The Warsaw conference demonstrated that the “climate summit” model is broken and, more importantly, that capitalism itself is driving us to the brink. Protests are not the solution — it's time to fight the system using its own weapons.
Corporate Copyright Ubber Alles
The municipal utility company in the city of Potsdam is currently wooing new customers with a special “BabyBonus” offer. The slogan reads, “We value little energy robbers! Welcome to the world!” Every newborn receives a credit of 500 kilowatt hours of electricity, allowing him or her to revel from the start in a world where everything, especially energy, will always be available in abundance. These babies may later find they're in for a surprise.
You are my hero! You have supported me of over twenty years. You are making it happen. You are as important to our country as any person in our history. You have discovered the treatment that can cure the cancer in our country.
My brother Jimmy and I are alive and well, each in our unique ways. Together we will expose the cancer and demand the irradiation of the primary tumor as well as the metastasis that is prevalent within the DC Beltway.
Daily I am in awe of the courage you have shown as well as the courage of a small group who have openly supported both your's and my efforts. However, I am appalled by the cowardice that I have personally witnessed by the dozens in and out of the Beltway who are well aware of the cancer but lack the courage to stand up and be counted.
Former DEA El Paso boss: Agent Camarena had discovered the arms-for-drugs operation run on behalf of the Contras, aided by U.S. officials in the National Security Council and the CIA, and threatened to blow the whistle on the covert operation.
First in an exclusive Tico Times series in two parts
Two former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency contract pilot are claiming that the Reagan Administration was complicit in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena at the hands of Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.
The administration’s alleged effort to cover up a U.S. government relationship with the Mexican drug lord to provide for the arming and the training of Nicaraguan Contra rebels, at a time when official assistance to the Contras was banned by the congressional Boland Amendment, led to Camarena’s kidnap, torture and murder, according to Phil Jordon, former head of the DEA’s El Paso office, Hector Berrellez, the DEA’s lead investigator into Camarena’s kidnapping, torture and murder, and CIA contract pilot Robert “Tosh” Plumlee.
“We’re not saying the CIA murdered Kiki Camarena,” Jordan said. But the “consensual relationship between the Godfathers of Mexico and the CIA that included drug trafficking” contributed to Camarena’s death, he added.
“I don’t have a problem with the CIA conducting covert operations to protect the national security of our country or our allies, but not to engage in criminal activity that leads to the murder of one our agents,” Jordan said.
Camarena had discovered the arms-for-drugs operation run on behalf of the Contras, aided by U.S. officials in the National Security Council and the CIA, and threatened to blow the whistle on the covert operation, Jordan alleged.
Berrellez said two witnesses identified, from a photo lineup, two or three Cuban CIA operatives who participated in Camarena’s interrogation.
The author of this incisive — and entertaining — analysis of (1) Israel's political condition and (2) its arrogance with regard to pernicious meddling in the domestic politics of it friends is a former member of the Knesset, a hero of the 1948 War, and perhaps Israel's leading (and most rational) peace activist. He is also one of my heros.
The database included details from many of the most popular social networks
More than two million stolen passwords used for sites such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo and other web services have been posted online.
The details had probably been uploaded by a criminal gang, security experts said.
It is suspected the data was taken from computers infected with malicious software that logged key presses.
It is not known how old the details are – but the experts warned that even out-dated information posed a risk.
“We don't know how many of these details still work,” said security researcher Graham Cluley. “But we know that 30-40% of people use the same passwords on different websites.
In a blog post outlining its findings, the team said it believed the passwords had been harvested by a large botnet – dubbed Pony – that had scooped up information from thousands of infected computers worldwide.
The latest report from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community provides an updated (and largely redacted) snapshot of the IG's investigative agenda.
During the nine-month period from July 2012 to March 2013, the IC IG internal hotline received 70 contacts or complaints from intelligence agency personnel, as well as 77 contacts from the general public.
Investigators conducted 75 investigations revealing some occasionally creative forms of misconduct. In one case, an ODNI employee “was operating a personal website on Government time using Government systems through which he solicited and received donations.” Another ODNI employee “attempted to improperly obtain a security clearance for a private citizen through the use of a no-cost contract.”
Three cases of suspected unauthorized disclosures were closed when they were found to be unsubstantiated. Two investigations of unauthorized disclosures remained open as of March 31.
Last month, IC Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III told Congress that his office could not perform an investigation of NSA surveillance programs because it lacked the resources to do so.
“While my office has the jurisdiction to conduct an IC-wide review of all IC elements using these authorities,” Mr. McCullough wrote in a November 5 letter to Senator Leahy and others, “such a review will implicate ongoing oversight efforts. Therefore, I have been conferring with several IC Inspectors General Forum members in order to consider how such a review might be accomplished given the potential impact to IG resources and ongoing projects.”
Editor's note: Richard Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO. Christine Owens is executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for lower-wage workers.
The sad truth is that the rewards for productivity and hard work such as health care coverage, retirement security, opportunity — rewards that used to make America's workers “middle class” — are on the rocks.
All the wage increases over the past 15 years have gone to the wealthiest 10%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. All of them. And almost all, 95%, of the income gains from 2009 to 2012, the first three years of recovery from the Great Recession, went to the very richest 1%.
Something else has happened, too. The bottom has fallen out of America's wage floor. And the erosion of the minimum wage has lowered pay and working standards for all of us.
