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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
November 15, 2013
(In These Times) Rachel Slocum was, until recently, not the kind of high-profile academic who typically turns up in news articles. As an assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, her solid career path of teaching and research on urban food systems had a progressive bent that did not stand out too much in the relatively liberal climate of the University of Wisconsin system. And then she sent out an email to a class of online students complaining about how the government shutdown was holding up an assignment requiring access to the then-shuttered Census Bureau website. Folded into the brief memo was a flip negative comment about the Republican Party and the Tea Party.
Within days, the email was seen round the world, ricocheting through the conservative social media sphere as a case study of what commentators perceived as academia’s pervasive liberal bias. National political fallout rained down on the La Crosse campus. Students barraged Chancellor Joe Gow with angry complaints about Slocum's alleged political polemicism, and Gow responded with an announcement to students that sternly disavowed Slocum's “highly partisan” message.
The media frenzy has since died down, but the brouhaha is hardly an isolated one. When a surreptitiously recorded video of snarky anti-GOP comments by Michigan State creative writing professor William Penn was aired on YouTube, administrators suspended him from teaching duties on the grounds that his screed had “negatively affected the learning environment." And earlier this year in New York, a public talk at the City University of New York about the pro-Palestinian boycott against Israel sparked a massive outcry from pro-Israeli activists both on campus and off, which led to faculty being vilified and denounced by local officials, and even threats from one City Councilman to cut the university's funding. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15878/instructors_forced_censor_themselves_rachel_slocum/
Instructors Often Pressured to Censor Themselves, Says Professor Scolded for ‘Tea Party’ Email
(In These Times) Rachel Slocum was, until recently, not the kind of high-profile academic who typically turns up in news articles. As an assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, her solid career path of teaching and research on urban food systems had a progressive bent that did not stand out too much in the relatively liberal climate of the University of Wisconsin system. And then she sent out an email to a class of online students complaining about how the government shutdown was holding up an assignment requiring access to the then-shuttered Census Bureau website. Folded into the brief memo was a flip negative comment about the Republican Party and the Tea Party.
Within days, the email was seen round the world, ricocheting through the conservative social media sphere as a case study of what commentators perceived as academia’s pervasive liberal bias. National political fallout rained down on the La Crosse campus. Students barraged Chancellor Joe Gow with angry complaints about Slocum's alleged political polemicism, and Gow responded with an announcement to students that sternly disavowed Slocum's “highly partisan” message.
The media frenzy has since died down, but the brouhaha is hardly an isolated one. When a surreptitiously recorded video of snarky anti-GOP comments by Michigan State creative writing professor William Penn was aired on YouTube, administrators suspended him from teaching duties on the grounds that his screed had “negatively affected the learning environment." And earlier this year in New York, a public talk at the City University of New York about the pro-Palestinian boycott against Israel sparked a massive outcry from pro-Israeli activists both on campus and off, which led to faculty being vilified and denounced by local officials, and even threats from one City Councilman to cut the university's funding. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15878/instructors_forced_censor_themselves_rachel_slocum/
November 15, 2013
Seattle City Council candidate Kshama Sawant, a “Socialist Alternative” insurgent, has unseated four-term incumbent Richard Conlin, with the latest batch of mail-in ballots nearly tripling Sawant’s lead to 1,148 votes.
A year ago, Sawant was running against the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, House Speaker Frank Chopp, charging that the “Democratic Party-majority government” had slashed billions from education programs while bestowing tax exemptions on “rich corporations.”
On Thursday evening, however, the victorious “working class activist” Sawant was headed for a 36th District Democratic fundraiser sponsored by State Sen. Jeanne Kohn-Welles. Sawant’s tireless journalist booster, Stranger news editor Dominic Holden, is appearing on a post-election panel at the event.
The Sawant victory comes exactly 97 years after Seattle voters put their first outspoken radical into office, Seattle School Board member Anna Louise Strong. Strong would write about the Wobblies, oppose U.S. entry into World War I and eventually end her days in China, where she was on friendly terms with Mao Zedong. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/11/14/sawant-wins-city-council-seat/
NOT SO FAST! ...... About that Socialist who was thought to have narrowly lost in Seattle......
Seattle City Council candidate Kshama Sawant, a “Socialist Alternative” insurgent, has unseated four-term incumbent Richard Conlin, with the latest batch of mail-in ballots nearly tripling Sawant’s lead to 1,148 votes.
A year ago, Sawant was running against the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, House Speaker Frank Chopp, charging that the “Democratic Party-majority government” had slashed billions from education programs while bestowing tax exemptions on “rich corporations.”
On Thursday evening, however, the victorious “working class activist” Sawant was headed for a 36th District Democratic fundraiser sponsored by State Sen. Jeanne Kohn-Welles. Sawant’s tireless journalist booster, Stranger news editor Dominic Holden, is appearing on a post-election panel at the event.
The Sawant victory comes exactly 97 years after Seattle voters put their first outspoken radical into office, Seattle School Board member Anna Louise Strong. Strong would write about the Wobblies, oppose U.S. entry into World War I and eventually end her days in China, where she was on friendly terms with Mao Zedong. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/11/14/sawant-wins-city-council-seat/
November 15, 2013
Florida Man Allegedly Called 911 Because Neighbors Wouldn't Drink With Him
James Collins just wanted to have a drink with his neighbors, but when they declined to imbibe with him, he took matters into his own hands.
Collins, 56, called 911 on Nov. 3 and reported his neighbors' rude behavior to the cops, according to Dumb As A Blog.
Officers from the Fort Pierce, Fla., police department thought they were responding to a domestic disturbance call.
Instead, Collins -- who was celebrating his birthday -- just told them his neighbors were being mean and would not drink with him, according to a report obtained by TCPalm.com. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/james-collins_n_4277008.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news
I guess he's a social drinker ................
Florida Man Allegedly Called 911 Because Neighbors Wouldn't Drink With Him
James Collins just wanted to have a drink with his neighbors, but when they declined to imbibe with him, he took matters into his own hands.
Collins, 56, called 911 on Nov. 3 and reported his neighbors' rude behavior to the cops, according to Dumb As A Blog.
Officers from the Fort Pierce, Fla., police department thought they were responding to a domestic disturbance call.
Instead, Collins -- who was celebrating his birthday -- just told them his neighbors were being mean and would not drink with him, according to a report obtained by TCPalm.com. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/james-collins_n_4277008.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news
November 15, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO -- Any city dweller knows to expect a rat sighting here or there. And in the seven years that Rolando Hernandez has worked at Eur-Asia Motors, a collision repair shop in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, he's seen his share.
But since construction on the Central Subway tunnel began in June 2012, things have changed. Hernandez, 55, said he's never seen anything quite like this.
Rats have been swarming the empty lot near the freeway off-ramp at Fourth and Bryant streets where he parks his car. They're bold enough to come out in daylight, skittering from the bushes and overgrown ivy that surround a chain-link fence.
"They climb up and down the fence like Spider-Man," Hernandez said. "In the mornings, I come in and the ground is littered with feces. It looks like a carpet, there's just so much of it." ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Rats-scatter-from-Central-Subway-construction-4981540.php
San Francisco: Rats scatter from Central Subway construction
SAN FRANCISCO -- Any city dweller knows to expect a rat sighting here or there. And in the seven years that Rolando Hernandez has worked at Eur-Asia Motors, a collision repair shop in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, he's seen his share.
But since construction on the Central Subway tunnel began in June 2012, things have changed. Hernandez, 55, said he's never seen anything quite like this.
Rats have been swarming the empty lot near the freeway off-ramp at Fourth and Bryant streets where he parks his car. They're bold enough to come out in daylight, skittering from the bushes and overgrown ivy that surround a chain-link fence.
"They climb up and down the fence like Spider-Man," Hernandez said. "In the mornings, I come in and the ground is littered with feces. It looks like a carpet, there's just so much of it." ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Rats-scatter-from-Central-Subway-construction-4981540.php
November 15, 2013
13 Cities Mobilized to Shine a Light on Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership “Trade” Deal Telling Congress “Don’t Fast Track a Train Wreck – FLUSH the TPP!”
On Tuesday evening citizens in Seattle and 12 other cities appeared on overpasses and roadsides to pull the Trans-Pacific Partnership, aka TPP, out of the shadows and into the light of public scrutiny. From Dallas to DC, San Diego to Seattle, Tucson to Detroit, Baltimore to Bellingham, Spokane to Chicago people took their messages to interstate overpasses, prominent monuments, and busy city streets using coordinated daytime and nighttime, high visibility tactics.
[font size="1"]Baltimore, Camden Yards, Baltimore Orioles stadium[/font]
They deployed giant banners saying No New NAFTA, mobilized LED light panels saying “(thumbs up) Democracy, STOP The TPP,” and projected with spotlights messages like “Don’t Fast Track A Train Wreck.” These coordinated citizen’s actions coincided with ongoing TPP negotiations taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah from November 12-24 and today’s anticipated release by Congressperson Rosa DeLauro and George Miller detailing the growing opposition to “Fast Track” among Congress, and preceded today’s surprise release by Wikileaks of a leaked chapter of the secretive “TPP” agreement.
The TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids, a “Corporate Coup,” and concerned citizens from across the nation are calling on Congress to “Flush It!” and to oppose President Obama’s request to renew “Fast Track” authority to commit our country to this secretive agreement that has less to do with trade, than it does with dismantling any domestic policies that undermine future profits for transnational capital and corporations.
[font size="1"]San Diego overpass[/font]
Bill Moyer, Executive Director of the Backbone Campaign stated “Only a bought a sold government would sign a treaty that sacrifices our capacity as communities and country to pass laws for workers benefit, and the protection of our communities and our natural resources.” ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.popularresistance.org/flush-the-tpp-visibility-actions-shining-a-light-on-secret-corporate-coup/
13 Cities Mobilized to Shine a Light on TPP: “Don’t Fast Track a Train Wreck – FLUSH the TPP!”
13 Cities Mobilized to Shine a Light on Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership “Trade” Deal Telling Congress “Don’t Fast Track a Train Wreck – FLUSH the TPP!”
On Tuesday evening citizens in Seattle and 12 other cities appeared on overpasses and roadsides to pull the Trans-Pacific Partnership, aka TPP, out of the shadows and into the light of public scrutiny. From Dallas to DC, San Diego to Seattle, Tucson to Detroit, Baltimore to Bellingham, Spokane to Chicago people took their messages to interstate overpasses, prominent monuments, and busy city streets using coordinated daytime and nighttime, high visibility tactics.
[font size="1"]Baltimore, Camden Yards, Baltimore Orioles stadium[/font]
They deployed giant banners saying No New NAFTA, mobilized LED light panels saying “(thumbs up) Democracy, STOP The TPP,” and projected with spotlights messages like “Don’t Fast Track A Train Wreck.” These coordinated citizen’s actions coincided with ongoing TPP negotiations taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah from November 12-24 and today’s anticipated release by Congressperson Rosa DeLauro and George Miller detailing the growing opposition to “Fast Track” among Congress, and preceded today’s surprise release by Wikileaks of a leaked chapter of the secretive “TPP” agreement.
The TPP has been called NAFTA on steroids, a “Corporate Coup,” and concerned citizens from across the nation are calling on Congress to “Flush It!” and to oppose President Obama’s request to renew “Fast Track” authority to commit our country to this secretive agreement that has less to do with trade, than it does with dismantling any domestic policies that undermine future profits for transnational capital and corporations.
[font size="1"]San Diego overpass[/font]
Bill Moyer, Executive Director of the Backbone Campaign stated “Only a bought a sold government would sign a treaty that sacrifices our capacity as communities and country to pass laws for workers benefit, and the protection of our communities and our natural resources.” ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.popularresistance.org/flush-the-tpp-visibility-actions-shining-a-light-on-secret-corporate-coup/
November 15, 2013
Rip-off: High Out-of-Pocket Social Costs are a Stealth Tax on the Middle Class and the Poor
November 13, 2013
by Joshua Holland
Americans’ heavy reliance on the private sector to provide social goods and services doesn’t only result in us paying a lot and getting a lot less for it, compared to other wealthy countries. It also makes the financing of our entire social welfare system far less fair. It’s a great deal for the wealthiest, and a huge rip-off for the rest of us.
To understand how, we’ll need some background.
A Nasty Little Myth
The most pernicious myth in American politics holds that only around half the population pays taxes. Sean Hannity put it like this: “If half of Americans pay taxes, and the other half are the beneficiaries of the tax that the other half pay, at some point you say, OK, you got a full voting bloc.” In a call to raise taxes on the poor, Sen. Dan Coates (R-IN) said, “I think it’s important that this burden not just fall on 50 percent of the people but falls on all of us in some form.” He added, “Everyone needs to have some skin in the game.”
The narrative is the epitome of cherry-picking. While 43 percent of households won’t need to pay federal income taxes this year, that’s nothing more than a bit of tax trivia. Federal income taxes make up around 40 percent of federal revenues and a quarter of all taxes paid in this country, while payroll taxes – which virtually all working people pay – also make up around 40 percent of federal revenues (in 2011 and 2012, revenue from the payroll tax represented a smaller share due to the temporary tax reduction in effect during those years).
And the irony is that many households pay no income taxes as a result of a policy that conservative politicians have long favored. As David Cay Johnston, author of Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else, told Moyers & Company in October, the situation is primarily due to the child tax credit Republicans put in place in the ’90s. “A married couple with two children does not pay any federal income taxes until they make at least $44,000 a year,” said Johnston. “And with a little bit of tax planning, you could make $70,000 and pay no federal income tax. So the Republicans create this situation where middle-income families with children pay no income tax and then they complain about it.” .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://billmoyers.com/2013/11/13/rip-off-high-out-of-pocket-social-costs-are-a-stealth-tax-on-the-middle-class-and-the-poor/
Rip-off: High Out-of-Pocket Social Costs are a Stealth Tax on the Middle Class and the Poor
Rip-off: High Out-of-Pocket Social Costs are a Stealth Tax on the Middle Class and the Poor
November 13, 2013
by Joshua Holland
Americans’ heavy reliance on the private sector to provide social goods and services doesn’t only result in us paying a lot and getting a lot less for it, compared to other wealthy countries. It also makes the financing of our entire social welfare system far less fair. It’s a great deal for the wealthiest, and a huge rip-off for the rest of us.
To understand how, we’ll need some background.
A Nasty Little Myth
The most pernicious myth in American politics holds that only around half the population pays taxes. Sean Hannity put it like this: “If half of Americans pay taxes, and the other half are the beneficiaries of the tax that the other half pay, at some point you say, OK, you got a full voting bloc.” In a call to raise taxes on the poor, Sen. Dan Coates (R-IN) said, “I think it’s important that this burden not just fall on 50 percent of the people but falls on all of us in some form.” He added, “Everyone needs to have some skin in the game.”
The narrative is the epitome of cherry-picking. While 43 percent of households won’t need to pay federal income taxes this year, that’s nothing more than a bit of tax trivia. Federal income taxes make up around 40 percent of federal revenues and a quarter of all taxes paid in this country, while payroll taxes – which virtually all working people pay – also make up around 40 percent of federal revenues (in 2011 and 2012, revenue from the payroll tax represented a smaller share due to the temporary tax reduction in effect during those years).
And the irony is that many households pay no income taxes as a result of a policy that conservative politicians have long favored. As David Cay Johnston, author of Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else, told Moyers & Company in October, the situation is primarily due to the child tax credit Republicans put in place in the ’90s. “A married couple with two children does not pay any federal income taxes until they make at least $44,000 a year,” said Johnston. “And with a little bit of tax planning, you could make $70,000 and pay no federal income tax. So the Republicans create this situation where middle-income families with children pay no income tax and then they complain about it.” .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://billmoyers.com/2013/11/13/rip-off-high-out-of-pocket-social-costs-are-a-stealth-tax-on-the-middle-class-and-the-poor/
November 15, 2013
from truthdig:
Haiyan: A Disaster Made Worse By Greed
Posted on Nov 14, 2013
By Sonali Kolhatkar
While the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is 95 percent confident that global warming is caused by human activity (there are very few areas of active research in which scientists are so confident), what falls out of the scope of the report is which humans are responsible. The Philippines, which is one of the poorest and least developed nations on the planet, has had little hand in creating the conditions that nurtured Typhoon Haiyan (or Yolanda, as it’s known locally), possibly the worst storm in recorded human history.
“It’s just shocking. We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Alex Montances said to me of Haiyan, which made landfall in the Philippines on Nov. 8. Montances is the Southern California regional coordinator for the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and for him, the storm literally hit close to home. Montances’ mother is from Tacloban in the province of Leyte, the hardest-hit area that was already suffering from the twin effects of poverty and environmentally destructive mining operations.
People and infrastructure have been washed away, children have been orphaned, families have been separated, homes have been flattened and, as of this writing, heavy rainfall was still hampering the survivors’ ability to regroup, rescue others and simply live another day. The numbers are staggering. Nearly 10 million people are affected—about a tenth of the entire population of the Philippines. As many as 800,000 people have been displaced. Leyte’s provincial governor estimated that 10,000 people were dead, and while it is still too early to account for all the fatalities, even the current official count of 2,300 is horrifically high.
........(snip)........
What is happening in the Philippines is a portent for poor nations of the world. Tacloban is witnessing a deadly intersection of abject poverty, a local environment stripped of its natural resources, and a storm intensified to catastrophic proportions by global warming. Montances told me, “There is so much poverty and so many American and Canadian corporations are logging and mining in many areas of the Philippines, including Leyte, Mindanao and other places that were hit recently. When there aren’t any trees and the vegetation is taken away and there’s huge open-pit mining, the water has nowhere to go when (there) are typhoons and so it floods into the coastal towns like Tacloban. It just exacerbates the damage, and destruction, and the casualties.” .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/haiyan_a_disaster_made_worse_by_greed_20131114
Haiyan: A Disaster Made Worse By Greed
from truthdig:
Haiyan: A Disaster Made Worse By Greed
Posted on Nov 14, 2013
By Sonali Kolhatkar
While the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is 95 percent confident that global warming is caused by human activity (there are very few areas of active research in which scientists are so confident), what falls out of the scope of the report is which humans are responsible. The Philippines, which is one of the poorest and least developed nations on the planet, has had little hand in creating the conditions that nurtured Typhoon Haiyan (or Yolanda, as it’s known locally), possibly the worst storm in recorded human history.
“It’s just shocking. We’ve never seen anything like this before,” Alex Montances said to me of Haiyan, which made landfall in the Philippines on Nov. 8. Montances is the Southern California regional coordinator for the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and for him, the storm literally hit close to home. Montances’ mother is from Tacloban in the province of Leyte, the hardest-hit area that was already suffering from the twin effects of poverty and environmentally destructive mining operations.
People and infrastructure have been washed away, children have been orphaned, families have been separated, homes have been flattened and, as of this writing, heavy rainfall was still hampering the survivors’ ability to regroup, rescue others and simply live another day. The numbers are staggering. Nearly 10 million people are affected—about a tenth of the entire population of the Philippines. As many as 800,000 people have been displaced. Leyte’s provincial governor estimated that 10,000 people were dead, and while it is still too early to account for all the fatalities, even the current official count of 2,300 is horrifically high.
........(snip)........
What is happening in the Philippines is a portent for poor nations of the world. Tacloban is witnessing a deadly intersection of abject poverty, a local environment stripped of its natural resources, and a storm intensified to catastrophic proportions by global warming. Montances told me, “There is so much poverty and so many American and Canadian corporations are logging and mining in many areas of the Philippines, including Leyte, Mindanao and other places that were hit recently. When there aren’t any trees and the vegetation is taken away and there’s huge open-pit mining, the water has nowhere to go when (there) are typhoons and so it floods into the coastal towns like Tacloban. It just exacerbates the damage, and destruction, and the casualties.” .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/haiyan_a_disaster_made_worse_by_greed_20131114
November 15, 2013
from the Working Life blog:
A Revolt Gets A Bit Louder–And We Get A Smidgen of the Constitution Back
Posted on 13 November 2013
Big, bad things often get done–things that shred our economic security and undo some pretty basic constitutional ideas–because, after years and years of listening to sound bites and catchy phrases, it’s easy to let the bi-partisan elites thunder ahead on very bad policy. That’s the case with so-called “free trade.” But, something is happening that is slowing down that monumentally foolish, and destructive, rush on very bad trade deals — and it’s connected to the broader revolt out there, sometimes quiet, sometimes noisy.
So, first, the news, courtesy of the people at Global Trade Watch, which has carried on this fight really going back to NAFTA. 151 Democratic members sent a letter to the president opposing so-called “fast track” authority when it comes to dealing with future trade agreements, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement (FTA). On top of that 25 House Republicans are in opposition to extending “Fast track” authority.
A quick explanation: “fast track” really is a euphemism for “ram it down your throats whether you like it or not”. Democratic and Republican presidents love it because it gives them even more power, and there is no president, of either party, who doesn’t want more power, Constitution be damned. Under “fast track”, they can negotiate trade deals and under “fast track” rules, the deals had to be voted up or down, with NO AMENDMENTS ALLOWED.
Which is a big-time constitutional fuck-you: it basically hands over power to the executive and means your member of Congress has no right to raise his or her hand to fix a part that, say, might put in labor or environmental safeguards (I leave aside for a moment that I’m not a big believer in little fixes to these deals that are basically massive corporate protection and investment deals). ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/2013/11/13/a-revolt-gets-a-bit-louder-and-we-get-a-smidgen-of-the-constitution-back/#sthash.mgaXOZOj.dpuf
A Revolt Gets A Bit Louder–And We Get A Smidgen of the Constitution Back
from the Working Life blog:
A Revolt Gets A Bit Louder–And We Get A Smidgen of the Constitution Back
Posted on 13 November 2013
Big, bad things often get done–things that shred our economic security and undo some pretty basic constitutional ideas–because, after years and years of listening to sound bites and catchy phrases, it’s easy to let the bi-partisan elites thunder ahead on very bad policy. That’s the case with so-called “free trade.” But, something is happening that is slowing down that monumentally foolish, and destructive, rush on very bad trade deals — and it’s connected to the broader revolt out there, sometimes quiet, sometimes noisy.
So, first, the news, courtesy of the people at Global Trade Watch, which has carried on this fight really going back to NAFTA. 151 Democratic members sent a letter to the president opposing so-called “fast track” authority when it comes to dealing with future trade agreements, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement (FTA). On top of that 25 House Republicans are in opposition to extending “Fast track” authority.
A quick explanation: “fast track” really is a euphemism for “ram it down your throats whether you like it or not”. Democratic and Republican presidents love it because it gives them even more power, and there is no president, of either party, who doesn’t want more power, Constitution be damned. Under “fast track”, they can negotiate trade deals and under “fast track” rules, the deals had to be voted up or down, with NO AMENDMENTS ALLOWED.
Which is a big-time constitutional fuck-you: it basically hands over power to the executive and means your member of Congress has no right to raise his or her hand to fix a part that, say, might put in labor or environmental safeguards (I leave aside for a moment that I’m not a big believer in little fixes to these deals that are basically massive corporate protection and investment deals). ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/2013/11/13/a-revolt-gets-a-bit-louder-and-we-get-a-smidgen-of-the-constitution-back/#sthash.mgaXOZOj.dpuf
November 14, 2013
Published on Nov 14, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org - WikiLeaks has published the secret text to part of the biggest U.S. trade deal in history, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). For the past several years, the United States and 12 Pacific Rim nations have been negotiating behind closed doors on the sweeping agreement. A 95-page draft of a TPP chapter released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday details agreements relating to patents, copyright, trademarks and industrial design -- showing their wide-reaching implications for internet services, civil liberties, publishing rights,and medicine accessibility. Critics say the deal could rewrite U.S. laws on intellectual property rights, product safety and environmental regulations, while backers say it will help create jobs and boost the economy. President Obama and U.S. trade representative Michael Froman reportedly wish to finalize the TPP by the end of the year and are pushing Congress to expedite legislation that grants the president something called "fast-track authority." However, this week some 151 House Democrats and 23 Republicans wrote letters to the administration saying they are unwilling to give the president free reign to "diplomatically legislate." We host a debate on the TPP between Bill Watson, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute, and Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
TPP Exposed: WikiLeaks Publishes Secret Trade Text to Rewrite Copyright Laws, Limit Internet Freedom
Published on Nov 14, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org - WikiLeaks has published the secret text to part of the biggest U.S. trade deal in history, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). For the past several years, the United States and 12 Pacific Rim nations have been negotiating behind closed doors on the sweeping agreement. A 95-page draft of a TPP chapter released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday details agreements relating to patents, copyright, trademarks and industrial design -- showing their wide-reaching implications for internet services, civil liberties, publishing rights,and medicine accessibility. Critics say the deal could rewrite U.S. laws on intellectual property rights, product safety and environmental regulations, while backers say it will help create jobs and boost the economy. President Obama and U.S. trade representative Michael Froman reportedly wish to finalize the TPP by the end of the year and are pushing Congress to expedite legislation that grants the president something called "fast-track authority." However, this week some 151 House Democrats and 23 Republicans wrote letters to the administration saying they are unwilling to give the president free reign to "diplomatically legislate." We host a debate on the TPP between Bill Watson, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute, and Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
November 14, 2013
http://vimeo.com/79323712
Preview: The Path of Positive Resistance
November 13, 2013
Between them, doctors Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers have been arrested nine times. In the face of injustice in America, rather than look the other way and stick to practicing medicine, they decided to do something about it.
Stein and Flowers serve as president and secretary of health, respectively, for the Green Shadow Cabinet, a group of 100 prominent scientists who speak out against dysfunctional government and offer alternative policies. Each fights against political corruption and a host of grievances that that have led many people to cynicism and despair.
This week on Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers speaks with Stein and Flowers about their personal journeys, what they have learned about our political system along the way and why they continue to fight the good fight.
Also on the broadcast, Bill reports back on viewer response to our recent segments on drone attacks and government surveillance and previews the new film Following the Ninth, a documentary exploring the worldwide cultural and political influence of Beethoven’s masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony and its majestic “Ode to Joy.”
http://billmoyers.com/segment/preview-the-path-of-positive-resistance/
Bill Moyers' Preview: The Path of Positive Resistance
http://vimeo.com/79323712
Preview: The Path of Positive Resistance
November 13, 2013
Between them, doctors Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers have been arrested nine times. In the face of injustice in America, rather than look the other way and stick to practicing medicine, they decided to do something about it.
Stein and Flowers serve as president and secretary of health, respectively, for the Green Shadow Cabinet, a group of 100 prominent scientists who speak out against dysfunctional government and offer alternative policies. Each fights against political corruption and a host of grievances that that have led many people to cynicism and despair.
This week on Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers speaks with Stein and Flowers about their personal journeys, what they have learned about our political system along the way and why they continue to fight the good fight.
Also on the broadcast, Bill reports back on viewer response to our recent segments on drone attacks and government surveillance and previews the new film Following the Ninth, a documentary exploring the worldwide cultural and political influence of Beethoven’s masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony and its majestic “Ode to Joy.”
http://billmoyers.com/segment/preview-the-path-of-positive-resistance/
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