EditorBlog (937)
Playgrounds, Not Burial Grounds for Children, In Newtown and Throughout America
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
Playgrounds Not Burial Grounds
In a former life, I worked at a physical medicine and rehabilitation hospital in Chicago, Schwab, as executive vice president. In that capacity, among other responsibilities was my overseeing public affairs, government affairs and advocacy. Professionals who specialize in rehabilitation care are most often optimistic, caring people who take great pleasure in the small progress patients make after strokes, head trauma, and spinal injuries.
Even when so many children and teenagers came through the hospital with devastating injuries for care after being shot, the rehab staff looked at the possibilities for regaining and adapting to a new physical condition. Life wasn't going to stop for a disability.
But for me, a non-medical professional, seeing the young people in wheelchairs, the teens with head wounds, the former athletes on crutches would hit me in the gut. It was the inexplicable malicious underside of the American dream; its flip side was the American nightmare.
Because of a gutsy CEO who was a former rehabilitation nurse, Schwab became a leader in the late '80s and early '90s on behalf of reducing gun violence. The hospital was involved in everything from doing two events with President Bill Clinton to getting hospitals to adopt gun control as part of their mission. Elected officials and community leaders regularly held news conferences at the hospital – and even a couple in the Cook County morgue.
The Heart of Darkness: The River of America's Violence Runs Through Newtown
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
The killing grounds of America
In front of me on my desk is a March 19, 1992, copy of Newsweek. The cover photograph shows a student who had been shot being rushed to emergency care underneath the headline, "Kids and Guns: A Report From America's Classroom Killing Grounds."
It quotes me, since I was a leader in the national movement to reduce gun violence for more than 20 years, and was often sought out for comments on the latest mass kilings or daily shootings. This is my quotation:
"The school setting is almost impossible to police without tyrannical dictatorship," says Mark Karlin, President of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. "At what point do we create such a hostile environment that these are no longer schools?" The schools, Karlin says, "are in an impossible situation…we expect them to do what the rest of us cannot."
That was more than 20 years ago, but nothing really has changed, including the cycle of mass murders and the routine garden variety killings at home, in the workplace, in bars…at just about any setting in America. In those 20 years, more United States citizens have been killed with guns to the point that the death toll on 9/11 looks like a footnote in the annals of murder.
There was an assault weapons ban for 10 years, but the NRA made sure that it was phased out during the Bush administration. The shooter in Newtown used a Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle, a favorite among mass killers (including the DC sniper and narcos in Mexico).
(Photo: Wikipedia)
The New 007 License to Kill: HSBC and Big Banks
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
HSBC is an accessory to murder
What a hyperbolic, over the top headline many readers must think: "The New 007 License to Kill: HSBC and Big Banks. "
Has BuzzFlash gone scampering up the hill of reason and madly fallen into a pit of pathological paranoia and knee-jerk conspiratorialism?
Not really, not really at all.
Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote about the largest fine levied against a bank – in this case HSBC – for money laundering on behalf of narcos and nations that the United States government in DC considers a threat to the national security. Not a person at HSBC will be indicted or prosecuted, as we noted, and the Department of Justice defended its actions by, you guessed it, basically saying that HSBC is too big too fail, and that prosecution might lead to the bank's activities being disrupted.
As BuzzFlash noted in its commentary yesterday:
Recently, Truthout posted an article on the strong possibility that intentional homicides in Mexico (most related to the so-called war on drugs, and many committed by Mexican military and police) will rise to more than 120,000 during the just-ended (December 1) six-year reign of ex-Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
HSBC didn't just launder countless dollars and pesos for profit by accident. According, to the Department of Justice report, it played an active and knowing role in facilitating the money laundering, which allows the narcos to safely bank – and move around -- their billions of dollars in sales.
(Photo: 401(K) 2012)
HSBC: Big Bank Executives Not Prosecuted for Narco Blood Money Laundering as Tens of Thousands Die
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
If you are too big to fail, you don't get prosecuted
A December 11 headline in the The Guardian UK blared, "HSBC's record $1.9bn fine preferable to prosecution, US authorities insist."
According The Guardian:
The bank processed cash for Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, regarded as the most powerful and deadly drug gang in the world, among others. At least $881m in drug trafficking money was laundered throughout HSBC accounts. In order to handle the "staggering amounts of cash", the bank even widened the windows at some branches to allow tellers to accept larger boxes of money.
HSBC also helped rogue states including Libya, Sudan, Burma and Iran to work around US rules banning them from using US financial system in a scheme that went on for decades.
Truthout published a ten-part series this spring on the failed, cynical show war on drugs that the US is sponsoring in Mexico. One of the installments began with a discussion of the profits banks make – blood money. Many of the largest banks appear to willingly welcome drug money with a wink and a nod:
A recent article in The Guardian UK offers evidence that "while cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits."
According to The Guardian UK story, [a] study by two Colombian professors found that "2.6% of the total street value of cocaine produced remains within the country [Columbia], while a staggering 97.4% of profits are reaped by criminal syndicates and laundered by banks, in first-world consuming countries."
(Photo: 401(K) 2012)
Raising Medicare Age to 67 Is the Real Death Panel
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
Medicare beginning at 67 will result in more senior deaths
Yes, remember when Sarah Palin and the Republican amen choir were claiming that the Affordable Healthcare Act was creating death panels for Americans? It became the meme with Rush Limbaugh, other members of the right wing media echo chamber, and the members of the FOX News political farm team.
So now, as the National Journal points out, John Boehner and his band of Tea Party brigands and his corporate cheerleaders for the plutocracy want -- it appears -- to raise the Medicare qualifying age to 67.
Now that would be creating a real de facto death panel.
Many seniors find it hard or don't make it to the finish line of reaching 65 and being on Medicare. The cost of health insurance for those over 50 rises to nearly the cost of a condo in Trump Towers by the age of 64, let alone 66 (the year prior to the GOP House proposed enrollment age of 67 for Medicare).
(Photo: José Goulão)
Speaking of Government Revenue Shortfalls, Tax Marijuana Instead of Prosecuting It
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
Why is Obama prosecuting marijuana?
The shark teeth writing of Charles P. Pierce got its jaws-like grip into the Obama administration for its inexplicable continuing crackdown on state and municipal laws legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana use:
If nothing else, the results in Colorado and in Washington state — and, to a lesser extent, in Massachusetts — indicate that the political salience of the "war on drugs," as applied to marijuana, at least, almost has completely evaporated. It can be argued that there is no more political risk to the president of changing his policy on marijuana now than there was in his "evolving" on gay marriage last year. In both cases, the people out in the states are out ahead of the national politics of the issue.
But, as Pierce points out, the White House and Department of Justice are not only going to likely continue their wasteful prosecution against marijuana, despite laws passed on cities and states, it may very well expand the baffling war on weed, according to a New York Times article:
Senior White House and Justice Department [DOJ] officials are considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several people familiar with the deliberations….
(Photo: Warrantedarrest)
Like Newt Gingrich, John Boehner May Drive the GOP Tea Party/Corporate Express Off the Fiscal Cliff
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
Driving the GOP off the Fiscal Cliff
In the '90s, Newton Leroy "Newt" Gingrich tried playing a game of chicken with Bill Clinton to see who would blink first – and Gingrich lost badly.
The federal shutdown precipitated by a GOP effort to cut Medicare benefits, among other austerity measures, resulted when Clinton vetoed a Republican budget that would impose hardships on public services and the earned benefits of seniors, among others. The federal government general closure occurred during two periods in late 1995 and early 1996.
The so-called "fiscal cliff" (although it differed in details from the current one) was eventually resolved with Bill Clinton's popularity soaring, while Gingrich was generally perceived as playing a losing hand. Clinton went on to easily win a second term against GOP candidate Bob Dole in 1996. In 1998, when the House Republicans lost seats in a mid-term election – the first time in more than 50 years that the party not holding the presidency lost House seats in an off-presidential year election – a GOP House coup occurred and Gingrich (who had other ethical issues weighing him down) resigned amidst, ironically, the Clinton impeachment.
Clinton completed his second term after the Senate rejected the impeachment effort; meanwhile, Gingrich was not only no longer the Speaker of the House, he was gone from Congress.
That's something to keep in mind as John Boehner wrestles with a split caucus while vowing to, in effect, close the government down over keeping tax cuts for the rich and imposing an austerity agenda, along with increasing payments on those Americans with earned benefits (given the negative name of "entitlements" by the DC insiders who passively accept the Republican "frame").
But Barack Obama, even if he is allegedly willing to increase Medicare burdens to those who have earned it, has Boehner in a bit of a box. The tax cuts on the rich expire on their own at the end of 2012. No vote needs to be taken. But with their demise, the tax cuts on the working class also expire.
(Photo: DonkeyHotey)
Doomed by Rupert Murdoch's Speeding Train of Propaganda and Sleaze
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
Has Rupert Murdoch Doomed Us?
Many Americans don't know that the newspaper heritage handed down to Rupert Murdoch from his father has been largely built upon tabloids, an appeal to the basest sensational instincts of readers (and now television viewers). It is only in recent decades, as Murdoch expanded his fortunes that he branched out into respectable publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Times of London. He also extended his holdings into expanding the FOX empire (including the film studio 20th Century FOX and the FOX entertainment cable channel; FOX News is really only a relatively small portion of his revenue empire). Then there is DirectTV and BskyB, among other holdings. Murdoch even owns the book publishing giant Harper Collins.
But Murdoch's first big purchases in the UK around 1970 were the now infamous hacking tabloid, News of the World, and The Sun, famous for its page three photos of bare-breasted women.
All of Murdoch's media ventures have been inextricably intertwined with his "friendships" with prime ministers, presidents, and leaders of any nation in which he holds a media stake. The investigation of the News of the World hacking scandal revealed that current UK Prime Minister David Cameron was both a social friend and professional ally. Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote about the ease with which FOX is willing to insert itself even into the selection process of Republican candidates for president, let alone employing GOP political farm team members on its television staff as consultants.
In 1976, Murdoch bought the lurid money-losing tabloid The New York Post, whose most telling sensationalistic headline, among a treasure trove of blaring seedy front pages, is generally regarded as "Headless Body in Topless Bar."
This week, however, Murdoch's Post (which is still hemorrhaging money, but Rupert keeps it for the pedestal it provides for influencing politics in New York and in DC) moved from sensationalism to the "snuff photo" genre when it posted a shot of a man about to be killed (he was) by an MTA train running him over. The headline on the front page was "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die: DOOMED."
Who took the photo? A New York Post photographer who happened to be in the subway when an altercation resulted in the soon-to-be dead man being thrown into the path of the train.
(Photo: World Economic Forum)
FOX and Roger Ailes Outed by Petraeus Tape
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT 
Petraeus and Ailes Outfoxed
As revealed by Bob Woodward in The Washington Post and discussed by Rachel Maddow on December 4, FOX is now on record as having become directly involved in trying to recruit a Republican candidate for president.
As Woodward reported:
So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.
The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.
McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.
“Rupert’s after me as well,” Petraeus told McFarland.
Not long after the conversation between the FOX news emissary/analyst, Petraeus accepted the position of director of the CIA because he apparently thought that the role had become as important as the being named head of the Joints Chiefs of Staff.
(Photo: Hectorir)
Welcome in 2013 With the Gift of Peace
Make 2013 a year of peace!
It's one of the great ironies of human nature that so many citizens of the United States believe in religions that preach peace, but advocate policies that promote war.
There is a battle within the human spirit between our past as creatures of violence and our potential future of living in harmony.
You can be reminded of the spirit of peace each day with the ever-popular 2013 Peace Calendar offered with a minimum contribution by Truthout and BuzzFlash.
This year's calendar is dedicated to the idea of occupying the future . Different months focus on progressive ideals such as "End Patriarchy," "Bradley Manning Whistleblower," "Emancipation Proclamation," and "Together We Are Strong." Each month of this wall calendar includes a page of four-color original art work. In addition, there are over 200 people's history annotations on the days of the year, where you can write in special appointments and events.
More...
