Wednesday, September 30, 2009



SYNOPSIS
Global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, the problem persists because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries taking advantage of poor, developing countries.
Renowned actor and activist, Martin Sheen, narrates The End of Poverty?, a feature-length documentary directed by award-winning director, Philippe Diaz, which explains how today's financial crisis is a direct consequence of these unchallenged policies that have lasted centuries. Consider that 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate. At this rate, to maintain our lifestyle means more and more people will sink below the poverty line.
Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, The End of Poverty? features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia's Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania . It is produced by Cinema Libre Studio in collaboration with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again.
The End of Poverty? is a daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not an accident. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of poor, developing countries.
The End of Poverty? asks why today 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate?

Teop Twitter 2

HEALTH INSURERS BAIL-OUT PLAN....AGAIN THE PUBLIC IS SCREWED. THANK YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTIVE FOR EITHER LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH, OR NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON !!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a great interview at Democracy Now....

Insurance Industry Whistleblower Wendell Potter Blasts Senate Panel Rejection of Public Insurance Option


AMY GOODMAN: Forty-five million new customers, that’s what the private insurance companies can now look forward to, if a bill like what came out of the Senate Finance Committee moves forward with the mandate. Explain how they will make out and how important, how significant, how profitable this is for the for-profit companies.
WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, this is the first time that the insurance industry has really seen great opportunity in healthcare reform, with an individual mandate, which would require all of us to buy insurance if we are not eligible for a public, government-run program, which, fortunately, many people are. We would have to buy it in the private market from insurance companies, many of whom—many of which are for-profit companies. We would not have the option of buying or getting insurance through a government-run program like the public option would create.
So, not only would our premium dollars go into this—into the private insurance industry, but a lot of tax dollars would. Most people who don’t have insurance can’t afford it, and they wouldn’t be able to afford it after healthcare reform is passed without the government subsidizing their premiums. So billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars will flow right into the treasuries of these big for-profit insurance companies. So we will be essentially paying a tax that will help support these insurance companies. It will be an enormous bailout of the health insurance industry.
AMY GOODMAN:
Robert Reich, former secretary under Clinton, wrote, “The White House made a Faustian bargain with Big Pharma and Big Insurance, essentially scuttling both of these profit-squeezing mechanisms in return for [these] industries’ agreement not to oppose healthcare legislation with platoons of lobbyists and millions of dollars [of] TV ads, and Pharma’s willingness to cut drug prices by some $80 billion over the next ten years.” He says, “The White House promised these industries they’d come out way ahead—getting tens of millions of new customers who’d be buying private health insurance policies and thereby paying [for] an almost endless supply of new drugs. Healthcare reform would be, in short, a bonanza.”
Is that why, for example, your companies, Wendell Potter, and the other insurance companies have not launched the kind of massive campaign that they did against the ’93 and ’94 Clinton healthcare reform?
WENDELL POTTER: That’s right. And they have worked very closely with the White House. Some of the executives I know have been to the White House multiple times from the insurance industry. So they’ve been cutting their own deals, undoubtedly, or making their own assurances to the White House.
But the thing that the White House must not be taking into consideration is that while they will say things publicly, that they’re working as good faith partners for the—with the President and with Congress, behind the scenes they’re doing all that they can to cut the heart out of legislation, including the public option, and to preserve what would benefit them. That’s the way they operate. That’s what’s going on here.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

If you have any questions about why all the "protests" at the G20 summit in Pittsburg....


check out below....the answers to your questions may curl your toes.....





Report: US-Initiated WTO Rules Could Undermine Regulatory Overhaul of Global Finance

As the G-20 meets in Pittsburgh, a new report from Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch warns that the World Trade Organization has long advanced extreme financial deregulation under the guise of trade agreements and could undermine the current push for increasing regulation. We speak to Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Zoopharmacognosy

With the Bioneers conference rapidly approaching....this video is just, well, just EXCITING.
enjoy.

Friday, September 25, 2009


CODEPINK and Jewish Voice for Peace are supporting the US tour of two extraordinary young Israeli women, Maya Wind and Netta Mishly, to discuss why they refused to serve in an occupying army. This was not a decision they came to lightly as they knew they would pay a price - military prison.
Maya and Netta share a few words about their story and US tour here: We're writing from Tucson, Arizona, after an incredible first week on tour in the US. So far, we have been welcomed very warmly by all of our hosts in the cities we visited, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Seattle to Honolulu, Hawaii! Given the reactions to our politics in Israel, we came prepared for a strong opposition to our events. We were happy that the disagreements that have arisen in our talks have been civil and respectful-- there is an openness to listening that is refreshing, even in a Jewish synagogue and on a campus that usually have a lot of tension around this issue! We hope that our talks will stimulate discussion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role the US plays in it. As we remind audiences we speak with, "Your tax dollars are fueling our occupation!" The debates at our events are giving us new perspectives which will enrich our discourse back home. We hope to meet you on the tour soon! In solidarity, Maya and Netta
The recently released Goldstone Report, based on a UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict, found evidence of grave "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed by Israel, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority and recommends that the findings be reviewed by the UN Security Council, with measures taken to ensure accountability.
You can speak up for human rights in the Middle East by
signing our petition to UN Ambassador Susan Rice demanding that the US endorse and support these recommendations. There is already a lot of opposition to the findings of this report; we need to ensure that it won't be swept under the rug.
BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION.....

Thursday, September 24, 2009

THIS IS THE MOST HILARIOUS THING I HAVE EVER HEARD....JUSTICE SERVED UP ON A GOLDEN PLATTER !!!


Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately -- but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.
The language was written by the GOP and filed as a "motion to recommit" in the House, where it passed 345-75.
POGO is reaching out to its members to identify other companies who have engaged in the type of misconduct that would make them ineligible for federal funds.
Grayson then intends to file that list in the legislative history that goes along with the bill so that judges can reference it when determining whether a company should be denied federal funds.
The Florida freshman is asking for direct assistance. He has set up a Google spreadsheet where people can suggest contractors who have been charged with violations and include a link to a media or government report documenting the alleged transgression.
The weapons manufacturers might have a better line of defense in court, however. Immediately after the bill passed, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a constitutional whiz, noted that the measure appeared to be a "bill of attainder" -- specifically targeting a company or organization or individual -- and is therefore specifically barred by the Constitution. If it's not targeted at one group, then Northrop Grumman is in trouble.
Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the Congressional Research Service on Tuesday asking it to clarify, among other things, if the Defund ACORN Act is constitutional.
Ryan Grim is the author of This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in AmericaRead more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/whoops-anti-acorn-bill-ro_n_294949.html

Wednesday, September 23, 2009


FROM TRUE MAJORITY.ORG
If the insurance companies win, you lose. It's really that simple.If Congress passes a bill that denies us the choice of a public insurance plan, Big Insurance wins and you lose. If Congress requires you to buy insurance but doesn't prevent Big Insurance from denying you care when you get sick or revoking your coverage when you need it, they win and you lose.1But we can fight back. Today, TrueMajority/USAction members and affiliates are among the thousands of people lined up outside insurance company offices to demand that they stop denying our care and stop using our premiums to lobby against healthcare reform.Even if you can't attend an event, you can join us. Click here to fax these insurance companies and key congressional leaders a list of the same demands. http://act.truemajority.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=2U3%2FDDOjBHFapdCOETXP03lzehGOfEBOFor years, insurance companies have made record profits by choosing when to cover our healthcare and when to deny our claims. They make life-and-death decisions while we pay the price.But because they're spending millions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbyists to defeat reform - $1.4 million per day!2 -- Congress is threatening to let them win the fight for reform.But as customers and citizens, we still have a voice. And today, we're fighting back. Click here to fax your demands to the insurance industry and join thousands who are doing the same thing today.-Drew

Saturday, September 19, 2009


Worried about the Swine Flu.....Unsure of what to do? The answer is a paradox.
The mainstream media is bombarding the public with messages of "fear". Although there is some truth to what is being reported, there is more speculation and drama.
There are other voices out there, telling a different story, these the media refuse to report on. Silenced are the voices of opposition ---- (ps, remember the media is owned by corporations, remember the internet is our last free press, which corporations are desperately trying to limit access to.)
http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/dr-russell-blaylock-on-1976-swine-flu-and-current-outbreak/

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/19/The-Truth-about-the-Flu-Shot.aspx

http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/flu-pandemic-propaganda-and-profit/

The answer of "what to do" lies within each of us....research the silenced voices, and learn about the many simple actions that can be taken to keep our bodies healthy and commit to doing so.



Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Two Million for Internet Freedom

SAVE THE INTERNET........SAVE TRUTH....SAVE FREEDOM........
http://www.savetheinternet.com/

Monday, September 14, 2009

TRAILER: Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story' - OPENS NATIONWIDE OCTOBER 2nd!



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'CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY' - In Theaters October 2nd "It's a crime story. But it's also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. ...

DEBTORS REVOLT BEGINS NOW!

I salute this woman. I hope the rest of America hears her message. "Lying, theiving Bastards."

Friday, September 11, 2009


CHECK OUT THE ORGANIZATION VAN JONES STARTED....http://www.greenforall.org/




ANYONE WHO REALLY WANTS CHANGE IN THIS COUNTRY, HAD BETTER TAKE A LESSON FROM ONE OF THE BEST (MR. JONES) AND START DOING IT THEMSELVES...


I love this article by Michael Kieschnick found (see short snippet below) here :http://www.alternet.org/politics/142530/after_van_jones,_who_will_the_right_try_to_target/?page=1


Van Jones did not play the game of Washington politics. He did not become advocate with one business card, and lobby for corporations with another. He shared the anger of those he sought to support. He did not trade away the best interests of those behind bars or in need of jobs to be polite. He used strong language in tough times. Like every single person I know, he made mistakes.
I was surprised when Van accepted a position in the Obama administration. The administration was noteworthy for how few progressives it recruited. For all practical purposes, the foreign policy team had endorsed the disastrous invasion of Iraq. Most of the economic team had supported the disastrous prohibition of regulation of credit default swaps in the waning days of the Clinton Administration. Most appointees were respectable by Washington standards in how they had opposed the worst abuses of the Bush administration.
We may never know who told Van he had to go, or who made the repeated choice never to defend him during the weeks of vicious smears. Why would a Van Jones have to apologize for calling Republicans, prior to his appointment, a colorful barnyard epithet when the Obama Chief of Staff considers the F word half of the English language? And why might Van's mistakes be worse than those of say, Timothy Geithner, who took tax free income from the IMF and did not report it? And why is Van Jones more troublesome than say, Joe Lieberman, who constantly slandered candidate Obama, and was rewarded by a clear direction from President Obama that Lieberman was to be welcomed back to the fold?


Big Business's Hidden Hand in the Smear Job on Van Jones
By
Adele M. Stan, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2009.
How Americans for Prosperity, the astroturf group that organized town-hall thuggery, teamed up with Fox News to force out Van Jones.
Meet Van Jones...an amazing man, whom the powers in the white house let resign this week....
THIS IS A TRUE SHAME, A SAD DAY, THE END OF A DREAM. NO MATTER HOW YOU SLICE IT UP...THIS WAS THE MOST DEVASTATING NON-ACTION ON THE PART OF AN ADMINISTRATION VOTED IN FOR & I QUOTE "CHANGE"

Who is Van Jones? http://www.vanjones.net/
Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy. He is a 1993 graduate of the Yale Law School and an attorney.
Van wrote the definitive book on "green jobs": The Green Collar Economy. In 2008 — thanks to a low-cost, viral marketing campaign — his book became an instant New York Times bestseller. It is today being translated into six languages.
As a tireless advocate for disadvantaged people and the environment, Van helped to pass America's first "green job training" legislation: the Green Jobs Act, which George W. Bush signed into law as a part of the 2007 Energy Bill. He is the co-founder of a number of successful non-profit organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green For All.
Van is the recipient of many awards and honors, including: the Reebok International Human Rights Award; the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader designation; the prestigious, international Ashoka Fellowship; and many more. Van was included in the Ebony Magazine "Power 150" list of most influential African Americans for 2009. In 2008, Essence magazine named him one of the 25 most inspiring/influential African Americans. TIME Magazine named him an environmental hero in 2008. In 2009, TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In March 2009, Van went to work as the special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council for Environmental Quality.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

http://www.consumersunion.org/
THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THESE LOAN SHARKING GREEDY BASTARDS....LEARN!
You may have bought one for your college student to make your life easier. Or you may have given one as a gift, just because you couldn’t figure out what to give. Or you may have one in your own wallet right now.
But have you ever had a moment when there wasn't as much money on that plastic card as you thought there should be? Prepaid cards -- those credit-card-looking pieces of plastic that you can buy with cash -- can nickel and dime you to death. In fact, we found that some prepaid cards can cost you more than $50 a month in fees.
If you’ve experienced excessive fees or other problems with your prepaid card, we’d like to hear about it. The more we know, the better job we can do fighting for reforms that make sure the cash you have on a card is the cash you get to spend.
Tell us about your prepaid card experience here so we can help you get the best deal.
Prepaid cards are a growing business. Marketed as “the checking account alternative” and “banking on your own terms,” they sound good to tens of millions of Americans. Because they look like a credit card and often carry a VISA or MasterCard logo, consumers and merchants alike find them easy to use. But the truth is, prepaid cards do not have the same protections as debit and credit cards.
And the fees can add up quickly. Consumers who use these cards are being charged to activate the card, for using it monthly, for not using it enough, for checking their balance, for adding more funds, and on and on and on. Worse, if your prepaid card is lost or stolen, or strange charges suddenly appear, you may not be protected.
Take a minute to tell us your story using prepaid cards so we can fight for a better deal.
And if you know someone who uses prepaid cards, please forward this to them so they can tell us about their experiences, too.
Sincerely,Michelle Jun
DefendYourDollars.orgA project of Consumers Union1535 Mission StreetSan Francisco, CA 94103

Saturday, September 5, 2009


NOVEL IDEA.....FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.

http://www.healthbeatblog.org/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/03/09/healthcare/

The questions our healthcare debate ignores

Why does every developed nation except the U.S. have universal healthcare? Why do they pay half as much in medical costs? Why are their infant mortality and longevity statistics superior?

By Joe Conason


A great op-ed from www.opednews.co

Americans: A Silly People Concerned by the Inane While the World Burns By Grant Lawrence (about the author)

This controversy over President Obama giving an address to school students is a perfect example of stupidity gone berserk.

I guess many Americans have never heard of a civics lesson or that their President is supposed to represent the people. No, a lot of Americans think that President Obama's talk urging students to stay in school and get an education is an evil tyrannical plot to control the minds of kids.

Now keep in mind that schools don't have to show President Obama's speech and that it is on a topic all Americans should endorse, this speech is considered by the nearly lunatic here in America as a type of totalitarian gimmick straight out of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union.

A bizarre state Senator Steve Russell says, "As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

The type of reasoning displayed by state Senator Russell is what passes for leadership here in much of America.

So while we have 2 wars raging, the banksters have looted the treasury, real unemployment is running near 20%, a depression grows, and 100 million Americans are without adequate healthcare, we have Americans upset over an address the President wants to give to students.

I am completely serious when I write that I sometimes feel as if I am trapped amongst a type of zombie race of people that have lost common sense and reasoning by a mass disease that attacks and destroys the frontal lobe.

But in reality, Americans are the product of a mass of people raised on commercial television and fascist political propaganda. Americans have been told what to think, what to buy, how to behave, and how to feel from corporate advertising and ideology that is instilled in them in every aspect of their lives. Americans believe that their consumerist thoughts and behaviors are somehow individualistic, but they are programed into them from their earliest childhood.

The result of this total corporatist brain washing of nearly all Americans is that they have lost their awareness and their reason.

We are presently facing a fascist agenda that has contributed to the collapse of our ecosystem along with the collapse of a world economy. It is imperative that Americans move past the lies, the programming, the propaganda, and the ignorance presented by the Military Industrial Mind Control Complex and into Awareness and Good Sense.

Want to do something to help stop the Wars...Stop the funding.

Double Medal of Honor winner Gen. Smedley Butler said after World War I, "war is a racket."
TRUTH.....from www.truthout.org

Why the Wars Roll on: Ban Campaign Money From Outside the District

Friday 04 September 2009 by: Ralph Lopez, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

photo
Civilians carry a victim of a NATO airstrike in Afghanistan. (Photo: AFP)

As public opinion tips against the US military presence in Afghanistan, and Congress talks about "doubling down," as the pullout from Iraq is accompanied by steadily increasing violence, and talk turns to slowing or halting the pull-out, the question the anti-war public must ask itself is: What now? War funding for Iraq continues despite two consecutive Democratic majorities elected expressly to stop it. Obama's high-stakes 2008 Super Bowl ad blared "Getting Us Out of Iraq," and it worked. He was elected. But the cold hard fact seems to be emerging that, regardless of public opinion, the wars will roll on.

The occasional heroic Congress member or senator will call for a timetable, an exit plan or a halt to war funding, but despite lots of heat generated in the debate, the war bills seem to pass at the end of the day. This is because incumbents' real constituents are no longer the people who live in the district. The real power, the money which pays for television ad blitzes and the all-important donations to the local Little League, comes from far away.

Very few people know that on average 80 percent of their Congress members' and senators' campaign funds come from outside the district, and largely from outside the state. They come from industries like defense, telecommunications and financial services. What do they get for these contributions, even in cases when the Congress member votes against those contributors' positions on certain bills?

The 1976 US Supreme Court decision, Buckley v. Valeo, which equated money with "free speech," affirmed your right to buy your own congressman. But it did not explicitly affirm your right to buy mine. Since that decision, the amount of money in politics has skyrocketed and is at all-time highs. Also at record-breaking highs are the pay-offs, like bailouts for the auto and financial services industries.

The savings and loan bailout of the nineties, at $200 billion, was chump change compared to the $700 billion TARP slush fund of today, which rewards financial services companies for the subprime mortgage fiasco. In searching for an answer to how the $3 trillion Iraq war can drag on despite three years of Democratic majorities in Congress elected to end it, follow the money.

The citizen's watchdog group MAPlight.org has found that congressmen who voted for TARP, the "Troubled Assets Relief Program," received nearly 50 percent more in campaign contributions from the financial services industry (an average of about $149,000) than congressmen who voted no. Legislators who voted for the automobile industry bailout in 2009 received an average of 40 percent more in "contributions" from that industry (the less politic call them "bribes") than those who voted against it. And House Energy and Commerce Committee members who voted yes on an amendment in 2009 favored by the forest products industry, to allow heavier cutting of trees, received an average of $25,745 from the forestry and paper products industry. This was ten times as much as was received by each member voting no. This pattern repeats itself over and over.

True, contributions don't guarantee a particular legislator will vote your way. But neither will he or she filibuster your bill or go on TV to ask rude questions about impacts to taxpayers or consumers. Arguably, that could be called hush money.

What we have arrived at is a system of industries, defense, financial, telecommunications, health insurance, trail lawyers and the rest, looking to appease those who, as Richard Nixon said, can do something for them, or something to them. Take one example: Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. This is the final hurdle for war appropriations bills after they pass the House. No war bill gets to the president's desk until it gets past Inouye, who can stop it cold, send it into perpetual conference committee loops or change it in a dozen ways. As one might guess, money comes pouring in to Inouye from defense contractors from across the country:

Campaign contributions to Sen. Daniel Inouye from the defense industry, ex-district.

photo

Inouye takes in $160,000 from corporations not in his district that have a financial interest in war. Double Medal of Honor winner Gen. Smedley Butler said after World War I, "war is a racket."

How do we change this? We can call for reform which forbids money from outside the district. If money from PACs or individuals is to be equated with "free-speech," then let it be confined to its rightful boundaries. There are now "free speech zones" for anti-war protesters, who welcome some public figures into town. So, the idea of geographically restricting some speech in the public interest is well established.

By halting money from outside districts, connections between business interests and committee members will be by coincidence, not forged as unholy alliances, which may conflict with the interests of real constituents. The influence of the defense industry over key committee members and House and Senate leaders will be diluted. The principle of Buckley v. Valeo, that money equals free speech, remains intact. But congressmen will still answer to constituents, the way they are supposed to. Of course, citizens are always free to work their hearts out for whomever they want.

When two-thirds of the nation's wealth is owned by just ten percent of the population, as is the case in the United States, that ten percent has a lot more money to give than the other 90 percent: therefore, the interest of society in limiting the corrupting influence of money across geographical boundaries is clear. MAPlight.org found that money travels outward from wealthy zip codes to poorer ones.

If congressmen were not meant to represent geographical constituents, the founders wouldn't have drawn district maps. Campaign finance is now a frenzy of interests shopping for committee members and chairpersons across the country. The industry determines which committees are targeted. The reason incumbents no longer pay attention to constituents who are overwhelmingly against bailouts, or strongly anti-war, is that their real bosses will always give them enough money to bury any challenger in a blizzard of negative TV ads.

Why should Boeing Aircraft (maker of the Apache helicopter,) which doesn't even have a shop or an office in my district, be allowed to give money to my congressman in Boston? (It does.) He shouldn't be worrying about what Boeing thinks. He should be worrying about what I and my neighbors think. Without any extraneous distractions.

If there is one thing congressmen hate, it's being embarrassed and tongue-tied in public. If he or she won't go to the mat to end the wars, or for any other issue important to the district, then ask your representative what's the deal with that contribution from the real estate company in Arizona. Or what have you. If your congressman is using your district's leather seat (it belongs to the district, not to any one person or set of outside interests) in that historic, marble-filled chamber to represent you, vigorously, then there's no problem. If not, further questions are in order.


Ralph Lopez has been published in the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, and other smaller newspapers. He has a degree in economics and political science from Yale University. He has reported from Afghanistan, and at present lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.












Wednesday, September 2, 2009

American Casino documentary film trailer

A new documentary opening today in New York takes on the subprime crisis, tracking its roots on Wall Street and Washington and profiling some of its victims, mainly African American families who lost their homes.
http://www.democracynow.org/

The United States can condemn other countries for their actions against international journalists, case in point::: the attention Bill Clinton received after negiotating the release of the two women journalists from North Korea.....yet the USA, the Pot; is calling the kettle black...
The united states needs to do its own inventory......

http://www.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUSL242067020090902
Iraqi Journalist Detained for a Year Without Charge by U.S. Forces Despite Iraqi Court Order to Release Him
A year ago today, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided the home of Iraqi journalist Ibrahim Jassam, a freelance photographer working for Reuters. Soldiers seized his computer hard drive and cameras. He was led away, handcuffed and blindfolded. For the past year the U.S. military has held Jassam without charge. Ten months ago the Iraqi Central Criminal Court ordered his release for lack of evidence but the U.S. military refused to release him claiming he was a “high security threat.”

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

NRDC ACTIVIST ALERT: September 1, 2009
Tell Congress to close the "Halliburton Loophole" to protect drinking water from contamination !!!!
Hydraulic fracturing is an oil and gas production technique that involves the injection of fluids, often containing toxic chemicals, into oil or gas wells at very high pressure.
Although the Safe Drinking Water Act regulates most forms of underground injection in order to protect drinking water sources, in 2005 Congress passed the "Halliburton Loophole," which exempts hydraulic fracturing from the law's reach (the exemption was given that name because Halliburton is one of the companies that provide hydraulic fracturing services). Since the exemption was enacted, hydraulic fracturing operations have been linked to contaminated drinking water in communities around the country.
Legislation to repeal the exemption has recently been introduced in both the House and Senate. Among other things, the legislation would require public disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids.
== What to do ==
Send a message urging your senators and representative to co-sponsor legislation to repeal the Halliburton Loophole (H.R. 2766/S. 1215).
https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1308&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr001=rmc4e9edb3.app305a