Vilsack Must Keep Black Farmers On Their Land

One Million and a Half Black-Owned Farm Acres Being Looted by USDA While Farmers Wait for Justice

by Cynthia McKinney

[USDA Secretary] Secretary Vilsack admitted in a press conference today, "I did not think before I acted." It is clear from Agriculture Secretary Vilsack's press conference today that he failed to do his job appropriately in his treatment of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee, Shirley Sherrod.

Sherrod was fired after her superior, USDA Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl Cook asked Sherrod to pull over on her drive from south Georgia to Athens, Georgia and quit her job after a speech made by Sherrod to the Coffee County NAACP was aired on a Douglas County TV cable access channel and then posted on the internet by Andrew Breitbart, a known conservative, activist blogger.

Sherrod, a veteran advocate for Black Farmers, who the USDA admits have been discriminated against, was fired because the White House feared that Glen Beck was going to discuss her alleged racist remarks on his TV show that night.  It turns out, however, that the tape of Sherrod's remarks had been badly doctored and the doctored version had been posted on the internet.  Glen Beck and the entire Fox News operation were reacting to the doctored internet posting.  Ms. Sherrod was fired without having an opportunity to explain her side of the story and before the White House and Secretary Vilsack had even bothered to look at her entire speech.  "The White House and Secretary Vilsack threw Shirley Sherrod under the bus before they had the facts," said [2008 Green Party presidential  candidate] Cynthia McKinney, who knows Sherrod and has spoken often at the Coffee County NAACP.

Unfortunately however, Secretary Vilsack has also thrown Black Farmers under the bus. To date, despite abundant headlines to the contrary, Black Farmers, including the named plaintiffs in Pigford v. Glickman (1997), Lucious Abrams and Cecil Brewington have not even had a meeting with USDA, to settle their discrimination claim.  Others who did receive settlements were then harassed by the Internal Revenue Service and had their bank accounts frozen and their Social Security payments offset by any government payments, including stimulus payments.  "The actual so-called settlement of the lawsuit was worse than the discrimination that the USDA has admitted to and discrimination is continuing at this very hour," said Pigford plaintiff Black Farmer Eddie Slaughter.

"The President is meeting with everyone except those who brought forward the lawsuit and those who suffered discrimination and the violation of their Constitutional rights," said Lucious Abrams.  Eddie Slaughter and Lucious Abrams met with Secretary Vilsack and apprised him of the current situation, but the Secretary to date has failed to act.

https://wilderside.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/mckinney-ag-secty-vilsack-must-keep-black-farmers-on-their-land/

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Iranian Scientist Would Not Play ‘Curveball’

by Ray McGovern

Useful insights often must be seen through a glass darkly. But some can be pulled through the smoke and mirrors shrouding the wanderings of Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri, who is now back home in Iran after 14 months in the U.S. as guest of the CIA.

The confusing/amusing spin applied by both countries to L' Affaire Amiri can detract from the real issues. The facts beneath the competing narratives permit a key conclusion; namely, that U.S. intelligence has learned nothing to change its assessment that Iran halted work on the nuclear-weapons related part of its nuclear development program in the fall of 2003 and has not restarted that work.

That twin judgment leaped out of a formal National Intelligence Estimate, "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," [.pdf] approved unanimously by all 16 U.S intelligence agencies in November 2007. 

That NIE substituted a rigorous evidence-based approach for the knee-jerk premise of earlier estimates that Iran had already decided to develop nuclear weapons and the question was just when, not if, it would eventually acquire them.

The NIE began with these words:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. …

"We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons. …

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

That is not what President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had been telling the world, preferring to hyperbolize the danger from Iran's nuclear "weapons" program. Indeed, visiting Israel in January 2008, Bush said he did not believe the NIE's key judgments, and actually apologized to the Israelis for the unfortunate Estimate.

But the word was out and it put the kibosh on White House/neocon plans to manufacture/embellish an imminent nuclear threat from Iran, to look the other way as the Israelis attacked, and to then spring to the aid of our Israeli "ally," even though there is no bilateral defense treaty requiring that. 

The timely publication of the NIE's key judgments played a key role in scuttling plans of those in Washington and Tel Aviv to prevent/pre-empt the ostensibly urgent, but actually bogus, threat from Iran.

http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2010/07/17/iranian-scientist-would-not-play-curveball/

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10 of the Most Crooked Candidates of 2010

This election's crop of the dirtiest, least ethical candidates vying for office in Washington.

July 22, 2010  |  

Since 2005, the Watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has highlighted the most egregious violators of the public trust in its annual Most Corrupt Members of Congress report.  Now, CREW has begun a list of Crooked Candidates to shine the spotlight on some of the lousy politicians vying for federal office in 2010. Here's their collection of non-incumbent candidates so far:

CREW's Crooked Candidates 2010

Roy Blunt -- Running for U.S. Senate, Missouri

Running for U.S. Senate, Missouri

Roy Blunt is a candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in Missouri. For the last 14 years, Rep. Blunt has served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the state's 7th congressional district. As a member of Congress, Rep. Blunt came under fire for a variety of issues including employing the same corrupt tactics that forced his mentor, former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, to resign. Rep. Blunt's ethical issues were documented in CREW's 2006 report on the most corrupt members of Congress.

In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt and Ms. Perlman were dating – and only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed the role of Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at the expense of competitors. Notably, Philip Morris/Altria and its subsidiaries contributed at least $217,000 to campaign committees connected to Rep. Blunt from 1996 to 2006.

Also in 2003, Rep. Blunt helped his son, Andrew Blunt, by inserting a provision into the $79 billion emergency appropriation for the war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers like United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. Andrew Blunt lobbied on behalf of UPS in Missouri, and UPS and FedEx contributed at least $58,000 to Rep. Blunt from 2001 to 2006.

Family connections have also helped another of Rep. Blunt's sons, former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. Gov. Blunt received campaign contributions from nearly three dozen influential Missouri lobbyists and lawyers when he ran for governor of Missouri in 2004, half of whom had provided financial support to his father. Earlier in 2000, when Matt Blunt was running for Secretary of State, Rep. Blunt was involved in an apparent scheme, along with Rep. DeLay, to funnel money through a local party committee into Matt Blunt's campaign committee.

Rep. Blunt and his staff had close connections to convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded then-Majority Leader DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, then-Whip Blunt, and then-Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, which endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff's client, the Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by another tribe. Mr. Abramoff had donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt's leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs.

Charlie Crist -- Running for U.S. Senate, Florida

Governor Charlie Crist is an Independent candidate running for United States Senate from Florida. Charlie Crist is currently the governor of Florida, but has held several public offices over the last 18 years.

Gov. Crist handpicked Jim Greer to head the Florida Republican Party. Despite multiple calls for Mr. Greer's resignation by fellow Republicans, due to extravagant spending at the party's expense, Gov. Crist defended Mr. Greer. Mr. Greer is now facing six counts of grand theft, fraud and money laundering. He is accused of secretly setting up a shell company, Victory Strategies, and signing a deal that would give Victory Strategies 10% of GOP donations – a deal that Gov. Crist allegedly approved.

Prior to serving as governor, Gov. Crist was the state's attorney general. As attorney general, Gov. Crist was criticized for failing to investigate those with whom he had political or financial ties. First, he failed to investigate state contractor GDX for leaking the personal information of 100,000 state employees. GDX had been subcontracted by computer company Convergys to index electronic personnel records but when GDX outsourced the job overseas, the personal information of up to 100,000 state employees may have been exposed. Convergys had close ties to then-Attorney General Crist. The company had hired his advisor as a lobbyist and was a donor to the Republican Party. Attorney General Crist dropped the investigation.

As attorney general, Gov. Crist also failed to fully investigate boy-band mogul Lou Pearlman. Mr. Pearlman, who ran a $300 million investment scam, was eventually indicted by federal authorities and pled guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering charges. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. A lawsuit brought by investors claimed Gov. Crist and Florida regulators knew about the scheme but turned a blind eye for four years. The suit alleges Mr. Pearlman got a pass from the then-attorney general because he had donated at least $12,000 to Gov. Crist's campaign.

Jeff Denham -- Running for U.S. House, California

Jeff Denham is the Republican candidate for California's 19th congressional district. He has served as a California State Senator since 2003.

Sen. Denham has been accused of supporting the interests of Chukchansi Indian's casino in exchange for the tribe's political support. Sen. Dunham used his influence to oppose construction of a $250 million casino proposed by the North Folk Rancheria of Mono Indians, which would likely compete with the existing Chukchansi casino.

The Chukchansi Indian tribe has been tied to campaign ads and a charity event supporting Sen. Denham. First, the interest group, Californians for Fiscally Conservative Leadership, set up by the Chukchansi Indian tribe, aired radio ads attacking Sen. Denham's opponent just before the congressional primary election.

Additionally, Sen. Denham donated $25,000 and loaned $150,000 from his state senate campaign account to the nonprofit Remembering the Brave. The nonprofit was working in coordination with the Chukchansi Indian Tribe to host a charity concert. Remembering the Brave sponsored radio and television advertisements, prominently featuring Sen. Denham, to promote the concert. Experts agreed that the exposure the ads afforded Sen. Denham likely benefited his run for Congress. By donating and loaning the money from his state campaign account Sen. Denham may have violated rules forbidding the use of state campaign money on a federal race.

Furthermore, the Chukchansi Indian Tribe stated in a marketing memo that the charity concert would "raise funds for Jeff Denham and Joe Alberta campaigns." The tribe later called the memo a misprint.

Lastly, Sen. Denham may have violated federal election law in late March when he traveled on a plane owned by Harris Farms, a California agribusiness. Since 2007 it has been illegal for congressional candidates to fly on corporate planes. Sen. Denham boarded the plane with Karl Rove and Andy Vidak, a Republican candidate from the neighboring 20th district, and flew from Fresno to East Bay and then to Harris Ranch. Local charter operators estimated the cost of the flight to have been at least $750, but Sen. Denham, in his campaign finance disclosures, reported only $150 to Harris Farms for travel expenses.

Alvin Greene -- Running for U.S. Senate, South Carolina

Alvin Greene is the Democratic nominee for United States Senate from South Carolina.

There are major questions about the legitimacy of Mr. Greene's campaign.  When Mr. Greene won the primary he had engaged in no fundraising, had no website and had no organized campaign.  Mr. Greene was discharged from the Army in August 2009, is currently unemployed and lives with his father. In addition, when Mr. Greene was charged with obscenity in November 2009 for showing pornography to a University of South Carolina student, he was assigned a public defender, a service normally provided only to indigent defendants.

Given Mr. Greene's apparent lack of funds, CREW and others raised questions about whether someone had paid the $10,440 fee to file as a candidate with his own money.  The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigated Mr. Greene's finances and found he had used his own savings from the Army to pay the registration fees.  SLED also found Mr. Greene had no intent to deceive the court when he applied for a public defender to defend him against the obscenity charges though he is now being represented by a private lawyer.

Several politicians have criticized Mr. Green including House Majority Whip James Clyburn who claimed Mr. Greene is "someone's plant" from an outside party and called for an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office.

CREW also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging Mr. Greene violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and FEC regulations by failing to file mandatory disclosure reports prior to the election. CREW's complaint to the FEC alleges Mr. Greene failed to file a Statement of Candidacy and that his campaign committee, Alvin M. Greene for Senate, failed to file a Statement of Organization as well as the April 15th and 12-Day Pre-Primary reports. These reports would have disclosed the campaign's contributions and expenditures leading up to the June 8, 2010 primary.  CREW asked the FEC to refer any knowing and willful violations to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.

Offering an unusual job creation proposal, Mr. Greene suggested someone "make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids.  So you see I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up. That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke."   Later, Mr. Greene elaborated, "I am a true American hero and if any of the toy companies want to put something like that forward that would be good." He said he has not received any inquiries, but that it would be "Just a good positive thing for the kids."

http://www.alternet.org/news/147608/10_of_the_most_crooked_candidates_of_2010?page=entire

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The DEA is going to kill someone

 

Dear Michael Dare:

The DEA has gone rogue. Despite clear guidance from the Department of Justice directing them to do otherwise, agents are conducting raids of homes and businesses where the occupants are acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws.

These agents are storming onto the property of law-abiding citizens with guns drawn, destroying marijuana plants being grown for patients, stealing computers and cash, and even leaving trash on the floor behind them when they are done.

A recent raid in Mendocino County, California targeted a woman who had filed formal paperwork to grow medical marijuana, had paid a $1,050 application fee under the local ordinance, and whose operation had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff. When informed about this, the DEA agent in charge said, "I don't care what the sheriff says."

It is only a matter of time before one of these raids ends tragically with someone seriously injured or killed.

One woman is responsible for all of this. Her name is Michele Leonhart. She became the acting-administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration under George W. Bush and was shockingly nominated by President Obama to be the permanent head of the agency. She clearly has no respect for authority at the Department of Justice and is equally willing to use federal law enforcement power to trample on states' rights.

Yesterday, MPP and its allies called on President Obama to withdraw this nomination. We are hoping you will join us.

We have set up a page where you can send an e-mail to the White House, urging the President to withdraw the nomination. The pre-written e-mail we provide -- which you can modify -- also mentions that Leonhart has personally obstructed research into the therapeutic benefits of marijuana by denying an application from the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for this purpose.

Michele Leonhart does not deserve to be DEA administrator. Please take action so that President Obama gets this message.

Thank you,

Steve Fox
Director of Government Relations
Marijuana Policy Project

 

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The Barefoot Bandit: I don't get it

 

Why is Colton Harris-Moore so popular? Shouldn't we be happy to see the 19-year-old fugitive in chains?

By Knute Berger

 

 

Someone please convince me that I should care about the Barefoot Bandit. Colton Harris-Moore, the 19-year-old man from Camano Island who was recently caught in the Bahamas, has been allegedly breaking laws across the country — stealing planes, boats, cars, and money, and busting into people's homes and businesses. He's eluded the law for a couple of years after escaping from a halfway house. He has a long record and a troubled past.

Somehow, this has made him, according to some, a "folk hero." One with a Facebook fan page.

Perhaps it's his success at living off the grid, though, ironically, it's the Internet that made him a media phenom. Maybe part of the appeal is the reality-show quality of his globe-trotting survival tour.

But we're not talking about a latter-day Robin Hood here. This is not a guy stealing from the rich to give to the poor. There's no political cause, no righteous protest. He's no black-clad anarchist, no rebel, no revolutionary.

The "Free Colton" T-shirts make him sound like Che Guevara. Is the "Barefoot Bandit" a political prisoner? Please.

http://crosscut.com/2010/07/12/mossback/19971/The-Barefoot-Bandit:-I-don-t-get-it/

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Terror in Iran: Another Day, Another Atrocity in the World of Dirty War

by Chris Floyd

Perhaps this is America's answer to Washington's embarrassment over the Iranian scientist who got away this week:

At least 21 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guards, were killed and 100 wounded in suicide attack at a Shi'ite mosque in the southeast Iranian city of Zahedan on Thursday, Iranian media reported.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the two suicide bombings in front of Zahedan's Grand Mosque, although a lawmaker said he believed the Sunni rebel group Jundollah was behind the attack.

We do know that the United States has been covertly aiding Jundullah -- no doubt as part of the secret armies, militias, terrorist groups and covert operators that the Peace Laureate Administration has recently admitted -- or rather, bragged about in a strategic leak -- running in up to 75 countries around the world.

As I noted last year, after a similar terrorist attack in the same Iranian city:

On Thursday, a suicide bomber walked into a mosque, detonated his explosives and killed and wounded almost 140 people. In the wreckage and confusion afterward, a final death count has not yet been established, but the latest available information puts it at 23.

It is unlikely that you heard about this terrorist attack -- because it took place in Iran. For years, Iran has endured a series of terrorist actions -- suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, open assaults by fanatical gunmen, sabotage, and "targeted assassinations" of government officials, scientists and others. Multitudes have been slaughtered in these operations, whose ferocity and frequency are surpassed only by the atrocities that have been unleashed in the four countries that have been on the forefront of America's Terror War: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. One shudders to think what Washington's response would be to such a sustained campaign on American soil.

Of course, it is no mystery why the attack on the mosque in Zahedan -- a city situated at the strategic point where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan converge -- attracted so little attention in the Western press. Every day, we are schooled relentlessly by our political and media classes to regard the Iranians -- heirs to one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated civilizations -- as demons and subhumans, whose lives are of little account. This can be seen in the long-running debate over an attack on Iran, which focuses almost entirely on the advantages or disadvantages such an assault would pose for American and Israeli interests -- and not at all on the thousands of human beings living in Iran who would be killed in the operation.

But there is another reason why the terrorist attack in Zahedan has not been greeted with commiserations from the White House or excited coverage from our government-spoonfed media: because it is highly likely that the United States played a role in fomenting the attack, either by direct or by collateral hand...

http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/1991-another-day-another-atrocity-in-the-world-of-dirty-war.html

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In Dallas, Texas

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What if CEOs were the ones getting laid off?

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Requiem for the Antiwar Movement

By Cindy Sheehan

"When you vote for war, don't be surprised when you get it." Cindy Sheehan

 

"I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan." Presidential Candidate Barack Obama

 

"This war (Iraq) prevents us from tackling every serious threat that we face, from a resurgent al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to a hostile Iranian regime intent on possessing nuclear weapons." Candidate Barack Obama

 

"And if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al-Qaeda targets (in Pakistan), we must act if Pakistan will or cannot." Candidate Barack Obama

This article and these observations are going to piss some people off—but oh well. You will be angry with me, even though I am not the one who is ordering more war, paying for more war, torturing people and imprisoning them without due process, destroying the economy and the environment, blah, blah, blah. I have developed an incredibly thick skin and if I rankle, it's because I think time is running out to halt the disastrous trajectory this planet (via the US Military Corporate Complex) is on. I promise that I am not writing this because I am holding protests and no one is coming—these thoughts have been percolating in me for months now. (Note: Remember that old saying: "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" Well, here in DC I am living the opposite: "What if they gave an antiwar protest and nobody came?")

 

My grandbabies and other people's grandbabies WILL NOT live in a world where war for profit is so normal that state-sanctioned violence is rarely even questioned—and if it is, then the person questioning is the "looney tunes," the "mama moonbat," the "radical." That is one seriously messed-up world. You know it is and we are the only ones who have the key to unmessing it.

 

Last week, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives voted to give Barack Obama 33 billion more dollars to prosecute two idiotic and ill-advised wars. Of course they did—it wasn't the first time since 2007 that a Democratic Congress voted to fund wars, and it won't be the last—do you all know why? BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT PEACE—THEY ARE JUST ONE-HALF OF THE "WAR PARTY."

 

Why else did the Democrats vote for more war, more death and more destruction? If you are a Democrat and voted for one of these scum—did you vote for them hoping that you would get more war? Did you vote for Obama hoping that he would dig this country into a deeper hole, and do you still believe that fucking things up even more is the way to solve problems?

 

Do you all know what else? The wars that were begun in the Bush presidency and fully funded and increased during the Obama regime belong to everyone who voted for Obama, too. If you listened to what Obama said, and not just how he said it, then you would have heard him promise you that he was going to SEND MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN. You would have heard him say that nothing was "off the table" for dealing with Iran.

 

During the campaign, many colleagues and friends of mine, assured me that Obama was just saying this hostile crap to "get elected" and once he was elected that he would "do the right thing." Well, first of all, why support such a pandering Jackwagon, and secondly, how has that ever worked? Three days after Obama swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, he drone-bombed a "target" in Pakistan killing 3 dozen civilians—and since that day he has elevated the art of drone bombings to new heights, while the so-called antiwar movement looks on in silent complacency and while Democratic operatives disguised as antiwar groups are hoping against hope that Obama comes out strong with a new antiwar marketing campaign to assure his "re-election." Even though not one progressive issue has been propagated during his term, these war supporters are looking forward to another four years of the dance of death. Right foot kill—left foot torture—spin around for environmental devastation—allemande left for health care fascism—and shimmy right for bankster bailouts. Wasn't eight years of this crap during the Bush stain enough for y'all?

 

Many antiwar groups and people who claim they are for peace lose their minds during election season thinking that the razor-thin difference between the Democrat and Republican is enough to go ape-shit crazy in working for the Democrat. Just take the last two Democratic candidates, for example. Kerry and Obama both supported more war. An "antiwar" movement de-legitimizes itself when it works hard for a candidate who does not promise total and rapid withdrawal of troops from wherever they happen to be at the time AND does not promise to end war as an imperial tool of corporate conquest.

 

The majority of the so-called antiwar movement, in fact, voted for a candidate that PROMISED to contract one war only to be able to profoundly EXPAND another. Obama all along said that he is not against all war, just "dumb wars." If there existed an antiwar movement that had integrity—it would have said that "all wars are dumb," and we withhold our support for just another dyed-in-the-wool warmonger.

 

What do we do now that we have another two and a half years of a hawk who thinks it is just hunky-dory that his supporters are under the delusion that he is a dove—he was awarded the war-establishment's highest prize wasn't he? He is, after all, a Nobel Laureate.

 

First of all, voting just doesn't cut it. Realistically, our choices are between War Party Candidate A and War Party Candidate B. A true peace candidate is marginalized, metaphorically spat upon, and reviled. This is not a nation that honors peace and non-violence. From the top down, we are a violent nation—so from the bottom up, we have to restructure society. Liberate yourself and remove your Obama bumper sticker that has a peace sign instead of the "O." If you are antiwar, you know in your heart that he is not a peace monger.

 

Secondly, our resources and energy are stretched thin. We live in a credit based economy where good jobs are scarce. Many people, who have the same values, in this almost value-free society, constantly tell me that they would be with me if they could afford it.

 

Since my son was killed, which was as violent of a paradigm shift as anyone should have to endure, I have whittled my life down to a bare minimum. I have no car. I have no pets. I have no plants. I have no credit cards. My income is based on my donations from my itinerant peace travels and book sales. I have moved eight times since Casey died and now I can move with one small u-haul. I have a cell phone and computer, a bed, clothes, a few dishes, a few valued books and peace paraphernalia and pictures of my children and grandbabies.

 

As HD Thoreau said: "You don't own your possessions, they own you." This consumer orgiastic society makes us literal slaves to a system that is detrimental to our health. Freeing oneself from those chains frees one to be a full-time, or near full-time activist. "Simplify, simplify, simplify."

 

Massive antiwar protest in this country is dead. We may as well acknowledge that and just bury the corpse, mourn, and then figure out a better way of doing things.

 

In the Christian tradition, death was only a prelude to new and better life and farmers well tell you that a seed has to die before a health-nourishing plant can be born and then there's the ever ubiquitous example of the ugly, hairy, and yucky caterpillar being reborn as a magnificent and beautiful butterfly. Have I hammered you with enough clichés yet?

 

The key to turning this caterpillar of a country into a beautiful butterfly is in Peace and recognizing that no matter if one is Bush, Obama, McCain or Palin—these people don't want Peace, but we do.

 

I think we lose the raw humanity of war when we allow ourselves to wallow in War Party politics. When the Democratic Wing of the War Party took over the mis-management of the Empire, the anti-war movement was effectively neutralized even though the wars weren't.

 

So after we are done mourning, we get together as one human family to organize something that will bring positive change. We are not enemies with each other—we may be "enemies of the state," but the state is our enemy.

 

No more marching in circles, it makes us dizzy.

 

No more signing petitions, it gives us writer's cramp.

 

No more calling Congress-scum, the war machine is its master.

 

The establishment wants us to think that this busy-work has a chance to be effective—but when is the last time any of these tactics worked on a Federal level? Your president or your congress rep couldn't care less want you think or want. Your vote doesn't even count—in case you haven't heard, they steal votes and falsely manipulate you, anyway.

 

I am going to close with my organization's motivational quote. Peace of the ACTION takes our inspiration from a Mario Savio quote that he said on the steps of Sproul Hall at UC Berkeley, 46 years ago:

"There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part. You have to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who own it, to the people who run it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25970.htm

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Oliver Stone: US should nationalize oil resources

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill shows that the United States should follow the example of South American socialists in nationalizing its energy industry, filmmaker Oliver Stone said Tuesday.

The Academy Award-winning director of "Born on the Fourth of July" and "JFK" said that America's country's natural wealth was too important to be left in private hands, telling journalists in central London that oil and other natural resources "belong to the people."

"This BP oil spill is typical" of what happens when private industry is allowed to draw revenue on what should be a public good, Stone said.

"We shouldn't make this kind of profit on oil or on health or on war or on prisons. All these industries should be public industries."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100720/ap_en_ot/eu_oliver_stone_bp

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Your Guide to Next Generation 'Content Farms'

 by Davis Shaver

From time to time, we provide an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. We've previously covered Twitter, local watchdog news sites, and Net neutrality, among other topics. This week MediaShift editorial intern Davis Shaver looks at the "content farm" phenomenon.

As traditional news outlets continue to lay off journalists, a new generation of companies is betting big on online content. Their approaches differ significantly, but are all built on the common premise that for online content to be profitable, it has to be produced at a truly massive scale. The proliferation of these so-called "content farms" -- a name the companies predictably dislike -- has raised the ire of journalists and pundits alike.

"If you want to know how our profession ends, look at Demand Media," wrote Jason Fry, a former Wall Street Journal columnist who edits Reinventing the Newsroom.

Of course Demand Media is far from being the first online content company built on search-driven data. Both About.com and Weblogs Inc. built content based on popular search terms, and employed large teams of content producers and bloggers to create stories to help answer common questions.

It's easy to see why Demand Media's strategy has been replicated by start-ups and start-arounds alike. When Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt discovered that algorithmically-generated assignments could generate 4.9 times the revenue of traditional editor-generated ideas, the sheer profitability of this new content paradigm guaranteed that companies like Demand Media would be viewed as outliers in the context of a news industry facing significant fiscal troubles.

This is the first article in what will be a full week of PBS MediaShift special coverage dedicated to next generation content companies. We're calling this series "Beyond Content Farms" and each day will see us examine different aspects of these companies and what they mean for the web and the media world. Below is an overview of the major companies that are taking a "content farm" strategy of pushing out massive amounts of content, a primer that sets out some of the key players, what they do, and what their goals are.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/your-guide-to-next-generation-content-farms200.html

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Obama's War on the Internet

 

 

By Philip Giraldi

The Ministry of Truth

The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet café it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification. When I used an internet connection at a Venice hotel, my passport was demanded as a precondition and the inner page, containing all my personal information, was scanned and a copy made for the Ministry of the Interior -- which controls the police force. The copy is retained and linked to the transaction. For home computers, the IP address of the service used is similarly recorded for identification purposes. All records of each and every internet usage, to include credit information and keystrokes that register everything that is written or sent, is accessible to the government authorities on demand, not through the action of a court or an independent authority. That means that there is de facto no right to privacy and a government bureaucrat decides what can and cannot be "reviewed" by the authorities. Currently, the records are maintained for a period of six months but there is a drive to make the retention period even longer.

The excuses being given for the increasing government intervention into the internet are essentially two: first, that the anonymity of the internet has permitted criminal behavior, fraud, pornography, and libel. Second is the security argument, that managing the internet is an integral part of the "global war on terror" in that it is used by terrorists to plan their attacks requiring governments to control those who use it. The United States government takes the latter argument one step farther, claiming that the internet itself is a vulnerable "natural asset" that could be seized or damaged by terrorists and must be protected, making the case for a massive $100 billion program of cyberwarfare. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) argues that "violent Islamist extremists" rely on the internet to communicate and recruit and he has introduced a bill in the Senate that will empower the president to "kill" the internet in case of a national emergency.

But all of the arguments for intervention are essentially themselves fraudulent and are in reality being exploited by those who favor big government and state control.

 

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1020

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Art Contest

LOS ANGELES -- The Gulf oil disaster is but one example of the ways in which our fossil fuel economy is impacting the planet we call home. But as bad as this catastrophe is, the specter of global climate change looms even larger as a threat to sustaining life on Earth. Despite overwhelming evidence -- species extinction and dwindling water supplies to mass migrations and mega-storms -- the public is still unclear what climate really means for them.

That is why we are calling on artists worldwide to participate in the CoolClimate Art Contest - the first online art contest exploring climate change in its many forms - how it is impacting our lives and what can be done to ensure a sustainable future for all of Earth's inhabitants.

Artist brief: submit a work of art that explores our relationship with the climate - from clean energy jobs to pollution-free oceans - the subject choice is yours. You can submit a piece you've already made, or pass this email along and get an artist friend involved. Post your art on www.coolclimate.deviantart.com and you will be eligible to win prizes, be featured on the Planet Green Planet100 show and be displayed at key leader events nationwide on 10/10/10.

A panel of esteemed judges will select 20 finalists from hundreds of submissions. The finalists will then move to Huffington Post for public voting utilizing the Huffington Post's innovative online social voting tool. Judges include:

     · Mel Chin (artist)
     · Philippe Cousteau (ecologist)
     · Agnes Gund (collector & philanthropist)
     · Van Jones (environmental activist)
     · David Ross (curator)
     · Carrie Mae Weems (artist)
     · Jackson Browne (musician) and Dianna Cohen (artist)
     · Chevy Chase (Comedian) and Jayni Chase (philanthropist)

Submissions are now open and will close on August 23, 2010. You can read the Official Contest Rules on the CoolClimate Group Page.

Historically the creative community has always helped to create new and expanded visions of possibility during difficult times and we look forward to the artist's vision for a cool and sustainable future.


CoolClimate on deviantART

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Confirmed: Breitbart called Sherrod a racist without having the full tape

by Matt Gertz

This afternoon in a Hot Air blog post, Ed Morrissey wrote:

[Former USDA official Shirley] Sherrod and others can complain about Fox News and the editing of the tape, but two points should be remembered. First, Andrew Breitbart made it clear to me last night that this was the entirety of the speech he had in his possession. He also wants to find the whole speech and is trying to get it. 

Are you kidding me?

In his post yesterday -- headlined "Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism - 2010" -- Breitbart claimed to have "video evidence of racism" on Sherrod's part. He said it showed her describing "how she racially discriminates against a white farmer," and referred to it as her "racist tale." The piece was illustrated with a literal "race card."

According to Breitbart:

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn't do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from "one of his own kind". She refers him to a white lawyer.

It soon became evident that there was something fishy about the heavily edited video - even conservative bloggers questioned its sudden ending and wondered what the full context might reveal, while nonetheless saying that they trusted Breitbart.

Throughout the day, the story has unraveled. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published this morning, Sherrod said that the clip had been ripped from context, leaving out "the breadth of the story about how she eventually worked with the man over a two-year period to help ward off foreclosure of his farm, and how she eventually became friends with him and his wife." Sherrod reiterated her statements on CNN's American Morning.

Later in the day, the farmer's wife called in to CNN, calling Sherrod a "friend" and praising her for having "helped us save our farm."

Meanwhile, we pointed out that Breitbart's suggestion that Sherrod was discussing actions that she recently took as an Obama administration official was flatly false.

All day, we've been asking when Breitbart was planning to release the full tapes. Now, it looks like he may never have had one. If what Morrissey says is true, Breitbart tried to destroy the life of a largely unknown Obama administration official and called her a racist, and he didn't have the full context to back it up.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007200051

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Why Journalists Make Mistakes & What We Can Do About Them

 

by Mallary Jean Tenore

 

The Chicago Tribune's infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline, the 2000 election night calls for Al Gore and then George Bush, a 2004 Providence Journal headline that said, "Rumsfeld's Pubic Role is Shrinking."

These mistakes reflect the reality that, as hard as we try to get the facts right, sometimes we get them wrong. Our fallibility is the subject of journalist Kathryn Schulz's new book, "Being Wrong," which looks at how human error can transform our perceptions of the world and of ourselves.

Curious about how Schulz's findings relate to journalism, I talked with her about:

• The need for corrections that address the range of errors journalists make.
• How the provisional nature and accelerated pace of journalism can lead to error.
  
• Reasons news organizations don't correct most of their mistakes -- and what they can learn from them.
  

Need for corrections that address a spectrum of errors

Kathryn Schulz

Misspelled names and typos are among the more basic errors journalists make. But there's another type of error that is harder to correct: when journalists miss the story completely.

"You can do all the legwork of saying 'We spelled Kathryn Schulz's name wrong,' but that doesn't get you anywhere near the deep and substantive wrongness that we sometimes commit in the field," Schulz said by phone. "We have this formalized mechanism for dealing with very small errors, and they're not necessarily trivial, but we don't have any mechanism whatsoever for 'Oops, we blew it, we missed the entire point' types of errors."

The Lexington Herald-Leader is an unusual example. The paper ran a clarification in 2004, saying "It has come to our attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the Civil Rights movement. We regret the omission." And back in 1969, a day after Apollo 11 launched, The New York Times ran a correction saying it retracted a 1920 editorial that had argued space flight was impossible.

It's not always enough to just write a sentence or two explaining that we've erred, says Schulz.

 

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=186404

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Democratic senator: GOP using unemployed people as pawns to make Dems fail

 

By Sahil Kapur

 

WASHINGTON – A Senate Democrat charged that the chamber's GOP leader is compelling his colleagues to block the extension of unemployment benefits in an effort to prevent economic recovery and tarnish Democrats ahead of the November elections.

"I think there are some Republicans that want to vote for it who don't, because [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is putting so much pressure on Senate Republicans for President Obama and the Democrats to fail," Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) told Raw Story and other reporters on a conference call late Monday afternoon.

"And it's too bad that McConnell does that on the backs of … people that are really, really hurting," he added.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0720/sen-brown-mcconnell-rooting-democrats-fail-backs-working-class/

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USDA Admits Link Between Antibiotic Use by Big Ag and Human Health

 by Andrew Gunther

At a hearing of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday, July 14, 2010, a representative of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) finally caught up with the rest of the world -- and his peers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- and admitted that the use of antibiotics in farm animal feed is contributing to the growing problem of deadly antibiotic resistance in America.

Dr. John Clifford, Deputy Administrator for Veterinary Services for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) read from his previously submitted testimony that the USDA believes it is likely that U.S. use of antibiotics in animal agriculture does lead to some cases of resistance in humans and the animals.

Why is this news? Because the USDA has been continually playing the Three Wise Monkeys game -- it sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil -- when it comes to deadly consequences to humans of the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals. In fact, Dr. Clifford looked as if he'd been given a choice between testifying or having his eye poked out with a stick and he lost the toss.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-gunther/usda-antibiotics_b_649673.html

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Man Steals House, Claimed He Purchased it From Yahweh

By Tanya Roth

Here is a story of one Montana man with a very creative, and sadly, very illegal, answer to the foreclosure crisis. Brent Arthur Wilson took possession of a foreclosed house and started living in it. However, in part because he had bigger dreams, he was caught, put on trial and convicted.

The Associated Press reports that Brent Wilson was found guilty by a Lake County jury on July 13, of theft, deceptive practices and tampering with public records or information. Wilson was discovered and subsequently charged after a real estate agent investigated the removal of "for sale" signs from a $380,000 house he was selling on behalf of a lender in August 2009.

Wilson did not stop there however. It was also discovered that he tried to use the house as collateral for a $125,000 loan he sought from a Missoula financial institution. It seems Mr. Wilson had a plan, as detailed in the journals presented by the prosecution as evidence at trial. Wilson planned to steal up to 100 homes in foreclosure. Details of the plan were entered in his diary. "The prospect of claiming and fulfilling my 100-title vision is growing stronger," read one. "Took down one of two Realtor signs," says another entry. "The other needs a tool to dig it up."

The jury was easily convinced that Wilson had a plan to steal. What they may have been confused about is who exactly he thought he was stealing from. According to the AP, the paperwork Wilson filed on the house with the county stated he purchased the house from Yahweh. As in God.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/legally_weird/2010/07/man-steals-house-claimed-he-purchased-it-from-yahweh.html

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Biting the Ass that Feeds You

© Mike Thompson

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Sinking Feeling of the Unemployed

© David Horsey

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