Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/abbas-makes-his-case-at-the-un-4480/

After yet another decade of a peace process that is obviously stalled if not terminally ineffective, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to take Palestinian aspirations of statehood to the United Nations.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21215

Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or five years. It’s bankrupt today. Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 years, the closure of which requires immediate tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination totaling 8 percent of gross domestic product. To put 8 percent of GDP in perspective, this year’s employee and employer payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare will amount to just 5 percent of GDP.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/23-6

The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare. There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.

Link: http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-response-nypd-order-halt-improper-marijuana-arrests

In response to the disclosure of NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly’s directive ordering officers not to arrest people for misdemeanor marijuana possession when the marijuana becomes ‘public’ because an officer has searched a person or directed the person to empty his or her pockets, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman issued the following statement: