VOTE NOW
2 years ago
"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 31 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: It's The Army Silly! 'Coalescence'; It's How The Egyptian Rebellion Came To Be But...[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 9:06 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 28 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: They're Simply Saying 'NO MORE!' - North Africa In Revolt[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 12:22 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |
Egypt comes unglued with open rebellion on the streets of Suez and Cairo where demonstrators have been targeting the police in mass street demonstrations. There has been a battle in Cairo for who controls a strategic bridge allowing the authorities to move their forces and equipment. The rest of the country is also experiencing turmoil.
The January 14 departure of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was a long overdue demonstration of the possibility of genuine democratization in the Arab world. It remains to be seen, however, to what degree the toppling of Ben Ali will transform Tunisia into a representative democracy whose citizens enjoy greater economic opportunities.
Amy Aisen Kallander assesses some of the obstacles to change in "Tunisia's Post-Ben Ali Challenge: A Primer," now available in [Middle East Report Online]
The war in Iraq occupied no more space in President Obama’s State of the Union address than it has in his administration’s foreign policy: not exactly a footnote, but no longer the contentious, consuming, convulsive center of all attention.
Iraq came up only briefly in the 46th minute of a speech that lasted just over an hour, but his five sentences and 72 words amounted to a declaration of victory, if a subdued one.“Look to Iraq,” he said, using the experience here under his presidency as an example of the restoration of American standing in the world, “where nearly 100,000 of our brave men and women have left with their heads held high.”Nearly 50,000 troops remain... [Read his analysis and Q&A with readers here]
Class War For Idiots / January 22, 2011
We, The Spiteful
By Mark Ames
[...]Here we are, in 2011—and although 2004 seems like a different world from today, separated by more events than we can make sense of, the left still hasn’t come around to answering that big Kansas mystery about Americans’ farcical voting habits.
So the left was left baffled once again when, in 2009, millions of Americans volunteered as foot-soldiers to fight for a second-rate TV personality named Rick Santelli and his rich speculator friends at the Chicago Exchange, who called for a revolution to protect their money from “losers” because Santelli and his speculator buddies didn’t want to “subsidize losers’ mortgages.”
Next thing you know, these same losers took to the streets to defend the semi-celebrity Santelli, his rich speculator pals, and the Koch brothers from… losers.
That is, they revolted against themselves.
•
•
•
And they weren’t just revolting against their own rational economic self-interest—they also rebelled against their health and longevity, storming town hall meetings with guns threatening any lawmaker who dared offer them cheaper, better health care of the sort enjoyed in every other First World country, where people live longer healthier lives than we do, at half the cost.
Fueled by spite, these protesters proved to the world that Americans would rather die in misery and bankruptcy than live longer healthier lives. Thanks to them, Obama, who was never thrilled about offering us cheaper health care in the first place, made sure that whatever happened, we’d get the very worst health care reform possible, one that left everyone bitter except the health care plutocrats.[...] [More @ The EXiled]
""During his year at Fort Drum, N.Y., Manning had "thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher ranking soldiers,"New information reveals that Bradley Manning may have been picked to be the flogging boy over the Wikileak of Iraq information because he already thought the people he worked with/for were murderous cretins, before he was shipped to Iraq.

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 27 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Color Coding Terrorism Is Sooo '20th Century' - The DHS Cancels The Color Coded Threat Alerts[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 13:12 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |
Unrest in Egypt continues amidst police crackdownExpect Free Speech... The Egyptian liberation elements have an internet 'Posse':
Protests in Egypt continued for a second day, despite an official ban on further demonstrations put in place by President Hosni Mubarak's regime after tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets on Tuesday. Egyptian police moved to crush the scattered protests on Wednesday, using tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, and batons to force the protesters to disperse.
In the city of Suez, east of Cairo, demonstrators set a government building on fire. They also threw gasoline bombs at the offices of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Egypt's ruling party, but failed to burn the building.
The NDP released a statement on the demonstrations reiterating the government's claim that they have been organized by the banned Muslim Brotherhood (A Straussian Neoconservative organization -ed.) , and saying that the parties organizing the unrest are "exploiting the enthusiasm of youth to achieve chaos." [More]
DEAR CITIZENS OF THE WORLD,
Anonymous can not, and will not stand idly while people are being denied their basic rights and human liberties. Yet, there are still a lot of governments worldwide who fail to even aspire to the standard of freedom that was set by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These governments believe they have the right and privilege to impose upon their own people an 'official' version of 'reality' which isn't in any way tampered by the truths of everyday life under which its citizens are living. Anonymous believes this is an outright crime which can not go unpunished.
The Egyptian people are living under inhumane conditions; being denied their basic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and the free access to information. By imposing censorship upon its own people and condemning these freedoms, the Egyptian government has revealed itself to be criminal, and has made itself an enemy of Anonymous.
To the Egyptian Government: Anonymous challenges all those who are involved in censorship. Anonymous wants you to offer free access to uncensored media in your entire country. When you ignore this message, not only will we attack your government websites, Anonymous will also make sure that the international media sees the horrid reality you impose upon your people. Anonymous will not spare anybody who supports this suppression. It is in the hands of the Egyptian government to end this: continue your repression and you will be subject to civil protest - lend an ear to the claim of freedom from your people and the hostilities will cease.
To the Egyptian people: We stand together and united against this oppression. This struggle is not just for you alone, but for the whole of humankind. Citizens can no longer endure their governments abuse. When forced by the threat of oppression, we will be loud as hell - and when the people roar, it will send shivers down the spines of all those who stifle our freedom and take our precious liberties away... [In Full, With An Opportunity To Join Them...]
The Department of Homeland Security is FINALLY going to scrap the moronic and generally unused Color Code Terror Alerts by April.Grainy surveillance video shows drug smugglers putting a new twist on their crime by using a catapult to launch small bales of marijuana across the Arizona-Mexico border.
The video was taken the night of Jan. 21 by National Guard troops monitoring a series of surveillance cameras near Naco, Ariz., officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said.
The black and white video shows at least four men near an SUV loading a three yard catapult and flinging the pot over the border fence.
Border Patrol agents contacted Mexican authorities to thwart the smugglers, officials said.
The men reportedly fled from the area to avoid apprehension, officials said. [More @ ABCNews]
The number of US Troop Casualties From Roadside Bombs in Afghanistan Soared in 2010...and it's expected to get worse. Expect bloodshed on a whole new scale.
US military statistics show that the number of troops "killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan soared by 60 percent last year, while the number of those wounded almost tripled," The Washington Post reports. In 2010, 268 US troops "were killed by the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs … about as many as in the three previous years combined." Military officials believe the rise in deaths and injuries is a direct result of "the surge in U.S. and NATO troops, as well as the intensified combat." [source]

Obama Inc.
Wednesday 26 January 2011
by Jim Hightower
Exciting news, folks. Obama and team say they're recalibrating, recasting, retooling and rebranding his presidency! And they've come up with a dandy new slogan to sum it all up and get America moving again. Ready? "Win the future."
Takes your breath away, doesn't it?
If you're old enough to remember Gerald Ford's hapless presidency, Obama's fabulous new slogan might have a familiar ring to it. In 1974, with rampant inflation gobbling up the paychecks of workaday families, Ford blamed the American people, asserting that they were simply spending too much. So he ordered thousands of red-and-white buttons that said "WIN!" It was an acronym for "Whip Inflation Now," which Ford thought would happen if only the public wore the buttons to remind each other to buy less.
This was, in a word, stupid -- and it helped make Gerry a one-term president.
Obama, however, hopes his slogan will catch on. As explained in his Jan. 25 State of the Union speech, it refers to what he sees as a sort of global Super Bowl in which the U.S.A. is competing to "out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world." He has declared that this is "our generation's Sputnik moment," adding that, "My No. 1 focus is going to be making sure we are competitive."
Hooray, let's go! Washington should harness the idealism, creativity, energy and can-do spirit of grassroots people into a bold national program to revitalize America's economy, educational system, infrastructure and middle class.
But, wait -- it turns out that Obama's not proposing a true Sputnik response, like Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson produced in the 1950s and '60s. They launched such public efforts as a national program of science education and the Apollo moon landing. Instead, Obama is trusting Corporate America to "win the future" for us, offering deregulation and more tax breaks to entice them... [In Full]

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 26 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: 'Winning The Future' - What DOES That Mean? We've *BEEN* 'Winning' For The Last Century[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 14:28 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |
Stuff about stuff the people are talking about... The State Of The Union address has turned out to be THE social occasion/elbow-rub spectacular, without the focus on a report to the nation that's constitutionally mandated. Obama gets to signifyin' by demanding that we "Win The Future", implying that what money is left in the US treasury has to focused on increasing productivity (Longer Hours) and global competition (Less Pay).
Speaking to the Tunisian people, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hailed their aspiration for freedom and their action. The Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary-General emphasized that the arrival in Tunis of Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, was in itself very disquieting. "The Tunisian people must repel U.S. interference" (...) it must guard "against the conspiracy that the United States are hatching to torpedo its Revolution". [More]

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 25 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: State Of Our Union - If We Could Stop Making Huge Social Events From Our Government's Banality We Might Get Something Done[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 11:54 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 24 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Remembering Jack LaLanne - With A Chair And A Stick He Showed Us Being A 'Jock' Isn't The Point, Our Health Is...[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 11:02 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 21 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: I Pity Those Under Forty Five For 'Missing The Show' - In Light Of Obama's 'Chicago Move', Remembering 'The Watergate Follies'[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 11:14 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |
Law Suit Filed Against The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Over PesticidesBecause it's where the Energy Resources Are...
"The Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America today filed the most comprehensive legal action ever brought under the Endangered Species Act to protect imperiled species from pesticides, suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its failure to consult with federal wildlife agencies regarding the impacts of hundreds of pesticides known to be harmful to more than 200 endangered and threatened species." [More @ EarthFirst News]

Also See: Seymour Hersh Claims High-Ranking Members Of The US Military Belong To Christian Cults for the Catholic contribution to cultism in the US military.
USAF Academy Taps Member of "Lord's Army" to Speak at National Prayer Luncheon
•
•
•The National Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by The Fellowship, a foundation associated with The Family, a secretive group of influential Christian lawmakers and politicians whose mission is to advance the evangelical Christian agenda in Washington and across the world.
An anonymous MRFF client and spokesperson attending the Air Force Academy issued a statement on Tuesday claiming that an email sent to everyone at the academy made it clear that the attendance at the luncheon, although technically optional, is strongly encouraged:
.. when the base-wide e-Mail begins with a highlighted statement:it's not hard for so many of us here at USAFA [US Air Force Academy] to conclude that the senior leadership is STRONGLY encouraging attendance. The attached flyer goes on to say that you can purchase his book at the BX and that he'll be available to sign it, too. A visit to his web site, though, and one gets the impression that, while everyone on base is invited to attend, this isn't going to be the most inclusionary event of the year.The Air Force Academy and the MRFF have been butting heads over the evangelical influence at the academy for some time now. The MRFF charges that academy cadets are pressured into joining evangelical groups and attending Bible studies, while the academy has made public attempts to promote religious diversity by offering more types of religious services at its chapel and assessing the spiritual "climate" at the academy.
The first paragraph reads "Clebe is what he likes to call a complete Marine. To him, USMC will always mean a U.S. Marine for Christ." I can only conclude that anyone that doesn't share his particular religious view must be an "incomplete Marine," (or soldier, or [sailor], or airman) unworthy of the uniform. And shouldn't it be USMC as in "US Marine for the Constitution?" That's the document he swore to defend when he was commissioned.
It's a National Prayer Luncheon, but the message [couldn't] be clearer to those who may pray to a different deity or those that have a more ecumenical interpretation of their god - if you're not an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian, this event isn't for you. Yet senior academy leadership seems to want us there anyway.
Last September, Air Force Academy graduate and MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein told Truthout that an anonymous Air Force cadet contacted him and claimed to be part of a "underground" group of about 100 cadets, who came together because they could not rely on legitimate channels to address pressure from evangelicals in the academy.
Weinstein's source said that some cadets pretended to be evangelical and attended services and Bible studies in order to maintain standing among their peers and superiors... [In Full @ Truthout]

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 20 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Watch The Bandits - The Republicans Try To Repeal 'ObamaCare' A LAW That Was Passed And Signed[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 11:34 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |
Killer
15th January 2011
by Stan
[...]"Jared Loughner may have some problems with dissociation, however that is being defined, but he didn’t learn to load and fire a Glock 19 via some synaptic disruption in his cerebral cortex; he learned it from a culture. Last I checked, there is no evidence of a Glock 19 gene, though I expect the DSM-IV people to come up with a Glock 19 Disorder soon enough, and Searle will invent a drug to control it...
•
•
•
Let’s start with the premise that Jared Loughner is crazy, not coherently political. His reading list was all over the map, everything from The Communist Manifesto to Ayn Rand. He was very attracted to conspiracy theories, and was reportedly a devotee of David Winn Miller, a bizarre internet guru that claims to be a judge and the King of Hawaii. Loughner capered in front of a camera in a g-string with his gun, ate a lot of acid, and attacked street signs..." [In Full]
25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town Off MapWoodrow Wilson, on Americans, and war:
By Spencer Ackerman
January 19, 2011An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar's Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents. It's hard to understand how turning an entire village into dust fits into America's counterinsurgency strategy - which supposedly prizes the local people's loyalty above all else.
But it's the latest indication that Gen. David Petraeus, the counterinsurgency icon, is prosecuting a frustrating war with surprising levels of violence. Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area.
Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate and Petraeus biographer, described the destruction of Tarok Kolache in a guest post for Tom Ricks' Foreign Policy blog... [More @ Wired with links to all cites]


"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." January 19 2011 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: 'Cheap Crap' - It's The Bottom Line For 'The American Lifestyle'[tm] And China's Monetary Policy[Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [128kbps MP3 10:44 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Razer Raygun Says: ♥ Sharing IS Caring! ♥ |
Haitian government detains 'Baby Doc' Duvalier for questioning and releases him
"In a daylong drama that frequently bordered on the absurd, Haitian authorities took Duvalier from the luxury hotel outside the capital where he has been staying since his surprise Sunday return from exile, guided him past the swimming pool and tennis courts, and bundled him off to court for questioning. Questioning about exactly what remained unclear.
His entourage said he was not under arrest, and his release later in the day would seem to confirm that. But an investigative magistrate agreed to open a case against the onetime tyrant that would look into allegations that he stole millions of dollars from the hemisphere's poorest nation.
Meanwhile, human rights organizations, and many victims of the Duvalier dynastic rule, are demanding that he be prosecuted for crimes against humanity as justice for thousands of people believed to have been killed or tortured by Baby Doc's forces decades ago. And still, he has a certain following in Haiti..." [Tracy Wilkinson Of The LA Times, On The Scene In Port-au-Prince]
Posted on 01/19/2011 by Juan
Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) announced Tuesday that he would not seek reelection in 2012, and progressive Americans breathed a sigh of collective relief.
It is worth reviewing the most horrible things Lieberman has done to us since he has been in office.
10. Undermined Jeffersonian ideals by joining with George W. Bush to throw government money to religious organizations.
9. Revived, with Lynn Cheney, McCarthyite techniques in order to harass and intimidate university professors who dared attempt to explain the historical and political context for the rise of al-Qaeda and its attacks on the United States. He even put out a blacklist of 40 university professors and administrators, including the President of Wesleyan University.
8. In 2004, revived the war-mongering, militarizing, anti-progressive ‘Committee on the Present Danger‘ to fight the anti-war movement and keep the US in Iraq, as well as to promote war on Iran.
7. Deprived Democrats of the votes to pass a single-payer option universal health care law, acting as client of big Medicine instead of looking out for ordinary people. [Read The Other Six...]
The Great Okay-ness
By James Howard Kunstler
January 17, 2011
Days after the Tucson shooting, President Obama rode into town on a gooey gel of good will, but by the time the memorial service - or whatever it was - got underway, the president looked rather ill-at-ease.
His speech was preceded by several others, including, for promotional purposes, the President of the University of Arizona, which hosted the event, a diversity infomercial in the person of a Native American shaman, the pert student government leader, a current and former governor, and the Attorney General of the US. The gooey gel couldn't contain the crowd, which more than a few times broke out in whoops and cheers.
The only kind of ritual that Americans seem to understand these days is an award ceremony, and that's what the Tucson event most resembled: a fete of congratulation and warm therapeutic self-affirmation.
In the aftermath of yet another horrifying milestone event that changes nothing about how we live or what we do, comes the warm soothing anesthetic gel of okay-ness.
I know a lot of people felt uplifted by Mr. Obama's remarks. I give him points for venturing out to that politically toxic city (if that's what the agglomeration of strip malls actually is)... [Continued @ Clusterfuck Nation]


