Communities of Practice – Page 858 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/04/14

John Steiner: Corporate Personhood Denied in Pennsylvania — States Begin to Reject Supreme Court Corruption — Possible Litmus Test for 2014 Congressional Elections

Civil Society, Commerce, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement

Do click on below to read the full, encouraging ad inspiring report…relevant for fracking, shale gas, factory farming, sludge dumping, large scale water withdrawals and industrial scale energy projects.

Dear Friends,

Last week, a Pennsylvania county court declared that corporations are not ³persons² under the Pennsylvania Constitution, and therefore, that corporations cannot elevate their ³private rights² above the rights of people. In a landmark ruling, President Judge Debbie O¹Dell-Seneca of the Washington County Court of Common Pleas denied the corporation¹s request on the basis that the Pennsylvania Constitution only protects the rights of people, not business entities. This same decision must be made in thousands of other courts across our country to lay the fallacy of “corporate personhood” to rest for good, but I am so grateful to this person of integrity for standing in the “jaws of the beast” and declaring the truth. And I am also grateful to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) for their generous work in helping communities across the country adopt Community Bills of Rights that ban such projects as fracking, sludge dumping and other as violations of the community¹s right to a sustainable energy and farming future. Please take the time to read the language of Judge Debbie O'Dell-Seneca's decision. It is beautiful and inspiring and true.

2013/04/14

SchwartzReport: USA at Bottom in Child Well Being — and Tops in Military Spending, Imprisonment, Divorce, and Obesity

06 Family, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

U.S. Ranks Near Bottom of UNICEF Report on Child Well-being
KATIE MCDONOUGH, Assistant Editor – Salon

The cliché holds that: Our children are our future. If that is true we don't have much of a future. We don't seem to give a damn about our children and, as the UNICEF report makes clear, it shows.

The United States ranked in the bottom four of a United Nations report on child well-being. Among 29 countries, America landed second from the bottom in child poverty and held a similarly dismal position when it came to ‘child life satisfaction.”

Keeping the U.S. company at the bottom of the report, which gauged material well-being, overall health, access to housing and education, were Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, three of the poorest countries in the survey.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: USA at Bottom in Child Well Being — and Tops in Military Spending, Imprisonment, Divorce, and Obesity”

2013/04/132013/04/13

Mini-Me: Guantanamo & New York — Two Sides of Criminal Insanity

04 Education, 11 Society, Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Military

Huh?

Detainees, U.S. guards clash at Guantanamo Bay

Carlos Warner, a U.S. lawyer representing some of those detainees, told CNN late last month detainees have become increasingly frustrated with “very dire, dire conditions” and their sense that the current legal process leaves them in limbo indefinitely.

“It leaves them with the prospect of the only way we leave Guantanamo is death,” Warner said. “Unfortunately, I think the men are ready to embrace this.”

Marcus Aurelius: White House Taxing Veterans & Military

Corruption, Government, Military

BOTTOM LINE, UP FRONT: Once again, POTUS is seeking to stick it to the military via his budget.

Current issues are escalating costs for a apparently all TRICARE categories, depressed pay raises for active duty military, and restrained cost of living allowances, via “chained CPI,” for military retired pay.

Invite your attention to Military Officers Association of America's (MOAA's) graphics at links in basic message below. MOAA is going to visit Congress on 17 April to educate our elected representative. They badly need supporting e-mail fires from all of us. Hit the “Take Action” or “deliver a barrage of emails” links below to be taken to their legislative action center where they have prescripted but tailorable e-mail texts ready. Send early and often. Being a retiree, MOAA member, or even a veteran is not required. We can use help from anyone with access to a computer who can click a mouse.

Remember — those of us who are veterans and retirees at some time long ago wrote that blank check to the US Government, “payable for any amount up to and including death.” We served as directed. For those of us still surviving, it appears that the Government is abrogating its part of the deal. We can use everybody's help on this one. And the next one, the one after that, and the one after that. We have a new persistent conflict over whether or not the government will honor its past promises to military personnel.

Help MOAA Storm the Hill

Now is the time to stand up and make your voice heard to reinforce MOAA leaders' efforts on Capitol Hill next week.

On Wednesday, April 17, more than 160 national, state, and local MOAA representatives will “Storm the Hill” to visit the offices of nearly every US senator and representative.

They'll be making the case against big DoD-proposed TRICARE fee hikes, an active duty pay raise cap, and more.

There's never been a more important time to add your voice and deliver a barrage of emails to remind your legislators that MOAA's Hill-stormers are backed by thousands more of their constituents.

Let's hang together to oppose “taxing military people first.”

2013/04/13

Berto Jongman: Organizing Collaborative Investigative Work

Crowd-Sourcing, Ethics, Media

How We All Survived Likely the Largest Collaboration in Journalism History

One of the most frequent questions people ask us these days is “How in the world did you get 86 journalists to work together?”

Photo: Shutterstock.I can understand their puzzlement. Journalists often compete fiercely to scoop each other. When they get a great tip or a unique document they don’t sit and wonder how they can share it with as many of their colleagues around the world as possible.

Many investigative reporters are classic “lone wolves,” working in isolation and extremely protective of their work.

That’s okay, but it would have been a recipe for disaster in the Offshore Leaks investigation.

What we had in front of us was 2.5 million files involving offshore dealings with links to more than 170 countries and territories. Global data on a truly global issue – business dealings and money flows. It became clear very soon that we could not tackle the job effectively from our Washington office or just with the small team of reporters ICIJ initially recruited to analyze the files.

We needed to open up the game as much as possible without compromising the investigation or the sources. It was a risky approach, but we did not see any other way around it.

Last summer, ICIJ member Nicky Hager and I scrolled down the list of 160 ICIJ journalists in more than 60 countries and began to make some choices. It was one of those moments in which having this network of trusted reporters and relationships we have built overtime made a huge difference.

In countries where we didn’t have a member we sought recommendations and checked out the work of potential collaborators. We did not pick journalists based solely on their media affiliation – we were much more interested in choosing the right people, the real diggers and the most trustworthy colleagues. (See, also, How We Chose Our Offshore Reporting Partners).

Read full story.

2013/04/13

DefDog: The Technology of Political Control — Hardware, Software, & Liveware

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military

An interesting article….

Turkish Central News

The technology of political control is made up of hardware, software,and liveware

As a people, we are facing the most serious threat to humanity in recorded history – the systematic stripping away of traditional freedoms by governments worldwide. And that includes all governments. It is a situation far more serious than the plagues of the Middle Ages that nearly wiped us out as a species. It is a threat never before seen in ten thousand years of human history.

A question of control

A number of separate threats have recently converged. An extremely dangerous situation has been created. Governments have been given the opportunity – and the means – to permanently wrest control from their populations. Bureaucrats are about to realize their dream of absolute power. It is a nightmare far worse than anything George Orwell might have imagined.

Technology is providing the tools to government. We are now at a point in human evolution where your government – if it so chooses – can control every aspect of your life from cradle to grave.
We face three separate threats. Together these threats combine to give government a stranglehold on our civil liberties – a death grip on our traditional freedoms.

Threat #1 – Computers have taken over surveillance. Surveillance is now automated. Entire populations can be supervised and monitored in real time. Half your life, including your last credit card purchase, is already on a database. Computers eavesdrop on all electronic and telephone communications using word-recognition and voice-recognition software. Video cameras are everywhere – inside and outside – they can recognize vehicle license plates and even human faces. And all this information, all these databases, are cross-referenced and tied together – by computers. Taken together, it’s called dataveillance. It makes it easy to track certain classes of people. Like minorities. Or dissidents. Or grassroots political movements. Or anyone who dares think for himself.

Threat #2 – Militarization has taken over the police. The cops are now using some very nasty weapons. Half the stuff they use is prohibited by the Geneva Convention and the Hague Declaration. The government can’t use it in war, buttheir own population is fair game. Modern police technology gives a whole new meaning to crowd control – they use sticky foam laced with chemical irritants. It gives a whole new meaning to interrogation – they use new mark-free interrogation tools. And new friendlier, more humane weapons like plastic bullets, pepper gas, and stun guns – that still maim, scalp, burn, mutilate, and kill.

Threat #3 – Big business has taken over proliferation. Any government bureaucrat can buy this stuff. Most of these high-tech gadgets are dual-use. You can use them for benign things like traffic control – or nasty things like people control. Private companies are reaping huge profits manufacturing and exporting this nightmarish technology. Research and development has gone berserk. Who cares about trivial things like human rights when there’s a buck to be made? Heck, if anyone complains just order the $100,000mobile execution vehicle – it comes complete with lethal injection machine, steel holding cell, and areas for “witnesses” and “staff”.

Read full article.

2013/04/132013/04/13

Berto Jongman: Military Whistle-Blower on Chemtrails (Geo-Engineering)

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Military, Officers Call

Ex-Military Bio-Environmental Engineer Kristen Meghan Blows Whistle On Air Force Chemtrails

Published on Apr 9, 2013

At the 2013 Atlanta Music Liberty Fest, Kristen Meghan, former Air Force Bio-Environmental Engineer gave a ground breaking presentation of what she had discovered about Chemtrails while serving her Country. This BRAVE young lady has put her livelihood / life on the line for U.S. Please take a minute to thank her and help U.S. by redistributing this Video and any other VALID information about Chemtrails to as many people as you can! This is a GLOBAL issue, other countries must get this information as well. “they” are spraying the majority of the population… Why?

Phi Beta Iota: Compelling with factual details. Stromium chromate — cancer — threat to be locked up in a mental wars. Moved from USAF to VA to discover that psychotropic drugs are the standard treatment, pushed by big pharma, a scam — first VA gets you hooked, and then they ask for more money to get you unhooked. Ends by calling for veterans to join Oath Keepers and support our military by educating them.