Category Archives: communications/media

More on Rosen and the attack on investigative journalism

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I missed this from Glenn Greenwald.  It’s more in-depth on the specifics…and what it means to investigative journalists.  In essence, it is criminalizing the act of journalism.

From the article:

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ – that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for “soliciting” the disclosure of classified information – is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself.

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Our democracy depends on being able to inform the citizens of their government’s actions, so that they can make informed decisions towards that government.  As Greenwald points out—the media was silent with Julian Assange…and only now are they starting to squawk now that AP has been caught up in the assault on the freedom of speech and the press…

 

Worldwide Monsanto Protest

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There’s a worldwide protest against Monsanto this Saturday.  Info here. You’ll need to scroll down to find your spot in the U.S.

(hat tip to commondreams.org)

This is so inspiring….people are waking up to the monster of genetically modified organisms.

Closer to Nixon?

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commondreams has this up–on President Obama’s assault on the Freedom of the Press and the further charges of interference with information gathering.

It’s quite chilling.  As a commenter noted, however, the press remained quiet while they took Bradley Manning and put him in jail without charges being brought….and now they want to scream about the 1st Amendment….

 

Mommy, the IRS is picking on me!!

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Really, the repub party should go from the “party of NO’ to the “party of whine”.  Good God, can they play the victim…

They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

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Since when is asking questions “singling-out” someone?  Asking questions is the IRS’s job.  And the last line of the above quote is enough to revoke their tax exempt status.

George Will is trying to compare this to Watergate.  Seriously?? How lame.

If Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress in 1973, Nixon would have completed his term. If Democrats controlled both today, the Obama administration’s lawlessness would go uninvestigated.

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Committee members of Watergate- Senate:  three repubs on it.

A brief on the Watergate affair.

On CSPAN this morning, they had Jenny Martin, the CEO of Tea Party Patriots.  She was playing the victim well–without really offering any hard evidence of the accusations of the IRS…even when asked for specifics by a caller.  I listened carefully to her mini-speeches, and once when she began to divulge what actually occurred, she caught herself and went back to “safe mode” without giving the details.  Hmmm….

Meanwhile, when the point was made that the IRS has been inundated by groups  applying for tax exempt status, so there was possibly a backlog AND good reason to scrutinize these groups that don’t want to pay taxes.  (The irony here is that the Tea Party is all about reducing government workers, but it would appear that the backlog is created because of a lack of skilled workers to process them…)

It is clear that Tea Party Patriots is a political group and they promote their political causes aggressively…so why shouldn’t the IRS ask them pointed questions about their fundraising and their activities??  If you want to avoid taxes, you’d better be prepared to answer some questions.

(Gah, I never in a million years thought I’d be sticking up for the IRS.  Lord knows they’ve used their strong arm tactics on me–when I lost my house, they actually wanted to charge me for taking a profit(!!) and then when I owed a measily $200 (and didn’t have the money to pay them) they threatened to take what was left after the crash and burn. I did eventually pay it off in installments. but it was difficult at that point in time. )

The right to choose your food

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I can’t wrap my brain around this. 

I’m just stunned at the thought that someone could try to label organic food as “junk food”.  As the article points out, this would eliminate the right to choose organic, free range eggs, or gluten-free bread for Celiacs…it’s just mindboggling the ignorance and outright endangerment.  So…I suppose if someone is Celiac and buys food they are not supposed to have in order to have something to eat…if their gut disintegrates from inflammation and they either end up in the hospital for surgically fixing the problem, or dead from a ruptured abdomen.

I really love the fact that the Tea Party members conveniently ignore that people on food stamps and other welfare were once taxpayers that paid into the system.  Same with Social Security and Medicare.

ALEC fighting open records

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This up from PR Watch on ALEC’s latest: asserting that its communications with public legislators is private….

Isn’t it amazing how the folks who insist on the Patriot Act and having the right to examine your private phone conversations, emails, library records, bank records, etc., are the same ones insisting that they have a right to privacy….??  The story states that there are cases where the communications can be private–in some states they don’t have to make their communications public knowledge…but it stops there and doesn’t explore that point further.

So…I went on a quick search and found this resource to each state’s open door laws.  As with any law, though, it’s only as good as the people behind it.  That is, if you have a group of people bent on keeping things secret with financial resources to keep their secrets, while those that try to find information lacking in financial resources…well, the law isn’t worth much…

With politicians like these….

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…who needs Bozo the Clown?

Did Walworth really ask if they were growing cultures that would become human beings?  OMG….these are the people deciding educational standards?  ::holds head from spinning::

Even more alarming (if anything could be more alarming) is this passage from Louisiana Voice:

Where others within the Department of Education (DOE) have alluded privately to data suppression and manipulation of school performance scores that artificially inflated graduation rates, Bassett, a band director who said he was “highly qualified” to teach math, publicly charged White, BESE and DOE of misrepresenting test scores and then covering up the lie by removing the data from the Louisiana Believes website. “This is data suppression,” Bassett said.

He said he was asked by his principal last October to look into his school’s score so that it could be improved in the future. “My subsequent research revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data suppression,” he said.

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Further down, it goes into specifics about VAM and how the data was missing or manipulated.  Good God, these people have no conscience nor credibility…

Unfortunately, Louisiana is not alone.

Living History

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Henry Ettinger was a “Monuments Men” who helped rescue stolen art work by the Nazis and spoke of his experience recently.

The article mentions that Hitler was into natural art and resented the turn towards impressionism and interpretative art, and instead of accepting that, he decided to destroy the art.  But that sentence doesn’t make sense, because they put the art into the mines to preserve them and protect them from bombs instead of outright destroying them.   Yeah, I know that some could be sold on the black market to raise money for the war….but they also had an “exhibition” of the artworks, which also makes no sense–why put them on display at all if they were disgusting to Hitler?  Why go to all of the trouble to transport them through a tour in Germany and Austria?

In addition to the Monuments Men, Ettinger’s family history is also very intriguing.  As the story goes, his family lived in Germany before being forced out by the Nazis in 1938.  The part that leaps out at me was  this simple passage:

“My family dated back 600 years in Germany,” Ettlinger said. “My father had an elegant women’s fashion store, with 40 employees. But when the Nazis came to power in 1933, it was immediately boycotted.”

The Nazis, said Ettlinger, didn’t immediately start killing the Jews. Instead they made it impossible for them to make a living.

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Am I entirely too cynical or conspiracy theorist to look at how our jobs have been shipped overseas and the ones left are poverty-level wages, making it impossible to put any money away for savings/retirement/vacations/emergencies….and that the union jobs are being replaced with low wage workers…?  Yeah, I suppose it is too conspiracy theorist…but the effect is still the same–making it impossible to earn a living…

 

 

 

FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?

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(As I first started reading this, I thought of a pun with the title:  “Something’s fishy”  but PR Watch beat me to it in their write up. Heh.)

(So…I’ll have to settle for the boring title of FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?)

Note in the comments section the paid flack who attacks the article not based on facts, but wild accusations….um-hmmm…

There are a million souls who do not want frankenfish.  (and probably millions more would be protesting if they only knew what was going on) .

What does it take for American citizens to be heard?  And why is this garbage science of Genetically Modified organisms released without a) thorough testing by independent research labs with no financial/political gain;  b) without follow-up by independent research to investigate the damage that they have caused; and c) why isn’t the entire ecological system considered when making these decisions…?