November 16, 2013

‘We reject illegal killings’: Germany suspends drone purchase

Berlin has suspended the purchase of armed drones on the grounds that it “categorically rejects illegal killings.” This follows a report by Amnesty International that accused Merkel’s government of aiding the US with drone strikes in Pakistan.

A draft agreement between the Social Democrats and the Conservatives obtained by Der Spiegel condemns the use of drones for targeted attacks.

"We categorically reject illegal killings by drones. Germany will support the use of unmanned weapons systems for the purposes of international disarmament and arms control," said the statement. The government says that before acquiring the remote-controlled craft, it must thoroughly examine “all associated civil and constitutional guidelines and ethical questions.”

In spite of significant opposition in Germany – 59 per cent of the population according to a Pew Research poll in 2012 – outgoing German defense minister, Thomas de Maziere, spent hundreds of millions of euros on drones that were not permitted to fly in German airspace. ............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://rt.com/news/germany-halts-drone-purchase-763/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome

November 16, 2013

Keiser Report: Mud Pie of State Benefits

Published on Nov 14, 2013

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss people fighting for the last dregs of the mud pie of state benefits while a new Investor State emerges contactable only if you can find their unmanned customer service line.

November 16, 2013

The 151 Dems who signed on to the letter opposing Fast Track for the TPP

http://delauro.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1455:delauro-miller-lead-151-house-dems-telling-president-they-will-not-support-outdated-fast-track-for-trans-pacific-partnership&catid=2&Itemid=21


Rosa L. DeLauro
George Miller
Louise M. Slaughter
Nydia M. Velazquez
Bennie G. Thompson
John Conyers, Jr.
Jim McDermott
Nick J. Rahall, II
Robert A. Brady
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger
Michael H.Michaud
Marcy Kaptur
Linda T. Sanchez
Peter A. DeFazio
Sam Farr
James P McGovern
John F. Tierney
Frederica S. Wilson
Andre Carson
Niki Tsongas
Patrick E. Murphy
Zoe Lofgren
Alcee L. Hastings
Tim Ryan
Michael M. Honda
Betty McCollum
Barbara Lee
Gary C. Peters
Ed Pastor
Henry A. Waxman
Lloyd Doggett
Chellie Pingree
Daniel T. Kildee
Janice D. Schakowsky
Danny K. Davis
Jerrold Nadler
José E. Serrano
Chaka Fattah
Timothy J. Walz
Timothy H. Bishop
John A. Yarmuth
Elijah E. Cummings
Peter Welch
Albio Sires
Steve Israel
Maxine Waters
Loretta Sanchez
Ann McLane Kuster
Yvette D. Clarke
Anna G. Eshoo
Carolyn B. Maloney
Carolyn McCarthy
Cheri Bustos
Bobby L. Rush
Elizabeth H. Esty
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Sanford D. Bishop, Jr.
Daniel Lipinski
Paul Tonko
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Richard M. Nolan
Brad Sherman
Brian Higgins
Carol Shea-Porter
Corrine Brown
John D. Dingell
Donald M. Payne, Jr.
Gene Green
Lois Capps
Jared Huffman
Julia Brownley
William L. Enyart
Michelle Lujan Grisham
Rush Holt
Alan S. Lowenthal
Daniel B. Maffei
Alan Grayson
David Loebsack
Mark Pocan
Terri A. Sewell
Al Green
Grace Meng
Sean Patrick Maloney
Frank Pallone, Jr.
Joyce Beatty
Adam B. Schiff
Judy Chu
Stephen F. Lynch
Keith Ellison
John Lewis
Ben Ray Luján
Emanuel Cleaver
John Garamendi
Peter J. Visclosky
Luis V. Gutiérrez
Michael F. Doyle
David N. Cicilline
Donna F. Edwards
David Scott
Lucille Roybal-Allard
Matthew A. Cartwright
Raúl M. Grijalva
Hakeem S. Jeffries
Marcia L. Fudge
Jackie Speier
Lois Frankel
William R. Keating
Eric Swalwell
James R. Langevin
Robin Kelly
Joseph P. Kennedy
Robert E. Andrews
Steve Cohen
Steven A. Horsford
Gloria Negrete McLeod
Tulsi Gabbard
Ron Barber
Joe Courtney
John P. Sarbanes
Raul Ruiz
Jerry McNerney
Dina Titus
Bill Pascrell, Jr.
James E. Clyburn
Sheila Jackson Lee
Mark Takano
Bruce L. Braley
Ann Kirkpatrick
Karen Bass
Juan Vargas
Janice Hahn
Nita M. Lowey
Eliot L. Engel
Grace F. Napolitano
Gwen Moore
Filemon Vela
Beto O’Rourke
Mike McIntyre
Robert C. "Bobby" Scott
G. K. Butterfield
Theodore E. Deutch
Kyrsten Sinema
William L. Owens
Hank Johnson
Kathy Castor
Collin C. Peterson
Ruben Hinojosa
Allyson Y. Schwartz
Kurt Schrader
Colleen Hanabusa
Scott Peters

November 16, 2013

Wikileaks Exposes the TPP as a Capitulation to Corporate Interests

.....(snip).....

JAISAL NOOR: So, Kevin, even before this release, the TPP was described as a corporate wish list. What new information have we learned from what WikiLeaks has released?

KEVIN ZEESE: We learned it's as bad as we expected. The chapter that was released deals with intellectual property. And what was interesting about it was it really showed that the Obama administration was pushing for the agreement in the direction of the transnational corporations more than any other nation. In fact, other nations are resisting. And many times the United States is isolated, 'cause it's so extreme in pushing for corporate power--it's really quite amazing--going further than he has even said that his administration would go under domestic law. So it'll make things worse than Obama says he would do at home.

The agreement, what they dealt with was intellectual property. And what that means is copyrights and patents and trademarks and those kinds of things. And what it shows is that these corporate powers that are being given are going to make things much worse for the internet. We're going to see our internet freedom diminished. It'll make things much worse for health care. Prices will go up for both pharmaceuticals and for medical procedures. And much worse on almost every aspect of our life where those kinds of powers play. And they play almost all through our lives. This will be corporate power gone wild.

And it'll be an agreement that you can see was written by the corporations. As you know, for the last almost four years now there have been negotiations, and throughout that time there have been 600 corporate advisers suggesting to the Obama administration, you know, what needs to be done to make the agreement stronger from their perspective. So they've been playing in clauses and paragraphs and sections that favor corporate power. So this agreement, which will be over 1,000 pages long, is going to be a totally--written by essentially corporate lawyers for the benefit of transnational corporations. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/20080-wikileaks-exposes-the-tpp-as-a-capitulation-to-corporate-interests

November 16, 2013

Bill Moyers: Fighting the Good Fight

http://vimeo.com/79461873


Fighting the Good Fight
November 15, 2013


Have you ever dreamed of quitting your day job to work on something you really believed in? That’s exactly what this week’s guests, Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers, did when they left their careers behind as medical doctors.

Both saw that holding political office largely depended on how much money you have, which in turn enabled injustices to be fashioned into law and public policy. Outraged and angry, they decided to stand up and take action.

“When people ask me ‘what kind of medicine are you practicing?’ I usually say, ‘I’m practicing political medicine because it’s the mother of all illnesses,’” Stein tells Bill. Flowers adds: “Once you start speaking truth to power and standing up for the right things, it’s very empowering.”

Stein and Flowers serve as the president and secretary of health, respectively, for the Green Shadow Cabinet, an organization offering alternative policies to the “dysfunctional government in Washington, DC.”

This week, Bill talks with them about their personal journeys fighting for policy change — including arrests for acts of civil disobedience — and the pressing challenges they’re focusing on, such as the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.


http://billmoyers.com/segment/fighting-the-good-fight/

November 15, 2013

D.C.: Metro GM Apologizes After Especially Bad Week On Red Line

The head of D.C.'s transit agency is apologizing to Red Line riders for the delays this week which were unusually bad -- even by the standards of the oft-beleaguered Metro line.

"They suffered extraordinary delays, and for that I apologize," Richard Sarles says.

On Thursday morning, a train headed to Glenmont had brake trouble between the Fort Totten and Brookland stations. Other trains had to single track around it, but then a switch problem led to even longer delays of 30 to 40 minutes.

Wednesday morning a cable dangling from the tunnel ceiling at Woodley Park station caused trains to have to share a track for three hours — killing the morning commute. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/story/metro-gm-apologizes-after-especially-bad-week-red-line/

November 15, 2013

TPP Disclosure Shows It Will Kill People and Internet; House Opposition Is Widespread

TPP Disclosure Shows It Will Kill People and Internet; House Opposition Is Widespread

Friday, 15 November 2013 11:27
By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism | Report


We posted on the New York Times news story that opposition in the House to authorization of "fast track" authority to the Administration on its pending Pacific and Atlantic trade deals was stiffening right just before a related story broke: that Wikileaks had disclosed the end of August draft of one of the critical chapters of one of the deals.

We wrote yesterday that this deal, the Trans Pacific Partnership, already looked to be in trouble given both Congressional and foreign opposition. The Administration has conducted the talks with an unheard-of degree of secrecy, with Congressional staffers in most cases denied access to the text and even Congressmen themselves facing unheard-of obstacles (Alan Grayson reported that the US Trade Representative created an absurd six weeks of dubious delays in his case). But perversely, 700 corporate representatives got privileged access so they could influence negotiations. It's not hard to see whose interests are really being served in these deals.

The Wikileaks disclosure could well have struck the fatal blow to this toxic pact. As we'll see below, it may have been dead anyhow. Obama's relationship with his own party is already on the rocks as a result of Obamacare (not just the rollout but the increasing recognition that the program has more fundamental flaws), so he has limited political capital available to whip Democratic Congressmen back into line. The opposition is more deep-seated and broad-based than I had realized (for instance, 18 of the 21 ranking full committee members in the House are against it). So the TPP looked to be on the Syria incursion path.

But it's hard not to believe that the Wikileaks revelations will galvanize opposition among the other prospective members of the pact. It's hard for democratic countries to agree to a deal that has been revealed will kill their citizens in order to enrich America's Big Pharma incumbents. And that statement is not an exaggeration. Wikileaks disclosed the end of August version (apparently two drafts behind current text) of the intellectual property chapter, which includes the section on drugs and surgical procedures. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/20064-wikileaks-disclosure-of-trade-deal-chapter-shows-it-will-kill-people-and-internet-house-opposition-is-widespread

November 15, 2013

How Can the States Provide Fourth Amendment Protection Against the NSA?

How Can the States Provide Fourth Amendment Protection Against the NSA?

Friday, 15 November 2013 11:03
By Michael Boldin, Truthout | Op-Ed


In her 2004 Brooklyn Law Review article, Ann Althouse offered some powerful suggestions on how to resist "anti-terrorism" powers, such as the Patriot Act, and should be seen as a guide to resisting NSA spying:

The fight against terrorism has raised concerns that the federal government has overreached its legitimate power. Concerns about racial profiling, invasions of privacy, unreasonable searches, and infringement on free speech have fueled a political movement, led by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), urging state and local government to adopt resolutions directing their officials not to participate in at least some aspects of the antiterrorism effort.

More on applying this to the NSA in a moment. First, is this legal?

The Doctrine

The ACLU and BORDC resolutions against the Patriot Act (and subsequent ACLU-backed state laws refusing to comply with the 2005 REAL ID Act) were based on a widely accepted legal principle known as the "anticommandeering doctrine."

This means the federal government cannot require a state to carry out federal acts. The federal government can pass a law and try to enforce it, but your state isn't required to help them. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20010-how-can-the-states-provide-fourth-amendment-protection-against-the-nsa

November 15, 2013

Professor Richard Wolff: Capitalism as a system seems incapable of solving its unemployment problem

Capitalism and Unemployment

Friday, 15 November 2013 10:25
By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis


Capitalism as a system seems incapable of solving its unemployment problem. It keeps generating long-term joblessness, punctuated by spikes of recurring short-term extreme joblessness. The system's leaders cannot solve or overcome the problem. Before the latest capitalist crisis hit in 2007, the unemployment rate was near 5 percent. In 2013, it is near 7.5 percent. That is 50 percent higher despite the last six years of so-called "effective policies to address unemployment."

Capitalism makes employment depend chiefly on capitalists' decisions to undertake production, and those decisions depend on profits. If capitalists expect profits high enough to satisfy them, they hire. If capitalists don't, we get unemployment. Capitalism requires the unemployed, their families and their communities to live with firing decisions made by capitalists even though they are excluded from participating in those decisions. The United States revolted against Britain partly because it rejected being victimized by tax decisions from which it was excluded. Yet employment decisions are at least as important as tax decisions.

Unemployment has three dimensions that often escape public discussion, perhaps because they raise such fundamental questions about the capitalist system. The first dimension concerns the immense losses for society from the kind of unemployment capitalism reproduces and that we suffer today. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sum of unemployed people, "marginal" workers (those who stopped looking for work), and involuntarily part-time workers (the "underemployed&quot is roughly 14 per cent of the labor force. That is 20 million of our fellow citizens. Alongside that statistic, the Federal Reserve reports that 20 percent of our "industrial capacity" (tools, equipment, raw materials, floor space in factories, offices and stores, etc.) is sitting idle, wasted, not being used to produce goods and services. Capitalists make the decisions to not hire those millions of workers and to not buy, lease, or use all that industrial capacity.

Capitalists make those decisions based on what is privately profitable for them, not on what is lost to society. And that loss is huge. A simple calculation based on the numbers above proves the point. We as a nation forego about 15 percent of extra output of goods and services because of unemployed people and idled tools, equipment, etc. That comes to roughly $2 trillion per year. Yes, you read that correctly. We could produce an annual extra output far greater than the government's budget deficit ever was. We could use that extra to reduce global poverty by more than what has been done by all advanced industrial nations for decades. In short, we have taken staggering losses for our planet from being entrapped within an economic system that permits employment decisions to be held hostage to capitalists' profit calculations. ..............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/20015-capitalism-and-unemployment

November 15, 2013

Who’s to Blame for ENDA’s Demise?

from In These Times:


Who’s to Blame for ENDA’s Demise?
Democrats and major gay-rights groups haven’t pressed all that hard to end workplace discrimination.

BY Cole Stangler


Last week, the Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would prohibit workplace discrimination against LGBT people, by a 64-32 vote. However the legislation looks dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House, which means that for at least another year, employers in 29 different states can continue to legally harass and fire workers for being gay or transgender.

And so as ENDA goes down in flames once again—and this time around, it’s a particularly weak version of the bill that exempts religious organizations—powerful gay-rights groups and their Democratic allies are predictably blaming the intransigence of House Republicans.

Harry Reid took to the Twittersphere, lambasting John Boehner for his opposition to the bill.

Meanwhile Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin called on Boehner to “stand with the majority of everyday Republican voters and support ENDA.” ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15880/whos_to_blame_for_endas_demise/