RSN: Tased in the Chest for 23 Seconds, Dead for 8 Minutes, Now Facing a Lifetime of Recovery, 450 Environmental Groups Call on US Congress to Scrap TPP

08 June 16

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“Record” Readership, All Time Low Donations - Help!

We are seeing readership numbers now that we have never seen before. Pushing double a year ago. Yes, we love that.

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We are forced, like it or not, to confront that.

In earnest.

Marc Ash
Curator, Reader Supported News

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Greg Palast | Stealing California 
 
Greg Palast, Greg Palast's Website 
Palast writes: "It's not some grand conspiracy, but it's grand theft nonetheless. Sen. Bernie Sanders' voters will lose their ballots, their rights, by the tens of thousands." 
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Clinton Wins Democratic Primary in California, Sanders Vows to Fight On 
Jessica Taylor, NPR News 
Taylor writes: "Clinton made history Tuesday as the first woman to become the presumptive nominee of a major party in the U.S. But rival Bernie Sanders vowed to continue his fight at least until next week's primary in the District of Columbia." 
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Tased in the Chest for 23 Seconds, Dead for 8 Minutes, Now Facing a Lifetime of Recovery 
Nick Berardini and Matt Stroud, The Intercept 
Excerpt: "In the video, officer Timothy Runnels pulls Bryce Masters over and approaches the car. He tells Bryce to get out but doesn't give a reason. Bryce repeatedly asks if he is under arrest. Runnels says, 'You're under arrest. Get your ass out of the car,' and attempts to pull him out by force. He then tases Bryce for 23 seconds, handcuffs him, drags the boy's body behind the car, and deliberately drops him face first onto the asphalt road." 
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Forget Hunger Strikes. What Prisons Fear Most Is Labor Strikes 
Raven Rakia, Yes! Magazine 
Rakia writes: "Prisons would 'grind to a halt' without the use of prison labor." 
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Architecture for the One Percent 
Alex Cocotas, Jacobin 
Cocotas writes: "Contemporary architecture is more interested in mega projects for elites than improving ordinary people's lives." 
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The Refugee Crisis Just Hit a New, Grim Milestone 
Esther Yu-Hsi Lee 
Lee writes: "More than 10,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe since 2014, the United Nations announced on Tuesday." 
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450 Environmental Groups Call on US Congress to Scrap TPP 
teleSUR 
Excerpt: "More than 450 groups on Monday called on Congress to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership if it comes up for a vote this fall, saying the trade deal would allow fossil fuel companies to contest U.S. environmental rules in extrajudicial tribunals." 
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CounterCurrents: 13-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Shot Dead In West Bank, Pakistan Has Around 130 Nuclear Warheads Says US Congressional Report, Muslim World: The Leaders Who Could Not Lead

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

13-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Shot Dead In West Bank
By MA’AN NEWS AGENCY

http://www.countercurrents.org/maan230116.htm

A 13-year-old Palestinian was shot dead Saturday after reportedly attempting to stab an Israeli security guard outside of an illegal West Bank settlement northeast of Jerusalem, Israeli police said. Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said that the girl approached a gate leading into the Anatot settlement, also known as Almon, and attempted to stab a security guard. The guard immediately fired gunshots at the 13-year-old, injuring her critically, al-Samri said. The child died on site shortly after


Dozens Of Refugees Drown Near Greek Island Of Farmakonisi
By Thomas Gaist

http://www.countercurrents.org/gaist230116.htm

Some 45 refugees, including 17 children, drowned in boat sinkings in the Aegean Sea Friday, after capsizing near the Greek island of Farmakonisi, according to Greece’s coast guard


Pakistan Has Around 130 Nuclear Warheads Says US Congressional Report
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

http://www.countercurrents.org/ghazali230116.htm

The Congressional report titled "Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons" was released on January 14. It is written by Nonproliferation experts, Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin. The report said "Islamabad’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal, development of new types of nuclear weapons, and adoption of a doctrine called “full spectrum deterrence” have led some observers to express concern about an increased risk of nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India, which also continues to expand its nuclear arsenal."


Muslim World: The Leaders Who Could Not Lead 
By Mahboob A Khawaja

http://www.countercurrents.org/khawaja230116.htm

The entire Muslim world is engaged in self-destructive conflicts. Unwarranted wars and sectarian bloodbaths are the order of the day, so unparallel in contemporary history. You wonder, what are they fighting for? Who are the real warriors fighting for human freedom and justice and who are the hired culprits to prolong proxy wars for other hegemonic powers? Both the US and Russia are competing for hegemonic strategic influence, increased sales of weaponry and to acquire direct control over the natural resources of Arab Middle East. West Europeans - the former lords of colonialism prefer their own strategic priorities wherever they could find a gap between the two competing superpowers. People are not the aim for mind control but victims of the interventionist policies and raging wars


Kettle Calling The Pot Black 
By Jeff Berg

http://www.countercurrents.org/berg230116.htm

Martin Kettle reminds me of nothing so much as he reminds me of Uncle Tom. So happy to be in the 'massahs' house, so relatively warm and comfy and safe, that he genuinely believes that the social hierarchy as it stands is the natural order of things


Sri Lanka: Humpty Dumpty Wigneswaran ! 
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

http://www.countercurrents.org/ilangamuwa230116.htm

With all due respect, it is time to have a look at the art of the politics which has erupted out the Wigneswaran dogma that foully cries for self-determination of the Tamil people in the Jaffna peninsula. The respected former Judge turned politician no more than three years ago is using a big stick on any issues to grab the attention of the public. He is now rapping the old song of the “self-determination” while proving the skill of the Trojan heroism


Petition Campaign: 8 Year Old Dalit Boy Thrown Into Sugarcane Crushing Machine
By Shivangi Joshi

http://www.countercurrents.org/joshi230116.htm

Shivam is an 8 year old Dalit (untouchable) boy who lives in the Maharajganj block of district Jaunpur, in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. On December 28th 2015, he was home alone with younger sister, while his parents were off to their daily wage jobs. Two men belonging to the upper-caste, Radhey Shyam Tiwari and Vijay Nath Tiwari, came by to force Shivam to work on their sugarcane crushing machine. Upon Shivam’s refusal to do so, the Tiwaris slapped him and forcibly took him away with them and threw him into the crushing machine where his arm got caught. By the sheer will to survive Shivam was able to run away from the scene and was later found unconscious on the road

RSN: An Ancient Fish Is Running Out of Time, NYT Claims US Abides by Cluster Bomb Treaty: The Exact Opposite of Reality,

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Glenn Greenwald | NYT Claims US Abides by Cluster Bomb Treaty: The Exact Opposite of Reality 
 
Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept 
Greenwald writes: "In December 2009 - just weeks after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - President Obama ordered a cruise missile strike on al-Majala in southern Yemen. That strike 'killed 35 women and children.' Among the munitions used in that strike were cluster bombs, including ones designed to scatter 166 'bomblets.'" 
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US Clerk Jailed for Refusing to Issue Marriage Certificates to Gay Couples 
Steve Bittenbender, Reuters 
Bittenbender writes: "While Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was jailed on Thursday for refusing to follow the orders of U.S. District Judge David Bunning, her deputies processed a license for James Yates and William Smith, who had previously been denied one five times, after the clerk's office doors opened on Friday." 
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New Cellphone Surveillance Safeguards Imposed on Federal Law Enforcement 
Carrie Johnson, NPR 
Johnson writes: "The Justice Department says it will beef up legal requirements for using cell-site simulators, an increasingly controversial form of surveillance technology that secretly gathers data about mobile devices." 
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Police Officer Indicted for First-Degree Murder in Death of Unarmed Teenager 
Jon Swaine, Guardian UK 
Swaine writes: "A police officer was in custody on Thursday evening after being indicted with first-degree murder for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old in Virginia earlier this year." 
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Stephen Colbert Mocks Jeb Bush for Using Late Show Appearance for Fund-Raising 
Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone 
Kreps writes: "Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush recently sent out an email to supporters trumpeting his visit to the inaugural episode of Late Show With Stephen Colbert and also announcing a contest where, for $3, donors could win a VIP trip to the taping." 
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When You See That Drowned Syrian Boy, You Should See the United States' Shameful Failure 
Amanda Taub, Vox 
Taub writes: "The death of any child is devastating. But these children's stories are particularly painful to read about, because they carry a reproach for readers like us: We let this happen. We left those innocent children to this fate." 
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An Ancient Fish Is Running Out of Time 
Chris Hunter, The New York Times 
Hunter writes: "From an evolutionary perspective, the pallid sturgeon is a thing of beauty." 
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RSN: Huge CEO Pay at US Fossil Fuel Companies Driving Climate Crisis-Report, Disposable People: Obama, the TPP, and the Betrayal of Human Rights

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James O'Keefe Aims at Hillary, Stings Self 
 
Olivia Nuzzi, The Daily Beast 
Nuzzi writes: "James O'Keefe assured me it wasn't a joke. Standing at the lectern at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning, in a charcoal suit and plaid tie, O'Keefe said he was serious. This was a bombshell. This was criminal." 
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David Swanson | 10 Lessons of the Iran Deal 
David Swanson, World Beyond War 
Swanson writes: "The next time someone tells you a particular country must be attacked as a 'last resort,' ask them politely to please explain why diplomacy was possible with Iran and not in this other case. If the U.S. government is held to that standard, war may quickly become a thing of the past." 
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Aylan's Story: How Desperation Left a 3-Year-Old Boy Washed Up on a Turkish Beach 
Justin Wm. Moyer, The Washington Post 
Moyer writes: "The Kurdish boy who washed up on the beach was identified by Turkish officials as 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi in news reports. He was in one of two boats, Reuters reported, carrying a total of 23 people that set off separately from the Akyarlar area of Turkey's Bodrum peninsula." 
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California Agrees to Move Thousands of Inmates Out of Solitary Confinement 
Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times 
St. John writes: "Ending years of litigation, hunger strikes and contentious debate, California has agreed to move thousands of state prisoners out of solitary confinement under the terms of a landmark lawsuit settlement." 
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Disposable People: Obama, the TPP, and the Betrayal of Human Rights 
Jim Miller, San Diego Free Press 
Miller writes: "Since that time the gaze of the national media has turned elsewhere and, as negotiations have encountered difficulties, the administration has sunk to new lows in its zeal to finish the deal on the TPP." 
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Street Battles Rage as ISIL Inches Deeper Into Damascus
Al Jazeera America 
Excerpt: "The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has battled Syrian rebel forces in a southern district of Damascus, bringing ISIL fighters within about 5km of the centre of the capital." 
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Suzanne Goldenberg | Huge CEO Pay at US Fossil Fuel Companies Driving Climate Crisis-Report 
Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian UK 
Goldenberg writes: "Executive pay at fossil fuel companies rewards corporate behavior that deepens the climate crisis, and offers no incentive to shift towards renewable energy, a Washington thinktank said on Wednesday." 
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RSN: Those Damned Migrants: Blame It All on Them!

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Migrants aboard a ship. (photo: AP)

Those Damned Migrants: Blame It All on Them!

By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News

29 April 15

f immigration and border control pose divisive hot-button issues in the United States, migrants and asylum seekers could prove fatal for the European Union. Nearly 1800 of them perished in the Mediterranean in recent weeks. About the same number have reportedly gone missing, and officials are expecting as many as half a million refugees this year to brave the Med in hopes of finding a better life in Europe. 

“It is sickening to see thousands of refugees drowning on the doorstep of the world’s wealthiest continent,” declared actress Angelina Jolie, the UN's Special Envoy for Refugees. “No one risks the lives of their children in this way except out of utter desperation.”

 

Briefing the Security Council on Friday, Jolie blasted the great powers for their humanitarian failure on Syria. An estimated 220,000 Syrians have died in the four-year civil war. Nearly four million are now refugees in neighboring countries. And Syrian war refugees are by far the largest group risking death to enter Europe by sea.

 

“We cannot look at Syria, and the evil that has arisen from the ashes of indecision, and think this is not the lowest point in the world’s inability to protect and defend the innocent,” said Jolie.

 

Refugees from war-torn Afghanistan are similarly crossing the Med in large numbers. Yemenis are now joining the global exodus, while poverty, disease, and rotten governments appear to be the driving force for migrants from Eritrea and other African countries.

 

Jolie’s outrage rings true, but her argument could prove toxic. Washington has long justified military intervention, open and covert, by cloaking its imperial adventures in humanitarian camouflage. The classic case was Vietnam in the 1950s, as revealed in The Pentagon Papers. Working under Col. Edward Lansdale and in cooperation with the US and French navies, the CIA sent trained infiltrators into the Communist north to wage a psychological terror campaign that helped scare nearly a million, mostly Catholic refugees to flee south. The agency hoped the refugees would build a power base for Washington’s hand-picked Catholic ruler, Ngo Dinh Diem, while its “Vietnam Lobby” publicized the refugee’s flight from “the Communist Hell” to build public support for Diem in America.

 

The story in Syria, though far less elaborate, is cut from the same cloth. Under pressure to act in Syria, a publicly reluctant Obama used the CIA help the Qataris and Saudis supply Sunni rebels in Syria with Libyan and other arms. In their effort to overthrow Libya’s Muammar Kadhafi, Obama and his NATO allies similarly claimed to be protecting the supposed innocents of Benghazi. Regime change accomplished, the US, Britain, and France largely walked away, leaving chaos behind. That was how Libya became the single largest smuggling port for refugees and asylum seekers willing to risk their lives to get to Europe. Great powers may work hard to be seen as Good Samaritans, but they generally have their own interests and their own agendas, which humanitarians like Jolie tend to ignore.

 

Equally toxic, those of us who share Jolie’s outrage have so far failed to create a grass-roots movement that can counter one of the most salient facts of political life in Europe today. Voters, already battered by the no-hope economics of austerity, are increasingly blaming immigrants for lost jobs and declining healthcare and other social services. Racism no doubt fuels the scapegoating, as increasing numbers of Europeans turn to ultra-nationalistic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim parties like Marine Le Pen’s Front National. These are the folks most effectively working to break up the European Union. Nowhere are their efforts playing out more pungently than across the Channel, where Britain is now in the closing days of a nasty election campaign.

 

“Saving lives means rescuing these poor people,” declared Prime Minister David Cameron, offering to send the Royal Navy flagship HMS Bulwark, three helicopters, and two border patrol ships to join in the EU’s search-and-rescue efforts. But sticking to his earlier beliefs that this will only encourage more migrants to try their luck, he has limited Britain’s contributions to two months and has insisted that his country would not necessarily accept any of these poor people as permanent residents.

 

“What we need,” he said, “is a comprehensive plan, going after the criminal gangs, going after the traffickers, going after the owners of the boats – potentially taking action there as well and stabilizing the countries from which these people are coming.” In other words, more intervention to alleviate the disasters cause by earlier meddling while no doubt creating new disasters.

 

Cameron also warned that, if elected to succeed him, Labor Party leader Ed Miliband “would increase immigration, not reduce it.” The Tory leader is, of course, trying to woo voters away from the anti-immigrant UK Independence Party (UKIP), which is fighting to get Britain to withdraw from the European Union.

 

In fact, like other European leaders, Cameron is only feeding the migrant bashing on which the anti-EU movement is building.

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A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently Break Their Hold."

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.