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Paul Merrell

Multiple Polls: Americans Are More Afraid of the GOVERNMENT than TERRORISTS Washington's Blog - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...overnment-than-terrorists.html

war & peace war on terror™ polls liberty security

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 May 15 - No Cached
  • According to a pair of recent polls, for the first time since the 9/11 terrorist hijackings, Americans are more fearful their government will abuse constitutional liberties than fail to keep its citizens safe. Even in the wake of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing – in which a pair of Islamic radicals are accused of planting explosives that took the lives of 3 and wounded over 280 – the polls suggest Americans are hesitant to give up any further freedoms in exchange for increased “security.” A Fox News survey polling a random national sample of 619 registered voters the day after the bombing found despite the tragic event, those interviewed responded very differently than following 9/11. For the first time since a similar question was asked in May 2001, more Americans answered “no” to the question, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?”
  • Of those surveyed on April 16, 2013, 45 percent answered no to the question, compared to 43 percent answering yes. In May 2001, before 9/11, the balance was similar, with 40 percent answering no to 33 percent answering yes. But following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the numbers flipped dramatically, to 71 percent agreeing to sacrifice personal freedom to reduce the threat of terrorism. Subsequent polls asking the same question in 2002, 2005 and 2006 found Americans consistently willing to give up freedom in exchange for security. Yet the numbers were declining from 71 percent following 9/11 to only 54 percent by May 2006. Now, it would seem, the famous quote widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin – “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety” – is holding more sway with Americans than it has in over a dozen years.
  • A similar poll sampling 588 adults, conducted on April 17 and 18 for the Washington Post, also discovered the change in attitude. “Which worries you more,” the Post asked, “that the government will not go far enough to investigate terrorism because of concerns about constitutional rights, or that it will go too far in compromising constitutional rights in order to investigate terrorism?” The poll found 48 percent of respondents worry the government will go too far, compared to 41 percent who worry it won’t go far enough. And similar to the Fox News poll, the Post found the worry to be a fresh development, as only 44 percent worried the government would go too far in January 2006 and only 27 percent worried the government would go too far in January 2010.
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  • The Fox News poll found that a bare majority of Democrats (51%) would give up more personal freedom to reduce the threat of terror, while only 47% of Republicans – and a mere 29% of independents – would do so. This is not entirely surprising. As we noted in February: For years, “conservative” pollsters have said that Americans are furious at the government: Rasmussen noted in 2010 that only a small minority of the American people think that the government has the consent of the governed, and that the sentiment was “pre-revolutionary” Gallup noted in 2011 that a higher percentage of American liked King George during the colonial days than currently like Congress
  • And last year, Gallup noted that trust was plummeting in virtually all institutions Liberals may be tempted to think that this is a slanted perspective. But non-partisan and Liberal pollsters are saying the same thing: An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll from 2011 found that 76% of Americans believe that the country’s current financial and political structures favor the rich over the rest of the country The Washington Post reported in 2011 that Congress was less popular than communism, BP during the Gulf oil spill or Nixon during Watergate
  • Public Policy Polling added last month that Congress is also less popular than cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesman and Genghis Khan And the liberal Pew Charitable Trusts noted last week that – for the first time – a majority of the public says that the federal government threatens their personal rights and freedoms: The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 9-13 among 1,502 adults, finds that 53% think that the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms while 43% disagree. In March 2010, opinions were divided over whether the government represented a threat to personal freedom; 47% said it did while 50% disagreed. In surveys between 1995 and 2003, majorities rejected the idea that the government threatened people’s rights and freedoms.
  • *** The survey finds continued widespread distrust in government. About a quarter of Americans (26%) trust the government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the time; 73% say they can trust the government only some of the time or volunteer that they can never trust the government. *** Majorities across all partisan and demographic groups express little or no trust in government. Obviously, Democrats are currently more trusting in government than Republicans. For example: The Pew Research Center’s 2010 study of attitudes toward government found that, since the 1950s, the party in control of the White House has expressed more trust in government than the so-called “out party.”
  • But given that even a growing percentage of Dems believe that government is a threat to their freedom, things are indeed getting interesting … It doesn’t help that the government claims the power to assassinate American citizens living on U.S. soil, indefinitely detain Americans without trial, spy on everyone and otherwise intrude into every aspect of our lives. Postscript: What are the actual risks coming from government versus terrorism?  That’s an interesting question.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 May 15
     
    From 2013, not long after the Boston Bombing. I never had much respect for those willing to surrender my liberties so they could feel a bit more secure. "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." Helen Keller, The Open Door (1957).
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: The Productive Class and the American Aristocracy - 1 views

www.americanthinker.com/...roductive_class_and_the_a.html

st-karnick ruling-class Angelo-Codevilla obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jul 10 - Cached
  • the ruling class and the country party.
  • In his excellent American Spectator article on "America's Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution," Angelo Codevilla calls these two antagonistic and irreconcilable groups
  • the progressive aristocracy and the productive class.
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  • they are more than just political movements and are in fact separate cultures.
  • The culture of the progressive aristocracy is devoted to statism, whereas the productive class tends to hold classical liberal values.
  • the American leaders of the past, who came from truly diverse backgrounds and held a variety of beliefs while accepting the nation's founding values.
  • progressive aristocracy is based on commitment to a set of ideas. Foremost among these is hostility toward Christianity
  • Accountability and personal responsibility -- the sine qua non of liberty and of the American experiment -- are kryptonite to the ruling class.
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jul 10
     
    As the hostilities between the current government and the Tea Party movement have become increasingly rancorous, the division of American society into two cultures holding thoroughly incompatible worldviews has become obvious. In fact, the two forces are clearly on an unavoidable collision course. Although many people may understandably be most interested in knowing which side will prevail, I think an equally important and troubling question is precisely by what means the matter will be resolved. Will reason prevail and the people in power either have their agenda confirmed or step aside gracefully? Or will there be intransigence, increasing conflict, and even violence? I do not believe that the answer to that question is by any means obvious. In his excellent American Spectator article on "America's Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution," Angelo Codevilla calls these two antagonistic and irreconcilable groups the ruling class and the country party. Although I agree with Codevilla's outline of the two groups, I prefer to characterize them as the progressive aristocracy and the productive class. In fact, I think that it's vitally important for those in the productive class to understand that what Codevilla calls the ruling party is an aristocracy, albeit a corrupt one. Differences in nomenclature notwithstanding, Codevilla's article is particularly useful in its lengthy descriptions of the two parties to the conflict, for they are more than just political movements and are in fact separate cultures. The culture of the progressive aristocracy is devoted to statism, whereas the productive class tends to hold classical liberal values.
Gary Edwards

Point of No Return by Mark Steyn on National Review Online - 0 views

article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nzk5MWY5YjU0MDI0ODFkYTZjMDQ2MjlhZDM0MjAwNTA=

politics socialism obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 08 - Cached
  • All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can’t the government sort out my health care? Why can’t they pick up my mortgage?
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Oct 08
     
    All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can't the government sort out my health care? Why can't they pick up my mortgage?
Gary Edwards

So Why Hasn't the Credit Default Swaps Casino Been Shut Down? « naked capitalism - 0 views

www.nakedcapitalism.com/...aps-casino-been-shut-down.html

obammunism financial-crisis CDS credit-default-swaps naked-capitalism banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • And if anyone had any doubts that the CDS market is officially backstopped, look no further than the Bear Stearns and AIG rescues. To put not too find a point on it, the industry understands full well who is the ultimate bagholder: United States commercial banks, those with insured deposits, held $13 trillion in notional value of credit derivatives at the end of the third quarter last year, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The biggest players in this world are JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. All of those firms fall squarely into the category of institutions that are too politically connected to fail. Because of the implicit taxpayer backing that accompanies such lofty status, derivatives become exceedingly dangerous, said Robert Arvanitis, chief executive of Risk Finance Advisors, a corporate advisory firm specializing in insurance. “If companies were not implicitly backed by the taxpayers, then managements would get very reluctant to go out after that next billion of notional on swaps,” he said. “They’d look over their shoulder and say, ‘This is getting dangerous.’” Morgenson is positively tame compared to Munchau. I’m quoting him more liberally, because the tone of his remarks are remarkably pointed for him and the FT generally. Notice that he explicitly, and repeatedly, says the use of naked credit default swaps looks an awful lot like a crime:
  • held $13 trillion in notional value of credit derivatives at the end of the third quarter last year,
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Mar 10
     
    And if anyone had any doubts that the CDS market is officially backstopped, look no further than the Bear Stearns and AIG rescues. To put not too find a point on it, the industry understands full well who is the ultimate bagholder: United States commercial banks, those with insured deposits, held $13 trillion in notional value of credit derivatives at the end of the third quarter last year, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The biggest players in this world are JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. All of those firms fall squarely into the category of institutions that are too politically connected to fail. Because of the implicit taxpayer backing that accompanies such lofty status, derivatives become exceedingly dangerous, said Robert Arvanitis, chief executive of Risk Finance Advisors, a corporate advisory firm specializing in insurance. "If companies were not implicitly backed by the taxpayers, then managements would get very reluctant to go out after that next billion of notional on swaps," he said. "They'd look over their shoulder and say, 'This is getting dangerous.'" Morgenson is positively tame compared to Munchau. I'm quoting him more liberally, because the tone of his remarks are remarkably pointed for him and the FT generally. Notice that he explicitly, and repeatedly, says the use of naked credit default swaps looks an awful lot like a crime:
Paul Merrell

Palestinians Seen Gaining Momentum in Quest for Statehood - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...um-in-quest-for-statehood.html

war & peace Israel Palestine PLA-dissolution PLO

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • When the Palestinians sought statehood at the United Nations in 2011, it was widely dismissed as a symbolic gambit to skirt negotiations with Israel and Washington’s influence over the long-running conflict. But the Palestinians have begun to translate a series of such symbolic steps, culminating in last week’s move to join the International Criminal Court, into a strategy that has begun to create pressure on Israel.While many prominent Israelis have called for unilateral action to set the country’s borders, it is Palestinians who have gained political momentum with moves made outside of negotiations. The Palestinians are, in effect, establishing a legal state. International recognition, by 135 countries and counting, is what Palestinians are betting could eventually force changes on the ground — without their leaders having to make the concessions or assurances they have long avoided.
  • President Abbas, having joined the International Criminal Court after months of rebuffing internal pressure to do so, now faces calls from a frustrated public to go further, by halting security coordination with Israel or dissolving the Palestinian Authority. While both steps would be problematic for the Palestinians as well as the Israelis, Palestinian leaders see it as a way to further squeeze Israel. Without the authority, Israel would have to provide services and maintain order across the West Bank without Palestinian security forces, which would likely be both costly and chaotic, and could intensify international frustration with Israel’s occupation.“I’m a little surprised with the negative American reaction because Palestinians either pursue peaceful legal approaches or pursue violent illegal approaches,” said Ghassan Khatib, vice president of Birzeit University in the West Bank. “But if all the doors are closed, and if the Israelis and the Americans will stop funding, then the P.A. will collapse, and that will play to the hands of the extreme elements in Palestinian society, including Hamas.”
  • President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority seems undeterred and increasingly indifferent to American diplomacy. He vowed Sunday to resubmit a Security Council resolution that failed last week “again and again” and to “join 100, 200, 300” international organizations, despite the risk that Israeli and American sanctions could lead to his government’s collapse.
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  • “Those states that have recognized the State of Palestine, that’s not an insignificant number, they’ve reached a kind of critical mark,” said Mark Ellis, director of the London-based International Bar Association. “We’ve added an additional complexity to this very long 66-year-old journey. I think it’s intriguing.”
  • In some ways, the dual Palestinian tracks seem contradictory — how could they continue to make the case for statehood if they collapse the provisional authority the Oslo Accords created two decades ago for state-building? But it is the Palestine Liberation Organization, not the Palestinian Authority, that represents Palestinians on the world stage. Mr. Ellis, the international-law expert, said that Palestine met the criteria for statehood — permanent population, defined territory, government, and recognition by other states — and that those would not be nullified if the authority disappeared and chaos ensued on the ground. Mustafa Barghouti, one of many Palestinian leaders pressing Mr. Abbas to collapse the authority, envisions “a government in exile” for a “state under occupation.”
  • “This would mean liberating the Palestinian movement from all these restrictions and obligations by Israel — it’s like declaring civil disobedience,” Mr. Barghouti said. “In a way, it’s the end of the Oslo era. For me, it was the end many years ago. For Abbas, it was the end only this week.”
Paul Merrell

Charlie Hebdo: Paris attack brothers' campaign of terror can be traced back to Algeria in 1954 - Comment - Voices - The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...o-algeria-in-1954-9969184.html

war & peace Paris terrorists™ Algeria FLN colonialism

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Algeria. Long before the identity of the murder suspects was revealed by the French police – even before I heard the names of Cherif and Said Kouachi – I muttered the word “Algeria” to myself. As soon as I heard the names and saw the faces, I said the word “Algeria” again. And then the French police said the two men were of “Algerian origin”. For Algeria remains the most painful wound within the body politic of the Republic – save, perhaps, for its continuing self-examination of Nazi occupation – and provides a fearful context for every act of Arab violence against France. The six-year Algerian war for independence, in which perhaps a million and a half Arab Muslims and many thousands of French men and women died, remains an unending and unresolved agony for both peoples. Just over half a century ago, it almost started a French civil war.
  • But there’s an important context that somehow got left out of the story this week, the “history corner” that many Frenchmen as well as Algerians prefer to ignore: the bloody 1954-62 struggle of an entire people for freedom against a brutal imperial regime, a prolonged war which remains the foundational quarrel of Arabs and French to this day.The desperate and permanent crisis in Algerian-French relations, like the refusal of a divorced couple to accept an agreed narrative of their sorrow, poisons the cohabitation of these two peoples in France. However Cherif and Said Kouachi excused their actions, they were born at a time when Algeria had been invisibly mutilated by 132 years of occupation. Perhaps five million of France’s six and a half million Muslims are Algerian. Most are poor, many regard themselves as second-class citizens in the land of equality.
  • More than 100 years earlier, France had invaded Algeria itself, subjugating its native Muslim population, building small French towns and chateaux across the countryside, even – in an early 19th-century Catholic renaissance which was supposed to “re-Christianise” northern Africa – converting mosques into churches.The Algerian response to what today appears to be a monstrous historical anachronism varied over the decades between lassitude, collaboration and insurrection. A demonstration for independence in the Muslim-majority and nationalist town of Sétif on VE Day – when the Allies had liberated the captive countries of Europe – resulted in the killing of 103 European civilians. French government revenge was ruthless; up to 700 Muslim civilians – perhaps far more – were killed by infuriated French “colons” and in bombardment of surrounding villages by French aircraft and a naval cruiser. The world paid little attention.
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  • But when a full-scale insurrection broke out in 1954 – at first, of course, ambushes with few French lives lost and then attacks on the French army – the sombre war of Algerian liberation was almost preordained. Beaten in that classic post-war anti-colonial battle at Dien Bien Phu, the French army, after its debacle in 1940, seemed vulnerable to the more romantic Algerian nationalists who noted France’s further humiliation at Suez in 1956.
  • What the historian Alistair Horne rightly described in his magnificent history of the Algerian struggle as “a savage war of peace” took the lives of hundreds of thousands. Bombs, booby traps, massacres by government forces and National Liberation Front guerrillas in the “bled” – the countryside south of the Mediterranean – led to the brutal suppression of Muslim sectors of Algiers, the assassination, torture and execution of guerrilla leaders by French paratroopers, soldiers, Foreign Legion operatives – including German ex-Nazis – and paramilitary police. Even white French sympathisers of the Algerians were “disappeared”. Albert Camus spoke out against torture and French civil servants were sickened by the brutality employed to keep Algeria French.
  • The Algerian conflict finished in a bloodbath. White “pied noir” French colonists refused to accept France’s withdrawal, supported the secret OAS in attacking Algerian Muslims and encouraged French military units to mutiny. At one point, De Gaulle feared that French paratroopers would try to take over Paris.When the end came, despite FLN promises to protect French citizens who chose to stay in Algeria, there were mass killings in Oran.
  • And when the Algerian civil war of the 1980s commenced – after the Algerian army cancelled a second round of elections which Islamists were sure to win – the corrupt FLN “pouvoir” and the Muslim rebels embarked on a conflict every bit as gruesome as the Franco-Algerian war of the 1950s and 1960s. Torture, disappearances, village massacres all resumed. France discreetly supported a dictatorship whose military leaders salted away millions of dollars in Swiss banks.Algerian Muslims returning from the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan joined the Islamists in the mountains, killing some of the few remaining French citizens in Algeria. And many subsequently left to fight in the Islamist wars, in Iraq and later Syria.Enter here the Kouachi brothers, especially Chérif, who was imprisoned for taking Frenchmen to fight against the Americans in Iraq. And the United States, with French support, now backs the FLN regime in its continuing battle against Islamists in Algeria’s deserts and mountain forests, arming a military which tortured and murdered thousands of men in the 1990s.As an American diplomat said just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States “has much to learn” from the Algerian authorities. You can see why some Algerians went to fight for the Iraqi resistance. And found a new cause…
Paul Merrell

US and Israel try to rewrite history of UN resolution declaring Zionism racism - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...resolution-declared-zionism

war & peace Zionism SCR-3379 U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” reads UN General Assembly Resolution 3379. The measure was adopted 40 years ago, on Nov. 10, 1975, and the majority of the international community backed it. 72 countries voted for the resolution, with just 35 opposed (and 32 abstentions). Although little-known in the US today (it is remarkable how effectively the US and its allies have rewritten history in their favor), UN GA Res. 3379, titled “Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination,” made an indelible imprint on history. The geographic distribution of the vote was telling. The countries that voted against the resolution were primarily colonial powers and/or their allies. The countries that voted for it were overwhelmingly formerly colonized and anti-imperialist nations.
  • The resolution also cited two other little-known measures passed by international organizations in the same year: the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity’s resolution 77, which ruled “that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regimes in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure”; and the Political Declaration and Strategy to Strengthen International Peace and Security and to Intensify Solidarity and Mutual Assistance among Non-Aligned Countries, which called Zionism a “racist and imperialist ideology.” When the resolution was passed, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Chaim Herzog — who later became Israel’s sixth president, and the father of Isaac Herzog, the head of Israel’s opposition — famously tore up the text at the podium. Herzog claimed the measure was “based on hatred, falsehood, and arrogance,” insisting it was “devoid of any moral or legal value.” Still today, supporters of Israel argue UN GA Res. 3379 was an anomalous product of anti-Semitism. In reality, however, the resolution was the result of international condemnation of the illegal military occupation to which Palestinians had been subjected since 1967 and the apartheid-like conditions the indigenous Arab population had lived under as second-class citizens of an ethnocratic state since 1948.
  • In 1991, resolution 3379 was repealed for two primary reasons: One, the Soviet bloc, which helped pass the resolution, had collapsed; and two, Israel and the US demanded that it be revoked or they refused to participate in the Madrid Peace Conference. At the UN on Nov. 11, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and Secretary of State John Kerry eulogized the late Herzog and forcefully condemned the resolution on its 40th anniversary. In his 2,500-word statement, Kerry mentioned Palestinians just once, and only then as an extension of Israelis. In her remarks, Power did not mention Palestinians at all.
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  • In his speech, Kerry smeared resolution 3379 as “anti-Semitic” and “absurd.” Kerry called it “a bitter irony that this resolution against Zionism was originally a resolution against racism and colonialism” and lamented that “reasonableness was detoured by a willful ignorance of history and truth.” Sec. Kerry insisted “we will do all in our power to prevent the hijacking of this great forum for malicious intent” — a fascinating claim, considering how incredibly often the US itself hijacks the UN against the will of the international community, in the interests of both itself and Israel. Kerry warned about “the global reality of anti-Semitism today” (he made no mention whatsoever of the global reality of rampant, rapidly accelerating, and viciously violent anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Black racism), and implied that the “terrorist bigots of Daesh [ISIS], Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, and so many others” are part of this larger anti-Semitic trend. One could argue Sec. Kerry downplayed the severity of the present political situation by characterizing these fascistic groups’ violent extremism as rooted in anti-Semitic bigotry, rather than in radicalization under conditions of intense oppression, bitter poverty, and brutal tyranny.
  • UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Kerry, Power, and Netanyahu in the echo chamber, albeit with a bit more subtlety. “The reputation of the United Nations was badly damaged by the adoption of resolution 3379, in and beyond Israel and the wider Jewish community,” he said. Unlike the others, Ban condemned not just anti-Semitism, but also “wide-ranging anti-Muslim bigotry and attacks [and] discrimination against migrants and refugees.” Although the Israeli government accuses the UN of bias, the evidence demonstrates the opposite. Secret cables released by whistleblowing journalism organization WikiLeaks revealed that the US and Israel worked hand-in-hand with the UN and Sec.-Gen. Ban in order to undermine investigation into and punitive action on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
  • In her speech at the UN, Power, like Kerry, conflated the heinous Nazi attacks on Jewish civilians in the Kristallnacht with UN GA Res. 3379. Both speakers cited the abominable horrors of the Holocaust several times as reasons to support Zionism, glossing over the fact that Zionism was created in the late 19th century and that the Balfour Declaration dates back to 1917, decades before World War II. Amb. Power — a serial warmonger and veteran blame-dodger — did what she did best: rewrote history in the favor of US imperialism. She called the resolution “1975 smearing of Jews’ aspirations to have a homeland” and insisted multiple times that resolutions like 3379 “threaten the legitimacy of the UN.” Like Kerry, Power conveniently forgot to mention that, when it comes to the halls of the UN, there is no other rogue state as blunt as the US, which regularly spits in the face of the international community, defying UN resolutions, violating the UN Charter, and breaking international law when it sees fit. Power’s speech exposed the fault lines in the contentious (to put it mildly) relationship between the US and the UN — that is to say, between the US and the international community. Such tensions are not the fault of the UN; the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of Washington, with its doctrinal “American exceptionalism” and the flagrant disregard for international law that so frequently accompanies such imperial hubris.
  • In their speeches, both Kerry and Power also thanked Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon, who was described by an Israeli Labor Party lawmaker as “a right-wing extremist with the diplomatic sensitivity of a pit bull” and who proposed legislation that would, in his own words, have the Israeli government “annex the West Bank and repeal the Oslo Accords.” Amb. Danon insists that God gave the land of historic Palestine to the Jewish people as an “everlasting possession” (while forsaking the US). He also told the Times of Israel that the “international community can say whatever they want, and we can do whatever we want.” Netanyahu addressed the session with a video message. He claimed that Israel, which has for years led the world in violating UN Security Council resolutions, “continues to face systemic discrimination here at the UN.” In a January 2013 statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, the Russell Tribunal calculated Israel had defied a bare minimum of 87 Security Council resolutions. The Russel Tribunal also crucially noted “that Israel’s ongoing colonial settlement expansion, its racial separatist policies, as well as its violent militarism would not be possible without the US’s unequivocal support.” The tribunal pointed out that Israel “is the largest recipient of US foreign aid since 1976 and the largest cumulative recipient since World War II” and that, between 1972 and 2012, the US was the lone veto of UN resolutions critical of Israel 43 times.
  • The US secretary of state extolled “Zionism as the expression of a national liberation movement.” The national liberation movements of Vietnam, Korea, China, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Congo, South Africa, Burkina Faso, and so many more nations, however, did not get such approval from Washington; au contraire, they were mercilessly crushed under the iron fist of American empire. Traditionally, only right-wing and settler-colonial “national liberation movements” have garnered the US’s official approval. “Why do we Americans care so much about the rights of others being respected?” Kerry asked unprovoked. “Because, in an interconnected world, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He should tell that to the victims of US-backed dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Brunei, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, and, once again, so many more nations. “Times may change, but one thing we do know: America’s support for Israel’s dreaming and Israel’s security, that will never change,” Kerry proclaimed.
  • The real victim of the 40th anniversary event was the truth — and, of course, as it was four decades ago, the Palestinians. Yet, while UN GA Res. 3379 was repealed, the truth cannot be revoked. Zionism was and remains an unequivocally racist movement — just like any other hyper-nationalist and ethnocratic movement. None other than the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, recognized this elementary fact. In a 1902 letter to Cecil Rhodes — a diamond magnate and white supremacist British colonialist with oceans of African blood on his hands — Herzl, writing of “the idea of Zionism, which is a colonial idea,” requested help colonizing historic Palestine. “It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial,” Herzl wrote. “I want you to… put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan.”
Paul Merrell

How Edward Snowden Changed Everything | The Nation - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...ard-snowden-changed-everything

surveillance state Snowden Wizner state-of-play civil-liberties must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Ben Wizner, who is perhaps best known as Edward Snowden’s lawyer, directs the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. Wizner, who joined the ACLU in August 2001, one month before the 9/11 attacks, has been a force in the legal battles against torture, watch lists, and extraordinary rendition since the beginning of the global “war on terror.” Ad Policy On October 15, we met with Wizner in an upstate New York pub to discuss the state of privacy advocacy today. In sometimes sardonic tones, he talked about the transition from litigating on issues of torture to privacy advocacy, differences between corporate and state-sponsored surveillance, recent developments in state legislatures and the federal government, and some of the obstacles impeding civil liberties litigation. The interview has been edited and abridged for publication.
  • en Wizner, who is perhaps best known as Edward Snowden’s lawyer, directs the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. Wizner, who joined the ACLU in August 2001, one month before the 9/11 attacks, has been a force in the legal battles against torture, watch lists, and extraordinary rendition since the beginning of the global “war on terror.” Ad Policy On October 15, we met with Wizner in an upstate New York pub to discuss the state of privacy advocacy today. In sometimes sardonic tones, he talked about the transition from litigating on issues of torture to privacy advocacy, differences between corporate and state-sponsored surveillance, recent developments in state legislatures and the federal government, and some of the obstacles impeding civil liberties litigation. The interview has been edited and abridged for publication.
  • Many of the technologies, both military technologies and surveillance technologies, that are developed for purposes of policing the empire find their way back home and get repurposed. You saw this in Ferguson, where we had military equipment in the streets to police nonviolent civil unrest, and we’re seeing this with surveillance technologies, where things that are deployed for use in war zones are now commonly in the arsenals of local police departments. For example, a cellphone surveillance tool that we call the StingRay—which mimics a cellphone tower and communicates with all the phones around—was really developed as a military technology to help identify targets. Now, because it’s so inexpensive, and because there is a surplus of these things that are being developed, it ends up getting pushed down into local communities without local democratic consent or control.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • SG & TP: How do you see the current state of the right to privacy? BW: I joked when I took this job that I was relieved that I was going to be working on the Fourth Amendment, because finally I’d have a chance to win. That was intended as gallows humor; the Fourth Amendment had been a dishrag for the last several decades, largely because of the war on drugs. The joke in civil liberties circles was, “What amendment?” But I was able to make this joke because I was coming to Fourth Amendment litigation from something even worse, which was trying to sue the CIA for torture, or targeted killings, or various things where the invariable outcome was some kind of non-justiciability ruling. We weren’t even reaching the merits at all. It turns out that my gallows humor joke was prescient.
  • The truth is that over the last few years, we’ve seen some of the most important Fourth Amendment decisions from the Supreme Court in perhaps half a century. Certainly, I think the Jones decision in 2012 [U.S. v. Jones], which held that GPS tracking was a Fourth Amendment search, was the most important Fourth Amendment decision since Katz in 1967 [Katz v. United States], in terms of starting a revolution in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence signifying that changes in technology were not just differences in degree, but they were differences in kind, and require the Court to grapple with it in a different way. Just two years later, you saw the Court holding that police can’t search your phone incident to an arrest without getting a warrant [Riley v. California]. Since 2012, at the level of Supreme Court jurisprudence, we’re seeing a recognition that technology has required a rethinking of the Fourth Amendment at the state and local level. We’re seeing a wave of privacy legislation that’s really passing beneath the radar for people who are not paying close attention. It’s not just happening in liberal states like California; it’s happening in red states like Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. And purple states like Colorado and Maine. You see as many libertarians and conservatives pushing these new rules as you see liberals. It really has cut across at least party lines, if not ideologies. My overall point here is that with respect to constraints on government surveillance—I should be more specific—law-enforcement government surveillance—momentum has been on our side in a way that has surprised even me.
  • Do you think that increased privacy protections will happen on the state level before they happen on the federal level? BW: I think so. For example, look at what occurred with the death penalty and the Supreme Court’s recent Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. The question under the Eighth Amendment is, “Is the practice cruel and unusual?” The Court has looked at what it calls “evolving standards of decency” [Trop v. Dulles, 1958]. It matters to the Court, when it’s deciding whether a juvenile can be executed or if a juvenile can get life without parole, what’s going on in the states. It was important to the litigants in those cases to be able to show that even if most states allowed the bad practice, the momentum was in the other direction. The states that were legislating on this most recently were liberalizing their rules, were making it harder to execute people under 18 or to lock them up without the possibility of parole. I think you’re going to see the same thing with Fourth Amendment and privacy jurisprudence, even though the Court doesn’t have a specific doctrine like “evolving standards of decency.” The Court uses this much-maligned test, “Do individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy?” We’ll advance the argument, I think successfully, that part of what the Court should look at in considering whether an expectation of privacy is reasonable is showing what’s going on in the states. If we can show that a dozen or eighteen state legislatures have enacted a constitutional protection that doesn’t exist in federal constitutional law, I think that that will influence the Supreme Court.
  • The question is will it also influence Congress. I think there the answer is also “yes.” If you’re a member of the House or the Senate from Montana, and you see that your state legislature and your Republican governor have enacted privacy legislation, you’re not going to be worried about voting in that direction. I think this is one of those places where, unlike civil rights, where you saw most of the action at the federal level and then getting forced down to the states, we’re going to see more action at the state level getting funneled up to the federal government.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    A must-read. Ben Wizner discusses the current climate in the courts in government surveillance cases and how Edward Snowden's disclosures have affected that, and much more. Wizner is not only Edward Snowden's lawyer, he is also the coordinator of all ACLU litigation on electronic surveillance matters.
Gary Edwards

Will you choose liberty, or just a new boss? - Tea Party Command Center - 0 views

teapartyorg.ning.com/...show

Matt-Kibbe Patriot Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Let’s get our terms right first. “The establishment” is the network of special interests—politicians, crony capitalists, lobbyists and career bureaucrats—who feed at the public trough at the expense of the common good. Members of the establishment don’t like rocking the boat, because they have worked so hard to ensure that they are always the ones riding high and dry. “The establishment” is neither Democratic nor Republican, nor is it “liberal” or “conservative.” It’s not even “the rich” versus “the poor.” It is simply the cancer that can consume great nations when government gets too big, too involved, and too powerful.
  • Too much concentrated power in Washington always accrues to the benefit of the establishment, because they will always get to the table first.
  • Compromise is the currency, because that’s how everyone gets paid. Everyone wants something from someone. Everyone is looking for a play, wanting to cut a better deal.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The real alternative to the tyranny of the D.C. establishment has always been more liberty, not a better, more benevolent despot. America’s genius comes from each of us, working together in voluntary cooperation to solve problems, from the bottom, up. We need a leader who gets it. Someone who respects our Constitution’s essential role in limiting power. Someone who wants to rein in intrusive government, and all of the inside dealers who feed off of it. A president can never give you liberty, but we should all insist on one who respects it.
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 16
     
    "Socialist Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton over the head with his figurative Birkenstocks, and The Donald is plowing through the Republican presidential field like a giant, perfectly coiffed, Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The establishment is freaking out, and it's about damn time. Their collective panic suggests that entrenched interests finally understand that their world is threatened; that the rules have changed, that insider power is waning, that we are onto their game. We now know what the establishment has been up to behind the cloistered marble walls of our government, and we are royally pissed. This is an opportunity of a lifetime, if we get it right. But you have to choose. Will you choose liberty, or just a new boss? Let's get our terms right first. "The establishment" is the network of special interests-politicians, crony capitalists, lobbyists and career bureaucrats-who feed at the public trough at the expense of the common good. Members of the establishment don't like rocking the boat, because they have worked so hard to ensure that they are always the ones riding high and dry. "The establishment" is neither Democratic nor Republican, nor is it "liberal" or "conservative." It's not even "the rich" versus "the poor." It is simply the cancer that can consume great nations when government gets too big, too involved, and too powerful. "Are you willing to hold your nose this time, cut the best deal you think you can, simply because you want to beat the establishment?" "The establishment" is the fortress of political inertia that makes it so difficult to reform Washington, or to stop "them" from spending money we don't have. They are just insiders with a seat at the table redirecting taxpayer resources to their benefit, and always resisting reformers and "outsiders" who might upset their apple cart."
Gary Edwards

Articles: Socialist Sweep New Hampshire - 1 views

www.americanthinker.com/...alist_sweep_new_hampshire.html

Trump New-Socialist Millenial-Socialism

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • In case this confuses you: According to Trump, the problem is business, not government.
  • Additionally, it seems the Donald thinks that big pharma and big hospital and big insurance went to Obama and begged him to totally ruin our health care system.  Either that or he's just flat pandering and lying because he thinks the odd ball liberals in New Hampshire will lap it up.  Obviously they did.
  • Oh, and for the record, underlying Trump's premise is that only rich people should run for office.  Now there's a conservative principle if there ever was one
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • For decades – as we all know – Trump has been an advocate for universal government health care.
  • And while now he promises to replace Obamacare "with something terrific," other than mentioning something about state lines, his rhetoric reeks of a big-government program and has nothing to do with market economics.
  • He's said very recently that "we're gonna take care of everybody" and that Ted Cruz was "heartless" for apparently wanting to immediately replace Obamacare without some government-based Cruzcare.
  • What the hell does it mean that "we" and "I" will take care of everybody?  It means our money and some iteration known as Trumpcare.
  • Trump is sounding like Bernie now and as Obama sounded in 2008-9-10.  We have to elect Trump to know what is in him, I guess.  But actually, we don't.  When you sound like a Marxist on health care and attack someone like Cruz the way a Marxist would attack someone like Cruz, then it follows logically to apply "the duck test."
  • Trump has promised to allow the government to negotiate drug prices — a common position among Democrats but rarely heard at nominally Republican events.
  • He said he would not raise military spending, arguing that the nation's defenses can be improved without increasing its already huge Pentagon budget.
  • He promised tough sanctions on American companies that move jobs overseas."
  • Gary Edwards on 11 Feb 16
     
    Shortly after Barack Obama swept into the White House while giving Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid a coattail Marxist Congress, Newsweek Magazine ran the cover "We're all Socialists now," based on Jon Meacham's lead article with the same headline.  Without a doubt, the election of that president and that Congress moved reality closer to Meacham's point.  It was astonishing that liberal apologist Meacham admitted as much. Yet it took until last night before it was literally true, as New Hampshire gave a full-throated socialist a rout over semi-socialist Hillary Clinton on the Democrat side and the once and now apparently again socialist Donald Trump won the GOP primary after going left of Bernie Sanders in his final rallies in the state.  To translate, Obama's hope and change and fundamental transformation of the nation are right on track - barreling warp-speed to the left in both presidential primary contests.
Paul Merrell

U.S. deploys troops along Turkish - Syrian border as buffer between Kurds and Turkey - nsnbc international | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/83604

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria deployments Turkey YPG KPG

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • The United States is deploying armored vehicles and a small number of troops along the Syrian – Turkish border after recent airstrikes killed about 20 Syrian – Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Unit (YPG). The YPG is a key member organization of the U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
  • The troops and armored vehicles were deployed on Friday amidst increased tensions between the YPG and Turkey, as well as increased tensions between Turkey and Turkey’s Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Footage posted by Syrian activists online showed a convoy of U.S. armored vehicles driving on a rural road in the village of Darbasiyah in the Kurdish region of northern Syria, a few hundred meters from the Turkish border. Clashes in the area were reported Wednesday a day after the Turkish airstrike which also destroyed a Kurdish command headquarters. The YPG reported that a series of air strikes and attacks between April 25 and April 28 resulted in the death of at least 20 of their fighters. Both Russia, Syria and the United States expressed grave concerns about Turkey’s military actions against the YPG. All three stressed that Turkey should rather focus on fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh). The Turkish AKP government, for its part, considers the YPG as a terrorist organization on par and allied with the PKK. Moreover, Turkey strongly opposes the creation of a Kurdish state construct or a federal, predominantly Kurdish construct in northern Syria, fearing it would strengthen the PKK. Turkey is therefore counting on its cooperation with Islamist insurgents, often with links to Al-Qaeda affiliates, under the euphemism Free Syrian Army (FSA).
  • Pentagon Spokesman, U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, did not dispute that U.S. troops are operating with elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) along the Turkish border, but he would not get into specifics. The SDF is a Kurdish-dominated alliance fighting IS that includes Kurdish and Arab fighters as well as fighters from other local ethnic and other militia. Deserted Free Syrian Army officers and fighters are also part of the SDF. Davis commented “We have U.S. forces that are there throughout the entirety of northern Syria that operate with our Syrian Democratic Force partners,” Davis said. “The border is among the areas where they operate.” He said the U.S. wants the SDF to focus on liberating the IS-held town of Tabqa and the extremist group’s de facto capital, Raqqa, “and not be drawn into conflicts elsewhere.” In March 2016, about 200 Marines were deployed to Syrian Kurdistan backed with howitzers, significantly widening the U.S. support for the SDF, especially in the highly complex battlefield around Raqqa.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The United States and Turkey have been openly at loggerheads over the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wings, the YPG, and the all-female YPJ since October 2016. The government of the Syrian Arab Republic recognizes the YPG and SDF for their roles in fighting ISIS. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, earlier this year, also recognized the United States role in supporting the YPG and SDF. In mid-April 2017, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said the Syrian government supports and will cooperate with anyone who liberates the city of Raqqa from the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the United States included. Assad stressed however, that help in fighting terrorism must not be confused with an attempt by the U.S. to occupy the country.
Paul Merrell

After "Liberation," U.S. To Give Control Of Raqqa To Rebels, Not Syrian Government - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...227022

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Raqqa proxies government

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • On Tuesday, the U.S.-allied militias that have been encircling Raqqa – the de facto stronghold of Daesh – announced that they had formed a “civilian council” to govern Raqqa after its capture from Daesh militants. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed militia that comprises a large number of Syrian Kurds, claim to have spent six months setting up the council, with a preparatory committee having met “with the people and important tribal figures of Raqqa city to find out their opinions on how to govern it,” Middle East Eye reported. SDF spokesman Talal Selo stated that some towns near Raqqa had already been turned over to the council following a successful operation to drive out Daesh forces. The U.S. military had previously hinted that power would be given to rebel groups following Raqqa’s “liberation” when the head of U.S. Central Command General Joseph Votel told the Senate in early March that military officials anticipated “that America’s allies will need assistance preventing their [Daesh’s] return and establishing Syrian-led peacekeeping efforts” after a successful operation. Considering that the Syrian government is far from being one of “America’s allies,” Votel’s statement implied that the U.S.-backed militias would be given control of Raqqa and the surrounding area, despite the implications this would have for Syrian sovereignty and further destabilization in the war-torn country. As MintPress previously reported, Votel also told senators that “conventional U.S. forces would be required to stabilize the region once ISIS fighters are flushed from Raqqa,” meaning that the current U.S. troop build-up around Raqqa is by no means a temporary deployment, but rather the foundation for creating a standing army.
Paul Merrell

Russia and Iran warn US they will 'respond with force' if red lines crossed in Syria again | The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...rikes-war-latest-a7675031.html

war & peace Syria Russia Iran red-lines

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Russia and Iran have warned the US they will “respond with force” if their own “red lines” are crossed in Syria. Following Friday’s cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase, in retaliation for the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun earlier in the week, the alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a joint statement threatening action in response to “any breach of red lines from whoever it is”. “What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well,” the group’s joint command centre said.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17
     
    Thanks to Trump and the necon/liberal alliaance that pushed him into war, World War III is now set to ignite in Syria.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Apr 17
     
    Thanks to Trump and the necon/liberal alliaance that pushed him into war, World War III is now set to ignite in Syria.
Gary Edwards

Data Points To A Powerful Romney Campaign - And Yet…He Lost. - The Ulsterman Report - 0 views

theulstermanreport.com/...omney-campaign-and-yet-he-lost

election-fraud 2012-elections

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Nov 12
     
    This a brief summary of just how well Mitt Romney did in shifting voters toward him in 2012 versus what took place in 2008:  The data comes from an exit poll analysis provided by the Washington Post: http://goo.gl/Vy5VV excerpt:  .. Barack Obama netted FEWER Democrat votes in 2012 than were cast in 2008 by 3% points. .. Mitt Romney earned MORE Republican votes in 2012 than were cast in 2008 by 3% points. ... Barack Obama earned FEWER Black votes in 2012 than he did in 2008. ... Mitt Romney by the way, earned MORE Black votes in 2012 than there were cast for the Republican in 2008. ... Mitt Romney earned MORE votes from both married men and married woman than were cast for Republicans in 2008, while also improving support among non-married men and woman by 2% from 2008 as well. ... Mitt Romney earned MORE votes among liberals, moderates, and conservatives than were cast for the Republican candidate in 2008 - in fact, this improvement was by a full 7% over 2008 - a very significant improvement. ... Mitt Romney earned more votes from Protestants, Catholics, and Jews than the Republican nominee received in 2008, including a 9-point improvement among Jewish voters alone. ... The two top issues according to voters were the economy and the budget.  Mitt Romney earned A 38 POINT ADVANTAGE OVER .. ... BARACK OBAMA on the top two issues of the election - and yet Romney was somehow defeated. Lastly, regarding the following three personal trait issues - strong leader, shares my values, and has a vision for the future, Mitt Romney DOMINATED Barack Obama among 2012 voters by 45 points.  And lost the election. It is stunning, some might even say inconceivable, that a candidate improves in such categories as overall votes among Whites AND minorities, is ranked far ahead of their opponent in both the top two concerns among voters, as well as the three most important personal trait issues - and still loses the election.
Gary Edwards

Dangerous Minds | Dying vet's 'fuck you' letter to George Bush & Dick Cheney needs to be read by every American - 0 views

dangerousminds.net/...h_dick_cheney_needs_to_be_read

Tomas-Young Iraq

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Mar 13
     
    Chilling letter from Iraqi war veteran Tomas Young.  I'm not sure if there is a descriptive term for the odd mix of emotions where shame, soul searching regret, sadness and extreme anger collide in self loathing as the mistaken trust so many patriotic 911 Americans, myself included, had in our leaders came crashing down in Iraq.  Weep for Tomas.  Weep for America.  And never trust a Republican, a Democrat, a Bankster or fascist Corporatist again. excerpt: ........... "I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans-my fellow veterans-whose future you stole. Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage. I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not j
Paul Merrell

Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html

class warfare income inequality economic mobility land of opportunity myth

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Benjamin Franklin did it. Henry Ford did it. And American life is built on the faith that others can do it, too: rise from humble origins to economic heights. “Movin’ on up,” George Jefferson-style, is not only a sitcom song but a civil religion.
  • But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage. Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement “up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.” National Review, a conservative thought leader, wrote that “most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility.” Even Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who argues that overall mobility remains high, recently wrote that “mobility from the very bottom up” is “where the United States lags behind.”
  • Liberal commentators have long emphasized class, but the attention on the right is largely new.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints. Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.
  • Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths. By emphasizing the influence of family background, the studies not only challenge American identity but speak to the debate about inequality. While liberals often complain that the United States has unusually large income gaps, many conservatives have argued that the system is fair because mobility is especially high, too: everyone can climb the ladder. Now the evidence suggests that America is not only less equal, but also less mobile.
Gary Edwards

A Battering Ram Becomes a Stonewall - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3475304578501581991103070.html

Peggy-Noonan IRS Obammunism Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 May 13 - No Cached
  • "I don't know." "I don't remember." "I'm not familiar with that detail." "It's not my precise area." "I'm not familiar with that letter." These are quotes from the Internal Revenue Service officials who testified this week before the House and Senate. That is the authentic sound of stonewalling, and from the kind of people who run Washington in the modern age—smooth, highly credentialed and unaccountable. They're surrounded by legal and employment protections, they know how to parse a careful response, they know how to blur the essential point of a question in a blizzard of unconnected factoids. They came across as people arrogant enough to target Americans for abuse and harassment and think they'd get away with it. So what did we learn the past week, and what are the essentials to keep in mind?
  • We learned the people who ran and run the IRS are not going to help Congress find out what happened in the IRS. We know we haven't gotten near the bottom of the political corruption of that agency. We do not know who ordered the targeting of conservative groups and individuals, or why, or exactly when it began. We don't know who executed the orders or directives. We do not know the full scope or extent of the scandal. We don't know, for instance, how many applicants for tax-exempt status were abused.
  • With all the talk and the hearings and the news reports, it is important to keep the essentials of this story in mind.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • First, only conservative groups were targeted in this scandal by the IRS. Liberal or progressive groups were not targeted. The IRS leaked conservative groups' confidential applications and donor lists to Liberal groups, never the other way around.
  • This was a political operation. If it had not been, then the statistics tell us left-wing groups would have been harassed and abused, and seen their applications leaked to the press.
  • And all of this apparently took place in the years leading up to the 2012 election. Meaning that before that election, groups that were anti-Obamacare, or pro-life, or pro-Second Amendment or constitutionalist, or had words like "tea party" or "patriot" in their name—groups that is that would support Republicans, not Democrats—were suppressed, thwarted, kept from raising money and therefore kept from fully operating.
  • if what happened at the IRS is not stopped now—if the internal corruption within it is not broken—it will never stop, and never be broken. The American people will never again be able to have the slightest confidence in the revenue-gathering arm of their government. And that, actually, would be tragic.
Gary Edwards

PETITION URGING CONGRESS TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...impeach-president-barack-obama

Impeach-Obama articles-of-impeachment

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Jun 13
     
    "PETITION URGENTLY REQUESTING THAT CONGRESS LAUNCH AN INDEPENDENT AND COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION INTO UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES ON THE PART OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA To: All members of the U.S. Congress: Whereas, President Barack Obama not only failed to aid U.S. personnel under lethal and prolonged terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, resulting in the deaths of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but also led an outrageously deceitful cover-up for weeks afterward, rivaling the Watergate-era cover-up that ended the presidency of Richard Nixon; Whereas, the IRS under Obama - in accord with direct instructions from congressional Democrats - has engaged in the most egregious and widespread attack on conservative groups in modern history, with the knowledge of top agency officials; Whereas, the Obama Justice Department, on top of its many first-term scandals, has spied on and harassed journalists at Fox News and the Associated Press, prompting widespread, bipartisan condemnation of the DOJ for "criminalizing journalism"; Whereas, top constitutional attorneys from across the political spectrum now agree that Obama has committed certain specific offenses that unquestionably rise to the level of impeachable "high crimes and misdemeanors"; Whereas, one of these offenses - that of illegally conducting war against Libya - has been deemed by a bipartisan panel of constitutional experts to be "clearly an impeachable offense" and "gross usurpation of the war power"; Whereas, Obama's policy of targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens without any constitutionally required due process - including the drone assassination of an American-born 16-year-old as he was eating dinner - is unanimously deemed by experts, both liberal and conservative, as "an impeachable offense"; Whereas, Obama's Justice Department has presided over the disastrous "Fast and Furious" operation in which approximately 2
Gary Edwards

California NDAA Nullification Bill Passes Assembly Committee Unanimously - Tenth Amendment Center Blog - 1 views

blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/...assembly-committee-unanimously

AB351 NDAA-Nullification tenth-amendment

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 01 May 13
     
    Absolutely stunning news!!!!  Tea Party Patriots and liberal progressive democrats have combined their efforts and passed the single most significant NDAA nullification Act yet.  AB351 now heads for debate and vote of the general California Assembly. "Today, the California Public Safety Committee voted unanimously in favor of Assembly Bill 351 (AB351), the California Liberty Preservation Act. Introduced by Republican Assemblymember Tim Donnelly, AB351 is a strong stand against "indefinite detention" as supposedly authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012.  It declares such federal power to be unconstitutional and also requires the entire state to refuse to enforce or assist its implementation.  A broad coalition officially supported the legislation and moved the normally partisan, and strongly democratic committee to support the republican-introduced legislation. AB351 was supported by the ACLU, Tenth Amendment Center, San Francisco 99% coalition, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Libertarian Party of California - and many others. AB351 establishes the proper constitutional role by first citing the 10th Amendment as limiting the power of the federal government as to that which has been delegated to it and nothing more. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution authorizes the United States federal government to exercise only those powers specifically delegated to it in the United States Constitution. It then declares the indefinite detention powers under NDAA to be unconstitutional: Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) codifies indefinite military detention without charge or trial of civilians captured far from any battlefield, violating the United States Constitution and corroding our nation's commitment to the rule of law Most importantly, the bill requires the entire state apparatus, including all local governments, to refuse to implement the fede
Gary Edwards

The twilight of America - Melanie Phillips - 1 views

us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ae169cb0bf1d8ed85f60ee17a&id=9e9f653b0e&e=a231140138

Twilight-of-America America-in-decline Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 14 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 14 Jan 13
     
    Ms. Phillips describes the three new Obama appointments and what it means to the future of America:   excerpt: "Barack Obama has now proposed filling the three positions in the US administration most concerned with the security of the nation and the defence of the free world, those at State, Defence and the CIA, by three men who have all taken up positions which can only strengthen those who threaten the security of America and the survival of the free world.  " "Hagel, Brennan and Kerry, are all examples of post-Vietnam demoralisation syndrome - the deeply pessimistic belief that America cannot and should not fight to defend its security and values anywhere in the world; that if bad people are defeated in war only worse people will ever take their place; and that therefore the best strategy for America is to buy them all off, pull up the drawbridge and retreat into a self-delusional isolation.   These are people who are the living embodiment of civilisational exhaustion and decline. In any healthy society, they would be considered marginal, third-rate figures characterised variously by moral spinelessness, stupidity and knuckle-dragging prejudice. Yet not only has Obama put such people forward to manage the security of America, at a time when Iran  is racing to build its nuclear bomb and Islamic radicals are destroying lives and freedom across the world and making headway into the west -- in part because of the policies of Obama himself; even more stunningly, the American liberal media, along with timid or ideologically partisan US Jewish leaders, remain silent about these astoundingly destructive appointments because it is Obama who is making them. "
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