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* Stopping ISIS * Saudi Backing Al-Qaeda * Carter and Accelerating U.S. Nuke Spending
“The news that President Obama, a recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize , notably for his 2009 Prague speech envisioning a nuclear weapons free world, is planning to expand the US nuclear weapons complex, budgeting for new warheads and their delivery systems — missiles, planes and submarines — as well as two new bomb factories, estimated to cost $348 billion over the next 10 years with a projected price tag of one trillion dollars over thirty years, is simply astonishing! How has the US lost its way so badly?”
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* Military Budget * Ukraine Disaster
“According to the latest, and admittedly conservative, UN estimates, the conflict in the southeastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbass) has resulted in over 5,000 deaths and 1.5 million refugees. For the forgotten 5.2 million who remain in Donbass, life since April 2014 has been a deadly kaleidoscope of warlords and armies, foreign fighters, shifting allegiances, morphing front lines, and indiscriminate carnage. … Kiev continues to add layers to its blockade, making it nearly impossible for food and medicine to reach the 3 million civilians in rebel-controlled areas of Donbass…”
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Pope Declares Oscar Romero a “Martyr”
“But this action by the Pope is really a slam on John Paul II, who forced Romero to wait for weeks in Rome and wouldn’t talk to him when Romero was desperately trying to explain the situation to him. This is a great moment. What Romero did was to address what’s called ‘the trinity’ in Latin America: the oligarchy, church and military. He had the church turn against the other two and all hell broke loose. He’d say ‘the poor converted me.’ He started as a conservative, but ultimately identified with the poor of the earth and he was killed…
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Problems with “One-Time” Tax on Overseas Corporate Profits
“Contrary to claims back then, in 2004, it didn’t create any jobs. Citibank brought back money and used it to buy back shares, so it benefited management. And corporations don’t actually just keep money overseas, they end up borrowing against it. What we’ve had is an erosion of the tax rate for corporations since the late 70s. What’s needed is a meaningful progressive income tax. Instead, we have a system of ‘tax competition’ — one country after another lowering tax rates.”
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Outrage at USDA’s “Abandonment of Regulatory Authority” on GE Trees
“This failure to regulate a GE tree is unprecedented. Other known GE forest trees in the U.S. are being grown in USDA-regulated field trials, and none has been approved for commercial planting. USDA regulation is important because it ensures that risk assessments are carried out to determine whether or not the GE tree will harm the environment before a decision on its commercialization. …
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“The Super Bowl Windfall Myth”
“With Super Bowl Sunday approaching, expect plenty of media reports on the projected economic windfall for host city Glendale, Arizona. Last year, when the NFL announced that its big game would provide a $600 million boost to the New York/New Jersey economy, that figure promptly became a fixture in news coverage of the event (CNN, 1/24/14; Newsday, 1/22/14; FoxNews.com, 5/21/14). …”
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Trade Deal Hits Protests at Congressional Hearing
“Protesters wore shirts reading ‘No Fast Track’ and held signs stating ‘Froman lies,’ a response to the ambassador’s recent claims that Fast Track is the ‘best tool to ensure that Congress and the public have ample time to give our trade agreements the public scrutiny and debate they deserve.’ Past versions of Fast Track legislation, including one introduced with little support last January, limits the amount of time Congress has to consider agreements and suspends their ability to make amendments to the texts.”
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BREAKING — CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Convicted on All Nine Counts
“The government engaged in a great deal of security theater during the Jeffrey Sterling trial, most notably by having some CIA witnesses — including ones whose identities weren’t, technically, secret — testify behind a big office divider so the general public couldn’t see the witness. But along the way, the government revealed a great number of secrets, including a number of secrets about how its counterproliferation programs work.”
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U.S.-India Nuclear Deal * Subsidizes Industry * Leaves Victims Vulnerable * Violates NPT
“Selling nuclear technology to India violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s prohibition on providing ‘peaceful’ nuclear technology to non-NPT parties. India, together with Pakistan and Israel, never signed the Non-Proliferation treaty so the U.S. is violating its treaty obligations by promoting nuclear power sales in India. And the U.S. has also received a commitment from India to pass limited liability laws for nuclear reactor manufacturers, as the manufacturers of this toxic technology are unwilling to bear the full financial burden of any potential Fukushima or Chernobyl-type catastrophe.”
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CIA Leak Trial in Jury’s Hands
“Many of the two-dozen witnesses from the Central Intelligence Agency conveyed smoldering resentment that a whistleblower or journalist might depict the institution as a bungling outfit unworthy of its middle name. Some witnesses seemed to put Sterling and journalist James Risen roughly in the same nefarious category — Sterling for allegedly leaking classified information that put the CIA in a bad light, and Risen for reporting it. . . . If Sterling goes to prison, a major reason will be that the CIA leadership is angry about being portrayed as an intelligence gang that can’t shoot straight.”
Blog
“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn