Today WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for America’s Most Wanted Secret: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
more info: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-issues-call-for-100-000.html
Today WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for America’s Most Wanted Secret: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
more info: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-issues-call-for-100-000.html
Representative Democracy is not compatible with Global Capitalism, apparently.
‘…Australian politicians have been told they can view the current confidential negotiating text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but only if they agree not to divulge anything they see for four years, despite expectations the deal could be finalised within months.[….]
The requirements listed were as follows:
“I will not divulge any of the text or information obtained in the briefing to any party, I will not copy, transcribe or remove the negotiating text” and “I further acknowledge that the negotiating text is confidential and sensitive; disclosure of the negotiating text may affect adversely TPP negotiations and Australia’s relations with other TPP partners.”
It concluded: “I therefore agree that these confidentiality requirements shall apply for four years after entry into force of the TPP, or if no agreement enters into force, for four years after the last round of negotiations.”…’
via Australian MPs allowed to see top-secret trade deal text but can't reveal contents for four years | Business | The Guardian.
‘…Shell tried to influence the presentation of a climate change programme it was sponsoring at the Science Museum in London, internal documents seen by the Guardian show.
The Anglo-Dutch oil group raised concerns with the museum that one part of the project “creates an opportunity for NGOs to talk about some of the issues that concern them around Shell’s operations”.
The company also wanted to know whether a particular symposium at the museum was “invite only” – as that would ensure “we do not proactively open up a debate on the topic [of Shell’s operations]”.
The concerns are raised in a series of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and once again raise awkward questions about the influence of fossil fuel companies over Britain’s most valued cultural institutions….’
via Shell sought to influence direction of Science Museum climate programme | Business | The Guardian.
‘…An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.
The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.
According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.
via EXCLUSIVE: Undercover DHS Tests Find Security Failures at US Airports – ABC News.
Hagai El-Ad, the executive director of B’Tselem, writes in The New York Times:
‘..Does that mean nobody in the occupied territories has a meaningful vote? No. In fact, some people do: Israeli settlers.
In August 1970, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, discussed amending the Knesset Election Law, which stipulated that Israelis — with few exceptions like diplomats on duty abroad — had to be inside Israel to vote. The amendment sought to expand the exception to include Israelis “residing in the territories held by the Israel Defense Force.” In other words, Israeli settlers could vote for the Knesset from outside Israel; their Palestinian neighbors could not participate from anywhere.
In a Knesset session discussing the amendment before it passed, one legislator and peace activist, Uri Avnery, expressed a widely held belief that peace initiatives would soon make the amendment obsolete. He expressed the hope that “it won’t be long — a year, a year and a half, two at most — before the thing called ‘the held territories’ is no more, and the I.D.F. pulls back into Israel’s borders.”
More than four decades later, what has become obsolete is not the amendment, but rather the accuracy of a description of Knesset elections often heard here: general, national, direct, equal, confidential and proportional.
How can elections be “general” when millions of people under Israel’s control for almost 50 years cannot take part in electing the institutions that hold sway over them? Let’s face it. Only the first six of Israel’s parliamentary elections — those held before 1967 — were truly “general.” Even though the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel proper were under military rule inside its borders at the time, they could vote.
Settlers now have voted in their communities in 14 Knesset elections. Over time, their numbers rose from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands. Yet one thing remained constant: Millions of Palestinians could not cast a meaningful vote, even as the voting of their settler neighbors — citizens of an occupying power — helped decide the fate of the disenfranchised.
via Israel’s Charade of Democracy – NYTimes.com.
‘…By no normal definition of the word popular were the Conservatives popular at the election. They received 36.9% of the vote. By no normal definition of the word mandate did they get the endorsement of the electorate to fully implement their manifesto. Nearly two-thirds of voters did not put their cross in the Tory box. Factor in the turn-out and the Conservatives secured the backing of less than a quarter of the registered electorate. It is first past the post that alchemises a minority vote share into more than half of the seats in the House of Commons, every seat in the cabinet and the power to pursue an entirely Tory agenda for the next five years.
The other party greatly favoured by winner takes all were the Scottish Nationalists. Their hugely swollen contingent of MPs have announced their arrival at Westminster in noisy fashion. When not winding up Tory traditionalists by clapping in the chamber, they are battling with Labour for buttock space on the opposition benches….’
via The real reason David Cameron is sitting on a Commons majority | Andrew Rawnsley | Comment is free | The Guardian.
Tom Tomorrow Cartoon: Don’t Blame Bush and Cheney… Blame the Intelligence! | The Nation.
President Kill List with a Nobel Peace Prize is pursuing weapons that may ignite a new Cold War and cause the Chinese to end their No-First Strike policy for their nukes. No worries, his legacy will be intact as the weapons will are scheduled for testing in 2018 or 2019.
‘…In an effort to develop a defense mechanism that can reach any target in the world in just an hour, the US Air Force is developing hypersonic weapons, which are currently nearing the testing stage. While the technology is not expected to be fully developed for years, some in the international community are worried about the risks of inadvertent nuclear warfare.
[….] According to The Guardian, experts are worried that, due to the method of deployment, hypersonic missiles may be confused for nuclear weapons and spark retaliation. Additionally, Foreign Policy magazine reported that America’s foray into hypersonic military technology has stirred a debate about whether China should abandon its policy not to use nuclear weapons first.
However, the US is pushing forward. The High Speed Strike Weapon and several other hypersonic weapons developed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are scheduled for testing in 2018 or 2019…’
via Why the US is testing hypersonic weapons.
and it is true, Foreign Policy did write about this…
‘…For example, fear of American conventional weapons has sparked an internal Chinese debate about whether Beijing should abandon its long-standing policy not to use nuclear weapons first. [….] The implications of these weapons should be seriously considered now — not after they’re fielded. Their implications for international security — particularly in the event of a U.S.-China conflict — are simply too profound to leave the debate to the handful of wonks that have heard of them today….’
via The Arms Race Goes Hypersonic | Foreign Policy – or, read from the no pay wall: web cache
Jeb Bush says
‘I like the Charles Murray books, to be honest with you, which makes me a total nerd.’
scroll video to 53min40sec…
http://www.c-span.org/video/?325690-1/national-review-institute-2015-ideas-summit
Of course, the elite economists already know this – but who pays their salaries?
CNN.com / January 29 2008: ‘…The industry research firm Moody’s Economy.com tracked the potential impact of each stimulus dollar, looking at tax rebates, tax incentives for business, food stamps and expanding unemployment benefits.
The report found that "some provide a lot of bang for the buck to the economy. Others … don’t," said economist Mark Zandi.
In findings echoed by other economists and studies, he said the study shows the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy, he said.
[….] Finally, Moody’s report says business incentives such as tax breaks for buying new equipment – so-called accelerated depreciation – would give the least bang for the buck and potentially provide the slowest infusion of money. A dollar spent there would generate only 33 cents in the economy because, Zandi said, it takes longer for businesses to implement any benefit received….’
via Food stamps offer best stimulus – study – Jan. 29, 2008.
I have no doubt that this is true, but how can this be true? WTF happened, America??!
‘Released by the Southern Education Foundation, the new analysis (pdf) used the most recent national census figures available to confirm that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013. According to the report’:
‘In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: 71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.’
via ‘A Nation in Decline’: Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
Bob Dreyfuss writes:
‘…Back in 2009, during her first visit to Pakistan as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton stunned her hosts by saying, “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where [bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders] are.” (Yet, two years later, just weeks after the 2011 raid, Clinton reversed herself, insisting that Washington had “absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest level of the Pakistani government” had known bin Laden’s whereabouts. If Hersh is right, Clinton’s second comment was part of an official cover story.)….’
via Why We Need to Take Sy Hersh’s bin Laden Bombshell Seriously | The Nation.
‘Explore the work of visual artist Titus Kaphar. The acclaimed artist, known mostly for his series of paintings, ‘Disrupted Histories’ interacts with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums; and creates new narratives through cutting, shredding, sewing, rumpling, erasing, and whiting out his work….’
via FEATURE: Disrupting History, the paintings of Titus Kaphar – AFROPUNK.
his website: http://tituskaphar.com/
‘… Yanis Varoufakis traces his political consciousness to his childhood in “the junta era” — the years when Greece was ruled by dictatorship. “It was very hard to avoid being political,” he said. “It was all around you.” His father, he said, was raised as “a liberal enlightenment person, not a left winger,” but when he immigrated to Greece from Cairo in the late 1940s, the royalist-communist civil war was underway. One day, the police roughed him up but said they would release him if he signed a denunciation of communism. “He said, ‘Look I am not a Buddhist, but I would never sign a denunciation of Buddhism,’ ” Varoufakis said. “He read Rousseau at 13 years old, and he knew about civil liberties.” He ended up in a concentration camp with communists — and joined the Communist Party, which made finding work nearly impossible. Eventually, he got a low-paying job as a personal assistant to the owner of a steel company, and today, at age 90, he is its chairman. Varoufakis’s mother, a biochemist, made “a pittance,” he said, because she was a woman. She became involved in the feminist movement in the 1970s. Varoufakis was also a political activist from a young age. When he began his career as an academic at the University of Essex, he said, his slogan became “subvert the dominant paradigm,” which some of his students later put on a T-shirt.
Varoufakis left England in 1988 to teach at the University of Sydney, where he began a series of conversations about the global economy with the economist Joseph Halevi, the two of them among academics in their field who contested the notion then popular that the world had entered a new phase of “perpetual growth,” what the former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called the “great moderation.” After the crash, Varoufakis decided to put those ideas into a book for a popular audience titled, “The Global Minotaur,” which presented the world, and Europe, as perilously yoked to the fluctuations of the American economy. When the crisis finally reached Greece, Varoufakis began working with the British economist Stuart Holland and, later, the American economist James Galbraith, on a pamphlet titled, “A Modest Proposal,” which identified four major crises in Europe — in banking, public debt, underinvestment and social welfare — and proposed solutions to each. “Europe is fragmenting,” they wrote. “As this happens, human costs mount, and disintegration becomes an increasing threat. . . . The fallout from a eurozone breakup would destroy the European Union, except perhaps in name. And Europe’s fragmentation poses a global danger.”
via A Finance Minister Fit for a Greek Tragedy? – NYTimes.com.
read ‘A Modest Proposal’ @ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/
Redacted,
Snowden,
Manning…
‘A CIA interrogator of "high-value detainees" filed a complaint in April 2013 with the agency’s internal watchdog in which he sought "whistleblower protection," claiming the CIA punished him as a "reprisal" for him cooperating with investigations into the treatment of detainees. The punishment, he said, was the CIA failing to reimburse him for legal fees he incurred as a result of the investigations. [….]
"[Redacted] contacted the CIA Office of Inspector General via the Report Fraud electronic database alleging reprisal," says the April 12, 2013 closing memorandum in the interrogator’s case. "[Redacted] alleged that [redacted] legal fee reimbursement claim to the CIA was intentionally delayed by Office of General Counsel (OGC) personnel as reprisal for [redacted] cooperation with OIG investigations and other matters involving the Detainee Interrogation Program. [Redacted] served as an interrogator with the Renditions and Detention Group (RDG) of the [CIA’s] National Clandestine Service (NCS)."
via A CIA Interrogator Said the Agency Punished Him For Cooperating With Torture Probe | VICE News.
Seung-yoon Lee: Can I ask your opinion on Charlie Hebdo? What do you think of this ‘freedom of speech no matter what’ principle?
Noam Chomsky: Well, I think we should strongly support freedom of speech. I think one of the good things about the United States, incidentally, as distinct from England, is that there is much higher protection of freedom of speech. But freedom of speech does not mean a lack of responsibility. So for example, I’m in favour of freedom of speech, but if somebody decided to put up a big advertisement in Times Square, New York, glorifying the sending of Jews to gas chambers, I don’t think it should be stopped by the state, but I’m not in favour of it.
Seung-yoon Lee: Also, regarding the specific incident of Charlie Hebdo, do you think the cartoonists lacked responsibility?
Noam Chomsky: Yes, I think they were kind of acting in this case like spoiled adolescents, but that doesn’t justify killing them. I mean, I could say the same about a great deal that appears in the press. I think it’s quite irresponsible often. For example, when the press in the United States and England supported the worst crime of this century, the invasion of Iraq, that was way more irresponsible than what Charlie Hebdo did. It led to the destruction of Iraq and the spread of the sectarian conflict that’s tearing the region to shreds. It was a really major crime. Aggression is the supreme international crime under international law. Insofar as the press supported that, that was deeply irresponsible, but I don’t think the press should be shut down.
via Chomsky: 'I Don't Look at Twitter Because It Doesn't Tell Me Anything'.
essentially: Bill and Hill, are just ordinary criminals – nothing to see here.
and I agree. But why should criminality be accepted in politics, at all??
Josh Marshall writes:
‘Here’s my take on the Clintons. They’ve used their fame and power to enrich themselves, which is of course an outrage since it makes them always indistinguishable from the Bush family. (In other words, we need Jeb to bring honor and dignity back to the Oval Office.) On the Foundation, Bill Clinton has dedicated years of his life both to charitable activities and to perpetuating his most presidential of post-presidencies. They play close to the line. And part of the exhaustion of observing them is the refusal to play by rules tighter than those applied to anyone else, fully knowing the scrutiny that will later be applied to them – and all of this entangled with the freak show conspiracy theories that inevitably bubble up around them, a symbiotic embrace of grievance, aggression and derp. It’s painful to admit but the two sides feed on each other. I start out thinking, I’m happy to let them deal with this on their own. And yet the charges become so overblown and nonsensical, the conventional wisdom in the press marches us so wildly in advance of any actual facts, it just becomes too much for me to take. Seeing them again at the center of these wild and carnivalesque conspiracy theories, grand overstatements and or simply evidence-free accusations puts me in the mind of Michael Corleone’s infamous line: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”…’
via Clinton Foundation-palooza Hurtles Toward Its Vince Foster Moment.
Wow, this NYT article so soon after the Seymour Hersh article that explains how the Obama Admin lied about how they killed Osama bin Laden? I am sceptical of the too conveniently timed news story. The first 2 paragraphs read like a Hollywood film plot. Delta force is even rescuing slaves! Who could possibly disagree with the idea that Obama has invaded yet another country??! — this time Syria. What could possibly go wrong?
‘WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria early Saturday, killing a leader of the Islamic State and about a dozen militant fighters, as well as capturing his wife and freeing an 18-year-old Yazidi woman whom Pentagon officials said had been held as a slave.
In the first successful raid by American ground troops since the military campaign against the Islamic State began last year, two dozen Delta Force commandos entered Syria aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Ospreys and killed the leader, a man known as Abu Sayyaf. One American military official described him as the Islamic State’s “emir of oil and gas.”…’
via ISIS Official Killed in U.S. Raid in Syria, Pentagon Says – NYTimes.com.
‘An amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act that would provide a framework for closing the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, failed on a vote of 174-249….’
via House rejects bid to close Gitmo | TheHill.
The European Court of Human Rights urged the US not to execute the suspects???! Is this a serious worry, or just something the ECHR feels it has to say when handling with legal cases dealing with the USA??
‘…The European Court of Human Rights had imposed a Saturday deadline on Poland to make the reparations. Last July Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were awarded USD $147,000 and $113,000, respectively, in a lawsuit against Poland for allowing the CIA to detain them and for not preventing torture and inhumane treatment. The court also ordered Poland to urge the US not to execute the suspects.
via JURIST – Poland to make payments to alleged CIA rendition victims.
File under ‘shit stupid too make up, therefore it must be true‘
‘…The New York Times has reported that George W. Bush, who began painting amateur portraits in 2012, gave Adelson one of his original paintings at last month’s Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas.
According to the Times, the painting is of Adelson’s Marina Bay Sands resort and casino in Singapore, which is one of the most expensive buildings ever constructed….’
via Adelson primary heats up — fawning George Bush gives him a painting of his casino.
Reuters 2015.05.14:
‘Setting aside for a moment all the world’s major problems,
NATO foreign ministers let their hair down at the end of a meeting in Antalya, Turkey.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_wfMrz9_mY
‘Mark Fiore weighs in on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership in his latest animation, “Obama Trades Transparency.” Watch the cartoon and read about the animator’s ideas on the trade deal below.’
via Truthdig.com
‘For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote.
But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup.
The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies…’
via 5 Big Banks Expected to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges, but Punishments May Be Tempered – NYTimes.com.
Notice that the NYT assures us that this is rare.
TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli court on Tuesday sentenced a Palestinian for incitement and for supporting a terrorist organization based on Facebook posts that applauded militant attacks, his lawyer said. It was a rare case in which statements on social media were regarded as a crime.
[….] “These posts motivated other Facebook users who shared the inciting contents with their friends and followers, who in turn supported the posts by pressing the “like” button,” the indictment said. “The mere use of this media, as the defendant has done, serves as a severe act, given the extensive circulation of the messages, as well as the ease with which these messages spread.”
Mr. Shalabi’s lawyer, Tariq Bargouth, said the basis for the conviction and punishment never established that Mr. Shalabi’s posts had encouraged any specific militant attack.
via Israel Jails Palestinian Who Applauded Militant Attacks on Facebook – NYTimes.com.