THE LEFT AND RIGHT HANDS OF U.S. POLICY IN AFGHANISTAN.
(Reuters/Courtesy of Christian Science Monitor)
(Foreign Policy in Focus)
While the U.S. insists with its left hand that it is intent on a peace settlement that will include negotiation with Taliban leaders, its right hand is equally intent on killing those very leaders in its escalating drones on areas of insurgent concentration. What is the “brain” that is guiding the coordination between left and right movements?
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MINE, BABY, MINE! IS THE OPERATIVE MANDATE IN COLOMBIA.
(Counterpunch)
Though the country’s President proclaims a policy of preserving biological diversity and water resources of the country, he also proclaims the primacy of jobs-creation for the country and, in the name of the latter, approves gold mining operations of the Canadian multi-national mining company Greystar. These mines are profoundly disruptive of species preservation and both heavy water consumers and heavy polluters of rivers and streams. At the same time, the jobs “created” by these operations are largely jobs for workers from outside Colombia.
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PLANNERS IN SOME AMERICAN STATES ARE BEGINNING TO WHISPER THE “B-WORD” AS A LAST DITCH WAY OF SOLVING THEIR BUDGET CRISES.
(New York Times )
Bankruptcy declarations would allow states to divest themselves of debts generated by the likes of pension obligations for state workers. This would be a difficult solution because it would be constitutionally questionable and because the very prospect of bankruptcy could worsen the financial situation of states by creating problems in borrowing funds in the bond market. Still, desperate measures call for desparate remedies, just please call quietly, please!
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HAVING “REPEALED” HEALTH CARE REFORM, GOP LEADERS IN THE HOUSE GEAR UP FOR YET ANOTHER “SYMBOLIC” VICTORY: A RETRENCHMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE.
(McClatchy)
As the Environmental Protection begins to make noises about stiffening gas emissions standards under the Clean Air Act, Republicans show again their devotion to preserving American jobs by preparing to vote amendments to the Act to prevent such EPA actions. With a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic President pledged to maintain those standards, the expected House votes will be “symbolic” but of possible large significance to the electoral success of the party in the next elections.
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“IT’S NO TIME TO BE DEPORTING ANYBODY TO HAITI.“
(Miami Herald)
Maybe not, what with the country still devastated by the earthquake a year ago and the crisis of an unresolved national election. But it is the “time” that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) decided it could end a 1-year moratorium on Haitian deportations, sending back a group of Haitians including one of the acquitted defendants in the Liberty City 7 “terror plot”: a man who has no record of criminal convictions but is still deemed by ICE to be a “security threat” to the country and has been sent back to a hazardous life in Haiti, whether kept in an unsanitary Port-au-Prince jail or released to the devastated countryside.
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Quote of the day…
Assange and Wikileaks are the best hope we have of getting at who and how much is involved.
Vineet Narain, anti-corruption activist in India, commenting on anticipated thrust of new Wikleaks releases in exposing secret deposit of funds in banks that conceal these assets from regulation or taxation.
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Oh everything is a job killer according to the repubs, funny you would think hiring clean up crews and hiring crews to implement the changes the epa is requiring of them would actually create jobs. I cannot even believe that the american people would leave it up to the very industry that is destroying the environment.
Republicans in the House are guaranteeing that there will be no jobs in the future by attempting to stop progress on ending greenhouse gas emissions. They are displaying a level of scientific illiteracy and shortsightedness that is beyond imagination.
mariz, we have so much we can learn from you! “Clean up crews and hiring crews to implement the changes the EPA is requiring of them would actually create jobs!”
Good jobs, green jobs, that will never go away!
Let me guess, a bunch of newly hired SEIU nitwits, climbing a smokestack occasionally swiping away some soot away with a brush, eligible almost immediately for disability benefits for some good reason or another, never missing a single SEIU union dues contribution (a huge portion earmarked for electing Democrats!)–that’s what you are visualizing, isn’t it! That’ll cool the earth, good! Oh, how stupid of the Republicans not to embrace the future YOU can plainly see!
And you, Calvin Wood! Oh, I bet you’ve got a degree in advanced science from the University of Van Jones! Or you are an honorary Michael Mann Scholar from East Anglia University.
“Republicans in The House are guaranteeing that there will be no jobs in the future by attempting to stop progress on ending greenhouse gas emissions.”
So I guess you are saying that since we will all be staggering around in sweltering heat, nobody will be able to work! Or, we’ll all be underwater, so the only profession will be SCUBA instructors!
Stupid Republicans! Can’t they see how well Climate Change legislation is working out, fiscally and in terms of cooling the planet, in California! Can’t they see how well Kyoto has worked out! Didn’t they see the universal Climate Change Legislation consensus agreed upon last year in Copenhagen (until the massive hordes of Climate Change hypocrite rent-seekers had to cut the session short so they could all get in their private jets and get back home to beat the snowstorms!!)
Republicans have nothing to do with it. Midwest Democrats defeated the idiotic 2500 page Obama Cap and Trade bill. They realized it would cause more unemployment in their states.Even Barack Obama, the most ideological, politically minded, and unscientifically educated of thinkers, has all but abandoned the Climate Change/Global Warming Fraud. He wants to get re-elected in 2012, that last thing He needs is a worthless initiative that will increase the unemployment rate!