EFTA01204030.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bee: [email protected] Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 05/18/2014 Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 07:59:06 +0000 Attachments: America_Is_About_to_Get_Really_Old_Derrek_Thompson_The_Atlantic_May_6,_2014.do cx; Seven_Scary_Facts_About_How_Global_Warming_Is_Scorching_the_United_States_Moth eriones_May_11,_2014.docx; Alicia_Keys_bio.docx; Student Debt Is Creating_A_Wealth_Gap_Among_Young_Adults_Tyler_Kingkade_Huff_ Post_05114_2-0174.docx; Condoleezza_Rice_says_there_arejtmanswered_questi_ons? about Benghazi_Sean_Sul livan_May_1 5,_2014.docx; rndia fflection_2014,_Opposition_Candidate_Narendra_Modi_Will_Be_The_Next_Prime_ Minister Huff_Post May_ 1 5,_2014.docx; India's_nection,517e_Next_Prime_Minister_Is_A_Dangerous_Man_New_Republic_May_ 15,_2014.docx; What I Leaned About_the_Indian_Election_at_Kebab_Stands_Kyle_Gardner_The_Atlant ic_May_9,_20147docx Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png DEAR FRIEND The results of the biggest election of the year anywhere in the world was formally announced this week in New Delhi with Narendra Moth overwhelming defeating "his slow-footed opponent" Rahul Gandhi, 43, from the Congress party which his family has dominated since his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru led India to independence from Britain in 1947. Headlines — Narendra Modi To Be India's Next Prime Minister... BJP Party Headed For Most Resounding Election Victory In 3o Years... Can Rule With Impunity... Supporters Jubilant... Ruling Congress Party Concedes... Nation Voted Against Us'... Hundreds OfMillions Cast Votes... Why The New Hindu Nationalist PM Is So Controversial... A Dangerous Man... But the headline that counted — Modi Crushes Gandhi in India's Election Landslide with the sub-head — The overwhelming victory of the BJP sets the country on a new course, burying perhaps forever the dynastic rule of the Gandhis and their Congress party. Reuters World News described the arithmetic of his victory is stunning. This has been an election of superlative numbers: a record 66.38 percent of an electorate of 82o million people cast its vote over the last month, and the results — have given his Bharatiya Janata [Indian People's] Party the first absolute majority for any party in India's parliament since 1984, when Thatcher and Reagan were in office, the Soviet Union was alive (if not quite kicking), and China's economic heft was little more than a twinkle in Deng Xiaoping's eye. As of this writing, the Modi-led BJP is slated to get 286 seats out of 543. Throw in the seats won by its electoral allies and fellow travelers, and the number swells to more than 34o. That would make it possible for Modi to enact virtually any law, program or policy he wishes to, given that the Congress Party, which has headed a ruling alliance in parliament since 2004, EFTA01204030 has been nuked by the Indian voters, nuked so devastatingly, in fact, that it has been reduced from 206 seats to 45 — a charred rump that represents its lowest tally of seats in Indian parliamentary history. Its allies have fared little better, and even with them accounted for, a Congress-led alliance barely limps to 6o seats. In addition to all of these, there are about 140-plus seats that have been won by a smorgasbord of regional and niche-interest parties, many of whom are likely to throw their weight behind Modi on an ad hoc basis. All of which means that his victory will count as one of the most lop-sided in any large, modern democracy, with his government able to act unchecked by any meaningful opposition. In fact, by a quirk of India's parliamentary rules, there won't even be a formal leader of the opposition: other than the BJP, no party has won a minimum of 10 percent of all seats (i.e., 54) that would confer the status of formal, upper-case-O "Opposition." This has not happened in India's parliament since 1984. Reuters World News: What does Modi stand for, and what can we expect from his government? He and his party have, habitually, been described as "Hindu nationalist,"by which is meant a combination — derided by critics on the left as unsavory — of Indian nationalism and Hindu revivalism. Certainly, the Congress Party is nationalist, too — it was, in fact, the vehicle for India's independence movement — but the BJP differentiates itself from the older, formally secular party by its embrace of Hinduism, the religion of about % percent of India's people. Modi, notoriously, presided over an administration in his home state of Gujarat that did little or nothing to stop the massacre of some 2,000 Muslims in 2002. Accused by his critics of complicity in the pogrom, Modi has never been found culpable by any judicial body, including a special investigating team set up by the Indian Supreme Court. Commentators have sought to explain Modi to non-Indians, deploying numerous comparisons to do so; but the one that works best, in my opinion, is to see him as a kind of Indian (or Hindu) Ariel Sharon. To his credit, Modi conducted an election campaign in which he, personally, focused almost exclusively on his ideas for economic growth and better governance, two areas in which the Congress-led alliance had performed appallingly. Modi left the invocations of "Hindutva" — or Hinduness, a feature of his party's identity — to his lieutenants, some of whom were incendiary on the stump, seeking to stoke divisions between Hindus and Muslims. But as the campaign wore on, Modi's focus on "Arthatva" — or "economics-ness" — came to be reassuring to those voters who were repelled by the Congress party's incompetence and corruption, while harboring, at the same time, misgivings about the BJP's "communal" ideology. Modi's resounding victory at the polls inclines me to argue that it is time to wipe his slate clean. I have been a critic of his derelict handling of the Gujarat riots, and have expressed regular misgivings about the tone of the BJP's "Hindutva." But India's electorate has made a clear choice, and one must respect that choice. There is nothing to be gained by harping on about events in 2002, however disconcerting those events were. Indians, and Modi's critics, need to move on. One might derive some hope, also, from the size of Modi's majority, which would allow him to govern magnanimously, and with no vindictiveness toward those who did not vote for him. His parliamentary numbers allow him to enact economic reforms that Indians crave, with no need to buy off, or kowtow to, difficult coalition partners. They allow him, also, to extend a hand of reconciliation to India's Muslims, who, at 11 percent of the population number just over 170 million people. Early analyses indicate that only 10 percent of Muslim voters cast their ballots for the BJP, although the party did win EFTA01204031 just over tto percent of all seats with a significant Muslim population. (American Republicans will see echoes here of their problems with the African American electorate.) Were the story of Modi's win not so eye-catching, so spectacular, one would have said that the most dramatic outcome of this election was the savaging of the Congress Party, a once-proud institution that has fallen on times so hard that it is impossible to foresee a recovery. The party of India's independence movement has now become utterly dynastic, miserably sclerotic and entirely bereft of good ideas. It was profoundly depressing to see party hacks raising slogans, after their defeat, in favor of Priyanka Gandhi, sister of Rahul Gandhi, the man who has led his party to near-oblivion. The party will need to do much, much more than replace one scion with another if it is ever to come back to national prominence. With each generation, the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has grown less impressive, and more pedestrian. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, was, for all his flaws, a towering intellectual and political figure, a man of abiding education and culture. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, never finished her college degree, but she had political stature and an impressive, worldly sophistication. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was a retiring fellow who had politics thrust upon him, a pilot out of place in power. His son, Rahul Gandhi, represents the family's nadir: he has nothing on his curriculum vitae that is not a family inheritance. There is nothing on it that is self-made. He is a cipher who has reduced his own party to near-cipher status. Modi won for three reasons. The ineptitude of the governing Congress Party over the last five years. The anemic record of economic growth. And the widespread corruption scandals associated with the party. These three things combined really sank the Congress Party. and simultaneously Modi's message of growth, of prosperity of bringing employment opportunities to a whole generation of aspiring Indians, as well as good governance worked well with the electorate. India expects Modi to deliver the country from economic stagnation. India expects Modi to be decisive. India expects Modi to be everything that the previous government was not. There has never been a contrast as great between two contending Indian leaders as there was between Modi and Rahul Gandhi. The country was offered an irrefutable antithesis of style, manner, culture, class, ideology, language, heritage and political hunger. The country chose Modi. They have given him a massive mandate. And with that, they have also given him a massive burden. Modi must now show India that he can shoulder it without buckling. But as someone who has expressed religious nationalism and piety his biggest challenge in addition to delivering on his economic promises is that he can be a truly inclusive Prime Minister representing the needs and aspirations of those who didn't support him in the election especially when his election has raised the expectations to such a high extent that unless he can deliver particularly on the promise of economic growth and greater equality otherwise there will be disillusionment among his supporters and critics, particularly among the Muslim community are already sceptable of him given his past. Hopefully tolerance and inclusiveness which he expressed on Friday's speech will be the mantra of his governing. On top of this, international companies especially in the US will push the new government to open investment, transparency and judicial protection for foreign investment in India's lucrative sheltered business sectors. ****** Robert Reich: Four Big Conservative Lies About Inequality EFTA01204032 Even though French economist Thomas Piketty has made an air-tight case that we're heading toward levels of economic and social inequality not seen since the days of the 19th century robber barons, right-wing conservatives haven't stopped lying about what's happening and what to do about it. Herewith, the four biggest right-wing lies about inequality, followed by the truth. Lie number one: The rich and CEOs are America's job creators. So we dare not tax them. The truth is the middle class and poor are the job-creators through their purchases of goods and services. If they don't have enough purchasing power because they're not paid enough, companies won't create more jobs and our economy won't grow. We've endured the most anemic recovery on record because most Americans don't have enough money to get the economy out of first gear. The economy is barely growing and real wages continue to drop. We keep having false dawns. An average of 200,000 jobs were created in the United States over the last three months, but huge numbers of Americans continue to drop out of the labor force. But the fact is that most CEO's at the top are mostly interested in creating shareholder profits and eagerly are willing to outsource company jobs with short-term views to boost stock prices. Lie number two: People are paid what they're worth in the market. So we shouldn't tamper with pay. The facts contradict this. CEOs who got 30 times the pay of typical workers 4o years ago now get 300 times their pay not because they've done such a great job but because they control their compensation committees and their stock options have ballooned. Meanwhile, most American workers earn less today than they did 4o years ago, adjusted for inflation, not because they're working less hard now but because they don't have strong unions bargaining for them. More than a third of all workers in the private sector were unionized 4o years ago; now, fewer than 7 percent belong to a union. Lie number three: Anyone can make it in America with enough guts, gumption and intelligence. So we don't need to do anything for poor and lower-middle class kids. The truth is we do less than nothing for poor and lower-middle class kids. Their schools don't have enough teachers or staff, their textbooks are outdated, they lack science labs, and their school buildings are falling apart. We're the only rich nation to spend less educating poor kids than we do educating kids from wealthy families. All told, 42 percent of children born to poor families will still be in poverty as adults — a higher percent than in any other advanced nation. Lie number four: Increasing the minimum wage will result in fewer jobs. So we shouldn't raise it. In fact, studies show that increases in the minimum wage put more money in the pockets of people who will spend it — resulting in more jobs and counteracting any negative employment effects of an increase in the minimum. Three professors at the University of California at Berkeley — Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester and Michael Robet Reich — compared adjacent counties and communities across the United States, some with higher minimum wages than others but similar in every other way. They found no loss of jobs in those with the higher minimums. EFTA01204033 The truth is, America's lurch toward widening inequality can be reversed. But doing so will require bold political steps. At the least, it is going to require the rich paying higher taxes in order to fund better-quality education for kids from poor and middle-class families. Labor unions must be strengthened, especially in lower-wage occupations, in order to give workers the bargaining power they need to get better pay. The minimum wage must be raised. And to do this without strangling the economy; the country has to understand that its standing should not be primarily based on its military prowess that is sucking up approximately $700 billion a year — which is larger than the combined military budgets of the next 13 countries — and hasn't made us any safer than Germany, Japan, Australia or Brazil. If we redeployed half of what we spend on defense, which would still be the largest military budget in the world, and spend it on repairing and upgrading our aging infrastructure which would create millions of jobs that can't be outsource and would have a positive multiplier effect on the economy. We have to call out the right-wing deniers of inequality, climate change, voting rights for minorities, poor and elderly, women's rights, racism, basic science and history and this is my rant of the week. ler r.. , • - .--cAtl-r- ;4- • .ZPINifi, '.` 7 The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image. Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on May 12, 2014. Last week Marc Rubio made news when on one of the Sunday morning news shows he publicly denied human complicity in Climate Change — Rubio "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it, that's what I do not believe. And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except that it will destroy our economy." Rubio's comments is officially the price of entrance in the 2016 Republican field. You either need to literally know nothing or pretend that you know nothing. Back in 2007 Rubio treated global warming as an accepted truth. — While independent teams of researchers from Nasa and the University of Washington released two reports on Monday concluding that the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds enough water to raise global sea levels by several metres, has already begun and is 'unstoppable'. They estimated that the fast-moving Thwaites Glacier will probably collapse into the sea somewhere in the next 200 to 1,000 years, raising sea levels by two feet. EFTA01204034 This glacier acts as a dam for the rest of the western ice sheet and its disappearance could precipitate the collapse of a frozen mass large enough to raise sea levels by three to four metres. 'There's been a lot of speculation about the stability of marine ice sheets, and many scientists suspected that this kind of behaviour is under way," said Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, in a press release. "This study provides a more qualitative idea of the rates at which the collapse could take place." A second study led by Nasa and the University of California declared the collapse of Thwaites and other glaciers had "passed the point of no return" and that glacial retreat would lead to a rise in sea levels of 1.2 metres. "Wefinally have hit this point where we have enough observations to put this all together, to say, 'Wow, we really are in this state',"Nasa glaciologist Tom Wagner told reporters during a conference. The studies both suggest that sea-level rise will be greater than previously estimated by the United Nations' IPCC report earlier this year. This forecast had not factored in the melting of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. Scientists have warned about the dangers posed by the West Antarctic ice sheet for decades but say they had previously underestimated the pace of chance. "Previously, when we saw thinning we didn't necessarily know whether the glacier could slow down later, spontaneously or through some feedback,"said Joughin. "In our model simulations it looks like all thefeedbacks tend to point toward it actually accelerating over time; there's no real stabilizing mechanism we can see." Rising sea levels could threaten tens of millions of homes in coastal cities around the world and cause billions in financial damages. So why is Marco Rubio dening what 97% of scientist around the world believes is happening and if not addressed will destroy many parts of the world? My personal belief is that the United States has the best higher education in the world. We have world-class universities, as well as great trade schools in every region. But the problem is that college loans are the new servitude as approximately 20 million Americans attend college each year. Of that 20 million, close to 12 million — or 60% — borrow annually to help cover costs. There are approximately 37 million student loan borrowers with outstanding student loans today carrying almost $1.15 trillion student loan debt — $1 trillion of that in federal student loan debt and more than American's credit card debt. And one of the reasons driving this rush into bondage is that college graduates earned 50 percent more than did young adults who completed only high school, and 22 percent more than did those with associate degrees. — In 2010, people ages 25 to 34 with bachelor's degrees earned 114 percent more than did those without high-school diplomas. But a new report released Wednesday, titled "Young Adults, Student Debt and Economic Well- Being," details a growing wealth gap between those in debt and those who are not. Roughly four-in- ten households headed by an adult younger than 4o currently have some student debt, which the Pew Research Center notes is the highest share on record. Researchers say that the average student debt loan is more than $30,000 with graduate students carrying $loo-$200,000 and more in student debt. Needless to see that student debt can also negatively impact an individual's ability to take on other consumer debt — and therefore place a drag on the national economy. But the Big Ugly is that tens of million Americans saddled with student debt essentially live in a type of new age serfdom. EFTA01204035  Record Share of Young Households Owe Student Debt 37 29 25 22 21 21 21 16 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 Note 'young houseroeis are housercics A:th reads yo.: -"ger than 40. Student debtor households have outstanding student loan balances or student loans in deferment. Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of the 1989 to 2010 Survey of Consumer cirances PEW RESEARCH CENTER lier12"- Trtler13 Yet, Pew finds another reason why this greater share of households with debt is troublesome. Young adult households headed by someone who is college educated without student debt have a typical net worth 7 times higher than those with student loans to pay back. EFTA01204036  Young Student Debtors Lag Behind in Wealth Accumulation Median net worth of young households COLLEGE EDUCATED 7 TIMES GREATER THAN Has student II WITH STUDENT $8,700 DEBT debt No student debt $64.700 NOT COLLEGE EDUCATED Has student 9 TIMES debt $1,200 GREATER THAN WITH STUDENT No student DEBT debt $1O.900 Note: Young households are households with heads younger than 40. Households are characterized Lased on the educational attanrnent of the household head. "College educated' refers to those with a bachelor's degree or more. Student debtor households have outstanding student loin balances or student loans in deferment. Net worth is the value of the household assets minus household debts. Source: Pew Research Center tabulations of the 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances PEW RESEARCH CENTER Those same households with student debt also typically have twice as much total indebtedness -- counting mortgage, auto and credit card debt -- as those without education loans. In addition, 41 percent of college educated persons with student debt say their total debt exceeds the value of their assets, compared to just 5 percent of college educated people without student loans. The difference in the median debt-to-income ratio between college-educated young adults with student debt and those without keeps growing, and at a faster rate after the turn of the century. EFTA01204037  Median Total Debt to Household Income for Young Households, by Student Debt Status, 1989-2010 31ohm neat debt us% ofhowenokl income COLLEGE EDUCATED NOT COl1101EDUCATED NW itaGeot 4•44 190 1812 7 • Nos student debt 1031 97.s 104A 10L91 920 94.5 868 127.1._• 107 9 761 100.2 65.2 MO MSS MM sz. 429 No student ROM 576 65.1 `, r.i • 1 1998 1995 2001 2007 2010 1989 1995 2001 2007 2010 Mob' rasp nomsonolef an nonsonokta with tuck bonbon than 40 HovionolOs ore &tamarind based a' Cho odscational attannstnt of Vas Pousalsold hoof 'Collage educated' Mors to Moos 4h a bashatons dorm or bong Studriest debts Poramtulds Nan onzanleb sroStre ba' balances a stub,. bans In deferment Dreibtobouselold incorne is to for each ••o ho camMemn at rue Men W10 10 Sunray o COM:Wore Sysin044 PEW RESEARCH CENTER =MI In a separate study also released Wednesday, by the American Enterprise Institute, data shows graduates with four-year degrees are becoming more likely than those with just some college or with advanced degrees to be late on their student loan payments. According to the New York Federal Reserve Bank, as of the fourth quarter of 2013, more than 11 percent of student loans were at least 90 days behind in payments. On top of that, nearly half of outstanding student loans do not currently require any payment, because the student is either still in school or has taken advantage of other ways to defer payment. But, sooner or later, these loans will be due and many graduates will fall behind. I took a look at AF-I's study which also had brief video outlining several suggestions. First the study suggests that there is little correlation between steep loan balances and financial hardship saying that some families with relatively little debt often have the highest rates of financial hardship. So rather than bailing out delinquent borrowers we should rethink we hand out student aid offering three solutions. Income Share Agreements; where private investors would pay the full costs of a person's college education for a future share of the student's life-time income, with investors having a say over the student's educational choices. It this isn't serfdom, nothing is. Social Impact Bonds; where private investors front money for a particular social program and reap the dividends from its success. Needless to say, easy to see that this could easy become a new form of the plantation. Human Capital Savings Accounts; a sort of 401(k) which is just another way to channel money to Wall Street. Much like with healthcare which is overpriced, inefficient and rated well behind almost all other industrialized nations, the saddling of young Americans with more than $1.15 trillion in student loans is a travesty. With more and more emphasis being placed on college education for all, raising costs of an already expensive degree, and underemployment of college graduates running rampant, student loan debt is a problem that will cripple economic possibilities and success to come. There is no need to recreate the wheel here, as many Western European countries currently provide free higher education to their citizens (and students from EU countries) enabling them to pursue advance learning/training into their 3os, 4os, etc. Hence instead of being saddled with tens and sometimes hundreds of student loans they don't enter the workforce indentured. Can't we do this here in the richest country in the world. EFTA01204038 Very few things outrage me to degree a comment that Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Ozy.com on Thursday, that the public still has questions about the security situation in the lead-up to the attacks and the circumstances on the ground during the attacks. "I think there are unanswered questions and they could be easily answered. But I think they need to be answered," Rice said. Rice, who was the nation's chief diplomat during the administration of George W. Bush, expressed optimism that the committee House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) recently tasked with investigating the September 2012 attacks on diplomatic outposts could answer the outstanding questions. "When the House says that it wishes to investigate something, it has a right to do that. And so I think done in the right way with the right cooperation we can put this to rest and that's how I would handle it at this point," she said. This is the person who was National Security Advisor to the Bush Administration at the time of 9/11 and disastrous misadventures/wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, all based on admitted faulty intelligence. Let's remember that during the summer of 2001, Rice met with CIA Director George Tenet to discuss the possibilities and prevention of terrorist attacks on American targets. On July 10, 2001, Rice met with Tenet in what he referred to as an "emergency meeting" held at the White House at Tenet's request to brief Rice and the NSC staff about the potential threat of an impending al Qaeda attack. Rice responded by asldng Tenet to give a presentation on the matter to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Rice characterized the August 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US as historical information. Rice indicated "It was information based on old reporting." Sean Wilentz of Salon magazine suggested that the PDB contained current information based on continuing investigations, including that Bin Laden wanted to "bring the fighting to America." And on September 11, 2001, Rice was scheduled to outline a new national security policy that included missile defense as a cornerstone and played down the threat of stateless terrorism. And this is the person who is suggesting that someone dropped the ball in Libya killing four Americans — when the ball that she ignored in 2001 killed 2750 innocent civilians. This is the person who was still pushing the Missile defense shield when every military expert not beholding to the Bush/Cheney Administration was trying to tell anyone who would listen that our biggest threat was terrorist acts, such as a suitcase bomb, sabotage and acts like 9/11. EFTA01204039 Let's also remember that Rice was a proponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. After Iraq delivered its declaration of weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations on December 8, 2002, Rice wrote an editorial for The New York Times entitled "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying". In a January 10, 2003, interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Rice made headlines by stating regarding Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Leading up to the 2004 presidential election, Rice became the first National Security Advisor to campaign for an incumbent president. She stated that while: "Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the actual attacks on America, Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a part of the Middle East that was festering and unstable, [and] was part of the circumstances that created the problem on September 11." By the end of 2004 if not sooner, it became clear that Iraq did not have nuclear WMD capability. And it was becoming increasingly clear that Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Perle and Cheney were scare tactics, deceptions, lies and a hoax. "Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false," wrote Dana Milbank and Mike Allen in the Washington Post. We have to also remember that in July 2002 Rice met with CIA director George Tenet to personally convey the Bush administration's approval of the proposed waterboarding and other methods including week-long sleep deprivation, forced nudity and the use of stress positions on alleged Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah and other detainees. Days after Rice gave Tenet her approval, the Justice Department approved the use of waterboarding in a top secret August 1, 2002 memo. And as we know waterboarding is considered to be torture by the World Court and we called it torture when the Japanese used it on American POWs during WWII. And when this became a problem with Rice's approval terrorist suspects were subject to rendition to other countries who were expert in torture. Where I come from, you have to walk the walk, so if you are going to say that it is torture when the Japanese waterboarded our GIs and when the Viet Cong use sleep deprivation to force American POW's to sign confessions the same is true when Americans use it on its adversaries. Logging in more travel miles than any of her predecessors as Secretary of State, Rice traveled heavily and initiated many diplomatic efforts on behalf of the Bush administration. As Secretary of State, Rice championed the expansion of democratic governments. Rice stated that the September n attacks in 2001 were rooted in "oppression and despair" and so, the US must advance democratic reform and support basic rights throughout the greater Middle East. Having played out the term "Nation Building" Rice under the Bush Administration recast the same policies as "Transformational Diplomacy". All of this is Bull. After casting a vote against Rice's Secretary of State Nomination Senator Barbara Boxer said she wanted "to hold Dr. Rice and the Bush administration accountablefor theirfailures in Iraq and in the war on terrorism." As someone who had the largest terrorist attack happen on American soil since the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor on their watch as National Security Advisor And someone who was still pushing the Missile Defense Shield when everyone knew that it was as obsolete/useless as the Maginot Line was for the French. And this is the person who now hides behind the excuse of 'faulty intelligence" when asked how was she so sure that Saddam was weeks away from attacking the US with WMDs and supported al Qaeda in fighters in Afghanistan. Condoleezza Rice's snide remark that there are unanswered questions about Benghazi has to be considered the height of hypocrisy. Madam Secretary EFTA01204040 as someone who own record is the weakest of glass houses, how does you have the chutzpa to throw stones at someone else's record? And this is my rant of the week.... WEEK's READINGS How Brown v. Board of Education Changed and Didn't Change American Education Linda Brown Smith was a third grader when her father started a class-action suit in 1951 of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Two milestones in the history of American education are converging this spring. The second is reshaping the legacy of the first. The first was yesterday May 17th, the 6oth anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision striking down "separate but equal" segregation in public education. The second watershed will follow in June, with the completion of what is likely to be the last school year ever in which a majority of America's K-12 public-school students are white. That demographic transformation is both reinvigorating and refraining Brown's fundamental goal of ensuring educational opportunity for all Americans. The unanimous 1954 Brown decision was a genuine hinge in American history. Although its mandate to dismantle segregated public schools initially faced "massive resistance" across the South, the ruling provided irresistible moral authority to the drive for legal equality that culminated in the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts a decade later. Educational inequalities helped spur the civil rights movement, and it continues to be the civil rights issue of our time. With the 6oth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, it is critical to reaffirm our commitment to speak up and take action to ensure that every student receives a world class education that enables him or her to reach his or her full potential. EFTA01204041 Thus Brown's core mission of encouraging integration can best be defined as unfinished. Many civil- rights advocates argue that after gains through the late 1980s, the public-school system is undergoing a "resegregation"that has left African-American and Latino students "experiencing more isolation ... (than]a generation ago." Other analysts question whether segregation is worsening, but no one denies that racial and economic isolation remains daunting: One recent study found that three-fourths of African-Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics attend schools where a majority of the students qualify as low-income. The problem today is that these gains are reversing. As the Civil Rights Project shows, minority students across the country are more likely to attend majority-minority schools than they were a generation ago. The average white student, for instance, attends a school that's 73 percent white, 8 percent black, 12 percent Latino, and 4 percent Asian-American. By contrast, the average black student attends a school that's 49 percent black, 17 percent Latino, 4 percent Asian-American, and 28 percent white. And the average Latino student attends a school that's 57 percent Latino, 11 percent black, 25 percent white, and 5 percent Asian-American. But this understates the extent to which minority students—and again blacks in particular — attend hyper-segregated schools. In 2011, more than 40 percent of black students attended schools that were 90 percent minority or more. That marks an increase over previous years. In 1991, just 35 percent of black students attended schools with such high levels of segregation. Even more striking is the regional variation. While hyper-segregation has increased across the board, it comes after staggering declines in the South, the "border states" — Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, i.e., former slaveholding states that never joined the Confederacy — the Midwest, and the West. In the Northeast, however, school segregation has increased, going from 42.7 percent in 1968 to 51.4 percent in 2011. Or, put another way, desegregation never happened in the schools of the urban North. Today in New York, for instance, 64.6 percent of black students attend hyper-segregated schools. In New Jersey, it's 48.5 percent and in Pennsylvania it's 46 percent. They're joined by Illinois (61.3 percent), Maryland (53.1 percent), and Michigan (50.4 percent). And these schools are distinctive in another way: More than half have poverty rates above 90 percent. By contrast, just 1.9 percent of schools serving whites and Asians are similarly impoverished. Before Brown, only about one in seven African-Americans, compared with more than one in three whites, held a high school degree. Today, the Census Bureau reports, the share of all African- American adults holding high school degrees (85 percent) nearly equals the share of whites (89 percent); blacks have slightly passed whites on that measure among young adults ages 25 to 29. Before Brown, only about one in 4o African-Americans earned a college degree. Now more than one in five hold one. Educational advances have also keyed other gains, including the growth of a substantial black middle-class and health gains that have cut the white-black gap in life expectancy at birth by more than half since 1950. EFTA01204042 Yet many other disparities remain. Whites (especiallyfrom more affluentfamilies) still complete college at much higher rates than African-Americans. That's one reason census figures show the median income for African-American families remains only about three-fifths that for whites, not much better than in 1967. Hispanics, now the largest minority group, are likewise making clear gains but still trail whites and blacks on the key measures of educational attainment, on some fronts substantially. The second big educational milestone arriving this spring should recast the debate over the first. From Brown to the ongoing affirmative-action debates that the Supreme Court revisited again this week, fairness has been the strongest argument for measures meant to provide educational chances for all. But as our society diversifies, broadening the circle of opportunity has become a matter not only of equity but also of competitiveness. The National Center for Educational Statistics recently projected that minorities will become a majority of the K-12 public-school student body for the first time in 2014—and that majority will steadily widen. As recently as 1997, whites represented more than three-fifths of public-school students. This transformation isn't just limited to a few immigration hubs: Minorities now represent a majority in 310 of the goo largest public-school districts, federal statistics show. These minority young people are the nation's future workers, consumers, and taxpayers. If more of them don't obtain the education and training to reach the middle class, the U.S. "will be a poorer and less competitive society," says Rice University sociologist Steven Murdock, former Census Bureau director under George W. Bush and the author of Changing Texas, a recent book on that state's demographic transformation. The increasing diversity and shrinking white share of America's youth population complicates Brown's original aim of promoting integrated schools. But that change only adds greater urgency to the decision's broader goal of ensuring all young people the opportunity to develop their talents. And although most saw the Brown decision as white and black children sitting together in the same class room the real goal was access to equal resources and opportunities. Having started kindergarten before the Brown decision in a school on the white side of my town, early on I realized that I enjoyed many more resources (smaller class size, new books, class trips) and had superior facilities (new schools, labs, class trips) than my black friends in schools on the other side of town or friends who live in Harlem and black neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx. And I see it now, as my wealthy friends send their children to private schools, abandoning public schools for children whose parents can't afford to send them to private or get them into the better charter/magnet schools. School segregation doesn't happen by accident; it flows inexorably from housing segregation. If most black Americans live near other blacks and in a level of neighborhood poverty unseen by the vast majority of white Americans, then in the same way, their children attend schools that are poorer and more segregated than anything experienced by their white peers. And as the saying goes out of sight, out of mind. There are efforts across the country to divert public funds currently spent on public K-12 education to private or sectarian schools. At the federal level and in states across the country, legislation is being considered that would do just that -- depriving students of rights and protections they are awarded in public schools. These desperately-needed resources should continue to be invested in public schools EFTA01204043 that serve all students regardless of economic status, gender, religion, prior academic achievement, disability and behavioral history. Equality for all students means supporting state initiatives like the Common Core State Standards, which would raise the bar in all schools and will go far in helping every student receive a high quality education that prepares him or her for success upon graduation from high school. The barriers to fulfilling that vision, from family breakdown to persistent residential and educational segregation remain formidable. The difference is that as our society grows inexorably more diverse, the consequences of failing to overcome those barriers are rising for all Americans. These are realities that it is in everyone's interest to address. Education is no longer a racial issue. It is an issue about inequality. And the inequality isn't about quotas. It is about priorities. And the priority in America should be to ensure that every child (and adult) is given access to the best education possible so that they are equipped to compete against their counterparts around the world. 1 JJ MRSA - for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Doctors have long warned against prolonged use of antibiotics, saying that bacteria can build resistance to drugs, eventually rendering them ineffective. The World Health Organization reported last week that antibiotic-resistant bacteria now exist in many parts of the world. Some diseases that once could easily be cured by antibiotics have now become deadly. Antibiotic resistance is becoming a worldwide problem as new forms of resistance can cross countries and continents with ease. Each year in the United States, more than 2 million people acquire serious infections with bacteria that are resistant to one or more of the antibiotics designed to treat those infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 23,000 people die each year in the United States as a direct result of these antibiotic resistant infections and many more die from other conditions that were complicated by these infections. And no country is immune, as bacteria and viruses resistant to drugs travel the globe with ease. The Geneva-based WHO said its survey shows very high rates of drug-resistant E. coli bacteria, which can cause meningitis and infections of the skin, blood, kidneys and other organs. The agency's assistant director-general, Keiji Fukuda, citing the report said that the survey also found worrying rates of resistance in other bacteria, such as those that cause pneumonia, diarrhea, urinary tract infections and gonorrhea. "It's clear that rates are very high of resistance among bacteria, causing many of the most common serious infections, the on