May 4 is the 124th day of the year (125th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 241 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1970, At Kent State University, 100 National Guardsmen fire their rifles into a group of students, killing four and wounding 11. This incident occurred in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon’s April 30 announcement that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had been ordered to execute an “incursion” into Cambodia to destroy North Vietnamese bases there. In protest, a wave of demonstrations and disturbances erupted on college campuses across the country.
There were no warnings when the Guardsmen opened fire. 60 rounds were fire into the crowd of demonstrators. After an investigation, all the charges were dropped against the National Guard in 1974.
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Yesterday, the president announced that the U.S. signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan, committing the United States to the country for a long time to come. The agreement addressed the transition to Afghan-led security forces by 2014. Human and monetary costs to the U.S. will continue to skyrocket. [..]
America has been lulled to sleep by the mind-boggling elongation of a war seven thousand miles away. The plain fact is we are not exiting Afghanistan, despite the appearances that the White House is trying to create. We are staying. Have we learned nothing from 10 years of quagmire? It is time to bring our troops home safely and responsibly.
Indicators of the economic recovery weren’t stellar this quarter: consumer and business spending seem to have slowed down, making analysts nervous. Not to mention news out of Europe that the UK and Spain have slid back into recession. Yet it was just last month that a rosy jobs report from the Labor Department touting the addition of 227,000 jobs made some optimistic that we were finally about to experience a real recovery.
But that glow of returning job security isn’t necessarily going to shine on everyone, even if the recovery really does take hold. A report out on Monday from the International Labor Organization took a look at not just how many jobs are being created but perhaps an even more crucial question: What kinds of jobs are being created in the aftermath of the recession? And the answer isn’t heartening.
WASHINGTON – Where is the “Mission Accomplished” banner?
There was no aircraft carrier in Kabul and President Barack Obama wasn’t wearing a jumpsuit when he landed there in secret. But his drop-in on the one year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden was the most dramatically political photo-op by a president in a commander-in-chief role since President George W. Bush landed in a jet on the S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. [..]
We may have signed a new deal with Karzai, and the American troops are on their way out, though perhaps 20,000 will stay for a decade or more.
What exactly have we accomplished there? That’s a deeper question, but it’ll have to wait until after Osama Week.
Since 9/11, the war on terror and the campaign for homeland security have increasingly mimicked the tactics of the enemies they sought to crush. Violence and punishment as both a media spectacle and a bone-crushing reality have become prominent and influential forces shaping American society. As the boundaries between “the realms of war and civil life have collapsed,” social relations and the public services needed to make them viable have been increasingly privatized and militarized.(1) The logic of profitability works its magic in channeling the public funding of warfare and organized violence into universities, market-based service providers and deregulated contractors. The metaphysics of war and associated forms of violence now creep into every aspect of American society.
By chance, the revelation of how Apple evades millions of dollars in taxes broke three days before May Day, when workers of the world traditionally protest such injustice.
Although the Apple practices aren’t illegal, the dodging of taxes on revenue generated, to a large extent, by low-wage Chinese workers, was a perfect introduction to this year’s May 1 observance, highlighted by the Occupy movement’s call for strikes and demonstrations around the country. The goal: Protest corporate domination of an economy being pulled downward by growing income inequality and intractable unemployment.
Scientists working on a new generation of genetically modified crops have sent an open letter to anti-GM protesters pleading with them not to destroy “years of work” by attacking their research plots.
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The pheromone exuded by the new strain of “whiffy” wheat is naturally produced by “frightened” aphids as a warning signal to deter other aphids. However, activists claim that the wheat contains an artificial gene “most similar to a cow” and that open air trials represent an “imminent contamination threat to the local environment and the UK wheat industry”.
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Matt Thomson, from Take the Flour Back, told The Independent yesterday that action against the Rothamsted site would go ahead as planned.
“The concerns that we have are not addressed in this letter,” he said. “The way that Rothamsted have publicised this trial has been patronising. This wheat contains genes that are not naturally occurring.” Mr Thomson said that the allegation about cow genes in the wheat had come from comments made by a Rothamsted scientist.
If approved, the initiative would require food that is sold at retail outlets to be labeled if it contains ingredients that have been genetically engineered. The information would be included below the product’s ingredient list. The measure would not require such labeling for foods that are not packaged or food prepared for immediate consumption, i.e. at restaurants. The campaign claims there are already 50 other countries, including those in the European Union, that require similar labeling.
This initiative could easily have implications well beyond California, given the incredible size of the California market. Roughly 12% of the country lives in the state. It is possible companies will not want to deal with the added cost and difficulty of doing two different labels, one for California and one for the rest of the country. As a result they might start labeling the presence of genetically engineered food all over the country. Either way, expect an intense battle if this initiative qualifies for the ballot.
CT Needs Immediate HELP To Pass A Mandatory GMO Labeling Law: Time Is Running Out (email)
Institute for Responsible Technology
Monday, April 30, 2012 6:45 PM
The CT GMO labeling bill is still waiting to be called by the Connecticut House Legislature. We deserve the right to know what foods contain GMOs so that we may have the ability to choose whether or not to feed GMOs to our families. If CT HB 5117, the mandatory GMO labeling bill, is not called for a vote before May 9th, the bill will die. Righttoknowct.org needs YOUR help to get this bill passed. Regardless of what state you live in, HB 5117 will affect you! If CT can lead the way for GMO labeling legislation, other states will follow. If this bill is defeated, it will deter other states from attempting to pass similar legislation and the Biotech industry will have yet another victory.
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Right To Know CT will be holding a rally at the Capitol building in Hartford this Friday, May 4th, from 11:30 to 1:00. If you live in a neighboring state, your presence at the rally is encouraged.
Perhaps it’s a bad idea to trust the executive branch to wield the most extreme powers in the dark, with no checks
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 09:44 AM EDT
As I noted last week – and as Pierce elaborated on – the real scandal from the Jose Rodriguez book tour is that the Obama DOJ has protected him and his fellow criminals from all forms of accountability. Yesterday, Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein issued a statement about his 60 Minutes interview matter-of-factly stating that his order to destroy videotapes “illustrates a blatant disregard for the law.” Yes, obviously it does: and that’s what makes the DOJ’s refusal to prosecute him so corrupt. Of course, Executive Branch officials, even when it comes to most egregious crimes, are beyond the rule of law when it comes to actions they take as part of U.S. Government policy.
May 3 is the 123rd day of the year (124th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 242 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1919, Pete Seeger, folk singer, activist, environmentalist was born in NYC.
On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists. Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.
In one of Pete’s darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy, a flash of inspiration ignited this song. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel “And Quie Flows the Don”. Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed the song in French, as “Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?” Shortly after she sang it in German. The song’s impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering. It’s universal message, “let there be peace in the world” did not get lost in its translation. To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it.
Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
The bulk of the story is concerned with the little town of Gull Lake, Alberta, Canada. There is some background first, so please bear with me. First of all, this is a rare post in this series that contains a considerable amount of profanity. There was no way to tell the story properly without it.
Second, I did not know this man. I saw him only once at a restaurant in Gull Lake. He certainly made an impression, though!
One would have thought that with Osama bin Laden gone forever from the scene that the Obama administration and Congress would have stepped back from the continued use of fear of a terrorist attack to whittle away at our freedoms. Apparently, Osama’s demise has actually led to an even greater increase the assault on American’s Constitutional freedoms. Glenn Greenwald enumerates the increased assaults on civil liberties that have been taken since bin Laden’s “summary execution one year ago”:
*With large bipartisan majorities, Congress renewed the once-controversial Patriot Act without a single reform, and it was signed into law by President Obama; Harry Reid accused those urging reforms of putting the country at risk of a Terrorist attack.
* For the first time, perhaps ever, a U.S. citizen was assassinated by the CIA, on orders from the President, without a shred of due process and far from any battlefield; two weeks later, his 16-year-old American son was also killed by his own government; the U.S. Attorney General then gave a speech claiming the President has the power to target U.S. citizens for death based on unproven, secret accusations of Terrorism.
* With large bipartisan majorities, Congress enacted, and the President signed, a new law codifying presidential powers of worldwide indefinite detention and an expanded statutory defintion of the War on Terror.
* Construction neared completion for a sprawling new site in Utah for the National Security Agency to enable massive domestic surveillance and to achieve “the realization of the ‘total information awareness’ program created during the first term of the Bush administration.”
* President Obama authorized the use of “signature” drone strikes in Yemen, whereby the CIA can target people for death “even when the identity of those who could be killed is not known.”
* The U.S. formally expanded its drone attacks in Somalia, “reopening a base for the unmanned aircraft on the island nation of Seychelles.”
* A U.S. drone killed 16-year-old Pakistani Tariq Aziz, along with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed, three days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest civilian deaths from U.S. drones (another of Tariq’s cousins had been killed in 2010).
* The FBI increased its aggressive attempts to recruit young Muslim-American males into Terror plots which the FBI concocts, funds, encourages, directs and enables, while prosecuting more and more Muslims in the U.S. for crimes grounded in their political views and speech.
President Obama now has power that Bush never had, earning the damning praise of war criminal in retirement, Dick Cheney, “He’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate.” The United States is rapidly becoming a surveillance state with no protections for its citizens, thanks to a Democratic administration. Who would have dreamed?
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Student loans set off the latest Washington spitball fight. The House Republican budget called for letting interest rates double on government-subsidized student loans (and for deep cuts in Pell Grants and other student support). Students who borrow the maximum in subsidized loans would end up paying as much as $1,000 a year in added interest. Last week, President Obama sensibly called for extending the lower rate and starting stumping through colleges and talk shows to enlist students in the cause.
Republican leaders quickly calculated the perils of angering young voters. Mitt Romney flipped over to support extending the lower rates. House Republicans passed an extension, taunting the president by paying for it using a preventive health fund in the Affordable Care Act. Senate Democrats propose to pay for the extension by closing a tax dodge that doctors, lawyers and small businesses use to avoid payroll taxes. The standoff allows for what has now become the routine exchange of insults, slurs and posturing before a deal is worked out at the last possible moment.
Ignored in this is the stark reality that even with the lower rates, more and more students can’t afford the college education or advanced training that everyone except for Rick Santorum believes they need.
Women still face pay bias, no matter how much (or how disrespectfully) GOP flacks want to deny it
I’m thrilled that Rachel Maddow has her own show, but I still sometimes miss her as a news-show guest. Maddow the guest always brings the facts, usually with charm, and sometimes with an edge of outrage at the behavior of her conservative sparring partners. As the host, she has to stick to charm (while still well-armed with facts) on the rare occasion she gets Republican guests on her show.
Her “Meet the Press” debate with Alex Castellanos Sunday was one for the ages. The Republican who defended calling Hillary Clinton a “white bitch” in 2008 (“Some women, by the way, are named that, and it’s accurate,” he told CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin) tried to confound Maddow with divergent claims about whether women are paid less than men – “actually no,” he insisted; then he admitted they are, but there are reasons for it. And when he couldn’t confound Maddow, he condescended.
The culture of Wall Street is pervasive and contagious. I drank the Kool Aid. I’m out of it now. But I’d like to tell you what it was like.
When some people think about Wall Street, they conjure up images of traders shouting on the stock exchange, of bankers dining at five-star restaurants, of CEOs whispering in the ears of captured Congress members.
When I think about Wall Street, I think about its stunted rainbow of pale pastel shirts. I think about the vaulting, highly secured, and very cold lobbies. And I think about the art passed daily by the harried workers, virtually unseen.
Before I occupied Wall Street, Wall Street occupied me. What started as a summer internship led to a seven-year career. During my time on Wall Street, I changed from a curious college student full of hope for my future into a cynical, bitter, depressed, and exhausted “knowledge worker” who felt that everyone was out to screw me over.
The culture of Wall Street is pervasive and contagious. While there are Wall Street employees who are able to ignore or block it out, I was not one of them. I drank the Kool Aid. I’m out of it now. But I’d like to tell you what it was like.
It’s the most chilling warning you can hear in France: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is out on the town, looking for a good time.
When Julien Dray, a prominent Socialist Party deputy, had a birthday party for himself Sunday night at a cocktail lounge, he didn’t bother to tell his V.I.P. guests that he had invited the most notorious man in France.
The randy economist – once considered the leading prospect to beat Nicolas Sarkozy before a swan dive from grace – could not resist popping up as a Socialist Party pooper on the eve of the election.
Sending Debt Peonage, Poverty, and Freaky Weather Into the Arena
When I was growing up, I ate books for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and since I was constantly running out of reading material, I read everyone else’s — which for a girl with older brothers meant science fiction. The books were supposed to be about the future, but they always turned out to be very much about this very moment. [..]
We now live in a world that is wilder than a lot of science fiction from my youth. My phone is 58 times faster than IBM’s fastest mainframe computer in 1964 (calculates my older brother Steve) and more powerful than the computers on the Apollo spaceship we landed on the moon in 1969 (adds my nephew Jason). Though we never got the promised jetpacks and the Martians were a bust, we do live in a time when genetic engineers use jellyfish genes to make mammals glow in the dark and nerds in southern Nevada kill people in Pakistan and Afghanistan with unmanned drones. Anyone who time-traveled from the sixties would be astonished by our age, for its wonders and its horrors and its profound social changes. But science fiction is about the present more than the future, and we do have a new science fiction trilogy that’s perfect for this very moment.
Following on the heels of pink slime, mad cow disease (AKA bovine spongiform encephalopathy-or BSE) is back this week after a California dairy cow destined for a rendering plant that makes pet food was found to have the disease. So far, it looks like the beef industry is playing down the finding, hoping to dodge a loss in sales at home and abroad. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was quick to tell Americans that our food supply is entirely safe. But the re-emergence of mad cow and the conversation around pink slime has re-opened questions about our food system. It has exposed how food safety falls inevitably through the cracks in a country where over 9 billion animals are being slaughtered per year and budgets for the departments that oversee these processes are being slashed. The incredible media coverage of both issues reflects a growing consumer interest in more transparency in what we’re eating and how it’s being produced.
Fresh off of an interview yesterday in which he shrugged off civilian killings in the US drone war, top White House adviser John O. Brennan was ordered to provide more “openness” on the program at a speech today in Washington.
Fresh off of an interview yesterday in which he shrugged off civilian killings in the US drone war, top White House adviser John O. Brennan was ordered to provide more “openness” on the program at a speech today in Washington.
ACLU National Security Experts Warn Program is Unlawful and Dangerous
NEW YORK – April 30 – President Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser today publicly confirmed that the United States conducts targeted killings of suspected terrorists using drones.
In a speech this afternoon at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, John Brennan insisted the targeted strikes are a “wise choice” and “legal” and within the boundaries of international law. However, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said Brennan’s statement did not go far in explaining how the program passed constitutional muster.
“This is an important statement – first because it includes an unambiguous acknowledgement of the targeted killing program and second because it includes the administration’s clearest explanation thus far of the program’s purported legal basis.” Jaffer said.
“But Mr. Brennan supplies legal conclusions, not legal analysis. We continue to believe that the administration should release the Justice Department memos underlying the program – particularly the memo that authorizes the extrajudicial killing of American terrorism suspects. And the administration should release the evidence it relied on to conclude that an American citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, could be killed without charge, trial, or judicial process of any kind.”
Brennan maintained the Obama administration was committed to transparency when it came to deciding who would be subject to lethal drone strikes. But Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said the program is both unconstitutional and overly broad.
“We continue to believe, based on the information available, that the program itself is not just unlawful but dangerous. This statement makes clear that the administration is treating legal restrictions on the use of force as questions of preference. Moreover, it is dangerous to characterize the entire planet as a battlefield,” Shamsi said.
“It is dangerous to give the President the authority to order the extrajudicial killing of any person – including any American – he believes to be a terrorist. The administration insists that the program is closely supervised, but to propose that a secret deliberation that takes place entirely within the executive branch constitutes ‘due process’ is to strip the Fifth Amendment of its essential meaning.”
Representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA said they welcomed the unprecedented public acknowledgement of the drone campaign by John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.
But they said there are still serious questions about whether drone attacks on suspected millitants are legal under international law.
“Where there’s a war, for example in Afghanistan, [drone strikes] are a legitimate weapon of war,” said Tom Parker, a former British government security official who is now head of Amnesty International’s counter-terrorism program. “The problem comes when you make the unprecedented claim that you are in a world-wide conflict with a non-state actor.”
“We don’t believe that the justification [offered by Mr. Brennan] stands up under international humanitarian law,” he added.
Here is a report from Kevin Gosztola at FDL on Obama’s Death Panels and the videos of the speech given by Jeremy Scahill of The Nation:
Activists, lawyers, human rights advocates, civil liberties defenders and others came together for a major international summit on drone warfare and the issues created by drone use yesterday. The summit was co-organized by CODEPINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Reprieve. An exceptional lineup of speakers addressed participants detailing salient and significant aspects around the Obama administration’s expansion of the covert drone wars in countries like Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. [..]
Scahill opens his speech by saying, “The real death panels that we have in this country were unleashed on our own citizens. Republicans like to talk about death panels having to do with health care. President Obama is the one that is operating secret death panels” that include United States citizens and often include non-US citizens. The vast majority of the victims of this policy around the world are not US citizens.
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