Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Striking resemblances between BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster and a little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan experienced by the UK firm 18 months beforehand have emerged from leaked US embassy cables.
By Kate Andersen Brower and Julianna Goldman, Bloomberg, Dec 15, 2010
..The business leaders....met with Obama for more than four hours today for a discussion aimed at fostering cooperation and finding ways to spur U.S. economic growth.
....“We focused on jobs and investment, and they feel optimistic that by working together we can get some of that cash off the sidelines”....
Article includes quotes from some of the CEO's on what was discussed and their reaction, as well as pointing out which of them have been previously supportive of this White House.
By Josh Rogin, The Cable @ Foreignpolicy.com, December 15, 2010
...."The QDDR is a blueprint for how we can make the State Department and USAID more nimble, more effective, and more accountable," she said. "Leading through civilian power saves lives and money."
Clinton described her plan to have State Department diplomats lead interagency efforts abroad, to rebuild the internal capacity of USAID, and to adjust to the changing dynamics of a world where power is increasingly dispersed among multiple actors.
But Clinton's speech kept returning to the fact that her ambitious goals of reforming the State Department are facing a Congress that is skeptical of foreign aid funding and looking for ways to trim government spending.....
By Daniel Howden in Nairobi, The Independent, 16 December 2010
Deputy prime minister among six suspects named by International Criminal Court
A summons from the International Criminal Court struck a blow right at the heart of Kenya's political elite yesterday, accusing the scion of the country's founding family, government ministers and the head of the civil service of crimes against humanity....
More @ U.N. News Service:
ICC prosecutor requests summons against six Kenyans on post-election violence
Xinhua, December 16, 2010
Iran on Wednesday accused the United States, Britain and Israel of involving in the deadly suicide bomb attack in the country which left 39 killed and more than 50 others wounded.....According to media, the Pakistan-based Sunni rebel group Jundallah (God' s soldiers) has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.....
Politically speaking, America may be the most confused country in the world. Millions of people in this country are conservatives and even reactionaries who think they are liberals; we have millions more liberals and radicals who call themselves conservative.
It is an unholy mess and it needs to be cleared up. It’s time for a language intervention.
Despite the mess so many “liberals” have made of this great political tradition, liberal and progressive are two of the noblest and most important words in the dictionary. They describe essential qualities of the American mind and essential values in American politics.
While the GOPer's are busy making both Democrats and Obama look inept...as if that were difficult...the Chinese are busy making inroads on our own home turf.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,734323,00.html
Kerr's analysis: "The Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to take steps beyond those listed in the Constitution to achieve its Constitutional ends, including the regulation of interstate commerce. Hudson's argument wipes a key part of the Constitution out of existence. Kerr says Hudson "rendered [it] a nullity."
His analysis is short but pertinent.
"The Worse Off You Are, Your Taxes Increase": Journalist David Cay Johnston Slams Obama-GOP Tax Deal
The U.S. Senate is on the verge of approving President Obama’s controversial tax deal with Republicans. Under the deal, Obama agreed to extend the Bush-era tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and reduce the estate tax in return for a 13-month extension of jobless benefits and a handful of tax credits for low- and moderate-income Americans. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston, author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill).
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2010, reporting from Baghdad
Fifteen-year-old Ban, a fan of an American goth band and 'Twilight,' accessorizes her school-mandated head scarf and gown with skull pendants, black fingernails and a matching attitude.
By Nicholas Birch, The Majalla, 14 December 2010
....While the men in the mountains continue their phony war, Kurdish towns and cities have seen the rise in recent months of a new phenomenon: civil disobedience.....
By Fatima Bhutto, Asia Times Online, December 10, 2010
....when Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, an obsequiously dangerous man, was notified that the CIA would be launching missile strikes from drones over his country's sovereign territory, he replied, "Kill the seniors. Collateral damage worries you Americans. It doesn't worry me."....
....collateral damage, as it turns out, doesn't seem to worry anyone in the governing elite....
By Azad Essa, Al-Jazeera, 12 Dec 2010
A new report suggests that 78 per cent of South African men admit to committing some form of violence against women.
Operation Payback has begun a new fax-based campaign against some of the companies who decided to distance themselves from WikiLeaks. As part of its new Leakflood mission, the Anonymous group of 'hacktivists' is encouraging its members to send a large number of faxes to Amazon, MasterCard, Moneybookers, PayPal, Visa and Tableau Software.
By Will Englund, Washington Post Foreign News Service, December 13, 2010
MOSCOW....The riots by right-wing nationalists and extremists have put political leaders on the spot: How should they go about cracking down on a movement that up until now has typically been a useful right flank for those in power?
The Kremlin has spent the past decade nurturing nationalist sentiment in Russia, especially among the young. Now, hundreds and sometimes thousands of furious young men have been gathering at varying places around Moscow and other cities, shouting nationalist slogans, making fascist salutes and beating up darker-skinned people who appear to be from the Caucasus or Central Asia....
A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that the individual mandate contained in the health care law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama this year is unconstitutional.
By Jon Cohen, Washington Post, December 13, 2010; 12:00 PM
About seven in 10 Americans back the tax deal negotiated last week by President Obama and congressional Republicans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The high bipartisan support for the package masks more tepid public approval for some of the main components of the agreement that comes before a key Senate vote this afternoon....
A slender 11 percent of those polled back all four of the deal's primary tax provisions.....
But put all four items together, and 69 percent of all Americans support the package. Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike favor the agreement....
By William Yong and J. David Goodman, New York Times, December 13, 2010
....The move was a victory for the president, an apparent extension of his powers, though it remained unclear what changes at the upper echelon of Iranian politics allowed for the firing.
President Ahmadinejad appointed Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, as the country’s acting foreign minister until a permanent replacement is found.....
By C.J. Chivers, New York Times, December 12, 2010
ZHARI, Afghanistan - Six American soldiers were killed and more than a dozen American and Afghan soldiers were wounded on Sunday morning when a van packed with explosives detonated beside a small joint outpost in southern Afghanistan....
By Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, December 11, 2010
MOSCOW....The leaders of Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan and India’s energy minister signed a preliminary agreement in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat, to proceed with plans for the American-backed pipeline, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass and other regional media reported.
United States officials hope that the line, called TAPI, will not only bolster Afghanistan’s economy by generating transit fees but will strengthen ties between the archrivals India and Pakistan....
Note: Lest you think the title here is me spinning the story--I'm using today's print edition headline for this story--I have no idea why they changed it on the net version to something less controversial.
On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable -- and controversial -- fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.