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Source: The Nation Author: Laura Flanders Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is out on bail — apparently headed for the 10-bedroom home of British former army officer Vaughan Smith, described by the Guardian as a rightwing libertarian. Assange’s lawyer joked that it would not be so much ‘house arrest as manor arrest’ while he fights extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. There’s no manor for Bradey Manning. As Glenn Greenwald noted yesterday, the alleged leaker of much of the WikiLeaks information … has been sitting in solitary confinement for seven months under torture conditions.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/157175/forgetting-bradley-manning Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: AntiWar.Com Author: Justin Raimondo Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “WikiLeaks is a touchstone. Amid all the brouhaha and legal shenanigans engaged in by various governments — the Brits, the Swedes, the Americans — the prospect of having a web site devoted to spilling the secrets of the elites has brought out everyone’s true colors. To those truly devoted to liberty, it has evoked cheers; for those with other agendas, it has provided a target for their polemical arrows.” (12/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/37mmy4w Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Center for a Stateless Society Author: Kevin Carson Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Among the diplomatic cables recently released by Wikileaks is a document from last February by Johnnie Carson — Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs — in Lagos, Nigeria. In it he bemoans the ‘aggressive and pernicious’ nature of Chinese policy in Africa. Aggressive, eh? Why, mercy me, whatever could they have done?” (12/15/10) Link: http://c4ss.org/content/5404 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Wrights 2012 staff Posted on 12.16.10 by R. Lee Wrights “The reactions from American politicians and elected officials regarding the latest WikiLeaks publication of classified U.S. documents poses a greater threat to liberty than anything in the documents themselves, R. Lee Wrights, a libertarian writer and potential 2012 Libertarian presidential nominee said in a statement today. ‘The greatest threat to our liberty comes not from anything published by WikiLeaks, but from the irresponsible, irrational and hysterical comments from politicians and government officials,’ Wrights said.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=5270 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Orange County Register Author: Jay Ambrose Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “It’s possible that Judge Henry Hudson has done something big to help save the day from a destructively overreaching government. Maybe, possibly, conceivably, the age’s new absolutism had a setback with a judge’s ruling. He saw the absurdity of thinking the Commerce Clause somehow lets the government tell you what private products you have to buy. Open that door and ‘unbridled police powers’ rush in. The judge is right, of course.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/36jvfe3 Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: LewRockwell.Com Author: Thomas J. DiLorenzo Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “At the outset of the War to Prevent Southern Independence both Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Congress declared publicly that the sole purpose of the war was to save the union and not to interfere with Southern slavery. Lincoln himself stated this very clearly in his first inaugural address and in many other places. This fact bothers the court historians of the Lincoln cult who have in the past forty years rewritten American history to suggest that slavery was the sole cause of the war.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo198.html Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Joshua Green Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “Use of the filibuster — debating indefinitely as a means of preventing a vote or other action — has skyrocketed, slowing business to a crawl. Were it not for the Democrats’ decisive majorities in both houses, it’s hard to see how anything would have been accomplished. That advantage will disappear when Republicans take over the House in January. A trio of young Democratic senators is hoping to limit this chronic power to obstruct by reforming Senate rules.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2wq4u8l Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Mary Bottari Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “George Mahoney worked and saved and built his cozy, colonial-style home in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, in 1981. … For many years, the Mahoneys paid down their relatively small mortgage with their local bank — a division of Bank of America (BofA). In 2007, they took out a second mortgage to help a daughter start a small business…. About a year after getting the second mortgage, BofA started notifying George that his payments were late. Soon they jacked his credit card interest rates from 7 percent to 28 percent. Next, they ruined his credit record…. Then one day in the fall of 2009, BofA initiated foreclosure on the house he had built and owned for 28 years. The only problem? The Mahoneys had never missed a single payment on either their first or second mortgage.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/37ankry Filed under: LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Gershom Gorenberg Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi stood at a lectern last week wearing the kind of size XXL skullcap that is the social marker of Orthodox settlers, praising an army program that is the pride of Israel’s religious right. He looked slightly bashful. Ashkenazi, Israel’s military chief of staff, lives in a rather boring suburb of Tel Aviv, not a West Bank settlement. He’s not an Orthodox Jew, so he usually doesn’t wear a hat or skullcap, except for formal occasions when he puts on his military beret. As a military man, he’s officially not a politician. Then again, you don’t get appointed to head the Israel Defense Forces without a sharp sense of which way the political winds are blowing.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2vozajj Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Robert Naiman Posted on 12.16.10 by Steve Trinward “When a member of Congress dies, sometimes other members name a bill after him or her that advances some cause with which he or she identified. So, for example, we had the ‘Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act’ — Kennedy was a champion of volunteer service. This tradition has multiple effects. Of course, it honors the departed. But, like the Spanish hero El Cid, whose companions suited him up and placed him on his horse to drive off their foes, it also gives the departed one last ride into battle.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2vrxfjt Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Greeley Gazette Author: Mike Bauman Posted on 12.16.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The City of Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Up until a few months ago, it was illegal for a private citizen to own or possess a handgun anywhere within the city, including in one’s own home. For 2010, Chicago also holds another distinction. More Chicago Police Officers were killed by gunfire this year than any other police agency in the nation. The city also boasts one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, with 1 in 89 residents being victims of violent crime last year.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.greeleygazette.com/press/?p=7101 Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Gun Rights Examiner Author: David Codrea Posted on 12.16.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Superintendent Bill Husfelt, who acted bravely, albeit futilely, had time to say ‘Please don’t’ before assailant Duke opened fire. The rest had to resign themselves to diving for cover in terror. Why? Isn’t Florida one of those states with ’shall issue’ concealed carry and a ’stand your ground’ law …. Yes it is. But that’s trumped — at least in the eyes of the Bay District Schools board — by policy …” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/3az9vvl Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Spiked Author: Frank Furedi Posted on 12.16.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The smart set’s disdain for the royal engagement is driven less by republicanism than by a desire to prove their superiority to the masses.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10007/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Information Clearinghouse Author: Mickey Z Posted on 12.16.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “More than half (53.3%) of US tax dollars go to a criminal enterprise known as the US Department of Defense (sic), a.k.a. the worst polluter on the planet. We hear about tax cuts this and budget that and all kinds of other bullshit from the US government and the corporations that own it … but the reality remains: Roughly one million tax dollars per minute are spent to fund the largest military machine (read: global terrorist operation) the world has ever known.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27084.htm Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Black Agenda Report Author: Glen Ford Posted on 12.16.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “So who is the real target of government entrapment? It could not be the individuals sucked into the FBI vortex, since Eric Holder’s men knew they were incapable of independently carrying out the crimes and, therefore, represented no danger to society. No, American society, itself, has been entrapped by the Bush and Obama manipulators. The object is to terrify the American public, so that they will surrender their civil liberties — possibly the greatest extortion scheme in U.S. history.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2u55wxh Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Jeremy Gantz Posted on 12.16.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “‘I don’t think there’s anything fair about a grand jury,’ says Tom Burke, a central organizer of the committee who was subpoenaed in Grand Rapids, Mich., after the FBI followed him to a coffee shop. ‘There’s no judge, you aren’t allowed to have your lawyer with you. … It’s a totally undemocratic and biased system, and it would be foolish to cooperate.’” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6745/terrorist_by_association/ Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 12.16.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Bill of Rights Day was yesterday. Undoubtedly, American statists celebrated the fact that the Constitution and the federal government give them their rights and that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting to protect their politically granted rights. Actually, however, neither the government nor the Constitution gives rights to anyone. Rights are natural and God-given and pre-exist government.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-12-16.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: Steven Horwitz Posted on 12.16.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Recently I stumbled across the TV show Undercover Boss. A CEO poses as a new employee at one of his firm’s factories or stores in order to see how the company really runs. In the episode I watched, the CEO of the Johnny Rocket’s restaurant chain spent time working in a couple of stores. For an economist this is a fascinating idea for a show; I’ll explain why shortly.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/headline/undercover-boss/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: OpenMarket.org Author: Brian McGraw Posted on 12.16.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Everyone wants our transportation systems to be safe. But safety must also be balanced with respecting the privacy of citizens, and not wasting money on things that do not make us safer. Sometimes, our safety overlords do things that utilize scarce resources (including taxpayer dollars!) that seem mind-bogglingly dumb.” (12/16/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/25hq4qb Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: Bretigne Shaffer Posted on 12.16.10 by R. Lee Wrights “So much of the debate over Wikileaks, when not focused on what kind of person Julian Assange is, has been centered around whether or not the leaked information has the potential to cause harm or even cost lives; whether releasing it was a public service or an act of gross irresponsibility. While this is obviously an important question, it misses the entire point of Wikileaks and what it represents by a mile. Likewise, most of the media attention completely overlooks the real significance of what Wikileaks has accomplished in releasing the documents.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1245 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Jeffersonville Evening News Author: Debbie Harbeson Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “I don’t know how you feel about illegal drug use, but if you are currently against it and you also care about funding government schools, you may want to reconsider your position. Here’s why: Indiana’s laws are set up so that the government schools can benefit from illegal drug trade through asset forfeiture laws. Of course, it’s kind of a bureaucratic process so a couple steps need to happen before the schools get any money from your illegal transactions.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/23s34lu Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Freedom's Phoenix Author: Stephen Lendman Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “AfPak increasingly looks like an unwinnable quagmire, draining America’s resources. Staying the course, committing larger force levels, applying more pressure, and escalating war aren’t solutions. They’ve made conditions worse, not better. ” (12/17/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28uo5bb Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Adam Smith Institute Author: Nigel Hawkins Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Just over six months into the Coalition Government — much disliked in the Westminster village but more popular outside it — some welcome economic stability has been achieved. The 10-year gilt yield — currently at 3.6% — is well down on the figure at the May General Election. And, in the meantime, the eurozone has had a torrid time. But 2011 will be challenging for the UK economy — to achieve a 2% growth rate next year will not be easy.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/hard-times/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Ayn R. Key Author: Ayn R. Key Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The recent controversy over Wikileaks has put the position of government officials on an informed population in plain view. It is obvious to everyone that the government officials do not want people to know what the government is doing, and are going to great lengths to keep people uninformed, not only by targeting Julian Assange with trumped up charges, but by keeping the conversation focused on the act of leaking instead of on the content of the leaks. But the Wikileaks controversy is just one of the many ways in which there is a demonstrated preference for an uninformed population.” (12/15/10) Link: http://aynrkey.blogspot.com/2010/12/ignorance-is-strength.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: New Kind of Mind Author: Chris George Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It shouldn’t really be such a huge surprise to see so much support for Wikileaks, Assange, and Manning coming from the genuine Left and principled conservatives who understand that common decency and the right to privacy go out the window when you’re dealing with scoundrels of the US Government’s caliber. We wouldn’t lock up anyone who stole information from crime syndicates because it’s ‘theft’ or ‘embarrassing.’ The contexts of such thefts and disclosures matter. The architects of a decade’s worth of worldwide clusterfucks do not get the benefit of the doubt that so many want to grant it.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.newkindofmind.com/2010/12/applying-good-rules-to-bad.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Center for a Stateless Society Author: David D'Amato Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “That’s the progressive corporate state at its best; it has succeeded in deceiving the American Left into the belief that a comprehensive corporate holdup is the best way to provide health services to the poor. On the other side, it has coaxed the American Right into its customary, knee-jerk reaction, rising to the defense of Big Insurance and Big Pharma as paragons of some supposed ‘free market.’” (12/14/10) Link: http://c4ss.org/content/5398 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: SM Oliva Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission are pushing ahead with the ‘reorganization’ of the decentralized Internet into a more centralized government program.” (12/16/10) Link: http://blog.mises.org/15038/the-end-of-the-internet-fast-approaches/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Cato Institute Author: Daniel J. Mitchell Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The weeks since Election Day have provided nauseating confirmation of Mark Twain’s observation: ‘There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.’ Exhibit A is the ‘omnibus’ spending bill Harry Reid is trying to push through the Senate. This monstrosity contains about 6,500 earmarks — special provisions inserted on behalf of lobbyists to benefit special interests. The lobbyists get big fees, the interest groups get handouts and the politicians get rewarded with contributions from both. It’s a win-win-win for everyone — except the taxpayers who finance this carousel of corruption.” (12/16/10) Link: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12643 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Independent Institute Author: Alvaro Vargas Llosa Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Not everything in the European Union is rotten. A few countries stand out for grounding their economic model on sounder foundations in the second part of this waning decade. They show the rest of Europe the way. Sweden is one such case.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2942 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Reason Author: Steve Chapman Posted on 12.16.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “If you don’t want to pay the minimum wage, you can refuse to start a business. If you don’t want to buy car insurance, you can take the bus. But if you don’t want to buy health insurance, your only options are to leave the country or depart this vale of tears. The question in this case is not just whether this part of the health care reform will stand. It’s whether there are any limits on the powers of the federal government in matters economic.” (12/16/10) Link: http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/16/an-unhealthy-mandate Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Reason Author: Jesse Walker Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “If WikiLeaks shut its doors tomorrow, disgruntled soldiers or secretaries or bankers or bureaucrats or cops or managers or their nosy spouses could still send secret documents to Cryptome instead. Or perhaps to OpenLeaks, a forthcoming site in the same genre. Or to any of the other operations of this sort that may appear in the coming years. Or they could just release the information directly to the world, emailing items anonymously to the media or releasing big chunks of data as a torrent. If you have access to secrets you’d like to share, you no longer need to persuade Bob Woodward or Seymour Hersh to be your intermediary.” (12/15/10) Link: http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/15/our-leaky-world Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Center for a Stateless Society Author: Kevin Carson Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “British students, like those in America, are hit from two directions under the state capitalist model: First, by government interventions that inflate the amount of the ‘education’ commodity they’re forced to consume in order to make a decent living. And second, by government interventions that inflate the cost of procuring it. So government has placed students in a double bind in which relying on government tuition subsidies is the only way out.” (12/15/10) Link: http://c4ss.org/content/5377 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Campaign For Liberty Author: John Tate Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “On behalf of nearly 600,000 Campaign for Liberty grassroots activists across the country, I urge you to stand up for the American people by opposing Washington’s unsustainable spending spree as laid out in the ‘Omnibus’ spending bill on every vote — including cloture. As President Obama was fond of reminding everyone during the health care debate, elections have consequences.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1244 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberty For All Author: Brian Irving Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “That whooshing sound you hear coming from Washington DC is the sound of the newly elected ‘Tea Party’ Republicans waffling on their pledges to reduce the size of government and cut spending. While the incoming Republican majority went through the motion of voting to ban earmarks, the lame duck legislators still in power aren’t bound by similar constraints.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=5265 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Author: Tom Hayden Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “The feeling is growing among WikiLeaks watchers that ’someone is pushing Sweden,’ as one attorney says. … the original rape case against Assange was announced by a prosecutor in Stockholm in August, then immediately dropped by a higher Stockholm prosecutor, then reinstated in Gothenburg, after an enterprising lawyer apparently shopped for a friendlier jurisdiction. Bottom line: the Stockholm prosecutors, where the alleged sex offense occurred, have no apparent interest in the case. It would be as if a New York prosecutor declined a case in New York and the prosecutors sought a friendlier court in Mississippi.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/26b5g7c Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: AntiWar.Com Author: Philip Giraldi Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “The talking heads whose fraternal banter can be best observed on Sunday morning television represent the inner circle punditry, all of whom embrace the view that the United States should be engaged worldwide and forever for the good of mankind, a view that large portions of the public do not necessarily share as the economy sinks and boys and girls from small towns are increasingly coming home in coffins.” (12/16/10) Link: http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2010/12/15/beltway-bunkum/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: LewRockwell.Com Author: Joshua Snyder Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “When I first got here, I, too was, spooked whenever North Korea was in the news, but I soon did what any resident of a foreign country should do; I learned from the locals. I saw that South Koreans didn’t care. They ignored the news coming from the North. They acted like the sibling of someone with Tourette’s Syndrome or severe Autism …. This time is different. This year, South Koreans are talking about it.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.lewrockwell.com/snyder-joshua/snyder-joshua24.1.html Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: San Francisco Chronicle Author: Mark Morford Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Wikileaks is one unprecedented, stunningly detailed explanation of just how the global diplomatic sausage gets made. And lo, it is vile sausage indeed. … What we’re learning is, this meat is more rancid, disrespectful, abusive, cruel, barbarian and childish than anyone wanted to imagine. No wonder world governments and whimpering doltbuckets like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee want this Assange guy dead. It’s because Wikileaks is just terrifically embarrassing, humiliating to the bone …” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/249olla Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Boston Globe Author: Jeff Jacoby Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “The Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, has just been to the White House, where she implores President Nixon to press the Soviet Union to allow the emigration of Jews who wish to leave. In the Oval Office after she leaves, the president and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, are discussing her request. ‘The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,’ Kissinger tells Nixon, tapping the table for emphasis. ‘And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. It may be a humanitarian concern …’ ‘Well, we can’t blow up the world because of it,’ Nixon responds. That conversation, secretly recorded on March 1, 1973, is included in the latest batch of White House tapes released by the Nixon Library.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/363bty6 Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Fox News Forum Author: John Stossel Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Politicians like Bernie Sanders promise that they will ’save family farming’ and ’strengthen family-based agriculture.’ The result: lots of special tax exemptions for farmers. Livestock owners don’t have to pay any taxes on income that they then spend on their business. They can write off property taxes. For breeding animals, they can pay capital gains tax (15%) instead of income tax, which may be 30%. Most people don’t want to run, say, a cattle farm. But there is an animal that qualifies for all the tax breaks — but acts more like a pet. It’s called the alpaca. Alpaca breeding has boomed since people found out about the tax benefits.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/349ro8g Filed under: CANDi Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: In These Times Author: David Moberg Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Budget deficit mania grips the nation’s political elite. Never mind that many people are more worried about finding a job, stagnant wages, home foreclosures and the state of the Main Street economy. Pundits and politicians from moderate centrists to the Tea Party right-wingers are frantically warning that if nothing changes, federal debt in 2050 will be three times the size of annual economic output — supposed proof that the end of America as we know it is at hand if we don’t make ‘tough choices.’” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28ggqj4 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Matthew Yglesias Posted on 12.15.10 by Steve Trinward “Richard Holbrooke, who died unexpectedly this week after suffering a tear in his aorta, was a celebrity diplomat whose name was known to everyone who followed politics and foreign policy. He was unique. … He was deeply involved with every Democratic president and in every presidential campaign since Jimmy Carter’s … his involvement in Barack Obama’s administration was taken as a given, the only question being the exact nature of the role. The line in Hillary Clinton’s official statement after his passing — that he was ‘one of a kind — a true statesman’ — has the distinct virtue of being true.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_last_statesman Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute Author: Doug French Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Ten years ago, this article would have been amazing. Today it is a blip on the screen. But someone out there will read it and get curious. He or she will look for more and find Mises.org. Then the change happens — that most important change in the world: the mind begins to grasp the idea of liberty. Here is an event that is more important than anything in the physical world. Repeat that experience millions and billions of times and history will conform.” (12/15/10) Link: http://mises.org/daily/4914 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: Jacob G. Hornberger Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Referring to the estate tax, Madoff writes: ‘This tax, first enacted in 1916, was never intended to be simply a device for raising revenue. Rather, it was meant to address the phenomenon of a small number of Americans controlling large amounts of the country’s wealth — which was considered a national problem.’ Considered a national problem? By whom?” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-12-15.asp Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Freedom Politics Author: John Stossel Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “We human beings sure are gullible. Polls report that 27 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, and 25 percent in astrology. Others believe mediums, fortunetellers, faith healers and assorted magical phenomena. I’d think the astrologers or the psychics or the ghost hunters would be eager to prove they were for real. Not only would they convince skeptics, they’d make a million dollars.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2dg6ug8 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Foundation for Economic Education Author: William L. Anderson Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “The purpose here is not to rehash NCAA policies, although as a former Division I athlete, I don’t hold much love either for the organization or its ‘amateur athletics’ rules. However, the Newton case, as well as others, bothers me for a different reason: the insistence of government investigators to try to find clever ways to turn the infractions of private organizations into full-blown crimes.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/27murkf Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Truth About Guns Author: Brad Kozak Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Stop me if you’ve heard this one … a blowhard, anti-gun Senator rags on gun owners, day in and day out. So one night, he’s at home, living his Life O’Reily, when an intruder shows up to burgle/home invade/rob/commit mayhem. What’s a poor Progressive that abhors gun ownership to do? Silly wabbit! If they are a state senator, they do what any other gun owner would do — they pull out their gun and air condition the criminal with a little lead. … Seems die-hard, left-wing, anti-gun crusader and N.C. state senator R.C. Soles, 74, shot one of two intruders at his home just outside Tabor City , N.C. about 5 p.m. Sunday.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/24zqykk Filed under: 2AM Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: OpenMarket.org Author: Ryan Young Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “The Arlington, Virginia, Metro stop that services the Pentagon was shut down this morning because of a suspicious object. Passengers in the station were forced to go out into the cold and find some other way to get to work. The incident caused delays up and down the Metro’s Blue Line. The troubles began at about 7:15 am when someone spotted a blinking item inside a trash can and reported it to authorities.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2c98ple Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute Author: John Berlau Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Before Thanksgiving, President barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden did a victory lap at friendly venues across the country in the wake of the successful initial public offering of General Motors. They rattled off a litany of positive statistics that they and an adoring audience attempted to attribute to the $82 billion bailout of Chrysler and GM.” (12/13/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2d6alu9 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Acton Institute Author: Jordan Ballor Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “It’s the season for giving — not only to friends and relatives but to charitable causes and non-profits as well. There are two trends of special concern as we look at where tax-deductible charitable dollars are going at the end of the year. The first is that even though charitable giving has declined nationwide during the Great Recession, the amount of funding to church and other religious and faith-based organizations increased. Although people are giving less overall, religious charities are seeing greater donations.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/22qjxkm Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Pro Libertate Author: Will Grigg Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “The practice of police ‘accountability’ generally consists of using money stolen at gunpoint to buy off victims and survivors of officially sanctioned criminal violence. Few better examples can be found than the $975,000 settlement paid by the City of Wilmington, Delaware, to Elaine Hale, whose husband Derek was murdered by Wilmington Police on November 6, 2006.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/293grw2 Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Black Commentator Author: David Love Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Commenting on the good that can come from openness and transparency, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said that ’sunlight is the best disinfectant.’ Well, today we find ourselves in a foul, germ-ridden place, where official misconduct is allowed to breed, infect the body politic and fester. Things are done in the name of the American people that would outrage them if they really knew the truth. And some past generations had the benefit of brave individuals to shine the light and clear up the stench, and they were all the better for it.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/295q2d2 Filed under: LAND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Spiked Author: Mich Hume Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “This week marks the centenary of the bloody events that led to a blazing political gun battle in London’s East End, known as the Siege of Sidney Street. The coincidence puts the current hysteria about protests in the capital in some historical context.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10004/ Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Strike the Root Author: Paul Hein Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “Do terrorists have a sense of humor? If not, perhaps that’s what makes them so terrible. But if they do, how they must be laughing!” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.strike-the-root.com/laughing-terrorists Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Cato Institute Author: Patrick Basham Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “First, kill all the farm subsidies! That should have been President Obama’s mantra if he truly wanted to curb the nation’s child-obesity ‘epidemic.’ Instead, on Monday he signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. That law has plenty of problems. But it’s certainly striking how it ignores such a flagrant contributor to flabby youth — Uncle Sam’s economically illiterate farm program.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12636 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Independent Institute Author: Ivan Eland Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “If sanctions can only potentially achieve modest goals at best, why do nations continue to use them with such frequency — especially the U.S. superpower, which is by far the biggest practitioner of this peculiar ‘isolationism’ (attempting to isolate other countries, while itself intervening in other countries’ affairs all over the world)? The answer is international and domestic symbolism.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2941 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: EconLog Author: Bryan Caplan Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Hypersensitivity Training is still in its infancy. At the moment, I’m the world’s only certified Hypersensitivity Training Coordinator, and even my experience is limited. But I here propose the following exercises to start a dialog about proper program design.” (12/15/10) Link: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/12/welcome_to_my_h.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Show-Me Institute Author: Christine Harbin Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “On a previous post about subsidizing industries, a Show-Me Daily reader poses the following question: ‘So it would be better to not subsidize these programs and allow them to not exist? It’s not worth it to let them become proven while working toward the longer-term goal of eliminating the subsidies?’ The argument implies that emerging industries need to be protected temporarily in order to develop the economies of scale that established companies and industries possess. My answer is an emphatic yes. For reasons that I am about to describe, It would be better if the state did not subsidize these programs.” (12/15/10) Link: http://www.showmedaily.org/2010/12/the-case-for-eliminating.html Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Liberale et Libertaire Author: dL Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Radical Libertarians have been warning that ‘GOP Tea Party Libertarianism’ was joke and that it portended some negative consequences. WikiLeaks is likely going to end up being the catalyst that demonstrates just how bad of joke it was. I think the influx of these ‘Tea Party Patriots’ into the GOP greatly increases the likelihood that we are going to end up with laws that make publishing, commenting, or supporting Wikileaks material and/or WikiLeaks itself a crime.” (12/15/10) Link: http://rulingclass.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/wikileaks-watch-12152010/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Slate Author: David Weigel Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “There’s nothing new about hyping a potential crisis to get political allies to sign on to your agenda. It’s just happening more frequently now, and with higher stakes, for two big reasons. The first is that Americans are growing gloomier about the future. Polls on whether the country’s on the right or wrong track have leaned toward ‘wrong track’ for roughly five years. … The second reason is that liberals and conservatives believe that the other team is trying to provoke a crisis.” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2277970/ Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Liberty Unbound Author: Tim Slagle Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Climate is always changing, but telling us how much of the change is attributable to human activity is one spot where science is woefully inept. By extension, there is no way to predict what effect climate change legislation will have on the climate. To date there has been no legislation proven effective in mitigating climate change. If such legislation were labeled medicine, the FDA would never approve it, nor would any legitimate scientist endorse it. Yet there is a great clamor inside the scientific community to get it passed. Power, like any other seductive influence, renders most mortals incapable of rational thought.” (12/14/10) Link: http://libertyunbound.com/node/415 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Salon Author: Glenn Greenwald Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/28qbxqz Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Independent Country Author: James Leroy Wilson Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It seems ironic that someone could do something only for the hefty paycheck, and yet not be greedy. But if Carolla or Favre HAD been greedy, they would have lost their leverage. They were willing to walk away from their jobs and receive no money at all. The same logic applies to the tax considerations of the wealthy.” (12/15/10) Link: http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3551 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Truth To Power Author: James Mann Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “I began the decade a libertarian, now, if I’m anything, its anarchy. Our political system is nothing more than than a distraction meant to keep the rabble fighting amongst ourselves, voting against our own interest, and ignoring the real movements in the stream. Sure, we’ve seen the rise of the Tea Party, but they are being sold the same bill of goods by the same people who packaged Obama, but their version has boobs. And not much else.” (12/15/10) Link: http://blogs.ink19.com/truthtopower/archives/8994 Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Adam Smith Institute Author: Terry Arthur Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “It is nothing short of a scandal that generally respected commentators can still promote government spending as a major plank in getting out of the current recession when (in addition to the fact that such spending was a major plank in creating the recession) it will inevitably reduce output even further. Such a level of ignorance could not possibly exist were it not for the state’s iron grip on the education system via a nationalised school system including a national curriculum.” (12/15/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2dman2j Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: AntiWar.Com Author: Justin Raimondo Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “This ghoulish regime is the legacy of Richard Holbrooke, and, indeed, of the bloody ‘humanitarian’ interventionists of the Clinton era, who are, today, running our foreign policy. Kosovo is a nightmarish society in which human vampires, aided and abetted by the US-installed-and-supported ‘government,’ tear out their victims’ organs and sell them on the open market. During the US-supported war of ‘liberation,’ KLA units captured Serbs, spirited them across the border to Albania, and harvested their organs, the inquiry revealed.” (12/15/10) Link: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/12/14/holbrookes-legacy/ Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Cato Institute Author: Gene Healy Posted on 12.15.10 by Thomas L. Knapp “Anyone who values the First Amendment ought to oppose the campaign to ‘get’ Assange by any means necessary. In a free society, you can’t just ‘change the law’ to persecute someone you don’t like, and you can’t abuse your position to silence speech you oppose.” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12633 Filed under: RRND Commentary | |
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Source: Future of Freedom Foundation Author: James Bovard Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “Wednesday, December 15, is the 219th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights — the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Bill of Rights Day should be the preeminent Anti-Politician Day on the American calendar. Instead, it has become simply another pretext for rulers to delude the ruled. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787, ‘A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth … and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.’” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.fff.org/comment/com1012h.asp Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Missourian Author: Ken Paulson Posted on 12.15.10 by Mary Lou Seymour “It’s the holiday that got away. Wednesday is the 219th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, a critical turning point in the history of this country and one that transformed this nation forever. Still, you won’t find any Bill of Rights greeting cards in local stores. It’s not that Americans are short on patriotism. In fact, we celebrate Veterans Day, Constitution Day, Flag Day, Memorial Day, Washington’s Birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Independence Day.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/25zdwj2 Filed under: 2AM Commentary and LAND Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Freedom Politics Author: Thomas Sowell Posted on 12.15.10 by R. Lee Wrights “It is hard to come up with Christmas gifts for people who already seem to have everything. But there are few — if any — people who can keep up with the flood of books coming off the presses. Books can be good gifts for such people. Among the books I read this year, the one that made the biggest impact on me was ‘New Deal or Raw Deal’ by Burton Folsom, Jr., a professor at Hillsdale College. It was that rare kind of book, one thoroughly researched by a scholar and yet written in plain language, readily understood by anyone.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/269rs8b Filed under: RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Christian Science Monitor Author: John Hughes Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “The WikiLeaks dump of US embassy cables last month was a reckless act. It is a far cry from the responsible reporting on foreign affairs with which I am familiar. When I was the State Department spokesman in the Reagan administration, Bernard Kalb, then diplomatic correspondent for NBC, called me about a tip that the bad guys in Beirut, Lebanon, had captured and were holding an American CIA officer. ‘Bernie,’ I said, ‘I’ll only talk off the record about that.’ ‘No way,’ Bernie replied, ‘If it’s off the record I can’t use it.’ ‘Well, that’s the deal,’ I said. ‘See what your network says.’ The network agreed to the deal.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2wvafna Filed under: CANDi Commentary and PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: Our Future Blog Author: Bill Scher Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “In the past year, conservative congresspeople have claimed to oppose nearly everything on the grounds that it would increase the deficit — even when legislation was formally estimated to either cut the deficit (health care reform), have no impact on the deficit (preventing teacher layoffs) or amount to a rounding error on the deficit (unemployment insurance). And while conservatives were in charge, they launched two wars, established a prescription drug benefit run by the drug companies and slashed taxes for millionaires — all without offsetting the costs. In other words, for conservatives, it’s never been about the deficit.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/2devehx Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: In These Times Author: Leonard C. Goodman Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “Now in its tenth year, the war in Afghanistan is the longest in U.S. history. And as the war drags on, the situation goes from bad to worse: 2010 is the most violent year on record. The Taliban, who were largely defeated in December 2001, now control about 80 percent of the country. In the meantime, we are propping up a government in Kabul that is predatory and corrupt. We are spending about $100 billion a year to wage war in one of the poorest countries on earth. Yet our president, who assured us during the campaign that he was opposed to ‘dumb wars,’ has re-committed America to this fight for at least four more years.” (12/14/10) Link: http://tinyurl.com/27wbqb2 Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary and Twitter-Worthy | |
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Source: The American Prospect Author: Tim Fernholz Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “Location is everything, especially in Chicago, where your neighborhood isn’t just where you live but who you are. Rahm Emanuel, running for mayor, can’t get any respect because he grew up in the suburbs. Barack Obama, Senate hopeful, won in part because he had liberal credibility from his home on the South Side and was able to raise money on the North Side. Politics and real estate can make an unsavory combination: More than one Chicago politician, including Obama, has found himself in hot water after accepting real-estate favors from politically interested friends.” (12/14/10) Link: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=too_small_to_save Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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Source: The Nation Blog Author: Robert Dreyfuss Posted on 12.14.10 by Steve Trinward “The abrupt firing of Foreign Minister Mottaki of Iran, ousted while traveling in Africa, probably doesn’t mean much for the just-resumed US-Iran talks, which restarted last week in Geneva and which are slated to resume in late January in Turkey. Mottaki was fired by President Ahmadinejad in an internal power struggle between Ahmadinejad, Iran’s parliament and various conservatives opposed to Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy, it appears. But in the ongoing nuclear talks, where Iran is represented by Saeed Jalili, the chief of Iran’s national security council, Mottaki wasn’t a big player. And Ahmadinejad, who agreed to last October’s deal to export most of Iran’s enriched uranium for processing into fuel rods, is a relative dove on this issue …” (12/13/10) Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/157072/us-iran-nuclear-deal-works Filed under: PND Commentary and RRND Commentary | |
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