Sunday, October 28th, 2012
DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This is my latest example of the Rightist hate trend. I am truly concerned about this trend because this is how extremist governments come to power. The Romney Ryan ticket is just a first step. This level of hate is almost a psychosis, and it feeds on itself.
The mainstream media treat these things as one-offs by fringe loons. We even have an accepted ritual of recantation, that doesn't really require recanting. I don't see it that way. I see a trend. One only a change in individual citizen attitudes can counteract.
Click through to see the actual video.
Bryan Fischer, the director of issues analysis of a conservative fundamentalist Christian organization, on Thursday speculated that designs on President Barack Obama’s wedding ring meant that ‘he may in fact be a closeted Muslim.
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Saturday, October 27th, 2012
BEN VAN HEUVELEN, - Foreign Policy
Stephan: This very thoughtful exegetic essay about Iraq and oil reveals what has resulted from the years of war, and the deaths and maiming of hundreds of thousands, and the spending of trillions.
In 2006, an Iraqi technocrat named Tariq Shafiq was charged with crafting an oil law. A Berkeley-trained engineer, he began his career in the 1950s, rising through the consortium of foreign firms that comprised the Iraq Petroleum Company — until the Baathists nationalized the oil sector and sentenced him to death, in 1970, for conspiring with the imperialists. Luckily, Shafiq had been out of Iraq at the time, and he didn’t return for decades. But now he would again find himself at the center of controversy. In a country that receives 95 percent of its revenue from oil, his oil law would not only shape the management and regulation of the national economy but also determine the extent to which power would be centralized in Baghdad. It was the centerpiece of Iraq’s own version of the Federalist Debates.
On the federalist side, Iraq’s minority Kurds — who had already gained significant political and military independence in their semi-autonomous northern region — argued that dispersing state power could prevent the kind of oppression that had been fueled by Saddam Hussein’s complete, unwavering control of oil revenues. It would be a safeguard against tyranny. The centralists, on the other hand, argued that […]
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Saturday, October 27th, 2012
ZACH ROBERTS, - Truthout.org
Stephan: In this story you can see how the uber-rich, and the virtual corporate states, use the Theocratic Right and its churches to manipulate low information voters.
In audio obtained from a Family Council fundraiser in Anchorage, Alaska, Truthout has learned that a number of right-wing religious groups, including Focus on the Family, have been working with the Koch brothers to target voters across the country using their multimillion-dollar voter database known as Themis.
At a fundraiser held at the Anchorage Middle Eastern restaurant Aladdin’s last week, Focus on the Family-associated Alaska Family Council President Jim Minnery laid out his plans for the future of the religious right – and why there was a movie-size poster of the arch-conservative businessmen Charles and David Koch on an easel by the door.
The Alaska Family Council (AFC) is a Focus on the Family-related group, as the AFC explains on its own web site: ‘Throughout each stage of its development, the Alaska Family Council has worked closely with Focus on the Family, one of the most respected and effective pro-family organizations in the country.’ AFC’s Minnery is a relative to Focus on the Family’s Senior Vice President Tom Minnery. Tom Minnery is not only the VP of Focus, but also runs its affiliate, the advocacy organization CitizenLink.
Focus on the Family has been at the forefront of fighting LGBT rights across the country, […]
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Saturday, October 27th, 2012
DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Here is another Theocratic Rightist saying something almost breathtakingly stupid. But I chose this story not because of the politician, but because it illustrates that a large portion of the American voters support people like this. This is part of the Great Schism trend that is tearing the country apart. We are very rapidly becoming two countries and, as time goes on, this is going to become more and more of an issue.
Click through to see the actual video.
A former Executive Committee member of San Diego’s Republican Party, who now heads the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, recently told Texas churchgoers that ‘you can’t be a Christian if you don’t own a gun.
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Saturday, October 27th, 2012
, - Sustainable Business.com
Stephan: Here you see the naked attempt to buy an election outcome by pouring in vast sums of money -- thanks to Citizens United -- thereby confusing low information voters with nonsense.
If you live in California please do all of us a favor and vote Yes on Prop 37.
As we have previously reported, the Grocer Manufacturers Association, big agriculture and chemical companies want Americans to stay in the dark about GMOs in the food they eat – and are spending close to $1 million a day on ‘No on Prop 37’ ads across California.
The proposition, California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, would require disclosure of GMO ingredients on foods.
Advocates for GMO labeling are being out-spent 10 to 1. Although there are few ads for the presidential race in California, we hear people are deluged by ads that seek to misinform them about GMO labeling.
The man in charge of the opposition’s message is Henry Miller, who for years, successfully delayed action on constraining sales of cigarrettes by debunking the link between tobacco products and cancer.
Some more about him, and the causes he has served:
Strong proponent of DDT and other pesticides
After the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, he argued that exposure to radiation could provide health benefits
He believes pharmaceutical companies should be responsible for testing new drugs (why involve the Food and Drug Administration?)
And Miller is having an impact. While early polls […]
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