The Woman Rebel "No Gods, No Masters"

It’s time to out Lindsey Graham

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:00 +0000

From America Blog: http://americablog.com/2013/05/is-lindsey-graham-gay.html

by John Aravosis May 21, 2013

BUMP: Now that Lindsey Graham is, as I write, whining about how helping gay couples in the immigration bill would someone make moral allegedly-heterosexual Christians like him vote for “gay marriage” – an absolutely ludicrous argument – I’m bumping this post, that was originally posted 11 days ago. (Also note that Diane Feinstein, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer all defected to the GOP side on this, helping to kill UAFA, the gay immigration provision. And Democrats wonder why they lose when they up-front cave to GOP threats every time. I’ll be writing more on this later.)
It’s time to finally out Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Graham has had it coming for a while now. Not because he’s a Republican. But because he’s an anti-gay Republican. And while it’s one thing to be gay and a closet case, it’s quite another to be a hypocrite, an anti-gay gay, someone who uses his power to harm others in the name of morality, all the while knowing secretly that he is one of the others.
In this case, Graham’s hypocrisy that broke the camel’s back is immigration reform. I have it on good authority from someone intimately involved in the immigration reform process that Lindsey Graham is the central reason that the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would help stop the forced deportation of foreign-born gay spouses, is being blocked from being added to the immigration bill. While other Senators might be bluffing about their opposition to addressing the immigration needs of gay binational couples in immigration reform, I’m told Graham isn’t bluffing.
The obvious question arises as to why Graham is holding gays hostage in the immigration bill.
One theory is that UAFA is Graham’s legislative beard. A beard is a woman a gay man socializes with in order to throw off suspicions that he’s actually gay. In this case, the theory goes, Lindsey Graham is using UAFA in order to throw off the suspicions of the Tea Party voters back home who are challenging him in a high-profile primary. Their suspicions are that: A) Graham is a liberal; and B) he’s gay.

Continue reading at: http://americablog.com/2013/05/is-lindsey-graham-gay.html

Two more anti-gay hate crimes in NYC bring total up to seven in last 30 days

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:00 +0000

From Gay Star News UK: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/two-more-anti-gay-hate-crimes-nyc-bring-total-seven-last-30-days220513

Latest attacks occur in the hours after rally decrying murder of gay man in Greenwich Village

By Greg Hernandez
22 May 2013

Two more anti-gay attacks were reported in New York City in the hours after about 1,500 people attended a rally Monday night (20 May) in the streets of Greenwich Village where a gay man was gunned down over the weekend.
This brings the number of anti-gay attacks in New York City during the past 30 days to seven including the murder of 32-year-old Mark Carson who was shot in the head Saturday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a news conference Tuesday (21 May) called the murder of Carson 'despicable.'
'He was murdered because of his sexual orientation, and only because of his sexual orientation,' said Bloomberg who added that 'New York City has zero tolerance for intolerance.'
'We are a place that celebrates diversity ... hate crimes like these are an offense against all we stand for as a city, and we will do everything possible to stop them.'
The press conference was called after the two separate incidents during which a gay man was beaten in the East Village and a gay couple was attacked in the SoHo neighborhood.

Continue reading at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/two-more-anti-gay-hate-crimes-nyc-bring-total-seven-last-30-days220513

Patience on ENDA Until the Supreme Court Rules

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:00 +0000

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stampp-corbin/obama-enda_b_3263726.html

Stampp Corbin
05/14/2013

There are leaders within the LGBT community who are extremely frustrated that President Obama has not issued an executive order eliminating discrimination in employment for our community. Those leaders are extremely shortsighted and do not fully understand the strategy of the Obama administration.

First, an executive order can be overturned immediately by the next president who disagrees with the order. President Obama is smarter than that. What Obama wants is the Congress of the United States to recognize that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people deserve the same treatment as everyone else in America.

The LGBT community wants equality in the workplace. Yesterday. Unfortunately, in the current political environment, if President Obama issued an executive order to ensure employment non-discrimination for LGBT people, what is likely to happen is retaliation from the republican House of Representatives and potentially a republican Senate, or worse an executive order by a Republican president in 2016 that codifies LGBT employment discrimination.

Executive orders are temporary fixes. President Obama is about permanent solutions; solutions that cannot be easily overturned by the stroke of a pen. That is what the LGBT community should be working toward.

In this case, haste indeed does make waste.

President Obama is thoughtful and methodical, we all know that. The same LGBT voices, who cry out for an executive order ending LGBT discrimination in employment, are many who said that Obama would not repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, or pass hospital visitation rights. Those voices were wrong then and they are wrong now.

President Obama understands that it is prudent to wait for the Supreme Court decisions concerning same sex marriage in California and the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It is crystal clear that the court will rule that marriage is a state's rights issue. Thereby, Californians should be able to enter into same sex marriages by July based upon the lower court ruling.

Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stampp-corbin/obama-enda_b_3263726.html

What religion has contributed to the world this month - Episode 6 (April/May 2013)

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:00 +0000

How America's National Security Apparatus -- in Partnership With Big Corporations -- Cracked Down on Dissent

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:00 +0000

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-americas-national-security-apparatus-partnership-big-corporations-cracked-down

A new report is an eye-opening look into how the U.S. counter-terror apparatus was used to track the Occupy movement.

By Alex Kane
May 21, 2013

Counter-terror police officers collaborated with corporate entities to combat protests. Undercover police officers monitored and tracked the Occupy movement. A right-wing corporate-backed group hired a police officer to help protect a conference. These are some of the details revealed in a new report published by the Center for Media and Democracy’s Beau Hodai, along with DBA Press. The revelations are based on government documents the group obtained.

The report, titled " Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street,” is an eye-opening look into how the U.S. counter-terror apparatus was used to track the Occupy movement in 2011 and 2012 and also help protect the business entities targeted by the movement. The report specifically looks at the activities of “fusion centers,” or law enforcement entities created after 9/11 that transform local police forces into counter-terror units in partnership with federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security. The fusion centers devoted a lot of time--to the point of “obsession,” the report notes--to monitoring the Occupy movement, particularly for any “threats” to public safety or health and to whether there were “extremists” involved in the movement.

The documents obtained for the report from government agencies reveal “a grim mosaic of ‘counter-terrorism’ agency operations and attitudes toward activists and other socially/politically-engaged citizens over the course of 2011 and 2012,” writes Hodai. He adds that these heavily-funded agencies indisputably view Occupy activists as “terrorist” threats. Additionally, Hodai writes that “this view of activists, and attendant activist monitoring/suppression, has been carried out on behalf of, and in cooperation with, some of the nation’s largest financial and corporate interests.”

Much of the report hones in on the Occupy Phoenix branch of the movement and Arizona counter-terrorism agents monitoring, tracking and cracking down on the protests.

For instance, when JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was planning on coming to Phoenix in October 2011, a “counter-terrorism” detective employed by the Phoenix Police Department’s Homeland Security Bureau exchanged information on potential protests with a JP Morgan Chase security manager. The detective, Jennifer O’Neill, received information on Dimon’s travel plans, and then shared information about Occupy Phoenix. O’Neill said that she and another officer had tracked the online activities of Occupy protesters to find out if they were planning to protest Dimon. No plans for protest were discovered by O’Neill, who also works with the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, otherwise known as the Arizona fusion center.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-americas-national-security-apparatus-partnership-big-corporations-cracked-down

Think the IRS Was Bad? Try the Spying on Occupy Activists

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

From The Progressive: http://www.progressive.org/spying-on-occupy-activists

By Matthew Rothschild
May 20, 2013

With all the hullabaloo over the IRS’s special scrutiny of Tea Party groups, a far worse case of political meddling and governmental overreach has been going on: The spying on leftwing activists in the Occupy movement.

Thousands of documents obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy show how Homeland Security and local law enforcement were obsessed with the Occupy movement and other activists.

They treated Occupy activists as potential terrorists.

They infiltrated Occupy meetings.

They tracked Occupy activists online.

They kept an eye on the Rev. Jesse Jackson when he visited an Occupy protest in Phoenix.

They also monitored the protests against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

And they shared information and coordinated planning with some of the very financial institutions that Occupy was protesting.

Based on these documents, I wrote the cover story for the June issue of The Progressive, “Spying on Occupy Activists: How Cops and Homeland Security Help Wall Street.”
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, you have to wonder why Homeland Security and law enforcement were focusing so much attention on Occupy and ALEC activists rather than on those who presented a real risk of terrorism in the United States.

Michael Isikoff of NBC News notes that law enforcement in Boston were tracking Occupy protesters at the same time they were not following up on Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Continue reading at: http://www.progressive.org/spying-on-occupy-activists

Food Stamp Cuts Feared By Veterans

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/food-stamp-cuts_n_3313264.html

Michael McAuliff

05/21/2013

WASHINGTON -- Veterans have a reminder for the Senate as it takes up plans to cut food stamps by $4.1 billion this week: The aid has been -- and still is -- vital to people who served their country.

For Iraq veteran Don Martinez, 33, food stamps kept his children fed while he struggled with getting recognition for the traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress he suffered after close encounters with several rocket and mortar attacks and a humvee rollover.

"Coming off the second deployment back into civilian life, we just had to do what we had to do," said Martinez, an artillery captain, recalling how in 2006 the military did not recognize the severity of his disabilities. For several years, Martinez said, the military paid him only a fraction of what he needed to support his family while he sought treatment.

Martinez is one of nearly 600 veterans who have needed food stamps and who signed a letter being sent to the Senate Tuesday by the group VoteVets.org, urging leaders not to trim the program while there are veterans in need.

Maritinez told his story to The Huffington Post to explain how the aid is vital.

After years of trying, the captain said he eventually won his case and got full benefits. But in the meantime, his wife decided to swallow her pride and ask for help, getting aid from Medicaid and Temporary Assistance

For Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food assistance.

Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/food-stamp-cuts_n_3313264.html

Apple’s Web of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions, Panel Finds

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/apple-avoided-billions-in-taxes-congressional-panel-says.html?hp&_r=1&

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: May 20, 2013

WASHINGTON — Even as Apple became the nation’s most profitable technology company, it avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen, Congressional investigators disclosed on Monday.

The investigation is expected to set up a potentially explosive confrontation between a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, at a public hearing on Tuesday.

Congressional investigators found that some of Apple’s subsidiaries had no employees and were largely run by top officials from the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. But by officially locating them in places like Ireland, Apple was able to, in effect, make them stateless — exempt from taxes, record-keeping laws and the need for the subsidiaries to even file tax returns anywhere in the world.

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” said Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that is holding the public hearing Tuesday into Apple’s use of tax havens. “Apple successfully sought the holy grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere.”

Thanks to what lawmakers called “gimmicks” and “schemes,” Apple was able to largely sidestep taxes on tens of billions of dollars it earned outside the United States in recent years. Last year, international operations accounted for 61 percent of Apple’s total revenue.

Investigators have not accused Apple of breaking any laws and the company is hardly the only American multinational to face scrutiny for using complex corporate structures and tax havens to sidestep taxes. In recent months, revelations from European authorities about the tax avoidance strategies used by Google, Starbucks and Amazon have all stirred public anger and spurred several European governments, as well as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based research organization for the world’s richest countries, to discuss measures to close the loopholes.

Continue reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/business/apple-avoided-billions-in-taxes-congressional-panel-says.html?hp&_r=1&

See Also:

Business Insider: Rand Paul Blasts His Colleagues, And Says It's Outrageous That Apple Is Being Harassed About Its Taxes

The real IRS scandal: Targeting by class

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/the_real_irs_scandal_targeting_by_class/

For all the outcry about targeting by ideology, IRS has for years unfairly favored a different group: the rich

By David Dayen
Thursday, May 16, 2013

For all the talk of scandal regarding the IRS targeting groups named “Tea Party” or “Patriot,” it’s not hard to draw an additional lesson from the facts of the case — a pattern that follows the well-worn model of the modern political age: Benefits flow to the rich and the well-connected, with pain for the rest.

The Cincinnati incident, which has already cost the job of Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller (who was not the commissioner when the scandal occurred – this would be like the State Department reacting to the tragedy at the Libyan consulate by firing a low-level bureaucrat coincidentally named Ben Ghazi), is definitely scandalous in its own right. As the Treasury Inspector General report details, it’s completely inappropriate for the IRS to burden any subset with invasive information requests based merely on keywords or policy positions.

But let’s consider how this played out. The New York Times’ Nick Confessore reported this week that the groups applying for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status and singled out for inspection were primarily small, local conservative (and a few liberal) organizations, who barely spent any money on elections. Meanwhile, groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the liberal Obama-supporting Priorities USA, who did the lion’s share of campaign spending among these types of organizations, not only faced no such examination, but survived multiple efforts by campaign finance reform advocates to get the IRS to revoke their tax-exempt status because of their voluminous political activities.

Why would this be the case? First of all, a 501(c)(4) group need not apply with the IRS to prove its tax-exempt status; it can simply self-declare, avoiding an initial review process. The IRS encourages groups to file applications, but those with the resources to hire a smart tax lawyer know they aren’t required to go through the trouble. Needless to say, most local Tea Party groups didn’t have that kind of professional expertise. So generally speaking, the small fish revealed themselves to the IRS initially, and since Congress requires reviews of every application for tax-exempt status, these groups become the low-hanging fruit, prone to investigation.

Furthermore, Tea Party groups did themselves no favors by filling out the applications in an amateurish manner, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the New York Times and columnist at TaxAnalysts.com David Cay Johnston. “It’s like applying for a mortgage,” Johnston told Salon. “If you write it out wrong, you’re going to get flagged. And there are examples of these groups saying they’re not political and then saying their goal is to influence legislation.”

Continue reading at: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/the_real_irs_scandal_targeting_by_class/

For Climate Solution, Look to the Ground

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/21

Soil, that humble brown stuff we call dirt, is part of the answer to saving our future

by Judith Schwartz
Published on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 by Common Dreams

Late last week the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere crossed the 400 parts per million (ppm) threshold. From a climate standpoint this is alarming, and points to the urgency of shifting away from fossil fuels. However, I also feel that our sole emphasis on CO2 blinds us to other means of addressing climate change—notably by returning carbon to where it belongs, in the soil. For this approach represents not only our greatest opportunity to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels, but simultaneously enhances soil fertility and biodiversity, and the land’s ability to retain water.

We get the impression that human interference with climate is a sky thing: those greenhouse gases we keep pumping into the air. But it’s also a ground phenomenon. The flip-side of rising atmospheric CO2 is the loss of carbon in the soil, the main component of soil organic matter. More carbon is stored in soil than in the atmosphere and plants combined. Over time, more CO2 has entered the atmosphere from soil-disturbing agricultural practices than the burning of fossil fuels. Once we understand this, and encourage land management strategies that store carbon as opposed to promoting its oxidation, things look different. This is cause for optimism because while we can’t un-burn fossil fuels (futuristic geoengineering tricks notwithstanding), we can effectively return carbon to the soil.

According to Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor at the Ohio State University, who speaks widely on the topic, soil-carbon restoration can potentially store about one billion tons of atmospheric carbon per year. This would offset around 8 to 10 percent of total annual CO2 emissions and one-third of annual enrichment of atmospheric carbon that would otherwise stay in the air. Allan Savory, whose TED 2013 talk on greening deserts and reversing climate change has gone viral, stresses the potential of grassland soils for storing carbon. He says applying Holistic Planned Grazing—a land management framework in which livestock are tools for land restoration—on half the world’s grasslands could bring atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels, while feeding people. With estimates of soil carbon losses well into the tens or even hundreds of gigatons, even slightly increasing soil organic carbon would greatly help efforts to mitigate climate change.

Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/21

Xeriscaping bill passes House preventing HOA’s from restricting drought-resistant landscaping

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

From The Dallas Morning News: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/xeriscaping-bill-passes-house-preventing-hoas-from-restricting-drought-resistant-landscaping.html/

By Claire CardonaMay17, 2013

The House on Friday approved a bill that would prevent homeowner’s associations from restricting drought-resistant landscaping, also known as xeriscaping.

According to the bill by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, an association could require a plan for review or approval, but can’t unreasonably deny a landscaping design because it doesn’t fit with the other lawns in the neighborhood.

The bill passed quickly and without debate on a voice vote. It will now go to the governor.

In March, East Dallas resident Burton Knight was told by the Dallas Landmark Commission that the water-saving lawn, which included cactuses, was not historically appropriate for the neighborhood.

“Many Texans want to do their part to conserve water and it’s outrageous some busybodies in HOAs would stand in the way,” said Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger. “This legislation protects the rights of Texans to respond to the drought through smarter use of our limited water supply.”

Complete article at: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/xeriscaping-bill-passes-house-preventing-hoas-from-restricting-drought-resistant-landscaping.html/

Will Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter Stop Meaning Anything When Climate Change Hits?

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:02:00 +0000

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/environment/will-spring-summer-fall-and-winter-stop-meaning-anything-when-climate-change-hits

My kids and their friends and everyone roughly their age will, in fact, be the last human beings to remember a stable, predictable procession of seasons.

By Sandra Steingraber
May 20, 2013

This article first appeared at Orion magazine under the title " The Discontent of Our Winter." You can enjoy future Orion articles by signing up to the magazine's free trial subscription program.

My children have snow anxiety. For the record, this started in the winter of 2011–12 when no snow fell—at all—and sleds, saucers, skis, and snowball makers sat dejectedly on the porch, unused, next to the irrelevant and despondent snow shovel. Week after week, month after month, Faith and Elijah scanned the skies and studied the forecast. When June-like temperatures hit in March, the sight of the toboggan filled them with so much despair that they wordlessly dragged it back to the barn and put it in storage.

Which did not go unnoticed by their dad and me. When had our kids ever put stuff away without being asked? It was as unprecedented as a snowless winter in upstate New York. Nobody had ever experienced that either.

During the unfrozen winter of 2011–12, the grown-ups all walked around saying, “This is crazy!” True enough. When the temperature in the mudroom hits eighty degrees before the daytime:nighttime ratio hits parity, some synonym for insane is what the thesaurus should take you to. But “This is crazy!” also implies that we possess no rational explanation for June arriving in March. And I noticed that my son and his friends never said things like that to each other. They spoke more grimly, along the lines of, Global warming. It’s here. Now we can’t go sledding. Probably ever. So what do you want to do, dude?

When snow and ice finally fell in April—hard enough and fast enough to cancel school—it fell on tulip and magnolia petals and killed off the entire cherry crop.

The toboggan stayed in the barn.

But wishful thinking springs anew in the hearts of children, even in the face of permanent catastrophe, so, after a cherryless summer and a fall with few apples, Faith and Elijah conferred hopefully about the upcoming winter. Last year was a global warming winter. But maybe global warming winters come only every other year. Maybe this year would be normal.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/will-spring-summer-fall-and-winter-stop-meaning-anything-when-climate-change-hits

The Goodman Affair: Monsanto Targets the Heart of Science

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:02:00 +0000

From Truth Out: http://truth-out.org/news/item/16491-the-goodman-affair-monsanto-targets-the-heart-of-science

By Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham
Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, has jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. On another occasion, Smith was challenged to publish an issue of the BMJ exclusively comprising papers that had failed peer review and see if anybody noticed. He replied, “How do you know I haven’t already done it?”

As Smith’s stories show, journal editors have a lot of power in science – power that provides opportunities for abuse. The life science industry knows this, and has increasingly moved to influence and control science publishing.

The strategy, often with the willing cooperation of publishers, is effective and sometimes blatant. In 2009, the scientific publishing giant Elsevier was found to have invented an entire medical journal, complete with editorial board, in order to publish papers promoting the products of the pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck. Merck provided the papers, Elsevier published them, and doctors read them, unaware that the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine was simply a stuffed dummy.

Fast forward to September 2012, when the scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) published a study that caused an international storm (Séralini, et al. 2012). The study, led by Prof Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen, France, suggested a Monsanto genetically modified (GM) maize, and the Roundup herbicide it is grown with, pose serious health risks. The two-year feeding study found that rats fed both suffered severe organ damage and increased rates of tumors and premature death. Both the herbicide (Roundup) and the GM maize are Monsanto products. Corinne Lepage, France’s former environment minister, called the study “a bomb”.

Subsequently, an orchestrated campaign was launched to discredit the study in the media and persuade the journal to retract it. Many of those who wrote letters to FCT (which is published by Elsevier) had conflicts of interest with the GM industry and its lobby groups, though these were not publicly disclosed.

The journal did not retract the study. But just a few months later, in early 2013 the FCT editorial board acquired a new “Associate Editor for biotechnology”, Richard E. Goodman. This was a new position, seemingly established especially for Goodman in the wake of the “Séralini affair”.

Continue reading at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/16491-the-goodman-affair-monsanto-targets-the-heart-of-science

Representations of Gender in Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:51:00 +0000

Cornel West Warns of Rising Authoritarianism: “You Can Get Killed Out Here Trying to Tell the Truth!”

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:16:00 +0000

From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/economy/cornel-west-warns-rising-authoritarianism-you-can-get-killed-out-here-trying-tell-truth

Outspoken economist Robert Johnson and firebrand academic Cornel West consider threats to human dignity and a just society.

By Lynn Stuart Parramore May 15, 2013

As big banks and corporations grab more power and government heightens control and surveillance, confronting those at the top is getting to be a dangerous proposition. As Cornel West put it bluntly, “You can get killed out here trying to tell the truth!”

For the last year, a partnership between the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), a New York-based think tank, and Union Theological Seminary (UTS) has produced a series of rich conversations about economics, society, and the human spirit. Tuesday night, West and INET Executive Director Robert Johnson sat down together in a packed chapel at UTS in New York to talk about the pain caused by financial predators and the frightening trend of creeping authoritarianism. Union Theological Seminary president Dr. Serene Jones moderated a discussion which ranged from love to finance to the economics of Jesus.

Johnson, who had recently led a meeting of major financial executives in London, noted that the Big Boys are aware that they are no longer gods in the public view, but demons. “They are scared,” said Johnson. But that doesn’t seem to have curbed much of their predatory behavior, so the question of how to change their ways remains urgent. “Do you create institutions to constrain sinful, greedy, avaricious, and delusional individuals?” asked the economist. “Or do you, like the Buddhists suggest, seek to change that greedy, aggressive, delusion character…?” West and Jones quickly answered “both,” but Johnson said he’s leaning towards the Buddhists on this one. Multinational corporations, he warned, are so “large, sophisticated, and capable” that the regulators simply can’t keep up. You have to “get inside the hearts” of these leaders, he argued, and somehow create a sense of moral accountability – a process that Johnson believed would be both difficult and painful. He likened it to the shattering soul-searching of a blues musician. (Johnson, in addition to being an economist, has worked in the music industry).

West cited the need for a “democratic counterweight” against what he described as three dominant tendencies on the globe: “financializing, privatizing, and, militarizing.” He warned that as long as we’re stuck with an “empty” and “shallow” public sphere that has been “colonized” by the “oligarchs at the top”, we’re most certainly headed towards fascism. West remarked that the assassination of citizens without due process and other recent trends paint a grim picture of the effectiveness of our institutions. “It’s devoid of legitimacy,” agreed Johnson.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/cornel-west-warns-rising-authoritarianism-you-can-get-killed-out-here-trying-tell-truth

Dissent as 'Terrorism': Targeting Public Protest in the Post-9/11 Era

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:06:00 +0000

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/20-4

New report finds Homeland Security 'apparatus' frequently turned against 'political and social dissidents'

Lauren McCauley
Published on Monday, May 20, 2013 by Common Dreams

Results from a year-long investigation into the activities of the United States' expansive counter-terrorism apparatus found that, throughout the country, the government has turned the tax-payer-funded intelligence-gathering against its own citizens in an effort to suppress dissent.

Released Monday by the DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy, the report, Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street (pdf), focuses primarily on the many instances of "fusion center" monitoring of Occupy Wall Street activists nationwide.

"Put simply," the report states, "heavily-funded municipal, county, state and federal 'counter-terrorism' agencies (often acting in concert through state/regional 'fusion centers') view citizens engaged in movements of political and social dissent, such as Occupy Wall Street, as nothing less than nascent, if not bona fide, 'terrorist' threats."

In addition, the review of records shows that this "monitoring" and "suppression" of activists and dissident groups has been largely carried out "on behalf of, and in cooperation with, some of the nation’s largest financial and corporate interests—the very entities that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and others oppose as usurpers of American democracy."

In a statement released alongside the report, the Center for Media and Democracy says their examination is the first detailed look at the "the breadth and depth of the degree to which the nation's post-September 11, 2001 counter terrorism apparatus has been applied to politically engaged citizens exercising their Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights."

The report largely focuses the activities of an Arizona fusion center, the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC), whose surveillance of those citizens active in Occupy Phoenix "benefited a number of corporations and banks that were subjects of Occupy Phoenix protest activity," including J.P. Morgan Chase.

Some other key findings of the report include:

Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/20-4

The IRS Was Dead Right To Scrutinize Tea Party

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:17:00 +0000

Really?

I've had liberals tell me I'm wrong for calling right wing conservatives Nazis. I figure it is fair game to call people Nazis when they label me a commie hippie queer.

I don't have to love Tea Baggers and right wingers to hate the use of the government to suppress their right to freely advocate for their position. I don't like secret police or the government suppression of dissent.
I consider the abuse of power wrong when the Joe McCarthys of the right use it to go after the left and when the Joe McCarthys of the left use it to go after the right.

Such actions show an utter contempt for the Constitution and the idea of civil liberties.

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-s-goodman/irs-tea-party_b_3280063.html

Peter S. Goodman
05/15/2013

Lost in the latest political scandal is a simple fact: The Internal Revenue Service was acting in the public interest when it opted to train its auditing power on the Tea Party and affiliated groups.

In castigating government as the root of all evil while portraying taxation as a form of tyranny, the Tea Party is no less than a mass celebration of the evasion of the basic responsibilities of American citizenship. Common sense alone tells you that people drawn to its ranks may feel extra temptation to find ways to limit what they surrender to the rogue federal bureaucrats who have supposedly seized the nation.

The cover-up is the bad part here, as in nearly all Washington scandals. It's not the act itself that delivered the real trouble -- in this case, a campaign unleashed in the Cincinnati offices of the IRS to scrutinize with particular rigor the applications for tax-exempt status submitted by Tea Party-affiliated groups. Rather, it was what happened afterwards that poses the problem: Officials at the IRS lied to members of Congress about what was actually going on.

That's how we got here, to this full-blown scandal with all the usual rituals -- an event that lends validation to seemingly every crackpot idea a conservative group has ever leveled at the Obama administration. (The fact that the Justice Department simultaneously got caught on an overreach of its own, seizing a trove of correspondence from journalists, hardly helps the administration deflect the well-earned wrath of critics.)
But let's get back to the primary act at issue here: The IRS -- an agency loved by no one and responsible for stocking the Treasury with federal tax proceeds, due under the law -- appears to have devoted unique effort to making sure that Tea Party organizations were not fudging the paperwork in their bids to secure tax exemption.

Continue reading at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-s-goodman/irs-tea-party_b_3280063.html

Professional Misogynist Pat Robertson: Husband Cheated But "Well, He's A Man"

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:26:00 +0000

Is Obama the New Nixon?

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:24:00 +0000

From Counter Punch: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/17/is-obama-the-new-nixon/

Obsession with Leaks, Secret Wars, Enemies List. At Least Nixon Didn't Have Drones to Take Out His Enemies.

by JONATHAN FRANKLIN
May 17-19, 2013

Without going over the edge to Rush Limbaugh territory, the internal spying on reporters and politicization of the IRS do raise the question. Could Obama be trumping “Tricky Dick” on the latter’s home turf? Few politicians can match Richard Milhous Nixon for obsession with leaks, propagation of secret wars and creation of a list of enemies.

Let’s consider the evidence thus far and remember first that an indignant bi-partisan Congressional investigation, a ferocious press well beyond Woodward and Bernstein and a public that was riveted to the hour-by-hour testimony exposed Nixon’s dirty tricks.

Obama’s penchant for secrecy has allowed only snippets of the most deadly policies to be revealed. Without even the most basic details on essential policies including execution of Americans, targeting criteria for lethal drone strikes and offensive cyber warfare ops, it will be hard to given Nixon an even playing field in the comparison, but “Nixon vs. Obama, who was worse?” is a question that many people are starting to ask.

On the zeal for tracking down leaked information, Richard Nixon’s obsession is legendary. He reacted to the leak of the Pentagon Papers by first asking the FBI to organize secret break ins, and when the FBI refused created his own “a special investigations unit,” a secret group of top aides to combat the leaking. They were latter known as “The Plumbers.” Led by the obsession to find dirt on Daniel Ellsberg, a former aide to the Secretary of Defense who passed the Pentagon Papers information to the New York Times, Nixon’s aides organized a series of break-ins culminating in the arrests of burglars at the Watergate offices in Washington, D.C. We all know how that story ends.

Obama’s record is still a work in progress, but he shows great potential to top Nixon. Not only has the Obama administration punished leakers, but has also targeted legitimate whistleblowers to a far greater extent than any President in recent memory. Last year, the Obama administration charged John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent, under the Espionage Act for telling reporters details about waterboarding torture techniques used on suspected terrorists. Kiriakou’s decision to share details (few if any of them top secret) is hardly more revealing than Ellsberg’s handing over of a vast store of Pentagon Vietnam War strategy and assessments.

Continue reading at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/17/is-obama-the-new-nixon/

Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:44:00 +0000

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality

Yet another serious escalation of the Obama administration's attacks on press freedoms emerges

Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 May 2013

It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the news gathering process in general.

New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJ's attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News' chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests - something Rosen then reported. Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist - something done every day in Washington - and, for that, this arms expert and long-time government employee faces more than a decade in prison for "espionage".

The focus of the Post's report yesterday is that the DOJ's surveillance of Rosen, the reporter, extended far beyond even what they did to AP reporters. The FBI tracked Rosen's movements in and out of the State Department, traced the timing of his calls, and - most amazingly - obtained a search warrant to read two days worth of his emails, as well as all of his emails with Kim. In this case, said the Post, "investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material." It added that "court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist".

But what makes this revelation particularly disturbing is that the DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that not only Kim, but also Rosen - the journalist - committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information - something investigative journalists do every day - Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]:

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality

Outrage Grows Over the DOJ Seizure of AP Phone Records

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:39:00 +0000

From The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174311/outrage-grows-over-doj-seizure-ap-phone-records#

Greg Mitchell
on May 14, 2013

When the news broke yesterday afternoon it was at first hard to believe, yet, when one thought about it for a bit, it seemed all too part of a pattern. The Associated Press itself broke the news that the US Department of Justice had notified AP last Friday that it had secretly obtained telephone records for more than twenty separate telephone lines assigned to AP journalists and offices (both cell and home phone lines).

Their report continued, “AP is asking the DOJ for an immediate explanation of the extraordinary action and for the records to be returned to AP and all copies destroyed. AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt protested the massive intrusion into AP’s newsgathering activities in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder…. Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.”

Of course, the Obama administration has aggressively gone after leakers and brought six cases against whistleblowers, more than previous administrations combined.
Pruitt (who I met several times a few years back when he headed McClatchy), wrote:

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.

Kathleen Carroll, the longtime AP executive editor, said on MSNBC this morning: “I’ve been in this business more than thirty years and our First Amendment lawyers and our lawyers inside the AP and our CEO is also a well-known First Amendment lawyer—none of us have seen anything like this.” Glen Greewwald at The Guardian hits the DOJ, as you might expect.

Continue reading at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174311/outrage-grows-over-doj-seizure-ap-phone-records#

Thousands march in NYC’s Greenwich Village to protest gay man’s killing

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:10:00 +0000

From LGBTQ Nation: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2013/05/thousands-march-in-nycs-greenwich-village-to-protest-gay-mans-killing/

JENNIFER PELTZ
Monday, May 20, 2013

NEW YORK — Thousands of people marched through the streets of Manhattan Monday to protest the killing of a gay man allegedly taunted with homophobic slurs – the most recent in a spate of bias attacks stirring up anxiety, disbelief and outrage in a famously gay-friendly neighborhood.

“We’re here! We’re queer!” and “Homophobia’s got to go!” were among chants as a crowd marked the death of 32-year-old Mark Carson in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan – not far from the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to the gay rights movement.

Christine Quinn, the city’s first openly gay City Council speaker and a mayoral candidate, marched along with Edie Windsor, whose pivotal case to win the same rights for gay couples as heterosexual couples is before the Supreme Court.

Carson was killed Saturday as he walked with a companion through Greenwich Village. Police say a man charged with murder as a hate crime shot Carson in the head in the middl e of one of the city’s most progressive neighborhoods.

In the wake of the deadly shooting, officials said Monday that police would increase their presence there and in nearby neighborhoods through the end of June, Gay Pride Month.

A group that combats anti-gay violence planned to fan out to various areas on Friday nights through June to talk to people about safety. And public schools are being asked to hold assemblies or other discussions of hate crimes and bullying before summer break.

City officials, gay-rights advocates and others joined the march Monday evening to denounce a rise in hate crime reports in a city that generally sees itself as a capital of diversity and tolerance.

Continue reading at: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2013/05/thousands-march-in-nycs-greenwich-village-to-protest-gay-mans-killing/

Equality's Brutal Backlash: The Murder of Mark Carson and the Rise in Violence Against Gays

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:10:00 +0000

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/equalitys-brutal-backlash_b_3303860.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

Michelangelo Signorile
05/20/2013

A few months ago, I wrote about how my partner and I were called "disgusting" by a man on the street as we shared a quick goodbye kiss in the middle of the afternoon in the very gay Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea. That has turned out to be less an aberration than a symptom of far more horrific things to come. We've seen reports of violent attack after violent attack in New York against gays in recent weeks, and now, this past weekend, we've experienced the brutal killing of 32-year-old Mark Carson in an alleged anti-gay shooting in Greenwich Village.

"You want to die tonight?" the alleged gunman reportedly said after repeatedly calling Carson and a male companion "faggots" while they were walking down the street, before fatally shooting Carson in the face.
This killing has kept me up the past two nights. It's sickening and enraging. And perhaps the shock I'm seeing expressed about it, particularly among younger LGBT people, underscores that many of us have been living with a false sense of security, intoxicated by the wins on marriage equality in the states and in the federal courts. It's way too easy to grow complacent, fed by the desire to have the fight done with as well as by the seductive message of some in the media who've simplistically declared victory for the LGBT rights movement.

Victory is very far off, however, if we can't walk the streets of even the most LGBT-friendly cities holding hands or expressing ourselves without fear of being taunted and violently assaulted. And for hundreds of thousands living in less tolerant places all across the country, openness has never been a reality. Until it is, we're nowhere near victory.

We may be seeing solid majorities in national polls supporting anti-discrimination laws for gay and transgender people, and even majorities supporting marriage equality. But the minorities are still substantial. And they are getting more desperate. For years, those who are anti-gay have been emboldened by the often hateful declarations of homophobic religious leaders and by the attacks by groups like the National Organization for Marriage, which have demeaned gays. After decades of struggle, we're finally beating them back in the courts, in legislatures and even at the ballot box. And perhaps the frustration and anger by those who oppose us is now further empowering the thugs who take their hate and rage to the streets.

Continue reading: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/equalitys-brutal-backlash_b_3303860.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices

Fitch, Please

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:09:00 +0000

How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government

noreply@blogger.com (SuzyQ) — Tue, 21 May 2013 05:09:00 +0000

From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/how_right_wingers_use_semantic_tricks_to_kill_government/

Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. Here's how it works

By Michael Lind
Saturday, May 18, 2013

“Semantic infiltration” is a term coined by the foreign policy expert Fred Ikle and popularized by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Ikle defined it thus:

Semantic infiltration means one undermines one’s own position in negotiations by adopting unknowingly the terms which the adversary “infiltrates.”

As a conservative, Ikle drew most of his examples of semantic infiltration from liberal usages that became mainstream, like “affirmative action” for race- or gender-based preference policies. But in recent years, it is arguably the center-left that has suffered the most from the successful semantic infiltration of public discourse by loaded conservative terminology.

Witness the two terms “the welfare state” and “entitlements.” The right has managed to turn “welfare state,” once a neutral description for a modern system of economic security for individuals, into a pejorative phrase.
An even greater triumph of semantic infiltration by the right has been the universal use of the term “entitlements.” As used by conservatives and liberals alike, “entitlements” usually refers to three social insurance programs — two of them universal (Social Security and Medicare) and one means-tested (Medicaid).

There is a certain logic to lumping together Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, because they are the biggest items in the federal budget, apart from defense spending. Nevertheless, the concept of “entitlements” is an example of semantic infiltration that skews the debate in favor of conservatives and libertarians, for several reasons.

The most important reason is that the term “entitlements” as commonly used refers only to government programs for individual economic security that are directly funded by the federal government. But much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance.

Why aren’t 401(k)s and tax-favored health insurance, including traditional employer health insurance as well as individual insurance under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), “entitlements” as well as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? After all, you are just as entitled by law to your 401(k) tax break as you are to your Social Security check in retirement. True, Congress could alter or abolish the 401(k) program. But it could also cut or eliminate Social Security benefits.

Continue reading at: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/how_right_wingers_use_semantic_tricks_to_kill_government/