VIDEO — Merkelism = Thatcherism 2.0? Critics accuse Merkel of pushing EU in wrong direction
RT
September 23, 2013
Angela Merkel has won Germany’s top job again – but the landslide victory is overshadowed by some tough coalition choices. The conservative bloc – Christian Democrats – took 41.5 per cent of the vote. And that’s not enough support for Merkel’s party to rule on their own – as their main rivals; the Social Democrats, led by Peer Steinbrueck came in with 25.7 per cent. A coalition between the two will be hard to reach.
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ACTION ALERT — Albany, NY Introduces Strongest Resolution In America Against NDAA — video included
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Albany, NY – September 23rd, 2013
Contact
Raphaelle O’Neil
Press@pandaunite.org
The Heart Of Tyranny: Albany, NY Introduces Resolution Against NDAA
In an effort to restore the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, 11th Ward Councilman Anton Konev of the Albany, NY Common Council, has introduced Resolution 80.92.13, the strongest resolution in the nation, designed to protect Albany’s citizens from any application of sections 1021 and 1022 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), or the Law of War in the City of Albany.
The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 31, 2011. The 2012 NDAA declares the United States to be a battlefield in the war on terror and Sections 1021 & 1022 authorize the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of all persons on US soil accused by the President of undefined “support” for terrorist activity or commission of a ‘belligerent act”. This violates multiple provisions of the US Constitution, including the 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 14th amendments.
People Against the NDAA (PANDA), a national, nonpartisan, grass roots organization founded in January 2012, is committed to reversing the NDAA’s unconstitutional authorizations with activism to affect policy at the level of state and local government. PANDA started in Bowling Green, OH and has since expanded into over 30 state teams nationwide.
If the resolution is adopted by Albany’s City Common Council, law enforcement in Albany will be required to interpose between the U.S. military, or other similar agencies, and Albany residents under the NDAA’s special provisions, or under any interpretation of Presidential authority permitting detention of U.S. residents without trial under the Law of War. New York’s state and federal legislators, its governor, and its Attorney General will be notified of the City’s determination that local and federal officers will obey the letter of the Constitution and allow due process including a trial to all Albany residents.
PANDA’s New York State Team lobbied hard for this resolution and supplied the initial language from which the resolution was adapted. Kelly Citrin, director emeritus of PANDA NY, said:
“The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 is the most dangerous law passed by the United States Government in recent memory, and this resolution is the beginning of a restoration of American civil liberties in Albany, New York, and throughout the Country. The fight goes on, unrelenting, and this resolution will be a rallying point for the energies of our fellow Americans to restore what was always theirs.” Project SALAM’s Lynne Jackson and Albany mayoral candidate Jesse Calhoun also did invaluable work to advance this resolution.
Passage of this resolution will go a long way to restoring the protections of the rights of the people of Albany, NY and, through the example it will create, the citizens and non-citizen residents of every municipality in the United States of America. Albany activists hope to restore the fundamental right to a fair trial to all persons in the United States, and hope a fair trial of the NDAA will result in its permanent removal from everyday life among the residents of Albany, NY.
This resolution has 7 sponsors. We only need one more. Now is the time to take action and restore liberty in the very heart of tyranny. Although the resolution has been introduced, it must be pushed through, protected from amendments, and voted on by the Council. In order to take a real stand, in order to build the barriers, and in order to restore liberty in one crucial city, we must act NOW.
Tell the Common Council to pass the strongest resolution in the nation. Act NOW to stop the NDAA in Albany, NY.
Take Action NOW: http://www.takebackalbany.com
4.6 magnitude earthquake jolts eastern Quebec’s Sept-Iles
4.6 magnitude earthquake struck just off shore the coast of Quebec early Saturday morning
staffer
Saturday, September 21, 2013, 3:48 PM –
Some residents in eastern Quebec woke up to a weak jolt Saturday morning.
A shallow 4.6-magnitude earthquake struck the city of Sept-Iles at 10:48 a.m. EDT.
VIDEO — US seizes Iranian-controlled NY skyscraper despite promises of dialogue
RT
September 19, 2013
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged a completely peaceful nuclear future for his country. The statement has been generally welcomed by the international community, and is seen as a step by Tehran towards a more moderate stance on the global political arena. But as RT’s Marina Portnaya reports, some of Washington’s actions could jeopardize the prospect of open dialogue.
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VIDEO — Mysterious Pollutant Coating Cars
Tat’s Revolution
September 19, 2013
Some Chattanooga residents who live along Appling Street are speaking up about something strange in the air. They said the gritty substance keeps covering their cars, and they fear it could be harmful.
White blotches cover cars, and at first glance, it sort of looks like pollen. But residents who took a closer look said they aren’t so sure.
Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’
wikimedia image: http://tinyurl.com/l5egt3x
by Frances Stonor Saunders
The Independent
October 22, 1995
[Potent News editor’s note: While I think there is probably more to this story than meets the eye and I think that the CIA wasn’t doing this in the interest of defending America, I still found this to be an interesting article.]
For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art – including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince – except that it acted secretly – the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.
The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art – President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: “If that’s art, then I’m a Hottentot.” As for the artists themselves, many were ex- communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.
Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.
The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the “long leash” – arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.
The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.
The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America’s anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.
Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled “Advancing American Art”, with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: “I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash.” The tour had to be cancelled.
VIA train and Ottawa city bus collide during morning commute, six dead, including the bus driver
National Post
September 18, 2013
Emergency workers transport a person to an ambulance following a crash between a city bus and a Via Rail train, Wednesday September 18, 2013 in Ottawa (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)
A double-decker Ottawa city bus drove through warning lights and guard rails into the side of a crossing passenger train, killing six and injuring at least 30, witnesses to the collision said Wednesday. The corner had been on a “severe public safety issue” list for more than a decade.
Five people were pronounced dead on scene, while the sixth died in hospital, after the OC Transpo bus slammed into theVia Rail train that was pulling into Fallowfield Station, in the suburb of Barrhaven, southwest of Ottawa. Ten people were rushed to hospital in critical condition.
Three of the six deceased have been positively identified but police are not releasing names at this time out of respect to the victims’ families.
The driver of an Ottawa bus has been identified as Dave Woodard. Woodard’s name has not been released by the Ottawa police, but is being widely reported by CTV, the Ottawa Citizen and the CBC.
“One of Woodard’s family members, who did not want to be identified, said everyone is struggling with the loss. She chose to wait until the entire family was informed about the tragic death before speaking publicly about Woodard,” wrote the Citizen. It was Woodard’s wife’s birthday on Tuesday.
The train’s locomotive and a passenger car came off the tracks, but all of the casualties were on the bus, with no injuries among the 100 people on the train. The train came to a halt about 100 metres west of the accident site.
The city’s double-decker buses can seat up to 82 people. OC Transpo said they do not know how many were on the bus Wednesday morning.
Images posted to the Transportation Safety Board’s Flickr page, seem to indicate the bus hit the side of the train’s locomotive under the driver’s cab, less than a metre from the nose.
Bus passengers said they yelled “Stop! Stop!” as the bus ran through warning symbols at the train crossing. The driver has been confirmed to be among the deceased by the union. The union said the driver had about ten years of experience.
“People started screaming, ‘Stop, stop!’ because they could see the train coming down the track,” Tanner Trepanier, who was sitting on the top level of the bus, told The Canadian Press.
[READ MORE… and see videos about this]
[hat tip: CanadianSpartacus’s Blog]
PN 