The state has long taken foster children's disability and survivor benefits without notifying them
by Daniel Hatcher / October 25th, 2013
Try this on for size: The Maryland agency overseeing foster care has been appropriating foster children’s assets — orphaned children’s survivor benefits, for example — and handing them over to the state.
There’s more: Not only does this agency take assets from children, but Gov. Martin O’Malley and the head of the Maryland Department of Human Resources encourage the practice, going so far as to hire a private company to help obtain Social Security disability (SSI) and survivor benefits (SSDI) from foster children to use as government revenue.
Children’s Social Security benefits are intended to serve the children’s best interests, not to …
Hanford is the most tragic chapter in American Cold War history.
— Stewart Udall secretary of the interior under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
How many times have we heard – “Eat your veggies, fruit and cheese, and drink three glasses of milk a day. You’ll grow up strong, healthy, the picture of a gallant, robust American”?
Good advice pre-Ozzie and Harriet days. For Spokane and other cities, …
I AM thinking hard about education, about the corporate control of my state, WA, the corporate control over the pathetic NPR, the absolute pukes for politicians, the control of my own destiny because of the sham of IT, Coders, iPads instead of classrooms, teachers, face-to-face butcher paper work, facing all those people that populate the world, even the gated communities, the urban decay, the bankrupted cities (bull, Detroit, bankrupted?).
John Stanton’s piece is right on, and I write this hurriedly after a 24-hour stint as an on-call teacher and house and medicine and safety watcher over 5 adults with developmental …
Things have been busy in Florida, what with hurricane season, Rick Scott’s campaign to deny food stamps to druggies, and BP’s ad campaign extolling the vacation paradise they’ve wrought in the Gulf. So I’ve been slow to read what was actually issued months ago – a weighty 115-page tome, neither scholarly nor journalistic mais tous les deux, entitled “They Came For The Children.”
It’s the interim report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that icon and crowning triumph of Stephen Harper’s Canadian majority government. It’s the factual vindication of Harper’s infamous utterance at a G-20 cocktail party: “Canada …
History is a story. That’s why we fight over history. We make sense of ourselves, the world and ourselves in the world through the struggle to tell the truth through stories. Facts have to be contextualised to become the truth. And that truth is a struggle that is constantly fought over. It is not given. And telling stories helps to create debate about that truth. That is why working people should tell their stories. Truth is a class issue. I would appeal to all your readers, especially to young ones, to make their own …
On May 6, 2008, twelve fraudulent voters, dressed as nuns, attempted to cast ballots in the Presidential Primary in Indiana.
Luckily, ten of them were caught, stopped cold by Indiana’s new voter photo ID law. The law had been found to be constitutional by Federal Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
It turns out the nuns that Posner’s ruling turned away were, in fact …nuns. All the sisters had photo drivers licenses, but they had expired (the licenses, not the nuns). The Sisters of the Holy Cross, had, mercifully, given up driving (they were pushing …
The Harper Conservatives have forcefully championed the interests of international investors and corporations, but it has not been enough for the “greed is good” business pundits who earn their living pimping the interests of the rich and powerful.
Last November a Canadian Business headline asked, “Is Canada closed to foreign investment?” while more recently there’s been a number of apoplectic commentaries about Ottawa blocking an Egyptian billionaire from acquiring Winnipeg based MTS Allstream on national security grounds. In a particularly hyperbolic column the National Post’s Andrew Coyne complained: “investors in this country should be on notice. Their assets are protected by …
With the recommencement of nuclear talks between Iran and the six world powers, hopes have been revived that more than a decade of conflict and dispute between the two sides can finally come to an end and the concerns over the possible diversion of Iran’s nuclear activities toward an atomic weapon will be completely allayed.
The international observers hailed the latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) on October 15 and 16 in Geneva as constructive, calling it a step forward on the path of finding a conclusive and …
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / October 24th, 2013
The story of Fukushima should be on the front pages of every newspaper. Instead, it is rarely mentioned. The problems at Fukushima are unprecedented in human experience and involve a high risk of radiation events larger than any that the global community has ever experienced. It is going to take the best engineering minds in the world to solve these problems and to diminish their global impact.
When we researched the realities of Fukushima in preparation for this article, words like apocalyptic, cataclysmic and Earth-threatening came to mind. But, when we say such things, people react as if we were the …
Signs point to some having prior knowledge October 17 was 'take down' day
by Miles Howe / October 24th, 2013
MONCTON, NB – Coady Stevens, the first of six Mi’kmaq Warrior to appear on charges related to the anti-shale gas encampment along Highway 134, has been denied bail.
As bail hearings today continue for the five remaining incarcerated members of the Mi’kmaq Warriors Society, enough information is beginning to surface to suggest that the vicious pre-dawn RCMP takedown of the anti-shale gas encampment on the morning of October 17 was a well known fact among some before it happened.
This is not to suggest that these people necessarily knew of the severity or magnitude of the RCMP raid, or even what it …
Recent reports on US drone strikes by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN have heightened international awareness about civilian casualties and have resulted in new calls for redress. The Amnesty International drone report “Will I be next?” says the US government should ensure that victims of unlawful drone strikes, including family members, have effective access to remedies, including restitution, compensation and rehabilitation. The Human Rights Watch report “Between a Drone and Al-Qaeda” calls on the US government to “implement a system of prompt and meaningful compensation for civilian loss of life, injury, and property …
Remarks at New York University forum with NYACT (New Yorkers Against the Cornell-Technion Partnership)
The primary problem with weaponized drones is that the weapons murder people. And they murder people in a way that looks more like murder to a lot of observers than other forms of military murder do — such as murder by indiscriminate bombing or artillery or infantry or dropping white phosphorous on people. When President Obama looks through a list of men, women, and children at a Tuesday terror meeting, and picks which ones to murder, and has them murdered, you can call it a war …
Vermont Progressives Aiming to Shoot Down F-35 Stealth Bomber
by William Boardman / October 23rd, 2013
Vermont Democrats remain solid military boondoggle boosters
The latest high-ranking Vermont Democrat to push for prime military pork in her state is Burlington city attorney Eileen Blackwood, who released a slippery legal memo October 17 that is as cleverly political as it is narrowly legal, leading to widespread, obtuse media coverage along the lines of Vermont Public Radio’s simply false headline: “City Report: Burlington Can’t Block F-35.”
Blackwood’s “preliminary analysis” was a memo “responding to some of the legal concerns raised” in the course of three years’ “public discussion of the Air Force’s consideration of basing the F-35 jets at the Burlington …
Obama’s global terror campaign is not only dependent upon his drone assassination program, but increasingly it has come to rely upon the deployment of Special Operations forces in countries all over the world, reportedly between 70 and 120 countries at any one time. As Obama has sought to draw down the large-scale ground invasions of countries (as Bush pursued in Afghanistan and Iraq), he has escalated the world of ‘covert warfare,’ largely outside the oversight of Congress and the public. One of the most important agencies in this global “secret war” is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC for …
The month of October brings an unwelcome anniversary for Jacqueline Olonville.
A 54 year-old mother and grandmother who sells plaintains by the road that runs through the village of Bocozelle, Haiti, Olonville was one of over half a million Haitians who were sickened by the massive cholera outbreak of October, 2010. Olonville’s affliction followed cholera’s frightening, filthy pattern—severe stomach pain followed by uncontrollable diarrhea and vomiting. Fortunately, she reached a hospital in time.
When I spoke to her during a visit last year, I asked Olonville if she knew people in her community who did not survive the kolera. “Wi. Anpil!” she …
Imagine universities all across the United States paying employees millions of dollars a year to expose their students to potential brain damage and dementia.
Imagine millions of people, parked in front of their financed 56″ flat screens, in the comfort of their heavily mortgaged homes, screaming for joy as children slowly turn each other’s gray matter to mush.
Imagine thousands of adults gleefully encouraging these spectacles, knowing full well they are sacrificing the futures of thousands of teenagers, in order pocket the profits.
Is football child abuse? Probably. Twelve year old boys have no idea about the potential brain damage full contact football …
Doha — The warm waters of the Gulf look quiet from where I am sitting, but such tranquility hardly reflects the conflicts this region continues to generate. The euphoria of the so-called Arab Spring is long gone, but what remains is a region that is rich with resources and burdened with easily manipulated history that is in a state of reckless transition. No one can see what the future will look like, but the possibilities are ample, and possibly tragic.
In my many visits to the region, I have never encountered such a lack of clarity regarding the future, despite the …
This must-see short documentary by David Sheen and Max Blumenthal is about the appalling treatment of African migrants in Israel.
The film reveals a most ugly manifestation of Jewish ethnocentrism, exclusivism and bigotry, but you may notice that none of the Israeli racists in the film identifies as a ‘Zionist’ or showed any concern for the Zionist nature of Israel. Instead they, and without exception, express their deep concern with the ‘Jewish State’ its ‘Jewish character’ and matters pertaining to the Jewish religion and Jewish ‘purity’.
We see MK Ben Ari on camera saying “We are not an immigration State, … our …
The Palestinian Government stressed that the Palestinian people and resistance have the right to defend themselves by all possible means against Israel’s undeterred war crimes and aggressions.
Spokesman for the Palestinian Government, Ihab AL-Ghusain, stated on his facebook page “No one can deny the Palestinians thinking of new ways to confront the high-tech military apparatus of the Israeli occupation.”
The Gaza Strip citizens had been subjected to two wars and thus entitled to defend themselves, Ghusain said, adding that “digging tunnels is a defensive tactic innovated by the Palestinian resistance.”
AL-Ghusain found odd the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman’s statement that …
Modern thought control is dependent on subliminal communication. Messages influencing key perceptions are delivered unseen, unnoticed, with minimal public awareness of what is happening or why.
For example, journalists tell us that Hugo Chavez was “divisive”, that Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are “narcissistic”, that George Galloway is “controversial”. But beneath their literal meaning, these adjectives communicate a hidden message: that these individuals are acceptable targets for negative media judgement; they are fair game.
By contrast, Barack Obama is never described as “controversial” or “divisive”. David Cameron is not a “rightist prime minister”. Why? Because the rules of …
It was recently announced that a royal charter is about to be created which will supposedly regulate the press. According to an article in The Times, “Industry representatives said that a royal charter agreed by the three major parties yesterday… was unacceptable.”
There’s much in this story to consider.
This charter came about as the result of an inquiry into the “culture, practice and ethics of the press”, chaired by Lord Leveson and which took place during 2011/12. Dubbed The Leveson Inquiry, it was the result of revelations in 2011 of some of the deeply reprehensible methods used …
There’s a dark side to the flurry of reports and testimony on drones, helpful as they are in many ways. When we read that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch oppose drone strikes that violate international law, some of us may be inclined to interpret that as a declaration that, in fact, drone strikes violate international law. On the contrary, what these human rights groups mean is that some drone strikes violate the law and some do not, and they want to oppose the ones that do.
Which are which? Even their best researchers can’t tell you. Human Rights Watch looked …
One of the things I’ve noticed over the last decade has been the rise of a certain fan culture and fan perspective that has replaced critical analysis of culture and artworks. It is the valorizing of commercial corporate “entertainment” in a language of cute post gonzo self referential infantilism. It is, usually anyway, the erasing of any analysis of ideology. Art is entertainment and hence, somehow, political analysis is just buzz kill.
Essentially this new progressive critic is more a reviewer, a consumer advocate. Like a restaurant reviewer. There is little that goes beyond a discussion of plot, and rarely, if …
Jovanka Broz is dead. Her legacy, like so much in the former Yugoslavia, was a troubled one. It is mournful, heavy with a blanket of nostalgia. “With Broz’s death,” cited Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Da?i?, “we are left without one of the most reliable witnesses of our former country’s history.” He also acknowledged the other side of the matter: the vengeful “historical injustice” done to Broz (Blic Online, October 21).
Broz was one of those extraordinary creatures made extraordinary by history. She was born Jovanka Budisavljevi? in December 1924 in Lika, Croatia. She joined the partisans at the age of 17, …
In some parts of Israel, voters in Tuesday’s elections will be casting a ballot not on how well their municipality is run but on how to stop “Arabs” moving in next door, how to prevent mosques being built in their community, or how to “save” Jewish women from the clutches of Arab men.
While the far-right’s rise in Israeli national politics has made headlines, less attention has been paid to how this has played out in day-to-day relations between Israeli Jews and the country’s Palestinian-Arab minority, comprising a fifth of the population.
According to analysts and residents, Israel’s local elections have brought …
by Paul Gottinger and Ken Klippenstein / October 21st, 2013
Captain Phillips is a movie about the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama commercial container ship by Somali pirates. Pirates, one of Americans’ most beloved figures—consider the popularity of the recent Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy—are loathsome savages in this film. They kill their own, abandon their own, don’t aid their own when they are injured, and are portrayed as generally lacking in even the most rudimentary forms of human compassion. By contrast, Tom Hanks, who plays the eponymous Captain Phillips, urges the Somali pirates to treat their wounded; expresses paternal concern for his captors—“What are you, sixteen, seventeen? You’re …
Recently I read On Western Terrorism: from Hiroshima to Drone Warfare, published in 2013 by Pluto Press here in London, and consisting of a series of conversations between Chomsky and the Czech filmmaker, journalist, and author, Andre Vltchek, who is now a naturalized American citizen. Vltchek in an illuminating Preface describes his long and close friendship with Chomsky, and explains that these fascinating conversations took place over the course of two days, and was filmed with the intention of producing a documentary. The book is engaging throughout, with my only …
The Nobel Peace Prize brings another surprise — or farce — depending on your view. In relatively recent history, there has been Henry Kissinger (1973) architect supreme of murderous assaults on sovereign nations; the United Nations (2001) whose active warmongering or passive, silent holocausts (think UN embargoes) make shameful mockery of the aspirational founding words.
In 2002 it was Jimmy Carter, whose poisonous “Carter Doctrine” of 1980 included declaring the aim of American control of the Persian Gulf as a “US vital interest”, justified “by any means necessary.” 2005 saw the Award go to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which promotes …
Two unions—SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local 1021 and ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) Local 1555—went on strike against BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) on Friday, October 18, after a week of marathon bargaining sessions broke down without a settlement.
There was a point in negotiations, before the SEIU and ATU were reluctantly forced to pull the plug, when it looked like a compromise was possible. But BART management, like so many predatory companies in the U.S., insisted on doing its “copy-cat” number, demanding severe and unacceptable give-backs from the union.
The conventional wisdom governing these tactics is …
