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Kiev liable for crisis in eastern Ukraine: Analyst

Press TV – May 20, 2014

The Kiev government is actually responsible for the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine, a political analyst tells Press TV.

“We can blame the military operation launched by Kiev and this is not just a military operation. It’s not just used military forces of the Ukrainian army; it has also used militias, irregular troops, terrorist units, simple violent hooligans,” Manuel Ochsenreiter, chief editor of news magazine, Zuerst, said in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.

He held the Kiev government and not Donetsk and Lugansk or even Moscow accountable for the ongoing crisis.

The acting Kiev government has been staging military operations in the eastern and southern regions since mid-April in a bid to root out pro-Moscow demonstrations.

Nearly 130 people have so far been killed during clashes and operations by Ukrainian troops in the east and the south, according to figures from the United Nations.

The commentator further emphasized that the recent referendum in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk is not responsible for the humanitarian situation as it did not take the social services from the country.

He added that an election or referendum has never changed the direct humanitarian situation of the people on the ground in any time of history, noting that Kiev and the West are likely to use it as an excuse.

“It’s a very cynical interpretation of the situation to say, well, you wanted to be independent, now take starve, don’t find a doctor, now don’t get medicine,” the analyst pointed out.

On May 12, Ukraine’s two eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence following local referendums in which the regions’ residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Kiev.

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May 20, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Subjugation - Torture, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Sanctions ‘sharp knife’ to business in Europe and America – Medvedev

RT | May 20, 2014

Economic sanctions against Russia will only bring the world closer to another Cold War, which is counterproductive and most of all hurts business in Europe and America, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

“Let’s be honest, the sanctions are a sharp knife; European business and American business don’t need them either. The only ones who want sanctions are politicians,” the Prime Minister said in the interview aired May 20.

“Basically we are slowly but surely approaching a second Cold War that nobody needs,” Medvedev said, as he says Russia prefers not to politicize trade and economic sanctions.

The Prime Minister said the degeneration of US-Russia relations were reminiscent of Soviet times during the Cuban missile crisis of Afghanistan war. The US launched sanctions against Russian politicians, which only further exacerbated diplomatic relations.

“You know to put it simply no one is happy about sanctions since they are always a sign of tense relations. We do not support sanctions. Moreover, you may have noticed that we have not commented on them a great deal or responded to them harshly, although we probably could cause some unpleasantness with the countries that are imposing those sanctions, but it’s bad for international economic relations, relations with Europe and the United States. It’s just bad,” Medvedev said.

The US and the EU have tightened sanctions against Russia, but Moscow maintains they are an outdated practice that will only backfire and hurt business and industry on all sides.

“The sanctions have not had a significant effect on us. That doesn’t mean that we are happy about them. Again, sanctions are a dead-end, and, in fact, everyone understands this – everyone, including businesses in Europe and America,” said Medvedev.

The US expanded its sanctions on April 28, which were shortly followed by a copy-paste EU version. All together, the sanctions target dozens of Russian politicians deemed critical in reuniting Crimea with Russia, 6 businessmen believed to be close to Putin’s inner circle, 3 banks and 17 companies.

Retaliatory sanctions

Moscow doesn’t rule out a set of counter sanctions to protect the Russian economy.

“Of course, there is a plan of action depending on how the situation will develop,” Medvedev said.

Retaliatory measures would be reciprocal and similar to those of the West.

“If we talk of a worst case scenario, despite the fact that we object to any sanctions, our package of retaliatory measures not only includes the measures towards a gradual improvement of the situation in our economy, but also measures that might target certain states,” the Prime Minister said.

Medvedev, who himself was responsible for the so-called reset between the US and Russia, said that he was disappointed in President Obama’s politics and that he could have acted with more political finesse.

“Once a new administration comes to power in the United States and a new president takes office after Obama, these sanctions will be forgotten. In the end, nobody stands to win,” Medvedev said.

In the same interview Prime Minister Medvedev discussed the landmark gas deal due to be signed on Tuesday by Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller and his CNPC counterpart Zhou Jiping in Shanghai.

May 20, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Irony Alert: US Filing Criminal Charges Against China For Cyberspying

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | May 19, 2014

Even as more and more examples of questionable surveillance by the US government are revealed, the US is apparently still trying its “hey, look over there!” strategy in response. This morning, Attorney General Eric Holder is announcing that the US has filed meaningless criminal charges against members of the Chinese military for economic espionage done via the internet.

Of course, there’s no chance of any actual prosecution happening here. If anything this is all just a bit of diplomatic showmanship. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to quickly see China respond in kind with “criminal charges” being announced against folks from the NSA for the various spying that they’ve done on China. US officials will, as they always do, insist that what the People’s Liberation Army does is “different” because it’s economic espionage, in which the Chinese army breaks into networks from certain industries and companies, and shares the details with Chinese companies. The US does not appear to do the same thing directly, though there are indications of indirect economic espionage (i.e., spying on companies to then inform general US policy that might help US companies). The Chinese have (quite reasonably) questioned how there’s a legitimate distinction between the different kinds of espionage.

Either way, at a time when the US is under intense scrutiny for its questionable espionage efforts, including installing backdoors into US networking equipment (which is what they’ve accused the Chinese of doing repeatedly, despite no actual evidence), filing criminal charges against the Chinese for cyberspying… just looks really sad. It stinks of hypocrisy.

May 19, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Condi Rice, Christine Lagarde: Cowardice at Commencement

By William Boardman | Reader Supported News | May 14, 2014

What would you expect from powerful people, personal courage?

The American Condoleeza Rice, 60, Iraq War architect, and the French Christine Lagarde, 58, International Monetary Fund managing director, have little in common beyond being women of power who have contributed to the misery of millions of people they never cared to meet. And now they have another quality in common, cowardice under fire, albeit only verbal fire after they were invited to speak at college commencements.

Rutgers University invited Rice to speak (for $35,000 and an honorary degree) and Smith College invited Lagarde (compensation undisclosed).

Student and faculty objections to Rice started in February and continued to grow for months. The Rutgers administration held firm, Rice kept quiet. On April 28, some 50 students staged a sit-in at the Rutgers president’s office. The president refused to talk with them and they dispersed when Rutgers threatened to arrest them.

In a letter ironically foreshadowing his bald hypocrisy on free speech and academic freedom, Rutgers president Robert Barchi had written in March:

We cannot protect free speech or academic freedom by denying others the right to an opposing view, or by excluding those with whom we may disagree. Free speech and academic freedom cannot be determined by any group. They cannot insist on consensus or popularity.

Students and faculty objected to Rice for her participation in lying her country into war in Iraq, and even more so for her defense of widespread American use of torture in the “global war on terror.” An online petition by a 1991 Rutgers grad collected 694 signatures opposed to Rice, and campus petitions gathered hundreds more. In a lucid indictment of Rice’s apparent criminality, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education the day before Rice withdrew, Rutgers history professor Jackson Lears wrote:

Rice sanctioned the use of torture and has continued to defend it even after a top aide warned that she and her colleagues were violating the law. To invite her to address the Rutgers graduating class, and then to award her a doctor-of-laws degree, is a travesty of all the ideals the university embodies. Our students deserve better. Most of all, they deserve the truth.

Officially, Rutgers showed no interest in truth, history, morality, etc.

Rice did not engage issues like war or torture in her withdrawal statement, arguing instead that the crucial issue was the party-time nature of commencements. She said she was “honored to have served my country,” without mentioning any specifics. She did not explain why her controversial performance in office wasn’t as obvious to her in February as it became in May. Bowing out of the May 18 graduation as of May 3, Rice’s statement on her Facebook page read in part:

Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families. Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time…. I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.

Despite Rice’s belated withdrawal, Rutgers faculty and students went ahead with a planned, six-hour teach-in on May 6 because, as three participating professors wrote, “we concluded that the need remained for a scholarly exposition of Dr. Rice’s responsibility in the lies leading to the Iraq war and the implementation of the unprecedented torture policies under the Bush administration.”

In an exercise of actual academic freedom, Rice was invited to the teach-in when it was first planned, but she did not attend. President Barchi expressed the corporate position that Rutgers stood “fully behind” inviting Rice to the commencement (where only the speaker has freedom of speech). The teach-in (on YouTube) began shortly after that official statement, and the professors wrote:

It was an event that will be remembered because there has not been one like it for a very long time. The lecture room of the Student Activities Center was packed by a crowd of more than two hundred students and faculty members, many sitting on the floor, others standing anywhere they could, all listening with the utmost attention to the poignant speech of human rights attorney Jumana Musa, then to the illuminating exposés of our panelists, to whom Rutgers University – the real Rutgers – is forever indebted.

And we all stood up to applaud the six students who represented the ‘No to Rice’ movement that organized the demonstrations of the last ten days: the enthusiastic commitment they expressed to humanistic values was a reminder that there is real hunger among our students for more knowledge of history, of foreign cultures, of the very notion of ‘culture,’ of political science, of economics, as well as a deep interest in questions related to ethics, public policy and the place of media in our culture. Students like these give a special meaning – and responsibility – to our teaching and research.

Rutgers was against students learning about unapproved reality

No free speech was harmed in the unfolding of these events, except at the Rutgers president’s office (where student speech was met with threats of arrest). By cutting and running, Condoleezza may have lost a paid venue (her net worth is about $4 million), but she has hardly been muzzled; on the contrary, her exercise of her own free speech got us into a deceitful, destructive failure of a war for which millions of Iraqis continue to pay with their own freedom and lives. The Rutgers administration lost students’ respect for promoting an apparent war criminal, but there’s no sign the administration is sensitive to any of that.

Academic freedom is a big winner at Rutgers, where faculty let some air and light into the discussion of 15 years of American crimes against humanity that are usually left to fester down the memory hole. And perhaps the biggest winners are Rutgers students, whose determined integrity allowed their voices to be heard on an issue of principle that the Rutgers administration got wrong on both substance and morality.

Like Rutgers, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, announced its choice of commencement speaker in February and protest began soon after, but the two protests are very different responses to two very important elephants in our collective cultural-political living room. Where Rice is emblematic of the elephant of illegal war, torture, war crimes, and crimes against humanity about which we are not supposed to speak, Lagarde represents the much tidier elephant of financial plunder and economic “austerity” that probably leaves millions more innocent people to suffer and die without hope.

It’s not that Christine Lagarde sold people an illegal war as Rice did, but as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 2011, she carries out a prior ordained policy that is as inhumane as it is merciless. In Ukraine now, some people are hoping that $17.1 billion from the IMF will somehow help to save a country that can hardly pay for gas these days. But that $17.1 billion is not a gift, it is a loan to a country that can’t support its current debt load, and so, thanks to the IMF, Ukraine can look forward to another decade or more of even worse debt servitude than it has suffered in the past. The IMF’s $17.1 billion is typically reported as a good deed, but there are 46 million Ukrainians (except for a small number of oligarchs and bankers) who will have no reason to be grateful for this “beneficence.” The IMF has just bought the right to be the unelected ruler of Ukraine, and the purchase is so sweet, the Ukrainians will have to pay for it – with interest.

Objections to Lagarde are institutional and philosophical

Christine Lagarde is a well-regarded attorney whose specialties were antitrust and labor issues. She has held several French government posts, including Minister of Finance. She was the first female chairman of the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. She is an undeniably accomplished woman about whom the worst, easily available personal criticism is her apparent callousness toward the Greeks in 2012. Any real skeletons she may have remain tucked away in her closet.

Opposition to Lagarde at Smith was not personal, as an online petition made clear:

By selecting Ms. Lagarde as the commencement speaker we are supporting the International Monetary Fund and thus going directly against Smith’s values to stand in unity with equality for all women, regardless of race, ethnicity or class. Although we do not wish to disregard all of Ms. Lagarde’s accomplishments as a strong female leader in the world, we also do not want to be represented by someone whose work directly contributes to many of the systems that we are taught to fight against. By having her speak at our commencement, we would be publicly supporting and acknowledging her, and thus the IMF.

Even if we give Ms. Lagarde the benefit of the doubt, and recognize that she is just a good person working in a corrupt system, we should not by any means promote or encourage the values and ideals that the IMF fosters. The IMF has been a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries. This has led directly to the strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.

Smith’s trustees haven’t said why they wanted to honor the IMF

Not surprisingly, Smith’s administration stood by its invitation to Lagarde, and there is little evidence of campus ferment even at the low level on the Rutgers campus. There was one report of a quiet campus sit-in by 40 students earlier in May. But apparently Lagarde is thin-skinned as well as guarded in her public persona. According to Smith president Kathleen McCarthy in a May 12 letter to the college community, Lagarde withdrew “in the wake of anti-IMF protests from faculty and students, including a few who wrote directly to her,” which might seem pretty thin-skinned for someone with a net worth of $4 million (and annual, untaxed income of about $630,000) whom Forbes ranked as the 7th most powerful woman (35th most powerful person) in the world.

According to McCarthy, Lagarde retreated with the same lame excuse Rice used, not wanting to be a party-pooper. As quoted by McCarthy, Lagarde wrote: In the last few days, it has become evident that a number of students and faculty members would not welcome me as a commencement speaker. I respect their views, and I understand the vital importance of academic freedom. However, to preserve the celebratory spirit of commencement day, I believe it is best to withdraw my participation.

Back in February, Lagarde observed that income inequality was increasing globally, citing the United States and India in particular. Delivering a lecture in London, she said, “In India, the net worth of the billionaire community increased twelve-fold in 15 years, enough to eliminate absolute poverty in this country twice over…. [Inequality] leads to an economy of exclusion, and a wasteland of discarded potential.” She did not suggest doing anything particular about this kind of global impoverishment for the vast majority of people on the planet.

Reaction to Lagarde’s reneging on a commitment is reportedly mixed on the Smith campus. Unlike at Rutgers, there is no teach-in or other communal effort to explore the issues raised by IMF activities. The argument, as in President McCarthy’s letter, is limited to supporting or opposing the choice of a speaker, and is not about the vast damage the IMF does in the name of economic stability. And it’s also not about the startling cowardice of a powerful woman who can’t find the wee bit of courage it might take to face a bunch of 20-something, well-mannered Smith College women who might disagree with her or even, God forbid, say something rude to a global administrator of cruel and unusual policies. What is it with these people who lack the fortitude to speak to an audience not in total awe of their magnificent selves?

As Katherine Sumner, Smith ’14, wrote: “It was in a Smith classroom that I first learned about the problems that the IMF has wrought on the Global South, and how those problems have affected women’s lives for the worse. As a graduating senior, I would be disappointed, to say the least, if a representative of that institution were honored and endorsed by a community that I am a part of.”

Needless to say, that is not the perspective with which this story is covered in mainstream media, where actual issues of substance and the events are presented with a tone of supercilious trivialization, as in the Washington Post story that began: “The commencement speaker purity bug has hit Smith College.” [Emphasis added.]

Rice and Lagarde were not subjected to “commencement speaker purity” or any other form of censorship. They were faced with coherent intellectual challenges to the core value of some of their most significant activities, and they did not rise to that challenge. And they bailed. They exercised self-censorship, deploying a spurious excuse rather than even attempting to engage in a serious debate. They did not act boldly and address the legitimate concerns of students and faculty with honesty and respect. That would have been too close to actual academic freedom. Instead these women of power fled the field rather than face an audience that might show disappointment. They retreated when the game wasn’t rigged in their favor; they folded when the institution failed to guarantee them commencement audience purity.

May 17, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Portugal leaves bailout program with 214bn euro debt, 4% lower GDP

RT | May 17, 2014

Portugal exited its international bailout program on Saturday, regaining its economic sovereignty, which it lost after the European debt crisis. However, the country’s GDP is four percent lower than in 2010, a year before it asked for financial help.

The country will become the second eurozone country to leave the bailout after Ireland. Portugal underwent three years of painful austerity, in order to receive a 78-billion euro loan (106 billion US dollars), to help a nation that was on the verge of bankruptcy.

However, not everything has gone smoothly for Portugal, with the end of the bailout coming at a time when data has shown the country’s economy contracted by 0.7 percent in the first quarter of 2014. Overall, the country’s GDP is four percent lower than in 2010, a year before they asked the International Monetary Fund for financial help.

The Iberian country is 214 billion euros in debt (293 billion US dollars), which is the third highest in the eurozone. The Portuguese government has focused on trying to increase exports, but this has been hampered by volatile markets abroad. There have been some positive signs, such as the Portuguese government’s success in reducing unemployment from its peak of 17.5 percent in 2013, to 15.1 percent at present, while borrowing costs are at an eight-year low.

The drop in unemployment has been aided by new rules, which make it much easier for firms to hire and fire workers. Labor costs in Portugal fell by 8 percent to 11.60 euros between 2011 and 2013, according to the EU statistics agency, Eurostat.

Nicholas Spiro, managing director at Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London, said: “It is still a job half done. The danger is that the reforms grind to a screeching halt. There is a very high risk that that happens.”

With the bailout, Portugal has also sold assets, raised taxes on everything from wages to diesel cars and reduced budget spending by 12 billion euros since 2010. According to Bloomberg, the government said on January 9 it raised 8.1 billion euros from asset sales, more than the proceeds of about 5 billion euros projected in the bailout program.

Last year, it sold shares in its postal service, CTT-Correios de Portugal SA, in the country’s first initial public offering since 2008, and also sold airport operator ANA-Aeroportos de Portugal SA. Earlier it sold stakes in utility EDP-Energias de Portugal SA and in REN-Redes Energeticas Nacionais SA, Portugal’s power and natural gas grid operator.

Although Berlin and Brussels have hailed Portugal’s clean exit from its EU bailout, it has not been popular at home.

“There is a great need in Brussels and Berlin and other capitals to present Portugal and Ireland as success stories. They will claim that their reforms in Portugal have been a success- well, they haven’t, they have destroyed the society and economy,” Rui Tavares, an independent Portuguese MEP told RT in April.

Portugal’s high unemployment has forced the workforce to look abroad for work opportunities, increasing emigration.

During the past 3 years, the work force has defected for more robust neighboring economies in record numbers. In 2012, this reached a new high of 120,000 émigrés, which was coupled with Portugal’s lowest birth rate.

Another harrowing reality is that while many people are struggling with tough austerity measures, a disproportionate amount of people are getting richer and richer. In Portugal, the top 20 percent make six times more than the bottom 20 percent.

May 17, 2014 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Obamacare Loophole Shows Failure of For-Profit Health System: Critics

By Sarah Lazare | Common Dreams | May 16, 2014

The Obama administration earlier this month quietly handed the insurance industry another loophole in the Affordable Care Act—infuriating advocates for universal coverage who say this shows that an insurance-driven health system is doomed to fail.

Announced on May 2, the provision opens the door to “reference pricing,” which allows insurance companies to set a price for medical procedures. If a patient receives a treatment that costs more, he/she will simply have to pay out of pocket. The measure is slated to apply to a majority of work-based health insurance plans and exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”), according to the Associated Press.

Many worry that reference pricing will force patients to bear the burden of a costly and difficult-to-navigate medical system.

“We don’t need reference pricing—we need “right pricing” under a single-payer program,” Don McCanne, M.D., senior health policy fellow at Physicians for a National Health Program told Common Dreams. “This is merely another way in which insurance companies are going to chisel down payment for care, shifting a greater share of the cost onto patients.”

“This new rule to limit payments for needed medical procedures is a reminder of everything that is wrong with our profit-driven healthcare system,” Jean Ross, RN, co-president of National Nurses United, told Common Dreams. “Rather than crack down on price gouging by hospitals—some of who set their charges as high as 12 times their costs — the administration is enacting a rule to ration care for patients.”

Critics charge that the ruling even violates one of the Affordable Care Act’s key tenets: To end “lifetime and yearly dollar limits on coverage of essential health benefits.”

In its own fact sheet, the Department of Labor acknowledges concerns that “such a pricing structure may be a subterfuge for the imposition of otherwise prohibited limitations on coverage, without ensuring access to quality care and an adequate network of providers.”

According to Ross, “A Commonwealth Fund study last November comparing Americans to 10 other developed countries found that U.S. adults are by far the most likely to not get the treatment their doctor recommends, as well as forgoing doctor visits or filling prescriptions, because of the high cost. All that this rule will do is increase those medical disparities and further brand our dysfunctional healthcare system as one based on ability to pay rather than on patient need.”

May 16, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Obama ignores campaign promise as FCC targets net neutrality

RT | May 16, 2014

United States President Barack Obama’s commitment to net neutrality is being questioned after the Federal Communications Commission officials appointed on his watch voted Thursday to advance a plan believed by many to be a blow to the open internet.

This week’s three-two decision by the FCC to consider proposed rules regarding net neutrality isn’t the final nail in the coffin of the open internet. Rather, the five-person panel agreed Thursday morning to open up for comments a proposal drafted by Chairman Thomas Wheeler that would set rules in place meant to address a federal appeals court’s decision earlier this year that paved the way for the possibility of paid prioritization with regards to how Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, deliver web content to customers.

As the panel weighs Wheeler’s plan, the public now has 120 days to offer their own critique before another vote is held. In the meantime, though, Pres. Obama is likely to draw fire from critics on his own in light of previous statements he made pledging to preserve and protect the open internet.

“Barack Obama was crystal clear during the 2008 campaign about his commitment to ensuring equal treatment of all online content over American broadband lines,” Haley Sweetland Edwards wrote for TIME on Friday. “But on Thursday, the president made no public statement when three Democrats he appointed to the FCC voted to move forward with a plan to allow broadband carriers to provide an exclusive ‘fast lane’ to commercial companies that pay extra fees to get their content transmitted online.”

Instead, Edwards acknowledged, White House press secretary Jay Carney offered a brief statement reiterating the president’s promise.

Obama, Carney wrote, “has made clear since he was a candidate that he strongly supports net neutrality and an open Internet. As he has said, the Internet’s incredible equality – of data, content and access to the consumer – is what has powered extraordinary economic growth and made it possible for once-tiny sites like eBay or Amazon to compete with brick and mortar behemoths”

Indeed, in 2010 the president’s chief technology officer wrote on the White House’s blog that “President Obama is strongly committed to net neutrality in order to keep an open Internet that fosters investment, innovation, consumer choice and free speech.”

Years before that on the campaign trail, then-Senator Obama said his hypothetical FCC appointments would defend the notion of a “level playing field for whoever has the best idea.”

“As president, I am going to make sure that that is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward,” he said.

With Friday’s vote, however, the FCC is well on track to implement rules that, while not necessarily encouraging the paid prioritization of web traffic, is expected to allow ISPs and other major players tied to the infrastructure of the internet to cut deals with content producers that, prior to January’s appellate decision, were illegal.

“Following the court of appeals decision earlier this year, there are no legally enforceable rules ensuring internet openness,” Julie Veach, chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau, acknowledged at Thursday’s hearing.

In Response, Wheeler said his plan offers “enforceable rules to protect and promote the open internet,” while denying allegations that it authorizes paid prioritization.

“The consideration that we are beginning today is not about whether the internet must be open, but about how and when we will have rules in place to assure an open internet,” he said.

Nevertheless, two of his co-commissioners dissented from his proposal at Thursday’s hearing, and suggested that perhaps the FCC is moving too swiftly to respond to January’s ruling.

As the panel moves forward, however, the president’s campaign trail promise could come under attack. Although all five members of the panel were appointed by his office, the three Democratic members of the president’s own political party, including Wheeler, approved the chairman’s proposed rules. Dissenting were Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly, both Republicans.

“The FCC is an independent agency, and we will carefully review their proposal,” Carney told reporters on Thursday. “The FCC’s efforts were dealt a real challenge by the Court of Appeals in January, but Chairman Wheeler has said his goal is to preserve an open Internet, and we are pleased to see that he is keeping all options on the table. We will be watching closely as the process moves forward in hopes that the final rule stays true to the spirit of net neutrality.”

But comments from some have suggested that a statement delivered by the White House press secretary might not be enough to reassure fears about the future of the internet. Marvin Ammori, a technology-policy consultant, told the Washington Post this week that Silicon Valley is “very frustrated,” and that the tech community largely threw its weight behind Obama, and not his Democratic challenger, when he vied for the party’s bid ahead of the 2008 elections.

“We’re surprised by his silence, given every indication that the rule being proposed would allow the kind of pay-for-prioritization practices Obama spoke against in the past,” Timothy Karr, a senior director of strategy for the Washington-based media and technology public interest group Free Press, said to the Washington Examiner of the president.

Meanwhile, a petition on the White House website posted after the January ruling by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has garnered the electronic signature of over 105,000 people asking the president to restore net neutrality.

May 16, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

San Francisco Rides the $15 Wave

By Shamus Cooke | Worker’s Action | May 13, 2014

It seems that Seattle has officially passed the $15 baton to San Francisco, and they’re running with it. On May 5th San Francisco had its first public organizing meeting to prepare for a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage to $15. The Labor movement and broader community organizations were well represented, and with them all the potential to achieve a great victory.

The San Francisco $15 proposal is stronger than the Seattle mayor’s version: the time line to get to $15 is shorter, and there are fewer exceptions.

San Francisco companies with more than 100 employees would have until 2016 to raise wages to $15 an hour, but they must lift wages to $13 an hour by next January. Businesses with fewer than 100 employees have until 2017 to raise wages to $15 an hour, but must raise them to $13 an hour by 2015 and $14 by 2016.

Polling has already indicated overwhelming support (59 percent) for the initiative.

The process that San Francisco is using also has other advantages over Seattle’s. The unions and community groups are working as a united front in San Francisco, whereas in Seattle there was constant tension between the socialist city council member Kshama Sawant and her $15 Now group of supporters versus the unions: Sawant wanted a strong version of $15 and several of the unions just wanted a deal, seemingly more interested in working with the mayor towards “consensus” between the unions and the corporations.

In San Francisco “consensus” was thankfully blown to pieces. The ballot initiative process goes over the head of the City Hall corporate politicians, destroying the consensus that San Francisco mayor was desperately seeking between the Chamber of Commerce — representing the giant corporations — and the unions. This has infuriated the 1%.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

“The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce said it was ‘outraged by the preemptive minimum wage ballot measure’ designed by SEIU and its allies.”

This is exactly the kind of outrage that should warm the heart of all working people.

The ballot initiative is also superior because it opens up the doors to wider participation of various community groups, who can mobilize their members to collect signatures, organize rallies, etc., instead of simply having four or five union reps cut a backroom, watered-down deal with the mayor and corporations.

Which begs the question: why don’t unions and community groups work together on inspiring ballot initiatives more often? Half the states in the country and many municipalities have the legal authority to evoke this brand of direct democracy, yet it’s rarely done.

The answer is, sadly, that this weapon is rarely used in an inspirational way because of the “partnership” between unions and the Democratic Party. The Democrats are adversaries of anything potentially harmful to the big corporations, which any economic measure that inspires working people will inevitably be.

This is why — as Obama’s presidency proved yet again — the Democratic Party is where hope goes to die.

Which makes the events in San Francisco all the more important: the $15 dollar initiative is an example of the unions making a big break, in practice, from the Democrats, which hopefully others around the nation will follow.

And follow they must, since it would be suicide for the national labor movement to sit idly as the fight for $15 snowballs. Union and community groups should be working together across the country for similar ballot initiatives wherever possible.

For those states without ballot initiatives, $15 can still be used as a rallying cry and a mobilizing force for change. Wherever the Democratic Party blocks this process, unions should come together and form a labor party. Working people are tired of excuses.

The fight for $15 also gives a boost to organizing new workers into unions as well. For example, Wal-Mart workers would love to make $15 an hour and the labor movement has been trying in vain to organize them for years. The slogan “$15 and a union” would resonate far better with Wal-Mart workers than anything the unions have yet put forth.

There are also many other unions that have already-organized workers who don’t make $15, and now they can have the confidence to demand $15 at the bargaining table, knowing full well that the broader community will come to their aid.

The $15 demand is especially important because it’s the first time in decades that the labor movement is going on the offensive. This is crucial. Three decades of playing defense — and playing it poorly — has had a demoralizing effect on the entire working class. A big offensive victory opens the doors wide to new possibilities and new horizons. It boosts confidence. One year ago $15 seemed like a fantasy; in five years we’ll hopefully be looking back at $15 with nostalgia, having achieved many other offensive victories.

The possibilities for unions and community groups to organize around $15 are endless. And if other unions don’t follow the example of the San Francisco unions and community groups, they’ll be acting as willing participants to the ongoing corporate onslaught. Not fighting back is no longer an option.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action. He can be reached at portland@workerscompass.org

May 14, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Ethnic Russians Are People, Too

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | May 13, 2014

So what does the New York Times have against Ukraine’s ethnic Russians? While the newspaper has fallen over itself insisting on the “legitimacy” of the coup regime in Kiev, despite its collaboration with neo-Nazis who spearheaded the Feb. 22 ouster of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the Times editors can’t hurl enough insults at the ethnic Russians in the east who have resisted the regime’s authority.

For weeks, the Times has called the eastern Ukrainian rebel leaders “self-declared” and ridiculed the idea that there was any significant backing for the rejection of the Kiev-appointed regional leaders; all the trouble was simply stirred up by Vladimir Putin. Now, however, the referenda in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk have demonstrated what even a Times reporter acknowledged was “substantial popular support for the pro-Russian separatists in some areas.”

But the Times editors still won’t give up their prejudices. For instance, Tuesday’s lead editorial begins: “If there were questions about the legitimacy of the separatist referendums in eastern Ukraine, the farcical names of the entities on which people were asked to vote — the self-declared People’s Republics of Donetsk or Luhansk — surely answered them.”

So, the votes – and the desires – of eastern Ukrainians shouldn’t matter because the Times disapproves of “the farcical names of the entities” that people voted for.

The Times then suggests that violence that marred the referenda was the fault of the rebels, not the Kiev regime’s National Guard, which includes the neo-Nazi militias that threw fire bombs at police during the Maidan protests in February and are now carrying out the most lethal attacks against protesters in cities in the east and south.

Of course, according to the Times’ narrative, these neo-Nazis from western Ukraine don’t exist, so the violence must be palmed off on others or be treated like the natural occurrence of a spring thunderstorm. In Tuesday’s editorial, the Times wrote: “But the gathering rumble of violence accompanying the votes is serious and is driving the Ukrainian crisis in a direction that before long no one — not President Vladimir Putin of Russia, not authorities in Kiev, not the West — will be able to control.”

However, even the Times’ own field reporter noted that the violence during the referenda on Sunday was provoked by those new National Guard forces that attacked some polling places. The Times’ editors must assume that most of the newspaper’s readers aren’t paying close attention to the details.

The other part of the Times’ Ukraine narrative is that Putin provoked the unrest in Ukraine so he could seize territory, although no less an authority on power politics than former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says that notion “isn’t possible,” adding that Putin simply was reacting to events that caught him off-guard as he was coming out of the Winter Olympics at Sochi.

Yet, the Times ignores this more realistic scenario – of a Western-pushed destabilization of the Yanukovych government that involved demands that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund and that spiraled into a violent “regime change” – and instead puts the blame on Putin, who – the Times says – must be told to get “his minions in southeastern Ukraine in line.”

Otherwise, the Times blusters “the European Union and the United States will impose sanctions that will cut Russia off for a long time from Western sources of technology, arms and finance.”

While the Times editorial accurately reflects the swaggering belligerence of Official Washington, the editors still refuse to see the Ukraine crisis in objective terms, in which both the western Ukrainians who favor closer ties with Europe and the eastern Ukrainians whose economy is dependent on trade with Russia have legitimate concerns.

The ethnic Russians in the east are not simply dupes who fall for clumsy propaganda and mindlessly follow the dictates of Vladimir Putin. They are human beings who have their own legitimate view of their political situation and who can make judgments about what course of action is best for their interests. As difficult as life in Ukraine is, it is sure to be worse once the IMF’s harsh austerity is imposed on the country’s population.

The Times and many others in the Western media insult these ethnic Russians with a disdainful treatment that treats them as lesser beings and assumes that only the pro-European Ukrainians in the west deserve respect for their opinions.

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

May 14, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

US VP’s son joins Ukrainian gas group board

RT | May 13, 2014

BnhIg5CCIAE1sjAHunter Biden, son of US Vice President Joe Biden, will join the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer. The statement comes amid Ukraine’s growing gas crisis.

“Hunter Biden will be in charge of the Holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations,” said the company’s official statement.

Biden, commenting on his appointment, said that his assistance in consulting Burisma Holdings “on matters of transparency, corporate governance and responsibility, international expansion and other priorities will contribute to the economy and benefit the people of Ukraine.”

“Burisma’s track record of innovations and industry leadership in the field of natural gas means that it can be a strong driver of a strong economy in Ukraine,” he added.

The appointment announcement comes on the same day as Russia’s gas giant, Gazprom, switched to a prepayment system with Ukraine and sent Naftogaz, Ukraine’s gas and oil company, a $1.66 billion gas bill for June supplies. Kiev must pay the bill by June 2, otherwise, it may risk a halt in natural gas supplies on June 3, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller said.

Ukraine, currently has about 9 billion cubic meters of gas in storage, and by the winter needs 18.5bcm to keep factories open and households warm, Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Vitaly Markelov said on Tuesday. In 2013, Ukraine bought 27.7 billion cubic meters from Gazprom.

Under the present terms, Kiev has to pay $485 per 1,000 cubic meters. The price was raised in April from $268.50, when Russia withdrew all discounts it provided for Ukraine after the crisis-torn country failed to pay for gas. According to Gazprom’s CEO, Kiev already owes the company more than $3.5 billion.

Kiev has rejected the new price as “politically motivated” and has been refusing to pay back the debt until Gazprom cancels the “unjustified and unacceptable hike.”

Meanwhile, the US may use the critical energy situation in the country to promote its shale energy in Ukraine.

Hunter Biden, 44, is a partner at Rosemont Seneca Partners, business development and policy advisory firm, and is counsel to Boies, Schiller, Flexner, a New York based-law firm. He is also an adjunct professor on Georgetown University’s Master’s Program in the School of Foreign Service.

Biden is on the Chairman’s Advisory Board for the National Democratic Institute, and is also a director for the Center for National Policy and the US Global Leadership Coalition, an influential, broad-based organization formed by a coalition of 400 American businesses and NGOs, senior national security and foreign policy experts.

Meanwhile, former US President Bill Clinton appointed him an Executive Director of E-Commerce Policy Coordination under Secretary of Commerce William Daley. Biden was also honorary co-chair of the 2008 Obama-Biden Inaugural Committee.

Hunter Biden is also known in the political world. He is on the boards of the World Food Program USA, and the Truman National Security Project, a US organization, based in Washington, D.C, that recruits, trains, and positions specialists across America.

Burisma Holdings, a private oil and gas company in Ukraine which was set up back in 2002 and has grown rapidly since. Its licenses cover the Ukraine’s three key hydrocarbon basins, including Dnieper-Donets, Carpathian and Azov-Kuban.

In 2013, daily gas production amounted to 11.6 thousand BOE (barrel of oil equivalent), a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one barrel (158.98 liters of crude oil), or 1.8 million cubic meters of natural gas. The company sells these volumes in the domestic market, both via traders and directly to consumers.

May 13, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , | Leave a comment

France refuses to block Mistral warship deal with Russia

RT | May 12, 2014

The French government has said that it will go ahead with 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) contract to supply Russia with two Mistral helicopter carriers because cancelling the deal would harm Paris more than Moscow.

In the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, the United States had been pressing France as well as Britain and Germany to take a tougher line against Russia and cancel the Mistral contract.

But France refuses to link the helicopter carrier deal to the US/EU debate over tougher sanctions against Russia.

A French government official travelling with President Francoise Hollande in Azerbaijan Sunday, who asked not be named, told reporters that the contract was too big to cancel and that if France didn’t fulfill the order it would be hit with penalties.

“The Mistrals are not part of the third level of sanctions. They will be delivered. The contract has been paid and there would be financial penalties for not delivering it.

“It would be France that is penalized. It’s too easy to say France has to give up on the sale of the ships. We have done our part,” the official said.

President Hollande also said earlier on Saturday that the contract will go ahead.

“This contract was signed in 2011, it will be carried out. For the moment it is not in question,” President Hollande said on Saturday during a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s electoral district.

The Russian defense ministry warned Paris in March that it would have to repay the cost of the contract plus additional penalties if it cancelled the deal.

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels Monday and expanded their sanctions over Russia’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis, adding two Crimean companies and 13 people to the bloc’s blacklist, EU diplomats said.

They have threatened a further widening of sanction if the Ukrainian presidential elections do not go ahead on May 25.

US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland expressed concern over the deal on May 8 after US lawmakers had demanded more pressure be put on France to stop the contract.

“We have regularly and consistently expressed our concerns about this sale, even before we had the latest Russian actions, and we will continue to do so,” Nuland told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to meet the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Washington Tuesday and President Barak Obama is expected to raise the issue during a visit to France next month to commemorate the D-Day Normandy landings.

US officials have suggested France could sell the ships to another buyer or sell them without the advanced technology, although it is not at all clear at this late stage who the other buyer could be.

The French deal was Moscow’s first foreign arms purchase since the end of the Cold War and was hailed by then President Nicholas Sarkozy has an important step forward in French-Russian relations. The contract has created some 1,000 jobs in French shipyards.

The first of the two ships, the Vladivostok, is due to be delivered by November this year and the second, called Sevastopol, will arrive in St Petersburg for further fitting out with Russian weapons systems in November 2015 and will join the Pacific fleet in the second half of 2016.

The Mistral can carry up to 16 attack helicopters such as Russia’s Kamov Ka-50/52, more than 40 tanks or 70 motor vehicles and up to 700 troops. The ships for Russia have been modified from the version used by the French navy to operate in northern altitudes and ice covered seas.

The Russian navy will fit the ships with air defense systems and rapid fire artillery guns to allow them to go on combat missions with fewer escort vessels.

May 12, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

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