Wednesday, December 31, 2014

RSN: When FISA Court Rejects Requests, the FBI Issues a National Security Letter Instead, John Boehner Stands by Congressman Who Addressed White Supremacists, New Level: Monsanto Tries Patenting Natural Tomatoes, 11 of the Worst Policy Ideas of 2014





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Bernie Sanders for President? Why Not Try a Real Socialist for a Change
Sen. Sanders speaks out against cuts to Social Security outside the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 9, 2013. (photo: Bernie Sanders)
Mark Jacobson, The New Yorker
Jacobson writes: "There were a few changes in that same speech Bernie ­Sanders freely admits he's been giving for the past four decades, give or take a j'accuse or two."
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11 of the Worst Policy Ideas of 2014
Wonkblog Staff, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "If we had to sum up 2014 in four words, they would be: "bold new policy ideas." We needed them, and we didn't get them."
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School Basketballers OK'd to Wear 'I Can't Breathe' Shirts
Al Jazeera America
"A California school district on Monday reversed a basketball tournament's ban on T-shirts reading "I can't breathe" and said it would allow high school players to wear the shirts during warm-ups as long as they do not cause problems, lawyers said."
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When FISA Court Rejects Requests, the FBI Issues a National Security Letter Instead
Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
Masnick reports: "In other words, the FBI had a neat way to get around a rare FISA Court rejection: just issue an NSL and ignore the First Amendment concerns."
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John Boehner Stands by Congressman Who Addressed White Supremacists
Jonathan Martin, Jackie Calmes, The New York Times
Excerpt: "House Republican leaders, poised for a celebratory takeover of Congress next week, instead found themselves scrambling Tuesday to defuse a racially charged controversy over one lawmaker's speech a decade ago to a white supremacist group."
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New Level: Monsanto Tries Patenting Natural Tomatoes
Christina Sarich, NaturalSociety
Sarich reports: "Many individuals are aware that biotech has developed a seed monopoly largely by patenting genetically modified organisms, but not everyone realizes that Monsanto tried to patent a tomato that had no biotech traits."
READ MORE
 
 
 
 

CounterCurrents: US Drone Strike Against Somalia, America Stumbles Through Another Year, Spreading Chaos And Trivia Everything In Its Path



The US is waging Chaos around the Globe.


Who is WAGING PEACE?




Dear Friend,

If you think the content of this news letter is critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm. You can also follow us on twitter, http://twitter.com/countercurrents and on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/countercurrents

In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org


Resurgence Of Godse, The Gandhi Killer Worship
By Ram Puniyani

http://www.countercurrents.org/puniyani311214.htm

The activists of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha are all set to build the country's first temple for murderer of Mahatma Gandhi in Meerut. There are several demands from the Hindu Mahasabha offices to install his statues. The Hindu Mahasabha has requested land from the Centre to erect a statue of Godse in the national capital. The paperback issue of Godse’s book is already running into second reprint


US Drone Strike Against Somalia
By Bill Van Auken

http://www.countercurrents.org/auken311214.htm

A US pilotless drone carried out an attempted assassination Monday night of a leading member of Somalia’s Al Shabab, an Islamist militia opposed to the country’s US puppet government. Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby issued a statement acknowledging that the target of the strike, which took place in the vicinity of Saccaw, about 100 miles north of the port city of Kismayo, was a senior Al Shabab leader, but he did not name the intended victim


The Challenge Of The Islamic State And U.S. Policy
By Karl Meyer & Kathy Kelly

http://www.countercurrents.org/kelly311214.htm

What to do about the political mess in the Middle East and the rise of the Islamic State and related political movements? Shortly after the end of World War II, the Western powers and the whole world began to recognize that the age of explicit colonial domination was over, and dozens of colonies were let go of and took political independence. It is now past time for the United States and other world powers to recognize that the age of neo-colonial military, political and economic domination, especially in the Islamic Middle East, is decisively coming to a close


Why America Annexed Texas And Loves Saudi Dictators
By Robert Barsocchini

http://www.countercurrents.org/baroscchini311214.htm

Q: Why has the US been a close ally of Saudi Arabia since Saudi oil was discovered around the 1930s? (Doesn't Saudi Arabia embody everything America-pushers pretend to hate?)
A: Same reasons the US wanted to annex Texas – to control production of the now most important global commodity, oil, and continue to bring other nations to US feet by manipulating production/distribution of the commodity


Australia’s Declared War On Muslims
By Ghali Hassan

http://www.countercurrents.org/hassan311214.htm

It is official: Australia is at war with Muslims and Islam. Australian politicians and the racist media are fanning the flame of prejudice and racially-motivated violence against Muslims. Anti-Muslims bigotry has become the most important issue in Australian politics. The aim is to demonise Muslims and connect Muslim Australians to U.S.-led war in the Middle East and justify Australia’s direct complicity in U.S.-led imperialist aggression in Syria and Iraq


America Stumbles Through Another Year, Spreading Chaos And Trivia Everything In Its Path
By John Chuckman

http://www.countercurrents.org/chuckman311214.htm

What kind of world do we want to live in? One where coups and civil wars are engineered for the pleasure of others? One where airliners full of people are shot down deliberately? This is the chaos, and just part of it, America has bestowed upon us in the twenty-first century. I won’t even go into the financial tsunami it created in 2008 with the same lack of caution for others and concern about doing things correctly. The full impact of that has yet to strike us all


Peshawar Tragedy: Losing Head And Heart
By Maryam Sakeenah

http://www.countercurrents.org/sakeenah311214.htm

Tragedies like the one in Peshawar are litmus tests for any nation- either bringing out the best, or exposing the bare bones. Pakistan’s response is curiously similar to the U.S response to 9/11. The fact that the U.S’s counter-terror strategy accounts for the genesis of a much more brutal TTP and ISIS is lost to us


Twenty-Two Stitches For Drinking Water
By Gladson Dungdung

http://www.countercurrents.org/dungdung311214.htm

Nagendra Singh is a Chero Adivasi. There were 22 stitches on his head. These stitches were the price he had to pay for using the hand pump at a police checkpoint near the famous Betla sanctuary. Can a person be punished so severely in a free country for consuming some water from a public hand pump?


Kashmir Needs A “PETER”!
By Mohammad Ashraf

http://www.countercurrents.org/ashraf311214.htm

Kashmir is at present desperately in need of someone like the “Peter of Haarlem” who can put his finger in the hole in the dyke and stem the impending flood. Will any of the Kashmiri politicians act like the Peter of Haarlem? Will all the people come to his help to save Kashmir being overwhelmed and swept away by the tides coming in from both the directions? These are the questions in every Kashmiri mind right now! God alone knows the answer!


Why "Make In India" Will Not Make India
By Ajmal Khan

http://www.countercurrents.org/akhan311214.htm

Make in India is nothing but an organized project to invite all the available private investment from across the globe to India giving tax, license, land and other attractive exemptions, liberal land acquisition programmes, and other benefits without even doing a background check of the investor or not making the investor responsible and accountable to whatever they do here in India


The “Ordinance Route” In Land Acquisition Act
Against The Spirit Of The Constitution Of India
By Sudhir Vombatkere

http://www.countercurrents.org/vombatkere311214.htm

Open Letter to The President and Vice President of India


Secretary General, Rajya Sabha's Ignorance
About Legislative Process On Biometric Aadhaar
By Gopal Krishna

http://www.countercurrents.org/krishna311214.htm

An AADHAAR (UIDAI) enrolment camp was set up from December 18, 2014 till December 23 exclusively for the Members of Parliament who have not been enrolled as yet.This seems to be an act of ignorance regarding the legislative process on aadhaar by the Secretary General, Rajya Sabha


Condemn Police Action Against Keraleeyam
By Concerned Citizens

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc311214.htm

The office of Keraleeyam, a magazine publishing from Thrissur in Kerala and focused on environmental and human right issues for the last 17 years, has been raided by Kerala police at the midnight of December 22, 2014. More than 40 armed police personal descended to the office located in Thrissur Town at the dead of the night for the raid and seized copies of Keraleeyam, pamphlets and notices of events conducted by Keraleeyam, books and other documents




OUT-OF-CONTROL SUV Crashes into building



A subsequent article below identified the vehicle as a Chevrolet Tahoe with no disclosure of 'MEDICAL CONDITION.'


Police identify driver who crashed through Austintown store

AUSTINTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The woman who drove her SUV through the front of a clothing store at the Austintown Plaza has been identified.

According to a police report, Heather Scott, 39, of Canfield was behind the wheel Tuesday night when she lost control of the Chevrolet Tahoe she was driving and crashed through the front of Dots clothing store on Mahoning Avenue.

Both Scott and her son, who was a passenger in the vehicle, were taken to the hospital and released a short time later.

Police believe Scott may have suffered a medical condition prior to the accident.

No charges have been filed. The investigation is ongoing.


Notice that the police speculate that it was a MEDICAL CONDITION of a 39-year-old driver with no evidence and fail to provide the MAKE and MODEL of the vehicle.  

Gotta be DRIVER ERROR! Couldn't be a DEFECTIVE VEHICLE! Nawww....






Vonny~ (@MsMischiefmaker)
Accident Investigators' Daily is out! paper.li/MsMischiefmake… Stories via @charleneblake @Drug_Attorney @AccidentalShot



SUV crashes through Austintown store

RSN: Warren 2016 Campaign Underway Without Her




It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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FOCUS: Scott Galindez | Warren 2016 Campaign Underway Without Her
Senator Elizabeth Warren. (photo: AP)
Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
Galindez writes: "Iowa is where many presidential campaigners rise from underdog to contender. In 2008, Barack Obama shocked everyone and handily defeated Hillary Clinton in what was the beginning of the end of Hillary's "unbeatable" bid to return to the White House, this time around as the commander in chief."
READ MORE
 
 
 
 
 

RSN: Listen Up, Women Are Telling Their Story Now



BRAVO! A MUST READ!


It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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FOCUS: Rebecca Solnit | Listen Up, Women Are Telling Their Story Now
Protesters on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, Oregon, Thursday May 8, 2014. (photo: AP/The Register-Guard/Chris Pietsch)
Rebecca Solnit, Guardian UK
Solnit writes: "I have been waiting all my life for what 2014 has brought. It has been a year of feminist insurrection against male violence: a year of mounting refusal to be silent, refusal to let our lives and torments be erased or dismissed."
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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

RSN: Like the Low Gas Prices? They Could Be Even Lower in 2015





It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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FOCUS: Carl Gibson | Like the Low Gas Prices? They Could Be Even Lower in 2015
Will gas prices drop further in 2015? (photo: Getty Images)
Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
Gibson writes: "Oil prices are currently down by 40 percent from where they were in June, and the economies of oil-exporting countries like Russia and Venezuela are tanking. Coincidence? A simple case of more supply than demand? Cunning moves in a global chess game between a desperate empire and its rivals? Maybe."
READ MORE
 
 
 
 
 

This & that.....The Grover Norquist Hallucination! David Duke...Huh?


Were you paying attention?





Former Ku Klux Klan leader, Louisiana state legislator and notorious white supremacist David Duke says he has lots of friends who are politicians and has...
RAWSTORY.COM



The Grover Norquist Hallucination!

WASHINGTON -- Grover Norquist would like Republicans to shut up about how bad the economy is, and instead take credit for the recovery. The prominent...
HUFFINGTONPOST.COM
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Please share--thanks




HAYDEN, Idaho — A 29-year-old woman died Tuesday after a child reached into her purse and accidentally discharged her gun, authorities said. The woman,...
USATODAY.COM



Sorry to see ya go, Rush!
Recently, a young man suggested to me that he thought Rush should get married! 
I stifled the giggles and attempted to calmly explain Rush's multiple marital failures, drug addiction, misogynistic rhetoric, Viagra smuggling, paid callers.....why would anyone except the uninformed continue to follow?

"Politico published an article revealing that Tea Party organizations (some created by the Koch brothers) have contributed millions to Rush Limbaugh. What does this mean? For Rush it means they helped sustain him while thousands of sponsors pulled their ads. It means this may lead to an investigation to see if the funding was done legally. According to the FCC, if you receive money from an organization that pays you to promote their propaganda, without telling your audience, it may be considered ‘payola’ – and it may be illegal."


Very few took the Limbaugh sponsor boycott seriously two years ago, including Rush Limbaugh himself. That's not the case today.
SAMUEL-WARDE.COM

"Politico published an article revealing that Tea Party organizations (some created by the Koch brothers) have contributed millions to Rush Limbaugh. What does this mean? For Rush it means they helped sustain him while thousands of sponsors pulled their ads. It means this may lead to an investigation to see if the funding was done legally. According to the FCC, if you receive money from an organization that pays you to promote their propaganda, without telling your audience, it may be considered ‘payola’ – and it may be illegal."



Shubhranshu Choudhary says "Journalism has to become everyone's business," but Fox News says journalism is nobody's business, including, especially, their...
WWW.POLITICUSUSA.COM
 








Hits the nail on the head.



Why give to CCR this year? Because Dick Cheney says he'd torture again in a minute. Because CCR was among the first to call for the architects of U.S. torture to be prosecuted. Because CCR is committed to always being an early voice on the cutting edge of social justice. Help us stay there. Give today: http://bit.ly/1HDAc2p
Right now, your donation will be generously matched by The Atlantic Philanthropies!


Represent.Us's photo.




Interesting statement. What's your thoughts?


Only a government that lives like cockroaches in the darkness would pass a law criminalizing the act of turning on the light.
---Governor Pat Quinn---
Phone >> 312-814-2121
Email here >> http://tinyurl.com/mucaldg
EDIT: This story has caused quite the stirring conversation out there on the web. Some media outlets are reporting that it doesn't make recording police officers illegal, while others are corroborating our report.
The legislation clearly states, that recording any law enforcement or government official during any private communication will be considered eavesdropping; a felony, punishable by jail time.
Private communication is defined in the legislation as such:
For the purposes of this Article, "private conversation" means any oral communication between 2 or more persons, whether in person or transmitted between the parties by wire or other means, when one or more of the parties intended the communication to be of a private nature under circumstances reasonably justifying that expectation.
Reasonable expectation is defined in the legislation as such:
A reasonable expectation shall include any expectation recognized by law, including, but not limited to, an expectation derived from a privilege, immunity, or right established by common law, Supreme Court rule, or the Illinois or United States Constitution.
The problem arises when we try to define reasonable expectation, it is left up to arbitrary interpretation. As per the legislation: any police officer, at any time, in Illinois can simply say they have a reasonable expectation of privacy and therefore charge a person filming with a felony.
It would be particularly naive, especially when looking at their recent history of doing so, for anyone to assume that Illinois police would not use this bill to arrest people who film them.
There is however, a simple fix to this problem of a vaguely defined law and that is to clearly define it. Add a line which clearly states that "filming police in public is a constitutionally protected right and cannot be infringed."