kpete
kpete's Journal"ILLEGAL SPYING BELOW": Protestors Launch a 135-Foot Blimp Over the NSA’s Utah Data Center
Plenty of nightmare surveillance theories surround the million-square-foot NSA facility opened last year in Bluffdale, Utah. Any locals driving by the gargantuan complex Friday morning saw something that may inspire new ones: A massive blimp hovering over the center, with the letters NSA printed on its side.
Activist groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Greenpeace launched the 135-foot thermal airship early Friday morning to protest the agency’s mass surveillance programs and to announce the launch of Stand Against Spying, a website that rates members of Congress on their support or opposition to NSA reform. The full message on the blimp reads “NSA: Illegal Spying Below” along with an arrow pointing downward and the Stand Against Spying URL.
“We thought it would be fun to fly an airship around the Utah data center, which in many ways epitomizes the NSA’s collect-it-all strategy,” says Rainey Reitman, an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We wanted to have a way to symbolize that our movement is getting quite confrontational with NSA surveillance in a visceral way.”
The protestors launched the blimp, which is owned by Greenpeace and named the AE Bates after a longtime Greenpeace volunteer, at 6 a.m. to capitalize on calm weather. They flew it 1,000 feet over the Bluffdale facility.
MORE:
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/protestors-launch-a-135-foot-blimp-over-the-nsas-utah-data-center/?mbid=social_gplus
Trickle-down economics is a proven failure
Trickle-down economics is a proven failureby David Atkins
It might have been excusable back in 1980 to believe that supply-side economics might work. There's no excuse for it today. It's a proven failure.
The money doesn't trickle down. Of all the failures of supply-side economics, this is the most damning. Conservatives often excuse poor wage growth and high unemployment as part of the global competitive marketplace, saying that everyone needs to tighten their belts. But not everyone is struggling--in fact, the rich are better off than ever. They control half of all the wealth, and the top 10% control almost 9/10ths of it. Corporate profits are at or near record highs, disproving the myth that the middle class must suffer due to competitive pressures. The Dow Jones index is threatening to burst past 17,000. Meanwhile, wages have stagnated since the Reagan era, even though productivity continues to increase. Corporate executives, in other words, are forcing workers to toil longer, harder and smarter than ever, but all the proceeds are going into the hands of the very rich while the people actually creating the wealth are struggling harder than ever to get by.
...
2. The rich aren't investing almost half of their resources.
This one is almost comical. In concept, supply-side economics is supposed to work by the corporate rich taking money gleaned by tax breaks and subsidies, and plowing it back into investments that theoretically employ people. Now, we already know that the economic life doesn't actually work that way: when wealthy individuals and companies invest, they tend to do it in financialized vehicles, mergers, acquisitions and interest-bearing accounts while employing the fewest people possible at awful wages.
But even if it did work as supply-siders theorize, the brutal reality is that the rich aren't investing almost half of their money (corporations aren't doing much better, as their record profits sit largely idle avoiding taxation). 40% of the assets of the wealthy are sitting in deposits: the rich person's equivalent of stuffing money into a mattress. Money sitting in deposits in Swiss and Cayman Islands accounts is essentially wasted wealth. It does as little good for the world economy as gold hoarded by a dragon in Middle Earth. It essentially sits there uselessly as an economic security blanket for the very people who need it least. By contrast, putting more money into the hands of the poor and middle class pays off immediately for the economy, as most people living paycheck to paycheck spend the money immediately or at least create a small backstop against bankruptcy and delinquency--thus creating immediate economic and social benefits. So not only does giving the rich more money not pay off when they do invest, it doesn't even have the opportunity to pay off at all since almost half of the money isn't even being invested.
THE REST:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-reasons-rich-are-ruining-economy-hoarding-their-money?page=0%2C1
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/trickle-down-economics-is-proven.html
This Is What A Climate Hawk Looks Like
June 28, 2014 3:26 PM
This Is What A Climate Hawk Looks Like
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) at the 2014 Citizens Climate Lobby conference, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C., June 24, 2014. For those who aren’t ready for Hillary, perhaps there should be an effort to draft Whitehouse for the White House?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_06/this_is_what_a_climate_hawk_lo050982.php
A Liberal’s Call to Real Liberty - How FDR redefined freedom and changed America.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the concept of the Four Freedoms several weeks after he won an unprecedented third term as president. In a speech on January 6, 1941, he declared,
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression… . The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way… . The third is freedom from want… . The fourth is freedom from fear… . That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
By balancing the civil liberties contained in the nation’s founding documents with a new vision of economic security, Roosevelt invited another reconstruction of our democracy—one no less radical than the upheaval that took place after the Civil War. He declared that the “right to life” described in the Declaration of Independence means that everyone “has also a right to make a comfortable living… . Our Government … owes to everyone an avenue to possess himself of a portion of [America’s] plenty sufficient for his needs, through his own work.” Roosevelt challenged the notion that economic laws were products of nature, and instead argued that the rights of each individual trump the rights of business. While signing a minimum-wage bill Roosevelt, in a statement that bears repeating today, stated that “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages has any right to continue in this country.”
If these ideas sound radical, it is because they were. They were also wildly popular: a May 1942 survey found that the Four Freedoms had “a powerful and genuine appeal to seven persons in ten.” Throughout his book, Kaye does a masterful job of showing how the American ideal, captured succinctly in the Four Freedoms, was one of the animating forces of the generation.
the rest:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaugust_2014/on_political_books/a_liberals_call_to_real_libert050666.php
I SHIT YOU NOT: GOP Candidate Charges Opponent Is Dead, Represented By A Body Double
UPDATE: OK GOP Primary candidate refuses to concede to Congressman Frank Lucas (R) because he believes that Congressman Lucas has been dead for two years and that apparently the DoD replaced him with a clone or surgically altered double. I SHIT YOU NOT:
WASHINGTON -- Political opponents accuse each other of lying all the time, but one Oklahoma congressional candidate took his accusation to a new level this week when he claimed his opponent was actually dead and being represented by a body double.
KFOR in Oklahoma reports that Timothy Ray Murray believes Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), his opponent in the congressional Republican primary, was executed three years ago and is being represented by a look-alike. Because he believes Lucas is really dead, Murray said he will challenge the results of Tuesday's Republican primary, in which Murray received 5.2 percent of the vote. Lucas won the primary with 82.8 percent of the vote.
"It is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about Jan. 11, 2011," Murray said in a statement posted on his campaign website. The statement claimed Lucas and “a few other” members of Congress from Oklahoma and other states were shown on television being hanged by “The World Court.”
"I am contesting that this matter has happen [sic] since his election was blocked, because of the U.S. Defense Department’s use of Mr. Murray's DNA. To my knowledge, the U.S. Defense Department has not released to the public that information, as it is their confidential information about many people," Murray's statement said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/frank-lucas_n_5537217.html?1403886995=
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/06/27/friday-open-thread-13/
They believe these people aren't entitled to even basic human decency. It's sick.
Classy as always
by digby
This is lovely:
"Obama and Boehner have proven once and for all that their talk of passing immigration reform amnesty, instead of enforcing America's existing border and immigration laws, only brings more unwanted and destructive illegal immigration!" Gheen said. "Instead of using our tax money to buy illegals 42,000 pairs of new underwear, we would like to send the illegals and DC politicians a message by mailing them our used underwear, and some of our pairs are in really bad shape due to the bad economy and all of the jobs illegal immigrants are taking from Americans."
This is in response to a line item budget request from the DHS for underwear (among many other things) to properly supply the facilities that are holding undocumented workers.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/classy-as-always.html
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/alipac-dirty-underwear-undocumented-immigrants
The Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form
MODERATE SYRIAN REBEL APPLICATION FORMPOSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—After announcing, on Thursday, that it would seek $500 million to help “train and equip appropriately vetted elements of the moderate Syrian armed opposition,” the White House today posted the following Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form:
Welcome to the United States’ Moderate Syrian Rebel Vetting Process. To see if you qualify for $500 million in American weapons, please choose an answer to the following questions:
A) Moderate
B) Very moderate
C) Crazy moderate
D) Other
I became a Syrian rebel because I believe in:
A) Truth
B) Justice
C) The American Way
D) Creating an Islamic caliphate
If I were given a highly lethal automatic weapon by the United States, I would:
A) Only kill exactly the people that the United States wanted me to kill
B) Try to kill the right people, with the caveat that I have never used an automatic weapon before
C) Kill people only after submitting them to a rigorous vetting process
D) Immediately let the weapon fall into the wrong hands
I have previously received weapons from:
A) Al Qaeda
B) The Taliban
C) North Korea
D) I did not receive weapons from any of them because after they vetted me I was deemed way too moderate
I consider ISIS:
A) An existential threat to Iraq
B) An existential threat to Syria
C) An existential threat to Iraq and Syria
D) The people who will pick up my American weapon after I drop it and run away
Complete the following sentence. “American weapons are…”
A) Always a good thing to randomly add to any international hot spot
B) Exactly what this raging civil war has been missing for the past three years
C) Best when used moderately
D) Super easy to resell online
Thank you for completing the Moderate Syrian Rebel Application Form. We will process your application in the next one to two business days. Please indicate a current mailing address where you would like your weapons to be sent. If there is no one to sign for them we will leave them outside the front door.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/06/moderate-syrian-rebel-application-form.html
byLaurence Lewis
Money swirling into a black hole$500,000,000.00 to arm and train Syrian opposition forces? Just no:
“While we continue to believe that there is no military solution to this crisis and that the United States should not put American troops into combat in Syria, this request marks another step toward helping the Syrian people defend themselves against [Assad] regime attacks, push back against the growing number of extremists .?.?. who find safe-haven in the chaos, and take their future into their own hands by enhancing security and stability at local levels,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-backs-us-military-training-for-syrian-rebels/2014/06/26/ead59104-fd62-11e3-932c-0a55b81f48ce_story.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/27/1310004/-No
Sources: Miss. tea party leader Mayfield commits suicide
Source: The Clarion Ledger
Sources: Miss. tea party leader Mayfield commits suicide
9:52 a.m. CDT June 27, 2014
Sources have confirmed that attorney Mark Mayfield has committed suicide.
Mayfield, vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, and is one of the three men charged with conspiring with Clayton Kelly to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.
Mark Mayfield of Ridgeland, an attorney and state and local tea party leader, was arrested last month along with Richard Sager, a Laurel elementary school P.E. teacher and high school soccer coach. Police said they also charged John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg, but he was not taken into custody because of "extensive medical conditions." All face felony conspiracy charges. Sager also was charged with felony tampering with evidence, and Mary faces two conspiracy counts.
The arrest of Mayfield, well-known in political, business and legal circles, caused shock in Mississippi, in a criminal case and election that already had Mississippi in the national spotlight.
Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2014/06/27/mark-mayfield-dead/11456769/
Win for 'Rightful Stewards of the Land': Canadian Court Sides With First Nations
Win for 'Rightful Stewards of the Land': Canadian Court Sides With First NationsRuling marks first time Canadian Supreme Court grants aboriginal land title
In a landmark ruling on Thursday with potential implications for the planned Northern Gateway pipeline, Canada's Supreme Court unanimously granted an aboriginal land title to the Tsilhqot'in First Nation, giving them claim to more than 1,700 square kilometers in British Columbia.
"British Columbia breached its duty to consult owed to the Tsilhqot'in through its land use planning and forestry authorizations," the 81-page decision (pdf) states.
"I didn't think it would be so definitive," said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. "I was actually prepared for something much less."
The decision rejected the narrow view of what qualified for protection under aboriginal rights from a 2012 ruling by the B.C. Court of Appeal. While the lower court had said aboriginal groups must be able to prove intensive historical use of a specific site, Thursday's decision accepts a broader set of criteria particularly important for the Tsilhqot'in, a historically "semi-nomadic" people. Indigenous groups must now prove a looser definition of occupation, continuity of habitation on the land, and exclusivity in an area in order to be granted a title.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/26-5
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