Random Acts of Chaos

mehreenkasana:

I’ll just leave two of many the effects here:

1. While American troops guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior but ignored cultural heritage sites, looters ransacked the universities. For example, the entire library collections at the University of Baghdad’s College of Arts and at the University of Basra were destroyed. The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandresekara described the scene at Mustansiriya University in 2003: “By April 12, the campus of yellow-brick buildings and grassy courtyards was stripped of its books, computers, lab equipment and desks. Even electrical wiring was pulled from the walls. What was not stolen was set ablaze, sending dark smoke billowing over the capital that day.”
2. According toThe Washington Times, 280 Iraqi professors were killed and another 3,250 fled the country by the end of 2006.

afternoonsnoozebutton:

Well that’s exceptionally fucked up.

On Friday evening, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling that could begin the process of revealing the identities of secret donors to groups connected to Karl Rove and the Koch brothers.

The court ruled in Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission that the FEC rules that restricted campaign donor disclosure are not valid and must be changed to provide for disclosure.

[…]

Those rules state that donors to groups spending money on “electioneering communications,” or advertisements that do not specifically call to elect or defeat a candidate, must only be disclosed if they specifically earmarked their donation to that particular expenditure. Since few, if any, donors to these groups ever earmark their donation for a specific election expense there was no disclosure.

That FEC rule came in the wake of the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC. That ruling overturned a ban, instituted by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, regarding direct corporate and union contributions to electioneering communications.

[…]

Advertisements falling under the rubric of “electioneering communications” include those run against President Barack Obama by the American Energy Alliance and Americans for Prosperity, both non-profits linked to the Koch brothers. All ads run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are classified as “electioneering communications.” The ruling would require for the first time that contributions to these groups, and many more, be disclosed.

Crossroads GPS, a non-profit linked to Karl Rove, has run millions of electioneering communications against Obama and Democratic senators this election cycle without disclosing any of their donors.

[…]

Judge Amy Berman Jackson stated Friday in her ruling that, “there is no question that the regulation promulgated by the FEC directly contravenes the Congressional goal of increasing transparency and disclosure in electioneering communications.”

“In sum, the Court finds that Congress spoke plainly, that Congress did not delegate authority to the FEC to narrow the disclosure requirement through agency rulemaking, and that a change in the reach of the statute brought about by a Supreme Court ruling did not render plain language, which is broad enough to cover the new circumstances, to be ambiguous,” the ruling continued. “The agency cannot unilaterally decide to take on a quintessentially legislative function; if sound policy suggests that the statute needs tailoring in the wake of WRTL or Citizens United, it is up to Congress to do it.”

Fred Wertheimer, the president of campaign finance watchdog group Democracy 21 and another one of the lawyers representing Van Hollen, said in a statement, “Now it is the FEC’s turn to act. Democracy 21 calls on the FEC to conduct an immediate rulemaking procedure. The FEC must get new rules in place promptly to ensure that outside spenders making electioneering communications disclose the donors funding these campaign related expenditures.”

Today’s introduction of  the “Rebuild America Act” by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin would do more to help the American economy and revitalize the middle class than any bill currently before Congress.

[…]

For Social Security beneficiaries, the “Rebuild America Act” would increase benefits by about $60/month for the average beneficiary – a boon for seniors, disabled workers and survivors living on fixed incomes. It would also change the way the Social Security Administration calculates benefits from the current CPI-W calculation to the CPI-E, which more accurately reflects inflationary cost increases faced by seniors.

To pay for these changes, and to ensure Social Security is solvent and soundly-financed well into the future, Senator Harkin proposes scrapping the cap – ensuring all Americans pay into Social Security at the same tax rate. That means high earners – who currently pay a much lower tax rate into Social Security than middle class earners – would pay the same rate of 6.2%.

verbalresistance:

Far-right groups from across Europe are due to hold a rally in Denmark aimed at setting up what they term an anti-Islamic alliance across the continent.

The demonstration has been organised by the English Defence League (EDL) which says it wants to halt what it calls the “Islamification of Europe”.

The EDL said it hoped it would be the start of a Europe-wide movement.

Campaigners against racism are worried that hardline Islamaphobic groups in Europe are now joining forces.

Extremist group

The number of people attending the rally in Denmark is likely to be small.

But analysts say what is more important is that many are the leaders of anti-islamic groups from a variety of European countries.

Some have been in the Danish city of Aarhus since Wednesday where they have had a chance to hold meetings and discuss ideas.

The main organiser of the rally is the EDL which wants to stop Muslim migration into Europe all together, viewing it as a threat which will lead to conflict.

The group hopes Saturday’s rally will create a pan-European movement which will hold demonstrations in different countries at the same time.

EDL leader Stephen Lennon said a few hundred people would attend.

“We’re not expecting big numbers in Aarhus,” he said. “We hope it will be the start of a European movement that will continue to grow.”

Increase tensions

BBC World Affairs correspondent Richard Galpin says it is not clear if the EDL will succeed with the aims of the rally.

But anti-racism campaigners already fear the hardline anti-Islamic rhetoric being used will increase tensions in European cities and encourage extremists on both sides.

Nottingham University’s Matthew Goodwin, an expert on far-right groups in Britain, said the meeting would be strategically significant even if the numbers were not.

“What we are seeing here for the first time in British political history is an anti-Muslim far-right organisation taking the lead in trying to mobilise pan-European opposition to Islam,” he said.

Police in Aarhus said the rally would be kept apart from an expected counter-demonstration by anti-racism campaigners.

Police Superintendent Mogens Brondum said: “The police can and will handle this situation. We will be out massively.”

BBC News

The reality today is that the far-right poses a very real and increasing threat to European societies - as we saw exemplified, in the tragic shootings in Norway by Brievik not too long ago.

The threat is far more evident than the supposed ‘Muslim threat’ which we waste so many of our resources on, and which groups like this are fixated on; media moral panics and governments are targeting and scapegoating minorities, who are increasingly integrated in countries they truly consider home.

The Islamophobic far right are actively murdering people on the continent, and are worryingly starting to garner “mainstream” political success and sympathies.

With the far-right threat being ignored and slowly being allowed to fester on the sidelines, It’s no surprise that otherwise perfectly law-abiding and peaceful Muslims majority are facing discrimination as a daily occurrence - from here in Europe, to the US too - Islamophobic discourse has almost become a staple of elements within the Right.

Callous parades of ignorance and proud displays of bigotry such as this parade help no one, and solve no problems in the debates around multiculturalism and integration…. caught in between the Breivik’s and the Merah’s are the peaceful and law-abiding moderate Muslim majority - who face the consequences of disgusting actions on both sides.

izythequeergirl:

For those less judicially savvy, the Supreme Court deciding not to hear the case is a good thing. It mean the unconstitutional ruling from the appeals court stands and becomes legal precident against any future attempts to strip transgender prisoners of their rights.

From the appeals court ruling, “Refusing to provide effective treatment for a serious medical condition serves no valid penological purpose and amounts to torture.”

Of course, prevention of medical treatment is by no means the only injustice transgender prisoners face. Trans* inmates who have not had genital reassignment surgery are still forced to serve in prisons consistant with the legal sex forced upon them at birth. This especially a problem for trans women who are often targeted for sexual assault, violence and rape while serving in men’s prisons. There’s also a major issue of transphobia in the legal system leading to unfair sentences for transgender defendents.

So let’s rejoice in our small victory today, but remember we still have a long way to go.

Members of Congress who submitted comments advocating the weakening of the already watered-down Volcker Rule — which is meant to rein in banks’ risky trading — have received more than four times as much in campaign contributions from the financial sector as members who demanded stricter regulations, a report released today by Public Citizen reveals:

Those seeking to weaken the rule have received $66.7 million from the financial services industry since the 2010 election cycle compared to only $1.9 million in contributions received by those asking for a more robust rule. Those seeking to weaken the rule have received an average of $388,010 from the industry, more than four times as much as the average of $96,897 received by those asking for a stronger rule.

“Members of Congress should not serve as megaphones for industry’s claims,” said the report’s co-author, Negah Mouzoon, a researcher for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “They should amplify the public’s call to prohibit banks from engaging in the same risky financial activities that contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008.”