Don't forget to go to dustcircle.com and VOTE for which book we'll be giving away in December. There's also a Donation button, if you're inclined to give toward this site. Also, have you written a book? We'd like to read and review it.
- STEVE, Editor :)
FFRF sues IRS to enforce church electioneering ban
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is taking the Internal Revenue Service to court over its failure to enforce electioneering restrictions against churches and religious organizations, calling it a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and of FFRF’s equal protection rights. FFRF filed the lawsuit today in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. (View the lawsuit here.)
FBI's Abuse of the Surveillance State is the Real Scandal Needing Investigation
The Petraeus scandal is receiving intense media scrutiny obviously due to its salacious aspects, leaving one, as always, to fantasize about what a stellar press corps we would have if they devoted a tiny fraction of this energy to dissecting non-sex political scandals (this unintentionally amusing New York Times headline from this morning - "Concern Grows Over Top Military Officers' Ethics" - illustrates that point: with all the crimes committed by the US military over the last decade and long before, it's only adultery that causes "concern" over their "ethics"). Nonetheless, several of the emerging revelations are genuinely valuable, particularly those involving the conduct of the FBI and the reach of the US surveillance state.
Powers Designed for 'Terrorists' Entangle US Top Brass
As the New York Timesreports Tuesday morning that the Petraeus sex scandal has now spread and the Pentagon has initiated an investigation into top NATO commander in Afghanistan, US General John Allen, what is becoming increasingly clear—beyond all the seemingly bizarre twists of this unfolding drama and leaving aside the question about whether or not the private sexual lives of top officials are, in fact, worthy of the endless media blitz they receive—is that the FBI's ability to examine private email accounts during an investigation are having far-reaching, if not ironic, consequences.
Via Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live - This weekend I had my first opportunity to watch "Newsroom," an HBO series, and I was struck by the opening sequence of the show as Jeff Daniels, aka Will McAvoy, discusses why America WAS the greatest country in the world - but no longer is. Here are the stats as he breaks them down:
Poll: One-Third of Americans Would Accept Cavity Searches By TSA
In past columns, I have lamented how our government has not only stripped away core civil liberties from citizens, but that citizens have become increasing passive and accepting of the loss of such freedoms. A new poll conducted by Harris Interactive offers a particularly chilling measure of just how passive and accepting citizens have become to the new realities of our internal security system. The poll found almost one third of American adults would accept a “TSA body cavity search” in order to fly. Moreover a majority believes that it is reasonable to criminalize the act of disobeying any TSA agent.
ICC should increase efforts to bring war criminals to justice: HRW
Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] urged [press release] theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) [official website; JURIST backgrounder] on Monday to improve its impact and stimulate cooperation amongst the international community as the court enters its second decade. HRW not only emphasized the importance for ICC member countries to strengthen their efforts in making arrests of known suspects harbored within their borders, but also called upon the ICC to establish a stronger dialogue with the UN Security Council [official website] in order to facilitate arrests and prosecutions.
Four More Years Of The Same Surveys conducted outside the US shortly before polling day showed Obama was the preferred candidate in every country but two – Pakistan and Israel. But unlike Pakistan, where the two candidates were equally unpopular, he scored just 22 per cent in Israel against a commanding 57 per cent for Mitt Romney. http://www.countercurrents.org/cook141112.htm
Translating The Palestinian Declaration Of Independence This Palestinian Declaration of Independence explicitly accepted the UN General Assembly's Partition Resolution 181(II) of 1947, which called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former Mandate for Palestine, together with an international trusteeship for the City of Jerusalem. The significance of the PNC's acceptance of partition in the Palestinian Declaration of Independence itself cannot be overemphasized. http://www.countercurrents.org/boyle141112.htm
Government Surveillance Is On The Rise, Google Confirms Google Inc. said government requests to remove content from its search results and other services rose 71 percent in the first half of the year, according to a new report. http://www.countercurrents.org/cc141112B.htm
Although the story so far is of a personal failing, it's possible that the widening sex scandal surrounding retired Gen. David Petraeus will begin to affect the military's reputation as a whole.
New Whistleblower Protections Could Impact Food Safety Oversight
A new bill on its way to President Obama’s desk for approval aims to improve protections for whistleblowers working in the federal government, including those in food-related areas such as veterinarians, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors and U.S. Food and Drug Administration employees.
Don't forget to go to dustcircle.com and VOTE for which book we'll be giving away in December. There's also a Donation button, if you're inclined to give toward this site. Also, have you written a book? We'd like to read and review it. :)
Occupy Freedom And Vigilance (post-Sandy)
Is freedom just a matter of bigger cages and longer chains? Is it merely a commodity sold to the highest bidder? Must the majority of us sit by and drool while freedom fries on the grill of capitalist avarice? http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz081112.htm
To Humiliate And Degrade: Impressions Of Gaza
Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force. And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world, are constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade, and with the further goal of ensuring that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement that will grant these rights will be nullified. http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky081112.htm Obama, Climate, History
Now it's time for us in the climate and progressive movements to do our job as citizens and demand that he do the same on climate. It's time, long past time, for Barack Obama to break his own self-imposed silence on climate. http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/14427-obama-climate-history
What the 2012 Election Was ... and Wasn't
Most of the commentary about Obama's re-election and the defeat of some of the most reactionary GOP incumbents and candidates such as Rep. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock has been about how the GOP is demographically and ideologically far too right wing for the majority in the electorate. http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-the-2012-Election-Was-by-Dennis-Loo-121108-568.html
Obama Wins: So Christians, Will It Be More Hate or Jesus?
Since I was one of the minor nepotistic sidekick architects of the rise of the religious right in the 1970s-80s along with my late evangelist father Francis Schaeffer (before I changed my mind and fled as I describe in my book Crazy For God) maybe I'm the right person to ask: What is the future of a politicized "Christianity" deeply infected by the politics of hate, intolerance, homophobia, xenophobia, victimhood, racism and willful delusion? Bluntly -- will it be Fox News or Jesus? http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-Wins-So-Christians-by-Frank-Schaeffer-121108-92.html
Did Monsanto Trick California Voters?
Monsanto and their peeps didn't just spend $46 million promoting their opinion. They also lied and got away with it.
hen the applause among Democrats and recriminations among Republicans begin to quiet down - probably within the next few days - the President will have to make some big decisions. The biggest is on the economy.
The election is over, and President Barack Obama will continue as the 44th president of the United States. There will be much attention paid by the pundit class to the mechanics of the campaigns, to the techniques of microtargeting potential voters, the effectiveness of get-out-the-vote efforts. The media analysts will fill the hours on the cable news networks, proffering post-election chestnuts about the accuracy of polls, or about either candidate’s success with one demographic or another. Missed by the mainstream media, but churning at the heart of our democracy, are social movements, movements without which President Obama would not have been re-elected.
Climate Change, Not the National Debt, Is the Legacy We Should Care About
The political leadership, including the Washington press corps and punditry, were already intently ignoring the economic downturn that is still wreaking havoc on the lives of tens of millions of people across the country. Now, in the wake of the destruction from Hurricane Sandy, they will intensify their efforts to ignore global warming. After all, they want the country to focus on the debt – an issue that no one other than the elites views as a problem.
Okay, folks. Elections are exciting, but now the really hard work begins. We need to turn victories won into something real that works for people and the planet. With a divided Congress, we’re unlikely to see big legislative leaps. Rather, we will see complicated bills,. And we’ll see lots of new rules in the executive branch. For both, the devil is in the details. And the angels, too.
An initial analysis of the results of Tuesday’s presidential election reveals one overriding element that is little noted in the American media: the staggering decline in voter turnout, and in particular the vote for President Barack Obama. More than anything else, the vote is the expression of an electorate that is disillusioned and increasingly alienated from the entire two-party political system.
No Show Trial for Israel Israel squirms and wriggles like a worm on a fishhook over the Turkish trial into the deaths of nine unarmed humanitarian aid volunteers on board a ship bound for Gaza. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32977.htm
It’s the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32975.htm
Why are Sandy victims waiting for help?
Danny Katch describes the failure of official relief operations following Hurricane Sandy--and the grassroots infrastructure that has sprung up to try to fill the vacuum. http://socialistworker.org/2012/11/08/why-are-sandy-victims-waiting
SUPER-EARTH DISCOVERED IN STAR'S HABITABLE ZONE
The exoplanet is one of six believed to be orbiting a dwarf star 42 light-years from Earth.
The IRS monitors religious and other nonprofits on everything from salaries to spending, and that oversight continues. However, Russell Renwicks, a manager in the IRS Mid-Atlantic region, recently said the agency had suspended audits of churches suspected of breaching federal restrictions on political activity. A 2009 federal court ruling required the IRS to clarify which high-ranking official could authorize audits over the tax code's political rules. The IRS has yet to do so.
Bradley Manning Willing To Admit To Leaking Info To Wikileaks, Hoping For More Limited Trial
As the Bradley Manning court martial trial moves forward, Manning has apparently submitted a plea notice more or less looking to speed up the process by effectively admitting to the fact that he leaked the info to Wikileaks, without pleading "guilty" to any of the charges. The idea appears to be a procedural move to try to take a shortcut to focusing on some lesser charges by admitting some factual things, and leaving some of the most serious charges off the table. This isn't a "plea bargain" in which both sides make an agreement -- but rather an attempt to effectively say "here's what we agree to, without having to go through the effort of proving it, and then let's focus on these lesser charges." The judge does not need to accept this offer, however.
EU Finally Realizes The Public Is Watching CETA: Softens Criminal Provisions For Copyright Infringement
Last month, through all of the secrecy shrouding the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA), it was revealed that the treaty called for the same criminal copyright sanctions that European citizens widely rejected when those same sanctions showed up in ACTA.
Conservatives Living In A Bubble – Why The Right Was Surprised They Lost
With the President’s victory, I, nor the rest of the world, were surprised with the result. We were relieved, but not surprised. Everyone knew Obama was likely to win, we were just concerned that the right’s barely concealed voter suppression efforts would work. But the right was shocked and horrified. Karl Rove made an ass of himself on national TV by demanding that it wasn’t over when Ohio clearly went for Obama.
The Socialist Equality Party calls on all its supporters in the US to cast a vote for SEP candidates Jerry White for president and Phyllis Scherrer for vice president in today’s election. A vote for the SEP is a class-conscious statement of support for the socialist, working-class alternative to the two parties of big business, the Democrats and Republicans.
The 2012 election has been one of the most hyped in history. We’ve been hearing about both these candidate for years now, so at this point you probably know everything there is to know about them. But what do you know about the house they are battling to inhabit: the White House? Probably less than you think.
Supporters of Mitt Romney Are Pushing Ultra-Conservative Christian Agendas in Africa That Criminalize Gays and Threaten Women's Health
Jay and Jordan Sekulow are only the most recent Christian Right figures who manage to maintain credible reputations in the United States while taking actions overseas that would not be acceptable at home.
According to election polls, the presidential race is neck and neck. According to election polls, our country is split right down the middle. According to election polls, it's anyone's guess who will be the next president of the United States.
Voters increasingly post their ballot outcomes on social media
Americans going to the polls increasingly let others know the outcome of their vote by announcing it through social media, the Pew Research Center finds.
week has passed since Hurricane Sandy struck, and the short subway ride uptown this morning almost seemed normal, except for the bigger crowds getting on at Penn Station and Times Square - commuters from outside Manhattan where wind and storm surge water damage were so much worse and all too often deadly. Overheard conversations were filled with stories of how people had coped.
How Did You Vote? and Election Day Open Thread It's the big day. It'll be interesting to see how you voted-- how Opednews readers voted. We don't tie votes to individuals, so your vote in this poll is confidential. It's an Opednews reader exit poll. Please add your comments http://www.opednews.com/Poll/How-Did-You-Vote-by-Rob-Kall-121106-258.html
Displaced New Yorkers can vote Governor Cuomo is signing an Executive Order which provides that a voter who is a resident in the federally-declared disaster counties of Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, Westchester and of New York City who have been displaced by Hurricane Sandy can vote an affadavit ballot at any poll site in New York State. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Displaced-New-Yorkers-can-by-Allegra-Dengler-121105-964.html
What Would Jesus Do? Sex, Hell and Christianity in the Noose of the Presidential Election According to ABC News, Paul Ryan offered a voting advisory during a conference call with evangelical voters on Sunday evening, Nov. 4, issuing "a warning about a second Obama term saying the president is putting the country on a "dangerous path' that compromises 'Judeo-Christian, western civilization values.'" http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-Would-Jesus-Do-Sex--by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-121105-67.html
The movement generally referred to in the United States as the Religious Right came of age in the late 1970s. While the Religious Right is extremely diverse and shouldn't be characterized in simple terms, the movement as we have come to know it is an ultraconservative religious response to the sexual revolution and other events that are seen, by Religious Right proponents, as being connected to the sexual revolution--and an attempt to effect this religious response as public policy.
The Dogs of War Are Barking, Mitt Romney’s Team Wants to Let ‘Em Loose in Iran
It’s the consensus among the pundits: foreign policy doesn’t matter in this presidential election. They point to the ways Republican candidate Mitt Romney has more or less parroted President Barack Obama on just about everything other than military spending and tough talk about another “American century.” The consensus is wrong. There is an issue that matters: Iran.
Why Do Both Major Parties Suck So Badly On Civil Liberties?
Over the weekend, I saw an article on Salon about how shameful it is that supporters of President Obama, who were loud in their condemnation of attacks on civil liberties by George W. Bush, seemed to ignore that President Obama has been worse in many ways (despite many public promises to the contrary). We've already noted that the Democratic Party -- which had fixing civil liberties abuses in its 2008 platform -- has removed all traces of that from the new platform. You would think that, for those who believe strongly in civil liberties, this would be a major concern. Rather than fix them, President Obama continued or expanded many of the very questionable policies of his predecessor, and then added a number of terrifying new ones.
The US 2012 Election and China: why a real dialogue about human rights will never happen
Despite a prominent presence in the campaign, US policy towards China is very unlikely to change - especially on the hyper-sensitive topic of human rights.
The Best (And Worst) Of The 2012 CampaignElection Day is finally here and after a year and a half of non-stop campaigning it can’t come fast enough. But before today’s race becomes yesterday’s news and we move on to the transition or the fiscal cliff or (God forbid) the recount, we at TPM wanted to take one last look back at just how far we’ve come. http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/best-worst-2012-election.php
Which Prez candidate should a single-issue, federal-sentencing-reform voter support?
I ask this question with a serious interest in encouraging a serious (and respectful) discussion of whether folks think either of the two fellows seeking to be the US President over the next four years is likely to get behind and seek to move forward with federal sentencing reforms. If time permits late tonight, I will update this post to explain why I truly am not sure if there is an obvious answer to which candidate is more likely over the next four years to be interested and able to engender serious federal sentencing reform. In the meantime, let me hear readers thoughts only hours before the final day for voting begins.
Swing States that Will Decide the Presidential Election If you haven't seen any political ads for President Obama or Mitt Romney, then you're probably (a) somewhat thankful and (b) not living in a "swing state," which will most likely help "swing" the election. Here is a quick analysis of the swing states and how Obama and Romney look so far, from the NY Daily News and the New York Times' polling predictor Nate Silver. http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/2012-election/swing-states-will-decide-presidential-election
Most Mormon Men are Also the Mormon Priests and BishopsIn the Mormon church, all power flows through the all-male priesthood which consists of all Mormon men above a certain age. Priests hold all of the religious authority for sealing, binding, and loosing — the central sacred acts of the Mormon Church which serve to determine every Mormon's eternal destiny. These priests hold all of the keys to eternal life and are themselves the key to the claim of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that it is the only legitimate Christian church on earth.
