Police chief’s statement
Police Chief Bill Lee said there was not enough evidence to arrest George Zimmerman, who followed Martin in his SUV and ended up confronting the teen before shots were fired.
Zimmerman was driving a car, he had a weapon and he was not 100 lbs heavier than this kid Trevon but at least 200 lbs. Trevon was walking, talking on a cell phone and had a bag of candy. We know that George was following him in his car, George got out of his car and confronted Trevon, Trevon was shot and murdered.
A collection of articles defining our times. Over here, articles live forever... The pages contain clickable links, don't let The titles fool you; some of the best articles have very non-descript titles, and there are usually more articles on the matters in the days and weeks The links land on, so it's a sort of treasure hunt through history, Enjoy! /\ \/ After you click on a page, just scroll down to see the links.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Did the Founders Hate Government?
By Robert Parry, Consortium News |
News Analysis
Orwell’s insight - that who controls the present controls the past, and who controls the past controls the future - could apply to the American political debate in which the Right has built a false narrative that enlists the Framers of the Constitution as enemies of a strong central government, writes Robert Parry.
In the coming months – with a new fight over the federal budget, the Supreme Court’s review of health-care reform and the November elections – the battle in the United States will pit not just political parties and economic ideologies against one another – but competing national narratives of how and why the United States was founded.
Indeed, it is that conflict over the American narrative that may well determine the outcome of the presidential election and the future direction of the United States. Yet, this dispute over the Founders’ vision is rarely debated in the mainstream news media.
The argument does, however, inspire right-wing groups which obsess over “strict construction” of the Constitution and the “originalist” intent of the Founders. Such references also have become standard fare on the Republican campaign trail with the four remaining major candidates claiming to be in this fight to defend American “liberty.”
On Saturday, for instance, ex-Sen. Rick Santorum declared that President Barack Obama’s health-care reform is “a threat to the very essence of who America is.” As the New York Times noted, “numbers like 1776 and 1860 increasingly pepper his speeches as he stresses the historical urgency of his candidacy.”
READ MORE
Privatization Threatens Open Government
By Donald Cohen,
In the Public Interest |
News Analysis
On July 4, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into law, establishing the public's right to access to government information. Surprisingly, Republican Congressman Donald Rumsfeld helped deliver Republican votes to pass the groundbreaking law.
Since then, state governments followed suit and began passing open government laws across the country to ensure the public would have "sunshine" and access to information about the way public services and tax dollars are managed.
But the laws are out of date and need an overhaul. The explosion in the use of government contractors at every level of government -- from local trash services to security contractors in Iraq - has exposed weaknesses in sunshine and open record laws.
In some cases, conservative governors are even trying to weaken existing transparency requirements to make it easier to privatize. Florida Governor Rick Scott's failed proposal to privatize prisons in eighteen counties included a provision to eliminate the requirement for a cost-benefit analysis before moving ahead with the deal. Coincidentally, Florida-based GEO Corporation, one of the largest private prison companies, is a major contributor to GOP campaigns in the state.
Under existing law private contractors in states throughout the country are evading oversight by exploiting loopholes in transparency protections. Most existing state laws don't pierce the corporate veil and now policy makers, journalists and advocates no longer have access to basic financial, performance and workforce information that is essential to government accountability.
For example: READ MORE
Last Ditch Attempt to Save a Little Bit of Investor Protection in the United States
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| Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) at the Capitol in Washington on June 11, 2008. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski / The New York Times) |
By Simon Johnson,
The Baseline Scenario | News Analysis
As it currently stands, the “JOBS” bill now before the Senate would gut investor protection in the United States. The title of the bill is a complete misnomer – anything that weakens investor protection makes it more risky to invest in companies and increases the cost of capital to honest entrepreneurs. (For more background on the bill and links, see this piece.)
Much of the 1930s-era Securities legislation, which served us well for more than 70 years, is about to be repealed in a moment of bipartisan madness.
Almost all attempts to amend the House version of this legislation – and to make it more favorable to investors – have now failed in the Senate, and the “cloture motion” received more than 60 votes (so the bill cannot be filibustered). But Senator Jack Reed (D., Rhode Island) is leading one last charge to make the Senate version more reasonable.
Here is the issue with H.R. 3606 (as the House version of the bill is known), from Senator Reed’s website:
“The SEC requires public companies to disclose meaningful financial information to the public. This provides a common pool of knowledge for all investors to judge for themselves whether to buy, sell, or hold a particular security. Only through the steady flow of timely, comprehensive, and accurate public information can people make sound investment decisions. The result of this information flow is a far more active, efficient, and transparent capital market that facilitates the capital formation so important to our nation’s economy. H.R. 3606 would roll back key investor protections, denying the public critical information that is essential to make sound judgments and would ultimately not lead to the proposed goal of the bill: providing for access to capital, particularly for small emerging companies.”The “JOBS” bill would permit even very large companies to avoid all public disclosures.
READ MORE
Gay Marriage Effort Attracts a Novel Group of Donors
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| Rob Reiner. (Photo: Andy and Mike / Flickr |
By Adam Nagourney, Brooks Barnes,
The New York Times News Service | Report
Los Angeles - On a warm Friday afternoon three years ago, Rob Reiner, the director, arrived for lunch at the Beverly Hills estate of David Geffen, the entertainment mogul. Mr. Reiner and his political adviser, Chad H. Griffin, had spent six months drafting an ambitious legal campaign aimed at persuading the United States Supreme Court to establish a constitutional right of same-sex marriage.
Mr. Reiner, joined by Mr. Griffin and Mr. Reiner’s wife, Michele, told Mr. Geffen they would need $3 million to challenge Proposition 8,
a California voter initiative approved the previous November banning
same-sex marriage. He informed Mr. Geffen that they had recruited two
renowned lawyers, David Boies, a Democrat, and Theodore B. Olson, a
Republican, to argue the case.
“Our feeling is not to go state by state,” Mr.
Reiner said. “Our strategy is to make this wind up in the United States
Supreme Court and have this a settled issue for all time.”
Mr. Geffen asked few questions as they sat in
the dining room off his screening room, with a sweeping view down his
sculptured estate. He agreed before the dessert arrived to raise the
money. “I said I’d give them half the money and raise the other half,”
Mr. Geffen recalled. Mr. Geffen wrote a check for $1.5 million and asked
Steve Bing, a friend and producer, to make up the rest. READ MORE
400 Chernobyls: Solar Flares, Electromagnetic Pulses and Nuclear Armageddon
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| An abandoned middle school, part of the contaminated area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in Pripyat, Ukraine, March 17, 2011. The ghost town which once had a population of about 50,000 people, was given a few hours to evacuate in April 1986 as radiation streamed into populated areas after an explosion at the reactor. (Photo: Joseph Sywenkyj / The New York Times) |
By Matthew Stein, Truthout | News Analysis
There are nearly 450 nuclear reactors in the world, with hundreds more being planned or under construction. There are 104 of these reactors in the United States and 195 in Europe. Imagine what havoc it would wreak on our civilization and the planet's ecosystems if we were to suddenly witness not just one or two nuclear meltdowns, but 400 or more! How likely is it that our world might experience an event that could ultimately cause hundreds of reactors to fail and melt down at approximately the same time? I venture to say that, unless we take significant protective measures, this apocalyptic scenario is not only possible, but probable.
Consider the ongoing problems caused by three reactor core meltdowns, explosions and breached containment vessels at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi facility and the subsequent health and environmental issues. Consider the millions of innocent victims who have already died or continue to suffer from horrific radiation-related health problems ("Chernobyl AIDS," epidemic cancers, chronic fatigue, etcetera) resulting from the Chernobyl reactor explosions, fires and fallout. If just two serious nuclear disasters, spaced 25 years apart, could cause such horrendous environmental catastrophes, it is hard to imagine how we could ever hope to recover from hundreds of similar nuclear incidents occurring simultaneously across the planet. Since more than one-third of all Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, this is a serious issue that should be given top priority. READ MORE
Western countries scramble for Afghan exits
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| Visit Beautiful KaBul |
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - As international forces prepare for withdrawal from Afghanistan, Western countries are already in talks with Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors to bring their troops and military equipment back home.
The Pakistani route and the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) running through Central Asian countries are the two viable routes for international forces to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The United States and Afghanistan are in the process of negotiating an accord for a long-term US presence in Afghanistan
after 2014, when most foreign combat forces are due to withdraw. The US wants some advisers and special forces to stay on.
There are also "emergency scenario options" in the event either or both of the Pakistani route or/and the NDN are closed. This would require airlifting military equipment to Ulyanovsk airport in Russia or even to a suitable military airport in India, and from there transporting it to the nearest port city.
The Pakistani route, which has remained closed since November 2011 after a "friendly fire incident" involving North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces at the AfPak border area which killed 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounded dozens others, was partially reopened earlier this year to allow the US and NATO to ship food items to Afghanistan.
Currently, both US and Pakistani authorities are in search of a mutually acceptable arrangement that would allow both sides to scale down negative feelings and fully reopen the Pakistani route. READ MORE
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