RSN: Michael Winship | The Democrats Ignore the 500-Pound Lobbyist in the Room, Amnesty International: Hundreds 'Disappeared' by Egyptian Forces

There is an article below about Egypt worth reading:   Amnesty International: Hundreds 'Disappeared' by Egyptian Forces

Egypt is the 2nd largest US Welfare recipient, after Israel and this is what your tax dollars are supporting. 





13 July 16 AM

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

Hello Folks You are Not Donating! Truth: We only need a few donations every month to make Reader Supported News work. More Truth: Without those few donations we - can - not - do - this. We have a completely independent 100% Reader Supported news agency. Get behind it. Please! / Marc Ash, Curator Reader Supported News

---

Michael Winship | The Democrats Ignore the 500-Pound Lobbyist in the Room

AUTHORONE
Winship writes: "As party members meet to approve a new platform, they pay little attention to the industry that's destroying government and politics."
READ MORE

As party members meet to approve a new platform, they pay little attention to the industry that's destroying government and politics.

n all of the 35 single-spaced pages of the Democratic Party’s platform draft, there is just one mention of lobbying.

One.

Oh, it says some fine uplifting things about voters lacking a proper voice in government, about money and politics and the need to overturn Citizens United and Buckley v. Valeo, two of the Supreme Court decisions that unleashed a deluge of dollars into our electoral system.

“Democrats believe we must fight to preserve the essence of the longest standing democracy in the world: a government that represents the American people, not just a handful of powerful and wealthy special interests,” the draft reads. “We will fight for real campaign-finance reform now. Big money is drowning out the voices of everyday Americans, and we must have the necessary tools to fight back and safeguard our electoral and political integrity.”

But the word “lobbying” is only in there once. And that’s in reference to regulating our financial system. “We will crack down on the revolving door between the private sector — particularly Wall Street — and the federal government,” it says in the draft. “… And we will bar financial-service regulators from lobbying their former colleagues for at least two years.”

All fine and dandy, and sure, language may change as the committee meets in Orlando this weekend to approve a final draft that will be sent to the convention later this month. But so far, there’s zero about the billions of dollars spent to lobby Congress, the White House and the other federal regulatory agencies —$3.22 billion last year alone.

Nothing about how lobbyists bundle masses of cash for candidates and bankroll lavish lunches and soirees at the party conventions. Nothing about the thousands employed along K Street to woo politicians and government officials on behalf of their fat-cat clients. Nothing about the trickle down of the lobby industry from DC into our states, counties and municipalities. Just the other day, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reportedthat since 2002, lobbyists in Minnesota alone have spent nearly $800 million buying influence: “The amount spent per year has doubled, and the number of new lobbying clients seeking to make themselves heard has tripled.”

Funny kind of democracy where you have to shell out big bucks to get any attention paid, emphasis on the “paid.” It reminds me of my late friend, humorist Henry Morgan, who used to say that the word democracy was derived from the Greek — demos, meaning “people,” and cracy, meaning “crazy.”

But the Democrats’ failure to sound the alarm on lobbying isn’t surprising, really. No one in either of the two party establishments wants to upset the cart that delivers all them golden apples. Besides, as journalist Thomas Frank writes, Washington and the lobbyists that the city nurtures have bonded as “a community – a community of corruption, perhaps, but a community nevertheless: happy, prosperous and joyfully oblivious to the plight of the country once known as the land of the middle class.”

Lobbying remains one of the nation’s “persistently prosperous industries,” Thomas Frank notes, with a “curiously bipartisan nature… After all, for this part of Washington, the only real ideology around is based on money – how much and how quickly you get paid.”

Look on their works, ye Mighty, and despair! Or better yet, take a look at a recent article in Politico, the publication which is to Washington gossip and dealmaking what Variety is to Hollywood gossip and dealmaking.

It’s the sad story of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, an attempt — after the arrest and conviction of superlobbyist Jack Abramoff — to address the revolving door between government and business, that sends former members of Congress and their staffs spinning into the arms of cushy lobbying jobs, too often fostering graft, greed and the gross abuse of money and power.

Instead, and in classic fashion, by the time the bill was signed into law, it had been subverted, twisted into a tangle of compromise and doubletalk that did nothing to solve the problem and may well have made it worse. Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico writes, “Not only did the lobbying reform bill fail to slow the revolving door, it created an entire class of professional influencers who operate in the shadows, out of the public eye and unaccountable.”

“Of the 352 people who left Congress alive since the law took effect in January 2008, POLITICO found that almost half (47 percent) have joined the influence industry: 84 as registered lobbyists and 80 others as policy advisers, strategic consultants, trade association chiefs, corporate government relations executives, affiliates of agenda-driven research institutes and leaders of political action committees or pressure groups. Taken as a whole, more former lawmakers are influencing policy and public opinion now than before the reform was enacted: in a six-year period before the law, watchdog group Public Citizen found 43 percent of former lawmakers became lobbyists.”

Further:

“There is less transparency because some former lawmakers don’t need to register because lobbying is just one slice of how special interests shape laws in Washington today… [And] it’s hard to tell the difference between the job descriptions of former members who are registered to lobby and those who aren’t. That’s because the reform law provided weak rules and even weaker enforcement. It added criminal penalties but made them so hard to prosecute they’ve never been tried.”

And it gets worse:

The revolving door is about to enter peak season. Already 42 members of Congress have resigned, lost or announced plans to leave by January, and some are already talking with prospective future employers — all perfectly permissible and confidential, thanks to weaknesses engineered into the post-Abramoff reform law. These members know they can command a premium — $100,000 more than other lobbyists, according to a new study — from an industry that values the access they can provide to the halls of power.”

And you thought Congress never got anything accomplished! And then wondered why plutocrats can still skip through yawning tax loopholes and the military still gets billions for weapons systems it doesn’t need and the health insurance industry gets away with murder and pharmaceutical prices are ruinous, to name but a few of the heinous ways the influence of deep pockets shafts the rest of us.

The crime, of course, is that none of this is a crime but business as usual. And so the draft platform of the Democratic National Committee mentions lobbying but once and the chicanery, gouging and legalized bribery continue unabated — just another perfect day in Washington and these United States. Check, please.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/37978-the-democrats-ignore-the-500-pound-lobbyist-in-the-room

Why the Drone-Like Execution of Dallas Shooter by Police Should Alarm Us 

Matthew Feeney, Newsweek 

Feeney writes: "The death of the alleged shooter in Dallas should prompt us to think carefully about how new technologies will be used by police to deliver lethal force." 

READ MORE

Newt Gingrich Pals Around With Terrorists Saddam Hussein Once Armed
Robert Mackey, The Intercept
Mackey writes: "Newt Gingrich, who is being vetted to be Donald Trump's running mate, left the campaign trail this weekend for an unusual reason. The former speaker of the House had to fly to Paris to appear at a gala celebration for the Mojahedin-e Khalq, an Iranian exile group that wants Washington's backing for regime change in Iran."
READ MORE

CEOs at Corporate Powerhouses Got Paid 276 Times the Typical American Worker's Salary Last Year
Alan Pyke, ThinkProgress
Pyke writes: "Chief executives at the 350 largest American corporations made $15.5 million each on average last year, roughly 276 times what the typical U.S. worker earned."
READ MORE

Former Black Panther Wins Settlement, Released From Solitary Confinement
teleSUR
Excerpt: "A former Black Panther revolutionary who was placed in solitary confinement for 22 years has won a US$99,000 settlement and a permanent release from solitary."
READ MORE

An image depicting Russell Shoatz in a campaign video calling for his release. 

(photo: Vimeo/Vagabond Beaumont)

This settlement may be an impetus to release other prisoners serving long solitary confinement sentences.

 former Black Panther revolutionary who was placed in solitary confinement for 22 years has won a US$99,000 settlement and a permanent release from solitary, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

Russell “Maroon” Shoatz was convicted back in 1970 for the first-degree murder of a Philadelphia police officer, in an attack that was conducted at the Philadelphia police station. His nickname is a reference to slaves who escaped in North and South America, and was given to him after he escaped twice from prison.

Even while imprisoned, Shoatz did not quell his political activism. Since the 1980s, he’s been fighting to win release by lobbying for the repeal of life sentences without parole. He also became president of the Pennsylvania Association of Lifers in 1983.

First placed in solitary confinement for several years, he was placed in solitary again in 1991, where he remained until 2014.

While in isolation, Shoatz had no major violation but was still placed on a restricted release list which requires a prison superintendent to recommend his release. Authorities denied his requests over the years, citing his past escape attempts and political activism.

Unsurprisingly, Shoatz suffers from severe depression and anxiety as a result of his confinement.

In a statement through lawyers with the Abolitionist Law Center, Shoatz said that he has always chosen to fight and cited Frederick Douglass.

“Frederick Douglass was right when he said ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand,’” said Shoatz.

Shoatz’s granting of a trial in his lawsuit comes on the heels of another former Black Panther, Albert Woodfox being released from prison after a record number of 43 years in prison.

Next month, the head of the state’s prison system will be testifying in a case the Abolitionist Law Center has filed on behalf of Arthur Johnson, who has been in isolation since 1979. While the settlement only applies to Shoatz, it may be an impetus to release other prisoners who have been in solitary confinement for even longer.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/37974-former-black-panther-wins-settlement-released-from-solitary-confinement

Amnesty International: Hundreds 'Disappeared' by Egyptian Forces 

Heba Moussa and Ian Lee, CNN 

Excerpt: "Activists say people in Egypt are being detained without access to family or a lawyer, and held incommunicado without formal charges or a trial. They call it 'enforced disappearances,' and in the first five months of 2016 alone, a suspected 630 of these have already been documented, Amnesty International says." 

READ MORE

Half of All US Food Produce Is Thrown Away, New Research Suggests
Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian UK
Goldenberg writes: "The demand for 'perfect' fruit and veg means much is discarded, damaging the climate and leaving people hungry."
READ MORE

---

Become a Fan of RSN on Facebook and Twitter

RSN: A Media Unmoored From Facts, Bill O'Reilly Sent His Interviewer to Princeton to Say the Word 'Ghetto' to Black Students. It Went Poorly.

The Corporate Media PROPAGANDA MACHINES and Fox News = Fake News = CULT have sorely betrayed Americans with their offerings. 

Please consider supporting INDEPENDENT MEDIA, a voice for the TRUTH. 

Reader Supported News | 09 April 16

---

April Looks Like It Will Be a Difficult Fundraising Month

The early indicators are not good. It's the 9th day of the month and the 3rd day of the drive and we have not yet raised 2k. As of this morning we have 3 donations totaling $25. for today.

Please put something aside for Reader Supported News.

Need to get this turned around.

Marc Ash 
Curator, Reader Supported News

Sure, I'll make a donation!

---

If you would prefer to send a check: 
Reader Supported News 
PO Box 2043 
Citrus Hts 
CA 95611

It's Live on the HomePage Now: 
Reader Supported News

---

Robert Parry | A Media Unmoored From Facts 
 
Robert Parry, Consortium News 
Parry writes: "I received a phone call from legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh who had seen one of my recent stories about Syria and wanted to commiserate over the state of modern journalism. Hersh's primary question regarding reporters and editors at major news outlets these days was: 'Do they care what the facts are?'" 
READ MORE

Mainstream U.S. journalism has completely lost its way, especially in dealing with foreign policy issues where bias now overwhelms any commitment to facts, a dangerous development, writes Robert Parry.

everal weeks ago, I received a phone call from legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh who had seen one of my recent stories about Syria and wanted to commiserate over the state of modern journalism. Hersh’s primary question regarding reporters and editors at major news outlets these days was: “Do they care what the facts are?”

Hersh noted that in the past – in the 1970s when he worked at The New York Times – even executive editor Abe Rosenthal, who was a hard-line cold warrior with strong ideological biases, still wanted to know what was really going on.

My experience was similar at The Associated Press. Among the older editors, there was still a pride in getting the facts right – and not getting misled by some politician or spun by some government flack.

That journalistic code, however, no longer exists – at least not on foreign policy and national security issues. The major newspapers and TV networks are staffed largely by careerists who uncritically accept what they are fed by U.S. government officials or what they get from think-tank experts who are essentially in the pay of special interests.

For a variety of reasons – from the draconian staff cuts among foreign correspondents to the career fear of challenging some widely held “group think” – many journalists have simply become stenographers, taking down what the Important People say is true, not necessarily what is true.

It’s especially easy to go with the flow when writing about some demonized foreign leader. Then, no editor apparently expects anything approaching balance or objectivity, supposedly key principles of journalism. Indeed, if a reporter gave one of these hated figures a fair shake, there might be grumblings about whether the reporter was a “fill-in-the-blank apologist.” The safe play is to pile on.

This dishonesty – or lack of any commitment to the truth – is even worse among editorialists and columnists. Having discovered that there was virtually no cost for being catastrophically wrong about the facts leading into the Iraq invasion in 2003, these writers must feel so immune from accountability that they can safely ignore reality.

But – for some of us old-timers – it’s still unnerving to read the work of these “highly respected” journalists who simply don’t care what the facts are.

For instance, the establishment media has been striking back ferociously against President Barack Obama’s apostasy in a series of interviews published in The Atlantic, in which he defends his decision not to bomb the Syrian government in reaction to a mysterious sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013.

Though The Atlantic article was posted a month ago, the media fury is still resonating and reverberating around Official Washington, with Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt penning the latest condemnation of Obama’s supposed fecklessness for not enforcing his “red line” on chemical-weapon use in Syria by bombing the Syrian military.

Remember that in 2002-03, Hiatt penned Post editorials that reported, as “flat fact,” that Iraq possessed hidden stockpiles of WMD – and he suffered not a whit for being horribly wrong. More than a dozen years later, Hiatt is still the Post’s editorial-page editor – one of the most influential jobs in American journalism.

On Thursday, Hiatt reported as flat fact that Syria’s “dictator, Bashar al-Assad, killed 1,400 or more people in a chemical gas attack,” a reference to the 2013 sarin atrocity. Hiatt then lashed out at President Obama for not punishing Assad and – even worse – for showing satisfaction over that restraint.

Citing The Atlantic interviews, Hiatt wrote that Obama “said he had been criticized because he refused to follow the ‘playbook that comes out of the foreign-policy establishment,’ which would have counseled greater U.S. intervention.” Hiatt was clearly disgusted with Obama’s pusillanimous choice.

The No ‘Slam Dunk’ Warning

But what Hiatt and other neocon columnists consistently ignore from The Atlantic article is the disclosure that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper informed Obama that U.S. intelligence analysts doubted that Assad was responsible for the sarin attack.

Clapper even used the phrase “slam dunk,” which is associated with the infamous 2002 pledge from then-CIA Director George Tenet to President George W. Bush about how “slam dunk” easy it would be to make the case that Iraq was hiding WMD. More than a decade later, brandishing that disgraced phrase, Clapper told Obama that it was not a “slam dunk” that Assad was responsible for the sarin attack.

In other words, Obama’s decision not to bomb Assad’s military was driven, in part, by the intelligence community’s advice that he might end up bombing the wrong people. Since then, evidence has built up thatradical jihadists opposed to Assad staged the sarin attack as a provocation to trick the U.S. military into entering the war on their side.

But those facts clearly are not convenient to Hiatt’s neocon goal – i.e., how to get the United States into another Mideast “regime change” war – so he simply expunges the “slam dunk” exchange between Clapper and Obama and inserts instead a made-up “fact,” the flat-fact certainty of Assad’s guilt.

Hiatt’s assertion of the death toll – as “1,400 or more people” – is also dubious. Doctors on the ground in Damascus placed the number of dead at several hundred. The 1,400 figure was essentially manufactured by the U.S. government using a dubious methodology of counting bodies shown on “social media,” failing to take into account the question of whether the victims died as a result of the Aug. 21, 2013 incident.

Relying on “social media” for evidence is a notoriously unreliable practice, since pretty much anyone can post anything on the Internet. And, in the case of Syria, there are plenty of interest groups that have a motive to misidentify or even fabricate images for the purpose of influencing public opinion and policy. There is also the Internet’s vulnerability as a devil’s playground for professional intelligence services.

But Hiatt is far from alone in lambasting Obama for failing to do what All the Smart People of Washington knew he should do: bomb, bomb, bomb Assad’s forces in Syria – even if that might have led to the collapse of the army and the takeover of Damascus by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and/or the Islamic State.

Nationally syndicated columnist Richard Cohen, another Iraq War cheerleader who suffered not at all for that catastrophe, accused Obama of “hubris” for taking pride in his decision not to bomb Syria in 2013 and then supposedly basing his foreign policy on that inaction.

“In an odd way, Obama’s failure to intervene in Syria or to enforce his stated ‘red line’ there has become the rationale for an entire foreign policy doctrine – one based more on hubris than success,” wrote Cohen in a column on Tuesday.

Note how Cohen – like Hiatt – fails to mention the relevant fact that DNI Clapper warned the President that the intelligence community was unsure who had unleashed the sarin attack or whether Assad had, in fact, crossed the “red line.”

Cohen also embraces the conventional wisdom that Obama was mistaken not to have intervened in Syria, ignoring the fact that Obama did, in violation of international law, authorize arming and training of thousands of Syrian rebels to violently overthrow the Syrian government, with many of those weapons (and recruits) falling into the hands of terror groups, such as Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Climbing into Bed with Al Qaeda.”]

Neocon Ideologues

So, it appears that these well-regarded geniuses don’t appreciate the idea of ascertaining the facts before charging off to war. And there’s a reason for that: many are neocon ideologues who reached their conclusion about what needs to be done in the Middle East – eliminate governments that are troublesome to Israel – and thus they view information as just something to be manipulated to manipulate the public.

This thinking stems from the 1990s when neocons combined their recognition of America’s unmatched military capabilities – as displayed in the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91 and made even more unchallengeable with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991– with Israel’s annoyance over inconclusive negotiations with the Palestinians and security concerns over Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.

The new solution to Israel’s political and security problems would be “regime change” in countries seen as aiding and abetting Israel’s enemies. The strategy came together among prominent U.S. neocons working on Benjamin Netanyahu’s 1996 campaign for Israeli prime minister.

Rather than continuing those annoying negotiations with the Palestinians, Netanyahu’s neocon advisers — including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Mevray Wurmser — advocated a new approach, called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”

The “clean break” sought “regime change” in countries supporting Israel’s close-in enemies, whether Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Syria under the Assad dynasty or Iran, a leading benefactor of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Two years later, in 1998, the neocon Project for the New American Century called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. PNAC was founded by neocon luminaries William Kristol and Robert Kagan. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]

After George W. Bush became president and the 9/11 attacks left the American people lusting for revenge, the pathway was cleared for implementing the “regime change” agenda, with Iraq still at the top of the list although it had nothing to do with 9/11. Again, the last thing the neocons wanted was to inform the American people of the real facts about Iraq because that might have sunk the plans for this war of choice.

Thus, the American public was consistently misled by both the Bush administration and the neocon-dominated mainstream media. The Post’s Hiatt, for instance, was out there regularly reporting Iraq’s WMD threat as “flat fact.”

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and months of fruitless searching for the promised WMD caches, Hiatt finally acknowledged that the Post should have been more circumspect in its confident claims about the WMD. “If you look at the editorials we write running up [to the war], we state as flat fact that he [Saddam Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction,” Hiatt said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review. “If that’s not true, it would have been better not to say it.” [CJR, March/April 2004]

Yet, Hiatt’s supposed remorse didn’t stop him and the Post editorial page from continuing its single-minded support for the Iraq War — and heaping abuse on war critics, such as former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson who challenged President Bush’s claims about Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium from NIger.

The degree to which the neocons continue to dominate the major news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, is demonstrated by the lack of virtually any accountability on the journalists who misinformed their readers about an issue as consequential as the war in Iraq.

And, despite the disaster in Iraq, the neocons never cast aside their “clean break” playbook. After Iraq, the “regime change” strategy listed Syria next and then Iran. Although the neocons suffered a setback in 2008 with the election of Iraq War opponent Barack Obama, they never gave up their dreams.

The neocons worked through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other Iraq War supporters who managed to survive and even move up through the government ranks despite Obama’s distaste for their military solutions.

While in office, Clinton sabotaged chances to get Iran to surrender much of its nuclear material – all the better to keep the “regime change” option in play – and she lobbied for a covert military intervention to oust Syria’s Assad. (She also tipped the balance in favor of another “regime change” war in Libya that has created one more failed state in the volatile region.)

But the most disturbing fact is that these war promoters – both in politics and the press – continue to be rewarded for their warmongering. Hiatt retains his gilded perch as the Post’s editorial-page editor (setting Official Washington’s agenda); Cohen remains one of America’s leading national columnists; and Hillary Clinton is favored to become the next President.

So, the answer to Sy Hersh’s question – “Do they care what the facts are?” – is, it appears, no. There is just too much money and power involved in influencing and controlling Washington and – through those levers of finance, diplomacy and war – controlling the world. When that’s at stake, real facts can become troublesome things. For the people who wield this influence and control, it is better for them to manufacture their own.

---

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/36221-a-media-unmoored-from-facts

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Sexually Abused 4 Boys, Prosecutors Say 
Faith Karimi, CNN 
Karimi writes: "Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert sexually abused at least four boys when he worked as a wrestling coach at a high school in Illinois decades ago, federal prosecutors said." 
READ MORE

Former house speaker Dennis Hastert. (photo: AP)

ormer House Speaker Dennis Hastert sexually abused at least four boys when he worked as a wrestling coach at a high school in Illinois decades ago, federal prosecutors said.

In documents released Friday, prosecutors detailed stunning allegations against Hastert, the longest-running Republican speaker of the House.

The revelation comes days before his April 27 sentencing in a financial violation case. He pleaded guilty last year to structuring money transactions to evade reporting where he took massive amounts of funds he was withdrawing.

Investigators said the transactions involved $3.5 million he paid in hush money to one of his accusers.

Prosecutors listed four boys Hastert allegedly abused when he coached at a high school in Yorkville, Illinois.

An additional one -- a fifth student -- died years after the abuse, according to the document.

Accuser allegedly paid off

The accusations came to light after investigators found out he was paying an ex-student to stay quiet about sexual abuse allegations, prosecutors allege.

The student was among four others who told investigators he abused them, including one who was 14 at the time, the documents allege.

The allegations date to the 1960s and 1970s, according to the prosecutors' court filing.

Hastert will not face sexual abuse charges because the statutes of limitation have expired.

Massages, sex acts alleged

All those who accused him of sexual abuse were wrestlers at the high school, according to the documents.

In two separate cases, Hastert massaged one boy each in a locker room and performed unspecified sexual acts on them, prosecutors allege.

In another instance, he allegedly massaged a boy's groin area and singled him out to stay in his hotel room during a wrestling camp.

Another accuser said Hastert touched him inappropriately in a "very weird" way while he was a student, prosecutors said.

"The actions at the core of this case took place not on the defendant's national public stage but in his private one-on-one encounters in an empty locker room and a motel room with minors that violated the special trust between those young boys and their coach," prosecutors said.

During his time at Yorkville High School, Hastert was a beloved coach. He was named Illinois Coach of the Year after leading the wrestling team to the state championship.

Apology

CNN has reached out to Hastert's attorneys, but has not heard back.

Before details of the sexual abuse allegations came to light, Hastert apologized this week for an unspecified misconduct.

"Mr. Hastert is deeply sorry and apologizes for his misconduct that occurred decades ago and the resulting harm he caused to others," his attorneys wrote. "He will stand before the court having deteriorated both physically and emotionally, undoubtedly in part due to public shaming and humiliation of an unprecedented degree."

As he awaits sentencing in the financial misconduct, Hastert was hospitalized with various ailments late last year, including a stroke and sepsis. His attorneys have asked for probation instead of jail time in the financial case.

Hastert served as the Republican speaker of the House between 1999-2007.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36220-former-house-speaker-dennis-hastert-sexually-abused-4-boys-prosecutors-say

US Releases 'Fast and Furious' Gun Trafficking Papers 
teleSUR 
Excerpt: "The U.S. Department of Justice released thousands of subpoenaed documents Friday about the controversial 'Operation Fast and Furious' gun trafficking investigation, four years after the government asserted executive privilege to try to block Congress from obtaining the documents." 
READ MORE

Bruce Springsteen Cancels Show in North Carolina to Protest 'Bathroom Bill' 
Laura Wagner, NPR 
Wagner writes: "Bruce Springsteen has canceled his show scheduled for Sunday in North Carolina as a show of 'solidarity' with the people and businesses protesting the state's recently passed HB2 law, which requires that transgender people only use bathrooms that correspond with their sex at birth." 
READ MORE

Bill O'Reilly Sent His Interviewer to Princeton to Say the Word 'Ghetto' to Black Students. It Went Poorly. 
Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani, ThinkProgress 
Varkiani writes: "In one of the most bizarre segments on Fox News you'll ever see, Bill O'Reilly sent his interviewer to Princeton to say the word 'ghetto' to black students - and it went pretty much as you'd expect." 
READ MORE

The People Who Make Your Stuff: Voices From the Juarez Workers Movement 
David Bacon, NACLA 
Bacon writes: "Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, is the center of a growing rebellion of laborers in the border factories. Since September, workers have set up encampments, or plantones, in front of factories, they've marched through the streets, they've demanded recognition of independent unions. In response, the companies have fired hundreds and tried to stop the workers' movement from spreading." 
READ MORE

One-Third of Global Food Production Never Finds Its Way Onto Our Plate 
Nicole Mormann, TakePart 
Mormann writes: "It's easy not to think about food waste when your rotting tomatoes and days-old casserole dishes are hidden away in the back of the refrigerator - out of sight, out of mind. But when it comes time to clean it out, you have to face a lot of waste food, money and the resources that took to produce it." 
READ MORE

RSN: Hundreds of Colorado Students Walk Out in Protest Over Class on "Patriotism," Respect for Authority

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

IT IS A VERY DIFFICULT FUNDRAISER: In the interest of ending this sometime soon – please – take a moment of your time to put something in the hat. Thanks to all. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

Okay, I'll make a donation.

---

Charles Pierce | Bill O'Reilly Is Not a Military -- or Any Other Kind of -- Genius

Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: 'As the 'war' on terror has ground on, I have been waiting for years for a nuttier concept than Saddam's balsa-wood escadrille. Hold all calls.'
READ MORE

Juan Cole | Syrian Regime Propaganda Coup as Israel Downs Syrian Plane Over Golan
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "Israel shot down a Syrian MiG fighter jet on Tuesday, saying it had penetrated into Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad took little time to imply that the Israelis were thus protecting the al-Nusra Front, instead of joining in the fight against al-Qaeda offshoots."
READ MORE

What Obama Said (and Didn't Say) at the UN Climate Summit
Lindsay Abrams, Salon
Abrams writes: "Straight from his speech about last night's air raids in Syria and en route to an appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative, President Obama stood before the U.N. Climate Summit to deliver a short speech on the 'one issue that will define the contour of this century more than any other.'"
READ MORE

Snowden, McKibben Honored With "Alternative Nobel"
Karl Ritter, ABC News
Ritter writes: "Edward Snowden was among the winners Wednesday of a Swedish human rights award, sometimes referred to as the 'alternative Nobel,' for his disclosures of top secret surveillance programs."
READ MORE

Former AIG Executive Sues US Over $182 Billion Bailout, Saying it Wasn't Favorable Enough
Ben Protess and Aaron M. Kessler, The New York Times
Excerpt: "One might call it 'chutzpah,' as several irate lawmakers did, or 'rubbing salt in the wounds' of the American taxpayer. But to a few Wall Street financiers, a lawsuit that accuses the government of shortchanging the American International Group in its 2008 bailout is something else: a promising investment in a cause they support."
READ MORE

Hundreds of Colorado Students Walk Out in Protest Over Class on "Patriotism," Respect for Authority
The Associated Press
Excerpt :"Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, in a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay."
READ MORE

Food Waste in the US Is out of Control
Joanna Rothkopf, Salon
Rothkopf writes: "In 2012, American individuals and businesses put nearly 35 million tons of once perfectly good food in the garbage, representing a 20 percent jump from 2000 and a 300 percent jump from 1960."
READ MORE