Va savoir pourquoi, mais l’accident de sacrum de Marine Le Pen m’a donné furieusement envie de revoir Bob Roberts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Roberts
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/Bob_roberts_poster.jpg
#les_films_qui_ont_changé_ma_vie #film
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
Drone Strikes are the Face of America to Yemenis: al-Muslimi
Alice K. Ross writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Informed Comment:
►http://www.juancole.com
‘Drone strikes are the face of America to many Yemenis,’ Farea al-Muslimi told a rare US Senate hearing on targeted killing last week.
The Yemeni journalist and activist gave emotive testimony at a Senate subcommittee about the impact of drone strikes and targeted killings on his homeland. His statement was a view from beneath the strikes that is almost unique in Washington and drew some applause from the chamber.
New U.N. arms treaty faces rough road in U.S. Senate- New U.N. arms treaty faces rough road in U.S. Senate http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-arms-treaty-un-usa-idUSBRE93216F20130403
The new global arms trade treaty was overwhelmingly approved by the United Nations, with U.S. backing, but it was clear on Wednesday it faces a tough fight for ratification by U.S. senators who contend it could affect Americans’ gun rights.
Ça c’est excellent : l’émission humoristique américaine Saturday Night Live avait un sketch de six minutes parodiant l’invraisemblable focalisation de l’audition de Chuck Hagel devant le Sénat américain sur la seule « sécurité » d’Israël.
Du coup… l’Anti-Defamation League accuse le sketch de « possible » promotion de l’antisémitisme, au motif que le sketch pourrait suggérer, auprès de spectateurs influençables, qu’il y aurait un lobby israélien très puissant aux États-Unis (admire comment je te me conditionnelle tout ça).
L’accusation de l’ADL est d’autant plus savoureuse que le sketch n’a finalement pas été diffusé à la télévision. Hum… #wag_the_dog
“[T]here inevitably will be those who say, ‘Yeah, it’s funny, but there’s some truth to all of this,’” Foxman wrote in a letter Monday to SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels. “And for a smaller minority among those individuals, elements of the skit could play into the worst kind of ideas, even reinforcing pernicious notions of Jewish control of government in the vein of those routinely espoused by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites by suggesting that U.S. officials would even engage in public sex acts if asked to do so by Israel.”
Impossible de voir le sketch sur le site de la NBC si on n’est pas aux États-Unis. Mais il est reproduit dans cet article du Daily Beast.
En même temps, dans la vraie vie, les escrocs sont beaucoup plus drôles :
US Senate panel approves Hagel nomination
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/02/201321394731969645.html
At one point, Republican James Inhofe accused Hagel of being “cosy” with Iran because, as he said, Tehran had backed his nomination.
“He’s endorsed by them. You can’t get any cosier than that,” Inhofe said, prompting gasps within the hearing room and protests from Democrats.
The law of war does not shield the CIA and John Brennan’s drone kill list
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/08/law-war-cia-john-brennan-drone-kill-list
Par Morris Davis, un officier à la retraite de l’armée étasunienne.
La CIA, rappelle l’auteur, est coupable de crimes de guerre dans la mesure où ses opérateurs de drones tuent alors qu’ils ne portent pas d’uniforme.
C’est exactement l’acte d’accusation qui avait été porté par les Etats-Unis contre le Canadien Omar Khadr, comme l’expliquait déjà un article de 2010 du New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/us/26gitmo.html?_r=2&ref=world& (alors même que, Khadr étant un enfant au moment des faits, cette poursuite créait un précédent fustigé à l’époque par HRW)
La pièce maîtresse de l’acte d’accusation n’est pas un acte terroriste classique – cibler des civils -, mais le fait de tuer un soldat ennemi au combat. Habituellement en temps de guerre, tuer sur le champ de bataille n’est pas passible de poursuites. Mais les Etats-Unis ont soutenu que M. Khadr ne pouvait bénéficier de cette immunité parce qu’il ne portait pas d’uniforme, entre autres exigences des lois de guerre.
In #Apple's War on Taxes, Surrender Costs $28 Billion | Wired Business
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/apples-28-billion-dollar-tax-war
Dealing with the tax man, it turns out, could cost the company upward of $28.5 billion or send it on a shopping spree abroad.
(...) money it intends to keep perpetually out of the U.S. (...)
Apple’s big tax liabilities are important considerations when thinking about the company’s vaunted cash and securities hoard, which reached $121.3 billion three months ago. Fully $82.6 billion of that money was held by Apple’s foreign subsidiaries, which collect much of Apple’s profit as part of a popular tax avoidance scheme in which offshore subsidiaries hold a tech company’s intellectual property and the U.S. parent then licenses the intellectual property back. Thanks to such maneuvering, Apple paid just 1.9 percent on foreign earnings in its last fiscal year.
Tammy Baldwin makes history as first openly gay person elected to US Senate | Gay Star News
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/tammy-baldwin-makes-history-first-openly-gay-person-elected-us-senate07
Tammy Baldwin makes history as first openly gay person elected to US Senate
Democratic candidates defeats Republican Tommy Thompson
07 November 2012 | By Greg Hernandez
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin made history Tuesday (6 November) by becoming the first openly gay person to be elected to the US Senate.
Baldwin, who has represented Wisconsin in the US House of Representatives for seven terms, defeated Republican Tommy Thompson who is opposed to gay marriage. She replaces retiring Democrat Herb Kohl in the Senate.
’I am honored and humbled and grateful, and I am ready to get to work - ready to stand with Barack Obama, and ready to fight for Wisconsin’s middle class,’ Baldwin told supporters at her victory party.’
Baldwin, 50, has said her sexuality has not been an issue on the campaign trail because voters in her state care more about such issues as the economy and jobs than their representative’s love life.
But Baldwin has acknowledged the significance of a lesbian being elected to the US Senate. She has gotten used to making history in this regard starting with becoming the first lesbian elected to the Wisconsin Assembly then the first non-incumbent gay person elected to the US House of Representatives.
Baldwin recently told the British paper The Guardian: ‘We never had an openly LGBT member of the US Senate and, even though there are strong pro-equality allies who serve there, it has always been a conversation about a group of people. So this changes everything.’
For fifteen years, her domestic partner was Lauren Azar, until the couple separated in 2010. They had registered as domestic partners in Wisconsin a year earlier.
Herndon Graddick, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin were among the LGBT leaders enthusiastic about the result.
’Tonight Tammy Baldwin made history and shone a bright light across America,’ Graddick said in a statement. ’No longer is the United States Senate a place for only a select few but for every citizen, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. Tammy Baldwin’s victory showed what a majority of Americans already know: that candidates should be judged on their qualifications for the job and not their sexual orientation.’
Said Griffin: ’As the first openly gay person elected to the United States Senate, she is a role model for LGBT youth and all young women across the country. With a relentless focus on the issues that matter most to Wisconsin voters – economic security, access to healthcare, and fairness and inclusion for all – Senator-elect Baldwin earned the respect of all her constituents, gay and straight.’
United States celebrates historic day for gay rights | Gay Star News
http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/united-states-celebrates-historic-day-gay-rights071112
United States celebrates historic day for gay rights
With four marriage equality battles won and the first lesbian to be elected in the US Senate, gay rights advocates are celebrating in America
07 November 2012 | By Joe Morgan
President Barack Obama, the first sitting US president to back marriage equality, has been given a second term.
The United States can now celebrate a historic day for gay rights after the first sitting president in history to back marriage equality has been given a second term.
President Barack Obama won the election after gaining the 270 electoral votes needed.
With only Florida’s 29 electoral votes still undecided, Obama won 303 votes to Mitt Romney’s 206.
In three states, Maine, Maryland and Washington, gay people are now able to get married and enjoy the same legal benefits as their heterosexual peers.
In Minnesota, people voted to stop gay marriage from being banned outright in the state.
The Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin, whose organization gave $5 million to the four marriage equality battles, said these laws give thousands of loving couples the ‘opportunity to make lifelong commitments through marriage.’
He said: ‘This is a milestone night for the simple truth that when Americans are presented with the real lives of their friends and neighbors, they have no choice but to vote for equality.’
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin also made history by becoming the first openly gay person to be elected to the US Senate.
’I am honored and humbled and grateful, and I am ready to get to work - ready to stand with Barack Obama, and ready to fight for Wisconsin’s middle class,’ Baldwin told supporters at her victory party.’
Openly gay candidate Mark Pocan took Baldwin’s seat in the House of Representatives, meaning it is the first time a gay member of congress is succeeded by another gay member.
In early returns, openly gay Democratic candidate Mark Takano is leading against his Republican challenger in a new California district. If he wins, he would be the first gay Asian-American in Congress.
If they were elected, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running-mate Paul Ryan said they would introduce a federal state-wide ban on same-sex marriage.
Anti-gay and anti-abortion Republican candidate Todd Akin, renowned for saying women cannot get pregnant from ‘legitimate rape’, lost his fight to become a senator of Missouri.
Writing on Facebook before the presidential result was officially announced, he said: ‘Fox News Channel projects Barack Hussein Obama has won reelection. May God have mercy on our nation.’
Extremist Christian conservative pundit Bryan Fischer predicted on Twitter that anti-gay Mike Pence of Indiana would win the 2016 election. He added: ‘Today was Pearl Harbor. Tomorrow we begin planning for Normandy.’
In his victory speech, President Barack Obama said gays should be able to achieve the American dream.
He said: ‘It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love.
‘It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or pool, abled, disabled, gay or straight.
‘You can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.’
FBI launches $1 billion face recognition project
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528804.200-fbi-launches-1-billion-face-recognition-project.html
“FACE recognition is ’now’,” declared Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in a testimony before the US Senate in July.
It certainly seems that way. As part of an update to the national fingerprint database, the FBI has begun rolling out facial recognition to identify criminals.
It will form part of the bureau’s long-awaited, $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) programme, which will also add biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification to the toolkit. A handful of states began uploading their photos as part of a pilot programme this February and it is expected to be rolled out nationwide by 2014. In addition to scanning mugshots for a match, FBI officials have indicated that they are keen to track a suspect by picking out their face in a crowd.
Rapprochement militaire entre les Philippines et les Etats-Unis
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/aqui-j11.shtml
Philippine President Aquino in Washington boosts military ties
By Joseph Santolan
11 June 2012
Philippine President Benigno Aquino travelled to Washington from June 7 to 10, where he met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the US Senate. The meetings were part of Washington’s “pivot” to the Asia Pacific, a calculated policy for the strategic military containment of China. Increased military ties, intelligence sharing, and the dramatic expansion of the rotational deployment of US troops in the Philippines were all agreed upon during these meetings.
On June 5, two days before Aquino’s arrival, the US Senate unanimously passed Resolution 481, which called for US support for “increased Philippine defense modernization” and the “rotational presence of US armed forces in the Philippines.” The call for the rotational presence of US armed forces is part of the push for renewed basing arrangements in the Philippines, along the lines of the agreement reached by Washington and Canberra in November last year. It would allow the stationing of US troops in the Philippines and grant access to Philippine naval and military facilities.
Agreement Groups in the United States Senate
http://friggeri.net/senate
Voilà une représentation visuelle qui vaut vraiment le détour. Très créatif, très original et très informatif
agreement groups in the
united states senate
Adrien Friggeri
The United States Senate is the upper house of the United States legislature and contrary to the House of Representative which seats are up for election every two years, Senators serve terms of six years each. Those terms are however staggered so that approximately one-third of the Senate is renewed every two years. This means that each pair of consecutive sessions of the Senate share a large number of common Senators.
Being interested in social networks and communities, it was only natural to look at how those Senators were linked one to another and the natural community structure which emerged from their interactions. Thanks to GovTrack.us, we were able to construct for each session of the Senate an agreement graph between Senators.
Lieberman Edges US to War with Iran
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/18/lieberman-edges-us-to-war-with-iran
Sen. Joe Lieberman is leading a group of nearly one-third of the U.S. Senate urging that the red line on war with Iran be shifted from building a nuclear weapon to the vague notion of Iran having the “capability” to build one. The neoconservative senator from Connecticut has introduced a “Sense of the Senate” resolution that would put the body on record as rejecting a situation that arguably already exists, in which Iran has the know-how to build a bomb even if it has no intention to do so.
The resolution tracks with the positions of hardline Israeli leaders, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and undercuts the position of President Barack Obama, whose administration has been exploring ways to negotiate an agreement with Iran, which insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies also agree that Iran has NOT decided to build a bomb. [See Consortiumnews.com’s ““US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes.”] However, in recent weeks, the goal posts have been subtly moved not only by American neocons and Israeli hardliners but by the major U.S. news media, which has inserted the new weasel word “capability” in mentions about of Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons ambitions.
In scandalous new campaign video, Obama takes Israel pandering to dangerous levels | The Electronic Intifada
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/scandalous-new-campaign-video-obama-takes-israel-pandering-dange
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=izUkZpTft2w
US President Barack Obama was elected in 2008 amid expectations that he would be the president who would at last bring some balance – and less abject subservience – to the US relationship with Israel.
I knew this consensus was wrong, as I had documented Obama’s early pandering to extreme Zionists from the moment he decided to seek the US Senate seat he won in 2004, and wrote about it in “How Barack Obama learned to love Israel.”
Now as Obama faces a tough reelection – and accusations from Republicans that he is insufficiently subservient to a foreign state – Obama is doubling down with a shocking video in which leaders of a foreign state – many themselves responsible for war crimes – are drafted in to attest to the US president’s commitment to this foreign state and his willingless to do whatever it takes in its service.
Join Our Censorship Protest ! — Blog — WordPress.com
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/join-our-censorship-protest
Mon wordpress ne me permet pas la chose et, je serais hors web ...
#sopa
US Senate To Vote On Bill That Will Allow The Military To Arrest Americans On American Soil And Hold Them Indefinitely | Addicting Info
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/26/us-senate-to-vote-on-bill-that-will-allow-the-military-to-arrest-amer
Since Occupy Wall Street began, American police officers have arrested thousands of people for exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest. On Monday or Tuesday, the US Senate will vote on a bill that would give the President the ability to order the military to arrest and imprison American citizens anywhere in the world for an indefinite period of time.
A provision of S. 1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act bill, written by Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, declares American soil a battlefield and allows the President and all future Chief Executives to order t he military to arrest and detain American citizens, innocent or not, without charge or trial . In other words, if this bill passes and the President signs it, OWS protesters or any American could end up arrested and indefinitely locked up by the military without the guaranteed right to due process or a speedy trial.
la meilleure soluce pour toute démocratie qui se respecte, coller tout le monde en taule et jeter la clef...
A voice of reason amid the madness - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192583333656288.html
“I hear all this, ’well, this is class warfare, this is whatever’. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear:
You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.”
– Elizabeth Warren
With those words, Elizabeth Warren cemented her reputation as a person who knows how to speak to Americans about progressive values in a way that seems to have eluded almost every other public figure in America. There’s just something about the way she talks in plain prairie English that makes people listen - and scares even the most hardened businessman and compromised politician into paying attention.
U.S. Senator seeks to cut aid to elite IDF units operating in West Bank and Gaza - Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/u-s-senator-seeks-to-cut-aid-to-elite-idf-units-operating-in-west-bank-and-
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy is promoting a bill to suspend U.S. assistance to three elite Israel Defense Forces units, alleging they are involved in human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Leahy, a Democrat and senior member of the U.S. Senate, wants assistance withheld from the Israel Navy’s Shayetet 13 unit, the undercover Duvdevan unit and the Israel Air Force’s Shaldag unit.
[...]
Leahy says these units are responsible for harming innocent Palestinian civilians and that no system of investigation is in place to ensure that their members are not committing human rights violations. According to Leahy’s proposal, U.S. military assistance to Israel would be subject to the same restrictions that apply to countries such as Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan.
AppleInsider | Apple modifies App Store Review Guidelines to ban DUI checkpoint apps
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/06/08/apple_modifies_app_store_review_guidelines_to_ban_dui_checkpoint_apps.
Apple has complied with a request from the U.S. Senate and changed the guidelines for software in its iPhone App Store, as it has now banned applications that inform users of DUI checkpoints.
The new App Store Review Guidelines, highlighted Wednesday by Autoblog, have an added section 22.8 as of this week. The new section states:
“Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected.”
Bernie Sanders introduces anti-pharma-patent bill, aims to replace drug monopolies with prizes - Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing)
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/27/bernie-sanders-intro.html
Jamie Love sez, “Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has introduced legislation in the US Senate that would use prizes to reward medical R&D, and eliminate all drug monopolies. It includes an open source dividend of $4 billion per year.”
Anthrax Redux : Did the Feds Nab the Wrong Guy ? | Magazine
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/all/1
plein de détails de laboratoire à propos de l’enquête sur les attaques au bacille du charbon en octobre 2001.
[Bruce] Ivins measured the concentration of the sample. It came out to a trillion spores per gram—three orders of magnitude more dense than anything the USAMRIID researchers had ever grown. “These are not ‘garage’ spores,” Ivins later wrote in an analysis. “Professional manufacturing techniques were used.”
http://stag.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/19-04/ff_anthrax_fbi3b_f.jpg
#bioterrorisme #etats-unis #recherche #bio-armement
Intelligence on Libya rebels shows "flickers" of Qaeda - Yahoo ! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110329/pl_nm/us_libya_usa_intelligence
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Intelligence on the rebel forces battling Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has shown “flickers” of al Qaeda or Hezbollah presence, but there is still no detailed picture of the emerging Libyan opposition, NATO’s top operations commander said on Tuesday.
Non mais sérieusement... On les trouve où, les débiles de l’OTAN ?
Etats Unis Mexique : belle analyse de cette frontière-fracture
http://www.diploweb.com/La-frontiere-Etats-Unis-Mexique.html
Par Alain Nonjon, Professeur à Intégrale et au lycée Michelet (Paris),
le 7 janvier 2011
Géopolitique de l’Amérique. Connue pour ses maquiladoras, la frontière Etats-Unis/Mexique est bien plus que cela. Frontière de sécurité, barrière culturelle, lieu d’affrontements, zone de passage où l’on rencontre et affronte l’inconnu, zone de flux légaux et illégaux, interface privilégiée entre deux systèmes différents, lieu de construction...