The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Since Wendell Potter walked away from his executive position at a top health insurance company in May of 2008, he has worked tirelessly as an outspoken critic of corporate PR and the distortion and fear manufactured by America’s health insurance industry. It is a PR juggernaut that is bankrolled by millions of dollars, rivaling lobbying budgets and underwriting many “non-partisan” grassroots organizations. How would Potter know? He wrote many of the industry’s talking points himself.
Our new research intern Lovisa Lönegren joined the staff in January and is already busy answering questions from around the world regarding proposals for the 2012 Right Livelihood Awards.
Anybody can propose a person or an organization (to whom they are not closely related), so if you know someone who is worthy the Award, please let her know.
We are exited to receive many interesting proposals before the deadline on March 1, 2012.
Please follow our guidelines and feel free to ask Lovisa if something seems unclear.
A Battle the President Can't Win
His decision on Catholic charities makes Romney's big gaffe look trivial.
What a faux pas, how inept, how removed from the essential realities of America. Yes, I'm referring to President Obama. But let's do Mitt Romney first.
. . . . . .
EXTRACT:
But the big political news of the week isn't Mr. Romney's gaffe, or even his victory in Florida. The big story took place in Washington. That's where a bomb went off that not many in the political class heard, or understood.
But President Obama just may have lost the election.
The president signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that says that under ObamaCare, Catholic institutions—including charities, hospitals and schools—will be required by law, for the first time ever, to provide and pay for insurance coverage that includes contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization procedures. If they do not, they will face ruinous fines in the millions of dollars. Or they can always go out of business.
In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can't be Catholic anymore.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC)
Impact Assessment
See Also:
Powering Down: A decline in U.S. military might could upend the world order
Phi Beta Iota: NOBODY is doing fact-based evaluations. Senator Sam Nunn's words remain unheeded–there is no credible holistic threat assessment; there is no credible holistic strategy; there is no credible holistic force structure; and there are no credible holistic acquisition plans for actually getting to what should be a 450-ship Navy, a long-haul Air Force, A-10's long overdue for transfer to Army Aviation, and a Marine Corps that stops trying to be expeditionary everything and focuses instead on helping the US Navy create a 450-ship Navy as we have been advocating for over a decade.
See Also:
Integrity? We don't need no stinkin'integrity!
Precision Munitions Lessen Need for Close Air Support Plane: Schwartz Answers the A-10 Question
PENTAGON: One of the longest-running debates between the Air Force and the Army centers on close air support. Historically, the Air Force hates supplying CAS and doesn't like buying or maintaining the planes that do it. But the white scarf boys wouldn't let the Army do the job either, since it involved fixed-wing aircraft and shooting and that's what the Air Force does.
So when the Air Force announced it was scrapping a large chunk of the current A-10 Warthog fleet and the pilots who go with it — five squadrons worth — the Pentagon's back channels quickly filled with disgusted comments about how “there goes the Air Force again.” Every time they need to cut money from the budget the first thing they do is cut the A-10s, which have provided superb close air support ever since they started flying in the mid-70s, critics said. Two things make the A-10 especially fine at CAS: its amazing 30mmm cannon which can destroy a tank with ease; and the titanium bucket within which the pilot sits. The armored aircraft provides pilots with great protection, allowing them to be almost cavalier as they operate in dangerously kinetic environments.
Continue reading “Richard Wright: Integrity? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Integrity!”
The jihad hobbyists who've moved on from watching al-Qaida videos
From rap to ‘radicalisation scores', today's e-jihadists are more than just consumers – but they tend to keep it all online
Jarret Brachman
Guardian, 3 February 2012
EXTRACT:
In 2012, al-Qaida's senior leadership is several heartbeats away from extinction. Their affiliate groups in Yemen, Algeria and elsewhere remain embattled. What remains is a global support movement that is rabid, technologically empowered, but less concerned with the al-Qaida brand name or all that came along with it. Al-Qaida's global movement today is sloppy and self-centred. It is only the most zealous few who seek to live up to their legendary status in the virtual world these days. The problem for intelligence and law-enforcement professionals is identifying that needle in the online jihadi haystack.
