Total Link Matches Found: 246       Showing Links #1 - 50 +more
Tag(s) Selected:  New York City (NYC)
Search:
:
   + Advanced Options        Search Tips        Legend
     


2/22/2012 Davis votes to support repeal of Citizens United ruling
Yesterday, the city of Davis voted unanimously to support Assembly Joint Resolution 22. The text of the resolution passed by the Davis city council can be found here. AJR 22 is working its way through California's state legislature; the bill would urge Congress to begin the process of a Constitutional Amendment in order to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision is what allows Corporations and "Super PACS" to spend unlimited funds on any individual candidate or party they choose. Davis joins New York City and Portland in calling on Congress to begin the process of a Constitutional Amendment for campaign finance reform. The effort in Davis, like in these other cities, was spearheaded by the Occupy Davis group. Occupy is developed growing momentum for repealing the Citizens United ruling that many see as swinging the door of corruption completely open. (Examiner)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 2/28/12                   0       3
#1 



1/10/2012 NDAA Protests End In Ironic Swarm Of Arrests
The absurdity of America today never ceases to amaze. In fact, it has become so elaborate that one might even suggest it has reached a kind of poetic symmetry. When a protest group is willing to stick their necks out to expose the horror of the National Defense Authorization Act and its open door strategy for unconstitutional arrest and indefinite detainment of American citizens, I have to stand up and applaud. This is the kind of protest we need to see all over the country. Of course, any establishment system which is willing to dissolve the inherent liberties of its citizens certainly isn't going to stand by quietly while they blatantly point out the injustice. The Grand Central Terminal action featured in the video below is a perfect example of the swift and immediate stifling of peaceful dissent by an increasingly totalitarian government: Responses to the event vary. Most people who have actually been exposed to the facts on the NDAA have expressed utter disgust and fury. Rightly so. Some, however, have taken the old elitist mantra, perpetuated effectively by the Neo-Cons in their heyday, that if you are not for the system, then you are a danger to society. Not surprisingly, there are still plenty of useful idiots out there buzzing about like parasites in search of blood. (Alt Market)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 1/11/12                   0       9
#2 



12/30/2011 The 'Occupy' movement lives
Gina Glantz was most recently an adjunct lecturer at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. The hashtag #occupywallstreet inspired the most basic of organizing strategies: sit-ins. OWS sit-ins became encampments, many of which are now being dismantled by law enforcement and debilitated by weather. As the movement is increasingly out of the sight of pundits and the popular media, and criticized as leaderless and lacking a clear purpose, it has become fashionable to talk about OWS as inevitably failing. This is a mistake. Encampment “occupiers” come and go; hashtag followers live on in cyberspace, where OWS is spawning leaders and developing goals, just not in the way that most people are accustomed to. Consider: ●The Occupy Wiki Research Group, of which I am a member, has a robust online dialogue among college professors, organizing practitioners and activists. Weekly phone calls refine their efforts. ●Occupytogether.org was started by two designers who couldn’t get to New York so tried to track, on their own, activities around the country. Overwhelmed by the volume, they recently incorporated MeetUp.com into their site. ●Maps depicting FourSquare locations using the Occupy Wall Street hashtag show thousands of check-ins across the country. ●Students at Boulder Digital Works at the University of Colorado built Occupationalist.org, which describes itself as “an impartial and real-time view of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Covering history as it unfolds. No filters. No delays.” ●An urban gardening advocate’s blog about how Occupy Wall Street can help communities seeking to take over empty lots is circulating on Facebook. (Washington Post)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 1/15/12                   0       6
#3 



11/27/2011 Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion
Banks worldwide earned an estimated $13 billion by taking advantage of below-market rates on emergency U.S. Federal Reserve loans from August 2007 through April 2010. Roll over the bars below to explore details for each. To compare results with banks' net income or losses for the same timeframes, click the corresponding button. Worldwide total is the sum for 190 firms with available data; those banks lost a combined $21.6 billion. The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing. The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue. (Bloomberg)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 11/29/11                   0       6
#4 
keywords: American Bankers Association, Ancel Martinez, Andrea Priest, Anil Kashyap, Anthony Coley, Bailouts, Bank Of America, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Basel, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, Berkeley, Bloomberg Lp, Brad Miller, Byron Dorgan, California, Center For Economic And Policy Research, Center For Responsive Politics, Charlotte, Citigroup, Clearing House Association, Countrywide Financial, Dallas, David Jones, Dean Baker, Dodd-frank Wall Street Reform Act, Dow Jones, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Financial Services Forum, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Gary Stern, George Mason University, George W Bush, Gerald Hanweck, Glass-steagall Act, Goldman Sachs, Government Transparency, Graham Fisher & CO, Henry Paulson, Howard Opinsky, Jamie Dimon, Jerry Dubrowski, John Dearie, Jon Diat, Joshua Rosner, Jpmorgan Chase, Judd Gregg, Kenneth Lewis, Lehman Brothers, Mark Lake, Merrill Lynch, Minneapolis, Morgan Stanley, Neil Barofsky, New York, New York City, New York University, Nobel Prize, North Carolina, Occupy Boston, Occupy California, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, Oliver Williamson, Phillip Swagel, Police, Realtytrac, Richard Fisher, Richard Shelby, Scott Alvarez, Sherrill Shaffer, Sherrod Brown, Switzerland, Tea Party, Ted Kaufman, Timothy Geithner, US Bureau Of Labor Statistics, US Congress, US Department Of The Treasury, US Freedom Of Information Act, US Supreme Court, United States, University Of California, University Of Chicago, University Of Maryland, University Of Wyoming, Vikram Pandit, Viral Acharya, Wachovia, Wall Street, Washington DC, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo, William English Add New Keyword To Link



11/25/2011 The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy: The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality
US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park. But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk." (London Guardian)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 12/14/11                   0       4
#5 



11/13/2011 Hawaiian singer surprises Obama summit with 'Occupy' song
A popular Hawaiian recording artist turned a top-security dinner of Pacific Rim leaders hosted by President Barack Obama into a subtle protest with a song in support of the "Occupy" movement. Makana, who goes by one name, was enlisted to play a luau, or Hawaiian feast, Saturday night for leaders assembled in Obama’s birthplace Honolulu for an annual summit that is formulating plans for a Pacific free-trade pact. But in the midst of the dinner on the resort strip Waikiki Beach, he pulled open his jacket to reveal a T-shirt that read "Occupy with Aloha," using the Hawaiian word whose various meanings include love and peace. He then sang a marathon version of his new song "We Are The Many." (Agence France-Presse)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 11/23/11                   0       7
#6 
keywords: 2011., Barrack Obama, China, Dmitry Medvedev, Hawaii, Honolulu, Hu Jintao, Internet, Makana, New York City, Occupy Wall Street, On November 10, Pacific Ocean, Russia, This Video Is From Makanavideos, Uploaded To Youtube Prior To The Dinner, Washington DC Add New Keyword To Link



10/25/2011 DA won't prosecute Occupy Sacramento protesters
Occupy Sacramento protesters' push to continue their amorphous yet spirited around-the-clock campaign against economic inequalities got a powerful assist Monday from an unexpected source. District Attorney Jan Scully announced Monday afternoon that her office would not file state charges against protesters arrested for refusing to disperse from an unlawful assembly after being ordered to do so by law enforcement. Scully's position – that no unlawful assembly occurred – has her office ostensibly siding with the protesters and in direct conflict with the Sacramento Police Department. "They are still in violation and we will continue to make the arrests," said Laura Peck, a police spokeswoman, in response to questions about continued arrests under the state law. (Sacramento Bee)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/28/11                   0       6
#7 



10/25/2011 Reckless Endangerment: Totally Corrupt America
Last March I reviewed Matt Taibbi’s important book Griftopia, an entertaining account of the through-going financial fraud that gave us the financial crisis. http://www.vdare.com/print/13156 Taibbi shows that the US “superpower” can match any third world backwater in the magnitude of greed and fraud that is endemic in business and government. I would not be surprised if Taibbi’s book motivated the more aware participants of Occupy Wall Street. Taibbi’s Griftopia was published last year. This year Henry Holt publishers have provided us with Gretchen Morgenson and Joshur Rosner’s Reckless Endangerment. Morgenson and Rosner tell the story again, but with less drama and provocation. Possibly, it might be more acceptable to those gullible Americans who wrap themselves in the flag and refuse to believe that their country could ever knowingly do anything that is wrong. I am not suggesting that Morgenson and Rosner pull their punches. To the contrary, the authors deliver enough knockouts to be contenders with Taibbi as world champions in exposing the reckless fraud that the US financial sector and its regulators now epitomize. (Paul Craig Roberts)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/28/11                   0       6
#8 



10/24/2011 New York cops defy order to arrest hundreds of 'Occupy Albany' protesters
Occupy Albany protesters in New York’s capital city received an unexpected ally over the week: The state and local authorities. According to the Albany Times Union, New York state troopers and Albany police did not adhere to a curfew crackdown on protesters urged by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Albany mayor Gerald Jennings. Mass arrests seemed to be in the cards once Jennings directed officers to enforce the curfew on roughly 700 protesters occupying the city owned park. But as state police joined the local cops, protesters moved past the property line dividing city and state land. (The Raw Story)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/28/11                   0       5
#9 
keywords: Albany, Albany Times Union, Andrew Cuomo, Financial Crisis, Gerald Jennings, Martial Law, New York, New York City, Occupy Albany, Occupy Wall Street, United States, Wall Street Add New Keyword To Link



10/21/2011 Occupy-apalooza Strikes a Chord
Thursday night I spoke to a young woman in Brooklyn who was having dinner and planning the next day. Between a morning boot camp workout at the local Y.M.C.A. and an evening meeting with friends for drinks, she was planning her first trek to Zuccotti Park to take part in the Occupy Wall Street protests. “Why?” I asked. “What specifically are you protesting?” I was curious. I hoped that she’d respond with some variation of the umbrella arguments about income inequality, the evils of corporate greed and corruption or removing corporate money from politics. She didn’t. “I don’t know. It’s just cool,” she said. She went on to tell me about how she felt that this was a movement of people with whom she felt some kinship, banding together and making history, and that she wanted to be a part of that in the same way that people from previous generations were part of the civil rights, women’s liberation and antiwar movements. (New York Times)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/28/11                   0       4
#10 



10/17/2011 Why Occupy Wall Street Is Bigger Than Left vs. Right
(Matt Taibbi) I was surprised, amused and annoyed all at once when I found out yesterday that some moron-provocateur linked to notorious right-wing cybergoon Andrew Breitbart had infiltrated a series of private e-mail lists – including one that I have been participating in – and was using them to run an exposé on the supposed behind-the-scenes marionetting of the OWS movement by the liberal media. According to various web reports, what happened was that a private "cyber-security researcher" named Thomas Ryan somehow accessed a series of email threads between various individuals and dumped them all on BigGovernment.com, Breitbart's site. Gawker is also reporting that Ryan forwarded some of these emails to the FBI and the NYPD. I have no idea whether those email exchanges are the same as the ones I was involved with. But what is clear is that some private email exchanges between myself and a number of other people – mostly financial journalists and activists who know each other from having covered the crisis from the same angle in the last three years, people like Barry Ritholz, Dylan Ratigan, former regulator William Black, Glenn Greenwald and myself – ended up being made public. (Rolling Stone)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 11/8/11                   0       4
#11 



10/15/2011 In Protest, the Power of Place
THE ever expanding Occupy Wall Street movement, with encampments now not only in Lower Manhattan but also in Washington, London and other cities, proves among other things that no matter how instrumental new media have become in spreading protest these days, nothing replaces people taking to the streets. Another reminder came late last week when the landlord of Zuccotti Park, where the demonstrators in New York City have settled, at the last minute withdrew a request for police assistance in cleaning up the park. This, at least temporarily, averted a confrontation in front of the global media over what protesters regarded as just a pretext to evict them. We tend to underestimate the political power of physical places. Then Tahrir Square comes along. Now it’s Zuccotti Park, until four weeks ago an utterly obscure city-block-size downtown plaza with a few trees and concrete benches, around the corner from ground zero and two blocks north of Wall Street on Broadway. A few hundred people with ponchos and sleeping bags have put it on the map. Kent State, Tiananmen Square, the Berlin Wall: we clearly use locales, edifices, architecture to house our memories and political energy. Politics troubles our consciences. But places haunt our imaginations. (New York Times)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 11/27/11                   0       3
#12 



9/30/2011 Occupy Wall Street: Let the co-opting begin
As an assortment of unions voice support and celebrities pop up to cheer them on, the “Occupiers” think themselves to be gaining in a groundswell. Hardly . . . they’re about to be drowned. Since I kvetched about the Occupy Wall Street “disorganizers” ten days ago, much has changed! Yet so much remains the same. Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, and other left-of-left celebrities have come out to cheer them on. Earlier, the best they could manage was Roseanne Barr! A group of labor unions will be joining in and lending their full support. MoveOn.org, the Coalition for the Homeless, and the Working Families Party are all getting excited. Needless to say, the protesters are pleased. Look at all the attention their cause is getting! And their message is being heard! “Great, they have a message now?” (Secular News Daily)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/12/11                   0       3
#13 
keywords: Afscme, Alternative Media, American Federation Of Teachers, Campaign Finance Reform, Coalition For The Homeless, Donna Edwards, Education, International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers, Laborers Union, Michael Moore, Military, Moveon.org, National Education Association, New York City, Nyc General Assembly, Occupy Wall Street, Opensecrets, Police, Roseanne Barr, Seiu, Student Loans, Susan Sarandon, Unions, United States, Van Jones, Wall Street, Working Families Party Add New Keyword To Link



9/22/2011 Did chemical reactions cause Twin Towers collapse?
A mix of sprinkling system water and melted aluminium from aircraft hulls likely triggered the explosions that felled New York's Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, a materials expert has told a technology conference. "If my theory is correct, tonnes of aluminium ran down through the towers, where the smelt came into contact with a few hundred litres of water," Christian Simensen, a scientist at SINTEF, an independent technology research institute based in Norway, said in a statement released Wednesday. "From other disasters and experiments carried out by the aluminium industry, we know that reactions of this sort lead to violent explosions." The official report blames the collapse on the over-heating and failure of the structural steel beams at the core of the buildings, an explanation Simensen rejects. Given the quantities of the molten metal involved, the blasts would have been powerful enough to blow out an entire section of each building, he said. (Agence France-Presse)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 9/25/11                   0       5
#14 
keywords: 9/11, Airports, Alcoa Aluminium, Aluminium, Aluminium International Today, California, Christian Simensen, New York City, Norway, San Diego, Sintef, United States, Water, World Trade Center Add New Keyword To Link



9/1/2011 Testing Occupy Wall Street September 1st
A video story of a peaceful protest test on Wall Street last Thursday Sept.1st, showing that we are living in a police state. Each of us who were detained will return there again, brining friends over. We cary our beliefs and no fears. More and more people will be coming beginning September 17th. Meaningless nonsense charges against us will be dismissed in a court, as it was with one of us, the person who was kept in jail that night and brought to the court the next day. We believe in our constitutional rights for freedom of speech and peaceful demonstrations. (Occupy Wall Street)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/28/11      
            		 0       3
#15 



8/23/2011 Quake raises safety concerns as nuclear plant shut
The largest earthquake to hit the East Coast of the United States in 67 years raised concerns on Tuesday about the safety of the country's nuclear power plants. The 5.8 magnitude quake's epicenter was just a few miles from the two-reactor North Anna nuclear power plant operated by Dominion Resources in Mineral, Virginia, 80 miles southwest of Washington. The plant lost power and automatically halted operations after the quake. While a Dominion spokesman reported no "major" damage to the facility, three diesel generators were required to kick in and keep the reactors' radioactive cores cool. A fourth diesel unit failed. While nuclear power plants can operate safely on back-up power, failure of generators was a key reason for the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant after a 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami in March. "Nuclear power plants lose a significant margin of safety when they're forced to rely on these emergency back-up systems," said Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight at Beyond Nuclear, an anti-nuclear lobby group. (Reuters)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 9/13/11                   0       6
#16 
keywords: Beyond Nuclear, Canada, Dominion Resources, Earthquakes, Edwin Lyman, Entergy, Fukushima, Indian Point Nuclear Plant, Japan, Jim Norvelle, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, New York, New York City, North Anna Nuclear Plant, Nuclear Energy Institute, Nuclear Power Plant, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Paul Gunter, Pennsylvania, Ronald Ballinger, South Carolina, Three Mile Island, Tony Pietrangelo, US Geological Survey, Union Of Concerned Scientists, United States, Victor Gilinsky, Virginia, Washington DC Add New Keyword To Link



8/21/2011 Behind the Story: MoJo's Investigation of Terrorism Informants
Maybe you've wondered, on occasion of a press conference announcing another major terrorism bust: Why does it seem as if the FBI's undercover operatives actually encouraged—even thought up—the plot? Why do the targets come off as hapless losers unable to organize so much as a poker game? How come it was the government that provided the fake conspiracy, the fake car bomb or missile, even the fake Al Qaeda oath? Trevor Aaronson wondered, too, and because he's an investigative reporter, he decided to do something about it: look at every terrorism case the government has prosecuted since 9/11 and dig through the evidence and testimony. The result is the lead story in our new magazine cover package, "Terrorists for the FBI." Among the project's conclusions: Nearly half the prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by money (operatives can be paid as much as $100,000 per assignment) or the need to work off criminal or immigration violations. Sting operations resulted in prosecutions against 158 defendants. Of that total, 49 defendants participated in plots led by an agent provocateur—an FBI operative instigating terrorist action. With three exceptions, all of the high-profile domestic terror plots of the last decade were actually FBI stings. In all, this investigation reviewed more than 500 domestic terror prosecutions (for more details, see our charts page and searchable database). How did we identify them? The federal government unwittingly helped with this research in a huge way: Attorney General Eric Holder in March 2010 testified before Congress as the Obama administration sought to put 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in Manhattan—a plan it ultimately abandoned. One of the documents submitted to Congress was a list of all successful terrorism prosecutions from 9/11 through 2009. (Mother Jones)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 9/14/11                   0       5
#17 
keywords: 9/11, Al Pacino, Al-qaeda, Barack Obama, Brandon Darby, Clara Jeffery, Eric Holder, Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Josh Harkinson, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Lauren Ellis, Lowell Bergman, Monika Bauerlein, Mother Jones, New York City, Terrorists, Trevor Aaronson, Twitter, US Congress, United States, University Of California Add New Keyword To Link



8/16/2011 First responders decry exclusion from 9/11 ceremony
When debris rained from the sky in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, the first responders to the terrorist attack did not turn away. They rushed to the World Trade Center buildings while the world around them crumbled. Yet now, after all the wreckage has been cleared and the rebuilding has begun, their path is again blocked -- not by flying chunks of smoldering rubble, but by space constraints. The first responders are not invited to this year's September 11 memorial ceremony at ground zero, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office confirmed Monday. It's a painful insult for many of the approximately 3,000 men and women who risked their lives, limbs and lungs on that monumental day, puncturing another hole in a still searing wound. (CNN)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 9/14/11                   0       5
#18 
keywords: 9/11, Andrew Brent, Auxiliary Police Supervisors Benevolent Association, Bonnie Giebfried, Denise Villamia, Health Care, John Feal, Michael Bloomberg, Morris Faitelewicz, New York City, New York Daily News, Terrorists, United States, World Trade Center Add New Keyword To Link



6/22/2011 Free to Search and Seize
THIS spring was a rough season for the Fourth Amendment. The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow GPS tracking of vehicles without judicial permission. The Supreme Court ruled that the police could break into a house without a search warrant if, after knocking and announcing themselves, they heard what sounded like evidence being destroyed. Then it refused to see a Fourth Amendment violation where a citizen was jailed for 16 days on the false pretext that he was being held as a material witness to a crime. In addition, Congress renewed Patriot Act provisions on enhanced surveillance powers until 2015, and the F.B.I. expanded agents’ authority to comb databases, follow people and rummage through their trash even if they are not suspected of a crime. None of these are landmark decisions. But together they further erode the privilege of privacy that was championed by Congress and the courts in the mid-to-late-20th century, when the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement was applied to the states, unconstitutionally seized evidence was ruled inadmissible in state trials, and privacy laws were enacted following revelations in the 1970s of domestic spying on antiwar and civil rights groups. For over a decade now, the government has tried to make us more secure by chipping away at the one provision of the Bill of Rights that pivots on the word “secure” — the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.” (New York Times)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 6/25/11                   0       7
#19 
keywords: 9/11, Afghanistan, Al-qaeda, Alien Enemies Act, Barack Obama, Breakthrough Institute, Colorado, Espionage Act, Farmers, Federal Bureau Of Investigation, GPS, Independent America, James Otis Jr, Japan, John Adams, Najibullah Zazi, New York City, Nuremberg Trials, Oregon, Pakistan, Pearl Harbor, Police, Portland Seven, Privacy, Robert H Jackson, Taliban, Terrorists, US Congress, US Constitution, US Supreme Court, United Kingdom, United States, Usa Patriot Act, War On Drugs Add New Keyword To Link



6/13/2011 Drug Legalization: A Step Closer, But Still a Long Shot
A recent report on drug policy, backed by high-profile political figures, argues for a move away from the “zero tolerance” approach. However, it fails to offer any clear solutions on halting violence and organized crime, and has been rejected by a number of Latin American governments. The Global Commission on Drug Policy's report (get it English and Spanish here) -- issued June 2 in New York City and signed by an unprecedented 19 high level world leaders, including former presidents of Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Switzerland, the incumbent Prime Minister of Greece, the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, the former European Union High Commissioner Javier Solana, and the British billionaire Richard Branson, among others -- may be the most important call ever for reform to the 1988 United Nations Convention on Drugs (pdf version here). That convention, adopted worldwide and enforced largely by the United States, set the international ground rules for the so-called “war on drugs.” The Global Commission is trying to rewrite those rules. And this recent proposal is nothing short of a paradigm shift. (In Sight)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 6/15/11                   0       7
#20 



6/9/2011 Jesse Ventura attacked by Nano-Thermite crowd over microwave possibility?
Should Jesse Ventura be challenged for suggesting that Nano-thermite (alone) did not bring down the towers? If you haven’t heard his claims it’s worth getting some feedback and intelligent discussion going. Jesse Ventura 6/7/11 -- “I was attacked by the 9/11 truthers, unbelievably because of a few things I’ve mentioned and asked questions about on 9/11. I was accused by them of selling out and I got upset over it…”

Ventura continues, “It’s a question that came to [me] on some of the reading I did on these toasted cars. It’s remarkable. Alex, there are over 1,000 of them and they were as far away as the FDR; which is probably six, eight blocks from the Trade Center and there were cars flipped over on their hoods; and in the photos you see the cars flipped on its back, but the leaves are still on the trees…how could this happen? What is the explanation for toasted cars all over Manhattan that day?” “Well you’re not supposed to ask that,” says Alex with sarcasm. (We Are Change)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 6/15/11                   0       7
#21 



5/22/2011 Grameen yet to bring micro-loans to D.C., a year after Muhammad Yunus announcement
Since its founding in 1976 by Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank has made more than $9 billion worth of micro-loans to 8 million poor and unemployed borrowers, a track record impressive enough to earn the man and bank the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Its U.S. offshoot, however, has been unable to raise $6 million to bring Yunus’s banking for the poor to Washington. (Washington Post)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 5/27/11                   0       7
#22 
keywords: Advantage Capital Partners, Bangladesh, Capital One, Grameen America, Grameen Bank, John G Finneran Jr, Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, New York City, Nobel Prize, Stephen Vogel, Tatiana Stead, US Supreme Court, United States, Washington DC Add New Keyword To Link



5/17/2011 Smell Pot? SCOTUS Kills 4th Amendment
The Supreme Court says police can enter your home without a warrant, if they smell marijuana, and if when knocking on the door, they hear what sounds like the destruction of evidence. But apparently, by making sounds like destruction of evidence like flushing a toilet, police can come in. Students for Sensible Drug Policy's Aaron Houston discusses. (Russia Today)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 5/18/11      
            		 0       7
#23 



5/3/2011 Expert: Security Checkpoints Near Soft Targets May Soon Become The Norm -- A Day May Come When You'll Be Patted Down Going Into Stores
Counter terrorism experts say a retaliation attack for Osama bin Laden’s death is inevitable. Terrorists are expected to aim for more vulnerable soft targets like shopping malls or museums. They are places jam-packed with people — pedestrian malls, shopping centers and stadiums. “Yeah, I feel safe. But of course in the back of my head I know that things can happen,” one person told CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez. Counter terrorism expert Juval Aviv said terrorists seeking revenge for Osama bin Laden’s death will turn to attacks less dramatic than the destruction on Sept. 11 — focusing instead on soft targets like hotels, places of worship and mass transit hubs. (CBS)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 5/11/11                   0       5
#24 
keywords: 9/11, David Boehm, Juval Aviv, New York City, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorists, United States Add New Keyword To Link



4/27/2011 Alleged Illegal Searches By NYPD Rarely Challenged in Marijuana Cases
Illegal searches are more common than people realize, but few end up getting challenged in court, law enforcement officials and defense attorneys say. Checks and balances within the criminal justice system are intended to ferret out improper arrests, but many defendants and their lawyers say they face insurmountable obstacles when fighting marijuana charges – and the alleged illegal searches that sometimes led to them. More than 50,000 people were arrested in the city for misdemeanor marijuana possession last year – the highest in a decade. And a substantial number of these arrests take place in the police precincts where the most stop-and-frisks occur, which are predominately black and Latino neighborhoods. More than a dozen men who were arrested in these precincts for misdemeanor marijuana possession told WNYC the police recovered marijuana on them through illegal searches. None of them challenged these allegedly illegal searches in court. (WNYC)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 5/27/11                   0       3
#25 
keywords: Civilian Complaint Review Board, Devry University, Drug Policy Alliance, Ed Mccarthy, Eugene O'donnell, Harold Crawford, Jeannette Rucker, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice, Marijuana, New York, New York City, New York State Division Of Criminal Justice Services, Police, Privacy, United States, War On Drugs Add New Keyword To Link



4/25/2011 WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed
Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose.

Al-Qaeda terrorists have threatened to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” on the West if Osama Bin Laden is caught or assassinated, according to documents to be released by the WikiLeaks website, which contain details of the interrogations of more than 700 Guantanamo detainees. However, the shocking human cost of obtaining this intelligence is also exposed with dozens of innocent people sent to Guantanamo – and hundreds of low-level foot-soldiers being held for years and probably tortured before being assessed as of little significance. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America’s own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world’s most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website. The disclosures are set to spark intense debate around the world about the establishment of Guantanamo Bay in the months after 9/11 – which has enabled the US to collect vital intelligence from senior Al Qaeda commanders but sparked fury in the middle east and Europe over the treatment of detainees. (London Telegraph)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 5/12/11                   0       2
#26 



4/20/2011 New terrorism alert system will offer specific warnings
A new terrorism warning system will provide the public with information on specific threats, replacing the color-coded alerts put in place after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday. In announcing the new system at New York City's Grand Central Terminal, commonly known as Grand Central Station, Napolitano said a main goal was to provide better understanding of the nature of the specific threat, what people should do in reaction to it and how they could help security officials in responding. "It will provide alerts based on specific, credible information about potential terrorist activity," Napolitano said, adding that the alerts would contain "as many details as we can provide." (CNN)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/25/11                   0       3
#27 



4/7/2011 Bruce Fein: Articles of Impeachment for tyrant Obama
III. USURPATION OF THE WAR POWER OVER LIBYA 47. President Barack Obama’s military attacks against Libya constitute acts of war. 48. Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-4) had the following exchange with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during a March 31, 2011 House Armed Services Committee Hearing on the legality of the present military operation in Libya: Congressman Forbes: Mr. Secretary, if tomorrow a foreign nation intentionally, for whatever reason, launched a Tomahawk missile into New York City, would that be considered an act of war against the United States? Secretary Gates: Probably so. Congressman Forbes: Then I would assume the same laws would apply if we launched a Tomahawk missile at another nation—is that also true? Secretary Gates: You’re getting into constitutional law here and I am no expert on it. Congressman Forbes: Mr. Secretary, you’re the Secretary of Defense. You ought to be an expert on what’s an act of war or not. If it’s an act of war to launch a Tomahawk missile on New York City would it not also be an act of war to launch a Tomahawk missile by us at another nation? Secretary Gates: Presumably. 49. Since the passage of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 on March 19, 2011, the United States has detonated over 200 tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and 455 precision-guided bombs on Libyan soil. 50. Libya posed no actual or imminent threat to the United States when President Obama unleashed Operation Odyssey Dawn. 51. On March 27, 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that Libya never posed an “actual or imminent threat to the United States.” He further stated that Libya has never constituted a “vital interest” to the United States. 52. United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 directs an indefinite United States military quagmire in Libya, authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, which clearly contemplates removal by force of the murderous regime of Col. Muammar Qadhafi. 53. In a Letter From the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate sent March 21, 2011, President Barack Obama informed Members of Congress that “U.S. forces have targeted the Qadhafi regime’s air defense systems, command and control structures, and other capabilities of Qadhafi’s armed forces used to attack civilians and civilian populated areas. We will seek a rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional, or international organizations that are postured to continue activities as may be necessary to realize the objectives of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973.” 54. In his March 21, 2011 letter, President Barack Obama further informed Members of Congress that he opted to take unilateral military action “…in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster.” 55. President Barack Obama has usurped congressional authority to decide on war or peace with Libya, and has declared he will persist in additional usurpations of the congressional power to commence war whenever he decrees it would advance his idea of the national interest. On March 28, 2011, he declared to Congress and the American people: “I have made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests” (emphasis added). 56. President Obama’s humanitarian justification for war in Libya establishes a threshold that would justify his initiation of warfare in scores of nations around the globe, including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, China, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Russia. 57. In Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote on behalf of a majority of the United States Supreme Court: Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. 58. President Barack Obama has signed an order, euphemistically named a “Presidential Finding,” authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, further entangling the United States in the Libyan conflict, despite earlier promises of restraint. Truth is invariably the first casualty of war. 59. In response to questions by Members of Congress during a classified briefing on March 30, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated that the President needs no Congressional authorization for his attack on the Libyan nation, and will ignore any Congressional attempt by resolution or otherwise to constrain or halt United States participation in the Libyan war. 60. On March 30, 2011, by persistent silence or otherwise, Secretary Clinton rebuffed congressional inquiries into President Obama’s view of the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. She failed to cite a single judicial decision in support of President Obama’s recent actions, relying instead on the undisclosed legal opinions of White House attorneys. 61. President Barack Obama, in flagrant violation of his constitutional oath to execute his office as President of the United States and preserve and protect the United States Constitution, has usurped the exclusive authority of Congress to authorize the initiation of war, in that on March 19, 2011 President Obama initiated an offensive military attack against the Republic of Libya without congressional authorization. In so doing, President Obama has arrested the rule of law, and saluted a vandalizing of the Constitution that will occasion ruination of the Republic, the crippling of individual liberty, and a Leviathan government unless the President is impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office by the Senate. In all of this, President Barack Obama has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States. (Prison Planet)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/10/11                   0       2
#28 



4/5/2011 How The 'Pox' Epidemic Changed Vaccination Rules
Historian Michael Willrich was planning to write a book about civil liberties in the aftermath of Sept. 11 when he stumbled across an article from The New York Times archives. It was about a 1901 smallpox vaccination raid in New York — when 250 men arrived at a Little Italy tenement house in the middle of the night and set about vaccinating everyone they could find. "There were scenes of policemen holding down men in their night robes while vaccinators began their work on their arms," Willrich tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "Inspectors were going room to room looking for children with smallpox. And when they found them, they were literally tearing babes from their mothers' arms to take them to the city pesthouse [which housed smallpox victims.]" The vaccination raid was not an isolated incident. As the smallpox epidemic swept across the country, New York and Boston policemen conducted several raids and health officials across the country ordered mandatory vaccinations in schools, factories and on railroads. In Pox: An American History, Willrich details how the smallpox epidemic of 1898-1904 had far-reaching implications for public health officials — as well as Americans concerned about their own civil liberties. (National Public Radio)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/19/11                   0       2
#29 
keywords: 9/11, American Academy Of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Andrew Wakefield, Autism, Big Pharma, Boston, Brandeis University, British Medical Journal, Centers For Disease Control, City Paper, Health Care, Massachusetts, Michael Willrich, Middlesboro KY, Mmr Vaccine, New York City, Police, Quarantines, Railroads, Smallpox, Supreme Judicial Court Of Massachusetts, The Lancet, The New York Times, The Washington Monthly, US Supreme Court, United Kingdom, United States, Vaccines Add New Keyword To Link



3/31/2011 Why is the Federal Reserve Propping Up the Bank of Libya?
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has for months been leading the charge to expose the sweetheart deals the Federal Reserve has worked out for multinational banks and corporations at the same time that working Americans, small businesses, local governments and schools boards struggle to stay afloat financially. Sanders has tried to make the point that it is simply absurd for the Fed to bail out foreign firms and bad banks and to provide them with low-interest loans at the same time that they are reaping massive profits – and at the same time that federal, state and local governments are supposedly broke. (The Nation)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/28/11                   0       1
#30 



3/21/2011 Scientist: Japan earthquake, nuke “accident” are tectonic nuclear warfare; by Alfred Lambremont Webre
Independent scientist Leuren Moret, whose 2004 landmark article in the Japan Times unmasked lies and distortions by government and company officials that led to the construction of nuclear power plants in seismically dangerous areas, has declared in an exclusive 65-minute video interview with Alfred Lambremont Webre that the “Japan earthquake and “accidents” at the Fukushima’s 6 nuclear power plant units starting March 11, 2011 are in fact deliberate acts of tectonic nuclear warfare, carried out against the populations ecology of Japan and the nations of the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In her May 23, 2004 Japan Times article, Japan's deadly game of nuclear roulette, Ms. Leuren predicted, “It is not a question of whether or not a nuclear disaster will occur in Japan; it is a question of when it will occur. Like the former Soviet Union after Chernobyl, Japan will become a country suffering from radiation sickness destroying future generations, and widespread contamination of agricultural areas will ensure a public-health disaster. Its economy may never recover.” Japan earthquake triggered by HAARP-aerosol/chemtrails plasma weapon, to cause nuclear radiation mega leaks Now, in an exclusive interview released March 20, 2011, independent scientist has set out the multiple reasons why the Japan earthquake was most plausibly conditioned and triggered by a HAARP-aerosol/chemtrails plasma weapon, to cause Chernobyl-like nuclear radiation mega leaks that, according to a report by the Swedish government, will be distributed over the entire Northern hemisphere of the planet. Among the various aspects of the Japan earthquake discussed by Ms. Moret that fit the profile of a HAARP-triggered earthquake system are: • The earthquake intensity and characteristics; the deliberate confusion by the U.S. around the scale of the earthquake; • The foreshadowing sale of Japan Westinghouse (controlled by Rockefeller interests) in 2006 to Hitachi and other interests; • The use of the Stuxnet virus in the Fukushima plant to cause the malfunctions of the cooling pumps and valves, thereby creating the dangerous radiation releases; • The creation of HAARP-related vortex clouds over the San Francisco, CA Bay Area on March 18, 2011 to trigger a heavy rain out of the radiation from the first Fukushima plant explosion onto the population, food and ecology of the Bay area. (Examiner)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/18/11                   0       2
#31 



3/11/2011 Does climate change mean more tsunamis?
Update: The intent of this piece isn’t to attribute today’s tragedy to climate change. Apologies to those whom I misled with the headline. It was meant literally, as in: Tsunamis are inundations of shorelines and therefore have impacts that resemble storm surges, which are one of the most immediate threats of a warmer planet. In addition, climate change may cause tsunamis directly, so it’s possible we’ll someday see more images like this as a result.

Update 2: Changed the headline (it originally read “Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like”) and updated the text to reflect the discussion of the science and the framing in the comments. Thanks to Tom Yulsman for holding my feet to the fire on this. * * *

So far, today’s tsunami has mainly affected Japan—there are reports of up to 300 dead in the coastal city of Sendai—but future tsunamis could strike the U.S. and virtually any other coastal area of the world with equal or greater force, say scientists. In a little-heeded warning issued at a 2009 conference on the subject, experts outlined a range of mechanisms by which climate change could already be causing more earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity, albeit of a scale and nature quite different from Friday’s tragedy. A 2009 paper by Bill McGuire, professor at University College London, says “observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere.” It’s important to note that this response has nothing to do with Friday’s tsunami, which is a ‘subduction zone earthquake,’ whereas the tsunamis discussed by scientists cited here would be the product of catastrophic events—collapse of methane hydrate deposits at the bottom of the ocean on the continental shelf, for example—for which a tsunami would be but one of many negative impacts. (Grist)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 3/31/11                   0       6
#32 
keywords: Australia, Bill Mcguire, Canada, Chile, China Meteorological Administration, Climate Change, David Pyle, Earthquakes, Japan, Methane, New York City, New Zealand, Reuters, Sendai, Tom Yulsman, Tsunamis, United States, University College London, Volcanoes Add New Keyword To Link



3/11/2011 Oil Plunges as Japan's Refiners Shut Plants After Earthquake
Oil fell below $100 a barrel in New York for the first time in more than a week after Japan’s strongest earthquake in at least a century forced refiners to shut several processing plants. U.S. crude futures were headed for their first weekly decline in a month following the temblor in the world’s third- largest oil user. A fire at Cosmo Oil Co.’s refinery in Chiba, outside Tokyo, is spreading, a Fire Department spokesman said. JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. closed refineries in Sendai, Kashima and Negishi. In London, Brent crude was set for its first weekly decline in seven. “The earthquake is having a psychological impact on the market in triggering a rise in risk aversion,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “The effect is also physical, in that oil demand from Japan could temporarily be lower.” Crude for April delivery tumbled as much as $3.69, or 3.6 percent, to $99.01 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $100.38 at 1:02 p.m. London time. Prices this week are down 3.9 percent, the first weekly drop in a month. Brent oil for April settlement on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange dropped as much as $3.18, or 2.8 percent, to $112.25 a barrel. It was trading at $113.19 at 1:01 p.m. local time. The contract has lost 2.4 percent this week. (Bloomberg)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 3/14/11                   0       7
#33 
keywords: Africa, Al Arabiya, Big Oil, Bloomberg Lp, Carsten Fritsch, China, Christophe De Margerie, Commerzbank Ag, Cosmo Oil, Earthquakes, Energy Corp, Frankfurt, Ice Futures Europe, International Energy Agency, Japan, Jx Nippon Oil, Kashima, Libya, Libyan National Oil Corp, London, Mansour Al-turki, Middle East, Negishi, New York City, New York Mercantile Exchange, Organization Of The Petroleum Exporting Countries, Paris, Qatif, Saudi Arabia, Sendai, Shiite, Shokri Ghanem, Tokyo, Total Sa, United Kingdom, United States, Yusuke Kanada Add New Keyword To Link



2/16/2011 Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? Financial crooks brought down the world's economy -- but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them
By Matt Taibbi. Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that." I put down my notebook. "Just that?" "That's right," he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there." Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people. This article appears in the March 3, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available now on newsstands and will appear in the online archive February 18. The rest of them, all of them, got off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

"You put Lloyd Blankfein in pound-me-in-the-ass prison for one six-month term, and all this bullshit would stop, all over Wall Street," says a former congressional aide. "That's all it would take. Just once." (Rolling Stone)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 3/12/11                   0       4
#34 
keywords: Al Dunlap, American International Group, Art Samberg, Arthur Tildesley Jr, Bailouts, Bank Of America, Barack Obama, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Boston, Charles Grassley, Charles Schumer, Citigroup, Columbia University, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Credit Default Swaps, Credit Suisse, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Debevoise & Plimpton, Derek Jeter, Derivatives, Deutsche Bank, Dick Fuld, Dick Walker, Eliot Spitzer, Enron, Eric Dinallo, Fabrice Tourre, Fannie Mae, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Freddie Mac, Gary Aguirre, Gary Crittenden, Gary Lynch, General Electric, George W Bush, Germany, Goldman Sachs, Government Transparency, Heller Financial, Henry Waxman, Hillary Clinton, Hilton Hotels, Immigration, JP Morgan Chase, Jed Rakoff, Joe Cassano, John Mack, Joseph St Denis, Lanny Breuer, Lehman Brothers, Linda Thomsen, Lloyd Blankfein, Lynn Turner, Mary Jo White, Merrill Lynch, Mexico, Morgan Stanley, New York City, New York Stock Exchange, Office Of The Comptroller Of The Currency, Ohio, Oliver Budde, Paul Berger, Philadelphia, Police, Portfolio Magazine, Preet Bharara, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Restricted Stock Units, Rite Aid, Robert Khuzami, Robert Morgenthau, Roger Clemens, Rudy Giuliani, Securities And Exchange Commission, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Sunbeam, Switzerland, Terrorists, US Congress, US Department Of Justice, United States, Wall Street, War On Drugs, Worldcom Add New Keyword To Link



1/18/2011 Reversing 'Citizens United'
It will be a year this week since Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative activist colleagues on the Supreme Court joined together in a dramatic assault on American democracy. Their decision in the Citizens United case overturned more than a century's worth of precedent by awarding corporations the rights of citizens with regard to electioneering. The court did away with limits on when corporations can spend on elections, how much they can spend and how they can spend their money, allowing unlimited contributions from corporate treasuries to flood the electoral landscape. As The Nation noted in the days after the case was decided, "This decision tips the balance against active citizenship and the rule of law by making it possible for the nation's most powerful economic interests to manipulate not just individual politicians and electoral contests but political discourse itself." According to Bill de Blasio, New York City's public advocate, Citizens United spending

that is, spending that was only made possible by the court's ruling

accounted for 15 percent of the roughly $4 billion spent on the 2010 midterm elections. Eighty-five million dollars of Citizens United money was spent on U.S. Senate races alone. Worse, 30 percent of all spending by outside groups was funded by anonymous donations, an illegal action prior to the ruling. Forty million of the dollars spent on Senate races came from sources that might never be revealed. (Washington Post)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 8/1/11                   0       1
#35 



12/12/2010 Rep. Ron Paul, G.O.P. Loner, Comes In From Cold
As virtually all of Washington was declaring WikiLeaks’s disclosures of secret diplomatic cables an act of treason, Representative Ron Paul was applauding the organization for exposing the United States’ “delusional foreign policy.” For this, the conservative blog RedState dubbed him “Al Qaeda’s favorite member of Congress.” It was hardly the first time that Mr. Paul had marched to his own beat. During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he was best remembered for declaring in a debate that the 9/11 attacks were the Muslim world’s response to American military intervention around the globe. A fellow candidate, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, interrupted and demanded that he take back the words — a request that Mr. Paul refused. During his 20 years in Congress, Mr. Paul has staked out the lonely end of 434-to-1 votes against legislation that he considers unconstitutional, even on issues as ceremonial as granting Mother Teresa a Congressional Gold Medal. His colleagues have dubbed him “Dr. No,” but his wife will insist that they have the spelling wrong: he is really Dr. Know. Now it appears others are beginning to credit him with some wisdom — or at least acknowledging his passionate following. (New York Times)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/19/11                   0       1
#36 



11/2/2010 Yemen Brings Terror Charges Against US-Born Radical Cleric Al-Awlaki
Yemen, under intense U.S. pressure to crack down on al-Qaida, put an American-born radical cleric on trial in absentia Tuesday on charges of plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of the terrorist group. It was Yemen's first formal legal action against Anwar al-Awlaki and the court brought the same charges against two other men. Yemen has come under heavy U.S. pressure to crack down on al-Qaida militants following the interception of two mail bombs in Dubai and Britain last week. The U.S. suspects Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's network, was behind the plot. Al-Awlaki, 39, was born in New Mexico and is based in Yemen. U.S. investigators say e-mails link him to the Army psychiatrist accused of last year's shooting spree at the Fort Hood, Texas military base that killed 13 people. They also allege he helped prepare Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for the attempt to bomb an airliner over Detroit last Christmas and they link him to the failed bombing in New York City's Times Square in May. (FOX)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/18/11                   0       0
#37 



10/30/2010 High alert in U.S. after suspicious package found in UK
Two packages found abroad that were bound for Jewish organizations in the United States contained a massive amount of explosive material that would have triggered a powerful blast, a source close to the investigation has told CNN. U.S. officials believe that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, commonly referred to as AQAP, is behind the plot. President Barack Obama confirmed that the packages -- intercepted in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates -- originated in Yemen, the stronghold of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. (CNN)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/29/10                   0       24
#38 



10/20/2010 EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda Leader Dined at the Pentagon Just Months After 9/11
Anwar Al-Awlaki may be the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, but he was also a lunch guest of military brass at the Pentagon within months of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Fox News has learned. Documents exclusively obtained by Fox News, including an FBI interview conducted after the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009, state that Awlaki was taken to the Pentagon as part of the military’s outreach to the Muslim community in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. The incident was flagged by a current Defense Department employee who came forward and told investigators she helped arrange the meeting after she saw Awlaki speak in Alexandria, Va. The employee "attended this talk and while she arrived late she recalls being impressed by this imam. He condemned Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks. During his talk he was 'harassed' by members of the audience and suffered it well," reads one document. According to the documents, obtained as part of an ongoing investigation by the specials unit "Fox News Reporting," there was a push within the Defense Department to reach out to the Muslim community. (FOX)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/18/11                   0       0
#39 



10/14/2010 Faulty Paperwork Prompts Deepening Foreclosure Problem
Some lenders have put a temporary hold on foreclosures and state attorney generals have launched a joint investigation to sort out problems with questionable documents. Paul Solman gives details on the flawed paperwork as part of his ongoing series on making sense of financial news. (PBS)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 11/28/10      
            		 0       9
#40 
keywords: Arthur Schack, Bank Of America, California, Financial Crisis, Foreclosuregate, Gmac, JP Morgan Chase, Max Gardner, New York City, North Carolina, Paul Solman, Realtytrac, Rebecca Mairone, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Sandra Orosco, Shelby, United States, Walter Hackett Add New Keyword To Link



10/3/2010 CIA backed by military drones in Pakistan
The CIA is using an arsenal of armed drones and other equipment provided by the U.S. military to secretly escalate its operations in Pakistan by striking targets beyond the reach of American forces based in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The merging of covert CIA operations and military firepower is part of a high-stakes attempt by the Obama administration to deal decisive blows to Taliban insurgents who have regained control of swaths of territory in Afghanistan but stage most of their operations from sanctuaries across that country's eastern border. The move represents a signification evolution of an already controversial targeted killing program run by the CIA. The agency's drone program began as a sporadic effort to kill members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network but in the past month it has been delivering what amounts to a cross-border bombing campaign in coordination with conventional military operations a few miles away. The campaign continued Saturday amid reports that two new CIA drone strikes had killed 16 militants in northwest Pakistan, following 22 such attacks last month. (Washington Post)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/3/10                   0       23
#41 



10/2/2010 Are Israeli art students spying in Utah?
Is there door-to-door spying by Israelis in Utah? Some very strange activities are occurring in America. Take the latest activity that came across my radar this morning. Perhaps you have heard about it, but most likely you have not. In a recent article by Brent Hunsaker for ABC4, online, we find that: “Sales people working neighborhoods in Northern Utah County have been asking some odd questions that have nothing to do with making the sale. Folks are reporting that they’re asking about the new National Security Agency’s data center that is being built at Camp Williams” (http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc/story/Door-to-door-spies-in-Utah-County/sjOWsjk_zEqf6QeAfk4ZJw.csp) The ‘sales’ people say they are Israeli art students and are selling their works to raise money for an art gallery. Some of the ‘art students’ have produced what appear to be legitimate Israeli passports, according to the report by Hunsaker. But we find out that: “Blogs and even church bulletins are buzzing. One such bulletin sent out to LDS women in Highland said, “This is a scam! These are not art students and federal law enforcement groups are actually investigating their ties to organized crime and terrorist groups.” The note went on, “Part of their mission here is to gain information on the new NSA installation coming to our area” (ibid). (Daily Censored)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 4/18/11                   0       1
#42 



9/28/2010 Big Brother Obama: US to spy on Internet messaging -- Regulations to target Skype, Facebook, Blackberry
The Obama White House is backing new regulations that would compel popular Internet messaging services like Facebook, Skype and Blackberry to open up their systems to FBI surveillance, the New York Times reported Monday, citing federal law enforcement and national security officials. The threat to democratic rights goes far beyond anything envisioned by the Bush administration. The goal is to make all forms of electronic communication that use the Internet subject to wiretapping and interception by federal police agencies. In the past few years there has been a large-scale shift from conventional telephone communication to Internet-based messaging, which is both cheaper and more secure.

The Times article gave two examples of government efforts to intercept encrypted or peer-to-peer communications that ran into technical obstacles, one involving a drug cartel, the other related to the failed Times Square bombing earlier this year. These examples were chosen to support the claim by the Obama administration that the buildup of surveillance is part of a struggle against crime and “terrorism.” However, the Obama administration has defined “terrorism” so widely that the term now covers a vast array of constitutionally protected forms of political opposition to the policies of the US government, including speaking, writing, political demonstrations, even the filing of legal briefs. (World Socialist Web Site)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/4/10                   0       11
#43 



9/27/2010 C.I.A. Steps Up Drone Attacks on Taliban in Pakistan
The C.I.A. has drastically increased its bombing campaign in the mountains of Pakistan in recent weeks, American officials said. The strikes are part of an effort by military and intelligence operatives to try to cripple the Taliban in a stronghold being used to plan attacks against American troops in Afghanistan. As part of its covert war in the region, the C.I.A. has launched 20 attacks with armed drone aircraft thus far in September, the most ever during a single month, and more than twice the number in a typical month. This expanded air campaign comes as top officials are racing to stem the rise of American casualties before the Obama administration’s comprehensive review of its Afghanistan strategy set for December. American and European officials are also evaluating reports of possible terrorist plots in the West from militants based in Pakistan. The strikes also reflect mounting frustration both in Afghanistan and the United States that Pakistan’s government has not been aggressive enough in dislodging militants from their bases in the country’s western mountains. In particular, the officials said, the Americans believe the Pakistanis are unlikely to launch military operations inside North Waziristan, a haven for Taliban and Qaeda operatives that has long been used as a base for attacks against troops in Afghanistan. Some Pakistani troops have also been diverted from counterinsurgency missions to help provide relief to victims of the country’s massive flooding. (New York Times)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/3/10                   0       9
#44 



9/27/2010 U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet
Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone. Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally. (New York Times)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/4/10                   0       6
#45 



9/24/2010 FCC order on airwaves is victory for tech giants
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved the use of unlicensed airwaves in what it hopes will be a new market for high-speed Internet connections for smartphones, tablets and computers. The order, approved unanimously by the five-member commission, is a win for high-tech giants Dell, Microsoft and Google, which have lobbied for the use of the airwaves known as "white spaces." Those are parts of the broadcast spectrum that sit between television channels, and are valued as a potential home for amped-up versions of WiFi networks with longer ranges and stronger connections that can penetrate walls. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski touted the decision as part of his effort to significantly extend broadband connections in the United States. The order was introduced and passed under then-Chairman Kevin J. Martin two years ago but got hung up with a lawsuit brought by broadcasters, church ministers and Nashville's Dolly Parton, who argued that those airwaves could interfere with wireless microphones and nearby television channels. (Washington Post)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 9/24/10                   0       10
#46 



9/23/2010 Al-Qaeda likely to try small-scale attacks on U.S., officials say
Al-Qaeda and its allies are likely to attempt small-scale, less sophisticated terrorist attacks in the United States, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday, noting that it's extremely difficult to detect such threats in advance. "Unlike large-scale, coordinated, catastrophic attacks, executing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer pre-operational steps," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "Accordingly, there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs." (Washington Post)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/5/10                   0       4
#47 



9/16/2010 An alternative to the new wave of ecofascism
By liberating humanity from the compulsion to consume, climate catastrophe can be averted without recourse to authoritarianism

It is time to acknowledge that mainstream environmentalism has failed to prevent climate catastrophe. Its refusal to call for an immediate consumption reduction has backfired and its demise has opened the way for a wave of fascist environmentalists who reject democratic freedom. One well-known example of the authoritarian turn in environmentalism is James Lovelock, the first scientist to discover the presence of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. Earlier this year he told the Guardian that democracies are incapable of adequately addressing climate change. "I have a feeling," Lovelock said, "that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while." His words may be disturbing, but other ecologists have gone much further. Take for example Pentti Linkola, a Finnish fisherman and ecological philosopher. Whereas Lovelock puts his faith in advanced technology, Linkola proposes a turn to fascistic primitivism. Their only point of agreement is on the need to suspend democracy. Linkola has built an environmentalist following by calling for an authoritarian, ecological regime that ruthlessly suppresses consumers. (London Guardian)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 9/21/10                   0       5
#48 



9/13/2010 Congress Mulls Stiff Crypto Laws
The encryption wars have begun. For nearly a decade, privacy mavens have been worrying that a terrorist attack could prompt Congress to ban communications-scrambling products that frustrate both police wiretaps and U.S. intelligence agencies. Tuesday's catastrophe, which shed more blood on American soil than any event since the Civil War, appears to have started that process. Some politicians and defense hawks are warning that extremists such as Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials say is a crypto-aficionado and the top suspect in Tuesday's attacks, enjoy unfettered access to privacy-protecting software and hardware that render their communications unintelligible to eavesdroppers. In a floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance. (Wired)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/4/10                   0       3
#49 
keywords: Associated Press, At&t, Bill Clinton, Center For Security Policy, Charles Piller, Clipper Chip, Cybersecurity, Dafna Linzer, David Aaron, Eric Hughes, Extremists, Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Frank Gaffney, Janet Reno, Judd Gregg, Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, Louis Freeh, Matt Blaze, National Federation Of Independent Business, New York City, Osama Bin Laden, Perry Metzger, Police, Privacy, Ronald Reagan, Terrorists, US Chamber Of Commerce, US Civil War, US Congress, US Department Of Justice, United States, Wasabi Systems, Washington DC, White House Add New Keyword To Link



9/7/2010 Airport `Naked Image' Scanners May Get Privacy Upgrades
Holli Powell, a Phoenix medical- software consultant who flies every week, says she avoids getting into airport security lines that end at what she calls a humiliating full-body scanner. “Those scanners, I feel, are above and beyond,” Powell, 35, said in an interview. They generate “nearly naked images.” The concerns of travelers such as Powell, which led privacy advocates to sue the government, may soon be eased. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and OSI Systems Inc.’s Rapiscan, makers of the scanners for U.S. airports, are delivering software upgrades that show a generic figure rather than an actual image of a passenger’s body parts. The new display would mark sections of a person’s body that need to be checked. (Bloomberg)
+ Show URL
 & ALL Tags
posted: 10/6/10                   0       3
#50 




Total Link Matches Found: 246       Showing Links #1 - 50
Result Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5