Before the internet, we used to keep the names and telephone numbers of our friends and acquaintances in a little address book. Young people who dated a lot had a ‘little black book’ with telephone numbers of past and potential dinner partners. Nowadays the equivalent is an iPhone address list, often kept in the cloud, […]
Archives for October 2013
Rep. Van Hollen on House Rule Change on Shutdown Vote: “Democracy has been Suspended!”
Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) went viral in a YouTube video he released of his parliamentary inquiries on a change in House rules that forbade individual members to initiate a motion to open the Federal government. Only the Speaker of the House can now do so, in a highly undemocratic step. Here is the Van […]
Arms Industries have Washington lift Restrictions on Weapons Exports (Currier)
Cora Currier writes for ProPublica The United States is loosening controls over military exports, in a shift that former U.S. officials and human rights advocates say could increase the flow of American-made military parts to the world’s conflicts and make it harder to enforce arms sanctions. Come tomorrow, thousands of parts of military aircraft, such […]
Israelis again impose Collective punishment on Palestinians of Gaza
On finding a tunnel from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the Israeli government has again blockaded the strip from receiving shipments of basic building materials.. Half of Gaza’s 1.7 million people are children, and half the population receives food assistance. Israel invaded Gaza in 1967 and tried to plant Israeli squatters there. In 2006 Hamas, […]
Club Dead: EU immigration laws turning Mediterranean into Graveyard- Malta PM
Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat said Saturday that the European Union’s inaction on immigration reform is turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard. UPI quotes him as saying: “I don’t know how many more people need to die at sea before something gets done … rules need to change, whether they are tighter or looser is […]
Snowden: Federal Spying makes us Less Secure
Supporters of massive National Security Agency domestic and international electronic surveillance of millions of innocent civilians justify it on the grounds that it makes us safer. It does not. Edward Snowden makes the opposite point, which is that intense government surveillance harms our security. He revealed the secret warrantless monitoring of Americans (which goes beyond […]
US Drone strikes Continue in Pakistan despite PM Nawaz Sharif’s UN Protest (Serle)
Jack Serle writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism The CIA launched four attacks [on Pakistan in September] – the second most attacks in one month so far this year. At least 16 people were killed in these attacks – none of them reportedly a civilian. This was the ninth consecutive month without a confirmed […]
Ban Coal: Super Cyclone half the Size of India driven by warming Waters
India should rethink plans to build more coal plants. The warming waters of the Indian ocean have thrown up a super-cyclone half the size of the subcontinent that is advancing on the country’s east coast with winds up to 167 miles per hour. Already 200,000 people have been evacuated. While cyclones are not new in […]
If SCOTUS rules against FEC, Each Politician will represent one Billionaire (Moyers)
Bill Moyers interviews Heather Gerken on McCutcheon vs The Federal Election Commission, which he calls “Citizens United: the Sequel” the blurb: “This week the Supreme Court began its new term with a case that could further upend campaign finance laws by allowing individual donors to give millions of dollars to candidates and political parties. McCutcheon […]
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