Government

Victory: Ohio Governor Backs Down On Fracking

February 19, 2014 Darrel Rowland & Will Drabold www.dispatch.com Educate! Energy, Environement, Fracking, Government

“At this point, the governor doesn’t support fracking in state parks,” Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told The Dispatch. “We reserve the right to revisit that, but it’s not what he wants to do right now, and that’s been his position for the past year and a half.” Word of Kasich’s reversal came the same day Democratic lawmakers called for an investigation of a marketing plan to promote fracking on state lands that was put together a year and a half ago by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates oil and gas drilling. “Ohio doesn’t permit this kind of oil and gas production in state parks because the governor doesn’t think we have the policies in place yet to properly do it. If and when that changes, then perhaps this hypothetical discussion has relevance. But until then, it’s a political sideshow conjured up by people who want to kill fracking and the jobs it creates.”

British Government Interferes With Press Freedom to Detain David Miranda

February 19, 2014 Ryan Devereaux www.firstlook.org Educate! Glenn Greenwald, Government, NSA, Terrorism

The government argued that it had to intercept the material Miranda was suspected of carrying, lest it fall into the wrong hands. Miranda’s attorneys, meanwhile, said that if the government wanted the Snowden documents, it should have put in an application to a judge prior to the stop. Attorney Mathew Ryder said the government was appealing to “doomsday scenarios” rather than responsibly considering whether the terrorism act had been proportionately applied. Tuesday’s decision found the judges on the side of the government. Lord Justice Laws, with whom the two other judges concurred, wrote that it was clear the authorities stopped Miranda to “ascertain the nature of the material he was carrying.” He added that schedule 7 was “capable of covering the publication or threatened publication … of stolen classified information which, if published, would reveal personal details of members of the armed forces or security and intelligence agencies, thereby endangering their lives.”

Obama’s TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks

February 18, 2014 Lee Fang, www.republicreport.org Educate! Corruption, Finance and the Economy, Government, Worker Rights and Jobs

Officials tapped by the Obama administration to lead the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations have received multimillion dollar bonuses from CitiGroup and Bank of America, financial disclosures obtained by Republic Report show. Stefan Selig, a Bank of America investment banker nominated to become the Under Secretary for International Trade at the Department of Commerce, received more than $9 million in bonus pay as he was nominated to join the administration in November. The bonus pay came in addition to the $5.1 million in incentive pay awarded to Selig last year. Michael Froman, the current U.S. Trade Representative, received over $4 million as part of multiple exit payments when he left CitiGroup to join the Obama administration.

Our Sinister Dual State

February 17, 2014 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Civil Liberties, Government, NSA, Surveillance

We live in what the German political scientist Ernst Fraenkel called “the dual state.” Totalitarian states are always dual states. In the dual state civil liberties are abolished in the name of national security. The political sphere becomes a vacuum “as far as the law is concerned,” Fraenkel wrote. There is no legal check on power. Official bodies operate with impunity outside the law. In the dual state the government can convict citizens on secret evidence in secret courts. It can strip citizens of due process and detain, torture or assassinate them, serving as judge, jury and executioner. It rules according to its own arbitrary whims and prerogatives. The outward forms of democratic participation—voting, competing political parties, judicial oversight and legislation—are hollow, political stagecraft. Fraenkel called those who wield this unchecked power over the citizenry “the prerogative state.”

Farmers Face Down Riot Police In March Against Big Ag

February 15, 2014 Jacob Chamberlain, www.commondreams.org Resist! Food and Agriculture, Government

Thousands of farmers marched on Brazil's capital Wednesday in the face of riot police, tear gas and rubber bullets, demanding justice for the millions of landless farmers they say have suffered for years under the country's agricultural policies. The farmers, organized by the Landless Workers Movement (MST), numbered around 16,000 in the streets of Brasília where they were confronted by riot police in the city center as they headed towards the presidential palace. Many of the MST protesters today are angry that President Dilma Rousseff is backtracking from the policies of the past two administrations and allowing "agro-business to undercut chances of land reform." “Dilma’s government has been the worst in terms of land reform,” said Alexandre Conceicao, a member of MST’s national coordination committee.

Exposed: State Regulator’s Secret Plan To Promote Fracking

February 15, 2014 Darrel Rowland, www.dispatch.com Educate! Fracking, Government

The 10-page memo recognized that the public-relations initiative “could blur public perception of ODNR’s regulatory role in oil and gas,” which would require “precise messaging and coordination” to counteract. The memo also warned about the need to overcome “zealous resistance by environmental-activist opponents who are skilled propagandists.” Opponents of hydraulic fracturing would “attempt to create public panic” about possible health risks, brand the policies of Gov. John Kasich as “ dangerous and radical,” and “attempt to legally and physically disrupt or halt the drilling projects, including staging dangerous protests on state lands.” The latter would necessitate “ sustained legal countermeasures and crisis readiness” by the state.

US Caught Red Handed In Ukraine

February 13, 2014 MIKE WHITNEY www.counterpunch.org Educate! Democracy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Ukraine

Washington is at it again, up to its old tricks. You’d think that after the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos someone on the policymaking team would tell the fantasists to dial-it-down a bit. But, no. The Obama claque is just as eager to try their hand at regime change as their predecessors, the Bushies. This time the bullseye is on Ukraine, the home of the failed Orange Revolution, where US NGOs fomented a populist coup that brought down the government and paved the way for years of social instability, economic hardship and, eventually, a stronger alliance with Moscow. That sure worked out well, didn’t it? One can only wonder what Obama has in mind for an encore.

Pakistani Judge: Produce Missing Drone Victim

February 13, 2014 Staff, www.reprieve.org.uk Organize! Drones, Government, Human Rights, Wars and Militarism

A Pakistani judge today ordered the country’s intelligence services to produce a victim of CIA drone strikes who has been missing since being seized from his Rawalpindi home a week ago. Kareem Khan, who lost his son and brother to a 2009 CIA drone strike in North Waziristan, had been due to travel to Europe to discuss his experience with parliamentarians in a number of countries later this month. However, he has not been heard from since being detained by a group of men in police uniforms and plain clothes in the early hours of February 5.

NATO Protesters Respond to Tribune War on Dissent

February 13, 2014 PlusOne, pastebin.com Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Democracy, Government, Human Rights

It is simply factually dead wrong for the Tribune to assert that “city officials went to great lengths to facilitate [protesters’] right to assemble” during the May 2012 NATO protests. In fact, protesters had to battle for months for the right to protest -- including against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s infamous “sit down and shut up” ordinance. And hundreds of protesters who were kettled and assaulted by police on May 20, 2012 would flatly dispute the Tribune’s characterization of that calculated police violence as ‘turning the other cheek.’

Activists also learned more during the NATO 3 trial about what many had suspected -- that Emanuel and police superintendent Garry McCarthy have stewarded the full-bore reinstatement of the city’s infamous Red Squad...

Are Obama’s Drone Killings Assassinations?

February 12, 2014 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drones, Government, Wars and Militarism

In an interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald and subsequent discussions with prominent news outlets, the Washington Post's Erik Wemple explores why Monday's headline by Greenwald and colleague Jeremy Scahill felt comfortable using the term "assassination" as they described the manner in which the U.S. government targets and executes individuals it has accused of terrorists activity overseas. The term the White House and Department of Justice have used to describe the controversial activity is "targeting killing," and most major media outlets—including the Associated Press, New York Times, and the Washington Post itself—have taken the government's lead on that choice of phrase. Greenwald, however, disagrees and was adamant that the term "assassinate" is the both accurate and important.

Anti-Drone Activist Kidnapped Due To Testify In Europe

February 12, 2014 Medea Benjamin www.CodePink.org Educate! Drones, Government, Human Rights, Wars and Militarism

In October 2012, I was with a CODEPINK delegation in Pakistan meeting families impacted by US drone strikes. Kareem Khan, a journalist from the tribal area of Waziristan, told us the heartbreaking story of a drone strike that killed his son and brother. Since then, Khan has been seeking justice through the Pakistani courts and organizing other drone strike victims. On February 10, he planned to fly to Europe for meetings with German, Dutch and British parliamentarians to discuss the negative impact drones are having on Pakistan. But days before his trip, in the early hours of the morning on February 5, he was kidnapped from his home in Rawalpindi by 15-20 men in police uniform and plain clothes. He has not been seen since.

VIDEO: Another U.S. Citizen Targeted For Assassination?

February 11, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Criminal Justice and Prisons, Government, Human Rights, Wars and Militarism

Two recent stories that shed new light on how the Obama administration utilizes drones in the war on terror came to light yesterday. First, Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, via their new venture First Look revealed that: “According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.” In a related story, the Associated Press reported on the “case of an American citizen and suspected member of al-Qaida who is allegedly planning attacks on U.S. targets overseas underscores the complexities of President Barack Obama's new stricter targeting guidelines for the use of deadly drones.”

Military Veterans and Families to Tour West Coast

February 11, 2014 Gerry Condon, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Education, Finance and the Economy, Government, Wars and Militarism

In a campaign reminiscent of Vietnam War days, military veterans and family members will travel to ten west coast cities promoting GI outreach centers in Texas, Washington state, and Germany. The GI Coffeehouse Tour will begin in San Diego on Thursday, February 13 and end in Seattle on Saturday, March 1. Local communities will welcome the GI Coffeehouse Tour with special events featuring poets, artists and musicians. Participants at tour stops will learn about GI coffeehouse history, find out what current-day coffeehouses do to support the troops, and join in conversations about the current state of the military and what that means for service members and their families.

Video: The Economics of the 1% (part 1/3)

February 11, 2014 Jaisal Noor www.therealnews.com Educate! Corporatism, Democracy, Finance and the Economy, Government

This is the first part of a three-part discussion on a new book titledEconomics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy. The author of the book is John Weeks. He's a professor emeritus at the University of London.

How A CIA Whistleblower Survives Behind Bars

February 11, 2014 Kelley B. Vlahos, www.antiwar.com Educate! Government, Torture, Whistleblowers

"It’s been one year since former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer John Kiriakou was sentenced to prison for 30 months, the first American official to do time for the government’s torture policies during the Global War on Terror. This is what whistleblower advocates like to point out – and Kiriakou, 49, strongly believes himself – that he is not in jail for doing the torture or even promoting it, but being the first counterterrorism official to acknowledge the use of waterboarding, and then speak publicly against it."

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