Welcome to Roots of Democracy
Government Ways in the United States of America
We can shift to sustainability. Be the solution and support a site that will:
"Change the World - One Byte at a time"
NOTICE
Roots of Democracy is focusing on important Government Policies and Issues. We are only semi-active right now. You can go to archives for previous articles, and keep checking back - Bookmark this Page for the newer postings. Please offer any suggestions or ideas to improve this journal.
Stay Informed - Press Releases & Top News Articles...
Obama chides Republicans for thwarting jobless extension / July 17, 2010 / LATimes (Reuters) - President Barack Obama stepped up criticism of Republicans Saturday for blocking jobless aid, hammering home a Democratic election year attack line that casts the opposition as the party of the rich. Read more...
How Legal Pot Could Harm the Cartels / M. Schneiderman / July 17, 2010 / Newsweek / So far, no modern country has ever legalized marijuana production—not even the Netherlands. Yet with heavy drug-related violence plaguing the U.S.-Mexican border, some analysts and policymakers now say that America should legalize weed in order to reduce the power of Mexico’s drug cartels. Read more...
Obama: GOP blocking unemployed, small business aid / JULIE PACE / Associated Press / 07-17-2010 / WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says Senate Republicans are playing politics with bills that would extend benefits to the unemployed and increase lending to small businesses. Read more...
URGENT!! MSNBC REPORTING THAT COREXIT IS KILLING CLEAN UP WORKERS!! . Corexit 9500, four times more toxic than crude oil, is one of the most poisonous dispersants ever developed, and is up to 20 times more toxic than other dispersants, and only half as effective. Online video short...
The Supreme Court and Corporate Free Speech / ADAM COHEN / Jul. 07, 2010 / Time / When the Citizens United case was working its way through the courts, it seemed like a limited dispute over the fine points of campaign-finance law. But the court blew it up into something larger, asking the parties to submit briefs reconsidering a doctrine that had been settled law for more than half a century: that corporations and labor unions are not allowed to spend money on federal elections. Read more...
Justice Dept. sues, seeks injunction on Ariz. immigration law / Jerry Markon and William Branigin / Washington Post / July 6, 2010 / The lawsuit says the law illegally intrudes on federal prerogatives, invoking as its main argument the legal doctrine of "preemption," which is based on the Constitution's supremacy clause and says that federal law trumps state statutes. Read more...
With Shift in Afghanistan, Talk Turns to Exit / PETER BAKER / June 28, 2010 / NYTimes / Even as developments in Afghanistan have made meeting the deadline all the more daunting, Mr. Obama has sent multiple signals to multiple audiences, sticking by his commitment to begin pulling out while insisting that it does not mean simply walking away. Read more...
Gulf Oil Spill Update: Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst Sea floor could erupt at any time, causing massive loss of life and major tsunami never before witnessed in modern history. / Dennis Knicely, Editor for the Healing News Network / 06-28-2010 / There is a serious situation brewing in the Gulf of Mexico right now, and we are not over the worst stages. From reliable, uncensored information, scientists and researchers have grave concerns over possilbe consequences. Read more...
EDITOR'S NOTE: I rarely buy into "conspiracy theories", yet there is truth to these videos. They are talking pressure of 100,000 psi, beyond human technology's ability to stop it. When a teenager, I worked on an oil well with 2,000 psi, on the surface, and even at that pressure it's very difficult to contain with a risk of huge explosion. Prayers, please... I say expect the best, yet be prepared for the worst.
"Hell on Earth" New Pictures: Gulf Oil Rig Burning, Sinking / NationalGeographic / Remembering his air approach, U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Lim said in the new documentary (see a trailer), "I could see the glow of the burning rig at 90 miles [145 kilometers] away. I knew this was big … like seeing hell on Earth." See awesome photography...
Obama: BP will pay for its "recklessness" / Matt Spetalnick and Ross Colvin / WASHINGTON / Jun 15, 2010 (Reuters) We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused," Obama said in a televised address aimed at restoring confidence in his handling of the crisis before it further tarnishes his presidency. Read more...
Flight over BP Oil disaster Day 52 with Marine Biologist, Dr. Carl Safina / June 11, 2010 — James Fox flew over the BP Gulf oil disaster with Marine Biologist Dr. Carl Safina who's president of Blue Ocean Institute on day 52 of the BP Oil spill. What we saw and documented was horrific. Online video short...
U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan / JAMES RISEN / June 13, 2010 / NYTimes / An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys. Read more...
How Obama decided to expand offshore oil drilling / STEVEN THOMMA / 06.13.10 / MCCLATCHY / WASHINGTON -- Weeks before the world had ever heard of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, President Barack Obama stood in the Roosevelt Room of the White House poring over maps of oil drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and elsewhere. Read more...
Engineers to take over rescue of oceans / Aurthur Strahler / 06-10-2010 / HealingNews / Oil engineers/scientists bypass heads of BP/Government to call for necessary response in resources and brain power directly from the imperiled people of the world. Banker-Monopoly Lords are no longer controlling this undertaking, which is now nothing less than the rescue of the human race and the other life upon which our lives depend. - Saying time is "almost impossbily short," Dr. Arthur Strahler of Kansas Institute of Technology calls for world industrial mobilization "to save as many extant species as possible including man." Read more...
A Call to Triple U.S. Spending on Energy Research / JOHN M. BRODER / June 9, 2010 / WASHINGTON — The United States is badly lagging in basic research on new forms of energy, deepening the nation’s dependence on dirty fuels and crippling its international competitiveness, a diverse group of business executives warn in a study to be released Thursday. Read more...
Victims of Victims / June 7, 2010 / Chuck Palazzo / Da Nang, Vietnam / DarkPolitricks / “Agent Orange is not harmful or deadly to human beings”, said the liars. ...4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. 2.4 million Americans (in addition to allied forces and the Vietnamese people) were exposed in various ways to Agent Orange. Read more...
EDITOR'S NOTE: It is time to challenge Monsanto, DuPont, and other chemical poison manufacturers if we are to survive as a human race. Our soil and water will only take so much. Please do your part, and spread the word - We will not be healed and rest until true justice returns to both Government and our conventional medical system of malpractice.
Feds knew of Gulf spill risks in 2000, document shows / SHASHANK BENGALI / 06-08-2010 / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS WASHINGTON -- A decade ago, U.S. government regulators warned that a major deepwater oil spill could start with a fire on a drilling rig, prove hard to stop and cause extensive damage to fish eggs and wetlands because there were few good ways to capture oil underwater. Read more...
Obama Administration and BP Turned Down Dutch Oil Skimmers on Day 3 U.S. and BP slow to accept Dutch expertise / June 9, 2010 / LOREN STEFFY / Houston Chronicle / “If there’s a country that’s experienced with building dikes and managing water, it’s the Netherlands.” ...“If there’s a spill in the Netherlands, we give the oil companies 12 hours to react,” Read more...
President Obama Honors Paul McCartney
Feds Open Criminal Probe of Gulf Oil Spill / June 01, 2010 — AssociatedPress — Attorney General Eric Holder said federal authorities have opened criminal and civil investigations into the nation's worst oil spill. Online video short...
BP Execs Could Face Potential Jail Time / June 2, 2010 (CBS) As the U.S. government launches criminal and civil investigations into the nation's worst oil spill, executives at BP could face potential jail time if convicted of obstruction of justice and fraud charges, according to CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford. Read more...
Obama administration moves to distance itself from BP on oil spill response / Joel Achenbach and Jerry Markon / Washington Post / June 1, 2010 / Struggling to convey command of the worsening Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Obama administration is taking steps to distance itself from BP and is dispatching Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to the Gulf Coast to meet with federal and state prosecutors. Read more...
#2 Marine Biologist Carl Safina on the BP Ecological Impact - May 27, 2010 / Democracy NOW! - DN! 2/2 We continue our discussion on the BP oil spill, we turn to its long-term ecological impact. Online video link...
Obama's national security strategy: A little George Bush, lots of Bill Clinton / Samuel R. Berger/ May 30, 2010 / Washington Post / President Obama's national security strategy released by the White House on Thursday, tackles a delicate but unavoidable question: How do we respond to security challenges in an era of financial distress at home and reordering of political power abroad? Read more...
Feds tell court they can decide what you eat 'Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish'" / May 14, 2010 / WorldNetDaily / S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the U.S.," critiqued Steve Green on the Food Freedom blog. "It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money." Read more...
THE INFLUENCE GAME: BP spends big in Washington, but will that help in Gulf oil spill crisis? / ALAN FRAM, SHARON THEIMER / Associated Press / May 10, 2010 / WASHINGTON (AP) — With millions of dollars invested in campaign donations and an all-star lobbying team, BP executives could give an advanced class in how to build influence in Washington Read more...
Border enforcement funding ignored during immigration debate / May 11, 2010 | Louis Freedberg / California Watch / Much of the discourse in recent days about illegal immigration – from Washington to Arizona – gives the impression that the federal government has been missing in action when it comes to border enforcement. Read more...
After Arizona, why are 10 states considering immigration bills? The Arizona immigration law set off a national powder keg. But state lawmakers are not shying away from the issue – and some appear to be inspired by Arizona. Read more...
EDITOR'S NOTE: Something had to be done regarding challenges with illegal aliens in Arizona. Simply put, Phoenix has the highest incidence of kidnapping of any city in U.S., second in the World only to Mexico City. Gangsters smuggling drugs in and carrying weapons are their main targets in this legislation, that should be bi-partisan, yet could challenge "human rights" if you think people committing illegal acts deserve equal rights as citizens and legal immigrants. Safeguards are supposed to be in the legislation to guard against "ethnic profiling".
Anti-Supplement Measure Slips into "Reform" Bill Passed by the House; Please Take Action to Prevent Same in the Senate / Alliance fo Natural Health / I just took action to protect supplements by asking my senator not to include a dangerous provision in Senate financial reform bill. I urge you to learn more about this issue and help us protect supplements. Read more...
DEAR READERS, HealingNews.com was established to educate the public about a healthier lifestyle, and stop shenanigans like the last one posted. Do your part and stop this nonsense before they try to restrict even more our means to naturally get well and stay well. Tell all your friends and family about this.
Moms Speak Out: End This Brutal War [HD] by Rethink Afghanistan
Not all terrorism: Obama tries to change subject / MATT APUZZO / 04-07-2010 /Associated Press / WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's advisers plan to remove terms such as "Islamic radicalism" from a document outlining national security strategy and will use the new version to emphasize that the U.S. does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terrorism, counterterrorism officials say. Read more...
Health care puts House Dems on the line / Kristi Keck / March 15, 2010 / (CNN) -- Now that the Senate parliamentarian has made clear to Democrats that they won't be able to take the path they had considered to get a health care bill passed, they must ask themselves: If we vote for the Senate's bill, do we trust the senators to make the changes they say they will? Read more...
A National Measure, Inextricably Enmeshed With Local Interests / DAVID M. HERSZENHORN / March 14, 2010 / NY Times / WASHINGTON — On issue after issue in the health care bill, what’s good for one is not necessarily good for all. Read more...
Obama Details Effort to Double Exports Over Five Years / HENRY J. PULIZZI / 03-11-2010 / Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON—Looking to spur the economy and ease joblessness by doubling U.S. exports over the next five years, President Barack Obama is ordering federal agencies to zero in on export promotion, expanding trade-finance opportunities for small- and medium-sized businesses, and moving to overhaul an outdated export-control system. Read more...
The Road to Armageddon / February 25, 2010 By Paul Craig Roberts / opednews - 911Truth / The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided "insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction" and are "calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials." Read more...
Poll: Americans place blame for partisanship / Paul Steinhauser / February 24, 2010 / Washington (CNN) -- Two-thirds of Americans think that the Republicans in Congress are not doing enough to cooperate with President Obama, according to a new national poll. Read more...
Gates Tries to Get F-35 Program Back on Course / Christopher Drew / February 3, 2010 / NYTimes - Yahoo / But rather than being the Chevrolet of the skies, as it was once billed, the fighter plane, also called the F-35, has turned into the Pentagon’s biggest budget-buster. Read more...
Obama's chief of staff sorry for 'retarded' remark / Associated Press / February 2, 2010 / Washington Post / WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's tart-tongued chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has apologized for using the word "retarded" to describe liberal activists whose tactics on health care he questioned. Read more...
State of the Union: Highlights, reactions, analyses / January 28, 2010 / Washington (CNN) -- Citing a "deficit of trust" in government by the American people, President Obama's first State of the Union address urged Congress to erode the influence of special interests and work together to confront the nation's most pressing problems. Read more...
A Preview of the House’s A.I.G. Hearing / NYTimes / January 26, 2010 / Ahead of a House committee hearing on Wednesday, more details are emerging about the government’s bailout of the American International Group in 2008 and why its trading partners were paid in full. Read more...
As China Rises, Economic Conflict With West Rises Too / KATRIN BENNHOLD / January 26, 2010 / It has emerged — sooner and more assertively than had been expected before the wrenching global financial crisis, which badly damaged all the established industrial powers, from the United States to Europe and Japan. Read more...
Campaign-finance ruling may prove to be a lifeline for broadcast networks / Frank Ahrens / Washington Post / January 23, 2010 / The struggling media industry -- particularly television networks and local broadcast stations -- could end up being the big beneficiaries of Thursday's Supreme Court ruling lifting limits on corporate donations to political campaigns. Read more...
Goldman under investigation for its securities dealings / Greg Gordon / McClatchy Newspapers / Fri Jan 22, 2010 / WASHINGTON — One of Congress' premier watchdog panels is investigating Goldman Sachs' role in the subprime mortgage meltdown, including how the firm sold securities backed by risky home loans while it simultaneously bet that those bonds would lose value, people familiar with the inquiry said Friday. Read more...
Supreme Court Overturns Campaign Spending Limits on Corporations, Unions Corporations Allowed to Spend Freely to Campaign but Still Barred From Direct Contributions By ARIANE De VOGUE, TERRY MORAN and DEVIN DWYER / WASHINGTON / Jan. 21, 2010 / ABCNews / In a 5-4 decision, the court called into question the constitutionality of all federal and state regulation of independent corporate political advocacy, including a federal law dating back to 1947 and the laws of dozens of states. Read more...
*****************************************


Doris Kearns Goodwin: What we can learn from past presidents Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about what we can learn from American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. (Listen for stories that apply to any tough situation). Watch this talk>>>


