Do-Nothing Congress to Get Pay Raise

Looking for a job where being unproductive and ineffective won’t hurt your chances of getting a raise? Try being a member of Congress!

Despite getting less done than any previous Congress since the 1940s, President Obama issued an executive order Thursday that would give pay raises to every member of the House and Senate, as well as federal workers, beginning March 27, 2013. This marks the first pay increase for Congress in more than three years.

For more on this story, visit: Do-Nothing Congress to Get Pay Raise – Truthdig.

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Rwanda’s Rampaging Rebel Force | NYTimes.com

So how do you get away with arming a rebel force that attacks U.N. peacekeepers, rapes women and recruits children? You need powerful friends, and Rwanda has had one. Born from the guilt of the Clinton administration’s inaction in the face of the Rwandan genocide, and a recognition of Rwanda’s relatively efficient use of development aid, the United States has proven to be one of Kigali’s staunchest allies. When the interim report of the U.N. experts came out in June, it was widely alleged that the United States delayed its publication, arguing that Rwanda, which had been uncooperative, should be given time to respond. The Obama administration suspended $200,000 worth of military aid, but only under a legislative requirement, all the while undermining efforts at the United Nations to denounce Rwanda’s role in the crisis.

Despite supporting a brutal rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda is about to take a seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Few countries dare challenge the Security Council the way Rwanda does; even fewer get away with it. Yet on Tuesday, despite backing an abusive rebel group that has attacked U.N. peacekeepers in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda will take a two-year seat on the council. At the famous horseshoe table, Rwanda will get to make life-and-death decisions on the future of countries in crisis, including the very neighbor it is accused of destabilizing.

Philippe Bolopion is United Nations director for Human Rights Watch.

For more on this story, visit: Rwanda’s Rampaging Rebel Force – NYTimes.com.

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The Great Divide: global income inequality and its cost

Surging income inequality has turned the United States into one of the most divided developed economies on the planet.

The US is leading a global trend that economists warn has dire consequences.

For our special report on “The Great Divide,” GlobalPost journeyed from Brazil to Thailand, and back home to Fairfield County, Connecticut and Selma, Alabama, to get at the “ground truth” of global income inequality and its cost.

In cities around the world, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

And in each of these cities, that growing inequality comes with a cost.

The greatest cost is the political and economic instability that accompanies vast disparities of wealth, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told GlobalPost, using the United States as an example.

“We are paying a very high economic price for this inequality – our economy is less productive and efficient,” Stiglitz said. “We are also paying a price in terms of our politics and our society — inequality is undermining our democracy and our basic values.”

Continue reading “The Great Divide: global income inequality and its cost” →

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The P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2012 | FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

They’re back: The P.U.-litzers, FAIR’s annual rundown of some of the stinkiest moments in American journalism.

As usual, there were more contenders than we could possibly consider. So think of this as just a sampling of the bias, spin and misinformation that we noted over the course of the year.

–Factchecking the Dark Arts Award: Alex Altman, Time

–CEOs Know Best Award: CBS Evening News

–Factchecking Your Friends Award: David Gergen, CNN

–Half-Baked by the Heat Award: George Will, ABC

–Killing Their Four-Year-Old Girls to Save Ours Award: Joe Klein, Time

–Hunky Wonk Award: Michael Crowley, Time  -Anonymous Smears Award: Scott Shane, New York Times

–A Game That Needs Changing Award: PBS

–Strange Problems in Distant Lands Award: New York Times

–Fake News Award: New York Post

–Apocalypse Non Award: Gloria Borger, CNN

–Asked and Answered Award: David Gregory, NBC

For more on this story, visit: The P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2012 — FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

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The trans-Pacific trade agreement: A Quiet Coup for the Investor Class

The Obama administration’s trade negotiators have been quietly assembling a massive trans-Pacific trade agreement as reactionary as anything Mitt Romney’s team would have proposed.

What can be confidently reported about the TPP is that, in terms of trade flows, it would be the largest free-trade agreement yet entered into by the United States—and, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, that the ministers negotiating the agreement “have expressed an intent to comprehensively reduce barriers in goods, services, and agricultural trade as well as rules and disciplines on a wide range of topics” to unprecedented levels. Yet despite these grandiose ambitions, details of the negotiations and drafts of the text have been purposefully withheld from Congress and American citizens.

For more on this story, visit: The TPP: A Quiet Coup for the Investor Class | FPIF.

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Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood?

Poynter reports:

The Journal News honored victims of the Newtown, Conn., shooting on its front page Christmas Day with memorial candles that named the 26 students and staff killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. The paper chose a less lyrical approach last weekend

The map indicates the addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. Each dot represents an individual permit holder licensed to own a handgun — a pistol or revolver. The data does not include owners of long guns — rifles or shotguns — which can be purchased without a permit. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so.

For more on this story, visit: Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood? | The Journal News | LoHud.com | lohud.com.

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Occupy Movement Was Investigated by F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents, Records Show

The F.B.I. records show that as early as September 2011, an agent from a counterterrorism task force in New York notified officials of two landmarks in Lower Manhattan — Federal Hall and the Museum of American Finance — “that their building was identified as a point of interest for the Occupy Wall Street.”

For more on this story, visit: Occupy Movement Was Investigated by F.B.I. Counterterrorism Agents, Records Show – NYTimes.com.

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Welcome to ‘Michiganistan’ | Common Dreams

Michigan is no longer a state. It is now “Michiganistan,” an autocratic czardom in the hands of Emperor Rick Snyder.

Formerly the Republican governor, Snyder has been enthroned by the GOP’s lame-duck, legislative supermajority to rule with an iron fist — democracy, rule-of-law, fairness, and the people be damned.

(Photo: Peace Education Center via flickr)

Ironically, voters had given Snyder and his cohort of right-wing corporate ideologues a spanking for this kind of nastiness in a November referendum.

For more on this story, visit: Welcome to ‘Michiganistan’ | Common Dreams.

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Month-and-a-half post-Sandy, still no electricity?

More than month and a half after Superstorm Sandy, winter is setting in and many of the ten thousand residents of this Queens neighborhood still lack heat or electricity. Many have no hot water.

“In the Rockaways you already had a lack of healthcare,” said Jeremy Saunders with the community justice group Vocal-NY. “You already had half the population living below the poverty line. It’s a place where the city has pushed a lot of poor people living with AIDS. A lot of people who were formerly incarcerated. Its already where they have amassed a lot of marginalized people.”

Now, supported by Occupy Sandy volunteers, residents of the Rockaways are starting to fight back.

For more on this story, visit: Hurricane Sandy relief turns to protest / Waging Nonviolence – People-Powered News and Analysis.

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How to Marginalize an Extreme Fringe Group Called the NRA, by Will Bunch

“What matters is that we push the leadership of the NRA off to the far sidelines of the American playing field, while the rest of us fight for our better future.”

It’s time for America to wake up to a new reality — that for more than a generation, a radical fringe group has held sway over the American political process, a cadre that now traffics in conspiracy theories as loony as many militias or “Patriot” groups, that has with no evidence accused the president of planning to grant himself dictatorial powers while embracing “black helicopter”-style tropes about the U.S. surrendering its power to the United Nations, a posse that’s clashed with America’s police chiefs over issues like so-called “cop killer” bullets and has thwarted all efforts to eliminate weapons that are only good for committing mass murder.

This is not about the millions of decent, law-abiding American gun owners who are not only responsible in handling their weapons but who overwhelmingly support reasonable steps toward preventing violence. No, this is about the leadership of the National Rifle Association — a group that has veered far, far away from its 20th century origins as a sensible gun-safety group — and about their allied merchants of death who’ve learned that paranoia can be profitable, and about a handful of radical foot soldiers who pretend to speak for all.

For more on this story, visit: Will Bunch: How to Marginalize an Extreme Fringe Group Called the NRA.

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These are not special effects! — Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed

It’s like watching ‘Manhattan breaking apart in front of your eyes’, says one of the researchers for filmmaker James Balog. He’s describing the largest iceberg calving ever filmed, as featured in his movie, Chasing Ice. After weeks of waiting, the filmakers witnessed 7.4 cubic km of ice crashing off the Ilulissat glacier in Greenland. Chasing Ice, released in the UK on Friday, follows Balog’s mission to document Arctic ice being melted by climate change. Watch our second clip from the documentary to see the filmmakers abseil down Survey Canyon on the Greenland ice sheet to capture some startling images of meltwater rushing down a moulin

For more on this story, visit: Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed – video | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

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Late winter afternoon in New Haven

I was downtown this week at the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund dropping off a nice winter coat for the blanket and coat drive they’re doing. I came out of the building to walk toward my car and saw these shadows forming a sort of maze I had to cross to get back to my car.

On my way I stopped to tell one woman who was trying to park an SUV in a much too small space that I would return in two minutes and she could have my space, which was actually more like a space and a half with plenty of room for her to park her SUV.

Then once I got to my car, I grabbed my new XZ-1 and went back to the office of the GNHCLF to try to get the picture I saw moments before.

Late winter afternoon, Orange Street, New Haven
Late winter afternoon, Orange Street, New Haven (cjzurcher)
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“Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police,” and Other Horrible Headlines

“Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police,” and Other Horrible Headlines

From a friend, who got them from a friend, who got them from someone else, here’s a collection of newspaper headlines that don’t quite accomplish what the writer set out to accomplish. Anyone who has ever written or published anything can surely sympathize — and laugh. P.S.: Are any of them real?

For more on this story, visit: Freakonomics » “Homicide Victims Rarely Talk to Police,” and Other Horrible Headlines.

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Truthdiggers of the Week: Iceland’s Leaders

One country refused to bail out its derelict banks and slash social spending amid the financial crisis. And guess what? Unlike the eurozone and the United States, it’s making a sturdy comeback.

Iceland’s stock market plunged 90 percent in 2008. Inflation reached 18 percent, unemployment shot up ninefold and its biggest banks failed. This was no recession. It was a full-blown depression.

Since then, the country has steadily improved. By September of this year, it repaid its IMF rescue loans ahead of schedule. Unemployment dropped by half and its economy will have grown by roughly 2.5 percent by the beginning of 2013.

So what’s Iceland’s secret? According to the editors at Bloomberg News, it’s a refusal to do what virtually every other nation that was pummeled by the crisis did: adopt policies of economic austerity.

For more on this story, visit: Truthdiggers of the Week: Iceland’s Leaders – Truthdigger of the Week – Truthdig.

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Photo of Officer Giving Boots to Barefoot Man Warms Hearts Online

On a cold November night in Times Square, Officer Lawrence DePrimo was working a counterterrorism post when he encountered an older, barefooted homeless man. The officer disappeared for a moment, then returned with a new pair of boots, and knelt to help the man put them on.

Jennifer Foster

Officer Lawrence DePrimo bought new boots for a homeless man he encountered in Times Square.

The act of kindness would have gone unnoticed and mostly forgotten, had it not been for a tourist from Arizona.

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Released: WikiLeaks cash blockade ‘ordered’ by American ‘hard-right’ — RT

WikiLeaks has released European Commission documents which show ‘hard-right US politicians’ orchestrated an ‘extrajudicial’ banking blockade against the whistle-blowing site.

In the heavily redacted documents, MasterCard Europe “admits” US Congressmen Joseph Lieberman and Peter T. King were involved in conversations with MasterCard in the United States, WikiLeaks said Tuesday.

Lieberman, then-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also allegedly boasted of inciting Amazon to cut its services to WikiLeaks, the group claims.

For more on this story, visit: Released: WikiLeaks cash blockade ‘ordered’ by American ‘hard-right’ — RT.

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