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The Occupy Wall Street movement has the potential to turn into a political firestorm. We have become so divided as a nation that it is very difficult to prognosticate if anything good will come out of these protests from a political perspective. Let’s examine a number of issues that have been raised by Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party and liberals and libertarians and see where there is agreement. Get Corporate Money Out Of Politics – This is the issue that really kick started Occupy Wall Street. Americans are sick and tired of mega-corporations and Wall Street banks being in bed with our politicians in Washington D.C. End the Federal Reserve – The Federal Reserve is directly responsible for the Too Big To Fail banking cartel, the U.S. debt, the perpetual deficits, and ... the Fed has also robbed the poor and working class blind as a result of their inflationary policies. End The Wars – The American people are fed up with these conflicts, and even large percentages of the military believe that the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting in the first place. It is time for our troops to come home. End The Drug War - The drug war is an absolute failed policy. The U.S. incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any country on Earth, yet we call ourselves “The Home of the Free.” Repeal The Patriot Act – The assault on our civil liberties in the wake of 9/11 has been swift and draconian. These are the types of things that go on in totalitarian states, and now, apparently the United States as well.
Note: For lots more from major media sources on the reasons why people worldwide are occupying the financial centers of their cities, check out our "Banking Bailout" news articles.
More black men are behind bars or under the watch of the criminal justice system than there were enslaved in 1850, according to the author of a book about racial discrimination and criminal justice. Ohio State University law professor and civil rights activist Michelle Alexander..., the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, [says] there are more African American men in prison and jail, or on probation and parole, than were slaves before the start of the Civil War. More than 846,000 black men were incarcerated in 2008, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice estimates. African Americans make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population according to census data, but black men reportedly make up 40.2 percent of all prison inmates. The criminal justice system is the newest in a long line of societal structures that have disenfranchised people of color, Alexander argues in her book. Alexander writes that despite today's belief in "colorblindness," our criminal justice system effectively bars African American men from citizenship, treating them as a separate caste: "Denying African Americans citizenship was deemed essential to the formation of the original union. Hundreds of years later, America is still not an egalitarian democracy. The arguments and rationalizations that have been trotted out in support of racial exclusion and discrimination in its various forms have changed and evolved, but the outcome has remained largely the same."
Note: For more on the deep injustices of the prison-industrial complex, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Britain's tax authorities have given Goldman Sachs an unusual and generous Christmas present, leaked documents reveal. In a secret London meeting last December with the head of Revenue, the wealthy Wall Street banking firm was forgiven Ł10m interest on a failed tax avoidance scheme. HM Revenue and Customs sources admit privately that the interest-free deal is "a cock-up" by officials, but refuse to say who was responsible. Documents leaked to Private Eye magazine and published in full by the Guardian record that Britain's top tax official, HMRC's permanent secretary Dave Hartnett, personally shook hands on a secret settlement last December. Hartnett also refused to give the facts about Goldman Sachs to MP Jesse Norman on the Treasury committee last month, claiming disclosure would be illegal. He also refuses to brief ministers on the details. The Ł10m Christmas gift for Goldman was the culmination of a prolonged attempt by the US firm to avoid paying national insurance on huge bonuses for its bankers working in London. The sum was pocket change to Goldman, whose employees received $15.3bn (Ł9.5bn) in pay and bonuses last year.
Note: For lots more from reliable sources on corporate and government corruption, click here and here.
An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been arrested and charged with two counts of child molestation and one count of bestiality, police said. Police arrested Dr. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey, 44, in DeKalb County, Georgia, on Sunday. Authorities also charged Lindsey's live-in boyfriend, Thomas Joseph Westerman, 42, with two counts of child molestation. The two are accused of "immoral and indecent" sexual acts involving a 6-year-old. The bestiality charge says Lindsey "did unlawfully perform or submit to any sexual act with an animal." The alleged incidents took place between January 1, 2010, and August 22, 2011. Lindsey is the deputy director for the Laboratory Science Policy and Practice Program Office at the CDC, according to her biography on the agency's website. Prior to her current role, Lindsey was the senior health scientist in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. That office oversees the allocation process for $1.5 billion in terrorism preparedness. In her 12 years at the CDC, Lindsey has received 12 awards for outstanding performance on projects and programs, according to her bio on Emory University's Biological and Biomedical Sciences website.
Note: Don't miss Dr. Mercola's highly revealing analysis showing that Dr. Lindsey played a primary role in the bogus swine flu propaganda campaign. Read the article at this link. For how the CDC came to be infiltrated with such people, read the powerful information available here.
Chocolate seems to be good for the cardiovascular system - no secret there. Studies have tied the sweet stuff to lower blood pressure, healthier blood vessels, and reduced risk of blood clots. And now Swedish researchers have linked chocolate to a reduced risk for stroke. The scientists found that the women who ate the most chocolate - 66.5 grams a week, or about 2.4 ounces - were 20 percent less likely to have a stroke than the women who never or seldom ate chocolate. The study was published in the October 2011 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. But before you unleash your inner chocoholic, be aware that not all forms of chocolate are thought to be beneficial. Dark chocolate is best because it contains more of the antioxidant-rich cocoa and less sugar and fewer calories than milk chocolate.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.
The villages and farming communities that surround Uganda's capital, Kampala, are gripped by fear. Schoolchildren are closely watched by teachers and parents as they make their way home from school. In playgrounds and on the roadside are posters warning of the danger of abduction by witch doctors for the purpose of child sacrifice. The ritual, which some believe brings wealth and good health, was almost unheard of in the country until about three years ago, but it has re-emerged, seemingly alongside a boom in the country's economy. The mutilated bodies of children have been discovered at roadsides, the victims of an apparently growing belief in the power of human sacrifice. Many believe that members of the country's new elite are paying witch doctors vast sums of money for the sacrifices in a bid to increase their wealth. At the Kyampisi Childcare Ministries church, Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga is teaching local children a song called Heal Our Land, End Child Sacrifice. "Child sacrifice has risen because people have become lovers of money. They want to get richer," the pastor says. "They have a belief that when you sacrifice a child you get wealth, and there are people who are willing to buy these children for a price. So they have become a commodity of exchange, child sacrifice has become a commercial business."
Somewhere, a US government official is reading through a list of those who sent or received an email from Jacob Appelbaum, a 28-year-old computer science researcher at the University of Washington who volunteered for WikiLeaks. Among those listed will be my name, a journalist who interviewed Appelbaum for a book about the digital revolution. Appelbaum is a spokesman for Tor, a free internet anonymising software that helps people defend themselves against internet surveillance. He's spent five years teaching activists around the world how to install and use the service to avoid being monitored by repressive governments. Now, Appelbaum finds himself a target of his own government as a result of his friendship with Julian Assange and the fact WikiLeaks used the Tor software. Appelbaum has not been charged with any wrongdoing; nor has the government shown probable cause that he is guilty of any criminal offence. That matters not a jot, because, as the law stands, government officials don't need a search warrant to access our digital data. Searching someone's home requires a warrant that can only be obtained by proving probable cause, but digital searches require no such burden of proof. Most people are not aware of the ease with which governments – free, open and so-called democratic – can access and peruse our private communications.
Note: For key reports on government threats to privacy from major media sources, click here.
Amber Miller accomplished two monumental feats this weekend. Days from her due date, the 27-year-old joined 45,000 other runners to participate in Sunday's Bank of America Chicago Marathon and then gave birth to a baby girl named June hours later. Miller, an avid runner, said she signed up for the 26.2-mile race before finding out she was pregnant. She said she never expected to finish the race. "I was having a conversation with my parents and said, 'You know what? I have no plans of actually finishing,'" she told reporters at Central DuPage Hospital this morning. "I was planning on running half, skipping to the end, then walking across the finish line." But Miller and her husband started running, and just kept going. They ran part of the race and walked the second half as her contractions started. It took the couple 6.5 hours to finish. She said she grabbed something to eat and the two headed to the hospital. "It was very interesting hearing people's reaction," Miller said about crowds watching an extremely pregnant woman among the runners. "I've been running up to this point anyway, so I'm used to it." At 7 pounds, 13 ounces, baby June entered the world at 10:29 p.m. Sunday, just hours after her parents crossed the finish line.
More than 60 years ago, in his "Foundation" series, the science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov invented a new science – psychohistory – that combined mathematics and psychology to predict the future. Now social scientists are trying to mine the vast resources of the Internet – Web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones – to do the same thing. The government is showing interest in the idea. This summer a little-known intelligence agency began seeking ideas from academic social scientists and corporations for ways to automatically scan the Internet in 21 Latin American countries for "big data," according to a research proposal. The three-year experiment ... is being financed by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or Iarpa. The automated data collection system is to focus on patterns of communication, consumption and movement of populations. It will use publicly accessible data, including Web search queries, blog entries, Internet traffic flow, financial market indicators, traffic webcams and changes in Wikipedia entries. It is intended to be an entirely automated system, a "data eye in the sky" without human intervention. Some social scientists and advocates of privacy rights are deeply skeptical of the project, saying it evokes queasy memories of Total Information Awareness, a post-9/11 Pentagon program that proposed hunting for potential attackers by identifying patterns in vast collections of public and private data.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
The average person’s body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only maybe one in 10 is human. Human cells ... are far outnumbered by those from microbes — primarily bacteria but also viruses, fungi and a panoply of other microorganisms. That thought might make a lot of people lunge for the hand sanitizer, but that impulse may be exactly the wrong one. Researchers are amassing a growing body of evidence indicating that microbial ecosystems play crucial roles in keeping us healthy. Moreover, scientists are becoming more convinced that modern trends — diet, antibiotics, obsession with cleanliness, Caesarean deliveries — are disrupting this delicate balance, contributing to some of the most perplexing ailments, including asthma, allergies, obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, cancer and perhaps even autism. These microbial stowaways may wield far greater powers than previously appreciated. Acquired beginning at birth, this mass of fellow travelers may help steer normal development. Investigators are trying to identify which organisms may truly be beneficial “probiotics” that people could take to help their health. One intriguing finding is that babies born through Caesarean section apparently miss out on acquiring their mothers’ microbiota. The rising number of C-section babies ... might help explain trends such as rising incidents of asthma and food allergies caused by misfiring immune systems. Obese people appear to have a distinctive mix of digestive bacteria that make them prone to weight gain. Thin mice get fatter when their microbiota is replaced with the microbes of obese animals.
Note: For more on probiotics from Dr. Mercola, click here. For an informative Newsweek article further exploring this topic, click here.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the group that told women in their 40s that they don't need mammograms, will recommend that men not get screened for prostate cancer, according to a source privy to the task force deliberations. A review of studies shows screening with the PSA blood test results in "small or no reduction" in prostate cancer deaths. The report adds that PSA testing is "associated with harms related to subsequent evaluation and treatments." The problem is that many of the cancers that get detected are so small and slow-growing, they'll never be harmful, and doctors have a difficult time discerning the quick, harmful cancers from the slow, harmless ones. If you test 100 men over age 50, 17 of them will have prostate cancer, and only three of those will have a fast-growing cancer and die of the disease, according to Dr. Kenneth Lin, senior author of the paper. If the 14 men with the slow-growing cancers are treated, they could be rendered impotent or incontinent from the treatment; or worse, the treatment could kill them. Some prostate cancer patients were disappointed with the task force's decision. A spokesman for the Prostate Cancer Foundation called the proposed recommendation "a tremendous mistake." "You're talking to someone whose life was saved by [the PSA test]," Dan Zenka said. But Lin says he believes testing does more harm than good. "Maybe you should get tested if you have this horrible family history where everyone gets prostate cancer before the age of 50. But for most men, testing is harmful," he said.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.
When the Occupy Wall Street protests began three weeks ago, most news organizations were derisive if they deigned to mention the events at all. For example, nine days into the protests, National Public Radio had provided no coverage whatsoever. It is, therefore, a testament to the passion of those involved that the protests not only continued but grew, eventually becoming too big to ignore. Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point. The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right. Bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. The bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. Bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis. Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?
Note: For insights into the reasons why people have decided they must occupy their cities in protest of the predations of financial corporations, check out our extensive "Banking Bailout" news articles.
The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night. Sir Mervyn King was speaking after the decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to put Ł75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession. Economists said the Bank’s decision to resume its quantitative easing [QE] showed it was increasingly fearful for the economy, and predicted more such moves ahead. Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been driven by growing signs of a global economic disaster. “This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We’re having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing.” Announcing its decision, the Bank said that the eurozone debt crisis was creating “severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets”. Financial experts said the committee’s actions would be a “Titanic” disaster for pensioners, savers and workers approaching retirement. Under QE, the Bank electronically creates new money which it then uses to buy assets such as government bonds, or gilts, from banks. By increasing the demand for gilts, QE pushes down the interest rate yields paid to holders of these and other bonds. Critics of the policy say it pushes up inflation and drives down sterling.
Note: For lots more on the global financial crisis from reliable sources, click here.
American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials. There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate. The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki ... to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month. The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama's toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki's killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right. Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush's expansive use of executive power in his "war on terrorism," is being attacked in some quarters for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments. Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder. Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki.
Note: State assassination of a citizen without due process would seem to be the ultimate attack on civil liberties. For lots more on such threats from reliable sources, click here.
Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, ... demanded an independent investigation of whether Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress on what he knew about the botched gun-tracking operation known as "Fast and Furious" - and when he found out about it. The Associated Press reported that the George W. Bush administration conducted a program similar to Fast and Furious, in which Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents were instructed to let Mexican drug cartel straw purchasers buy guns in the Phoenix area to follow the trail to higher-ups. Known as Operation Wide Receiver, the Bush-era operation also let guns be transferred to suspected arms traffickers. Justice Department prosecutors have brought charges against nine people involved in the operation, according to AP; two have pleaded guilty. Fast and Furious was meant to take down Mexican cartels importing U.S.-bought weapons and shipping drugs to the United States. Phoenix-based ATF agents allowed the gun purchases so they could take down cartel bosses rather than only arresting lower-level purchasers. But the agents lost track of more than 1,000 firearms during the operation last year. Several were later found at the scenes of Mexican drug crimes, according to a report by the House oversight committee.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on government corruption, click here.
Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, ... and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system -- and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem. I witnessed [many cogent conversations] as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street's many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, ... the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud. Anyone who says he has no idea what these folks are protesting is not being truthful. We all know that there are investment bankers working on Wall Street getting richer while things for most of the rest of us are getting tougher. Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.
Note: For insights into the reasons why people have decided they must occupy their cities in protest of the predations of financial corporations, check out our extensive "Banking Bailout" news articles.
After 10 years of war, the vast majority of post-Sept. 11 veterans say the public does not understand the problems faced by those in the military and by their families. The public largely agrees but believes there’s nothing unfair about the outsized burden being shouldered by veterans. The findings are part of a broad new study by the Pew Research Center that documents a growing gap between civilians and a military force that has been put under intense strain over the past decade. Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population has been on active military duty at any given time during the past decade. For many Americans, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been seen only in glimpses, in a newspaper or on television. For many veterans, however, the wars have meant incredible strains that have lasted long beyond their deployments. Roughly 44 percent of post-9/11 veterans say their readjustment to civilian life was difficult, according to the Pew study. By contrast, 25 percent of veterans who served in earlier eras said the same. Nearly four in 10 said that they believe they have suffered from post-traumatic stress, regardless of whether they have been formally diagnosed.
Note: The full study, "War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11 Era," can be found here.
Republican presidential contender Ron Paul on [October 5] suggested that the United States could assassinate journalists the same way it targeted Americans with ties to al-Qaida. The Texas congressman again criticized President Barack Obama for approving last week's drone strikes in Yemen against a U.S. citizen who was tracked and executed based on secret intelligence. [Another American citizen] also died in the bombing. Escalating his criticism, Paul told a National Press Club luncheon that if citizens do not protest the deaths, the country will start adding reporters to its list of threats that must be taken out. "Can you imagine being put on a list because you're a threat? What's going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? ... This is the way this works. It's incrementalism," Paul said. Paul, making his second run for the Republican presidential nomination, has built a die-hard following among the GOP's libertarian wing and has worked to court anti-war conservatives.
Note: For key reports on government corruption from major media sources, click here.
U.S. officials last week acknowledged that unmanned predator aircraft killed two U.S. citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, in Yemen. Yet, U.S. media outlets have chosen to refer to them as "American born" or "U.S.-born," as in "the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by U.S. armed drones." No concrete proof of their guilt has been furnished beyond what the government and multiple media outlets have reported. In the case of the al-Awlaki killing, U.S. officials said, "Al-Awlaki played a 'significant operational role' in plotting and inspiring attacks on the United States," as they justified the killing of an American citizen. In the post-9/11 world, such reporting garners little attention from the public. But those who believe in the rule of law find such mundane pronouncements frightening. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right to a public trial by an impartial jury, regardless of his or her ethnic background or previous alleged activities. Government-sanctioned assassinations of U.S. citizens without due process should be discussed rather than blindly accepted as a victory in the war on terror. The obvious follow-up question is: What about other U.S. citizens? Might they also be targeted for assassination without due process? The targeted killings of al-Awlaki and Khan should shock Americans reared on the rule of law, justice, liberty and freedom.
Note: State assassination of a citizen without due process would seem to be the ultimate attack on civil liberties. For lots more on such threats from reliable sources, click here.
It began as the brainchild of activists across the border in Canada when an anti-consumerism magazine put out a call in July for supporters to occupy Wall Street. Now, three weeks after a few hundred people heeded that initial call and rolled out their sleeping bags in a park in New York's financial district, they are being joined by supporters in cities across the US and beyond. Protesters against corporate greed, unemployment and the political corruption that they say Wall Street represents have taken to the streets in Boston, Los Angeles, St Louis and Kansas City. The core group, Occupy Wall Street, claims people will take part in demonstrations in as many as 147 US cities this month, while the website occupytogether.org lists 47 US states as being involved. Around the world, protests in Canada, the UK, Germany and Sweden are also planned, they say. The speed of the leaderless movement's growth has taken many by surprise. The movement, which organisers say has its roots in the Arab spring and in Madrid's Puerta del Sol protests, has been galvanised by recent media attention. Last week, the Guardian reported that a NYPD police officer had been filmed spraying four women protesters with pepper spray. On Saturday, a peaceful march on Brooklyn bridge intended as a call to the other four boroughs of New York to join in resulted in 700 arrests. Some protesters claim the police trapped them.
Note: For insights into the reasons why people have decided they must occupy their cities in protest of the predations of financial corporations, check out our extensive "Banking Bailout" news articles.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.