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US Preparing for Military Aggression on Venezuela
Venezuelan people say: "Internal partition of Venezuelan opposition made Obama assume its role personally in Venezuela". Observers: "This could be prelude for a larger blockade of Venezuela". Maduro requests Enabling Law to defend sovereignty and orders military exercises to check country's DEFENSIVE capacity in case of an invasion in response to Obama's Executive Order to declare Venezuela a threat to the National Security of the US. "They give Cuba the carrot and show the stick to Venezuela" - sentenced Maduro. Diosdado Cabello denounced recently that intelligence information in possession of the Bolivarian Government shows that the US have a plan to overthrow Maduro before the Summit of Americas in April. Sure thing, Obama lost the unique chance to show up on the Summit with a presentable face in front of Latin America.
Chicago's mayoral election may look like a local event, and the media mostly cover it as a local event, but the presence of a large, diverse, and energized opposition demanding change on basic issues of fairness and justice gives the city's local result a potentially important, totemic meaning for the country. The winner of the April 7 runoff election may signify whether peaceful change is possible, or whether the suffocatin
By Joel Joseph
Proposed Agreements with Iran and Trans Pacific Partnership are Treaties that Require Two-Third's Senate Approval President Obama's proposed agreements with Iran and Trans Pacific Partnership are Treaties under the Constitution. As such they require two-thirds Senate approval.
For years there have been allegations that the American Psychological Association colluded with the Bush Administration to support the use of psychologists in abusive detention and interrogation operations. The APA's standard response has followed the CIA's unofficial motto: "Admit nothing. Deny everything. Make counter-accusations." But now an investigation is finally underway.
if politicians want to lead, they need to stop new fossil fuel development now. A piece of paper explaining what should happen 20 years from now is easier for them to sell, but atmospheric chemistry is unimpressed. Hilary Clinton, to name one example, says the right things about the dangers of climate change, but she's backed Keystone from the start -- a pointless combination.
Europe's security requirements cannot be met by a belligerent, warmongering US-controlled entity that acts solely in Washington's interests. At present, NATO gets 75% of its funding from the US, which is why the alliance is less interested in peacemaking and security than it is in internationalizing its imperial war of aggression across the planet.
We can have democracy and a prosperous, just, and sustainable human future. Or we can have corporate rule. We cannot have both.
By Common Dreams
International Peacemakers Announce Women's Walk for Peace and Reunification of Korea 
During the 59th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting, leading global women peacemakers will announce plans for a women's peace walk calling for an end to the Korean War, which is technically unresolved without a peace treaty. Gloria Steinem, Abigail Disney, Ann Wright, Suzy Kim, Keum-ok Kim, Hyun-Kyung Chung and Christine Ahn will speak.
Where does Obama get off labeling Venezula a 'national security threat'? asks TCBH! journalist Dave Lindorff. Has Venezuela been subverting or threatening to attack the US? No! But has the US been subverting Venezuela? You bet!
Vice President Joe Biden is furious.
Implicit bias is evident across academic departments, including in the sciences, where one might be tempted to believe that applications are more likely to be evaluated objectively.
All capitals strive to be showcases, sure, but very few, or perhaps none, is as successful at blocking out its nation's true ugliness and failures. This sleight of hand, though, also works on many of the residents of this near perfect square inside a near perfect circle. The hell they've created keeps seeping in, however, and soon enough, it will overwhelm, if not explode, this Potemkin village of a city.
Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools; by Valerie Strauss; The Washington Post
What the research on Charter Schools really shows.
An 18-month-old in Utah appears to be improving steadily after miraculously surviving a car crash that killed her mother and left the car turned on its side and floating in a river for some 14 hours before being discovered on Saturday. The rescuers said they heard a woman's voice crying out for help, but when they reached the car, the mother, Lynn Jennifer Groesbeck, was dead and the child was unconscious.
The United States on Monday declared Venezuela a national security threat and ordered sanctions against seven officials from the oil-rich country in the worst bilateral diplomatic dispute since socialist President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013. President Obama issued and signed the executive order, which senior administration officials said did not target Venezuela's energy sector or broader economy. But the move stokes tensions between Washington and Caracas just as U.S. relations with Cuba, a longtime U.S. foe in Latin America and key ally to Venezuela, are set to be normalized. "Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of U.S. financial systems," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The Myth of Voter Fraud; by Lorraine C. Minnite
Voters rarely commit fraud because for them, it is a motiveless crime. So why does the myth persist?In rapid succession, partisan lawmakers in state after state have pushed through the new rules, claiming tougher identity checks are necessary to staunch or prevent voter fraud. And yet, in no state adopting a photo ID requirement has any lawmaker or anyone else, for that matter, presented a credible showing of a problem with voters corrupting the electoral process. In other words, if the claimed reason of preventing voter fraud is taken at face value, there is no rational basis for the policy intervention. So what is actually going on?The myth of voter fraud persists because it is a racialized weapon in a power struggle over the soul of American democracy. To see this, we must set our current politics in a historical context. Long-standing fears about unworthy citizens polluting and distorting electoral outcomes are the underside of the usual celebratory story we like to tell ourselves of a progressive struggle for voting rights....
How does America REALLY stack up against other countries? The truth will surprise many people. From the author's book, "The Money-Myth Minefield - Saving American Capitalism."
Jack Goldsmith is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches and writes about national security law, presidential power, cybersecurity, international law, internet law, foreign relations law, and conflict of laws. He addresses the embarrassing error in the GOP Senator's letter to Iran, which purports to teach a constitutional lesson.
47 Republican senators did their level best to bring us closer to war by writing a letter to Iran's mullahs, attempting to scuttle nuclear talks with the United States. But Republicans aren't exactly subverting the United States. It's more as if they're operating their own independent republic on Capitol Hill. Call it the State of Republicania. On Tuesday, the day after his letter to Hezbollah's masters became public, Cotton provided a clue about his motives: He'd had a breakfast date with the National Defense Industrial Association -- a trade group for Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and the like. You're not allowed to know what Cotton said to the defense contractors. The event was "off the record and strictly non-attribution." But you can bet it was what Dwight Eisenhower meant when he warned of the military-industrial complex.
Senate Republicans who sent a letter to Iran's leaders in an unprecedented attempt to undermine nuclear talks are siding with America's enemies, President Obama and Senate Democrats charged Monday. "It's somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran," Obama told reporters Monday. "It's an unusual coalition." Senate Democrats went further. "Let's be clear," Minority Leader said. "Republicans are undermining our commander-in-chief while empowering the ayatollahs."
The news of the Malley promotion raised hardly a ripple in U.S. mainstream and cable news media, currently obsessing over Hillary Clinton's email servers. Pro-Israel media outlets, however, rushed to sound the alarm. The word went out to Israel's staunch U.S. backers, "Obama has struck back with the dangerous Malley."
Republican senators' letter to Iran about ongoing nuclear talks has prompted a lengthy response from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who delivered an overview of international law as he critiqued the letter.
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday defended her exclusive use of a private email address during her time as secretary of state, saying that she did so as a matter of "convenience," to make life simpler by using one device and one email account. Clinton said that she had broken no laws by maintaining a separate account. "I fully complied with every rule," she said, adding that no classified material had been sent on her email.
The actions by CIA officers -- both the ones discussed in the Senate Torture Report and the ones that might have not yet come to light -- have gravely damaged the credibility of the US intelligence community for decades to come. More worringly, they also may have prevented the US from being able to quickly and effectively prosecute the very terrorists who these officers sought to help fight against. This is evident by the unending stalemate in the military commissions taking place at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The techniques outlined in the Senate torture report were far outside the boundaries of what is acceptable for the US intelligence community. Their supposed effectiveness is irrelevant to the fact that torture is wrong.
Fran Lebowitz: Capitalism Triumphed Over Both Communism and Democracy; by Mark Karlin
Democracy still exists in the US from a technical standpoint. But in practice, the wealthy and the ruling elite use corporate mass media to embed a specific worldview in voters.A photoshopped image of journalist and author Fran Lebowitz (not to be confused with Annie Leibovitz the famed photographer) has been making its away around the Internet. The image may be created on software, but the quotation from Lebowitz is unerringly accurate:
By Glenn Greenwald
The Parties' Role Reversal on "Interfering" with the Commander-in-Chief's Foreign Policy 
members of both parties who are trying to subvert a peace agreement with Iran -- out of some warped allegiance to Israeli interests and/or a commitment to endless militarism -- are acting in destructive and dangerous ways. That they have disrespected and undermined our Glorious Commander-in-Chief, or breached precious inter-court protocols for who gets to exercise power are quite misguided positions.
By carol wolman, MD
Fukushima Daiichi 4th Anniversary update and overview Four years after the explosions and meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, some progress has been made. The site remains extremely dangerous, and radioactive water continues to spew into the Pacific. Please sign the three petitions:
The Pentagon loomed so large in my childhood that it could have been another member of my family. Maybe a menacing uncle who doled out put-downs and whacks to teach us lessons or a rich, dismissive great-aunt intent on propriety and good manners.
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Continuing on. More itemizing the structure of the "Volunteer House Of The American People"...the "Third House Of Governance" of the new "Direct Democracy United States Of America"
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The New York Times: WASHINGTON -- The fractious debate over a possible nuclear deal with Iran escalated on Monday as 47 Republican senators warned Iran about making an agreement with President Obama, and the White House accused them of undercutting foreign policy. In a rare direct congressional intervention into diplomatic negotiations, the Republicans signed an open letter addressed to "leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran" declaring that any agreement without legislative approval could be reversed by the next president "with the stroke of a pen." While the possible agreement has drawn bipartisan criticism, the letter, signed only by Republicans, underscored the increasingly party-line flavor of the clash.
That letter to Iranian leaders from 47 Republican senators could well destroy critical bipartisanship in U.S. foreign policy for years to come and treacherously undermine the bargaining power of the person constitutionally authorized to conduct American affairs abroad--the President of the United States. On top of what House Speaker John Boehner did by unilaterally inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, this letter seriously points to one terrible conclusion: a formidable number of Congressional Republicans hate President Obama more than they love America.
Elusive Justice in Wisconsin ; by The Editorial board; NYTimes.
"If the toxic effects of outsize spending in judicial elections were not already evident, the fiasco playing out in the Wisconsin Supreme Court should erase any doubt.Last month, a special prosecutor, who is investigating whether Gov. Scott Walker committed campaign-finance violations in the run-up to his 2012 recall election, formally asked at least one -- and possibly as many as four -- of the state's seven justices to step aside when the court hears the case in April. A 2013 poll by the Brennan Center for Justice found that more than 9 in 10 people believed that a judge should step aside if a party to a case had spent significant amounts to help him or her get elected. Surely, that sensible principle is something an elected judiciary should embrace. More...
The Network For Public Education
"The Network for Public Education stands in full support of parents, students and educators who choose to teach and learn about the reality of high stakes tests, opt out of high stakes tests, speak out against high stakes tests and who refuse to give those tests to students."These tests, particularly those associated with the Common Core, have become intrusive in our schools, consuming excessive time and resources. "The Common Core tests, such as PARCC, SBAC and others Pearson has developed to measure the Common Core standards, have been designed to yield widespread failure for students, and thus are an inaccurate reflection of what our students are capable of doing. There is no evidence that these tests contribute to the quality of education, or help close the "achievement gap." Since NCLB, these tests have hindered, not helped, school improvement efforts. The scores of US students in the international PISA tests have remained flat for the dozen years of high stakes testing. "Right now, in communities from the highest need to the most affluent, students, parents and educators are being punished for the courageous act of informing others about available options to opt out of high stakes tests and acting upon those options. These reprisals, often for merely learning and teaching about students' rights, violate basic human rights and common decency...READ THE TRUTH ABOUT TESTS....
On March 9, a group of 47 Republican senators warned Iran's leaders that a nuclear deal signed during President Barack Obama's tenure could be revoked by the next president or modified by a future Congress. "We will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei," wrote the lawmakers in an open letter to Iran's leaders. All but seven Republican senators-- Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, Dan Coats, Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman-- signed the letter, organized by freshman Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR). Read the GOP letter to Iran's leadership on a nuclear deal and responses from Iran, the White House and Democrats.
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