March 2012
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“Emails from Fred Burton reveal that the US Government employs the same...”
– William Shaub | WikiLeaks: U.S Issued Extradition Request for Assange
Link to the email: (1067796)
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HRW | No Justice in Bahrain →
This report documents serious due process violations in high-profile trials before Bahrain’s special military courts in 2011 – including one trial of 21 prominent political activists and another of 20 doctors and other medical personnel – and in politically motivated trials before ordinary criminal courts since 2010. Serious abuses included denying defendants the right to counsel and to ...
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In search of the 'Islamic menace' in Bolivia |... →
“The possibility of a bomb in La Paz was raised in December 2011 by [US Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana] Ros-Lehtinen, co-star of a non-factual documentary entitled “La amenaza iraní” (“The Iranian Threat”), in which she insinuates that the US should attack Iran in order to avert bomb explosions in various Latin American capitals. The film was released by Univision, the prominent US...
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François Hollande and the conservative critique of... →
The problem with [Hollande’s] moralizing approach to capitalism was put succinctly in a comment to The Current Moment: an ethical critique of capitalism leaves the system itself untouched and in fact only goes to legitimize the status quo further. It does this by attacking the present for being dominated by a materialistic, vulgar and anti-egalitarian culture, encapsulated in the figure of...
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“The federal minimum wage of $7.25, adjusted for inflation, is $2.75 lower than...”
– Chris Hedges (via azspot)
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“It’s not just the president who would be spared from protesters, either. Covered...”
– Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal | RT
The Bill, as passed, is here.
February 2012
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Gen. McCaffrey privately briefs NBC execs on war... →
In 2009, The New York Times‘ David Barstow won the Pulitzer Prize for his two-part series on the use by television networks of retired Generals posing as objective “analysts” at exactly the same time they were participating — unbeknownst to viewers — in a Pentagon propaganda program. Many were also plagued by undisclosed conflicts of interest whereby they had financial stakes in many of the...
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“Among the more shocking events in the wake of the Koran burnings was the...”
– Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse
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What the Quran burnings tell us | Stephen M. Walt →
Suppose the town or city where you live had a bunch of heavily-armed foreign soldiers living nearby. As part of their normal duties, they sent patrols down your street with some frequency, bristling with guns and other instruments of war. Imagine that these soldiers were from a very different culture and nearly all of them did not speak your native language, although they could occasionally use...
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“The growing support for the OWS movement has expanded the protests’ impact and...”
– From a report on the Occupy movement by the Department of Homeland Security, released by Wikileaks. For more on this, read Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone. (via bostonreview)
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10 Coal-Fired Power Plants Shuttered | Mother... →
Christmas came on Leap Day for anti-coal activists. On Wednesday, two Midwestern utilities announced the closure of a total of ten aging coal plants, including two intercity Chicago plants that have long been a focal point for environmental groups.
Midwest Generation announced that it will close Chicago’s Fisk Power Plant in 2012 and the Crawford Plant in 2014. Local and national ...
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This is H.R. 347 - the just passed bill that makes... →
Feel free to skim or peruse the text and make your own judgements on what this might mean for protests at conventions this year as well as for Occupy in the months ahead. - TAB
H.R.347
One Hundred Twelfth Congress of the United States of America AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, the third day of January, two thousand and twelve
An Act
To correct and...
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wordsfromtheleft:
“I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your...
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U.S. House Votes to Make Protests Illegal →
reading the bill now.
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Big 4 labels to Canadian Parliament: we want to be... →
Michael Geist sez, “The Canadian music industry is scheduled to appear before a Parliamentary committee today with some of the most radical demands to date that would effectively create liability for social networking sites, search engines, blogging platforms, and video sites such as Google, Facebook and Reddit. As if that were not enough, the industry is also calling for a new iPod...
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“One might expect to read some hand-wringing over public safety concerns in a...”
– Allison Kilkenny | Wikileaks Exposes DHS Spying on Occupy Movement
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circlingtheroundabout:
Militants and civilians killed in multiple US Somalia strikes | Bureau of Investigative Journalism
As many as 21 US military strikes in Somalia since 2007 have killed up to 169 people, new research by the Bureau indicates. Of those killed, between 11 and 59 people are reported to be civilians.
US military intervention in war-torn Somalia is shown to be on a far lower...
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Barack Obama Waives Rule Allowing Indefinite... →
Not out, not banned, not unconstitutional - just “waived”. I promise not to abuse this power…
WASHINGTON — The White House released rules Tuesday evening waiving the most controversial piece of the new military detention law, and exempting U.S. citizens, as well as other broad categories of suspected terrorists.
Indefinite military detention of Americans and others was granted...
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Scott Walker's New Defense: Recalling Me Hurts... →
motherjones:
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday morning, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker trotted out a new talking point as he defends himself from a well-organized recall campaign hoping to oust him from office. In a nutshell, Walker said: Think of the children! Think of the seniors!
How ironic. In his first budget, Walker slashed public education funding by $800 million to $900 million. Walker and...
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“[Not] in Iraq, nor during the Vietnam War, nor the Korean conflict, nor even...”
– Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse | The End in Afghanistan?
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Wyoming narrowly defeats measure to prepare for... →
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The End in Afghanistan? | Tom Engelhardt and Nick... →
An essential read from two of my favorite voices:
Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting — and the killing? Are the exits finally coming into view?
Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see the landscape ahead with startling clarity. In Afghanistan, Washington may be reaching that moment in a state of panic, horror, and confusion. Even as an...
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Understanding Economic Suicide | Robin Hahnel →
“The nest they are fouling is still our nest, but no longer theirs.”
Thanks to three decades of corporate sponsored globalization – supported by both center right and center left parties — giant corporations are now free to (1) locate production wherever wages, labor standards, environmental standards, and corporate taxes are lowest, (2) sell products produced elsewhere in the high...
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“The pro-choice movement opposes forced ultrasounds because they override the...”
– The ultrasound fallacy (via iamdrtiller)
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On Beltway Disdain for WikiLeaks and Downplaying...
From Michael Hastings (writing at Rolling Stone):
Predictably, it’s not just intel and government officials (both current and former) that have displayed their distaste for Assange. After WikiLeaks announced on Sunday that they would begin publishing the Stratfor emails, the derision rained down from the usual suspects in the Beltway media. A typical response: one editor at The Atlantic called...
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“Unfolding events have visibly overwhelmed and even intimidated the Americans in...”
– The End in Afghanistan? | Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse
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WikiLeaks Stratfor Emails: A Secret Indictment... →
On January 26, 2011, Fred Burton, the vice president of Stratfor, a leading private intelligence firm which bills itself as a kind of shadow CIA, sent an excited email to his colleagues. “Text Not for Pub,” he wrote. “We” – meaning the U.S. government – “have a sealed indictment on Assange. Pls protect.”
The news, if true, was a bombshell. At the time, the Justice Department was ramping up its...
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“[That] is basically the story of the general civil liberties assault and the...”
– Glenn Greenwald
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President Of Ireland’s Epic Smack Down Of Tea... →
toyotabedzrock:
The new President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins – a noted intellectual, having written two volumes of poetry — unleashed his wrath on talk show host Tea Party mouthpiece Michael Graham.
Higgins admits to some differences with President Obama, but not concerning health care, stating it’s a basic human need.
After calling Tea Partiers warmongers, ‘whipping up fear’ and...
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US Vows No Change of Course in Afghanistan Despite... →
Whitehouse Press sec., Jay Carney:
[It] is important to remember that 95 to 97 percent of the missions the U.S. forces embark on in Afghanistan, they do so with their Afghan partners. We’re talking about thousands and thousands of operations that proceed successfully with Afghan partners without anything like this happening.
These are isolated incidents — which does not, of course, mean they...
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On Education, Santorum Flunks History →
In recent remarks, Santorum praises home schooling, claiming that with the rise of factories, Americans had to go to formal schools that were like factories. Public school is an anachronism, he says. But formal schooling is about as American a virtue as there is. Has Santorum read any American history?
In selling federal land to farmers, Thomas Jefferson and others insisted that some be set...
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“Thatcher and Reagan launched the neoliberal counter revolution against...”
– Understanding Economic Suicide
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“Anonymous can get the goods for WikiLeaks because, cloaked by anonymity, it is...”
– WikiLeaks 2.0: How Julian Assange’s Partnership with Anonymous Could Change the Landscape of Hacktivism (via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
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Supreme Court won’t hear NOM disclosure case →
The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday it won’t hear a case brought by the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage challenging a Maine law requiring the organization to reveal its donors.
The high court posted a notice on its website indicating it wouldn’t hear the case, known as National Organization for Marriage v. McKee, without providing comment. The decision means NOM no longer...
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“It’s true that Romney and Santorum are more radically right-wing than George W....”
– Conor Friedersdorf (via azspot) 