by John Nichols

Ron Paul is far from perfect. But the Libertariam Texas Congressman and maverick GOP presidential contender brings to the 2012 race a record far more worthy of commendation than those of his competitors for the Republican nomination.

Paul voted against the Patriot Act.

Paul voted against launching the Iraq War.

Paul has consistently supported moves to bring the troops home from Iraq, from Afghanistan and from just about everywhere else they are garrisoned.

Paul has worked with Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank on a campaign to cut the Pentagon budget by $1 trillion.

Paul has worked with Frank to decriminalize marijuana and to dial back the worst excesses of the drug war.

Paul has consistently opposed free-trade deals that have led to massive layoffs and factory closings in the United States.

Paul has worked with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Florida Congressman Alan Grayson to crack down on the Federal Reserve’s secrecy and abuses.

Yes, yes, of course Paul’s anti-government rhetoric goes to extremes, and, yes, yes, of course he is an inconsistent libertarian on some vital issues.

But Ron Paul really has taken a lot of commendable stands in recent years.

And , now, he has done something truly worthy of admiration — not just in the context of the current Republican race but with regard to the celebrity-obsessed politics of the age..

He has chosen not to be ridiculous.

Confronted with the prospect of a participating in a Newsmax-sponsored debate hosted by the second-most-absurd figure in American public life, Donald Trump, Paul simply said “no.”

The campaign of the candidate who, in the new Des Moines Register survey is running second in the field of GOP presidential contenders with less than a month to go before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, issued a delightfully snarky statement:

The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the tial contenders with less than a month to go before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, issued a delightfully snarky statement:

The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the the like. To be sure, Mr. Trump’s participation will contribute to an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.

Mr. Trump’s selection is also wildly inappropriate because of his record of toying with the serious decision of whether to compete for our nation’s highest office, a decision he appeared to make frivolously. The short-lived elevation of Mr. Trump’s stature as a candidate put him on the radar of many organizations and we recall that last spring he was invited to keynote the Republican Party of Iowa’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, yet at the last minute he left RPI holding the bag by canceling. In turn, RPI canceled its biggest fundraising gala of the year and suffered embarrassment and ­in addition RPI was required to engage in refunding measures. Our candidate will not even consider participating in the late- December debate until Mr. Trump publicly apologizes to Iowa party leaders and rectifies in full the situation. Therefore our candidate Ron Paul, the champion of the Constitution, has advised he will not attend. Trump was furious. The reality TV show host dismissed the congressman from Texas as “clown-like.”

(Trump also took a shot at another contender who rejected the debate invite, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. But, unlike Paul, Huntsman is not a serious contender in Iowa, where the debate is set to be held.) Paul responded to Trump’s jab by sayng: “I didn’t realize he had the ability to lay on hands and anoint people.” Ron Paul may not win the presidency, but he is winning the debate about the debate with Donald Trump.

But even if Trump will not have a serious presidential contender on his debate panel, he will not be alone. The second-most-absurd figure in American public life will reportedly be joined December 27 by the most absurd figure in American public life: Newt Gingrich.

­por Yashenka Baca

A woman protest against the government.  (PHOTO BY OCCUPY SF)

The city of San Francisco presented a proposal on Tue. Nov. 29 to the Occupy SF representatives, proposing the encampment be packed up and relocated to a vacant High School in the Mission District, between 15th and 16th streets. The protesters have rejected the offer and are instead gearing up for an imminent raid.

The Occupy SF General Assembly decided it was not in their best interest to move their encampment. Occupiers are convinced the offer is just looking to get them out of their strategic location in the Financial District. Occupy SF is one of the largest protests of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the west coast.

Although some protesters saw Mayor Ed Lee’s proposal as a viable idea to protect themselves during the rainy season, they became worried after learning the rules that would be enforced at the new location. No cooking or open fires would be allowed, nor tents placed next to each other.

Occupiers at the Phoenix High School, at 1950 Mission St, would not be able to bring mattresses, pets, or children to the location, and the vacant High School would be surrounded by a fence.

SF City Hall wants the camp out by Thursday, Nov. 30. Officers who inspected the encampment in the last few days reported unsafe healthy conditions created by piles of trash and other violations of the city’s health code. The SF Mayor did not comment publicly on the proposal, but spokeswoman Christine Falvey said ‘the new’ site had restrooms and running water, “which would address the city’s health and safety concerns.”

The Director of the Department of Public Health, Mohammed Nuru, said Tue. 29 to some protest representatives, “time is short and inwe don’t want the tents at Justin Herman Plaza anymore”. Some protesters saw the offer as an opportunity to expand, and said they should accept moving but also remain at the initial location. Nuru said that was never the intention of the proposal, “the city will not support two encampments” he added.

As El Reportero closes the edition the protesters remain at Justin Herman Plaza expecting to get raided by the SF police, several packed their belongings to avoid losing them, but the group has a clear commitment to stay or take the plaza again once the raid is over.

UC regents approved budget behind closed doors

Due to protests in several UC campuses, the UC Regents meeting took place behind closed doors and via teleconference Nov. 28. Students and activists at UC Davis, UC Merced, UC Los Angeles, and UC San Francisco gathered to watch the assembly and turned it into the People’s Regents’ meeting.

­The regents gathering had an unprecedented number of students sign up for the public comment period, during the one and a half hours several people who were pepper sprayed, and beaten spoke to the Regents directly and presented their proposals for a better financial system in the UCs.

by Mike Adams
Natural News

Gift-giving is a wonderful activity, but many people who give gifts to family and friends don’t realize they’re actually giving the recipient cancer, or diabetes or attention deficit problems.

In this article, I expose five dangerous gifts that may literally increase the risk of disease and death. Whatever you give your family and friends this holiday season, please avoid giving these five dangerous gifts:

Dangerous gift #1) Perfumes and colognes (promote cancer)

A typical perfume product contains over 20 cancer-causing chemicals, and they’re absorbed right through the skin. Perfumes and colognes — or any fragrance product, for that matter — are direct causes of cancer which remain utterly ignored by the cancer industry (that just happens to be more interested in high-profit treatmentsrather than profit-destroying prevention strategies).

The only “safe” perfume is one made entirely from essential oils. Legally speaking, nearly all perfumes sold in the state of California should be labeled with cancer warnings under Proposition 65, but the state never enforces this law against giant perfume corporations (interesting, huh?).

Dangerous gift #2) Processed meats, hams and sausages (promote cancer and diabetes)

You see these heavily promoted during the holiday season: Sausages, hams and other specialty meats, usually sold with natural-sounding language to make them appear wholesome and home-grown. In reality, almost 100% of these meats contain sodium nitrite, a dangerous cancer-causing chemical that’s used to turn these meats red and prevent spoilage by killing living organisms.

Sodium nitrite is linked to both an increase in cancer as well as type-2 diabetes due to harmful effects on the pancreas. The USDA once tried to ban sodium nitrite from the food supply in the 1970’s but was overruled by the meat industry (which now basically runs the USDA). While processed holiday meats might be a very effective gift to give someone you wanted to murder, they are simply not appropriate to give to someone you care for.

Dangerous gift #3) Video game consoles (promote violence)

Parents, if you’re about to buy video games for your kids, please reconsider your decision. Video game consoles now feature game content that’s more graphic and violent than ever, and they desensitize your children to acts of violence.

attention deficit disorder.Even worse, some video games being designed today — “first-person shooters” — are actually developed by the U.S. military and used as recruiting tools that aggrandize war. A young male child who plays video games is not only more like to join the military and engage in mindless acts of violence, he is also more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.­

There are some very good real-time strategy games that teach strategic thinking (such as Sid Meier’s Civilization series), but avoid giving your children first-person shooters or other extremely violent games.

Dangerous gift #4) Mobile phones (promote type-3 diabetes)

Very few people know that there’s another kind of diabetes called “type-3 diabetes.” It’s caused by electropollution. Quite literally, when some people are in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields, their blood sugar levels begin to swing wildly.

Mobile phones are one of the worst sources of electromagnetic pollution beamed right through your head. It’s far safer to use them with a bluetooth headset, and safer still to use them only as a texting device without voice calling. (The small bursts of text data transfer are miniscule compared to full-on voice broadcast.)

If you do want to give someone a mobile phone, make sure they’re not already diabetic (and buy them a bluetooth headset).

Dangerous gift #5) Clothing that’s full of GMOs, dyes and pesticides

This is a tough one, but nearly all the clothing sold in stores today is absolutely loaded with GMOs, dyes and pesticides. Let me explain: Any clothing containing cotton is almost certainly GMO, as virtually all the cotton grown in America today is genetically modified. Of course, you’re not eating that pair of jeans, so this may not concern you personally, but there’s still a huge environmental impact of GMO cotton being grown on farms.

Far worse from a personal health perspective are the dyes. Clothing dyes are almost always toxic, cancer-causing chemicals, and if you’ve ever worn a new piece of clothing and later discovered some of the dye rubbed off on your arms or legs, you know how easily these dyes can transfer from the clothing to your skin (and then into your bloodstream).

Finally, all non-organic cotton is loaded with pesticides, and those pesticide chemicals can promote Parkinson’s disease, dementia and other brain disorders. The only cotton that’s free of pesticides is 100% organic cotton, which is available from a few specialty stores and online retailers.

SAFETY TIP: If you do buy someone a gift of clothing, or if you receive one yourself, wash the clothes in hot water (by themselves, without polluting your other clothing) and use an extra rinse cycle. Dry them in the dryer and then wash them again! This is the only way to remove most of the dyes and pesticides found in these clothes, and even this process doesn’t remove all the dangerous chemicals.

Remember this, too: Nearly all clothing containing cotton boosts the profits of Monsanto, which sells the genetically modified cotton seeds that farmers use to produce this cotton. So buying someone a pair of jeans for Christmas is essentially putting more money into Monsanto’s pocket.

It goes without saying, but…

In addition to the five toxic gifts mentioned above, please do not buy anyone a flu shot gift card unless you are literally trying to kill them. Flu shots often contain live viruses and may actually cause the flu.

­by the El Reportero’s news servicecs

The collection of the first 25,000 tons of wheat donated by the Russian government to Nicaragua will ensure the bread consumption for at least three months, national news media reported on Sunday.

The operations manager of the National Basic Food Company, Nelson Largaespada, also said that the second delivery of a similar amount will probably come in early 2012, El 19 Digital newspaper reportes.

Russia gave Nicaragua 100,000 tons of wheat, which will be supplied in four deliveries.

The first of them arrived on Friday to Corintio, the main Nicaraguan port, located on the coast to the Pacific Ocean.

According to Largaespada, the product can provide a high-quality bread and current Executive is making sure that does not happen again what happened during the years of neoliberal governments when flour was enough to make bread due to lack of wheat.

Correa shows authoritarian side

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador signed a controversial tax proposal into law on Nov. 24, despite the fact that it previously had been voted down in the unicameral national assembly.

Simultaneously, a prominent indigenous leader (and a former member of Correa’s cabinet), Mónica Chuji, was sentenced to a year in jail and a US$100,000 fine for libelling a fellow cabinet minister, Vincio Alvarado.

Humala: gold and water NOT gold or water

Striking a balance. That is the ultimate challenge for Peru’s President Ollanta Humala. During his first 100 days in office Humala’s standout success has arguably been convincing business and the Right that his plans for social inclusion will not disturb Peru’s vibrant economic growth.­

So successful has Humala been that the challenge he now faces is reassuring the poor and the Left who brought him to power that he will fulfil his promise to use the country’s economic muscle to lift hundreds of thousands of Peruvians over the poverty line. A number of social protests are reaching boiling point, especially over mining and water, and the manner in which his ruling left-wing coalition Gana Perú responds to them will define his legacy.

Cuba’s capitalist evolution inches along

Cubans will be able to take out small peso loans from state banks under a new credit scheme due to be launched on 20 December, according to new regulations published in the 24 November official gazette.

Petro determined to deliver for Bogotá

Gustavo Petro, the mayor-elect of Colombia’s capital Bogotá, met on Nov. 24 the interim mayor, Clara López, and President Juan Manuel Santos to discuss construction plans for the city’s first underground line. Petro insisted that the line should reach the low income Suba locality.

Hondurans reported more than nine thousand agents

The National Commissioner for Human Rights (CONADEH) reported that 9, 216 complaints were received against agents in Honduras from Jan to Jul 2011, while several authoritative voices claim for an intervention of the police.

Policemen from the Preventive corp. and the National Directorate of Criminal Investigation are denounced by human right violations against various sectors of the Honduran population, revealed the most recent communiqué spread by CONADEH.

The improper exercise of public servant, abuse, neglect, illegal detentions and torture, are among the offenses for which citizens criticize the authorities of the order, the document reveals. (Latin Briefs and Prensa Latina contributed to this report).

If thought that the police brutality was evil, wait… (at press time, the Congress already voted in favor – Obama said he will veto it)

by Chris Anders
ACLU IN FIRST PERSON

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.

Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being ­sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics.

The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor.

But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in.

In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention.

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

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