(2018-03-15). On 10th Anniversary of Wall Street Crash, Democrats Help GOP Set Stage for Next One. Truthout Stories Thirty seconds: That's how long it takes to support the independent journalism at Truthout. We're counting on you. Click here to chip in! | | Democrats had the power to stop a massive big bank giveaway from passing the Senate Wednesday night, but instead they decided — with a " green light" from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) — to hand the GOP more than enough votes to ram the deregulatory bill through instead, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis by significantly increasing the risk of another one. | In addition to Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), 16 Democrats joined a unified Republican caucus in approving the so-called "Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act." | Rootstrikers, an anti-corruption group that worked for weeks to mobilize against what progressive critics…
(2018-03-15). Philippines: Onslaught on human rights defenders must end. Amnesty International The Philippine government must immediately halt its latest wave of dangerous attacks on human rights defenders and international institutions. Human rights defenders – among them two UN human rights experts – must be guaranteed protection in the country and be allowed to carry out their work freely.
(2018-03-15). Britain's Not So Distant History of State Sponsored Assassinations. MintPress News With the eyes of the world focused on the alleged nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal, the Russian who worked as a British double-agent before being exiled to the UK in 2010, since he and his daughter were found slumped on a Salisbury public bench last Sunday, one can't help but notice the hypocritical reaction of the British political establishment to the attack. | Addressing the House of Commons on Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May alleged Kremlin involvement in the incident due to 'Russia's record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations'. | These words were spoken in a self-righteous sense, one that suggested the UK held the moral ground over Russia and would never go so far as to conduct assassinations of political opponents on foreign soil. | Anyone with even a basic knowledge of British foreign policy towards Ireland however, would know that this…
(2018-03-15). Jim Hightower: Everybody Does Better When Everybody Does Better. AlterNet.org How to build a Democratic Party for the future. | My father, W. F. "High" Hightower, was a populist. Only, he didn't know it; didn't know the word, much less the history or anything about populism's rich democratic ethos. But he knew about bankers who regularly squeezed small-business families like ours with usurious interest rates. He knew how rough it was for a local business to fight off deep-pocketed chain stores that use predatory pricing and sledgehammer advertising budgets to seize local markets. And he saw with his very own eyes that the governor and legislature in faraway Austin operated as subsidiaries of Big Oil, the utility monopolies, and the other giants that were allowed to profit by picking the pockets of the general public. He and my mother, Lillie, knew one other thing, too: There was once a Democratic Party that stood up for. . .
(2018-03-15). #MAGA Staffing Solutions (Video). Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists Now that Rex Tillerson is out of the way, it looks like the scary fun is really going to begin. While Tillerson was happily gutting the State Department, his relationship with President Trump was deteriorating for a variety of reasons. Chief among them seemed to be that Ol' Oilhound Rex wasn't sufficiently "America First." | Trump found his man for State in Mike Pompeo, a guy who is the number one all-time top recipient of Koch funding, has called for Edward Snowden to be put to death and has talked about how easy it would be to bomb Iran into oblivion. Pompeo a Tea Partier, who had been heading the CIA, seems like a perfect match for the insanity of Trump administration "diplomacy." | Tuesday was a busy day: Tillerson was out, Pompeo was…
(2018-03-15). Pakistan's Wasteland: The Bhutto Backyard. Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists Marjan, a mother of six, and her husband, Mumtaz Ali, an unemployed driver, live in a mud hut with a thatched roof held up by tree trunks. Inside, a plastic bag holding a few tomatoes and a few sprigs of cilantro hangs on a nail, and along the walls the couple have displayed the few steel utensils—cups, plates and bowls—that make up their family wealth. | Like many of the few hundred homes in Marjan's community, the house has no toilet. Marjan's bathing area is at an open-air, rusty hand pump that draws water from the ground; she's been collecting bricks around it, hoping to build walls one day. Her kitchen is a tiny patch of land shaded by a discarded political banner where she squats over a fire fueled by buffalo dung as she cooks rice for her children. |
(2018-03-14). US Senators Urge EPA to Keep Protecting Kids from Pesticides. Human Rights Watch News Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, answers a question during the Concordia Summit in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 19, 2017. | © 2017 Reuters | Yesterday, while the world watched as US President Donald Trump fired his Secretary of State and reshuffled people in two top posts, 28 US senators made an important move that might not make headlines: They protested US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposals to weaken pesticide protections for children. | The lawmakers wrote to Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, after the EPA announced it was considering rolling back two Obama-era safeguards that prohibit children under 18 from handling pesticides on farms and in other workplaces. The Senators, led by Tom Udall (D-NM), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Dianne…
(2018-03-14). Italy Shuts Down 'Worrying' Migrant Hotspot. Human Rights Watch News Migrants disembark from the SOS MEDITERRANEE ship Aquarius at the Italian island of Lampedusa, April 18, 2016. | © 2016 SOS MEDITERRANEE | Good news! The Italian Interior Ministry announced yesterday the temporary closure of an abusive migrant processing center on Lampedusa, Italy's tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea. | The government decision came after damning reports by the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights, the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration, and IndieWatch, which documented how some asylum seekers faced lengthy detention in the facility, known as a "hotspot," intended only for use to house asylum seekers and other migrants for short periods while they are formally identified. It also found degrading conditions and lack of protection for women and children. One family that applied for asylum…
(2018-03-14). White House Shakeup Threatens Legal Protections. Human Rights Watch News Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Mike Pompeo testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., February 13, 2018. | © 2018 Reuters | President Donald Trump's nomination of Mike Pompeo to head the State Department and Gina Haspel the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) do not bode well for US commitments to uphold basic rights and the rule of law at home and abroad. | Last year, Human Rights Watch opposed Pompeo to be CIA director partly because of his prior endorsement of torture. These concerns persist. During his confirmation hearing, Pompeo said waterboarding and other previously used interrogation techniques that amounted to torture were barred by a 2015 law. But in written follow-up questions, he raised the possibility that the law may have to be revised if it became an…
(2018-03-14). South Sudan: UN Mission must boost efforts to protect civilians amid ongoing violence. Amnesty International The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) must boost efforts to protect civilians against the senseless violence that has plagued the country for over four years, and publicly report on the human rights situation, Amnesty International said today. | The UN Mission, whose mandate is set to be extended tomorrow, has a crucial role to play in providing much-needed civilian protection, and timely public reporting on the human rights situation in the country. | "With the continuing conflict and associated human rights violations in South Sudan, the possibility of civilians returning to their homes or being resettled remains remote. The Protection of Civilians (POC) sites are truly life-saving for hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need of protection," said Dr. Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes. |
(2018-03-14). Challenging Trump's Greatest Crimes. counterpunch.org One of the best responses to Donald Trump's energy and environmental policies, that are destroying the Earth by accelerating severe climate change, is for the International Criminal Court ("ICC") to promptly charge him with several crimes against humanity. On February 26, 2018, I filed a complaint with Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, asking her to prosecute Trump and EPA administrator More
(2018-03-14). 4 Things You Should Know About Ayahuasca. AlterNet.org If you're thinking about a spiritual journey with the hallucinogenic tea, read up. | If you boil the two plants Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis long enough, you'll end up with the powerful brew ayahuasca. But, I don't recommend you make it yourself, nor drink it along, unless you really known what you're doing. It's not something to approach lightly. When consumed, it usually creates extraordinary experiences of visions, intense emotions and possibly vomiting. In this article, you'll learn: Why people drink ayahuasca. What are the risks and benefits of drinking the brew. Why preparing for an ayahuasca retreat is so important. Why the period after a retreat is also so important. Who Is Drinking Ayahuasca? The brew has been used in special ways by many native peoples of the Amazon Rainforest for healing, magic and social welfare for at least a few centuries, possibly much longer. In. . .
(2018-03-14). Skripal, Novichok, Russia, Israel, Syria, MI6 and Salisbury. Global Research The same people who assured you that Saddam Hussein had WMD's now assure you Russian "novichok" nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil. As with the Iraqi WMD dossier, it is essential to …
(2018-03-13). Critics of Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana Decry State & Company Surveillance of Protesters. Democracy Now! In Louisiana, newly disclosed documents reveal a state intelligence agency regularly spied on activists opposing construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, which would carry nearly a half-million barrels of oil per day across Louisiana's wetlands. The documents show the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness regularly drafted intelligence memos on anti-pipeline activists, including a gathering of indigenous-led water protectors who've set up a protest encampment along the pipeline's route. Other newly revealed documents show close coordination between Louisiana regulators and the company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners. This comes just one week after a U.S. district judge in Baton Rouge ordered a temporary injunction against construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline in order to "prevent further irreparable harm" to the region's delicate ecosystems, while court challenges proceed. For more, we speak with Pastor Harry Joseph of the Mount Triumph Baptist Church. We also speak with Pamela Spees of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.
(2018-03-13). Notes on Terminology. counterpunch.org Climate Crisis, Not "Climate Change" My next-to-last CounterPunch essay ("Someone Tell a Reporter: the Rich Are Destroying the Earth") elicited a smart criticism from a senior scientist: "Please stop using the phrase 'climate change.' I am a 78-year-old, Ph.D. physicist who has been talking about the CLIMATE CRISIS for more than 35 years. To me, More
(2018-03-13). Trump Attacks Earth, Resistance and Innovation. counterpunch.org In 1992, 1700 scientists from around the world signed a "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity. The statement argued that "human beings and the natural world are on a collision course," and urged immediate, dramatic to reverse the trend. Last fall the statement was updated. This "second notice" has now been signed by 20,000 experts. As you would More
(2018-03-12). Singapore: Reject Sweeping Public Order Bill. Human Rights Watch News A general view of the Parliament House in Singapore June 2, 2016. | © 2016 Reuters | (New York) — Singapore's proposed public order law would further empower the government to repress freedom of assembly and speech, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should revise the Public Order and Safety (Special Powers) bill, introduced in Parliament on February 27, 2018, to ensure that protection of public safety does not violate fundamental rights. | "The Singaporean government's history of persecuting dissenting voices makes the proposed public order law particularly frightening," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Public protests are not a threat that justify the wholescale repeal of basic rights." | While international law permits government restrictions on certain rights for reasons of national security or public order, they…
(2018-03-12). Rising anger over aid delays in Papua New Guinea's catastrophic quake disaster. World Socialist Web Site The humanitarian crisis resulting from the earthquake exposes the inadequate response of the PNG and Australian governments.
(2018-03-12). Fixing Global Warming is Bigger Than Paris '15. counterpunch.org The worldwide effort to harness, slow down, lessen, reduce, remove the threat of global warming is epitomized by the Paris '15 climate accord. This agreement calls for nations of the world to implement plans to slow down greenhouse gas emissions, specifically CO2 from fossil fuels, and to take other remedial actions necessary to hold global temps below 2 ∞C but preferably 1.5 ∞C relative to the start of the industrial revolution over 200 years ago. More
(2018-03-09). Toxic Coal Ash Being Dumped in Puerto Rico, Which Already Suffers Worst Drinking Water in the Nation. Democracy Now! Even before Hurricane Maria struck the island nearly six months ago, the majority of Puerto Rico's residents lived with water that violated health standards set by the U.S. law. Since the storm, residents say the situation has only gotten worse. Among the sources of potential water contamination are mountains of coal ash generated by a coal-fired power plant owned by a private company called AES. For years, residents have demanded the company stop dumping toxic coal ash into their community, saying the waste is poisonous to their health and the environment. We speak with Mekela Panditharatne, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council who just returned from the island and wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post headlined "FEMA says most of Puerto Rico has potable water. That can't be true."
(2018-03-09). What the Earth Would Look Like if All the Ice Melted. counterpunch.org
(2018-03-08). Headlines for March 8, 2018. Democracy Now! Women Across the World Mark International Women's Day, Sessions Attacks California in Escalating Feud over Sanctuary Laws, 8 Students Arrested in D.C. Sit-In Demanding Gun Control, White House Claims Trump Won Arbitration Against Stormy Daniels, French President Blasts Trump's Decision to Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, In Reversal, WH to Exempt Mexico & Canada from Tariffs If They Sign New NAFTA Deal, 11 Nations Gather in Chile to Sign New Version of TPP, Without U.S., Appeals Court Rules Youth Suing Trump Admin over Climate Change Can Go to Trial, PA Orders Emergency Shutdown of Pipeline After Massive Sinkholes Appear, Asheville, NC: White Police Officer Resigns After Video Shows Him Beating Black Man, Vatican: Salvadoran Archbishop àìscar Romero Will Become a Saint…
(2018-03-06). Lori Wallach and Michael Hudson Debate Trump's Plan to Impose Steel & Aluminum Tariffs. Democracy Now! "Trade wars are good, and easy to win." That's the message President Trump tweeted on Friday, sending shockwaves across the globe and sparking fear of impending economic volatility. On Thursday, world stock markets tumbled after Trump announced he plans to impose new tariffs on imports of foreign steel and aluminum. The new tariffs—25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum—will benefit U.S. producers of the metals, while raising prices for companies that manufacture everything from cars to airplanes to high-rise apartments. Prominent Republicans and business leaders have denounced Trump's plan, saying the tariffs will hurt the manufacturing industry and U.S. competitiveness. Trump's announcement has also prompted concerns that other countries will impose retaliatory tariffs while challenging U.S. protectionism at the World Trade Organization. For more, we host a debate. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and author of "The Rise and Fall of Fast Track Trade Authority." Economist Michael Hudson is the author of "America's Protectionist Takeoff 1815-1914."
(2018-03-06). Headlines for March 6, 2018. Democracy Now! North Korea Would Stop Nuclear Tests to Hold Talks with United States, Syria: Monitors Say 70 Killed in 24 Hours Amid Ongoing Gov't Assault on Eastern Ghouta, Trump Says He's Not Backing Down from Tariffs Plan, Ex-Trump Campaign Aide Sam Nunberg Says He Won't Cooperate with Mueller Probe, NYT: State Dept. Spent None of $120 Million to Counter Russian Election Meddling, Embattled at Home, Netanyahu Receives Warm Welcome at Trump's White House, 87 Muslim Leaders & Immigration Activists Arrested in D.C. Protesting End of DACA, Trump Taps Dow Lawyer to Head EPA Unit; Data Shows Coal Ash Polluting Groundwater, NYT: Sen. Hatch's Emails Show Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Bears Ears, Kashmir: Tens of Thousands Protest Killing of Civilians by Indian Soldiers, DRC: Dozens Killed & Hundreds Displaced in Recent Days Amid Fighting in Ituri Province, Trump Name Pried Off Panama…