Romney Up, Gingrich Down, Dollar Under Challenge, Jesse Blasts Grammys, Coke Busted at UN
January 27th, 2012 - by: Danny
Today: 1-2 PM Tune in to News Dissector Radio on Progressive Radio Network.com or PRN.fm
Backlash Neutering Newt
The conservative Washington Times is reporting that what was up is now down, as a conservative backlash reportedly sets in against Newt Gingrich in Florida.
”A Rasmussen poll conducted Wednesday night shows Mitt Romney leading Newt Gingrich by 8 points in Florida. The polling firm Insider Advantage also found a big swing toward Romney.
•Boston Globe: Hightlights From Last Night’s “Debate”
•Joke from the Yes Men:
New York, NY — Five months ago, in an effort to draw attention to the bigoted nature of the current debate around immigration in the United States, a group of activists got together to come up with the most outlandish approach imaginable to immigration issues: Self-deportation. The result– www. SelfDeport.org– launched last fall, cheerily reminding Americans unsure about the status of their immigrant forebearers that “Stopping Illegal Citizenship Starts with You.”
During this past Monday nights GOP debate, Mitt Romney stole the idea and passed it off as his own
•Skip Mendler Sends In another GOP Joke
So the RNC decides that they have to do something before their candidates all destroy each other – so they call a special super-secret conclave down in Miami for the four Presidential candidates. They ask each one this question: “If you couldn’t be President, what job would you accept instead?”
Mitt Romney says, “I’d like to be Secretary of the Treasury – then I could use my expertise in business and finance, and be in charge of all that money.”
Rick Santorum says, “I’d like to be Secretary of HHS – then I could do something about contraception and abortion.”
Ron Paul says, “I’d like to be VP – then I could be in charge of the Senate, and make sure that nothing gets done by government.’
Newt Gingrich says, “Emperor.”
News of Note
Fluent: ‘Nuclear row: Iran President Ahmadinejad offers talks’
Fluent: Socialist ‘French presidential candidate Francois Hollande unveils manifesto’ on Fluent News. Here is the link:
Fluent: ‘Davos 2012: Bill Gates commits $750m to fight AIDS’ Here is the link:
Fluent: ‘Taxpayers still owed $132.9 billion from financial bailout; some gone forever, watchdog says’:
The US Dollar: Going, Going, Gone?
Independent: Robert Fisk, The Demise of The Dollar
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China’s former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. “Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable,” he told the Asia and Africa Review. “We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security.”
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil - yet again turning the region’s conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. “One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations,” he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China’s extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America’s power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China’s growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China’s reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America’s trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington’s control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. “The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies,” a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent.
“The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won’t be able to use the US dollar.”
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years’ time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
LBN: Fed Signals Recovery Is Years Away
The Federal Reserve, declaring that the economy would need help for years to come, said Wednesday it would extend by 18 months the period that it plans to hold down interest rates in an effort to spur growth. The Fed said that it now planned to keep short-term interest rates near zero until late 2014, continuing the transformation of a policy that began as shock therapy in the winter of 2008 into a six-year campaign to increase spending by rewarding borrowers and punishing savers.
Its Only Money
The Hill: Senate kills measure to stop President Obama from raising debt limit ?
President Obama will raise the nation’s debt limit to $16.39 trillion after the Senate on Thursday killed a measure to stop the president from adding another $1.2 trillion to the total.
After just over two hours of debate, the Senate voted 44-52 to block a motion to disapprove the debt-limit increase, which the House passed overwhelmingly last week. Four Senate Republicans missed the vote.
The $1.2 trillion debt increase is expected to cover the nation’s borrowing requirements until after the November election.
Salon: Wall Street Execs Are Major Obama Donors
LA Times: Fire them? Federal employees, retirees owe $3.4 billion in taxes
A recent IRS report showing that current and retired federal employees owe more than $3.4 billion in income taxes is fueling a drive on Capitol Hill to fire — and prohibit the hiring of — tax delinquents on Uncle Sam’s payroll.
China: How Tough Is Tough?
WAJ: Conservative World Affairs Journal Backs Obama on China
Gordon Chang writes: “I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules,” said President Obama in his State of the Union message on Tuesday. And to make sure other nations comply with their obligations, he announced the creation of the “Trade Enforcement Unit.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the new grouping will be a task force combining officials from the Treasury, Commerce, and Energy Departments as well as the US Trade Representative’s office. Despite the generic name, the target of the Trade Enforcement Unit is China.??China may have racked up as much as a $300 billion trade surplus against America last year; if it failed to achieve that record-smashing mark, it was only billion or two short. In any event, it will surely surpass its 2010 surplus against the US of $273.1 billion.
The 2010 deficit with China is the largest single-country one in the history of the United States. ??If there were any time for the White House to get serious about Beijing’s predatory trade policies, this is it. Clearly, China’s surpluses are not sustainable, especially in a period of deteriorating economic conditions. Last Wednesday, the World Bank downgraded its global growth estimate by a full percentage point to 2.5 percent. ??The president is right to highlight the China issue, and perhaps his organizational approach will result in more effective policies. Ted Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations, in comments carried in the January 12th Nelson Report, correctly called the task force proposal “the most comprehensive effort by any administration to rethink approaches to trade enforcement since the creation of the WTO.”
Occupy London: Remembering and Recreating The Dialectics of Liberation
HP: American Mayors Monitoring Occupy
Economy via: BP Newswire:
FT: Capital controls are not beggar thy neighbor
Al Ahram (Cairo): New IMF loan would be ‘odious’ and illegitimate, says Egypt debt amnesty group
Must Read: The New York Times, “In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad.”
IPA: Radhika Balakrishan, Executive director of the Center for Global Leadership and professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University, comments:
“With something like an iPad, it’s not just creating the finished product — we need to look at the value added that is happening at each step in the supply chain. There are issues of secrecy in the supply chain, what each level is being given to make that part of the product. It’s possible that some of the suppliers who are being blamed simply cannot produce their components at the rate set by Apple without treating workers horribly.
“We basically have a system of self-monitoring by corporations. There used to be an agency at the UN that did monitoring — The United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations — but that was basically ended in the 1990s. The International Labor Organization is important but can’t hold companies accountable, only governments — and governments frequently plead that they are fundamentally at the mercy of corporations that would leave if they were made to pay and treat workers better.
“We need a global perspective in how to make corporations accountable, what kind of trading system we have and
•The Week: Prison Without Punishment
•Egypt: Americans Not Allowed To Leave Egypt
Sam LaHood, the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the head of the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Cairo office, and 5 others, were blocked from departing Egypt earlier this week. He, along with a dozen other American NGO colleagues, have been placed on an Egyptian “no-fly” list, officials with IRI told Yahoo News Thursday.
The younger LaHood was blocked at passport control when he went to the Cairo airport Saturday, Lorne Craner, the head of the IRI, a Washington-based pro-democracy non-government organization, told Yahoo News.
Is Nothing Sacred?
BBC: Cocaine Seized At UN Headquarters
Cocaine seized at UN headquarters in New York
UN headquarters The cocaine arrived at the UN building’s mailroom, police said
A bag containing 16kg (35.5lb) of cocaine was found at the United Nations headquarters last week, a police spokesman in New York has confirmed.
The drugs were in a bag printed with a version of the UN symbol which arrived at the organization’s mailroom, setting off a security alert.
With Jesse at The “Summit”
Yesterday, I stopped at Reverend Jesse Jackson’s annual “Wall Street Summit” at the Sheaton. The event used to take place at the now long gone Windows of the World at the World Trade Center. Many workers at the restaurant perished on 9/11. Yesterday there was an Occupy Hip Hop event.
I met one of Malcolm X’s daughter and listened in to a very personal exchange between her and Jesse’s wife, Jackie, a long time activist about distinguishing between personal/political attacks and the work of political leaders.
I also learned that the Reverent sent a letter to the head of the Grammys protesting their decision to drop various categories of music from award consideration. Here’s an early text:
Mr. Neil Portnow
President and CEO
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Via: neil@grammy.com.
Dear Mr Portnow:
The Rainbow Push Coalition, one of our nation’s leading civil rights organizations, has been advised by some of its members and supporters in the entertainment community, including recording artists, that the National Academy of Recording Arts And Sciences has arbitrarily, and without input or a vote of its membership, decided to eliminate traditional categories in your annual awards competition.
We share their alarm at the shrinking of musical diversity at a time when our country needs to celebrate all of its cultural traditions.
When the American public is not exposed to those traditions on the Grammy awards telecast, they are likely to be uninformed about them. The consequence: less tolerance and awareness of how our diverse cultures contribute to the American mosaic.
Many of us learn about each other first through our music and cultural interdependence.
Needless to say, we in the civil and human rights movement, become very alarmed when decisions are made that will flatten cultural knowledge. Perhaps that’s why we agree with one of your very first Grammy winners, the great Frank Sinatra, who insisted that the Grammys must be about music, not sales:
He said, “Remember ladies and gentlemen, it’s about excellence, not popularity.”?
We were shocked to learn that some of the categories dropped from the Grammys constitute the very heart and soul of the music that nourishes and inspires minority communities. It is also the music that helps define the larger American experience.
They include: Latin Jazz, Traditional R&B, Traditional and Contemporary Jazz, World Music, Native American, Cajun/Zydeco, Hawaiian, Polka, Instrumental Rock, Traditional and Contemporary Blues, Gospel, Mexican and other ethnic and instrumental categories.
Your corporate decision will make it much harder for many talented artists to get attention for their work and the recognition they deserve.
That’s not fair.
We are urging you to review this ill-considered decision and reverse it before it brings irreparable harm to the image, stature and respect that the Grammys justifiably enjoys.
Already, there are artists denouncing this decision as racist, and threatening to picket the Awards ceremony.
Others are endorsing their concerns—like we are at Rainbow Push—and fear that this controversy could, potentially, polarize the music world in the same way that our political world had been divided by often ugly but deeply felt and passionate emotions.
Music should be a bridge to unity, not another irritant unraveling our culture.
We would like to meet with you urgently to express our concerns and to see if we might help resolve this conflict to insure a just and fair outcome and allow the Grammys to do what they do best.
Sincerely,
Reverend Jesse Jackson
President, Rainbow Push
Mavis’s Message To Neil
<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/450KPbNi8Ew” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
Kent Welton writes:
“On Jan. 13 the Atlanta Jewish Times featured a column by its owner-publisher suggesting that Israel might someday need to “order a hit” on the president of the United States. In the column, publisher Andrew Adler describes a scenario in which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would need to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel.”
“Take a look at this video of Obama kissing Israeli keester (Warning: You may want to cover your keyboard with a puke-guard as this is truly nauseating):”
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/scandalous-new-campaign-video-obama-takes-israel-pandering-dangerous-levels
And then take a look at this:
http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-donor-casino-mogul-israeli-hardliner-081717911.html
Is there any question about who our overlords are? The message here is loud and clear: We’ll pick your ‘President’ and if he doesn’t do our bidding enthusiastically enough, we’ll simply have Mossad take him out.
What a bunch of pitiful, spineless fools Americans have become to allow this to continue.
For truth and justice — galen
On 1/25/2012 11:10 PM, Glutimas Maximus wrote:
The uproar over this “suggestion” that Israel murder Obama is not because the comment was made. It is because this guy Adler was telling the truth. These people are both willing and capable of killing anyone that gets in their way. They have proven that time and time again. See this article. It reflects just the tip of the iceberg.
If anyone else said “the President should be killed,” the Secret Service would have them in manacles faster than you could say Lee Harvey Oswald. This clown not only said it, he had the balls to publish his remarks in a newspaper. In the public domain. Do you think the same fate awaits Mr. Adler, one of the chosen? Don’t bet on it. What does that say about the United States and our current state of occupation? “
Another Week is gone. Have a great weekend. Your comments welcome to dissector@mediachannel.org;
also check out the new Mediachannel1.org
See the whole Post / →
Oil Shocks Could Sink Economic “Recovery,” Elizabeth Warren Joins Jon
January 26th, 2012 - by: Danny
Tune In: Tomorrow Friday at 1: News Dissector Radio on PRN.fm 1-2 PM EST
RT: Keiser Report: I join Max Keiser after he talks about unemployment and criminality on Wall Street
This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss unemployed Wall Streeters and I add my two cents.
Quote of the Day:South Africa’s Mail & Guardian: “Archbishop Desmond Tutu has warned the world’s elite (in Davos) that it is time for women to seize control of the world and sort out the mess men have made.’
BBC: Oil Shock Could Disrupt The Global Economy
Here we have the President of the US and leaders in Europe urgently discusing how to keep their economies from tanking, while at the same time imposing economic embargoes on Iranian oil. Guess Who That Will Hurt?
The IMF warned that if the West imposed financial sanctions on Iran, it would be tantamount to an oil blockade, and the shock to the market could be as bad as from Libya’s revolution last year.
Iran produces 5% of global oil output.
Moreover, if Iran goes ahead with a threat to blockade oil exports via the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf, the IMF said the shock could be even greater.
About a quarter of all oil produced globally, and some 40% of all oil exports – including those from Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – are shipped through the Straits each year.
“A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would constitute, and be perceived by markets to presage, sharply heightened global geopolitical tension involving a much larger and unprecedented disruption,” the Fund said in a regular note to the Group of 20 leading industrialised countries.
The market is already pricing in a small risk of an escalation of tensions between Iran on the one hand, and the US, Europe and Israel on the other, according to the IMF’s estimates.
The Empire Strikes Back: Obama Critics Are on fire to discredit him
Boehner: Obama “Almost Un-American”
House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday forcefully denounced the Democrats’ campaign theme that they are for the middle class and Republicans are for the wealthy, saying the politics the president is running on are “almost un-American.”
LBN reports but without saying that the president has little to do with setting consumer prices:
Under Obama, Price of Gas Has Jumped 83 Percent, Ground Beef 24 Percent, Bacon 22 Percent: So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009. The price of unleaded gasoline never reached the 10-year high of $4.09 back in July 2008 under George W. Bush’s administration, but it did get close.
Baseline Scenario.com: Progressives Happy About Obama Pick To Head Investigation of Wall Street Crime
Simon Johnson: Breakthrough: Eric Schneiderman To Chair Mortgage Crisis Unit
As reported first in the Huffington Post, President Obama is creating “a special unit to investigate misconduct and illegalities that contributed to both the financial collapse and the mortgage crisis”. This will be chaired by Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general.
For more background on why this makes sense and could represent a major policy breakthrough, please see this column
Common Dreams via Undernews: Is Obama’s mortgage “investigation” a fraud?
In last night’s State of the Union speech President Obama announced the creation of a committee to investigate “the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages.”
The ‘investigation’ announcement came just as a bank-friendly ‘settlement’ is about to be announced by the state attorney generals. Reports of the settlement talks, the ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Ally Financial Inc — would provide $20 billion to $25 billion of ‘relief’ to homeowners in exchange for being exempted from lawsuits for improper foreclosures and abuses in mortgage loans.
The findings of the new ‘investigation’ would come after the settlement gives the banks a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Matt Taibbi wrote on the proposed settlement: “The current proposed deal is a huge giveaway to the banks, a major shafting to most of the investors, and would probably give homeowners either next to nothing or some cosmetic reward, i.e. a little bit of principal forgiveness, counseling, etc. If the Obama administration was serious about helping actual human beings through this settlement, then it would be fighting for homeowners to get the same bailout the banks would get. If the banks are getting a trillion or more dollars of legal immunity, why shouldn’t homeowners get that much debt forgiveness? Or, half that much? A quarter?”
Democratic state attorneys general and Obama administration officials met on Monday in Chicago to discuss the terms of the settlement. An announcement on the deal is expected any day. .. .
•Global Economic Analysis Blog: Is Proposed Aid to Homeowners A Bailout?
Obama Proposes Mortgage Bailouts, Handouts, Copouts Exactly One Paragraph After Stating “Top to Bottom: No Bailouts, No Handouts, and No Copouts”; How the Taxpayer Ripoff Works
Inquiring minds are reading the complete text of President Obama’s State of the Union Address to see what distortions, lies, and hypocrisy it contains. ??I found a nice Orwellian set of paragraphs smack in the middle of his speech.
And while Government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief.
That’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.
Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a Government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.
Top to Bottom: More Bailouts, More Handouts, More Copouts
While reading the first paragraph above I knew without a doubt a huge bailout proposal was coming up.
Sure enough, the very next paragraph contained a massive bailout proposal and in more ways than is readily apparent at first glance. For starters “responsible homeowners” don’t need mortgage relief. Secondly, $300 a month is a lot of dough so I would like to see an accounting.
Finally, and most importantly, every loan that is refinanced will be paid off in full. Thus, any bank, hedge fund, mortgage provider, or GSE that is paid off on a nonperforming loan will be immediately made whole.
This is a massive backdoor bailout of banks, mortgage companies, hedge funds, foreign banks, and anyone else holding mortgage related garbage.
In case you were wondering about the big rally in bank shares this year, this proposal just might have something to do with it.
The Orwellian irony of it all comes in the third paragraph with Obama’s bald-faced lie “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.”
How the Taxpayer Ripoff Works
The New York Times explains the ripoff in President to Offer Way for Easing Home Debt
The White House plans to propose legislation that could allow a few million homeowners to reduce monthly mortgage payments by refinancing their current loans into new ones guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration.
The program would broaden the availability of government-backed mortgages to include many borrowers whose loans are held by private companies and who have been unable to persuade those lenders to reduce their interest rates. Existing federal programs focus mostly on borrowers whose loans are owned by the government.
The new program will be directed at people whose mortgage debts exceed the value of their homes, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been finalized. The official estimated that the program could benefit two million to three million homeowners who have loans that are not guaranteed by the government, and that the program’s cost would not exceed $10 billion.
$10 Billion?! Really?
The proposal as outlined rates to take every “responsible” underwater mortgage held by banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, hedge funds, foreign banks, and pension plans, and transfer all of them to the FHA. The idea this will only cost $10 billion is absurd.
The “small fees on the largest financial institutions” are absolutely guaranteed to not cover the cost of this monstrous proposal. Indeed there is something in Obama’s proposal for everyone except “responsible citizens”.
“Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day” will be royally screwed by Obama’s proposition in the form of higher taxes down the road.
•Ellen Brown, “Why All the Robo-signing? Shining a Light on the Shadow Banking System”
•Geithner Says Geithner Will Go (Bloomberg via CreditWritedowns)
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spoke to Bloomberg Television’s Trish Regan today and said that President Obama is “not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident. I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury…Something else for me.”
The Wars
CLG: United Nations human rights official criticized Iraq on Tuesday for carrying out a large number of executions, including 34 on a single day last week, and voiced concern about due process and the fairness of trials. “Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, in a statement referring to executions carried out on January 19. At least 63 people are believed to have been executed since mid-November in Iraq, where the death penalty can be imposed for some 48 crimes including a number related to non-fatal crimes such as damage to public property, Pillay said.
Rumor: US Denies Plans to Divide Afghanistan
Ambassador Ryan Crocker said in a statement that a “free and independent media plays a vital role in any democracy” and that Afghanistan’s media and the Afghan government spokespersons were “important elements in our close bilateral relationship.”
But he then went on to say that, “rumors that the United States has a plan to divide Afghanistan or change its form of government are, frankly speaking, lies that dishonor the sacrifice of more than 1,800 American service members who have died in the cause of a unified Afghanistan, governed by its Constitution.”
Fluent: ‘Egypt anniversary demonstrators remain in Tahrir Square’
Here’s George Soros’s essay in the forthcoming edition of the New York Review of Books: . The essay is adapted from a speech he delivered at the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos today.
My new book, Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States, tries to explain and, to the extent possible, predict the outcome of the euro crisis. It follows the same pattern as my other books: it contains an updated version of my conceptual approach and the application of that approach to a particular situation, and it presents a real-time experiment to test the validity of my interpretation. Its account is not complete because the crisis is still ongoing.
We remain in the acute phase of the crisis; the prospect of a meltdown of the global financial system has not been removed. In my book, I proposed a plan that would bring immediate relief to global financial markets but it has not been adopted.
Finally–a profile of Gingrich’s Funder
The Boston Globe reports he is under federal investigation and is an “Israeli hardliner.”
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Calls for Resignation of NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly
ICNA Condemns NYPD Screening of Islamophobic Film in Training Sessions
New York, NY – January 25, 2012: The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), one of the nation’s leading Muslim organizations, called for the resignation of Commissioner Ray Kelly today as new information was released regarding the showing of a blatantly Islamophobic film, “The Third Jihad,” during police training sessions.
According to The New York Times, the film depicts a covert jihad that seeks to destroy and conquer the Western world. According to ICNA, this blatantly bigoted attack on Islam will only fuel hatred and Islamophobia.
The President of ICNA, Zahid H. Bukhari, stated, “We call on Mayor Bloomberg to either fire Commissioner Kelly or ask for his resignation. The NYPD under Kelly’s leadership has allowed a blatantly racist, Islamophobic film to be used to train over 1,489 police officers. This film was also produced by individuals and groups with ties to anti-Muslim hate groups. This type of clandestine behavior by the NYPD not only violates the civil liberties and civil rights of Muslim Americans but calls into question the integrity of a police force that is sworn to protect thousands of law abiding Muslim Americans and other ethnic communities who live in New York City.”
According to The New York Times, the film was funded by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group that shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. After documents were released regarding the NYPD spying on Muslim communities, the use of this video for training purposes by the NYPD does not come as a shock. According to documents released by the Freedom of Information Law, “The Third Jihad”, which includes an interview with Commissioner Kelly, was shown “on a continuous loop for between three months and one year of training.” ICNA would like to commend both The Brennan Center for its persistent investigation and The New York Times for getting the truth out.
More:
CAIR: Docs Reveal 1500 NYPD Officers Viewed Anti-Muslim Film
Muslim civil rights group asks department for plan to counter misinformation
(NEW YORK, N.Y., 1/24/12) — The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today called on the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to offer a concrete plan to help counter the misinformation about Islam and Muslims provided to almost 1500 officers through the screening of The Third Jihad, a notorious anti-Muslim propaganda film.
CAIR-NY is also asking for a review of all NYDP training on Islam and for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to meet with Muslim community leaders and representatives of other minority and civil liberties groups to discuss allegations of anti-Muslim bias in the department.
The New York Times reports today that, despite NYPD denials last year, the propaganda film was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department. According to the films narrator, the true agenda of much of Islam in America is to infiltrate and dominate America. . .This is the war you dont know about.
Elizabeth Warren Talks With Jon Stewart on The Daily Show
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive – Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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EWallStreeter: $100 Billion Question: What Should Apple Do With Its Cash?
When Apple reported its blowout financial results this week, it disclosed an amazing fact: The company is now sitting on $97.6 billion in cash. So what will the tech juggernaut do with all of that money? Company executives were tight-lipped on the post-earnings conference call, saying only that they were “actively” considering alternatives…..
•Related: Apple is announcing a new IPhone 5 for this summer.
Occupy Introduces New Tactic: Occupy Town Square
“Occupy Wall Street is four months old. We don’t live in a park anymore, but we’re still here, and we’re still fighting for economic justice. Now, OWS is coming to a neighborhood near you. Over the next few months, mobile, daytime occupations, called Occupy Town Squares, will be held in parks and other public spaces, indoor and outdoor, around New York City. For a few hours a week, these events will recreate the essence of the Zuccotti Park Occupation. There will be info tables, teach-ins, trainings, and political discussions. Whether you consider yourself a supporter of the movement or not, we want to meet you: come share your ideas and stories, learn about the movement, argue with us, debate with us, collaborate with us. If you’re already active in OWS, this is a chance to exchange information, to coordinate between working groups, and to get to know our brothers and sisters in the movement.
The first Occupy Town Square is THIS Sunday, January 29, from 11:00am-5:00pm in Washington Square Park. Join us!
•Adbusters: Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.
And so will we.
On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.
•Philly Blog: Ex-Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Davis Resolves Occupy Wall Street Arrest
•Protest in Australia: Prime Minister Has To Be Rescued
Australian PM Julia Gillard and leader of the opposition Tony Abbott had to be rescued after becoming trapped by an angry protest, local media reports.
About 50 police escorted the pair from Canberra’s Lobby restaurant after it was surrounded by some 200 supporters of the city’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
Mr Abbott had reportedly angered them by suggesting it was time for the camp – marking its 40th year – to come down.
•Song: People of the World Unite by Mr. Biscuit
Andy Borowitz: Down With Facts
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In what some critics are calling the most radial tactic ever employed in a State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama risked alienating congressional Republicans last night by repeatedly using facts.
Mr. Obama stirred controversy throughout the speech with his relentless references to facts, data, and things that have actually happened, all long considered the third rail of American politics.
As the President made reference to tax rates and unemployment numbers, as well as sixteen separate mentions of Osama bin Laden, congressional Republicans’ blood began to boil.
After the speech, a furious Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “It’s been a longstanding tradition in our politics not to use facts in a State of the Union Address, a tradition the President chose to ignore in an outrageous way tonight. I won’t stand for it and the American people won’t stand for it.”
“We want to work with the President for the good of the American people,” added House Speaker John Boehner. “But he’s going to have to take facts off the table. That’s a deal-breaker for us.”
•LRB: See The Diego Rivera Murals at the Museum of Modern Art
Artists in Pittsburgh Show Consider Recent Wars
Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org. Please visit the new Medichannel1.org
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O’s State of The Disunion, Newt’s Appeal to Right-Wing Hatred of The “Liberal” Media
January 25th, 2012 - by: Danny
Dissector In The Media
Quoted by Capital New York in a report on the Screening of an AlJazeera Film In New York
Quoted by Dave Lindorff in Story on Unreported War Crimes In Iraq
Essay on Consortium News: UK Silences Iran’s Press TV
The Media Event Of The Month: The State of the Union Address
The President of the United States—applause:
It was BO’s third outing, the moment every speechifier waits for, doing what he does best, a chance to seize the center stage, and position himself as Mr. Practical, Mr.Centrist, Mr. Reasonable by posturing at being post partisan, projecting optimism, and offering well crafted back patting and “sensible” proposal after proposal, even if he has proposed them before and knows they will go nowhere a Congress dominated by the right.
Crisis? What Crisis?
Aside from pandering on National “Security,” Bragging that we are out of Iraq after we begged Baghdad to stay and claiming, falsely that we are winning in Afghanistan. the speech touched issues that progressive care about including plans to finally set up a financial crimes task force three years into the crime of our time. Other wise iy was mostly about taxes and housing, the former controlled by the house, the latter by the banks. Sounded good!
It was a political speech filled with populist rhetoric and an emphasis on jobs intended on cementing union support.
“An America Built To Last”
AP: “In an emphatic State of the Union address, Obama said ensuring a fair shot for all Americans is “the defining issue of our time.” He said the economy is finally recovering from a deep and painful recession and he will fight any effort to return to policies that brought it low.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” he declared.
MoveOn is ecstatic because he finally claimed he will investigate Wall Street crimes:
‘President Obama did exactly what hundreds of thousands of us have been calling on him to do—he announced a federal investigation into Wall Street. Here’s what he said:
“I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.”
The best part is, progressive champion New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is co-chairing the investigation and will make sure it stays on track.”
Unsaid here is that the White House was pressuring State Attorney Generals for a settlement with the banks that would give them immunity from prosecution. The Hugffington Post reports:
“Schneiderman is an increasingly beloved figure among progressives for his criticism of a proposed settlement between the 50 state attorneys general and the five largest banks. His presence atop this new special unit could give it immediate legitimacy among those who have criticized the president for being too hesitant in going after the banks and resolving the mortgage crisis. He will be in attendance at Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
“The goal of this joint investigation will be threefold: to hold accountable any institutions that violated the law; to compensate victims and help provide relief for homeowners struggling from the collapse of the housing market, caused in part by this wrongdoing; and to help us finally turn the page on this destructive period in our nation’s history,” reads a White House document outlining the objectives.
“This is a big achievement and something the entire progressive advocacy community wanted [with respect to] housing policy,” added the White House official”
NakedCapitalism: Is Schneiderman Selling Out Or Being Used?
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been celebrated as the progressive Great White Hope. But the danger of assuming leadership is that individual becomes a target both of attacks and of seduction. And while I’d like to think better of Schneiderman, an announcement earlier this evening has strong hallmarks of Schneiderman falling prey to the combined pressures and blandishments of the Administration and its allies.
Only a sketchy bit of news has been released, with the most extensive reporting so far coming in Huffington Post which incorrectly anticipated a State of the Union announcement of the fact that Schneiderman will be co-chairing a Federal committee to investigate mortgage abuses (the story appears to have been confirmed in general terms via an announcement from Schneiderman’s office). Key details from the HuffPo story:
The unit will not supersede the efforts already underway by the Department of Justice. Instead, it will operate as part of the president’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. In addition to Schneiderman, the unit will be co-chaired by Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general at the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC; John Walsh, a U.S. attorney in Colorado, and Tony West, assistant attorney general in the Civil Division at DOJ.
Yves Smith:…”It would be better if I were proven wrong, but this looks to be yet another clever Obama gambit to neutralize his opposition. With all the same key actors in place – Geithner, Walsh, Holder – there is no reason to believe the Administration has had a change of heart until there is compelling evidence ”
Note: DOJ Assistant AG Breuer had been a lawyer representing big banks!
Boston Globe: Text Of State Of The Union
Reactions:
Boston Globe: Enough: The State Of The Union Serves No Purpose and Should End
•Text of GOP response by “moderate” Hoosier Gov Mitch Daniels stresses what GOP Candidates Ignore: Saving the Safety Net
•Herman Cain to Give Tea Party Response; Networks Do Not Carry
•Occupy Gives a Rebuttal
Also Not Live: Response on “The State Of The 99%” Is Delivered Mic-Check Style in DC
Release” This 2012 “State of the 99%” response to the State of the Union will be delivered by a group of Occupiers assembled outside in a well-lit spot at McPherson Square following the conclusion of the President’s State of the Union address and/or the Tea Party response. The presentation will unfold this way: one participant will begin in the center/front of the group, in the middle of the camera frame, surrounded by the others. That person will deliver the first line of the speech, and will then be echoed by the People’s Mic. That person will then read their second line, and as the People’s Mic echoes the second line, that person will move off to the side and rejoin the group, while another person will step into the center spot to read the next two lines, with each line again echoed by the People’s Mic. This will continue, cycling through the crowd, with each person reading two lines and being echoed by the People’s Mic.
•Occupier to Run For Congress
•Threats Against Occupy DC heard in Congress
•Pentagon Budget Cuts; A Shell Game
Assessing the President’s upcoming proposal, Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) concludes that “The proposal to roll back the DoD budget plan for 2013-2017 by $260 billion doesn’t amount to much of a reduction from recent spending levels. The difference between planned spending for the next five years and the last five will be about 4 percent in real terms.” Charles Knight, co-director of PDA, observes that “The cuts in the Pentagon’s budget in the FY13 plan won’t be the last.
•Guardian: Obama Approval Had Been Rising
President Barack Obama’s job approval rating climbed steadily in December as he fought Republicans over the extension of a payroll tax cut and is now above his disapproval rating for the first time since July, a Gallup report has shown.
The rating for Obama, who is running for re-election in November, climbed to 47% versus a 45% measure of disapproval, according to Gallup’s three-day rolling average of polls, taken between December 21 and December 23. This was up from approval of 41% and disapproval of 51% early in the month.
Huffington Post: After the Speech
Less than 24 hours after the address, he’ll kick off an intense, three-day tour of five states, all of which are key battleground states for his re-election: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan. The move is a convenient overlapping point for Obama to connect his governing to his campaigning, which has already gotten off the ground but isn’t in full force yet.
Carney dismissed the idea that Obama is using the State of the Union as a springboard for his re-election effort. He called this week’s trips “official visits” that the president is taking to further explain the details of his speech to the country.
“This is a State of the Union address that the president is giving,” Carney said. “The themes of this speech that I just discussed reflect … in many ways the principles that President Obama has brought to public service since he began his career in public service. So it wouldn’t take much to understand where he’s coming from and where he believes the country will go.”
On The Media and Politics
This blog. and our “sista site,’ Mediachannel1.org looks at politics through the window of media coverage and the lack of it.
Many see our media system as above or disconnected to politics. I see it as central to it, in part, part because I worked in “big media” and saw the connections every day.
It seems clear that the GOP primary is all about media—as a tool for promotion and forging ideology, as well as an issue.
I spoke about this on SKYPE yesterday morning for Chris Spannos’ NYTeXaminer.com, the website that monitors New York Times coverage. It is about how Newt Gingrich skillfully played to right-wing antipathy to the so-called “liberal media.”
Later in the day, AlJazeera.com posted my commentary and more extended argument on the issue.
My Latest On AlJazeera: How Gingrich Played to Hatred of The Media
New York, NY – As the Republican primary circus moves South, the media focus remains on the candidates – when it should be on the media itself.
That’s because we live in a mediaocracy – not a democracy. Without the media, we could not have elections. TV news is now the main source of political news and opinion. It gives short shrift to critics and alternative views. The networks frame the issues, fuel the partisan divide and help set the agenda.
In the old days, politicians took trains across the US to speak to the people. Today, they travel to TV studios or set up events designed for media coverage, often by former TV producers and consultants.
Gingrich takes offence at US media charges
We live with the illusion that politics is all about elections and the front men who are running or debating. Those in the US who really still believe that our democracy is run on a “of the people, by the people and for the people” foundation barely recognise that many decisions are made behind the scenes by political donors and lobbyists. What they know comes from what the media decides to cover and not cover.
The assumption is that the media is neutral, they’re just to show us what’s happening. Unrecognised is that they are in a race too, for ratings, revenues and recognition. The TV reporters and pundits who get far more “face time” than the politicians are political to the core, as interested in promotion and attention as the people they cover.
Becoming the issue
The media itself is usually able to remain above the fray and determine what issues to validate and which to ignore. But, sometimes, they become the issue, and that’s what happened in South Carolina.
The voters there who backed Newt Gingrich – whose popularity surged in the final days of the primary ritual – were voting on the media, which is how Gingrich cleverly framed the issue.
It wasn’t about what he stood for – a changing set of positions – but who had embarrassed him. The South, known for its manners, shouted back on his behalf with its ballots.
Playing to an audience of Fox News think-alikes and rightwing radio aficionados who had been pounded with the failures of the “liberal media” for years, voters there were ready to buy Gingrich’s posturing as a victim of media abuse.
For a minute, they could forget issues that evangelicals say really trouble them – immorality in marriage and Catholicism – to send a message to the media by voting Newt.
They hate the media as much as they hate Obama.
Read The Rest on Al Jazeera.com
•Here’s the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart’s Take on this media angle:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Indecision 2012 – The Gingrich Who Stole South Carolina | ||||
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More On The Absurdity of Our Politics
•LBN: Romney Paid 13.9 Percent Tax In 2010
Mitt Romney released a preview of his tax returns to The Washington Post late Monday, revealing an income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million in 2011. The money is reportedly all from profits, dividends, and investment interest and none from wages. In 2010, Romney paid a 13.9 percent tax rate, or $3 million. His 2011 estimate is $3.2 million, which is about 15.4 percent, as hes told reporters. The 550 pages show that Romney has a Swiss bank account and foreign investments in Luxembourg, Ireland, and the Cayman Islands all are legally taxed and with little income.
•ABC News: What Wealthy Americans Pay In Taxes
The World We Live In
Yousaf Butt, ICH: Stop the Madness
Despite all the hype, Iran’s nuclear program has yet to violate international law. It’s time to calm down, think, and above all halt the rush to war.
Stuart Reigeluth and Dimitris Bouris, ICH: Europe Should Call Israel’s Bluff
The figures say it all. Over 1,200 Jewish colonists occupied outposts in the West Bank in 1972; in 2012, over 300,000 live in fortress-like colonies on hilltops overlooking the Jordan Valley, excluding the illegal colonies and gradual annexation of occupied east Jerusalem.
Egypt: One Year Later
The Guardian reports:”The head of Egypt’s military junta has promised to partially lift the country’s three-decade-old state of emergency, in a last-ditch effort to bolster public support ahead of what are expected to be widespread anti-government demonstrations on Wednesday.”
•Philip Rizik, an independent blogger and filmmaker based in Cairo. He said today: “The official lifting of the state of emergency means nothing until it is backed up by actions. The fact that for example over 15,000 civilians have been tried before military tribunals since the military took de facto power January 28, 2011 reveals that the military junta now in power are above the law.
…. they pardoned around 1,500 civilians illegitimately imprisoned following such military courts. The key matter to pay attention to here is the fact that the generals pardoned them, they did not condemn the practice of military trials. Officially lifting the emergency law is another form of the same logic.”
AP: The War in Libya Is Far From Over
Economy
Jesse Jackson’s 15th Annual Wall Street Summit Convenes Tonight through Friday at New York’s Sheraton Hotel
Website: The 15th Annual Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project Economic Summit will be held on Wednesday, January 25 – Friday, January 27, 2012 at the Sheraton NY Hotel & Towers in New York, NY. The theme is “We Are One World – Bringing Everyone to the Table: Celebrating Fifteen Years of Access to Capital, Industry and Technology.”
•BBC: Davos 2012 starts with worries about eurozone crisis
Occupy Davos To Build Igloos in Davos
You cant have tents in Zuccotti Park anymore, but what about igloos? Occupy protesters in Davos, Switzerland, are building an igloo village in preparation for the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. Each igloo houses two people, and protesters expect to house about 50 people in all. They’re also setting up Mongolian-style tents and a field kitchen.
Soros Threatens Blood on the Streets? That’s how a right-wing website characterizes Soros’s thoughts on the coming class war in the United States
Daily Beast, IMF: Europe a Recession Threat
Just as the U.S. starts to see stronger signs of recovery, the International Monetary Fund warns that the global economy isn’t out of the storm yet. The IMF sliced its global growth forecast from 4 percent to 3.3 percent and warned that Europe’s debt crisis continues to threaten a worldwide recession. Economic activity in advanced economies is expected to expand by a sluggish 1.5 percent, not enough to bring down high unemployment rates.
Living Off Immoral Earnings
?
True Quote of the Day From Financial Times? Lex column, January 19th, 2012. “The reality… is that banks … support a thick layer of second tier executives, as well as legions of pen-pushing, meeting-loving, middle-and back-office workers who are paid multiples of their worth and contribution, especially compared with other industries.” -
JP Morgan Chase CEO: Jamie Dimon on Fox Business News:
1. “Some Regulations are Anti-American”
2. Bernanke and Geithner ‘Saved the System’
Vermont Barred from Shuttering Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant
A federal judge has blocked Vermont from forcing the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant when its license expires in March. The Vermont Senate voted to deny the company a new operating license in 2010, but the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the plant’s license in the days following last year’s Fukushima nuclear crisis. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha overruled Vermont’s effort, saying only federal authorities can regulate nuclear safety. The Vermont Yankee plant is one of the oldest in the country and has had a series of radioactive tritium leaks. Vermont officials are expected to appeal the ruling.
Other News
•Fluent: ‘Final JFK White House recordings released’ ‘‘Prostitution-free zones’ likely unconstitutional’
•Oscar Nominations Unveiled. Docs Snubbed by Oscars
HP: The nominees for the 2012 Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday morning, and as expected, films about films led the way.
“The Artist,” the silent, black and white tribute to old Hollywood, earned a nod for Best Picture, and, after a series of recent critics and guild award wins, is considered the favorite. Writer/director Michel Hazanavicius received nominations for both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Jean Dujardin was handed a bid for Best Actor for his turn as George Valentin, a silent film star who refuses to move into the era of the talkies; he earned the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy earlier this month. Bérénice Bejo, for her role as starlet Peppy Miller, earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
“Hugo,” Martin Scorsese’s 3D family homage to film preservation, earned 11 nominations.
What Docs Were Nominated
“Hell and Back Again” Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
“If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
“Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
“Pina” Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
“Undefeated” TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas
Documentary Snubs (Feature)
Battle for Brooklyn
Bill Cunningham New York
Buck
Jane’s Journey
The Loving Story
Project Nim
Semper Fi: Always Faithful
Sing Your Song
Under Fire: Journalists in Combat
We Were Here
Documentary (Short Subject)
In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt’s Unfinished Revolution
Pipe Dreams
Witness
T/h Carola: Frying Dutchman Human ERROR–Video From Japan
Occupy: Yesterday in Zuccotti Park
The barricades are gone but so were most of the occupiers. A woman who tried to set up a table to give out flyers was arrested by a police swoop. The table was not authorized! A group of activists who had worked at the People’s Library marched over to Police Plaza with a receipt the NYPD had given them for some of the books they seized. They would not give them back because their records said the receipt was given to an unidentified male. They were not convinced that the same male was the one trying to recover them., In short, it was another exercise in bureaucratic hostility.
I picked up a pamphlet on police infiltrators called “Profiles of Provocateurs” recounting cases of activists who became police informants and testified against activists. For more information write
•OWS drops Law Suit on Zuccotti Park
There is no accountability for continuing police abuse here in Bloombergville.
In Romania, after Foreign Minister Teodor Baconshi denounced protesters there as “inept and violent slum dwellers,” he was FIRED.:
Letter
Barry Lipton writes from Canada:
It was great to be introduced to you on the CBC. I will follow your blogs in the future.
I was too bad that Anna Marie did not get what you were saying. The danger of unlimited corporate funding of politics is a prime precursor of fascism. She just did not get it even after you repeated it several times.:
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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