want is equality, marriage should be open to people regardless of their gender,” Huppert said. “Some old school Tories are mostly trying to cause trouble and wanttot do things from stop marriages from happening.”

Opponents of the Bill are also hopeful it will get bogged down in the House of Lords if it gets out of the Commons.

However as Paul Waugh at Politics Home and Isabel Hardman at the Spectator have pointed out, the arithmetic and experience of past votes appear to scupper the notion that the red benches are stuffed with anti-gay peers.

The 221 Labour peers and 90 Lib Dems combined easily outnumber the 213 Conservatives, even if all the Tories decided to vote against the Bill. Labour expects the dissent on its benches in the Lords to be small, similar to that in the Commons, where 22 Labour MPs voted against the Bill. Throw in the majority of the 178 cross bench peers and there appears to be a progressive majority in the upper House.

But C4M questions how well the Labour and Lib Dem leaderships know the minds of their own peers — expecting their Lordships to take issue with the quality of the legislation as well as the principle of gay marriage. “It is rushed legislation that is full of holes,” a spokesperson said.

If last Tuesday was Dunkirk, anti-gay marriage MPs, peers and campaign groups see next Tuesday, the first day of committee stage, as D-Day.

Related on HuffPost:

Global Research News Hour Episode 14

“We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more … Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world.”

-Secretary of State Colin Powell before the UN Security Council on Iraq’s WMD threat

February 5, 2003

Weapons of Mass Delusion

It was a presentation designed to garner international support for a military intervention into Iraq. Colin Powell, retired Four Star General and US Secretary of State spoke in front of a UN Security Council Plenary session to detail the evidence of Saddam Hussein refusing to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. The resolution, passed unanimously the previous November, called for Iraq to fully cooperate with weapons inspectors and disarm or face “serious consequences.”

Powell’s dossier included the testimonies of anonymous defectors, satellite images, schematics of mobile labs for biological weapons agents, intercepted phone conversations and a prop vial supposedly containing Anthrax powder.

The UN, in the end, was not sufficiently persuaded by Powell’s presentation to authorize the use of force to oust the Iraqi strong man by force, but his performance was convincing enough to garner popular support within the United States for the war. The US under then President George W Bush and the United Kingdom under then Prime Minister Tony Blair led a so-called “coalition of the willing” to “free the Iraqi people” from a brutal dictator.

“Operation Iraqi Freedom” has proven to be disastrous to the reputations of the former American and British Heads of State. Much more significantly, it has devastated the civilian population of Iraq with a death toll conservatively estimated to be in the tens of thousands.

On the tenth anniversary of Powell’s infamous speech, we examine the evidence of the Iraq War as a war crime with distinguished University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle.

Abandoning the Battlefield

“I will never apologize for deserting the American army. I deserted an injustice and leaving was the right thing to do. I owe one apology and one apology only, and that is to the people of Iraq.”

-Joshua Key, from his 2007 book The Deserter’s Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq

Like far too many Americans, Joshua Key from Guthrie, Oklahoma joined the US Army in 2002, principally to be able to make enough of an income to support his young wife and children.

At first, Joshua accepted at face value the Bush Administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein was threatening America with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Having served in Iraq during the first nine months of the war, Key’s perspective on the war changed and out of conscience, he deserted as soon as he returned to the US.

He eventually made his way to Canada, and like dozens of other deserters, sought sanctuary there.

The Canadian government did not officially support the war in Iraq, nevertheless, the current Conservative government of Stephen Harper has a jaded view of these soldiers who they see as “bogus refugee claimants.” Several have already been returned to the United States to face lengthy prison sentences and dishonorable discharge.

Key co-wrote with Lawrence Hill his memoir The Deserter’s Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq.

Key joins us in the last half hour to discuss his journey and the obstacles faced by US War resisters and deserters in Canada.

TO consult the GLOBAL RESEARCH Interactive Reader on the Iraq War, click here.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Length (59:32)

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour hosted by Michael Welch airs on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg Thursdays at 10am CDT. The programme is now broadcast weekly by the Progressive Radio Network in the US, and is available for download on the Global Research website.

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Picture taken 02 March 2007, shows the Royal pyramids, (500 km) north of Khartoum, Sudan, built in Nubia about 800 years after the last Egyptian pyramid was built. (AFP Photo/Khaled Desouki)

Archaeologists have reportedly discovered 35 small ancient pyramids in Sudan at a site known as Sedeinga dating back around 2,000 years. Scientists are stunned over how densely the pyramids appeared to be heaped together.

­According to a LiveScience report, the closely clustered pyramids were discovered between 2009 and 2012.

In 2011, archaeologists tracked down 13 pyramids squeezed into an area of 500 square meters.

The pyramids reportedly go back to the days when a kingdom named Kush, which shared a border with Egypt and later with the Roman Empire, was in full blossom in Sudan. The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture, according to the report.

“The density of the pyramids is huge,” a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Vincent Francigny, told LiveScience.

“Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, and more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis,” he noted.

According to researchers, the biggest pyramids discovered at Sedeinga are about 7 meters wide at their base. The smallest, likely constructed for the burial of a child, is only ¾ of a meter long.

The excavation director Vincent Francigny said that the building continued until there was room to build more pyramids.

“They reached a point where it was so filled with people and graves that they had to reuse the oldest one,” he explained.

US President Barack Obama has rebuffed his national security team on the Israeli-backed plan to supply anti-Damascus Syrian insurgents with lethal weapons, highlighting sharp divisions at top levels of the American government over its Syria policy.

While testifying at a Senate Arms Services Committee on Thursday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the military’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey insisted in response to questioning by hawkish Republican Senator John McCain that they supported a plan drawn up last summer by then-CIA Director David Petraeus and endorsed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to provide the foreign-backed Syrian insurgents with American weaponry.

Though neither elaborated on their stance and why Obama did not heed their recommendation, McCain, a staunchly pro-Israeli senator that has persistently advocated an American military interference in Syria’s domestic political unrest, said he was “very pleased” with the military’s position on the issue, but censured Obama for opposing weapon shipments to anti-Damascus insurgents.

“What this means is that the president overruled the senior leaders of his own national security team,” McCain added.

The plan by Petraeus, a former top US military commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, “called for vetting rebels and training a cadre of fighters who would be supplied with weapons,” according to a New York Times report on Friday, which further added that the scheme “would have enlisted the help of a neighboring state” without elaborating.

The Israeli regime and the US-backed governments in Turkey and Jordan are Syrian neighbors that have openly and actively supported the anti-Damascus insurgency in the only country in the region that has openly supported Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The daily further cites Jeffrey White, a former senior analyst with US Defense Intelligence Agency and a current “fellow” at the widely-known Israeli lobby group and think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying that US supply of weapons to anti-Damascus insurgents “would give the United States influence with groups that would control Syria if Mr. Assad is ousted.”

“The day after the regime falls, the groups that have the guns will dominate the political and military situation,” White is quoted as saying in the report.

Meanwhile, the White House refused to comment of the high-level dispute, while at the State Department, with the new Secretary of State John Kerry at its helm, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declined to “talk about internal policy deliberations of the government,” local media outlets reported.

However, US press reports further quote “senior American officials” as saying that the White House opposed a military intervention in Syria at the time due to concerns about the risks of getting too deeply involved in the nation’s internal crisis and the possibility that the weapons may fall into “wrong hands.”

Additionally, they cited Obama’s engagement in a re-election campaign for the decision by the White House to reject the intervention plan.

MFB/MFB

Russian MMA fighter, Aleksandr Shlemenko (RIA Novosti/Alexsey Druginyn)

Russian mixed martial arts exponent Aleksandr Shlemenko, has knockout out Brazilian Maiquel Falcao in the Bellator 88 main event to become the organization’s middleweight champion.

­Falcao (31-5) was the better man in the first round in the US town of Duluth, Georgia, but Shlemenko survived the early pressure.

The Russian’s patience paid off in the second round when he brought his opponent low with a series of heavy blows to the body.

Shlemenko (47-7) continued his assault on the ground, with the referee stopping the bout after Falcao missed two punches to the head.

“I am champion in Bellator, and I am [the] face of Bellator now,” the 28-year-old is cited as saying by Sherdog.com. “Whoever wants this belt, come on in this cage. I will beat you.”

It’s was Shlemenko’s second shot at the Bellator middleweight title, with his first attempt — back in 2010 — ending in defeat to Hector Lombard on a judges’ decision.

This time the title was put on the line after Lombard quit the organization to sign with Bellator’s biggest rivals the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).

Residents whose houses or farms have been hit by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant will file a class-action lawsuit against the Japanese government.

Japanese lawyers said on Friday that at least 350 residents were to file a case with Fukushima District Court on March 11, the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, to seek damages from the government.

On March 11, 2011, a nine-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that inflicted heavy damage on the six-reactor Fukushima plant. Cooling systems of the plant’s reactors were knocked out, leading to meltdowns and the release of radioactivity.

Japan’s entire nuclear reactors were gradually taken offline for two months for maintenance or safety checks after the tsunami.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs are also planning to sue the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), and seek more than 500 dollars in compensation for every month that the residents have been displaced because of the disaster.

The lawyers also called the lawsuit as the largest class-action on the matter against the state with one of them saying that the Japanese government promoted “nuclear power as a national policy and has been closely involved with it.”

“Being fully aware of the danger of losing power due to a tsunami, the government neglected its duty of preventing such an event,” said Izutaro Managi, a Japanese lawyer.

In July 2012, a Japanese parliamentary panel found that the incident at the Fukushima nuclear plant had been a “man-made disaster” and not only due to the tsunami.

The report, which was released on July 5, also criticized “governments, regulatory authorities and Tokyo Electric Power” for lacking “a sense of responsibility to protect people’s lives and society.”

The 2011 incident at Fukushima “could and should have been foreseen and prevented” and its catastrophic effects “mitigated by a more effective human response,” the report said.

MR/HSN

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) chief Sir David Nicholson should resign for his failure in 1,200 preventable deaths at Stafford Hospital, highlighted by an inquiry, one of Britain’s biggest unions says.

The two-year inquiry, chaired by Robert Francis QC, has been set up to assess unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients at Mid Staffordshire Trust.

In his 1,782-page report, Francis found failings at “every level” of the NHS system and therefore called for a shake-up of health watchdogs as well as criminal charges against those instrumental in patients’ deaths by poor care and negligence.

“Sir David Nicolson, who has thrown down the so-called Nicolson challenge of £20bn cuts, is not the person to lead the NHS into the world of patient-focused care as outlined by Robert Francis,” said Rachael Maskell, Unite the union’s national officer for health.

“A complete overhaul of dysfunctional management in the NHS needs to happen as a matter of urgency and the first person out the door should be Sir David Nicolson, chief executive of the NHS Commissioning Board – perhaps, the most powerful person in the coalition’s new NHS,” she added.

This comes as Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the British trades unions’ fedetaion the Trades Union Congress also warned that such appalling neglect and mistreatment should never happen again.

MOS/AMR/HE

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says the United States dreads the turning of the Islamic world into a major global power.

“The US is fearful of the change of the Islamic world into a big power,” Mehmanparast said in a meeting in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Thursday.

The Iranian official said that the US has no problem with Tehran’s nuclear energy program but increases pressure and sanctions on the country because it is afraid of a powerful Islamic world.

Mehmanparast said that global arrogance has harbored strong animosity towards Iran since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in the country.

He said that arrogant powers have threatened Iran in different forms and put the country under various pressures, adding they will not, however, launch an attack against the Islamic Republic as the move will cost them dearly.

He also said that Washington is doing its utmost to undermine the wave of the Islamic Awakening in Muslim countries.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have falsely accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

The US and certain other countries have imposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic over the allegation.

Iran has vehemently rejected the allegations against its nuclear energy program, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to use nuclear technology for peaceful objectives.

AR/MA

A ferry carrying about 100 passengers has sunk in a river near the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, with initial reports saying score of people were missing.

The incident took place on Friday after the ferry, named MV Sarosh, went down in the Meghna River, about 32 kilometers south of Dhaka.

“So far we have gathered that the ferry was carrying around 100 people and some have swum to the banks,” said Jahangir Hossain, a local police chief.

Munshiganj district administrator Saifuddin Badal also said that over 50 people were still missing, adding that some 25 people swam to the shore.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.

Bangladesh has a history of ferry accidents, due to poor quality and frequent overloading of boats.

On March 13, 2012, nearly 150 people were killed in an incident where a ferry with 200 passengers on board sank in the Meghna river after it collided with a cargo ship.

SAB/HSN

Two people have died following a police chase and road traffic accident involving six vehicles in Greater Manchester.

Police were originally called to reports of an aggravated burglary taking place at a house in Farnworth where a red Audi was stolen.

The stolen vehicle was spotted a few minutes later by a police patrol car which gave chase for a short while before officers lost sight of it.

A few minutes later police received reports that the Audi had collided with parked cars in Leigh Road, Boothstown, Salford, and that the vehicle had exploded in flames.

In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said: “Officers attended the scene with firefighters from the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and two people were pronounced dead at the scene.”

A number of homes on Leigh Road were also damaged during the collision.

Police said they had been working with fire crews to ensure the properties affected were “made safe”.

They said inquiries were ongoing into the circumstances surrounding the collision.

A local truck drives by a convoy of French army vehicules heading toward Gao on February 7, 2013 on the road from Gossi. (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)

France cannot be held responsible for the deaths of civilians in Mali, a representative of the Ministry of Defense told RT. France denies reports of civilian casualties in military airstrikes, stating it has no evidence to support the claims.

Amnesty International has called on the French government to conduct a probe into reports of civilian deaths during the Mali campaign, which began on January 11. The organization claim at least five civilians, including a woman and her three children were killed during an offensive on the town of Konna.  

Citing witness reports of a number of civilian casualties as a result of French airstrikes in the region of Konna, Rusia al-Yaum (RT Arabic) correspondent Khalid Gharabli asked French army spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard to comment.

“I have seen these allegations. It’s crystal clear that there is no evidence, and the evidence I have is very comprehensive, that suggests civilians were killed during the strikes carried out by the French military in the region of Konna,” Burkhard told RT.

He elaborated, stating that if there were civilian casualties, there or anywhere else in Mali, France “cannot be held responsible” because there is no evidence that implicates its involvement.

A child shows a heavy machine gun bullet on February 5, 2013 that he found in the ruins of a building destroyed by French air strikes in Douentza. (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)

Witness reports gathered by Amnesty say rockets fired from a helicopter struck the victim’s house in the morning of January 11. There were no militant targets in the house or the nearby Mosque, also hit in the attack, but there were some Islamist fighters stationed at a junction 150 meters away, reported Amnesty.

Bukhard categorically denied involvement and said that according to French intelligence the attacks that killed civilians were carried out at around 11am local time and French forces only began their assault at midday. He suggested that clashes between the Malian security forces and terrorist groups in the area were to blame.

“There were significant clashes between the Malian forces and terrorist groups, who were equipped with rocket launchers,” informed Bukhard, adding “there is no evidence that suggests a [French] strike could have injured or killed civilians.”

French army spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard.

­

‘Revenge killings’

Human rights groups have also drawn attention to the widespread reports of reprisal killings coming out of Mali as the French aid the Malians to wrest settlements from militant control.

Bukhard confirmed these reports of “certain acts of vengeance against people who had supported terrorist groups since the beginning of their occupation in 2011.”

Amnesty International stressed in a report that the reprisal killings were not only being carried out by civilians and there were reports members of the Malian security forces were involved in revenge violence. Last week a group of three militants captured by the Malian security forces told AFP that they were tortured by soldiers, using techniques such as waterboarding.

The three suspected militants were being held in an earthen cell in the remnants of a military camp in Timbuktu, according to journalists from AP who spoke to the men.

The Human Rights Watch warned of more violations as the French and the Mali forces move northward.

“If they [French soldiers] witness such acts of revenge, they are obliged to intervene and report the incident immediately,” said Bukhard, adding that the Malian army is actively working to stamp out reprisal killings. Burkhard did not, however, cite any cases when the French intervened.

The French campaign in Mali is now in its third week, with approximately 4,000 troops deployed. France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told press that Paris may begin reducing its troop presence in Mali from the beginning of March.

A man passes, on February 2, 2013 in Gao, by a buiding of the rebels of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) which has been destroyed by French air strikes. (AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)

EU leaders were still struggling to agree a budget deal this morning after all-night talks in Brussels.

Eighteen hours after arriving at a summit to try to win “at least a freeze, at best a cut” in European spending for the next seven years, David Cameron looked close to being able to return to London later today with a actual reduction – reflecting, as he has insisted, belt-tightening in public sector spending at home.

The marathon talks began with a total of six hours of behind-the-scenes bartering between various leaders over figures.

When the 27-way summit finally got under way, the opening bid presented to the leaders for agreement amounted to a budget proposal of 913 billion euros (£778 billion) for 2014-2020.

Twelve hours of discussions, with breaks for revised proposals and repeated number-crunching, produced a new figure as day dawned of an estimated 908 billion euros (£773 billion) – a cut of five billion euros.

Last night British government sources had insisted that Mr Cameron wanted to see “tens of billions” of cuts extra on the opening bid.

But the estimated outcome would give him a deal enabling him to claim that his basic demands that Europe at least nods towards the austerity being endured by national treasuries have been met.

However, summit officials cautioned that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” and that the calculators were still out going through the details to finalise the exact savings areas.

One official said no final proposed figure had actually been presented to the leaders – but the shape of a deal was clear from the various suggestions set out under many different EU spending headings which national delegations were analysing during the night.

Various EU leaders snatched some sleep during breaks in formal summit sessions during the night, leaving officials sitting in.

Mr Cameron arrived yesterday, declaring: “The numbers are much too high. They need to come down – and if they don’t come down there won’t be a deal.

“The European Union should not be immune to the sorts of pressure we have to reduce spending, find efficiencies and spend wisely – what we are all doing.”

But an important comparison for Mr Cameron when he returns to the Commons is between the final figures agreed today and the cost of the total budget for the current seven-year spending period, which the new deal will replace.

That comparison should give him enough scope to claim success – although Britain’s own national contribution to the overall final figure will come under close scrutiny too.

And critics will be looking to see if the Prime Minister has won the cutbacks in the pay and perks of the EU civil service which he has been calling for, as well as reductions in bloated EU farm spending, which currently absorbs 40% of the entire Euro budget.

Earlier on HuffPost:

Twenty-nine people have been killed and dozens of others injured in a spate of car bomb attacks in Iraq.

Iraqi security and medical sources reported that bombings targeted a crowded bird market in the Kadhimiyah neighborhood of the capital, Baghdad, just after 9:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) on Friday.

According to official reports, two other car bombs also went off in the town of Shomali in the central province of Babil, killing at least five people and wounding more than ten others.

No group has claimed responsibility of the attacks.

The recent wave of deadly attacks came after nearly two dozen people lost their lives and over 40 others were wounded in a bomb attack in the town of Taji, some 25 kilometers north of Baghdad, on February 4.

Similar attacks claimed the lives of four security officials in the cities of Mussayib and Mosul on Thursday.

Also on February 3, coordinated attacks on police headquarters claimed more than 30 lives and hurt some 70 others in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Bombings and shootings have recently intensified across Iraq. The government has stepped up efforts to increase security across the country over the past few months.

MKA/HSN

In Los Angeles, A Different Kind of Political Race

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Posted on Feb 8, 2013

Flickr/ Floyd B. Bariscale

Los Angeles City Hall

By Bill Boyarsky

Los Angeles is having an election for mayor, a slogging, nuts-and-bolts sort of contest that doesn’t resemble the popular image of this challenging city.

The L.A. everyone talks about extends from the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood westward to the beaches of Malibu with a significant subcolony in the San Fernando Valley with its studios producing films ranging from features to porn. Fashionable clothes and cars–Mercedes, Audis and of course Priuses–along with incredibly snobbish foodies prevail in this world.

That was not the one I entered on a recent evening in a packed auditorium at Loyola Marymount University, a few miles north of Los Angeles International Airport, for a forum featuring the five main candidates for mayor. LMU students and residents of nearby middle-class communities were interested in the unglamorous concerns that dominate their lives–traffic, municipal debt, local taxes, the police department and whether to expand LAX.

A student who said he had lived in a Skid Row shelter for two years asked about homelessness. Others had their questions: What about water? What about city employee pensions? What about LAPD Chief Charlie Beck’s policy of not turning over low-level offenders to federal immigration authorities?

That particular question pointed out the sharp differences between this local election and the rhetoric of national politics. Los Angeles is a strongly Democratic city in one of the bluest states. But what’s more relevant is the multifaceted ethnic population of a city where the residents have roots in about 140 countries. Latinos comprise L.A.‘s biggest group, followed by whites, African-Americans and Asians. As a result, discussion of immigration in Los Angeles has little resemblance to the debate in Washington or middle America where even giving undocumented immigrants a tortuous path toward citizenship is argued interminably. At least that’s how it seems to this Jew, descended from Eastern Europeans and now living in the Los Angeles neighborhood called Little Persia.

Los Angeles’ polyglot population has produced candidates trying to be as diverse as the city itself.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti is Jewish before Jewish groups and Latino among Hispanics. His father, Gil Garcetti, who used to be the L.A. County district attorney, is of Mexican and Italian descent. His mother, the former Sukey Roth, is Jewish.

“I always felt myself to be Jewish and Latino very comfortably,” Garcetti said in an interview. “Weekends were both filled with bowls of menudo and lots of bagels.”

City Controller Wendy Greuel was born Christian but is married to a Jew and their son is being raised as one. She told me, “I believe in the Jewish tradition and religion; the values that the community have are important to me. About giving back, about the good moral values, about being part of a community.” She also speaks frequently of her days working for the late L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American who was elected and re-elected by a coalition of blacks and Jews.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry has a unique slant. She is an African-American who has represented a South Los Angeles district consisting mainly of Latino and black residents. But while a student at USC, she converted to Judaism. I asked her why. Perry replied that she was “on the hunt for something big. ‘Why am I here? What is my purpose, my role as a woman, my role in society?’… The big moment for me in being Jewish was to be more community oriented in developing my observances, being part of a community.”

The two other top candidates in the March 5 primary each claim a slice of Los Angeles’ diversity. Kevin James, the only Republican, is an attorney and former conservative talk radio host who is gay and has been an advocate for services for gay and lesbian people for several years. Emanuel Pleitez was born and raised poor in East Los Angeles Latino communities. He went on to graduate from Stanford University, served on Obama administration transition teams and was an executive for a tech company.

The nature of these candidates has resulted in an absence of divisive social and cultural issues in the election. 

The lack of racial acrimony in the election can be partially attributed to the presence of the current mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who was re-elected in 2009 and must leave office because of term limits. The mayor has many critics but you don’t hear them publicly spout the veiled racism that characterized too much of the presidential race. Rather, people chide him because he loves the glitter side of L.A. too much–too many girlfriends, too many celebrity pals and parties.

As the city’s first Mexican-American mayor since early California statehood days, he’s crossed ethnic lines easily and will leave office with a nitty-gritty legacy of new rail and bus transit lines, some built and others–including a subway–yet to be completed.

The projects tend to bring the city together. Having covered the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, I’m always afraid the city could blow up again. But so far it hasn’t. 

Some complain that it’s boring to watch a mayoral campaign focused on matters such as where to put new rail lines and an airport runway. I find it comforting and a welcome relief from the discord of national politics.

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The five things you need to know on Friday 8 February 2013…

1) ‘MISERY AND HARDSHIP’

So the real villain of the row over disability and incapacity benefits isn’t Atos, it’s the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). That’s the verdict of the Public Accounts Committee (nowadays, incidentally,the source of at least one big political story a week).

From the BBC:

“The government is to blame for “misery and hardship” imposed upon claimants being re-assessed for benefits eligibility, the Commons public accounts committee says.

“Chairwoman Margaret Hodge accused the Department for Work and Pensions of being ‘unduly complacent’ and ‘getting far too many decisions wrong’.

She said the medical assessments were hitting ‘vulnerable claimants hardest’.

“… Although private firm Atos Healthcare has faced criticism for its role in the assessments process, ‘most of the problems lie firmly within the Department for Work and Pensions’, she said.”

The government’s response to this damning PAC report? Well, DWP minister Mark Hoban accused the committee of “scaremongering”. The problem, of course, for Hoban and his pals is that the PAC report shows that 40% of appeals against Atos’ decisions were successful, even though, as the BBC report notes, “no new evidence had been presented in one-third of these cases”.

Over to you, Mark…

NOTE: Apologies for the much shorter memo this morning – five things you need to know, rather than ten – because I am still shattered after last night’s Huffington Post UK debate, ‘Was It Worth It? Iraq, Ten Years On’, featuring, among others, Clare Short, Bernard Jenkin MP, David Aaronovitch and, er, me. It was a packed house at Goldsmiths, with more than 500 people in attendance, and if you want to know who won, what was said, etc, check out the HuffPost report and live blog on the event.

2) EU BUDGET

His backbenchers may hate him over gay marriage, but, these days, they love him over Europe – and they may love him even more today if David Cameron returns from Brussels with… wait for it… an historic EU budget cut. From the Guardian:

“European leaders were inching towards a deal in the early hours of Friday morning that would see the first cut in the EU’s budget in its 56-year history.

“David Cameron, who had demanded a freeze in real terms in the near-€1tn budget, was planning to claim victory after the European council president proposed a €34.4bn cut over the next seven years.

“Herman Van Rompuy finally tabled his budget proposals in Brussels at 6am after a night of haggling at the EU summit that was described by one official as like a ‘bazaar’.”

But the BBC’s Nick Robinson is reporting on the Today programme that while the overall budget may be cut in real-terms, the British contribution may actually go up – as a result of changes to our rebate agreed by David Cameron’s predecessor-but-one, Tony Blair.

The devil, as is so often the case on all matters related to the EU, may be in the detail.

But Eurosceptics won’t care for now – the Mail Online has splashed on: “Victory For David Cameron…”

After a tough start to the week, Downing Street will be very pleased this morning.

3) ‘HUHNE FORCED ME TO ABORT MY BABY’

The newspapers are all over the Vicky Pryce trial this morning; the ex-wife of disgraced ex-energy secretary Chris Huhne is on the front of the Indy, the Guardian, the Times, the Mirror, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail – from the Mail’s splash:

“Vicky Pryce broke down as she told yesterday how Chris Huhne forced her to have an abortion for the sake of his career.

“The high-flying economist, 60, told a jury that her fiercely ambitious husband warned her that a baby would be ‘bad timing’ for his political future.

“Pryce, who went on to have another child, wept as she said she had ‘regretted it ever since’. Her revelation came as she launched an attack on the shamed former Cabinet minister during her trial for perverting the course of justice.”

Pryce has pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice by taking Huhne’s penalty points after a speeding offence in 2003 and, as the Guardian notes, “her defence is one of marital coercion”.

Meanwhile the paper also reports on how the Lib Dems “look to have a tough job on their hands to retain Chris Huhne’s seat in the Eastleigh byelection after a starting-pistol poll put them three points down on the Conservatives, largely due to the defection of some of their supporters to Labour.

“The survey, conducted on 4-5 February by the former Conservative deputy chairman, Lord Michael Ashcroft… shows the Conservatives on 34%, the Lib Dems on 31% and Labour on 19%. The UK Independence party (Ukip) is fourth with 13%. The figures reveal a 16-point fall in the Lib Dem vote since the 2010 general election, and nine-point rises for Labour and Ukip.”

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR…

Watch this video of a gopher performing in a ballet dress. Yep, this is what the internet was invented for…

4) ‘FACEBOOK HITLIST’

It’s not looking good for the Arab Spring, with Tunisia plunged into political crisis – and violence. The Times reports:

“A leading secular politician accused Muslim extremists yesterday of trying to establish a religious dictatorship in Tunisia after the assassination of a prominent critic of the country’s main Islamist party.

“Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, of the centrist Republican Party, said that he had been under police protection for months during rising tension between Islamists and secular parties.”

“… The Kapitalis news site posted a hitlist of prominent secular politicians and journalists that it said had been circulating on Islamist Facebook pages. The list, last updated on Monday, featured Chokri Belaid, a politician and human rights lawyer who was shot dead outside his home in Tunis two days later. He had recently warned of growing violence by Islamist enforcers close to the ruling Ennahda party.

“Mr Belaid’s murder has pushed Tunisia farther into danger, two years after the start of the Arab Spring. The political deadlock gripping the country has tightened and the ruling party has blocked an attempt by Hamadi Jebali, its Prime Minister, to form a unity government.”

5) DOWN WITH DRONES?

Finally, America is having a debate (of sorts!) about the Obama administration’s drone war – from the FT:

“John Brennan, the Obama administration’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, gave a vigorous defence of the policy of killing suspected terrorists with drone strikes but suggested yesterday that the agency might conduct fewer such operations.

“Mr Brennan insisted that the US government had ‘rigorous standards’ for considering targeted killings and that its military operations against al-Qaeda were welcomed in many of the countries in which they have taken place.

“Mr Brennan, who was a career CIA official for more than two decades, said the agency needed to be able to conduct covert operations but he hinted that it might scale back its use of drone strikes. Some of the CIA’s activities since the September 11 attacks had been ‘a bit of an aberration’, he said, adding that the agency “should not be doing traditional military activities and operations”.

If you want to read evidence of why Brennan is wrong about “rigorous standards” and drones supposedly “saving lives”, check out my drone-myth-debunking blog post from last October: 5 Things They Don’t Tell You About Drone Strikes.

PUBLIC OPINION WATCH

From the Sun/YouGov poll:

Labour 41
Conservatives 33
Lib Dems 11
Ukip 9

That would give Labour a majority of 92.

140 CHARACTERS OR LESS

@TomHarrisMP I know he’s a liar, a hypocrite and a LibDem to boot, and he deserves everything he gets, but I feel sorry for Chris Huhne. #bbctw

@jameschappers Cameron is going to have a lethal new line against Miliband: even the *EU* has agreed to big spending cuts #eubudget

@benedictbrogan See @marycreagh_mp is making running against Defra by saying she wouldn’t eat Findus horsemeat lasagne. Will Owen Paterson tuck into one?

900 WORDS OR MORE

Fraser Nelson, writing in the Telegraph, says: “Michael Gove may have lost a skirmish over the EBacc, but he’s winning the war.”

Philip Collins, writing in the Times, says: “It’s not heresy to demand that hospitals treat people like customers. More listening would have meant fewer deaths.”

Polly Toynbee, writing in the Guardian, says: “Mid Staffs will be used to justify further reforms — and of the very kind that contributed to that horror in the first place.”

Got something you want to share? Please send any stories/tips/quotes/pix/plugs/gossip to Mehdi Hasan (mehdi.hasan@huffingtonpost.com) or Ned Simons (ned.simons@huffingtonpost.com). You can also follow us on Twitter: @mehdirhasan, @nedsimons and @huffpostukpol

European leaders have agreed the broad lines of a deal on a seven-year budget that would fix total EU spending at 960bn (£820bn) euros.

“We feel pretty confident that we have the framework for a deal,” one EU official told reporters.

“The deal is not completely finalised, but we feel sure it will be done today.”

The breakthrough came after 15 hours of intense negotiations between countries in the bloc.

The agreement is expected to strike a balance between the demands of northern European countries such as Britain and the Netherlands that wanted a belt-tightening EU budget, and countries in the south and east that wanted sustained spending on farming subsidies and much-needed infrastructure.

Leaders will continue negotiating in the expectation that they can sign off on a final agreement later today, the official added.

Sky News Deputy Political Editor Joey Jones, reporting from Brussels, said: “This is the make or break meeting and leaders, including David Cameron, have been given a draft that lays out the budget.”

Officials said around 12bn euros (£10.2bn) would be cut from the last proposal, made at a summit in November when agreement eluded leaders, bringing the headline ceiling for spending down to 960bn over the full 2014-2020 budget.

That represents a decrease of around 3% on the last multi-annual budget – the first time a long-term EU spending plan has seen a net reduction.

While vast in headline terms, in annual terms the budget appropriation amounts to around 140bn euros (£120bn), equivalent to just 1% of total EU economic output.

The draft agreed cuts fell mainly on a new fund for cross-border transport, energy and telecoms projects, which was cut by more than 11bn euros (£9.36bn), and on pay and perks for EU officials – a top target for Britain – which were cut by around 1bn euros (£900m), officials said.

As well as the deal needing to be signed off by all EU leaders today, it must be approved by the European Parliament, an obstacle that could prove difficult.

The European Parliament president has said he will not accept excessive cuts.

Ahead of the summit, France and Britain appeared at sharp odds over the headline numbers, with Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden lining up on Britain’s side and Italy, Spain, Poland and others allied with France. Germany was left in the middle.

A disgruntled former Los Angeles police officer, who wrote a threatening “manifesto” before disappearing, is being hunted over the murder of a newly-engaged couple.

Christopher Dorner is the prime suspect in the killings of Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence, who were found shot dead in their car in Irvine in California on Sunday night.

The 33-year-old implicated himself in a multi-page document that threatened more violence, police have warned.

“I know I will be villified (sic) by the LAPD and the media,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name.”

Police said Dorner – a US Navy reservist – was believed to be “armed and dangerous”.

He may be driving a blue 2005 Nissan Titan pickup truck.

His last known address was in La Palma in northern Orange County near Fullerton.

Dorner was with the department from 2005 until 2008, when he was fired.

He was found to have made false statements about a colleague’s alleged mistreatment of a suspect. 

Ms Quan, 28, was an assistant women’s basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton.

Her father is a former LAPD captain who represented Dorner in front of the police inquiry board that dismissed him.

Mr Lawrence, 27, was a public safety officer at the University of Southern California.

David Cameron and other European leaders are preparing to meet in Brussels to try to reach a settlement on the European Union’s long-term budget.

They are under pressure after talks last November collapsed when Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands demanded deeper cuts from 2014-2020.

European Council president Herman Van Rompuy is trying to broker a deal between the Commission and European Parliament, who want spending to rise, and restive member states.

The meeting is the first summit since Mr Cameron promised British voters an in-out referendum on EU membership after 2015 if he stays in power.

He has vowed to seek a fresh settlement with Brussels to get a “better deal for Britain”, and insisted radical reforms would benefit the whole group.

But other countries have warned that the UK cannot “cherry pick” and this week French leader Francois Hollande declared there can be no “a la carte Europe”.

Mr Cameron is among those arguing that it is unedifying for the EU to increase its budget when countries are pushing through austerity measures at home.

Downing Street has made clear that his position has not changed and he stands ready to block any new deal if it does not amount to a real-terms freeze.

The UK has highlighted major potential savings, including cuts to the administration budget and a 50bn euro project called “Connecting Europe” designed to improve infrastructure, energy and digital links.

A senior diplomatic source insisted Britain is not isolated and that only Belgium and Luxembourg, where many Eurocrats live, support a proposed increase in administration costs.

But there are significant disagreements between the net contributors and net receiver countries over how the EU budget should apportion its finances.

France has declared that the UK should have to give up some of its rebate – worth £5bn a year to the Treasury – to stand any chance of securing a freeze in spending.

President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday: “There are those who want to see cuts, others – possibly the same – who want guarantees on their own rebate.

“I have been told a solution cannot happen with Britain. But why should one country decide for 26 others? Indeed, we could have agreed at the last European summit.”

But the diplomatic source said changing the rebate was a non-starter and suggested Mr Hollande was “playing to the gallery”.

Margaret Thatcher negotiated the rebate in 1984 because other countries, and particularly France, benefit disproportionately from the Common Agricultural Policy.

The European Council’s last proposal was for a budget limit of 973 billion euros (£840bn) over seven years but the UK, Germany and other countries want this to be closer to 950 billion euros (£820bn).

Ahead of the summit, Mr Van Rompuy insisted the available deal amounted to a “real-terms freeze” – effectively challenging Mr Cameron to take what is on offer.

Failure to agree this week could lead to a considerable delay because officials will then want to wait until after German national elections in September and European Parliament elections next year.

This could stall a decision until 2015, meaning funding to help boost poorer regions in the UK might be held up as well as money for research and educational projects.

Existing spending levels would be rolled over month by month until a budget deal is done – which would effectively freeze spending for the foreseeable future.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has rejected demands that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should stand down.

“Iran rejects [remarks by] those who set conditions for the resolution of the Syria crisis and say that Bashar al-Assad must leave his post and that he cannot participate in any next election, because this is interference in Syria’s affairs,” Mehmanparast said in a press briefing in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Thursday.

Iran seeks the restoration of stability and security to Syria as well as the holding of public elections without foreign interference, he said, adding the Islamic Republic does not back any particular person or group.

“Iran believes that the Syrian people themselves should elect their government and president,” he said, stressing people’s choice must be respected.

Mehmanparast said that Iran clarified its policy towards Syria in the form of a six-point peace plan, which calls for an immediate end to all violent and armed acts and urges national dialog with the participation of all Syrian groups.

Many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the turmoil that began in Syria nearly two years ago. The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country.

Iran has stressed that the unrest in the Arab state must be resolved politically.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly condemned any foreign interference in Syria and denounced certain countries’ support of militants who carry out terrorist activities in the country.

AR/MA

Pianist Richard Clayderman has been encouraging Galapagos tortoises to mate by playing a romantic ballads for them at their enclosure at London Zoo.

The musician played a set of seductive songs on a grand piano to Dirk – who is believed to be over 70-years-old – and his female companions Dolly, Priscilla and Polly, all 17, and 13-year-old Dolores.

He said: “Music is a powerful thing, and I would like to believe it has a positive effect on animals, as well as us. It certainly is an experience to play in such a well-known and romantic place as London Zoo.”

Scientists have suggested that music can affect animal behaviour and some farmers have claimed classical tunes helped to increase the yield of milk and eggs from their livestock.

But it was not immediately clear whether the French star’s sentimental music had the desired effect on his audience.

Clayderman, who is staging a recording comeback after more than a decade, became a huge star in the 1970s thanks to his track Ballade Pour Adeline, which is one of the biggest-selling recordings of all time.

The Syrian ambassador to the UN says there is ‘no truth’ to the reports that the recent Israeli attack on a research center near Damascus targeted a convoy heading to Lebanon.

“Syria emphasizes that there is no truth to the media reports asserting that the Israeli aircraft had targeted a convoy that was heading from Syria to Lebanon,” Bashar al-Ja’afari stated in letters to the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council and the UN secretary general. The letters were circulated on Thursday.

According to the Syrian army, two people were killed and five others injured in the airstrike that was carried out on January 30.

Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah strongly condemned the attack and said it was “barbaric aggression.”

The Syrian envoy added that the Israeli aircraft flew at a low attitude to avoid the radar and bombed the research center in Jamraya, near the capital.

“The attack caused destruction and substantial material damage not only to the center, but also to the adjacent technical development center and a parking garage,” Ja’afari said.

He added that the Israeli attack followed several failed attempts by militant groups in Syria to take control of the research center.

The airstrike “occurred after Israel, in cooperation with states hostile to the Syrian people, had ordered its lackeys inside the country to strike selected vital Syrian military sites,” the Syrian ambassador stated.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has urged the Security Council to issue a “clear condemnation of the flagrant Israeli attack on the territories of a sovereign state and the Israeli violation of the UN Charter, the international law, the Disengagement of Forces Agreement in 1974 and the relevant UNSC resolutions.”

Russia has also reacted to the Israeli attack, saying if the information on the airstrike was confirmed, “Then we are dealing with unprovoked strikes against targets located on the territory of a sovereign state, which brazenly infringes on the UN Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motive used for its justification.”

MKA/HSN

Thousands of Tunisians are expected to hold another demonstration in protest against the murder of the country’s leftist opposition leader.

The General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) has called on people to stage a demonstration on Friday to coincide with the funeral of Chokri Belaid, a critic of the country’s ruling Ennahda Party. Belaid, also a lawyer, was fatally shot by a gunman outside his home in the capital Tunis on February 6.

Belaid’s killing has triggered massive protests in the capital, Tunis, and the mining region of Gafsa. His family has accused Ennahda of being behind the killing.

Following the explosion of public anger over the murder, Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said in a televised address on Wednesday that he would dissolve the cabinet and form a new government of technocrats.

However, Ennahda’s parliamentary leader Sahbi Atig said on Thursday that the premier’s decision was rejected by his bloc of lawmakers. “The head of the government took the decision without consulting the (ruling) coalition or the Ennahda movement.”

On Thursday, Tunisian protesters staged a demonstration in the Habib Bourguiba Avenue of the capital, where the uprising in 2011 ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. However, they were confronted by security forces firing tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

Four Tunisian opposition groups, including Belaid’s Popular Front, have said they were quitting the Constituent Assembly, which was elected in October 2011 but has so far failed to draft a new constitution.

SAB/HSN

Testing of Findus beef lasagne has revealed some of the ready meals were made entirely from horsemeat.

Findus tested 18 of its beef lasagne products which found 11 meals containing 60% to 100% horsemeat, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said.

Consumers who have purchased the ready meals – produced by French food supplier Comigel on behalf of Findus – have been warned not to eat them and return them to the shop they were bought from.

Retail giant Tesco and discount chain Aldi have already withdrawn a range of ready meals produced by Comigel over fears they contained contaminated meat.

There is no evidence to suggest the horsemeat found in the Findus beef lasagne is a food safety risk, the FSA said.

However, the agency has ordered tests on the lasagne for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone. Animals treated with “bute” are not allowed to enter the food chain as it may pose a risk to human health.

Findus UK has already started a full recall of its lasagne products. It withdrew its 320g, 360g and 500g lasagne meals from supermarket shelves as a precautionary measure earlier this week.

It came after Comigel alerted Findus and Aldi that their products “do not conform to specification”.

It advised them to remove Findus beef lasagne and Aldi’s Today’s Special frozen beef lasagne and Today’s Special frozen spaghetti bolognese.

Findus UK apologised to customers “for any convenience caused” – and said anyone who bought the affected lasagne products could get a full refund.

A spokesman said: “We understand this is a very sensitive subject for consumers and we would like to reassure you we have reacted immediately. We do not believe this to be a food safety issue.

“We are confident that we have fully resolved this supply chain issue. Fully compliant beef lasagne will be in stores again soon.”

Tesco also decided to withdraw its Everyday Value spaghetti bolognese, which is produced at the same Comigel site.

A Tesco spokesman said: “We are aware of the results of the Findus tests and we will of course assist Findus with their recall process.

“Tests on our frozen Everyday Value spaghetti bolognese product are ongoing under our new DNA testing programme. We will inform our customers of the results as soon as possible.”

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said: “There are surveys being conducted by the FSA and Defra in order to assess whether there are significant levels of improperly described meat in a whole series of processed beef products in the UK, including supplies to schools and hospitals.”

Sky’s Glen Oglaza said: “Clearly there is a concern of how widespread this is.”

Labour has accused ministers of being “asleep on the job” and has said people must have confidence that the food they buy is properly labelled, legal and safe to eat.

The latest development in the contamination crisis comes days after supermarket chain Asda withdrew products supplied by a Northern Ireland company which was storing meat found to contain a high proportion of horse DNA.

Newry-based Freeza Meats had been storing the consignment of meat, which was labelled as beef, on behalf of a supplier in the Irish Republic – Co Monaghan-based meat trader McAdam Foods.

McAdam Foods has insisted it had no knowledge that any of its meat contained horse DNA. It claimed the contaminated produce originated in Poland.

The meat had not entered the food chain and was not destined for Asda stores.

Asda acknowledged that no trace of equine DNA had been found in products made by Freeza Meats, but said it was still temporarily removing its burger range from its stores as a precaution.

Anyone who has purchased a Findus beef lasagne can call the firm’s UK customer care line on 0800 132584, those in the Republic of Ireland, 1800 800500, or email careline@findus.co.uk for a full refund.

More follows…

Thousands of teachers, and students with parents, have taken to the streets of the Spanish capital, Madrid, to protest against the government’s planned budget cuts in the education sector.

The Thursday demonstration marked the third day of strikes in public schools. The demonstrators said the Spanish government’s cost-cutting measures were weakening an already unstable education system.

The protesters also said that the harsh cutbacks in the education sector were forcing students to learn in overcrowded and cold classrooms.

“I have classes of 37 pupils with only three and half hours of teaching a week,” said an English teacher participating in the protest.

In 2012, Madrid unveiled a plan that sought to make three billion euros (about four billion dollars) of savings in schools and universities to stabilize public finances.

On Wednesday, students in nearly one hundred cities held a demonstration on the second day of the strikes that the Students’ Union (SE) had called to protest against the cutbacks.

Protesters have called for the resignation of Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert, saying his policies are ruining the public education system.

“In my university we have spent the winter months without heating,” said another demonstrator who took part in the Wednesday march.

The Spanish government has been sharply criticized over austerity policies that are hitting the middle and working classes the hardest.

However, the government has remained adamant, saying the austerity measures are needed to carry it through the crisis.

According to the Students’ Union, almost 1.6 million students joined the Wednesday demonstration from institutes across the country, including the major cities of Madrid and Valencia, and the autonomous communities of Andalusia, Extremadura, Aragon and Asturias.

Spain’s economy collapsed into recession in the second half of 2008. Millions of jobs have been lost ever since.

MR/HSN

A view of the Berlaymont building, headquarters of the European Union Commission (AFP Photo)

(34.1Mb) embed video

As Eurozone leaders lock horns in Brussels over the proposed trillion-euro budget deal, speculation is rife the EU is set to invest millions in a PR campaign against online critics, looking to infiltrate social media sites to silence doubters.

“The words ‘legal’ and ‘European Union’ don’t fit together. Nothing matters here, there are no rules” – says the UK Independence Party’s Nigel Farage of the European Parliament’s plan to spend huge sums of taxpayer money on social network smear campaigns against those who speak out against it.

Meanwhile, EU leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit, where they are attempting to reach a consensus on the nearly €1 trillion budget deal to support agriculture, transportation, research projects and infrastructure in the Eurozone. Already the talks appear to be on shaky ground, with British PM David Cameron — the strongest supporter of budget cuts — threatening to pull out if the figure doesn’t go down, while France’s President Francois Hollande expressed displeasure with Britain’s general relationship with the Union and strongly advocated agricultural spending, on which many southern member-states depend. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed that a deal on the thorny issue remains a long way off.

The leaders had already failed to see eye to eye in November, which raises the stakes, seeing as a repeat failure would force the EU to use provisional annual budgets. If no deal is reached during this summit a decision may be stalled until 2015 when the UK is set to hold a critical referendum on EU membership.

But whilst leaders in Brussels spar over the budget, the European Parliament has reportedly been busy planning to dish out €2 million to aid an online campaign to skew public opinion in its favor. Allegations that funds may be pumped into defending the EU on social networking sites were originally made by British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. Nigel Farage of the UK’s Independence Party likened the move to madness. He believes this is a sign of fear and the Eurozone’s utter denial of economic and political realities. He expanded on his views in an interview for RT. 

RT: Some EU officials will be turned into secret agents with a trolling mission on the internet? As a member of the European Parliament, tell us how realistic is this?

Nigel Farage: It’s serious. The organization of the European Parliament, which decides how resources are spent, they decided that they’re going to train in-house staff in the run-up to the European elections of 2014…trained them to go online, look at Facebook, Twitter and other social media and to “correct” any misapprehensions that may exist about the European Union. The fact that it’s the Parliament using taxpayers’ money to do this says a lot about EU institutions. The whole point about Parliaments is that the person who sits in the Chair of the Parliament — he’s the Speaker in Westminster; he’s the Chairman in other Parliaments around the world … all other staff is supposed to be neutral; they are not supposed to take any political position at all. And the fact that the EU Parliament has decided it will spend money, time and resources on doing this shows you, frankly, that they are no better than a ‘banana republic’. This is the sort of thing Mugabe would do. I think many people outside will be shocked by it. Having worked there myself for 13 years, I’m not surprised at all. They are really scared that from north to south, from east to west, citizens are saying “We’ve never voted for this thing to become the United States of Europe. We’ve never asked for the majority of our laws to be made somewhere else and we want to do something about it.” So, they are scared and they are fighting back.

RT: Moral reprehension aside, is this behavior even legal?

Nigel Farage: The words “legal” and “European Union” don’t fit together. Nothing matters here, there are no rules. Do you know the Lisbon Treaty — after the electors ditched the European Constitution? It forbade the bailouts of Eurozone countries, and yet, five Eurozone countries have now received bailouts. What we have here is a fanatical belief that we have to build a European structure, a state with its own army, police force, own treasury — and to hell with what the peoples of Europe think, we’re going to do it anyway. And of course they’ve got a flag, an anthem and they are fanatical — and, I believe, the most dangerous people we’ve seen in Europe in 70 years.

RT: But wouldn’t it make more sense to tackle the root problem instead of trying to spend taxpayers’ money, as you mentioned, sit there on social media websites and try to change people’s minds that way?

Nigel Farage: You can spend trillions of Euros trying to tackle the root problem. And the problem is, economically, that the Eurozone cannot — and will not — ever work. There’s no point in attempting to do that. This is a misconstruction. The economics are wrong, the politics are wrong. And instead of admitting defeat, what they are going to try and do is sully the name of people like me, who have called into question their legitimacy. And I think that what is going to happen in the next couple of years is that the war of words that takes place within the European Union is going to get very bitter and very nasty indeed.

2012 DA14 (Image from nasa.gov)

Earth will definitely avoid a potential catastrophe as a 46-meter asteroid is to pass the planet from a safe, though remarkably close distance, said scientists from NASA.

The asteroid was discovered last year by Spanish amateur astronomers and since then sparked fears of a possible cosmic collision that would have released the energy equivalent of 2.4 million tons of TNT and would have had the potential to wipe out 750 square miles if it did impact the Earth.

But scientists reassured the world on Thursday that there is no real threat.

“No Earth impact is possible,” said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “No one has raised a red flag, nor will they,” Yeomans told reporters. “I certainly don’t anticipate any problems whatsoever.”

The celestial body, referred to as 2012 DA14, is projected to come as close as 27,520 km on February 15 — which is closer to our planet than the TV satellites that fly some 800 km higher. It will pass at a speed of 13 km per second.

It is the closest encounter with an object of its size since scientists began routinely monitoring asteroids about 15 years ago.

The last time the Earth was struck by a major cosmic body was in 1908, when an asteroid or comet exploded over Siberia, leveling 80 million trees over 2,150 square km.

“Although they wouldn’t (cause) a global catastrophe if they impact the Earth, they still do a lot of regional destruction,” said Lindley Johnson, who oversees the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA headquarters in Washington DC.

The asteroid will be invisible to the naked eye, appearing only as a small point of light even to those observing it by telescope. The prime viewing locations will be in Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe.

NASA adds that the flyby will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close.

About 66 million years ago, a 10 km diameter asteroid smashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, leading to the demise of the dinosaurs as well as most plant and animal life on the planet.

CIA Nominee Can’t Evade Drone Questions at Senate Hearing

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013

AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta

John Brennan testifies on Capitol Hill on Thursday during his confirmation hearing as CIA director.

By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law

The confirmation hearing of John Brennan to become CIA director began and ended Thursday with questions about his oversight of the drone program that has been responsible for the deaths of at least 2,629 people, according to the U.K.-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Members of peace and social justice group Code Pink interrupted Brennan’s opening remarks before the Senate Intelligence Committee five or six times before being cleared from the room.

“Reject John Brennan,” they advised Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the committee. “Senator Feinstein,” one woman asked as security escorted her from the room, “are your children more important than the children of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia?”

Many activist groups like Code Pink have been criticizing the Central Intelligence Agency for the way it’s handled certain responsibilities it inherited from the Pentagon after 9/11. They contend that the agency, which traditionally had provided intelligence for the military, has itself become a paramilitary group with limited oversight from Congress and the luxury of protecting its activities through classification.

Although the drone warfare program has dominated headlines in many of the major news outlets, it seemed lower on the agenda for most senators on the committee Thursday. Some focused their queries instead on the releasing of records from the Bush-era torture program, which ended in 2009. There were questions about the treatment of specific high-ranking al-Qaida members, what information Brennan would consider sharing with Congress if his nomination was confirmed, and how he would control leaks of classified information while keeping the public informed.

But Sens. Ron Wyden, Susan Collins and Angus King chose to press Brennan on the legality and effectiveness of the drone warfare program.

“The Fifth Amendment is pretty clear,” King said. “No deprivation of life, liberty or due process of law, and we’re depriving American citizens of their life when we target them in drone attacks. … Having the executive be the prosecutor, judge, jury and the executioner all in one is very contrary to the tradition of the laws.”

Brennan responded, “A court of law is used to determine guilt in past actions, which is different from the decisions that are made on the battlefield. … None of those actions [drone attacks] are to determine past guilt. The decisions that are made are to take action so that we prevent a future action, so that we protect American lives.”

The CIA has given little to no evidence to bolster its claim that its targets posed imminent threat to American life. Many critics like Col. Larry Wilkerson have countered that those targets were not necessarily in hiding and could easily have been captured and imprisoned rather than killed.

Innocents were not discussed at Thursday’s hearing. Wyden asked questions about U.S.-born cleric and al-Qaida member Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011. The senator wanted to know why al-Awlaki couldn’t have been detained instead of killed. Al-Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman, who was killed in a later drone attack, was not mentioned.

“They will kill us if they can,” Brennan answered, referring to the people on President Obama’s kill list.

This article was made possible by the Center for Study of Responsive Law.

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Oh, Texas. You never fail to reach a new height of strangeness, especially when it comes to your own schools.

On its face, this story appears to look like some librul doofus snuck Commie curriculum into their state-approved materials for online learning. Fox leads off with a big intro from AFP’s Texas Director Peggy Venable, and segues into an interview with Texas senator Dan Patrick about horrible, awful, un-American, dirty commie hippie freak progressive lesson plans.

In the clips of testimony shown, one teacher is horrified that students are asked to design a flag for a newly-created socialist state. Damned radical commie lesson, it is! Another teacher testified that being forced to teach the CSCOPE curriculum is like being a surgeon using a dirty scalpel because he has to teach students about socialism. Damn.

The CSCOPE curriculum was created by a consortium of teachers from public and charter schools within the Texas School System known as the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC). It was designed by Texas teachers for Texas teachers to use.

Anyone who paid close attention to the Texas State Board of Education process for adopting new, very conservative curriculum standards in 2010 would know that something seems off about the claims of Americans for Prosperity and others about how terribly awful this curriculum is.

TESCCC has published a statement defending the lessons under fire, which clearly outlines what I recall from those contentious 2010 arguments, where standards about teaching free enterprise systems and capitalism were inserted into their core standards. Here’s an excerpt:

CSCOPE strongly believes in the greatness of the free enterprise system and how it has helped build our country into the envy of all other nations. Free markets are a critical part of our American way of life. It is important to note that the activity in question is in a high school course and not in a grade 6 lesson. This twenty-minute activity is part of a six-day lesson on various economic systems at the high school level that are state required teaching standards set forth by the State Board of Education.

Oh, wait! This is an econ class for seniors in high school? This is what the freakout is about?

There’s more:

Furthermore, the State Board of Education establishes student expectations that focus on social studies skills. For the World History unit referenced above, the following social studies skills are included:

• WH.30: Economics: The student communicates in written, oral, and visual forms. The student is expected to:
• WH.30C: Interpret and create written, oral, and visual presentations of social studies information.

The goal of this activity is to address the content and skills standards that have been adopted by the State Board of Education, and it is absolutely not promoting a way of life contrary to what we value as Americans. In this activity, students examine four different flags, beginning with the US flag, and analyze the colors, the design, and the graphics as symbols of each country’s characteristics and economic systems. Students then design a flag to demonstrate their understanding of the characteristics of socialism, as the standard requires (WH.18C).

Another complaint seems to be the perception that the curriculum teaches students that participants in the Boston Tea Party were terrorists. Once again, there is a response:

The original lesson that is being misinterpreted was about terrorism and how perspectives can shape one’s views of an act, in this case how King George III and others from Great Britain might have viewed activities like dumping tea into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party, though not named, was described and students were asked to respond on how they view what happened. The goal of the lesson was to take an incident well known by students and that was universally viewed as a patriotic event in American history and challenge students to hear about it from a differing perspective. In hindsight, the TESCCC acknowledges a different example would have been a better choice and would not have risked the misunderstanding about its intent. Rest assured that even in the original version students were certainly not taught that the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism.

Differing perspective? We can’t have that! In any event, it was removed from the current curriculum because that standard was removed in 2010 but left on the site as a resource. The truth never stops wingnuts from spinning it their way, though, so we have tearful testimony about our twisted history in Boston.

One of the biggest bones of contention appears to be that students could learn something about Islam. Perish the thought. TESCCC’s response:

This misunderstanding is based on lesson content that has been taken completely out of context. CSCOPE teaches the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) which are adopted by the 15 members of the SBOE. A number of the TEKS call for students to learn about and compare the various world religions. One of the religions addressed is Islam, and there is a lesson on the founding principles and history of the religion; just as there are lessons for Christianity, Judaism, and other major world religions. One part of the lesson on the basic tenets of Islam has been presented as what students are to learn about all religions, when in fact it simply describes what Muslims believe and what Islam teaches.

These Texas folks are having an extended wailing session over curriculum that very, very conservative Texas State Board of Education approved in 2010? What exactly is going on here?

Either there’s a for-profit company waiting in the wings to replace this publicly-funded and not-costly curriculum with one of their own, or else there are some Texans who have just lost their minds and done it in a very public way.

It would have been nice if Fox News had reported the rebuttals to their accusations, wouldn’t it? But that would be too much like fair, balanced reporting.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has criticized the United States for imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear energy program, saying such measures only hamper efforts to resolve the West’s dispute with Iran over the program.

In an interview with the Voice of Russia on Thursday, Lukashevich described the unilateral sanctions as dangerous and inefficient.

He stated that the sanctions are imposed every time Iran and the P5+1 group (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany) plan to hold talks.

Lukashevich went on to say that the sanctions also have a negative impact on the Iranian nation and economy.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

On Wednesday, the US Treasury Department also announced new sanctions targeting Iranian oil revenue.The sanctions prevent Iran from gaining access to earnings garnered from its crude exports.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

MYA/MHB

Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk (2L), Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich (3L) and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (2R) during the signing ceremony to eliminate the USSR and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States. Viskuly Government House in the Belorussian National Park “Belovezhskaya Forest” on December 8, 1991 (RIA Novosti / Yuriy Ivanov)

Those looking for proof of the USSR’s dissolution will have to make do with copies: the key historic document declaring the country’s end has vanished in Belarus. A former Belarusian leader believes the document was kept by some official to make “a fortun

The historic document known as the Belavezha Accords was signed on December 8, 1991 by the leaders of the Soviet republics of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, though not the leader of the Soviet Union itself. In addition to stating that the USSR “has ceased to exist,” it also established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), thus marking a new era for the formerly Soviet republics.

The document says it was made in three equally valid copies in Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian.

But it turns out the state leaders were only given certified copies of a Russian-language document, while the only existing original went missing from the Belarusian Foreign Ministry’s archives, an investigative report by Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP) has shown.

The report issued by the Minsk edition of the Russian daily has spurred media outrage, and has caused some finger-pointing among the officials.

Leonid Kravchuk, President of Ukraine (L); Stanislav Shushkevich, Belarus’ Supreme Soviet Speaker (C); and Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia (2R), in Belovezhskaya Pushcha after signing the Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), (RIA Novosti / Yuriy Ivanov)

The officials who signed the accords and those responsible for keeping them have failed to explain why they only have notarized copies, or where the original could be.

Despite a number of attempts to find the original document original during the 1990s, “no direct or clear answer” could be given by any of the sides, former executive secretary of the CIS Ivan Korotchenya told KP. Korotchenya believes that the original could have been tucked away by some senior official because of its “fundamental importance” at the time. Nobody wanted to be held responsible for signing the accords, he added.

However, former Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich had a more pragmatic explanation on why the original went missing from the archives, saying the key historic agreement is “worth a fortune.” Any “skilled communist manager” could easily see that its value would be “wildly high” in the future, Shushkevich told KP. He then pointed journalists towards then-foreign minister of Belarus Pyotr Kravchenko.

Kravchenko, who was responsible for keeping the treaty at the time of signing, refused to comment on the location of the original. He has boasted in the past of possessing all the drafts of the Belavezha Accords, on which he is now writing a book.

The Belarusian foreign ministry said the problem “has been brought into notice,” and the archives will be searched to clarify the situation.

Even if the original has really gone missing, the notarized copies have legal power equal to the original, a CIS spokesman told RIA. Thus, there shouldn’t be any legal consequences in the case of the document’s loss, he added.

Documents on establishing the CIS were signed here. Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Viskuli; December 8, 1991 (RIA Novosti / Yuriy Ivanov)

Police swarmed into a California ski resort searching for an ex-cop accused of killing three people, including another officer, after posting chilling online threats to kill more.

Officials confirmed that a burnt-out pickup truck found in woods near Big Bear belonged to Christopher Dorner, 33, as armed officers fanned out in the manhunt in hopes of finding him as night fell.

Police were also going door to door in the resort, a popular destination two hours east of Los Angeles for Angelenos and other California who stay in rented cabins and hotels.

“We’ll keep working on it until we’re able to either locate the suspect, or determine that he’s no longer in the Big Bear Valley,” said San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, as schools and ski lifts were put on lockdown.

It also emerged that Dorner had sent a package a week ago to CNN host Anderson Cooper, with a note saying “I never lied,” a DVD, and a coin shot thru with bullet holes, the news anchor said on Twitter.

Dorner was wanted over Sunday’s suspected revenge killing of a couple, Keith Lawrence and Monica Quan. The woman was the daughter of Randy Quan, a retired police officer Dorner blamed for his firing five years ago.

The suspect then allegedly attacked two other officers overnight Wednesday in Riverside, killing one and injuring the other. Another officer was injured in a separate incident in nearby Corona.

In addition, two civilians were injured early Thursday when police officers opened fire on them in a vehicle they believed to be Dorner’s.

In an Internet manifesto threatening police and their families, Dorner had warned about “terminating” Quan and called lesbians and Asians “high-value” targets.

“I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty,” he said.

The LA Police Department, backed by agencies including the FBI, said it was protecting over 40 possible targets, some of them identified in the “rambling” online manifesto by Dorner, a US Navy reservist.

“Dorner is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous,” LAPD chief Charlie Beck told a press conference, adding that the suspect has “multiple weapons at his disposal, including assault rifles.”

Dorner’s wallet and an ID badge were found overnight in San Diego, two hours south of Los Angeles, police said, while there also reports of police searches in neighboring Nevada, where he has a house near Las Vegas.

Shortly after midday, authorities in Big Bear put schools and a ski area on lockdown, after the pickup truck matching the description of Dorner’s was found in nearby woods.

TV pictures showed armed police apparently fanning out across a mountain slope, although the LAPD quickly asked broadcasters not to show live footage, to avoid giving Dorner help if he was monitoring the media.

Dorner posted his manifesto online Monday, saying he was not afraid to die because he had already in effect died when he was dismissed in September 2008 for making false statements about his training officer.

“I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, (so) I am terminating yours,” he wrote to Quan.

“Suppressing the truth will (lead) to deadly consequences for you and your family. There will be an element of surprise where you work, live, eat and sleep,” he added, referring to Quan and several others.

Dorner is described as black, six feet (1.80 meters) tall and 270 pounds (120 kilograms) in weight.

CNN’s Cooper said he only became aware of the package from Dorner on Thursday, although it arrived at his office on February 1. The coin was one given by renowned ex LA police chief Will Bratton, as an honor to officers.

Beck, the LAPD chief, said Dorner’s police and military training made the threat all the more serious.

“He knows what he’s doing. We trained him… he’s also a member of the armed forces,” Beck said..

“It is extremely worrisome and scary.”

Asked what message he wanted to give Dorner, Beck said: “I would tell him to turn himself in. This has gone far enough.

“Nobody else needs to die.”

Oh, my. The whack jobs really are off the leash lately, aren’t they? A little drunk tweeting? I guarantee you this: Nothing Rohrabacher (famous war-loving chickenhawk) says will ever be bad enough to ban him from the Sunday talk shows — because that’s just how they roll!

The Kookville Express and its happy, wild-eyed conductor, Dana Rohrabacher, has shifted routes in yet another attempt for a cheap two-fer ticket: to derail President Barack Obama’s second term and sabotage Hillary Clinton’s potential future White House run.

Rohrabacher, Orange County’s senior career politician and a man known for shameless self-promotion, has made it his mission for the last four months to prove Obama and Clinton masterminded something evil and pro-Islamic terrorist during the Sept. 11, 2012 lethal attack on Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

First, the Costa Mesa Republican declared (without possessing any supportive facts) that the events of Benghazi were “worse” than the felony-rich Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974.

That absurd comparison didn’t go far except with faithful Kookville passengers.

Stymied, Rohrabacher changed strategies.

Benghazi is apparently no longer worse than Watergate.

Now, he is trying to take sly advantage of massive, pre-Oscar publicity for Argo, Ben Affleck’s film.
Rohrabacher claims Benghazi is like President Jimmy Carter’s failed 1980 helicopter attempt to rescue American captives in Iran.

“Maybe Prez thought failed rescue = no re-election, like Carter in 1980,” the congressman theorized on Twitter late Tuesday night.

In other words, according to Rohrabacher’s mental machinations, Obama knowingly allowed Stevens to be murdered so that he could win re-election.

The price of Brent oil has jumped to its highest level in five months, a day after the United States imposed new illegal sanctions against Iran.

On Thursday, the price of a barrel of European benchmark Brent for delivery in March rose to USD 117.83 in London trading, the highest level since mid-September.

The price hike came a day after the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran’s energy sector in a new attempt to force the Islamic Republic to halt its nuclear energy program.

On Wednesday, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions targeting Iranian oil revenue. The sanctions prevent Iran from gaining access to earnings garnered from its crude exports.

The sanctions require the importing countries to keep their payments at home and only release them in return for purchases of goods from them by Iran, to effectively lock up Iranian oil revenue overseas.

Iran responded by condemning the measures as yet another act of hostility from the US government.

The US has spearheaded several rounds of Western sanctions against Iran in recent years, based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

MN/MHB

Wrong on Drone Hits

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013

The White House/Pete Souza

By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON–If George W. Bush had told us that the “war on terror” gave him the right to execute an American citizen overseas with a missile fired from a drone aircraft, without due process or judicial review, I’d have gone ballistic. It makes no difference that the president making this chilling claim is Barack Obama. What’s wrong is wrong.

The moral and ethical questions posed by the advent of drone warfare–which amounts to assassination by remote control–are painfully complex. We had better start working out some answers because, as an administration spokesman told me recently, drone attacks are “the new normal” in the ongoing struggle against terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.

But one of the few bright lines we can and should recognize is that in the exceedingly rare instances when a U.S. citizen may be targeted, our government bears a special burden.

The Obama administration acknowledged as much in a secret Justice Department “white paper” obtained this week by NBC News. The document laid out a legal argument that the president, without oversight, may order a “lethal operation” against a citizen who is known to be a “senior operational leader” of al-Qaeda or an affiliated group.

This is not an academic question. In 2011, a CIA drone attack in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric who had become a leading figure in the terrorist franchise known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Two weeks later, another drone attack killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son.

Awlaki was believed to have been directly involved in the near-miss “Underwear Bomber” plot to down a civilian airliner on Christmas Day 2009, as well as the planting of two bombs–fortunately, discovered before they could explode–on Chicago-bound cargo planes in 2010. Perpetrators of several other attacks cited Awlaki’s fiery sermons and, in some cases, his personal messages as their inspiration.

I shed no tears for him. But as the Justice Department document admits, U.S. citizens have constitutional rights. I am deeply troubled by the notion that the president can unilaterally decide those rights no longer apply.

The white paper specifies the conditions that must be met before a citizen is targeted for obliteration. Among them is that he or she must be planning an “imminent” terrorist attack. The document then argues for a remarkably elastic definition of imminence–which, you may be surprised to learn, apparently does not mean “in the immediate future.”

That part is shaky, but I accept that Awlaki was a legitimate target. What I don’t accept is that the president or a “high-level official” gets to make the call about without judicial oversight. When the government wants to violate a citizen’s right to privacy with wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance, a judge from a special panel–the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court–has to give approval. Surely there should be at least as much judicial review when the government wants to violate a citizen’s right not to be blown to smithereens.

This oversight would occur when the decision was made to place a citizen on the “kill list” of targets–meaning there could be no “hot pursuit” scenario in which a drone had a target in its sights but the aircraft’s controllers had to get a judge’s approval before firing. Keep in mind that the question of targeting a citizen would come up only rarely. Also keep in mind that the “drone court,” like the surveillance court, would surely grant almost every government request.

The practical impact of providing for judicial review in targeting citizens would be practically nil. But doing so would help us establish a conceptual and legal framework for this new, unsettling form of warfare.

The one thing we know is this: There will be drones.

No president could become aware that specific enemies are planning attacks against the United States and not take action. This would be an unconscionable dereliction of duty. If the plot is being developed in a place like Yemen or Somalia, what are the options? Order a Special Forces commando raid, risking American lives? Mount a full-scale invasion? Or send up a flying robot, armed with a missile, and foil the plot by eliminating the plotters?

As drones become more sophisticated, the range of missions for which they are used will grow. And as the United States demonstrates the military potential of drones, other nations will build their own robot fleets. We need to realize that the future is now.

Eugene Robinson’s e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.
 
© 2013, Washington Post Writers Group

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You saw this Super Bowl ad, right?

This is hysterical:

And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save, and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble and a bond bubble and another stock bubble, and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield, and pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

God said, “I need someone to build homes in the swamps and deserts using shoddy materials and other people’s money, and then use these homes as collateral for a Ponzi scheme he can sell to pensioners in California and Michigan and Sweden. I need someone who will then foreclose on those homes, kick out the occupants, and switch off the air conditioning and the plumbing, and watch the houses turn back into dirt. And then pay himself another bonus.”

God said, “I need someone to lend money to people with bad credit at 30% interest in order to get his stock price up, and then, just before the loans turn bad, cash out his stock and walk away. And who, when asked later, will, with a tearful eye, say the government made him do it.”

God said, “And I need somebody who will tell everyone else to stand on their own two feet, but who will then run to the government for a bailout as soon as he gets into trouble – and who will then use that bailout money to help elect a Congress that will look the other way. And then pay himself another bonus.”

So God made a banker.

‘Potentially Historic’ Winter Storm Nemo Forecast to Hit Northeast

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013

Screenshot via CBSNews.com

More than 1,800 flights have been canceled in anticipation of a ferocious winter storm that’s expected to pound the Northeast beginning Friday. The storm, a combination of two systems colliding, could create a blizzard of historic proportions in the region.

The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for New York City and surrounding areas that will go into effect at 6 a.m. on Friday.

The weather system, dubbed “Winter Storm Nemo,” is expected to hit Massachusetts especially hard.

CNN:

The most severe weather is expected to hit Massachusetts between 2 and 5 p.m. on Friday.

Gov. Deval Patrick announced Thursday that all non-emergency workers should work from home. He canceled all school classes on Friday.

“Be a good neighbor. Check on the elderly,” he said, advising residents not to bring portable stoves, charcoal or gas grill indoors out of concern for potential fire hazards or carbon monoxide poisoning.

All vehicles must be off the roads by noon on Friday, and Boston’s public rail system will halt service at 3:30 p.m. A fleet of 600 snow removers will be manned by municipal workers and contractors as authorities gear up for what they say could be a 36-hour storm.

Read more

–Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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At least four civilians have been killed in a landmine explosion in northern Mali as the French-led war in the West African country entered its fourth week.

The deadly blast took place on Thursday between the central town of Douentza and the northern city of Gao, some 320 kilometers east-southeast of Timbuktu.

Reports say that a similar blast in the same region killed at least two Malian troops six days ago.

On Wednesday, France said it wanted United Nations peacekeeping forces to replace the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA).

“From the moment that security is assured, we can envisage without changing the structures that it can be placed under the framework of UN peacekeeping operations,” said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Fabius added that the replacement could take place by April.

France launched its war on Mali on January 11 under the pretext of halting the advance of fighters in the country. The war has left thousands of Malians homeless.

On February 1, Amnesty International condemned “serious human rights breaches” including the killing of “three children” in the French war in Mali.

The rights organization said there was “evidence that at least five civilians, including three children, were killed in an airstrike” carried out by French forces against the local fighters.

Some political analysts believe that Mali’s abandoned natural resources, including gold and uranium reserves, could be one of the reasons behind the French war.

MAM/MHB

Sanders Wants to End Corporate Tax Handouts, O’Reilly Makes Big Error, and More

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013

Impaired Hearing: The confirmation hearing of John Brennan–President Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency–was repeatedly interrupted by protesters angry over the CIA’s use of drone strikes that have killed an unknown number of innocent civilians. The demonstrators were so disruptive that the proceedings had to be halted and the room cleared in an effort to block them from returning. When Brennan did speak without being interrupted, the counterterrorism chief defended the controversial drone program in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Said Brennan: “I believe there are people who believe we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who are standing up here today, I think, have a misunderstanding of what we do as a government.” (Read more)

Ax Shelter: Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation that would end huge corporate tax handouts and close tax loopholes, potentially raising hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade. The bill, called the Corporate Tax Fairness Act, would prevent corporations from sheltering their profits in places like the Cayman Islands while also ending the practice of “rewarding” companies that ship U.S. jobs overseas with tax breaks. The measure states: “Under this legislation, corporations would pay U.S. taxes on their offshore profits as they are earned. This legislation takes away the tax incentives for corporations to move jobs offshore or to shift profits offshore because the U.S. would tax their profits no matter where they are generated.” (Read more)

All Is Not Right With the Right: The Republican infighting between Karl Rove and some conservatives seems to have reached a boiling point. On Wednesday, a group that includes activists Mark Levin and Tony Perkins requested that the spokesman for American Crossroads (a Rove super PAC) be fired for calling right-wing commentator Brent Bozell a “hater” over his opposition to Crossroads offshoot the Conservative Victory Project. Jonathan Collegio had gone on Washington, D.C.’s WMAL and said Bozell “is a hater, and he also, like, has a long, sordid history, like, hating Karl Rove, too. So he has, like, a weird personal ax to grind.” (Read more)

Kill Bill: One Republican lawmaker in Iowa is on a crusade to redefine abortion–which, let’s remember, is very much a legal procedure in this country–as murder. State Rep. Rob Bacon said he introduced the legislation because he personally believes abortion is murder and that Iowa law should reflect that belief (never mind what other people think). Under the measure, the definition of a “person” in a murder case would be changed to “an individual human being, without regard to age of development, from the moment of conception, when a zygote is formed, until natural death.” As a result, a woman who induces an abortion with drugs or a doctor who performs an abortion could be charged with murder. The bill doesn’t include exceptions in instances of rape, incest or in the event that the mother’s life is in danger, undoubtedly again reflecting the beliefs of the lawmaker who introduced it. (Read more)

Fox Talk: Fresh on the heels of parting ways with Dick Morris and Sarah Palin, Fox News is reportedly in talks with former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown to provide commentary for the right-wing channel. The news comes nearly a week after the Republican said he was not going to run in the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry. (Read more)

Video of the Day: On “The O’Reilly Factor” on Wednesday night, Bill O’Reilly criticized NBC News for not covering the leaked Justice Department memo that outlined the Obama administration’s controversial drone program. The glaring error in his attack? NBC News was the one that broke the story to begin with. As Rick Perry might say here, oops!
 

–Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag has told the US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone to stop interfering with his country’s judiciary system.

“Ambassadors should mind their own business. They should stay away from assessments that mean interference in Turkey’s judiciary and domestic affairs,” Anatolia news agency quoted Bozdag as saying on Thursday.

On Tuesday, Ricciardone had criticized Turkey’s judiciary for “lengthy pre-trial detentions, lack of clarity in presenting charges, lack of transparency.”

The US ambassador highlighted the incarceration of military and political figures.

“You have your military leaders, who were entrusted with the protection of this country, behind bars as if they were terrorists,” Ricciardone said. “You have members of parliament who have been behind bars for a long time, sometimes on unclear charges.”

Huseyin Celik, spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), took Ricciardone to task for “not learning not to overstep his boundaries” in defiance of warnings from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In September 2012, 300 retired and active military officers were handed down jail sentences for plotting to unseat Erdogan while hundreds more are still in jail pending trial.

Dozens of journalists, lawyers, politicians, and MPs are also held in custody facing charges of anti-government plots to link to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The row between NATO allies comes nearly one week after an explosion outside the US embassy in Ankara killed at least two people and wounded several others.

KA/HN

NASA says a 150-feet asteroid will pass within 17,200 miles (27,520 kilometers) of Earth on February 15 without any chance of collision.

The US space agency announced on Thursday the megarock will find itself in the closest encounter known ever for an object of this size, the Associated Press reported.

The best viewing location for the asteroid, which would be visible through binoculars or telescopes, will be in Indonesia.

Australia, Asia and Eastern Europe will also offer viewing spots for the rock that was discovered in February 2012.

“This asteroid’s orbit is so well known that we can say with confidence that even considering its orbital uncertainties, it can pass no closer than 17,100 miles from the Earth’s surface. So no Earth impact is possible,” said Donald Yeomans, the head of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He said any damaging impact would be avoided as the rock’s path would put it in the “sweet spot”.

“The object that … took out the dinosaurs was about 10 kilometers,” Yeomans added.

If the asteroid were to strike the planet, the impact would be equivalent to a 2.4-megaton bomb which could flatten a vast area.

“With an estimated size of the order of 50 meters, (2012 DA 14) is comparable in dimensions to the object that destroyed over 2,000 square kilometers of forest in Tunguska, Siberia, on 30th June 1908,” said Mark Bailey, the director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland.

Based on NASA estimates, an asteroid like 2012 DA 14 moves close to the Earth every 40 years.

KA/MHB

An image of the Milky Way’s Galactic Center in the night sky above Paranal Observatory (Image from wiki.org)

Stars called red dwarfs may support planets on which life is possible. With three quarters of stars in the Milky Way being red dwarfs, there may be 4.5 billion habitable planets in our galaxy, a new study reveals.

Six percent of red dwarf stars in the galaxy have Earth-sized planets, which could be habitable, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have estimated.

Red dwarf are the most common stars in the Milky Way, which means that the closest earth like planet could be just 13 light years away, not far in space terms.

Red dwarfs are smaller, cooler and fainter than our Sun and are not visible from Earth to the naked eye.

But despite their relative dimness, they make up three out of every four stars in our galaxy, a total of 75 billion.

“We thought we would have to search vast distances to find an earth-like planet. Now we realize another Earth is probably in our own backyard, waiting to be spotted,” said Courtney Dressing, an astronomer who presented the finding at a press conference Wednesday at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center in Massachusetts.

Dressing identified 95 planetary candidates orbiting red dwarf stars. According to the scientists’ estimates, 60 percent of red dwarfs could have planets orbiting them that could be smaller than Neptune.

Most were not quite the right temperature or size to be truly Earth-like, although three of the planets were warm and were approximately Earth-sized. Statistically therefore six percent of red dwarfs could have an Earth-like planet, scientists add.

“We don’t know for sure if life could exist on a planet orbiting a red dwarf, but the findings pique my curiosity and leave me wondering if the cosmic cradles of life are more diverse than we humans have imagined,” said Natalie Batalha, Kelper mission scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Locating these Earth-like planets would require a large network of ground based telescopes or a small space telescope, while follow up studies by the Giant Magellan Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope could tell us whether any of the planets had an atmosphere, the researchers said.

Red dwarf stars have a much longer life than Sun-like stars, meaning that life on a red dwarf orbiting planet might be much older than life on Earth.

“We might find an earth that’s 10 billion years old,” said David Charbonneau, co-author of the research.

Such a world would be different from our own. Because the planets orbit much closer to their stars, they may not have tides. But this wouldn’t necessarily prohibit life since they may also have a dense atmosphere or a deep ocean which could transport heat around the planet, the scientists said.

While young red dwarf stars emit flares of ultraviolet light, an atmosphere would protect life on the planet and help it evolve, the researchers claimed. “You don’t need an Earth clone to have life,” said Dressing.

The habitability of a planet is worked out by its distance from the star that it is orbiting and therefore whether it would have liquid water and a surface temperature which could sustain life. Liquid water is considered a major precondition to life.

The distance from a star where life is theoretically possible is known to astronomers as the ‘habitable zone’.

The astronomers used publically available data from NASA’s Kelper space telescope. Kelper is the first NASA mission capable of finding planets in or near the habitable zone.

This is not the first time that astronomers have found evidence that life may exist on planets orbiting red dwarfs. In March last year a French led team, from the European Southern Observatory in Chile, found out that 40% of red dwarf stars are orbited by planets 10 times bigger than Earth which are the correct distance away to support liquid water.

However, the French team gave a slightly contradictory conclusion that stellar eruptions and the emission of flares, which are common on red dwarfs and produce X- rays and ultraviolet radiation, would make life less likely on the orbiting planets.

But even if we do find alien life on these planets we won’t be able to pay a visit. The closest suitable red dwarfs are 13 light years away, way beyond our space travelling means, although they’re virtually next-door neighbors by space standards.

February 7, 2013  |  

Just in case you still haven’t read your December issue of Urology, here’s the best piece of advice you’ll get today: Don’t drink and shave your pubes. You’re welcome.

A new study from the University of California-San Diego reveals that “ Emergency room visits due to pubic hair grooming mishaps,” including oh my God no no noooo“lacerations,” increased fivefold between 2002 and 2010, sending an impressive 11,704 pube-scapers to the E.R. The culprits? Scissors and hot wax did some of the damage, but plain-old non-electric-razors accounted for the lion’s share, at 83 percent. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be under my desk, rocking slowly back and forth and crying as I think about this.

The study also revealed that below-the-belt grooming isn’t just for adult ladies anymore — men accounted for 43.3 percent of the injuries, and almost 30 percent of them were girls under the age of 18. To avoid becoming yet another harrowing grooming gone bad statistic, the researchers advise hair removal aficionados to “Pay attention to where you’re placing that razor. Invest in a non-slip bath mat. And don’t shave while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” Yeah, don’t do that. For the love of God don’t do that.

What was just a few years ago a somewhat novel ritual is now considered an all but de rigueur part of aesthetic maintenance, for both sexes. Kids, as recently as the 1990s, everybody had piercings down there, but pretty much everybody still had pubes, too. Now, between 70 and nearly 90 percent of females remove part or all of their genital hair, and roughly 60 to 80 percent of men. And while it may be leading to more E.R. visits, on the upside, it’s made pubic lice all but extinct in our time. Someday, people won’t even know that crabs were once something you could get someplace other than Red Lobster.

Hairstyles come and go, but the nagging problem with all this deforestation is a simultaneous, culture-wide discomfort for anything outside a very narrow aesthetic. In Jezebel Thursday, Laura Beck examined  a recent letter in 7×7 from a gentleman asking, “How Do I Get My Girlfriend to Change Her Grooming Routine?” In it, the writer says that his special lady is “well-groomed and healthy” but “much more natural.” I honestly have no idea what qualifies as “well-groomed” but “more natural.” Neat triangle? Trimmed short? Wide landing strip? The writer goes on to explain that during oral sex, the lady’s follicular situation is “distracting me to the point of throwing me off my game down there.”

In response, the male advice columnist commends him for “being a trouper in respecting her body preferences” and suggests “Maybe there’s a compromise between au naturale and Brazil,” adding, “your accepting and open-minded approach has earned you at least the right to broach the subject.” The female columnist toes a similar line, saying, “When a person offers to put their face in your genitals for the sole purpose of bringing you to orgasm, that person gets to make a small request regarding the topography of the area.”

You know, I don’t want to get all into waxing-is-the-tool-of-the-patriarchy here, because I truly believe that whatever rocks your world is awesome and that whatever we do with our bodies is supposed to be fun and make us happy. You want to braid it or bling it, mazel tov. But it’s a tad off-putting that this guy can’t get in the game because of a little hair, and it’s somehow the woman’s problem. Sex is about compromise and communication, and if you’ve got a preference, it’s important to let your partner in on it. But by the same token, if a woman’s body that is by your own admission in a “well-groomed” state is still somehow “distracting,” you know what? Try a little harder, dude.

Saturday Delivery

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013

Rick McKee, Cagle Cartoons, The Augusta Chronicle

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February 7, 2013  |  

“Americans are sicker and die younger than people in other wealthy nations.”

That stark sentence appears in the January 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it comes from the authors of a landmark report — “Shorter Lives, Poorer Health” — on differences among high-income countries.

You probably already know that America spends more on health care than any other country. That was one of the few facts to survive the political food fight pretending to be a serious national debate about the Affordable Care Act.

But the airwaves also thrummed with so many sound bites from so many jingoistic know-nothings claiming that America has the best health care system in the world that today, most people don’t realize how shockingly damaging it is to your wellness and longevity to be born in the U.S.A.

This is made achingly clear in the study of the “U.S. health disadvantage” recently issued by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, which was conducted over 18 months by experts in medicine and public health, demography, social science, political science, economics, behavioral science and epidemiology.

Compare the health of the American people with our peer nations — with Britain, Canada and Australia; with Japan; with the Scandinavian countries; with France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Side by side with the world’s wealthy democracies, America comes in last, and over the past several decades, it’s only gotten worse.

With few exceptions — like death rates from breast cancer — we suck. Our newborns are less likely to reach their first birthday, or their fifth birthday. Our adolescents die at higher rates from car crashes and homicides, and they have the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections. Americans have the highest incidence of AIDS, the highest obesity rates, the highest diabetes rates among adults 20 and older, the highest rates of chronic lung disease and heart disease and drug-related deaths.

There is one bright spot. Americans who live past their 75th birthday have the longest life expectancy. But for everyone else — from babies to baby boomers and beyond — your chances of living a long life are the butt-ugly worst among all the 17 rich nations in our peer group.

In case you’re tempted to blow off these bleak statistics about American longevity by deciding that they don’t apply to someone like you — before you attribute them to, how shall we put it, the special burdens that our racially and economically diverse and culturally heterogeneous nation has nobly chosen to bear — chew on this: “Even non-Hispanic white adults or those with health insurance, a college education, high incomes, or healthy behaviors appear to be in worse health (e.g., higher infant mortality, higher rates of chronic diseases, lower life expectancy) in the United States than in other high-income countries.” And by the way, “the nation’s large population of recent immigrants is generally in better health than native-born Americans.”

Why are we trailing so badly? Some of the causes catalogued by the report:

The U.S. public health and medical care systems: Our employer — and private insurance– based health care system has long set us apart from our peer nations, who provide universal access. The right loves to rail against “socialized medicine,” but on health outcomes, the other guys win.

Individual behavior: Tobacco, diet, physical inactivity, alcohol and other drug use and sexual practices play a part, but there’s not a whole lot of evidence that uniquely nails Americans’ behavior. The big exception is injurious behavior. We loves us our firearms, and we don’t much like wearing seat belts or motorcycle helmets.

Success of Family and Medical Leave Act Should Humble the Far Right

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Posted on Feb 7, 2013

By Joe Conason

When Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act on Feb. 5, 1993 almost exactly 20 years ago as the first legislative act of his presidency, its establishment as law marked a progressive victory after nearly a decade of ferocious opposition by corporate lobbyists, Republican legislators, conservative media and right-wing pundits.
 
Leading the opposition was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose spokeswoman Virginia Lamp denounced the act as “a dangerous precedent.” (She would eventually marry Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and move on to employment with the Koch brothers.) With the honorable exception of the Catholic Church and a number of moderate Republicans in Congress, the self-proclaimed “pro-family” forces in American political life eagerly aided and abetted the Chamber’s attempt to kill the act. Mandating a federal right to unpaid leave, even if restricted to certain workers in larger businesses, would place the nation on a slippery path toward European socialism, or worse, according to the Chamber and its Republican allies and impose untold damage on business.
 
But now we know, as with so many other warnings from the far right about the supposedly ruinous consequences of social progress, how the actual results have differed from those predictions. And with two decades of experience, it is clear that the difference has been dramatic.
 
Put simply, the act’s protections have proved vital for millions of families across the country, whether in times of joy or hardship. Debra Ness, the president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, which drafted the original bill and assembled the victorious coalition that supported it, estimates that the law has been used over 100 million times “by women who needed medical care during difficult pregnancies, fathers who took time to care for children fighting cancer, adult sons and daughters caring for frail parents, and workers taking time to recover from their own serious illnesses.” The latest Department of Labor survey of employees and employers indicates that up to 14 million employees took leave in 2011.
 
Released this week to coincide with the act’s anniversary, that study not only demonstrates how vital it is to American families but how beneficial it has been for the national workforce and economy. Indeed, rather than imposing an insufferable burden on business, the act has enhanced productivity and profit as well as protecting children, the ill and the elderly.
 
According to the DOL study–which was subcontracted to Abt Associates, one of the country’s oldest and most respected private consulting firms–most employers have not found compliance particularly burdensome. Only 1 percent of the covered worksites told Abt that they had “great difficulty” in administering leave and 14 percent reported “some difficulty.” Fewer than 10 percent of worksites reported any negative effects on productivity, morale, absenteeism, turnover or “business profitability.” Some larger worksites had more problems, but overall, the vast majority reported that the act had posed no serious issues.
 
Most impressively, for every worksite that reported a negative impact on productivity, there were nearly three that said the impact has been positive; and for every worksite that reported a negative impact on profitability, there were nearly five that said the impact has been positive.
 
Encouraging as those statistics may be, they highlight a less encouraging fact–namely that America remains far behind other advanced industrial nations in the social benefits and protections provided to its working families. The United States is the only country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that lacks a national paid parental leave policy.
 
In a global study conducted by researchers at Harvard and McGill universities, the results revealed that all advanced countries and many developing nations–169 out of 173 studied–offer guaranteed leave with income to women following childbirth; and 98 of these countries offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave. (The three other nations offering no paid leave whatsoever were Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.) The researchers found 66 countries that provide fathers with either paid paternity leave or a right to paid parental leave, with 31 countries offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave.
 
Aside from important changes providing leave to military families, initially left without coverage under the act, Congress has made no significant improvements in expanding coverage to workplaces with fewer than 50 employees–or in extending any protection to the growing millions of temporary and part-time workers who remain without any coverage.
 
The national experience over the years since Clinton put down his signing pen offers two clear lessons for Americans. First, we still have far to go in providing real support for families and children, especially when compared with similar countries; and second, we need not believe the warnings of economic doom that emanate from the right over any attempt to improve those conditions, such as Obamacare. All the hot air emitted in opposition to the Family and Medical Leave Act has long since evaporated, and all the hotheads who opposed it have long since moved on to new obsessions. But nobody should forget how wrong they were–and who really stood up for family values.

© 2012 CREATORS.COM

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An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale has struck the Solomon Islands, but there were no reports of damage and no tsunami warnings were issued.

The US Geological Survey said that the temblor occurred at 5:59 am on Friday (1859 GMT Thursday), around 36 kilometres (23 miles) south-southwest of Lata, the main town on the remote Ndende Island in the eastern Solomons.

The quake is the latest in a series of aftershocks from an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that occurred near the Santa Cruz Islands on Wednesday triggering a tsunami, which killed at least six people and left some 3,000 homeless.

The quake generated a wave that swamped coastal communities on Ndende Island and triggered warnings of a more widespread tsunami that were later lifted.

The Solomon Islands are part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

Over 50 people were killed and thousands lost their homes in a tsunami which had been triggered by an 8.1-magnitude earthquake in 2007.

MN/HN

February 7, 2013  |  

Thirty years after her death, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness and billionaire empowerment rules the world. It’s a remarkable achievement for an ideology that was pushed to the fringes for most of her life, and ridiculed on national television in a notorious interview with Mike Wallace.

But, it’s happened. And today, the United States and other independent governments around the world are crumbling while Ayn Rand’s billionaires are taking over.

With each new so-called Free Trade agreement — especially the very secretive Trans Pacific Partnership, which has less to do with trade and more to do with a new law of global governance for transnational corporations — Ayn Rand’s reviled “state” (or what we would call our democracy, the United States of America) is losing its power to billionaires and transnational corporations.

Ayn Rand hated governments and democracy. She considered them systems of mob rule. She grew up in Russia, and as a child watched the Bolsheviks confiscate her father’s pharmacy during the Russian Revolution. Likely suffering from PTSD from that incident, Ayn Rand devoted her future writings to evil government, including the “evil” of its functions like taxation, regulation, and providing social services to the poor and sick.

She divided the world into makers and takers (or what she called “looters”).

On one side are the billionaires and the industrialists. People like Dagny Taggert, a railroad tycoon, and Hank Rearden, a steel magnate. Both were fictional characters in her book Atlas Shrugged, but both have real-world counterparts in the form of the Koch Brothers, the Waltons, and Sheldon Adelson. According to Rand, they are the “Atlases” holding up the world.

So, in Atlas Shrugged, when the billionaires, tired of paying taxes and complying with government regulation, go on strike, Ayn Rand writes that the American economy promptly collapsed.

On the other side are the “looters,” or everyone else who isn’t as rich or privileged, or who believed in a democratic government to provide basic services, empower labor unions, and regulate the economy. They are the leeches on society according to Rand (and according to Mitt Romney with his 47% comments). And, as she told Mike Wallace in in 1959, they do not even “deserve love.”

To our Founding Fathers, looking out for the general welfare of the population was an explicit role of the government, one of its most important and the reason this nation was created when we separated from Britian.

But to Ayn Rand, a government that taxed billionaires to help pay for healthcare and education for impoverished children was not just unwise economically, it was also immoral.

Nature abhors a vacuum — both in the wild and in politics.  So, when people, organized in the form of a government, are removed from power, then money organized in the form of corporations and billionaires moves into the vacuum to take power — which is exactly what’s happening today, worldwide.

In the thirty years after her death, the United States crept closer and closer to Ayn Rand’s utopia. Reagan dramatically slashed taxes on the rich and went after labor unions. Clinton deregulated financial markets for the rich, ended welfare as we know it, and committed our nation to one globalist corporate free trade agreement after another.

And, under Bush and Obama, we’ve seen the rapid privatization of our commons, the further erosion of social safety nets, and more losses of national sovereignty with more so-called free trade agreements.

In Europe, we’re seeing sovereign governments neutered by Conservative technocrats. According to Ayn Rand, the rich can never be asked to sacrifice. So instead, it’s working people across the Eurozone who have to pay for the bad investments that the banksters made in the run-up to the global financial collapse.

At least 53 people have lost their lives and 22 others injured after a bus collided head-on with a truck in Zambia, police officials say.

According to a statement issued by police spokeswoman Elizabeth Kanjela, the crash took place on Thursday after the bus carrying over 70 passengers en route to the capital Lusaka smashed into the truck near the town of Chifamba, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital.

“I can confirm that 53 people have died in the accident,” said Harry Kalaba, an official in the vice president’s office, minutes after the crash.

Those injured were reportedly rushed to nearby hospitals for medical treatment.

Following the incident, Zambian President Michael Sata issued a statement to convey his “deepest condolences to the bereaved families.”

There are about 1,200 deaths in road accidents annually in Zambia, according to official data.

MAM/MHB

The Great Recession has quietly devastated public services on a state-by-state basis, with Republican and Democratic governors taking turns leading the charge. Public education has been decimated, as well as health care, welfare, and the wages and benefits of public sector workers. The public sector itself is being smashed. Since the recession began, states have made combined austerity cuts of at least $337 billion, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities

The 2012-2013 budget deficits for 34 states resulted in $55 billion in cuts, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. The coming budgets for 2013-2014 that begins on July 1st is becoming clear as well, and the deficits are rolling in by the billions: Connecticut, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington, and many others have large deficits projected.

You’d expect after years of austerity cuts to public services, state politicians would think of new ways to raise revenue from those who can afford it – the wealthy and corporations. Not so. The cuts that began as a consequence of the 2008 recession are set to continue; raising revenue from the wealthy is “off the table” for Republicans and Democrats alike.

The pattern of budget cuts has revealed that the age-old distinction between Republican and Democrat has evaporated on the state level. The state budget trends – what’s getting funded and what’s not – are similarly aligned across the country. Both parties have merged their state-level agendas into a singular focus on “economic growth,” a bi-partisan euphemism meaning “corporate profits.”

Below is the bi-partisan funding trends for the states that began with the 2008 recession and continue to this day:

1) The Attack on Public Employees and Pension “Reform”

It wasn’t long ago that everyone understood that the states’ budget crises was caused in part by the recession, itself caused by the big banks and greedy corporations, and in part by the politicians continuing willingness to lower taxes on the rich. Now the corporate media and politicians have re-written history: suddenly it’s “greedy” public workers and their “lavish” pensions that are bankrupting the states. Two years ago it was the health care of public employees that was bankrupting the states, which resulted in large cuts to workers in many states.

The pre-recession pension system was working fine, but it, too, suffered under the bank-caused financial crisis; pension returns sank and right-wing economists projected ruin for the states in the future (they conveniently assumed that recession era rates would continue forever, thus under-funding the system).

Democratic governors are now as eager as their Republican counterparts to destroy the pensions of public employees. Democratic politicians in Oregon, Washington, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachusetts, and several other states are leading the charge to erode the last bastion of retirement security for working people, while continuing to lay off public employees by the thousands. This national shrinkage of state governments is a long-standing right-wing dream: the smaller the state, the greater the “growth opportunities” for corporations that take over privatized public services and the lower their taxes since a smaller state requires less revenue for operating expenses.

2) Education Reform

The National Governors Association (NGA) spoke for both political parties when announcing a renewed focus on education funding for the states during the annual “state of the states” address. The funding is necessary because schools across the country are expecting an influx of students, while school districts everywhere have been starved funds by the ongoing austerity cuts; the system has been literally crumbling. But the new funding is to be used for the undermining and destruction of public education, since it is based on Obama’s pro-corporate Race to the Top education “reform” where charter schools replace public schools.

Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement over Obama’s education policy, which closes “failing schools,” (those in poor neighborhoods), opens privately run, non-union charter schools, and fires “bad teachers,” (typically those who teach poor students). The whole system is based on standardized testing, which poorer students will spend most of their education preparing for, (those who don’t drop out from sheer boredom). Bi-partisan education reform targets teacher unions while privatizing education – the Democrats have adopted the ideas from the right-wing think tanks of the 1990′s.

3) Raising Revenue — But Not From the Wealthy or Corporations

Many states have implemented – or are planning to implement – a variety of taxes that disproportionally affect working and poor people, including increased sales taxes, alcohol, tobacco and other “sin” taxes, not to mention increases in different fees, from state parks to driver registration.

At the same time that these taxes have been upped, a consistent clamor has been raised by the media and politicians to lower the taxes for corporations, give them new subsidies or “freeze” their already-low taxes so that future tax increases will be impossible. In Oregon the Democratic governor declared a “special session” emergency in order to ensure that NIKE’s super low tax status would be frozen in place for decades, outside the reach of the public, which might want to raise corporate taxes to fund public services.

Democrat and Republican controlled states are equally competing for the adoration of corporations by lavishing a never-ending flow of taxpayer money on them, while “guaranteeing” them “investment security,” i.e., promising low taxes and an open spigot of taxpayer money. This is the basis for several states implementing “right to work” laws that target unions for destruction, while also attempting to “revamp the tax code,” which is a euphemism for lowering corporate taxes.

4) Welfare Reform: Attacking the Safety Net

Waging war against the safety net is like picking a fight with road kill – the states’ safety net is already disfigured beyond recognition, but the bi-partisan assault nevertheless continues. Bill Clinton started welfare “reform” as president, and the 2008 Great Recession accelerated the attack on those in poverty. The year 2011 was a devastating one for welfare, now called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

In 2011, states implemented some of the harshest cuts in recent history for many of the nation’s most vulnerable families with children who are receiving assistance through [TANF] … The cuts affect 700,000 low-income families that include 1.3 million children; these families represent over one-third of all low-income families receiving TANF nationwide.

But these TANF “reforms” continue, to the detriment of the neediest. Newly released budgets in several states – including California and Oregon – further tighten the program, a relentless boa-like constriction that’s already suffocated millions of the country’s poorest citizens. Typically TANF reform either lowers the monthly payment, shortens the time one can receive benefits, or raises the standards for staying in the program.

Before the giant TANF cuts in 2011, the program was already shrunken such that TANF only assisted 28 families for every 100 in poverty – the ludicrous definition of “poverty” being a family of four that makes only $22,000 or less.

There is a direct link between the assault on TANF and the rising poverty levels in the United States. Cutting TANF in a time of mass unemployment means consciously consigning millions of families to grinding poverty, hunger, homelessness, and the many other barbarisms associated with extreme poverty.

Conclusion:

It wasn’t long ago that the Democrats understood that the government can and should create jobs, especially during a recession. But now the Democratic Party has fully adopted the economics of Reaganism. As a result, the only “job creators” now recognized are the corporations. This bi-partisan agreement not to tax the rich and use the revenue for public spending to create jobs – hiring more teachers, firefighters, roads and parks workers, etc. – is unnecessarily prolonging the job crisis, ensuring more years of deficits and a deeper gouging of the public sector.

These cuts are having a devastating effect on public sector unions, the last bastion of union strength in the country. These unions are being weakened to such an extent that stripping them of their right to collectively bargain – the nail in the coffin – becomes a real possibility. No state is safe from this threat.

If unions don’t unite with community groups to demand that public services be fully funded by taxing the wealthy and corporations, the cuts will continue, communities will feel helpless, inequality will continue to spiral out of control, and working people will be further subjected to the policies of the 1%, now implemented in chorus by Republicans and Democrats alike. But, of course, this means that the unions will have to break with the suicidal strategy of relying on the Democrats for handouts. Time and again the Democrats have demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice the needs of working people in order to curry favor with the rich and corporations, their greatest benefactors when it comes to election campaign contributions.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711

http://www.nga.org/cms/stateofthestates

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3498

An illuminated euro sign is seen in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) (Reuters / STR)

Ireland has moved closer to ending a troubled chapter in its economic history as the European Central Bank has agreed a deal to ease Ireland`s debt burden, just after liquidation of the troubled bank Anglo Irish, was officially announced.

­On Thursday the Irish parliament passed legislation enacting the dissolution of Anglo Irish, now called IBRC. The bank’s collapse back in 2008 led the Irish government to seek a 67.5 billion euros international bailout and dragged the entire country’s economy into debts. 

The European Central Bank has agreed on a deal proposed by Ireland officials to ease the country’s public finances by paying off the debts over a longer period.  It’s hoped the move will boost the country’s chances of finding its way out of an international bailout agreed back in 2010.  

At the moment Ireland has to pay to the ECB a toxic 3.1 billion euros annually until 2023 to repay interest for promissory notes that were issued to underwrite the Anglo Irish Bank during its meltdown.

The liquidation of Anglo Irish Bank will give Ireland an opportunity to pay off its debts to ECB and IMF in a longer period, it should also lower the country’s financing needs.

Under the plan Ireland will swap the so-called promissory notes used to rescue Anglo Irish for long-term government bonds, Reuters reports.

Dublin`s KPMG will initially transfer Anglo Irish assets to a so-called Irish bad bank, the National Asset Management Agency said, according to Bloomberg. The bank`s net debt will be bought using government-backed bonds as payment.

It is expected that most of the bank`s personnel will be rehired to manage the assets’ relocation.

Scandals surrounding the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank have been in regular circulation in the nations media in recent years. First the Bank fuelled a housing boom by handing cheap loans to property developers without much scrutiny, secondly, when the real estate bubble finally collapsed in 2008 — the Bank dragged the entire banking system into the depths of the global economic recession. The meltdown of one of the biggest national banks forced Ireland to seek a 67.5 billion euros international bailout. Its collapse saw dozens of unfinished real estate projects and half-built houses left abandoned across the country. Anglo Irish was nationalized in January 2009.

Irish officials held an emergency debate early on Thursday to enable the liquidation, during which Ireland`s Prime Minister Enda Kenny stressed “This closes a sad and tragic chapter in our economic history.”

During the economic recession, the Bank was nationalized in 2009 and merged with another failed institution. In a bid to changed the image of the troubled lender it was rebranded Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. But failures continued to haunt the company. Last year criminal charges were filed against the former chief executive and chairman of the bank.

The case is yet to go to trial.

Welcome to Fox News and Billo’s show, irony –free filled zones. How does he do this with a straight face?

18-year old Penelope Soto was appearing before a judge on Monday for sentencing after being charged with possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. During the bond hearing, she had an angry exchange of words with the judge and flipped him the bird. The judge responded with a 30-day jail sentence for contempt of court.

Yes, Soto was disrespectful and deserved some punishment. But O’Reilly goes one step further in his analysis, saying that the judge wasn’t just fed up with her behavior toward her, but the general atmosphere of disrespect everywhere in this country. He goes on to say that “many Americans simply are disrespectful and feel entitled to do whatever they want to do.”

Then O’Reilly jumps the shark and the shark’s mother with his pronouncement that “the reason there is an epidemic of disrespect in America is mainly because of the public school system.” Citing the softening of the New York Schools discipline code, Billo claims “students can curse at their teachers and simply get a reprimand” as evidence that every public school in the nation is spawning rude, disrespectful kids.

What do New York School discipline standards have to do with a kid who went to school in Florida, anyway? I looked at some of the standards in Florida and it’s clear that disruption, obscene gestures and/or obscene language are grounds for in-school or off-campus suspension.

Billo blames the Internet, too. I wonder if he was thinking of Todd Kincannon when he mentioned “troubled people [who] say the most horrendous things hiding behind their machines.” Speaking of that, do you think he might admit that Erick Erickson’s public condemnation of a Supreme Court Justice as a goat f*cking child molester might appear to be some disrespect toward the judiciary?

Let’s talk about some other examples of disrespect. How about the public disrespect shown President Obama by hosts on Fox News? Like Sean Hannity, sneering and calling the president “The Anointed One“? Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut? The public denigration of Hispanics on a near-daily basis? Do you think that might have raised some disrespect? How about the current NRA campaign to paint the president as someone to be bullied and harassed by the likes of Wayne LaPierre? Or the claim that everyone should carry guns because government is very, very bad?

Judges are a part of government, after all.

Billo blames everyone and everything– schools, online conversation, social networks, television shows like Jersey Shore, and more — without ever acknowledging the elephant in the room. The breakdown of society he predicts begins with people saying and doing things that break cultural norms. You know who those people are, Billo? That’s right. Start with the teapartiers and the gun nuts, the nativists and the eliminationists. It’s not public school that’s causing the breakdown. It’s adults behaving like uninhibited maniacs, inside and outside government.

Before September 11, 2001, more than half the border crossings between the United States and Canada were left unguarded at night, with only rubber cones separating the two countries. Since then, that 4,000 mile “point of pride,” as Toronto’s Globe and Mail once dubbed it, has increasingly been replaced by a U.S. homeland security lockdown, although it’s possible that, like Egyptian-American Abdallah Matthews, you haven’t noticed.

The first time he experiences this newly hardened U.S.-Canada border, it takes him by surprise. It’s a freezing late December day and Matthews, a lawyer (who asked me to change his name), is on the passenger side of a car as he and three friends cross the Blue Water Bridge from Sarnia, Ontario, to the old industrial town of Port Huron, Michigan. They are returning from the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto, chatting and happy to be almost home when the car pulls up to the booth, where a blue-uniformed U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent stands. The 60,000-strong CBP is the border enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security and includes both customs and U.S. Border Patrol agents. What is about to happen is the furthest thing from Matthews’s mind. He’s from Port Huron and has crossed this border “a million times before.”

After scanning their passports and looking at a computer screen in the booth, the agent says to the driver, as Matthews tells the story:

“Sir, turn off the vehicle, hand me the key, and step out of the car.”

He hears the snap of handcuffs going around his friend’s wrists. Disoriented, he turns around and sees uniformed men kneeling behind their car, firearms drawn.

“To my disbelief, situated behind us are agents, pointing their guns.”

The CBP officer asks Matthews and the remaining passengers to get out of the car and escorts them to a waiting room. Thirty minutes later, he, too, is handcuffed and in a cell. Forty-five minutes after that another homeland security agent brings him into a room with no chairs. The agent tells him that he can sit down, but all he sees is a countertop. “Can I just stand?” he asks.

And he does so for what seems like an eternity with the door wide open, attempting to smile at the agents who pass by. “I’m trying to be nice,” is how he put it.

Finally, in a third room, the interrogation begins. Although they question Matthews about his religious beliefs and various Islamic issues, the two agents are “nice.” They ask him: Where’d you go? What kind of law do you practice? He tells them that a former law professor was presenting a paper at the annual conference, whose purpose is to revive “Islamic traditions of education, tolerance, and introspection.” They ask if he’s received military training abroad. This, he tells me, “stood out as one of their more bizarre questions.” When the CBP lets him and his friends go, he still thinks it was a mistake.

However, Lena Masri of the Council of American Islamic Relations-Michigan (CAIR-MI) reports that Matthews’s experience is becoming “chillingly” commonplace for Michigan’s Arab and Muslim community at border crossings. In 2012, CAIR-MI was receiving five to seven complaints about similar stops per week. The detainees are all Arab, all male, all questioned at length. They are asked about religion, if they spend time at the mosque, and who their Imam is.

According to CAIR-MI accounts, CBP agents repeatedly handcuff these border-crossers, often brandish weapons, conduct invasive, often sexually humiliating body searches, and detain people for from two to 12 hours. Because of this, some of the detainees have lost job opportunities or jobs, or given up on educational opportunities in Canada. Many are now afraid to cross the border to see their families who live in Canada. (CAIR-MI has filed alawsuit against the CBP and other governmental agencies.)

Months later, thinking there is no way this can happen again, Matthews travels to Canada and crosses the border, this time alone, on the Blue Water Bridge to Port Huron. Matthews still hadn’t grasped the seismic changes in Washington’s attitude toward our northern border since 9/11. Port Huron, his small hometown, where a protest group, Students for a Democratic Society, first famously declared themselves against racism and alienation in 1962, is now part of the “frontline” in defense of the “homeland.”  As a result, Matthews finds himself a casualty of a new war, one that its architects and proponents see as a permanent bulwark not only against non-citizens generally, but also people like Matthews from “undesirable” ethno-religious groups or communities in the United States.

While a militarized enforcement regime has long existed in the U.S-Mexico borderlands, its far more intense post-9/11 version is also proving geographically expansive. Now, the entire U.S. perimeter has become part of a Fortress USA mentality and a lockdown reality. Unlike on our southern border, there is still no wall to our north on what was once dubbed the “longest undefended border in the world.”  But don’t let that fool you. The U.S.-Canadian border is increasingly a national security hotspot watched over by drones, surveillance towers, and agents of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Canadian Threat

Bert Tussing, U.S. Army War College Homeland Defense and Security Director, realizes that when people think of border security, what immediately comes to mind is the U.S.-Mexico border. After all, he is speaking in El Paso, Texas, where in the early 1990s the massive transformation and expansion of the border enforcement apparatus was born. Operation Blockade (later renamed Operation Hold-the-Line) became the Clinton administration’s blueprint for the walls, double-fencing, cameras, sensors, stadium-lighting, and concentration of Border Patrol agents now seen in urbanized areas — and some rural ones as well — from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California. Tussing believes that this sort of intense surveillance, which has literally deformed communities throughout the southwest, should be brought to the northern border as well.

A former Marine with close-cropped brown hair, Tussing has a Napoleonic stature and despises being stuck behind a podium. “I kind of like moving around,” he quips before starting “The Changing Role of the Military in Border Security Operations,” his talk at last October’s Border Management Conference and Technology Expo.

Perhaps Tussing realizes that his audience holds a new breed of border-security entrepreneur when his initial Army-Marine joke falls flat. Behind the small audience are booths from 74 companies selling their border-security wares. These nomadic malls of the surveillance state are popping up in ever more places each year.

Hanging from the high ceiling is a white surveillance aerostat made by an Israeli company. Latched onto the bottom of this billowing balloon are cameras that, even 150 feet away, can zoom in on the comments I’m scrawling in my notebook. Nearby sits a mannequin in a beige body suit, equipped with a gas mask. It’s all part of the equipment and technology that the developing industry has in mind for our southern border, and increasingly the northern one as well.

Tussing homes in on a 2010 statistic: 59,000 people (“illegals if you will”) tried to enter the United States from countries “other than Mexico, the euphemistic OTMs.” Six hundred and sixty-three of these “OTMs” were from countries Tussing calls “special-interest nations” such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, and Somalia, and also from countries the U.S. has identified as state-sponsors of terrorism like Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

Next, he turns to the U.S-Canada divide, mentioning the 1999 case of Ahmed Ressam who would have become “the millennium bomber,” if not for an astute U.S. Customs agent in Washington state.  Here, as Tussing sees it, is the crux of the problem: “We found over time that he was able to do what he was to do because of the comparatively liberal immigration and asylum laws that exist today in Canada, which allowed him a safe haven. Which allowed him a planning area. Which allowed him an opportunity to build bombs. Which allowed him an opportunity to arrange his logistics.” He pauses. “This is not to say that Canada’s laws are wrong, but they are different from ours.”

A Government Accountablity Office report, he adds, claims that “the risk of terrorist activity is high along the northern border.” Of that 4,000-mile border between the two countries, he adds, “only 32 of those miles are categorized as what we say are acceptable levels of control.”

As what Tussing calls the “coup de grâce” to his argument for reinforcements of every sort along that border, he quotes Alan Bersin, former director of Customs and Border Protection: “In terms of the terrorist threat, it’s more commonly accepted that the most significant threat comes from the north,” not the south.

A Constitution-Free Zone