The Senate is set to vote soon on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – but a right-wing barrage of emails and calls opposing repeal is already well underway.

We need your help to drown them out and show that a majority of Americans wants this discriminatory law repealed – once and for all.

We have a chance to make history here. Please, send your message today.

Click here to act now.

Related posts:

1. TAKE ACTION: Pressure Senators to Ask HHS Nominee Kathleen Sebelius about the HIV Ban Help lift the HIV immigration ban...
2. TAKE ACTION: Tell the President to ban landmines (HRW) President Obama has an opportunity to get US landmine policy...
3. TAKE ACTION: Help Keep Shelters Open and Expand Services to Survivors of Domestic Abuse The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, a vital source...

Click here to act.

Related posts:

1. TAKE ACTION: Stop Violence Against Women Support legislation to end violence against women and girls across...
2. TAKE ACTION: “Tell your senators to vote YES to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!” The Senate is set to vote soon on "Don't Ask,...
3. TAKE ACTION: Stop Harmful Anti-Youth Legislation Harmful gang legislation is pending in Congress that places excessive...

Accused of throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and participating in a terrorist conspiracy beginning when he was only 10 years old, Khadr literally has grown up at Guantánamo. Now 23, the full beard Khadr has grown since his imprisonment in 2002 obscures the fact that he was only 15 at the time he was shot and captured by U.S. forces.

Khadr has now spent a third of his life at Guantánamo, and after five years in the discredited military commissions, his trial began today. Khadr faces charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support to terrorism, and spying. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

Khadr’s is the first trial in the illegitimate military commissions under President Obama. The trial of an alleged child soldier who was abused in U.S. detention is a terrible case for the administration to open with, and yet here we are, in the middle of jury selection.

Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner, Khadr is the only one of the 176 remaining detainees who was a juvenile when transferred here. A Canadian, he’s also the only Westerner remaining at Gitmo. Khadr’s case is also unique because it will be the first prosecution in history for murder in violation of the laws of war (murder isn’t a recognized war crime; like the charges of spying and material suppport for terrorism that Khadr also faces, the charge was fashioned out of whole cloth for the purposes of the military commissions).

Omar Khadr’s trial flies in the face of international law and policy that recognizes child soldiers as victims and candidates for rehabilitation. The U.N. Special Representative on Children in Armed Conflict said in a statement today that Khadr’s trial sets a dangerous precedent that could endanger child soldiers around the world. She also said “juvenile justice standards are clear—children should not be tried before military tribunals.”

Since World War II, there hasn’t been a war crimes prosecution of a child soldier—until today. And that’s not because children don’t commit war crimes. Children committed some of the most heinous abuses of the Sierra Leonean civil war in the 90′s, including murder, rape, and amputation of limbs. But the U.N. war court convened to prosecute those responsible for wartime atrocities chose not to prosecute anyone under 18 at the time of their crimes, and instead entered these child soldiers in rehabilitatation programs and used them as witnesses in the war crimes trials against the adults who recruited or used them during the war.

The former chief prosecutor of the Sierra Leonean war court, former Defense Department official David Crane, has said that Khadr’s trial is “morally and legally wrong.” Author Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone who, like Khadr, was captured when he was 15, has also criticized Khadr’s prosecution. Beah admits that during the civil war he killed “too many people to count,” but since a stint in a rehabilitation center he has written a best-selling memoir, graduated from Oberlin, and served as a UNICEF ambassador. Beah has said he struggles to understand the dramatic difference between the compassion shown him and the lack of compassion shown Khadr.

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

Related posts:

1. What We Stand For Yesterday was a stark reminder that instead of closing the...
2. Standing before history Royal Dutch Shell brought to New York court over rampant...
3. A Win Against Warrantless GPS Tracking On Friday, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of...

Related posts:

1. United States Signs U.N. Declaration for GLBT Rights ...
2. VIDEO: A Measure of Our Humanity ...
3. VIDEO: John Hope Franklin on Obama’s Nomination    Mr. Franklin passed away on Wednesday, March 25, 2009...

The US participated in the “Ottawa Process” that created this international treaty, but the Clinton administration decided at the last moment against signing and instead set 2006 as the objective for the US to join. In February 2004, the Bush administration reversed course and announced that it did not ever intend to join the Mine Ban Treaty.

The United States is already compliant with the key provisions of the Mine Ban Treaty. It has not used antipersonnel mines since 1991, has had an export ban in place since 1992, and has not produced since 1997. The US is already the world’s largest contributor to global mine clearance and victim assistance programs. Acceding to the treaty would reinforce President Obama’s stated commitment to international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, arms control and disarmament, and multilateralism.

Tell President Obama that you support the landmine ban and want to see the United States join the Mine Ban Treaty without delay.

Photo: Angola’s four-decade war ended in 2002. Parties to the conflict mined roads, high-voltage electricity pylons, reservoirs and dams. © Gervasio Sanchez

Related posts:

1. TAKE ACTION: Help Raise the US HIV Travel Ban at HHS Senate Confirmation Hearings Act to end the US ban on the entry of...
2. TAKE ACTION: “Tell your senators to vote YES to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!” The Senate is set to vote soon on "Don't Ask,...
3. TAKE ACTION – March 30: National call-in day to ban cluster bombs Call your Representative and Senators and ask them to co-sponsor...

The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed, much of which is in the process of being degraded… this is the direct result of the robust federal response efforts.

The same day at an AFL/CIO convention, Obama hailed the news, saying “the long battle to stop the leak and contain the oil is finally close to coming to an end.”

False. From the start, the Obama administration conspired with BP, imposing censorship and cover-up, barring the public and news media from coming within 65 feet of clean-up of “booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law” without Coast Guard-authorized permission.

The agency is a virtual BP arm, now retired Admiral Thad Allen, its de facto representative as National Incident Commander, doing its bidding, suppressing the disaster’s severity, including enforcing the FAA’s mid-June announced no-fly zone, not needed if there were nothing to hide. There’s plenty, why journalists and other violators faced up to five years in prison and a $40,000 fine for telling the truth, now mostly hidden, not gone.

On August 4, responding to NOAA, Kieran Suckling, executive director of Center for Biological Diversity, said the following:

The overly rosy tone of (NOAA’s) report may leave the false impression that this crisis is somehow nearing an end. But much of the oil that the government refers to has simply been broken apart and remains in the ecosystem. It’s like taking separated salad dressing and shaking up the bottle so the oil and vinegar mix. You may not be able to see (it), but it’s there.

That unseen oil, though, is what will foul the Gulf for years, (perhaps generations), eating away at the basic elements of the food chain that are the building blocks for fisheries, birds, sea turtles and mammal populations.

Louisiana State University (LSU) biological oceanographer, Robert Carney, says scientists are finding plenty of oil under Louisiana islands, beneath Florida beaches, and in unseen ocean reaches.

Biological oceanographers, Markus Huettel and Joel Kostka, discovered large oil swaths up to two feet deep on a “cleaned” Pensacola beach. With little oxygen, it’ll remain for decades. It gets trapped underground when tiny droplets penetrate porous sand or when waves wash it ashore, burying it. Huettel explained further that previous oil under beaches migrates into groundwater, causing hazards to wildlife and humans, not knowing what they’re drinking is contaminated.

He noted also that deep sea spills are “unchartered territory,” dispersants for the first time used at depths down to 5,000 feet, settling oil on the sea  floor, the mixture suspended and preserved, causing long-term harm for deep-sea animals, and disrupting a large part of the food chain.

University of South Florida (USF) chemical oceanographer, David Hollander, is also alarmed, calling the 75% claim “ludicrous.” USF scientists and Vernon Asper, University of Southern Mississippi oceanographer, were “lambasted” by NOAA and Coast Guard officials when they reported a giant undersea plume, NOAA Administrator, Jane Lubchenco, telling them to stop “speculating” when, according to Asper, “We had solid evidence, rock solid.”

Hollander said “What we learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is. It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe,” NOAA and other government agencies enforcing cover-up, denial, and distorted media reports.

On August 8, Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Director, Carol Browner, told NBC’s Meet the Press that “the vast majority of oil is gone.” On the same day, Thad Allen, on CBS’ Face the Nation, congratulated BP for a job well done, criticizing only its PR errors, smoothing the way to end the oil drilling moratorium, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation Director Michael Bromwich saying expect it “significantly in advance of November 30.”

Hazardous Toxins Threaten Gulf Coast Residents

Combined with millions of gallons of Corexit, a deadly dispersant, the mix is extremely toxic and dangerous, the Gulf poisoned and potentially lethal for decades, perhaps generations. Nothing in it should be ingested, nor is living close by safe, what BP, Washington and the major media won’t explain. As a result, the health and welfare of millions of residents are at risk as well as anyone eating Gulf seafood. Responsible federal and state officials would ban it. Instead the all-clear’s been given. Don’t be fooled.

Marine toxicologist, Riki Ott, said if she lived in the area with children, she’d leave. On July 31, she flew over affected parts of the Gulf with a documentary filmmaker and local shrimper, a man who grew up the area, fearing his livelihood was destroyed, saying:

I’ve fished in all these waters – everywhere you can see. It’s all oiled. This is the worst I’ve seen. This is a heartbreak….

At low altitudes, oil was visible everywhere, despite most of it submerged. “As far as we could see: Oil…. The official story does not match the reality (below or what local residents report). BP has created a Frankenstein.”

Minimally, over 44,000 square miles of ocean are contaminated, an area comparable to Ohio or Pennsylvania. Some estimates say nearly 80,000, more than Florida and Massachusetts combined, the health hazard immense, the waters causing “internal bleeding and hemorrhaging in workers and dolphins alike,” according to senior EPA analyst, Hugh Kaufman, a rare responsible official.

On Democracy Now, he accused BP and the administration of cover-up and deceit, including using dispersants “to hide the volume of oil that has been released,” far more than official reports, to save BP up to billions in fines. “That’s the purpose of using dispersants, not to protect the public health or environment. Quite the opposite.”

After 9/11, Kaufman was ombudsman investigator for Ground Zero, exposing EPA lies about air safety, causing widespread illnesses and death, seeing a repeat for Gulf residents, “EPA administrators saying the air is safe and the water is safe.”

False, because of “dispersants mixed with oil and air pollution.” The official lie endangers tens of thousands, maybe millions, retired toxicologist and forensic chemist, John Laseter, explaining that the oil-solvent mix sticks on biological tissue, wreaking havoc.

Dispersants make oil penetrate more deeply into skin, a “delivery system” into the anatomies of humans and wildlife, the combination more deadly than either alone, some observers believing far greater quantities of dispersants have been used than reported, J. Speer Williams, for one, in his July 22 Rense.com article titled “Who Killed The Gulf?”

Explaining the ongoing dark side of a disturbing story, Williams cites Christopher Reddy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution associate scientist of marine chemistry and geochemistry saying BP used one million BARRELS of Corexit or 42 million gallons, not the two million gallons reported, some reports claiming less. If he’s right, the toxicity and long-term threat far exceed the worst estimates of reliable scientists, a hellish nightmare for the entire Gulf coast area, Dr. Seth Forman and others comparing Corexit to Agent Orange, the deadly defoliant used in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Millions of gallons were sprayed with devastating effects, its deadly dioxin one of the most toxic known substances, a potent carcinogenic human immune system suppressant. It accumulates in adipose tissue and the liver, alters living cell structures, causes congenital disorders and birth defects, and contributes to diseases like cancer and type two diabetes. In the 1960s and 70s, it affected millions exposed, Southeast Asians and Americans alike. Expect a repeat today, what BP, the administration and media suppress.

Hugh Kaufman sees tens of thousands of Gulf coast residents at risk and anyone eating the seafood. They’ll “end up with cancer, genetic mutations, or some other mysterious unexplained illnesses (years later).”

After the Exxon Valdez disaster, most workers and others exposed to dispersants and oil died young, their average age about 50, another shocking story never reported, a window into the far greater calamity ahead, the Gulf catastrophe infinitely greater, the equivalent of three – four Exxon Valdez incidents a week, using Exxon’s 11 million gallon figure. The state of Alaska’s conservative estimate was over 30 million gallons, also unreported.

Today, independent scientists report hazardous levels of oil and dispersants in the Gulf, ashore, and in the air, including carcinogenic benzene and oil vapors (Volatile Organic Compounds — VOCs), as early as 1948, the American Petroleum Institute saying, “The only absolutely safe concentration for benzene is zero.”

Now it’s off the charts contaminating a wide area, one element in a deadly toxic brew, the administration and BP claiming the threat is over, the environment safe, normality fast returning — the official lie, the Obama administration fronting for BP, complicit in its crimes, contributing to a greater disaster instead of preventing it by enforcing responsible policies in the first place, ones absent, assuring other calamities from future oil drilling operations, especially offshore in deep water, where technology and safety concerns haven’t kept up with the rush to plunge deep holes in the earth, damn the hazards and millions of lives at risk.

Final Thoughts

The lives and livelihoods of Gulf residents are at risk, the entire area economically damaged, BP establishing a paltry $20 billion compensation fund for victims, containing a slim $3 billion deposit, the idea being to help BP, not them, claims czar Kenneth Feinberg appointed to assure it, a man notorious for serving wealth and power interests.

Earlier, he managed a similar account for 9/11 victims, then later was appointed pay czar for bailed out Wall Street banks and other companies. Like BP ombudsman, Stanley Sporkin, he’s a notorious “fixer,” fronting for power, not people, earlier negotiating a lawsuit settlement for Agent Orange producers, benefitting them, not affected veterans, getting $1,200 not to litigate.

He later performed similar services for AH Robins, maker of the Dalkon Shield, injuring 235,000 women with potentially lethal pelvic infections, a settlement giving most of them $725 or less.

He’s now point man in charge of doing to Gulf residents what he did earlier, saving corporate criminals billions, getting victims to waive their right to sue in return for amounts too meager to matter. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, he said:

When I go to the Gulf, I hear a lot about the underground economy. ‘Mr. Feinberg, I got paid $5,000 a month all cash. Do I have a claim?’ Well, you have to prove your claim. There’s nothing illegal about all cash business, but do you have your tax return…. Do you have documentary evidence….Will your ship captain vouch for the $5,000…. I need something. I can’t be paying claims that can’t be proven. And I can tell you that this is going to be a big issue.

Indeed it will, reports confirming Feinberg on BP’s payroll, his mandate being to deny, deny, deny, or pay minimum amounts, mostly in lump sums, victims waiving their right to litigate, even those losing livelihoods and years of lost income.

Washington is corporate-occupied territory, politicians bribed with millions of dollars, favors, and lucrative revolving door jobs out of office. As long as a government/industry cabal runs America, wealth and power interests alone will matter, letting companies like BP destroy the environment, our welfare and lives, expendable for greater profits, assured under Democrats and Republicans, two wings of the money party.

On May 4, National Geographic asked if the “Gulf Oil Spill (was) a ‘Dead Zone in the Making,’ ” saying if it can’t be contained, it could happen. An early August update explained that beneath the surface lies:

a turbid cloud of stirred-up sediment and dead sea creatures. Flaccid jellyfish floated on the flat currents of tiny corpses. On the sea bottom the waters were gray and terribly empty. No coral, no fish, no algae, nothing but the noxious oily streaks of red tides and lethal plankton blooms. Everything in this 7,000 square-mile zone (the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined) has died from lack of oxygen. It (was) if every person in a city were suddenly sucked dry of air and suffocated….

Other researchers agree, saying the Gulf’s dead zone doubled in the last year, and may be larger than estimated. Caused by hypoxia (low oxygen levels), it stretches across the Mississippi River Delta along Louisiana’s coastline into Texas. According to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, it’s the world’s second largest and growing, covering about 7,700 square miles, an area nearly the size of New Jersey. Marine biologists attribute it to oil and dispersants, as well as nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizer runoffs, soil erosion, animal wastes, sewage, and seasonal weather, notably hurricanes and floods.

They occur globally, but the Gulf approaches the largest ever recorded in 1985 at just over 8,000 square miles, some scientists believing that number’s been eclipsed but not verified, most reputable ones agreeing that a vast area has been poisoned, creating alarming hazards for wildlife and millions of people. It’ll be years before the full impact is known, but it’s guaranteed to be catastrophic.

Related posts:

1. TAKE ACTION: Uphold Human Rights in the Gulf Coast August 29th, 2008 marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina....

It’s acceptable that Americans show sensitivity to what has become hallowed ground – the area of destruction from the greatest terrorist attack on United States soil – given the name of “ground zero.”  It’s natural that many Americans will question the construction of an Islamic Center that will stand close to the hallowed ground – natural but not correct.

Those who view the attack on the World Trade center as being a symbol in a struggle of ‘right vs. wrong’ should recognize that there is no absolute right or wrong; “ground zero” is a symbol of how the world too often goes wrong.

A century of western interference in Middle East nations, dominating their resources, delineating their borders, deciding their rulers, destabilizing their political frameworks, waging dubious wars which have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, occupying their lands and generally creating havoc and misery don’t seem to have bothered western leaders. A conditioned mind reacts automatically, senseless, irrational and often to its own detriment.

Two city blocks north of ‘ground zero,” and two blocks south of the Warren street mosque, the Cordoba House, which contains a mosque, is mainly a mixture of learning, art and culture with a 500-seat auditorium, swimming pool, art exhibition spaces, and bookstores. The well publicized antagonism to the Cordoba House follows the Pavlov reaction, salivating at the sound before the food is delivered, but contains other inglorious activity.

Odd that a mosque already exists two blocks from the proposed Cordoba House and has not aroused comment. Since mosques allow Muslim worshipers to find a place to genuflect rather having them lay a prayer rug on a NYC street and disturb the City’s financial district’s wall to curb pedestrian traffic, which is reported to sometimes occur outside an overflowed Warren Street mosque, another mosque would be welcome. However, this building is more than a mosque. It’s a testimonial that Muslims swim, read, think and eat fast foods, just like all Americans.  Since another mosque already exists close to ‘ground zero,’ evidently it is Cordoba House’s added features that have aroused resentment. Perhaps it seems exaggerated, but there is a lingering feeling that the antagonism to the Cordoba House includes the ultimate of anti-Semitism; “We don’t want you Semites to be part of us. You are Semites and you will remain Semites.”

A bewildering aspect of the Mosque discussion is the involvement of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the pro-Israel J Street lobby, both of whom published highlighted opinions of the Cordoba House. These organizations represent a minority of a minority of Americans, and behave as if their words have super importance. Who cares what they have to say?

The ADL reacted negatively to the Muslim building, arguing that it is too close to ‘ground zero.’

Statement On Islamic Community Center Near Ground Zero

New York, NY, July 28, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero in Manhattan:

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam.  The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong.  But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right.  In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.

“Cause some victims more pain?” Evidently,although poorly expressed, the ADL must mean surviving relatives rather than the already dead. How revealing! The ADL believes by supposition, or is it transference, without describing any polls, that the opinion of a few (or how many?) Americans (Muslims also died in the 9/11 tragedy) have precedence over seven million Muslim Americans in determining where Cordoba House should be constructed. Digest that and then answer the question: Isn’t that the most extreme prejudice; the opinion of several non-Muslim Americans is worth more than the want of millions of Muslim Americans.

This is the same ADL, which has been sued on several occasions for violating privacy rights and assisting in false charges of anti-Semitism.

Counter Punch, February 25, 2002 The ADL Spying Case Is Over, But The Struggle Continues

By Jeffrey Blankfort, Anne Poirier and Steve Zeltzer Plaintiffs in the of ADL Spying Case

In 1993, the District of Attorney of San Francisco released 700 pages of documents implicating the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that claims to be a defender of civil rights, in a vast spying operation directed against American citizens who were opposed to Israel’s policies in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza and to the apartheid policies of the government of South Africa and passing on information to both governments.

Jewish Daily Forward, 2001
Judge Slams ADL for Hurting Couple Tarred As ‘Anti-Semites’

by Marc Perelman, Forward Correspondent

Upholding most of a $10 million defamation suit against the Anti-Defamation League, a federal judge in Denver has lambasted the organization for labeling a nasty neighborhood feud as an anti-Semitic event. The judge’s opinion confirmed a verdict reached last April by a federal jury, which essentially accused the Denver chapter of the ADL and its regional representative, Saul Rosenthal, of falsely portraying William and Dorothy Quigley as anti-Semites. Mr. Quigley, an executive of the United Artists theater chain, said his career in the “predominantly Jewish and close-knit” film business had stalled after the incident.

Detractors have accused the ADL of being a spokesperson for the foreign nation of Israel, using its influence to promote Israel’s agenda and attacking those who criticize the agenda.

Haaretz Service 28.03.10
ADL: Carter has reverted to anti-Israel stance, despite recent apology

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter’s apology to the Jewish community over his anti-Israel views should not be taken seriously, an Anti-Defamation League statement said Sunday, claiming that Carter had continued attacking Israel even after sending an apologetic letter to the leaders of the U.S. Jewish community.

J Street took a positive stance to the Islamic center.
July 30th, 2010,

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami released the following statement:

The principle at stake in the Cordoba House controversy goes to the heart of American democracy and the value we place on freedom of religion. Should one religious group in this country be treated differently than another? We believe the answer is no.

Why are the statements by ADL and J Street significant? Should Muslim organizations also express their attitudes on synagogues and churches constructed in the U.S.?  Let’s face it; if that happened, almost all Americans would either smirk or be confounded. Such is the power of conditioning.

Nevertheless, there is a significance to these patronizing expressions of egotism and self importance. The explanation might sound somewhat conspiratorial, but where Israel is involved conspiracies are unlimited.

ADL and J Street exhibit the ‘bad guy’ and ‘good guy” approach that characterizes Israeli politics – the Party in office is the ‘bad guy’ with oppressive policies; the Party out of office is the ’good guy’ who will undo the oppressive policies once it gains office. After gaining office, the ’good guy’ continues the same policies and the merry-go-round starts once again.

ADL’s grim stance reflects a brighter light on J Street, the ‘good guy’ during this moment.

Realize also that it is in Israel’s interests to present the local Israeli/Palestinian conflict (actually an oppression that creates innumerable crises) as a conflict between western democracy and a violent Islam. In this contest, Israel is the sacrificing vanguard holding off the Muslim hordes. By expressing themselves, the Israel oriented organizations create the appearance that the Cordoba House is related to this argument,and since Israel poses itself as a Jewish state, the Jews of the world are central to the decision on the Islamic Center’s fate  Each of the organizations popularizes the Clash of Civilizations, letting it churn in populace minds. To enhance a debate, they approach the argument from opposite sides, one being recalcitrant and the other willing to compromise. Conditioning prevents the reality that both organizations are patronizing and condescending.

There is a violent struggle between Fundamentalist Muslims and what they perceive as corrupt oligarchs and those who they claim assist in the corruption.  Basic facts and simple logic reveal there is no conflict between Islam and the western world..

Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation. Extremely devout, it is well integrated into the west. Few of the Muslim nations show excessive antagonism to the western world, and those who do, such as Libya can cite grievances.

Terrorism occurs all over the world, and Muslims play major roles; in India, China and Russia. Nevertheless, none of these nations consider the threats as part of an overall conspiracy. It’s not Asia vs. Islam or Russia vs. Islam. Only the conditioned U.S. represents  the attacks as a Clash of Civilizations.

The irony of it all is that the U.S. is the principal instigator of any Islamic threat. As U.S. manufacture of essential products declines, manufacture of terrorists increases. America’s main friends in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, the ultimate terrorist breeding ground, Pakistan, whose government previously supported the Taliban and has elements still suspected of providing sustenance to  Al Qaeda fighters, and Israel, whose oppressive  policies against the Palestinians and actions in Jerusalem have disturbed the Muslim world and generated terrorists as fast as Katyusha rockets can be produced. Add the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and their areas of vast destruction by U.S. forces, including civilian deaths, and what can the U.S. expect other than violent reactions?

Those interested in demeaning the Islamic world, such as the Religious Right, can take advantage of the situation. Condition Americans to identify Islam with the reactive violence and they won’t realize the proactive instigation. U.S. relations  with the Arab world are based on economic interests. U.S. relations with the Islamic world are a result of conditioning. Since it is difficult to recondition an already conditioned view, not much can be done to change Americans’ opinions of Islam.  However, since ill conditioning leads to blind actions and serious consequences, it behooves the U.S. to make certain the new generation is not conditioned to automatically reject or accept any persuasion. Start with Cordoba House.

Related posts:

1. On New York’s new Islamic Center, I stand with Russell Simmons As you may have heard, an Islamic cultural center is...

On the heels of another dismal job report and a flaming national debate over the meaning of marriage, the Center for American Progress presents a snapshot of the unmarried in today’s economy. It turns out that single women of color, despite their vital economic contributions as consumers, parents and workers, bear the brunt of the economy’s decline and the failed policies that have deepened the recession.

According to the report, unmarried women fare much worse than married couples on nearly every measure of economic well-being, including home ownership (30 percent of unmarried women, 80 percent of married couples), household income and poverty rates.

And during lean times, “Single women have fewer savings to fall back on if they become unemployed or have their earnings cut.” The gender wealth gap turns into a yawning chasm when you factor in race, as recently detailed in an earlier report by the Insight Center showing a vast disparity in the median net wealth of women of color compared with white women.

Unmarried status, CAP says, not only means women lack the cushion of an additional household income, but penalizes them on a community level by compounding the racial wealth gap:

Unmarried women of color have even less economic security than their white counterparts. This is a particular concern because women of color are more likely to be unmarried and facing the economic insecurity associated with their marital status. For instance, 68 percent of adult black women are unmarried, as are 47 percent of Hispanic women, compared with 43 percent of white women….

What’s more, women who maintain families–the vast majority of whom are single mothers–have the highest unemployment rate of all women. Fifteen percent of black single mothers were unemployed in 2009, as were 11.6 percent of Hispanic single mothers, compared with 6.6 percent of black and 9.7 percent of Hispanic married women, the ethnic group with the highest unemployment rate for married women. This high unemployment rate for married Hispanic married women results in a smaller gap between the unemployment rates of Hispanic married and unmarried women than for blacks and whites.

Drawing from the experience of the Recovery Act, the report outlines some potential policy solutions that could turn women of color’s financial liabilities into assets. For example, targeted jobs programs that don’t just focus on male-dominated industries like construction, or reforms to welfare-to-work programs that actually move women into real careers instead of dead-end low-wage jobs.It also wouldn’t hurt to revise the tax codes that privilege married heterosexuals and unemployment insurance policies that discriminate against low-income women. And while they’re at it, Congress ought to finally begin dismantling the perverse barriers in the Fair Labor Standards Act that exclude domestic workers, a sector dominated by immigrant women of color.

Mired at the bottom of the racial wealth divide, single women of color need not just a safety net but a ladder: labor policies that respect their autonomy as workers, and social programs that enable them to strike out on their own while ensuring their families have something to lean on.

Related posts:

1. Jobs that Pay — A Statement by Legal Momentum President Irasema Garza on the Signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Non-traditional Jobs for Women Shortly before President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment...
2. Balancing Race and Gender: LDF Women Pioneers African-American women made the Civil Rights Movement possible...
3. U.S. women should be grateful for Obama I am writing this on March 8 -- International Women's...

According to a front-page New York Times story, the deal would allow “Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.”1

It would create fast Internet lanes for the largest corporations and slow lanes for the rest of us.

That is why CREDO is joining MoveOn, Free Press, and Color of Change in rallying Google users to tell Google, “Don’t be evil.”

Speak up for a free and open Internet by signing this petition. With massive amounts of public pressure, we can stop this deal.

From the beginning, the Internet has been a level playing field that allows everyone to connect to one another and to the world of content available online — whether it’s Daily Kos or FOX News.

This deal would change all of that by allowing Google and Verizon to pick what websites you can see over others. It would undermine the open Internet upon which hundreds of millions of people rely.

Our Internet connection should be free of corporate gatekeepers — there’s only one Internet, and it shouldn’t matter who your provider is or whether you’re logging on from home or your cell phone.

Sign this petition to tell Google, “Don’t be evil.”

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google to make information freely available to everyone online.

But this deal is a complete reversal that abandons their core principles. It’s evil and Google must walk away from it.

Sign this letter and tell Google’s founders: “Your Verizon deal IS evil, and it must be stopped.”

Related posts:

1. TAKE ACTION: “Tell your senators to vote YES to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!” The Senate is set to vote soon on "Don't Ask,...
2. TAKE ACTION: Pressure Senators to Ask HHS Nominee Kathleen Sebelius about the HIV Ban Help lift the HIV immigration ban...
3. TAKE ACTION: Tell the President to ban landmines (HRW) President Obama has an opportunity to get US landmine policy...

If we think about all the details of our lives that would be exposed by tracking all of our movements for the past month, it might seem obvious that the Fourth Amendment should protect our privacy in that information. The government had argued, however, that under a Supreme Court decision from over a quarter of a century ago in which the police used a primitive beeper to help them follow a car during a single trip between two locations, individuals never have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their movements on public streets.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the ACLU of the National Capital Area and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that times and context have changed since then. The court agreed. The GPS technology that is now available permits the police to easily and inexpensively track people’s movements 24 hours a day for indefinite periods of time, allowing them to watch over the totality of people’s lives as they move from place, to place, to place. And by tracking many people and plotting their movements on a map — as is now technologically possible — the government could easily learn whose lives intersect with whose, and when and where. The resulting invasion of privacy is far greater than that from the visual surveillance practices of the past. It’s truly a specter of Big Brother.

Friday’s decision is important because it strikes the right balance between technological progress and privacy by requiring the police to obtain a warrant to use GPS devices — and its reasoning should apply also, for example, to cellular technology that the police can use to track people’s whereabouts using their cell phones. The decision also recognizes that the whole package of data about us implicates greater privacy interests than the sum of its parts. This is a significant victory for privacy in the digital age, where more and more pieces of information about us are available in the public sphere.

Related posts:

1. What We Stand For Yesterday was a stark reminder that instead of closing the...
2. Making History Khadr has now spent a third of his life at...