Shining Light In Dark CornersShining Light In Dark CornersI came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light -- truth, understanding, knowledge -- is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it. Comments about the news by a pragmatic progressive realist. 
Articles
Democrats May Take Back Congress AND White House
2008-06-09 19:23:00 AlterNet During the month of April, 41.7% of Americans considered themselves to be Democrats . Just 31.6% said they were Republicans and 26.6% were not affiliated with either major party. This is the third straight month Obama's team has enjoyed a double-digit edge. Forty-seven percent (47%) of women say they're Democrats and just under 30% identify with the GOP. Men are more evenly divided-36% say they're Democrats and 34% Republican. Democrats have the advantage among all age groups and also lead among those who earn less than $75,000 a year. The two parties are even among higher-income adults. Party identification is essentially even among Investors but Democrats have a 47% to 25% advantage among non-Investors. May was also the fourth straight month that the number of Democrats topped 41%. Prior to February of this year, neither party had ever reached the 39% level of support. Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,... More About: Congress , House , White House , White
Top Israeli official: 'We will attack' Iran to halt nuclear program
2008-06-07 04:17:00 On Deadline - USATODAY.com As Israel's prime minister returned from discussions at the White House, his deputy said in a newspaper interview that "we will attack" Iran if Tehran continues its nuclear program, the Financial Times reports. Prime Minister Ehud Olmet also warned Iran-backed Hamas it might face a "harsh operation" in response to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. "Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable," Shaul Mofaz told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. "If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective." It was the most explicit threat to date from a member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet. In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor. More About: Nuclear , Palestine , Program , Official
Quick, Progressives Have to Become Players in the Global Media Game Before
2008-06-06 23:43:00 AlterNet As progressives gather in Minneapolis for the fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform, the fast-moving digital media marketplace should be high on their agenda. A record wave of mergers, acquisitions and significant investment from venture capitalists is raising alarms about the impact these new players will have on a long-term social and political reform agenda. Since there's no evidence these investors are interested in anything but profit, it's up to progressive organizations to become players in the global media game. Corporate giants are on a global digital shopping spree. Google, Microsoft, and Time Warner are gobbling up leading digital media companies (the current fight between Microsoft and Google for control over troubled Yahoo is an example of this trend). Venture capitalist investment in new media start-ups, including mobile social networks and broadband video platforms, is staggering. It reflects a keen corporate awareness about how a global gene... More About: Players , Global , Game , Quick
Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?
2008-06-06 19:15:00 In a word, yes, several times. First Chalabi, the Iran ian spy, working paradoxically with Israeli spies in AIPAC, manipulated the already inclined neocons in the Bush Administration, to lead the Iraq i invasion. McClatchy Washington Bureau Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said. More About: Agents
So Al Qaeda Is Defeated, Eh? Go Tell It to the Marines
2008-06-02 17:19:00 AlterNet So al-Qa'ida is "almost defeated", is it? Major gains against al-Qa'ida. Essentially defeated. "On balance, we are doing pretty well," the CIA's boss, Michael Hayden, tells The Washington Post. "Near strategic defeat of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qa'ida in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qa'ida globally -- and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' -- as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam." Well, you could have fooled me. Six thousand dead in Afghanistan, tens of thousands dead in Iraq, a suicide bombing a day in Mesopotamia, the highest level of suicides ever in the US military -- the Arab press wisely ran this story head to head with Hayden's boasts -- and permanent US bases in Iraq after 31 December. And we've won? [..]Am I alone in finding this stuff infantile to the point of madness? As long as there is injustice in the Middle East , al-Qa'ida will win. As long as we have 22 times as many W... More About: Al Qaeda , Marines , Al-Qaeda , Qaeda
The Bush Terrorism? Strange Tale of Shiraz Explosion
2008-05-29 18:17:00 The Bush Administration has been building a black operations network in Iran since before the Iraq war, now it has made the news. Informed Comment: Global Affairs ...it may be that the Iranian government has decided that the public statement taking responsibility for an attack that killed 14 people and injured many more provides it with enough leverage to expose what it considers American double standards or hypocrisy regarding terrorism. More About: Terrorism , Strange , Explosion
The Despots' Democracy
2008-05-28 20:59:00 Michael Gerson - washingtonpost.com wants to create a new catagory of rogue state, a rogue democracy. He makes a case for South Africa to be included. By his criteria, the US under Bush, Israel, and quite a few other countries belong on that list. Somehow, I don't think Gerson had that in mind. "Things on the ground," e-mailed a friend from a groaning Zimbabwe, "are absolutely shocking -- systematic violence, abductions, brutal murders. Hundreds of activists hospitalized, indeed starting to go possibly into the thousands." The military, he says, is "going village by village with lists of MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] activists, identifying them and then either abducting them or beating them to a pulp, leaving them for dead." In late April, about the time this e-mail was written, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa -- Zimbabwe's influential neighbor -- addressed a four-page letter to President Bush. Rather than coordinating strategy to end Zimbabwe's nightmare, Mbeki cr... More About: Palestine , Democracy
Rethink the Fight against Cocaine
2008-05-26 21:40:00 International Crisis Group When Plan Colombia (the multibillion dollar US assistance program targeted at curbing drug smuggling and supporting Colombia against armed guerrillas) started, coca was cultivated in 12 of Colombia's 34 provinces. Today it is grown in 23 of those provinces. In 2006, after five years of Plan Colombia, four years of the regional Andean Counterdrug Initiative, and after spending $5.5 billion, some 1,000 metric tons of cocaine were produced between Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia , according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. That's about the same amount that was produced in 2002 when President Álvaro Uribe took office. The head of the White House Office of Narcotics and Drug Control Program, John Walters, admitted at a press conference in Haiti recently that last year that cocaine production had risen to 1,400 metric tons in 2007 – a whopping 40 percent hike. Not surprisingly, his staff is scrambling to rephrase that. Washington is focusing on the mos... More About: Healthcare , Fight , Class Warfare , Cocaine
Fox News contributor jokes about assassinating Obama.
2008-05-26 07:40:00 Think Progress Today on Fox News , the former New York bureau chief of the Washington Times, Liz Trotta, discussed Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) recent remarks about Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. After mistakenly calling Obama "€śOsama",€ť Trotta joked that it would be nice to see them both killed: TROTTA: And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that sombody knock off Osama — Obama. Well, both, if we could. HOST: Talk about how you really feel. More About: Jokes , Fox News , Election
Superdelegates Turned Down $1 Million Offer From Clinton Donor
2008-05-21 20:00:00 Huffington Post One of Sen. Hillary Clinton 's top financial supporters offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization's two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse the New York Democrat, a high-ranking official with YDA told The Huffington Post. Haim Saban, the billionaire entertainment magnate and longtime Clinton supporter, denied the allegation. But four independent sources said that just before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Saban called YDA President David Hardt and offered what was perceived as a lucrative proposal: $1 million would be made available for the group if Hardt and the organization's other uncommitted superdelegate backed Clinton. More About: Election , Million , Offer
Government May Have Massive Surveillance Program for Use in National Emerge
2008-05-21 19:39:00 AlterNet ?Main Core,? a program that authorizes ?computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases? in order to discover ?potential threats? in the event of a ?national emergency?: According to a senior government official??There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ?enemies of the state? almost instantaneously.? ? One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention. These so-called ?Continuity of Governance? plans, Radar notes, ?are shrouded in extreme secrecy, effectively unregulated by Congress or the courts.? ?Main Core is the table of contents for all th... More About: Government , National , Surveillance , Privacy , Discrimination
Israel Holding Indirect Peace Talks With Syria
2008-05-21 16:17:00 New York Times Israel and Syria have begun indirect peace talks, mediated by Turkey, aimed at reaching a comprehensive peace accord, the three governments announced in a coordinated statement Wednesday. The disclosure was the first public confirmation of the negotiations by all three sides. The statement is official confirmation of what was already widely suspected of being ongoing contact between Syria and Israel, directed by Turkey. In the past months, Israel had been reluctant to make the negotiations public. But the negotiations now seem to have made enough progress that all sides decided they should acknowledge the meetings. A senior official in the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the talks with Syria and the decision to make them public had been coordinated and agreed with the United States. The public disclosure that Israel, albeit indirectly, is talking with Syria, one of its most implacable enemies and a sponsor of grou... More About: Peace , Palestine , Holding
Agreement in Lebanon to End Political Crisis
2008-05-21 16:14:00 New York Times The Hezbollah-led Shiite opposition and the Lebanese government backed by the West and Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement on Wednesday to resolve an 18-month political crisis that has crippled the country and recently triggered the worst fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war. After five days of fraught negotiations among Lebanon ?s rival political groups in Doha, the Qatari authorities said the agreement called for moves within 24 hours for Parliament in Beirut to begin the process of electing Gen. Michel Suleiman, the commander of Lebanon?s army, as president. The deal was also expected to lead to the formation of a cabinet in which Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Syria, along with its allies will enjoy the veto power it had sought in the negotiations . Under the trms of the agreement, the government will also debate anew electoral law designed to provide better representation in the country?s sectarian system of power-sharing. More About: Political , Crisis , Agreement
'Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term'
2008-05-20 16:09:00 Jerusalem Post US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday. The official claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for. However, the official continued, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being. The report stated that according to assessments in Israel, recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah de facto established control of the country, was advancing an American attack. More About: Term , Attack
New Government Report Reveals 2,500 Youths Held In Military Custody Abroad
2008-05-19 19:16:00 American Civil Liberties Union In a supplemental report to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) made public today, the U.S. government revealed that it has no comprehensive policy in place for dealing with youth detained by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, including nearly 2,500 youths under the age of 18 that have been held in U.S.-run facilities overseas to date. In a separate report, the American Civil Liberties Union charged that the lack of safeguards in place for the treatment of youth under the age of 18 in U.S. military custody violates internationally accepted standards. "It is shocking to know that the U.S. is holding hundreds of juveniles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even more disturbing that there is no comprehensive policy in place that will protect their rights as children," said Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program. "Juveniles and former child soldiers should be treated first and foremost as candidates for rehabilitation a... More About: Government , Military , Report , Custody
Moyers: Democracy in America Is a Series of Narrow Escapes, and We May Be R
2008-05-19 06:12:00 AlterNet The earth we share as our common gift, to be passed on in good condition to our children's children, is being despoiled. Private wealth is growing as public needs increase apace. Our Constitution is perilously close to being consigned to the valley of the shadow of death, betrayed by a powerful cabal of secrecy-obsessed authoritarians. Terms like "liberty" and "individual freedom" invoked by generations of America ns who battled to widen the 1787 promise to "promote the general welfare" have been perverted to create a government primarily dedicated to the welfare of the state and the political class that runs it. Yes, Virginia, there is a class war and ordinary people are losing it. It isn't necessary to be a Jeremiah crying aloud to a sinful Jerusalem that the Lord is about to afflict them for their sins of idolatry, or Cassandra, making a nuisance of herself as she wanders around King Priam's palace grounds wailing "The Greeks are coming." Or Socrates, the gadfly, stin... More About: Series , Democracy , Freedom of Speech , Class Warfare
The REAL John McCain: Less Jobs, More Wars
2008-05-18 23:12:00 The REAL John McCain: Less Jobs , More Wars More About: Election , Real
Myanmar Military Sells Out Disaster Victims
2008-05-15 09:03:00 Bloggers Unite - Blogging for Human Rights In the most cynical act I can recall, Myanmar 's military leaders have denied the right to life of tens thousands of refugees of Cyclone Nargis for greed and political reasons. Rather than pulling out all stops by accepting all aid possible to save as many lives as possible, the government is deliberately allowing death on a massive scale to ensure they are credited with the aide that does get through, and to allow some aide to cyphoned off to line their pockets. I'm sure they have decided they already have too many people, and the storm presents a means to cull the herd. New York Times The directors of several relief organizations in Myanmar said Wednesday that some of the international aid arriving into the country for the victims of Cyclone Nargis was being stolen, diverted or warehoused by the country?s army. The United States military?s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said there was a possibility that ?a significant tropical cyclone... More About: Military , Disaster , Southeast Asia , Victims
'Angry' Iran sharpens tone with Baghdad's leaders
2008-05-14 23:51:00 Tri-City Herald When a group of Iraq i envoys headed to Iran recently, they were fully prepared for some tense moments. But they also hoped to come away with something to show for it: pledges of cooperation on weakening Shiite militias in Iraq. Instead, they got a scolding from some of Iran's most powerful voices - accusing the Iraqi leadership of bowing to Washington and forgetting about Tehran's support for Shiites persecuted by Saddam Hussein. The swipes during the April 30-May 2 meetings - described to The Associated Press by members of the Iraqi delegation and other senior officials - signified more than a passing spat between the main Shiite centers of gravity in the region. Relations between Iraq's Shiite-led government and the rulers in neighboring Iran have come under unprecedented strains as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moves against rivals and negotiates long-term pacts with Washington. There's almost no chance it could lead to a full-blown rupture. Iran's infl... More About: Angry , Leaders , Tone
Arabs and the West Stands Mute While Lebanon is Hijacked by Hezbollah
2008-05-14 02:56:00 As tough the talk has been against Iran by Doublethink Dubya, now when he has something to complain about, he is all but silent. Are the Neocons in Washington and Tel Aviv planning to sacrifice Lebanon to allow a pretext to attack Iran? Or is the US military really on it's last legs and Israel already defeated by Hezbollah ? Los Angeles Times Shaken by a Hezbollah military offensive in recent days, Lebanon's pro-West ern parties have launched an intensive campaign to lobby allies in Washington, Europe and the Arab world to intervene diplomatically or even militarily on their behalf, officials here said. But there was little sign Monday that the West was prepared to intervene. [..]"Yes, we are maintaining a watchful eye on the area, but not any more than we have been recently," a Defense official in Washington told The Times, speaking on condition of anonymity. Israel bombed Hezbollah for 33 days in 2006 without significantly reducing the militia's fighting power or audacity. ... More About: Arabs
The Myth of Voter Fraud
2008-05-13 16:20:00 New York Times Editorial There is no evidence that voting by noncitizens is a significant problem. Illegal immigrants do their best to remain in the shadows, to avoid attracting government attention and risking deportation. It is hard to imagine that many would walk into a polling place, in the presence of challengers and police, and try to cast a ballot. There is, however, ample evidence that a requirement of proof of citizenship will keep many eligible voters from voting. Many people do not have birth certificates or other acceptable proof of citizenship, and for some people, that proof is not available. One Missouri voter, Lillie Lewis, said at a news conference last week that officials in Mississippi, where she was born, told her they had no record of her birth. Proof of citizenship is just one of an array of new barriers to voting that have been springing up across the country. Indiana adopted a tough new photo ID voting requirement, over objections from Democrats that it wo... More About: Fraud , Election , Voter Fraud , Myth
Spread of Nuclear Capability Is Feared
2008-05-12 20:02:00 washingtonpost.com At least half a dozen countries have also said in the past four years that they are specifically planning to conduct enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel, a prospect that could dramatically expand the global supply of plutonium and enriched uranium, according to U.S. and international nuclear officials and arms-control experts. Much of the new interest is driven by economic considerations, particularly the soaring cost of fossil fuels. But for some Middle East ern states with ready access to huge stocks of oil or natural gas, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the investment in nuclear power appears to be linked partly to concerns about a future regional arms race stoked in part by Iran's alleged interest in such an arsenal, the officials said. More About: Nuclear , Spread
Help Myanmar Recover
2008-05-10 05:36:00 Bloggers Unite Please take action both today by sending an online email and then on May 15th by blogging about helping to pick up the pieces in Myanmar . More About: Southeast Asia
Propaganda Story Still Squelched by Big Media
2008-05-09 16:45:00 AlterNet Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008. The Pentagon program, which clearly violated U.S. law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences. More About: Media , Story , Propaganda , Big Media , Mass Media
F.B.I. Raids Office of Special Counsel
2008-05-07 21:04:00 The Bush Administration is unprecedented in the scope of it's attempt to dismantle virtually every mechanism of accountability for the Executive Branch. Here is another shameful example. New York Times The office of the official responsible for protecting federal workers from political interference was raided by F.B.I. agents on Tuesday as part of an investigation into whether he himself mixed politics with official business. The raid took place at the office of Scott J. Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Computers and documents were seized by agents trying to determine whether Mr. Bloch obstructed justice by hiring an outside company to ?scrub? his computer files, The Associated Press reported. Investigators also searched Mr. Bloch?s home in suburban Virginia after obtaining a subpoena. ?It is not clear to us what they are searching for,? James Mitchell, a spokesman for the office, told Reuters. ?We are cooperating with law enforcement.? Mr. Mitchell said about ... More About: Bush I
Cornering the Market on Food
2008-05-07 16:07:00 AlterNet On a frozen island near the North Pole, a huge hole has been blasted out of the side of an Arctic mountain, and a tunnel has been drilled deep into the rock. When the facility under construction here is completed, it will be lined with one-meter-thick concrete, fitted with two high-security blast-proof airlock doors, and built to withstand nuclear war, global warming, terrorism, and the collapse of the earth's energy supplies. It's known as the "Doomsday Vault," and in it will be stored millions of seeds and mankind's hope for the future of the world's food supply. The idea is that in the event of massive ecological destruction, those seeds could be used to reconstruct the planet's agricultural systems. Exactly who might remain to begin replanting the earth after such a catastrophe is only one of the questions this astounding project raises. The more immediate question is, are seeds in peril? The answer is yes, especially the seeds that provide us with food, fiber, ... More About: Environment , Food , Market
Georgia says very close to war with Russia
2008-05-06 18:45:00 Reuters Russia 's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgia n region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday. Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the "foreign minister" of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia. "We literally have to avert war," Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels. Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well." "We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said. More About: Central Asia , Close
Food Crisis Rises To Forefront In Asia
2008-05-05 23:21:00 Globalization is perpetuated by the third world's leaders, hungered by the West's promise of money, until reality hits home. IPS News Three words -- high food prices -- emerged like a gatecrasher at an event hosted by the Asia n Development Bank (AsDB) here that was originally billed as a celebration of the bank?s new vision for poverty eradication in Asia. Participants at the event discussed the AsDB?s ?Strategy 2020? -- the long- term strategic framework (LTSF) for the 2008-2020 period -- and raised the alarm about the current global food crisis. It is a reality that the bank cannot ignore, they said, in light of the millions who could be condemned to a life of hunger and poverty in the region. "The rising food prices are a threat to food security and a threat to poverty reduction, and we stress that food security must be adopted as a challenge of the LTSF," D. Subba Rao, secretary of India?s finance ministry, said during a Sunday morning seminar for the central bank governor... More About: Food , Class Warfare , Crisis
Death toll in Sadr City fighting approaching 1,000
2008-05-01 20:02:00 BigNewsNetwork.com A spokesman for the Iraqi government's Baghdad security operations says 925 people have been killed in Sadr City . The spokesman, Tahseen al-Sheikhly, said Wednesday 2,600 others have been wounded. Sadr City has been the scene of fierce clashes pitting U.S. and Iraqi forces against Shi'ite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The death toll announced Wednesday is much higher than previous estimates, which indicated about 400 people had been killed in Sadr City in the past month. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has vowed to disarm militias by force and disband the Shi'ite Mahdi Army, Sunni insurgent groups and al-Qaida in Iraq. More About: Fighting , Death , Toll
Dirty Tricks in PA
More articles from this author:2008-04-30 05:53:00 Obama Community Blog If you were planning to vote yesterday in the Pennsylvania primary you had another thing coming as reports of voting machine problems in all of Obama's stronghold precincts. Several machines were malfunctioning in the city, leading one local community leader to allege "dirty tricks" were the cause. Many residents trying to cast ballots yesterday found long lines and broken machines and intimidation across the region. Six of ten machines were down at a busy Delaware County polling site. It took 103 people 8 hours to vote in Upper Darby, which is heavily populated by immigrant and first time voters. Many of those freshly-minted voters had difficulties using the six machines that still functioned. "Hell of a day for six of the machines to go down," said one poll worker. In South Philadelphia, voting machines were broken at 4th and Ritner, smack dab in the middle of a Obama strong hold. "The dirty tricks have begun," said John Lucas, spokesman for the election b... More About: Tricks , Dirty , Election 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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