Where Has All The Money Gone?
“In some parts of Iraq there is still no running water and Raed Jarrar, blogger and Iraqi American Political Activist, joins us to help find out where the billions of dollars gone.”
Archive for November, 2011
Iraq: US Militarism Created Culture of Corruption
November 30, 20111,455,590 + 4801 + 2819 + $1,285,186,553,217 =
November 30, 2011Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq: 1,455,590
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq: 4,801
Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan: 2,819
Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan
$1,285,186,553,217
Source:
America: The Ally From Hell – Washington having a field day avoiding U.S. responsibility
November 30, 2011America: The Ally From Hell
By Jordan Michael Smith
In Washington, the Pakistan-bashers are having a field day avoiding U.S. responsibility.
Senator McCain says U.S. Citizens Can Be Sent to Guantanamo
November 30, 2011(NOTE: This from a man who he himself was once captured and held as an enemy combatant in Vietnam from October 1967 five to March 1973, five and a half years, the last two years he spent in isolation. You think he would have some empathy. Don’t feel bad for this man, he was asked how many homes he owned when he was running for president the second time, and he didn’t know the answer. Plus, he gets 100% disability pay from the US government, tax free, while constantly trying to take away benefits from other Veterans, those even more disabled then himself, and he has broken laws, but was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee, of any accounts of acting improperly or violating any law or Senate rule.)
McCain says American Citizens Can Be Sent to Guantanamo
By Matthew Rothschild
U.S. citizens beware: A bill being debated on the Senate floor this week is likely to pass, and if it becomes law, you could be sent to Guantanamo Bay. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29857.htm
Prepare for an Economic 9/11 and Economic Martial Law
November 30, 2011Gerald Celente : Prepare for an Economic 9/11 and Economic Martial Law
Must Listen Audio Interview
“The entire global economic system is collapsing”
Dear Mom and Dad (a letter to a religious family)
November 30, 2011Nov 29, 2011 4:25 PM
Dear Mom and Dad
You’ve failed as a parent. That’s what you’re thinking, I’m sure.
If only you’d attended church more regularly. If only you’d prayed more and emphatically taught your child the power of prayer. If only you’d have opened the bible more instead of leaving it so often on the nightstand. If only you’d demonstrated God’s love in a meaningful way. If only you’d been a better mentor…a better example…a better Christian. If only.
Nonsense.
More:
This Holiday Season NOM Give Tips On How To Be A Victim
November 30, 2011NOM Claims Victimhood for the Holidays
November 28, 2011
Post by Candace Chellew-Hodge
Like many gays and lesbians I know, I dread going home for the holidays. Being not just the only lesbian at the annual gathering, I am also, usually, the only liberal. That means, inevitably, at some point during the day, my FOX News-viewing relatives will bat my life around like the football on the front lawn after the Thanksgiving turkey has been eaten. My “lifestyle” will be held up, scrutinized, questioned, and ultimately, condemned.
Happy holidays, right?
Well, this year, Maggie Gallagher over at the National Organization for Marriage has a great idea: instead of victimizing your gay or liberal family members, the anti-gay, conservative members of the family can be the victims this year!
In her video message, she outlines a three-point strategy for making sure you can feel self-righteously attacked for your anti-gay point of view….
More:
Blankets, Booties, and Jesus: Spiritual War on the Uterus in Rick Perry’s Texas
November 30, 2011November 27, 2011
By Sarah Posner
As guest of honor at a 2010 fundraiser for the Beltway 8 Crisis Pregnancy Center in Houston, Texas Governor Rick Perry told the pastors and anti-choice activists that, “I feel like I am in the garrison of an army that has devoted itself to the defense of the unborn, here in this state and across the country and am proud to be counted in the ranks.”
For those attending the fundraiser, which took place at Grace Community Church, Perry sketched the battle lines of a struggle “bigger than any law or policy.” Citing Paul, he described a struggle, not against “flesh and blood,” but “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
“Because we know how the Bible ends,” Perry continued, “we can rely on His strength to persevere and never, ever give up, in doing good.”
Perry’s speech was drawn from religious anti-choice rhetoric that has fanned out from courtrooms and legislatures into a spiritual war zone in the nation’s churches and streets. Yet, even as these activists have framed their efforts to end abortion as spiritual warfare, they’ve simultaneously shifted from calling abortion “murder” to claiming civil rights for fetuses and celebrating the “compassion” of those who would “protect” the “unborn.”
More:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/
sttpn Digest Number 1187
November 30, 2011Messages In This Digest (1 Message)
1a. Re: American citizen declares revolution on America From: cpmondello
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Re: American citizen declares revolution on America
Posted by: “cpmondello” cpmondello cpmondello
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> Larry Bumgarner an American citizen declares revolution on America, the book "The Only Solution is Revolution, Why I Went From Working on Wall Street to Joining the Wall Street Occupation." Book is for sale on Amazon.com. Website is theonlysolutionisrevolution.com, video is at http://www.youtube.com/embed/xiQzC6Vw34Y Pass it on. Thank you. Larry Bumgarner
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“Red” states complain mostly about distribution of wealth, while taking more money from the government and the rest of us
November 29, 2011(NOTE: “Red” states complain mostly about distribution of wealth, while taking more money from the government and the rest of us in “Blue” states. Almost ALL those on the “right” running in the last few elections, across the board, complained about Obama being a socialist, when it is them, their cities and states that benefit from socialism the most. These people, mostly conservative Christians are liars, cruel, evil and are ruining America and the world. I say the death penalty is in order. I actually compiled a little list to present to those who think I am lying: http://wp.me/pE2RF-aJJ)
Story:
Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 7:00 AM EST
The red state model is (also) broken
Liberal enclaves face an economic crisis, but federally subsidized conservative areas are just as unsustainable
By Michael Lind
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/22/the_red_state_model_is_also_broken/singleton/
The blue social model is collapsing. So proclaims Walter Russell Mead, one of the most thoughtful observers of the contemporary scene (and, I should add, a co-founder with Sherle Schwenninger, Ted Halstead and me of the New America Foundation). In a series of posts at his blog, Via Meadia, he argues that the blue social model of liberal cities like New York and San Francisco is doomed. That model depended on taxing a small number of super-rich rentiers in the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) sector to fund generous public services for the urban poor. Economic development policy focused on amenities for affluent professionals, who flocked to trendy neighborhoods in big blue cities even as rising real estate prices drove productive businesses and the middle and working classes out to the suburbs or the South and West.
Now, according to Mead and the economic geographer Joel Kotkin, the blue model is in crisis. The revenues of blue states and cities have cratered along with the portfolio of many (but not all) hedge fund managers and Silicon Valley tycoons. Raising taxes on the undertaxed rich is a good idea, but it is no substitute for economic diversification and productive industry.
Over the longer term, software threatens to destroy the jobs of many of the credentialed upscale professionals who have replaced the working class as the main constituents of American progressivism in the last generation. Slashing generous state and local welfare programs for the poor threatens the peace treaty among the social classes in blue urban America. As a wealthy liberal journalist in lower Manhattan once complained to me, “Don’t the conservatives understand that if we cut welfare those people in Harlem will march down here and slit our throats?” (Maybe that’s their plan).
The red state social model, however, does not provide an alternative to the failing blue state social model. In different ways, the rural and suburban red state model is as unsustainable as that of the liberal enclaves on the coasts.
The appetite of red states for federal subsidies mocks the tirades of their politicians against the federal government. In March 2008, on the verge of the Great Recession, 22 Republican states were net recipients of federal subsidies, while only 10 Democratic-leaning states were. Sixteen blue states were net payers of federal taxes, compared to only one red state, Texas (thanks to the oil and gas industry).
Federal subsidies to the conservative red states take many forms. Beginning in World War II, Southern politicians planted military bases and factories throughout the South and the West, and defense spending continues to be a major part of the red state economy. Then there are agricultural subsidies and federal highway subsidies. Nor should we forget the tax-exempt status of evangelical Protestant megachurches, some of which own multiple buildings, schools, camps, bus fleets, TV and radio studies, and bookstore chains — all tax-free.
The importance of federal education and welfare programs for red states can be illustrated by an example from my native state of Texas. In 2009-2010, according to the annual report “Texas on the Brink,” Texas ranked 24th in the percentage of revenues for K-12 schools from local government and 40th in the percentage of revenues from state government. But when it came to the percentage of revenues for K-12 schools coming from the federal government, Texas ranked 3rd in the nation. The citizens of red states like Texas can enjoy lower state and local taxes in part because of the success of their elected representatives in Washington in redistributing income from the blue-state rich to red state social programs.
But even leeching off taxpayers in other parts of the country is not enough to provide Texas with a decently educated workforce. While mass unskilled immigration skews some of the numbers, Texas and the South were at the bottom in social indicators even before the present wave of immigration began. With respect to high school graduation rates, Texas is 31st in the nation, and when it comes to SAT scores it is No. 44. Texas wins the race to the bottom with the percentage of its population over 25 with a high school degree, coming in dead last at 50. (But Texas is No. 1 in executions).
While diverting blue state taxes, Southern and Western politicians have stolen blue state jobs. Southern economic development policy in particular has long rested on “smokestack chasing” — luring away industries from the Northeast and Midwest, and, recently, Germany and East Asia, with offers of cheap, non-union labor, low environmental standards and bribes in the form of state and local government subsidies, paid for by higher regressive taxes on the poor.
Don’t be fooled by talk of the “libertarian” West. Red state America is really just the former Confederacy, including Texas, with some over-represented, low-population Mountain and Plains states thrown in. The social ideal of the neo-Confederate right can be summed up as follows: voters who don’t work and workers who don’t vote.
Ever since the federal government deprived them of their slaves, the Southern elite has sought to create the functional equivalent of slavery, by creating a low-wage work force stripped of bargaining power and voting rights. Until the civil rights revolution, the neo-Confederates did this on the economic side by creating unfree labor systems like tenant farming and the convict-lease system, as well as “right-to-work” laws to stifle unionization in their region. Keeping welfare benefits low, and controlled by local elites, forces Southern workers to accept jobs on the terms offered by Southern employers. On the political side, Dixie’s politicians used poll taxes and residency requirements to strip poor blacks and poor whites of the right to vote.
Flash forward to today. What are the objectives of the Republican Party, now that it has been hijacked by the ideological heirs of Jefferson Davis? In economics the goal is constructing a neo-Confederate states’ rights regime, in which states can unilaterally lower minimum wages and lower welfare benefits, in order to create a “reserve army” of workers so destitute they will accept work on any terms. At the same time there is a concerted campaign by Republicans at the state level to use the mythical threat of mass voter fraud to effectively purge poor blacks, poor whites and poor Latinos from the voting rolls, by making it difficult for them to register to vote. (And Northern intellectuals think the politicians of my native South are stupid.)
Already Texas ranks 45th in the percentage of its voting age population that votes. Surely right-wing Texans can try harder and make it to 50!
The truth is that the red state social model is as broken as the blue state social model. The blue social model requires a swollen FIRE sector as a cash cow to fund government functions, a generous welfare state, and Starbucksy neighborhoods with subsidized mass transit for credentialed hipsters in brick-walled lofts. The red social model also depends on a swollen FIRE sector that can be tapped for subsidies to red state soldiers, agribusiness and megachurches, as well as to red state governments that take advantage of subsidies from blue America to lower their own taxes. Money from the bloated financial sector allows blue states to impose stifling environmental regulations, driving productive industries to the red states, which lure them not only with low environmental standards but also low-wage, non-union labor, supplemented by illegal immigrant workers.
Both the blue economic model and the red economic model are parasitic, not productive. Neither provides a model for a decent American future.
- Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of “The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution.”More Michael Lind
Shadow Elite: How the World’s Next Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government and the Free Market
November 29, 2011Shadow Elite: How the World’s Next Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government and the Free Market
Published by Basic Books in December 2009.
For more on Dr. Wedel’s work, please see her personal website: http://janinewedel.info
“In the book, she (Dr. Wedel) explores how governments and administrations come and go, but a new breed of power brokers always seem to pop up just where the action is. These players make public decisions without public input–in realms from domestic to foreign and financial policy–and take us into a democracy and accountability-challenged era.”
More:
The GOP’s victim-blaming strategy
November 29, 2011By David Sirota
From Iraq to OWS, Republicans are going to increasingly absurd measures to protect the wealthy
According to the most reliable counts, the United States’ invasion and occupation of Iraq has killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians, 650,000 Iraqi civilians or more than 1 million Iraqi civilians. In other words, we’ve vaporized the equivalent of Billings, Mont. (pop. 104,170), Memphis, Tenn. (pop. 646,889) or San Jose, Calif. (pop. 945,942).
Horrifying as these statistics are, imagine how much more disgusted you would be if a foreign power actually did vaporize those cities, and then followed up that annihilation by having its leading politicians and pundits demand that Americans pay reparations for the privilege of experiencing such devastation.
More:
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/15/the_gops_victim_blaming_strategy/
Founding Father, God’s Country, Patriotic and more…..
November 29, 2011God’s country: Voting wallets over religion 11.20.11 “For many evangelicals, economic solutions will trump church affiliation, views on social issues.”
Video: Saturday Night’s GOP Debate Was Preachy, Chock Full O’God 11.20.11
Patriotism and the ‘God gap’ 9.28.11 “Nearly all Americans think they live in the best country on Earth. While a majority of Americans believe there are other countries just as great, nine in 10 say no nation is better. Within this high view of America, there are differences between different religious groups,” the magazine noted.” To this end, Christianity Today suggested the existence of a “patriotism God-gap in America.” (NOTE: The more intelligent, the more able to think for yourself. Sounds about right to me. Throughout history, religious conservatives have always longed for rulers, a dogma to follow, being told how to think, feel and dress. This exactly the kind of ideology any government longs for to crush their “enemies” whether it be the USA’s “fear” of communism, (when “God” was put into the ‘Pledge of Allegiance) or Hitler’s ideology that states Jews were responsible all that is wrong in the world, with the help of the Catholic Church, (see ‘Theologian’s Under Hitler’)
A letter’s journey, from founding father to religious question 9.30.11 “The primary spirit of the letter is clear – the United States government will assure religious freedom, giving “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” George Washington wrote those words in a 1790 letter to the the congregation of a synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. He was hoping to reassure the congregation that the budding government of the United States would allow free expression to all religions. Since then, Jews in America have flourished.”
GOP Candidates Seek Social Conservative Support at Iowa Forum 11.19.11
GOP Hopefuls Open Up In Bid For Christian Vote 11.20.11
Preachers confront ‘last taboo’: Condemning greed amid Great Recession 10.01.11
Republicans dwell on religious issues during US debate 11.20.11
Why the World Needs Religious Studies 11.20.11
Family Policy Council starts campaign to help pastors register ‘pro-life and pro-family’ voters 11.18.11 “John Stemberger, the president of the anti-gay and anti-abortion Florida Family Policy Council, has started a new project to get as many religious voters to the polls as possible. Stemberger’s effort is called “Project Active Citizen.” In an email to supporters asking for donations to the project, he described it as “an effort … to help encourage thousands of pro-life and pro-family Floridians to register to vote.” (NOTE: Isnt this like what ACORN was doing? Trying to help people register to vote? Oh but I see, they for attacked because they are considered liberal socialist….funny, churches and religious organizations take more money then all other private or NGOs on the planet and still get the US government to allow them to do what no others can do, AND make the rest of us fund whatever stupid things they are doing at any given day (including paying off their rape victims, traveling the world pushing “Kill The Gays” bills, etc). Also, isnt “Stemberger” a jewish name? Doesnt he realize Christians want him dead?)
Birther sheriff heckled at Orlando tea party gathering (Updated), 11.14.11 “Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona — known for his controversial immigration enforcement measures and his birther conspiracy theories — was heckled Saturday as he spoke at “Choose Liberty,” an event organized by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity.”
Legislature turns away millions for comprehensive sex education 09.12.11 “The state Legislature turned away $2.8 million in annual funding from the federal government for comprehensive sex education in Florida. According to a spokesperson from the Florida Department of Health, funding for the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) “has been declined by DOH because we were not granted Legislative Budget Authority to move forward with the project.”
The Only Solution Is Revolution
November 29, 2011Larry Bumgarner an American citizen declares revolution on America, the book “The Only Solution is Revolution, Why I Went From Working on Wall Street to Joining the Wall Street Occupation.” Book is for sale on Amazon.com.
Website is http://www.theonlysolutionisrevolution.com/
American citizen declares revolution on America
November 29, 2011American citizen declares revolution on America
Posted by: “LB” lb060452 lb060452
Mon Nov 28, 2011 12:37 pm (PST)
Larry Bumgarner an American citizen declares revolution on America, the book “The Only Solution is Revolution, Why I Went From Working on Wall Street to Joining the Wall Street Occupation.”
Book is for sale on Amazon.com
Website is TheOnlySolutionIsRevolution.com
Video is at http://www.youtube.com/embed/xiQzC6Vw34Y Pass it on. Thank you. Larry Bumgarner
When Voting – Remember Who Hates 1.3 Million Disabled Vets in the USA
November 28, 2011(NOTE: even if this didn’t pass, (and who knows if it is still “on the table”), just ask yourself, what the hell kind of person would support this? Answer: Always those who call themselves “conservative Christians”)
June 13, 2011
GOP Budget Aims to Strip 1.3 Million Disabled War Veterans of Their Healthcare
“Those who look closely have known for a couple of months that Paul Ryan’s Right-Wing budget balancing proposal is taking aim at disabled war veterans.”
More:
Tis The Season: Wal-Mart Shoppers Fight Over Two-Dollar Waffle Irons
November 28, 2011Submitted by Michael Allen on Nov 25, 2011
As a Wal-Mart near Little Rock, Arkansas, shoppers went wild on Black Friday over a good deal on a waffle iron. Screams could be heard as the greedy shoppers struggled to grab one (or five) of the $2 waffle irons (video below).
Consumers at the big box store didn’t seem to mind tha, the waffle iron can only cook two waffles at a time. In fact, Wal-Mart store also offers a more expensive model that can cook up to four at once. A video of the wacky scene was uploaded by a Twitter user who goes by the name “Ms. Clark.”
More:
Conservative’s ‘Good Old Days’: Those Who Defy Puritan Orthodoxy Can Expect Banishment Or Death
November 28, 2011The harsh truth of the City on a Hill
By James Carroll, November 28, 2011
WHEN JOHN Winthrop delivered a sermon to his Puritan band before the Arbella made landfall in 1630, he set flying a beloved political cliché – one now elevating the resurgent campaign of Newt Gingrich. “For we must consider that we shall be as a city on a hill,’’ Winthrop declared. “The eyes of all people are upon us.’’
Recently, Gingrich screened his documentary, “A City Upon a Hill: The Spirit of American Exceptionalism,’’ at Harvard’s Kennedy School. This was an apt setting, since it was John Kennedy, speaking on the eve of his inauguration, who stamped the contemporary political lexicon with the image, a reference both to a saying of Jesus and mystic Jerusalem. But it was Ronald Reagan who made the phrase so dear to the conservative heart. He began and ended his presidency by invoking the “shining city,’’ always with a lump in his throat.
Since then, other Republican notables have taken his cue. Sandra Day O’Connor read the entire Winthrop sermon at Reagan’s funeral. As Reagan had, Sarah Palin invoked the City on a Hill in her acceptance speech at the Republican convention. And now Gingrich.
Yet in evoking Winthrop’s image over and over, neither Reagan nor his followers considered what the City on a Hill of the Puritan forebears actually was. In fact, it was anything but an experiment in democratic liberalism or political freedom. Yes, Winthrop and company were leaving behind Europe’s savage religious violence; during the same period, in the Thirty Years War and the brewing English Civil War, nearly 9 million Protestant and Catholics would kill each other. But Winthrop’s New England settlement was hardly the peaceable kingdom. He was a rigid theocrat, who justified violence against native peoples by saying, “God hath cleared our title to this place.’’ And those among his settlers who defied the Puritan orthodoxy could expect banishment or death.
More:
Americans At Their Best: Georgia Company Refuses to Hire Until “Obama is Gone”
November 28, 2011Submitted by Michael Allen on Nov 27, 2011
Bill Looman, who owns U.S. Cranes, LLC in Waco, Georgia, has put up signs on his Facebook page and company trucks that proclaim, “New Company Policy: We Are Not Hiring Until Obama Is Gone.”
Looman told 11Alive (video below): “I’ve got people that I want to hire now, but I just can’t afford it. And I don’t foresee that I’ll be able to afford it unless some things change in D.C.”
More:
“In God We Trust” Signs Popping Up in California Government Buildings
November 28, 2011Submitted by AUSCS on Nov 27, 2011
By Rob Boston
Posting “In God We Trust” signs in city and county government buildings has become all the rage in California.
The drive is spearheaded by a Bakersfield woman named Jacquie Sullivan who persuaded officials in her town to adopt the motto and then took the crusade to other cities. The most recent town to approve the motto is Port Hueneme in Ventura County. The vote was 4-1.
Mayor Sylvia Muñoz Schnopp explained her vote in favor of the motto this way: “You see, I also do this on behalf of our men and women who defend our freedoms, those who are military veterans, reservists and active-duty personnel who live in our community.”
The only problem with that, of course, is that a motto that references God does not include all veterans or active-duty personnel. Some members of the military are non-believers. Others are involved in Wicca and Paganism and don’t recognize a traditional God concept.
In fact, the sole dissenting vote in Port Hueneme came from a veteran.
“I was born in the Bible Belt and served in the U.S. Navy to defend the rights of all Americans,” remarked councilman Ellis Green. “I’m a devout Christian. The concept of separation of church and state is real. It’s not imagined. It is not our right as a council to impose our deity on anyone.”
More:
Economic Despair Makes Cultures More Hateful…aka “Religious”
November 27, 2011Marriage activists ramp up spending
The recent economic woes appear to have chilled spending by many national religious activist groups, but others — including a group that is fighting to preserve traditional marriage — spent even higher amounts despite the lean times, says a report released Monday.
Pakistan has cooperated secretly with the U.S.
November 27, 2011(NOTE: US government is the largest terrorist organization ever known to mankind. Both funding terrorism to benefit countries that will do their bidding and countries who will protect their interests. Thanks to taxes American’s pay, the only ones who benefit are politicians and their wealthy friends.)
STORY:
By Rowan Scarborough, Saturday, November 26, 2011
Pakistan has cooperated secretly with the U.S. on several war-fighting missions in an odd-couple alliance that also sees factions in Islamabad backing the fiercest American enemy.
The uneasy relationship is being put to the test again, as Pakistan accused NATO on Saturday of unleashing a helicopter strike on a Pakistan army border outpost and said 24 soldiers were killed.
U.S. military personnel who have served in the region tell The Washington Times that Pakistan does far more in secret than either side acknowledges. It wants money from Washington to keep flowing, yet fears a democratic Afghanistan could one day align itself with archenemy India, analysts say.
Pakistan’s dual objectives help create this odd alliance.
Last summer, as then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen was castigating Pakistan in public for aiding the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network, the CIA was launching Predator drone strikes from Pakistani air bases on suspected militants. The U.S. military has deemed Haqqani its greatest threat, ranking it above the Taliban and al Qaeda.
MORE:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/26/pakistan-secretly-helps-publicly-hits-us-interests/
White Supremacists, Patenting Human Genes, Fox Viewers, Americans As Military Threat….
November 27, 2011AlterNet.org News Catch-up, Nov. 26 2011:
How White Supremacists Are Trying to Make an American Town a Model for Right-Wing Extremism: A recent influx of white supremacists and Patriot group members to the town of Kalispell, Montana, is causing alarm.
Corporations Are Patenting Human Genes and Tissues — Here’s Why That’s Terrifying: A medical ethicist explains the dark implications of corporate medical patents and the nightmarish scenario of our medical-industrial complex.
7 Things Fox Viewers Are Wildly Misinformed About: What’s stunning is how many different areas of the news and public policy Fox viewers are misinformed about.
The 5 Most Toxic Energy Companies and How They Control Our Politics: Energy companies continue to rake in massive profits. They use this wealth to leverage elections, write legislation, scale back regulations and escape accountability.
“How Could This Happen in America?” Why Police Are Treating Americans Like Military Threats: Why is the armed might of the state, (necessary in waging war against foreign enemies) being applied to domestic policing of local communities and peaceful protests?
Five Ways that Financial Elites are Destroying Democracy: Is democracy compatible with a financial system run by billionaires? Maybe not.
Pepper-Spraying Protesters Is Just the Beginning: Here Are More Hypermilitarized Weapons Your Local Police Force Could Employ: By arming local police departments with military grade equipment, domestic policing has come to resemble a combat operation with citizens as the enemy.
The Fascinating History of How Corporations Became “People” — Thanks to Corrupt Courts Working for the 1%: Occupiers could direct their energy not only at Wall Street, but also at its enablers, in Congress, and ultimately, at the high court.
Privatization Nightmare: 5 Public Services That Should Never Be Handed Over to Greedy Corporations
Yet Another Absurd Airport Indignity: The Red Carpet Rolled Out for the Wealthy
On Contraceptive Coverage, It’s Not Up to Obama to Decide What is More “Catholic”
Dont Belive The Hype: Most Christians ARE Safe In The Middle East
November 27, 2011New 5,000-seat Christian church a sign of the faithful’s resilience
Pakistan’s tiny and downtrodden Christian community thought big when constructing its latest church – a domed, three-story building that towers over the sprawling slum it serves and is the largest yet in the violent, Muslim country.
Pope Still Whinning About Church Being Held Accountable For Child Rape
November 27, 2011(NOTE: Talk about not taking responsibility….. and talk about hypocrisy, do a search for the book and/or newer same named dvd ‘Theologians Under Hitler’.)
STORY:
Pope: Sex abuse ‘scourge’ for all society
“Benedict seemed to be reflecting some churchmen’s contentions that the church has wrongly been singled out as villains for the abuse.”
Congress, as usual, raid health care piggy bank for the third time in less than a year
November 27, 2011Money slated for health law gets detoured – Lawmakers tap fund three times within a year
In cash-strapped Washington, President Obama’s $1 trillion health care law is presenting a tempting target for lawmakers seeking funds for other projects, as Congress last week raided the health care piggy bank for the third time in less than a year.
Congress last week axed a part of Democrats’ signature domestic achievement to find $11 billion to cover the cost of repealing a withholding tax that otherwise would have hit government contractors in 2013. Mr. Obama signed that bill into law on Monday.
The withholding bill follows two other efforts — one in December and another in April — that reworked the health care law to squeeze savings for other priorities. The December bill funded higher payments for doctors who treat Medicare patients, and the April legislation repealed a paperwork provision in the original health care law that businesses said would be onerous.
All told, Congress and the president have tapped some $50 billion earmarked to pay for benefits and programs in the health care overhaul in future years to fund more-immediate spending needs.
More:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/24/money-slated-for-health-law-gets-detoured/
5 Reasons the Religious Right Should Stop Whining About Being Persecuted
November 27, 2011For decades Christian conservatives have claimed persecution. Their powerful hold on Washington tells a different story.
Rob Boston / AlterNet
Nov 24 2011
I’ve been writing about the Religious Right for nearly 25 years now, and one thing that never ceases to amaze me is when the leaders or supporters of these organizations claim they are being persecuted. Really? In a country that has a strong Christian culture and where at least 75 percent of the population professes some form of Christianity, it would seem odd that Christians would be persecuted. Yet the claim is made, constantly.
A new study on the power of religious advocacy groups in Washington by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life show yet again how absurd that claim is. Pew researchers examined 212 religious groups on the right and the left that engage in advocacy work in the nation’s capital. Their findings are illuminating. Anyone who believes the old saw that conservative Christians don’t have a voice in D.C. should take a look. With that thought in mind, here are five reasons why the Religious Right should stop complaining about persecution….
Thanksgiving is celebrated at the expense of Native Peoples
November 24, 2011“In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.” (Source: http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving)
“Thanksgiving is celebrated at the expense of Native Peoples who had to give up their lands and culture for America to become what it is today.” ~Linda Coombs, Aquinnah Wampanoag, 1997 (Source: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/f_thanks.htm)
“The reason that we have so many myths associated with Thanksgiving is that it is an invented tradition. It doesn’t originate in any one event. It is based on the New England puritan Thanksgiving, which is a religious Thanksgiving, and the traditional harvest celebrations of England and New England and maybe other ideas like commemorating the pilgrims. All of these have been gathered together and transformed into something different from the original parts.” ~ James W. Baker, Senior Historian at Plimoth Plantation (Source: http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving-quiz)
“During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States; in it, he called upon Americans to express their gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country’s war of independence and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies. In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale—author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.” (Source: http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/page2)
Related:
The “First Thanksgiving”: Facts and Fancies – The event we now know as “the First Thanksgiving” was in fact neither the first occurrence of our modern American holiday, nor was it even a ‘Thanksgiving” in the eyes of the Pilgrims who celebrated it. It was instead a traditional English harvest celebration to which the colonists invited Massasoit, the most important sachem among the Wamapanoag. It was only in the nineteenth century that this event became identified with the American Thanksgiving holiday.
America The Story of Us – America The Story of Us is an epic 12-hour television event that tells the extraordinary story of how America was invented.
The Pilgrims and America’s First Thanksgiving - The custom of an annually celebrated thanksgiving, held after the harvest, continued through the years. During the American Revolution (late 1770′s) a day of national thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress. In 1817 New York State had adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom. By the middle of the 19th century many other states also celebrated a Thanksgiving Day. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a national day of thanksgiving. Since then each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually designating the fourth Thursday of each November as the holiday.
Are You Teaching The Real Story of the “First Thanksgiving”? – Are you teaching the true Thanksgiving story or is the version you’re passing on to your students a blend of fact and myth? Ready to set the record straight?
Scientists Weaponize Deadly Bird Flu, Consider Releasing Results Necessary to Create Bioweapon
November 23, 2011It sounds like something out of a bizarre science fiction comic book, but scientists have weaponized the H5N1 bird flu virus, and are actually considering releasing the research.
The experiments, which involved mutating the virus a total of 5 times, made the strain highly contagious between ferrets — the very animal model used to study human flu infection.
Of course many scientists are now warning that if such research was made public it could result in the construction of deadly bioweapons.
Making the virus highly contagious could result in widespread infection. The H5N1 virus has been infecting birds and other animals in recent years, though it has also infected around 500 people.
What’s Gone Wrong With America? Jesse Ventura on the list from Hell.
November 23, 2011lewrockwell/Jesse Ventura
Appearing on Piers Morgan’s CNN program, Jesse Ventura answers the question: What has gone fundamentally wrong with America today?. On each an every issue, ranging from Wall’s Street’s ownership of the political class, to the nation’s descent into fascism, the destruction of individual rights and constitutional protection, the corruption of the two-party monopoly, Ventura states the hard-hitting truth that one rarely encounters in the fog of the MSM. Likewise for the current crop of presidential candidates and the constant stream of lies that spews forth from the government continually.
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