Fightin' Cock Flyer

RFK Today! Kansans United in Voice & Spirit!

2012-02-11T07:25:00.000-06:00

Glenn Beck and his cronies raved yesterday in none too subtle terms about First Lady Michelle Obama's ass size, and on the same day Rush Limbaugh rails against federal mandated health insurance guarantees for employees reproductive choices in religious institutions.

And, as if that wasn't enough, GOP presidential campaigner Mitt Romney now describes himself as a "severe conservative." As if this media frenzy wasn't severe enough already.

It's been non-stop this week from the "conservative" theocratic blow horns in our state government from Topeka, too.

I wondered while observing all this in the media, "How much social poison can on-air 'conservatives' inject into Kansans brains?"

Is there anybody out here in Kansas who can see through all this?

Listen to one of the first groups to spark a grass root response from Kansans to this mess.

Kansans United in Voice and Spirit

Facebook Fans can join up too! Click here.

Saturday High Noon on Radio Free Kansas.

"It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."
Ulysses Everett McGill "Oh Brother Where Art Thou"

George Kenny Interviews Ambassador Peter Jenkins @ Electric Politics

2012-02-11T05:58:00.001-06:00

Dear Michael,

If, out of fear of what Iran might do with its nuclear program, the U.S. and Israel attack Iran, the Iranians then would have an iron clad case that they were only doing things that they are perfectly well allowed to do under the letter of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In other words, such a war would not be unambiguously legal. Far from it. But you don't have to accept my analysis. That's what Ambassador Peter Jenkins says, and he should know because from 2001 to 2006 he was Britain's Permanent Representative to the IAEA in Vienna. If anyone currently outside government understands the technical complications regarding nonproliferation, and the policy, he does. Moreover, Peter says, back in 2005 the Iranians made us an offer that we should have accepted: in exchange for much more intrusive IAEA safeguards we would agree that Iran can continue to enrich uranium -- again, under the letter of the NPT. Peter remembers thinking at the time that this was a pretty good offer but it wasn't until after he retired from the British Foreign Service that he changed his mind about Iran, began exploring the idea's feasibility, and became a proponent. Which, I should add, took a great deal of courage. In any case, Peter is absolutely right. A compromise within the letter of the NPT is infinitely preferable to going to war!

This one is important. I hope you like it and, if you do, please forward the link.

Best,

Go to:

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2012/02/how_to_think_about_irans_nucle.html

Douglas A. Berg: Why We Shouldn't Be Surprised Susan G. Komen for the Cure Is Anti-Women @ This Can't Be Happening!

2012-02-09T10:36:00.001-06:00

Nancy Goodman Brinker, a pioneer of “cause marketing”, founded Susan G. Komen For the Cure in 1982, reportedly as the fulfillment of a deathbed promise made to her sister, a victim of breast cancer. In 1994, Brinker founded In Your Corner, Inc., a for-profit company that markets health products and information. In 1998, Brinker sold In Your Corner to AstraZeneca, the third largest pesticide manufacturer in the world, primarily through Syngenta, a giant global agribusiness company it owns jointly with Novartis.

AstraZeneca has had close ties to Brinker for many years. It gave $97,000 to Komen and its affiliates in the first 6 months of 2008 alone, and it has been a big presence at Komen’s Race for the Cure. AstraZeneca is also one of the largest contributors to Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The problem here is that pesticides cause breast cancer.

AstraZeneca solves the problem by no longer advertising itself as a pesticide manufacturer. It is a “life-sciences” company. Ta da! Problem solved! Well, they still manufacture more pesticides than ever (substances that congregate in the sexual glands of mammals causing cancers, birth defects, etc., etc.,) but “life sciences” sounds so reassuring, yes?

Susan G. Komen has created a lengthy list of risk factors for breast cancer. Nowhere in this list can you find exposure to toxins, probably the greatest risk factor of all.

Hey Nancy! Didn’t your sister ask you to cure breast cancer? Was her dying wish, “Please forgive them for killing me, pay yourself half a million dollars a year – and oh by the way please protect those poor pesticide manufacturers. They know not what they do.”

It gets worse. You’ve heard the famous slogan “The best prevention is early detection.” Think about it: If you get breast cancer, you didn’t see the doctor soon enough. Your fault. Next case.

No wonder AstraZeneca gives handsomely. The focus of Komen and pharmaceutical research is entirely on screening and treatment, not on prevention...

For the rest of this article by Douglas A. Berg is a computer scientist and children's book writer in Mesa, Arizona. He contributed this article written exclusively for ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1055

Scott Rothschild: Opposition Increases to Brownback Tax Plan, KPERS Changes @ Lawrence Journal World

2012-02-09T10:23:00.001-06:00

[Excerpt] "... Brownback’s tax plan was getting kicked off before the House Taxation Committee after a presentation from Jonathan Williams, director of the tax and fiscal policy task force for the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Like ALEC, Brownback has called for reductions in state income taxes and elimination of taxes for thousands of businesses. His plan would also do away with numerous tax credits and deductions and keep in place the 6.3-percent state sales tax rate that under current law is set to decrease to 5.7 percent in 2013. ... "

Read more at the Lawrence Journal World.

Alexander Cockburn: Sure, Apple Could Build the iPhone Here @ The Nation

2012-02-09T10:14:00.000-06:00

From Cockburn's "Beat the Devil" column:
" ... Of course, typical Times readers nod their heads. No, cohorts of American workers aren’t available to be kicked out of bed in their communal dorms and put to work in half an hour. There’s no China-subsidized factory space. And pulsing just below the surface of the text: no tiny, skillful Oriental fingers (“flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers”), not to mention tiny Oriental wages, for the uniformed assemblers.
When President Obama dined with the kings of Silicon Valley last year and asked, “Why can’t that work come home?” Jobs’s reply was “unambiguous”: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” ... "

A Mother Jones Election Broadside! DC Bureau Strikes Back!

2012-02-09T09:59:00.001-06:00

Andy Kroll writes and updates readers of the "John Doe" investigation involving voter fraud and illegal fundraising. An FBI raid on one former member of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's staff and subpoenas of others have created a link heavy quality investigative piece. Go to "Scott Walker and the Secret 'John Doe' Investigation" to read it.

David Corn "the DC Decoder" writes an excellent explanation of "The Real Reason Mitt Romney Is Accepting Donald Trump's Endorsement" and the battle for Tea Party loyalty with Newton Leroy Gingrich.
[Excerpt] " ... The Romney camp had to worry that a Trump endorsement of Gingrich would hurt the front-runner's efforts to keep Gingrich from mounting a full-scale tea party rebellion against Romney. In the closing hours of the Florida primary, Gingrich was claiming to be the embodiment of the tea party wing of the GOP and trying to set up a civil war between the true-believers and the GOP establishment. ..." Read more of Corn's latest and consider signing up to the DC MoJo Bureau free newsletter.

And last but not least consider participating in the "Newt or Schrute Quiz" to determine your knowledge of the differences between the two!

Bob Weeks: Fracking Movie Proposed @ Wichita Liberty

2012-02-09T09:28:00.001-06:00

Koch defender and conservative "libertarian" Wichita blogger Bob Weeks writes:

[Excerpt]

" ... Filmmakers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer produced the 2009 film Not Evil Just Wrong that uncovered the myths and misinformation spread by radical environmental extremists.
Now the two have looked at fracking and hope to produce a documentary film on this topic. They hope to use a new method of financing the film — crowdfunding.... "

Brownbackistan Regional News Round-Up, 03 Febuary, 2012

2012-02-03T16:14:00.000-06:00

Kansas water policy changes advance in Legislature
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback's proposal to revise the state's policies on water use cleared legislative hurdles on Thursday, moving a step closer to giving farmers and cities more flexibility in managing the limited resource. The House voted Thursday to eliminate a ...
See all stories on this topic »

Blue Cross won't bid on Kansas Medicaid contract
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback's efforts to overhaul Medicaid hit a rough spot Thursday after the state's largest health insurance company decided not to bid on a contract to help manage the program, leaving some lawmakers and advocates increasingly uneasy.
See all stories on this topic »

Wind power: Republican governors push for PTC extension; Senators express support
REVE
Republican governors Terry Branstad of Iowa and Sam Brownback of Kansas provided some very specific support for the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC). Republican governors Terry Branstad of Iowa and Sam Brownback of Kansas provided some ...
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Worthy ideas on arts
Kansas.com
Sam Brownback's one-man demolition of the Kansas Arts Commission, the resulting loss of $1.2 million in matching funds, and statewide fallout such as the shutdown of three arts councils and two arts academies. But it's time to acknowledge that the ...
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Kansas.com

Kansas immigration policy mishmash will punish the innocent
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback's administration on the immigrant workforce issue. Agricultural Secretary Dale Rodman said last week that he wants to seek a waiver from the US Department of Homeland Security so agricultural businesses could hire undocumented workers.
See all stories on this topic »

Horizons Mental Health hurt by governor's policies
Pratt Tribune
Sam Brownback's policies have put Horizons Mental Health in an unenviable position again. With economic shortfalls at the state level, the governor has placed the agency in the position where they will have to do better with less.
See all stories on this topic »

Two nominees for 30th Judicial District post
Kiowa County Signal
By Anonymous The names of two attorneys were sent to Governor Sam Brownback today as nominees to fill a vacancy on the 30 th Judicial District Court that was created by the January 3 retirement of Hon. Robert J. Schmisseur, Pratt.
See all stories on this topic »

Blue Cross won't bid for Medicaid contract in Kan.
El Dorado Times
Sam Brownback's proposal to overhaul the state's Medicaid program. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas said Wednesday that the effort to shift Medicaid programs to private health insurance companies would require it to dramatically change its businesses ...
See all stories on this topic »

Wind energy's Republican friends - The real story behind GOP's drilling bills ...
Politico
With help from Darren Samuelsohn, Erica Martinson, Darius Dixon, Talia Buford, Darren Goode and Alex Guillén AN INSIDE JOB -- Wind energy advocates are leaning on a pair of Republican governors, Iowa's Terry Branstad and Kansas's Sam Brownback, ...
See all stories on this topic »

Dion Lefler: Largest insurer in Kansas declines to participate in governor’s Medicaid reform @ Kansas City Star

2012-02-03T15:54:00.002-06:00

[Excerpt]

" ... The state’s largest insurance company has decided it doesn’t want to participate in Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan to move Medicaid patients into privatized managed-care programs.
In a letter addressed “Dear provider,” Angie Strecker, director of institutional relations for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, said the insurer “has decided not to submit a proposal to the state to be a Medicaid contractor.”
State Rep. Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat, said it brings into question the financial feasibility of the governor’s plan to shift the care of poor and disabled Kansans to private health maintenance organizations.

Carl Hiassan: Florida Republican Primary; A Basket Case for Sick Puppies @ The Guardian, U.K.

2012-02-03T15:47:00.000-06:00

[Excerpt]

" ...Whether Castro is off the planet or buried six feet under matters less to Floridians than high unemployment, epidemic foreclosures and the future of healthcare reform. These are very hard problems to solve, and both of the leading GOP candidates are more comfortable berating Obama rather than offering specifics.
However, last week Gingrich visited Cocoa, where Nasa workers have been hurt by layoffs and budget woes, and promised a surprising new project to create more jobs: a lunar colony. Said Newt:

"By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American."

It's one of those quotes you have to read twice to make sure it's real. Be assured that it's already tacked on the too-good-to-be-true corkboard at Obama national headquarters. ..."

Book Excerpt Courtesy: Thomas Frank, Pity the Billionaires: The Hard Times Swindle & the Unlikely Come-Back of the Right @ AlterNet

2012-02-02T09:53:00.001-06:00

In the aftermath of the crash, Frank returns to the topic to discover that the “New New Right” had once again offered Americans a bait-and-switch, but of a different kind. The result is Frank's new book, Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Come-Back of the Right. AlterNet is proud to bring you this excerpt from the book.

Go to Alternet to read it.

Brownbackistan Billionaire Brothers Pays Lawyer to Howl Foul @ Wall Street Journal Ed/Op

2012-02-02T01:20:00.000-06:00

A John Birch Koch head discovers he's on Obama's Libertard list after his secret meet-up at Indian Wells.
Image Tip: Reaganomic, Raping America Since 1981

Yes those crazy rich John Birch Libertards from Wichita, Ks. are at it again, this time with yet another high profile attorney writing a paranoid rant defending them in the Wall Street Journal claiming the billionaires are on Obama's Enemies List.

ANOTHER WTF MOMENT FOR KANSANS

The ranting lawyer Ted Olson writes in the WSJ:

" ... What would you do if the White House engaged in derogatory speculative innuendo about the integrity of your tax returns? Suppose also that the president's surrogates and allies in the media regularly attacked you, sullied your reputation and questioned your integrity. On top of all of that, what if a leading member of the president's party in Congress demanded your appearance before a congressional committee this week so that you could be interrogated about the Keystone XL oil pipeline project in which you have repeatedly—and accurately—stated that you have no involvement? ... "

Considering the Koch boys have bought most Kansas Republicans elected to office with campaign donations, including over the decades the hundreds of thousands to our Dear Leader Sam Brownback, is it really that fucking strange?

Dig how Olson raves on about the Koch "tax returns" when everybody knows that they sue the IRS at the drop of a hat and demand every gawd damn dime owed them in government oil royalties and ethanol subsidy checks. Checks that over the years number in the hundreds of millions of dollars. How's that "socialism" for those lazy welfare cheats? Or those illegal immigrant's kids getting food stamps? Better cut them off, damn it! Then by Gawd, they'll engage in what Mitt Romney calls "voluntary deportation".

Kansans are getting pretty steamed over the influences of wealthy powerful and private citizens pumping money into who knows what bank accounts for who knows which gawd damn get rich scheme dripping out of the mouth of every pious religious, "I'm just trying to make a buck" political fix-it wizard.

It's called conspiracy. And folks, the Church of Fred Phelps did not make this up.

It must be a gawd damn conspiracy, they must somehow seal the deal with a handshake, a wink, a nudge, a nod, or if they're unlucky a written contract. Hat tip to Monty Python and Gore Vidal.

Image Tip: Occupy Koch Town, Feb. 17-19, 2012

But what if you are Gov. Brownback, not as rich as the Koch boys or able to hire such bright talent? But you do happen to have a certain south Jefferson County, Kansas lawyer as "chief counsel" to run point and catch spears thrown toward you by the press?

An attorney who also swilled campaign slop from the same Koch money trough? Well, why not?

Hell yes, have him cover the governor's ass about all those state committee legislators attending the January "private" dinners at Cedar Crest. (That's the taxpayer funded Topeka governor's mansion for you flyover people.)

And guess what, that's a gawd damn secret too, at least according to Brownback's legal head honcho Caleb Stegall.

At least, unless and until, the Topeka Capital Journal and others of the Kansas Press Association follow through and get those Kansas Open Meeting Acts (KOMA) papers together.

KOMA, that's a pretty funny term for an abbreviation ... I sometimes wonder if these political farts around here in Kansas who just get more and more conservative, deeper and deeper into the post-Enlightenment mental basement way down there where all the worms and fungi thrive, will recover from this political coma..

Here's what an Associated Press article that appeared way-out in western Dodge City, Kansas had to say about those "private" dinners:

" ... Stegall said once committee members were warned, the dinners became informational sessions, which are allowed under the law. He cited a 2009 opinion from then-Attorney General Steve Six.
     Topeka attorney Mike Merriam, who represents the Kansas Press Association and the Capital-Journal, said Six's opinion involved electronic communication. Applying it to a personal gathering is a stretch, he said.
     "A member of a public agency isn't complying with the law just because that person says nothing at an illegal meeting," he said. "If one of those members goes to an illegal meeting, it's a violation of KOMA whether they say anything or not."
     Some legislators who spoke to the Capital-Journal last week about the dinners said legislative issues were discussed and didn't mention being warned about the open meetings law. ..."

And if that isn't enough to choke a chortle out of you, read how "Wichita Liberty" blogger Bob Weeks whines for the Koch boys by invoking demon Nixon (perhaps the most liberal of 20th century presidents according to Dr. Noam Chomsky) while the Koch's paid legal blow-horn Ted Olson in the Wall Street Journal throws in the scare of McCarthy for good measure.

Hey didn't those gun happy John Birch Society schmucks cheer on old crazy Joe McCarthy from their fall-out shelters back then?

Strange how one screams "communist" and another calls Obama "socialist" and when all that fails really scare the shit out of them old farts and yell "Nixon."

Gawd No! "Nixon!"

Hey even the self-described "libertarians" like Alan Greenspan, Donald Trump, that old dominatrix Ayn Rand and cagey Dr. Ron Paul knew Nixon was called "Tricky Dickie" BTW.

Kate McGinty & Erica Felci: Koch Group Quietly Met at Indian Wells @ The Desert Sun

2012-02-02T00:51:00.002-06:00

[Excerpt]

" ... Conference organizers and their guests successfully slipped in and out of the Coachella Valley without being detected by buying out nearly all of the 500-plus rooms at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort in Indian Wells. The resort closed its restaurants, locked down the grounds with private security guards and sent many workers home.The three-day conference ended Tuesday morning and by afternoon the usual traffic in and out of the resort had resumed. ... "

Read more at The Desert Sun.

Staff Report: 'Gasland' Film Director Arrested at Capital Meeting @ Common Dreams

2012-02-02T00:21:00.002-06:00

He along with an ABC film crew ... with updates at Common Dreams.

Brownbackistan Regional News Round Up: 01 Feb. 2012

2012-02-02T00:13:00.000-06:00

Gov. Sam Brownback says lawmakers were warned about open meetings law
Dodge City Daily Globe
Sam Brownback's official residence did not violate the state's open meetings law because he was careful to admonish those attending to avoid discussing legislative business, Brownback's chief counsel said. Brownback invited Republicans from 13 ...
See all stories on this topic »

Largest insurer in Kansas declines to participate in governor's Medicaid reform
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback's plan to move Medicaid patients into privatized managed-care programs. In a letter addressed “Dear provider,” Angie Strecker, director of institutional relations for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, said the insurer “has decided not to ...
See all stories on this topic »

Kansas Ag Agency Downplays Talks About Immigrants
WIBW
Sam Brownback's office later said the idea did not come from the administration. A coalition of business groups plans to push for state legislation on the issue. (Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) If your going to bring in ...
See all stories on this topic »

Brookens examines governor's proposal
Marion County Record
In a policy statement on “The Brownback Pro-Growth Plan,” Gov. Sam Brownback mentions 5 principles guiding his proposals: 1) Taxes at the federal, state and local levels are a complicated hodge-podge of taxes, credits and special interests cobbled ...
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Hays man named to INK board -2/1/2012, 10:01 AM
Hays Daily News
Sam Brownback announced Tuesday a Hays man would serve on the Information Network of Kansas board. Travis Rozean, director of operations at InfiniTec/Manatron Inc. in Hays, was named to the board as a user association member.
See all stories on this topic »

Hays Daily News

Kansas legislature refuses to repeal unconstitutional sodomy law
LGBTQ Nation
On January 20, 2012, Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback released his list of 51 “out of date, unreasonable, and burdensome” laws to be repealed -- missing from that list was the unconstitutional law banning same-sex relationships.
See all stories on this topic »

LGBTQ Nation

Kansas Immigration Law: Kansas's Business Owners Ask Legislators To Start ...
Huffington Post
A spokeswoman said Gov. Sam Brownback, a fellow Republican, isn't supporting the measure. But Brownback's agriculture secretary has acknowledged having several conversations with federal homeland security officials about potential labor shortages.
See all stories on this topic »

Evaluate parents, too
Kansas City Star (blog)
Sam Brownback's proposal to post teachers' and administrators' evaluations on the Internet as long as the information is objective. Of course, each school's website should also post objective information about the children's parents, ...
See all stories on this topic »

Letter: Hurting vulnerable population
Shawnee Dispatch
Sam Brownback is looking to an out-of-state insurance company to manage Kansans' Medicaid expenses, which includes long-term services to developmentally disabled individuals — services like residential and day programs for individuals with ...
See all stories on this topic »

Kansas Group To Ask Senators To Repeal Sodomy Law
WIBW
Sam Brownback's administration to seek or unnecessary laws, but the administration has declined. lol at all you bible thumpers, you know how many times The LORD command innocent people to kill babies. Numbers 31:17 Moses commands baby killing, ...
See all stories on this topic »

Kansans Count: We Demand Democracy, Topeka, Ks.

2012-02-01T13:52:00.001-06:00

February 15th, 2pm, South steps of the Capitol

Go to Kansans United.

Dave Lindorff: And We Actually Pay These Guys? 'Intelligence' Chief Warns of Iran Attacks in US @ This Can't Be Happening!

2012-02-01T13:48:00.000-06:00

Let’s see now. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence who oversees both the FBI and the CIA, is warning that Iran’s leaders have “changed their calculus” and, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, “now appear willing to conduct an attack within the US.”

Speaking at a Join Intelligence Committee hearing in Congress, the aptly-named Clapper said that Iranian leaders, “probably including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei” are “now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States as a response to real or perceived actions that threaten the regime.”

Well gee, that sure should come as a shocker.

Officials in the US, from the President on down to the clowns in Congress and campaigning for president , are all (with the notable exception of Rep. Ron Paul), insisting that “nothing is off the table” in confronting what they all keep insisting, with no hard evidence, is Iran’s alleged “program” to produce a nuclear weapon. We know, from reports by journalists like Seymour Hersh and others, that the US is already sponsoring and helping to orchestrate sabotage and terror attacks within Iran. The country’s top nuclear scientists are being killed by sappers on motorbikes, almost certainly working for Mossad, the spy service of America’s client state Israel. Several US aircraft carriers loaded with bombs, bomber aircraft and rack upon rack of cruise missiles, are stationed threateningly off the Iranian coast. And the US is working on boosting the power of its already huge 30,000-ton conventional bombs which are specifically designed to destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear fuel development facilities. The US is also running regular spy flights by stealth plans and drone aircraft (one of which was captured intact recently by the Iranians), over Iran to develop targeting information.

If you were the Iranian government, facing all those threats and actual acts of war against you coming from the country with the most powerful military in the world, you would be completely idiotic and derelict in your duty if you did not start developing a plan to retaliate against a looming attack.

Do we really have to pay Clapper the big bucks to come up with this kind of “intelligence”?

Americans ought to understand: If we are going to be an aggressor nation, and are going to sponsor acts of terror abroad against nations that have not attacked us or our allies, we need to expect, or at least be prepared to face attacks on our own country. ..

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1044

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Occupy Koch Town, Feb. 17 - 19, Wichita, Ks.

2012-02-01T13:02:00.001-06:00

The Kansas Sierra Club announces a coalition effort details, maps of the Keystone XL pipeline and other resources also at Discomfit Magazine.

Sustainability Action Network: 31 Jan. 2012 Newsletter

2012-02-01T12:41:00.001-06:00

(Image Hat Tip: Facebook Reaganomics, Raping America Since 1981)

Extensive listing of area and regional event announcements courtesy the Lawrence based S.A.N.

Read it on the scroll at Discomfit Magazine.

Homework for Kansans: Wall St. Celeb Swag & Gag, 30 January 2012

2012-01-30T22:38:00.000-06:00

[Excerpt]

The “Buffett rule” now has a new human face — and a number.

Before last week the only face on the “Buffett rule” — the notion that the mega rich ought to pay at least as much in taxes as average Americans — belonged to Warren Buffett, the billionaire who revealed last summer that he was paying less of his income in federal taxes than his secretary.

Last Tuesday, we had a chance to meet that secretary, Debbie Bosanek, who sat next to First Lady Michelle Obama during the President’s state of the union address and then did a network television interview afterwards.
“I represent the average citizen who needs a voice,” Bosanek noted in that interview. “Everybody in our office is paying a higher tax rate than Warren.”

Exactly how much of their incomes should Warren and the rest of America’s super rich pay in taxes? President Obama last week helpfully suggested an exact percentage. How does the President’s number stack up against current tax rates — and history? We do some exploring in this week’s Too Much. ...

Read more at the Too Much Newsweekly Online.

Radio Free Kansas, Monday News Night, 30 Jan. 2012

2012-01-30T20:15:00.002-06:00

Local News Notes:

Kansas Sierra Club has announced, along with other grassroot Kansas organizations, a three-day "Occupy Koch Town" for Feb. 13 - 15 in Wichita, Ks.

Wichita Eagle Ed-Op Blog reports that a SurveyUSA poll indicates that Ks. Gov. Sam Brownback has less of an approval rating that Pres. Barack Obama.

The Kansas City Star Editorial Board calls the governor's new "reform" of the food stamp system for immigrant school children a "fiasco."

[Excerpt] "...Only Kansas and three other states follow the most punitive way of figuring household income. That policy ends up discriminating against children who are U.S. citizens but live in homes with illegal immigrants. As a result, Kansas purposely deprives some needy children of food...."

And the Lawrence Journal World discloses that Brownback's new tax "reform" policy is a giveaway to the wealthiest of business people according to a DC based think tank.

Free Speech Radio News, 30 min.

Kenneth Dowst's "New World Notes" latest with recent remarks from Dr. Noam Chomsky, edited for clarity and brevity.

Support the A-Info Radio Project.

Listen anytime to the archive of this show at: Radio Free Kansas.

David R. Baker,Vivian Ho & Staff Writers: Oakland Police Battle Occupy Protesters @ San Francisco Chronicle

2012-01-29T12:12:00.000-06:00

Image Courtesy: OpManning.tumblr

[Excerpt]

... Skirmishes between police in riot gear and demonstrators throwing paint cans and bottles erupted after a peaceful march that brought more than a thousand of the young movement's supporters to downtown Oakland. The situation remained fluid well after dark, with police and demonstrators facing off on the downtown's otherwise empty streets.

By early evening, arrests were continuing and three officers had suffered minor injuries. One woman was shot in the back at point-blank range with a beanbag gun and was hurried away by fellow demonstrators, her condition unknown. Oakland police called for reinforcements from nearby law enforcement agencies, with San Francisco's police department sending an undisclosed number of officers.

The violence brought a chaotic end to an afternoon that had started on an upbeat, even festive mood among supporters of Occupy, the nationwide movement that has refocused public attention on economic inequality....

Read more: The San Francisco Chronicle

Mattias Gafni & Chris De Bennedetti: Day of Clashes at Occupy Oakland Ends With At Least 200 Arrests @ San Jose Mercury

2012-01-29T11:15:00.002-06:00

Reports now have the arrests at over 300 with unaccounted casualties.

This article includes a chronology, read it at San Jose Mercury.

Dave Lindorff: What Would Peter Zenger Say: We are the Champions...of the World?  @ This Can't Be Happening!

2012-01-29T11:08:00.001-06:00

Image Courtesy: OpManning.Tumblr

Say it loud and say it proud: We’re Number 47! We’re Number 47! Boo-yah!

If you want to know why the US -- beacon of freedom, land of the First Amendment -- is now ranked number 47th (out of 179) in terms of freedom of the press in the annual ranking put out by Reporters Without Borders, below South Africa, Botswana, South Korea and Comoros, and just above Argentina, Romania and Latvia, you could ask Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York and himself owner of a huge news organization, or his Chief of Police Raymond Kelly.

For that matter you could ask the mayors and police chiefs of Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, or a host of other cities.

Better yet, ask the mayor of Oakland and her police department’s latest gestapo chief, Howard Jordan.

According to Reporters Without Borders, what caused the US to plunge from 20th place last year, up there with Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Japan, down to 47th this year, was the way reporters were treated by police as they tried to cover the Occupy Movement that began last September.

Across the country, police maneuvered to block reporters from covering their brutal crackdown on the Occupy Movement. They swept into encampments from Los Angeles to New York wearing black military-style riot gear in the dead of night to avoid cameras and videocams, waiting until most journalists had gone home to bed before tearing up the tents and firing the tear gas grenades, the rubber bullets and the pepper spray at unarmed, unresisting protesters. Or, when reporters did show up and tried to cover the assaults on peaceful demonstrators, the cops sometimes, as in New York, smashed them and their cameras, or just arrested them.

“Who here has a press card?” asked the officer in charge in New York before the final assault on Zuccotti Square’s occupiers. When reporters dutifully raised their hands or held up their press passes, New York’s not-so-finest grabbed them, cuffed them and hauled them away. “Only for their safety,” was the explanation given later by the cops and the mayor after that particularly noxious display of police-state tactics against the media.

Reporters from alternative media were manhandled, but so were some reporters even from the main newspapers in the city, the New York Times and the Daily News...

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please either contract Homeland Security’s records or go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1026

Use the Paypal button at the bottom of the home page, or send us a check at the address listed on the “Support Us” page.

Dave Helling (Kansas City Star): Sedgwick County judges contributed to anti-abortion PAC @ The Wichita Eagle

2012-01-29T10:56:00.001-06:00

Why a Kansas City Star reporter's article at The Wichita Eagle? Would the Eagle avoid assigning their own local reporters for fear of losing access to the judiciary? Read it at the Wichita Eagle.

Kansan Quote of the Week

(Jan. 23 - 29, 2012)

From the Eagle article by Dave Helling

Mary Kay Culp of Kansans for Life said her organization believes the donations from Justice(s) Yost and Goering are proper. “If the campaign ethics commission doesn’t mind and the Supreme Court doesn’t mind – it’s a free country,” she said.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2012/01/28/2194435/sedgwick-county-judges-contributed.html#storylink=cpy

Stephanie Pappas: Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice @ Yahoo! News

2012-01-29T10:41:00.004-06:00

Remember him?

[Excerpt]

There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.

The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. ...

News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government, 28 Jan 2012

2012-01-29T10:33:00.003-06:00

For Latest Updates Go To:

http://www.legitgov.org

All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Breaking: Police use tear gas and flash bang grenades on Occupy protesters --Full-blown confrontation between police and protesters taking place in Oakland 28 Jan 2012 Police in Oakland, California, used 'chemical agents' against Occupy Oakland protesters on Saturday. (Fox News) Police have used tear gas and flash bang grenades on demonstrators in Oakland, Calif., as authorities say a protest involving an estimated 2,000 people 'turned violent.' (Washington Post) [This story will be updated.]

Police use tear gas on Oakland Occupy protesters --Police declared 'unlawful assembly' after marchers tore down perimeter fences at vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center 28 Jan 2012 Oakland police used tear gas and "flash" grenades Saturday to break up an estimated 2,000 Occupy protesters after some demonstrators started throwing objects at officers and tearing down fencing. There were at least 10 arrests and no reports of serious injuries. Oakland officials say about 250 people were in the group when the protest started on the city's streets around noon, with demonstrators threatening to take over the vacant center. The crowd had grown to about 2,000 hours later, KCBS-AM reported.

U.S. falls to 47th in press freedom rankings after Occupy crackdown 26 Jan 2012 Sweeping protests around the world made it an extremely difficult year for the media, and tested journalists as never before, the annual report into press freedom reveals. The annual report by Reporters Without Borders has been released, showing the United States fell 27 points on the list due to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests. The slide in the United States places it just behind Comoros and Taiwan in a group with Argentina and Romania.

Feel free -- and CLG encourages you -- to forward this newsletter to your lists and friends!
Those who wish to be added to the list can go here: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg and add your name

#OpAssange - guide to citizen activism

2012-01-28T22:13:00.001-06:00

Brownbackistan Regional News Round Up, 28 Jan. 2012

2012-01-28T08:31:00.001-06:00

Brownback supports speeding up road work
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback joined with Democrats on Friday to announce plans to accelerate $50 million in Kansas road and bridge repairs. Brownback, a Republican, adopted part of the Democrats' jobs plan in agreeing to move ahead with 24 highway projects and eight ...
See all stories on this topic »

Kan. ag secretary blasts KBA board of directors
CBS News
Sam Brownback's administration said Thursday that the Kansas Bioscience Authority's board of directors shared some of the blame for problems identified in a forensic audit of the agency, including questions about the spending decisions of its former ...
See all stories on this topic »

Kan. governor has no plans to slow Medicaid overhaul
Dodge City Daily Globe
Sam Brownback is moving too quickly to turn all of it over to private health insurance companies. Brownback expects the state to issue contracts this year to three companies to manage the program, which provides health coverage to poor families and ...
See all stories on this topic »

Letters | Saturday, Jan. 28
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback's latest food policy for the children of immigrants is cruel (1/24, Editorial, “Brownback's shameful food policy hurts kids”). How can he pretend to be a Christian and then advocate laws to hurt the helpless and those who have no voice in ...
See all stories on this topic »

Cedar Crest meetings may have violated law
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback in recent months has invited Republican members of several legislative committees to dinner at Cedar Crest, a possible violation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. By Andy Marso Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, pulled into the public parking ...
See all stories on this topic »

Brownback's ambitious reform plan taxes lawmakers
Kansas City Business Journal
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's ambitious tax reform plan already is running into some hard political realities. Brownback wants to lower and flatten individual income tax rates, taxing the first $15000 at 3 percent and the rest at 4.9 percent.
See all stories on this topic »

Governor, attorney general object to proposed EPA feedlot rule
High Plains Journal
Sam Brownback and Attorney General Derek Schmidt recently submitted a letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency to scrap a proposed regulation on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Brownback and Schmidt cited concerns that the rule would ...
See all stories on this topic »

Governor Brownback's tax plan could prompt businesses to restructure
Wichita Business Journal
Sam Brownback, the second taxpayer wouldn't pay any state income tax, says Shawn Sullivan, senior vice president for tax services at Allen Gibbs & Houlik. The effect of such a change is uncertain. Brownback says it will give business owners .
See all stories on this topic »

Tim Murphy: Baby Moses, Human–Jellyfish Hybrids, and Transhumanism: The GOP Candidates Weigh In @ Mother Jones Magazine

2012-01-25T23:14:00.002-06:00

The Republican's bucket of bluster and bullshit seems to be bottomless in this race. Even Rush "Blows A Lot" Limbaugh has started sounding like a socialist for Gingrich with him proclaiming that "conservatives" want everybody to "prosper."

Here MoJo reporter gives you a behind the scenes glimpse into the theocratic reactionaries seeding the G.O.P. hopefuls. You Ron Paul fans, take note of this article. It's not just about outlawing abortion, it's about declaring "personhood" on a biological growth (in only a woman's body, of course) similar to an abscessed tooth.

Read about radical conservativism on the march at Mother Jones.

Laid-Off Steelworker: Mitt Romney & Bain Capital Profitted by Shutting Down Kansas Steel Plant @ Democracy Now!

2012-01-24T14:50:00.003-06:00

As Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney comes under fire in New Hampshire for touting his business experience, we look at how his private equity firm, Bain Capital, drove a Kansas City steel plant into bankruptcy, leading to some 750 layoffs and a federal bailout. Bain still walked away with millions of dollars in profits. We speak with Reuters reporter Andy Sullivan, who covered the story, and with Joe Soptic, a steelworker who lost his job at Kansas City’s Worldwide Grinding Systems steel mill after 28 years. "The first thing I noticed after the company was bought out ... they became very union-non-friendly. I mean, they started looking for ways to eliminate jobs," says Soptic. "In my department, they actually offered to buy our jobs out from underneath us. They cut back on safety equipment." Regarding Romney’s business acumen, Soptic adds, "If he would run the country the way that he ran our business, I wouldn’t want him in there as president." [includes rush transcript]

Program Summary "Monday News Night" 23 Jan. 2012

2012-01-24T09:58:00.000-06:00

Free Download & RSS Feed

I-Tune and Smart Phone Compatible

Radio Free Kansas

Monday News Night, 23 Jan. 2012

Tonight we open with a surprising blow for women's rights in Kansas history, despite the thousand or so protesting against such in Topeka against women's reproductive freedom.

Gov. Sam Brownback led a procession this Monday, 23 Jan. 2012, of religious school kids (local television panned a young boy holding a sign "Women Do Regret Abortion") and Kansas "pro-life" leaders.

Then next up, Free Speech Radio News latest show for 23 January 2012. Support FSRN with a donation today. I than play and comment on selected clips from tonights Florida GOP Debate as aired on NBC, centering on the statements made by Rep. Ron Paul.

Libertarians listening are strongly encouraged to read the latest from Paul Craig Roberts at Counterpunch, "How Libertarian Dogmatists Are Sabotaging Ron Paul's Campaign".

Tonight's show ends with a 59 minute special of Dr. Helen Caldicott's Australian radio show "If You Love This Planet" featuring conversations with investigative journalists Seymour Hersh and John Pilger. This program is available in full high fidelity stereo at The A-Info Radio Project along with many other important and hard to find programming.

Over 700 shows archived, broadcasting five shows per week.

Get it free and remember to sign-up at

BlogTalkRadio Network.

Beccy Tanner: Downtown Statue Honors Leader of Women's Rights, Populist Movment @ The Wichita Eagle

2012-01-23T23:58:00.000-06:00

Attention: Kansas Amnesiacs!

Raise More Peoples' History, Stop Attacks On Our Basic Freedoms!

What a very strange contrast with the 1000 or so anti-abortion protesters (many kids bused in from private religious schools) led by Gov. Sam Brownback and other Kansas "pro-life" conservatives on the steps of the state capital building in Topeka today against women's reproductive freedom. Kansans such as these suffer from historical amnesia and know no bounds. Check out what a few thoughtful, intelligent women did with the long view of history in mind.

A memorial for Mary Elizabeth Lease has been erected in downtown Wichita today.

Read about it at The Wichita Eagle.

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd: Campus Cops Brutalize Peaceful Students Protesting Tuition Hikes at UC Riverside @ AlterNet

2012-01-23T23:47:00.001-06:00

Contributing editor Dave Davis comments: "These cops are getting way out of control in this country."

Read the report at AlterNet.

Dave Lindorff: U.S. Media Iraq War Reporting: See No Evil @ This Can't Be Happening!

2012-01-23T23:43:00.000-06:00

The Iraq war may be over, at least for US troops, but the cover-up of the atrocities committed there by American forces goes on, even in retrospectives about the war. A prime example is reporting on the destroyed city of Fallujah, where some of the heaviest fighting of the war took place.

On March 31, 2004, four armed mercenaries working for the firm then known as Blackwater (now Xe), were captured in Fallujah, Iraq’s third largest city and a hotbed of insurgent strength located in Anbar Province about 40 miles west of Baghdad. Reportedly killed in their vehicle, which was then torched, their charred bodies were strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Pictures and videos of Fallujah residents mocking the bodies, which, unlike the images of burned and mutilated Iraqi victims of American forces, were broadcast on American television and displayed on the front pages of American newspapers, created a wave of indignation and outrage in the U.S., and led the Bush/Cheney administration and the Pentagon to decide they needed to punish the city of over 300,000.

Accordingly, a few weeks later in April, a brutal assault was launched on Fallujah involving heavy aerial bombardment and house-to-house fighting by thousands of Marines. By the time the US forces had battled their way to the center of the city, the civilian casualties were so high that there were mass demonstrations in cities around the country, including in Baghdad where Iraqi workers held a three-day general strike. Under pressure from its own puppet regime in Baghdad, the U.S. withdrew its troops, leaving insurgents largely in control of the city.

In mid-October, however, the US, embarrassed by what was being portrayed by the Iraqi resistance as an American defeat in April, decided to go in again, this time with larger numbers and much more destructive force.

The plan, as explained by commanding officers interviewed by American reporters at the time, was to trap the insurgents in the city and wipe them out. To achieve that, an announcement was made on Oct. 14 to residents of the city that all civilians should leave. The Marines, aided by units of the UK military’s Black Watch regiment, placed a cordon of troops around the entire perimeter of Fallujah. Those civilians desiring to leave what would become essentially a city-wide free-fire zone, had to pass through checkpoints to escape the looming carnage...

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1019
Please, IF YOU VALUE THIS PUBLICATION, PLEASE SUPPORT US! (AND CHECK OUT OUR NEW T-SHIRTS BY SCROLLING DOWN THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HOME PAGE. BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO BECOME “A MAJOR DESTABILIZING INFLUENCE”!)
This publication is now celebrating its first full year of publication. We did this all with almost no financial support--only what you, our readers, provided. Can you help us make our second year a whole lot better, by giving use more financial support, so that we can devote more time to being reporters? If you believe as we do that we need more independent journalism, please put your money where your convictions are, and back ThisCantBeHappening! Use the Paypal button at the bottom of the home page, or send us a check at the address listed on the “Support Us” page.

Paul Craig Roberts: How Libertarian Dogmatists Are Sabotaging Ron Paul's Campaign @ Counterpunch

2012-01-23T23:40:00.000-06:00

Portions read on-air Radio Free Kansas, Monday News Night, 23 Jan. 2012.

[Excerpt] "If Ron Paul’s libertarian handlers and support base could escape their ideology, Ron Paul could be much better positioned to win the Republican nomination.

Here are some suggestions. ... "

Read more at Counterpunch.

Brownbackistan News Round Up, 23 Jan. 2012

2012-01-23T23:35:00.002-06:00

Barb Shelly | Brownback must reverse food stamp policy
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback envisions Kansas as a state where the taxes are low, government is small and opportunities are bountiful. But surely the route to this land of plenty doesn't involve denying food aid to children. As this story details, immigrant parents ...
See all stories on this topic »

Yael T. Abouhalkah | Brownback's shameful response on starving kids
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback has made his political career by talking tough on taxes and spending. Yet when the state unveiled a new, legal policy aimed at cutting food stamp availability to US citizens who are children of illegal aliens, Brownback went mum when The ...
See all stories on this topic »

Brownback addresses anti-abortion rally
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback told anti-abortion activists Monday at a rally on the south steps of the Kansas Statehouse. Brownback addressed a large crowd that took part in an annual rally held by Kansans for Life to mark the anniversary of the 1973 ruling in Roe v.
See all stories on this topic »

Auditors Complete Kansas Bioscience Authority Forensic Audits
MarketWatch (press release)
Sam Brownback in April 2011 and conducted by BKD, LLP, and Meara Welch Browne, PC. The full reports are available at www.kansasbioauthority.org . KBA Board Chairman Dan Watkins said, "Overall the forensic audit affirms that the KBA's investment process ...
See all stories on this topic »

Tax plans revealed by state lawmakers
Newton Kansan
Sam Brownback unveiled his plan to redo the Kansas tax system, and this week a group of Republicans unveiled another plan that was slightly different. Brownback's plan is to phase out the income tax and eliminate some tax breaks, including a tax break ...
See all stories on this topic »

Medicaid reform hearings reveal concerns
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback's Medicaid reform ended Monday with a parade of advocates for the developmentally disabled taking the podium to argue against managed care for their clients. Sharon Spratt of Cottonwood Inc. in Lawrence said most states are looking at ...
See all stories on this topic »

Governor, Attorney General Object To Proposed EPA Feedlot Rule
WIBW
Topeka – Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and Attorney General Derek Schmidt last week submitted a letter urging the Environmental Protection Agency to scrap a proposed regulation on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Brownback and Schmidt ...
See all stories on this topic »

Republican legislator seeks delay of governor's Medicaid plan
Lawrence Journal World
Sam Brownback to delay his proposal to privatize Medicaid. Sen. Dick Kelsey, R-Goddard, joined a chorus of comments that the move toward managed care was going too fast and had too many unresolved issues. He noted the request for proposals from managed ...
See all stories on this topic »

Letter: Streamline services
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback wants to streamline a government service to make it more responsive to those who use it, save taxpayers money and reduce fraud. The vehicle to accomplish this is a project to convert a paper-based social services system that crosses three ...
See all stories on this topic »

Kansas GOP Keeps 'Criminal Sodomy' Statute On The Books During Purge Of ...
ThinkProgress
Sam Brownback (R) released a list of 51 laws he recommends that the legislature repeal. An obsolete state statute criminalizing sodomy was not among them: Gov. Sam Brownback created the Office of the Repealer to recommend the elimination of out-of-date ...
See all stories on this topic »

Megaupload Op: Anonymous downs FBI, DoJ, music sites in biggest attack ever @ Russia Today

2012-01-22T19:11:00.001-06:00

Robert Parry: Getting Rid of ‘Anti-Israel’ Presidents @ Consortium News

2012-01-22T17:04:00.003-06:00

Many Kansans were insulted and outraged by the imprecation prayer Kansas statehouse Speaker Mike O'Neal endorsed in forwarding an email on Kansas government servers to his followers, which indirectly called for not only the murder of President Obama (and calling his wife Michelle "Mrs. Yomama") but for his children to be "fatherless."

Over 30,000 people signed an online petition with 4,000 Kansans demanding an apology from Speaker O'Neal and his resignation. Here's some of the press coverage from the Lawrence Journal World and then here's some of the press coverage on a Google word search proving that just a few can lead big battles.

Speak O'Neal has refused to resign, of course.

But he is in company with others who want to have President Barack Obama assassinated according to Robert Parry at Consortium News.

Exclusive: Some staunch supporters of Israel believe that its interests are so compelling that they trump American self-governance, with one extremist suggesting the murder of President Obama. Others, however, appear to have joined in an earlier subversion of U.S. democracy, Robert Parry reports.

Read who else wants to kill President Obama at Consortium News.

Brownbackistan State-wide News Round-up 22 Jan. 2012

2012-01-22T15:29:00.000-06:00

Gov.'s tax plan floundering in Legislature
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback miscalculated the intensity of political opposition generated by his plan to retain the state sales tax at 6.3 percent. By Tim Carpenter Democrats proclaimed and House Republicans inferred Friday the wheels were falling off of Gov. ...
See all stories on this topic »

'Best anti-poverty' tax measure on chopping block
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback's Republican administration. Brownback staffers say the EITC is rife with fraud and the tax code is no place for “social engineering.” But Alice Lieberman, of The University of Kansas school of social welfare, says Reagan was correct. ...
See all stories on this topic »

Republican eyes primary challenge against SE Kansas House member Peck
The Republic
Sam Brownback to rewrite the state's school finance law. The governor's plan would scrap the current system and give local school boards more sway in how they spend and raise education revenues. Kopfman said going to a system that relies more on local ...
See all stories on this topic »

Michael Hastings: Julian Assange: The Rolling Stones Interview @ Rolling Stone Magazine

2012-01-21T13:32:00.002-06:00

Perhaps the most important article to read this week. Get it here at Rolling Stone Magazine.

Andy Kroll: The Republican's Dark Money Moving Machine @ Mother Jones

2012-01-18T22:31:00.002-06:00

A guest post that certainly should have Kansans sitting up in their seats. Read it at Mother Jones and consider signing up to David Corn's free weekly newsletter "D.C. Decoder" for your email box.

Radio Free Kansas, "Wednesday News Night" 18 January 2012 10PM (Central Standard, USA)

2012-01-18T20:01:00.000-06:00

Wondering how that internet "black-out" went today against SOPA and PIPA?
What articles did we miss during it?
Find out tonight on RFK.

Free Speech Radio News - 30min.
News shorts from local Kansas politics with commentary.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has released his new tax reform plan and it is causing an uproar among many, including Republicans.
A sampling across the Main Street presses, headlines shortened for brevity:

The Kansas City Star, "Tax plan hits poor hardest"
The Lawrence Journal Word: "'Robin Hood' in reverse"
The Topeka Capital Journal "Poor would pay more"
A "Statehouse Live" report from Lawrence Journal World "Democratic chair blasts tax plan"

All these articles appeared in a single day, Jan. 17, 2012.
Maybe the people will read them in Brownbackistan.

Black-out Against SOPA and PIPA!

2012-01-18T11:31:00.000-06:00

The Flyer joins Internet websites today, January 18, by going dark to 8:00 PM ET to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, both being debated by Congress.

Too Much, January 16, 2012, A Free News Weekly

2012-01-18T11:05:00.000-06:00

THIS WEEK

Tim Cook became the CEO of Apple computer last August, on the same day the late Steve Jobs formally resigned. Apple, we learned last week, gave Cook a hearty welcome to his position. Enormously hearty.

Cook began his CEO stint with a new pay deal that grants him one million shares of Apple stock that will vest a bit down the road. The value of those shares last August: $376 million. The value last week: over $422 million.

We also learned something else last week, from a public radio broadcast by a self-professed “Apple fanboy,” monologist Mike Daisey, about his visit to plants in China that make his iPhone. Daisey found 36-hour shifts and suicide nets outside the factories, an Apple supplier’s response to a series of worker suicide leaps. On Friday, an official Apple report acknowledged still more horrors.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had he survived, would have turned 83 this past week. He could still be preaching. What would he be saying about Tim Cook and suicide nets? We won’t speculate. We will, in this week’s Too Much, explore the latest release of the annual report that updates the state of the Dr. King legacy.

About Too Much,
a project of the
Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality
and the Common Good

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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK
Don’t mess with Sheldon Adelson. Or any of his buddies. Casino mogul Adelson sent that message out loud and clear a week ago Friday when he dumped $5 million into the “super PAC” that backs the wobbling White House bid of former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Those dollars are this week bankrolling a $3.4 million TV ad buy in South Carolina against Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner who bashed Gingrich with an ad blitz of his own before the Iowa primary. Adelson and Gingrich have been close buds ever since Gingrich helped Adelson hone his anti-union patter. Adelson now ranks as the 2012 election’s most generous giver. He can afford to give more. His $5 million for Newt equals less than 0.1 percent of his $21.5 billion fortune.

Nick Turse: The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare @ Tom Dispatch

2012-01-16T12:34:00.002-06:00

The wind, the glider and the bad-ass men.

From Tom Engelhardt's introduction:

If, as Nick Turse has long been arguing in his reportage on our latest wonder weapons, drones are, in the end, counterproductive tools of war, this has yet to sink in here. After all, our military planners are now projecting an investment of at least $40 billion in the burgeoning drone industry over the next decade for more than 700 medium- and large-size drones (and who knows how much is to go into smaller versions of the same).

Turse's work on drones in his TomDispatch series on the changing face of empire relies on seldom noted realities hidden away in U.S. Air Force documents. He has a way of bringing the robotic planes down to earth.

Read more.

Linn Washington, Jr.: The Republicans' Rancid and All-Too-American Dance With Racism @ This Can't Be Happening!

2012-01-15T16:07:00.002-06:00

As the racist rhetoric oozes from Republican presidential candidates, why are comments contained in Ron Paul newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s being widely considered more offensive than current bigoted banter uttered by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum?

One answer to that question is a politics where partisan criticisms are directed at crippling certain candidates feared as rising stars.

Thus when Congressman Paul began percolating up in the Iowa Caucus polls late last year, news of his caustic comments in those decades-old newsletters became headline news coverage.

Curiously for a candidate tagged racist Paul has a public record of opposing the most racist governmental offensive in contemporary America – the War on Drugs – that societally destructive campaign other GOP presidential candidates ignore.

The Drug War’s documented race-tainted enforcement practices drives facts like blacks comprising 25% of Iowa’s state prison population despite blacks there representing just 2.9% of that state’s population.

Another answer to that question of why Ron not Rick or Newt lies embedded in America’s historic refusal to earnestly address racism especially pernicious institutional racism.

Dancing around racism, individual and institutional, is as American as apple pie.

Typical of the disingenuousness entangling that dance, racist remarks receive much ado while silence surrounds substantive issues like the unearned privileges arising from institutional racism that have aided the lives and careers of each of the GOP presidential contenders.

Former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, for example, enjoyed a comfortable middle class upbringing after his 1958 birth because both of his parents worked as medical professionals at Veterans Administration hospitals.

The VA along with other governmental and private sector employers openly discriminated against qualified black professionals until the late-1960s/early-1970s thus limiting blacks from income to improve their families.

Conservatives rarely if ever acknowledge the unearned benefits flowing to whites (especially those in the middle and upper classes) from America’s decades-long reign of legalized segregation.

“Racism is a tenacious evil,” civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated in a 1967 article published nine months before his assassination. This King observation is applicable to the political practice of candidates, mainly Republican, roiling race for electoral advantage.

King, in that article, also reminded “millions of underprivileged whites” of something they never hear from Republican GOP presidential candidates: white supremacy “can feed” egos but not stomachs. That factoid should resonate in today’s Recession ravished economy with high unemployment and rising rates of poverty...

For the rest of this article by LINN WASHINTGON, JR. in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1012

Please, IF YOU VALUE THIS PUBLICATION, PLEASE SUPPORT US! (AND CHECK OUT OUR NEW T-SHIRTS BY SCROLLING DOWN THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HOME PAGE. BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO BECOME “A MAJOR DESTABILIZING INFLUENCE”!)

This publication is now celebrating its first full year of publication. We did this all with almost no financial support--only what you, our readers, provided. Can you help us make our second year a whole lot better, by giving use more financial support, so that we can devote more time to being reporters? If you believe as we do that we need more independent journalism, please put your money where your convictions are, and back ThisCantBeHappening! Use the Paypal button at the bottom of the home page, or send us a check at the address listed on the “Support Us” page.

Democracy Now: Thomas Frank on new book Pity the Billionaires @ Soundcloud

2012-01-14T11:23:00.000-06:00

"Pity The Billionaire": Thomas Frank on the "Unlikely Comeback of the Right" Ahead of Iowa 1

Alyson Raletz: Ending Kansas angel credit may hurt Google effort, lawyer says @ KC Business Journal (Blog)

2012-01-14T10:20:00.002-06:00

Click here to read more.

Breaking News & Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government, 13 Jan. 2012

2012-01-14T10:17:00.003-06:00

Available at Discomfit Magazine.

Lewis Duiguid: Our Returning Vets Deserve A Better Future @ Kansas City Star

2012-01-09T11:10:00.001-06:00

[Excerpt]

Over the years I’ve encountered Iraqi war veterans at peace rallies and at a Midtown center for people with mental illness.

One woman came in from the cold with others who lived under bridges around the Plaza. She showed me her war wounds, told of sexual assaults she’d endured and of living on the street. It was the only place that welcomed her and not with empty gestures.

We have to do a better job for our returning veterans in this New Year than we did shoveling our children into wars that didn’t have to be fought. The government, which enticed them to enlist, now must make them whole, physically and mentally so they can function in society.

Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/our-returning-vets-deserve-better-future/#storylink=cpy

They're Back! Kansas Disaster (The Sequel: #Brownbackistan Slasher)

2012-01-09T10:06:00.000-06:00

Packed legislative session to start Monday
Topeka Capital Journal
Sam Brownback will deliver his 2012 State of the State address Wednesday at the Statehouse. By Andy Marso The gavel will drop at 2 pm Monday in both the House and the Senate, signifying the start to a Kansas legislative session that could leave a ...
See all stories on this topic »

Brownback pushes Legislature to attack bowl full of hot issues
Kansas City Star
Sam Brownback recently summarized: It's almost three legislative sessions rolled into one. “We've got a ton of things on the legislative agenda.” Brownback said. “We've got a lot we need to do.” It all starts at the top with Brownback, who promised to ...
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Kansas legislators head to Topeka for start of 2012 session
Kansas CW
Governor Sam Brownback wants lawmakers to simplify the school funding formula. That would give districts more freedom to spend the money as they wish, but also could eliminate extra funds that districts get for students with special needs. ...
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Copland, U.S.A. now S.O.P.? Today on Radio Free Kansas at 3pm, Central Standard

2012-01-08T13:06:00.000-06:00

Investigative journalist Dave Lindorff might have pulled out his pen and blown off his own toes with the latest send-up "Killer Cops" at This Can't Be Happening! Lindorff calls for police to act less as soldiers in a war and more like firefighters.

During the first hour we'll have a discussion with Lindorff about the recent lethal shooting by police of 15 yr. old Jaimie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas. Gonzalez was killed in possession of a CO2 powered pellet pistol, that photographs (provided by police) show it to closely resemble a Glock 9MM. The 8th grade student from Cummings Middle School was buried yesterday with hundreds "packing" the ceremony calling for "justice" according to today's Houston Chronicle.

Also joining the conversation "Mark" a retired federal firefighter who served in the U. S. Navy and as a civilian at Ft. Leavenworth. He'll describe his thoughts of the differences in mentalities and training between today's cops and our firefighters.

To listen or call in your commentary go to:

Radio Free Kansas

Tom Ferguson: The problem for the GOP is they have nothing to say about the economic crisis even though Obama policies have been a failure @ The Real News Network

2012-01-08T12:22:00.000-06:00

To view, click below:

GOP Needs Divine Intervention

Dave Lindorff: Killer Cops Aren't Heroes: Police Should Think & Act Like Firefighters, Not Like Soldiers In A War Zone @ This Can't Be Happening!

2012-01-08T05:39:00.000-06:00

The sad slaying of troubled eighth-grader Jaime Gonzalez in Brownsville by trigger-happy local police illustrates the sad an dangerous state we have arrived at as we turn our local police forces into SWAT team soldiers up-armed with assault rifles, black facemasks and stun grenades.

The reason Gonzalez, who had no hostages and was just armed with a pellet gun, was killed by police bullets was because the primary concern of the officers confronting him was to eliminate the threat to themselves, not to rescue a troubled kid.

To analyze this tragic situation, we need to step back and consider firefighters, that other group of uniformed public employees who also have to rescue people and whom we expect to face life-and-death situations on our behalf. As my cousin, a retired urban police officer, once pointed out to me, police don't face anywhere near the risk that firefighters face. As he explained, police officers in truth rarely face life-and-death situations on the job, and when they do, they generally have the upper hand, given their guns and their training. Firefighters, on the other hand, know that they could die every time they respond to an alarm.

When a firefighter arrives at a burning building, her or his first thought is whether there might be someone trapped inside, or unconscious inside from smoke inhalation. If there is any possibility that this might be the case, they just rush into the burning building, obviously as safely as possible, but always aware that the whole thing could come down on them at any moment.

I've actually witnessed this kind of selfless heroism. When I lived in a large apartment building in New York City, years ago, there was a fire in another apartment several floors down. The building was considered "fire proof," in that each unit was all surrounded by concrete--the walls, the ceilings and the floors -- so theoretically the fire in this apartment, which was sending angry flames and smoke billowing out of the windows, could have safely been allowed to burn itself out. But instead, what I saw when I went down to the hall that the apartment was on, was two NYFD firefighters rush up the stairs and walk up to the door, which was so hot the paint was blistering out on it like melting lava. Then, incredibly, without even stopping to cross themselves or say a little silent prayer, they just kicked in the door. As the flames rushed out towards them, to my astonishment, they just walked into the inferno!

I talked to one of them afterwards. As it turns out there was nobody in the apartment, but he said they had rushed in right away because they were concerned that someone might have been trapped inside.

Now that is selfless heroism, yet they just saw it as all in a day's work.

If they had been acting like police officers, these guys would have waited outside in the hall, while fire trucks outside sprayed water through the window to quell the flames...

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/998

Please, IF YOU VALUE THIS PUBLICATION, PLEASE SUPPORT US! (AND CHECK OUT OUR NEW T-SHIRTS BY SCROLLING DOWN THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HOME PAGE. BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO BECOME “A MAJOR DESTABILIZING INFLUENCE”!)

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The Real News Network, This Week Jan. 2 - 6, 2012

2012-01-08T04:52:00.002-06:00

View the videos at Discomfit Images.

Brian Ross: Mitt Romney's Offshore Tax Havens, FBI investigates @ ABC News

2012-01-08T04:45:00.002-06:00

Poster comment @ You Tube: FBI is investigating Bain Capital About two weeks ago, the FBI evoked FOIA exemption 7(a) and denied access to all Bain Capital records on the grounds that "there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records; and that release of the information contained in these responsive records could reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings."FBI Response to FOIA Re: Bain Capital-http://www.scribd.com/doc/77201586/FBI-Response-to-FOIA-Re-Bain-CapitalFrom http://historyanarchy.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-fbi-going-after-bain-capital.htmlSome have asked in response to other FBI FOIA request related postings on this site whether the FBI is required to release files related to an open investigation. As this response shows, the answer to that question is no. However, the response also shows that the FBI is required to acknowledge their existence. The only time Bureau is allowed to claim a no records response is during an active investigation in which acknowledgment of responsive records would compromise it.

Brownbackistan Local News Round-up

2012-01-08T04:38:00.000-06:00

Brownback enters session with ambitious agenda
Kansas.com
Sam Brownback will give his State of the State address, and unveil his tax reform plan, in a speech at 6:30 pm Wednesday. It will be broadcast on public television and radio stations. • By computer: Find House and Senate calendars, ...
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Brownback has full agenda awaiting legislators as session starts Monday
Lawrence Journal World
Sam Brownback trying to push through major changes in nearly all facets of state government. But those who take care of vulnerable Kansans, teach school children and advocate for public workers are hoping they can get legislators to slow down the ...
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Kansas Governor's Summit on Career Readiness
Kansas City infoZine
Topeka, KS - infoZine - Kansas Governor Sam Brownback will host the Governor's Summit on Career Readiness on Wednesday, January 18th at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Topeka. In his Road Map for Kansas, Governor Brownback highlighted the importance of ...
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Kan. leaders taking 2 paths in response to Boeing
CanadianBusiness.com
Sam Brownback is promising aggressive attempts to attract new commercial aviation work — even mentioning Boeing rival Airbus. Boeing's longtime presence in the Wichita area was a big part of the city's claim to its title, and state officials were ...
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Reversing JFK: Santorum's bid to marry faith and politics
CNN (blog)
Sam Brownback - who served with Santorum in Congress in the 1990s and 2000s - to the church. “Santorum was always dressed up,” Hemrick remembers. “Brownback was in sweats a lot from running.” The evangelical Brownback wound up converting to Catholicism ...
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Kansans Invited to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration
Kansas City infoZine
Topeka, KS - infoZine - Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and the Kansas African American Affairs Commission (KAAAC) have invited all Kansans to join them for the Governor's Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration on Thursday, January 12, 2012. ...
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Big issues loom for legislative session
Leavenworth Times
Sam Brownback's recent overhaul for public education funding and the future of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. Rep. Melanie Meier, a Democrat that represents the 40th District that includes the area in northern Leavenworth County and ...
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#Brownbackistan Posse Call newspaper, Sunday Edition, Jan. 8, 2011

2012-01-08T04:35:00.001-06:00

Read it at Paper Li.

Alan Guebert: Farm and Food: Colonialism 101 @ Journal Star

2012-01-08T04:33:00.003-06:00

[Excerpt]

It's hard to see Iowa State University's key role in a plan byone of its top officials to develop an 800,000-acre farm inTanzania as anything other than institutional polish to a land dealfor the politically well-connected.
And, yet, there sits ISU, in a geopolitical web that stretchesfrom its corn-and-soybean encircled campus in Ames to Wichita,Kan., home to Koch Industries, to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, oneof two offices of Pharos Financial Group, and then back to Alden,Iowa, the base of AgriSol Energy LLC, a closely-held ag enterprisethat's partnered with Pharos to use its "expertise to createagricultural businesses in underdeveloped global locations."

The link to all is Bruce Rastetter, a one-time Iowa farmboy thatnow, according to the Associated Press, serves as Iowa's political"kingmaker."

Rastetter is CEO of Summit Group, an "umbrella organization"that includes Summit Farms, his Iowa farming operation, andAgriSol, the Pharos-partnered company on the prowl for "globallocations that have attractive natural resources." Rastetter wasCEO of Hawkeye Energy Holdings, a 450 million-gallon ethanol makerthat, after a bankruptcy, was sold to a subsidiary of KochIndustries in 2011. ... Read more at Journal Star.

Comedian/Writer/Activist Lee Camp

2012-01-07T11:26:00.001-06:00

We've finished our holiday break, but not with the fun!

Listen in to some "Moment of Clarity" sound clips from his You Tube Channel.


Lee Camp, satire the funniest fog horn to come booming into an American's brain.

Today on Radio Free Kansas, along with Kansas news commentary and regional musicians.

The Most Damnable 2011 Year-end News Summary of Kansas, Saturday High Noon, Radio Free Kansas

2011-12-31T10:39:00.001-06:00

Yes fellow proletarian Podunks I will read some news and offer insights into the insanity of the Republic of Brownbackistan, currently marked as "Kansas" on your maps.

Beginning at High Noon (Central Standard, US) today!
Click
Radio Free Kansas

to listen in or, at showtime' go to any of the blogs listed below and click the play button on the handy dandy RFK player.
--
"It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart"
Ulysses Everett McGill "Oh Brother Where Art Thou"

The Flyer's Daily Ticker
http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com
The Nortonville Sun
http://nortonvillesun.blogspot.com
Discomfit Magazine
http://discomfit.blogspot.com

Occupy Wall Street: A Holiday Survival Guide

2011-12-30T14:11:00.001-06:00

Hat tip to Occupy for Accountability for the link!

Tony Rennell: Downton's dirty secret: One former maid on the risible relationship between the Granthams and their servants @ The Daily Mail, U. K.

2011-12-30T12:20:00.000-06:00

More Downstairs Than Upstairs

PBS fans of "Masterpiece Theater" may find this detailed article very interesting with the coming debut of the second in the "Downton Abbey" series about to air this January, 2012 in the U. S.


Cut line from article at The Daily Mail: Kind: Hugh Bonneville as Robert, Earl of Grantham, centre, may have been kind to his servants but it wasn't the norm

Read the complete article containing references from actual servants of the era portrayed in the PBS series "Downton Abbey."

Stephen G. Bloom: Observations of Twenty Years of Life in Iowa @ The Atlantic Magazine

2011-12-30T11:09:00.002-06:00

Read the article that inflamed so many in Iowa.

[Excerpt]

... Iowa is not flat as a pancake, despite what most people think. Northeast of Cedar Rapids is actually pretty hilly. It's an agricultural (corns and soybeans), landlocked state. While Iowa's landmass is a little larger than England's, its population is only three million, about 17 times smaller than Britain's. The state's name derives from the Ioway Indians, one of several tribes that used to call the region home. Of Iowa's 99 counties, 88 are classified as rural. Iowa's capital and largest city is Des Moines (pop: 203,000), whose primary business is insurance. The state is 91 percent white.*
On the state's eastern edge lies the Mississippi River, dotted with towns with splendid names like Keokuk, Toolesboro, Fruitland, Muscatine, Montpelier, Buffalo, Sabula, Davenport, Dubuque, and Guttenberg. Each once was a booming city on the swollen banks of the river that long ago opened the middle of America to expansion, civilization, abundance, and prosperity. Not much travels along the muddy and polluted Mississippi these days except rusty-bucket barges of grain and an occasional kayaker circumnavigating garbage, beer cans, and assorted debris. The majestic river that once defined the United States has been rendered commercially irrelevant these days.
Mark Twain once lived in Southeast Iowa, in Keokuk, working at his brother's printing press. He also was employed nearby as a reporter for the Muscatine Journal....

Much of the same could be written about Kansas, with the exception that the Kansas Democratic Party has less power than what exists as opposition in Iowa. Read more at The Atlantic.

Or listen to his recent conversation describing among other things the death threats that followed it's publication on National Public Radio's "Here and Now" with host Robin Young.

Chris Hedges on the Myth of Human Progress @ The Radio Project

2011-12-30T10:49:00.002-06:00

Renowned author Chris Hedges describes a world in rapid economic, environmental, and spiritual decline. He says we have a chance to turn things around—but only if we stand up for our rights, and stop holding out hope that political parties or other global leaders will act in our interests. On this edition, Chris Hedges speaks about his new book, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.
Special thanks to KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California.

Listen or Download

Dec. 29, 1890: Wounded Knee Massacre @ Wikipedia

2011-12-30T10:39:00.003-06:00

Burial of the dead after the massacre of Wounded Knee. U.S. Soldiers putting Indians in common grave; some corpses are frozen in different positions. South Dakota

Helene Cooper: Bipartisan Agreement: Obama Isn't Schmoozing @ New York Times

2011-12-30T10:37:00.003-06:00

Why should he, with congress and the beltway bandits being the most unpopular in decades?

Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Okemah, OK, July 11 - 15, 2012

2011-12-30T10:24:00.000-06:00

View more details at the jump.

Jefferson Morley: The Tea Party’s utopian market populism @ Salon.com

2011-12-30T10:11:00.002-06:00

Interview with Thomas Frank (best seller "What's the Matter With Kansas?") about his latest book "Pity the Billionaires." Read more.

Yakuza's Debtors Forced to Work at Fukushima Daiichi? 26 Dec 2011 @ CLG Newsletter, Discomfit Magazine

2011-12-27T10:38:00.000-06:00

Citizens for Legitimate Government compiles this list of links and headlines of hard to get news and is always fascinating. Read it at Discomfit Magazine.

Dave Lindorff: Better than Obama: Why the Establishment is afraid of Ron Paul @ This Can't Be Happening!

2011-12-27T10:20:00.000-06:00

A 1998 Documentary featuring Ron Paul by the John Birch Society.

It’s fascinating to watch the long knives coming out for Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, now that according to some mainstream polls he has become the front-running candidate in the Jan. 3 GOP caucus race in Iowa, and perhaps also in the first primary campaign in New Hampshire.

Remember, we’re talking about a guy who has been in Congress on and off for 12 terms, dating back to 1976. His views have been pretty consistent, and because he has run for president several times, also pretty well known. A practicing physician who claims to have helped in the births of over 4000 babies in his career, the 76-year-old Paul is a free-market advocate, an abortion opponent, an uncompromising defender of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, an opponent of government regulation, the Federal Reserve and the IRS, and of big government in general--especially big federal government.

What’s interesting is what he’s being attacked for: being a racist, being “anti-Israel” and being an isolationist.

The racist bit is funny. After all, if we’re honest, the whole political infrastructure of the US is riven with racism. Just check out the public schools in any urban area, where you’ll find most of the students are non-white, or check out the schools in rural parts of the southeast in areas where most of the students are black -- compare the condition of those schools and the class sizes to schools in the white neighborhoods. Check out the wildly different jobless figures for whites and for blacks. Check out the (very pale) complexion of the student bodies at just about any state university, check out the skin tones of the judges on the US Supreme Court, or for that matter, the whole federal bench. Check out the racial breakdown of the nation’s jails, and especially on the country’s many death rows, where you’ll find a wildly outsized percentage of people with black or brown skin waiting to be killed by the state.

Being a racist is clearly no disqualifier for national political office. It’s just that you are not supposed to say overtly racist things, at least in public.

Read more of this important article by Dave Lindorff at This Can't Be Happening!

The Real News Network

2011-12-27T10:12:00.001-06:00

America Beyond Capitalism
Gar Alperovitz describes a model that challenges private monopoly ownership without a powerful bureaucratic state
Go to story | Go to homepage

The Lulz Xmas Hack: Main$tream Press Coverage

2011-12-27T00:33:00.001-06:00

Today and yesterday's #Brownbackistan Posse Call newspaper contains much of the news coverage of the Lulz holiday hack on a shadow corporate think tank called "Stratfor" make the jump to get the latest, click here.

The New York Times Nicole Perlroth reported on it with the headline: "Hackers Breach the Web Site of Stratfor Global Intelligence."

Quote of the weekend comes from Jerry Irvine in Perlroth's article:

The attack was also likely intended to embarrass Stratfor, which specializes in intelligence and security. The hackers said they were able to obtain the credit card details because, they said, Stratfor had failed to encrypt them.
“The scary thing is that no matter what you do, every system has some level of vulnerability,” says Jerry Irvine, a member of the National Cyber Security Task Force. “The more you do from an advanced technical standpoint, the more common things go unnoticed. Getting into a system is really not that difficult.”

Cheers to all involved: hackers, cops and wanna be hot dogs!

Kansas: What the Tea Party Looks Like by Annie Gowen

2011-12-23T22:04:00.000-06:00

Click here.

That link goes to the Bangor, Maine daily newspaper it was picked up from the original Washington Post article where it gathered over 3300 comments click here.

The nation's sputtering Tea Party movement will now be provided another example of Reagan's failed trickle down economics in Kansas.

One difference being this time around, the over taxed young working people at the bottom in Kansas after kissing Brownback's ass and making him governor, have a current version of another failed Kansas politician to remember Brownback with after his "revolution in a cornfield" has failed.

Kansans in their millions will now feel the pain once reserved for women who sought reproductive freedom here, but on a monumental scale and it will last for decades to come.

Kansans in massive numbers are about to feel the pain of even lower wages as corporate and wealthy family elites (many from outside Kansas) ride herd over them. And these elites will be paying little if any taxes.

The stupid and ignorant, the older generations who vote their religion at every election and the low wage conservative working youth are about to get a harsh cold lesson in Gov. Sam Brownback and his shysters and cronies in Topeka.

What former attorney general Phill Kline did to not too few Kansas women, his more powerful successor, Brownback as governor will do to you and your family pocketbook.

Brownback is Kline on political economic steroids and Kansans are only now getting a clue. It might take a few more reporters like Annie Gowen to explain it to them.

Annie Gowen's Washington Post article quotes a Florida transplant paid by Kansas taxpayers to destroy or privatize your state's public services:

But in Kansas, as nowhere else in the country, tea party fervor is reshaping government. The same political forces of the Republican Party driving the confrontation over taxes and spending in Washington are now completely in charge in Kansas.

The GOP now controls the state’s House of Representatives with the biggest majority in half a century. Emboldened by this power shift, Brownback — the state’s former two-term U.S. senator — has embarked on his overhaul at a breathtaking pace.

“It’s a revolution in a cornfield,” said Arthur Laffer, the 71-year-old architect of supply-side economic theory and former economic adviser for President Ronald Reagan who is now working with the governor. “Brownback and his whole group there, it’s an amazing thing they’re doing. Truly revolutionary.”

Brownback and his "tea party" also had reference to the same article in the Governor's Journal which pointed out his upcoming "State of the State" speech possibly getting national media attention.

A Kansas City Star member of its editorial board, Barb Shelly had this gentle prediction about Brownback in the context of the Washington Post article:

... In a meeting with The Kansas City Star’s editorial board this week, Brownback surprisingly started touting the benefits of the federal wind production tax credit, which he said needs to be continued in order to make wind energy viable. It was a bit surreal hearing him advocate for a federal tax credit to promote alternative energy, especially since he’d just finished telling us that loopholes and exemptions in Kansas’ income tax code constituted “social engineering” and need to be removed. But Brownback said he’d voted for the wind production tax credit while in the U.S. Senate. “My first focus is this is great for Kansas,” he said.

I think at the core Brownback is a rock-solid religious conservative and a true believer in limited government principles. He and his staff have a ruthless streak, which will be on full display in 2012 as the governor’s political operatives work to dislodge the moderate Republicans who are standing in the way of full legislative cooperation.

Read the full Ed-Op from the Kansas City Star here.

The governor loves that kind of national exposure, when planning his bid in 2016 for GOP presidential material, but all this could very well blow up in his face.

Brownback's gamble could have him in 2017 writing lengthy (religious) tomes from his family's crop subsidized farms in defense of his Koch billionaire-inspired zealotry, like that of his buddy, former state attorney general Phill Kline.

Kline writes from his Jerry Falwell sponsored office at Liberty University, Lynchburg, Va.

Of course Kansans could be more fortunate with Brownback, he might finally leave his wife and children after having his unbridled political ambitions dashed and be writing his political autobiography from some dusty office in the Vatican, or worse Atchison.

Kline has filed a 175 page legal defense brief with the Kansas legal disciplinary officials, according to reporter Steve Fry at the Topeka Capital Journal, December 23, 2011.

Obviously Kline's desire to tell his dwindling supporters, like Brownback how their shared divine guidance determined his numerous crimes against women and Dr. Tiller's surviving family members.

Brownback has Kansans paying millions for Kline's numerous bill padding legal defense teams. Brownback and his brown nosers are having taxpayers pay millions to persecute the last link to the ghost of murdered Dr. George Tiller.

There must be some comfort for Kline being in the governor's company, Brownback served up repeated votes for "supplemental spending" to the tune of hundreds of billions along with many in the much hated U. S. congress for the catastrophic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brownback, like most "pro-life" pro-war Americans prefer to not remember the Reagan deficits,or his Texas Bush league successors' wars, conveniently forgetting the wasted rivers of blood and trillions in wasted national treasures.

Maybe rational intelligent conservatives, what few that may still exist in Kansas will finally recognize that religious zeal put into "free market" theories of unbounded capitalism, as being bankrupt in the 21st century.

#Brownbackistan Posse Call, Friday, Dec. 23, 2011

2011-12-22T23:29:00.000-06:00

Click here for the latest.

Fightin' Cock Flyer: Ivan Beese's South Dakota Christmas 1938 @ Google Video

2011-12-22T19:45:00.001-06:00

The film uses edited clips from Ivan Besse's amateur classic "South Dakota 1938 - 39" at Internet Archive.org featuring in this installment Christmas on Main Street Britton, South Dakota.

The clips are edited and timed to two songs by Lawrence, Ks. musician, Bryan Newbury; "Brewster County Breakdown" and "Beatrice" which makes a haunting image of a streetside musician singing of hard times.

According to a Dec. 9, 2006 interview with Aileen Besse: Ivan Besse shot the originals for his then struggling Strand Theater as a production technique to "lure patrons" into shows. He then aired each Tuesday and Wednesday the faces of local Brittons during the hard times of the Great Depression.

Besse who passed on, Sept. 2, 2005 (born in a Dakota sodhouse July 4, 1907) sold the original 16mm reels during the theater's closure in 1985 for around fifty cents. According to his wife, Eileen Besse, the reels were then donated to the Prelinger Archives which placed some of the estimated 50 reels up on the internet into the public domain.

Ivan Besse worked at the Strand Theater for 66 years, starting in 1919 as a coal shoveler in the basement, he purchased it in 1950 and ran it till it closed in 1985.

Michael Caddell edited and produced this particular installment. He lives and publishes from North Jefferson County, Kansas. He and Bryan Newbury who provided his songs, are native Kansans and buddies who decided to make the ten minute tribute to "everyday" people having joy during hard times.

Enjoy. Peace and Freedom to All.

Dan DeWalt: Vying for Detention: Two liberal Democratic Senators Give Us a Police State for Christmas @ This Can't Be Happening!

2011-12-22T15:31:00.003-06:00

Predator Odrona is about to sign a military authorization bill [Carl Levin's S-1867] that puts every one of us at risk of being detained by our own military. If the government decides that you are a terrorist threat, the military will be able to kidnap you and deny you the right to a trial or even the right to know why you're being held.

The arrogant and short-sighted leaders who “govern” us have granted the government the right to detain you anywhere in the world, including inside the U.S., and there is no limit to the amount of time that they can hold you once they've got you.

We shouldn't worry though, they claim, because this new law is only meant for the terrorists among us.

So just who represents a terrorist threat? Well, protesters for starts, according to a Pentagon training test, which defines protests as acts of low-level terrorism. Quaker peace meetings in Vermont and across the country have been registered as “suspicious incidents” by the Defense Department's secretive TALON snooping system. Once your name has been entered into one of these lovely surveillance systems, you can rest assured that it will never disappear.

The muslims in America certainly know that they are perceived as potential or likely terrorists by an alarming number of law enforcement agencies across the land. Reports have documented blatant anti-muslim profiling by “experts” presenting at law enforcement terrorism training events.

And let's not forget the right side of the spectrum. Radical back-to-the-landers who wave guns and evade taxes have long been a government favorite for keeping their kill squads sharp. Just ask Randy Weaver. Washington state recently requested an was granted the use of a military surveillance drone to lead SWAT teams, a bomb squad, the highway patrol and four counties’ worth deputy sheriffs to arrest three unarmed brothers over a six-cow dispute.

2011 P.U.LITZERS: Journalism That Doesn't Pass the Smell Test @ Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

2011-12-22T14:51:00.003-06:00

AWARDED EXCERPTS

--Wacky Conspiracy Award: CBS's Steve Kroft

Kroft (60 Minutes, 1/30/11) explained the apparently demented worldview of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange:

Julian Assange is not your average journalist or publisher, and some have argued that he is not really a journalist at all. He is an anti-establishment ideologue with conspiratorial views. He believes large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth and he distrusts the mainstream media for playing along.

--Paul's Not Newt Award: Washington Post's Sarah Kaufman

Kaufman (12/15/11) puzzled over the lack of interest in Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul:

So why, with his long-held views and an enthusiastic base of support, does Paul get so little attention? It's not only his anti-establishment message. Part of his acceptance issue is the way he presents himself. As much as he is a refreshing departure from the mold, he also comes across as a gadfly. Consider if Paul had the heftier, more serious bearing of a Romney or a Gingrich. Would he be so easy to dismiss?

--Blind Faith in Precision Weapons Award: CNN's Chris Lawrence

The Pentagon correspondent (3/20/11) was confident from the start of the Libya War that civilians could not possibly be killed:

American Tomahawk missiles can be reprogrammed in flight. If there was a risk of civilian casualties, operators could change the target after launch. But the Navy did not use that ability, confident it was aiming at military targets. Moammar Gadhafi says the strikes killed civilians. But a defense official told us if you don't have to reprogram your missile, you're very confident in what you're hitting.

--That's Our Newt Award: Washington Post's Dan Balz; New York Times' Trip Gabriel

Gabriel wrote (New York Times, 11/29/11): "In an election season rife with factual misstatements, deliberate and otherwise, Mr. Gingrich sometimes seems to stand out for exhibiting an excess of knowledge."

Balz (5/12/11) called the former House speaker "an idea-spewing machine"and a "one-man think tank." The reporter warned of one pitfall: "A keen intellect can also translate into the appearance of intellectual superiority."

--Exceptionally Clueless Columnist Award: Washington Post's Kathleen Parker

Parker wrote a column (1/30/11) about how the president "seems afraid" of the word "exceptionalism"--a favorite anti-Obama conservative talking point. Parker claimed that during the State of the Union address, Obama spoke of America's "uniqueness," but he "studiously avoided using the word." One problem: according to a review of presidential papers going back to 1929 (USNews.com, 1/31/11), only one president has ever uttered the phrase "American exceptionalism"...and that's Barack Obama.

Read more P.U.Litzer Awards for 2011 at F.A.I.R.

Press Releases: Indelicate Depravities of Holiday Rural Life @ Federal Bureau of Investigation

2011-12-22T11:36:00.003-06:00

Okay, it's my headline, but the FBI news stories seem somehow appropriate in my current McScrooge attitude.

My Grinchiness has much to do with witnessing the holiday spirits of those in rural America, not seasoned with Norman Rockwell publicity snaps, Currier & Ives snowy pictorials contrasted with the urban shopper anarchy of Black Fridays, rampaging to the Big Box chain stores in their suburban season.

It has to be said, "one cannot make this shit up."

August, 2011, Independence, Mo.

Catholic Priest Indicted for Producing Child Pornography Indictment Alleges Sexual Exploitation of Five Child Victims, Some on Church Property

October, 2011, Columbia, Mo.

Columbia Man Pleads Guilty to Coerced Sex Trafficking of a Child

December, 2011, Kirkwood, Mo.

Kirkwood Man Pleads Guilty to Sex Trafficking Will Receive 20 Years in Prison for Torturing Woman Who Was Coerced as Sex Slave

And again closing the year out, December, 2011, Columbia, Mo.

Columbia Man Pleads Guilty to Robbing Banks, Pharmacy

Okay, so the argument from the Left goes, "if we got rid of the pernicious influences of capitalism, hierarchical patriarchies, imperialist conclaves of financial speculation and militarism. All of this would go away."

And lest we forget, the argument from the Right goes, "if we just returned to the original U. S. Constitution, eliminate all the Bill of Rights after the first ten, force our religions down all the other people's throats, invoke the sacredness of private property and let us beat our kids and wives into submission. Everything will be okay. It's called 'Liberty.'"

And I haven't listed the "white collar" crimes of embezzlement, mortgage fraud, Ponzi schemes or the bank robberies. Lots of them, too.

Gadget for U. S. Holiday Shoppers! No Bells & Whistles, Many Flashing Lights!

2011-12-22T09:39:00.004-06:00

Is it accurate?

Don't know, but it is interesting and noteworthy.

Click here.

Greg Mitchell: The OccupyUSA Blog With Frequent Updates @ The Nation

2011-12-22T09:27:00.001-06:00

If you haven't bookmarked Greg Mitchell's regularly updated site, you should. Click here.

Gingrich Plummets in Polls as Voters Start Remembering Who He Is @ The Borowitz Report

2011-12-22T08:45:00.002-06:00

"Dawning Awareness Threatens Campaign." Read more from The Borowitz Report

Ray McGovern: Pvt. Manning and Imperative of Truth @ Consortium News

2011-12-22T08:39:00.002-06:00

The sudden move by Pvt. Manning's defense lawyers to end their work has many talking across the web.

Exclusive: The prosecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning for inconvenient truth-telling is more proof of how hypocritical Official Washington is, especially when Manning’s case is compared to how Bush administration officials walked despite clear evidence that they sanctioned torture and other war crimes, notes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

Read more at Consortium News.

Sanjay Kumar: India's Dirty Picture @ Pakpotpourri

2011-12-22T08:18:00.002-06:00

Excerpt - Recently released Hindi movie “Dirty Picture” is a ‘celebration’ of women’s independence, individuality and sexuality, capturing the life of Silk Smitha, who lives by her own rules, using her sexuality to free herself from the hypocrisy of a male dominated society. But such portrayals are a far cry from the reality of life for many Indian women. Read more at Pakpotpourri edited by Yasmeen Ali, Lahore, Pakistan

#Brownbackistan Posse Call, Monday, Dec. 19, 2011

2011-12-19T17:16:00.001-06:00

Out now!

Click here.

Danny Schechter: It's Not Over, Say Occupy Protesters @ Consortium News

2011-12-19T17:05:00.000-06:00

Three months into the Occupy Wall Street movement, protesters took their message uptown in a march that surprised the police and many Christmas shoppers, but helped explain what the economic crisis means to average people, writes Danny Schechter.

Read other great news stories like these at Consortium News.

John Grant: "Supporters Give Bradley Manning a Hero's Tribute Outside Ft. Meade" @ This Can't Be Happening!

2011-12-19T14:33:00.000-06:00

Ft. Meade -- Saturday, December 17th was Bradley Manning’s 24th birthday, and at least 300 supporters gathered outside Fort Meade, Maryland, where the military was in its second day of a preliminary hearing process that’s expected to take about a week. Manning worked in military intelligence and is alleged to have released military secrets to WikiLeaks, which released the material publicly.

After collecting at the main gate, Manning supporters set off for a two-mile march to a gate nearer the military hearing site. The group was quite spirited and, despite Anne Arundel County Police efforts to keep marchers on the sidewalk, insisted on taking up a lane of the street. The police wisely did not attempt to stop them and there were no problems.

A friend and I had driven down from Philadelphia and arrived early for the gathering. At the local Dunkin Donut we found ourselves in line behind two Anne Arundel County officers there to pick up their daily allotment of donuts. The men were friendly and we chatted about being there for the Manning demonstration. They proudly told us the department had provided two porta-potties for the convenience of demonstrators. They told us to be safe and stay on the sidewalk.

A witness to Friday's opening day of the hearing said, despite nasty and shameful treatment by the military early in his captivity, Manning looked healthy and chatted easily with his attorneys. He notably made no eye-contact and in no way acknowledged the many sympathizers in the courtroom -- a prudent decision, no doubt, made by his attorneys, given the Kafkaesque reality of being a prisoner of the US military circa 2011.

Manning's attorneys made a number of motions, all or most of which were rejected; I was told only two of 38 requested witnesses for Manning were allowed by the military judges. When the Friday hearing was over and people were filing out, Veterans For Peace Board Member Nate Goldshlag hollered "Bradley Manning is a hero!" This was too much for military authorities, and Goldshlag was told never to return to the hearings. (Anyone can attend the hearings; those interested should be at the Fort Meade gate by 7AM and ask where to go from there. No electronics allowed, and of course silence is the rule.)

Following the spirited march, a number of veteran and activist speakers addressed the crowd, speaking of Manning’s individual courage and the absurdities of the secrecy-obsessed National Security State system in whose clutches he resides. After the final speaker singer-songwriter Dave Rovics led the group in singing Happy Birthday to Manning...

For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT, plus his incredible photographs of the support demonstration, in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new Project Censored Award-winning independent online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/959

Please, IF YOU VALUE THIS PUBLICATION, PLEASE SUPPORT US! (AND CHECK OUT OUR NEW T-SHIRTS BY SCROLLING DOWN THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HOME PAGE. BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK TO BECOME “A MAJOR DESTABILIZING INFLUENCE”!)
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Merco Press: Cameron: UK is a Christian country 'and we should not be afraid to say so.' @ The Guardian, U.K.

2011-12-17T16:16:00.004-06:00

Excerpt
... But what I am saying is that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today.“

Mr Cameron said people often argued that ”politicians shouldn't 'do God'“ - a reference to a comment famously made by former No 10 spin Doctor Alistair Campbell when Tony Blair was asked about his religion.

”If by that they mean we shouldn't try to claim a direct line to God for one particular political party, they could not be more right,“ the PM said.

”But we shouldn't let our caution about that stand in the way of recognising both what our faith communities bring to our country, and also just how incredibly important faith is to so many people in Britain.“

Mr Cameron also said it was ”easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity“.

”Many people tell me it is much easier to be Jewish or Muslim here in Britain than it is in a secular country like France,“ he said.

”Why? Because the tolerance that Christianity demands of our society provides greater space for other religious faiths too.

“And because many of the values of a Christian country are shared by people of all faiths and indeed by people of no faith at all. (BBC). ...

#Brownbackistan Posse Call Newspaper, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 OUT NOW!

2011-12-17T11:56:00.000-06:00

Photo credit: The KC Pitch, Angela C. Bond & Anonymous

READ IT HERE!

John Hanna via Associated Press: SRS Director Rob Siedlecki to step down at the end of the month @ The Wichita Eagle

2011-12-17T10:36:00.000-06:00

TOPEKA — The top social services official in Kansas is stepping down after less than a year in office, Gov. Sam Brownback’s office announced Thursday, ending a tenure marked by controversy over administrative decisions and the governor’s policies.

Video: Operation Spoof Pig Roast @ Storming Heaven's Gates

2011-12-17T10:28:00.001-06:00

Jump to Storming Heaven's Gates!

Click here!

Expect Us! Welcome to 2012!

2011-12-16T01:48:00.001-06:00

WTF? Worldwide ring of pediphiles with 9000 penises? Better retired weeping for Obama.

Dave Lindorff: Why Do They Hate Us? @ This Can't Be Happening!

2011-12-15T19:35:00.000-06:00

As the National Journal put it in a December 4 article, a US “covert war” against Iran has already begun. Conducted in part by the US, as evidenced by the advanced American RQ-170 Sentinel stealth surveillance drone downed--apparently by sophisticated electronic countermeasures that allowed the taking control of, and landing of the vehicle--by Iran, and in part of proxies, including the Iranian anti-government terrorist organization MEK (for Mujahideen-e Khalq), and of course Israel’s Mossad, this secret dirty war has led to an escalating string of acts of terror inside Iran, including a campaign of assassination against Iranian nuclear scientists, and bombings of Iranian military installations.

Not content to simply engage in such illegal hostilities against a sovereign nation that has not threatened the U.S., and that in fact has not invaded another country in some 200 years, President Obama had the effrontery to demand that the Iranians return the spy drone that they had captured!

Imagine for a moment if an Iranian, or some other nation’s, robot spy plane had been captured or shot down over U.S. territory. Imagine the official response if the nation that owned that plane were to demand its return! First of all, Congressmembers, probably almost unanimously, would be clamoring for the US to launch an attack on whatever company launched the spy plane. But the reaction to a demand to return such a device would be truly explosive! The audacity!

Actually, you don’t need to imagine. Look at the right-wing media and the official US government response to the arrest of two men in New York accused of the hard-to-believe conspiracy of planning, allegedly at the direction of Iranian government sources, to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Forget about proving that this far-fetched alleged plot was real at all, and not just another creation of some FBI informant/provocateur, or whether Iran was really behind it even if it was. There were open calls for bombing Iran immediately!

President Obama, meanwhile, keeps saying that “all options are on the table” for dealing with what the US government alleges is an Iranian campaign to develop nuclear weapons -- itself a very dubious claim. And to back up that threat, the US has actually delivered huge non-nuclear “bunker busting” bombs to Israel, a country which has openly been discussing plans to attack Iran.

These are all war crimes under the UN charter and actual acts of war...

For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new Project Censored Award-winning independent online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/956

Book Review: Top Secret America by Dana Priest and William Arkin @ Bill of Rights Defense Committee

2011-12-15T19:31:00.002-06:00

Excerpt

... States and local law enforcement are increasingly involved in fighting the “war on terror,” but since terrorism is so rare, the tools allocated for detecting and preventing terrorists are overwhelmingly used to fight ordinary crime. This leads to abuses, such as a story the authors recount involving the Memphis police. Officers pulled over a woman who was operating a vehicle that fit the description of one they were looking for. Once police realized that she was not the person they were looking for, the woman, who was African American, received a bogus ticket. ...

Read more.

Herman Cain and Lowe's Balls of the Week on The Daily Show

2011-12-15T18:42:00.001-06:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Lowe's Balls of the Week

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich, The Fall of the Liberal Elite

2011-12-15T18:29:00.003-06:00

Excerpt from Tom's Introduction

You might almost think the news was good. The Europeans, so headlines tell us, have at least a“partial solution” to the Euro-zone crisis (until, of course, the next round of panic is upon us); the stock market has sort of rebounded (until the next precipitous plunge); the unemployment rate“dropped sharply” to 8.6% in November, the lowest it’s been in more than two years (thanks in part to the strangest category around -- the 315,000 people who grew too discouraged last month to look for work and so were no longer considered unemployed but out of the labor force); and talk of a double-dip recession seems on holiday. So why pay attention to the modest-sized Associated Press story you were likely to find, if at all, deep inside your newspaper (as on page 21 of last Friday's Washington Post)? It was headlined “Household wealth down in 3rd quarter,” with the telling subhead, “Corporate cash continues to grow, Fed report says.” ... Read more at Tom's Dispatch.

Robert Parry: Will Iraq Debacle Prevent Iran War? @ Consortium News

2011-12-15T18:25:00.004-06:00

Exclusive: Neoconservatives are livid over President Obama’s declaration that the Iraq War is over, fearing that its disastrous outcome will undercut plans for a new war with Iran. But Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich says, if elected, he stands ready to join Israel in invading Iran, Robert Parry reports.

.Big Weekend Ahead: PFC Bradley Manning Trial Starts, Re-Occupy Wall Street Initiative

2011-12-15T13:50:00.001-06:00

"Mic Check!" Gingrich in Iowa

Greg Mitchell: "The OccupyUSA Blog for Thursday, Dec. 15" @ The Nation

J. A. Meyerson: The Fracturing of Occupy Wall Street @ The Nation

2011-12-15T11:49:00.003-06:00

Excerpt

... It’s clear that the primary issue afflicting Occupy right now is the lack of an occupation. In the month since the New York Police Department violently forced the occupiers out of Zuccotti, the people whose residence was Liberty Plaza Park have nowhere to go. Some of them had previously been homeless. Others left their homes to join the movement. But deprived of the food station, the medical tent, the things that once fulfilled their needs for basic survival, they have rapidly lost faith in Occupy Wall Street’s much-vaunted democratic process to provide the supportive community that once existed here.

The Occupy activists have tried to help find shelter for those left homeless by the eviction, sending out urgent bulletins almost nightly to arrange accommodations. Some have been sleeping at a shelter in Far Rockaway, some in churches in Harlem and on the Upper West Side. As with national numbers on the homeless, it is difficult to tell exactly how many occupiers need housing, but it is surely in the hundreds. These include not just experienced urban survivalists like Ghengis Khalid Muhammed, or GKM, who works with the support organization Picture the Homeless, which helps people find food stamps and soup kitchens, but also people who have no idea how to live on the streets and who are freezing, starving and unable to get MetroCards to travel to places where shelter may or may not be available. Lauren, of Occupy’s Housing Committee, tells me that two pregnant women have so far been turned away from churches.

The activist core of the occupation—the people who met over the summer in Tompkins Square Park, who set up and continue to participate in working groups and who spend their days in meetings—sees this as an Empire Strikes Back moment, taking the opportunity to plan actions and events for the winter. In the atrium at 60 Wall Street and in the Occupied Office at 50 Broadway, they are planning important things, chiefly the continuation of the Occupy Our Homes foreclosure resistance project that kicked off last week. They have their eye on the Jedi’s return. ...

Fightin' Cock Flyer

RFK Today! Kansans United in Voice & Spirit!

George Kenny Interviews Ambassador Peter Jenkins @ Electric Politics

Douglas A. Berg: Why We Shouldn't Be Surprised Susan G. Komen for the Cure Is Anti-Women @ This Can't Be Happening!

Scott Rothschild: Opposition Increases to Brownback Tax Plan, KPERS Changes @ Lawrence Journal World

Alexander Cockburn: Sure, Apple Could Build the iPhone Here @ The Nation

A Mother Jones Election Broadside! DC Bureau Strikes Back!

Bob Weeks: Fracking Movie Proposed @ Wichita Liberty

Brownbackistan Regional News Round-Up, 03 Febuary, 2012

Dion Lefler: Largest insurer in Kansas declines to participate in governor’s Medicaid reform @ Kansas City Star

Carl Hiassan: Florida Republican Primary; A Basket Case for Sick Puppies @ The Guardian, U.K.

Book Excerpt Courtesy: Thomas Frank, Pity the Billionaires: The Hard Times Swindle & the Unlikely Come-Back of the Right @ AlterNet

Brownbackistan Billionaire Brothers Pays Lawyer to Howl Foul @ Wall Street Journal Ed/Op

Kate McGinty & Erica Felci: Koch Group Quietly Met at Indian Wells @ The Desert Sun

Staff Report: 'Gasland' Film Director Arrested at Capital Meeting @ Common Dreams

Brownbackistan Regional News Round Up: 01 Feb. 2012

Kansans Count: We Demand Democracy, Topeka, Ks.

February 15th, 2pm, South steps of the Capitol

Go to Kansans United.

Dave Lindorff: And We Actually Pay These Guys? 'Intelligence' Chief Warns of Iran Attacks in US @ This Can't Be Happening!

Occupy Koch Town, Feb. 17 - 19, Wichita, Ks.

Sustainability Action Network: 31 Jan. 2012 Newsletter

Homework for Kansans: Wall St. Celeb Swag & Gag, 30 January 2012

Radio Free Kansas, Monday News Night, 30 Jan. 2012

David R. Baker,Vivian Ho & Staff Writers: Oakland Police Battle Occupy Protesters @ San Francisco Chronicle

Mattias Gafni & Chris De Bennedetti: Day of Clashes at Occupy Oakland Ends With At Least 200 Arrests @ San Jose Mercury

Dave Lindorff: What Would Peter Zenger Say: We are the Champions...of the World? @ This Can't Be Happening!

Dave Helling (Kansas City Star): Sedgwick County judges contributed to anti-abortion PAC @ The Wichita Eagle

Stephanie Pappas: Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice @ Yahoo! News

News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government, 28 Jan 2012

#OpAssange - guide to citizen activism

Brownbackistan Regional News Round Up, 28 Jan. 2012

Tim Murphy: Baby Moses, Human–Jellyfish Hybrids, and Transhumanism: The GOP Candidates Weigh In @ Mother Jones Magazine

Laid-Off Steelworker: Mitt Romney & Bain Capital Profitted by Shutting Down Kansas Steel Plant @ Democracy Now!

Program Summary "Monday News Night" 23 Jan. 2012

Beccy Tanner: Downtown Statue Honors Leader of Women's Rights, Populist Movment @ The Wichita Eagle

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd: Campus Cops Brutalize Peaceful Students Protesting Tuition Hikes at UC Riverside @ AlterNet

Dave Lindorff: U.S. Media Iraq War Reporting: See No Evil @ This Can't Be Happening!

Paul Craig Roberts: How Libertarian Dogmatists Are Sabotaging Ron Paul's Campaign @ Counterpunch

Brownbackistan News Round Up, 23 Jan. 2012

Megaupload Op: Anonymous downs FBI, DoJ, music sites in biggest attack ever @ Russia Today

Robert Parry: Getting Rid of ‘Anti-Israel’ Presidents @ Consortium News

Brownbackistan State-wide News Round-up 22 Jan. 2012

Michael Hastings: Julian Assange: The Rolling Stones Interview @ Rolling Stone Magazine

Andy Kroll: The Republican's Dark Money Moving Machine @ Mother Jones

Radio Free Kansas, "Wednesday News Night" 18 January 2012 10PM (Central Standard, USA)

Black-out Against SOPA and PIPA!

Too Much, January 16, 2012, A Free News Weekly

Nick Turse: The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare @ Tom Dispatch

Linn Washington, Jr.: The Republicans' Rancid and All-Too-American Dance With Racism @ This Can't Be Happening!

Democracy Now: Thomas Frank on new book Pity the Billionaires @ Soundcloud

Alyson Raletz: Ending Kansas angel credit may hurt Google effort, lawyer says @ KC Business Journal (Blog)

Breaking News & Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government, 13 Jan. 2012

Lewis Duiguid: Our Returning Vets Deserve A Better Future @ Kansas City Star

They're Back! Kansas Disaster (The Sequel: #Brownbackistan Slasher)

Copland, U.S.A. now S.O.P.? Today on Radio Free Kansas at 3pm, Central Standard

Tom Ferguson: The problem for the GOP is they have nothing to say about the economic crisis even though Obama policies have been a failure @ The Real News Network

Dave Lindorff: Killer Cops Aren't Heroes: Police Should Think & Act Like Firefighters, Not Like Soldiers In A War Zone @ This Can't Be Happening!

The Real News Network, This Week Jan. 2 - 6, 2012

Brian Ross: Mitt Romney's Offshore Tax Havens, FBI investigates @ ABC News

Brownbackistan Local News Round-up

#Brownbackistan Posse Call newspaper, Sunday Edition, Jan. 8, 2011

Alan Guebert: Farm and Food: Colonialism 101 @ Journal Star

Comedian/Writer/Activist Lee Camp

The Most Damnable 2011 Year-end News Summary of Kansas, Saturday High Noon, Radio Free Kansas

Occupy Wall Street: A Holiday Survival Guide

Tony Rennell: Downton's dirty secret: One former maid on the risible relationship between the Granthams and their servants @ The Daily Mail, U. K.

Stephen G. Bloom: Observations of Twenty Years of Life in Iowa @ The Atlantic Magazine

Chris Hedges on the Myth of Human Progress @ The Radio Project

Dec. 29, 1890: Wounded Knee Massacre @ Wikipedia

Helene Cooper: Bipartisan Agreement: Obama Isn't Schmoozing @ New York Times

Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Okemah, OK, July 11 - 15, 2012

Jefferson Morley: The Tea Party’s utopian market populism @ Salon.com

Yakuza's Debtors Forced to Work at Fukushima Daiichi? 26 Dec 2011 @ CLG Newsletter, Discomfit Magazine

Dave Lindorff: Better than Obama: Why the Establishment is afraid of Ron Paul @ This Can't Be Happening!

The Real News Network

The Lulz Xmas Hack: Main$tream Press Coverage

Kansas: What the Tea Party Looks Like by Annie Gowen

#Brownbackistan Posse Call, Friday, Dec. 23, 2011

Fightin' Cock Flyer: Ivan Beese's South Dakota Christmas 1938 @ Google Video

Dave Lindorff: What Would Peter Zenger Say: We are the Champions...of the World?  @ This Can't Be Happening!