Month: May 2015

Murdoch Media

Murdoch Media Reach For ’90s Playbook: Criminalize The Clintons (Evidence Optional) › ERIC BOEHLERT

Hoping to create permanent criminal investigations into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s dealings — reminiscent of the ones that hounded them in the 1990s — conservative commentators employed by Rupert Murdoch have been demanding that the FBI or the Department of Justice open inquiries to determine if the Clintons are guilty of criminal wrongdoing. Their hook is the new Murdoch-published Clinton Cash book, which alleges wide-ranging misconduct by the Clintons and their global charity, the Clinton Foundation.

Hoping to take author Peter Schweizer’s fantastic claims of foreign donors buying influence, Murdoch media voices at Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post and elsewhere want to create a churning culture of subpoenas, testimonies, and legal briefings, likely all in the hopes of catching somebody in a misstatement while under oath. Recall that the 1990’s impeachment crusade surrounding president Bill Clinton’s sex life grew out of special prosecutor Ken Starr’s completely unrelated investigation into the Clintons’ money-losing Whitewater land transaction.

A criminal probe sparked by Clinton Cash would be a dream come true for partisan media outlets.

“When you have a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who is going get the nomination of her party, the FBI has a duty to, we the people, to investigate any appearance of impropriety. Does it not?” asked Bill O’Reilly this week. “The FBI has got to go in and look. They have to go in and look. If they don’t, that’s corrupt.”

The only problem for Murdoch’s minions is they can’t point to any evidence that even remotely indicates the Clintons broke the law via their foundation or foreign donations to it. The claims of bribery or quid pro quo deals are entirely flimsy, drowning in innuendo.  Instead, the Fox News-led posse is essentially demanding criminal investigations be launched in order to find the evidence first, and then proceed to political prosecutions. It’s a bold attempt to criminalize politics.

That blueprint worked while Bill Clinton was president, so it’s not surprising conservative media, working alongside Republicans, are trying to resurrect the strategy, hoping to create enough “foreign donation” hysteria to prompt some sort of inquiry.

“I think this warrants investigation,” Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer recently stressed to Fox News.

But again, the debunked book doesn’t come close to delivering a plausible map for prosecutors to follow. Instead, Clinton Cash is a mishmash of allegations glued together by innuendo and falsehoods.

That hasn’t stopped the choreographed calls for investigations; for publicly funded fishing expeditions designed to trip up the Clintons for years to come. And of course, the drum beat comes complete with claims that any failure to commence criminal inquiries represents a sprawling government effort to protect the prominent Democrats. It’s a favorite tactic of conservative commentators: Prove you don’t have a liberal bias by taking seriously our empty allegations.

“It is a double standard and it is quite remarkable and it is not an accident that the people who have been indicted or been hounded are ones who are adversaries of the Democratic administration or the Democratic Party,” Charles Krauthammer announced on Fox News this week.

Note that President Obama and Democrats have been subjected to similarly sustained, permanent attack inquiries in the form of Congressional Benghazi investigations. The fact that Republicans are summoning Hillary Clinton to testify again about Benghazi this month, nearly 30 months after she first answered questions at a Benghazi hearing, indicates how long-term these partisan tribunals can run. (Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) pointed out that the Benghazi investigation is “on track to last longer than the investigations of Iran-Contra, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate and 9/11, and it will squander more than $6 million in taxpayer funds in the process.”)

Now, Murdoch media outlets are trying to turn Clinton Cash into a brand; a self-sustaining scandal machine like the ones they built to distract Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It’s a very old playbook.

“Strident House Republicans have been on one continual witch hunt since the 1994 takeover of the House,” The Atlantic‘s Michael Hirsh noted in 2012. Writing at the time about the endless Fast and Furious investigation sponsored by House Republicans, Hirsh noted the investigation was “more light than heat” and that Republicans have been playing that same hand for years:

We all remember the endless (and fruitless) Whitewater investigation and the Monicagate scandal that emerged from it, like the monster baby in the cult movie Eraserhead. But perhaps you have forgotten all the furor in the late ’90s when, helped along by misleading reporting by The New York Times, Republicans on the Hill pursued an endlessly snowballing series of pseudo-scandals.

The déjà vu demands to criminalize the Clintons continue today. “Is anyone at Justice or the FBI investigating the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton for accepting foreign donations while she was Secretary of State?” asked a Wall Street Journal editorial this week. “The foundation and the Clintons insist there isn’t a ‘shred’ of evidence that these actions were illegal, but the facts certainly would seem to warrant an investigation,” the paper opined.

“I believe the Clinton Foundation story dwarfs all previous Clinton scandals because it appears to be an unprecedented case of foreign governments and entities buying influence with a U.S. government official,” wrote Fred Fleitz at Foxnews.com. “The Clinton Foundation scandal requires congressional hearings and an investigation by the Justice Department,” he concluded.

On Fox News, Andrew Napolitano stressed that if Schweizer’s claims hold up, “The Justice Department must commence a criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s behavior.”

Elsewhere, Fox’s James Rosen found two partisan Republican attorneys to quote regarding the need for criminal investigations into supposed Clinton bribery crimes and presented that tenuous analysis as news [emphasis added]:

With a sitting Democratic senator recently indicted on federal bribery and corruption charges, top criminal defense lawyers in the nation’s capital say Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton could conceivably face similar scrutiny, amid mounting disclosures about the tangled finances of her family’s philanthropic foundation.

As Clinton Cash fades in the rearview mirror, its political impact negligible at best, vocal Murdoch boosters are left demanding a criminal probe in search of a crime.

Murdoch Media

Australian media exposed as Rajapaksa’s grubby story unravels

Australian media exposed as Rajapaksa’s grubby story unravels.

USA

How Muslim-Americans Can Avoid Being Trolled by Israel-Firsters

This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s website.

In the period from roughly 610 to 622 CE (“AD”), Muhammad ibn Abdallah of the noble Quraysh tribe in the western Arabian city of Mecca preached monotheism to an outraged polytheistic city dedicated to the worship of ancient Near Eastern goddesses, and the commerce of which deeply depended on fairs dedicated to those deities.

In the manner of biblical prophets like Isaiah, Muhammad denounced the goddesses as demons and threatened their worshipers with hellfire, urging them to turn to adoration of the one God, the God of Abraham, David, John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.

Most of the clans of Mecca turned against him and constantly harassed him and his small band of followers.  Some Muslims had to escape for a while to nearby Christian Ethiopia.  Others were tortured.  The whole community was subjected at one point to an economic boycott.

Muhammad’s uncle, powerful Quraysh clan leader Abu Talib, stood with him even though he remained loyal to the goddesses and did not convert.  Abu Talib was able to ensure that the Muslims were not summarily killed, but could not keep them from being bothered

 

Another of Muhammad’s uncles, however, Abd al-`Uzza the son of `Abd al-Muttalib (d. 624), took the lead in tormenting the prophet.  al-`Uzza was one of the goddesses worshipped in Mecca, so his very name showed devotion to her.  He gained the epithet Abu Lahab (father of flame), it is said, because of his ruddy complexion.

Since two of Abu Lahab’s sons had married daughters of Muhammad this relationship was the in-laws from hell.  Abu Lahab ordered his sons to divorce the girls.

According to Muslim traditions, Abu Lahab was a stalker.  He followed Muhammad around as the latter preached in markets, contradicting him and slandering him.  He threw trash in his path.  At one point he threw entrails on him.  Muhammad just cleaned them off.  Abu Lahab led the economic boycott that made the early Muslims’ lives miserable and turned them into outcasts.

There is no evidence in the traditions of Muhammad ever doing more than denouncing Abu Lahab as an idolator and tormentor.  He never took, or advocated taking physical action against him.  His typical attitude to such opposition seems to have been to pray that they or their children would become pious believers in the one God.  The traditions have him saying that he came not as a curse on people but as a mercy to them:  “Abu Hurayrah mentions: “It was said to the Prophet: ‘God’s Messenger! Pray to God against the idolaters.’ He replied: ‘I have not been sent to curse people; I have been sent as mercy to mankind.’” (Related by Muslim and by Al-Bukhari in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad).”

A couple years after Abu Talib died and Abd al-`Uzza became leader of the Quraysh, Muhammad emigrated with many followers to the nearby city of Yathrib, which became known as Madinat al-Nabi or the city of the prophet (i.e. Medina).

Medinans and Meccans gradually went to war with one another, but the Qur’an indicates that the Muslims viewed this as a defensive war– that the Meccans were bloodthirsty, militant polytheists who were determined to overwhelm the young monotheistic community and slaughter it.  While Muslims were ordered to defend themselves and their women and children, they were instructed not to pursue hostilities with anyone who did not physically attack them or who sued for peace.

Abu Lahab appears to have died of small pox or some other disease involving pustules in 624, shortly after the Muslims in Medina won the first major battle between them and the Meccan forces.

Unlike contemporary extremists, early Muslim sources on the life of the prophet did not see him as divine.  They frankly reported Abu Lahab’s charges against Muhammad of being a liar or of being mentally unbalanced, though of course they refuted them.

Surely making harsh criticism of Muhammad a serious offense is an attempt to elevate him from human being to god, since in most societies it is the divine that is taboo.

The Qur’an (41:6) itself instructed Muhammad that he was just a human being:

“Say: ‘I am just a human being like you, who has received revelation:  that your god is but one God; so take a straight path to Him and seek His forgiveness, and woe be to the idolators.’”

It is one of the features of the human estate to be open to ridicule and humiliation.

Many Muslims such as the Salafis are nowadays attempting to reach back beyond medieval glosses and rediscover the Islam of the prophet and his companions.  A dispassionate survey of the early sources such as Ibn Hisham shows an attitude of calm and peaceful resignation by early Muslims to the denunciations of the polytheists, and a determination to simply wait out their antipathy.  Only when Mecca violently attacked the Muslims, plotted Muhammad’s assassination, etc., did the latter turn to defensive violence, but that was not vigilanteism (as it would have been in Mecca) but rather an organized response of a city-state.  Muslims in the West are in a position similar to that of Muslims in Mecca before the Hijra or migration, and would do well to consider how the earliest community dealt with Islamophobia in the first years of the religion.  (The Dallas Muslim community, which is part of a local interfaith peace coalition, knew this well and stayed away from the Geller event). Despite all the questions that can be raised about early Muslim historical sources, the community preserved traditions showing tolerance, forbearance and steadfastness in the absence of violence toward them.

This is the only way to avoid the Muslim-American community being trolled by extreme Zionists like Pamela Geller, who are attempting to deprive them of a public voice by   painting them all as violent fanatics to whom no attention should be paid.  In turn, this tactic is aimed at keeping Palestinians stateless and upholding the Apartheid situation in Israel/Palestine. After all, if Palestinians don’t have standing to complain about their statelessness on account of being beyond the pale, then no one need listen to them.  Ironically, it is a supremacist vision of Israel that is the equivalent for Zionist extremists of caricaturing the prophet.  That is why the Jewish Defense League targeted Rep. Darrell Issa, an Arab-American, for assassination, and why Baruch Goldstein shot up Palestinians in Hebron.  Because the Zionist extremists understand that there are hot button issues like Israelolatry that can lead to violence from their community, they know exactly how to get the goat of extremists on the other side.  In essence, this is a tango of sharpening contradictions.

media distortion, Media Madness

Mild-Mannered Imam Has The Perfect Response to Sean Hannity’s Bigoted Rant

Mild-Mannered Imam Has The Perfect Response to Sean Hannity’s Bigoted Rant.

Israel

Israel’s Government Ratchets Even Further Right: Great Moments in Colonialism (from @Truthdig)

Israel’s Government Ratchets Even Further Right: Great Moments in Colonialism (from @Truthdig).

Pam Geller

Mark Fiore: Pam Geller’s Islamification – Mark Fiore – Truthdig

Image result for pam geller images

Mark Fiore: Pam Geller’s Islamification – Mark Fiore – Truthdig.

American Politics

The American left won the culture wars, but neoliberalism destroyed the battlefield.
Tax Havens, Tax rorts

Document reveals tax multinationals should pay – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Joe Hockey at the G20 conference in Cairns

Document reveals tax multinationals should pay – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Media, Media Bias

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is dangerous: Why we must reject her hateful worldview – Salon.com

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is dangerous: Why we must reject her hateful worldview

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is dangerous: Why we must reject her hateful worldview – Salon.com.

Uncategorized

Climate Science Deniers Talks

Climate Change

The Massive New Online Course That Every Climate Science Denier Should Be Very Afraid Of

climate-denial

What’s the best way to show a climate change denier the error of their ways? A new online course answers this question for the masses.

Hint: it’s not lobbing an endless stream of scientific evidence that proves human-driven climate change. While this approach may be cathartic, telling those who refuse to accept climate science for political, cultural, or ideological reasons over and over that they’re wrong is ineffective at best, and oftentimes counterproductive.

How to make progress in this Sisyphean pursuit then? Cue the new, first-of-its kind climate change denial massive open online course, or MOOC. So far the course, called “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial” has more than 10,000 people from 150 countries signed up to find out not only how to confront climate science deniers more effectively, but the psychological and social drivers behind this denial. The 7-week curriculum, which commenced on April 28, also includes responses to the most pervasive climate change denial myths and the insights into the underlying techniques these anti-science perpetrators most frequently employ.

In the scientific community there is little controversy over the root of climate change, with 97 percent of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming. However in the public the issue is far more muddled with misinformation and fraught with disingenuous objectives. The course attempts to bridge that gap and in doing so, move the discussion around climate change one giant step forward.

The course, also referred to as “Denial101x,” includes interviews with 75 researchers from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K., including some big names such as Sir David Attenborough. It is being coordinated by John Cook, a fellow at the University of Queensland Global Change Institute Climate Communication and creator of the popular website Skeptical Science.

In describing the course, Cook writes that in his own research, when he’s “informed strong political conservatives that there’s a scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming, they become less accepting that humans are causing climate change.”

He says you can’t adequately address the issue of climate change denial “without considering the root cause: personal beliefs and ideology driving the rejection of scientific evidence. Attempts at science communication that ignore the potent influence effect of worldview can be futile or even counterproductive.”

So what is the best response?

According to Cook, the answer can be found in “inoculation theory,” a branch of psychology in which misinformation is neutralized by “explaining the fallacy employed by the myth.”

“Once people understand the techniques used to distort the science, they can reconcile the myth with the fact,” writes Cook. Instead of more science, what will help stem the spread of climate denial is debunking misconceptions about the science, an approach that “results in significantly higher learning gains than customary lectures that simply teach the science,” according to Cook.

Inoculation theory works in a similar way to how flu vaccines work: by providing a weak form of the virus. In the course, students will be exposed to “a weak form of science denial” that will inoculate their minds against misinformation.

By taking advantage of the online education opportunities available through MOOCs, Cook and his associates in the course hope that instead of just reaching a few classrooms, they can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of students.

Dan Bedford, a geography professor at Weber State University in Utah, told ThinkProgress that the concept of the MOOC is to equip people with the tools necessary to identify what’s wrong “with all the arguments presented in climate science misinformation” and “move past the manufactured ‘debate’ about climate change.”

Bedford contributes to one lecture in the course, but wrote a 2010 paper called Agnotology as a teaching tool: Learning climate science by studying misinformation that heavily influenced the curriculum. He said that the bottom line is that the MOOC “is important because we’re providing an understanding of how misinformation works, why it’s wrong, and thereby, we hope, helping people to spot it and ward it off.”

Sarah Green, a chemist at Michigan Technological University, told ThinkProgress that “educating people about facts is not sufficient.” Green, who contributed four lectures to the course, said this is especially the case when political or industry groups can “bamboozle them” with easily digestible “pseudo-facts.”

Some of the most common myths that will be dispelled by the course include the “long pause” argument that there hasn’t been any warming since 1998; that global warming is caused by the sun; and that climate impacts will be no big deal, and possibly even beneficial. It will also investigate climate science to some degree in an effort to better understand past climate changes as well as how models predict future climate impacts.

The course also helps differentiate denial, which is a process, from skepticism, which is an intricate part of the scientific method. A real skeptic comes to a conclusion after considering all the evidence, while someone who denies the science discounts any evidence that competes with their beliefs or worldview. In a way, deniers and skeptics are polar opposites.

Keah Schuenemann, an assistant professor of meteorology at Metropolitan State University of Denver and an instructor in the course, told ThinkProgress that she meets numerous people frustrated at the lack of understanding and action on climate change.

“It is these passionate people who I would like to arm with some of the knowledge, critical thinking, and communication skills that I have picked up through years of teaching this topic,” she said. “My true passion stems from wanting to improve science literacy.”

In the introductory video about the course, Cook says the course is necessary “at the most fundamental level” because “a well functioning democracy depends on a well informed public.”

“People have a right to be accurately informed,” he says. “And if the public is being misinformed by people who deny climate science, that has social and environmental consequences.”

Humour

Carly Fiorina Joins Vice Presidential Race

Posted in humor, politics

brideoffrankenstein2

DARMSTADT, GERMANY – (CT&P) – From a dark and foreboding castle deep in the Odenwald, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy for vice president on Monday, becoming the first declared female candidate to seek the Republican Party’s nomination for second-in-command.

“Yes, I am running,” Fiorina said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “I think I’m the best person for the job because I understand how unemployment benefits actually work. I understand the world, and all those lazy bastards who don’t have jobs in it.”

bride5

The ex-Silicon Valley executive and long-shot contender has never held public office. In 2010, she unsuccessfully ran for Senate in California, losing to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

However, Fiorina thinks her lack of political experience and vicious incompetence in business makes her the right choice for vice president.

“I’m the perfect candidate for the job because I have little or no empathy for average Americans, and I’ll be able to deflect criticism from a Republican president when the party repeals Obamacare, guts social safety nets, criminalizes women’s reproductive rights, and leads us into war with Iran,” said the bizarre-looking Fiorina.

“I’m really excited to be part of a group of xenophobic science deniers who want to turn the United States into a nightmarish theocracy run by a combination of religious zealots and huge, faceless corporations who ship all their meaningful jobs overseas,” said the twitching Fiorina.

brideoffrankenstein3

“I know there are several other unfeeling, pompous ass lunatics running for vice president, but I think I proved I’m the right kook for the job by firing thousands of workers and botching a merger deal while I was at HP. Hey, if I didn’t do a good job then how come I got that 21 million when I slinked away?”

As optimistic as she comes across in interviews, Fiorina has a snowball’s chance in Hell of becoming vice president.

At this point, it would be hard for Fiorina’s poll numbers to be lower, and most pundits believe that whoever wins the Republican nomination would choose an ISIS terrorist before teaming up with her.

Jason Burnett, grandson of Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard and mayor of Carmel, California, told CNN, “She fucked up a great company and I don’t want to see her fuck up a great country. That miscreant needs to stay in her castle with all the rest of the good doctor’s flawed creations.”

Humour

ISIS Takes Credit For Texas Attack, Income Inequality, Climate Change, And The Continual Disruptions In Mrs. Pearson’s 6th Grade Homeroom Class

unrulypupils_alamy_2376554b

SOME NASTY ASS CAVE IN THE DESERT – (CT&P) – On Tuesday, ISIS took to its radio station, WKIL,  to boast that the bumbling idiots who attacked the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas, on Sunday night were “two soldiers of the caliphate.” The claim, which has not yet been verified by any American officials, is the first attack on American soil for which the terror group has taken responsibility, but ISIS vowed it would not be the last.

During his morning drive-time program, Abdul-Aziz Asad Bouhtros Boutros Boutros Boutros Haddad Skyhook (which roughly translates to “he who lusts after young female goats”) read a statement from the Islamic State Parks and Recreation Board that said that ISIS had recruited hundreds of disaffected young Muslims throughout the United States and would use these human time bombs to “bring America to its knees” like a “camel in heat.”

isisleader

“We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of the Islamic State do terrible things. We have already ruined your economy by creating income inequality, we are responsible for the ongoing destruction of the polar ice caps, our agents within the police force and black community are burning your cities to the ground, and all this is just the beginning!” said Skyhook as foamed at the mouth.

“We have young, ideologically pure soldiers of the caliphate in place in all of your elementary and middle schools, and we are set to unleash them at any time! Prepare for the ‘Mother of All Class Disruptions!’ You vile infidels will reap the reward for your imperialist invasions, the theft of our blessed and merciful fossils fuels, and your fucking fast food franchises now dotting the Middle East. Die Great Satan!”

Skyhook then had to cut to traffic to report an overturned camel on the road to Mecca.

Child at school

Federal investigators have yet to confirm that the two men who conducted the attack in Garland have any connections to ISIS, Al-Qaeda, or one of the gazillion half-ass terrorist splinter groups trying to earn brownie points by murdering defenseless civilians.

“At this time we have no reason to believe that these two clowns had any connections to anything other than Twitter and Facebook,” said FBI Special Agent Efrem Zimbalist III. “About the only thing they had in common was a low IQ and an inability to plan even the simplest terrorist attack. Hell, they barely even got out of their fucking car before they were turned into Swiss cheese,” chuckled Zimbalist.

When asked about the claims made by the Islamic State Parks and Recreation Board on WKIL, Zimbalist told journalists that he wasn’t overly concerned.

“You have to remember who we’re dealing with here. Neanderthals would score higher on the SAT. So don’t worry; these imbeciles couldn’t find their asses with both hands,” said Zimbalist.

Philosophy of Violence

There is no social change without coercion: Race, Baltimore, and how violence makes nonviolence possible – Salon

There is no social change without coercion: Race, Baltimore, and how violence makes nonviolence possible

There is no social change without coercion: Race, Baltimore, and how violence makes nonviolence possible – Salon.com.

Murdoch Media

Fox’s Van Susteren Falsely Claims White House Didn’t Connect Texas Shooting To Terrorism: When you pay for News Corp for news and they don’t deliver you need the ABC

http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2015/05/05/39848/fnc-otr-20150505-terror

Fox host Greta Van Susteren claimed the White House “has not yet connected” the Garland, TX shooting to terrorism. In fact, the White House described the shooting as “an attempted terrorist act” earlier that day.

On May 5, the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the May 3 shooting in Garland. CNN noted that the group “offered no evidence” of their connection to the attack, and quoted an FBI agent saying the shooters “may not have had formal contact” with ISIS and that he did not think “they were directed by ISIS.”

On that day’s edition of Fox News’ On the Record, host Greta Van Susteren claimed that “the White House has not yet connected this to terrorism,” and asked: “Is the Obama administration being overly cautious and could it hurt national security?”

But the White House had referred to the shooting as an act of terrorism earlier that day. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that what “we can say definitively, because of the quick, professional, brave work of local law enforcement forces, is an attempted terrorist act was foiled.”

The criticism represents another instance of a long-standing trope at Fox News. Fox has repeatedly suggested that President Obama did not call the Benghazi terror attack an act of terror. In 2014, an on-screen timeline asserted the White House did not call the attack an act of terror until September 20, when in fact Obama described it as such in his initial statement on September 12. In January, Fox personalities were not satisfied by the White House calling the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack an “act of terror” and insisted the administration specifically mention “Islamist terror.” Last year, Fox host Ainsley Earhardt complained that Obama had referred to the Pakistani Taliban terror attack as “terrorism” but had not specifically mentioned the Taliban.

Asylum Seekers

If Europe listens to Tony Abbott, the future for refugees will be cruel | Richard Ackland | Comment is free | The Guardian

A refugee who was knocked unconscious with a rock while riding his bike in Nauru.

If Europe listens to Tony Abbott, the future for refugees will be cruel | Richard Ackland | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Australian Economy Deregulation

Abbott and Hockey Running Scared – » The Australian Independent Media Network

scared

Abbott and Hockey Running Scared – » The Australian Independent Media Network.

AFP

Australian Federal Police: Drug mule out of control

Australian Federal Police: Drug mule out of control.

Climate Change

Abbott elbows Australia off the carbon pricing map

Abbott elbows Australia off the carbon pricing map.

Israel

Israeli Soldiers ‘Admit To Gaza War Atrocities’ | Crooks and Liars

Israeli Soldiers ‘Admit To Gaza War Atrocities’ | Crooks and Liars.

Israel

Are black Israelis being discriminated against? President describes mistreatment as an “open wound” after protests spurred by video of police beating black soldier.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2015/05/black-israelis-discriminated-150504193123474.html

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, has met representatives of black Israelis of Ethiopian origin in an attempt to ease the tension following their angry protests in central Tel Aviv on Sunday night.

The protests came after a video was circulated showing two policemen harshly beating a black soldier.

It has again brought to the surface complaints by black Israelis about the discrimination they are subject to in the country.

But can the government offer a real solution to their plight?

Presenter: Shiulie Ghosh

Guests:

David Sheen – documentary filmmaker and staff writer for Muftah.org.

Ben Hartman – national security correspondent for Jerusalem Post.

Hananya Vanda – Israeli of Ethiopian origin and blogger.

Source: Al Jazeera

Israel

Israel police clash with Ethiopian Jewish protesters – BBC News

A protester, who is an Israeli Jews of Ethiopian origin, is treated for injury - Tel Aviv May 3, 2015

Israel police clash with Ethiopian Jewish protesters – BBC News.

Israel

Ethiopian Israelis protest against ‘police brutality’ – Your Middle East

Protesters, whom are mainly Israeli Jews of Ethiopian origin, stand next to a garbage bin they set on fire at Rabin Square, Tel Aviv May 3, 2015.

Ethiopian Israelis protest against ‘police brutality’ – Your Middle East.

Thomas Picketty

New Thoughts on Capital in the 21st Century
USA

GOP’s gay marriage dilemma: Concede to reality, or go all in on bigotry? – Salon.com

GOP’s gay marriage dilemma: Concede to reality, or go all in on bigotry? – Salon.com.

Terrorists

Who is Pamela Geller, organiser of the Draw Mohammed competition in Texas? Once championed by Murdoch’s Fox News

Artist Bosch Fawstin, left, is presented with a check by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, centre, and Pamela Geller, right, during the American Freedom Defense Initiative program that was marred by a shooting.

Who is Pamela Geller, organiser of the Draw Mohammed competition in Texas?.

Humour

Crazy Ass Black Dude Claims He’s Running For President

Image: 41st Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

DETROIT – (CT&P) – An unidentified black man who according to authorities appeared “dangerously unbalanced” rented a ballroom in downtown Detroit on Monday and insisted to people wandering in off the street that he was running for president of the United States on the Republican ticket.

The man claimed to be a former neurosurgeon and said that God had told him in a dream that he should run for president.

arkdino

He then made a two-hour long rambling, disjointed speech that was interspersed with a gospel choir singing rap songs that had been ‘cleaned up’ for purposes of the event.

Among other things, the unhinged black gentleman said that the United States now resembled Nazi Germany, the Affordable Care Act was the worst thing since slavery, and that President Obama was a socialist dictator who was bent on taking over Texas and other parts of the southwest.

Authorities investigating the event told CNN that although the man did not appear to be dangerous, they were keeping a close eye on his comings and goings and had alerted federal agencies that a lunatic posing as a politician was now on the campaign trail.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig told a reporter from the Detroit Free Press that they first became aware of the event when concerned citizens began calling 911 saying that some crazy black man was running around the city claiming to be a Republican.

jesus riding dinosaur2.widea

“When we heard that, we knew we had a real nut on our hands,” said Chief Craig. “No self-respecting black person would ever vote for those cretins. So we sent some plainclothes officers down to this event he was having to find out just what the hell was going on.”

“My officers reported that the man appeared to be mentally ill because he kept raving that evolution was a myth and the earth was only 6,000 years old. He also told the audience that fossils were the work of Satan and related some wacked-out story about Noah putting dinosaurs on the Ark. I mean, this guy is hanging on to his sanity by a thread,” said Craig.

Chief Craig said that they decided not to arrest the man because he appeared harmless and very few people in Detroit took him seriously.

“We’re questioning some young white Jesus Freaks who helped set up the event, and we hope to discover just who this guy really is so we can do some background checks, but at this time no charges will be filed,” said Craig.

Media monitoring

TV’s white-guy industrial complex: Sunday morning’s shocking lack of diversity has gotten even worse – Salon.com

TV's white-guy industrial complex: Sunday morning's shocking lack of diversity has gotten even worse

TV’s white-guy industrial complex: Sunday morning’s shocking lack of diversity has gotten even worse – Salon.com.

Fracking

Government Confirms Earthquakes are Fracking Related – The Pontiac Tribune

Government Confirms Earthquakes are Fracking Related – The Pontiac Tribune.

Climate Change denial

More Than 10,000 Enroll In Free University Course To Debunk Climate Science Denial | DeSmogBlog

More Than 10,000 Enroll In Free University Course To Debunk Climate Science Denial | DeSmogBlog.

UK

UK Supreme Court Orders Action On Air Pollution; Australia’s Air Declining As Well | newmatilda.com

UK Supreme Court Orders Action On Air Pollution; Australia’s Air Declining As Well | newmatilda.com.

Iran

Why Iran must remain a US enemy – Al Jazeera English

An anti-US mural painting outside the former US embassy in Tehran [AFP]

Why Iran must remain a US enemy – Al Jazeera English.

US

How secrecy and drones hijacked America’s military and foreign policy. Posted 19 hours ago19 hours
Industrail Military Complex, USA

Human Rights Watch: Saudi-Led Coalition Bombing Yemen with Banned U.S.-Made Cluster Munitions : Why wars are good business

Human Rights Watch is accusing the Saudi Arabia-led coalition of dropping banned cluster bombs manufactured and supplied by the U.S. on civilian areas in Yemen. Cluster bombs contain dozens or even hundreds of smaller munitions designed to fan out over a wide area, often the size of a football field. They are banned under a 2008 treaty for the high civilian toll they can cause. The treaty was adopted by 116 countries — although not by Saudi Arabia, Yemen or the United States. According to Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-supplied cluster bombs have landed near rebel-held villages in northern Yemen, putting residents in danger. On Monday, the State Department said it is “looking into” the report’s allegations, adding it takes “all accounts of civilian deaths in the ongoing hostilities in Yemen very seriously.” We are joined by Stephen Goose, director of Human Rights Watch’s Arms Division and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, and Belkis Wille, Yemen and Kuwait researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Middle East

Bad social policy, not ideology, is to blame for the Arab world’s woes – Your Middle East

Bahraini youth holding signs calling for the boycott of the parliamentary elections, 2014

 

Bad social policy, not ideology, is to blame for the Arab world’s woes – Your Middle East.

Humour

Memes and listicles for all: the 2015 budget is going viral : What’s a government to do when a nation turns off its brains and doesn’t want to hear good economic sense? Call in the Internet Budget Action Force Squad!

First Dog on the Moon

Capitalism

Prophet motive: Dissecting the myths of capitalism that the rich are selling the rest of us.
Climate Change

We can’t argue about climate change if we can’t talk about climate change.

Dan Litchfield talks about his frustrations selling Ohio on wind energy, or even talking calmly about wind energy with people against it. He isn’t giving up, but explains that he’s going to spend more time doing something a bit more satisfying – starting up a tiny brewery of his own.

Dan also responds to an interview we did with psychologist Per Espen Stoknes on climate change psychology.

Dan Litchfield is a senior project developer for a major international renewable energy company, and the views represented on the show are Dan’s alone obviously.

Humour

Christine Milne has resigned the Greens leadership. Oh, the humanity!:Christine Milne will retire from the Senate before 2016, and will be replaced by OH MY GOD A WATERMELON THAT WANTS TO TAX THE RICH

First Dog on the Moon

Israel

Ethiopian Jews: Not Jewish enough – Al Jazeera English

A wounded Israeli of Ethiopian origin during a protest against racism in Tel Aviv [EPA]

 

Ethiopian Jews: Not Jewish enough – Al Jazeera English.

Uncategorized

Henry A. Giroux: Liberalism’s Failures in a Time of Increasing Violence, Racism, Inequality and State Terrorism

Headache broken glass and flame

Henry A. Giroux: Liberalism’s Failures in a Time of Increasing Violence, Racism, Inequality and State Terrorism.

Education

The worst education money can buy – Salon.com

The worst education money can buy

The worst education money can buy – Salon.com.

Economics, Economy

Robert Reich: America’s economy is a nightmare of our own making – Abbott want’s to import it’s policies here

Robert Reich: America's economy is a nightmare of our own making

Robert Reich: America’s economy is a nightmare of our own making – Salon.com.

Climate Change

Heartland Institute’s President Denies They’re Climate Science Deniers…Then Spouts More Denial | Blog | Media Matters for America

Heartland Institute’s President Denies They’re Climate Science Deniers…Then Spouts More Denial | Blog | Media Matters for America.

Australia

Unease with Australia’s Islamophobia – Al Jazeera English

Unease with Australia’s Islamophobia – Al Jazeera English.

Humour

Every Picture Tells a Story

Christian Atrocity

“When it got to the murders, I think I was surprised by that”: An abortion provider’s story -YOU WONT HEAR IT FROM BOLT

“When it got to the murders, I think I was surprised by that”: An abortion provider's story

“When it got to the murders, I think I was surprised by that”: An abortion provider’s story – Salon.com.

Media

How Rupert Murdoch built up to Fox News: “It clearly isn’t a free media” – Salon.com

How Rupert Murdoch built up to Fox News: "It clearly isn't a free media"

How Rupert Murdoch built up to Fox News: “It clearly isn’t a free media” – Salon.com.

Murdoch Media, Murdoch Press

How many journos does it take to run the News Corp Indigenous smear machine

How many journos does it take to run the News Corp Indigenous smear machine.

Humour

Muhammad Dissatisfied With Recent Depictions

muhammed

PARADISE – (CT&P) – The Prophet Muhammad spoke with reporters outside Paradise this morning to express his regret over the failed attack on the “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, Texas yesterday.

“I’m really disappointed that the attackers were so fucking incompetent that they didn’t even manage to get out of their goddamn car,” said Muhammad, last messenger of Allah the Most Merciful. “If this had happened in Baghdad the whole fucking building would have been destroyed along with all those infidel artists and their families. It’s just hard to get good help in America. No one wants to work. Hell, half the population is on foods stamps!”

Muhammad also took the opportunity to complain about recent depictions and artist’s renderings of himself.

muhammad3

“I’d like to emphasize that most of these artists have it all wrong. I am a much more handsome guy than these idiots depict. I have high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and perfect facial symmetry. My shoulders are strong and broad, and my beard is always well-groomed and most of the time free of lice. And I tell you something else, there’s not a goat on the planet that can resist my ‘come hither’ look.”

Although the incompetent gunmen were unable to gain entry to the building housing the event, a security guard and one policeman were injured at the entrance before the jumpy jihadis died in a hail of gunfire. Reports are now surfacing that, as is always the case, at least one of the idiots was known to the FBI before the attack.

Many news outlets are condemning the organizers of the event, saying that it was unwise and unnecessarily provocative, while others are saying that it is yet another shining example of Islam’s less-than-stellar record when it comes to free speech, equality for women, treatment of homosexuals, basic human rights, or just about any other fucking thing valued by modern society.

Before closing his press conference, Muhammad made it clear that he did not mind people drawing him as long as the depictions were flattering.

“Look, I really don’t give a shit whether people draw me or not; I personally could care less, but if they are gonna do it, at least get it right. I’m actually a very pretty dude. Now you’ll have to excuse me so I can get back to my virgins. They are a very demanding bevy of bitches.”

Real Media, Alt News, Politics, Critical Thought, War, Global events, Australia, Headlines,
Blog at WordPress.com.