Aug
08
2013
While Wall Street is back to making record breaking profits the average American continues to suffer from the fall out of the financial crisis.
In a speech on the economy this past Tuesday, President Obama laid the blame for the financial crisis at the feet of government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and vowed to restructure the two mortgage giants …
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Aug
08
2013
The US Government’s official website, USA.gov, has plenty of advice to dish out on how people can protect their online privacy from spammers, corporations, and viruses. But it says nothing about how to keep Big Brother from snooping on you.
We now know, thanks to people like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald that virtually our every online move is literally …
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Aug
08
2013
After watching Markus Imhoof’s new film More Than Honey, the sound of bees will be like the sound of music to your ears. Bees are essential to humans, pollinating our crops far more efficiently than we could do ourselves, but in recent years the fatal trend of growing bee deaths has alarmed farmers, bee keepers, and environmentalists.
Shining a spotlight …
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Aug
08
2013
Proving once again the misapplied “non-lethal” label for taser weapons, police in Miami are under severe criticism following the death of an unarmed teenage boy who was killed this week when officers made chase after he was spotted painting graffiti on an abandoned McDonald’s building.
As the Miami Herald reports:
At just 17, Israel Hernandez-Llach was already an award-winning artist, on the threshold of acclaim in Miami Beach art circles. He was a …
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Aug
08
2013
by Margaret Prescod
It never rains but it pours. In the last weeks, two major mobilizations against racist injustice burst out. Most people were outraged that on July 13 Zimmerman walked away from having shot teenager Trayvon Martin dead. The police did not even arrest Zimmerman until his family led a national campaign which marched and lobbied for Justice for Trayvon. And the prosecutor, according to at least one juror, did not …
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Aug
08
2013
In April 2012, two days before George Zimmerman was arrested for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, he huddled with a fellow neighborhood watch volunteer, Frank Taaffe. According to Taaffe, who disclosed the meeting on Fox News, Zimmerman asked him to share “several talking points” with the media. Taaffe obliged. Indeed, as Zimmerman’s legal drama unfolded over the next year and a half, Taaffe emerged as his most visible and outspoken defender. He gave …
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Aug
08
2013
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency is searching the contents of vast amounts of Americans’ e-mail and text communications into and out of the country, hunting for people who mention information about foreigners under surveillance, according to intelligence officials.
The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for …
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Aug
08
2013
A Louisiana parish is trying to get out of paying a 14-year-old who was repeatedly raped by her prison guard, with lawyers arguing last week that the girl wanted the sex.
The guard, Angelo Vickers, is serving a 7-year sentence after pleading guilty to molestation of a juvenile. The woman, known anonymously as Mary Doe, is now an emotionally traumatized 20-year-old. Mary Doe sued the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government as well as her attacker, alleging …
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Aug
08
2013
At nine prisons across California, more than 500 inmates continuing a hunger strike they began July 8 to protest what they call cruel and inhumane conditions, and this action — the third hunger strike in two years — must surely lead many Californians to wonder: Why should we care? What concern is it to peaceful and law-abiding citizens that people convicted of serious crimes experience deprivation? Is their fate not deserved?
We should care. Our treatment …
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Aug
08
2013
With a Eurozone record of 27 percent of Greeks unemployed, people are taking a pro-active approach to the crisis. Activists from the ‘We Won’t Pay’ movement, which boasts 10,000 members, are illegally reconnecting power to hundreds of homes.
Tough austerity measures have left many people in Greece unable to pay their electricity bills. The ‘We Don’t Pay’ movement which has over 10,000 members helps many of those by illegally reconnecting power to their homes, despite legal …
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