organization:congress

Est-il de pire démission que d’abandonner à un gouvernement incapable les enjeux sociaux majeurs, comme l’éducation ou la santé ?

The north of Nigeria has about 30 percent vaccination coverage, and they’re above average in terms of wealth within Africa. You compare that to, say, Somalia, which has absolutely no government at all, and they get about 60 percent vaccine coverage of children. So you have a place literally with no government getting a better vaccine coverage than a place that’s above average wealth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/17/bill-gates-death-is-something-we-really-understand-extremely-well/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

Les métadonnées comptent : comment l’enregistrement des conversations téléphoniques et les lois obsolètes nuisent à la liberté de la presse et à la vie privée - Verge
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/16/4336994/metadata-matters-how-phone-records-and-obsolete-laws-harm-privacy

Le gouvernement américain via son service fiscal a espionné les lignes téléphoniques des journalistes d’Associated Press. Sans avoir accès au contenu, l’administration fiscale a eu accès aux numéros, aux durées des appelles, au localisations (pas au contenu) : voir cet article du Monde pour les explications : http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2013/05/14/benghazi-irs-ap-les-affaires-qui-fragilisent-barack-obama_3200459_3222.html. Mais rappelle The Verge, il y a des catégories entières (...)

#vieprivee #surveillance #libertés

Free Arabs : Benchemsi accusé de relayer le discours des conservateurs américains
http://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/17368/free-arabs-benchemsi-accuse-relayer.html

Ahmed Benchemsi est attaqué sur tous les fronts. Alors que l’ancien directeur de publication de l’hebdomadaire d’opposition marocain Tel Quel est poursuivi pour diffamation par Mounir Majidi, secrétaire particulier du roi Mohamed VI, à Paris, il est accusé, au même moment, d’être devenu le fer de lance arabe de l’islamophobie et du soutien américain à Israël. Le journaliste Max Blumenthal, ancien d’Al Akhbar, dans un article publié sur Electronic Intifada le 7 mai, associe l’AIC (American Islamic Congress) et Free Arabs, site d’information co-fondé par Ahmed Réda Benchemsi. Le 9 mai, « l’enfant terrible de la presse marocaine » a répliqué sur Free Arabs.

Tomgram : David Vine, Baseworld Profiteering | TomDispatch
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175699/tomgram:_david_vine,_baseworld_profiteering

...after an extensive examination of government spending data and contracts, I estimate that the Pentagon has dispersed around $385 billion to private companies for work done outside the U.S. since late 2001, mainly in that baseworld. That’s nearly double the entire State Department budget over the same period, and because Pentagon and government accounting practices are so poor, the true total may be significantly higher.

...

... an analysis of Pentagon spending reveals a troubling pattern: the majority of benefits have gone to a relatively small group of private contractors. In total, almost a third of the $385 billion has flowed into the coffers of just 10 top contractors, including scandal-prone companies like KBR, the former subsidiary of Halliburton, and oil giant BP.

...

The use of contractors accelerated following the Cold War’s end, part of a larger trend toward the privatization of formerly public services.

...

Contractors are hardly alone in raking in the dollars from the Pentagon’s baseworld. Pentagon officials, military personnel, members of Congress, and lobbyists, among others, have all benefited — financially, politically, and professionally — from the giant overseas presence. In particular, contractors have spread the love by making millions in campaign contributions to members of Congress. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, military contractors and their employees gave more than $27 million in election donations in 2012 alone, and have donated almost $200 million since 1990.

Most of these have gone to members of the armed services and appropriations committees in the Senate and House of Representatives. These, of course, have primary authority over awarding military dollars. For the 2012 elections, for example, DynCorp International’s political action committee donated $10,000 to both the chair and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and made additional donations to 33 other members of the House and Senate armed services committees and 16 members of the two appropriations committees.

...

Inégalités : le retour des pharaons
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/carnet/2013-05-14-Inegalites

« Les inégalités ont toujours existé », entend-on souvent du côté de ceux qui aimeraient banaliser leur flambée. Certes, mais celles-ci étaient encore plus prononcées du temps des pharaons et des pyramides qu’au cours du XXème siècle. Sur ce point, notre modernité s’inspirerait-elle donc du temps de l’Egypte ancienne ?
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L540xH359/noclimbing-d9aa0.jpg
Inde, Chine, Russie, Italie, Etats-Unis, pays du Golfe : l’essor des fortunes et du nombre de milliardaires paraît caractériser l’état des lieux, comme le détaille le dernier numéro du Monde diplomatique. Un dernier exemple vient de nous en être donné dans les entreprises américaines.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-02/disclosed-the-pay-gap-between-ceos-and-employees

#Capitalisme #Inégalités #Mondialisation #Crise_économique #Crise_financière #États-Unis #Économie #La_valise_diplomatique

Où il est question d’Abercrombie : http://seenthis.net/messages/137863

A lire dans le numéro de mai :

Etat des lieux pour préparer une reconquête
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/05/HALIMI/49056

Nul ne croit plus que la raison l’emportera sur des politiques d’austérité insensées, ni que la morale préviendra les scandales mêlant argent et pouvoir. Désormais, l’espoir d’un changement de direction repose sur la mise en cause frontale des intérêts en jeu.

La corruption des élus américains par leurs généreux donateurs commence à faire l’objet d’études :

This may be a coincidence, but according to MapLight, Senators who voted last week for the bill allowing states to directly collect taxes on sales via the Internet, AKA The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, received 40 times as much campaign donation money (yes, that’s four-oh, not just four) from businesses in favor of the bill as those who voted against it received from businesses that were against Internet sales taxes. Was this bribery?

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/05/13/1927232/did-internet-sales-tax-backers-bribe-congress-video
http://maplight.org/us-congress/bill/113-s-743/1278729/total-contributions

#corruption_légale

Speaking of Abrams, What Did He Know About Genocide in Guatemala ? « LobeLog.com
http://www.lobelog.com/speaking-of-abrams-what-did-he-know-about-genocide-in-guatemala

#Rios_Montt, http://seenthis.net/messages/137841 un client d’#Israël au même titre que les auteurs libanais du massacre de Sabra et Chatila.

Also likely to be somewhat embarrassed is the government of Israel which moved into the vacuum created by Carter’s and Congress’s cut-off of military and intelligence assistance and subsequently expanded its involvement with Rios Montt’s counter-insurgency efforts with the Reagan administration’s encouragement. In 1982, just before Reagan’s visit, Ríos Montt told ABC News that his success in allegedly defeating the guerrillas was due the fact that “our soldiers were trained by Israelis.” It was the same year as the Sabra and Shatila massacres by Israel-backed Phalange militiamen in Beirut. Now, its Central American client has been convicted of genocide.

Tomas de Torquemada in the U.S. armed forces | McClatchy
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/10/190907/tomas-de-torquemada-in-the-us.html

Lawrence Wilkerson, l’ancien chef du personnel de Colin Powell, sur les « fondamentalistes chrétiens » au sein de l’armée US et le soutien qu’ils reçoivent de la part de leur hiérarchie, des médias et du congrès.

About a month ago, I joined the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to replace Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL and member of the board who had recently been killed in the Benghazi incident. I was a reluctant recruit, knowing as I did the importance of spiritual solace amid the horrors of battle.

“Why,” I asked myself, “should we meddle with something so important?”

When the MRFF’s director, Mikey Weinstein, allowed me to study the extent and nature of the activities of certain fundamentalists within the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces - and I poured through records of their obscenities, vicious hatred and other manifestations of their more insidious members’ minds - I changed my mind. That so-called followers of Christ could write and say such things, and their defenders and representatives in the media, Congress and elsewhere could ally with them, made my blood boil.

...

Now, we have a breed of fundamentalist Christians trying to proselytize our armed forces into hell.

Perhaps worse, we have news media, members of Congress, research councils and a host of what I can only call radical fundamentalist organizations - American Taliban? - who constantly support them, urge them on, and demonize organizations like the MRFF.

Next, we will have the construction of fundamentalist Christian madrassas all across this great land.

...

DOJ: We don’t need warrants for e-mail, Facebook chats

An FBI investigation manual updated last year, obtained by the ACLU, says it’s possible to warrantlessly obtain Americans’ e-mail “without running afoul” of the Fourth Amendment.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57583395-38/doj-we-dont-need-warrants-for-e-mail-facebook-chats

Le physicien Stephen Hawking soutient le boycott académique d’Israël
►http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2013/05/08/le-physicien-stephen-hawking-soutient-le-boycott-academique-d-israel_3173677

(...) Dans une déclaration publiée avec son accord, le Comité britannique pour les universités palestiniennes (CBUP), qui soutient ce boycott et s’oppose à l’occupation des territoires palestiniens, explicite « sa décision prise en toute indépendance de respecter le boycott, sur la base de sa connaissance de la Palestine et des conseils unanimes de ses contacts académiques là-bas », rapporte le Guardian . Au sein de l’université britannique de Cambridge, où M. Hawking travaille depuis 1962, on la justifie en revanche par des « problèmes de santé ». Atteint de sclérose latérale amyotrophique (maladie de Charcot), Stephen Hawking se serait vu déconseiller par ses médecins de prendre l’avion.

UNE DÉCISION POLÉMIQUE

Depuis l’annonce de sa participation à cette conférence, il y a quatre semaines, Stephen Hawking croulait sous les messages venus de Grande-Bretagne et d’ailleurs pour l’enjoindre à rejoindre la campagne BDS. Désormais, ce sont les accusations d’antisémitisme qui s’accumulent dans les boîtes e-mail du physicien. On ne lui prête pourtant aucun propos de cette nature en public. Depuis sa visite en 2006 dans des universités israéliennes et palestiniennes, le scientifique aurait durci sa position à l’égard d’Israël. En 2009, le physicien a dénoncé l’opération Plomb durci menée pendant trois semaines par Israël dans la bande de Gaza, qualifiant de « disproportionnée » la réponse apportée par l’Etat hébreu aux tirs de roquettes palestiniens. « La situation ressemble à celle qui prévalait en Afrique du sud avant 1990 et ne peut continuer », avait-il déclaré sur la chaîne Al-Jazira .

Et un(e) de plus :

« Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel »

Physicist pulls out of conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of Palestinians

►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/stephen-hawking-israel-academic-boycott

Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president’s conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres’s 90th birthday.

Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking’s approval described it as “his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there”.

#Palestine #BDS #boycott_Israël #Israël

The U.S. and Chemical Weapons: No Leg to Stand On
http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_us_and_chemical_weapons_no_leg_to_stand_on

Israel is widely believed to have produced and stockpiled an extensive range of chemical weapons and is engaged in ongoing research and development of additional chemical weaponry. (Israel is also believed to maintain a sophisticated biological weapons program, which is widely thought to include anthrax and more advanced weaponized agents and other toxins, as well as a sizable nuclear weapons arsenal with sophisticated delivery systems.) For more than 45 years, the Syrians have witnessed successive U.S. administration provide massive amounts of armaments to a neighboring country with a vastly superior military capability which has invaded, occupied, and colonized Syria’s Golan province in the southwest. In 2007, the United States successfully pressured Israel to reject peace overtures from the Syrian government in which the Syrians offered to recognize Israel and agree to strict security guarantees in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian territory.

The U.S. position that Syria must unilaterally give up its chemical weapons and missiles while allowing a powerful and hostile neighbor to maintain and expand its sizable arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons is simply unreasonable. No country, whether autocratic or democratic, could be expected to accept such conditions.

Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria - West of Eden Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/former-bush-administration-official-israel-may-be-behind-use-of-chemical-ar

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli “false flag” operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad’s regime.

Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV, the network once owned by former Vice President Al Gore and recently purchased by Al-Jazeera.

Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad’s regime that had used the chemical weapons was “flaky” and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: “I think we’ve got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now.”

President Obama can shut Guantanamo whenever he wants to. - Slate Magazine
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/05/president_obama_can_shut_guantanamo_whenever_he_wants_to.html

The real issue here, of course, is that Congress has given the president a convenient excuse for not doing something he doesn’t really want to do anyway. The public wants to keep Guantanamo open.

Who Has Your Back ? 2013
https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013

When you use the Internet, you entrust your conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, AT&T and Facebook. But what do these companies do when the government demands your private information? Do they stand with you? Do they let you know what’s going on?

#vie_privée #surveillance

The Prophets of Oak Ridge
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2013/04/29/the-prophets-of-oak-ridge

Last summer, in the dead of night, three peace activists penetrated the exterior of Y-12 in Tennessee, supposedly one of the most secure nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States. A drifter, an 82-year-old nun and a house painter. They face trial next week on charges that fall under the sabotage section of the U.S. criminal code. And if they had been terrorists armed with explosives, intent on mass destruction? That nightmare scenario underlies the government’s response to the intrusion. This is the story of two competing worldviews, of conscience vs. court, of fantasy vs. reality, of history vs. the future.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/prophets/images/2560_nuclearnun171362351073.jpg
#nucléaire #armes

L’analyse prédictive et le partage de données soulèvent des inquiétudes pour les libertés civiles - O’Reilly Radar
http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/04/predictive-big-data-analytics-privacy.html

Le Centre de contre-terrorisme américain a désormais le droit d’utiliser les données des citoyens américains détenus par l’administration pour un comportement criminel possible même s’il n’y a aucune raison de les soupçonner. La police de la pensée est en marche ! Tags : internetactu2net fing internetactu #bigdata (...)

#politique

Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/army-says-no-more-tanks-congress-insists-115422396.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — Built to dominate the enemy in combat, the Army’s hulking Abrams tank is proving equally hard to beat in a budget battle.

Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams.

But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, “No thanks.”
It’s the inverse of the federal budget world these days, in which automatic spending cuts are leaving sought-after pet programs struggling or unpaid altogether. Republicans and Democrats for years have fought so bitterly that lawmaking in Washington ground to a near-halt.

Yet in the case of the Abrams tank, there’s a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.

“If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press this past week.

#lobbying #corruption_légale

L’arrière-plan de géopolitique pétrolière et gazière - souvent ignoré - derrière la crise syrienne et ses prolongements iraniens est analysé de manière approfondie par Pepe Escobar. Sont évoqués le pipeline Iran-Pakistan (et ses prolongements probables vers la Chine et l’Inde, concurrent du projet américain TAPI) ainsi que le projet de pipeline Iran-Irak-Syrie signé en 2011 qui, d’une part, ruinerait les espérances du Qatar de se libérer des contraintes géopolitiques et militaires du golfe arabo-persique (présence menaçante de l’Arabie saoudite et de l’Iran) pour approvisionner l’Europe en gaz et concurrencer la Russie comme approvisionneur de l’U.E. (souhait soutenu par les Américains) et qui, d’autre part, contrarierait le rêve turc de devenir un gigantesque hub énergétique :
http://rt.com/op-edge/iran-pakistan-syria-pipeline-843

35 arguments contre les #GoogleGlass
http://www.edrants.com/thirty-five-arguments-against-google-glass

I put forth the modest proposition that Google Glass, conjured and constructed and conceived only in terms of “cool” and propped up by ostensible “journalists” who have never thought to question Mr. Brin’s brilliant PR, could pose more problems to our world than any digital invention we have seen in some time. Contrary to Mr. Brin’s suggestions, his device will not “free” us. It will quite possibly destroy several vital qualities of life we now take for granted, preying upon kind and decent and hardworking people who are still playing pickup from an economic blitzkrieg in which they had no power, little hope, and no control. One would think that a man born in Moscow under Brezhnev would grasp the cruel irony of being directly responsible for an entirely new set of encroachments upon freedom and human possibility. On the other hand, great hills of money often move mountains in other ranges.

Obama et le chimique, l’Irak et les rebelles syriens
http://www.dedefensa.org/article-obama_et_le_chimique_l_irak_et_les_rebelles_syriens_27_04_2013.ht

• Agitation à nouveau autour du chimique en Syrie. • Et cet avion, peut-être irakien, attaquant des rebelles en Syrie.

“Hear My Voice” : Smithsonian Identifies 130-Year-Old Recording as Alexander Graham Bell’s Voice
http://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/%E2%80%9Chear-my-voice%E2%80%9D-smithsonian-identifies-130-year-

The noninvasive optical technique used in this project to scan and recover sounds was first conceived by Berkeley Lab in 2002 and jointly developed with assistance from the Library of Congress and other institutions over the past 10 years. The process creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. This map is then processed to remove evidence of wear or damage (e.g., scratches and skips). Finally, software calculates the motion of a stylus moving through the disc or cylinder’s grooves, reproducing the audio content and producing a standard digital sound file. For more information, visit http://irene.lbl.gov.

#audio #restauration

À Toutes fins utiles.

Global Governance Report Card-
http://www.cfr.org/thinktank/iigg/reportcard/?cid=otr-marketing_use-iigg_report_cards

Mass evictions continue in Spain - World Socialist Web Site

►http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/23/spai-a23.html

Mass evictions continue in Spain

By Franci Vier and Paul Mitchell
23 April 2013

Last Thursday, the Popular Party (PP) used its majority in Spain’s Congress to pass a Law on Measures to Protect Debtors, Debt Restructuring and Social Renting.

The law was prompted by an anti-evictions petition launched by the Mortgage Victims Platform (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, PAH), which received 1.5 million signatures. The three main demands of the petition, known as the Legislative Initiative for Decent Housing (Inciativa Legislativa Popular, ILP) were a backdated halt to evictions, the creation of a pool of social housing for those who are made homeless, and a new law to allow those who have had their homes foreclosed to write off their debts by handing the property over to the bank. Under Spanish law, a mortgage holder can be made to pay off a remaining loan if the value of the property does not cover the debt.

#espagne #crise #logement

Mass evictions continue in Spain - World Socialist Web Site

►http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/23/spai-a23.html

Mass evictions continue in Spain

By Franci Vier and Paul Mitchell
23 April 2013

Last Thursday, the Popular Party (PP) used its majority in Spain’s Congress to pass a Law on Measures to Protect Debtors, Debt Restructuring and Social Renting.

The law was prompted by an anti-evictions petition launched by the Mortgage Victims Platform (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, PAH), which received 1.5 million signatures. The three main demands of the petition, known as the Legislative Initiative for Decent Housing (Inciativa Legislativa Popular, ILP) were a backdated halt to evictions, the creation of a pool of social housing for those who are made homeless, and a new law to allow those who have had their homes foreclosed to write off their debts by handing the property over to the bank. Under Spanish law, a mortgage holder can be made to pay off a remaining loan if the value of the property does not cover the debt.

#espagne #crise #logement