Sunday, November 30, 2014

Fwd: Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 12:21:03 -0800
Subject: Re: Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security,
Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>

I'm not sure that Bill Blunden is fairly representing Glenn
Greenwald's remarks. This government belongs to, and fronts for the
American Empire. This government does not surrender any of it's
control. If we think that we have examples of that, just take a look
at what gains were incurred by the Corporate Empire. Tightening or
loosing government control always benefits the Empire and it's
constant move toward world dominance. We can play all the word games
we wish, but the bottom line is that any benefit we Working Class
folks receive is incidental to the massive gains for the Empire. With
great effort and lots of grovelling, we can possibly increase living
conditions for some members of our Working Class. But these can be
taken away if the need arises within the Empire. Remember, no matter
how high up the ladder you clamber, no matter what name you choose to
call yourself, as long as a portion of your labor goes to someone
above you, you are not a member of the Ruling Class. You are not a
Citizen of the Empire. Sure, we think of ourselves as American
Citizens, but we have no say in the affairs of the American Empire.
As long as our activities do not interfere with the goals of the
Empire, we are given room to practice our freedom and speak our free
speech. But when it interferes with the Empire, we are shut down. We
are spied upon, lied to, and humbled through loss of jobs and stature.
The American Empire is not interested in compromise or negotiation.
Even as it may mouth those words it is laying plans to have its own
way.
But hey, lots of folks like to be told what to think, shown what is
right and placated into believing that they belong to the most caring,
generous, loving, democratic, peace loving nation God ever shed His
Grace upon.
As Chester A. Riley was so fond of saying, "My head is made up. Don't
confuse me with facts."

Carl Jarvis



On 11/29/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as
> the Bogeyman
> ________________________________________
> CounterPunch [1] / By Bill Blunden [2]
>
> Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as
> the Bogeyman
>
>
> November 24, 2014 |
> This week the USA Freedom Act was blocked in the Senate as it failed to
> garner the 60 votes required to move forward. Presumably [3] the bill would
> have imposed limits on NSA surveillance. Careful scrutiny [4] of the bill's
> text however reveals yet another mere gesture of reform, one that would
> codify and entrench existing surveillance capabilities rather than
> eliminate
> them.
> Glenn Greenwald, commenting from his perch at the Intercept, opined [5]:
> "All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all
> of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the powers of
> the U.S. government is . . . the U.S. government. Governments don't walk
> around trying to figure out how to limit their own power, and that's
> particularly true of empires."
> Anyone who followed the sweeping deregulation of the financial industry
> during the Clinton era, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [6] of 1999 which
> effectively repealed Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization
> Act [7] of 2000, immediately sees through Greenwald's impromptu dogma.
> Let's
> not forget the energy market deregulation in California and subsequent
> manipulation [8] that resulted in blackouts throughout the state. Ditto
> that
> for the latest roll back of arms export controls [9] that opened up markets
> for the defense industry. And never mind all those hi-tech companies that
> want to loosen H1-B restrictions [10].
> The truth is that the government is more than happy to cede power and
> authority. just as long as doing so serves the corporate factions that have
> achieved state capture [11]. The "empire" Greenwald speaks of is a
> corporate
> empire. In concrete analytic results that affirm Thomas Ferguson's
> Investment Theory of Party Competition [12], researchers from Princeton and
> Northwestern University conclude that [13]:
> "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups
> representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on
> U.S.
> government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups
> have little or no independent influence."
> Glenn's stance reveals a broader libertarian theme. One that the Koch
> brothers would no doubt find amenable: the government is suspect and
> efforts
> to rein in mass interception must therefore arise from the corporate
> entities. Greenwald appears to believe that the market will solve
> everything. Specifically, he postulates that consumer demand for security
> will drive companies to offer products that protect user privacy, adopt
> "strong" encryption, etc.
> The Primacy of Security Theater
> Certainly large hi-tech companies care about quarterly earnings. That
> definitely explains all of the tax evasion, wage ceilings, and the slave
> labor. But these same companies would be hard pressed to actually protect
> user privacy because spying on users is a fundamental part of their
> business
> model. Like government spies, corporate spies collect and monetize oceans
> of
> data.
> Furthermore hi-tech players don't need to actually bullet-proof their
> products to win back customers. It's far more cost effective to simply
> manufacture the perception of better security: slap on some crypto, flood
> the news with public relation pieces, and get some government officials
> (e.g. James Comey [14], Robert Hannigan [15], and Stewart Baker [16]) to
> whine visibly about the purported enhancements in order to lend the
> marketing campaign credibility. The techno-libertarians of Silicon Valley
> are masters of Security Theater.
> Witness, if you will, Microsoft's litany of assurances about security over
> the years, followed predictably by an endless train of critical zero-day
> bugs. Faced with such dissonance it becomes clear that "security" in
> high-tech is viewed as a public relations issue, a branding mechanism to
> boost profits. Greenwald is underestimating the contempt that CEOs have for
> the credulity of their user base, much less their own workers [17].
> Does allegedly "strong" cryptography offer salvation? Cryptome's John Young
> thinks otherwise:
> "Encryption is a citizen fraud, bastard progeny of national security, which
> offers malware insecurity requiring endless 'improvements' to correct the
> innately incorrigible. Its advocates presume it will empower users rather
> than subject them to ever more vulnerability to shady digital coders
> complicit with dark coders of law in exploiting fear, uncertainty and
> doubt."
> Business interests, having lured customers in droves with a myriad of false
> promises, will go back to secretly cooperating with government spies as
> they
> always have: introducing subtle weaknesses [18] into cryptographic
> protocols, designing backdoors [19] that double as accidental zero-day
> bugs,
> building rootkits [20] which hide in plain sight, and handing over [21]
> user
> data. In other words all of the behavior that was described by Edward
> Snowden's documents. Like a jilted lover, consumers will be pacified with a
> clever sales pitch that conceals deeper corporate subterfuge.
> Ultimately it's a matter of shared class interest. The private sector
> almost
> always cooperates with the intelligence services because American spies
> pursue the long-term prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism; open markets
> and
> access to resources the world over. Or perhaps someone has forgotten the
> taped phone call of Victoria Nuland selecting the next prime minister of
> Ukraine as the IMF salivates over austerity measures? POTUS caters to his
> constituents, the corporate ruling class, which transitively convey their
> wishes to clandestine services like the CIA. Recall Ed Snowden's open
> letter
> to Brazil [22]:
> "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying,
> social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."
> To confront the Deep State Greenwald is essentially advocating that we
> elicit change by acting like consumers instead of constitutionally endowed
> citizens. This is a grave mistake because profits can be decoupled from
> genuine security in a society defined by secrecy, propaganda, and state
> capture. Large monolithic corporations aren't our saviors. They're the
> central part of the problem. We shouldn't run to the corporate elite to
> protect us. We should engage politically to retake and remake our republic.
>
> [23]
>
> See more stories tagged with:
> silicon valley [24],
> security [25],
> surveillance [26]
> ________________________________________
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/tech-companies-are-peddling-phony-version-security-u
> sing-govt-bogeyman
> Links:
> [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/bill-blunden
> [3]
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/where-congress-after-summer-proposed-n
> sa-reform
> [4]
> https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/11/12/why-i-dont-support-usa-freedom-act/
> [5]
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/19/irrelevance-u-s-congress-stopp
> ing-nsas-mass-surveillance/
> [6]
> http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill
> -easing-bank-laws.html
> [7] http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
> [8]
> http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/52157:tapes-show-enron-caused
> -rolling-blackouts-in-california
> [9]
> http://www.propublica.org/article/in-big-win-for-defense-industry-obama-roll
> s-back-limits-on-arms-export
> [10]
> http://news.cnet.com/Gates-wants-to-scrap-H-1B-visa-restrictions/2100-1022_3
> -5687039.html
> [11] http://www.belowgotham.com/Deep-State-Wins.pdf
> [12]
> http://policytensor.com/2013/01/24/the-investment-theory-of-party-competitio
> n/
> [13]
> http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592
> 714001595a.pdf&amp;code=6a4a2e23886bed651339879b90c07d0c
> [14]
> http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/events/2014/10/16%20going%20dark%20techno
> logy%20privacy%20comey%20fbi/20141016_fbi_comey_transcript.pdf
> [15] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29891285
> [16]
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/04/nsa-cyberwar-stewart-baker
> -cloudflare-snowden
> [17]
> http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrate
> d-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/
> [18]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secur
> ity
> [19]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/sep/05/sigint-nsa-collabor
> ates-technology-companies
> [20]
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors
> -for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
> [21]
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-docum
> ents/
> [22]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-letter-brazilian
> -people
> [23] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are
> Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
> [24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/silicon-valley
> [25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/security-0
> [26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/surveillance
> [27] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the
> Govt. as the Bogeyman
>
> CounterPunch [1] / By Bill Blunden [2]
>
> Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as
> the Bogeyman
> November 24, 2014 |
> This week the USA Freedom Act was blocked in the Senate as it failed to
> garner the 60 votes required to move forward. Presumably [3] the bill would
> have imposed limits on NSA surveillance. Careful scrutiny [4] of the bill's
> text however reveals yet another mere gesture of reform, one that would
> codify and entrench existing surveillance capabilities rather than
> eliminate
> them.
> Glenn Greenwald, commenting from his perch at the Intercept, opined [5]:
> "All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all
> of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the powers of
> the U.S. government is . . . the U.S. government. Governments don't walk
> around trying to figure out how to limit their own power, and that's
> particularly true of empires."
> Anyone who followed the sweeping deregulation of the financial industry
> during the Clinton era, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [6] of 1999 which
> effectively repealed Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization
> Act [7] of 2000, immediately sees through Greenwald's impromptu dogma.
> Let's
> not forget the energy market deregulation in California and subsequent
> manipulation [8] that resulted in blackouts throughout the state. Ditto
> that
> for the latest roll back of arms export controls [9] that opened up markets
> for the defense industry. And never mind all those hi-tech companies that
> want to loosen H1-B restrictions [10].
> The truth is that the government is more than happy to cede power and
> authority. just as long as doing so serves the corporate factions that have
> achieved state capture [11]. The "empire" Greenwald speaks of is a
> corporate
> empire. In concrete analytic results that affirm Thomas Ferguson's
> Investment Theory of Party Competition [12], researchers from Princeton and
> Northwestern University conclude that [13]:
> "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups
> representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on
> U.S.
> government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups
> have little or no independent influence."
> Glenn's stance reveals a broader libertarian theme. One that the Koch
> brothers would no doubt find amenable: the government is suspect and
> efforts
> to rein in mass interception must therefore arise from the corporate
> entities. Greenwald appears to believe that the market will solve
> everything. Specifically, he postulates that consumer demand for security
> will drive companies to offer products that protect user privacy, adopt
> "strong" encryption, etc.
> The Primacy of Security Theater
> Certainly large hi-tech companies care about quarterly earnings. That
> definitely explains all of the tax evasion, wage ceilings, and the slave
> labor. But these same companies would be hard pressed to actually protect
> user privacy because spying on users is a fundamental part of their
> business
> model. Like government spies, corporate spies collect and monetize oceans
> of
> data.
> Furthermore hi-tech players don't need to actually bullet-proof their
> products to win back customers. It's far more cost effective to simply
> manufacture the perception of better security: slap on some crypto, flood
> the news with public relation pieces, and get some government officials
> (e.g. James Comey [14], Robert Hannigan [15], and Stewart Baker [16]) to
> whine visibly about the purported enhancements in order to lend the
> marketing campaign credibility. The techno-libertarians of Silicon Valley
> are masters of Security Theater.
> Witness, if you will, Microsoft's litany of assurances about security over
> the years, followed predictably by an endless train of critical zero-day
> bugs. Faced with such dissonance it becomes clear that "security" in
> high-tech is viewed as a public relations issue, a branding mechanism to
> boost profits. Greenwald is underestimating the contempt that CEOs have for
> the credulity of their user base, much less their own workers [17].
> Does allegedly "strong" cryptography offer salvation? Cryptome's John Young
> thinks otherwise:
> "Encryption is a citizen fraud, bastard progeny of national security, which
> offers malware insecurity requiring endless 'improvements' to correct the
> innately incorrigible. Its advocates presume it will empower users rather
> than subject them to ever more vulnerability to shady digital coders
> complicit with dark coders of law in exploiting fear, uncertainty and
> doubt."
> Business interests, having lured customers in droves with a myriad of false
> promises, will go back to secretly cooperating with government spies as
> they
> always have: introducing subtle weaknesses [18] into cryptographic
> protocols, designing backdoors [19] that double as accidental zero-day
> bugs,
> building rootkits [20] which hide in plain sight, and handing over [21]
> user
> data. In other words all of the behavior that was described by Edward
> Snowden's documents. Like a jilted lover, consumers will be pacified with a
> clever sales pitch that conceals deeper corporate subterfuge.
> Ultimately it's a matter of shared class interest. The private sector
> almost
> always cooperates with the intelligence services because American spies
> pursue the long-term prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism; open markets
> and
> access to resources the world over. Or perhaps someone has forgotten the
> taped phone call of Victoria Nuland selecting the next prime minister of
> Ukraine as the IMF salivates over austerity measures? POTUS caters to his
> constituents, the corporate ruling class, which transitively convey their
> wishes to clandestine services like the CIA. Recall Ed Snowden's open
> letter
> to Brazil [22]:
> "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying,
> social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."
> To confront the Deep State Greenwald is essentially advocating that we
> elicit change by acting like consumers instead of constitutionally endowed
> citizens. This is a grave mistake because profits can be decoupled from
> genuine security in a society defined by secrecy, propaganda, and state
> capture. Large monolithic corporations aren't our saviors. They're the
> central part of the problem. We shouldn't run to the corporate elite to
> protect us. We should engage politically to retake and remake our republic.
> mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are Peddling
> a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
> mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are Peddling
> a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman[23]
> See more stories tagged with:
> silicon valley [24],
> security [25],
> surveillance [26]
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/tech-companies-are-peddling-phony-version-security-u
> sing-govt-bogeyman
> Links:
> [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/bill-blunden
> [3]
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/where-congress-after-summer-proposed-n
> sa-reform
> [4]
> https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/11/12/why-i-dont-support-usa-freedom-act/
> [5]
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/19/irrelevance-u-s-congress-stopp
> ing-nsas-mass-surveillance/
> [6]
> http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill
> -easing-bank-laws.html
> [7] http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
> [8]
> http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/52157:tapes-show-enron-caused
> -rolling-blackouts-in-california
> [9]
> http://www.propublica.org/article/in-big-win-for-defense-industry-obama-roll
> s-back-limits-on-arms-export
> [10]
> http://news.cnet.com/Gates-wants-to-scrap-H-1B-visa-restrictions/2100-1022_3
> -5687039.html
> [11] http://www.belowgotham.com/Deep-State-Wins.pdf
> [12]
> http://policytensor.com/2013/01/24/the-investment-theory-of-party-competitio
> n/
> [13]
> http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592
> 714001595a.pdf&amp;code=6a4a2e23886bed651339879b90c07d0c
> [14]
> http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/events/2014/10/16%20going%20dark%20techno
> logy%20privacy%20comey%20fbi/20141016_fbi_comey_transcript.pdf
> [15] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29891285
> [16]
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/04/nsa-cyberwar-stewart-baker
> -cloudflare-snowden
> [17]
> http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrate
> d-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/
> [18]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secur
> ity
> [19]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/sep/05/sigint-nsa-collabor
> ates-technology-companies
> [20]
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors
> -for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
> [21]
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-docum
> ents/
> [22]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-letter-brazilian
> -people
> [23] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are
> Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
> [24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/silicon-valley
> [25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/security-0
> [26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/surveillance
> [27] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>

Thursday, November 27, 2014

'It Is Officially Open Season on Black Folks': Legal Expert Decries Handling of Wilson Grand Jury

More and more I'm distressed by the anger and division between groups
of Working Class People. We can continue allowing the corporate media
to divert our attention, making this confrontation into a Black versus
White war, or we can bring leaders of all factions together and
discuss developing a plan for solving the larger problem.
The problem is a government that is doing a fine job of defending and
protecting the Ruling Class, at the expense of the Working Class.
Would it be of any value to have leaders of the Working Class meet
with the heads of law enforcement agencies and discuss how to extend
their protection to those groups they now consider to be problems? In
other words, is it possible to have a law enforcement department that
treats the Working Class in the same way they treat the wealthy ruling
class neighborhoods.

/Carl Jarvis

On 11/27/14, S. Kashdan <skashdan@scn.org> wrote:
> 'It Is Officially Open Season on Black Folks': Legal Expert Decries Handling
>
> of Wilson Grand Jury
>
>
>
> By Amy Goodman [2]
>
>
>
> Democracy Now! [1], November 25, 2014 |
>
>
>
> http://www.alternet.org/print/news-amp-politics/it-officially-open-season-black-folks-legal-expert-decries-handling-wilson-grand
>
>
>
> On Monday St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced the grand jury
>
> had found "that no probable cause exists" to charge Officer Darren Wilson
> with any crime in the death of Michael Brown. The jury deliberated for three
>
> months and heard dozens of hours of testimony, including from Wilson
> himself. But did they hear the full story? McCulloch himself had faced
> public scrutiny throughout the grand jury investigation, with calls for him
>
> to resign over allegations of a pro-police bias and questions raised about
> an unusual grand jury process that resembled a trial. Democracy Now! spoke
> to Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
>
> who is just back from Ferguson.
>
>
>
> "I don't think we can take away anything from this decision not to indict
> other than that it is now officially open season on black folks when it
> comes to police violence," Warren says.
>
>
>
> AMY GOODMAN: We are in Clayton, Missouri, right next to Ferguson, Missouri,
>
> where we spent all last night. Today we're standing in front of--well, the
> Clayton Courthouse where the grand jury has deliberated close to two dozen
> times over the last few months, before they came out with their decision
> yesterday, announced by the prosecutor Bob McCulloch. Our guest right now,
> in New York, we're joined by Vince Warren, the Executive Director of the
> Center for Constitutional Rights who will help us decide--will help us
> understand the decision that the grand jury made. And with me here in
> subfreezing weather, here in Clayton is Osagyefo Sekou, he is the Pastor
> from the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain Massachusetts, dispatched to
>
> Ferguson by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He went to high school in St.
>
> Louis and has family in Ferguson. We're going to go first to Vince Warren.
> Can you explain the grand jury decision?
>
>
>
> VINCE WARREN: Yes, thanks Amy, and good to see you Sekou. It is almost
> inexplicable. The first thing we have to remember is that this is not a
> verdict. This hasn't gotten to verdict. This was an indictment. So the grand
>
> jury was asked to consider evidence in order to prefer charges so that the
> police officer could go to trial, but they did not do that. What was so
> strange about it is I've never seen, in my years, I've never seen a
> prosecutor take such a hands-off approach. And to listen to that press
> conference, Amy, you would think that he had just sort of spread out the
> pieces of paper on the table and said, grand jury, do your thing. Let me
> tell you, prosecutors never do that. There's a reason why they say
> prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich. It's because they can entirely
> control that process.
>
>
>
> Now, they did release some of the transcripts yesterday. And I took a look
> at some of them, and what I saw, which people need to know, is that this
> wasn't just the grand jurors listening to the testimony idly. The
> prosecutors are framing the evidence. And as you heard in that press
> conference yesterday, there was more talk about what Mike Brown did than
> there was about what Darren Wilson did. It was almost as if in that grand
> jury process looking to charge Darren Wilson, that they were really charging
>
> Mike Brown. And I also noticed in some of the transcripts that they were
> setting up--the prosecutors were setting up the sense of fear, even asking
> the Police Sergeant when he got to Mike Brown's body, when he first got
> there, leading them into the testimony to say, yeah, there were people that
>
> were agitated, there were people that were upset, there were people that
> were moving around. And of course there were people that were agitated
> because Mike Brown's body was on the ground. But they're setting this up so
>
> that essentially to play into the defense of Darren Wilson, that he acted
> reasonably out of fear for his life, A, B, that he acted reasonably and
> pursuant to the law because he thought that Mike Brown was breaking the
> law.
>
>
>
> So what we have is a grand jury system that for most people in the world
> seems to play out like it was, gosh, what can we do, the evidence was really
>
> overwhelming. But I don't think the evidence was. You only have one set of
> that story. Unfortunately, in this process, Mike Brown's side of the story
> never gets told. What we do know is the prosecutors were setting this up so
>
> that it was in the best light, in my view, it was, from what I've seen, in
> the best light for the police officer and his "reasonable belief" that his
> life was in danger, so that is why he shot.
>
>
>
> I don't think we can take away anything from this decision not to indict
> other than that it is now officially open season on black folks when it
> comes to police violence. That feeling that most of us had yesterday when we
>
> were listening to the decision, that feeling in your stomach, that
> unsettling feeling like there's nothing we can do--that is what injustice
> feels like. We have to remember that the folks on the ground feel that same
>
> way but they felt this for a long time. This is not a media event, this is
> life for people in the black community in urban areas. This is life for
> people in Ferguson. And so, yes, people are upset. People are acting out.
> People are disrupting the status quo. People want to shut it down, and
> frankly, I think that they should.
>
>
>
> We should be thinking about the folks in Ferguson as pro-democracy
> protesters, as anti-structural racism protesters. Because when you think
> about what they're challenging on that big a scale, we know that a grand
> jury decision in one way or another is not going to solve the structural
> racism problem. What solves the structural racism problem is getting to
> people like Bob McCulloch so that he can't do the thing that he did in a
> press conference. If you notice, he on the one hand said this was a
> justified shooting by the police officer but then on the other hand said,
> oh, but we have to change the system. Those are completely inconsistent. It
>
> makes no sense. It makes no sense legally and certainly doesn't make any
> sense politically.
>
>
>
> What we have with the protesters, and I'm happy that the Center for
> Constitutional Rights and Arch City Defenders locally on the ground, The
> National Lawyers Guild and Advancement Project have organized 300 lawyers to
>
> come down to be able to help represent the protesters because this is what
> our democracy looks like. Let's not think about this as these people are
> burning folks here or these people are throwing rocks here, that entire
> picture that you're looking at, Amy, that you are involved in, that is the
> state, the representation of the state of our democracy for black folks in
> America. It is messy, can be ugly, it's full of passion but people should
> not turn away from it. People should not try to tamper down and control it.
>
> People should begin to understand that if that is what we are dealing with,
>
> if that is where we are as a society, we need to think about structural
> changes in order to change the status quo.
>
>
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Vincent Warren, the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office has
> released Darren Wilson's testimony to the grand jury showing the officer
> described the 18-year-old Michael Brown as looking like a "demon" on the day
>
> of the shooting. Wilson said, "And when I grabbed him, the only way I can
> describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan." Wilson
>
> went on to claim that Brown punched him twice and was concerned the third
> punch could be fatal or knock him unconscious. He defended his decision to
> shoot Brown multiple times. Wilson said, "At this point it looked like he
> was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad
> that I'm shooting at him." In addition to the testimony, the prosecutors
> released images of Darren Wilson in the hospital after the altercation. One
>
> of his cheeks was red, but wasn't heavily bruised. So, here we have Darren
> Wilson, four hours of testimony, Mike Brown was not there to give his side
> of the story.
>
>
>
> VINCE WARREN: That's right, Amy. It is important to recognize that at this
> moment, we have to become clear as a society that police officers can commit
>
> crimes even while on duty. And police officers can and do lie particularly,
>
> particularly in these types of legal proceedings. I would note that--I was
> looking through some of the Sergeant's testimony and when he first talked to
>
> Darren Wilson, when the Sergeant got to the scene, he talked to him about
> what happened but he didn't write it down. And the reason why he said he did
>
> not write it down was because he was multitasking. Now, that kind of
> evidence collection becomes critically important because it gives--if you
> don't have it, it gives the police officer the opportunity to change his
> story, to present the facts in the light that is more favorable to them. And
>
> you can certainly do that in a criminal trial when you're the defendant. But
>
> remember, police officers have two duties. One is that they have to preserve
>
> the evidence in order for people to find out what happened but it sounds to
>
> me like Darren Wilson was afforded the opportunity to create an evidentiary
>
> narrative that supported his version of the events. This is a huge problem
> and is not unique to Ferguson. This happens all over the country in every
> criminal context that we can think of. Ask any defense attorney about this
> and they will tell you that the way this went down with the prosecutor's
> office, with the police department was so shady, it was so shady that you
> can't have any confidence, any confidence whatsoever that the story that
> Darren Wilson told is in fact what happened.
>
>
>
> AMY GOODMAN: Vince Warren, we want to thank you for being with us. Stay with
>
> us. We're going to go to break and then we're going to be joined by Reverend
>
> Sekou here in Ferguson, though, usually in Massachusetts. He's been here for
>
> months organizing on the ground. We will also be joined by Jelani Cobb,
> Professor at the University of Connecticut, Head of Africana Studies, writes
>
> for the New Yorker, has been writing extensively about Ferguson. Yes, we
> were with him last night on the streets of Ferguson. Ferguson has erupted.
> This is Democracy Now! We will be back in a minute.
>
>
>
> [3]
>
>
>
> See more stories tagged with:
>
>
>
> democracy now! [4]
>
>
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/it-officially-open-season-black-folks-legal-expert-decries-handling-wilson-grand
>
>
>
> Links:
>
>
>
> [1] http://www.democracynow.org/
>
>
>
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/amy-goodman
>
>
>
> [3] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on &#039;It Is Officially
> Open Season on Black Folks&#039;: Legal Expert Decries Handling of Wilson
> Grand Jury
>
>
>
> [4] http://www.alternet.org/tags/democracy-now-0
>
>
>
> [5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

American Ruling Class says no charges for Ferguson police officer

No surprise here. What would have been a surprise would have been if
the Ruling Class had been unable to protect their own.
I know many folks will make this out to be a Black and White struggle,
but it is bigger than that. This is a Ruling Class, Working Class
engagement. Anger and frustration and despair are focused on Michael
Brown, as they should be, but do not lose sight of the fact that
yesterday it was...and still is, the Muslim Americans, and remember
that we are warring against undocumented immigrants, and Mexican
Americans, and the Irish, and the Polish, and Italians, and Gays, and
Catholics, and Mormons, and Japanese Americans, and those hard working
Chinese Americans who we trashed so well after we'd used them for
cheap labor, and always there are the American Indians. Sorry if I
left out your favorite group. I should have also mentioned the Jews,
but they sort of float in and out of favor, as the need arises. But
then perhaps most of us are in that situation.
Our young are brave and fearless citizens when the ACE needs warriors
in their eternal War Against Terror, but when they gather on a street
corner they are hoodlums and ne'er do wells.
When Working Americans are employed, they are hailed as the world's
most industrious workers. But when the Corporate Rulers see an
opportunity to turn an honest dollar by shipping their factories and
jobs to Third World countries, the American Worker is seen as greedy,
self-serving and lazy.
And who tells us all of this, and more? Well who else but the ACE
Mouthpiece, the Corporate Media...the only Free Press in the
world...to hear them tell it. And tell it they do, since they muffle
most other voices.
Wake up American Working Class. And don't try to hide by calling
yourself something else. In the eyes and minds of the ACE, you and I
all look alike. Just another natural resource, waiting to be
harvested in the cause of world conquest.
But hey, go on and bow your heads over that Turkey and thank God
Almighty for this Land of Plenty.
But keep an eye open and an ear cocked for the sound of boots on your
doorstep.

Carl Jarvis




On 11/24/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Are you surprised?
>
> Miriam
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>

Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Long, Brutal History That Predicts Darren Wilson Will Get Off Scot Free

Predicting a particular outcome, such as the decision of the grand
jury in the Wilson case, only gets folks riled up. It does not
address the larger question, Is the System Broke? And if the answer
is "Yes!", then what are folks prepared to do about fixing it.
The hearing on whether or not Officer Wilson should be tried or
acquitted, can become a focal point, causing much shouting and
possible violence, and ultimately solving nothing at all, or it can be
seen as one incident in a system that needs to be rebuilt to favor All
the People, not merely the Ruling Class and their protected Sucklings.
We, the Real People...the Working Class, have enough power to take
apart a broken system and put it back together. Let's not spend that
energy on a single judgement, and wind up not solving anything at all.

Carl Jarvis
On 11/22/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Jones writes: "It's an outcome that will appall many Americans, sparking
> outrage not only in Ferguson but throughout the country. And despite all of
> that, it's an outcome that will not surprise any black person, including
> yours truly."
>
> (photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
>
>
> ALSO SEE: In Ferguson the Arrests Have Begun
> ALSO SEE: Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson in Talks to Resign
> The Long, Brutal History That Predicts Darren Wilson Will Get Off Scot Free
> By Andrew Jerell Jones, The Intercept
> 21 November 14
>
> Darren Wilson will probably get let off.
> It's an outcome that will appall many Americans, sparking outrage not only
> in Ferguson but throughout the country. And despite all of that, it's an
> outcome that will not surprise any black person, including yours truly.
> Obviously, I hope that is not the case. I truly do hope that I am wrong and
> that Wilson is indicted by the Missouri grand jury now deciding his fate,
> which would mean he would at least face a trial and criminal charges over
> his killing of Mike Brown. But it's hard not to expect the worst after
> Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called in the National Guard before the
> decision
> officially came down.
> This isn't knee-jerk pessimism at work here. To the black community, a
> non-indictment for Brown would be predictable. It would be as predictable
> as
> the verdict in the trial over the shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old
> Trayvon Martin, a verdict that acquitted defendant George Zimmerman,
> allowing him to continue doing stupid things. Or as predictable as the
> involuntary manslaughter verdict handed down in the shooting death of
> restrained, unarmed, 23-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland. Or as predictable
> as the acquittal of police officers charged with killing unarmed Sean Bell
> in Queens, New York by firing 50 shots into his vehicle. As predictable as
> the acquittal of the police officers who fatally shot unarmed Amadou Diallo
> 19 times, killing him. As predictable as the acquittals in the infamous
> police beating of Rodney King. And so on, back to Emmett Till and before.
> And those are just the incidents the public knows about. For every Eric
> Garner choked and squeezed to death by the police or for every police
> officer caught on camera horribly shooting an innocent black man as he
> reaches for his license, there are thousands of racially tinged episodes of
> police brutality known only to the people involved, to the friends and
> families of the victims, and to pockets of the impacted communities.
> Sure, there have been encouraging signs that black lives are slowly
> becoming
> as important as white lives. For example, David Dunn, the 45-year-old white
> male who shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis at a Florida gas station
> in November 2012 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison
> with no parole. Some justice also was provided for the late Renisha
> McBride,
> a 19-year-old woman shot dead in November 2013 in Detroit by white
> homeowner
> Theodore Wafer after she knocked on his front porch for help after her car
> crashed. Wafer was convicted of second-degree murder this past August and
> was sentenced to prison for 17 to 32 years.
> But these rare moments of justice for black Americans are still
> overshadowed
> by moments where we are treated, at best, as second class citizens. A grand
> jury in Staten Island is still waiting to decide what to do with the
> officers who played a role in Garner's death, despite the clear video
> evidence showing they violated their own police department's protocol of no
> chokeholds. Meanwhile, in Florida, Marissa Alexander faces 60 years in
> prison for firing one shot from a gun at her abusive, estranged husband.
> Despite invoking the same controversial "Stand Your Ground" law that helped
> Zimmerman win acquittal, and despite having her initial conviction reversed
> on appeal, Alexander was denied a "Stand Your Ground" hearing hearing and
> faces fresh charges and three back-to-back 20-year sentences from Florida
> State Prosecutor Angela Corey.
> Too many different stories of police brutality against black victims end
> the
> same way, with acquittals or lenient sentences for the cops. That's why
> most
> people in the black community have no faith Wilson will ever face trial.
> Maybe we're wrong, but history points to us being unfortunately right. And
> that prediction, if and when proven correct, won't be one we'll celebrate.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> (photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/21/feel-darren-wilson-will-get-sc
> ot-free/https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/21/feel-darren-wilson-wil
> l-get-scot-free/
> ALSO SEE: In Ferguson the Arrests Have Begun
> ALSO SEE: Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson in Talks to Resign
> The Long, Brutal History That Predicts Darren Wilson Will Get Off Scot Free
> By Andrew Jerell Jones, The Intercept
> 21 November 14
> arren Wilson will probably get let off.
> It's an outcome that will appall many Americans, sparking outrage not only
> in Ferguson but throughout the country. And despite all of that, it's an
> outcome that will not surprise any black person, including yours truly.
> Obviously, I hope that is not the case. I truly do hope that I am wrong and
> that Wilson is indicted by the Missouri grand jury now deciding his fate,
> which would mean he would at least face a trial and criminal charges over
> his killing of Mike Brown. But it's hard not to expect the worst after
> Missouri Governor Jay Nixon called in the National Guard before the
> decision
> officially came down.
> This isn't knee-jerk pessimism at work here. To the black community, a
> non-indictment for Brown would be predictable. It would be as predictable
> as
> the verdict in the trial over the shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old
> Trayvon Martin, a verdict that acquitted defendant George Zimmerman,
> allowing him to continue doing stupid things. Or as predictable as the
> involuntary manslaughter verdict handed down in the shooting death of
> restrained, unarmed, 23-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland. Or as predictable
> as the acquittal of police officers charged with killing unarmed Sean Bell
> in Queens, New York by firing 50 shots into his vehicle. As predictable as
> the acquittal of the police officers who fatally shot unarmed Amadou Diallo
> 19 times, killing him. As predictable as the acquittals in the infamous
> police beating of Rodney King. And so on, back to Emmett Till and before.
> And those are just the incidents the public knows about. For every Eric
> Garner choked and squeezed to death by the police or for every police
> officer caught on camera horribly shooting an innocent black man as he
> reaches for his license, there are thousands of racially tinged episodes of
> police brutality known only to the people involved, to the friends and
> families of the victims, and to pockets of the impacted communities.
> Sure, there have been encouraging signs that black lives are slowly
> becoming
> as important as white lives. For example, David Dunn, the 45-year-old white
> male who shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis at a Florida gas station
> in November 2012 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison
> with no parole. Some justice also was provided for the late Renisha
> McBride,
> a 19-year-old woman shot dead in November 2013 in Detroit by white
> homeowner
> Theodore Wafer after she knocked on his front porch for help after her car
> crashed. Wafer was convicted of second-degree murder this past August and
> was sentenced to prison for 17 to 32 years.
> But these rare moments of justice for black Americans are still
> overshadowed
> by moments where we are treated, at best, as second class citizens. A grand
> jury in Staten Island is still waiting to decide what to do with the
> officers who played a role in Garner's death, despite the clear video
> evidence showing they violated their own police department's protocol of no
> chokeholds. Meanwhile, in Florida, Marissa Alexander faces 60 years in
> prison for firing one shot from a gun at her abusive, estranged husband.
> Despite invoking the same controversial "Stand Your Ground" law that helped
> Zimmerman win acquittal, and despite having her initial conviction reversed
> on appeal, Alexander was denied a "Stand Your Ground" hearing hearing and
> faces fresh charges and three back-to-back 20-year sentences from Florida
> State Prosecutor Angela Corey.
> Too many different stories of police brutality against black victims end
> the
> same way, with acquittals or lenient sentences for the cops. That's why
> most
> people in the black community have no faith Wilson will ever face trial.
> Maybe we're wrong, but history points to us being unfortunately right. And
> that prediction, if and when proven correct, won't be one we'll celebrate.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>

Friday, November 21, 2014

The Central American Child Refugee Crisis

ACE(American Corporate Empire), the two-headed Hellcat loose on Planet
Earth. The two heads, called Democrat and Republican, constantly
attempt to devour one another in their effort to control the monster's
body.
As president Obama gives temporary protection to many immigrants, the
Republican Head cries out in anguish, damning the president, using the
exact language the Democratic Head uses when it does not get its way.
It is near impossible to tell one Head from the Other when it comes to
world affairs.
Will a day ever come when we wake up to the fact that much of the
suffering and strife around the planet is caused by the Empire's
greed?
How can we sleep nights knowing that it was the Empire's meddling that
has caused so many people to attempt to find refuge in the very land
that has created the need to flee from their homes. We must really be
Fools to believe our Empire's propaganda, and accept that we are
"special" people, better than all others on Earth.
Isn't it sad to think that we might have spent our nation's wealth and
resources on spreading peace and human respect, instead of conquering
with violence and death?
But then, we are the product of our own doing. Trapped by our own history.
Believing that once we have spread across the world, plundering and
murdering, we will destroy all of our enemies and we can then live in
complete peace. Think about that. How can we ever have peace through
violence? Where in the process of raping and plundering are we
teaching how to live in peace? We are teaching how to live in
violence. And after causing unrest and turmoil in other nations, we
can only offer temporary protection to millions of people whose lives
we destroyed.

Carl Jarvis


On 11/20/14, S. Kashdan <skashdan@scn.org> wrote:
> The Central American Child Refugee Crisis: Made in U.S.A.
>
>
>
> by Alexander Main
>
>
>
> Dissent, July 30, 2014
>
>
>
> http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-central-american-child-refugee-crisis-made-in-u-s-a
>
>
>
> When the long-simmering child migrant crisis bubbled over onto front pages
> in early June, Republicans predictably pounced on President Obama. The
> reason, they claimed, for the enormous surge in the number of child
> migrants
> apprehended along the United States' southwestern border--an increase of
> 160
> percent in less than a year--was the administration's lax border and
> immigration enforcement policies. Never mind that Obama has deported more
> immigrants than any previous U.S. president in history or that, under his
> administration, border and immigration enforcement spending has reached an
> all-time high of $17 billion per year (which, rather than curtailing
> illegal
> immigration, has only made it more deadly). Republicans and much of the
> media also blamed a 2008 anti-trafficking law (signed by George W. Bush)
> mandating full immigration hearings--as opposed to immediate removal--for
> unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico and Canada. (Though
> detained migrant children often have no access to legal representation, the
> law at least provides them with limited due process rights and the
> opportunity to apply for asylum.)
>
>
>
> In response to its Republican critics, the Obama administration has
> embraced
> some of their arguments, hinting that it may support changes to the 2008
> law
> and asking Congress to approve an emergency $3.7 billion spending bill
> aimed
> at further strengthening border security and immigration enforcement. The
> proposed bill also calls for a public relations campaign to let would-be
> illegal immigrants know that they face prompt deportation if apprehended.
> But there's little evidence to suggest that migrants aren't already well
> aware of the risks they are taking--not just of deportation but also of
> theft, rape, mutilation, extortion, and murder on the way to the U.S.
> border. A recent survey of detained migrant children by the U.N. High
> Commission on Refugees indicates that very few--only 9 out of 404--believed
> that they would be treated well in the United States or benefit from
> permissive immigration policies.
>
>
>
> A number of Democrats have aggressively rejected Republicans' claims and
> emphasized the "push factors" or "root causes" driving child migration. The
> three countries that are the source of the majority of the unaccompanied
> child migrants--El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras--are all poor and have
> high rates of unemployment. They are also experiencing appalling levels of
> violence, higher than any other region of the world, outside of war zones.
> Gangs and drug cartels are responsible for much of this violence, but state
> security forces have also played a role, according to human rights groups.
> The confluence of these two factors--economic turmoil and violence--appears
> to be decisive in driving increasingly desperate citizens of these nations
> to the United States. Tellingly, the adjacent country of Nicaragua--though
> the second-poorest nation in the hemisphere--has relatively low levels of
> violence and few of its inhabitants are leaving the country. On the
> contrary, large numbers of Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans are now
> also migrating to Nicaragua, as well as Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and
> Belize.
>
>
>
> The administration has meekly acknowledged this reality and promised "to
> help address the underlying security and economic issues that cause
> migration"--although this "help" is barely perceptible in Obama's spending
> proposal. Only a small number of U.S. politicians have cast a critical eye
> on their country's policy toward these three tiny nations--often referred
> to
> as the "Northern Triangle"--and dared suggest that it might bear some
> responsibility for the current crisis. In a July 10 statement, the
> Progressive Caucus (which includes sixty-seven of the more left-leaning
> members of Congress, including Bernie Sanders in the Senate), asserted that
> free trade agreements with the United States have "led to the displacement
> of workers and subsequent migration." The statement cited reports by human
> rights groups that the U.S. government is "bolstering corrupt police and
> military forces that are violating human rights and contributing to the
> growth of violence in the Northern Triangle."
>
>
>
> Indeed, the United States has had a long history of supporting security
> forces engaged in violent repression in all three Northern Triangle
> countries. In the 1980s and early '90s, U.S.-sponsored counterinsurgency
> campaigns, often targeting civilians, resulted in the deaths of tens of
> thousands and sparked the first major migratory wave to the States from El
> Salvador and Guatemala. In Honduras, too, hundreds of activists were
> disappeared, but the violence wasn't as generalized and Hondurans didn't
> flee the country in droves.
>
>
>
> Briefly suspended after the 2009 coup, U.S. funding for the Honduran
> military has since reached its highest level since the early 1990s.
>
>
>
> Today, the situation in Honduras has changed. The country has by far the
> highest level of homicides in the world (again, outside of war zones) and
> has become the largest source of unaccompanied children fleeing to the
> United States and other countries. Honduras also offers the most striking
> illustration of what's wrong with the U.S. government's current policies
> toward the region and how they've contributed to the child migrant crisis.
> In the Spring 2014 issue of Dissent, I described how the Obama
> administration--opposed to Honduran president Manuel Zelaya's leftward
> turn--helped whitewash his illegal ouster by the military in 2009 through
> its support for flawed and illegitimate elections later that year. After
> having been briefly suspended, U.S. funding for training and assistance to
> the Honduran military was resumed and reached its highest level since the
> early 1990s. Meanwhile, the widespread military and police repression of
> the
> country's peaceful resistance movement in the months following the coup
> gave
> way to frequent targeted killings and attacks against activists of all
> stripes as well as those seeking to fight or expose state corruption, human
> rights abuses, and organized crime activity.
>
>
>
> Among those killed have been dozens of LGBT advocates, over one hundred
> land
> rights activists, more than thirty journalists--most recently, TV reporter
> Herlyn Espinal on July 21, 2014--human rights lawyers, labor activists, and
> at least twenty opposition candidates and organizers. Although state
> security agents are often prime suspects in these incidents as well as in
> numerous extrajudicial killings of young people who may or may not be
> involved in gang activity, Honduras' broken judiciary system fails to
> investigate or prosecute these and other crimes. Indeed, the extraordinary
> level of violence in Honduras--with homicides rising 50 percent after the
> 2009 coup--is only matched by the overwhelming rate of impunity, generally
> estimated to be above 90 percent. In addition to being rife with corruption
> and critically under-resourced, the Honduran judiciary's independence was
> subverted in December 2012 when the congress, controlled by the ruling
> National Party, illegally replaced four supreme court judges in the middle
> of the night.
>
>
>
> While U.S. security assistance has continued to pour into Honduras, law
> enforcement--perhaps more aptly referred to as lawless enforcement--has
> become increasingly militarized. Since 2011, military troops have been
> deployed regularly for policing activities and, at the same time, police
> units have made use of increasingly lethal equipment and military style
> tactics. In late 2013, a hybrid "military and public order" police force
> was
> created and quickly became the government's banner crime-fighting force.
> With U.S. support, Honduras' security apparatus has become more
> sophisticated and far-reaching. In 2012, for instance, the two countries
> signed a memorandum of understanding that formalized U.S. assistance in
> developing Honduran authorities' wiretapping capacity for intercepting
> telephone and Internet communication nationwide. As a Honduran human rights
> defender recently put it at a meeting of U.S. advocacy groups in
> Washington:
> thanks to U.S. support, Honduran security agents are developing a "more
> technically advanced ability to advance crime and corruption."
>
>
>
> Even in cases where police and military units aren't corrupt or infiltrated
> by organized crime, children and teenagers that happen to be in the wrong
> place at the wrong time are often suspected of belonging to gangs and
> killed.
>
>
>
> Militarization and brutal mano dura (iron fist) crime-fighting methods have
> also been making a reappearance in El Salvador and, even more so, in
> Guatemala, where 40 percent of security posts are reportedly in the hands
> of
> active and former military officers. The last half-decade of
> re-militarization of the Northern Triangle, funded and promoted by the
> United States in the name of the "War on Drugs," came with the promise of
> enhanced citizen security. Instead, in many communities, the fear of
> repressive security forces--often jokingly referred to as fuerzas de
> inseguridad (insecurity forces)--is now nearly as great as the fear of gang
> violence. Even in cases where police and military units aren't corrupt or
> infiltrated by organized crime, children and teenagers that happen to be in
> the wrong place at the wrong time are often suspected of belonging to gangs
> and are summarily attacked and killed. Child rights advocates who oppose
> the
> systematic criminalization of youth end up attacked as well, as was the
> case
> with the director of Casa Alianza Honduras, Jose Guadalupe Ruelas, who was
> brutally beaten by Honduran military police troops in May of 2014.
>
>
>
> Gang violence in the Northern Triangle, cited by the UN High Commission on
> Refugees and other organizations as a major factor in child migration, is
> also to some degree a byproduct of U.S. policy. Many of the gangs of El
> Salvador and Honduras--in particular MS-13 and Calle 18--were first formed
> in the streets of Los Angeles and included children of Salvadoran war
> refugees. Since the 1990s, gang members have been deported massively to
> their countries of origin--though they retain few or no connections
> there--and have gone on to engage in extortion, drug trafficking, and
> forced
> recruitment of teenagers and young children.
>
>
>
> Add to this climate of terror rampant joblessness and economic stagnation,
> and you have a perfect recipe for mass migration. Here, again, Honduras
> stands out. Since the 2009 coup, it has experienced dramatic increases in
> poverty, inequality, and unemployment. Some of this is likely attributable
> to the post-coup violence, but there's little doubt that the ruling party's
> neoliberal policies--including cuts to social services, anti-labor
> legislation, and privatizations--have also played an important role. The
> United States has accompanied the International Monetary Fund in promoting
> these policies even though the U.S. army's Southern Command, in an internal
> memo, cited them as a potential cause of unrest. The memo noted that
> "should
> key social programs remain under- or unfunded, preexisting socio-economic
> cleavages between the poor and elite business sectors may be further
> aggravated and lead to an escalation in protests."
>
>
>
> The Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement
> (CAFTA-DR), which entered into force in 2006, was billed as a game changer
> that would provide a huge boost to the economies of the region. "Together,
> we will reduce poverty and create opportunity and hope," declared U.S.
> Trade
> Representative Robert Zoellick in 2005. But instead the economies of the
> Northern Triangle have sagged--averaging only 0.9 percent annual per capita
> growth since 2006--and poverty has increased. The agreement has led to the
> displacement of workers, particularly small farmers incapable of competing
> with the exports of U.S.-subsidized agribusiness, and has in all likelihood
> been a major push factor for migration. In Honduras, workers' rights have
> been trampled and labor leaders attacked despite minimal guarantees
> mandated
> under CAFTA, prompting a 2012 complaint by the AFL-CIO to which the U.S.
> Department of Labor has so far failed to respond.
>
>
>
> On July 25, the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador met with
> President Obama at the White House to discuss what to do about the child
> migrant crisis. Obama asked his counterparts for their help in keeping
> refugees at home, in part through further militarization and enforcement of
> their own borders. In remarks made before and after the meeting, Honduran
> president Juan Orlando Hernandez and Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina
> both placed blame where it belonged--on the U.S.-led "War on Drugs." But
> Hernandez also asked the United States for a "Plan Colombia for Central
> America" to mitigate the push factors driving migration. Plan Colombia,
> often touted by the State Department as a great success, involved a
> no-holds-barred military and police offensive against drug traffickers and
> insurgents that resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of
> Colombian civilians and thousands of extrajudicial killings and other
> abuses
> by security forces. The initiative appears in fact to be a model for the
> United States' 2011 regional security plan--the Central American Regional
> Security Initiative (CARSI)--which has provided the Northern Triangle with
> hundreds of millions of dollars of security assistance in addition to
> millions in bilateral assistance.
>
>
>
> Why criticize the drug war and then ask for more of precisely the sort of
> assistance that has exacerbated violence and insecurity?
>
>
>
> Why criticize the drug war and then ask for more of precisely the sort of
> assistance that has exacerbated violence and insecurity? Both Hernandez and
> Perez Molina, an ex-military chief implicated in war crimes, have helped
> reestablish the military as key political actors in their countries, with
> the unflagging support of the United States. In the 1980s and early '90s,
> military control was seen as essential--by national right-wing elites and
> the U.S. government--for guaranteeing the elimination of potentially
> subversive left-wing movements. In 2009, the same priority reemerged in
> Honduras when Zelaya was ousted and a broad-based grassroots movement took
> to the streets to try to return him to power.
>
>
>
> But an additional factor can be seen at play both in Honduras and
> Guatemala:
> the militarized defense of a neoliberal agenda that is being met with
> stubborn resistance by community groups. Increasingly, public and private
> security forces act in tandem to attack and intimidate small farmers or
> indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities that refuse to be displaced by
> agribusiness corporations or resource-hungry multinationals. Such is the
> case in San Rafael, Guatemala, where the community continues to oppose the
> San Rafael mining operation; in the Bajo Aguan in Honduras, where over a
> hundred campesinos have lost their lives defending land claimed by the
> Dinant Corporation; and in Rio Negro, Honduras, where a Lenca indigenous
> community has sought to prevent the destruction of their land by a
> hydroelectric project. Human rights defenders that have tried to assist
> communities in holding security forces accountable for killings and
> attacks--such as Berta Caceres of COPINH, Miriam Miranda of the Black
> Fraternal Organization of Honduras, and Annie Bird of Rights Action--have
> been subjected to threats and attacks themselves.
>
>
>
> Right-wing pundits here in the United States have asserted that the border
> crisis is "not our responsibility." The evidence on the ground in the
> Northern Triangle suggests the contrary. The economic and trade policies
> that the United States has supported in Mexico and Central America have
> resulted in the displacement of millions of workers and economic
> stagnation.
> The militarized drug war that the United States has promoted and funded in
> Mexico and Central America has further unleashed repressive, abusive
> security forces and undermined the civilian institutions that might hold
> them accountable. It's time to change our policies toward these countries
> in
> their interest and our own.
>
>
>
> Human rights groups and progressives in Congress have made important policy
> recommendations, and the administration should listen. In terms of
> immediate
> action, the unaccompanied children--the majority of whom appear to have
> legitimate claims to asylum, according to the United Nations High
> Commission
> on Refugees and other organizations--should be granted legal protection and
> reunited with family members and legal guardians in the United States. In
> particular, anxious Honduran and Salvadoran parents residing in the United
> States legally under Temporary Protected Status are understandably
> concerned
> about their children's safety and should be authorized to reunite with them
> without resorting to human smugglers and other desperate and dangerous
> means.
>
>
>
> In terms of addressing the root causes, the United States should allow
> Mexican and Central American governments to revise trade agreements so as
> to
> protect vulnerable economic sectors and prevent more jobs from being lost.
> U.S. security assistance programs should be curtailed--especially when
> governments fail to prosecute abuses perpetrated by state security
> agents--and, in the words of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-chair
> Raul Grijalva, "we should reassess the aid we send to nations with corrupt
> police and military forces to ensure we are part of the solution, not the
> problem."
>
>
>
> Rather than empowering security forces with appalling human rights records,
> the United States and other countries should help these governments
> reestablish basic rule of law. Successful multilateral programs like
> Guatemala's International Commission Against Impunity--which, since 2006,
> has provided international teams of attorneys to support judicial
> investigations of organized crime groups--should be strengthened and
> replicated in other countries with high rates of impunity.
>
>
>
> Should the U.S. fail to revise its flawed policies toward the region, the
> humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle and Mexico will only grow, and
> children and their parents will continue to have few options but to risk
> the
> perilous journey across the U.S. border.
>
>
>
> Alexander Mainis the Senior Associate for International Policy at the
> Center
> for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), with a focus on U.S. foreign
> policy
> toward Latin America and the Caribbean.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Beware my little darlings! DOJ warns Apple: iPhone encryption will lead to a child dying

We are far too often controlled by what we believe, rather than by
what is real. And too often, what we believe is what the Empire's
Corporate Media feeds us.
A most favorite short story of mine is, "Freedom's a Hard-Bought
Thing", by Stephen Vincent Benét.
Having said that it is a favorite of mine, I blush a bit and admit
I've forgotten the names of the characters. Nonetheless, my reason
for raising the name of this short classic is the example of how we
can be influenced by what we are told to believe. The young slave
apprentice blacksmith felt ill and went to the wise old woman known to
be a healer. She convinced him that he had the Freedom Sickness.
Finally believing her, he began running away until he finally made it
to Canada, where he took the name(I think) of John B. Free.
But the point is, the old woman could have told him he had a flu bug
and given him something to "cure" it. But she had a grand daughter
she wanted to help escape, so she planted the Freedom Bug in his head.
He did help the girl to escape, even though he was caught and
returned. But the bug was in him and he kept on until he was free.
The other thing besides the way our thinking can be influenced, to
assist the purposes of others, is that we often forget that being free
comes at a dear price. We put ourselves at risk when we dare to
declare that we are free. When we do or say that which is right to
us, but is out of step with others, we can find ourselves shunned or
ridiculed, or worse.
Besides, thinking back to this article, I don't want to have the sort
of security offered by the Empire. I've seen the results of those who
placed their fates in its Greedy Hands.

Carl Jarvis


On 11/19/14, David Chittenden <dchittenden@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
> Email: dchittenden@gmail.com
> Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: MacDailyNews <comment-reply@wordpress.com>
>> Date: 20 November 2014 11:23:44 NZDT
>> To: dchittenden@gmail.com
>> Subject: [New post] DOJ warns Apple: iPhone encryption will lead to a
>> child dying
>> Reply-To: "MacDailyNews"
>> <comment+e60benyponb65-6g_o_07uk-x@comment.wordpress.com>
>>
>>
>> Respond to this post by replying above this line
>> New post on MacDailyNews
>>
>>
>> DOJ warns Apple: iPhone encryption will lead to a child dying
>> by MacDailyNews
>> [cfsp key="adsense_336x280"]"The No. 2 official at the Justice Department
>> recently warned top Apple executives that stronger encryption protections
>> added to iPhones would lead to a horrific tragedy, such as a child dying,
>> because police couldn't access a suspect's device, The Wall Street Journal
>> reported Wednesday," Dan Goodin reports for Ars Technica.
>>
>> "The beefed up protections, Apple recently disclosed, mean that even when
>> company officials are served with a court order, they will be unable to
>> retrieve potentially crucial evidence such as photos, messages, or
>> contacts stored on iPhones and iPads," Goodin reports. "Instead, the data
>> can be accessed only by people who know the passcode that serves as the
>> encryption key."
>>
>> "Prior to changes introduced in iOS 8, Apple had the means to pull data
>> off of a locked phone, and according to the WSJ, the company helped police
>> do just that when it was served with a valid court order. Under the latest
>> iOS version, the data can be recovered only by knowing the passcode.
>> Passcodes that are sufficiently long and complex make it infeasible for
>> Apple or anyone else to crack," Goodin reports. "US Attorney General Eric
>> Holder recently said it was 'worrisome' that tech companies were adding
>> default encryption to consumer electronics. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently
>> pushed back at a WSJ conference, saying '"Look, if law enforcement wants
>> something, they should go to the user and get it. It's not for me to do
>> that.'"
>>
>> Read more in the full article here.
>>
>> MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in September:
>>
>> Think of The Children(tm). Whenever you hear that line of horseshit, look for
>> ulterior motives. Fear mongers: Those who use of fear, scare tactics, and
>> emotional appeals in attempts to influence the opinions and actions of
>> others towards some specific end.
>>
>> United States Constitution, Amendment IV:
>>
>> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
>> effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
>> violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
>> by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
>> searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
>>
>> Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
>> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin, Historical
>> Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
>>
>> Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't
>> pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for,
>> protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend
>> our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it
>> was once like in the United States where men were free. - Ronald Reagan,
>> March 30, 1961
>>
>> Visit the Apple-backed reformgovernmentsurveillance.com today.
>>
>> [Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Fred Mertz" and "Lynn Weiler" for the
>> heads up.]
>>
>> MacDailyNews | Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at 5:23 pm | Tags: 30th Chaos
>> Communication Congress, Apple, AT&T, Big Brother, Center for American
>> Progress, CIA, Comcast, DFU, dirtbox, DOJ, DROPOUT JEEP, Edward Snowden,
>> Erika Rottenberg, Facebook, Fourth Amendment, freedom, GCHQ, google,
>> Google cookies, Google Maps, government surveillance, iPhone, LinkedIn,
>> location data, microsoft, MUSCULAR project, National Security Agency, NSA,
>> nsa surveillance, obama, Office of Tailored Access Operations, Orwellian,
>> personal data, PRISM, privacy, Quantumhand,
>> reformgovernmentsurveillance.com, Report on Government Information
>> Requests, Senator Rand Paul, smartphone, spying, surveillance, TAO,
>> Twitter, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. National Security Agency,
>> U.S. Senate, United States Constitution | Categories: News | URL:
>> http://wp.me/p19WFc-BYg
>> Comment See all comments
>> Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from MacDailyNews.
>> Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.
>>
>> Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
>> http://macdailynews.com/2014/11/19/doj-warns-apple-iphone-encryption-will-lead-to-a-child-dying/
>> Thanks for flying with WordPress.com
>>
>

More First Class Rants about environment and Jobs

Like sweet smelling chocolates dangling from a stick held close to our
noses, "Jobs" swing closer and closer to our eager lips, causing us,
like Pavlov's dogs, to drool with wild anticipation. "High Paying
jobs!" shout the X P Pipeline advocates. "2,500 good jobs", is one
such estimate. "This will lower our energy costs", comes another cry.
All of these claims have been proven false, pie in the sky Pipe
Dreams. But you'd never know it, to listen to the Corporate Media.
Roger is absolutely correct when he reminds us that the word, Jobs is
a code word for Profits.
If jobs were truly the concern of the Corporate Empire and their well
paid mouthpieces, they would be clamoring for money to employ
thousands of workers to tackle our failing infrastructure. They might
even show a touch of that Heart President Obama is claimed to have,
and demand money to build new schools, and staff them with enough
teachers to allow children to be "taught" rather than to be herded and
monitored. They might even care enough about our wounded and maimed
veterans and our elder population, to insist on funding thousands of
new jobs for field workers and decent care facilities and housing.
But instead, they chant "build the pipeline!".
Do Americans really want to put huge profits in the already bulging
pockets of the Ruling Class?

Carl Jarvis





On 11/17/14, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@aol.com> wrote:
> You have to remember that they use the word jobs because the word they
> really mean might not sit well with a lot of people. When you hear them
> use the word jobs substitute the word profits.
> On 11/14/2014 1:25 AM, Abby Vincent wrote:
>>
>> I live in California where we already have enough Democrats and we're
>> not near the Keystone route. Still, when I heard about the planned
>> vote on Keystone, I could feel my lungs swelling up and my nose
>> itching. Those are just the first effects. I can't even describe
>> what cancer feels like. Maybe a few people in Louisiana will bget
>> jobs. Hope theiy come with health insurance.
>>
>> Abby
>>
>> *From:*Blind-Democracy [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org]
>> *On Behalf Of *Marsha
>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 13, 2014 9:33 PM
>> *To:* Blind Democracy Discussion List
>> *Subject:* First Class Rant about environment and Jobs
>>
>> Hi
>>
>> You may want to just delete this: however, I hope not.
>>
>> I am so tired of hearing job, jobs, jobs. Here in KC, we spent city
>> money to have a Honeywell nuclear warheads plant built. Spends
>> millions of dollars for a new highway system to serve the plant.
>> Spent more millions to build a long sidewalk which is the only public
>> part of the complex. Now I hear we are going to have this wonderful
>> Tar Sands Pipe line so that someone can get elected. Today there have
>> been three water mains which have burst because they haven't been
>> attended to in so many years. We had continuous wars to fight the bad
>> guys. There was a 4.8 earthquake in southern Kansas today. This is
>> an area that doesn't have earthquakes. Fracking is wonderful even if
>> it kills the water. Peoples cars are constantly being repaired
>> because of the deplorable state of the roads, streets and highways.
>> Schools have stopped being places of learning so that the children can
>> be taught how to take tests. But who cares we must lower taxes so the
>> Coche brothers and their ilk can buy our society. But who cares!
>> Just dumb down the people. Feed them untrue advertising. Only talk
>> about hating Obama. This will make things better.
>>
>> Jobs Jobs Jobs. There are so many better ways to provide jobs. But
>> most people don't care. We don't need to take care of our earth. God
>> will take care of it for us. He will lead his little lambs and all
>> will be well. The earth will survive but how about the people.
>>
>> I know this is rambling; however, I am just so angry. So very angry.
>>
>> Marsha
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blind-Democracy mailing list
>> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
>> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>
>

Breaking News: Senate Narrowly Defeats Keystone XL Pipeline

Bob Et Al,
We know from election returns that Americans are pretty much split on
any issue as well as on just who to put in office. Yet when it comes
to a vote such as the X P Pipeline, it takes a super majority to pass.
In truth, this means that once in office, a minority vote can run the
government.
Personally, I'm dead opposed to that X P Pipeline, or any pipeline
snaking across our nation, especially since the refined oil will never
be used to benefit Americans. But 59 Senators disagreed with me.
However, by some Kindergarten rule, it takes a majority, majority to
pass such legislation.
In this vote it blocked the passage of a very harmful bill. But is
this the way we want to be represented? And besides that, we tax
payers will simply have to pay again when the new congress "debates"
and passes this dirty piece of legislation.
Will President Obama veto the bill, when it comes to his desk? Will
he listen to his "heart", or to the voice of his Masters? It doesn't
really matter, in so far as passage goes. Congress will most likely
pass it over his veto. Would a nay vote by Obama spoil his chances
for lucrative speaking engagements and book sales following his term?
Probably not to the extent that the Obama's would be hauling their
packing crates to the closest bridge.
But no matter what his heart, or lack thereof, Obama has more than
proven himself to be one of our weakest presidents...that is, weakest
when it comes to defending All Americans. I believe that he still has
the backroom support of the Empire.

Carl Jarvis

On 11/19/14, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi Miriam and all,
>
> Obviously, I don't want to see KXL built. But, let's step back a moment and
> recall all the times we here on this list railed against the injustice of
> the filibuster. The worst in my book occurred back in 2009 when the House
> and Obama wanted a much larger economic stimulus bill which the Republicans
> killed in the Senate via the filibuster. There were many other examples in
> that two-year period when the democrats had majorities in both House and
> senate. Now, the filibuster helped us keep KxL off the drawing board.
>
> Frankly, I wish that the Senate had taken an up or down vote on this issue
> long ago. Parts of what's wrong with Washington is all the game playing and
> manipulation. Let's see an up or down vote so that we really know where all
> the players stand.
>
> One more point. Assuming the next Conress passes KXL, Obama had better not
> sign the damned thing. IF he does, then the little respect that I still
> have
> for him will be gone for good. I gag when I hear media pundits blather on
> about how Obama needs to prove he will work with the Republicans by
> compromising. While that may be true on some issues like tax reform, it is
> not the case with KXL which I believe that he opposes in his heart of
> hearts
> if he has one. Being presidential sometimes means doing what you believe to
> be right even in the face of negative consequences.
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> From: Blind-Democracy [mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On
> Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 6:52 PM
> To: 'Blind Democracy Discussion List'
> Subject: FW: Breaking News: Senate Narrowly Defeats Keystone XL Pipeline
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _____
>
> From: NYTimes.com News Alert [mailto:nytdirect@nytimes.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 6:25 PM
> To: miriamvieni@optonline.net
> Subject: Breaking News: Senate Narrowly Defeats Keystone XL Pipeline
>
>
> To ensure delivery to your inbox, please add nytdirect@nytimes.com
> <http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=4z5Q7LhI+KVBjmEgFdYACHCpQxp3Fo5Z&cam
> paign_id=132&instance_id=49441&segment_id=65522&user_id=ee6dc1be6959ed0c8c93
> 2767509c6d57&regi_id=26485907> to your address book.
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> 522&user_id=ee6dc1be6959ed0c8c932767509c6d57&regi_id=26485907> The New York
> Times
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> |
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>
> <http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=4z5Q7LhI+KVBjmEgFdYACKqxdqYf5TwZRlcq
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> 485907&segment=65522&group=nl&product=NA> Unsubscribe
>
>
>
>
>
> BREAKING NEWS
>
> Tuesday, November 18, 2014 6:25 PM EST
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=4z5Q7LhI+KVBjmEgFdYACPLKh239P3pgS2F2
> gJpxLCChCKmWixFVcXs55FuNy6k0mfIndlgLmjnlKEfdPyVBJrdBbxVUeUo8RlcqaJDmNgZR6U1Y
> R0oha5lYUWuHivq5&campaign_id=132&instance_id=49441&segment_id=65522&user_id=
> ee6dc1be6959ed0c8c932767509c6d57&regi_id=26485907> Senate Narrowly Defeats
> Keystone XL Pipeline
>
>
> Senate Democrats narrowly defeated a bill 59 to 41 that would have approved
> the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, rebuffing their
> Democratic
> colleague, Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who had hoped to muscle
> the legislation through in advance of her uphill runoff election fight back
> home.
>
>
> The battle over approving the pipeline, which would carry petroleum from
> the
> oil sands of Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas, ultimately became a proxy
> war for the Louisiana Senate seat, where Ms. Landrieu and Republican
> Representative Bill Cassidy are locked in fight for votes in their oil-rich
> state ahead of the Dec. 6 runoff election.
>
>
>
> READ MORE >
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/us/politics/keystone-xl-pipeline.html?emc=
> edit_na_20141118
> <http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=4z5Q7LhI+KVBjmEgFdYACPLKh239P3pgS2F2
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