Ted Turner says he likes Obama’s policies better Than The GOP & Mitt Romney

A man stands infront of the mosque in Poitiers after a group of far-right militants climbed on the roof and deployed a banner with the name of their movement 'Generation Identitaire.' Police evacuated some 70 miliants and arrested three of them. AFP PHOTO / ALAIN JOCARD

Pro-peace ads posted next to Islamophobe Pam Geller's Offensive Anti-Islam ads posted in New York Subway
 

The courts say that Pam Geller and other anti-Muslim indiviuals or groups have the right to hang these anti-Islam posters in public areas even though they maybe offensive .


 <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/pro_tolerance_subway_ads_to_hang_near_anti_islam_posters/">Pro-tolerance subway ads to hang near anti-Islam posters A Christian group and a Jewish group will unveil their own responses to "savages" ads By Natasha Lennard at Salon.com,Oct 4, 2012</a>

In response to the Islamophobic ads, which went up around New York subway stations last week, two religious groups (one Jewish, one Christian) are taking out ads to urge tolerance.


The original anti-Islam ad read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The posters from the Jewish group Rabbis for Human Rights will directly counter this message with the slogan, “In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.”


The New York Times reported Thursday:


 "Rabbis for Human Rights – North America and the group Sojourners, led by the Christian author and social-justice advocate Jim Wallis, are unveiling their campaigns on Monday. Their ads will be placed near the anti-jihad ads in the same Manhattan subway stations, leaders of both groups said and transit officials confirmed."


 … “We wanted to make it clear that it is in response to the anti-Islam ad,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, whose members include rabbis from all streams of Judaism.The Sojourners ad simply says, “Love your Muslim neighbors.”

         

Pam Geller and others who preach hate against all Muslims claim that Islam is an uncivilized barbaric religion while Christianity and Judaism and Western traditions and attitudes are part of a more civilized society.  

   So is it civilized behavior to hang dead pigs at the entrance of a Mosque or to desecrate a Mosque with human feces or for a mob to storm a Mosque while Muslims are praying . Is this what Americans call freedom of speech that is that anything regarded as equivalent to speech must not be censored. Pam Geller and others who preach hate against all Muslims clam that Islam is an uncivilized barbaric religion while Christianity and Judaism and Western traditions and attitudes are part of a more civilized society.

   So is it civilized behavior to hang dead pigs at the entrance of a Mosque or to desecrate a Mosque with human feces. Its civilized behavior to storm a Mosque to intimidate and terrorize the Muslim community .

  What America and its armed forces  did in places such as Fallujah besieging and attacking not just a few insurgents but declaring no mercy for civilians who were unable to leave the city. This was very much like what the Christian Crusaders did when they attacked various cities in which they gave no quarter not just to Muslim fighters but to all the citizens inside a city whether they were Muslims or   fellow Christians or Jews .

  And is it civilized behavior for  American and NATO forces to massacre  citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria without concerning themselves with identifying who were armed combatants and who were innocent civilians. Bush and Cheney appear to have believed that after people were massacred that God would sort out the guilty from the innocent .

    Is what happened at Abu Ghraib and dozens of other prisons run by the USA or Britain or NATO all OK because all Muslims are barbaric, evil, demonic etc. while Christians and Jews have never and cannot by definition commit any evil act.  Is that because Christians and Jews believe Go is on their side and not on the side of Islam or any other religion. Is it a civilized act to attack villages with Drones and to even do a Double Tap that is that after the first strike when people near by or first responders try to help those hurt in the attack are then attacked by a second deadly drone strike.

  Is it civilized behavior to have intentionally killed some 500,000 Iraqis by imposing a decade long barbaric draconian sanctions on Iraq which the USA is now doing against the citizens of Iran and Israel has been doing to the people of Gaza.

         Vandals desecrate French mosque with human faeces  
       

Vandals have desecrated a French mosque with human faeces

Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Vandals have desecrated a mosque in the centre of France by smearing human faeces on its doors. By RFI Oct. 12, 2012

The Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, says the incident happened in the city of Limoges sometime between Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. “This attack is a grave assault on the dignity of Muslims and is shocking for every citizen who upholds the values of respect and tolerance,” Valls says in a statement.

The attack came a month after two pigs heads were deposited at the entrance of a mosque in Montauban, in the south of France.

It also happened on the same night that protesters attacked the American embassies in Egypt and Libya over a US-made film said to insult the Prophet Mohammed. In the past, vandals have also sprayed graffiti on the mosque's doors.  

 

Far Right Protesters Storm French Mosque by Jamey Keaten AP, Oct. 20, 2012

Dozens of far right extremists stormed atop an unfinished mosque in western France on Saturday to show their hostility toward it and denounce immigration that has brought millions of Muslims into the country, a regional official said.

About 70 protesters traveled from around France for Saturday morning's demonstration in the city of Poitiers, which has symbolic meaning as the place where a French medieval ruler once drove away Arab invaders, regional prefect Yves Dassonville said by phone.

After police arrived, the protesters dispersed without resistance — and three were detained to face accusations of "incitement of racial hatred" and damage to property, he said. French TV broadcast images of dozens of rowdy, waving and chanting protesters on the mosque roof next to its minaret. They unfurled a banner that read "Generation Identitaire" and demanded a referendum on immigration and mosques. The banner also bore the number 732, which Dassonville said was a reference to the year when the army of medieval French leader Charles Martel stopped an Arab invasion in Poitiers. Muslim leaders said the protesters had disrupted a prayer inside, and expressed incomprehension over the stunt.

"We are thunderstruck ... these are people who are stuck in the year 732, and who don't see that the world has changed," Poitiers imam El Haj Boubaker told France's BFM-TV. "People can live differently than in a mindset of war and conflict."

France is home to Western Europe's largest population of Muslims, estimated to be at least 5 million even though the government does not provide official figures. Many have family roots in former French colonies in northern Africa.

French governments for years have struggled to integrate Muslims, who often pray in cellars, apartments and, at times, in the street because of a shortage of mosques in the country.

Dassonville said the completion of the Poitiers mosque has lagged for years because of ongoing troubles the Muslim community has had in drumming up needed financing. He said he was assembling an interfaith meeting of Jewish, Catholic and Muslim leaders in the city Saturday to show unity in the face of the far right demonstration. Interior Minister Manuel Valls denounced a "hateful and inadmissible provocation" by the extremists.

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Another example of the hate speech and racism that is at  the core of the Republican election campaign to oust Obama. Here we have racism mixed in with the Birther Conspiracy theory. The GOP still panders to the notion that by being black Obama is not "one of us" and besides they suggest Obama may not even be a legal citizen of the USA. One is left wondering if the GOP want to oust not just Obama but all African-Americans out of the USA or all who dare criticize the US' right to invade and bomb any country he feels like bombing or anyone who dares criticize the greedy self-serving investors on Wall Street.

         Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son Says We "Have The Opportunity" To Send Obama back to Kenya by Andrew Kaczynski Buzzfeed ,Oct. 14, 2012   


       

   Surprising that Ted Turner has mellowed over the years and has become in environmental issues and would prefer a stronger Unite Nations and that he says it is time for nations and peoples to realize that war just makes matters worse.

 Ted Turner says he likes Obama’s policies better via CBS Charlie Rose, Oct. 18, 2012

Ted Turner, the media mogul turned philanthropist, unofficially admitted his support for the president during an interview with Charlie Rose aired on “CBS This morning.” Turner is well-known for being the founder of CNN and as the head of Turner Broadcasting. He is also the chairman of the United Nations Foundation. Rose interviewed Turner on his thoughts regarding the two candidates in office and the election.

He confessed that he cares about nuclear proliferation, population issues, climate change and the preservation of the environment. “Do you hear any of those issues being discussed in this political campaign?” asked Rose.

Turner agreed that he doesn’t think that any of these issues have been thoroughly addressed during the presidential campaign. ...“I like Obama policies better because he’s more environmental. I think Romney has gotten too close to the coal and oil industry. And that’s basically and I think Obama is better on the environment and better as far as I think he truly wants to end the wars,” Turner said.

Turner also said he was dissatisfied with the partisan gridlock in Congress. He said he would like to go back to a time where “Republicans and Democrats were Americans first and members of their party second.”

While looking at CNN as a network news outlet today, he further added that he would like to see more hard news. He said that there is “a lot I like about it, and there are a few things I would change. I’d like to see myself more emphasis on hard news and international news and a little less fluff.”  

   

Daniel Elsberg: A Vote For Obama Is A Vote Against The Republicans & The Rightwing Extremists

"I believe we should always support a Christian over a non-Christian" ..."The value of electing a Christian goes beyond public policies. . . . Christians are uniquely favored by God, [while] Mormons, Hindus and Muslims worship a false god. The eternal consequences outweigh political ones. It is worse to legitimize a faith that would lead people to a separation from God."    Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas Sept. 2008

Quote from article Jeffress Still Attacking Romney's Faith by Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch .org Sept. 26,2008


and Jeffress has changed his tune a bit between 2008 and the present which he explains because Mormons and evangelicals agree on a number of issues and are now in a fight with a minion of Satan President Obama.

I still think there are concerns out there among evangelicals about voting for a Mormon. I’ve made peace with it; the way I’ve made peace with it is to make it very clear on programs like yours that Mormonism is a cult, it is a false religion, Mormons worship a multiplicity of gods, they deny the Bible, in fact they think the Bible is so error-filled there had to be a second book of revelations. I want to make it very clear that I don’t believe Mormonism is Christianity but I do think that in this case it is better to vote for a non-Christian who supports biblical principles like life and marriage than voting for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who absolutely repudiates what Jesus Christ said about some key issues.



...I know this sounds alarmist but I believe we are at the precipice, we are at a tipping point in our country right now, we are about to go over not the fiscal cliff, we are about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return, and that is why it is imperative for Christians to get out and vote in this election.

Quote of Pastor Jeffress from : Jeffress: 'Cult' Member Romney Still Better than Obama, who has his 'Fist in the Face of God' by Brian Tashman Rightwing Watch.org, 10/18/2012

Extremist Tony Perkins members of the right and that is their winning of an election is far more important than the average citizens right to vote. They only want to encourage people eligible to vote who are on their side. This is why they rarely support any type of non-partisan drives to register eligible voters no matter whom they support.


This was one of the reasons they used their hit squad to take down groups such as ACORN not defending ACORN and just tossing that organization under the bus as is administration targeted by the GOP dirty tricks Hit Squad.


 As President Nixon showed and proved that any measure or tactic used is moral by definition if it leads to victory whether political or otherwise. This is why Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will do whatever necessary to get elected for instance hiring a firm which was willing to register Republican voters but refused to register Democrats they see nothing wrong with stuffing ballot boxes or using machines /computers that will automatically give more votes to the Republicans or they get states to mabout voting whether ending advance polls or limiting their hours so that it has in essence the effect of making it very difficult for certain people who as a group may lean in favor of the democrats from voting and the same goes for special voter picture ID rather than accepting other picture IDs . In most other Democracies governments and NGOs do all they can to make it as easy to vote as possible.

Perkins: 'We Don't Want to Encourage Folks Who are Going to be oting the Wrong Way' by Kyle Mantyla Rightwing Watch.org,10/15/2012

Last week, Brian noted that FRC president Tony Perkins and vice presidents Jerry Boykin and Kenyn Cureton were all heading to Catalina Foothills Church in Tucson, Arizona for a "Recapturing America" conference where they would join up with a pastor who had been called on members of the church to “actively pray and work for the defeat of Barack Obama” in the upcoming election as he is an “enemy” of Christianity and religious freedom.

The event was held this weekend and after delivering his remarks, Perkins took some questions from the audience including from a mother who wanted his advice on how her children away at college could get their friends and roommates motivated to vote. Perkins responded by joking that the first thing they should find out is which way their friends intend to vote because "I want people to vote, but only if they're voting the right way."

But it seems that Perkins was actually entirely serious, as he followed that up by declaring that "in all seriousness, find out which way they're going; we don't want to encourage folks who are going to be voting the wrong way":




Joyner Hopes Romney will Fulfill the 'White Horse Prophecy'by Brian Tashman Rightwing Watch.org, 10/5/2012

Rick Joyner has been optimistic about Mitt Romney’s chances at winning the presidency lately and floated the idea that Romney may even be the fulfillment of the “White Horse Prophecy” during an appearance on Jim Bakker’s show. After agreeing with Bakker that the differences between Mormonism and Christianity are merely minor ones, Joyner suggested that a prophecy that Mormons would save the U.S. in its darkest hour may be realized in Romney. While Joyner sounded hopeful about that possibility since it would mean Obama’s defeat, the prophecy, which has not been accepted by the LDS Church, goes on to suggest that “Mormons will control the government.”

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As those on the right in the USA try to find a rationalization for voting for a non-Christian Romney who is a Mormon those to the left and moderates are attempting to find ways to rationalize voting for Obama who has been a great disappointment and yet must be supported to keep the Republicans and Mitt Romney from taking the Whitehous because these Republicans are extremist since there are few if any moderates left in the GOP. This also speaks volumes about the two party status quo since there are no other political parties to vote for or as a fall back position when both condidates of the two official parties are not to the liking of a large portion of American voters.

And so Daniel Elsberg attempts to explain why those American voters who are undecided they should to vote not so much for Obama but rather against elitist Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan the devotee of Ayn Rand & Machevellie and the Republican party which has been taken over by the social and economic extremists.



Defeat Romney, Without Illusions about Obama Advice to progressives in swing states, vote for reelection by Daniel Ellsberg Common dreams ,Oct. 18, 2012



It is urgently important to prevent a Republican administration under Romney/Ryan from taking office in January 2013.

The election is now just weeks away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally in line with mine -- progressives, especially activists -- to make this goal one of your priorities during this period.

...“I don’t ‘support Obama.’ I oppose the current Republican Party. This is not a contest between Barack Obama and a progressive candidate. The voters in a handful or a dozen close-fought swing states are going to determine whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to wield great political power for four, maybe eight years, or not.”

As Noam Chomsky said recently, “The Republican organization today is extremely dangerous, not just to this country, but to the world. It’s worth expending some effort to prevent their rise to power, without sowing illusions about the Democratic alternatives.”

Following that logic, he’s said to an interviewer what my friend heard me say to Amy Goodman: “If I were a person in a swing state, I’d vote against Romney/Ryan, which means voting for Obama because there is no other choice.”

...The traditional third-party mantra, “There’s no significant difference between the major parties” amounts to saying: “The Republicans are no worse, overall.” And that’s absurd. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended. It’s crazily divorced from present reality.

And it’s not at all harmless to be propagating that absurd falsehood. It has the effect of encouraging progressives even in battleground states to refrain from voting or to vote in a close election for someone other than Obama, and more importantly, to influence others to act likewise. That’s an effect that serves no one but the Republicans, and ultimately the 1%.

It’s not merely understandable, it’s entirely appropriate to be enraged at Barack Obama. As I am. He has often acted outrageously, not merely timidly or “disappointingly.” If impeachment were politically imaginable on constitutional grounds, he’s earned it (like George W. Bush, and many of his predecessors!) It is entirely human to want to punish him, not to “reward” him with another term or a vote that might be taken to express trust, hope or approval.

But rage is not generally conducive to clear thinking. And it often gets worked out against innocent victims, as would be the case here domestically, if refusals to vote for him resulted in Romney’s taking key battleground states that decide the outcome of this election.

Cenk Uygur Of TYT : Polls Say Obama Won Debate, CNN Won't Admit It - & Romney :America Is A Christian Nation & Religious Right Take Over Of US Military

Polls Say Obama Won Debate, CNN Won't Admit It - YouTube

Published on Oct 17, 2012 by TheYoungTurks "President Barack Obama won last night's presidential debate with Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to a CNN/ORC International poll of 457 registered voters who watched the nationally televised event. Forty-six percent of those surveyed said Obama fared better in the debate, compared with 39 percent for Romney, according to results aired on CNN after the event. The poll found 73 percent said Obama's performance exceeded expectations, compared with 37 percent who said Romney did better than expected.

CNN's telephone survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. Thirty-three percent of participants identified themselves as Republicans and 33 percent as Democrats, according to the survey."* Cenk Uygur explains why CNN refused to acknowledge Obama as the winner, even though their own poll numbers showed that he was.

One maybe disappointed in President obama's lack of substantive progressive legislation and his move to the right on a number of issues and in many cases following in the footsteps of the former Bush Regime and in some cases surpassing Bush but still he is not beholden as Mitt Romney is to the religious right and theocons .

Obama is then not merely the lesser of two evils but rather someone who may prevent the theocons and religious right gaining even more ground over the next four years that is if Obama is willing to stand his ground and not fold whenever there is a bit of pushback from the GOP and conservative Democrats .

On the other hand it is still troubling that president Obama has not stood up to the Religious Rights growing control of various American institutions such as the infiltration of the Pentagon and the US military. (See videos below on Christian Embassy & Mikey Weinstein of MRFF: Military Religious Freedom Foundation .)

Romney given the GOP platform passed during their convention is expected to pass legislation for example to ban abortion and ban Gay Marriage or even pass laws discriminating against the LGBT community and attempting to put religion to some extent back into the Public Square and into institutions such as the Public Schools ie allowing prayer and other public professing of religious faith and defending Intelligence Design over Evolution and through public ceremonies reassert America as religious nation fully engaged in promoting America's way of life and its core religious values to the rest of the world.

Romney is also against various government programs that help those in need his solution is to leave all such forms of what he considers to be charity up to the various churches and not the government. He also is not a champion of the rights of women or the disabled, university students, the elderly or the poor or that of various minorities .


In the video below Mitt Romney in December of 2007 compares himself to that of JFK who was a Catholic and had to deal with the bigotry of anti-Catholics and prove he was not beholden to the Vatican or the Pope . Romney says he will as president not make decisions only after they are vetted by The Church of Jesus Christ of latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormon).

Romney says he will not separate government from religion.
Romney said "Freedom requires religion. Religion requires freedom." He appears to be saying that one can only be a good American if one believes in God and goes to church.
Romney argues that the core belief of the Founding Fathers was rooted in a monotheistic faith.

Romney calls "secularism" a religion while condemning secularism as wrong and while he is asking for religious tolerance and not considering him to be eligible to be president because he is a Mormon.

Romney argues that America was founded by religious men who believed that a belief in God was somehow necessary for America to be a free democracy . Romney rejects the Separation of Church and state .

Romney believes the Founding Fathers were only against the establishment of one particular sect of Christianity as America's official religion but the Founders he claims did not countenance the elimination of religion or a monotheistic belief system from the Public Square. Romney's attitude seems to preclude any non-Monotheistic belief system as qualifying as a religion . Nor would he accept as a religion any religion by his definition as being a religion if it rejects the Holy Bible or the Judeo-Christian God or its prophets.

Romney like Bill O'Reilly and Fox News and The Washington Times believe that there are those who are anti-christianity who are part of a liberal and progressive conspiracy who want to replace any ostensible religious faith or belief with the evil demonic "Secular Humanism ".

So if Mitt becomes president if we take him seriously non-Christians will be treated as second class citizens or even as being enemies of America who are out to destroy Christianity and therefore the very foundation of the American government and way of life. But at the very least Romney agrees with social conservative Evangelicals and Catholic conservatives that any one who wants to be president or other high public offices should be religious at least to the extent of believing in God who according to Romney and the Religious Right is the true Founder of America as a nation.

Keith Olbermann on Romney's Assault on Secular Americans - YouTube Dec.7, 2007

On the other hand President Obama has taken no substantive action to deal with the issue of the growing influence of Conservative Evangelicals in the US military. The problem is that members of the US military including high ranking officers are engaged in aggressive proselytizing of their Evangelical Christian beliefs upon other officers and the rank and file. The pushing of a form of Conservative Christianity within the military goes back at least to Ronald Reagan and has continued through the Bush years and is now ignored by the Obama Regime. Is Obama afraid to take on the religious right or those in the Pentagon and US armed forces who are ignoring the "Separation of Church and State' or does Obama not see it as an important issue and maybe even sees it as agood thing. Obama 's lack of response on the issue gives little indication of what he thinks. In the end what matters is Obama's lack of action on this issue.

Pentagon Evangelicals/ Christian Embassy & Mikey Weinstein MRFF: Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Fault Lines: Evangelism in the military (Part 1)

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Jun 25, 2009



The United States is a deeply religious country, over 90% believe in god and 80% believe in miracles. For the US military, dealing with its own religious identity has become an internal battle. Growing evidence points towards a rising influence of evangelical Christianity, and with two wars still raging in Muslim countries with significant religious overtones, there could be serious consequences for the US mission. Pentagon officials say incidents are isolated, aberrations occur, but others closely tied to the military and its religious leadership say a transformation is taking place with dire costs. On this weeks episode of Fault Lines, we look at the battle over the religious soul of the US military.

800,000 US troops forced to take what is basically a religious test and if they supposedly failed they were told to visit a chaplain and to start going to church on a regular basis. The test suggest that only a particular form of Christian Evangelical Fundamentalism . The attitude in the US military and the Pentagon that the best soldiers are true believing church going proselytizing Evangelical Christians all others are suspect. And where's President Obama on this important issue which attacks the very basis of the US Constitution and Bill Of Rights well he's MIA end of story.

US Military: Unconstitutional Discrimination Against Atheists & Agnostics

Uploaded by CRUClEFICTION on Jan 6, 2011
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, 1-6-2011
Mikey Weinstein,Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Are US Forces Trying to Convert Afghans to Christianity? Democracy Now 5/6/09 2 of 2


Uploaded by mediagrrl9 on May 6, 2009

"The Crusade for a Christian Military": Are US Forces Trying to Convert Afghans to Christianity?

The military is denying it allows its soldiers to proselytize to Afghans, following the release of footage showing US soldiers in Afghanistan discussing how to distribute Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. We speak to Air Force veteran and former Reagan administration counsel Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and journalist Jeff Sharlet, author of a Harpers Magazine article on The Crusade for a Christian Military.

And here is the offical video for The Christian Embassy and its stated goals in influencing members of the US military and the members of the US federal government as well as proselytizing to mebers of foreign embassies hoping to have the Evangelical Christian message taken back to their respective homelands. So this is not just a few Evangelical Christians meeting to share fellowship but rather an aggressive program to make the US military and its government more in tune with this particular bran of Christianity. As one general said they get only about 50 complaints in 3 years about evangelical soldiers proselytizing to other soldiers whereas Mikey Weinstein says he receives thousands of such complaints a year. The problem is that if an individual in the military makes such a complaint this may negatively impact their daily life within the military as a soldier and/or may impact their military career.

The Christian Embassy promotion film and the Christian Dominionists incremental take over of the US military.

Mitt Romney Addicting A Generation To Cigaretts And America No. 1 Nation For Climate Change Deniers

Mitt Romney was CEO at consulting firm Bain & Co which was a separate entity from Bain Capital. When Mitt Romney took control he managed a successful campain for Big Tobacco's Philip Morris by increasing the number of new smokers which were primarily high school students by decreasing the price of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes . Meanwhile under Mitt Romney's guidance Bain & Co opened up a whole new market for Big Tobacco in the former Soviet Union markedly increasing the number of Russian smokers .
Meanwhile besides the fact that by that time in the early 90s cigarretts were seen as a great health risk and as a Mormon Mitt Romney was not permitted to smoke tobacco .

As the video below shows this was all very odd given his own families fight with Big Tobacco to regulate the sales of tobacco to help reduce the numbers of smokers and thereby decrease the number of people who would die each year from Tobacco smoke.

Mitt Romney who is supposed to be a good religious man who takes his religion and morality and ethics and personal integrity seriously appears to break all such rules and ethical standards when it comes to making money.

As a Mormon this line of thinking would be considered untenable and even as a business man one should probably have some moral or ethical line which one would not cross. Or am I just wrong to even think this way since according to Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan the rules and laws only apply to lesser mortals while what Nietzche referred to as the Superman /Uberman is only restricted in his actions by the laws of nature. Ayn Rand's great vision is one of the Fascist State which does all it can to help these exceptional individuals while the masses are needed to labor in order to improve the living conditions of their superiors.


Mitt Romney's Bain Helped Philip Morris Get U.S. High Schoolers Hooked On Cigarettes at Huffington Post,10/16/2012

Bain had long been helping Philip Morris save its "premium brands," which benefited from glamorous marketing campaigns including the Marlboro Man. Marlboro Friday allowed those more prestigious brands to compete on price with discount brands that were sold for as little a 99 cents a pack at convenience stores. A cheaper Marlboro Light didn't just convince existing smokers to switch brands -- it introduced young people to smoking.


In a research paper on Big Tobacco's youth marketing, K. Michael Cummings, professor in the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, wrote that Marlboro Friday, and aggressive Big Tobacco promotions, "helped fuel" the rise in teen smoking. "They needed to recruit new replacement smokers," Cummings said in an interview with HuffPost. "Those replacements were primarily going to come from younger smokers." (article continued after HuffPost video)

...At the time, Mitt Romney was CEO of Bain & Co. He took the reins in October 1990, according to a 1994 Boston Globe story, and led the consulting firm for years. The Romney campaign declined to provide specific start and end dates for his tenure at Bain & Co., but stated that he ran the firm "from 1990 - 1992," and said that Romney "rescue[d] the firm from the brink of collapse and save[d] 1000 jobs." That timeline is contradicted by FDIC documents obtained by Rolling Stone that list Romney as the firm's leader in March 1993, and by SEC filings uncovered by the Associated Press that list Romney as CEO of Bain & Co. as late as October 1993. Media reports show Romney attending Bain & Co. meetings during his 1994 campaign for Senate.


Philip Morris valued Bain's work during Romney's tenure and relied heavily on the consultants' research in the critical months following the announcement, as the tobacco titan struggled to elevate its stock price.

  "We are now engaged in a 'price war' that we should win," reads an April 30, 1993, Philip Morris draft memo to its "field sales force." For anyone who questioned the new sales, the Philip Morris executive offered a series of bullet points. Bain's findings were its top point: "Test results through Summer Special, Bain & Co, and Portland research all strongly indicate that a 120% growth factor is more than enough." In a second, cleaned up version of that memo in May 1993, Bain's research was again given prominence.

  The seeds of Bain's Marlboro Friday work can be traced back its initial pitch to Philip Morris in November 1990 -- a month after Romney took over the consulting firm. Under "strategic dilemma," the consultants wrote that Philip Morris "simply cannot afford to lose control" of the discount cigarette market. Even dabbling in the discount market -- as the company had done with its Bucks brand -- poses risks, the consultants argued.

   ...Bain's work for Philip Morris coincided with a global focus for the consulting firm on the tobacco industry. While helping Philip Morris in the U.S., Bain was also working to expand the Russian smoking market on behalf of another cigarette giant, British American Tobacco.
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My rant:

More and more the USA including its media appear to be fact challenged or fact adverse from evolution to climate change denial to the harm their war machine inflicts unnecessarily  on other nations . The USA and its allies including NATO destroyed Iraq and Libya and Syria and are now gunning for Iran . Its media sings the praises of those in power and insists anyone against American military interventionists policies is unAmerican. The over one million dead who are not Americans are seen as a trifle while America fights this supposedly colossal war against "Evil "incarnate in which America as it was during the Cold War is on the side of "Good" .


Anyone who dares to show any compassion or sympathy for those citizens who are  killed due to America's intervention is seen as weak minded and as a traitor. The hatred the USA has for the peoples of Iraq, Syria, Libya , Afghanistan, Yemen ,Pakistan appears to have no bounds . When an American is killed by Al Qaeda or the Taliban we are told this is a tragedy but when a hundred Afghan citizens are killed in a drone strike if all are innocent this is merely collateral damage in other words not worth worrying about since they are not Americans .


 Americans who are true believers in America's exceptionalism and its destiny are in fact psychologically impaired lost in their own delusions or just unable to accept the reality that they are just one nation among many for which there is no special God directed destiny  .


 These "True Believers" in America  delude themselves erroneously claiming it is the freest of all nations which if it was it is definitely not now and that America has  the best medical care  but it does not as millions go without adequate life long medical care having not the means to pay for it .


These "True Believers " claim without any evidence available that America has the  best public schools which it does not in part because the schools in poor areas are underfunded over crowded while the schools in richer areas are well funded and well looked after .


These "True Believers" insist as Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, the GOP and Fox News argue that America is a " workers paradise " that there are no classes or class warfare in America that every worker from the bottom up are paid fairly and justly even though this is far from the truth since workers no longer have the basic right to organize form unions or go on strike .


 These "True Believers" believe  that all citizens in America are supposedly equal and are treated as such and  that bigotry and racism are things of the past .

 These " True Believers " that those who complain are just a lot of whiners who don't know how good they have it.

 So These "True Believers " are in denial concerning the rights of various groups within America including the 51% who are female so they deny that women in America are treated as if they were second class citizens who don't even deserve equal pay with their male counterparts or even have reproductive rights ie abortion, contraceptives etc. because the courts, the government and God own their vaginas or what have you and so decisions to do with female parts is governed by the state, the Church and the male hierachy .

 So these  Americans who are "true Believers " are deluded into believing that their nation is above all an exceptional nation fulfilling God's word or as the natural leader and moral judge of the rest of the world's nations. Far from it since it is just the latest incarnation as it were of an Empire which has become a victim of its own lies and propaganda convinced it can do no wrong and that when it kills/murders innocent people it is doing so for a "Just Cause" as the Christian Crusaders believed as they left Europe and entered the Holy Land slaughtering all those that they could whether, Muslim, Christian or Jew or Pagan they believed that all those Christians  who lived peacefully  amongst the Muslims had betrayed their Christian faith and therefore deserved to die.
.

No America is far from being a truly free nation in which everyone is treated as equals and therefore deserving equal opportunity to better their lives to follow their passions and dreams. No the GOP believes that there is a natural order to things and that those who break or question that natural order are to be chastised and treated as trouble makers or as enemies of the state. This helps to explain their irrational response to having a black man as president .

And as a true believing Mormon Mitt Romney unlike his maverick father George Romney does not question the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Mitt Romney's father George Romney left the Republican party in 1964 when Goldwater and the pro-segregationists and other right wing extremists connected to the John Birch Society and the KKK and other white supremacist groups took virtual control of the party. So when his father decided or came to the conclusion that Black Americans deserved the same rights as white Americans he rejected one of the tenets of his own church. But he believed he had to do what was right which is what his conscience told him he must do thereby maintaining his own integrity.

So his father did not tow the LDS party line which placed black Americans and all people of color as being unworthy of respect or even admittance to the LDS priesthood or to enter Heaven /Paradise to eventually become a God rather black people would go to Heaven or Paradise to be mere servants and slaves for the white people the exceptional few that is who made it that far where they would amass even more wealth and power and add more wives to their collections.

It was not until 1979 that the LDS leadership decided to allow black men to become priest in the church though the rules were thus changed this did not necessarily lead to a canonical change but rather a compromise with the outside world as the LDS did in the 1890s in at least ostensibly changing the rules on polygamy to be able then to apply for state-hood. 

And now  the Obama administration is considering a military strike on Libya to get revenge for the death of their diplomat who was killed on Sept. 11, 2012.  How many will they need to kill to feel they have done enough ten innocent civilians or a hundred or a thousand -these are the sort of calculations the SS made as part of the German NAZI military machine which was condemned by the rest of the world.

,White House Ponders a Strike Over Libya Attack By KIMBERLY DOZIER and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI Associated Press WASHINGTON Via ABC News, October 15, 2012 (AP)

The White House, under political pressure to respond forcefully to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, is readying strike forces and drones but first has to find a target.

And if the administration does find a target, officials say it still has to weigh whether the short-term payoff of exacting retribution on al-Qaida is worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group's profile in the region, alienate governments the U.S. needs to fight the group in the future and do little to slow the growing terror threat in North Africa.

   Details on the administration's position and on its search for a possible target were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the high-level debates publicly.

...The attack has become an issue in the U.S. election season, with Republicans accusing the Obama administration of being slow to label the assault an act of terrorism and slow to strike back at those responsible. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday night that the security of State Department operations was her responsibility.

The White House is "aiming for a small pop, a flash in the pan, so as to be able to say, 'Hey, we're doing something about it,'" said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rudy Attalah, the former Africa counterterrorism director for Defense Department under President George W. Bush. Attalah noted that in 1998, after the embassy bombing in Nairobi, the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles to take out a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan that may have been producing chemical weapons for al-Qaida. "It was a way to say, 'Look, we did something,'" he said.

    Bad news for Climate Change deniers:


     September was the warmest ever on record, say scientists National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said that the global temperature in September was 60.21 F, about 1.21 F above the 20th century average for September. Alexander Besant at globalspost.com October 15, 2012

Researchers said that this September was the warmest one on record.

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that the global temperature in September was 60.21 F, about 1.21 F above the 20th century average for September. It marked the 331st month in a row that global temperatures were above the 20th century average, said CBC News. The last one found below the 20th century average was February 1985.

The NOAA report said that the higher than average temperatures occurred mostly in southern Greenland, Paraguay, northern Argentina, western Australia, Japan, Russia and Canada. The US itself was not particularly warm in September, however, being only the 23rd warmest September on record, said Mother Nature Network.

American Newspapers Give Far More Coverage To Climate Deniers And Skeptics Than Other Countries By Stephen Lacey at Think Progress.org,Oct 5, 2012

America is unique when it comes to giving a platform to climate deniers and skeptics. According to a new analysis of data released last year, American newspapers are far more likely to publish uncontested claims from climate deniers, many of whom challenge whether the planet is warming at all and are “almost exclusively found” in the U.S. media.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The researchers were trying to answer three important questions: Is climate denial and disinformation as prevalent in the newspapers outside America? Is it mostly right-wing papers publishing these pieces?

And what types of skeptics are being published in different countries? In all three categories, the U.S. emerged as a unique leader in promoting climate denial in the press.

UPDATE: EU's Racist Anti- Roma Policies & GOP Racism Sending Obama back to Kenya & ACLU Sues Morgan Stanley for Discriminatory Practices

The hate speech and racism at the core of the Republican election campaign to oust Obama.

Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son Says We "Have The Opportunity" To Send Obama Back To Kenya by Andrew Kaczynski Buzzfeed ,Oct. 14, 2012




also see: Nine most racist moments of the 2012 election :The "47 percent" is only the tip of the iceberg -- and the election is still weeks away By Alex Kane, Alternet via Salon.com, Oct. 16, 2012

And here's 5 more reasons which show why Mitt Romney is unfit to be president

Five disturbing stories that reveal the real Mitt A close look at Romney's past reveals many warning signs -- some even worse than driving with his dog on the roof
By Lauren Kelley, Alternet via Salon.com, Oct. 16, 2012

Mitt Romney’s infamous dog-on-the-roof-of-the-car story is atrocious, and has been mocked within an inch of its life. But there are many other stories from the Republican presidential candidate’s personal life that illuminate what kind of a human being he really is. Here’s a look at a few of them.



1. Mormon women have reported “horror stories” about Romney from when he served as a Mormon bishop.

2. He reportedly pushed Bain employees to lie to get information.


3. He paid for his son and daughter-in-law’s surrogacy agreement, which included an abortion clause.

Speaking of Romney’s hard-to-pin-down stance on abortion, a recent story about his son Tagg, who had twins through a surrogate earlier this year, reveals that Romney seems to fall into the “abortion for me, but not for thee” viewpoint so common among conservatives. As AlterNet’s Sarah Seltzer recently noted:

TMZ released a blog post this weekend explaining that in the surrogacy agreement signed by Mitt Romney’s son, Tagg, there were clauses that allowed both the parents and the surrogate to opt for an abortion in non-life-threatening (but serious) situations.

There’s evidence that the clause may have been included by mistake, but:

Still, the fact they did allow the clause in — and indeed, that it’s a standard part of surrogacy agreements — is telling, because it’s totally reasonable to have those kinds of clauses in a surrogacy agreement. Surrogates shouldn’t be compelled to complete pregnancies that threaten their health. That’s common sense, right? Not in Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s dream world.


4. He’s annoying his neighbors by quadrupling the size of his beach house.

5. He publicly berated a man for drinking and smoking weed

And speaking of racism the economic crisis of 2008 has had a greater negative impact on African Americans and other people of color than on the rest of the American citizenry.

The 2008 economic meltdown reveals how the Banks scammed African Americans and other people of color into taking on loans and mortgages which were misrepresented as being afordable which has led to home foreclosures and bankruptcy for those who had little to begin with. The ACLU is now taking action to redress these wrongs to communities of color by the banks use of predatory loans and mortgages.

Holding Wall Street Accountable: ACLU Sues Morgan Stanley for Discriminatory Practices By Dennis Parker, ACLU Racial Justice Program & Larry Schwartztol, ACLU Racial Justice Program ACLU, Oct. 15, 2012

The economic crisis of 2008, which was devastating for the nation’s economy as a whole, was nothing short of disastrous for communities of color. Much of the decades of progress toward full inclusion in the American dream which was ushered in by the landmark civil rights laws of the 1960’s disappeared virtually overnight, stripping communities of color of their homes and their financial futures. These enormous setbacks were not the result of a natural disaster but were instead the easily foreseeable consequences of forces set in motion by banks eager to realize enormous profits without regard to the impact upon vulnerable communities.

The ACLU, along with the National Consumer Law Center and the law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, filed a lawsuit today to hold Morgan Stanley, one of the institutions which placed these forces in motion, responsible for the destructive impact on families and communities in Detroit, Michigan. We are holding Morgan Stanley accountable for its collaboration with the sub-prime lender New Century Mortgage Company, which supplied Morgan Stanley with a steady stream of irresponsible, high-risk loans issued in neighborhoods that were particularly susceptible to economic ruin.


...The impact of these foreclosures started with families who lost their homes, and radiated out to communities ruined by empty houses that were poorly maintained and subject to vandalism. The effects promise to be felt long into the future. Families losing their greatest asset, their homes, lose their economic bedrock; the consequences can be felt for generations, as parents are less able to assist their children by leaving them money or financing their education or business start-ups using their homes as collateral.

Predictably, these impacts were felt far more severely by people of color in Detroit, represented by the plaintiffs in this lawsuit.

Hear plaintiff Rubbie McCoy’s story here:

...As new gatekeepers to the American Dream of homeownership, Morgan Stanley and its Wall Street partners could have implemented policies that furthered the possibility of home ownership for people who throughout the history of the country were prevented by discrimination from dreaming the dream. They could have assisted in building stable communities that would enrich the lives of their residents and the nation. At the same time, they could have made a reasonable profit and operated within the bounds of good business practices.

Instead, Morgan Stanley and others chose to barter the dreams and well being of the most vulnerable people for quick profits. We are pleased to bring this case to address this fundamental unfairness and to demonstrate that no institution is above the law. Institutions like Morgan Stanley contributed to a significant reversal of the gains this country has made in the four decades since the civil rights movement. The lawsuit we file today invokes a defining achievement of that movement – the Fair Housing Act – to seek justice for our clients and help restore some of that lost progress.

UPDATE: European countries involved in ethnic cleansing of Roma.
Given European countries unjust racist based treatment of the Roma it seems odd that the EU would be given a nobel peace Prize .

France: Scores of Roma left homeless in forced eviction near Paris, Amnesty International, Oct. 15, 2012

WASHINGTON - October 15 - Around 150 Roma – including some 60 children – have been left homeless outside Paris after being forcibly evicted and having their homes bulldozed on Monday morning, Amnesty International said.

The forced eviction in Noisy-le-Grand, in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis east of the capital, is the latest in a string of similar operations in Roma settlements across France in recent months.

“Authorities in Seine-Saint-Denis utterly failed to live up to their human rights obligations when conceiving and carrying out this operation, which amounts to a forced eviction,” said Marek Marczyñski, Europe and Central Asia program director at Amnesty International.

“In a scenario that has become all too common for Roma communities across France, scores of families, including young children, have again been rendered homeless because the local authorities failed to provide alternative housing,” Marczyñski said.

As many as 150 Roma from Romania have been living in shacks in the Noisy-le-Grand settlement for the last two years.

In April this year, a court in nearby Bobigny ruled that the settlement was to be evicted on or after June 13, 2012. The ruling cited the camp’s precarious conditions and noted that given the large number of children, a delay of two months – the standard length in most eviction cases – would be granted in order to give residents time to find an alternative housing solution.

On October 8, the Seine-Saint-Denis Prefecture called a meeting to discuss best practice for operations to evict the unauthorized settlement of Noisy-le-Grand. Although local NGOs attended, Roma were not invited to the meeting, and no precise date was given for the planned eviction.

Police officers and officials from the Prefecture visited the camp several times in the week prior to the eviction, and informally warned residents that the eviction would take place on the morning of October 15. Since mid-September, police officers – often dressed in plain clothes – had visited the camp several times to tell inhabitants to leave and that eviction was imminent, leaving inhabitants unsure of when the eviction would actually take place.

According to media reports and local activists, at around 8:15 A.M. on Monday some 10 police vans circled the settlement, and residents were given just an hour to gather their belongings and leave. An hour later, the camp was vacated and bulldozers started destroying the settlement’s shacks.

Amnesty International urges European Nations to prove they are worthy of Nobel Peace Prize by treating minority ethnic groups such as the Roma justly and fairly and by abandoning racist ethnic religious stereotyping and hate mongering. This is of course even more urgent these days due to the economic crisis during which times ethnic or racial minorities are often offered up as scape-goats. In the 1920s when Germany entered a period of economic crisis that Hitler and the NAZI party were able to convince the German people of the Big Lie that all that befell them from the losing of WWI to hyperinflation and massive unemployment could be blamed on the Jews whom Hitler argued were conspiring against the German people.

In the USA and other countries faced with a decade long economic crisis after the 1929 stock market crash there were those hate mongers such as Henry Ford and Father Couglin and the KKK and American Nazi Party/Bundt who used the occassion to preach against various groups such as the Jews , Blacks and others as undermining the health of the state ie racial and ethnic purity of their white Christian European ancestry.




No time for EU to rest on laurels after Nobel Prize win Amnesty International, Oct. 15, 2012

The EU won the prize on its achievement of peace within its borders and respect for human rights. No doubt both are a reality. However, it is also not the time to bask in this glory since the last few years have shown a decline in attention to human rights violations and desperate lack of political will to devise an internal EU human rights mechanism.

Despite its Charter of Fundamental Rights and despite its strong anti-discrimination legislation discrimination against Roma is at its peak in several countries – the problem to which the EU as an instutution still has not responded adequately.

Feeble action on addressing discrimination of Muslims and other minorities puts the EU in an embarrassing position politically.

And then there is the treatment of sexual minorities in some of the newer EU member states.

The hope that a Nobel Peace Prize brings today is that the EU will be able to look sincerely on what it got the prize for and what that brings in obligation to make another effort on its human rights record and foreign policy.

If it does, it will be able to address some of the fundamental challenges it faces and stand proudly in the same row as champions of human rights such as Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Irin Carmon argues that the push for "Personhood " legislation which would give personhood and rights to a fertilized egg /embryo/Zygot and therefore restrict the reproductive rights of women by making abortion in effect illegal in most cases with few if any allowable exceptions .

My only qualms with this argument is that given that Romney and Ryan and the GOP are all in sync in wanting to outlaw all abortions without exception as we saw at the RNC convention and at other gatherings such as the Values Voters' Summit and throughout this election campaign that if the Republicans win the election we can expect them to attempt to pass either a full frontal attack on women's reproductive rights by pushing "Personhood" legislation or taking incremental steps to eventually bring about the same results.  If they don't win they will try again to use state legislatures to pass what are in effect anti-abortion laws and if they maintain or increase their power in congress that they will continue to push  for similar legistation at the federal level.


Anti-abortion movement has a referendum problem Nationally, the ballot measure no longer looks like an effective weapon to limit reproductive rights By Irin Carmon, Salon.com, Oct. 16, 2012

The movement to classify fertilized eggs as people has hit a speed bump: “Personhood” won’t be on a single ballot this election, in a year with very few reproductive rights-related referenda at all. Anyone hoping that abortion would be used as a wedge issue to turn out so-called “values voters” for Republicans will have to look to congressional races and the presidential campaign, where reproductive rights have been unusually prominent.


This is not how it was supposed to work for the Colorado-based movement behind the Personhood push, which has been defeated twice in its home state and a third time in Mississippi. At the time that a petition drive succeeded in Mississippi for the 2011 ballot, there was reason to believe that the most conservative state in the union would start making Personhood look like a viable strategy for banning abortion, state by state, and somehow forcing the Supreme Court to consider a new abortion-rights paradigm. That didn’t happen. After a campaign that brought grassroots and national mobilization, focusing on “unintended consequences” involving birth control and infertility, 58 percent of Mississippi voters rejected the measure. This year, the Personhood movement hasn’t even been able to get on the ballot in its own state, because so many of its signatures were disqualified. (Anti-abortion forces are fighting that call in court, but Colorado’s ballots have already been printed.)


...Nationally, the ballot box no longer looks like a particularly attractive place to directly limit reproductive rights. “Since 2005, anti-choice extremists have seen their ballot measures attacking reproductive rights fail ten out of 11 times in states from Mississippi to South Dakota to North Dakota,” points out Samantha Gordon, spokeswoman for NARAL Pro-Choice America. For example, in June, North Dakotans rejected by nearly 30 points a ballot measure intended to undermine contraceptive access provisions in the Affordable Care Act. South Dakotan voters have rejected abortion bans twice.

Arguably, the anti-abortion movement has been far more effective in passing incremental state laws — and using them, with the help of an ever-more conservative Supreme Court, to chip away at Roe, the ultimate target.

Paul Ryan Pretending To Care About The Poor & More NYPD Brutality & Leading US Officials Support Terrorist Listed Group with Impunity

Ayn Rand devotee who hates altruism , compassion or helping out one's fellow man Paul Ryan who believes that greed and selfishness and to Hell with the other guy economic and political philosophy takes time out for a fake photo op pretending to help out at a soup kitchen. His real response to suop kitchens is that they merely encourage the lowest forms of humanity to keep on living and even breeding creating more lazy good for nothing poor people .

The problem I have is that there is nothing knew about this since the notion of rugged indivualism was at the core of American nationalism and of American exceptionalism . Even Obama prefers to think of America is either glowing or benign terms when in fact America is not a truly free nations or one concerned about fairness, justice, equality of opportunity etc. America has become a club which the rich and powerful rule ensuring that everything is tilted in their favor.

Paul Ryan Scrubs Pre-Washed Soup-Kitchen Pots -- Daily Intel

In a perfect world, Paul Ryan would be able to clean every soup-kitchen pot five or six times, but alas.

 

 

As you can see in the photo above, Paul Ryan took some time out of his busy campaign schedule to lend a hand at a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio, over the weekend. Now, because "the hall was empty of patrons and the volunteers appeared to have already cleaned up" by the time that Ryan got there, and because the pots Ryan scrubbed for the cameras "did not appear to be dirty," some might conclude that Ryan's appearance at the soup kitchen was nothing but a superficial, self-serving photo op designed to counter recent remarks from the GOP ticket that seem to show disdain for the poor. But no, the truth is that Ryan simply cares so much about America's non-income-tax-paying indigent that he thinks they deserve better than eating food from pots and pans that have only been cleaned once.

Reporters barred from covering Paul Ryan exchange with homeless Ohioans

---------------------------------------
Update NYPD police brutality.

NYPD is at it again when in doubt beat the crap out of alleged suspect just for the fun of it -the Mayor , governor and even Obama keeps quiet

A man asleep in a Brooklyn synagogue and youth outreach center last week awoke to some overly aggressive NYPD officers, based on the security footage released last night.

A volunteer guard called the police on the shirtless fellow, identified as Ehud Halevi, who reportedly tried to explain to the officers that he had permission to crash on the couch. But when Halevi threw his hands to resist arrest, the male cop on the scene crouched into a boxing stance and began to throw wild punches, while his female partner used pepper spray and a truncheon to get in a few extra blows.

NYPD Beat Man for Sleeping in Synagogue -- Daily Intel

Leading US Officials Support Terrorist Listed Group with Impunity

And it should be noted that in the case of warrantless wiretaps President Obama has not just followed in Bush's footsteps but has doubled down actually more accurately he has Quadrupled Down. So Obama like Bush and Dick Cheney sees nothing wrong with invading the privacy of average Americans without at least first getting a warrant from a judge. Once again Obama proves he is indeed part of the same old corrupt self-perpetuating establishment which sees itself as above the law.

   ACLU: Obama Has Quadrupled Warrantless Wiretaps by Warren Todd Huston at Breitbart TV.com

The ACLU released a report this week that shows that under Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder, warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American's electronic communications is "sharply on the rise." After months of litigation and Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU obtained documents from the federal government proving that real-time monitoring of electronic communications inside the U.S. has climbed 60 percent since 2009 and far surpasses monitoring under President Bush. The ACLU reports that the Dept. of Justice used "pen register" and "trap and trace" techniques 23,535 times in 2009 and 37,616 times in 2011. A "pen register" captures outgoing data from a phone or email account while "trap and trace" captures incoming data.

During that same time period, the number of people whose telephones were the subject of pen register and trap and trace surveillance more than tripled. In fact, more people were subjected to pen register and trap and trace surveillance in the past two years than in the entire previous decade. (ACLU's bold above) "The number of authorizations the Justice Department received to use these devices on individuals' email and network data increased 361% between 2009 and 2011," the ACLU said.

It should be noted that all of this is perpetrated by the Dept. of Justice without obtaining traditional warrants. The ACLU complained that it has been repeatedly blocked by the Obama administration when seeking disclosure.

The ACLU also noted that since Obama became president his administration has repeatedly neglected deadlines required by law to release reports on the DOJ's actions. The civil rights group charges the federal government with "frustrating democratic oversight" and obviating a basic measure of accountability by neglecting its duties to fulfill these transparency measures. Warrantless wiretapping, when initiated by the Bush administration, was one of the left's most dear causes, but since Obama came to office -- and been proven to have tremendously increased such wiretapping -- silence has prevailed over the practice.

also see:

Did ‘warrantless’ wiretaps increase under Obama? by Myrddin at Americablog.com, Oct. 1, 2012

and :

Appeals Court OKs Federal Warrantless Wiretaps By Chloe Albanesius at Pcmag.com, August 8, 2012  

 ----------------------------------   In the video above from the Real News Network the case of the Holy Land Foundation was mentioned as an example of an egregious case of hysteria, fear and trying to prove the US government was tough on terrorists and their supporters even though the court had no evidence of the aforementioned charity giving money to Hamas or other groups deemed terrorists . It appears anyone giving any aid to the people suffering in Gaza or Iran are guilty of supporting terrorists and America's enemies. This charity organization which is most likely innocent of the charges but was used for political reasons to prove that the government had no problem taking on American Muslims and their organizations even if it meant ignoring the real evidence and creating their own to put Muslim Americans in jail.

Holy Land Foundation Shut Down American Muslim charity's assets are frozen amidst accusations of terrorist ties Dateline: December 5, 2001

One of the largest Islamic charitable organizations in the U.S. has been shut down amidst accusations that the group provides support to the Palestinian group Hamas. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization established in 1989. Headquartered in Richardson, Texas, the organization has offices in California, Illinois, and New Jersey.

On Tuesday, December 4th, all of these offices were closed and searched by federal officials. The stated mission of HLF is to "find and implement practical solutions for human suffering through humanitarian programs that impact the lives of the disadvantaged, disinherited, and displaced peoples suffering from man-made and natural disasters." Their area of focus is with the Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine. They have also provided support through disasters and wars in Bosnia, Kosova, Turkey, and in the United States (Iowa floods, Texas tornadoes, and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City). ...

The Bush administration charges that the group's donations are used to support Hamas terrorist activities, terrorists and their families. CNN reports that "Treasury officials conceded that a 'substantial amount' of the money raised does go to worthy causes..." The government has not disclosed what, if any, evidence it has of HLF wrongdoing. The Foundation has repeatedly denied all charges. Foundation President Shukri Abu Baker previously issued a statement that

"the Foundation has never provided funds, services, or any other form of support to Hamas or any other group that advocates, sponsors, or endorses terrorism, terrorist acts, or violence in any form or for any purpose.... 

The principle officers, staff, donors, and volunteers of the Foundation, like most American citizens, reject terrorism, terrorist acts, and the use of violence in any form to achieve political goals."

In response to this most recent action, HLF issued a statement: "The decision by the U.S. government to seize the charitable donations of Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan is an affront to millions of Muslim Americans who entrust charities like ours to assist in fulfilling their religious obligations." The HLF reportedly raised over $13 million in donations in the past year.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims all over the world give generously in charity, especially towards the end of the holy month. This action has left many American Muslims worried about their previous contributions, and wondering where the government considers it "safe" for Muslims to spend in charity.

Bigotry and Islamophobia triumph over justice in the USA. And here's the view from leading Islamophobe Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch in which he claims the stiff sentences as a victory over the Islamic Jihadist who Spencer argues are trying to take over America. Using Jihad Watch as a negative indicator if it is praised at jihad Watch then its probably another case of injustice .


   Justice served: Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts Robert Spencer professional Islamophobe

It was during the first Holy Land Foundation trial last year that the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum about their "grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within" came to light. This verdict is a huge official recognition of the reality of that stealth jihad, and a huge setback for the likes of CAIR, which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in this case. "Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts," by Jason Trahan for the Dallas Morning News, November 24 (thanks to K.):

A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. The prosecution's victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George W. Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.

...Mr. Ashqar and Mr. Al-Arian were acquitted in trials in Chicago and Florida on similar charges that they steered support to Palestinian terrorists. Mr. Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for refusing to testify for a grand jury about his Hamas ties. Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is being held on contempt charges for refusing to co-operate in another terrorism support investigation.

But both are viewed as folk heroes by some in the Muslim community. Mr. Moffitt said Holy Land and the other cases are "show trials" where the government attempted to use "events that happened over 10 years ago" as evidence of crimes well before statutes specifically outlawing terrorism support were enacted.

Russians Show Recognition of UK Service in WWII & UK Gov't Says No Way??? Supporting Israel Should Not Mean Committing Suicide & US On The Road to a Police State

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” Quote by President Eisenhower

"...Having Israel's back does not mean supporting preventive war that the entire national security establishment says would be a disaster for everyone involved and could guarantee an Iranian nuclear weapon. Having Israel's back does not mean goading them into making stupid decisions and pledging to bail them out unconditionally. The Senate should not be handing out promises to enable foreign leaders to decide whether and when the U.S. goes to war. This would not be a mutual defense pact -- it would be a suicide pact"

New Senate Push to Pledge Unconditional Support for Israeli "Preventive" War on Iran by Jamal Abdi October 13, 2012 "Information Clearing House"

...Drones are the weapon of choice in the current administration’s wars of aggression, but it was the B-2s from Whiteman that first violated Afghan airspace eleven years ago this week and began killing the people of Afghanistan. The crimes against humanity that began in October, 2001, with B-2 airstrikes on a defenseless civilian population continue today with drones operated from that very same base. The B-2 Bomber, blasphemously nicknamed the “Spirit Bomber,” is also ready at a moment’s notice to commit the ultimate and unthinkable war crime of delivering the first nuclear payload to any place on earth. A cold war boondoggle, the B-2’s stealth capability shields it from radar the Soviets never got around to developing before their own tragic empire finally imploded.

Quote from: Comparing Our Fighting Men to Nazis Drone Wars Protester Sentenced to Federal Prison By David Swanson October 12, 2012 "Information Clearing House"

First up is a bizarre story about Russia giving medals to British soldiers and personnel who took part in the North Atlantic convoys to deliver supplies to the Soviet Union during WWII.  This action by Russia though belated is in fact commendable and is being done in good faith but the British authorities are not so gracious and so their  reaction has been to throw it back into their faces. Shame on the narrow minded British leaders or bureaucrats for their stupidity and their lack of diplomacy in refusing to just take the medals at face value and bloody well say thank you and get off your high horse.

The British government I presume has forgotten what these brave men haven't that the Soviet Union was an ally in WWII after being invaded by Hitler's army. Some 25 million Russians died in that war and by keeping the Eastern front a going concern against the NAZIS it helped tip the war in the allies favor since Hitler had to commit more troops and weapons to the Eastern front.

Valour Expired? UK bans WW2 vets from receiving Russian award Published on Oct 13, 2012 London has denied Moscow permission to honor UK veterans of the WWII Arctic Convoys by presenting them with the prestigious Ushakov Medal. Between 1941 and 1945, the convoys formed a crucial supply route from the UK and North America to the northern Soviet ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. Merchant vessels were escorted by British Royal Naval ships and aircraft carriers. Under UK law, citizens are allowed to receive foreign medals and awards only if the British government gives them permission, and only if the award relates to the recipient's activities within past five years.

Israeli forces raid injures Palestinian prisoners PressTVGlobalNews Published on Oct 13, 2012 According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, the Israeli Prison Services in addition to special units of the Israeli police raided the Shatta Prison, located in the North of the occupied 1948 territories

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 Paul Craig Roberts criticizes the US government for ignoring the basic rights of American citizens. While in some countries the USA encourages wide spread protests and even armed rebellion it hypocritically ignores human rights violations in its more friendly states such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Israel etc.

The US government under Bush or Obama has allowed the state as such and local municipal police to burtally crack down on even the most peaceful protesters. The police are at times using unnecessary excessive force in a somewhat haphazard manner and so will pepper spray or maze protesters or use tear gas, stun grenades , tactics such as "kettling" and beating protesters with batons indiscriminately. Thousands have been arrested since the start of the Occupy movement .

The president and the government now have extraordinary powers they did not have before . For example the president or the gov't can have any US citizen arrested and detained for years without a trial or proper hearing. They would be denied their basic rights as we have seen in the case of Bradley Manning. President Obama has shown little to no concern over the violations of average American citizens when involved in protest or walking down a street according to the police looking suspicious especially if the individual is not white or wears a hoodie or baggy pants.

Maybe protesters as an experiment should show up dressed in suits or dress pants and shirt and women in similar gear as worn in an office setting-would there be less persecution less violence . Imagine thousands of office workers and /or bureaucrats leaving their comfort zone and taking part in a peaceful demostration would they too be beaten and gassed or would their employers fire them on mass. In other nations such as Pakistan , Egypt etc. those who are part of the professional classes fearing that they too may be next for the chopping block or have their salaries reduced as they watch their benefits and pensions dwindle to a pittance because they did not take a stand.

Protests As A Weapon: The US is Now a Gestapo Police State: Paul Craig Roberts After 911 Civil Rights have been eroded. The government can even assassinate its own citizens. via Information


 

New Senate Push to Pledge Unconditional Support for Israeli "Preventive" War on Iran by Jamal Abdi October 13, 2012 "Information Clearing House"

- - Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is planning to press the Senate next month to pledge U.S. troops, money, and political support to Israel should Bibi Netanyahu launch a preventive war on Iran. Graham claims his effort would merely make explicit that the U.S. has Israel's back. But when your friend is drunk, you don't hand them the keys. If Graham has his way, he will hand Bibi the keys and lend him our car, while the rest of us ride shotgun. Graham's planned measure would outsource the decision about whether the U.S. goes to war to the Israeli prime minister, pledging that if Bibi decides to act -- regardless of the consequences and our own calculations -- the U.S. will provide money, troops, and political leverage (presumably at the UN and IAEA where there will be a push to shred the sanctions and the Non-Proliferation Treaty).

...As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey pointedly said just weeks ago about potential Israeli strikes on Iran, "I don't want to be complicit if they decide to do it." Graham's resolution is about as clear a signal of complicity as you can get. Graham's mendacity (definition: lying, fabrications,misleading statements ,misleading arguments and interpretations, prevaricarting, snow job )on Iran policy should by now be notorious. His most recent victory was to convince Congress to endorse Netanayhu's redline for war with Iran instead of the redline laid out by the president. The trick was that, in pushing that measure, Graham disingenuously claimed that Obama's redline was nuclear weapons "capability." And Congress bought it.

In reality, the president very clearly rejected that redline and said the U.S redline was to prevent Iran from actually getting the bomb, not getting an amorphous "capability."

...Having Israel's back does not mean supporting preventive war that the entire national security establishment says would be a disaster for everyone involved and could guarantee an Iranian nuclear weapon. Having Israel's back does not mean goading them into making stupid decisions and pledging to bail them out unconditionally. The Senate should not be handing out promises to enable foreign leaders to decide whether and when the U.S. goes to war. This would not be a mutual defense pact -- it would be a suicide pact

Obama administration and US courts now treat even peaceful protesters as being terrorists and traitors who are a direct threat to to America and to the Pentagon and the profit driven Military ,surveillance ,intelligence conglomerate and so are denied thei basic rights. When they or their legal representatives refer to the Bill of Rights or to International Law they are attacked for daring to question a judge or the courts or the US government. The court's decision to prosecute and then sentence these activist just adds to the activists point that America is moving towards a police state .

Comparing Our Fighting Men to Nazis Drone Wars Protester Sentenced to Federal Prison By David Swanson October 12, 2012 "Information Clearing House"

- Catholic Worker Brian Terrell of Maloy, Iowa has been sentenced to serves 6 months in a federal prison for his witness against the use of drone warfare. Below is a message from Brian and his statement before the court.

"Friends, We are just out of court. I have been ordered to surrender to a federal prison not yet designated on November 30 to serve a six months in lock up, co-defendant Ron Faust was sentenced to five years on probation. Below is the statement I made to the court. Judge Whitworth took great offense at my reference to Air Force security personnel as "goosestepping riot police." Comparing our fighting men to Nazis (the judge's word, not mine) was reprehensible, he said. He is not offended, apparently, by goosestepping US military police intimidating nonviolent protestors, nor by Air Force drones committing crimes against humanity and murdering children. Mentioning these embarrassing facts, however, is an affront to good manners..."

Brian Terrell’s statement at sentencing, US District Court, Jefferson City, Missouri, October 11, 2012:

Mark Twain called free speech the "privilege of the grave," a privilege never afforded the living save as an empty formality, not to be regarded seriously as an actual possession. "As an active privilege, it ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences. Murder is forbidden both in form and in fact; free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact….Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always."

Punishing free speech and letting murder off the hook is the order of the day in this courtroom.

...Each of the government’s witnesses, all of them Air Force police personnel, testified that participants in this protest were nonviolent, respectful and peaceable in assembling at Whiteman Air Force Base, a government installation, to petition that government for redress of a grievance, demanding that the remote control killing carried out daily from Whiteman cease. They testified that at no time, before or during our protest, did they perceive us as a threat.

Our expert witnesses testified that our behavior was consistent with the activities that the drafters of the First Amendment intended to be protected, not persecuted, by the government. The order and security of the base would not have been compromised had the security police allowed us to proceed to the headquarters to deliver our petition. No testimony to the contrary was offered this court. Instead of planning to accommodate a constitutionally protected peaceable assembly, however, the Air Force chose intimidation and conspired to deprive us of the rights they are sworn to protect. We learned from government witnesses that the phalanx of goose stepping riot police is a “Confrontation Management Team,” deployed only in the case of preannounced events.

Whiteman security did not call out the Team to defend the base but to intimidate citizens engaged in lawful activities. The court was mistaken a month ago when it said that our group was “allowed” to assemble on the highway right of way by the Air Force and that this space provided for us met free speech requirements of reasonable time and place. This place in question is not only outside the base’s jurisdiction, it is outside the sight and hearing of anyone on the base. The court’s decision is part of a widening disintegration of civil liberties, where speech is tolerated only in designated and remote “free speech zones” where it cannot be heard by the government, and criminalized in any place where that speech might actually have a chance to be understood. Intended or not, the court’s message is a chilling one- that a citizens’ constitutional right to assemble to petition the government extends only to places outside government facilities and where the government does not have to hear it.

The court’s easy dismissal of international law as not “trumping” domestic law has precedents, but is all the more disturbing for this fact. Last fall, I was on trial for a drone protest in a New York State where, in contrast to this court, former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark was permitted to testify on international law. Judge Gideon, after listening to Ramsey Clark speak of the Nuremburg Principles at length, leaned over the bench and asked him, “This is all interesting, but what is the enforcement mechanism? Who is responsible for enforcing international law?” “They are,” responded Mr. Clark, pointing to us defendants, “and so,” he said to Judge Gideon, “are you!” Every citizen is responsible under international law and every judge more so.

...Drones are the weapon of choice in the current administration’s wars of aggression, but it was the B-2s from Whiteman that first violated Afghan airspace eleven years ago this week and began killing the people of Afghanistan. The crimes against humanity that began in October, 2001, with B-2 airstrikes on a defenseless civilian population continue today with drones operated from that very same base. The B-2 Bomber, blasphemously nicknamed the “Spirit Bomber,” is also ready at a moment’s notice to commit the ultimate and unthinkable war crime of delivering the first nuclear payload to any place on earth. A cold war boondoggle, the B-2’s stealth capability shields it from radar the Soviets never got around to developing before their own tragic empire finally imploded. It is a prime illustration of President Eisenhower’s admonition,

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

And at other protests:

Third Northwest activist jailed for staying silent by natasha Lennard Oct. 11, 2012

Leah-Lynn Plante was remanded into federal custody for refusing to speak to a grand jury Writing for Truth-Out in August about the Northwest grand juries and those resisting cooperation, I noted that grand juries “are among the blackest boxes in the federal judiciary system.”

The closed-door procedures are rare instances in which an individual loses the right to remain silent. As was the case with the Northwest grand juries resistors, the grand jury can grant a subpoenaed individual personal immunity; Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination are therefore protected, but silence is not. In these instances, refusal to speak can be considered civil contempt.

Non-cooperators can be jailed for the 18-month length of the grand jury. “The arbitrary issuing of subpoenas to activists and pressuring them to divulge information about others in secret proceedings extends to arresting them when they decide to resist,” NLG’s Boghosian told me Thursday, commenting that the grand jury subpoena process has a “star chamber quality.” Lawyers, scholars and activists alike have long complained about the use of federal grand juries as tools for political repression. The case of the Northwest grand jury resistors is now well-known in activist and anarchist circles around the country.