We have often discussed the plight of women in the Middle East where they are often treated as chattel and denied basic rights and privileges. A story this week out of Tunisia therefore may not surprise the readers of this blog but it again shocks the conscience in giving a glimpse into the desperate existence of many women. The victim in this latest case was pulled from a car with her fiance by three police officers. As the boyfriend was taken to withdraw money from an ATM and robbed, the other two officers took turns raping the woman. When she filed a complaint, the police responded by arresting her for public indecency. So much for the balanced scales of justice on the country’s coat of arms.
Category: Uncategorized
Our dead in Afghanistan has now reached 2000. As anti-American protests and sentiments continue to grow, the Obama Administration continues to spend billions in the country and continues to send our soldiers into harm’s way. In the most tragically apt moment, we reached 2000 dead with yet another American killed by an Afghan soldier that he was treating as an ally and comrade in arms.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Since I haven’t lived in New York for years my knowledge of the politics of the surrounding States, including New Jersey has decreased. I heard about Chris Christie becoming Governor of New Jersey, usually a liberal-minded State despite what you see on TV reality shows, but I didn’t know too much about him, though from the media’s favorable response, I thought him a moderate. The events leading up to the Republican Convention and indeed his keynote speech tended to disabuse me of that notion. So I started to pay attention to him and found that he was your typical Republican elitist, though with a “Joisey” accent and the mannerisms of a thug. As I was surfing around my bookmarks today I came across this article at The Nation of Change: http://www.nationofchange.org by Terrence Heath of the Campaign for Americas Future. www.ourfuture.org/. I think the article stands on its own as an indictment of how many Republicans wish to turn this country into a modern version of Feudalism, a concern of mine that I’ve written about many times. Let me then present the article for your inspection and elicit any comments you might wish to share:
http://www.nationofchange.org/house-gop-taxes-wealthy-are-charity-1349010885
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
It seems that trouble is brewing again in the State of Florida since election officials have discovered suspicious voter registration forms in at least 10 Florida counties. “Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant.” LA Times Continue reading “Deja Vue in Florida?”
The aging American disco ban Generation Esmeralda experienced a bizarre tragedy in Rio this week. Drummer Brad Parker, 59, collapsed on stage and the band continued to play without coming to his aid. It is not clear whether assistance might have saved Parker who had suffered a heart attack mid show.
Continue reading “Dead as Disco: Band Continues To Play After Drummer Dies On Stage”
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
In light of the ever-increasing influence on National and local politics by churches and clergy, I was interested in the recent news that over 1,000 churches will be challenging the IRS by telling their parishioners who they want them to vote for in the upcoming national elections. The event is dubbed “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” by its organizers and it is designed to challenge the IRS on its prohibition of churches from intertwining politics and religion, as a requirement of maintaining their tax-free status. Continue reading “Pastors Take on the IRS”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Our memories not only serve the purpose of learning to avoid danger from past experience, they serve as the glue that holds our sense of our fleeting lives together into a linear personal narrative. For all of us most memories are specific to our direct life experiences. There are some memories though transcending personal encounters and that directly affect us as well as society as a whole. The murder of John F. Kennedy is one such experience from my life that profoundly affected me and my generation, even though all I knew of the man was third hand at best. Closer in time but equally, if not more indelible is the image of the destruction wrought on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. I would guess that almost all Americans who were alive on that day know where they were and what they were doing. This past week we passed the eleventh anniversary of this horror and innumerable solemn observances occurred throughout the nation.
I can remember one phrase that began to be used over and over from that day onward and my rising anger at the implications of that phrase. “This Changes Everything”. I’ve not been able to determine what news-person or pundit first uttered those words, but afterwards the phrase reverberated incessantly. As that fateful day passed, what took shape in the meme those words created, was that the United States had undergone an experience that changed all the rules we had purportedly lived by in dealing with the world around us. In effect it was like saying “No more Mr. Nice Guy”. Whether or not our country ever lived by the ideals it purported to live by is another question entirely. My anger rose at the overuse of this meme because I’ve spent my life wanting my country to live by a higher standard in both national and international relations. I correctly saw this meme as an attempted usurpation of this tragedy towards turning our country away from our national ideals, such as they were. As the years passed since 9/11/2001, we have watched the erosion of these America Ideals. Two murderous wars have been waged. Hundreds of thousands have died, or been maimed. Our “national treasure” depleted, torture has become legalized and with the passage of the “Patriot Act” we have watched the demolition of our personal freedom. With this anniversary, two articles appeared nationally that call into question what was really behind 9/11 and also why there was a possibility of deterring it, which was ignored by the G.W. Bush Administration. I want to discuss both of these articles and then add my own thoughts on their real context. Continue reading ““This Changes Everything””
With teachers striking in Chicago, the news is not good over all for parents and students in my home town after the Department of Education released data showing an incredible Seventy-nine percent of the 8th graders in the Chicago Public Schools are not grade-level proficient in reading. In addition, 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in math.
Continue reading “Report: Seventy-Nine Percent of Eighth Graders In Chicago Public Schools Are Below Proficient In Reading”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The internal combustion engine was an idea that originated in the 18th Century. While various working prototypes were built the concept couldn’t really take off until in the late 1850’s the drilling and refining of petroleum began to blossom. This was a time of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution. In 1885 Karl Benz patented his version of the engine and began producing automobiles. World War I, fought with various forms of mechanized weapons exploded the need for petroleum to fuel them. Major nations began to understand the strategic value of petroleum and the wealth of the Oil Industry began to grow exponentially. By the mid 1920’s the three major oil producers were Saudi Arabia, the United States and the Soviet Union. The oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and in the rest of the Middle East were considered to be the deepest and most valuable. At this point the Middle East, long a backwater in the “Great Game” of nations became the focus of both the industrial nations and of the now dominant Oil Industry.
Much of the history of the Twentieth Century and still today is about the domination of the oil supply. However, as this has played out surrogate issues have been used to provide a mythology to justify intrusions into Middle East that make this economic imperialism palatable to the majority of people. We have watched as Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator no doubt, was toppled for an act, 9/11, which he had nothing to do with. With our Iraq invasion, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s were killed and injured as collateral damage. The cost in the deaths and maiming of our troops was in the tens of thousands. The freedom of the Iraqi people has been improbably lessened, from that of the brutal Hussein regime, which at least was secular and somewhat respectful of women’s rights? The end result though of this unwarranted war was the signing over of Iraqi Oil Rights and the explosion of military spending geared towards various supporters of the Bush regime.
As this is written the drumbeat in the Middle East goes on for intervention to change the regimes in both Iran and in Syria. With Iran it is the supposed threat from their nuclear development (weapons of mass destruction sound familiar) and with Syria it is the removal of a vile, oppressive regime. My own view, which I will elaborate on below, is that in both these instances the reality is quite different from the myth being put forth. I believe that we are being gulled by those who desire American world hegemony via use of our overwhelming military might. There are forces that see the United States morphing into Empire, just as Rome turned from a Republic to an imperial state. While Caesar crossing the Rubicon was represented as the seminal moment in roman transformation, the reality was just as now that the change was a long time coming. Here is my condensed version of how this all came to be and at the end I will provide links that underlie some of my reasoning. Continue reading “The Drum Beat Goes On”
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced late last week that the Administration had finally fulfilled the promise of President Barack Obama when, soon after taking office, he promised CIA employees that no one would be charged with torture despite his acknowledgement that water boarding is clearly torture under domestic and international law. Holder announced that the final investigation into deaths of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003 respectively would not result in a single charge of any kind. Recently, John Cusack published an interview with me where we discussed the abandonment of core civil liberties principles as well as the expansion of unilateral executive power under President Obama. Now, just before the uncontested Democratic nomination convention, the Administration is reminding civil libertarians that it stands firmly on blocking the prosecution of what is widely viewed as war crimes by the U.S. After the creation of a comprehensive and premeditated torture program, not a single person will be charged despite acknowledged waterboarding and deaths of detainees. The Department did say that it was uncertain of the “propriety of the examined conduct.” War crimes is now a matter of uncertain “propriety.”
Continue reading “Clean Slate: Holder Ends Last Torture Investigation Without Charges”
Oscar Pistorius has apologized for an outburst after losing the 200m final in the Paralympic Games last week — accusing Brazil’s Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira of securing an advantage by “blades” that were slightly longer and more springy. It is a controversy that reignited questions of whether Pistorius should have been allowed to run in the Olympics.
Continue reading “Pistorius Challenges Blades of Opponent After Losing Paralympic Race”
By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
My sister Joan died two weeks ago, but we don’t know precisely when. She lived by herself in an apartment in St. Paul, and her death was discovered when a close friend, unable to reach her for two days, contacted the apartment manager. Joan was 64.
Our Catholic parents practiced the rhythm method in 4/4 time, four pregnancies in four years, but with five births; Joan was a twin. She was strong and daring and feisty from the beginning. My earliest memory of her is an unfortunate incident involving a broom, a beehive and copious amounts of calamine lotion. A year later she fell out of the family car. I recall turning to watch her small body receding in the distance, followed immediately by our mother’s terrified, “Oh, my God!” She was fine except for the gravel burns. Continue reading “Joan Marie Appleton, R.N. (1948-2012)”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
According to Huffington Post, the following 2010 interview that Michael D. Higgins, the current president of Ireland, did with Boston conservative radio talk show host Michael Graham went viral recently.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The issues discussed on this blog are wide-ranging even though at base we are all about upholding the Constitution and ensuring civil liberties. The disputed election of a President began this millennium in controversy, underlined by a horrific terrorist attack and the prosecution of two unnecessary wars. These wars have lasted longer than any other American war save for the Viet Nam debacle. They have resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, more than eight thousand of our troops, tens of thousands of soldiers with crippling injuries and unprecedented suicide rates among both active and inactive members of our armed forces. Trillions of dollars have been wasted on these adventures in the imperialistic pursuit of empire and no end is in sight, although our complicit corporate media has ceased to find interest in coverage of the continuing devastation.
As we know the linchpin for these phony wars was the attack on 9/11 by a team of Saudi Arabians purportedly working for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. However, the blueprint for this endless quest for America Hegemony was made public in 1997 with the publishing of the manifesto for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century . This conceptualization laid out plans for a putative American Empire and its’ signatories prominently included those who would become part of the administration of George W. Bush. A list of those signatories will continue after the page break, with the most prominent in bold links. Continue reading “Lest We Forget”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
I have written a number of posts for the Turley blog about The GOP’s war on women and proposed extreme anti-woman legislation which has been sponsored by members of the Republican party (here, here, here, here, here, and here). In a piece for Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer said that Paul Ryan has a “long history as a culture warrior”—and that people are taking “a fresh look” at it since Mitt Romney named Ryan as his running mate. I thought I’d do some investigating of my own to find out more about the Wisconsin “culture warrior’s” position on women’s issues. Continue reading “Romney VP Pick Paul Ryan Cosponsored Personhood, Ultrasound, and “Let Women Die” Legislation”