FOILED BY CONGRESS, GUN CONTROL ADVOCATES TURN TO STATE BALLOTS IN BID TO END VIOLENCE. Lawmakers and organizations in several states are considering whether to place gun-related amendments such as universal background checks on state ballots as soon as the 2014 elections.Though the piecemeal approach is not ideal, activists are beginning to tire of [...]
“INSUFFICIENTLY PRO-ISRAELI?” New U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had his appointment held up on such “insufficiency” charge but now, on a trip to Israel, he seems to be establishing his sufficiency bones. In presenting a large deal for U.S. arms shipments to Israel, he says that the deal is a “clear signal” to Iran [...]
Overwhelming public support for tighter gun laws is failing to spur action in Washington, where lawmakers are struggling to pass a “watered down”gun control bill that pro-gun groups have stuffed with measures actually loosening many restrictions on gun purchases. Five months after the Newtown tragedy that briefly united the public and their politicians into a [...]
“PROPAGANDA ALWAYS WINS…IF YOU ALLOW IT.” British investigative journalist John Pilger quotes Leni Riefenstahl, whose World War II era movies helped smooth the way in public opinion for the rise of Hitler. She credits a form of “liberal fascism” of that time that succumbed to her form of propaganda. Just so, the main stream [...]
SENATE DEAL ON BACKGROUND CHECKS DOES NOTHING TO CLOSE GUN SALE LOOPHOLE. In a sign of hoe fractured the national political landscape has become on even the most widely supported of issues, cheers went up from gun control advocates after the Senate merely allowed debate on a bipartisan bill that would expand federal background [...]
PALESTINIANS JUST LOVE WORKING AT SODASTREAM’S (ILLEGAL) FACTORY TO MAKE ISRAELI FIZZY WATER. Or so says a promotional video for the company. This is one instance of Israeli entrepreneurs who shed “crocodile tears” over the economic condition of Palestinians in the West Bank in “industrial zones” near illegal Jewish settlements. Actually, these “zones” employ relatively [...]
CONNECTICUT ADOPTS “THE STRONGEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE BILL IN THE UNITED STATES TO FIGHT GUN VIOLENCE.“ As pro-gun Republicans and Democrats wary of election prospects in red states next year combine to stall new gun regulations on Capitol Hill, some states are taking it upon themselves to crack down on lax gun laws and [...]
Tough gun control is dead in Congress as the assault weapons ban dies on the political vine despite strong public support. Senate Democrats have pulled the plug on the most sweeping reforms proposed following the Newtown tragedy, a little more than three months after one of the worst mass shootings in American history had seemingly [...]
THE HISTORIC FAILURE OF THE BLACK POLITICAL MISLEADERSHIP CLASS. Bruce A. Dixon thus describes the spectacular failure of these leaders to stem the tide of privatization of schools and other public institutions—or the massive gentrification of black neighborhoods—or the criminalization and incarceration of huge portions of the black population. Dixon spares not even Martin [...]
THE PIVOT TO ASIA AND THE RISE OF “SYMBOLIC” U.S.-CHINA CONFLICT. Various commentators on Asian affairs comment on the possibility that both the U.S. and Chinese governments are engaged in actions of belligerence toward one another to divert publics in both their countries from failures of domestic economic policies. Filipino Asian expert Walden [...]
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