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  Daily Headlines
What is the Federal Reserve? Public or private institution or some hybrid?
Neoconservatives, especially Paul Wolfowitz, are responsible for the George W. Bush regime's invasion of Iraq. The neoconservatives are responsible for the overthrow and murder of Gaddafi in Libya, the assault on Syria, the propaganda against Iran, the drone attacks on Pakistan and Yemen, the attempted "Green Revolution" in Iran, the coup in Ukraine, and the demonization of Vladimir Putin.
With great power comes great responsibility. Like, in Liz Warren's case, the responsibility to use her enormous political leverage to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As in, say, making Hillary Clinton's denouncing the TPP the price of her continuing support. Though largely humorous, this article is dead serious in its plea for readers to contact Warren and pressure her to "exact TPP tribute" from Clinton.
As a secular Jew, I don't do much praying. But this week, as the powerful pro-Israeli government lobby AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) holds its annual policy meeting in Washington DC, I'm praying that this year marks the beginning of the end of the lobby's grip on US foreign policy.
By David Swanson
Skipping The Speech for All the Wrong Reasons Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to hear that Congress members will skip Netanyahu's speech no matter what reason they offer. Here are some of them:
By carol wolman, MD
Fukushima Daiichi 2-27-15 Leaks, lies and dieoffs As new leaks are discovered and/or disclosed at Fukushima Daiichi, the government continues to deny the problems, push for reactors to reopen, push for dumping more contaminated water into the Pacific, even asking that funds be diverted from the cleanup to preparations for the 2020 Olympics! Meanwhile, dead birds and dying sea mammals flood the West Coast. Please sign the petitions in the article!
The foundation of the United States isn't some guy caricatured in fortune cookies but the Constitution, and now that it's used to wipe the asses of the president and all members of congress several times a day, each day, what's left of this country, really? Just about nothing is right, but with so much vehement hatred between liberals and conservatives, there is little hope of forming a coalition to challenge our common enemy.
Prior to the U.S. intelligence community's 2007 assessment that Iran was not working on a nuclear weapons program, there was a scramble among U.S. and Israeli officials to show that it was. The CIA's Operation Merlin also revealed that U.S. officials were not above planting false evidence, writes Norman Solomon.
Bernie pointed out that we have been winning on issue after issue. We need to give ourselves more credit. We elected and re-elected a black man, and there are now more and more women in Congress. Conservative states are allowing gay marriage. It's on the economic front that we are losing. Bernie believes that if we can stand together, we can defeat the billionaire class.
By Dave Lindorff
Republicans and Many Democrats are on the attack: If We're Going to Defend Social Security We Need to Understand It 
Republicans and some treacherous Democrats are attacking Social Security again, this time in a last-gasp effort to wreck the New Deal Program, writes TCBH! journalist Dave Lindorff, who notes that even its defenders and users don't really understand it -- but must.
By William T. Hathaway
Meeting Lila The story of an eight-year-old girl who sparks a world revolution for social justice.
Hours after the news broke that Brian Williams had misrepresented his account of a helicopter trip in Iraq, he issued an on-air apology. NBC News started an investigation, and within days had suspended Mr. Williams, calling his actions "wrong and completely inappropriate."
By Corp Watch
CorpWatch : U.S. Government Buys Surveillance Technology To Track Drivers in Real Time Local government officials have the ability to track individual drivers in the U.S. in real time and take pictures of the occupants of their vehicles, with new "truly Orwellian" technology purchased from companies like Vigilant Solutions, according to new documents uncovered by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
By David Swanson
The True Nobel Candidates for the true Nobel Peace Prize 2015 Check out this list of actually qualified nominees.
Spotlight on Wholeness focuses on the verb meaning of religion, "to connect" while highlighting the work of Central Maine's Yoga Teacher: Tisha Bremner
It seems like I was just listening, singing, and playing all the time. But I was the typical busy kid with plenty of other activities that took attention from music. [There] was the time my parents tried to convince me to go see "a great young bluegrass fiddle player" at my high school auditorium. I was 14 and said "No thanks." Later, I realized that had been an Alison Krauss concert! I just wasn't into bluegrass at the time.
The mysterious function of eyelashes has been revealed at last -- thanks to science. After measuring the dimensions of nearly two dozen mammal eyes, performing a series of wind tunnel experiments and engaging in some complex fluid dynamic modeling, researchers determined that most mammal eyelashes are one-third the length of their eyes -- just the right length to minimize the flow of air over the eyeball. This reduction of airflow is important because less moving air across the eye keeps evaporation at bay and stops irritating dust from getting deposited on the eye surface, the scientists report in a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. "All mammals have wet eyes, and airflow is the enemy of that," said Guillermo Amador, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the first author on the paper.
If a person possesses the quality of being honest with strong moral principles or "moral uprightness" they are regarded as having integrity. In American politics, particularly Republican politics, integrity is not only in short supply, it is by all estimations non-existent. Between the preponderance of outright lies and deliberate deception, the hallmark of Republican politics, it is little wonder America's electoral process lacks integrity; particularly in states controlled by Republicans. In fact, despite being a so-called free democratic society with specific constitutional amendments guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote, Democrats have officially endorsed yet another constitutional amendment establishing the right to vote.
The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes. Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using "all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers" and preserve the Internet's role as a "core of free expression and democratic principles." The new rules, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the Internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for Internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept. Explaining the reason for the regulation, Mr. Wheeler, a Democrat, said that Internet access was "too important to let broadband providers be the ones making the rules."
It is now blatantly obvious that GMOs are nothing more than patented Pesticide Delivery Systems (PDS) designed to increase sales of poisonous agrochemicals such as Roundup, glufosinate, Bt, 2,4 D and neonicotinoids. To claim that GMOs are perfectly safe is equivalent to saying that pesticides, herbicides and fungicides--systemically laced at ever-higher levels into GMO-tainted human food and animal feed--are perfectly safe.
By Glenn Greenwald
Why Does The FBI Have To Manufacture Its Own Plots If Terrorism And ISIS Are Such Grave Threats? 
The agency's latest counter-terrorism triumph: the arrest of three Brooklyn men, ages 19 to 30, on charges of conspiring to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS. We should all pause for a moment to thank the brave men and women of the FBI for saving us from their own terror plots.
A "Cow Palace" in Washington State threatens public health with its acres of untreated animal waste. A city in Iowa spends nearly $1 million a year to keep illness-causing nitrates, generated by farm runoff, out of public drinking water. And who can forget the plight of Toledo, Ohio, residents whose water last summer was so contaminated by farm runoff that they couldn't even bathe in it, much less drink it?
By Kevin Gosztola
Pentagon Inspector General Ignored & Rejected NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake's Claims of Retaliation 
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake has learned that the Pentagon Inspector General's Office has rejected his whistleblower retaliation complaint, which he
By Daily Kos
What happens when you tax the rich and raise the minimum wage? Meet one of USA's best economies 
When Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton took office in 2011, Minnesota had more than a $6 billion dollar deficit and an unemployment rate of 7%. Today, Minnesota's unemployment rate isnow below 4% and they have a budget surplus of over $1.2 billion dollars. How did Mark Dayton do this?
A leaked report has undermined Binyamin Netanyahu's claims on Iran's nuclear capability. If the Israeli prime minister keeps going, he will destroy more than his own credibility, says Jonathan Cook.
By Bob Burnett
Good Obama, Bad Obama During the last two years of a President's second term pundits begin discussing his "legacy." How will historians judge Barack Obama? Conservatives believe he will be loathed. Liberals tend to be more generous, however many of us believe Obama will be remembered as a mixed bag, a mixture of good and bad policies. Latest Articles
Did Berkeley Just Save Us From Drones or Target Us With Drones?
Robert L. Meola has been working for years now to get Berkeley to catch up with other localities and claim its usual spot at the forefront of movements to pass good resolutions on major issues. Now Berkeley has acted and Meola says "This is NOT what I/we asked for."  Best News Links from the Web
After nonsensical comments on Net Neutrality, conservatives rage against Ted Cruz
After Ted Cruz sent out the tweet above, [in the article] he got some surprisingly vicious comments--from conservatives. A sample of the feedback left on his Facebook page from self-identifying Republicans. Follow me below the fold for all the enjoyable wingnut outrage. Ed Piper: As a Republican who works in the tech industry I can say that this statement shows you either have no idea what you are talking about or you are bought and paid for by the American Cable monopoly. This is amazingly an stupid statement and is disheartening.
Food Waste Grows With the Middle Class - NYTimes editorial board
BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS:Unfortunately, most of the uneaten food goes to landfills where it decomposes and produces the dangerous greenhouse gas methane at a volume that amounts to an estimated 7 percent of the total emissions contributing to the global warming threat. This puts food waste by ordinary humans in third place in methane emissions behind the busy economies of China and the United States, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. These stark facts have been laid out in a new report from the Waste and Resources Action Program, or WRAP, a British antiwaste organization. The organization warns that the problem is getting worse because the global middle class is, fortunately enough, expanding. According to the report, by 2030, consumer food waste will cost an estimated $600 billion a year -- a 50 percent increase from current costs -- unless there is a wide effort to change the trend.... MORE...
The Government Loan Program With a 116 Percent Default Rate - Michael Grunwald - POLITICO Magazine
If you're curious just what kind of risks the US government is taking with its $3.3 trillion in loan programs -- a portfolio considerably larger and significantly stranger than any private bank's -- the best place to start is the Federal Credit Supplement, an obscure batch of tablesan obscure batch of tables stashed in the back of the annual White House budget proposal. When it was released earlier this month, the 95-page supplement revealed a wealth of data about the growing costs of federal credit programs, which deal with everything from historically black colleges to boll weevil eradication to Pacific ground fishermen. But the weirdest number lurking in this year's credit supplement was in Table 3, where the White House budget office explains the assumptions behind its cost estimates for various loan programs. What caught my eye was the default rate for an Agriculture Department program called Broadband Treasury Rate Loans: 116.37 percent.! more....
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will not attend this year's policy conference of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which begins on Sunday. The Associated Press reports that the Obama administration will instead send National Security Adviser Susan Rice and United Nations Representative Samantha Power. The decision comes in advance of Tuesday's speech to a joint session of Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The AP reports that dispatching Rice and Power to AIPAC could be seen as a muted response from a White House irked by Netanyahu's appearance; officials had previously floated the idea of sending only sub-cabinet representatives to address the gathering of Israel supporters.
John Boehner on Thursday challenged an assertion by the Obama administration that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming speech to Congress about Iran's nuclear program would be destructive to U.S.-Israeli relations. "The president's national security adviser says it's destructive for the prime minister of Israel to address the United States Congress. I couldn't disagree more," Boehner said at his weekly news conference. Secretary of State John Kerry met behind closed doors with Senate Democrats on Thursday. Lawmakers said he was not overly optimistic about the Iran negotiations but he opposed new sanctions and a proposal to have Congress vote on any nuclear agreement.
Congressional leaders scrambled on Thursday to figure out how to avert a partial shutdown of the U.S. domestic security agency, with some Republican lawmakers suggesting a stop-gap funding bill to buy time. As the clock ticked toward a midnight Friday deadline for funding the Department of Homeland Security, the Senate was trying to move toward passing a "clean" funding bill that would exclude contentious immigration restrictions. But House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, facing resistance from a fractious caucus of conservatives, offered no hint about whether he would permit a House vote on such a bill.
Lots of people give food to the birds in their garden and get nothing in return - but when one girl feeds the crows outside her house, they show their affection with tiny presents. Eight-year-old Gabi Mann sets a bead storage container on the dining room table, and clicks the lid open. This is her most precious collection. There's a miniature silver ball, a black button, a blue paper clip, a yellow bead, a faded black piece of foam, a blue Lego piece, and the list goes on. Many of them are scuffed and dirty. It is an odd assortment of objects for a little girl to treasure, but to Gabi these things are more valuable than gold. But Gabi's photographer mom may have gotten the best gift of all!
Spelling more trouble for organized labor in the U.S., Republican legislators in the Wisconsin state Senate approved a right-to-work bill here on Wednesday, sending the measure to a GOP-controlled Assembly where it's also expected to pass. Republican leaders chose to fast-track the bill in what's known as an extraordinary legislative session, allowing for less debate than usual. Union membership in Wisconsin has dropped sharply since Act 10 rendered most public-sector unions unable to bargain; the state's overall rate of union membership fell by more than half a point last year alone, likely driven by more public-sector workers dropping out of their unions.
A national poll of Republican primary voters conducted by Public Policy Polling finds that 57 percent of these voters support "establishing Christianity as the national religion." The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Only 30 percent of Republican voters believe that Congress should not make a law respecting an establishment of religion, according to the poll.
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