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| If you have a problem reading this email, please click here to see the web page version You received this email because you signed up for it at OpEdNews. Unsubscribe instructions are at the bottom of this email. Support Opednews. Make a tax deductible donation to make OEN Strong.   Daily HeadlinesWith the amount of Cesium sitting in endangered storage tanks at three to four times what was in Chernobyl, and risk of leaks rising, the Japanese government has taken over the clean-up of the Tokyo Electric Power Company ( TEPCO) reactor site, at Fukushima. Countering growing opposition to plans for bombing Syria, the White House dispatched Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to the Sunday talk shows. But the choice underscored the Obama administration's credibility problems and raised new doubts about the case for war. By Rob Kall Elliot Fineman-- The Starbucks Boycott, Because of their Pro Gun Stance, Is Gaining Traction  Starbucks is allowing guns in their establishments. There's a movement to boycott Starbucks to stop it. I talk with the organizer. If Syria is a "threat to world security," like Iraq was a "threat to world security," like Iran is alleged to be a "threat to world security," what kind of superpower is the United States? How low does the IQ have to be, how mentally impaired does the public have to be to fall for these absurd hysterical allegations? By michael payne The Washington Kabuki Theater Presents "Who Can You Trust?" Starring Barack Obama and John Kerry  President Obama and Secretary of State, John Kerry, stand on the world stage, about to give the performances of their lives, desperately trying to convince their audience of Americans and the people of the world to believe and trust them as they get ready to a missile attack on the Syrian Assad regime. By Tom Engelhardt Andrew Bacevich, Drama from Obama Here is the strangeness of our moment: the U.S. has no rival on the planet. Its global military stance is historically unparalleled and largely uncontested. And yet somehow, in crucial areas of the world, Washington's power to do anything is significantly, visibly lessening. By William K. Black, J.D., Ph.D. Creating Effective Regulation is the Imperative Issue at the Federal Reserve  The only positive aspect of the public contest to pick a successor for Ben Bernanke that the White House has inexplicably sparked is that economists are acknowledging that the next head of the Fed must act to create (not "restore") effective regulation by the agency. It is long past time to have a serious discussion about the collapse of regulation by the Fed. By Thomas Farrell Congress Should NOT Vote for a Military Attack on Syria to Punish Assad For understandable reasons, President Barack Obama wants to save face. He publicly warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad not to use chemical weapons to kill his own people. But chemical weapons were used to kill close to 1,500 Syrians. So Obama wants to use a limited U.S. military attack on Syria to punish the alleged culprit. As outrageous as the use of chemical weapons is, Congress should NOT vote for a military attack. When the U.S. government readies for war, there is a well-worn script. A "bad" guy is defined; some act of perfidy is alleged despite murky evidence; politicians and journalists express righteous outrage; a confused public is dragged along. Except that the war on Syria may be veering off-script. There's an antidote to the repetition compulsion for war. It's called democracy. the title says most of it. I interview my go-to expert on mythic and symbolic dimensions of culture. Singer James Blunt tells the BBC how he refused an order to attack Russian troops when he was a British army officer in Kosovo. "That sense of moral judgement is drilled into us as soldiers in the British army" says Blunt. Blunt risked a court-martial but was backed by his own General who said 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War III.' A year after Hurricane Sandy, the East Coast is still reelingfinancially, and eight years after Katrina, New Orleans has yet to recover. "Americans are learning a harsh lesson New research shows that rising ocean temperatures will upset natural cycles of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and phosphorus. Plankton plays an important role in the ocean's carbon cycle by removing half of all CO2 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and storing it deep under the sea. New findings reveal that water temperature has a direct impact on maintaining the delicate plankton ecosystem of our oceans [directly effecting the very atmosphere you inhale with every breath]. By Rev. Dan Vojir Mission Congo: Exposing Pat Robertson's Fraud May Be Shocking, But Will It Shock People Enough?  Mission Congo: it's the film that might finally make Pat Robertson accountable for his fraudulent use of Operation Blessing in the Rwandan genocide. Over the years CEO compensation has been rising relative to worker compensation. The reasons include the weakness of unions, reductions in top marginal tax rates, failure to enforce antitrust laws, and a stagnant minimum wage. The difference between worker and CEO compensation is also the result of rewarding the latter with the productivity gains of the former. Pro-Israel, pro-war bias is increasingly evident in mainstream media as AIPAC and the lobby push for US military action against Syria. By Kent Welton Book Review -- The Public Bank Solution, by Ellen Brown -- A Must Read! Some books are truly seminal, timely, and a must read. This great new work by Ellen Brown is definitely in that category. The banking question is surely the biggest issues of our time, and of the ages. That is why everyone should read this book, and especially our representatives who will be called upon to lead us out of the monetary prison in which we find ourselves. I encourage you to buy a copy and become informed. Samantha Power's journey is a tragic one. Her story has become a parable, teaching a whole new generation to be careful what they wish for. On Monday, Power told National Public Radio that America's coming attack on Syria was both "legitimate" and "necessary." She could not say that it would be legal. Her frustration with America's international partners was audible. Not only is Power finding her persuasive abilities lacking when coaxing the great powers to acquiesce to an American attack on Syria, but she is also discovering that diplomacy has its limits with the rising powers as well. On Friday, The Washington Examiner revealed that Power, in conjunction with United Nations functionaries, sought to convince Iran to help impose an international inspections regime on its ally in Syria. By Mark Dunlea The Path from 9/11 to Syria The US claimed that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabians financed by the Saudi ruling family. So we attacked Iraq instead. Twelve years later, the Saudis are still funding terrorists and seeking to prevent democratic forces from prevailing in the Middle East. So, in the perpetual war of post-9/11, Syria is next up. Should the U.S. intervene militarily in Syria? New video obtained by Bill Still showing what appear to be civilians or rebel forces, launching chemical rockets, further muddies the waters. In the third of a three part series examining the Obama administration's handling of the rush to war in Syria,the role of Israel is examined and a case made that Obama may have emphasized the benefits to the Israeli right wing's objectives to help Americans wake up to the fact that the interests of the two are not identical. The United States' history of alternately deploying and helping deploy chemical weapons, and using their existence to advocate for illegal military strikes is troubling, to say the least. The current meandering rationale for strikes reflects this unresolvable dichotomy. Let's instead focus on internationally backed action, including major support for millions of refugees. This article discusses Barack Obama's foreign policy, compares the present rush to war with Syria to the lead up to World War I, and considers the possibility of nuclear war, among other things Syrian President Bashar Assad warned that if there was a military strike by the United States on his country, there would be retaliation by those aligned with Syria. CBS reported Assad's remarks that he made in an interview with Charlie Rose on Sunday on its news program "Face the Nation." If the Congress fails to authorize this strike (and that appears likely), the President could emulate the British Prime Minister David Cameron with an "I get it" remark. This would allow him to extricate the United States out of the Middle East where nothing is completely white or black or good or bad. Prince Bandar, involved in the 9/11 mass murders, is now in the midst of the Syrian civil war. Is also a close confident with the Bush clan. Need more be said about him? Maybe he, not Assad, is the danger to peace in the region. In a last gasp attempt to try to inflame the American people and its Congress into our own irrational act of international murder in Syria, the administration has flooded our media with pictures of dead bodies. Do they really think all they have to do is show us some bodies lined up in burial shrouds and like Pavlov's mad dogs we will all start foaming at the mouth for war? Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has cultivated a reputation as a caring humanitarian who abhors violence, but he has now joined the ranks of liberal war hawks eager to bomb Syria, a choice that also has led him to enlist in the propaganda campaign to deceive the American people. Latest ArticlesDebt money and the buzzing of flies Our national currency is based on debt because every penny in circulation is loaned to us by bankers, rather than being issued, debt-free, by our Treasury Department. Usually, this system works just fine. Day to day, we labor at our jobs, make money, buy a home, raise our families, and grow ever older. But, there are problems with this system... The Covergence: War And Economic Collapse As we wait for what seems like an inevitable US directed war to salve the President's ego and "credibility," we also mark the anniversary of the financial crisis. A convergence? Top concerns for the environment going into Fall. Situation Report on Mexico's democracy, as its opposition prepares to take to the streets in the largest protests since the 2012 Presidential election. One big problem the NSA and US government generally have had since our reporting began is that their defenses offered in response to each individual story are quickly proven to be false by the next story, which just further undermines their credibility around the world. Parshall is within the boundaries of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation--home to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations. It was obvious that the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to tap into the massive Bakken Oil Formation had unleashed a maelstrom of unstoppable, damaging, and unpredictable industrial development. A Last Hurrah for Unilateralism Most observers seem to think that the disagreement between the U.S. and the rest of the world revolves around whether chemical weapons were used and who used them. It does not. The real issue of contention here is who has the authority to issue and impose sanctions on behalf of the international community. Will the US attack the Syrian Kurdish people under the leadership of the PYD freedom fighters? The Kurdish people under the leadership of the KCK (the umbrella organisation for the PKK, PYD, PJAK, and PCDK and others) are not against the interests of the US in the Middle East. Their control of oil, gas, and commercial gateways to Europe for over 500 million people from Pakistan to Turkey and from Kurdistan to the former Soviet Union countries necessitates prudence and co-operation in their international relationship.  Best News Links from the WebModern conservatism has become a sort of cult, very much given to conspiracy theorizing when confronted with inconvenient facts. Unfortunately, however, this runaway cult controls the House, which gives it immense destructive power -- the power, for example, to wreak havoc on the economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. And it's disturbing to realize that this power rests in the hands of men who, thanks to the wonk gap, quite literally have no idea what they're doing. Tucked into a booth at Copper Canyon Grill in Silver Spring on Friday, Benjamin Jealous talked about what has been a closely guarded secret: his decision to step down as president of the NAACP come January. When Jealous leaves, he will do so as one of the nation's most prominent civil rights leaders. Having reviewed and commented on upwards of 20 Opednews articles about the Syrian crisis almost all of which refute the US administrations version of events this Examiner.com article verifies Syrian rebels as claiming responsibility for the attack. The evidence was gathered the French charity Doctors Without Borders from direct testimonies. The rebels (Jabhat al-Nusra) claim they were misinformed about the nature of the weapons. They claim the weapons were supplied by "Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who "has been at the very heart of the push for war by the U.S. against Assad". But still the American administration is sticking to its version of events the intel for which was allegedly supplied by Mossad. So here we have Israel and Saudi Arabia effectively colluding to embroil the US in a war designed to trigger conflict with Iran regardless of the implications. @paulvcassidy A closer look raises doubts about whether Assad is using the weapons, whether the US-backed opposition is using them--or some combination. A return to talks is a smoke screen for Israel' - -s expansion of settlements, Palestinians say. The talks are the latest attempt to complete the 1993 Oslo Peace Process. At the time, there were approximately 257,700 Israeli settlers living in occupied territories; today, there are nearly twice that number. "Twenty years of negotiations have proved that the peace process is a failed and doomed experiment," said Hazem Abu Hilal, a youth activist working for a nongovernmental organization. "Going back to talks is a cover for settlements to expand, which is what's happening on the ground as both sides meet." Can the U.S. really afford to greatly anger the rest of the world when they are the ones that are paying our bills? What is going to happen if China, Russia, and many other large nations stop buying our debt and start rapidly dumping U.S. debt that they already own? If the United States is not very careful, it is going to pay a tremendous economic price for taking military action in Syria. |
