Politics
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presidents who kill people are popular « orgtheory.net
David Henderson and Zachary Gouchenour have a paper on the topic of presidential rating s. The finding is simple. War casualties, as a fraction of the population, positively correlate with how historians rate presidents. More death = better presidents. The regression model includes some controls, like economic growth.
Deaths In Other Nations Since WW II Due To Us Interventions By James A. Lucas
A fter the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by an accelerated "war on terrorism." But we must continue our efforts to develop understanding and compassion in the world. Hopefully, this article will assist in doing that by addressing the question “How many September 11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?”
• Begin on this page for background information, read a few other articles, then come back for more when you've had a chance to digest what you've read. Sarah Palin is a "Dominionist" with an apocalytic End Times theological viewpoint that sees the war in Iraq as part of God's plan. More on the End Times in the next post. Let's talk about Christian Right Dominionism and tendencies toward authoritarian theocratic governance. With a number of bloggers calling Sarah Palin a "Dominionist," it is a good idea to clear up some obvious errors in the use of terminology. Neither Sarah Palin nor her Protestant church affiliated with the Assemblies of God should be described as practicing a form of "Dominion Theology" or "Christian Reconstructionism."
Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party
Exhibit A: Tony Hayward. Do you ever get the sense that the more powerful people get, the more foolish they become? You’re not the only one. Four university professors thought the same thing, and they devised a test to find out if it’s really true.
Study Finds That Having Power Can Make You Stupid - Forbes
Two years ago, the top honchos at the Fed, Treasury and the Wall Street banks were running around like Chicken Little warning that the world was about to end. This fear mongering, together with a big assist from the elite media (i.e. NPR, the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , etc.), earned the banks their $700 billion TARP blank check bailout. This money, along with even more valuable loans and loan guarantees from the Fed and FDIC, enabled them to survive the crisis they had created. As a result, the big banks are bigger and more profitable than ever.
Dean Baker: The Terrible Tale of the TARP Two Years Later
Monday, Dec. 26, 2011 NEW YORK — Perhaps because it's a round number, the 70th anniversary of Japan's assault on Pearl Harbor has given me the impression that more articles on it saw print than in the past, except for, as I recall, the 50th anniversary of the same. Back in 1991, Japan's financial bubble had burst, but there was as yet little sense that its economy had lost its "juggernaut" momentum and the Japanese were anxious that the U.S. might grab the half-century anniversary of the "sneak attack" as another occasion to inflame the fear of Japan. That sense of Japan's unstoppable economic power is long gone now, on both sides of the Pacific.
Strange how isolationist stance can ruin a politician's reputation | The Japan Times Online
Featured in our news section , the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has published an important new investigation into America’s drone war in Pakistan, finding that many strikes have deliberately launched follow-up attacks, killing people “who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.” As Glenn Greenwald points out ( again ) the Bureau’s methodology for tallying civilian deaths is very rigid and “virtually guarantees significant under-counting of civilian deaths,” but nonetheless the report finds that “at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims” and “more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.” The high-end estimate for total casualties in the U.S. drone war, according to the Bureau, is 3,019, including up to 815 civilians (175 of them children). Here’s what I think is the most important passage of the report:
Institutionalizing Extra-Judicial Execution: Obama is a Mass Murderer « Antiwar.com Blog
Legal
Full transcript of Sabrosky interview
MG: Well, believe me, the pleasure is ours. As I said, this article that you wrote this week - there are very few articles that really catch my attention these days, as you can understand, Dr. Sabrosky, because there's just so much information out there and so many people talking. But this one particularly caught my interest and held my interest throughout the duration of reading this article - which I will be reading here in just a minute.NDAA Nullification Bill Passes Another Step in Virginia – Tenth Amendment Center Blog
On Friday, February 10th, the Committee of Courts of Justice in the Virginia House of Delegates voted in favor of House Bill 1160 (HB1160) – unanimously. The final vote was 16-0 with 2 abstaining. The legislative goal of HB1160 is to codify in Virginia law noncompliance with what many are referring to as the “kidnapping provisions” of section 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA). The official summary of 1160: “A BILL to prevent any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.” HB1160 is sponsored by Delegate Bob Marshall and was introduced on 01-16-12.
This would all be bad enough if “election season” were confined to a few months the way it is in most civilized countries. But in America, the fixation on presidential elections takes hold at least eighteen months before the actual election occurs, which means that more than 1/3 of a President’s term is conducted in the midst of (and is obscured by) the petty circus distractions of The Campaign. Thus, an unauthorized, potentially devastating covert war — both hot and cold — against Iran can be waged with virtually no debate, just as government control over the Internet can be inexorably advanced , because TV political shows are busy chattering away about Michele Bachmann’s latest gaffe and minute changes in Rick Perry’s polling numbers.
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
After reading Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek essay about President Obama, his critics, and his re-election bid, I implore him to ponder just one question. How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following? I submit that had Palin or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rice or Jeb Bush or John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney proposed doing even half of those things in 2008, you'd have declared them unfit for the presidency and expressed alarm at the prospect of America doubling down on the excesses of the post-September 11 era. You'd have championed an alternative candidate who avowed that America doesn't have to choose between our values and our safety. Yet President Obama has done all of the aforementioned things.
Dear Andrew Sullivan: Why Focus on Obama's Dumbest Critics? - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic
66 Things You Can Grow At Home: In Containers, Without A Garden | The Veritas Magazine
Growing your own food is exciting, not only because you get to see things grow from nothing into ready-to-eat fruits and veggies, but you also don’t have to worry about the pesticides they might contain , and you definitely cut down on the miles they — and you —have to travel. As it turns out, with pretty minimal effort, anyone can be a gardener . My boyfriend and I are essentially first-timers this season and so far have the beginnings of strawberries peeking out, tomatoes are on their way, the basil’s about ready for a big batch of pesto, and once the last frost hits, the peppers, kale, spinach, chard, and mesclun will be on their way, too.The election of President Obama was in no small part, a referendum on the administration of George W. Bush, and his victory was interpreted as a sound rebuke to eight years of open ended warfare, a vast and growing police state, the destruction of civil liberties, disregard for the Constitution, unchecked executive power, lies and broken promises, hypocrisy and arrogance, a lack of transparency in government, out-of-control federal spending, fever-pitch fearmongering, rampant corruption, and some really stupid gaffes. But what have we gotten instead?
The Humble Libertarian: Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush
Program Information - Truth and Justice Radio: CIA complicity in the global drug trade|A-Infos Radio Project
Public Domain No Advisories - program content screened and verified. This is from the first session (9/19/2011) of the American Democracy in Crisis speaker series, arranged by the Tufts U.Dogs
Police
Drug War
Humor
Politics and Government
Politics
Corporatocracy: Living in the UCA (United Corps. of America)
LIBERTY
classical liberal
Ron Paul
Libritarian / Conservative
Wikileaks