The rape victims Canada won’t help

Last week, not long after Foreign Minister John Baird denounced sexual violence in a speech at the United Nations, the Conservative government announced it would not fund overseas projects that help war rape victims and child brides get abortions. The policy, announced by International Development Minister Christian Paradis, flew under the radar, virtually causing no ripples.

The government is absolutely within its rights to decide who gets its aid dollars, but decisions have consequences, and it is important to shine the spotlight on the kind of people our government has decided it is not in our interest to help.

These are essentially victims of sexual violence, and their numbers beggar belief. The World Health Organization estimated that in 2002 alone, 150 million girls and 73 million boys experienced “forced sexual intercourse” or other forms of sexual violence across the globe.

N.S.A. Director Firmly Defends Surveillance Efforts

FORT MEADE, Md. — The director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, said in an interview that to prevent terrorist attacks he saw no effective alternative to the N.S.A.’s bulk collection of telephone and other electronic metadata from Americans. But he acknowledged that his agency now faced an entirely new reality, and the possibility of Congressional restrictions, after revelations about its operations at home and abroad.

While offering a detailed defense of his agency’s work, General Alexander said the broader lesson of the controversy over disclosures of secret N.S.A. surveillance missions was that he and other top officials have to be more open in explaining the agency’s role, especially as it expands its mission into cyberoffense and cyberdefense.

California Community Colleges Can Charge More For In-Demand Classes Under New Law

A controversial new law will allow some California community colleges to charge more for their most popular classes, outraging some students and public education advocates who fear this lays the foundation for a new standard of rewarding wealth over academic standing.

Signed into law on Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown, the two-tiered tuition law allows for up to six of the state’s community colleges to participate in a pilot program wherein schools can charge a premium price for the most in-demand classes. The option will only apply to summer and winter term extension classes, and the experiment will expire in 2018.

World War II Memorial Barriers Pushed Through By Crowd

WASHINGTON — A crowd converged on the World War II Memorial on the National Mall on Sunday, pushing through barriers to protest the memorial's closing under the government shutdown.

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, along with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were among those gathered Sunday morning. Cruz said President Barack Obama is using veterans as pawns in closing the memorial.

"Let me ask a simple question," Cruz told the crowd. "Why is the federal government spending money to erect barricades to keep veterans out of this memorial?"

Morgan Griffith, GOP Rep, Compares Default To American Revolution

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) compared the looming default to the American Revolution on Saturday after a meeting with House Republicans.

The Hill reports Griffith suggested that even if it resulted in a severely damaging default, the House should reject an unfavorable agreement from the Senate.

“We have to make a decision that’s right long-term for the United States, and what may be distasteful, unpleasant and not appropriate in the short run may be something that has to be done,” Griffith said, according to The Hill. “I will remind you that this group of renegades that decided that they wanted to break from the crown in 1776 did great damage to the economy of the colonies. They created the greatest nation and the best form of government, but they did damage to the economy in the short run.”

Impeach Obama!

By the time that long-obscure, lately apposite sentence became part of the Constitution, on July 9, 1868, the insurrection that occasioned it had been thoroughly, and bloodily, suppressed. Throughout the Civil War and afterward, Republicans in Congress had enacted some of the most forward-looking legislation in American history: a national currency, the Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, support for higher education, the definitive abolition of slavery—all thanks to the extended absence of delegations from the self-styled Confederate states. Now that era was about to end.

The party of Lincoln, grand but not yet old, feared the mischief that Southern senators and representatives might get up to when their states were readmitted to the Union. The Republicans’ foremost worry was that Congress might somehow be induced to cut funds for Union pensioners or pay off lenders who had gambled on a Confederate victory. But the language of the Fourteenth Amendment’s framers went further. Benjamin Wade, the president pro tem of the Senate, explained that the national debt would be safer once it was “withdrawn from the power of Congress to repudiate it.” He and his colleagues didn’t say just that the debt could not be put off, or left unpaid. They said that it couldn’t even be questioned.

How to Democratize the US Economy

Everyone knows the United States faces enormous challenges: unemployment, poverty, global warming, environmental decay—to say nothing of whole cities that have essentially been thrown away. We know the economic system is dominated by powerful corporate institutions. And we know the political system is dominated by those same institutions. Elections occur and major fiscal debates ensue, but most of the problems are only marginally affected (and often in ways that increase the burdens).

Harper's war on science continues with a vengeance

This week, after another tumultuous summer of scandal and the third prorogation of his tenure as prime minister, Stephen Harper will deliver his throne speech to Parliament to be read by the Governor General. The advance word has it that the focus of the speech and the legislative agenda it ushers in will be the protection of consumers.

The choice of words is telling. This is a government interested mainly in what Canadians use and spend, and only passionate about those parts of Canada it can develop and sell off. It cares little about Canadians as citizens and even less about protecting Canada’s shared public goods and standing on guard for its natural capital.

Philly Stop And Frisk Video Shows How Bad This Tactic Can Be

As the controversy over stop-and-frisk heats up in New York, another battle is playing out in nearby Philadelphia.

A video posted to YouTube at the end of the last month- that attracted attention this weekend- reportedly shows a stop-and-frisk gone wrong.

In the video, two men appear to be stopped by two police officers after saying hello to another man on the street.

"You don't say hi to strangers," the first officer says. "Not in this neighborhood," says the second.

In the 16 minute video, which was reportedly taken on September 27th, the officers also curse, make fun of and threaten the two men.

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Police Department is investigating the incident.

Watch the video above and let us know what you think in the comments section.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: Alana Horowitz

How Sequestration And The Shutdown Dealt A Body Blow To Scientists

WASHINGTON -- As congressional leaders attempt the patch together a last-minute deal to fund the federal government and raise the nation’s debt limit, scientists dependent on federal funds are looking on with concern.

For nearly the past two weeks, many of them have been denied access to work, either because the agencies that employ them have been shut down or because the facilities where they operate have been closed. The Obama administration announced Friday that four of the five Nobel Prize-winning researchers currently working for the federal government were “furloughed and unable to conduct their federal research.”