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Confusion mounts over U.S. presence in Afghanistan after 2014

As news seeped out that American troops could be stationed in Afghanistan through the year 2024 “and beyond,” questions began to proliferate toward the Obama administration. Over the course of a couple years the mantra has been that America’s presence in Iraq is over and the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan is fading away. With these recent revelations stemming from Afghanistan that speak directly to the contrary, this narrative is now on trial. Further, if the reaction from the State Department is any indication, then we are in store for a very confusing trial.

Indeed, the amount of confusion has become so great between the U.S. and Afghanistan that the words of Afghan President Karzai are now apparently unreliable. Karzai reportedly said in a recent private meeting that he wishes to have the next president of Afghanistan sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), as opposed to himself. The position of the U.S., in the meantime, has always been to have the BSA signed and completed by the year’s end. Since the Afghan election would make such an American aim impossible, this puts the Obama administration in a bind to say the least.

Switzerland shows U.S. how to handle CEOs

In Switzerland a petition from 100,000 people, or about 1.25% of the population, creates a public referendum. By this means, last March, Swiss voters created strict limits on executive pay.

On November 24, the Swiss will vote on whether to take a further step -- limiting executive pay to no more than 12 times the lowest salary in the company. Such a maximum wage policy allows the CEO pay increases, but only if workers get at least a twelfth as much.

A movement in the U.S. is asking: If Switzerland can do it, why can't we?

The Swiss are also set to vote, on a date yet to be set, to create a guaranteed basic income of $2,800 (2,500 Swiss francs) per month for every adult. That's about $16 per hour for a full-time worker, but it's guaranteed even for those who can't find work.

You know what country can afford such a measure even more easily, given its vast supplies of wealth? The United States of America.

Evangelicals, new age & other beliefs impact Southeast Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand -- American evangelist Billy Graham's controversial son Franklin, who said Buddhists cannot "get to heaven" and Islam "is very evil and wicked," began a three-night Christian festival on Friday (November 22) in Buddhist-majority Thailand's second biggest city, Chiang Mai.

Vietnam, meanwhile, is hosting the first United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) International Conference on Spiritual Tourism for Sustainable Development, including an Australian tourism investor and others discussing how Aboriginals, traditional religions and New Age spiritualism enhance destinations.

Many people in the international travel industry are looking for ways to protect crumbling monuments and indigenous spiritual arts, while educating tourists and governments about the value of belief systems dating back before recorded history.

In Southeast Asia, foreign evangelicals and modern visionaries also frequently arrive, attracted by the region's ancient religious sites or trying to push atheist Buddhists into imagining a god to worship.

"The Abundant Life Festival is an evangelistic partnership between the

The John Kasich Re-Election Protection Act

With a stroke of his pen on November 6, 2013, Ohio Governor John Kasich demonstrated his utter contempt for democracy. Fearing that Ohio Libertarian Party nominee Charlie Earlwho has strong Tea Party support would cut into his conservative base, Kasich outlawed all third parties in Ohio for the 2014 election.

The offending law is Senate Bill 193, which passed last week amidst controversy and turmoil at the Statehouse. It has been dubbed the “John Kasich Re-election Protection Act” for obvious reasons. The ever-arrogant Ohio Senator Bill Seiz (R-Cincinnati) introduced the draconian law the same day the Libertarians publicly announced Earl’s nomination.

Kasich has always been a bit contemptuous of competitive elections. Other than his first campaign, most of his electoral victories were landslides aided by gerrymandered districts and an incredibly safe noncompetitive seat in the 1990’s. When Kasich ran for president in 2000, he often polled 0% of the vote in the early caucus and primary states.

Petition for Marriage Equality

"Pass the gravy and petition, please."
Families and friends will hear that this week at Thanksgiving Dinner tables across the state. That's because Marriage Equality supporters in Ohio want to help us collect One Million Signatures for Marriage so that voters can repeal Ohio's 2004 Marriage Ban next year.
Will you help us reach that goal?
If so, just click here to get your petition and simple instructions on "how to" collect signatures on the petition. It's super easy and frankly, I think you'll find that equality is pretty yummy!
Thanks for giving your time and attention to helping us winning marriage equality in Ohio.
Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family and friends.
Best regards!

Ian James
FreedomOhio

Cries in the wilderness

“The only premise of the book was to just go out and listen.”
And the book, edited by Miles Harvey, who is quoted above, is remarkable. It’s one of a kind, as far as I know – How Long Will I Cry? – the first publication of a newly formed nonprofit organization called Big Shoulders Books, which is affiliated with Chicago’s DePaul University. It’s available free of charge, because . . . how could a cry in the wilderness be otherwise?

It’s a cry in the wilderness punctuated by gunfire. Usually all we hear is the gunfire, emanating from “those” neighborhoods, the violent ones, “so physically and spiritually isolated from the rest of us,” as Alex Kotlowitz describes them in his foreword. How Long Will I Cry? is an attempt – no, I mean a beginning – at ending that isolation.

Healthcare Dot Gov

No Clemency for Snowden, profit for Feinstein and business as usual for the NSA

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has asked for Clemency so he can come home. The debate his revelations ignited has spawned multiple reform bills in Congress including one from Senate Intelligence committee chair Diane Fienstein. However, the White House and Feinstein continue to scream for his blood in the media. The media has failed to report that Feinstein's bill normalizes rather than reforms the NSA spying on the whole world. The media has also failed to report on the massive profits Diane Feinstien reaps from her husband’s business dealings with the intelligence community and the military.

According to Associated Press reports, Feistein responded to Snowden's clemency appeal by describing it as an "enormous disservice to our country," and declaring "I think the answer is no clemency." Only the President may grant clemency. It is that same legal theory that underpins all of the expanded powers the NSA has been granted in the last twelve years. These are the powers that Senator Feinstein's “reform” bill, the FISA Improvement Act of 2013, further regularizes and entrenches.

Daniel Ellsberg and other luminaries send letters to judge on behalf of Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond

Daniel Ellsberg, infamous for releasing the Pentagon Papers that exposed government lies and coverups during the Vietnam War, is now publicly supporting a fellow whistleblower in trouble. Ellsberg wrote a letter of support for “hackivist” Jeremy Hammond who is facing 10 years in prison for hacking into a corporation’s private security and public safety servers and releasing the garnered information to Wikileaks.

Hammond faces sentencing on November 15 after a non-cooperating plea agreement he accepted on Thursday, May 30, 2013 in a Wikileaks related hacking case. He was arrested in March 2012 for his role in the LulzSec hacking attacks. The LulzSec collective was a subset of the worldwide hacktivist group Anonymous, which was responsible for a number of high profile actions including a hacking attack on the private security corporation Stratfor. Hammond has been held in solitary confinement since January without visits from his family and will not have full visitation privileges for at least another year.

Reclaiming 'Chiraq'

I felt the music and the fire as the civil rights movement rose from its slumber.

“Repair . . . justice!” went the call and response last week, in the basement of an old Chicago church at the corner of Ashland and Washington. “Restore . . . life! Rebuild . . . community!”

There was Gospel music and hand-clapping, passion and politics. The Reclaim Campaign launched and the Rev. Alvin Love said, “This is just the beginning. It’s going to take all of us. We’re going to leave this place mobilized, energized and activated. The work begins NOW.”

Reclaim “Chiraq.”

The kids are dying. That’s what they call Chicago: “Chiraq.” The situation has to change; the community has to rebuild.

“Why is so much violence acceptable?” high school senior Keann Mays-Lenoir asked the audience of about 300 people. “Why are adults sitting back and allowing it to happen? We’re in fear of our lives at school. We don’t know who will be shot down next. It is not OK for any child to die senselessly.

“It is not OK that my friends and I have already planned our funerals.”

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