1.OCT.2012: Banned Books Week, Approaching Election 2012, Strikes at Walmart, Richest Americans Grow Richer, Republicans Lost the Women War, Killed for Exposing Truth, Warrantless Electronic Surveillance Surges, Preparations for Attacking Iran, Taint of False Confession, Fight for a Progressive Agenda, Private Prison Business, Solidarity for Anti-Nuclear Struggle, New Constitution Party, INTERPOL Aims to Harmonize Info-Sharing, Agent Orange, Unequal Justice Documentary
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Banned Books Week: Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Freedom to Read
September 30−October 6, 2012
Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.
By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. Check out the frequently challenged books section to explore the issues and controversies around book challenges and book banning.
“I think they should spend five or ten minutes on it -- seeing if there’s a point in taking part in the carefully orchestrated electoral extravaganza."
What We Learn from Two Strikes at Walmart Warehouses
In a time when few union members dare strike, three dozen California workers who move goods for Walmart walked off their jobs September 12. Three days later, 30 Illinois warehouse workers walked out too.
What Is Happening to Muslims Will Happen to the Rest of Us
The decision by the European Court of Human Rights last week to refuse to block the extradition of the radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and four others to the United States on terrorism charges removes one of the last external checks on our emerging gulag state.
Republicans Lost the War With Women the Moment They Declared It
A new Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll has the voting women of Ohio giving Barack Obama 25 points over Mitt Romney. In Pennsylvania, women prefer Obama by 21 points and in Florida the president has a 19-point advantage, according to the same poll. That might have something to do with the war on women Republicans have been accidentally waging this summer. Well, the war is not accidental—it’s quite intentional—it just wasn’t meant to be this public.
Where did the mammoth US budget deficits come from?
What’s the cause of the federal government’s huge budget deficits? That’s a question that is harder to answer in the particular than you might think. The general problem is obvious: Uncle Sam has been spending more money than he takes in.
The western Presstitute media uses every lie to demonize the Iranian government. On September 28 in a fit of unmitigated ignorance, the UK rag, Mail Online, called the president of Iran a “dictator.” The Iranian presidency is an office filled by popular election, and the authority of the office is subordinate to the ayatollahs. Assange is demonized alternatively as a rapist and a spy.
The 33-year-old journalist placed his own life in danger on several occasions because he wanted the world to know the truth about the real cause of suffering afflicting the Syrian people. Despite receiving death threats for his critical reporting, he courageously returned to the line of duty time and again.
At Milestone, US Military Deaths Dwarfed by Afghan Dead
The latest green-on-blue shooting in Afghanistan, a firefight which left at least five people dead including two Americans, has put the total number of US soldiers killed in the war at 2,000.
ACLU: Warrantless Electronic Surveillance Surges Under Obama
The American Civil Liberties and Union (ACLU) reports that the documents handed over after months of litigation include the attorney general’s 2010 and 2011 reports covering use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” surveillance powers. The documents, according to the ACLU, shows a sharp increase in the use of surveillance tools such as telephone, email, and other Internet communications. The ACLU observed that the surge underscores the need to regulate government’s surveillance power.
n aninterview today with the Times of Israel, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro denied any disagreements between the US and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the prospect of war with Iran, insisting the two are "totally in sync." Shapiro, whorecently got into a shouting matchwith Netanyahu in front of a Congressional delegation, insisted that the US has made all the "necessary preparations" for attacking Iran, and believes they have coordinated well with Israel.
What if, once police elicit a false confession from a suspect, it contaminates everything and everyone in touches -- from the prosecutor, the judge, and even the suspect's own attorney all the way to the fingerprint identification and even, perhaps, the DNA match?
US offers students scholarships to become cyber warriors
To meet the country’s growing cyber-security needs, the U.S. has offered a lucrative deal to students interested in becoming cyber-warriors. The government will pay tuition fees, expenses, boarding and lodging to students interested in specializing in cyber-security systems. The government will have a deal with the students to serve in a federal agency in exchange for a scholarship. It is a sweet deal, indeed. The students, especially the tech-savvy, can clinch scholarships and in return work for the government agencies to secure computer networks.
Obama vs Romney: What’s at Stake for America’s Working Women
What each presidential candidate may offer women, and particularly working women, was the subject of an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) forum titled, Obama vs. Romney: What’s at stake for America’s working women? in Washington, D.C., Sept. 27.
Obama Team Studies Romney Tapes as Debate Camp Begins
President Obama convened the final debate camp of his political career here on Sunday, huddling with top advisers at a posh lakeside resort 20 miles east of the Strip for a three-day crash course on Republican rival Mitt Romney.
here are two major economic and budgetary issues which Congress must address in the lame-duck session or soon afterward. First, how do we reverse the decline of the middle class and create the jobs that unemployed and underemployed workers desperately need? Second, how do we address the $1 trillion deficit and $16 trillion national debt in a way that is fair and not on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick or the poor?
How Lawmakers and Lobbyists Keep a Lock On the Private Prison Business
arly in August, the Associated Press reported that America's three largest private prison companies, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), GEO Group, Inc and Management and Training Corp spent in the region of $45m over the past 10 years in lobbying state and federal governments. During the same period, these companies saw their profits soar as they scored more government contracts.
Solidarity For Anti-Nuclear Struggle Pours In From Around The World
The US/Indian nuclear partnership has been forced on India through a neocolonial relationship that is demanding the nuclearization of this important strategic ally to the US military industrial machine.
Some reformers, most likely in support of the Occupy movement, are proposing an amendment to overturn theCitizens United Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that empowers corporations to unfairly influence political campaigns with large financial donations.
One in Four Americans Live in Poverty. What Has Gone Wrong with the American Dream?
Looking at the latest data that Oxfam (Ignoring the nation's poor: A political peril in 2012? http://bit.ly/SewjEf) has put up, I am not only shocked but must accept that it has taken me quite sometime to digest the appalling American poverty figures. If every one in four American's live in poverty or near poverty, a number that has grown by 22.6% since 2007, and every one in seven is living in hunger, and with unemployment soaring, wonder what has gone so wrong with the American dream.
