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Meryl Ann Butler
Support Opednews. Make a tax deductible donation to make OEN Strong.  Daily Headlines
Tokyo Rose was a propaganda tool the Japanese used to demoralize US armed forces during WW II.
By Martha Rosenberg
Is the Appointment of Robert Califf FDA Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco a JOKE? 
Some ask how someone who helps drug companies market their products could possibly be considered as the nation's chief watchdog over unsafe medications. It sounds like a satire in the Onion
At least four videos now exist showing police initiated murders of unarmed, non-threatening civilians who committed no crime or were suspected of a victimless crime
Our main stream media is failing us again like it did after 9-11, before the Iraq War and during the Libya no-fly zone that turned into a turkey shoot. Instead of questioning the justification for war, the media is acting as the government's propaganda agent.
Kissinger probably won't ever be tried for war crimes, at least not in the United States. But we can show -- with words and banners -- that some people remember his crimes. McCain called us "disgraceful." You know what's really disgraceful? A bunch of senators hearing a war criminal drone on about "Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy."
Saudi Arabia is under a new cloud after a jailed al-Qaeda operative implicated senior Saudi officials as collaborators with the terror group -- and the shadow could even darken the political future of Israeli Prime Netanyahu because of his odd-couple alliance with Riyadh, reports Robert Parry.
Did students and staff from the American Horse School on the Pine Ridge Reservation deserve to have beer thrown on them and suffer additional verbal abuse by a group of grown and presumably drunk men at a hockey game? Should a ten-year-old native child be expected to assimilate a threat of "go back to the reservation," because an abusive white man accused him or her of not standing during the National Anthem?
In the cause of protecting government secrets, the CIA and Justice Department made an example of ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling by convicting him of exposing a dubious covert operation without presenting clear-cut evidence that he did, a chilling message to others, notes Norman Solomon.
We need an active, independent left willing to challenge the push for smaller government. A well-managed government can revitalize the economy, even as it makes our world a better place to live. Many Americans seem to understand that instinctively. Where, then, is the movement that will make that argument?
Would you want to change places with a despised war criminal? Seriously, would you want to live as a guilty monster, unwilling to see yourself clearly even in a mirror, at the end of a career of criminal cruelty that has made you hated by millions if not billions of your fellow humans, never knowing if those who politely fawn on your excellence don't secretly despise you behind your back? Would you really like to change places
a teleconference hosted by Inter-Occupy's Sandi Fields
Conservation is often billed as people vs. nature. But a new documentary argues that cohabiting with wildlife can actually be mutually beneficial. We have got to realign our attitude to wilderness. The idea that there is nature out there and people are separate from it shouldn't be part of our modern world anymore. Nature and people are everywhere and are completely connected. There is nature out there that can be salvaged, but with us [staying] in the picture. So this film isn't about the isolated little pockets of wilderness that are left. Common ground is essential, but the question is whether we're going to do it in a harmonious way that is good for people and nature or in a battle that is not going to help anyone. The resilience of nature, given the chance, is enormous. Stories like the dramatic decline of the saiga [by 95 percent in the past ten years] are also terrifying...
The sharp difference between modern views of personality development and ancient understandings explain why so little was reported about the early lives of great figures. Today we place emphasis on personal experience to explain the shaping of behavior.In biblical times destiny or inborn traits were thought to determine who a person would become.Thus childhood experiences were ignored by biographers through much of history.
The motto of Dauphin, Manitoba, a small farming town in the middle of Canada, is "everything you deserve." What a citizen deserves, and what effects those deserts have, was a question at the heart of a 40-year-old experiment that has lately become a focal point in a debate over social welfare that's raging from Switzerland to Silicon Valley.
The brothers Koch aren't satisfied with their buckets of billions -- they need more. They want it all. And now they're targeting federal funding for bike paths, walking trails, and public transit ... because those methods of transportation do not suck up any fossil fuels.
The artistic community -- or at least a part of it -- has spoken. And they want Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for president in 2016. "Our country needs someone who will stand up for working families and take on the Wall Street banks and special interests that broke our economy," reads an open letter from Artists for Warren -- a group of musicians, actors and directors including actors Matt Bomer, Elizabeth Olsen, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Julia Stiles, Olivia Wilde; musicians DJ Spooky and Kim Gordon; and filmmaker Michael Moore.
Ansel Adams sat, fascinated, listening to Grandfather's workshops on photography. Adams, and the world of the early 20th Century saw the motion of wildflowers turning their faces to the sun, in his films. And in 1926 scientists first saw a cell dividing, a life process common to people and flowers, in Pillsbury's films.
Texas journalist Candice Bernd has made a splash with her reporting on police brutality and government transparency issues. In my interview, Bernd laments that Texas is facing a "brain drain" of committed journalists and activists. But Bernd wants to stick it out because she feels she can make a difference in the Lone Star State.
The President has intimated several legitimate reasons for vetoing the Republicans' gift to the Kochs, but now there is a damning indictment on the project courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans and the Koch brothers make no secret that next to taxes, there is no part of the federal government they despise more than the EPA, so it is a major slap in their faces that it was the agency they hate above all others that delivered the death knell of their 8 billion-dollar dream project. Americans should expect a renewed Koch Congress assault on the EPA for doing the job a Republican president created the agency for; to protect the environment and Americans' health and well-being.
Albert Woodfox garnered another victory in court this week in his quest to be freed after more than 40 years in solitary confinement. A U.S. Appeals Court on Feb. 3 denied the Louisiana AG's request for a full review of a decision by a three-judge panel, which rendered it in November, overturning Woodfox's conviction in the 1972 murder of a prison guard. Amnesty International has called for Woodfox's release. The New York Times, too, penned an editorial following recent court developments calling solitary confinement of Woodfox "barbaric beyond measure." Jasmine Heiss, with Amnesty USA, said Wednesday with another court decision in favor of Woodfox, she was "distressed to think that the authorities in Louisiana would take any more steps to keep (Woodfox) behind bars... It's time for the state of Louisiana to stop... ignoring the wisdom of the courts and standing in the way of justice."
Karen Dawisha is not the most credible source on Russia or its president. Making a documentary program with no other academic or journalistic experts on Russia, government officials or business people is short sighted. Not performing due diligence as to the dubious claims she and the handful of others on Frontline make smacks of propaganda.
The Wisconsin Idea has always been about the search for truth, at the University of Wisconsin and beyond.
On the 15th anniversary of UNSC 1325, and on the 70th anniversary of Korea's division by Cold War powers, leading global women peacemakers will walk with Korean women in North and South Korea calling for an end to the state of war and the reunification of families.
Attorney General Eric Holder responded to his irresponsible Republican critics today by firmly insisting there's been no politicization of this Justice Department. He said such an accusation is "totally inconsistent with the facts." The Bush DOJ was politicized when he got in, Holder said, but he's managed to change it.
The 2015 World Economic Forum at Davos was a gathering of 1500 executives of the world's largest corporations, 40 heads of state, and specially invited celebrities, academics and NGO representatives. The purpose of the WEF is to allow the world's plutocrats to address global problems such as the soaring inequality described in the latest Oxfam report, a dangerous situation of their own creation. Don't get your hopes up.
Economics and Politics; by Paul Krugman
"My old teacher Rudi Dornbusch -- whose presence is sorely missed in this world gone mad -- once wrote an influential analysis, with Sebastian Edwards, of what they called macroeconomic populism. This is the historical tendency of some (not all) populist governments to engage in wishful thinking, to believe that they can repeal the usual rules -- that they can indefinitely contain inflation in an overheated economy with price controls, that they can ignore limits on capacity, etc.. It's slightly tricky to talk about this problem in times like these macroeconomic populism is heterodox economics, which is not all macroeconomic populism; e,g,, capital controls have often been an ultimately destructive attempt to mask underlying reality,..
A Bad Mistake - by Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes
"The decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and House Speaker John Boehner to cook up an address to Congress by Netanyahu on why the U.S. should get tougher on Iran is churlish, reckless and, for the future of Israeli-American relations, quite dangerous.If Netanyahu wants some intelligent advice, he should listen to the counsel of his previous ambassador in Washington, the widely respected Michael Oren, who was quoted as saying that the whole gambit was creating the impression of "a cynical political move, and it could hurt our attempts to act against Iran." How offensive the whole thing is to average Americans:"a lot more Americans will not be happy -- and some will ask, "How did we get into this mess?" One of the first things they'll dig out will be Netanyahu's speech to Congress.
By Tom Engelhardt
Matthew Harwood: The Fear of Lone-Wolf Terrorism Rises The shadow of a new threat seems to be darkening the national security landscape: the lone-wolf terrorist. Latest Articles
When the game's on the line in the schoolyard, the best player on the team always got the ball. Didn't happen in the Super Bowl.
No Free Rein For Misinforming And Confusing Jurors
After the Post-Dispatch and a few other papers last month covered a Ferguson grand juror's initiating a lawsuit against the prosecutor, all media have been stone silent since then on the suit. On January 25, the National Press Club held a forum, "Coverage of Race in America," regarding media, race and justice, from Ferguson to Staten Island.  Best News Links from the Web
A gene that comes from the algae it eats has been found on the chromosome of a green sea slug, a discovery that paints a clearer picture for researchers of how the slug is able to live like a plant for long periods and get nourishment it needs from the sun. In a new study, a team The Marine Biological Laboratory used advanced imaging to spot a gene from the alga Vaucheria litorea on the chromosome of Elysia chlorotica, the emerald sea slug. The gene is key to helping the slug sustain the photosynthetic processes that feed it. "There is no way on Earth that genes from an alga should work inside an animal cell," said Pierce. "And yet here, they do. They allow the animal to rely on sunshine for its nutrition. So if something happens to their food source, they have a way of not starving to death until they find more algae to eat."
Vice President Joe Biden won't commit to attending Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint meeting of Congress next month. He's not the only one. Dozens of House Democrats are privately threatening to skip the March 3 address, according to lawmakers and aides, in what's become the lowest point of a relationship between the Israeli prime minister and President Barack Obama that's never been good. Democrats have had to balance publicly supporting Israel with backing Obama, who's trying to close a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programs over vehement opposition from Netanyahu, who has expressed concerns that the U.S. president is being naive.
Wolves in Yellowstone, Huge Results (and why nature continues to give me hope!)
When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? George Monbiot explains in this movie remix.
Rocket salvoes hit a previously safe section of Ukraine's rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing at least five people and damaging a hospital, six schools and five kindergartens, rebels said. The fighting between Russia-backed separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine escalated sharply in January, with more than 220 civilians killed in the past three weeks alone, according to the United Nations. The world body has sharply criticized both sides for indiscriminate shelling that is causing civilian deaths.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a possible 2016 presidential contender, cancelled three scheduled media appearances in the UK on Tuesday, amid a controversy over his comments on measles vaccinations. Christie cancelled two question-and-answer sessions and a press statement he was due to make after meeting UK finance minister George Osborne. "We just decided we're not going to have availability today," said Maria Comella, Christie's head of communications, after the last scheduled appearance was cancelled.
L.A. school board election politics equal gutter politics - LA Times
SEE HOW CHARTER schools WIN! Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times reports on the vile tactics that the charter lobby is using in hopes of defeating school board incumbent Bennett Kayseri in the approaching election. The issue of the moment is the unbridled proliferation of charter schools in LA. Kayseri has been a charter critic. The California Charter School Association would like to defeat Kayser and replace him with a friend of charters.CCSA and allies have been handing out a flyer smearing Kayser as an anti-Latino bigot. "."BENNETT KAYSER TRIED TO STOP LATINO CHILDREN FROM ATTENDING SCHOOLS IN WHITE NEIGHBORHOODS."That's the screaming headline on a vile, two-page missive in Spanish and English, and the flier includes a lovely photograph of five Latino children sitting forlornly on a curb, as if their world has been crushed by the cruel Caucasian... |
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