When Roger West first launched the progressive political blog "News From The Other Side" in May 2010, he could hardly have predicted the impact that his venture would have on the media and political debate. As the New Media emerged as a counterbalance to established media sources, Roger wrote his copious blogs about national politics, the tea party movement, mid-term elections, and the failings of the radical right to the vanguard of the New Media movement. Roger West's efforts as a leading blogger have tremendous reach. NFTOS has led the effort to bring accountability to mainstream media sources such as FOX NEWS, Breitbart's "Big Journalism.
Roger's breadth of experience, engaging style, and cultivation of loyal readership - over 92 million visitors - give him unique insight into the past, present, and future of the New Media and political rhetoric that exists in our society today.
What we are against:
Radical Right Wing Agendas
Incompetent Establishment
Donald J. Trump
Corporate Malfeasence
We are for:
Global and Econmoic Security
Social and Economic Justice
Media Accountability
THE RESISTANCE
Congress has 32 days to act on the "Bush Tax Cuts". 32 days until expiration.
The expiration of the Bush tax cuts was put into law to mask their long-term cost, and so that they could pass under budget reconciliation rules (and thus not be subjected to a filibuster). Even so, the second round of tax cuts — the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 — barely scraped by in the Senate.
After a tied 50-50 vote, Vice-President Dick Cheney cast the deciding aye to move the Bush tax cuts forward. And in a segment of Brit Hume’s six-hour documentary, The Right, All Along: The Rise, Fall & Future of Conservatism, which aired on Fox News this weekend, Cheney brags about how his vote was the culmination of a 30 year push to put supply-side economic theory into practice:
The Bush tax cuts are always portrayed as a glorious moment in economic history.
Yesterday, David Stockman, budget director under President Reagan, blasted the Republican party for creating a “theology” regarding tax cuts. “After 1985, the Republican Party adopted the idea that tax cuts can solve the whole problem, and that therefore in the future, deficits didn’t matter and tax cuts would be the solution of first, second, and third resort,” Stockman said. Indeed, it was Cheney himself who allegedly claimed that “deficits don’t matter.”
While Democrats and President Obama have said that they want to preserve the tax cuts for the middle-class which would be a savings of $830 billion over ten years by allowing the cuts to expire for the richest two percent of Americans. Republicans have steadfastly refused to consider anything but an across-the-board extension.
Bought and paid for: of the wealthy, for the wealthy, by the wealthy.
Cheney is sub-species known as the "Chicken Hawk,” which is a person who publicly supports a war but is too much of a chicken to fight in it himself. In 1963, with the draft board ramping up, Cheney enrolled in Casper Community College (one of the finest institutions of higher-learning in Southwest Casper), and received his first student deferment. Later that year, he got his second student deferment. In August of 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, escalating American military involvement. Twenty-two days later, Dick married his wife, and a few months later received his third deferment. In July, 1965, President Johnson announced he would double the number of draftees. Cheney moved quickly, entered graduate school that year, and received his fourth student deferment. This was quite a sacrifice, as grad school is known to be extremely boring. Cheney received a “hardship exemption" in 1966 when he and his wife conceived their first child. By the next year, he was no longer eligible for the draft. It had been a long process, but Cheney learned a valuable lesson: if you get in a jam, you can usually get out of it by making babies.
Dick was and is the biggest supporter of Iraqi war.
Dick is not partial to being heartless, corrupt, unethical, iniquitous, knavish, mercenary, nefarious, on the take, open, perfidious, praetorian, profiteering, racket up, reprobate, rotten, shady, snide, tainted, treacherous, two-faced, underhanded, unprincipled, unscrupulous, untrustworthy, and venal.
His bragging of casting the winning vote for the Bush tax cuts clearly characterizes Dick as being "number one", even if it's in his eyes only.
Wikileaks and it master of disaster, document leaker Julian Assange have released yet another set (third set, or trilogy) of damaging secret documents. Once held in a dept of defense database, and now released to the world Sunday November 28, 2010.
The Internet site "Wikileaks" is well known for disseminating papers not meant for public purview. Their motto is "We help you safely get the truth out.", "We are of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and institutions." "We aim for maximum political impact." And impact it is, as these documents run from 1966-2010.
Never before has a country lost control of such a massive amount of "secret" documents. Never before has a MEGA power been betrayed in such behemoth proportions, by one if its own, which was a jilted homosexual, whom also held a career as a US Army private first class (lowest form of military rank). The leaked documents reportedly came from the same source- Bradley Manning (whom leaked previous two US secret dumps) – who was bitter after a breakup with his boyfriend. Manning, smuggled the information out of a secure facility on a CD-RW labeled “Lady Gaga.”
Private First Class Bradley E. Manning (born 1987) is a United States Army soldier who has been arrested and charged with the unauthorized use and disclosure of U.S. classified information.
Manning was an intelligence analyst assigned to a support battalion with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division at Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq. Agents of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command arrested Manning based on information received from federal authorities provided by an American journalist informant, Adrian Lamo, in whom Manning had previously confided. Lamo said that Manning claimed, via instant messaging, to be the person who had leaked the "Collateral Murder" video of the July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike, in addition to a video of the Granai airstrike and around 260,000 diplomatic cables, to the whistleblower website Wikileaks, with Manning saying he hoped the release of the videos and documents would lead to "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms."
Manning was arrested in May 2010 and detained in military prison for more than a month without charge. On July 5, 2010, Manning was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with violations of Article 92 and Article 134, for "transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system," and "communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source". The maximum possible prison sentence for the charges is 52 years. An Army spokesman stated that an Article 32 hearing, similar to a grand jury, would be held to determine whether or not there was enough evidence to proceed to a court-martial.
Germany's Der Spiegel created an interactive map to show the location, sensitivity (color), and quantity (circle size) of the diplomatic cables recently published on wikileaks.
These recent document dumps expose America and it's allies unlike never been before. The embarrassment and damage is unparallel. This cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
This cache of 251,287 confidential documents, which detail correspondence between the U.S. State Department and U.S. embassies around the world is being read with a resounding thump. The release includes approximately 100,000 documents labeled "confidential" on the classification scale and around 15,000 documents at the higher level "secret", but none marked "top secret". Most of the documents focus on diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Middle East states. WikiLeaks plans on releasing the entirety of the cables in phases over several months.
NFTOS is tracking the leaked documents. Here are a few items from the 250,000 dispatches leaked to NFTOS and other media outlets:
The White House had concerns about the mental health of Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
US view of Kim Jong-il, Putin, Sarkozy and Berlusconi
The German dispatches: Internal source kept U.S. informed of Merkel coalition negotiations
‘Tribune of Anatolia’: Diplomatic cables reveal U.S. doubts about Turkey’s government
Orders from Clinton: U.S. diplomats told to spy on other countries at United Nations
Embassy cables tell of elderly American’s escape from Iran: Man, 75, rode horse over freezing mountain range into Turkey
Fear of ‘different world’ if Iran gets nuclear weapons
Israel primed to attack a nuclear Iran
Secret EU plot to boycott Ahmadinejad inauguration
Iran ‘lied to UN inspectors about Qom nuclear site’
Arab states scorn ‘evil’ Iran
Iranian spies ‘used Red Crescent to enter war zones’
Briton teaches U.S. diplomats how to talk to Iran
How does a PFC US Army gain access to this plethora amount of documents? (A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information, i.e., state secrets, or to restricted areas after completion of a thorough background check. The term "security clearance" is also sometimes used in private organizations that have a formal process to vet employees for access to sensitive information. A clearance by itself is normally not sufficient to gain access; the organization must determine that the cleared individual needs to know the information. No one is supposed to be granted access to classified information solely because of rank, position, or a security clearance.)
Soft-pedaling this traitor’s punishment is unacceptable. Treason by way of hanging is the only punishment acceptable in this case. Mr. Manning committed countless acts of spying during a time of war. The fact that he was turning over the information to Wiki-leaks and not directly to a foreign government doesn’t make any difference.
This latest dump, like the two previous, further exposes the United States National Security program.
For a 23 year old to be able to "act" like he was listening to music "lady gaga" and download thousands upon thousands of documents, just ludicrous, and a crime.
Julian Assange is as much the sludge as PFC Manning. Assange whom has no home of his own, and lives (traveling circus) with pals and friends, often shuffling around like Osama Bin Laden should be held accountable to the law as it applies. Assange and Wikileaks should be considered "terrorist".
Stopping Assnage and Wikileaks will be adamantine at best. The US attorneys need to issue warrants for the immediate arrest of Assange. Like the self professed Assange, (Assange is a well known cyber hacker) Wikileaks needs to be hacked or cyber attacked to shut it down.
Damage done, both the Department of Defense and the State Department need to address classified document control.
