Rights Groups File Lawsuit Challenging NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program as Unconstitutional

The NYPD is routinely violating the civil rights of Muslims across New York City by operating an unconstitutional religious profiling and suspicionless surveillance program, according to a federal lawsuit filed today by New York City residents represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project of Main Street Legal Services, Inc. at CUNY School of Law.

The landmark lawsuit charges that the NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program has imposed an unjustified badge of suspicion and stigma on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers. It was filed on behalf of religious and community leaders, mosques and a charitable organization that were all swept up in the NYPD’s dragnet surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers. These individuals and organizations seek systemic reforms that will end the NYPD’s spying program in which entire communities of New Yorkers have been singled out simply because of their religious beliefs.  (NYCLU)

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• Police Spying on American Muslims Is a Pointless National Shame (know4life.blogspot.com)
• NYPD monitor, stop-frisk bills head toward vote (newsday.com)
• Bloomberg Forcefully Defends Stop-and-Frisk, Accuses NY Times of Racism (atlantablackstar.com)

Africa: US program marks birth of one millionth HIV-free baby

Logo: United States President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mother-to-baby transmission has long been a source of concern among governments and organizations working to control the spread of HIV.

But more effective anti-retroviral drugs and regimens are now dramatically cutting the chances of an infected mother passing on the disease to her baby during pregnancy or breast-feeding.

The millionth baby born HIV-free was Tuesday to be trumpeted as part of celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known by its acronym PEPFAR.  - FRANCE 24

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Washington Is Insane: 65% of the US population opposes US intervention in Syria

President Barack Obama (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the 21st century, the two hundred year-old propaganda that the American people control their government has been completely shattered. Both the Bush and Obama regimes have made it unmistakably clear that the American people don’t even influence, much less control, the government. As far as Washington is concerned, the people are nothing but chaff in the wind.

Polls demonstrate that 65% of the US population opposes US intervention in Syria. Despite this clear indication of the people’s will, the Obama regime is ramping up a propaganda case for more arming of Washington’s mercenaries sent to overthrow the secular Syrian government and for a “no-fly zone” over Syria, which, if Libya is the example, means US or NATO aircraft attacking the Syrian army on the ground, thus serving as the air force of Washington’s imported mercenaries, euphemistically called “the Syrian rebels.”  | Foreign Policy Journal


Watch:

• Who are the Syrian Rebels, Really? - YouTube
• Putin: Arming Syria militants could one day end up in Europe - YouTube
• Russia wasn't isolated at G8, not all agree Assad used chemical weapons - YouTube

Don't Get Sick Slaves: Florida just Outlawed Sick Leave

Sick (Photo credit: Leonid Mamchenkov)

Brendan Fischer, PR Watch/ALEC Exposed, joins Thom Hartmann. Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into a law a bill that prohibits local governments from passing any law requiring businesses to provide their employees with paid sick leave. The Sunshine State measure is the latest example of an ALEC backed push for what some commentators are calling "preemption bills" - legislative proposals designed to cut the fight for paid sick leave off right at the root. The conservative group has also lent its support to similar sick leave killing bills in states like Missisippi - Wisconsin - and Michigan.

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• This week in the War on Workers: Michigan Republicans pushing ALEC-backed anti-sick leave bill (dailykos.com)

Malfunction: Mali teetering on knife edge after French victory

Mali Federation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In North Africa, Mali remains on a knife-edge - even though French troops declared their operation against extremists a success. The UN's now planning to deploy a new peacekeeping force, because leaders are locked in another battle - difficult talks with Tuareg separatists over the disputed north. Maria Finoshina reports from Mali.

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• Mali President seeks changes to ceasefire deal with Tuaregs (worldbulletin.net)
• 'Racist abuses' by Mali rebels, army (bbc.co.uk)

By Design: One in 50 School-Aged Children in U.S. Has Autism

The number of children in the United States with autism spectrum disorder has jumped dramatically since 2007, federal health officials reported Wednesday.

As of 2012, one in 50 kids between the ages of 6 and 17 has some form of autism, compared with one in 88 only five years earlier, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This estimate was a bit surprising," said report author Stephen Blumberg, a senior scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. "There may be more children with autism spectrum disorder than previously thought."

The average school bus holds about 50 children, so there is typically one child with autism spectrum disorder on every full school bus in America, Blumberg noted.  - Everyday Health

Big Phish: Snowden's leaks could be just tip of iceberg

The revelations of the G20 spying come as the scandal caused by Snowden's earlier disclosures - on the extent of US surveillance after its own and foreign citizens - is gaining momentum. Dozens of lawsuits are being filed against the government's practices - while many lawmakers continue to defend the operation. It has also emerged that the scope of the surveillance - and the help it received from corporations - may have been underestimated. READ MORE...

Iran's New President Hassan Rouhani

Hillary Mann Leverett of American University offers some perspective on Hassan Rouhani, Iran's newly elected President.


Also watch:

• Debate: Iranians elect Dr Hassan Rohani as president - YouTube
• Iranians choose their President - YouTube

Domestication 101: China’s Great Uprooting - Moving 250 Million Into Cities (Who will control the land?)

The government, often by fiat, is replacing small rural homes with high-rises, paving over vast swaths of farmland and drastically altering the lives of rural dwellers. So large is the scale that the number of brand-new Chinese city dwellers will approach the total urban population of the United States — in a country already bursting with megacities.

This will decisively change the character of China, where the Communist Party insisted for decades that most peasants, even those working in cities, remain tied to their tiny plots of land to ensure political and economic stability. Now, the party has shifted priorities, mainly to find a new source of growth for a slowing economy that depends increasingly on a consuming class of city dwellers.

The shift is occurring so quickly, and the potential costs are so high, that some fear rural China is once again the site of radical social engineering.  - NYTimes.com


How to fight again domestication:

Everybody Eats :: How a Community Food System Works — YES! Magazine

It begins with small farms working with natural cycles and ends with fresh food and stronger communities in nearby cities.

Are you a farmer at heart? Start a ‘Crop Mob’ | Grist

A growing number of young people are finishing college and resisting the pressure to plunk down in a cube behind a computer. Others skip college altogether–given the spiraling costs involved, it’s hard to blame them–and yearn for meaningful, hands-on work.

Back-to-the-land movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The concept was popularized in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century by activist Bolton Hall, who set up vacant-lot farming in New York City and wrote many books on the subject.^[1] The practice, however, was strong in Europe even before that time.^[2]
It also referred to distributism, a 1920s and 1930s attempt to find a third way between capitalism and socialism.^[3] It was later used to refer to a North American social phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s. This latter back-to-the-land movement was a migration from cities to rural areas that took place in the United States, its greatest vigor being before the mid-1970s.

Building the Good Food Revolution, one urban farmer at a time | Social Justice | NUVO News | Indianapolis, IN

Growing Power in an Urban Food Desert | Cornucopia Institute

Is Mainstream Media 'Conditioning' you to support gay marriage?

A new Pew study shows media coverage this year tilted toward positive coverage of same-sex marriage by a 5-to-1 margin

Same Sex Marriage
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some time in the next week, either on Thursday or Monday, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down two big rulings on same-sex marriage. Around the time the high-court justices were hearing the high-profile cases in March, the media was dedicating a lot of ink and pixels to the subject — and the coverage wasn't evenly divided between supporters and opponents of gay marriage, according to a new study from Pew.

In fact, it wasn't even close, say Paul Hitlin, Amy Mitchell, and Mark Jurkowitz at Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In nearly 500 articles and TV segments from March 18 to May 12, "stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1."  - Yahoo! News


Watch:

• Homosexuality & The Matrix - YouTube

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• News Coverage Conveys Strong Momentum for Same-Sex Marriage (journalism.org)