Bold and Daring: The Way Progressive News Should Be
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Born to escaped slaves, Elijah McCoy was a black American inventor whose commitment to quality, excellence and integrity gave rise, in the late 1800s, to the term, the Real McCoy. His remarkable path took him from Canada to Scotland to the U.S., directly into prejudice and out the other side. Train Wrecks, the "Real McCoy" and Black History Month
Meryl Ann Butler
  Daily Headlines
A Syriza like party may well blossom in the US as our system is dysfunctional. The US public now sees their government as controlled by the powerful, with the public having no representation at all. Citizens are ready to reject that dysfunctional system and they might just get the chance.
Remember when Goldman Sachs -- dubbed by Matt Taibbi the Vampire Squid-- sold derivatives to Greece so the government could conceal its debt, then bet against that debt, driving it up? It seems that the ubiquitous investment bank has also put the squeeze on California and its school districts.
For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity. One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun's energy can largely explain recent global warming. He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming. But newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon's work has been tied to funding he received from corporate interests. He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict...
The Rich Hide an Estimated 21 Trillion in Offshore Accounts; by James Henry
James Henry the author of Pirate Bankers says Swiss Banks: HSBC, Credit Suisse, UBS are among those who facilitate offshore accounts and buy millions of dollars worth of influence in Washington. Henry says,"Ordinary citizens need to understand just how much their own tax bills are being inflated by this unacceptable behavior by corporations and wealthy individuals, who just happened to have big bankers as their friends. So, the first stage of this is education. Citizens have to get involved in this. We're in a period here which is very much like the Gilded Age of the 1890s, when wealth inequality was soaring, when both political parties are inundated with corporate money. And we need to have a kind of progressive movement that revives the demand for transparency in government and for cleaning up this kind of really unacceptable behavior ...
By Bruce K. Gagnon
Pushing for War with Russia in the Senate The US does not give a damn about the people of Ukraine. Instead the US-NATO are acting as military agents of corporate capital who want control of Ukraine for the following reasons:
As the Ukraine crisis worsens, Official Washington fumes only about "Russian aggression" -- much as a half century ago, the Tonkin Gulf talk was all about "North Vietnamese aggression." But then and now there were other sides to the story -- and questions that Congress needed to ask, writes Robert Parry.
President Obama has been reduced to asking Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for permission to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, recognizing Netanyahu's power over the U.S. Congress. But Netanyahu's determination to block any deal has left Obama traversing a difficult negotiating path, writes Gareth Porter.
President Obama avoids the religious craziness and insists on calling ISIS a "death cult." He's right, and Sigmund Freud would have understood what he means. Troubled by the carnage of WWI, Freud developed his idea of the life and death impulses that can take over societies. The point is, more death and destruction cannot solve this problem; only a devotion to life can do that.
We're for "freedom" -- except when it comes to spying on Americans, who must be watched by Big Brother government 24/7. So we must have "liberty diplomacy," as Jeb puts it, around the world, but liberty at home -- forget it, brother! Jeb Bush, despite his last name and all the money he's raising, is not ready for prime time, especially when it comes to foreign policy.
A significant development in the ongoing rift between the Obama administration and Israel's government: it appears White House plans to snub AIPAC's upcoming policy conference are intensifying over Binyamin Netanyahu's March 3 address before Congress.
BLOOMBERG GAME CHANGERS profiles Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, now Jon Stewart, from his New Jersey boyhood through the standard struggle of the stand-up comedian - part time jobs and late night gigs at New York's comedy clubs. It will shine a spotlight on his early television shows and movies, including rare video from his early career, to show his transformation into the dominant American commentator of our time.
Buenos Aires was neither a "war zone" nor a "combat situation" after Argentina surrendered to Britain in the Falklands War, says one of Bill O'Reilly's former colleagues at CBS who was with him in the capital at the time.
What are the SAR levels for Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus?
It is, of course, more than tempting to dismiss this Hindu holy man and his claims as the stuff of absolute nonsense.
The readings for this first Sunday of Lent highlight the pope's concern for the environment. They call us to become visionaries like him -- and especially like the young prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, as depicted in today's gospel.
Born to escaped slaves, Elijah McCoy was a black American inventer whose committment to quality, excellence and integrity gave rise, in the late 1800s, to the term, the Real McCoy. His remarkable path took him from Canada to Scotland to the U.S., directly into prejudice and out the other side.
This article puts well the problem with the mainstreaming of a story that purports to present a BDSM lifestyle, without the context BDSM practitioners report. That context ensures consent and safety, which critics and defenders of Fifty Shades agree is ambiguous at best, in the trilogy & movie. The problem is not that FIfty Shades is sexually immoral. It's that it sends a confusing message to the general public about the line between wish and fantasy. And that has implications for violence against women.
By Daniel Geery
New Story of Earth (still awaiting human response) These quotations are from Charles Eisenstein's Ascent of Humanity. It is an eye-opening series of thoughts from a handful of privileged humans, aka astronauts, who got to look at our home from afar, quite literally "Spaceship Earth," as Bucky Fuller noted long ago.
Wisconsin Republicans have called a special session to take up a "right to work" measure attacking private sector unions--and the text of the bill, the Center for Media and Democracy has discovered, is taken word-for-word from American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation.
Every society and culture throughout recorded history has had its share of extremist and fanatics in their midst, but few have suffered them as their leaders. Any people that have to live under extremists warrant sympathy because in places like Afghanistan, Yeomen, Iraq and Syria the people had little choice in selecting who governed or brutalized them. America has more than its share of extremists and fanatics, and they are gaining positions of authority in government; particularly red state governments. However, one can hardly feel empathy for the people living under Republican extremists because unlike people suffering under fanatics in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and ISIS-controlled Iraq; red state extremists are chosen by incredibly stupid Americans to govern.
Identifies the central support for those who would create inequality for their own purposes.
Americans who have lived longer than 30 years are likely aware that fascist Republicans and their corporate money machine have had enormous success whittling away at the idea that America is a representative democracy despite counsel from a Founding Father on how best to preserve the nation. Thomas Jefferson knew, and said, that "an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." However, because Republicans depend on "the widespread ignorance of objective reality," their fascist threat to democracy is only succeeding due to the abundance of ignorance and gross stupidity of America's uneducated citizenry. Subsequently, Republicans are building on their success and slashing education funding at a record pace to produce an entire population of stupid conservative voters.
James Madison wrote, in Federalist 49, that "the people" should have a "road" to use in making decisions during "great and extraordinary" situations. Two days before the 1787 convention ended, he suggested such a "road." This article comments on our present great and extraordinary situation. Then it discusses the "road" Madison left us to use in dealing with such situations.
Jeb Bush is "heir to George Bush's economic record and Mitt Romney's corporate record." Chris Christie's leadership style is "dysfunctional" and "incompetent." And that's just two of the potential Republican candidates, as described by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She regaled the DNC's winter meeting Saturday with her rundown.
President Barack Obama on Saturday began a broad sales pitch to the U.S. public about the merits of free trade deals, an area in which he faces stiff resistance from many in his own Democratic party. Obama has said he wants to work with Congressional Republicans to finalize the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, an agreement that would stretch from Japan to Chile, covering 40 percent of the world economy. Obama said fast track authority would protect workers and promote businesses, and said exporting companies pay higher wages.
The United States and its European allies are in talks about harsher sanctions against Moscow, while U.S. President Barack Obama will evaluate next steps in dealing with the conflict in eastern Ukraine in coming days, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday. Kerry was speaking after meetings with his British counterpart Philip Hammond in London. He said among options being considered by Obama was whether to arm Ukrainian forces and to impose deeper sanctions against the Kremlin for breaches of a Feb. 12 European-brokered truce.
Republicans predicted that Obama's policies would increase the deficit. Wrong. Republicans predicted that the president's policies would prevent the economy from growing. That one was really really wrong. Mitch McConnell deserves to be mocked for trying to take credit for the growth of an economy that he had spent the first six years of the Obama presidency trying to destroy. All of the credit should go to the American people and President Obama for digging the country out of the hole that Republicans caused.
Bigger Than Science & Religion: The Most Important Story Ever Told
[Note: The headline was mine. If you disagree, I'd like to be steered to a more important story DG] The world as we know it is slipping away. At the current rate of destruction, tropical rainforest could be gone within as little as 40 years. The seas are being overfished to the point of exhaustion, and coral reefs are dying from ocean acidification. Biologists say that we are currently at the start of the largest mass extinction event since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. As greenhouse gases increasingly accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures are likely to rise faster than our current ecological and agricultural systems can adapt.
By Sherwood Ross
Chomsky: Leaders Ignore Einstein-Russell Warning The recklessness of the Obama administration, like those that came before it, is nowhere better illustrated than in the continuing enhancement of its nuclear weapons arsenal. Instead of shutting down this miserable and dangerous nuclear establishment, President Obama has authorized a trillion dollar modernization operation, one of the greatest transfers of wealth of all times from taxpayers to the MIC.
A review of Jonathan Simon's magisterial "Code Red" Computerized Election Theft and the New American Century," post-E2014 edition."
Latest Articles
Sony Back on the Racial Hot Seat
Amy Pascal chairperson of the Motion Pictures Group of Sony Pictures Entertainment is gone. Film producer Scott Rudin apologized profusely and has kept a deliberate low to no public profile public. Both took much deserved heat last December when a stack of hacked leaked emails caught them taking silly and ugly racial digs, barbs, and shots at a parade of noted blacks within and without Hollywood.  Best News Links from the Web
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hired a well-known lawyer described in the Israeli press as a "specialist in white-collar crime" to represent him and his wife if they face criminal corruption charges. Jacob Weinroth is considered to be one of the country's top defense attorneys. The potential prosecution stems from a report published Tuesday by Israel's state comptroller, accusing the Netanyahus of spending public funds in a way that "strayed from the cornerstone principles of financial management and the principles of proportionality, reasonableness, saving, and efficiency."
Euro zone finance ministers agreed in principle on Friday to extend Greece's financial rescue by four months, averting a potential cash crunch in March that could have forced the country out of the currency area. The deal, to be ratified once Greece's creditors are satisfied with a list of reforms it will submit next week, ends weeks of uncertainty since the election of a leftist-led government in Athens which pledged to reverse austerity.
Ohio: Who Testifies About Charter Reform; by Diane Ravitch
OHIO: "Testimony from public school advocates is sorely needed. After newspaper revelations, the legislature recognized the public demand for charter accountability. At hearings, 18 people testified. 17 are charter advocates. "It is no secret that charter owners are major campaign contributors to Governor John Kasich and the Republican legislature. At hearings, 18 people testified. 17 are charter advocates. Here is an account from Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy. Ohio is known nationwide for its Wild, Wild West charter school policies. After nearly fifteen years of a failed experiment in the charter school industry, at long last, a bill (HB 2) has been introduced to curb some of the abuses. So far in the HB 2 hearings before the House Education Committee, it is obvious that the charter school advocates are driving the testimony train."...
The media so far is not giving O'Reilly the Brian Williams treatment. The same people who fell repeatedly for James O'Keefe's edited videos are not biting at a searing expose by the King of Actual Video (Corn is the person who published the Mitt Romney 47% tape). Corn has a history of being careful and accurate. O'Reilly does not. Discernment is worth something and should be employed. Not all left leaning journalists are careful and accurate. But Corn is. Fox News has long benefited from special treatment by the mainstream media due to its long arm of power. They're in the club. The real club. The big, corporate, global club. This is why when the Obama White House scoffed that Fox News was not news, the media were outraged and circled the wagons around the cable network that had sued for the right to lie and call it news.
With tension already high over Netanyahu's plans to castigate the U.S. policy on Iran in a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 3, White House and State Department officials publicly complained that Israeli officials had disclosed sensitive details from private U.S. briefings to publicly attack the American negotiating position. Analysts said the administration's rare public denunciation of Israel may have an important secondary goal of deterring Israeli officials from disclosing further details that could sink the talks before the June 30 deadline. It's unclear how much damage the rift will do to the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
Got a SIMs card? Here's what you also have...
Explosive new reporting by The Intercept published Thursday, based on documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals how the U.S. spy agency and their British counterpart, the GCHQ, worked together in order to hack into the computer systems of the world's largest manufacturer of cell phone SIM cards -- giving government spies access to highly-guarded encryption codes and unparalleled abilities to monitor the global communications of those with phones using the cards.
Speak out! Go directly to jail, do not pass go... CIA whistleblower story
Out of prison and living at home under house arrest for the remainder of a suspended prison sentence, former CIA operative John Kiriakou, convicted and sent to jail for blowing the whistle on agency torture under the Bush administration, has been speaking to major medi outlets this week about the brutal tactics and depraved abuse administered by the U.S. government in the name fighting terrorism as well as his prosecution and conviction under the Espionage Act for speaking out against such crimes.
"In November 2013, Jeb Bush took to the rostrum at New York's Marriott Marquis for the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, alongside such industry stars as Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein and Blackrock's Larry Fink. Bush's remarks, and his chatting afterwards, left many attendees convinced he was preparing to run for president. Word of Bush's interest ricocheted around the political world. But Bush, a private citizen for eight years since leaving the Florida governor's mansion, had no real infrastructure to handle such an endeavor. And as the third member of a storied political family to seek the presidency, just five years after his brother left office with near record-low approval ratings, he had no clear message or answer to the inevitable questions about why he was the right man for 2016."
Pacific Ocean Dying
Scientists say the strandings were reported from Newport, Ore., to McKinleyville in northern Humboldt County in mid-June, making it the geographically largest krill die-off on record. An examination of 10 krill found all were female and most carried sperm packets, suggesting they may have perished just after mating, Tyburczy said. |
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