March 19, 2016

Discussions of Touch Screen voting machines and computer INsecurity -

"How I bought used voting machines on the Internet"

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/avc

https://citp.princeton.edu/research/voting/

https://citp.princeton.edu/research/votingsummary

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/

“In an age of electronic banking and online college degrees, why hasn’t the rest of the nation gone to voting on touchscreen computers? The reason is simple and resonates with the contentious debate that has yet to be resolved after at least 15 years of wrangling over the issue of electronic voting. No one has yet figured out a straightforward method of ensuring that one of the most revered democratic institutions—in this case, electing a U.S. president—can be double checked for fraud, particularly when paperless e-voting systems are used.”
– Scientific American, Jan. 9, 2012

-------------


There is no substitute for the optically readable randomized, but numbered paper ballots and transparent locked ballot boxes and physical security.

Canada uses one simple optically based system for the entire country.

March 19, 2016

Plain Language Guide to Globalization of Services-WTO Negotiations-Disciplines onDomestic Regulation

Plain Language Guide- WTO GATS Negotiations on Domestic Regulation

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/academics/academic-programs/clinical-programs/our-clinics/HIP/upload/Stumberg-Guide-to-GATS-Dom-Reg-5-19-10.pdf

March 19, 2016

TAFTA (TTIP) Trade Deal will make any NewDeal in the future IMPOSSIBLE by globalizing US subcontract

by mandating international bidding on all kinds of government procurement.

it will mean lots of new L1 and similar visas must be issued to the winning bids firms, so they can perform the work they won by being low bidders.

From https://www.citizen.org/documents/tafta-procurement-factsheet.pdf

EU Negotiators Want TAFTA to Ban “Buy Local” and Other U.S. Procurement Policies, Offshoring U.S.Tax Dollars and Undermining Jobs

The Buy Local policies that create jobs by recycling tax dollars in our communities. The energy and climate policies needed to save our planet. The safety standards on which we rely daily for our food, medicines and cars. The new financial regulations designed to prevent banks from gambling with our money and creating another crisis. These are policies that should be determined in open, democratic venues where we have a say. But a group of the largest U.S. and European corporations want to rewrite these safeguards behind closed doors. For over a decade, they have pushed for a new U.S. “trade” deal with Europe
–
the Trans
-
Atlantic Free Trade
Agreement (TAFTA)
, which corporate proponents have tried to rebrand as the
Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP)
–
a deal
that would roll back consumer protections on
both
side
s
of the Atlantic.
European Union (EU) and U.S. negotiators launched TAFTA negotiations in July 2013 and plan to finish the
sweeping deal
by
next year
.
A “trade” deal only in name, TAFTA (TAFTA is TTIP) would require the United States and EU to conform government
procurement
programs
, climate policies,
financial laws and regulations,
food and product safety standards, data
privacy protections and other no
n
-
trade policies to TAFTA rules. This could include obligations for products
and services that do not meet domestic standards to be allowed under processes called “equivalence” and
“mutual recognition,” or obligations to actually alter domestic U.S. and EU
policies to conform to existing
international standards or to new trans
-
Atlantic standards negotiated to be more convenient to business. These
constraints on policy space
would be
binding. Failure to comply with TAFTA rules could result in trade
sanctions
. The pact would also newl
y empower foreign
corporations
to directly challenge public interest policies
and demand taxpayer compensation in extrajudicial tribunals.
E
U
Negotiators’
Goal:
Gut
U.S.
Programs
Fostering
Local
Job Creation,
Reduced Carbon
Emissions
A leaked EU position paper on TAFTA makes clear that
the EU intends to
use the agreement to
roll back
popular
U.S.
government procurement
policies
that ensure that government
construction
projects
and purchases
,
funded by U.S. taxpayers
,
are used to create U.S. jobs.
These localization policies
can
a
lso help limit carbon
emissions
by promoting local sourcing.
The
European
paper states a
s a
goal
to
: “
[e]
nsure that rules
on...
domestic preferences such as, but
not limited to, Buy America(n)...
do not restrict procurement
opportunities between the EU and the U.S.”
The paper lists specific
U.S.
states and cities being targeted for the
elimination of
policies
that
reinvest
U.S. tax dollars at home.
Targets for Gutting U.S. Buy Local Policies
from Leaked EU Negotiating Document
TARGETED STATES
TARGETED CITIES
Alabama
Alaska
Austin
Baltimore
Charlotte
Columbus
Georgia
Indiana
Denver
El Paso
Fort
Worth
Houston
Nevada
New Jersey
Jacksonville
Los Angeles
Louisville
Memphis
New Mexico
North Carolina
Milwaukee
New York
Oklahoma City
Philadelphia
North Dakota
Ohio
Phoenix
Portland
San Diego
San Francisco
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
San
Jose
Seattle
Washington
Under this EU plan for TAFTA
,
U.S.
policies
that favor domestic companies
for government contracts
–
job
creating
programs
supported by 90 percent of U.S. Democrats, Republicans and independents
–
w
ould be
gutted
with a Europe
-
sized loophole.
If TAFTA
would mimic
th
e
past
“free trade” agreements on which it is
being modeled,
TAFTA’s
procurement chapter would require that all firms
operating
in any EU country
be
provided
the same access as
U.S.
firms to
U.S.
government procurement contracts over a certain dollar
threshold. To implement this “national treatment” requirement,
the U.S. federal government and the states
and cities listed
by
the EU
would agree to
not provide any
preference to locally
-
produced goods and services
and
to
treat
all corporations
doing business
in the EU
the same as local
businesses
.
Under
a
World Trade Organization (WTO)
pact
,
the United States has already waived
certain
federal
-
level
procurement policies for EU
corporations
.
European negotiators want the U
nited States
to expand that
waiver of the federal Buy American policy.
But
they are
also seeking much more:
t
he leaked E
uropean
position paper bluntly seeks to access
“
sub
-
central
” government
contracts by rollin
g back state and local
governments’ Buy Local policies
,
used to
prevent offshoring
,
stimulate local job creation
and promote local
sourcing
.
In fact, the EU explicitly names in the paper the 13 specific U.S. states and 23 U.S. cities it is
targeting for
th
e
dismantling
of Buy Local policies.
See if your city or state is targeted in the table above.
The EU
TAFTA
procurement demands could
also
label as “illegal barriers” the
environmental, human rights,
and fair labor conditions
that federal and state governments often place on procurement contracts.
Requirements for recycled content in paper and other goods, or
that
energy
come
from renewable sources,
could be exposed to chal
lenge. TAFTA procurement terms could also
restrict
state
and local
governments
’
ability to
disqualify companies from government contracts because of labor, safety or environmental records
or practices, or because of the human rights or labor rights records
of the countries in which they operate or
are based. Policies requiring companies to agree to pay prevailing or living wages could also be challenged
under TAFTA’s procurement rules.
Investor Privileges:
European
C
orporations Empowered to Attack
Buy
Local
Policies
U.S. and EU corporations and officials have called for TAFTA to
grant foreign firms
the power to skirt
domestic courts, drag the U.S. and EU governments before extrajudicial tribunals, and directly challenge
Buy Local, Buy Green and
other pr
ocurement
policies that they view as violations of TAFTA
-
created
foreign investor “rights.” The tribunals, comprised of three private attorneys, would be authorized to order
unlimited taxpayer compensation for
domestic
policies
perceived
as undermining
for
eign
corporations’
“expectations
.” Such
extreme “investor
-
state” rules
have already been included in a series of U.S. “free
trade” agreements, forcing taxpayers to
pay firms more
than $4
4
0 million for toxics bans, land
-
use rules,
regulatory permits, water and timber policies and more. Just under U.S. pacts, more than $
3
4 billion remains
pending in corporate claims against medicine p
atent policies, pollution clean
up
requirements
, c
limate and
energy laws, an
d other public interest polices
.
For more information,
visit
stop
-
tafta.org

March 19, 2016

Susan George Explains the Huge Global Wealth Transfer represented by Neoliberalism and Privatization

Extraction of resources and extraction of cash from countries people - how it works-

Fixed link!

Susan George works with TNI

http://TNI.org


She has a broad and interesting perspective.

"We continue to extract money - we have more control over the world now than we did under colonialism".

Debt is a big means of control.

March 19, 2016

Best explanation I have ever seen of what Neoliberalism is - is provided by Gérard Duménil in this v

Gérard Duménil is one of the authors of the recent best seller "the Crisis of Neoliberalism"

https://www.youtube.com/v/CTX5LfKef8M

"French economists Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy proceed from the somewhat heterodox proposition that ruling ideas arise not from their persuasive power or inner logic but from the interest of ruling groups… Duménil and Lévy move directly to the social and political history that led us to this turn, the underlying situation in which such intellectually bankrupt ideas could prevail. And what might become of a world that can no longer sustain such beliefs… Though elements of their analysis proceed (in their words) ‘à la Marx,’ the book is scarcely what one might thereby expect—that is, the opposite of [an] unreflective apologia for capitalism’s premises… The two argue…that neoliberalism is not a collection of theories meant to improve the economy. Instead, it should be understood as a class strategy designed to redistribute wealth upward toward an increasingly narrow fraction of folks. This transfer is undertaken, they argue, with near indifference to what happens below some platinum plateau—even as the failures and contradictions of the economic system inevitably drive the entire structure toward disaster. Duménil and Lévy offer two provocative and interlocking schemas. They decline the bluntest of Marxist oppositions, which supposes a world divided only between owners and workers. But they equally abjure the endless proliferation of categories and distinctions, the slippery slope of micro-differences that leads to the paradoxical homily of conventional American thought: that individuals are just that, and thereby classless—and that everybody is middle-class. One might well see in this the shadow of Thatcher’s other hyperbolic dictum of neoliberalism: ‘There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals and families.’”—Joshua Clover, The Nation

“Amid the torrent of books on the 2008 financial meltdown and the North Atlantic ‘great recession,’ this important new contribution from Paris stands out as an analytical beacon… Duménil and Lévy conclude with a comparison of the aftermaths of 1929 and 2008, an assessment of the significance of the crisis for U.S. hegemony and some sober prognoses on the social and economic order likely to emerge in its wake. The authors aspire to the kind of influence that Baran and Sweezy achieved with Monopoly Capital some forty years ago—and on this reading, they deserve it. Like Monopoly Capital, the analytical framework of Crisis of Neoliberalism uses some Marxian categories and language, but leavened with (often implicit) elements of Veblen, Chandler, Galbraith, Keynes and Polanyi. The result is a highly distinctive—and compellingly radical—approach, which demands serious attention… By any measure, The Crisis of Neoliberalism is a landmark intervention in the post-crisis debates… Young workers or students who have had the misfortune to enter the labor force during the Great Recession will require a far-reaching education in the history of capitalist crises if they are to begin to craft an alternative exit from the present one. This book should help.”—Thomas Michl, New Left Review

“The Crisis of Neoliberalism is an insightful account of the factors that have led to the economic downturn. As Duménil and Lévy make clear, the economy cannot just return to its pre-crisis path.”—Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research

“This original and rigorous political-economic discussion of neoliberal global capitalism shows how deep the roots of the current crisis are and how stubbornly resistant it will be to conventional policy remedies.”—Duncan K. Foley, author of Adam’s Fallacy

“An ambitious and original treatment of the ongoing global economic crisis. Duménil and Lévy provide both an in-depth statistical and historical narrative and an overarching analytical framework.”—Thomas R. Michl, author of Capitalists, Workers, and Fiscal Policy"

March 19, 2016

TiSA Is a Threat to Quality Education! : European Trade Union Committee for Education

http://www.csee-etuce.org/images/PressReleases/PressreleaseTiSA.pdf

March 19, 2016

There's No Place Like Home: The Right to Live in the Community for People with Disabilities, Under

Should there be a right to remain in one's own community for the disabled even if one's own community or country becomes too expensive for them? This is an important question because counties, towns, states, and even countries soon will be contracting out care of their disabled to companies from and likely in other countries.


http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2109795

March 19, 2016

TTIP-ISDS Fracking Briefing

https://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/publications/foee_ttip-isds-fracking-060314.pdf

March 19, 2016

Interesting tidbits in this video- Sanders would be a stronger candidate in the general election.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=15898

Sanders is more mainstream than Clinton on the issues


lots of Clinton's positions laid out in this video- Hillary's stands on issues explained.

March 19, 2016

Hillary Clinton's State department pushed Water Privatization despite its horrible track record

https://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/press-statement/clinton%E2%80%99s-corporate-water-initiative-contrary-development-aims


Clinton’s corporate water initiative contrary to development aims
March 23, 2012
Public Water Works!



To mark World Water Day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the creation of the U.S. Water Partnership (USWP) to share knowledge and solutions with other countries to improve drinking water delivery and sanitation globally. An important aim of the USWP is to address the obstacles to reversing today’s water crisis as laid out in a National Intelligence Council (NIC) report this week. Yet, the USWP, at its core, ignores the most valuable findings of the report, as well as the most obvious lessons of the American experience with water – public water works.

This is to say, from 1801 to date, public, democratically-accountable water systems funded by the public have been the backbone of economic development and public health. More than 80 percent of Americans receive water from public water systems today. And, in a poll conducted by Lake Research for Corporate Accountability International this week, more than 70 percent of people in the U.S. said they trust local governments to provide water over private corporations.

Why? The experience with water privatization has largely been a negative one, with costly, high-profile failures like those of New Orleans and Atlanta still fresh for so many Americans. On the flipside of the coin, the experience with public water systems has generally been a positive one so much so that it has become easy to take for granted the reliable flow of tap water into almost every home in the country.

The NIC report similarly critiques privatization, cautioning against “transferring ownership of water resources to private companies without proper local governance structures.” The report also highlights that government water utilities “can provide excellent services and generate sufficient revenue to sustain their water infrastructure.”

Yet despite the report’s findings, a wealth of information on the past failings of privatization, and the success of public water systems in the U.S., Secretary Clinton has chosen to focus the State Department’s resources on a so-called “public-private partnership” (PPP). Make no mistake, PPPs are just water privatization by another name. The term was, in fact, coined by the water industry to avoid the stigma attached to the term “water privatization.”

The USWP, like similar initiatives at the World Bank, puts the private water industry in the driver’s seat in global water governance. Corporations like Coca-Cola are core partners in the USWP, giving them undeserved access to government officials, and undue influence in informing the advice and the solutions proposed to other nations under the auspices of the U.S. government.

And, rest assured, Coke and other corporate partners will not hesitate to act in their self-interest – an interest that should not be confused with what’s best for U.S. taxpayers or other countries in expanding water services. The first public health and corporate accountability treaty – the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – offers an important precedent here that the State Department should heed: governance is not a partnership between democratically-elected leaders and special interests, but a means of governing the behaviors of special interests in service of the public good.

After all, Coke’s track record, for one, paints an all-too-clear picture of what private sector involvement in water delivery results in. According to its own internal audit, Coke has been responsible for running groundwater levels dangerously low in some of India’s most drought prone regions, prioritizing its plant’s operations over community need. It’s also spent the last two decades bottling tap water for profit – continuing even to bottle in its hometown of Atlanta while residents were asked to ration. Is this the type of entity we want representing the U.S. to the world? The type of entity we will allow to use the people’s State Department as tool for its own promotion?

In choosing to give private corporations a prominent role influencing and creating solutions to the global water crisis Clinton is sending a mixed message to the global community. On the one hand: “our country effectively relies on public solutions to provide water to the public.” On the other: “ corporate involvement in setting water policy and managing water systems, despite its manifold failings, is right for you.” What countries will take from this is: “the U.S. is really more interested in promoting the commercial interests of U.S.-based corporate water interests than reversing the water crisis.” True or not, the conflicts of interest inherent in the USWP undermine its aims.

Corporate Accountability International believes Secretary Clinton is right to identify the urgency of the water crisis and the role it plays in security both nationally and globally. But the USWP, as currently constructed, is the wrong approach in this time of great need. We are calling on Secretary Clinton to demonstrate true leadership in tackling the global water crisis by reexamining the composition of the USWP and, ultimately, quitting the promotion of PPPs altogether. Similarly, Secretary Clinton should urge the World Bank to stop its promotion and direct investment in water privatization by whatever name.