Leftist Politics

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"Instead, the affidavits say, guards at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., dragged him from his bed on July 30, carried him in shackles to a car, bruising his arms and legs, and drove him two hours to a federal lockup in Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to withdraw all pending appeals of his case and accept deportation." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"In fact, a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund found that Texas ranks next to last in the nation in children's access to health care. About 22 percent of Texas youngsters — nearly 1.5 million — have no health insurance protection at all. Houston has 1.1 million uninsured people — fully a third of the population." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"Could it be that we are in a post-movement situation? One where pressures on elected officials from 'civil society' are so ineffective that the only opposition is forcibly removing these officials?" - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"An RFID tag embedded in the precious emblem of a sweet Japanese school uniform for the teachers to monitor." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

I just read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and the school students in that have RFID tags in their school gear so they can't truant. I kind of assumed this kind of tech was a couple of years off- guess I was wrong. - Mike

And yet we only see photos like this in the mainstream press if the army is North Korea's. - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"Women insured by Blue Shield of California recently received a double whammy: Not only is the cost for individual health insurance cost going up, but now under a new two-tier system women will pay more than men for the same coverage." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"Given the difficulty even I'm feeling lately covering Iraq, and the fact that the pharmaceutical industry has largely had its way with the FCC and direct-to-consumer advertising, I'm wondering if this elephant-sized pill doesn't actually boost the drug ads inside" - joneilortiz

"Animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has protested a Colorado sports bar's arcade-like claw game in which diners attempt to snag a live lobster." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"In the study, student volunteers were shown bible passages containing references to violent acts such as rape, beatings and murder. Half of the survey group were then shown an additional passage indicating that God sanctioned violent retribution. Those who were given this additional information responded with increased aggression in a subsequent measurement." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"Nicole Suveges, a married political scientist from Illinois, was part of a program that embeds academics into military units to help personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan navigate the local environment, according to her employer, BAE Systems." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"In his mother's arms, I hardly recall a more visceral sensation of the senselessness of the Iraq campaign. Given the angle, Pequeno's brain injury draws an unavoidable analogy between war and the faculty of thought. Ultimately, there is no rationalizing or comparing one devastating form of injury with another. In Sgt. Pequeno's case, however, the war has literally caused him to lose his mind." - Mike via Bookmarklet

"Can Google be asked to disgorge the search terms used by the judge and jury members? That would be one way to uncover biases, if one assumes the use of particular search terms carry certain meanings and ramifications." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

And on a more depressing note, the Times also has an article today on a new report (PDF) that describes how the U.S. government blocked the disbursement of loans intended to fund clean-water and sanitation projects in Haiti for political reasons. - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"To put it another way, if you are disposed to think of the President as the CEO of a company called the United States, it costs just $5 billion to gain control over a revenue stream of something like $2.5 trillion and the ability to spend over $3 trillion a year. At that price, it's a steal!" - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

On account of Israel's genocidal, nation-starving embargo, gas is now $27/gallon in Gaza! And of course the fumes from the alternative gas concoctions Palestinians are coming up are causing all sorts of health problems - vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps ... - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"Karen Davis, graduate co-ordinator at the Institute of Medical Science, says the new vow stems, in part, from the growing recognition of the potential for academic misconduct, which includes fraud, plagiarism and the shaping of experiments and research papers in ways that help pharmaceutical companies sell more drugs." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"But the manual’s inherited wisdom has not been updated to reflect decades of corporate analysis of how to influence consumers." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

Only "57% of men hope to see a woman elected president in their lifetime". - joneilortiz

Interestingly they omit Michelle ... - joneilortiz

"Who is the architect of this curious legal strategy? The company's chief counsel is Joseph Schmitz, who served as Defense Department Inspector General from 2002 until he left to join Blackwater in 2005. He's the son of John Schmitz, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California who was expelled from the far-right John Birch Society for "extremism," and the brother of Mary Kay Letourneau, a former schoolteacher who served several years in prison for statutory rape involving a teenage student to whom she's now married." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"The study also explored salary gaps by sector for all full-time faculty as a comparison to those starting their careers. There, the study found a 5 percent deficit for women, across sectors." - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

"After 700 years, Dante Alighieri, Italy's most famous poet, will have his criminal record scrubbed clean." - joneilortiz

he must be pleased - sampsa

well, even if he's in hell he saw it coming - joneilortiz

The article calls Pelosi's insistence that the intelligence restrictions be made the “exclusive” means for the executive branch a forced "concession". The idea, presumably, is to make surveillance measures subject to law rather than whim, but isn't this just a fancy way of codifying crime as law? If it's no longer a matter of whim, that's probably because what was once whim has simply been redefined as authority. - joneilortiz via Bookmarklet

So, the question is if the innocent detainee-to-insurgent effect is an accidental byproduct of an indiscriminate American expansion, or if it is a deliberate, strategic goal - i.e. to produce as many enemies as possible, thus ensuring a (retroactive) alibi for any military act of aggression. - joneilortiz

Some say that Obama has recently been forced to cast Afghanistan as the 'good fight' – over the last few days he's talked of shifting military attention from Iraq to Afghanistan – to counter his dove image, but in actuality he has always supported the occupation of Afghanistan, and there is little reason to expect that his presidency would feature a roll-back of military forces, opposed to their more strategic redistribution. - joneilortiz

"But things will be different if they end up in bankruptcy court, take a leave from work or own a vacation home out of state. In those areas, federal law comes into play, and the federal government does not recognize marriages between lesbians or gay men." - joneilortiz

Soon this 'war room' will be incorporated into the executive branch, don't forget ... - joneilortiz