‘Murderers’: Thousands gather in Montenegro capital to protest NATO membership (VIDEO)
Shortly after Montenegro’s bid to join the North Atlantic Alliance was given the green light, thousands flooded the streets of the capital to protest the upcoming membership and remind people of lives taken during the NATO invasion of 1999.
Former Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and opposition leaders called the rally on Saturday in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica. They gathered at least 5,000 supporters outside the parliament, according to the local Vijesti newspaper. The protesters held national flags while patriotic and pro-Russian chants ringing out from the assembled crowd.
Bulatovic, who was also prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1998 to 2000, told the rally that joining NATO would mean “blood of innocent people on our hands,” and emphasized his country had been against the alliance’s wars until recently.
“What has Afghanistan done wrong, what has Iraq done wrong? Why has Libya been destroyed, what's happening today in Syria? Can we close our eyes to that?" he said.
‘Murderers’: Thousands gather in Montenegro capital to protest NATO membership (VIDEO)
Shortly
after Montenegro’s bid to join the North Atlantic Alliance was given
the green light, thousands flooded the streets of the capital to protest
the upcoming membership and remind people of lives taken during the
NATO invasion of 1999.
Former
Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and opposition leaders called the
rally on Saturday in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica. They gathered at
least 5,000 supporters outside the parliament, according to the local
Vijesti newspaper. The protesters held national flags while patriotic
and pro-Russian chants ringing out from the assembled crowd.
Bulatovic,
who was also prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from
1998 to 2000, told the rally that joining NATO would mean “blood of innocent people on our hands,” and emphasized his country had been against the alliance’s wars until recently.
“What has Afghanistan done wrong, what has Iraq done wrong? Why has
Libya been destroyed, what's happening today in Syria? Can we close our
eyes to that?" he said.
Big data is no longer a tool reserved solely for big businesses. (Alan Brandt/AP)
Parental
concerns about student privacy have been rising in recent years amid
the growing use by schools, school districts and states use technology
to collect mountains of detailed information on students. Last year, a
controversial $100 million student data collection project funded by the
Gates Foundation and operated by a specially created nonprofit
organization called inBloom was forced to shut down because of these
concerns, an episode that served as a warning to parents about just how
much information about their children is being shared without their
knowledge.
Here’s an important piece on the issue by Leonie
Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker. Haimson was a leading advocate against the
inBloom project who then, along with Rachael Stickland, created the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy,
a national alliance of parents and advocates defending the rights of
parents and students to protect their data. Kiesecker is a member of the
coalition.
By Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker
Remember that ominous threat from your childhood, “This
will go down on your permanent record?” Well, your children’s permanent
record is a whole lot bigger today and it may be permanent. Information
about your children’s behavior and nearly everything else that a school
or state agency knows about them is being tracked, profiled and
potentially shared.
During a February 2015 congressional hearing on “How Emerging Technology Affects Student Privacy,”
Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin asked the panel to “provide a summary
of all the information collected by the time a student reaches graduate
school.” Joel Reidenberg, director of the Center on Law & Information Policy at Fordham Law School, responded:
“Just
think George Orwell, and take it to the nth degree. We’re in an
environment of surveillance, essentially. It will be an extraordinarily
rich data set of your life.”
Most student data is gathered at school via
multiple routes; either through children’s online usage or information
provided by parents, teachers or other school staff. A student’s
education record generally includes demographic information, including
race, ethnicity, and income level; discipline records, grades and test
scores, disabilities and Individual Education Plans (IEPs), mental
health and medical history, counseling records and much more.
President Obama arrives at the TransCanada Stillwater Pipe Yard in Cushing, Okla. on March 22, 2012. (Associated Press) more >
By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times - Updated: 9:28 p.m. on Monday, November 2, 2015
The company proposing to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline asked the State Department
on Monday to halt indefinitely its ongoing review of the massive
project, adding new delays and uncertainties, and possibly ensuring that
final word will come from President Obama’s successor.
Amid legal challenges in Nebraska — ground zero in the fight over the project — TransCanada officials sent a letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry and called on the administration to cease immediately its Keystone approval process.
The
move raises a real possibility Mr. Obama will not be the one to make a
decision on the pipeline and that the next president, perhaps one more
inclined to back new oil-and-gas infrastructure in the U.S., will be the
final arbiter.
Powerful environmental groups quickly condemned TransCanada’s request and said it’s clear the company simply wants to delay a decision until January 2017, when a Republican may enter the White House.
‘Sicily is not a war lab!’ Hundreds march against NATO drills (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
Published time: 1 Nov, 2015 02:12
Hundreds
of people have taken to the streets of Sicily protesting against
Trident Juncture 2015, the largest military maneuvers in more than a
decade, which NATO claims are designed to adapt the alliance to
“emerging security challenges.”
The
protesters marched through the streets of the city of Marsala, less
than 10 miles (16km) from Vincenzo Florio Airport. The airport is a base
for the 37th Wing of the Italian air force and is one of the forward
operating bases (FOBs) used by NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control.
Organized by the “No war, no NATO” group, activists from all corners of the Italian island marched with banners reading “Sicily is not laboratory of the war” and "Sicily is no war zone". People urged the Italian government to better invest in education and the medical sector rather than military activity.
If
you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely,
your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded
individuals who share your political views, criticize the government,
own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or
any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist,
bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you have just been promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
A New York Times editorial backs up these findings:
Law enforcement agencies around the country are training their officers to recognize signs of anti-government extremism
and to exercise caution during routine traffic stops, criminal
investigations and other interactions with potential extremists. “The
threat is real,” says the handout from one training program sponsored by
the Department of Justice. Since 2000, the handout notes, 25 law
enforcement officers have been killed by right-wing extremists, who
share a “fear that government will confiscate firearms” and a “belief in
the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”
So what is the government doing about these so-called terrorists?
The government is going to war.
Again.
Only this time, it has declared war against so-called American “extremists.”
The
coal company Murray Energy agreed to pay a $5,000 fine for failing to
disclose it funded anti-Obama signs during the 2012 election cycle,
according to a decision by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
The
FEC ruled Friday that Murray Energy will be fined for not disclosing
payments for signs saying “STOP the WAR on COAL — FIRE OBAMA” in the
months leading up to the 2012 election. The FEC investigation found that
Murray Energy had paid $22,000 for anti-Obama signs, but did not
include a disclaimer on them as required by federal election laws.
Murray
energy argued it didn’t know it had to disclose paying for the signs,
adding that the signs could “reasonably be read to primarily advocate a
policy result longtime publicized” by the company. Murray also argued it
stopped distributing the signs once a complaint against them was filed,
and the company noted it hadn’t included a disclaimer because other
similar signs did not have one.
Thousands rally against Erdogan as Turkey mourns deadliest attack
By Fulya Ozerkan, Camille Antunes October 11, 2015 7:16 PM
Associated Press Videos
Raw: Thousands Mourn Victims of Ankara Blast
Ankara
(AFP) - Thousands of mourners filled the streets of Ankara Sunday and
vented their anger at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 97 people
were killed in the country's worst-ever terror attack, while the
government raced to identify the two male suicide bombers it blamed for
the bloodshed.
Flags flew at half-mast across Turkey on the first
of three days of national mourning declared by Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu, as questions grew over who could have ordered Saturday's
bombings on a peace rally in Ankara.
Turkey's
pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), one of the groups that had
organised the rally, said it believes the death toll now stands at 128.
The
attacks have raised tensions in Turkey just three weeks before snap
elections are due on November 1 and as the military wages an offensive
against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militants.
With
the country on edge, Erdogan issued a statement condemning the "heinous"
bombings and cancelled a planned visit to Turkmenistan but he has yet
to speak in public since the attack that shocked the nation.
On
Sunday, thousands of demonstrators thronged central Ankara's Sihhiye
Square, close to the blast site by the city's main train station, to pay
tribute to the victims.
View gallery
ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH
An injured man hugs an injured woma …
Many
of those gathered accused the government of failing to provide security
at the ill-fated rally and several anti-government demonstrators
shouted "Erdogan murderer" and "government resign!"
"I am a
mother, I'm worried about my grandchildren, I am marching for our
children, for our future. Each time there are people dead, I also die a
little," said Zahide, who like many others carried a pink carnation
flower to commemorate the victims.
The premier's office said 97
people were killed when the bombs exploded just after 10:00 am (0700
GMT) as leftist and pro-Kurdish activists assembled for the rally.
It added that 507 people were wounded, with 160 still in hospital and 65 in intensive care in 19 hospitals.
An
AFP correspondent said the scene of the blast was littered with ball
bearings, indicating the explosions were intended to cause maximum
damage.
View gallery
A family mourns in an area allocated for families of victims of Saturday's twin blasts in Ankara …
- 'Topple the dictator' -
In
an emotional address to the mourners in Ankara, the HDP's leader
Selahattin Demirtas said that rather than seeking revenge people should
aim to end Erdogan's rule, starting with the upcoming legislative
elections.
Fury towards Erdogan intensifies after Ankara attack
By Fulya Ozerkan, Camille Antunes October 12, 2015 1:43 AM
.
Ankara
(AFP) - Anger towards President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over Turkey's
worst-ever terrorist attack intensified as authorities raced to identify
the two male suicide bombers it blamed for the bloodshed.
The
streets of Ankara filled with anti-government and pro-Kurdish protesters
accusing the government of responsibility for the blast that ripped
through a peace rally a day earlier, with several shouting "Erdogan
murderer" and "government resign!"
In Istanbul on Saturday, a
10,000-strong crowd accused the government of failing to protect
citizens by providing security for the event, carrying placards reading
"the state is a killer" and "we know the murderers".
As
tributes poured in from world leaders, Selahattin Demirtas, leader of
the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was cited as saying "State attacked
the people. Condolences recipient should be the people not Erdogan" on
the party's Twitter account.
In
an emotional address to mourners in Ankara, Demirtas said that citizens
should aim to end Erdogan's rule, starting with the upcoming
legislative elections.
"We
are not going to act out of revenge and hatred. But we are going to ask
for (people to be held to) account," he added, saying the vote would be
part of a process to "topple the dictator."
View gallery
Relatives mourn near the grave of a victim of the twin bombings in Ankara, during the funeral in Ist …
The
party believes the death toll now stands at 128, higher than the 97
people the prime minister's office said were killed when the bombs
exploded on Saturday morning as leftist and pro-Kurdish activists
assembled by the city's main train station.
The official toll also said 507 people were wounded, with 160 still in hospital and 65 in intensive care in 19 hospitals
Digital
rights groups warn that TPP "will criminalize our online activities,
censor the Web, and cost everyday users money." (Photo: Getty)
The "disastrous" pro-corporate trade deal finalized
Monday could kill the Internet as we know it, campaigners are warning,
as they vow to keep up the fight against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement between the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations.
"Internet users around the world should be very concerned about this ultra-secret pact," said
OpenMedia's digital rights specialist Meghan Sali. "What we’re talking
about here is global Internet censorship. It will criminalize our online
activities, censor the Web, and cost everyday users money. This deal
would never pass with the whole world watching—that’s why they’ve
negotiated it in total secrecy."
"The TPP will
criminalize our online activities, censor the Web, and cost everyday
users money. This deal would never pass with the whole world
watching—that’s why they’ve negotiated it in total secrecy." —Meghan
Sali, Open Media
TPP opponents have claimed
that under the agreement, "Internet Service Providers could be required
to 'police' user activity (i.e. police YOU), take down Internet
content, and cut people off from Internet access for common
user-generated content."
Among the deal's provisions are rules that could criminalize file-sharing, whistleblowing, and breaking digital locks,
even for legitimate purposes. Of course, because the contents of the
pact have been negotiated largely in secret, the exact implications of
the TPP on user rights is yet to be seen.
However, Electronic
Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Maira Sutton wrote on Monday, "We have no
reason to believe that the TPP has improved much at all from the last leaked version released in August, and we won't know until the U.S. Trade Representative releases the text. So as long as it contains a retroactive 20-year copyright term extension, bans on circumventing DRM, massively disproportionate punishments for copyright infringement, and rules that criminalize investigative journalists and whistleblowers, we have to do everything we can to stop this agreement from getting signed, ratified, and put into force."
Furthermore,
"The fact that close to 800 million Internet users' rights to free
expression, privacy, and access to knowledge online hinged upon the
outcome of squabbles over trade rules on cars and milk is precisely why
digital policy consideration[s] do not belong in trade agreements,"
Sutton added, referring to the auto and dairy tariff provisions that reportedly held up the talks.
"The
fact that close to 800 million Internet users' rights to free
expression, privacy, and access to knowledge online hinged upon the
outcome of squabbles over trade rules on cars and milk is precisely why
digital policy consideration[s] do not belong in trade agreements."
—Maira Sutton, EFF
With a major protest against the TPP and other secret trade deals planned for November
in Washington, D.C., EFF is crowdsourcing slogans related to how the
TPP threatens digital rights and freedoms around the world.
"Successive
leaks of the TPP have demonstrated that unless you are a big business
sector, the [U.S. Trade Representative, or USTR] simply doesn't care
what you have to say," wrote EFF's Jeremy Malcolm.
"Enough's enough," reads the group's call-to-action.
"The time for whitepapers and presentations is past. The USTR has
failed us, so now it's time for the public to rise up and take their
message about the TPP's threats to user rights to Congress, which has
the ultimate authority to approve or reject the deal for the United
States."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
The Outer Limits of Empire: A Tomdispatch Interview with Howard Zinn He's
tall and thin, with a shock of white hair. A bombardier in the great
war against fascism and an antiwar veteran of America's wars ever since,
he's best known as the author of the pathbreaking A People's History of the United States,
and as an expert on the unexpected voices of resistance that have so
regularly made themselves heard throughout our history. At 83 (though he
looks a decade younger), he is also a veteran of a rugged century and
yet there's nothing backward looking about him. His voice is quiet and
he clearly takes himself with a grain of salt, chuckling wryly on
occasion at his own comments. From time to time, when a thought pleases
him and his well-used face lights up or breaks out in a bona fide grin,
he looks positively boyish.
We sit down on the back porch of
the small coffee shop, alone, on a vacation morning. He has a croissant
and coffee in front of him. I suggest that perhaps we should start
after breakfast, but he assures me that there's no particular
contradiction between eating and talking and so, as a novice
interviewer, I awkwardly turn on my two tape recorders -- one of which,
on pause, will still miss several minutes of our conversation (our
equivalent, we joke, of Nixon's infamous 18-minute gap). In preparation,
he pushes aside his half-eaten breakfast, never to touch it again, and
we begin. Tomdispatch: You and Anthony Arnove just came out with a new book, Voices of a People's History of the United States,
featuring American voices of resistance from our earliest moments to
late last night. Now, we have a striking new voice of resistance, Cindy
Sheehan. I was wondering what you made of her? Howard Zinn:
Often a protest movement that's already underway -- and the present
antiwar movement was underway even before the Iraq War began -- gets a
special impetus, a special spark, from one person's act of defiance. I
think of Rosa Parks and that one act of hers and what it meant. TD: Can you think of other Cindy Sheehan-like figures in the past who made movements coalesce? Zinn:
In the antiwar movement of the Vietnam years, there wasn't one person,
but when I think back to the abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass
was a special figure in that way. When he came north, out of slavery,
and spoke for the first time to a group of antislavery people, the
beginnings of a movement existed. [William Lloyd] Garrison had already
started [his antislavery newspaper] the Liberator, but
Frederick Douglass was able to represent slavery itself in a way that
Garrison and the other abolitionists could not. His dramatic appearance,
his eloquence, provided a special spark for the abolitionist movement. TD:
I guess Cindy Sheehan also represents something that can't be
represented by anyone else, almost, in fact, can't be represented -- the
American dead in the war and, of course, her own dead son. Zinn:
It's interesting. There have been mothers other than Cindy Sheehan who
have spoken out, but she decided on an act that had a special resonance,
which was simply to find where Bush was going [he chuckles to himself
at the thought] and have a confrontation between the two poles of this
war, between its maker and the opposition. She just parked herself near
Bush and became the center of national attention, of gravity, around
which people gathered, hundreds and hundreds of people.
The U.S. national debt grows at a rate of 45.486 dollar per second!
20,517,497,500,000
10/05/15 6:28pm CDT
$ 65.903
Debt per citizen
$ 113.353
Debt per taxpayer
Year
x billion U.S dollar
2004
7.379
2005
7.933
2006
8.507
2007
9.008
2008
10.025
2009
11.910
2010
13.562
2011
14.781
2012
16.059
2013
16.732
2014
17.810
For Real Time National Debt Numbers Visit The US Debt Clock
..........
Since our worlds collided on that fated day in 2008 when the
American dream became even more elusive for the majority of us there
has been some time to reflect on our mistakes. Some of us have learned
from what we have lived and experienced. Others, however, are still
stuck in the partisan la la land of Rabid Conservatism or Rabid
Liberalism. Each side pulling for its own without taking pause to
understand the long-range consequences of their actions.
Politicians
will do what politicians do best, protect their pockets and those
who keep them full. What excuse do the common folk (non-corporate or
lobbyist) have? You vote Republican or Democrat because they hold the
best future for our country? Or do you vote because it is all you
know and you cannot fathom the fact that both sides of the aisle
serve the same master? It has gone way beyond the scope of
political party or leanings. It is time to put those patriotic
gestures, slogans and mindsets to actual use by truly putting
your country first. We must put a stop to the criminal
Washington/Corporate agenda that is killing us.
Until we truly
and seriously address the criminals who are selling our Nation
and our children's future to the highest bidder we are doomed.
Are you ready to face the truth or will you just sit back and
blame another while you do nothing to change the problem?
The
only answer to the putrefaction that is taking place all across
this nation is in the hands of the people. Many laughed at the
Occupy movement. Some vilified those who wanted to make a
difference and voice their displeasure with the status quo. How
many of you have done anything to make a change? How many of you
have cared enough to even consider what role you may have to play?
Truly,
I do not see a way out of this unless people stop seeing right or
left and start seeing stars and stripes. This nation depends on it's People,
not its politicians. Why have we become so complacent that we are
no longer willing to fight the good fight for our freedom and
our way of life? When did this nation become the home of the
lazy and the weak? It is time the strong and the brave stood up,
if there are any left.
What will it take to make
you see that politics is a trap? An illusion to make us believe we
have a choice when in reality we have none. They have both
evolved to serve the same masters and fulfill the same agenda. An
agenda that serves neither you nor me. When will you wake up
from your blue and red slumber to see that we have all been
lied to ?
When do we take America back as a People not a political party?
The
time is growing short people! Unless you open your eyes and
understand what is truly at stake. You will never live in America
the Land of the Free and the Brave again. We will simply exist
in a land run by petty politics and corrupt corporations willing to
do whatever it takes to maximize their bottom line. Even if it means
exploiting our children's lives and futures.
Just
in case you still don't have a clue what I am talking about.
Here is a very short list of examples of the Corporate Assault on
Our Lives And Our Health that our politicians have allowed to take
place for a price.
GMO's in our food supply
Digestive disorders, Obesity,Endocrine disorders on the rise
Glyphosate in our foods, our water and our breast milk
Kidney and Liver damage on the rise
Fracking chemicals in the water supply
Cancers on the rise
Fluoride in the water supply
Vaccines causing deadly reactions in children and adults
Autism on the rise
Heavy metals in our food supply
Alzheimer's on the rise
Deadly chemicals being pawned off as sugar substitutes from saccharine to splenda
all have been found to cause cancer in animal studies. The
biggest culprit and most dangerous thus far being Aspartame.
Life saving drugs monopolized by Big Pharma to bloat prices beyond most people's reach. Daraprim being the latest going from $13.50 per pill to $750.00. Basically condemning those who cannot afford them to die.
There are so many more examples you just need to open your eyes and want to see the truth
When
we get our story wrong, we get our future wrong. Much like the
Trans-Pacific Partnership "trade deal", everything we are told about
capitalism and our economy is a pack of lies. Time for a new story,
says preeminent scholar and critic of corporate globalization, David
Korten, the best-selling author of When Corporations Rule the World and
The Great Turning. David has a brand new book, Change the Story, Change
the Future - a Living Economy for a Living Earth. He is the co-founder
and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working
Group, founder and president of the Living Economies Forum (formerly the
People-Centered Development Forum), a member of the Club of Rome, and a
former board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
(BALLE) and associate of the International Forum on Globalization.
This Earth Day address was recorded April 22, 2015 at Seattle University Pigott Auditorium.
Community
Rights educator Paul Cienfuegos explains how "We The People" are
exercising the authority to govern ourselves and dismantle corporate
rule. When small farmers in rural Pennsylvania wanted to say "no" to a
corporate factory farm coming into their community, they learned they
couldn't, because it would violate the corporation's "rights" and state
pre-emption laws. So they did something technically illegal - their town
passed an innovative ordinance banning corporate factory farming. It
worked! The corporation left town. Pittsburgh upshifted the approach:
Rather than define what we don't want, define what we DO want. Their
"Right to Water" stopped natural gas fracking in the city. Ordinances
like this have been passed in over 150 communities in 9 states. Tune in
to learn how this works. Episode 258. [paulcienfuegos.com, celdf.org,
YouTube channel "Community Rights TV" and communityrightspdx.org]
Peak Moment TV exists because of viewers like you. Subscribe to news and donate at http://www.peakmoment.tv, right side. Thanks for being in the Peak Moment community.
Have
we forgotten about the national debt? Congressional Republican leaders
and the Obama administration have begun private talks about a new
two-year spending plan that would keep the government operating beyond
the 2016 election but would do little to address more fundamental
structural problems, including entitlement and health care spending for
an aging population.
Even before Congress completed work on a
short-term spending measure to avert a government shutdown at least
until early December, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY),
outgoing House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Obama held
preliminary talks on a possible multi-year budget agreement to increase
spending for both defense and domestic programs by lifting fiscal 2016
discretionary spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Related: New CBO Director Renews Warning on Long-Term Debt
The
agreement would be similar in scope to a two-year mini-budget agreement
that was struck by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
following a 16-day government shutdown in late 2013 that temporarily put
an end to inter-party budget warfare. That agreement allowed for $45
billion more in spending above the caps in 2014 and $20 billion more in
2015, as well as $20 billion of deficit reduction.
USS
Ronald Reagan and its embarked air wing, Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5,
provide a combat-ready force that protects and defends the collective
maritime interests of the U.S. and its allies and partners in the
Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (Photo: U.S. Navy Specialist 2nd Class Paolo
Bayas)
The
Russians are bombing CIA-backed rebels in Syria and continuing to hold
parts of Ukraine. ISIS continues to spread in the Middle East and
inspire attacks around the world. Iran is receiving hundreds of billions
in sanctions relief, some of which will likely go to destabilizing the
Middle East. China is building illegal islands in the South China Sea.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees are streaming across Europe. The
Taliban is on the rise in Afghanistan. And our national secrets are
being vacuumed up by Chinese hackers.
At the same time, our national defense budget is being slashed.
Since 2011, the defense budget has been cut by 15 percent
in real terms. If you include the war budget, which has been going down
as we reduce troops in Afghanistan, the national defense has been cut
25 percent in four years.
As a result of these budget cuts, the
U.S. military is smaller than it was on 9/11 and in many cases the
smallest it has been in recent history.
The
world is a mess, our military is being slashed, and now President Obama
is going to veto a bipartisan bill that would increase the national
defense budget by 6 percent in real terms.
The House of
Representatives just passed the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA), and it is headed to the Senate. This is a
bipartisan bill that has been signed into law every year for 53 straight
years, but Obama plans to veto it for one simple reason: it doesn’t
increase non-defense spending. The president believes that defense and
non-defense spending should be increased, and, according to the White
House, “he will not fix defense without fixing non-defense spending.”
John Boehner Admits Republicans are Willing to Put U.S. at Risk to Play Partisan Politics
February 16, 2015 By Allen Clifton
Republicans
are anything if not predictable. The moment they gained power back in
the Senate it was obvious that they were going to use that power to play
petty partisan politics. The truth is, controlling Congress means very
little as long as the person in the White House has veto power.
So
no matter what sort of propaganda Republicans spew about the nonsense
they’re going to undoubtedly shove through Congress, it’s still on them
to send the president legislation that they know he will sign, otherwise
they’re essentially just wasting time.
The
president is the one person who’s voted into office on a national scale,
meaning that they’re the one individual who truly “represents the
majority of the people.” So no matter what anyone in Congress says, it’s
beholden upon them to make sure whatever bills they’re sending to the
president’s desk actually have a chance at being signed. It’s extremely
rare for both the House and Senate to have the two-thirds majority
needed to override a presidential veto.
All
that being said, as many already know the Department of Homeland
Security is set to run out of funding fairly soon. Normally this
wouldn’t be a huge deal; all it would take is for Congress to pass a
bill funding the department, which would almost certainly be signed by
President Obama.
Anti-pipeline
activist Allen Schreiber of Lincoln wears a shirt inscribed with
slogans opposing the Keystone XL pipeline during a rally outside the
State Capitol in Lincoln, Neb.
TransCanada, the
Calgary-based company behind the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, has
backed out of a lawsuit filed by more than 100 Nebraska landowners, the
company announced Tuesday.
The energy company had been trying to
gain access to private land along the proposed path of the tar sands
pipeline, but had been held up legally by landowners who were opposed to
letting the pipeline through their land. Now, instead of trying to gain
access to that land through legal means, TransCanada will apply for a
permit for Keystone XL with Nebraska’s Public Service Commission.
TransCanada says
the decision will bring more certainty to Keystone XL’s route through
Nebraska. But it also could cause further delays for the project, as a
PSC approval can take a year or longer.
Previously, TransCanada
sought to avoid the PSC approval process, choosing instead to give the
state’s governor final approval over the project’s application in
Nebraska. The law that gave the company the ability to choose was
heavily challenged in court, but ultimately upheld.
So
many politicians blatantly push for policies that harm all of us, just
because the special interests that fund their campaigns want them to.
Because
of this, Congress tries to hide -- taking vague positions, pushing for
watered down legislation, or remaining silent at critical moments.
This
week, they’re expected to renew debate on CISA, the Cybersecurity
Information Sharing Act, a bill that would give corporations sweeping
legal immunity when they share your data with the government.
Now more than ever, it’s so important that we don’t let our lawmakers hide in the shadows.
P.S.
As much as we’ve talked about how bad CISA is for expanding mass
surveillance, there’s another side to the law that just made it even
worse. Late last week, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
introduced an amendment to expand the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the
law that has been used time and again to persecute digital activists,
including our friend Aaron Swartz. That’s despicable, and needs to be quashed immediately — so take action now to help kill CISA.
At the same time, our national defense budget is being slashed.
Since 2011, the defense budget has been cut by 15 percent in real terms. If you include the war budget, which has been going down as we reduce troops in Afghanistan, the national defense has been cut 25 percent in four years.
As a result of these budget cuts, the U.S. military is smaller than it was on 9/11 and in many cases the smallest it has been in recent history.