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Another problem with the voter ID law
Mary Shaw
Like several other states, Pennsylvania now has a voter ID law, which requires voters to show a photo ID before they will be permitted to vote. While the new Pennsylvania law doesn't take effect until the November elections, voters for the April 24 primary were asked for ID as a "dry run", although lack of an ID at the primary did not disqualify anyone from voting.
As I was showing the poll worker my driver's license to vote in the Pennsylvania primary, I asked her if many people had shown up without a valid ID. She said no. She said that there had only been a few people who had left their IDs in their cars and had to go back to get them.
But we agreed that this was no indication of how things will go in November. For the primary, the polling place was practically empty, compared to November of 2008, when I got there at 7:00 a.m. and the line was already an hour long.
Marwan Barghouti: Suspect Accusations After the Fact
by Stephen Lendman
Barghouti's a political prisoner. On May 20, 2004, he was wrongfully convicted of involvement in three terrorist attacks killing five people. Acquitted on 33 other charges, he received five consecutive life sentences plus 40 years.
A three-judge panel ruled that although he didn't fully control local Brigade leaders and wasn't directly involved, he had "significant influence" over their conduct.
In other words, no evidence existed. A legitimate court would have acquitted him. Israel's military one judged him guilty by accusation. Due process and judicial fairness were absent. Virtually all prosecuted Palestinians face the same fate, including children.
Barghouti calls himself "a political leader," an elected PLC member. Israel had no right to accuse, try, and judge him, he maintains. Doing so violates international law. It affirms the right to resist lawless occupations. Israel's is the longest in memory.
Shaky Economies
by Stephen Lendman
Since 2009, an ocean of easy money saved American, EU, and Japanese economies from collapse.
Never before historically did the world's largest central banks abandon reason and go "absolutely berserk," according to financial expert Martin Weiss. Earlier ones alone did it.
Four is unprecedented and dangerously reckless. So far they're swimming above water together. Eventually they'll sink when "the money drug stops working." Diminishing returns eventually follow, then perhaps crashes when things spin out of control.
Economic growth already is faltering. Lower or declining growth despite larger money infusions shows trouble gets closer to erupting. As long as printing presses roll, day of reckoning's postponed, but that game only works for so long.
Drug addicts need regular fixes, then bigger ones. They lead to overdoses and death. Economies are similar. What can't go on forever, won't. Trouble awaits excess down the road. The more extreme, the greater the bang. It's coming and will rock the world.
For over two decades, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) printed money "like crazy." In 2008, when crisis erupted, BOJ's balance sheet already was bloated. It totaled 20% of Japan's economy. Now it's about 30%.
World should hasten to stop slow-motion holocaust in Syria
By Khalid Amyreh
It is amply clear that by now the daily massacres perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own people have reached genocidal proportions.
According to consistent reports by independent and third-party sources, between 150-200 people, mostly innocent civilians are killed per day. Many others are maimed and mutilated. A disproportionate number of those injured in indiscriminate government bombardment of population centers succumb to death due to the unavailability or lack of basic medical supplies.
Badly-injured civilians transferred to public hospitals, are simply left to bleed to death at the regime's orders and doctors and nurses not heeding these orders are themselves punished rather severely.
Worrisome Security Council Syrian Resolution
by Stephen Lendman
On April 14, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2042. The UN News Centre headlined, "Syria: Security Council authorizes deployment of advance military observer team," saying:
The Security Council authorized sending "an advance team of up to 30 unarmed military observers to Syria to report on the implementation of a full cessation of armed violence, pending the deployment of a United Nations supervision mission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire."
While calling on all sides to end violence and guarantee the safety and free movement of observers, once again fingers pointed mainly the wrong way. Reports suggested disagreement delayed passage for 24 hours. Russia argued for even-handed language. Its efforts fell short. More on that below.
Rupert watch - signaling the end
By Michael Collins
Rupert Murdoch's reign over the $33 billion News Corporation hinges on events surrounding the company's ownership share of Britain's dominant pay TV network, BSkyB (Sky). As Business Insider said, "it's the only asset that really matters" in the News Corp collection of media properties.
As a result of Murdoch scandals, News Corp lost the chance to buy 100% of Sky's shares. More troubling for the media monarch, the company may lose the 39% interest it already holds if British regulators determine that Murdoch is not a fit and proper owner. This would fuel the major News Corp shareholder suits in Delaware and New York that seek to remove Murdoch as board chairman and vastly diminish his power and that of his family and cronies.
Stuck on Stupid Supporting Democrats and Republicans
Larry Pinkney
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity...They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does not mean improvement.” -Frantz Fanon
Albert Einstein correctly noted that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and yet the masses of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the United States have been systemically duped into doing precisely this, as it relates to the Democratic and Republican parties. This is insane.
The power brokers of the corporate-owned Democratic and Republican parties have, together, contrived a system wherein they, and only they, control the reigns of political power, which translates into economic power over the lives of everyday people. On the one hand the Democrats co-opt the rhetoric of “change” and “reform,” while on the other hand, the Republicans utilize the rhetoric of restraint and so-called conservatism. Together, these parties keep the people of this nation trapped in a perpetual cycle of control, powerlessness, and concomitant insanity.
America's Gulf Disaster Revisited
by Stephen Lendman
April 20 marked the two year anniversary of BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster. Until Fukushima Daiichi's catastrophic nuclear meltdown, it was the largest ever environmental calamity.
It's devastated the lives of millions of area residents. It contaminated America's Gulf. Nothing in it's safe to eat. The incident's been plagued by coverup, denial, and Obama administration complicity to assure nothing slows hazardous deep water drilling.
What do Breivik and Netanyahu have in common?
By Alan Hart
Let’s start with a glance at what they do not have in common. The man now on trial for killing 77 people in bomb and gun attacks in Norway last July has admitted, even boasted about, what he did. Netanyahu denies Zionism’s crimes.
The main thing they have in common stems from the fact that they both live in fantasy worlds of their own creation and talk a lot of extreme rightwing nonsense.
The European Stabilization Mechanism, Or How the Goldman Vampire Squid Just Captured Europe
by Ellen Brown
The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in America has nearly succeeded in Europe—a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers.
In September 2008, Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, managed to extort a $700 billion bank bailout from Congress. But to pull it off, he had to fall on his knees and threaten the collapse of the entire global financial system and the imposition of martial law; and the bailout was a one-time affair. Paulson’s plea for a permanent bailout fund—the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP—was opposed by Congress and ultimately rejected.
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