Liberian leader urges MPs to back action against vulture funds by Heather Stewart and Greg Palast

by Heather Stewart and Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
24 February, 2010

An investigation for BBC’s Newsnight, to be broadcast tonight, Thursday at 10:30pm GMT, has uncovered allegations that speculators subverted the international debt relief process.

By Heather Stewart and Greg Palast for The Guardian

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of [Liberia] is urging MPs to back a bill banning vulture funds from using British courts to prey on poor countries when it comes to a vote on Friday. Liberia lost a $20m (£13m) case in London last year against two so-called vultures. Such funds buy up the loans of poor governments, wait for them to win from the international community, and then use courts to pursue the countries for assets.

Dennis Kucinich Obesity Bill Could Fund Child Hunger Initiative

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by Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Washington, Feb 24, 2010

photo by Dandelion Salad

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today offered the following statement on the address by U.S. Department of Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack about the Administration’s priorities for reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act. In his speech at the National Press Club yesterday, Secretary Vilsack said the administration will seek to end child hunger by 2015 and would ask Congress for $1 billion per year for 10 years to pay for the initiative.

Daniel Ellsberg: Beyond the Echo Chamber, and Racial Profiling

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GRITtv with Laura Flanders
Feb. 24, 2010

The Bush administration thrived on secrecy; Obama promised more transparency, but has yet to really deliver. What’s more, when information does come out, it seems that accountability is nearly impossible to get: the torture memos were released, but there will be no trials. We ask Daniel Ellsberg, one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers, if there’s anything the people can do to take the power back.

Sibel Edmonds: The Traitors Among Us by Brad Friedman

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by Brad Friedman
for HUSTLER MAGAZINE – March 2010

Sibel Edmonds Has Named Names. Why Isn’t The Media Reporting The Story?

Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, claims that the following government officials have committed what amount to acts of treason. They are lawmakers Dennis Hastert, Bob Livingston, Dan Burton, Roy Blunt, Stephen Solarz and Tom Lantos, as well as at least three members of George W. Bush’s inner circle: Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Marc Grossman. But is Sibel Edmonds credible?

“Absolutely, she’s credible,” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told CBS’s 60 Minutes when he was asked about her in 2002. “The reason I feel she’s very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.” Edmonds’s remarkable allegations of bribery, blackmail, infiltration of the U.S. government and the theft of nuclear secrets by foreign allies and enemies alike rocked the Bush Administration. In fact, Bush and company actually prevented Edmonds from telling the American people what she knew—up until now.

[…]

via LarryFlynt.com » Blog Archive » SIBEL EDMONDS: THE TRAITORS AMONG US

from the archives:

Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Deposition Video (must-see)

Sibel Edmonds on Antiwar Radio: Dennis Hastert, Crime and Corruption

Dennis Hastert: A Portrait of a Political System Termite by Sibel Edmonds

Sibel Edmonds: Kill The Messenger (must-see video)

Sibel Edmonds (archive of posts)

‘One Step Forward’ + ‘A Step Further’: Revisiting Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” By Richard D. Vogel

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By Richard D. Vogel
Axisoflogic.com
Feb 23, 2010

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This is the second installment of Axis of Logic’s new mission, calling for a Civic Revolution in the United States, led by Richard D. Vogel. The direction is clear. The time is now.

February 23, 2010, Axis of Logic – Most educated Americans know Henry David Thoreau through Walden, the classic account of his experiment to simplify his life by living in a primitive cabin that he built at Walden Pond and reporting what he discovered through his philosophical investigations.

Fewer Americans are familiar with Thoreau’s profound political writings that have helped shape the modern world. The list of political activists influenced by his most famous essay, “Civil Disobedience”, includes: Mahatma Gandhi; the resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe; US freedom riders and sit-downers from New York to Mississippi, including Martin Luther King, Jr.; anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela; and a multitude of anti-war and anti-globalization protestors worldwide.

Time to Act — Now by Richard C. Cook + Ruth Stout’s Garden

by Richard C. Cook
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
February 24, 2010

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Many thanks to those readers who have stayed in touch with me and continued to follow my blog as my wife and I continue packing for our move to a location in the Southern Appalachian mountains.

Lately our reading has included many interesting topics. We are currently studying The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin, 2004) and finding it a deeply inspiring source of wisdom. We have been researching the Essenes, who some say wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also of great interest and importance are the translations of Essene wisdom by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely which we encountered through our Australian friend Omna Last.

Why Washington “Doesn’t Work” by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
Feb. 24, 2010

This week’s cover of Time magazine screams “Washington is Frozen.”  The New York Times News of the Week in Review for February 21, 2010 tells us that “Washington doesn’t work.”  Evan Bayh of “Bayh, Bayh-Partisanship” tells us that he is leaving at the end of his term because there is just “too much partisanship in Washington” that leads to “nothing getting done” and is the fault of “ideologues on both sides.”  Nevertheless, on that score Bayh tends to finger (or is it give the finger to) the “far left” in preference to any sort of GOPer.  (Would that there were a “far left” in Washington, but that’s another matter.)  So it’s just all of that partisanship that’s the matter.  Why people aren’t even civil to each other anymore.  And again, that’s the fault on both sides.

Peace Camp Demands That President Obama Meet With A Peace Council by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
February 24, 2010

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Dear President Obama,

A contingent of Peace Groups and Activists will be setting up a Peace Camp across the street from your house on the lawn of the Washington Monument called, Camp OUT NOW.

After over one year of your presidency, it’s become crystal clear to even those who supported you, that your foreign policy is as much of a disaster as was George Bush’s.

On Sunday, 27 civilians were killed in a bombing raid on a caravan, and no matter how many times you or your generals say, “Sorry,” innocent civilians will always be killed in these insane wars of profit and occupation, and since, by your regime’s own admission, they “can’t be avoided,” these wars must come to an immediate end.

It’s also quite tragic that your war in Afghanistan has victimized more of our troops than when Bush was president, and more of our returning vets are committing suicide with most of their needs still going unmet.