Reader Supported News | 18 February 16
We Are in Serious Trouble on Donations
A very serious problem is evolving due entirely to a blind eye to funding. We can’t do this. Wish we could but we can’t. As long as most of you ignore the fundraising. The problem will mount.
The situation is quite serious now.
Marc Ash
Curator, Reader Supported News
Curator, Reader Supported News
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Andy Borowitz | GOP Warns Obama Against Doing Anything for Next Three Hundred and Forty Days
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "In a television appearance on Sunday, the leading Senate Republican warned President Obama 'in no uncertain terms' against doing anything in his remaining three hundred and forty days in office."
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Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "In a television appearance on Sunday, the leading Senate Republican warned President Obama 'in no uncertain terms' against doing anything in his remaining three hundred and forty days in office."
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Peter Van Buren | Nickel and Dimed in 2016: You Can't Earn a Living on the Minimum Wage
Peter Van Buren, Tom Dispatch
Van Buren writes: "To say that we live on a 1% planet isn't just a turn of phrase. In fact, it would undoubtedly be more accurate to speak of a .1% or a .01% planet. In recent years, wealth and income inequalities have grown in a notorious fashion in the United States - and, as it turns out, globally as well."
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Peter Van Buren, Tom Dispatch
Van Buren writes: "To say that we live on a 1% planet isn't just a turn of phrase. In fact, it would undoubtedly be more accurate to speak of a .1% or a .01% planet. In recent years, wealth and income inequalities have grown in a notorious fashion in the United States - and, as it turns out, globally as well."
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Thousands of US Veterans Are Sick and Dying Because of the US Military's Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan
Joseph Hickman, Vice News
Hickman writes: "By May of 2003, there were more than 270 burn pits operating on military bases across Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the pits were massive - some as large as 10 acres, burning more than 50 tons of trash a day. Most pits operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in close proximity to where service members slept and worked."
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Joseph Hickman, Vice News
Hickman writes: "By May of 2003, there were more than 270 burn pits operating on military bases across Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the pits were massive - some as large as 10 acres, burning more than 50 tons of trash a day. Most pits operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in close proximity to where service members slept and worked."
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US Marine in front of burn pit. (photo: Samuel D. Corum/USMC)
t the start of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military commanders were faced with a seemingly mundane problem: how to dispose of the wreckage created by bombs and battle, and the waste created by more than 100,000 military personnel. This soon became a serious issue — every soldier was said to be producing an average of 10 pounds of trash per day — and the DOD decided to construct open-air burn pits on military bases to incinerate the trash.
The Pentagon contracted the firm Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) to get the job done, and by May of 2003, there were more than 270 burn pits operating on military bases across Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of the pits were massive — some as large as 10 acres, burning more than 50 tons of trash a day. Most pits operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in close proximity to where service members slept and worked. The acrid smoke and ash from the pits was a constant annoyance to soldiers.
From 2002 until 2009, there was no regulation for what could or could not be burned. And so KBR burned Styrofoam, plastics, tires, pesticide containers, batteries, medical waste, and even human body parts. According to a 2010 Government Accountability Report, more than 1,000 known toxins and carcinogens were burned in the pits.
As early as 2004, US veterans returning home from the wars began to get sick. Their symptoms often started out as annoyances — constant congestion, endlessly runny noses. But the symptoms didn't always go away; instead, they would get worse, leading to shortness of breath, constant pain, and an inability to work.
For the sickest vets, there were diagnoses of cancer. And, eventually, death.
Thousands of men and women were getting sick because of their exposure to the burn pits; over the past few years, I've spoken with about 150 of them. The Department of Defense (DOD), however, denied the burn pits were a health hazard, blocked veterans from getting the medical assistance and compensation they needed, and shielded KBR.
Lawyers believe this is a coordinated legal strategy, creating a legal limbo in which no one can be held accountable.
Military service members started to become ill with rare and mysterious bronchial diseases and cancers. These veterans — the vast majority of whom were completely healthy before deploying — came to believe their illnesses were caused from their exposure to the burn pits, but when they sought treatment at Veteran's Administration (VA) hospitals and filed for disability benefits, the DOD denied that the pits were a hazard, and the VA sided with the DOD. Almost every veteran who sought benefits based on exposure to burn pits had his or her claim denied. It is hard to prove a war injury not created by a bullet or grenade.
Veterans decided to take legal action. Because of a federal law known as the Farris Doctrine, military members and veterans cannot sue the Pentagon for compensation for injury or death. So many veterans decided to join a class-action lawsuit and sue KBR, alleging that the contractor knew it had constructed the burn pits too close to where soldiers were housed and knew that what was being burned was hazardous. KBR, however, claims that the military chose both the locations of the burn pits and the makeup of what was burned. The DOD is staying silent on the issue, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with KBR. Many lawyers I interviewed who are familiar with the case believe this is a coordinated legal strategy; it creates a legal limbo in which no one can seemingly be held accountable.
Fourteen years after the wars began, there are tens of thousands of veterans who are still sick. Many of them are dying from what they believe was their exposure to the burn pits. Very few have received benefits from the VA for their illnesses. Many are so sick they can't work and are going broke. DOD officials have done nothing to help them.
A clear pattern has emerged regarding these illnesses, and the VA should acknowledge that pattern and take action. The DOD must take responsibility and stop denying its involvement in creating the burn pits, admitting there were health hazards associated with exposure. And KBR must provide compensation to sick veterans. It is what's owed to the service members who selflessly went to war on behalf of the United States.
WikiLeaks Leak 'Classified Report' on EU Operations Against Refugee Flows
Priyanka Mogul, International Business Times
Mogul writes: "WikiLeaks has released a 'classified report' about the first six months of Operation Sophia, the EU military intervention against refugee boats in Libya and Mediterranean."
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Priyanka Mogul, International Business Times
Mogul writes: "WikiLeaks has released a 'classified report' about the first six months of Operation Sophia, the EU military intervention against refugee boats in Libya and Mediterranean."
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FBI Finds Trench of Human Feces at Cultural Site on Oregon Refuge
Reuters
Excerpt: "The FBI said it has found a trench of human feces and a road excavated on or next to a sensitive cultural site with artifacts at the Oregon wildlife refuge where armed men staged a standoff with authorities, according to court records filed on Tuesday."
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Reuters
Excerpt: "The FBI said it has found a trench of human feces and a road excavated on or next to a sensitive cultural site with artifacts at the Oregon wildlife refuge where armed men staged a standoff with authorities, according to court records filed on Tuesday."
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The site of Oregon's occupation by armed group. (photo: AP)
he FBI said it has found a trench of human feces and a road excavated on or next to a sensitive cultural site with artifacts at the Oregon wildlife refuge where armed men staged a standoff with authorities, according to court records filed on Tuesday.
The filing came after the FBI on Friday said it was working with the Burns Paiute Tribe to identify damage to the tribe's artifacts and sacred burial grounds at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge during the six-week occupation.
Evidence teams began processing the crime scenes at the refuge on Saturday, two days after the final occupiers surrendered, and the process will last about three weeks, according to the document submitted in Oregon federal court on Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney Billy Williams of Oregon wrote in the filing that investigators found "significant amounts of human feces" in a trench at an outdoor camping area that was either on or next to a "sensitive cultural site."
"Occupiers appear to have excavated two large trenches and an improvised road on or adjacent to grounds containing sensitive artifacts," he wrote.
Williams also said in the filing - which was a response to occupiers' requests to have their attorneys allowed onto the site - that firearms and explosives were found, and it was feared vehicles and buildings could be booby trapped.
He said he would be willing to allow Bundy's legal team onto the site once authorities are finished processing it and before it is reopened to the public.
The takeover, which began on Jan. 2, was sparked by the return to prison of two Oregon ranchers convicted of setting fires that spread to federal property near the refuge.
It was led by brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who were arrested in January along with other protesters on their way to speak at a community meeting in John Day, Oregon.
A spokesman for the group, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, was shot dead during the stop.
The final four occupiers surrendered on Thursday with David Fry, 27, repeatedly threatening suicide in a dramatic final phone call with mediators before he gave up. All 12 people arrested in connection with the standoff will face charges of conspiracy to impede federal officers, according to the FBI.
The cost of the standoff will likely run into the millions of dollars, with local and state agencies looking to the federal government - and the arrested occupiers - to shoulder the bulk of the bills.
Why Washington Fears the Great Brexit
Finian Cunningham, Strategic Culture Foundation
Cunningham writes: "The countdown begins this week for the momentous question facing Britain: whether to exit the European Union - the so-called Brexit. While the issue seems to be primarily one for British national interests, lurking in the background is a crucial geopolitical concern for the United States."
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Finian Cunningham, Strategic Culture Foundation
Cunningham writes: "The countdown begins this week for the momentous question facing Britain: whether to exit the European Union - the so-called Brexit. While the issue seems to be primarily one for British national interests, lurking in the background is a crucial geopolitical concern for the United States."
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Mountaintop Removal Country's Mental Health Crisis
Clayton Aldern, Grist
Aldern writes: "Whatever the reason, people living in mountaintop removal counties are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to exhibit at least moderate depressive symptoms, compared to those in non-mining counties."
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Clayton Aldern, Grist
Aldern writes: "Whatever the reason, people living in mountaintop removal counties are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to exhibit at least moderate depressive symptoms, compared to those in non-mining counties."
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