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Is Obama's War on Weed Coming to an End?
By Rady Ananda
Activist Post
Attorney General Eric Holder today announced an Obama Administration policy change on mandatory sentences as they relate to drugs. The new policy includes the “compassionate release” of some prisoners and expanding “at-risk” programs for teens.
“Prisons are operating at 40% above capacity,” Holder told the audience at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco, which was broadcast on C-SPAN.
“Incarceration rates have increased 800% since 1980,” he added, putting over 200,000 people in federal prisons this year. Half of those inmates are incarcerated for drug-related crimes, he said, costing $80 billion a year.
"The plain and simple truth is that alcohol fuels violent behavior and marijuana does not," said Norm Stamper, Seattle's former Chief of Police, in the forward to Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?"
Edward Snowden Has Awakened the Sleeping Giant
By Vincent L. Guarisco
"Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it... There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment...You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." ~~George Orwell, 1984
There's no denying Mr. Orwell was a visionary before his time. However, if George was with us today, he would surely cringe (even in darkness) and blush three shades of red if he knew about today's night-vision technology. The following information should send goose bumps rippling across your skin. It did for me. This essay is no science fiction novel. It is real. All societies are in big trouble. We are facing a most egregious situation that extends much further than Orwell's large fictional country -- "Oceania." This is worldwide and, once again, it's real.
Israeli Occupation Harshness Prevents Peace
by Stephen Lendman
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perhaps the longest one in modern times. It's festered for decades. Resolution's nowhere in sight.
Multiple peace talk rounds don't work. They never did. They were orchestrated to fail. They're pretense. They're fake. Nothing's different this time.
Conflict arguably began on November 2, 1917. UK Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour's Declaration "establish(ed) in Palestine (a) home for the Jewish people."
At the time, Palestinians way outnumbered Jews over ten to one (about 550,000 to 50,000). They lived peacefully with each other. They did so for generations.
Balfour changed things, saying:
"His majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object(ive)..."
Lebanon offers Palestinians fleeing death in Syria Ramadan greetings: “Eid Mubarak, dear brothers and sisters! Yalla! Go back where you came from!”
Franklin Lamb
The Syria/Lebanon border crossing at Masnaa
On 8/5/13 this observer decided, quite on the spur of the moment, to take a three day break from Damascus the next morning and make a quick trip to Beirut to do some errands because offices would be closed starting at dawn for Eid al Fitr celebrations (a day later for Shia Muslims). The annual Eid al-Fitr, being the festival of the breaking of the month long Ramadan fast, which observance is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. And by the way, this year has been undertaken, approximately 16 hours each day in inordinately hot weather in the Middle East.
Let me say from the start: I did not anticipate the delay into which I was about to run. In fact, I felt that with a little bit of luck—and by leaving Damascus by no later than six in the morning—I might even break my record of 205 minutes total from Sameriyeh bus station to my apartment in Dahiyeh, south Beirut.
Israeli Business As Usual
by Stephen Lendman
Hardline extremists run Israel. Netanyahu's the worst. He's lawless. He's unprincipled. He's duplicitous.
So are other coalition partner members. They say one thing. They do another. Same old, same old is policy.
Netanyahu's incorrigibly hardline. He exceeds the worst of previous Israeli leaders. On August 12, Haaretz said he takes "(o)ne step forward, three steps back."
If he "wants the Americans, Palestinians and most of all the Israelis to take him seriously, he must leave his old tactics behind." He shows no signs of doing so.
On August 14, peace talks resume. At the same time, 26 Palestinian political prisoners will be released. They've been held longterm.
Monsanto can still sue farmers for GMO contamination event
By Rady Ananda
Activist Post
At the Justice Begins with Seeds biosafety conference held in Seattle August 2-3, it was announced that a recent court decision prevented Monsanto from suing farmers for patent infringement when their crops become genetically contaminated with lab-engineered patented seeds.
But the ruling is insufficient to protect farmers in the real world, where contamination events are often much higher than only one percent of a field, as specifically prescribed in the ruling.
Larry Summers: Wall Street's Man
by Stephen Lendman
When his Fed chairmanship term ends in January, Bernanke's expected to step down. Wall Street wants Summers replacing him. It usually gets what it wants. More on that below.
Money power runs America. The Federal Reserve isn't federal. It's privately owned and controlled. Wall Street decides who runs it.
Bankers choose chairmen and governors. It's always been this way. It's more than ever so now. Presidents have no say. They announce pre-selected choices. They pretend otherwise.
America's founders knew the dangers. Letting bankers control money assures trouble.
James Madison called them "Money Changers," saying:
EU a Key NSA Target
by Stephen Lendman
Previous articles discussed institutionalized NSA spying. It's a rogue agency. It's out-of-control. It operates lawlessly. It manufactures fake security threats. The only real ones are state-sponsored.
NSA subverts fundamental freedoms. It targets dissent. It wants whistleblowers silenced. It conducts espionage on allies. EU nations are prime targets.
On August 10, Der Spiegel headlined "Secret Documents: NSA listens to EU representations with bugs." More on that below.
A previous discussed NSA spying on Europe. It's longstanding practice. Enormous amounts of meta-data are collected. It's unrelated to national security.
It's pure espionage. It's for economic advantage. It's to be one up on foreign competitors. It's for information used advantageously in trade, political, and military relations.
Israeli Democracy: A Convenient Illusion
by Stephen Lendman
Israel's more hypocrisy than democracy. Rhetoric belies longstanding policy. Nothing ahead suggests change.
Democracy exists in name only. Arundhati Roy calls India a "limbless, headless, soulless torso left bleeding under the butcher's cleaver with a flag driven deep into her mutilated heart."
America's the same. So is Israel. They're pariah states. They're rogue states. They abhor fundamental freedoms. They prioritize war and instability. They deplore peaceful conflict resolution.
Israel's an ethnocracy. It's polar opposite democracy. Israeli leaders refer to "Jewish democracy." It's Orwellian. Structural inequalities explain.
Israeli Arabs are citizens. They compromise 20% of the population. They can vote. They can sit in parliament. They're little more than potted plants.
Jews alone have power. Arabs have no say. The Law of Return affords it to solely to Jews. Arabs are unwanted. They're persecuted. Institutionalized racism denies them equal rights.
Obama Spurns NSA Spying Reform
by Stephen Lendman
Huey Long once said fascism will arrive "wrapped in an American flag." In "Friendly Fascism," Bertram Gross (1912 - 1997) called Ronald Reagan its prototype ruler. Gross didn't know Obama.
He represents the worst of rogue governance. He advances America's imperium. He heads its police state apparatus. He's waging war on humanity. He's doing it abroad and at home.
He puts a smiling face on repression. He's hardline. He's ruthless. He's done what supporters thought impossible. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He says one thing. He does another. He demands it.
His promises ring hollow. He broke every major one made. He's a serial liar. He's a moral coward. On August 9, he defended the indefensible. He did so disingenuously.
He deplores transparency and reforms. He claimed otherwise. He lied saying so. He paid lip service to policies he won't change. He hardened them on his watch.A disingenuous White House press release headlined "Background on the President's Statement on Reforms to NSA Programs," saying:
"President Obama believes that there should be increased transparency and reforms in our intelligence programs in order to give the public confidence that these programs have strong oversight and clear protections against abuse."
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