Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
September 17, 2012
https://vimeo.com/49432903
Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court
September 14, 2012
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin, constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator, join Bill to discuss how the uncontested power of the Supreme Court is changing our elections, our country, and our lives. The two joined forces for a special upcoming issue of The Nation entitled “The One Percent Court.”
“We wanted to bring attention to how this court has empowered the 1% at the expense of the 99%,” says vanden Heuvel. “How it is now working for big business, for corporate power against the interests of ordinary citizens in this country.”
http://billmoyers.com/segment/katrina-vanden-heuvel-and-jamie-raskin-on-the-pro-corporate-supreme-court/
Bill Moyers, Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court
https://vimeo.com/49432903
Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court
September 14, 2012
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin, constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator, join Bill to discuss how the uncontested power of the Supreme Court is changing our elections, our country, and our lives. The two joined forces for a special upcoming issue of The Nation entitled “The One Percent Court.”
“We wanted to bring attention to how this court has empowered the 1% at the expense of the 99%,” says vanden Heuvel. “How it is now working for big business, for corporate power against the interests of ordinary citizens in this country.”
http://billmoyers.com/segment/katrina-vanden-heuvel-and-jamie-raskin-on-the-pro-corporate-supreme-court/
September 17, 2012
from truthdig:
We Won—For Now
Posted on Sep 17, 2012
By Chris Hedges
In January I sued President Barack Obama over Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the military to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely, strip them of due process and hold them in military facilities, including offshore penal colonies. Last week, round one in the battle to strike down the onerous provision, one that saw me joined by six other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, ended in an unqualified victory for the public. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who accepted every one of our challenges to the law, made her temporary injunction of the section permanent. In short, she declared the law unconstitutional.
Almost immediately after Judge Forrest ruled, the Obama administration challenged the decision. Government prosecutors called the opinion “unprecedented” and said that “the government has compelling arguments that it should be reversed.” The government added that it was an “extraordinary injunction of worldwide scope.” Government lawyers asked late Friday for an immediate stay of Forrest’s ban on the use of the military in domestic policing and on the empowering of the government to strip U.S. citizens of due process. The request for a stay was an attempt by the government to get the judge, pending appeal to a higher court, to grant it the right to continue to use the law. Forrest swiftly rejected the stay, setting in motion a fast-paced appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly, if her ruling is upheld there, to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Justice Department sent a letter to Forrest and the 2nd Circuit late Friday night informing them that at 9 a.m. Monday the Obama administration would ask the 2nd Circuit for an emergency stay that would lift Forrest’s injunction. This would allow Obama to continue to operate with indefinite detention authority until a formal appeal was heard. The government’s decision has triggered a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary.
“This may be the most significant constitutional standoff since the Pentagon Papers case,” said Carl Mayer, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
“The administration of President Obama within the last 48 hours has decided to engage in an all-out campaign to block and overturn an order of a federal judge,” said co-lead counsel Bruce Afran. “As Judge Forrest noted in her opinion, nothing is more fundamental in American law than the possibility that journalists, activists and citizens could lose their liberty, potentially forever, and the Obama administration has now lined up squarely with the most conservative elements of the Republican Party to undermine Americans’ civil liberties.” ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_won_--_for_now_20120917/
Chris Hedges: We Won—For Now
from truthdig:
We Won—For Now
Posted on Sep 17, 2012
By Chris Hedges
In January I sued President Barack Obama over Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the military to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely, strip them of due process and hold them in military facilities, including offshore penal colonies. Last week, round one in the battle to strike down the onerous provision, one that saw me joined by six other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, ended in an unqualified victory for the public. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who accepted every one of our challenges to the law, made her temporary injunction of the section permanent. In short, she declared the law unconstitutional.
Almost immediately after Judge Forrest ruled, the Obama administration challenged the decision. Government prosecutors called the opinion “unprecedented” and said that “the government has compelling arguments that it should be reversed.” The government added that it was an “extraordinary injunction of worldwide scope.” Government lawyers asked late Friday for an immediate stay of Forrest’s ban on the use of the military in domestic policing and on the empowering of the government to strip U.S. citizens of due process. The request for a stay was an attempt by the government to get the judge, pending appeal to a higher court, to grant it the right to continue to use the law. Forrest swiftly rejected the stay, setting in motion a fast-paced appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly, if her ruling is upheld there, to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Justice Department sent a letter to Forrest and the 2nd Circuit late Friday night informing them that at 9 a.m. Monday the Obama administration would ask the 2nd Circuit for an emergency stay that would lift Forrest’s injunction. This would allow Obama to continue to operate with indefinite detention authority until a formal appeal was heard. The government’s decision has triggered a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary.
“This may be the most significant constitutional standoff since the Pentagon Papers case,” said Carl Mayer, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
“The administration of President Obama within the last 48 hours has decided to engage in an all-out campaign to block and overturn an order of a federal judge,” said co-lead counsel Bruce Afran. “As Judge Forrest noted in her opinion, nothing is more fundamental in American law than the possibility that journalists, activists and citizens could lose their liberty, potentially forever, and the Obama administration has now lined up squarely with the most conservative elements of the Republican Party to undermine Americans’ civil liberties.” ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_won_--_for_now_20120917/
September 17, 2012
https://vimeo.com/49432903
Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court
September 14, 2012
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin, constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator, join Bill to discuss how the uncontested power of the Supreme Court is changing our elections, our country, and our lives. The two joined forces for a special upcoming issue of The Nation entitled “The One Percent Court.”
“We wanted to bring attention to how this court has empowered the 1% at the expense of the 99%,” says vanden Heuvel. “How it is now working for big business, for corporate power against the interests of ordinary citizens in this country.”
http://billmoyers.com/segment/katrina-vanden-heuvel-and-jamie-raskin-on-the-pro-corporate-supreme-court/
Bill Moyers, Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court
https://vimeo.com/49432903
Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court
September 14, 2012
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin, constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator, join Bill to discuss how the uncontested power of the Supreme Court is changing our elections, our country, and our lives. The two joined forces for a special upcoming issue of The Nation entitled “The One Percent Court.”
“We wanted to bring attention to how this court has empowered the 1% at the expense of the 99%,” says vanden Heuvel. “How it is now working for big business, for corporate power against the interests of ordinary citizens in this country.”
http://billmoyers.com/segment/katrina-vanden-heuvel-and-jamie-raskin-on-the-pro-corporate-supreme-court/
September 16, 2012
via truthdig:
University Regents Allow Guns on Colorado Campus
Posted on Sep 15, 2012
After a March court decision overturned a systemwide ban on guns, the University of Colorado on Wednesday decided to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring them almost everywhere on its Boulder campus.
CU Boulder retained its prohibition on guns in dorms, and firearms are banned entirely from ticketed events, including sports games and concerts. Regent Jim Geddes found these remaining restrictions to be a failure of the university’s obligation to protect its students.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/university_regents_allow_guns_on_colorado_campus_20120915/
Now give me an override into that class ...... OR ELSE !!!!!
via truthdig:
University Regents Allow Guns on Colorado Campus
Posted on Sep 15, 2012
After a March court decision overturned a systemwide ban on guns, the University of Colorado on Wednesday decided to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring them almost everywhere on its Boulder campus.
CU Boulder retained its prohibition on guns in dorms, and firearms are banned entirely from ticketed events, including sports games and concerts. Regent Jim Geddes found these remaining restrictions to be a failure of the university’s obligation to protect its students.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
The Denver Post:
“At the end of the day, you still have created some gun-free zones on campus,” Geddes said. “Creating a gun-free zone without taking some other measures to protect our students within those zones has shown over and over again to be a failed policy.”
The regents approved the new policy on a 7-0 vote, with board chairman Michael Carrigan, D-Denver, abstaining. Regent Joe Neguse, D-Boulder, was absent from the meeting.
Read more
“At the end of the day, you still have created some gun-free zones on campus,” Geddes said. “Creating a gun-free zone without taking some other measures to protect our students within those zones has shown over and over again to be a failed policy.”
The regents approved the new policy on a 7-0 vote, with board chairman Michael Carrigan, D-Denver, abstaining. Regent Joe Neguse, D-Boulder, was absent from the meeting.
Read more
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/university_regents_allow_guns_on_colorado_campus_20120915/
September 16, 2012
from In These Times:
A Good Ole Boys’ Family Feud
As Romney sinks, Republicans turn on each other, and the ‘Southern strategy’ implodes at last.
BY Theo Anderson
The knives are coming out and conservatives are turning on each another as President Obama establishes a lead of several points in the polls.
In Politico this week, the television host Joe Scarborough warned fellow conservatives that “we should be willing to face the fact that Mitt Romney is likely to lose—and should, given that he’s neither a true conservative nor a courageous moderate. He’s just an ambitious man.”
At National Review, Andy McCarthy wrote recently that there “is a big conservative base out there—bigger than the third of the country we’ve lost. But they’re left to scratch their heads and say, ‘I’m supporting this guy [Romney] … why?’”
On her radio show, Laura Ingraham said that if the Romney campaign can’t beat Obama in this “gimme election,” the GOP should shut itself down. “Start new, with new people,” she said. “Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns … and they keep getting re-hired.” ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/13853/a_good_ole_boys_family_feud
Good Ole Boys’ Family Feud: As Romney sinks, Republicans turn on each other ......
from In These Times:
A Good Ole Boys’ Family Feud
As Romney sinks, Republicans turn on each other, and the ‘Southern strategy’ implodes at last.
BY Theo Anderson
The knives are coming out and conservatives are turning on each another as President Obama establishes a lead of several points in the polls.
In Politico this week, the television host Joe Scarborough warned fellow conservatives that “we should be willing to face the fact that Mitt Romney is likely to lose—and should, given that he’s neither a true conservative nor a courageous moderate. He’s just an ambitious man.”
At National Review, Andy McCarthy wrote recently that there “is a big conservative base out there—bigger than the third of the country we’ve lost. But they’re left to scratch their heads and say, ‘I’m supporting this guy [Romney] … why?’”
On her radio show, Laura Ingraham said that if the Romney campaign can’t beat Obama in this “gimme election,” the GOP should shut itself down. “Start new, with new people,” she said. “Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns … and they keep getting re-hired.” ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.org/article/13853/a_good_ole_boys_family_feud
September 14, 2012
NY: Two Gay-Friendly GOPers In Primary Trouble; Homophobes Claim Victory
from the Village Voice:
We're sad to report that two of the four Republican state lawmakers who voted in favor last year of Governor Andrew Cuomo's gay marriage bill might not be headed back to Albany following yesterday's primary -- and "traditional marriage" advocates see this as a big victory.
When the Legislature passed the gay marriage bill, it needed the support of at least some Republicans in the Senate. It found that support in Senators Jim Alesi, Roy McDonald, Steve Saland and Mark Grisanti. Because of their votes to give gay people the right to tie the knot, they became targets for more Conservative members of the Republican Party -- and two of them are awaiting absentee ballots to determine who won their primaries.
McDonald and Saland each trail their far-right-wing opponents by a handful of votes, while Grisanti easily won his primary. Alesi didn't seek re-election. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/09/two_gay-friendl.php
September 13, 2012
from NOW Toronto:
Organic field day
Nutrient levels in food are more complicated than new diss of organics suggests
By Wayne Roberts
The media sure had a field day last week with a study from Stanford University dissing the nutritional benefits of organic food.
Can I ask why the report, published in the Annals Of Internal Medicine, was considered so newsworthy when it wasn’t based on original research? The paper is a “meta-analysis” of some 200 other scientists’ publications over the years, the ninth in a decade and the fourth to turn thumbs-down on organic claims to nutritional superiority. Not exactly trailblazing stuff. A lot of scientists who labour in the vineyards gathering data rather than collecting studies in the library are getting a bit ticked off.
There are many questions to be cleared up about the comparative goodness of foods grown in particular ways, especially because the Ontario government is in the process of formulating a Local Food Act designed to present the Liberals as soft and cuddly at the same time as they’re tough on teachers and doctors.
One of the first things I learned when I started writing about food 15 years ago is how complex determining the nutritional level of harvested food really is. Much depends on the quality of the soil long before anyone farmed it organically or conventionally. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=188615
Nutrient levels in food are more complicated than new diss of organics suggests
from NOW Toronto:
Organic field day
Nutrient levels in food are more complicated than new diss of organics suggests
By Wayne Roberts
The media sure had a field day last week with a study from Stanford University dissing the nutritional benefits of organic food.
Can I ask why the report, published in the Annals Of Internal Medicine, was considered so newsworthy when it wasn’t based on original research? The paper is a “meta-analysis” of some 200 other scientists’ publications over the years, the ninth in a decade and the fourth to turn thumbs-down on organic claims to nutritional superiority. Not exactly trailblazing stuff. A lot of scientists who labour in the vineyards gathering data rather than collecting studies in the library are getting a bit ticked off.
There are many questions to be cleared up about the comparative goodness of foods grown in particular ways, especially because the Ontario government is in the process of formulating a Local Food Act designed to present the Liberals as soft and cuddly at the same time as they’re tough on teachers and doctors.
One of the first things I learned when I started writing about food 15 years ago is how complex determining the nutritional level of harvested food really is. Much depends on the quality of the soil long before anyone farmed it organically or conventionally. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=188615
September 13, 2012
from truthdig:
Mayor Rahm-Ney’s Attack on the Chicago Teachers Union
Posted on Sep 12, 2012
By Amy Goodman
Unions are under attack in the United States—not only from people like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, but now, with the teachers strike in Chicago, from the very core of President Barack Obama’s inner circle, his former chief of staff and current mayor of that city, Rahm Emanuel. Twenty-five thousand teachers and support staff are on strike there, shutting down the public school system in the nation’s third-largest school district. This fight now raging in Chicago, Obama’s hometown, has its roots in this historic stronghold of organized labor, and in the movement started one year ago this week, Occupy Wall Street. The conflict presents a difficult moment for Obama, who will need union support to prevail in his race with Mitt Romney, but who is inextricably linked, politically, to his brash, expletive-spewing former aide, Mayor Rahm-ney Emanuel.
At the heart of the conflict is how schools will be run in Chicago: locally, from the grass roots, with teacher and parent control, or top-down, by a school board appointed by Emanuel. Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, worked as a board-certified chemistry teacher at King College Prep High School in Chicago. She understands how the system works. Months before the strike, I asked her about the situation in Chicago. The newly elected Emanuel had an appointed board comprised mostly of corporate executives, the Academy for Urban School Leadership. Lewis told me, “One of the biggest problems is that when you have a CEO in charge of a school system, as opposed to a superintendent, a real educator, what ends up happening is that they literally have no clue as to how to run the schools.” The AUSL not only relies on business executives with no education experience to run schools, but also brings in recent college graduates to teach. These recruits cost very little to pay, but arrive with little or no teaching experience.
Pauline Lipman is a professor of education and policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She explained, “Chicago was the birthplace of this neoliberal corporate reform agenda of high-stakes testing, paying teachers based on test scores, disinvesting in neighborhood schools and then closing them and turning them over to charter schools.”
Lipman credits Arne Duncan with driving this corporatization of Chicago’s public schools. Duncan, President Obama’s secretary of education, was the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, where he led the institution of charter schools, 90 percent of which are nonunion. “Arne Duncan pushed through this agenda of closing neighborhood schools, turning them over to private operators or expanding charter schools and having charter schools come in ... and increasingly putting more pressure on teachers to respond to high-stakes tests. That agenda has been really devastating in Chicago.” ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/mayor_rahm-neys_attack_on_the_chicago_teachers_union_20120912/
Amy Goodman: Mayor Rahm-Ney’s Attack on the Chicago Teachers Union
from truthdig:
Mayor Rahm-Ney’s Attack on the Chicago Teachers Union
Posted on Sep 12, 2012
By Amy Goodman
Unions are under attack in the United States—not only from people like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, but now, with the teachers strike in Chicago, from the very core of President Barack Obama’s inner circle, his former chief of staff and current mayor of that city, Rahm Emanuel. Twenty-five thousand teachers and support staff are on strike there, shutting down the public school system in the nation’s third-largest school district. This fight now raging in Chicago, Obama’s hometown, has its roots in this historic stronghold of organized labor, and in the movement started one year ago this week, Occupy Wall Street. The conflict presents a difficult moment for Obama, who will need union support to prevail in his race with Mitt Romney, but who is inextricably linked, politically, to his brash, expletive-spewing former aide, Mayor Rahm-ney Emanuel.
At the heart of the conflict is how schools will be run in Chicago: locally, from the grass roots, with teacher and parent control, or top-down, by a school board appointed by Emanuel. Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, worked as a board-certified chemistry teacher at King College Prep High School in Chicago. She understands how the system works. Months before the strike, I asked her about the situation in Chicago. The newly elected Emanuel had an appointed board comprised mostly of corporate executives, the Academy for Urban School Leadership. Lewis told me, “One of the biggest problems is that when you have a CEO in charge of a school system, as opposed to a superintendent, a real educator, what ends up happening is that they literally have no clue as to how to run the schools.” The AUSL not only relies on business executives with no education experience to run schools, but also brings in recent college graduates to teach. These recruits cost very little to pay, but arrive with little or no teaching experience.
Pauline Lipman is a professor of education and policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She explained, “Chicago was the birthplace of this neoliberal corporate reform agenda of high-stakes testing, paying teachers based on test scores, disinvesting in neighborhood schools and then closing them and turning them over to charter schools.”
Lipman credits Arne Duncan with driving this corporatization of Chicago’s public schools. Duncan, President Obama’s secretary of education, was the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, where he led the institution of charter schools, 90 percent of which are nonunion. “Arne Duncan pushed through this agenda of closing neighborhood schools, turning them over to private operators or expanding charter schools and having charter schools come in ... and increasingly putting more pressure on teachers to respond to high-stakes tests. That agenda has been really devastating in Chicago.” ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/mayor_rahm-neys_attack_on_the_chicago_teachers_union_20120912/
September 12, 2012
(Guardian UK) The reputation of the US in Europe risks sinking back to Bush-era levels of unpopularity if Mitt Romney becomes president, according to new international polling published on Tuesday.
Only around one in 20 of those surveyed in Britain, France and Germany by YouGov held a positive view of the Republican presidential nominee.
The poll of more than 12,000 people across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and China was prepared for the YouGov-Cambridge forum this week at which the Guardian is a media partner.
The results are a sign that affection for Barack Obama has diminished little since his 2008 speech in Berlin in which he promised to restore America's reputation on the world stage, even though, four years on, Guantánamo remains open and the US is still engaged in military action in Afghanistan. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/11/romney-triumph-us-reputation-europe
Romney election triumph would sink US reputation in Europe, poll finds
(Guardian UK) The reputation of the US in Europe risks sinking back to Bush-era levels of unpopularity if Mitt Romney becomes president, according to new international polling published on Tuesday.
Only around one in 20 of those surveyed in Britain, France and Germany by YouGov held a positive view of the Republican presidential nominee.
The poll of more than 12,000 people across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and China was prepared for the YouGov-Cambridge forum this week at which the Guardian is a media partner.
The results are a sign that affection for Barack Obama has diminished little since his 2008 speech in Berlin in which he promised to restore America's reputation on the world stage, even though, four years on, Guantánamo remains open and the US is still engaged in military action in Afghanistan. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/11/romney-triumph-us-reputation-europe
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Detroit, MI
Member since: Fri Oct 29, 2004, 12:18 AM
Number of posts: 77,080